2:23 PM 8/2/2012
Mike Nova's starred items
Mike Nova's starred items
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ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - The White House said Kofi Annan's resignation as mediator in Syria highlighted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's refusal to abide by a U.N.-backed peace plan and the failure of Russia and China to hold Assad accountable at the U.N. Security Council. "President Assad, despite his promise to abide by the Kofi Annan plan, continues to brutally murder his own people," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. ...
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(Reuters) - The worst U.S. drought in 56 years intensified over the past week as above-normal temperatures and scant rainfall parched corn and soybean crops across the Midwest and central Plains, a report from climate experts said on Thursday. The drought became more severe in the southern United States as well, just a year removed from a record-breaking dry spell that ruined crops and wilted grazing pastures across Texas and Oklahoma enough to force an unprecedented northward migration of cattle. ...
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 8/2/12
"Jism 2" stars a hard-core porn actress, and it does have that pesky title. But it's not a porn movie. Bollywood is certainly not ready for that.
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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has asked the United States to free an Egyptian held at Guantanamo Bay since 2001 and who had been charged with backing terrorist groups in Afghanistan, the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. It was the latest move by the Muslim Brotherhood-led administration to secure freedom for Egyptians jailed for Islamist militancy at home and abroad in the few weeks since President Mohamed Mursi was sworn in. ...
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BOSTON (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments' brokerage arm on Thursday was not routing orders through Knight Capital Group Inc, one of its top market makers, after a trading glitch wiped out $440 million of the firm's capital, according to people familiar with the situation. Knight's stock has plummeted over the past two days after the trading problem was disclosed. Fidelity, meanwhile, is not having any trouble routing orders as it moves the Knight business to other market makers, according to people briefed on the matter on Thursday. ...
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - CME Group Inc, which regulates Knight Capital Group Inc's newly acquired futures brokerage, is "monitoring" the embattled trading firm after an error wiped out $440 million of Knight's capital. Confidence in the futures industry's ability to safeguard customer funds has been shaken after two financially pressed futures brokers in less than a year have been accused of improperly raiding customer accounts for as much as $1.8 billion, despite regulatory oversight. ...
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 8/2/12
By the time Usain Bolt's showboating, record-breaking, gold-gobbling act on the track got revved up at the Beijing Games four years ago, Michael Phelps already was firmly established as The Star of those Olympics.
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 8/2/12
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Facebook Inc dipped below $20 for the first time on Thursday, pummeled by growing doubts about its growth prospects, a string of recent executive departures, and the August 16 expiration of a lockup period on insiders' share sales. The stock hit a low of $19.91 in heavy early afternoon trading. It has now lost almost half its value since debuting at $38 in May in the largest IPO ever to emerge from Silicon Valley. ...
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 8/2/12
Leander Paes and Sania Mirza made a winning start to their bid for a Olympic Games mixed doubles medal as the Indian duo defeated Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic and Ana Ivanovic 6-2, 6-4 on Thursday.
Mike Nova's starred items
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he regretted Kofi Annan was leaving his role as international peace envoy for Syria and called a situation there "a tragedy", Russian news agencies reported. "Kofi Annan is a very respectable person, a brilliant diplomat and a very decent man, so it's really a shame," Putin said in London, according to Interfax. "But I hope that the international community's efforts aimed at ending the violence will continue." (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Steve Gutterman)
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 8/2/12
LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has become Syria's main crude oil buyer, helping Bashar Al-Assad's flailing government to circumvent Western sanctions, as Iranian tankers have returned for a third time since April, shipping industry sources said. Although Tehran already finds it difficult to sell its own crude under sanctions, two of its ships picked up Syrian oil late in July following a smaller purchase at the start of the same month. Asia is the likely destination for the Syrian oil but the sources said it remained unclear where the previous cargoes ended up. ...
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Person familiar with agreement says deal struck to sell Cleveland Browns to Jimmy Haslam III.
via Yahoo! News - Top Stories on 8/2/12
The former deputy director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has left the agency following the uproar over a flawed gun-smuggling probe called Operation Fast and Furious.
via The Guardian World News by Ian Traynor on 8/2/12
Mario Draghi outlined plans on Thursdayfor the European Central Bank and the eurozone's two bailout funds to go on a bond-buying spree to cut the rocketing costs of borrowing for Spain and Italy, but ran into stiff German resistance to his campaign "to do anything" to save the euro.
In the most keenly awaited performance of his eight months as head of the Frankfurt-based ECB, Draghi reiterated last week's dramatic statements in London that there was no going back on the single currency.
"It's pointless to bet against the euro. It's pointless to go short on the euro," he said. "It stays. It stays."
But with financial markets straining to decode the specifics of the Draghi policy amid high expectations he would unveil a "big bazooka" or "unlimited firepower" to defend the euro, the ECB president appeared to play for time, announcing that the "modalities" of the new approach would be studied over the coming weeks.
He made it plain that the 23-strong ECB governing council took no decision on wading into the bond markets on Thursday, but simply issued guidelines that might result in such action by next month.
"The governing council, within its mandate to maintain price stability over the medium term and in observance of its independence in determining monetary policy, may undertake outright open market operations of a size adequate to reach its objective," said Draghi.
The ambiguity allowed him to keep his options open on whether or not to revive a dormant ECB policy of intervention in the secondary markets to buy up government bonds.
The immediate response in the markets was one of disappointment with the euro falling 0.3% against the dollar, Spain's borrowing costs soaring to 7.18% from 6.724% hours earlier, and Wall Street's leading Dow Jones industrial average down 150 points, or 1.1%. European stock markets closed down between 0.8% in London and 5.5% in Madrid.
As the central bankers and eurozone political leaders headed for their summer villas and country estates, hoping to put off further deliberations until September, it looked like another hot August was looming for the eurozone.
Although the ECB took no formal decisions, Draghi made clear that Germany, in the form of the mighty Bundesbank, dissented from even the prospect of any ECB bond-buying. It was the only one of the 23 parties in the governing council to do so.
That signalled both how isolated Germany finds itself, but also the problem that Draghi faces if he is determined to push through a more muscular, interventionist campaign by the ECB.
In a sign that he intends to fight for bond-buying, though, Draghi said he would address the concerns of private sector bond-holders about "seniority", meaning he could re-negotiate the ECB's privileges in escaping losses on debt holdings while private investors suffer in the event of debt restructuring.
He demanded that the 17 governments of the eurozone, through their two bailout funds, the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism (still to come into operation), start buying the bonds of struggling countries before the ECB would.
"Governments must stand ready to activate the ESM/EFSF in the bond market when exceptional financial market circumstances and risks to financial stability exist," he said. This was a necessary if not sufficient condition for the ECB to then act in the markets.
But the bond-buying could only take place if hard-pressed countries first requested help and then were subjected to the kind of intrusive outside scrutiny and tough austerity terms that have accompanied previous bailouts.
Mario Monti, the Italian prime minister, has been touring the eurozone this week demanding that the currency bloc act to cut his borrowing costs, but is deeply reluctant to request a bailout.
Draghi said there could be no such help for Italy unless it asked for aid and accepted the conditions that would go with a bailout.
Spain and Italy are the two key candidates for the bond market interventions suggested by Draghi. Monti was in Madrid to see his Spanish counterpart, Mariano Rajoy. Both prime ministers declined to say whether they would ask for eurozone bailout funds, while arguing that Draghi's remarks represented progress in the fight to prevent a euro meltdown.
Behind Draghi's campaign to shift towards more persuasive and interventionist action to end the euro crisis, politicial infighting is intensifying. He notched up a points victory by putting the language about ECB and eurozone bond-buying on the formal agenda. But that remains an intention rather than a decision and the policy arguments pitting France, Italy, and Spain against Germany have yet to be resolved.
"It's clear and it's known that the Bundesbank have their reservations about the programme of buying bonds," Draghi admitted. "We now have the guidance, the [ECB] committees will work on this guidance and then [we] will take a final decision and the votes will be counted."
Draghi quashed growing speculation that one way of settling the crisis and demonstrating resolve to the markets was to give the main eurozone bailout fund a banking licence, meaning that its €500bn resources could be expanded hugely since it would be able to buy government bonds, deposit them as collateral with the ECB and draw on an unlimited supply of liquidity from the central bank to return to the bond markets.
Draghi stressed that, under the rules, the bailout fund did not qualify as an ECB counter-party for refinancing, but that block only applied "currently", indirectly suggesting that this could be changed.
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Aug 2 - Jeffrey Goldfarb and Breakingviews columnists discuss the ill-advised finger-pointing over technical trading glitches and the ongoing turmoil for Knight Capital and its electronic flub.
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The former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, announces that he will step down as the joint UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria when his mandate expires at the end of August
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Putin scores win in judo diplomacy
Reuters By Mark Trevelyan and Ossian Shine | LONDON (Reuters) - Black belt Vladimir Putin took on Britain's David Cameron in judo diplomacy at the Olympics on Thursday and had the satisfaction of seeing a Russian win the nation's third judo gold of the London ... Putin, a black belt, revels in Olympic judoCBS News Cameron takes Putin to watch Olympic judoBusinessweek The best parts of the Pussy Riot trial, in tweetsWashington Post (blog) Voice of America (blog) -The Guardian -The Associated Press all 1,604 news articles » |
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Lucha Libre wrestlers celebrate Mass and pay homage to Mexico's patron saint. Report by Online Freelancer. Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com . Subscribe to ITN News! www.youtube.com
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