Showing posts with label ziare.ro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ziare.ro. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Documents seen by the Guardian show that at least $20bn appears to have been moved out of Russia during a four-year period between 2010 and 2014. The true figure could be $80bn, detectives believe.
One senior figure involved in the inquiry said the money from Russia was “obviously either stolen or with criminal origin”.
Investigators are still trying to identify some of the wealthy and politically influential Russians behind the operation, known as “the Global Laundromat”.
They estimate a group of about 500 people were involved. These include oligarchs, Moscow bankers, and figures working for or connected to the FSB, the successor spy agency to the KGB.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

US authorities have secretly required airlines from eight nations to forbid passengers from carrying any electronic or electrical device larger than a cellphone.
The new edict was distributed in an email described as “confidential” from the US transportation safety administration (TSA) on Monday.
Technologists say new rules against electronics ‘larger than a cellphone’ on flights from 10 airports seem illogical and at odds with basic computer science              Saudi Arabia’s Saudia Airlines and Royal Jordanian airlines are among the affected countries; the full list had not been revealed to the affected airlines themselves until a press briefing by the US department of Homeland Security on Monday evening.
The ban is techincally related to ten airports in eight countries:
  • Queen Alia in Jordan
  • Cairo International in Egypt
  • Ataturk International in Turkey
  • King Abudlaziz and King Khalid in Saudi Arabia
  • Kuwait International in Kuwait, Mohammaed V in Morocco
  • Doha International in Qatar
  • Dubai international and Abu Dhabi international in the United Arab Emirates.
The affected airlines are Royal Jordainia, Egyptair, Turkish airlines, Saudia airlines, Kuwait airways, Royal Air Morocco, Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad.

Monday, March 20, 2017

President Trump on Saturday defended the success of his first face-to-face meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, dismissing a barrage of critical news accounts that describe it as “awkward.”  “Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Mr. Trump said Saturday morning via his personal Twitter account.  News reports of the the meeting and a joint press conference Friday at the White House were dominated by descriptions of “awkward” moments between the two leaders, including the president’s quip that he and Ms. Merkel had “something in common” in being wiretapped by U.S. spies.  Mr. Trump was referring to revelation in 2013 that President Obama authorized National Security Agency eavesdropping on her and his claim that Mr. Obama did the same to him during the 2016 presidential campaign.  National Public Radio declared the meeting “The Axis of Awkward.”  U.S. News and World Report dubbed it “Trump’s Awkward Merkel Summit.”

Sunday, March 19, 2017

The extraordinary public rebuke by the United States’ closest surveillance partner has revealed an emerging characteristic of Donald Trump’s White House: a willingness to antagonize even its allies instead of admitting error.  GCHQ, the UK surveillanceance mammoth intimately linked to the National Security Agency (NSA), has taken public exception to an allegation repeated from the White House podium that, if true, would probably shatter the Five Eyes intelligence alliance so dear to both Washington and London.  Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, credulously repeated on Thursday an account by a Fox News pundit, Andrew Napolitano, that GCHQ laundered surveillance on Trump at the behest of Barack Obama. Napolitano, who is in no position to actually know, made the allegation apparently to explain away the emerging consensus, even from senior Republicans on the intelligence committees, that there is no basis to Trump’s claim that Obama ordered that surveillance.  GCHQ practically never responds to stories about its operations. But the implications of this one are severe. There would be no way for the NSA and GCHQ, which are joined at the hip, to continue their partnership if GCHQ was willing to interfere in the US political process.  On Friday, 10 Downing Street said it had received assurances from the White House that it will not repeat the allegation, which suggests that the White House did not realize the implications of what it said. The context matters here. Spicer repeated Napolitano’s allegation for the same reason Napolitano made it: to defend Trump’s evidence-free assertion, on 4 March, that Obama had Trump’s team placed under surveillance.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

The launch by British Airways’ owner of a low-cost long-haul airline could be a key staging post in the development of the growing trend for cheaper and longer flights.
'Level' has been unveiled by International Airlines Group as a low-cost, long-haul carrier operating out of Barcelona from June with flights to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.
The move will put the company in direct competition with companies such as Norwegian, which has tried to carve a niche for itself in the nascent cheap long-haul flights market...Level will be run by IAG’s Spanish carrier Iberia’s flight and cabin crew and fares with start from €99 one-way or $149 compared to the lowest price for flights on Norwegian from Barcelona to San Francisco of €162, according to prices published on its website.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Fed’s chair, Janet Yellen, said a wide range of indicators showed the US economy was in rude health, allowing its interest rate setting committee to push rates back towards historically normal levels. Policymakers voted nine to one to raise rates.
Speaking after the decision, Yellen said she had met Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, “a couple of times” but had only been “introduced” to the president himself.   “I fully expect to have a strong relationship with secretary Mnuchin,” she said. “We had good discussions about the economy, about regulatory objectives, the work of the FSOC [Financial Stability Oversight Council] global economic developments, and I look forward to continuing to work with him.” She said she had had a very brief meeting with Trump “and appreciated that as well”.
Earlier in the day the Department of Commerce said retail sales had inched up by 0.1% in February, and that they had been better than it had previously estimated in January.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Romanian gambling sector has the best regulations in Europe, which has been admitted in the meetings which the National Gambling Office (ONJN) had at the level of the European Commission and the events it has attended, according to Odeta Nestor, the president of the Office. Besides, all the representatives of the sector, claim, in unison, that in its current form, the legislation in effect is known as being one of the most advanced internationally. Nevertheless, there are still small improvements that could be made to the new legislation, especially when it comes to online gambling. Concerning this aspect, Odeta Nestor told us: "I think that an amendment of the Fiscal Code, to implement retention tax for players, would be the best. Besides, the office has made this kind of proposals for the amendment of the legislation, because I have noticed, based on the functionality of the last few years, that everyone would benefit more through this kind of taxation system: players would be taxed correctly, and the state would earn more in taxes. Right now, aside from the fact that there are players who don't report the entirety of their own gambling revenues, this process is also bureaucratic and difficult".

Monday, March 13, 2017

BERLIN — Police ordered a shopping mall in the western German city of Essen not to open Saturday after receiving credible tips of an imminent attack.  The shopping center and the adjacent parking lot stayed closed as about a hundred police officers positioned themselves around the compound to make sure nobody could enter the mall. Several officers scoured the inside of the building to bring out early morning cleaning staff.  “As police, we are the security authority here and have decided to close the mall,” police spokesman Christoph Wickhorst said, adding that they had been tipped off late Friday by other security agencies. He did not want to provide further details because of the ongoing investigation.
The downtown mall at Limbecker Platz square will be closed for the entire day. The mall is one of the biggest in Germany with more than 200 stores, according to the shopping center’s website.  In 2016, three people were injured in an attack on a Sikh temple in Essen by radicalized German-born Muslim teenagers.
Germany has been on the edge following a series of attacks in public places over the past year.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Oil prices have plunged to the lowest level this year as US shale producers boost output at an astonishing pace and crude inventories keep rising, triggering a wave of selling by hedge funds with record speculative positions. The US surge threatens to neutralise cuts agreed by the Opec cartel and a Russia-led group of producers last November, potentially delaying a full recovery of the market until 2018 or even later.  Texas light crude fell to  $48.90 a barrel on Thursday after yet another surprise jump in US stocks. Prices have slid 8pc in three days and have broken through key levels of technical support, dousing enthusiasm for commodities across the board. Higher interest rates are expected to push up the value of the dollar and suck in foreign funds to the US financial system. Surveys show firms are concerned that the high dollar will dent exports, and Trump has accused China and rival exporting nations of winning trade wars after artificially depressing their currencies.

Friday, March 10, 2017

Fed watchers were alarmed by a 31 January letter to Fed chair Janet Yellen from Representative Patrick McHenry, the vice-chairman of the House committee on financial services. McHenry did not pull his punches. “Despite the clear message delivered by President Donald Trump in prioritising America’s interest in international negotiations,” McHenry wrote, “it appears that the Federal Reserve continues negotiating international regulatory standards for financial institutions among global bureaucrats in foreign lands without transparency, accountability, or the authority to do so. This is unacceptable.”  In her reply of 10 February, Yellen firmly rebutted McHenry’s arguments. She pointed out that the Fed does indeed have the authority it needs, that the Basel agreements are not binding, and that, in any event, “strong regulatory standards enhance the stability of the US financial system” and promote the competitiveness of financial firms.  But that will not be the end of the story. The battle lines are now drawn, and McHenry’s letter shows the arguments that will be deployed in Congress by some Republicans close to the president. There has always been a strand of thinking in Washington that dislikes foreign entanglements, in this and other areas. While Yellen’s arguments are correct, the Fed’s entitlement to participate in international negotiations does not oblige it to do so, and a new appointee might argue that it should not.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Think about how many amazing technologies you've watched soar to new heights while you kick yourself thinking, "I knew about that before everyone was talking about it, but I just sat on my hands.” If you’re like me, you can’t help thinking about the money you could have made if you’d simply bought Apple when it introduced the iPod in 2001. The stock is up over 100 times since then, turning a $10,000 investment into over $1 million!  Heck, Apple is up nearly 1,000% since it launched the iPhone seven years later. 300% since the iPad in 2010.  Did you know how great and amazing these new technologies were, but failed to invest behind them? You might be retired and lounging on a beautiful beach somewhere if you had!  Well, it appears Apple is up to something again, but this time it’s so radically different from its previous “iDevices" that you’ll be… stunned. You’ll wonder if it could really work. You’ll wonder if management has lost its mind.  But remember… that’s what many people thought after Steve Jobs introduced the iPod and iPhone! Big profits come from making bold choices.  What exactly is Apple doing?  Well, residents of Sunnydale are reporting strange noises roaring out of a mysterious Apple facility late at night. And Apple leased an enormous, 5,000-acre, abandoned military base to serve as testing grounds according to TechInsider. We know that it must be something BIG because the company's R&D budget skyrocketed to more than 50 times as much money as Apple spent to develop the original iPhone!  Here’s what we know...Apple just made a $10 billion play to get in early.  Cisco believes it will be a $19 trillion market before 2025. General Electric sees an opportunity bigger than the entire economy of China!  I saw Amazon received a patent for a piece of it just a few days ago. Can Apple really pull this moonshot off? With a track record like Apple has, I wouldn't be surprised. 

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Here's a number to play with: $1.8 trillion. This is the amount of sovereign debt borrowed globally in a foreign currency, the overwhelming majority of it in US dollars. Add the amount of dollar debt attributable to foreign corporations, and the numbers soar off into the stratosphere.  Most of the time, these debts are perfectly harmless, and nobody much worries about them. But right now, they are making everyone distinctly nervous. Already over the last two years, the dollar has appreciated 25 per cent in nominal terms against the rest of the world. If analysis by Moody’s, the credit rating agency, is to be believed, Trumponomics make a further, sharp appreciation – possibly by as much as an additional 25 per cent in real terms – all but inevitable, playing havoc with the debt dynamics of many overseas countries and companies. By the by, it might also remodel global trade, potentially dramatically....

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Europe -  European capital adequacy directives typically transpose Basel accords into EU law. If the Basel process stalls, transatlantic deals, which are the crucial underpinning of western capital markets, will be far harder to reach.  There is a further complication arising from Brexit. Absent any special deal between the EU27 and the UK, British and EU regulators will come together in Basel, not in the European Banking Authority. If Basel becomes a talking shop, without the ability to set firm standards, another key link in the chain will be broken, and it will be harder for the UK to argue that if London’s banks meet international standards, they should be granted equal treatment in the EU.  As central bankers bid farewell to the devil they know, financial regulation has entered a period of high uncertainty – and high anxiety for policymakers as they await an announcement from Mar-a-Lago. No likely Federal Reserve Board candidates have been spotted at poolside, or being interviewed on the golf course, but a decision cannot be far off. Nothing can be taken for granted. The financial world is holding its collective breath.

Friday, March 3, 2017

As President Trump struggles to staff his administration with sympathisers who will help transpose tweets into policy, the exodus of Obama appointees from the federal government and other agencies continues. For the financial world, one of the most significant departures was that of Daniel Tarullo, the Federal Reserve governor who has led its work on financial regulation for the last seven years.  It would be a stretch to say that Tarullo has been universally popular in the banking community. He led the charge in arguing for much higher capital ratios, in the US and elsewhere. He was a tough negotiator, with a well-tuned instinct for spotting special pleading by financial firms. But crocodile tears will be shed in Europe to mark his resignation. European banks, and even their regulators, were concerned by his enthusiastic advocacy of even tougher standards in Basel 3.5 (or Basel 4, as bankers like to call it), which would, if implemented in the form favoured by the US, require further substantial capital increases for Europe’s banks in particular. In his absence, these proposals’ fate is uncertain.  But Tarullo has also been an enthusiastic promoter of international regulatory cooperation, with the frequent flyer miles to prove it. For some years, he has chaired the Financial Stability Board’s little-known but important Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation. His commitment to working with colleagues in international bodies such as the FSB and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, to reach global regulatory agreements enabling banks to compete on a level playing field, has never been in doubt.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Theresa May has defiantly insisted her timetable for triggering Brexit will not be blown off course despite suffering her first Parliamentary defeat over the Article 50 bill.  The House of Lords voted to amend the Bill to force the Government to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK. Seven Tory peers - including the former pensions minister Baroness Altmann - backed the amendment.  But the Prime Minister is confident the amendment will be rejected by the Commons later this month, and Downing Street insisted the timetable for Brexit “remains unchanged”... Lords who voted to alter the Bill were accused of “playing with fire” and critics accused them of pointless “posturing” and “doing a disservice to the national interest”.  The scale of the Government’s defeat in the Lords, where the proposal to amend the Bill was passed by 358 votes to 256, prompted speculation that Mrs May could face a fresh Tory rebellion when the Bill returns to the Commons.  Conservative whips are confident, however, that no more than a handful of Tory MPs will support the amendment. Labour's amendment to the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, tabled with Liberal Democrat and crossbench support, calls for ministers to bring forward proposals ensuring the rights of EU citizens living here to continue post-Brexit, within three months of triggering Article 50.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

The Balkans is in danger of slipping under Russian influence if the Trump administration ignores the region, Albania’s prime minister has warned in an interview with The Telegraph.  Questions are also being asked over whether the European Union is doing enough to ensure stability and block Moscow’s alleged plots.  In a wide-ranging interview, Albania’s charismatic prime minister, Edi Rama, said without US support “the Balkans would not be a place where there is peace and cooperation”.
“For the US this area is very important strategically and the US is very important for us,” he added.  Given Russia’s apparent role in the prime minister’s assassination plot in neighbouring Montenegro, disclosed by The Telegraph this week, there are worries Washington’s disinterest will embolden Moscow.  “Russia has been interested in spreading its influence and there’s a lot of it in this region,” Mr Rama, 52,...

Thursday, February 23, 2017

The City of London has warned that the loss of banking jobs to EU countries due to Brexit could threaten British and European financial stability. Interviews with more than half a dozen senior bankers and business leaders reveal growing certainty that the threat of losing single market access will force a wave of relocations this year and may cause an “unwinding” of a cluster of related businesses.
While the immediate loss of a few thousand jobs is viewed with relative equanimity, concern is mounting over the knock-on effect on financial stability if the City’s valuable related professions begin to fragment.   Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, said common regulation needed to be agreed with the remaining 27 EU members once Brexit talks got under way or there was a risk of sparking turbulence in the financial system. “One of the critical pieces is the ecosystem that exists, which effectively connects the fund managers to the risk managers to the liquidity providers to the insurance providers and the credit providers … it all benefits from all the other pieces being there,” Flint said.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

In his acceptance speech, Steinmeier, 61, said Germany should be an “anchor of hope” while democratic institutions were under threat across the globe. “As the foundations are shaking elsewhere, we have to prop up those foundations even more strongly,” he said  Gaining 75% of votes in the first round, he beat four outsider candidates fielded by the smaller parties, including Christoph Butterwegge, a political scientist and poverty researcher; Albrecht Glaser, a former Christian Democrat running for the rightwing populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD); and Engelbert Sonneborn, the father of the leader of the satirical organisation the Party.  Despite the role being largely ceremonial, past German presidents have aspired to act as a moral authority in debates of national and international importance. Steinmeier succeeds Joachim Gauck, 77, a former Protestant pastor and East German civil rights activist who told the Guardian this month that Germany would “staunchly stand by the European project”.
The world must take note of what happened in Montenegro. It paid scant attention last October when reports surfaced of an attempted coup. All eyes were on the American election; Montenegro is small and hardly known. But we can now reveal that plans were laid for a bloody coup, which was designed to kill the prime minister and destabilise the country. The goal was to prevent this sovereign nation from joining Nato. According to intelligence sources, the puppet-master was Russia. It all sounds familiar. In the last few chaotic years, Moscow has backed a separatist movement in Ukraine, propped up Bashar al-Assad in Syria, stands accused of murdering critics on foreign soil and is believed to have bankrolled opposition parties abroad. It is even alleged to have interfered in the US election...if Europe is so intent on integration then what is it doing to defend countries such as Montenegro? Several European countries spend less on defence than the budget of the New York police department. Britain must meet its own obligations and take the case for Western resolve directly to the Trump administration. The stakes are high. In Munich, the Russian foreign minister spoke of a post-West order. The reality of that proposition may sadly be disorder and freedom for tyrants. Only Nato retains the power, and hopefully the will, to stand up for democracy and the rule of law.

Monday, February 13, 2017

ECB officials think that they have the obligation to explain to investors the monetary policy decisions, and the effects are beneficial for the functioning of the channel for sending the monetary policy to the real economy. The institution of the EU ombudsman is led by Emily O'Reilly, who got the vote of the European Parliament for that position in 2013. According to its mission, the Ombudsman investigates the complaints concerning the activity of various European institutions and agencies. The complaint addressed to the EU ombudsman focuses particularly on the role of Mario Draghi, who is also a member of the G30. The CEO website shows that "our studies show a severe lack of critical distance between the decision making elements of the ECB and the bankers that are members of the G30", and "as the European Central Bank has also been given the task of regulating the financial sector, any real or perceived conflicts of interests represent a major risk to the integrity of the ECB".  ECB spokesperson said that "we have a large range of regulations and instruments to avoid apparent or potential conflicts of interest".  The CEO representatives think that the current framework is not enough, because "our analyses show that the high ranking personnel of the ECB is way too close to the representatives of the banks it is supposed to oversee".   A similar complaint of the NGO was rejected in 2012, but the current Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, made the decision to open the investigation due to the fact that "the ECB has taken on more major responsibilities in the last few years", according to Financial Times.