Fiscal commission to vote by Friday
The chairmen of the fiscal reform commission appointed by President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that the members of the panel will vote on a final deficit-cutting plan by the end of this week.
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Britain’s Budget Office Forecasts Inflation To Outpace Income Growth
London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility warned Monday that the country’s inflation rate would likely outpace income growth over the next two years.
The OBR forecasts 2011 inflation rate at 2.8 percent, while average earnings will rise by only 2.2 percent. The higher Consumer Price Index outlook is based on significant increases in food prices and household energy bills since summer.
However, by 2012 the OBR foresees a slight improvement in the financial situation with inflation likely slowing to 1.9 percent, while average earnings would rise by 2.4 percent.
Despite the bleak OBR outlook, Chancellor George Osborne said the British coalition government would still go ahead with spending cuts, tax hikes and austerity measures that would have an impact on economic recovery if export weakens and unemployment rises faster than expected.
Osborne is still optimistic that Britain can avoid a double-dip recession in 2011 and achieve a growth rate of 1.8 percent this year. He told MPs that while there is uncertainty, Britain’s recovery is on track and 1 million jobs are still expected to be created by the private sector as a result of the recovery.
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RI state workers to get 3 percent raises in January, June
By Katherine Gregg
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – President Obama is proposing to freeze the pay of federal employees for the next two years, but there is no such effort to freeze the wages of the thousands of state workers who are slated to get a 3 percent across-the-board raise on January 2 and another 3 percent raise in mid-June.
The January raise, originally scheduled for July 2010, was delayed for six months as part of a deal that Republican Governor Carcieri struck with the major state employee unions last fall to save an estimated $36 million over his final 15 months in office.
As part of a compromise aimed at averting the widespread layoffs threatened by Carcieri, the state’s major unions also agreed to a series of unpaid work days, for which their members could be compensated later in either cash or extra paid days off.
The last four of these deferred pay days are scheduled for the second half of the current budget year that began on July 1, according to Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe.
The state budget office has calculated that the first of the two raises, in January, will cost an extra $12,051,000 this year in state and federal dollars, and add a total of $24.5 million to the state’s personnel costs next year when the state is facing a projected deficit of at least $295 million.
And that does not count the automatic longevity bonuses that state employees get as they reach benchmarks in their career, such as a 10-year or 15-year mark.
Asked where Carcieri stood on the need to freeze state employee wages at a time when the president is seeking a pay freeze at the federal level, and private employers in Rhode Island are still asking their employees to take pay cuts, spokeswoman Amy Kempe said: “Any further reduction in pay or wage freezes would need to be negotiated by the labor unions and the Chafee administration.
“However, the Chafee administration could impose pay freezes (or other measures) on non-union employees within the executive branch, although it has been policy for non-union and union employees to receive the same wage/benefit structure.”
There has been no immediate response from Governor-elect Chafee’s transition office.
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Revealed: US and UK fears over security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons
US and UK diplomats warn of terrorists getting hold of fissile material and of Pakistan-India nuclear exchange
American and British diplomats fear Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India.
The latest cache of US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks contains warnings that Pakistan is rapidly building its nuclear stockpile despite the country’s growing instability and “pending economic catastrophe”.
Mariot Leslie, a senior British Foreign Office official, told US diplomats in September 2009: “The UK has deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons ,” according to one cable classified “secret/noforn [no foreign nationals]“.
Seven months earlier, the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, cabled to Washington: “Our major concern is not having an Islamic militant steal an entire weapon but rather the chance someone working in government of Pakistan facilities could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon”.
The leak of classified US diplomatic correspondence exposes in fine detail the deep tensions between Washington and Islamabad over a broad range of issues, including counter-terrorism, Afghanistan and finance, as well as the nuclear question. US concern over Pakistan’s bomb programme was spelled out in an intelligence briefing in 2008. “Despite pending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world,” the secret cable said.
Leslie, director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office, made clear the UK shared these anxieties when she spoke to US diplomats at a London arms control meeting in September 2009. The Pakistanis were worried the US “will drop in and take their nukes”, she said, according to a US cable to Washington. Pakistan was now prepared to accept “nuclear safety help” from British technicians, but only under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The cable said Leslie thought nuclear proliferation was the greater danger to the world, but it “ranks lower than terrorism on the public’s list of perceived threats”.
Another senior British official at the meeting, Jon Day, the Ministry of Defence’s director general for security policy, said recent intelligence indicated Pakistan was “not going in a good direction”.
The Russians shared concerns that Pakistan was “highly unstable”. Yuri Korolev, from the Russian foreign ministry, told US officials: “Islamists are not only seeking power in Pakistan but are also trying to get their hands on nuclear materials.”
Speaking in February in Washington, he called for the problem of Pakistani- nuclear sites to be addressed in ongoing missile control talks, claiming: “Over the last few years extremists have attacked vehicles that carry staff to and from these facilities. Some were killed and a number were abducted and there has been no trace seen of them.”
He said: “There are 120,000-130,000 people directly involved in Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes … There is no way to guarantee that all are 100% loyal and reliable.”
He claimed extremists were now recruiting more easily: “Pakistan has had to hire people to protect nuclear facilities that have especially strict religious beliefs, and recently the general educational and cultural levels in Pakistan has been falling.”
These fears are expressed in the secret state department files against a backdrop of Pakistani determination to build more nuclear warheads.
A Chinese foreign minister, He Yafei, sought to explain to the Americans why Pakistan was blocking fissile material control talks. At a London meeting in 2009, he said: “The underlying problem … is that India and Pakistan view each other as enemies. Nuclear weapons are crucial to Pakistan. Indeed, a Pakistani military leader said his army was no match for the Indian army.”
US diplomats in Islamabad were told Pakistan was working on producing smaller, tactical nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield against Indian troops.
“The result of this trend is the need for greater stocks of fissile material … Strategic considerations point Pakistan in the direction of a larger nuclear force that requires a greater amount of fissile material, Pakistani officials argue.”
The US conducted its own secret analysis of India’s military contingency plans, which are codenamed Cold Start. India has said that if sufficiently provoked, it would mount a rapid invasion of Pakistan.
The US said in a cable that it doubted the Indian army was capable of doing so: “It is the collective judgment of the mission that India would likely encounter very mixed results. Indian forces could have significant problems consolidating initial gains due to logistical difficulties and slow reinforcement.”
But the US ambassador to India, Tim Roemer, warned in February that for India to launch Cold Start, would be to “roll the nuclear dice”. It could trigger the world’s first use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“Indian leaders no doubt realise that, although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, they cannot be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response.” Pakistan ‘in tatters’
A senior US intelligence official was “unrelentingly gloomy” about Pakistan, the current safe haven for al-Qaida in the Afghanistan war, during a private briefing of Nato representatives.
Peter Lavoy, national intelligence officer for south Asia, concluded in November 2008 that nuclear-armed Pakistan’s economy was “in tatters” and the country could “completely lose control of its Pashtun territories over the next few years”, according to a leaked US cable.
More than a third of people were unemployed or underemployed, he said.
“Pakistan’s population is becoming less and less educated, the country lacks sufficient energy and clean water resources to serve its population, and there is minimal foreign investment.”
A few months later, in April 2009, Patterson was slightly less gloomy, saying Pakistan was not a “failed state”.
“We nonetheless recognise that the challenges it confronts are dire. The government is losing more and more territory every day to foreign and domestic militant groups; deteriorating law and order in turn is undermining economic recovery. The bureaucracy is settling into third-world mediocrity, as demonstrated by some corruption and a limited capacity to implement or articulate policy.”
She said: “Extremism … is no longer restricted to the border area. We are seeing young Punjabi men turn up in [the tribal areas] and Afghanistan as fighters recruited from areas of southern Punjab where poverty, illiteracy and despair create a breeding ground for extremism.”
The good news was that President Asif Ali Zardari “while far from perfect”, was “pro-American and anti-extremist; we believe he is our best ally in the government”, she said.
This January, however, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told Indian government officials in Delhi that: “the army was the key decision-maker while President Zardari was increasingly sidelined”. He said the civilian government had a limited capacity to move against groups behind the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. Pakistan Nuclear weapons Global terrorism Taliban Afghanistan India The US embassy cables US foreign policy US national security Defence policy United States David Leigh guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Fannie Clarifies Delivery of Repurchased Loans
Fannie Mae issued a bulletin clarifying its policy on loans that have been repurchased. In some cases, the secondary lender will purchase mortgages that have been repurchased by the seller. Among other requirements on such loans, the condition that made the loan ineligible must be cured.
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CU heralds Senate passage of food safety bill
FDA has the authority to order food recalls and requires more frequent inspections of food manufacturers
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ITE Group Posts Lower FY10 Profit – Update
ITE Group Plc, an organizer of international trade exhibitions and conferences, Tuesday reported lower profit for fiscal 2010, as revenues declined from last year due to event cancellations amid tough economic conditions and the biennial pattern of the Moscow International Oil & Gas event. However, the company said that forward bookings for 2011 are higher than the previous year and in line with the board’s expectations.
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Cargo Ship-Tanker Collision In Black Sea Leaves 6 Missing
Sofia, Bulgaria (AHN) – A Sierra Leone cargo ship on Monday collided with an empty Dutch-flagged chemical tanker and sank in the Black Sea, 10 miles southeast of Cape Emine at around 5:40 p.m. local time. The Bulgarian Transport Ministry has confirmed the incident, adding that that six sailors are believed to be missing.
The cargo ship sank an estimated half-an-hour after the collision, which did little damage to the tanker. However, the ministry ruled out any risk of pollution. Cargo ship, “Karim 1″, was travelling between Varna and the Bosphorus with 10 crewmen, including nine Syrians and an Egyptian, and 2,600 tons of scrap.
A statement from the ministry said that four of them have been rescued. The empty chemical tanker, “Alexandro DP”, was moving towards Varna.
Talking to reporters, head of the maritime administration, Sergey Tzarnakliyski, said that it was not clear what caused the accident. The initial data suggests that the accident happened because of a wrong maneuver.
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