Debt-strapped Greece will likely get more time before it has to repay the bailout loans that saved it from defaulting on its bonds, a top EU official indicated Thursday as the union seeks to keep its government debt crisis from mushrooming.
A decision on delaying Greece’s first repayments will likely be taken next year, EU monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said during a visit to Athens.
Greece has to start repaying bailout loans of up to euro110 billion ($145 billion) from the EU and International Monetary Fund in 2013, when the current rescue package ends. EU governments are considering pushing back that date by 4 1/2 years to put it in line with the deadlines of the bailout given to Ireland.
The move comes as EU officials make efforts to ease the pressure in debt markets that forced Ireland’s rescue last week and threatened to engulf Portugal as well as larger economies like Spain and Italy. While the EU has resisted further big moves, such as boosting its bailout fund or creating European bonds to share the debt burden, it has focused on austerity plans and making bailout repayment terms more flexible.
Fears of default push bond yields for trouble countries so high they face being unable to borrow at affordable rates and roll over expiring debt.
Fitch Ratings on Thursday said that while the eurozone’s credit strength was better than markets were indicating, the “dramatic deterioration” in borrowing conditions may mean leaders will have do more such as increase the size of their current bailout fund from euro750 billion or have the European Central Bank step up its purchases of government bonds.
But Fitch said it doesn’t expect the crisis to lead to the breakup of the euro.
In Greece’s case, the extension addresses fears that its economy will not be growing sufficiently by 2013 to generate enough revenue to pay back its debts if it had to pay back the full IMF/eurozone loan in 2014 and 2015.
Rehn said the European Commission was discussing the repayment extension “following the decision to do so by the EU finance ministers.”
“We stand ready to make the concrete proposal early next year, and I’m certain that it will receive the support of EU finance ministers,” the commissioner told reporters after meeting with Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou payday loans with no fax.
Speaking at a conference outside Athens earlier in the day, Rehn said that the extension “will mean that we will be able to go beyond and stabilize (Greece’s) debt dynamics and overcome the hump in debt repayment, especially in 2014 and 2015.”
Rehn expressed “sincere admiration” at the progress of Greek financial reforms, which have included overhauling the pension system, cutting civil service salaries, trimming pensions and increasing consumer taxes.
Greece must lower its budget deficit from the 15.4 percent of gross domestic product it stood at in 2009, to below the eurozone limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2014. Its finances are under strict supervision by the IMF and EU, and the quarterly disbursement of bailout loans depends on Athens meeting financial targets.
The austerity measures have led to a backlash from labor unions, who say they are causing ever increasing hardship.
The country’s statistics agency said Thursday that unemployment in September rose to 12.6 percent from 12.2 percent the previous month. The figure in Sept. 2009 stood at 9.1 percent.
Unions have staged a series of strikes and demonstrations, with hundreds of uniformed firefighters marching to the Finance Ministry on Thursday. Greece’s seventh nationwide general strike this year has been called for Dec. 15.
On Tuesday, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on a visit to Athens that he supported the extension without imposing additional demands for economic austerity.
The European Union is seeking to toughen fiscal rules for countries using the euro to prevent a repeat of the crises seen in Greece and Ireland and contain the debt market turmoil which some fear could drag in other countries with shaky finances, such as Spain and Portugal.
Rehn said a comprehensive response was needed by the EU.
“It is increasingly a systemic crisis, and therefore we need a systemic answer,” he said in response to questions by Greek deputies during an appearance in Parliament.
Canadian copyright law promises to dominate discussion in Ottawa over the coming weeks as hearings on Bill C-32, the controversial copyright bill, are set to begin within a few days.
If the past six months are any indication, members of Parliament will be asked to sort through confusing rhetoric in order to understand the implications of the proposed changes. Separating fact from fiction will not be easy, but getting straight answers to the following questions will be crucial:
1.Will Bill C-32 give education institutions the right to engage in massive uncompensated copying?
No. The inclusion of education as a fair dealing category will not mean that any educational copying will be free. It will only mean that educational copying will be eligible for analysis under a six-part test developed by the Supreme Court of Canada to determine whether the copying qualifies as fair dealing. The changes in Bill C-32 are more modest than often claimed as they merely fill some gaps in the existing list of fair dealing categories.
2.Will Bill C-32 give consumers the right to make backup copies and view or read their purchases on the device of their choice?
Sometimes. The bill includes new consumer exceptions that open the door to legally recording television shows (time shifting), moving content between devices (format shifting) and making personal backup copies. However, the bill also says that if the content, such as DVDs and e-books, contains a digital lock, consumers can???t circumvent the lock in order to exercise their rights. Since digital locks are commonly found on these products, Canadians may not actually get to exercise their new ???rights.???
3.Aren???t the digital lock rules in Bill C-32 required by international law?
No. The government has made implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization???s Internet treaties a key priority and those treaties include a requirement to provide legal protection for digital locks. However, the treaties feature considerable flexibility that permits countries to allow users to circumvent digital locks for legal purposes.
The Bill C-32 model is one of the most restrictive approaches in the world ??? even the U.S. permits circumvention of DVD locks for some non-commercial purposes ??? and could be amended to match the more flexible implementations found in countries such as New Zealand and Switzerland.
4.Does Bill C-32 require Internet providers to help combat piracy?
Yes. The bill codifies a ???notice-and-notice??? system that gives rights holders the power to notify ISPs of alleged infringements and requires the ISPs to forward the notifications to the targeted subscribers. ISPs bear the costs of this system, which has been used informally in Canada for more than five years. Studies have shown that a majority of users that receive notifications cease placing the infringing file back on file sharing networks.
5.Does Bill C-32 create a ???licence to steal??? by reducing statutory damages awards?
No. Canada is one of the few countries in the world with statutory damages for copyright, which can lead to liability of up to $20,000 per infringement. The lofty awards were designed for commercial infringement, as no one envisioned multi-million dollar lawsuits against individuals. Since that has become a reality in the U.S., Bill C-32 establishes a $5,000 cap for non-commercial infringement, which still represents a very significant penalty for such activities.
6.Will Bill C-32???s user-generated content provision deprive creators of commercial opportunities?
No. The provision, which legalizes the creation of certain forms of user-generated content, is limited to non-commercial activities, requires attribution, and does not apply if there is a substantial adverse effect, financial or otherwise, on the exploitation or potential exploitation of the original work.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
Poles voted Sunday in local elections expected to reward the government’s reluctance to trim the welfare state in the EU’s largest new member _ the only one in Europe to avoid a recession.
The government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his pro-business Civic Platform party has privatized some state-run enterprises, but overall has not met its promise to trim back the welfare state.
That policy over the last three years seems to have bolstered the government’s popularity because it means Poland has avoided painful cuts during the global economic crisis, boding well for Civic Platform in local elections and in national elections next year California payday loan lenders.
Sunday’s vote for mayors, city council members and other officials is the first round in the election. In many cases, results will only be determined in a runoff vote in two weeks.
Poland’s economy slowed during the financial crisis but the nation was the only one in Europe to avoid a recession, another factor which has given Tusk’s governing team a boost.
However, the budget deficit has grown, prompting the government to plan an unpopular 1 percentage point increase in the value added tax to 23 percent on many goods and services.
Due to Europe’s economic turmoil and the growing deficit, the government also has postponed plans to adopt the euro currency. Though many business owners favor the currency change, many Poles oppose it because they fear it will lead to a rise in prices.
Opinion polls ahead of Sunday’s voting indicated that Tusk’s Civic Platform remains the country’s most popular party.
The election also is a test for the main opposition group, Law and Justice. The conservative and nationalist party was founded by the late President Lech Kaczynski _ who was killed in a plane crash this year _ and his twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who remains its leader cheap payday loan lenders.
Kaczynski has clashed with some of his closest party supporters in recent weeks. He has expelled two close aides, and several others have left in protest, raising questions about whether the turmoil will weaken support for the party.
A national election for parliament must be held by late 2011, but no date has been set.
France’s expansion slowed in the third quarter as a surge in imports and a decline in manufacturing overshadowed increasing household spending.
Gross domestic product rose 0.4 percent in the three months through September, down from the 0.7 percent gain in the previous quarter, Paris-based statistics office Insee said today. The increase was less than the median 0.5 percent forecast in a survey of 20 analysts by Bloomberg News.
France’s sixth straight quarter of growth underlines how Europe’s recovery remains fragile in the wake of the worst recession since World War II. A 4.1 percent jump in imports meant that the trade balance created a 0.5 percent drag on growth in the quarter, while the pace of growth in consumer spending doubled to 0.6 percent.
“France keeps its atypical growth structure, driven by private consumption,” said Dominique Barbet, an economist at BNP Paribas in Paris. “The foreign trade weakness is limiting the pace of economic recovery. More of the same is expected in the next few months.”
GDP rose 1 no fax cash advances.8 percent from its year-earlier level.
Factory output fell 0.1 percent from the second quarter, when it advanced 1.5 percent. Investment spending increased 0.5 percent, down from the 0.9 percent increase in the three months through June. Inventory building contributed 0.3 percent to growth, down from 0.6 percent.
So far, French consumer spending has supported the economy, limiting the drop in output during the recession relative to other countries. Spending climbed more than economists forecast in September as expectations of better job prospects and higher wages boosted confidence.
“One of the consistent surprises for me has been the resilience of consumer spending,” said Joost Beaumont, an economist at ABN Amro in Amsterdam. Growth may moderate in the months ahead “as fiscal retrenchment as well as weak labor market conditions leave their mark.”
A mail bomb intercepted last month at an English airport could have exploded over the East Coast of the United States, British police said Wednesday. Forensic evidence showed the device, originally sent from Yemen by way of Cologne, Germany, was timed to be detonated about six to seven hours after the cargo aircraft carrying it left the U.K. for the U.S. The package was removed by police in Britain during transit.
“If the device had not been removed from the aircraft, the activation could have occurred over the eastern seaboard of the U.S.,” police said.
In Washington, the White House said the British finding showed how serious the attack was. Earlier this month, a senior U.S. official had said that while the exact aim of the attack was unclear, evidence pointed to a plot to blow up cargo planes inside the U.S., either on runways or over American cities.
The UPS cargo plane intercepted in England left the country without the package at 3:20 a.m. GMT on Oct. 29 (11:20 p.m. EDT on Oct. 28), two hours after landing, police said. The device was timed to be activated at 9:30 a.m. GMT. (5:30 a.m. EDT), said British police.
Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic said they only narrowly thwarted the plot, in which terrorists in Yemen hid two powerful bombs inside printers and shipped them to addresses in Chicago aboard two cargo planes fast payday loan. The printer cartridges were filled with PETN, an industrial explosive that, when X-rayed, would resemble the cartridges’ ink powder.
One bomb was intercepted at central England’s East Midlands Airport and the other was discovered at a FedEx cargo facility in Dubai.
The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the bombs and has vowed to send more explosives-packed parcels.
In Washington on Wednesday, White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said: “We greatly appreciate the highly professional nature of the U.K. investigation and the spirit of partnership with which U.K. authorities have pursued this matter.”
He praised the efforts of intelligence and law enforcement professionals in the U.K., the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the United States, and said they will continue to work together “to address and counter the threat posed by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.”
The Obama administration is singing a different tune about foreclosures.
A year ago, officials focused on stemming the foreclosure tide. Now they are touting the need for foreclosures to rebuild the housing market.
Last week Phyllis Caldwell, head of the Treasury Department’s Homeownership Preservation Office, told a congressional panel that "an important part of ensuring longer-term stability in the market is to enable properties to be resold to families who can afford to purchase them."
And White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs last month told reporters that without sales of homes in distressed areas the "recovery in the housing market stops. It’s frozen."
"That obviously can have — we believe and others believe — a very negative and detrimental impact to our economic recovery efforts and the housing markets in states that have been hardest hit," Gibbs said.
But when Obama unveiled his signature foreclosure prevention program in February 2009, he said loan modifications were a key way to prevent the housing crisis from deepening. His initiative called for reducing distressed borrowers’ monthly payments to 31% of their pre-tax income.
"We’re not just helping homeowners at risk of falling over the edge; we’re preventing their neighbors from being pulled over that edge too — as defaults and foreclosures contribute to sinking home values, and failing local businesses, and lost jobs," the president said.
The shift in rhetoric signals the Obama administration is recognizing that its loan modification program is foundering, experts said. Also, it is acknowledging that banks must address their swelling ranks of delinquent loans.
To be sure, the administration is still concerned with helping homeowners avoid foreclosure. Officials have rolled out a series of initiatives in 2010 aimed at assisting the unemployed and the underwater who owe more than their houses are worth.
And, they have called for reviews into the institutions’ foreclosure policies and procedures, stressing that servicers must comply with the law business cards.
But they also now acknowledge more vocally that foreclosures must continue for a normal housing market to return. And that, in part, is why the administration is not supporting a nationwide foreclosure freeze despite the paperwork scandal that is roiling the mortgage industry.
The administration says there has been no change in either policy or rhetoric surrounding foreclosures and the housing market. The loan modification program was never meant to save every homeowner and officials always acknowledged the role of foreclosures in the market’s recovery, according to a Treasury spokeswoman.
"We have always thought some foreclosures needed to happen for there to be a full housing recovery," said the spokeswoman, Andrea Risotto.
But, experts say, the new tone eminating from the White House also recognizes that the modification program is not living up to its initial goals of helping up to 4 million people avoid foreclosure. Some 496,000 distressed borrowers have received long-term modifications through September.
"What they have now realized is there are a lot of borrowers who can’t be saved and have to be moved through the foreclosure process," said Laurie Goodman, senior managing director with Amherst Securities.
And they must break this news to Americans.
Officials are "trying to soften everybody up" to the fact that foreclosures are necessary, said Guy Cecela, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry newsletter.
The new talking points, however, won’t likely result in a change in policy, said Anthony Sanders, a real estate finance professor at George Mason University. Administration officials will continue to support foreclosure alternatives because they are more palatable.
"As long as politics are involved, they’ll keep doing it," said Sanders.
Johnson & Johnson reported a sales drop in its third quarter Tuesday, saying that successive recalls of its over-the-counter drugs have "significantly impacted" its business.
New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Fortune 500) said total sales last quarter fell 0.7% over the same period last year to $15 billion.
The company said sales were significantly impacted by "previous announced recalls" of certain over-the-counter medicines such as Tylenol, Benadryl and Motrin, and the temporary shutdown of a manufacturing plant that makes those drugs.
Johnson & Johnson said its domestic sales fell 2.5% while international sales increased 1.1%.
Late Monday, Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare division, which makes the non-prescription drugs involved in this year’s recalls, announced another recall of a Tylenol product sold in the United States and Puerto Rico.
McNeil recalled 127,728 Tylenol 8 Hour Caplets 50 -count bottles for an "odor" problem that led to consumer complaints.
The company said the odor was potentially caused by the presence of a chemical called 2,4,6-tribromoanisole.
Earlier this year, McNeil recalled several lots of Tylenol drugs for the same problem. The company said at the time that the chemical, which is applied to wooden pallets that are used to transport and store packaging materials, somehow leached into the products.
But the U.S. wooden pallet industry took issue with McNeil’s explanation.
Children’s recalled drugs returning
After an five month absence from stores, Johnson & Johnson restarted limited shipment some of its recalled over-the-counter children’s drugs to retailers this month.
The company said its is on track to ship 4 million bottles of liquid Children’s Tylenol, in the 3.38 fluid-ounce grape flavor, by the end of the year.
McNeil’s plant in Fort Washington, Pa., which makes the children’s medicine, is still shut for production following serious manufacturing violations. The plant is not expected to reopen until late next year.
In the meantime, the company has temporarily shifted production of its children’s medicines to a plant in Canada and said it expects production of the recalled children’s drugs to reach "normal" levels by the middle of 2011.
Economy hurting its consumer business
McNeil spokesman Marc Boston said Monday that the new recalled lot was not part of the lots manufactured and recalled earlier this year. He said the lot recalled this week was made this past March.
While the recalls have dented its non-prescription drugs business, Johnson & Johnson said the economy was also hurting performance of some of its other key consumer business units.
"There was a third-quarter deceleration in growth trend in the overall health spending that is related the economy," Johnson & Johnson’s CFO Dominic Caruso told analysts during a call Tuesday to discuss the company’s results.
The company said over-the-counter U.S. drug sales in the quarter fell 40.2% from a year earlier. Skincare product sales dropped 15.9%, while sales of oral care products declined 12.3%.
Total consumer products sales slid 24.5% in the United States and declined 10.6% internationally.
For the full-year, the company expects flat operational sales versus last year.
However, Johnson & Johnson upped its full-year earnings guidance, excluding items, to $4.70 to $4.80 a share, citing recent currency exchange rates.
Shares of Johnson & Johnson fell 1.6% in premarket trading.
Silver Spring Networks on Tuesday named John R. Joyce chief financial officer and vice chairman of the company.
Joyce succeeds Warren Jenson, who is now chief operating officer at the Redwood City company.
Joyce spent 30 years at IBM Corp., including as senior vice president and group executive for BM Global Services and as senior vice president and CFO.
Most recently, he spent five years as managing director of Menlo Park-based Silver Lake Partners, a technology investment firm with more than $14 billion in assets under management payday loans.
Joyce is also on the board of Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ).
Click here to read the press release.
Friday was an up day for most Charlotte-area stocks, including Goodrich Corp. (NYSE:GR), which closed at $71.97, up $1.54, or 2.2 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 13 points to close at 10,608.
Here’s how key public companies in the Charlotte area fared:
•Family Dollar Stores Inc. (NYSE:FDO) closed at $43.46, up 50 cents.
•SPX Corp. (NYSE:SPW) closed at $61.57, up 6 cents.
•Snack maker Lance Inc. (NASDAQ:LNCE) closed at $21.69, up 7 cents.
•Piedmont Natural Gas Co. Inc. (NYSE:PNY) closed at $28.19, up 40 cents.
•Concord-based Speedway Motorsports Inc. (NYSE:TRK) closed at $15.68, up 20 cents instant payday loan lenders.
•Cato Corp. (NYSE:CATO) closed at $25.08, up 30 cents.
These local stocks lost ground Friday:
•Charlotte-based BofA (NYSE:BAC) closed at $13.40, down 15 cents.
•Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE:DUK) closed at $17.51, down 6 cents.
•Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC), parent of Charlotte-based Wachovia Bank, closed at $26.01, down 5 cents.
•Mooresville-based Lowe’s Cos. Inc. (NYSE:LOW) closed at $21.02, down 29 cents.
•Nucor Corp. (NYSE:NUE) closed at $38.74, down 21 cents.
For the fourth-straight week, gas price averages remained relatively flat, although different areas saw different price movement, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California’s Weekend Gas Watch.
According to the Auto Club, the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.113 per gallon, which is eight-tenths of a cent less than last week, six cents higher than last month, and 24 cents higher than last year.
On the Central Coast, the average price is $3.185, up one-tenth of a cent from last week, six cents higher than a month ago, and 23 cents above last year.
In the Inland Empire, the average per gallon price is $3 payday loan online.096, which is nine-tenths of a cent lower than last week, five cents higher than last month, and 23 cents more than last year.
"While the broader U.S. economic picture remains muddled, the past week showed a large crude oil inventory draw down which some analysts see as a hopeful sign for the economy. We’ll have to see if gas prices are affected in the coming weeks," Auto Club Spokesperson Jeffrey Spring said in a statement.
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