tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40247881743509212682023-11-27T16:20:33.382-08:00ALLPRESA newsadminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-83351917085184317782013-05-21T13:26:00.003-07:002013-12-14T17:07:30.908-08:00Top figures barred from Iran's June ballot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's election overseers removed
potential wild card candidates from the presidential race Tuesday,
blocking a top aide of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a
former president who revived hopes of reformers.</span></b></span></span></div>
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Their exclusion from the June 14 presidential
ballot gives establishment-friendly candidates a clear path to succeed
Ahmadinejad, who has lost favor with the ruling clerics after years of
power struggles. It also pushes moderate and opposition voices further
to the margins as Iran's leadership faces critical challenges such as
international sanctions and talks with world powers over Tehran's
nuclear program.<br />
<br />
The official ballot list, announced on state TV, followed a nearly
six-hour delay in which the names were kept under wraps. That raised
speculation that authorities allowed some time for appeals by the
blackballed candidates and their backers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, who has final say in all matters.<br />
But the official slate left off two prominent but
divisive figures: former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and
Ahmadinejad protege Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. The decision also appeared
to remove many potential surprise elements in the race, including
whether Rafsanjani could revitalize the reform movement or if
Ahmadinejad could play a godfather role in the election with his
hand-picked political heir.<br />
Instead, those cleared by the candidate-vetting
Guardian Council included eight high-profile figures considered firm and
predictable loyalists to the ruling Islamic establishment such as
former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher
Qalibaf and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.<br />
Any of the choices would create a possibly seamless
front between the ruling clerics and presidency after years of
political turmoil under Ahmadinejad, who tried to challenge the
theocracy's vast powers to make all major decisions and set key
policies. Iran's presidency, meanwhile, is expected to convey the ruling
clerics' views on the world stage and not set its own diplomatic
agenda.<br />
Mashaei called the decision unfair and said he will
appeal to Khamenei. "God willing this will be resolved," semiofficial
Fars news agency reported late Tuesday. Rafsanjani did not comment, but
his supporters denounced the decision on social media.<br />
While the election is not expected to bring major
shifts in Iran's position on its nuclear program — which Tehran insists
is peaceful despite Western fears it could lead to atomic weapons — it
could open opportunities to renew stalled talks with a six-nation group
that includes the U.S.<br />
On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas
Araqchi said Iran's nuclear stance will "not change either before or
after the election." The ballot rejection of Mashaei brought little
shock. He has been badly tarnished by Ahmadinejad's feuds with the
ruling clerics. Hard-liners have denounced Mashaei as part of a "deviant
current" that seeks to undermine the country's Islamic system — which
made ballot approval highly unlikely.<br />
This leaves Ahmadinejad politically orphaned going
into the final weeks in office. He still has significant public support
and could try to bargain with other candidates or break away and start
his own political movement.<br />
Few powerful voices came to Mashaei's defense in a
sign of Ahmadinejad's fallen fortunes. But the case for Rafsanjani was
more complicated. His unexpected decision for a comeback bid — 16 years
after leaving office — jolted hard-line foes and was cheered by
beleaguered reformists and liberals after years of crackdowns.<br />
Rafsanjani faced a barrage of attacks in the past
week from powerful critics who suggested the 78-year-old does not have
the stamina for the presidency and is disgraced for criticizing the
heavy-handed tactics used to crush protests following Ahmadinejad's
disputed re-election in 2009.<br />
Rafsanjani's youngest daughter, Faezeh, was
released from jail in March after serving a six-month sentence in
connection with the postelection chaos. His middle son, Mahdi, also is
to stand trial in coming weeks for his alleged role in the riots.<br />
Late Monday, authorities closed down the Tehran
headquarters of Rafsanjani's youth supporters. But Rafsanjani still
carries a legacy with a sweeping reach. Moderates see him as a
pragmatist who can deal deftly with the West and use his skills as
patriarch of a family-run business empire to help repair Iran's economy,
battered by sanctions and mismanagement. Others, even ideological foes,
respect his high-profile role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution as the
closest confidant of its spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.<br />
In a sign of possible lobbying on Rafsanjani's
behalf, he received apparent support from some influential members of
the Assembly of Experts — the only group with the power to dismiss the
supreme leader. Rafsanjani was pushed out as the group's chairman after
failing to get enough support to leverage possible concessions from
Khamenei on the 2009 postelection clampdowns.<br />
One member, Ayatollah Mohieddin Haeri Shirazi, sent
a letter to Khamenei saying "omitting a prominent figure from the
election was incompatible" with giving wide choices to voters, the
semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.<br />
Another assembly member, Ayatollah Mohammad Vaez
Mousavi, told the semiofficial ILNA news agency that Rafsanjani's age is
not a weak point and many Iranian leaders "accepted responsibilities
when they were quite old."<br />
Prominent political analyst Saeed Leilaz said the
"intensified defamation campaign" suggested worry among hard-liners that
Rafsanjani had a real potential to rally moderates and others and win
the election.<br />
"What matters today is who can save the country's
economy," he said, "Who has a plan to take Iran away from isolation and
improve living conditions."</div>
adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-24013545844295080052013-05-21T13:20:00.001-07:002013-12-14T17:08:19.545-08:00Georgian ex-PM detained on abuse of office charge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;">TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Allies of Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili — a former prime minister and a provincial governor —
were charged on Tuesday with embezzlement and abuse of office in
another sign of an ongoing power struggle between the country's top two
officials.</span></span></span></div>
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After dominating Georgian politics for nine years,
pro-Western Saakashvili suffered a humiliating defeat last fall when his
party lost a parliamentary election to the Georgian Dream coalition led
by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who became Georgia's prime
minister.<br />
<br />
A constitutional reform further weakened Saakashvili's hand by
shifting the government's powers from the presidency to the parliament
and the prime minister. The election was the first constitutional
transfer of top executive power in Georgia, and it was hailed as a
breakthrough for the post-Soviet region. But problems soon emerged.<br />
Saakashvili's presidential term does not end until
October, so he must serve alongside his arch-foe, Russia-friendly
Ivanishvili. The two men have been locked in an intense power struggle,
and authorities have leveled abuse of office charges against some of
Saakashvili's top lieutenants.<br />
On Tuesday, former Prime Minister Vano
Merabishvili, who currently leads Saakashvili's party, was charged with
embezzlement and abuse of office charges and arrested him in Kutaisi, a
city in western Georgia.<br />
Prosecutors accuse him of taking on the payroll in
the Labor Ministry nearly 22,000 party activists whose only job was to
canvass for the party in the run-up to October's parliamentary election.
Ex-Labor Minister Zurab Chiaberashvili, who currently serves as the
governor of the Kakheti region, also was arrested along with
Merabishvili on the same charges.<br />
Merabishvili, the key architect of Saakashvili's
policies, is the highest-ranking member of the president's inner circle
to face charges. Prosecutors also accuse him of illegally appropriating a
lush seaside residence and using government funds to maintain it and
hire personnel. Other charges include his alleged involvement in the
police crackdown on a protest in 2011.<br />
Merabishvili's lawyer said he rejected all the
charges. Saakashvili has denounced a series of criminal investigations
targeting former officials and allies of his as politically driven.
Speaking in televised remarks Tuesday, Saakashili said the decision to
arrest Merabishvili was "made on a political level" and warned that it
will tarnish Georgia's image in the West.<br />
"Georgia may face a problem of international
isolation," Saakashvili said. Ivanishvili rejected political motives
behind Merabishvili's arrest. "It's a pity that we lost (a chance) to
get such president," he said in a sardonic reference to Merabishvili's
alleged intention to run for president in an election later this year.<br />
Ivanishvili, who earned his fortune in Russia, has
denied Saakashvili's accusations of kowtowing to the Kremlin and pledged
to maintain the course toward Georgia's integration with the West. But
he also has pledged to repair the ties with Moscow, which were ruptured
in the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war that ended with Moscow
recognizing two breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia as independent states.</div>
adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-75039311731984988862013-05-21T06:31:00.003-07:002013-12-14T17:17:44.093-08:00Yahoo's rise in Asia offsets risk from Tumblr bet<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Yahoo Inc</span>
Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's $1.1 billion acquisition of blogging
service Tumblr will be a test of her ability to revive the aging Web
portal. Luckily for her, her performance may be graded generously.</span></span></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><span id="articleText"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
Mayer faces plenty of challenges in her
efforts to turn six-year-old Tumblr into a money-spinner, not least
among them retaining users while devising new types of non-intrusive
online ads outside of Yahoo's traditional area of expertise.<br />
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>And then there is Tumblr's hefty price tag: a sum that equates to a fifth of Yahoo's cash.<br />
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>But
some investors and analysts say that Wall Street is more focused on the
rising value of Yahoo's Asian assets, such as its 24-percent slice of
China's Alibaba, than on actual <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">business</span>
operations. That means the 37-year-old executive faces less immediate
pressure to prove that Yahoo's biggest acquisition in years is a
profitable one.<br />
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>"Overall I'm
relatively skeptical, but I don't think it matters much to the stock,"
Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said of the deal.<br />
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>"Say
they destroy 100 percent of the value and drive Tumblr into the ground.
It's probably less than a dollar per share in value," he said.<br />
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>If
Mayer's bet delivers, however, some investors say it could provide even
more upside to a stock already trading at its highest levels in years.<br />
<span id="midArticle_7"></span>"The core <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">business</span> is the lottery ticket," said Ryan Jacob, the chief executive of the Jacob Funds, who owns Yahoo shares.<br />
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>"Investors'
expectations for the core business are very low, so if they're able to
reinvigorate growth, that will move the needle," said Jacob.<br />
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>Yahoo's
stock finished Monday's regular trading session up 6 cents at $26.58.
Its shares have surged roughly 70 percent since Mayer became CEO in
July, largely due to stock buybacks and the rising value of its Asian
investments, which also include Yahoo Japan.<br />
<span id="midArticle_10"></span>CHALLENGES ABOUND<br />
<span id="midArticle_11"></span>Yahoo
remains one of the Web's most popular destinations, but has seen its
revenue shrink in recent years as consumers and advertisers favor rivals
<span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Google</span> Inc and <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Facebook</span>
Inc. By buying Tumblr, Yahoo gets a much-needed platform in social
media to reach a younger generation of users less enamored of Yahoo's
traditional Web content and email.<br />
<span id="midArticle_12"></span>Yahoo is paying a rich premium for Tumblr, whose nascent <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">advertising</span> efforts generated a scant $13 million in revenue last year, according to media reports.<br />
<span id="midArticle_13"></span>"Tumblr
has low revenues and a big multiple, but far-sighted buyers in
technology have shown that they can take small properties and put them
onto their distribution system and do good things with them," said Adam
Seessel, head of Gravity Capital Management, which owns Yahoo shares.<br />
<span id="midArticle_14"></span>Take Google's $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube. That deal gave the search giant an important <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">video</span> service that boosted interaction with Google's other online services, he said by way of example.<br />
<span id="midArticle_15"></span>Facebook's
acquisition of photo-sharing service Instagram for more than $700
million is considered another deft move by technology observers,
allowing the social network to scoop up a fast-growing threat to its
business - even if the ad-free service hasn't delivered a financial
boost to <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Facebook</span> yet.<br />
<span id="midArticle_0"></span>For every YouTube and Instagram there is a MySpace, the once-red-hot social network <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">News Corp</span>
acquired for $580 million in 2005 but whose popularity plunged when its
new parent plastered ads all over the service in a rush to monetize.<br />
<span id="midArticle_1"></span>Mayer
stressed Yahoo's commitment to create new so-called native ads that
mesh seamlessly into Tumblr's content and are considered more suited to
the service than the traditional online display ads that have long been
Yahoo's bread-and-butter.<br />
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>"We have
gotten more and more focused on providing native ads and designing ads
for that experience, so that's what we're going to get really focused
on," Mayer, a former Google executive, told Reuters in an interview late
on Monday.<br />
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>But creating a class of ads that works is no simple feat.<br />
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>"There
isn't a template to do it," said Rebecca Lieb, an analyst with research
and consulting firm Altimeter Group, who explained that native ads is a
catch-all encompassing everything from advertorials to sponsored tweets
that appear in Twitter.<br />
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>While
Yahoo recently began experimenting with news stream ads on its
redesigned home page, doing native ads on a broad scale could be tricky
given the challenge of convincing brands and agencies to experiment with
formats, Lieb said.<br />
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>Yahoo must
also hold onto Tumblr's bloggers, many of whom were already stomping
their feet at being assimilated into the decidedly "less cool" Yahoo.
Many vented their frustrations on the Tumblr blog entitled "Meltdowns
about Yahoo buying Tumblr."<br />
<span id="midArticle_7"></span>Defections
have begun. As reports of the deal spread on Sunday, the founder of
WordPress, a rival blogging platform, said it "imported" 72,000 Tumblr
blogs in a one hour period.<br />
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>Yet for
many investors, those questions are secondary to the impending IPO of
Alibaba Group, which they say is one of the key factors buoying Yahoo's
stock. Analysts and investors estimate the value of Alibaba to be around
$70 billion. But Lawrence Haverty, a fund manager with GAMCO Investors,
believes it could be worth $100 billion or more when it goes public.<br />
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>In
the event Alibaba's IPO does not live up to expectations, the fallout
for Yahoo will be far more serious than anything that happens with
Tumblr.<br />
</div>
adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-9991108862339518692013-05-21T06:26:00.003-07:002013-12-14T17:18:10.810-08:00Apple, Congress spar over taxes ahead of Tuesday hearing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph">Using an unusual global tax structure, <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Apple Inc</span> (<span id="symbol_AAPL.O_0">AAPL.O</span>)
has kept billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to pay
little or no taxes to any government, a Senate report on the company's
offshore tax structure said on Monday.</span></span></b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><span style="color: black;"><span id="articleText"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
In a 40-page memorandum released a day before <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Apple</span>
CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to testify before Congress, the Senate's
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations identified three subsidiaries
that have no "tax residency" in Ireland, where they are incorporated, or in the United States, where company executives manage those companies.<br />
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>The main subsidiary, a holding company that includes Apple's <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">retail</span> stores throughout Europe, has not paid any corporate income tax in the last five years.<br />
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>The subsidiary, which has a Cork, <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">Ireland</span>, mailing address, received $29.9 billion in <span class="mandelbrot_refrag">dividends</span>
from lower-tiered offshore Apple affiliates from 2009 to 2012,
comprising 30 percent of Apple's total worldwide net profits, the report
said.<br />
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>"Apple has exploited a difference between Irish and U.S. tax residency rules," the report said.<br />
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>Apple
said in a comment posted online on Monday it does not use "tax
gimmicks." It said the existence of its subsidiary "Apple Operations
International" in Ireland does not reduce Apple's U.S. tax liability and
the company will pay more than $7 billion in U.S. taxes in fiscal 2013.<br />
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>Subcommittee staffers said on Monday that Apple was not breaking any laws and had cooperated fully with the investigation.<br />
<span id="midArticle_7"></span>CODE OVERHAUL SOUGHT<br />
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>Tuesday's
hearing is the second to be held by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan
Democrat and chairman of the subcommittee, to shed light on the
weaknesses of the U.S. corporate tax code. Levin has sought to overhaul
the code in Congress.<br />
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>Lawmakers
globally are closely scrutinizing the taxes paid by multinational
companies. In Britain, Google faces regulatory inquiries over its own
tax policies, while Hewlett-Packard Co (<span id="symbol_HPQ.N_1">HPQ.N</span>) and Microsoft Corp (<span id="symbol_MSFT.O_2">MSFT.O</span>) have been called to Capitol Hill to answer questions about their own practices.<br />
<span id="midArticle_10"></span>Corporations
must pay the top U.S. 35-percent corporate tax on foreign profits, but
not until those profits are brought into the United States from abroad.
This exception is known as corporate offshore income deferral.<br />
<span id="midArticle_11"></span>In
submitted testimony ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Apple said any tax
reform should favor lower corporate income tax rates regardless of
revenue, eliminate tax expenditures and implement a "reasonable tax on
foreign earnings that allows free movement of capital back to the US."<br />
<span id="midArticle_12"></span>"Apple recognizes these and other improvements in the U.S. corporate tax system may increase the company's taxes," it said.<br />
<span id="midArticle_13"></span>Large
U.S. companies boosted their offshore earnings by 15 percent last year
to a record $1.9 trillion, avoiding hefty tax bills by keeping the
profits abroad, according to research firm Audit Analytics.<br />
<span id="midArticle_14"></span>TAX SCRUTINY<br />
<span id="midArticle_15"></span>Apple
also uses two conventional offshore tax practices typical of
multinational companies' tax-avoidance strategies, the report said.<br />
<span id="midArticle_0"></span>Multinational
corporations value goods and services moving across international
borders from one corporate unit to another. Known as "transfer pricing,"
these moves are frequently managed to reduce corporations' global tax
costs.<br />
<span id="midArticle_1"></span>Apple's tax structure
highlights flaws in the U.S. corporate tax code so that Congress "can
effectively close the loopholes used by many U.S. multinational
companies," Arizona Senator John McCain, the subcommittee's top
Republican, said in a statement on Monday.<br />
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>Levin,
who announced he will retire at the end of 2014, introduced legislation
in February to close tax loopholes. At a news conference on Monday,
Levin said his bill should pass independent of any broader tax reform
push in Congress.<br />
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>McCain, the top
Republican on the subcommittee, told the joint news conference he would
co-sponsor Levin's bill, the first Republican to support the bill. He
called Apple's tax practices "egregious, and (a) really outrageous
scheme."<br />
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>Similar legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives.<br />
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>Government
tax officials from the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department
also are scheduled to testify before the subcommittee on Tuesday.<br />
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West in Washington and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Howard Goller, Bernard Orr)<br />
</div>
adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-20145158018629392472013-05-21T06:22:00.002-07:002013-12-14T17:18:33.096-08:00IRS officials back on Capitol Hill hot seat over targeting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b>A Senate panel will try on Tuesday to pry more details out of current and former officials of the Internal Revenue Service about the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status.</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
Lawmakers are also expected to demand answers
about why officials did not earlier share with lawmakers evidence that
IRS workers in Cincinnati, Ohio, had inappropriately focused on search
criteria that included "Tea Party" and "patriots."<br />
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>A
Senate Finance Committee hearing will give members the first public
opportunity to question former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who
headed the tax-collection agency from 2008 to late 2012, during which
the targeting occurred.<br />
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>Senators
will likely seize on Shulman's congressional testimony in late March
2012 that no groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny by the tax
agency.<br />
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>It has since emerged that the behavior started in March or April of 2010 and continued for 18 months.<br />
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>A
Treasury Department watchdog has said he informed Shulman about an
investigation into the matter in May 2012, but assumed IRS officials
would have given Shulman a heads up before that.<br />
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>Senators
are expected to aim another round of tough questions at the outgoing
acting head of the IRS, Steven Miller, who refused to give specifics
about who was involved in the scandal during a House of Representatives
hearing last week.<br />
<span id="midArticle_7"></span>Miller was
forced to resign last week and more senior agency officials could be on
the firing line in the broadening scandal as members of both parties
rush to condemn the IRS for overstepping its authority.<br />
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>The hearing on Tuesday is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. EDT.<br />
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>The
rising political storm has undercut President Barack Obama's
second-term agenda and put the White House on the defensive as he tries
to negotiate a budget deal with Republicans and push a comprehensive
immigration reform bill through Congress.<br />
<span id="midArticle_10"></span>The
hearing in the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee will
feature a push for more details about who ordered the extra tax scrutiny
for conservative groups. It will also focus on whether the White House
was slow to divulge the practice once it learned of it.<br />
<span id="midArticle_11"></span>Those
questions gained more urgency on Monday when the White House revealed
that two senior aides to Obama knew weeks ago about a draft Treasury
Department watchdog report detailing the IRS targeting that occurred for
an 18-month period starting in early 2010.<br />
<span id="midArticle_12"></span>White
House spokesman Jay Carney said White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler
was notified on April 24 of the report's preliminary findings, and that
she told Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior staffers soon
afterward.<br />
<span id="midArticle_13"></span>Obama has said he did
not learn of the report's findings until May 10, when IRS official Lois
Lerner apologized for the targeting at an American Bar Association
conference.<br />
<span id="midArticle_14"></span>The leaders of the
Senate Finance Committee - Democratic Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and
senior Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah - sent the IRS a letter on Monday
seeking a broad range of documents and asking more than 40 questions
covering three years of IRS activity.<br />
<span id="midArticle_15"></span>"Targeting
applicants for tax-exempt status using political labels threatens to
undermine the public's trust in the IRS," Baucus and Hatch said in a
letter to Miller. "Lack of candor in advising the Senate of the practice
is equally troubling."<br />
<span id="midArticle_0"></span>'MORE IS GOING TO COME OUT'<br />
<span id="midArticle_1"></span>Among
other things, the two senators asked for the names of all employees
involved in the targeting effort and for copies of any communication
between IRS employees and outside parties, including anyone in the White
House or Treasury Department.<br />
<span id="midArticle_2"></span>They
also asked for the names of any IRS employees who became aware of
anyone at the White House or Treasury who knew about the practice.<br />
<span id="midArticle_3"></span>"I
have a hunch that a lot more is going to come out, frankly," Baucus
said in an interview on Sunday with Bloomberg Television. "I suspect
that we will learn more in the next several days, maybe the next couple
three weeks which adds more context to all of this."<br />
<span id="midArticle_4"></span>The
Senate Finance Committee is conducting one of three congressional
probes into the scandal. The House Ways and Means Committee held the
first hearing last week, and the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday.<br />
<span id="midArticle_5"></span>Lerner, head of the IRS tax-exempt organizations office, is scheduled to testify at Wednesday's hearing.<br />
<span id="midArticle_6"></span>The
Justice Department is also looking into the IRS practice, which has
drawn angry accusations of a cover-up from Republicans who have accused
Obama's administration of using government powers to punish political
rivals.<br />
<span id="midArticle_7"></span>Some Democrats, while also
condemning the practice, have noted the IRS was headed by Shulman - an
appointee of Republican President George W. Bush - during the period in
question. Shulman has, however, donated to Democrats.<br />
<span id="midArticle_8"></span>Also
testifying at Tuesday's hearing with Shulman and Miller will be J.
Russell George, the head of the watchdog group that issued a report on
the IRS last week. George testified at the House hearing last week and
said his office is continuing to investigate the matter.<br />
<span id="midArticle_9"></span>(Editing by Karey Van Hall and Christopher Wilson)<br />
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adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-58854179948017512702013-05-21T05:14:00.004-07:002013-12-14T17:19:11.372-08:00Oklahoma tornado: 91 feared dead as rescue continues in Moore – live<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-35763927041925518212013-05-21T05:10:00.000-07:002013-12-14T17:08:45.729-08:00Protester unfurls banner after climbing dome of St Peter's Basilica in Rome<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #999999;"><b>Man stages demonstration against Italy's embattled coalition, which is struggling with recession and high unemployment</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="background-color: white;">Marcello
De Finizio stands on the dome of St Peter's Basilica to protest against
austerity measures. Photograph: Guido Montani/EPA</span></span></div>
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A man climbed on to a ledge on the dome of St Peter's Basilica
on Monday and unfurled a banner protesting against a "political horror
show", an apparent reference to Italy's embattled coalition struggling with recession and high unemployment.<br />
Identified
by police as Marcello Di Finizio, the man unfurled a white banner
reading, in English: "Stop this massacre! The political horror show is
continuing."<br />
The black and red ink scrawl said in Italian: "Help
us Pope Francis." He also waved an Italian flag as he balanced
precariously above a small window near the top of the 137-metre dome.<br />
Italy
is stuck in its longest recession since quarterly records began in
1970, and jobless rates are close to record highs. Support for the
coalition government has fallen from 43% to 34% since it was cobbled
together in April.<br />
Di Finizio has staged similar protests on the
dome. Last October he stayed there overnight with a banner criticising
multinationals, Europe, and former prime minister Mario Monti.<br />
Thousands
of people protested in Rome on Saturday, urging the new prime minister,
Enrico Letta, to focus on creating jobs. He is trying to hold together a
between his centre-left Democratic party and the centre-right People of
Freedom, led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.</div>
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adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-53995723889005375442013-05-21T04:49:00.002-07:002013-05-21T04:49:12.710-07:00Syria: no place for back-seat drivers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: #999999;"><b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #999999;">Having rejected the diplomatic option of talking to Assad, neither the US nor Britain can lead from behind</span></span></b></span><br />
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It was only a matter of time before a proxy war between regional
powers turned into a battlefield in which foreign fighters openly
engaged in combat. Hezbollah's fighters had been present in Syria for some time, but their overt role in the fight for a strategic border town
linking Damascus to Homs and the regime's core support in the Alawite
hinterland is, potentially, a game-changer. If it ever had been an open
question whether conditions could be produced that would allow Iran
and Hezbollah to relinquish their support for Bashar Assad, in favour
of a transitional regime that would offer guarantees to the minority
Alawite community, that has now been answered.<br />
Whatever happens in
the town of Qusair, both Hezbollah and Iran are now signalling that
Assad's fate has become a matter of existential survival for them, too.
The regime's victory, or defeat, will become a victory or defeat for its
allies. This makes any attempt at intra-Syrian reconciliation – already
a faint hope, after the vicious sectarianism shown first by the regime
and latterly, alas, by some rebels – virtually impossible. Syria of any
description, either the north and east, still held by the rebels, or the
south and west, held by the regime, is no longer master of its own
territory or fate.<br />
Factionalism is rife. The dominant, or at
least most cohesive, fighting group on the rebel side, Jabhat al-Nusra,
is funded and armed by non-state actors, as is al-Qaida,
to which the Sunni jihadi group has vowed its allegiance. There are
splits between rebel units on the ground and the Syrian opposition in
Turkey and Doha. A further cleavage has opened between Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates and Jordan, on the one side – all determined not to
let the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood gain control of Syria – and
Qatar and Turkey on the other, which back other brotherhood-dominated
regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. If Sunni al-Qaida is fighting Shia
Hezbollah in Qusair, the Sunni regimes of the Gulf are doing a good job
undermining each other's foreign policy as well.<br />
Did the Israeli
strikes provoke Hezbollah's move? As Vladimir Putin told Binyamin
Netanyahu in no uncertain terms, they certainly prompted Russia
into sending Assad S300 surface-to-air missiles. The involvement of the
best armed and trained Shia militia in the region was perhaps only a
matter of time. The foreign secretary, William Hague, said there was a
compelling case for lifting the EU arms embargo, dispatching weapons in
"carefully controlled circumstances". This is provocative. We have lost
leverage over rebel groups. Having rejected the diplomatic option of
talking to Assad for so long, neither US nor Britain — nor Russia on its
side — can "lead from behind" in Syria. A military conflict is no place
for back-seat drivers.<br />
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adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4024788174350921268.post-31985045890679452102012-06-01T02:30:00.000-07:002013-12-14T17:09:44.624-08:00Georgia’s President continues his visit to Latvia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili continues his official visit to Riga, Latvia.
Georgian President is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister of Latvia, Valdis Dombrovski and Jurmala resort's Mayor Gatis Truksnis today.
A document on friendship between Jurmala and Anaklia resorts will be signed. Saakashvili will deliver a public lecture at the State University of Latvia.
On May 29, Saakashvili met with representatives of Georgian Diaspora in Latvia. The Georgian nationals received the detailed information about carried out and ongoing reforms in Georgia.
Various reforms of Georgia was the main topic during a joint business forum organized by Forbes magazine and Georgian Investment Agency. About 150 Georgian and Latvian businesspersons participated in it.
Saakashvili talked about economic growth and current business climate in Georgia.adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15901653664829150205noreply@blogger.com1