RTC Director

US spy chief: Shutdown 'damaging'

Senior US intelligence officials have warned the shutdown of the US government "seriously damages" spy agencies' ability to protect the US.

 

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate panel that an estimated 70% of intelligence workers had been placed on unpaid leave.

 

Also, the head of the US electronic spy agency said morale had been devastated.

 

The US government closed non-essential operations on Tuesday after Congress failed to reach a new budget deal.

 

Mr Clapper appeared before a Senate judiciary committee hearing on Wednesday, warning lawmakers the damage to US intelligence capabilities caused by a shutdown would be "insidious".

 

"This is not just a Beltway issue," he said, referring to the Washington DC area. "This affects our global capability to support the military, to support diplomacy, and to support our policymakers."

 

Mr Clapper also warned that foregoing paying employees during the shutdown could cause them financial hardship, making them inviting targets for foreign spies.

 

"This is a dreamland for foreign intelligence services," he said.

 

Gen Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, said the electronic spying agency had placed thousands of mathematicians and computer scientists on unpaid leave.

 

"Our nation needs people like this," he said. "And the way we treat them is to tell them, 'you need to go home because we can't afford to pay you, we can't make a deal here.'"

 

The government shutdown has left more than 700,000 employees on unpaid leave, and closed national parks, tourist sites, government websites, office buildings and more.

 

It came after weeks of wrangling between Democrats in the White House and Senate and the Republicans who control the US House of Representatives.

 

House Republicans have demanded repeal, defunding or delay of a healthcare law passed in 2010 by the Democrats as a condition for continuing to fund the government. Mr Obama and the Democrats have refused, leading to the current morass.

 

The spy chiefs' remarks came after the White House announced Mr Obama would cut short a planned four-nation tour of Asia next week.

 

Mr Obama will attend regional summits in Indonesia and Brunei, but skip Malaysia and the Philippines due to the government shutdown.

 

He had been scheduled to begin his Asian trip on Saturday, heading to Bali for an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit and to Brunei for the East Asia summit before travelling on to Malaysia and the Philippines.

 

On Wednesday the White House said Mr Obama looked forward to visiting those two nations "later in his term".

 

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden called the trip cancellation "another consequence of the House Republicans forcing a shutdown of the government".

 

"This completely avoidable shutdown is setting back our ability to promote US exports and advance US leadership in the largest emerging region in the world," she said.

 

Earlier, the office of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Mr Obama had called him to inform him that Secretary of State John Kerry would address an entrepreneurship conference in Kuala Lumpur on 11 October in his place.

 

"I empathise and understand," Mr Najib told the media. "If I were in his shoes, I would do the same."

 

The US government ceased operations deemed non-essential at midnight on Tuesday, when the previous budget expired.

 

National parks and Washington's Smithsonian museums are closed, pension and veterans' benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa and passport applications will go unprocessed.

 

However, members of the military will be paid.

 

Treasury department employee Peter Gamba told the BBC he was worried by the turn of events.

 

"For whatever reason I cannot fathom, you're asking me to again give up my pay and give up service to the American public," he said.

 

"It's a nightmare for me financially, it causes me a lot of anxiety and stress and I don't sleep well at night."

 

President Obama has blamed conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives for the government shutdown, saying "one faction of one party" was responsible because "they didn't like one law".

 

"They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans," Mr Obama said.

 

The White House has also rejected a Republican offer to fund only a few portions of the government - national parks, veterans' programmes and the budget of the District of Columbia - until a broader deal can be struck.

 

The Republicans have called for more negotiations.

 

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has accepted an invitation to a meeting at the White House, currently scheduled for 17:30 local time (21:30 GMT).

 

"We're pleased the president finally recognises that his refusal to negotiate is indefensible," said his spokesman Brendan Buck.

 

"It's unclear why we'd be having this meeting if it's not meant to be a start to serious talks between the two parties."

 

Analysts say Mr Boehner could end the showdown by allowing the House to vote on a "clean" budget bill that does not alter the health law, because that could pass with a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans.

 

But doing so would risk his standing with the most conservative elements of his caucus, analysts say.

 

An opinion poll released on Tuesday suggested the American public disagreed with the Republican strategy.

 

An estimated 72% of voters opposed Congress shutting down the federal government in order to block the health law, according a poll by Quinnipiac University.

 

The healthcare law passed in 2010, was subsequently validated by the US Supreme Court, and was a major issue in the 2012 presidential election.

 

The next key fiscal deadline in the US is 17 October, when the government reaches the limit at which it can borrow money to pay its bills, the so-called debt ceiling.

 

House Republicans have demanded a series of policy concessions - including on the health law and on financial and environmental regulations - in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

 

President Obama is due to meet the heads of some of Wall Street's biggest banks - including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America - to discuss the debt ceiling and other economic issues.

 

The bankers are members of the Financial Services Forum, a lobbying group which has, along with 250 other businesses, sent a letter to Congress urging it to raise the debt ceiling.

 

Source-BBC

 

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by RTC Director

Goldman Sachs' Blankfein warns on debt ceiling impasse

Goldman Sachs' boss Lloyd Blankfein has warned that a failure to raise the nation's borrowing limit would be "extremely adverse".

 

The warning came after a meeting between US president Barack Obama and 15 heads of big firms on Wednesday.

 

Business leaders want Washington to understand "the long-term consequences of a shutdown," said Mr Blankfein.

 

The US government has been shutdown since Tuesday, 1 October.

 

Other well-known business leaders who attended the meeting included Michael Corbat of Citigroup, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America.

 

By some estimates, the government shutdown is costing the US economy $300m per day. If it continues, it could shave as much as 0.9% from third-quarter GDP growth.

 

Mr Blankfein and his banking counterparts have expressed concern that there is a possibility the impasse over the US budget could bleed into efforts to raise the so-called debt ceiling, which allows the US government to borrow money to pay back its debts.

 

The current debt ceiling of $16.7bn has already been breached in 2013, and the US Treasury has been engaging in a series of "extraordinary measures" since the summer to continue paying the nation's bills.

 

US Treasury secretary Jack Lew has warned that those measures will be exhausted by 17 October, and then the nation would be forced to default on its debts.

 

Mr Obama is scheduled to meet with Congressional leaders later on Wednesday.

 

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by RTC Director

CARICOM and Spain reach agreement on citizen security project

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) says it has entered into an agreement with Spain for a citizen security project that will focus on youth and gender issues, as well as youth entrepreneurship.

 The Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat said the CARICOM-Spain Citizen Security Project was signed late last month during discussions between representatives of the CARICOM Secretariat and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID), to formalise approvals for new regional interventions for the 2013-2014 period.

It said the interventions under the project focus on support for the prevention and reduction of youth on youth violence in schools and communities in five CARICOM countries and support for the implementation of youth entrepreneurship training through the Creative for Employment and Business Opportunity (CEBO) Programme in 10 CARICOM countries.

“These interventions will be implemented in large part by the CARICOM Secretariat and will entail collaboration with national public and private sectors, civil society partners and other stakeholders.”

The CARICOM Secretariat said that the discussions with the Spanish officials were a follow up to the second meeting of the Joint Technical Committee to the Joint Fund held in Trinidad on September 11.

It said the meeting also reviewed the progress of current institutional strengthening and economic development projects and agreed on the systems and resources required for effective management and operations of the Joint Fund for the current period.

“Despite the grave economic and financial crisis which the country has been battling in recent times, the Government of Spain has continued to provide important technical and financial assistance for development in the region, a sign of commitment to its engagement with the member states and peoples of CARICOM,” the CARICOM Secretariat added.

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by RTC Director

Ryanair fined 8m euros by French court

A French court has fined Ryanair more than 8m euros (£6.7m) after ruling that it had broken local labour laws.

 

The court found Ryanair acted illegally when it employed more than 120 staff on Irish contracts at its former Marseille operating hub between 2007 and 2010.

 

The low-cost airline said it would appeal against the ruling.

 

Ryanair was ordered to pay a 200,000 euro fine, but the court denied a request to fine it the equivalent value of the four aircraft based at the hub.

 

However, the firm also has to pay 4.5m euros of backdated social charges, 3m euros in pension contributions, as well as 450,000 euros in unemployment charges.

 

Ryanair's Robin Kiely said the firm would be lodging an early appeal.

 

"Since all of our people operating to/from Marseille between 2007 and 2010 have already paid their social taxes and pension contributions in Ireland, in full compliance with Irish and EU employment regulations, we do not believe that either Ryanair or our people can be forced to double pay these contributions a second time in France," he said.

 

The company noted that if it was forced to pay the social taxes and pension contributions in France, it believed it could reclaim the vast majority of those costs from the Irish government.

 

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by RTC Director

Gonsalves acknowledges Liat challenges and disappointments

Chairman of the shareholder governments of the regional airline, LIAT, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has acknowledged that the airline has been a terrible disappointment to the Caribbean travelling public in recent months.

“LIAT was terribly disappointed to the people of the Caribbean over the summer,” said Gonsalves, who was in New York for the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Debate.

LIAT shareholder governments are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Gonsalves, who is the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister, told a town hall meeting here over the weekend that while not excusing the Antigua-based airline for the situation, the computer system of one of two new ATR, French-Italian, aircraft that LIAT recently purchased had developed problems.

He said as a result engineers were dispatched from Toulouse, France to resolve the problem.

At the same time, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister said the older Dash-8 aircraft had also “suffered unusual difficulties,” adding to “a lot of maintenance costs.

“It is a difficult airline to manage, and it is an airline which is not in financial proposition, but one which is socially and economically necessary,” said Gonsalves, pointing out that LIAT flies to 22 destinations, with roughly 1,000 flights per week.

He said the re-fleeting exercise of 12 new ATRs is costing LIAT shareholders US$110 million, with the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) providing a loan of US$65 million.

“Unfortunately, when you’re moving from one type of aircraft to another, it’s not like moving from a Volkswagen (car), driving it in the morning and driving a BMW in the evening where you have the same driver’s license.

“Even though you are qualified to fly the Dash 8, you have to be specially trained to fly the ATR, and once you are licensed to fly the ATR by the relevant authorities, you can’t go back to fly the Dash 8.”

Gonsalves said in addition, while LIAT’s management had anticipated that more ATRs would be available, “you had the peculiar situation in which more ATR pilots were trained than ATR aircrafts to be flown, as well as an insufficiency of pilots to fly the existing Dash 8s”.

Gonsalves said he was still awaiting a “detailed report as to how and where the error was made.

“Was it something which could have been avoided? Could the transition have been smoother? So the transition was really problematic,” he said, adding that “some persons in the LIAT company, the management level, the lower levels and providers of services , there is some evidence that they were not as careful and as disciplined as they should have been.

“None of this, obviously, is meant to exculpate LIAT from its obligations, but I offer it as an explanation as to the context of the difficulties which existed,” he said, adding “but, in a nutshell, the transition was not effected in a proper manner, thus giving rise to a series of hiccups.

“I, myself, suffered in transit. The problem is that LIAT?s management did not communicate to the people of the region as well as they should have communicated about the difficulties of which I’m talking,” Gonsalves said.

“And that was a challenge. I knew what were the problems, so when I get stranded, I just sit down and wait at the airport. I did not allow my blood pressure to go up,” he said.

Gonsalves said, despite the challenges, the shareholders would continue to invest in LIAT, stating four of the 12 new ATRs were now on hand, three will come on stream between now and the end of January, and all 12 would have arrived by the end of December next year.

“Were it not for the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, LIAT would have already been out of the skies,” Gonsalves said.

Last week, the the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) in St. Lucia expressed concern about the service provided by LIAT.

UWP Leader Allen Chastanet,a former tourism minister, noted that the operations of LIAT were critical to the tourism industry and the overall business market of St Lucia, notwithstanding, the dependency on LIAT for the delivery of professional and efficient service.

 

Source-CMC

 

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by RTC Director