S&P says US lawsuit is 'retaliation' to ratings downgrade
Ratings agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) has claimed the lawsuit filed against it by the US Justice Department was "retaliation" against its decision to downgrade the US credit rating.
The agency was sued in February over its assessment of mortgage-backed securities before the financial crisis.
The suit alleged that S&P turned a blind eye to risks in the products, and gave them ratings that were too high.
The US government is seeking $5bn (£3bn) in penalties.
In a court filing on Tuesday, S&P, which had previously said the case was without merit, claimed that it was being sued in retaliation for its downgrade of the US credit rating in 2011.
S&P downgraded the US rating in August 2011 one notch from AAA to AA+, amid a standoff in Congress over whether to raise the country's borrowing limit.
It had cited concerns about budget deficits as the reason behind the downgrade.
"Only S&P Ratings downgraded the United States and only S&P Ratings has been sued by the United States," S&P said in the court filing.
The lawsuit is the first to be brought against a ratings agency for alleged wrongdoing connected to the financial crisis.
Olympus to be prosecuted by UK fraud agency
Japanese camera and medical equipment maker Olympus and its UK subsidiary Gyrus Group will be prosecuted by UK's Serious Fraud Office.
They have been charged with providing "misleading, false or deceptive" material in accounts for Gyrus Group.
Olympus's acquisition of Gyrus was one of the deals called into question as a $1.7bn (£1.1bn) accounting fraud came to light in 2011.
Three former executives have been given suspended jail terms over the scandal.
It is one of the biggest financial frauds in Japan's history.
Raghuram Rajan takes charge of Reserve Bank of India
A former International Monetary Fund chief economist is taking over as the head of India's central bank, as it works to revive the falling rupee.
Raghuram Rajan, 50, assumes the top job at the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday.
He arrives at a time when the rupee has plunged nearly 20% since May and the economy is slowing.
The new bank chief, known for having predicted the 2008 global financial crisis, will replace D Subbarao.
Mr Rajan will also have to contend with India's current account deficit, a broad measure of trade, and the economy growing at its slowest pace in 10 years.
In the April-to-June quarter, the economy grew at a rate of 4.4%, compared with the same period in the previous year, the slowest quarterly expansion in four years.
On Tuesday Goldman Sachs cut its GDP growth forecast for India to 4% from 6%.
August also saw India's manufacturing sector shrink for the first time for four years.
Many believe Mr Rajan has raised expectations of adopting unconventional ways to revive the rupee and boost growth.
"Economic policymakers require an enormous dose of humility, openness to various alternatives (including the possibility that they might be wrong), and a willingness to experiment," Mr Rajan wrote in a column on the Project Syndicate website last month.
He has also said that "all options were on the table" to stabilise the currency.
Mr Rajan is a well-known academic and writer of a prize-winning book, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy.
Rajeev Malik, a Singapore-based economist, says Mr Rajan's "rock star academic image could be a hindrance".
"That is because it has generated unrealistic hope that he has some magical prescription to fix our problems," he wrote in the Business Standard newspaper on Tuesday.
Source-BBC
Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro found hanged in cell
Ariel Castro, who kept women captive at his home in Cleveland, Ohio, has died after being found hanging in his cell.
Prison officials said he died in hospital late on Tuesday, after prison medical staff failed to revive him.
Castro, 53, held three women against their will for about a decade until May this year. He kept his victims chained up and raped them.
He was sentenced on 1 August to life imprisonment without parole plus 1,000 years. The house was demolished.
The former school bus driver abducted Michelle Knight, 32, Amanda Berry, 27, and Gina DeJesus, 23, from the Cleveland streets between 2002-04.
A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, JoEllen Smith, said: "He was housed in protective custody which means he was in a cell by himself and rounds are required every 30 minutes at staggered intervals.
"Upon finding inmate Castro, prison medical staff began performing life saving measures. Shortly after he was transported to [the prison medical facility] where he was pronounced dead at 10:52 pm."
"A thorough review of this incident is under way," she added.
US Inaction on Syria Will Lead to Greater War says Kerry
Secretary of State John Kerry says he has no doubt that U.S. inaction on Syria will lead to a greater war and more use of chemical weapons.
Kerry spoke to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, in an attempt to persuade lawmakers to back a military strike on Syria. He said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has a lust for power that led him to drop poison gas on civilians outside Damascus last month.
President Barack Obama has said he will seek congressional approval before making any decision about attacking Syria. Kerry told senators a military strike against Syria is definitely in the U.S. national interest, but that doing nothing is what Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea are hoping for.
In response to questions from committee members, Kerry stressed there is no way any U.S. troops would go to Syria. He added it is up to the Syrian people to destroy the Assad regime.
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, told the committee that Mr. Assad sees chemical weapons as just another part of his arsenal. Dempsey said the U.S. mission for Syria is to deter and degrade Mr. Assad's ability to use those weapons.
Secretary Kerry said it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the Assad regime used chemical weapons on civilians. He said there is solid evidence the military carefully prepared for the attack, and he called it common sense that the rebels were not responsible, as Syria's government has alleged.
Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat, opened Tuesday's hearing by saying a vote on Syria is not a political decision by the Senate but a matter of what is best for U.S. national security.
Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Democrat Senate Leader Nancy Pelosi both say they back Mr. Obama.
But others in Congress say the president's goals for Syria are still unclear. They say past experience, including the Bush administration's insistence 10 years ago that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, makes them leery about taking military action.
Scores Dead as Car Bombings Rip Iraqi Capital
A wave of deadly car bombings swept across the Iraqi capital Tuesday, targeting restaurants, markets and mosques and leaving at least 50 people dead.
Police say 11 separate bombings hit predominantly Shi'ite neighborhoods in Baghdad in a two-hour span early in the evening. The deadliest attack took place in Baghdad's Talibiyah neighborhood, where authorities say bombs in one or more vehicles killed at least nine people on a busy street.
The latest killings are part of a spike in deadly violence tied by authorities to efforts by al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents to stoke sectarian and ethnic tensions.
The United Nations says more than 4,000 people have died in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities since April, when troops from the country's Shi'ite-led government launched a crackdown on a Sunni protest camp north of the capital.
In July, the acting United Nations envoy for Iraq, Gyorgy Busztin, described the country as "bleeding from random violence." He warned the killings could push the country back into full-blown sectarian warfare.
Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt Assad Used Chemical Weapons
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says taking military action against Syria is definitively in the U.S. national interest.
Kerry spoke before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, saying it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the Assad regime dropped chemical weapons on civilians. He said there is solid evidence the military carefully prepared for the attack, and he called it common sense that the rebels were not responsible.
While some U.S. lawmakers doubt that the United States should get involved in Syria, Kerry said extremists are desperate to get their hands on chemical weapons, and that Mr. Assad will use them again.
He called President Obama's "red line" against poison gas the world's "red line," and warned that Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea are listening for silence from the United States and its allies.
Mr. Obama has said he will look for congressional approval before making any decisions about attacking Syria.
Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat, opened Tuesday's hearing by saying a vote on Syria is not a political decision by the Senate, but a matter of what is best for U.S. national security.
Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Democratic Senate Leader Nancy Pelosi both say they support Mr. Obama.
But others in Congress say the president's goals for Syria are still unclear. They say past experience, including the Bush administration's insistence 10 years ago that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, makes them reluctant about taking military action.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says a use of force is only legal when it is in self-defense or within the authorization of the U.N. Security Council.
He told reporters Tuesday that a U.N. inspection team that collected samples last week at the site of the suspected chemical attack near Damascus is working around the clock to prepare its formal report.
US Has Long History of Overseas Military Operations
If the United States launches missile attacks on Syria in retaliation for its suspected use of the nerve agent sarin against anti-government rebels, it will be just the latest in a long series of U.S. foreign military operations. What is unusual is that President Barack Obama is seeking congressional approval ahead of the attack.
Previous presidents have gone to Congress for declarations of war after the country was directly attacked, such as by Japan at the start of World War II. But more often, American presidents have acted on their own, using their authority as the country's constitutionally designated commander-in-chief. In that capacity, they have acted without congressional approval to send troops abroad, engage in bombing attacks, or dispatch U.S. military personnel to work with international allies.
By some counts, the U.S. has been involved in more than 50 significant military actions in the last half-century -- an average of more than one a year -- ranging from significant fighting in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to lesser incursions in such far-flung countries as Kuwait, Bosnia, Pakistan, Libya, Grenada, Haiti and Panama.
That total does not count more limited U.S. actions, such as drone strikes it now is carrying out against suspected Taliban insurgents.
In its 237-year history, the U.S. often has deployed its troops. History has recorded the U.S. as the victor in two world wars, but its overseas military ventures have not always been as successful.
U.S. forces fighting under the U.N. flag in Korea in the early 1950s left with the peninsula split into a communist North and a democratic South, a tense outcome that endures to this day. In Vietnam, the U.S. withdrew its last troops in 1975 after more than a decade of military involvement, allowing a communist government to seize control.
History has yet to cast a verdict on this century's U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. troops ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011, but allied forces never found the weapons of mass destruction they believed he was harboring. U.S. and allied forces are still fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, but Mr. Obama plans to withdraw American military personnel by the end of 2014, even as the country remains in turmoil.
Various studies show that U.S. military and security spending dwarfs that of other countries, but has fluctuated in recent decades depending on the priorities of individual presidents and the extent of U.S. fighting overseas.
Defense spending rose during the Vietnam War, during the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and in the last decade as the U.S. initiated its global war on terror in the aftermath of the 2001 al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people. At other times, U.S. defense spending has been curtailed.
Here are some of the significant U.S. military operations since the 1960s:
1961 to 1975 -- The Vietnam War, a conflict that resulted in more than 58,000 U.S. battle deaths and left communists in control of the country.
1961 -- A U.S. Central Intelligence Agency-led invasion of Cuba failed to overthrow Fidel Castro. He ruled the country for decades, with his brother Raul Castro taking over in 2008.
1962 -- In the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. deployed a military blockade in the waters around Cuba to keep the Soviet Union from installing missiles on the island nation, prompting fears of nuclear warfare.
1973 -- A CIA-backed coup ousted the democratically elected Marxist president in Chile, Salvador Allende.
1980 -- A U.S. commando raid inside Iran failed to rescue 52 American hostages being held by Tehran, although they were subsequently freed as Mr. Reagan assumed the presidency in early 1981.
1981 to 1990 -- The CIA directed exile invasions in Nicaragua in an unsuccessful effort to undermine the Sandinista government.
1990 to 1991 -- The U.S. confronted Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in a fight over oil riches. American troops forced Iraq to withdraw after a short ground war.
1992 to 1995 -- U.S. troops joined NATO forces in fighting in the Balkans, a lengthy battle that resulted from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and widespread ethnic confrontations.
2001 -- U.S. launched war in Afghanistan to fight Islamic insurgents in response to the al-Qaida attacks on the U.S. on September 11 that year.
2003 -- U.S. invaded Iraq on the premise that it had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the U.S. That was a false premise.
New Reverse Osmosis Plant for Grand Turk
The Ministry of Government Support Services has announced the successful installation of a new Reverse Osmosis (R/O) Plant in Grand Turk.
The new plant has the capacity to generate approximately 300,000 gallons of water per day and is expected to improve the water supply on the island. The old R/O plants, which were only producing a daily average of 125,000 gallons, will be repaired and used as a backup as needed.
The Minister with the responsibility for Water Undertaking, Hon. George Lightbourne, commented on the achievement “I am so pleased that finally the residents throughout Grand Turk, especially those on The Ridge and in the Breezy Brae areas who were always affected by water shortages will now have access to a continuous level of service when the entire pipe network is fully pressurized. Now, even with cruise ships in port we will have more than sufficient water supply. This infrastructural advancement is critical to the future growth of this economy. I thank the people of Grand Turk for their patience over the years and assure them that we are looking at even more ways in which we can improve our services to our valued customers.”
An official ribbon-cutting exercise is scheduled for 9:30 am on Friday August 30, 2013 at the plant’s facility, Hawke’s Nest.
August 21, 2013
Crime & Incident Reports for August 19-22nd, 2013
The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force are investigating a number of incidents reported between Monday 19th and Thursday 22nd August 2013 within the districts of Providenciales, including:
· Two (2) Burglaries, during the commission of this a black Hp Laptop Computer, a Silver Dell Ultra book laptop, a black Ipad and a Passport was missing.
· One (1) Attempted Burglary
· Three (3) Theft, during the commission of these crimes a ATM Machine Card and a handbag which contained (1) one Cartier Santos ladies wrist watch, a sum of cash, (1) one wallet containing two (2) Credit cards (1) one Dolce and Gabanna yellow ladies sunglasses and one (1) pair of reading glasses were stolen
· One (1) Malicious Damage to Property
· One (1) Wounding
On Tuesday 20th August 2013 a 42 year old male of Providenciales have been arrested and charged for Wounding.
On the island of Grand Turk investigations are ongoing for the offenses below which occurred also between Monday 19th and Thursday 22nd August 2013:
· One (1) Burglary- Nothing was stolen during this Burglary.
Please visit our web site at www.tcipolice.tc for crime prevention tips.
If you have any information about any criminal activity, please call 911 or Crime Stoppers anonymously on 1-800-8477. Tips can also be submitted anonymously in English, French or Spanish on either www.crimestoppers.tc or on Facebook as a fan of Crime Stoppers Turks & Caicos. Crime Stoppers tips are received in the USA.