HSBC guilty of ‘stunning failure’

11 December 2012 Last updated at 13:05 ET

Loretta Lynch, US Attorney: “Their US compliance department was woefully inadequate”

The US said “dangerous practices” at HSBC allowed the bank to pass money to “drug kingpins and rogue nations”, as it fined it $ 1.9bn (£1.2bn).

HSBC agreed the fine, the largest of its kind, earlier on Tuesday.

A US Senate investigation said the UK-based bank had been a conduit for drug barons and nations such as Iran against which it had sanctions, making it illegal to do business there.

HSBC admitted having poor money laundering controls and apologised.

Money laundering is the process of disguising the proceeds of crime so that the money cannot be linked to the wrongdoing.

US Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said in a statement: “HSBC is being held accountable for stunning failures of oversight – and worse – that led the bank to permit narcotics traffickers and others to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through HSBC subsidiaries.

Another official said it was implicated in “wilful and dangerous” practices.

‘Sorry’

“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes,” said HSBC group chief executive Stuart Gulliver in a statement.

“We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again.”

The bank said it had spent $ 290m on improving its systems to prevent money laundering and clawed back some bonuses paid to senior executives in the past.

Continue reading the main story

If HSBC had been indicted for these offences, that would have meant that the US government and others could no longer have conducted business with it, which would have been humiliating and highly damaging.”

End Quote

It also said it expected to reach an agreement with the UK’s Financial Services Authority shortly.

Last month it announced it had set aside $ 1.5bn to cover the costs of any settlement or fines.

The news followed the announcement of a similar but much smaller settlement with UK-based Standard Chartered bank, which will pay $ 300m in fines for violating US sanctions.

The cases are seen as part of a crackdown on money laundering and sanctions violations being led by federal government agencies and New York state authorities.

Senate criticism

The settlement had been widely expected following a report by the US Senate, published earlier this year, that was heavily critical of HSBC’s money laundering controls.

The report alleged that:

• HSBC in the US had not treated its Mexican affiliate as high risk, despite the country’s money laundering and drug trafficking challenges


• The Mexican bank had transported $ 7bn in US bank notes to HSBC in the US, more than any other Mexican bank, but had not considered that to be suspicious


• It had circumvented US safeguards designed to block transactions involving terrorists drug lords and rogue states, including allowing 25,000 transactions over seven years without disclosing their links to Iran


• Providing US dollars and banking services to some banks in Saudi Arabia despite their links to terrorist financing


• In less than four years it had cleared $ 290m in “obviously suspicious” US travellers’ cheques for a Japanese bank, benefiting Russians who claimed to be in the used car business

The report suggested HSBC accounts in Mexico and the US were being used by drug barons to launder money.

BBC business editor Robert Peston said that as big as the $ 1.9bn penalty looks, it could have been much worse.

“HSBC has signed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for breaches of the US Bank Secrecy Act, the Trading with the Enemy Act and assorted money laundering offences. This is in effect putting the bank on probation,” he said.

“But if HSBC had been indicted for these offences, that would have meant that the US government and others could no longer have conducted business with it, which would have been humiliating and highly damaging.”

‘Failures’

The bank stressed that it had taken on new senior management since the time the problems happened.

Lord Green was chairman of HSBC from 2006 until late 2010 and is now Minister of State for Trade and Investment.

In a statement, his department said: “The report by the US Senate Sub-Committee sets out in detail the evidence submitted to it, and the action taken by HSBC to ensure compliance with US regulations at the time that Lord Green was group chairman. It is for HSBC to respond to this report.”

HSBC has announced it has appointed a former US official to work as its head of financial crime compliance, which is a new position.

Bob Werner was previously the head of the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) – the agency responsible for enforcing the US sanctions on countries including Iran.

He will be responsible for beefing up HSBC’s anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance systems.

It is unclear what impact the case will have on HSBC’s business. The bank is the biggest in Europe by market capitalisation, and made pre-tax profits of $ 12.7bn for the first six months of 2012.

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Corruption probe shrouds Quebec in new darkness

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Half a century ago, a new crop of Quebec leaders sparked the so-called Quiet Revolution to eradicate the “Great Darkness” – decades of corruption that kept Canada‘s French-speaking province under the dominance of one party and the Catholic church.

The revolution’s reforms, including cleaning up the way lawmakers were elected and secularizing the education system, seemed to work, paving the way for decades of growth, progress and prominence as Canada emerged as a model of democracy.

Fifty years later, a public inquiry into corruption and government bid-rigging suggests the province’s politics are not as clean as Quebecers had hoped or believed.

Since May, when the inquiry opened in Montreal, Canadians have been getting daily doses of revelations of fraud through live broadcasts on French-language television stations. Corruption involving the Mafia, construction bosses and politicians, the inquiry has shown, drove up the average building cost of municipal contracts by more than 30 percent in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city.

Last month, Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay resigned as did the mayor of nearby Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt. Both denied doing anything wrong, but said they could not govern amid the accusations of corruption involving rigging of municipal contracts, kickbacks from the contracts and illegal financing of elections.

Tremblay has not been charged by police. Vaillancourt’s homes and offices have been raided several times by Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, which operates independently of the inquiry, but no charges have been filed against him either. Police said the raids were part of an investigation but they would not release further details.

“Quebecers lived for several years under the impression that they had found the right formula, that their parties were clean,” said Pierre Martin, political science professor at the University of Montreal. Now, he said, “people at all levels are fed up.”

The inquiry must submit its final report to the Quebec government by next October. It has exposed practices worthy of a Hollywood noir thriller – a mob boss stuffing his socks with money, rigged construction contracts, call girls offered as gifts, and a party fundraiser with so much cash he could not close the door of his safe.

“Even though we are in the early days, what is emerging is a pretty troubling portrait of the way public contracts were awarded,” said Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in Montreal.

Quebec’s Liberals, the force behind the Quiet Revolution, launched the inquiry as rumors of corruption swirled. The government then called an election for September, a year ahead of schedule, in what was seen as an attempt to stop damaging testimony hurting its popularity.

The tactic did not help. Jean Charest’s Liberals lost to the Parti Quebecois, whose ultimate aim is to take the French-speaking province, the size of Western Europe, out of Canada.

‘IT WASN’T COMPLICATED’

According to allegations at the inquiry, the corruption helped three main entities: the construction bosses who colluded to bid on contracts, the Montreal Mafia dons who swooped in for their share, and the municipal politicians who received kickbacks to finance campaigns.

In Quebec, the Mafia has been dominated by the Rizzuto family, with tentacles to the rest of Canada and crime families in New York and abroad. But recently the syndicate has been facing challenges from other crime groups in Montreal, according to the Toronto-based Mafia analyst and author Antonio Nicaso.

The reputed godfather of the syndicate, Vito Rizzuto, has been subpoenaed to appear before the commission, but the date for his testimony has not been set.

The hearings have zeroed in on four construction bosses and how their companies worked with the Mafia, bribed municipal engineers and provided funds for mayoralty campaigns in Montreal, the business capital for Quebec’s 8 million people.

“It’s not good for the economy,” said Martin. “It’s not good for any kind of legitimate business that tries to enter into any kind of long-term relationship with the public sector.”

Quebec’s anti-corruption squad has arrested 35 people so far this year, staging well-publicized raids on mayoral offices and on construction and engineering companies. The squad has arrested civil servants and owners of construction companies, among others.

“I now must suffer an unbearable injustice,” Tremblay said in a somber resignation speech earlier this month after a decade as mayor of Montreal, saying he could not continue in office because the allegations of corruption were causing a paralysis at City Hall.

Some of the most explosive allegations at the inquiry, headed by Quebec Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau, came from Lino Zambito, owner of a now bankrupt construction company, and from a top worker for Tremblay’s political party, Union Montreal.

Zambito, who is seen as one of the smaller players and who also faces fraud charges, described a system of collusion between organized crime, business cartels and corrupt civil servants, with payments made according to a predetermined formula.

“The entrepreneurs made money, and there was an amount that was due to the Mafia,” Zambito told the inquiry. “It wasn’t complicated.”

Zambito said the Mafia got 2.5 percent of the value of a contract, 3 percent went to Union Montreal and 1 percent to the engineer tasked with inflating contract prices.

Tremblay did not respond to emails requesting comment on the allegations of corruption at city hall.

A former party organizer, Martin Dumont, alleged the mayor was aware of double bookkeeping used to hide illegal funding during a 2004 election.

Dumont said the mayor walked out of the room during a meeting that explained the double bookkeeping system, saying he did not want to know anything about it.

Dumont also described how he was called into the office of a fundraiser for Union Montreal to help close the door of a safe because it was too full of money.

“I think it was the largest amount I’d ever seen in my life,” Dumont said at the inquiry.

GOLF, HOCKEY, ESCORTS

The inquiry also saw videos linking construction company players with Mafia bosses. In one police surveillance video, a Mafia boss was seen stuffing cash into his socks.

A retired city of Montreal engineer, Gilles Surprenant, described how he first accepted a bribe in the late 1980s after being “intimidated” by a construction company owner. Over the years he said he accepted over $ 700,000 from the owners in return for inflating the price of the contracts.

Another retired engineer, Luc Leclerc, admitted to bagging half a million dollars for the same service. He said the system was well-known to many at city hall and simply part of the “business culture” in Montreal. He also got gifts and paid golf trips to the Caribbean with other businessmen and Mafia bosses.

Gilles Vezina, who is currently suspended from his job as a city engineer, concurred.

“It was part of our business relationships to get advantages like golf, hockey, Christmas gifts” from construction bosses, he told the inquiry in mid-November.

The gifts didn’t stop there. Vezina said he was twice offered the services of prostitutes from different construction bosses in the 1980s or early 1990s, which he said he refused.

The accusations are jarring for a country that prides itself on being one of the least corrupt places in the world, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International. But experts say corruption in Montreal was something of an open secret.

“The alarm signals have been going off here for 20 years and no one has done anything,” said Andre Cedilot, a former journalist who co-wrote a book on the Canadian Mafia.

Quebec’s new government has introduced legislation tasking the province’s securities regulator with vetting businesses vying for public contracts and allowing it to block companies that do not measure up.

Anti-corruption activist Jonathan Brun was not optimistic.

“You’ve got to use modern technology,” said Brun, a co-founder of Quebec Ouvert, a group that wants to make all information about contracts freely available rather than asking regulators to oversee individual companies. “You’ve got to change the entire system if you really want to fight corruption.”

(Writing by Russ Blinch; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Mary Milliken and Prudence Crowther)

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Microsoft ups Surface production, to sell in more stores

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp has stepped up manufacturing of the Surface tablet, its new device designed to counter Apple Inc‘s iPad, and will introduce it to third-party retailers this week.

The moves suggest Microsoft is seeing some demand for its first own-brand computer in the crucial holiday shopping season, although it has yet to divulge any sales figures.

“The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see,” said Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft’s Surface project, which forms part of the company’s Windows unit.

“We’ve increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface,” said Panay, but gave no details of how many extra units were being produced.

Panay did not mention names of retailers that will sell the Surface, but separately office equipment retailer Staples Inc said it would stock the tablet from Wednesday.

He said the Surface would also be on sale at retailers in Australia from mid-December, with more countries to follow in the next few months.

Since launch in late October, the Surface has only been sold by Microsoft itself, in its own brick and mortar stores in the United States and Canada and online in Australia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

The only Surface model available now – officially called Surface with Windows RT – runs a version of Windows created to work on the low-power chips designed by ARM Holdings, which dominate smartphones and tablets but are incompatible with old Windows applications.

It starts at $ 499 for the 32 gigabyte version plus $ 120 for a thin cover that doubles as a keyboard.

A larger, heavier tablet – called Surface with Windows 8 Pro – will be introduced in January, running on an Intel Corp chip that works with all Microsoft’s Windows and Office applications. Microsoft plans to price the new Surface from $ 899 for a 64 gigabyte version.

The world’s largest software company also said it would keep its chain of ‘pop-up’ holiday stores open into the new year and will convert them into permanent retail outlets or what it called “specialty store locations”.

Microsoft’s recent push into physical retail – following Apple’s great success – has resulted in 31 permanent stores plus 34 holiday ‘pop-up’ stores in the U.S. and Canada.

If Microsoft converted each of the temporary stores into permanent outlets it would have 65 stores, still well below Apple with almost 400 worldwide.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle, Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore)

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‘Skyfall’ launches back to top spot with $10.8M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The James Bond blockbuster “Skyfall” has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $ 10.8 million.

That brought its domestic total to $ 261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $ 918 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “Skyfall,” Sony, $ 10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $ 3,170 average, $ 261,400,281, five weeks.

2. “Rise of the Guardians,” Paramount, $ 10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $ 2,858 average, $ 61,774,192, three weeks.

3. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2,” Summit, $ 9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $ 2,511 average, $ 268,691,029, four weeks.

4. “Lincoln,” $ 8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $ 4,427 average, $ 97,137,447, five weeks.

5. “Life of Pi,” Fox, $ 8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $ 2,828 average, $ 60,948,293, three weeks.

6. “Playing For Keeps,” FilmDistrict, $ 5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $ 2,027 average, $ 5,750,288, one week.

7. “Wreck-It Ralph,” Disney, $ 4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $ 1,770 average, $ 164,402,934, six weeks.

8. “Red Dawn,” FilmDistrict, $ 4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $ 1,538 average, $ 37,240,920, three weeks.

9. “Flight,” Paramount, $ 3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $ 1,288 average, $ 86,202,541, six weeks.

10. “Killing Them Softly,” Weinstein Co., $ 2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $ 1,158 average, $ 11,830,638, two weeks.

11. “Silver Linings Playbook,” Weinstein Co., $ 2,171,665, 371 locations, $ 5,854 average, $ 13,964,405, four weeks.

12. “Anna Karenina,” Focus, $ 1,544,859, 422 locations, $ 3,661 average, $ 6,603,042, four weeks.

13. “The Collection,” LD Entertainment, $ 1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $ 1,060 average, $ 5,455,328, two weeks.

14. “Argo,” Warner Bros., $ 1,482,346, 944 locations, $ 1,570 average, $ 103,160,015, nine weeks.

15. “End of Watch,” Open Road Films, $ 751,623, 1,259 locations, $ 597 average, $ 39,989,766, 12 weeks.

16. “Hitchcock,” Fox Searchlight, $ 712,544, 181 locations, $ 3,937 average, $ 1,661,670, three weeks.

17. “Talaash,” Reliance Big Pictures, $ 449,195, 161 locations, $ 2,790 average, $ 2,397,909, two weeks.

18. “Taken 2,” Fox, $ 387,227, 430 locations, $ 901 average, $ 137,700,304, 10 weeks.

19. “Pitch Perfect,” Universal, $ 305,765, 387 locations, $ 790 average, $ 63,517,408, 11 weeks.

20. “The Sessions,” Fox, $ 218,973, 197 locations, $ 1,112 average, $ 4,948,342, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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More “fiscal cliff” talks but neither side giving ground

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner’s office held more negotiations on Monday on ways to break the “fiscal cliff” stalemate, although neither side showed any public signs that they were ready to give ground.

The talks gained urgency after Republican Boehner met at the White House with President Barack Obama on Sunday, raising hopes of progress in averting the onset of tax increases and spending cuts that kicks in on January 1 unless Congress intervenes.

But while striking a more conciliatory tone, both sides kept to a familiar script in the weeks-long standoff. Obama renewed his call for higher tax rates for the richest Americans, which most Republicans oppose, while Republican leaders urged Obama to submit a new offer with specific spending cuts he would back.

Economists say going over the fiscal cliff could throw the U.S. economy back into a recession.

On a road trip to Michigan to drum up support for his stance, Obama said he was willing to compromise on some things but not on his demand that Republicans support an increase in tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

“What you need is a package that keeps taxes where they are for middle-class families, we make some tough spending cuts on things that we don’t need, and then we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate, and that’s a principle I won’t compromise on,” Obama said during a visit to an auto plant in Redford, Michigan.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said Republicans were still waiting for the president to make a new offer that identifies the spending cuts he will make in the deficit-reduction negotiations.

“The Republican offer made last week remains the Republican offer,” Steel said, adding the two sides were holding staff-level talks on Monday.

Boehner and the House Republican leadership submitted their terms for a deal to the White House last week, after Obama presented his opening proposal. Both sides seek to cut budget deficits by more than $ 4 trillion over the next 10 years but differ drastically on how to get there.

Boehner and Republicans oppose letting any tax rates increase and prefer to find new revenues by closing loopholes and limiting deductions. Republicans also want deeper spending cuts than Obama has offered in entitlements like the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs.

Democrats have insisted that tax rates for the richest must be nailed down before negotiating further on how to proceed with tax reform efforts or new spending cuts in entitlement programs.

‘A DEAL IS POSSIBLE’

“I can only say that the president believes that a deal is possible,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on the flight to Michigan. “But it requires acceptance and acknowledgement in a concrete way by Republicans that the top 2 percent will see an increase in their rates.”

Financial markets have calmed recently after a series of wild swings, when nearly every utterance from a politician about the looming budget crisis caused volatility in stock prices.

Polling shows most Americans would blame Republicans if the country goes over the cliff, and pressure has been building from some Republicans for Boehner to get an agreement quickly, even if it means tax hikes on the wealthiest.

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee called for a quick deal with the White House to allow an extension of the lower tax rates that have been in place for about a decade, except for the top two rates that Obama wants to raise.

“Right now there is no question in my mind the president has the slight upper hand in the negotiations,” Corker said on CNBC on Monday.

He said there was support among Senate Republicans for taking that step so the fiscal cliff negotiations could then shift to focusing on how to restrain the growing costs of Medicare and other entitlement programs.

“If you did it this week (agree to raising tax rates on the richest) you’d have the rest of this month to have the focus totally on entitlements,” said Corker, who has a record of reaching out to Democrats on major bills.

More conservative Senate Republicans, most notably Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, also have signaled a willingness to let tax rates rise on higher-income groups.

Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the so-called Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission, said he thought chances were improving for a deal.

“I think the atmospherics are getting so much better. We have kind of gotten out of Kabuki theater and gone to dancing the tango,” Bowles told CNBC on Monday. “Any time you start to tango you’ve got a chance.”

Bowles said he did not expect the president to give in on his demand that taxes rise for the top 2 percent of earners.

“I would almost guarantee that rates are going to go up for people in the top 2 percent,” he said.

U.S. stocks edged higher on Monday but moves remained muted as investors looked for any signs of movement on the fiscal cliff front.

The S&P 500 index has nearly retraced the 5.3 percent slide it suffered in the first seven sessions after the November 6 presidential election.

“The sentiment has definitely changed,” said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co in New York. “The market has become somewhat desensitized to headlines out of Washington because the fear of the economy hitting a wall in 2013 if we don’t get a deal done has diminished.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Jeff Mason, Thomas Ferraro, Susan Heavey and Franklin Paul; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)

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With Chavez Ailing, Venezuela is Front and (More) Center

Is Chavismo, the brand of export-ready, nose-thumbing leftism practiced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, much possible with him no longer in power?

Unlikely, says the market, which has bid up Venezuelan debt, sending benchmark yields to a five-year low, on speculation that the ex-paratrooper will be unable to complete his third term after acknowledging the return of his cancer. The country’s bonds are up 45 percent this year, the second-best showing in all emerging markets, next to tiny Côte d’Ivoire. The Caracas stock exchange—oxymoronic, if you think about it—is up nearly 300 percent year-to-date.

Since taking office in 1998, Chavez, 58, has expropriated more than 1,000 companies and pushed through price controls to turn South America’s biggest oil producer into an example of socialism.

On Monday, Chavez shuttled back to Cuba for further surgery after exhorting his countrymen to vote for Vice President Nicolas Maduro if he is unable to stay in office. Just two months after winning re-election for a third six-year term,“El Comandante” was out of the public eye for three weeks leading up to Dec. 7.

“Any successor, whether from the opposition, or handpicked by him, will be more moderate, more market-friendly than Chavez has been,” says Kathryn Rooney Vera, a macroeconomic strategist with Miami-based Bulltick Capital Markets.

The average yields on the South American country’s dollar debt fell to 9.4 percent on Dec. 6, the lowest since February 2008, after rising as high as 11.51 percent following Chavez’s reelection, according to the JPMorgan EMBI Global Index (JPM). The yield on Venezuela’s dollar bonds due 2027 is at its the lowest since November 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“This is not Cuba, nor is it a monarchy where a king designates the next king,” remarked Henrique Capriles, the economically more moderate candidate who opposed Chavez in October, on Sunday. “The last word belongs to the people.” Translation: Capriles is raring for another chance at the presidency.

Venezuelan law stipulates that if Chavez cannot carry out his duties, his vice president would take over until the beginning of a new presidential term on Jan. 10. Should Chavez then not be able to attend his inauguration, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly would assume power while elections are arranged within 30 days. If Chavez does take office but falls too ill within his first four years, his vice president would assume the presidency for 30 days while elections are held.

Venezuela remains one of the more peculiar stories in all emerging marketdom. Thanks to underinvestment by Chavez and state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, the country has experienced declining oil production despite having the world’s largest proven reserves—an especially costly missed opportunity for an economy with such high fiscal deficits, under a ruler whose time in office has coincided with oil prices soaring from $ 10 a barrel to triple digits. Even so, Chavez has never defaulted on the nation’s external debt.

Bulltick’s Vera thinks a change of presidential power—particularly a Capriles ascension—could keep pushing down Venezuela’s benchmark borrowing costs to as little as a third of the yield they hit last year.

That speaks volumes about the clout one man has had on a nation’s reputation with markets. “To oversee 14 years of economic decay and still remain so popular …,” she says, “well, no one has Chavez’s charisma.”

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Egypt army given temporary power to arrest civilians

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Islamist president has given the army temporary power to arrest civilians during a constitutional referendum he is determined to push through despite the risk of bloodshed between his supporters and opponents accusing him of a power grab.

Seven people were killed and hundreds wounded last week in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and their critics besieging Mohamed Mursi’s graffiti-daubed presidential palace. Both sides plan mass rallies on Tuesday.

The elite Republican Guard has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the palace, which it ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades after last week’s violence.

Mursi, bruised by calls for his downfall, has rescinded a November 22 decree giving him wide powers but is going ahead with a referendum on Saturday on a constitution seen by his supporters as a triumph for democracy and by many liberals as a betrayal.

A decree issued by Mursi late on Sunday gives the armed forces the power to arrest civilians and refer them to prosecutors until the announcement of the results of the referendum, which the protesters want cancelled.

Despite its limited nature, the edict will revive memories of Hosni Mubarak’s emergency law, also introduced as a temporary expedient, under which military or state security courts tried thousands of political dissidents and Islamist militants.

But a military source stressed that the measure introduced by a civilian government would have a short shelf-life.

“The latest law giving the armed forces the right to arrest anyone involved in illegal actions such as burning buildings or damaging public sites is to ensure security during the referendum only,” the military source said.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said the committee overseeing the vote had requested the army’s assistance.

“The armed forces will work within a legal framework to secure the referendum and will return (to barracks) as soon as the referendum is over,” Ali said.

Protests and violence have racked Egypt since Mursi decreed himself extraordinary powers he said were needed to speed up a troubled transition since Mubarak’s fall 22 months ago.

The Muslim Brotherhood has voiced anger at the Interior Ministry’s failure to prevent protesters setting fire to its headquarters in Cairo and 28 of its offices elsewhere.

Critics say the draft law puts Egypt in a religious straitjacket. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the crisis has polarized the country and presages more instability at a time when Mursi is trying to steady a fragile economy.

On Monday, he suspended planned tax increases only hours after the measures had been formally decreed, casting doubts on the government’s ability to push through tough economic reforms that form part of a proposed $ 4.8 billion IMF loan agreement.

“VIOLENT CONFRONTATION”

Rejecting the referendum plan, opposition groups have called for mass protests on Tuesday, saying Mursi’s eagerness to push the constitution through could lead to “violent confrontation”.

Islamists have urged their followers to turn out “in millions” the same day in a show of support for the president and for a referendum they feel sure of winning with their loyal base and perhaps with the votes of Egyptians weary of turmoil.

The opposition National Salvation Front, led by liberals such as Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa, as well as leftist firebrand Hamdeen Sabahy, has yet to call directly for a boycott of the referendum or to urge their supporters to vote “no”.

Instead it is contesting the legitimacy of the vote and of the whole process by which the constitution was drafted in an Islamist-led assembly from which their representatives withdrew.

The opposition says the document fails to embrace the diversity of 83 million Egyptians, a tenth of whom are Christians, and invites Muslim clerics to influence lawmaking.

But debate over the details has largely given way to noisy street protests and megaphone politics, keeping Egypt off balance and ill-equipped to deal with a looming economic crisis.

“Inevitability of referendum deepens divisions,” was the headline in Al-Gomhuriya newspaper on Monday. Al Ahram daily wrote: “Political forces split over referendum and new decree.”

Mursi issued another decree on Saturday to supersede his November 22 measure putting his own decisions beyond legal challenge until a new constitution and parliament are in place.

While he gave up extra powers as a sop to his opponents, the decisions already taken under them, such as the dismissal of a prosecutor-general appointed by Mubarak, remain intact.

“UNWELCOME” CHOICE

Lamia Kamel, a spokeswoman for former Arab League chief Moussa, said the opposition factions were still discussing whether to boycott the referendum or call for a “no” vote.

“Both paths are unwelcome because they really don’t want the referendum at all,” she said, but predicted a clearer opposition line if the plebiscite went ahead as planned.

A spokeswoman for ElBaradei, former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said: “We do not acknowledge the referendum. The aim is to change the decision and postpone it.”

Mahmoud Ghozlan, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman, said the opposition could stage protests, but should keep the peace.

“They are free to boycott, participate or say no, they can do what they want. The important thing is that it remains in a peaceful context to preserve the country’s safety and security.”

The army stepped into the conflict on Saturday, telling all sides to resolve their disputes via dialogue and warning that it would not allow Egypt to enter a “dark tunnel”.

A military source said the declaration read on state media did not herald a move by the army to retake control of Egypt, which it relinquished in June after managing the transition from Mubarak’s 30 years of military-backed one-man rule.

The draft constitution sets up a national defense council, in which generals will form a majority, and gives civilians some scrutiny over the army – although not enough for critics.

In August Mursi stripped the generals of sweeping powers they had grabbed when he was elected two months earlier, but has since repeatedly paid tribute to the military in public.

So far the army and police have taken a relatively passive role in the protests roiling the most populous Arab nation.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair and Yasmine Saleh; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld. For example:  

Kramer is under investigation for heavy torrenting. Jerry’s new girlfriend writes an extremely graphic blog. George discovers Banh Mi.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

The man behind the account, BuzzFeed’s sports editor Jack Moore, started tweeting out scenarios with his friend, comedian Josh Gondelman, and then decided that the joke merited its own account. Moore is a Seinfeld fanatic himself: “I’m pretty much constantly watching episodes in the background while I’m doing anything,” he told us in an email. “I have a thumb drive with the whole series on it that I keep in my bag pretty much all the time.” 

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So far, the modern-day episode summaries ring true, despite warnings from Gawker last year that classic episodes wouldn’t have worked if the characters just had the use of newfangled technology. “It would be different but not as different as everyone acts like,” Moore wrote to us. “People always say that ‘if they had cell phones Seinfeld couldn’t exist,’ which is true for a certain type of Seinfeld episode, but not as a general rule (which I think the account shows).” 

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The account makes it obvious that Internet apps and 2012 trends would create the same awkward situations that Seinfeld thrived on. For example: 

Kramer uses grinder to meet new friends, doesn’t know it’s a gay hook-up app. Jerry refuses to admit he cried on @wtfpod.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

Elaine has a bad waiter at a nice restaurant, her negative Yelp review goes viral, she gets banned. Kramer accidentally joins the Tea Party.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

George thinks his GF is faking a gluten-intolerance, feeds her real cookies, sending her to the ER. Autocorrect ruins Jerry’s relationship.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

We kind of really want to see some of these made, actually. Reunion special? 

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Bond movie “Skyfall” beats “Lincoln” at box office

(Reuters) – James Bond showed remarkable staying power as the latest installment of the spy series, “Skyfall,” captured the box office title and collected $ 11 million in its fifth week in U.S. and Canadian movie theaters, outgunning Steven Spielberg‘s “Lincoln” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” the final installment of the blockbuster vampire series.

“Skyfall,” the 23rd film in the series featuring Agent 007, also led movies at the box office when it first opened on November 2 and is already the best-selling movie in the 49-year old series. This weekend, it became the highest grossing movie in Sony Pictures‘ history with $ 918 million in ticket sales worldwide. The film distributed by Sony‘s Hollywood studio, has collected nearly $ 262 million in domestic sales, according to the movie tracking site Hollywood.com.

The animated “Rise of the Guardians” from Dreamworks Animation was second with $ 10.5 million in ticket sales. The movie, which was made for $ 145 million, opened with a disappointing $ 23.8 million when it first hit movie theaters on November 21. Since then, it has been steadily working its way toward becoming a solid family hit this season.

“Rise of the Guardians, which features Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and other childhood favorites who join together to save the world, was one of two family movies in a season traditionally heavy in family films. The other, Disney’s “Wreck-it Ralph,” collected $ 4.9 million for seventh place.

“Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” the box office leader for the past three weeks, tallied $ 9.2 million in ticket sales. The five-movie series, released by Lions Gate Entertainment, is based on Stephenie Meyer‘s best-selling book about young vampire love and has collected more than $ 1.3 billion in overall domestic ticket sales.

“Lincoln,” which chronicles the 16th president’s successful fight to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery, had total ticket sales of $ 9.1 million, according to studio estimates provided by the box office division of Hollywood.com.

“Life of Pi,” director Ang Lee’s movie about a boy who escapes a shipwreck but then shares his lifeboat with a tiger, sold $ 8.3 million in tickets to finish in fifth place. The movie, released by the Fox studio, is based on a best-selling 2001 novel by Yann Martel.

Hollywood studios shied away from scheduling major movies this weekend, steering clear of the expected blockbuster “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which Warner Brothers will release on December 14. The movie, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy novel about wizards and dwarves, features many of the same actors from the blockbuster “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

The only new major release, the romantic comedy “Playing for Keeps” starring Gerard Butler and Jessica Biel, opened with a lackluster $ 6 million, which was on target with forecasts by industry experts.

(Reporting by Ronald Grover and Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Bill Trott and Jackie Frank)

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Health workers march in Spain’s capital against cuts, reforms

MADRID (Reuters) – Thousands of health workers, on strike since last month, marched on Sunday in Madrid to protest against budget cuts and plans from the Spanish capital’s regional government to privatize the management of public hospitals and medical centers.

It was the third time doctors, nurses and health workers have rallied since the local authorities put forward a plan in October to place six hospitals and dozens of medical practices under private management. The plan also calls for patients to be charged a fee of 1 euro for prescriptions.

Workers launched an indefinite strike last month against the plan, which has not been endorsed by the centre-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Health workers in the capital are striking Monday-Thursday each week and seeing patients only on Fridays, while also responding to emergencies.

Spain’s 17 autonomous regions control health and education policies and spending. They have all had to implement steep cuts this year as the country struggles to meet tough European Union-agreed deficit targets.

Dressed in white scrubs, the protesters shouted slogans such as “Health is not for sale” and “Health 100 percent public, no to privatizations”.

“Of course, privatization can be reversed. Actually the question is not if it can be reversed, because privatization should never have a future,” said Luis Alvarez, an unemployed man from Madrid attending the demonstration.

Belen Padilla, a doctor at Madrid’s hospital Gregorio Maranon, said one million citizens had already signed a petition rejecting the plan.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Julien Toyer; Editing by Peter Graff)

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