SC to examine Radia tapes for criminality

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that it would run a random check on Radia tapes to look for any instance of suspected criminality which needed to be probed by the CBI.

A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya said that they would pass the order on January 22 — a timeframe during which it would randomly pick up two-three of the several 48 envelopes containing the transcript of 5,831 calls made from and to the phones of Niira Radia, an influential corporate lobbyist.

The tapes — a cache of colourful elite chatter including conversations among corporate lobbyists and politicians and others — were recorded by the Income Tax department between August, 2008, and July, 2009, causing sensation when they mysteriously surfaced, with many citing the contents as illustrating the growing corporate influence on policymaking.

"We will decide this after opening two or three envelops whether further investigations were needed and indicate the areas in which the probe must focus on. We won't look into innocuous conversation," the bench said indicating that private conversations would not figure in the scrutiny process.

After excerpts of Radia tapes had surfaced in public domain on being published by a section of media, industrialist Ratan Tata moved the court in November, 2010, seeking ban on further publications and demanding protection of his right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Of the intercepted 5,831 telephonic conversation, the CBI while investigating into the irregular allotment of 2G spectrum during A Raja's tenure as telecom minister, had looked into some of them and had told the court that no criminality was found in those conversation. But, on September 6, 2012, the court had asked the I-T department to transcribe each and every intercepted telephone call.

Additional solicitor general Amarjit Singh Chandiok submitted the transcript of the entire Radia tape running into 48 volumes, of which 10 were submitted earlier.

The bench said, "After going through the contents of two or three of the envelopes, if we find criminality in the conversations, we will direct the CBI to probe further. Contents of one or two envelopes will primarily indicate the nature of the conversations and the further action needed."

The bench fixed January 22 for passing further orders even as additional solicitor general Harin Raval volunteered to constitute a team of CBI officers to scrutinize the contents of entire Radia tape conversation transcripts contained in 48 envelopes.

NGO Centre for public Interest Litigation through counsel Prashant Bhushan requested the court to appoint an independent team or amicus curiae to examine the transcripts and determine which conversations reflected criminal conspiracy to either defraud the country or commit an economic offence.

The case lies at the intersection of the dueling considerations of nation's security and citizen's right to privacy. The income tax department had intercepted Radia telephones after the finance ministry received a complaint against her. The department got the home ministry's permission to intercept her telephones for 120 days beginning August 20, 2008. It secured a fresh nod in May 2009 for an identical period.

Of the 5,831 call intercepts detailed in the Radia tapes, which were handed over by the I-T department to CBI on November 26, 2009, for a detailed investigation into the 2G spectrum scam, many were of a private nature.

A joint affidavit filed by the ministries of home and finance and I-T department in the apex court had said, "A complaint was received by the finance minister in 2007, alleging that Radia had built up an empire of Rs 300 crore and that she was an agent of foreign intelligence agencies indulging in anti-national activities." On this complaint, it was directed that the matter be examined, they had said.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Accused Shooter Was 'Relaxed' After Massacre

Two veteran police officers broke down on the stand today during a preliminary hearing for accused movie theater gunman James Holmes, with one officer choking up when he described finding the body of a 6-year-old girl inside the theater.

Sgt. Gerald Jonsgaard needed a moment to compose himself as he described finding the little girl, Veronica Moser Sullivan, in the blood splattered theater in Aurora, Colo.

An officer felt for a pulse and thought Veronica was still alive, Jonsgaard said, but the officer then realized he was feeling his own pulse.

A preliminary hearing for Holmes began today in Colorado, with victims and families present. He is accused of killing 12 people and wounded dozens more in the movie theater massacre. One of Veronica's relatives likened attending the hearing to having to "face the devil."

The officers wiped away tears as they described the horror they found inside of theater nine.

Officer Justin Grizzle recounted seeing bodies lying motionless on the floor, surrounded by so much blood he nearly slipped and fell.

Grizzle, a former paramedic, says ambulances had not yet made it to the theater, so he began loading victims into his patrol car and driving to the hospital.

"I knew I needed to get them to the hospital now, " Grizzle said, tearing up. "I didn't want anyone else to die."

Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo

Aurora, Colorado Gunman: Neuroscience PhD Student Watch Video

Grizzle drove six victims in four trips, saying that by the end there was so much blood in his patrol car he could hear it "sloshing around."

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

An officer who took the stand earlier today described Holmes as "relaxed" and "detached" when police confronted him just moments after the shooting stopped.

The first two officers to testify today described responding to the theater and spotting Holmes standing by his car at the rear of the theater on July 20, 2012. He allegedly opened fire in the crowded theater during the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Officer Jason Oviatt said he first thought Holmes was a cop because he was wearing a gas mask and helmet, but as he got closer realized he was not an officer and held Holmes at gunpoint.

Throughout the search and arrest, Holes was extremely compliant, the officer said.

"He was very, very relaxed," Oviatt said. "These were not normal reactions to anything. He seemed very detached from it all."

Oviatt said Holmes had extremely dilated pupils and smelled badly when he was arrested.

Officer Aaron Blue testified that Holmes volunteered that he had four guns and that there were "improvised explosive devices" in his apartment and that they would go off if the police triggered them.

Holmes was dressed for the court hearing in a red jumpsuit and has brown hair and a full beard. He did not show any reaction when the officers pointed him out in the courtroom.

This is the most important court hearing in the case so far, essentially a mini-trial as prosecutors present witness testimony and evidence—some never before heard—to outline their case against the former neuroscience student.

The hearing at the Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo., could last all week. At the end, Judge William Sylvester will decide whether the case will go to trial.

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Five accused in India rape case charged in court

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of raping and murdering an Indian student were read the charges in a near-empty courtroom on Monday after the judge cleared out lawyers for bickering over whether the men deserved a defense.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died two weeks after being gang-raped and beaten on a moving bus in New Delhi, then thrown bleeding onto the street. Protests followed, along with a fierce public debate over police failure to stem rampant violence against women.

With popular anger simmering against the five men and a teenager accused in the case, most lawyers in the district where the trial will be held refuse to represent them.

Before the men arrived for a pre-trial hearing on Monday, heckling broke out in a chamber packed with jostling lawyers, journalists and members of the public after two of the lawyers, Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand, offered to defend the men.

"We are living in a modern society," declared Lal Sharma, defending his decision. "We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right ... to defend themselves."

One woman lawyer prodded V. K. Anand in the chest, saying: "I'll see how you can represent the accused."

Unable to restore order, presiding magistrate Namrita Aggarwal ordered everyone to leave except the prosecution, and set police to guard the entrance.

She said the trial would now be held behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of the case.

FACES COVERED

Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail and walking, their faces covered, through a metal detector into the South Delhi court building.

The court was across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before she was attacked on her way home.

Aggarwal gave the men copies of the charges, which include murder, rape and abduction, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.

Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the men have no lawyers.

If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange a defense, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.

Two of them, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, have offered to give evidence against the others - Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura - possibly in return for a lighter sentence.

Mohan, describing what he called a heinous crime, said: "The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty."

The case has sharpened long-standing anger against the government and police for a perceived failure to protect women.

A male friend who was assaulted with the woman on December 16 said on Friday that passers-by left her unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour and that, when police arrived, they spent a long time arguing about where to take them.

The woman lived for two weeks after her attack, dying in a Singapore hospital where she had been taken for treatment.

FAST-TRACK COURT

Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. The case is due to move later to another, fast-track court set up since the woman was attacked to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.

Legal experts say the lack of representation for the five men may give grounds for appeal if they are found guilty. Convictions in similar cases have often been overturned years later.

Some legal experts have also warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.

The sixth member of the group alleged to have lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.

The government is aiming to lower the age at which teenagers can be tried as adults, acknowledging public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.

The victim was identified by a British newspaper at the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.

Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them out of the glare of media in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.

The dead woman's father repeated on Monday that he wanted her identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.

"We don't want to hide her identity. There is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.

He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that the perpetrators be hanged.

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Pfeiffer)

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Israel commentators unfazed by Hagel nomination

JERUSALEM: Israeli commentators played down the impact on relations with the United States of Monday's nomination as Pentagon chief of Republican former senator Chuck Hagel, criticised by heavyweights in his own party for being anti-Israel.

"Barack Obama did not choose Chuck Hagel because of his views on Israel and the president will not base his Israel policy on the views of Chuck Hagel", said the commentator of Israel's Channel Two television.

"On the contrary, as the president underlined, he will remain the commander in chief of foreign policy," the commentator said, adding that he did not expect US military aid to Israel of more than US$3 billion a year to be affected if Hagel's appointment was confirmed by the Senate.

The commentator of Channel 10, also privately owned, said Obama had nominated the Republican primarily to help push through major spending cuts within the US military.

He said the one person who might struggle with Hagel as defence secretary was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had bad personal relations with him. Hagel "is not an enemy of Israel but an enemy of Netanyahu," he said.

Rightwing pro-Netanyahu freesheet Israel Hayom said in an editorial before the nomination that his appointment would be "problematic".

"Hagel believes that Israeli-Palestinian conflict destabilises the Middle East. Let's hope there are people in the Pentagon who remind him from time to time of the existence of Iran," it said.

Pro-opposition daily Haaretz countered that Hagel's positions on the peace process were "shared by a large number of Israelis on the centre and left of the political spectrum."

Despite the fact that he is a fellow Republican, heavyweights in his party have accused him of hostility toward Israel and naivety on Iran.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, pointing to Hagel's calls for direct US negotiations with Iran and for Israel to negotiate with Hamas, said he would be "the most antagonistic defence secretary towards the state of Israel in our nation's history."

Another Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas, said he would oppose the nomination, charging it would be the "worst possible message we could send to our friend Israel and the rest of our allies in the Middle East."

Hagel himself pledged on Monday to give his "total support" for Israel.

There is "not one shred of evidence that I'm anti-Israeli, not one vote (of mine) that matters that hurt Israel," he told The Lincoln Journal Star newspaper in his home state of Nebraska.

- AFP/jc

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Trains to fog-hit Delhi running up to 2 days late

NEW DELHI: Sudhir Kumar was to appear for a job interview in Delhi on Monday. To make sure he arrived well in time, the resident of Bhagalpur in Bihar had booked himself in a train that was to reach Delhi on Saturday. But the Bhagalpur Garib Rath that he boarded had not arrived in Delhi till Monday morning. The railway website said the train was 48 hours behind schedule.

Like Kumar, the schedules of thousands of passengers have been thrown totally off-track across fog-hit north India and beyond. The delays this season have been more severe then previous years, exposing the Railways' inability to deal with the situation.

"I waited in the station with my wife and children for more than 20 hours before my train, Purvottar Sampark Kranti Express, finally left the New Delhi station... What's really frustrating is that neither the rail enquiry service nor any official could give me updates on when the train would start," said Tarun Sharma, a passenger.

A hapless Railways is waiting for the weather to clear in the fog zone — a 700km stretch between Ghaziabad and Mughalsarai — for the situation to normalize.

On Monday, 16 express trains and another dozen passenger trains were cancelled. Despite that at least seven trains was delayed by over 20 hours and another 16 for more than 10 hours.
The Rewa-Anand Vihar Express was 33 hours late, the Porvortar Sampark Kranti Express by 26 hours, the West Bengal Samparkranti Express also by 26 hours and the Bihar Sampark Kranti by 30 hours. Sources in north central railway said shallow fog was setting in from as early as 10.30pm and in the Kanpur-Tundla stretch (which trains enter early morning in order to reach Delhi), it lifts only around 10.15am.

"It is an unusual situation," said a northern railway spokesperson, denying any lack of preparedness. "Everything is put up on enquiry number 139 and we are monitoring each train real time, through GPS. Every delay is put up on the notice board. We are ensuring none of the restrooms get too overcrowded in this challenging weather. We have placed teams led by mechanical and electrical engineers at all our stations and the station master controls the movements of empty coaches entering the washing line. We are readying trains for the return journey within five hours even as the minimum primary and secondary maintenance requires at least four to six hours,'' said the spokesperson.

Railway employees deployed at the stations felt the failure of the fog safety device to take off has proved. The Railways' preparation to run trains safely in foggy conditions depended on this device.

The GPS-based fog safe device though has failed to produce the desired results during trials in the past two years. The trials were carried out in trains in the Delhi-Ambala section last winter, which is known for its dense fog cover.

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Organ donations fall in Germany after scandal

BERLIN (AP) — Organ donations have dropped sharply in Germany following a scandal over alleged corruption at several transplant clinics.

The German Foundation for Organ Transplantation says the number of organs donated fell almost 13 percent to 3,917 last year, the lowest figure in a decade.

Several German clinics are being investigated over allegations that doctors manipulated waiting lists to help some patients appear sicker than they were and so receive transplants sooner.

The foundation said Monday that the scandal had "massively shaken" the public's faith in the transplant system.

Some 12,000 people in Germany require organ transplants each year.

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GOP Leader McConnell: 'Tax Issue Is Finished'

Jan 6, 2013 10:19am

                                                                                                            (Image Credit: ABC News)

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky., Sunday said he will not accept any new revenue in future deals with congressional Democrats and President Obama.

“The tax issue is finished.  Over. Completed,” McConnell told me on “This Week.” “That’s behind us. Now the question is what are we going to do about the biggest problem confronting our country and that’s our spending addiction.

“We didn’t have this problem because we weren’t taxing enough,” McConnell added.

He blamed Obama and Democrats for waiting to resolve budget issues until the last minute.

Read a transcript of the full interview with Sen. Mitch McConnell HERE.

“Why we end up in these last-minute discussions is beyond me. We need to function,” McConnell said. “I mean, the House of Representatives, for example, passed a budget every year.  They’ve passed appropriation bills.

“The Senate Democratic majority and the president seem to like these last-minute deals.”

McConnell said that the biggest issue facing the country in the next year is the deficit and spending. And he predicted that the issue would occupy the congressional agenda in the first three months of the year, overtaking Obama’s other priorities, including gun control.

“But the biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt,” McConnell said. “That’s going to dominate the Congress between now and the end of March.  None of these issues, I think, will have the kind of priority that spending and debt are going to have over the next two or three months.”

On the expected nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as the secretary of Defense by Obama, McConnell said he would evaluate Hagel’s past statements before determining whether he could support his nomination in the Senate.

“I’m going to take a look at all the things that Chuck has said over the years and review that, and in terms of his qualifications to lead our nation’s military,” McConnell said. “The question we will be answering if he’s the nominee, is do his views make sense for that particular job?  I think he ought to be given a fair hearing, like any other nominee, and he will be.”

McConnell, who in 2008 praised Hagel for his clear voice and stature on foreign policy and national security, now says he will reserve judgment on his possible nomination until after a Senate confirmation hearing.

“I’m going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck’s views square with the job he would be nominated to do,” he added.

Like “This Week” on Facebook here. You can also follow the show on Twitter here.

SHOWS: This Week

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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by foes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.

Although the speech was billed as the unveiling of a new peace plan, Assad offered no concessions and even appeared to harden many of his positions. He rallied Syrians for "a war to defend the nation" and disparaged the prospect of negotiations.

"We do not reject political dialogue ... but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don't believe in any language but killing and terrorism?" Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.

"Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?"

It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital's outskirts.

George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did "not even deserve to be called an initiative":

"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he said.

"The appropriate response is to continue to resist this unacceptable regime and for the Free Syrian Army to continue its work in liberating Syria until every inch of land is free."

The speech was seen by many as a response to U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been meeting U.S. and Russian officials to try to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow over a peace plan. Brahimi also met Assad in Syria late last month.

"Lakhdar Brahimi must feel foolish after that Assad speech, where his diplomacy is dismissed as intolerable intervention," said Rana Kabbani, a Syrian analyst who supports the opposition.

The United States, European Union, Turkey and most Arab states have called on Assad to quit. Russia, which sells arms to and leases a naval base from Syria, says it backs a transition of power but that Assad's departure should not be a precondition for any talks.

REPETITIONS

Assad's foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech: "His remarks are just repetitions of what he's said all along," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one". In a Twitter message, he added: "Death, violence and oppression engulfing Syria are of his own making."

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".

The 47-year-old Assad, tall and mustachioed, in a business suit and tie, spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!"

At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling president waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as "martyrs" of the conflict so far.

"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."

Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.

Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could be intended as a show of strength by a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.

Critics saw irony in the venue: "Assad speech appropriately made in Opera House!" tweeted Rami Khouri, a commentator for Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "It was operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building."

DEATHS

The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge in two years of revolts in Arab states.

Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.

But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.

Assad, an eye doctor, has ruled since 2000, succeeding his late father Hafez, who had seized power in a 1970 coup.

The rebels are drawn mainly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls.

The conflict has heightened confrontation in the Middle East between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab rulers, particularly those in the Gulf who are allied with the West against Tehran.

The plan unveiled in Sunday's speech could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.

Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist radicals. Washington has also labeled one of the main rebel groups a terrorist organization and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with Moscow vetoing U.N. resolutions against Assad.

U.N. mediator Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss his own peace proposal, which does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.

National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni said Assad's speech appeared timed to prevent a breakthrough in those talks, by taking a position that could not be reconciled with diplomacy.

"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Global regulator eases liquidity rules for banks

BASEL: The world's top banking regulatory body on Sunday eased the first global liquidity rules scheduled to start applying to banks in 2015 and aimed at improving their ability to survive financial crises.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said at a press conference that it had widened the definition of the easy-to-sell assets that banks will have to hold to survive periods of stress.

The Basel III standards had been initially proposed in 2010 but banks and financial institutions have since lobbied intensely to make the rules more flexible and result in lower costs for the sector.

The details of the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), which was drafted to avoid a repeat of the 2008 banking crisis and unanimously endorsed on Sunday by the Basel group's top oversight body, give the banks a reprieve.

Its provisions include a much broader definition of the minimum assets every bank needs to hold, making it less costly for them to maintain the required buffer.

"The changes to the definition of the LCR, developed and agreed by the Basel Committee over the past two years, include an expansion in the range of assets eligible as HQLA (high quality liquid assets)," the committee said.

The new LCR's full details will also be fully implemented only in 2019, instead of 2015 as initially proposed.

"Specifically, the LCR will be introduced as planned on 1 January 2015, but the minimum requirement will begin at 60%, rising in equal annual steps of 10 percentage points to reach 100% on 1 January 2019," the Basel group announced.

Mervyn King, Chairman of the Basel group's top oversight body and Governor of the Bank of England, described the agreement announced Sunday as "a very significant achievement."

"For the first time in regulatory history, we have a truly global minimum standard for bank liquidity," said King.

The Basel Committee brings together representatives regulators from 27 nations.

"Importantly, introducing a phased timetable for the introduction of the LCR, and reaffirming that a bank's stock of liquid assets are usable in times of stress, will ensure that the new liquidity standard will in no way hinder the ability of the global banking system to finance a recovery," King said.

Stefan Ingves, chairman of the Basel Committee and of Sweden's Sveriges Riksbank, said the global regulator could now focus on the Net Stable Funding Ration, another pillar of the Basel III reforms.

"The completion of this work will allow the Basel Committee to turn its attention to refining the other component of the new global liquidity standards, the Net Stable Funding Ratio, which remains subject to an observation period ahead of its implementation in 2018," he said.

- AFP/jc

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