web analytics

ARY NEWS

Reuters

  • Immigrants in U.S. should 'speak American': Ex-VP nominee Palin

    “It’s a benefit of Jeb Bush to be able to be so fluent in Spanish, because we have a large and wonderful Hispanic population that is helping to build America,” Palin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    “On the other hand, you know, I think we can send a message and say: ‘You want to be in America? A, you better be here legally, or you’re out of here. B, when you’re here, let’s speak American.’ I mean, that’s just, that’s – let’s speak English,” added Palin, Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

    Palin, who is popular among some U.S. conservatives, said that “a unifying aspect of a nation is the language that is understood by all.” Most of the illegal immigrants in the United States come from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries.

    Bush on Thursday rejected the notion offered by Trump that people should speak only English in the United States. Bush, who is fluent in Spanish and frequently breaks into the language at his events, vowed to keep speaking Spanish whenever he feels like it.

    Trump, the Republican front-runner whose hardline stance on illegal immigration is a hallmark of his bid for the party’s nomination in the November 2016 election, said: “We’re a nation that speaks English.”

    Bush said Trump’s jibe at him that he “spoke Mexican” while on a visit to the U.S. border was deeply divisive.

    Palin told CNN she took Spanish classes in high school. “And I took French in high school. Shouldn’t have taken them both, because I got them all mixed up by the time I was graduating,” the former Alaska governor added.

    Palin also said she might like to be appointed energy secretary if Trump wins the presidency.

    “I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby, oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind’s use, instead of relying on unfriendly foreign nations for us to import their resources,” Palin said.

    “And if I were head of that,” she said of the department, “I would get rid of it.” – Reuters

  • In rich Gulf Arab states, some feel shamed by refugee response

    For critics of the Gulf’s affluent monarchies the contrast is profoundly unflattering, especially as several are backers of the combatants in Syria’s conflict, so must, they argue, shoulder a special responsibility for its consequences.

    The wrenching image of a Syrian Kurdish refugee boy drowned on a Turkish beach has stoked debate in Europe. The official silence of Gulf Arab dynasties makes many Gulf citizens uneasy.

    Paintings and cartoons of the young boy’s death crowded Arab social media, one depicting little Aylan Kurdi’s corpse laid out before an open grave with inert figures in traditional Gulf Arab cloaks and robes holding shovels.

    Another showed the three-year old’s head slumped toward a tombstone marked “the Arab conscience”.

    Sara Hashash of rights group Amnesty International called the Gulf Arab states’ behaviour “utterly shameful” and criticised Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for officially taking in zero refugees.

    Turkey hosts almost 2 million, tiny Lebanon over a million and other restive and poor neighbours hundreds of thousands.

    The Gulf states’ supporters say the numbers involved in Syria’s crisis are vastly larger than in Kuwait’s case. They point to the funding Gulf states have given to aid efforts in countries neighbouring Syria.

    “Qatar is very small and already donating to refugees in Jordan, Turkey and northern Iraq. For logistical reasons Qatar cannot take in large numbers of refugees so instead Qatar chooses to support them financially,” said Abdullah Al-Athbah, editor in chief of Arab Newspaper.

    But sympathy for Syria’s refugees is on the rise.

    “It gives us a glimmer of hope after these recent drowning episodes to see broad campaigns of sympathy and solidarity with the issue of Syrian refugees by governments and peoples in some European countries,” wrote Zeid al-Zeid in a column for Kuwait’s Al-An newspaper on Sunday.

    “But it makes us sorry and makes us wonder about the absence of any official response by Arab states … we’re seeing a silence that’s scandalous.”

    Sultan Sooud al Qassemi, a commentator in the United Arab Emirates, said he suspected Gulf States were wary of allowing in large numbers of politically vocal Arabs who might somehow influence a traditionally passive society. But he said Gulf states should open their doors to the refugees.

    “The Gulf states often complain that the Arabic language is underused and that our culture is under threat due to the large number of foreign immigrants,” al Qassemi said.

    “Here is an opportunity to host a group of people who can help alleviate such concerns and are in need of refuge, fleeing a brutal war.”

    One Kuwaiti analyst, a regular fixture on pan-Arab news shows, raised hackles by saying in a television interview last week that refugees were better suited to poorer countries, failing to acknowledge the pledges of rich European countries like Germany to take in many thousands.

    “Gulf countries clearly can and should do an awful lot more,” said Oxfam’s Syria country director Daniel Gorevan.

    He called on Gulf states to “offer up work places, family unification schemes, essentially other legal avenues for them to get into Gulf countries and to be able to earn a living.”

    In Arab states beyond the Gulf, there is immense sympathy for Syrians, but mixed views on the feasibility of helping.

    “Tunisia is not able to welcome any refugees. We cannot accept Syrian refugees. After the revolution of 2011, Tunisia was the first to pay the price in terms of refugees. We have welcomed 1.2 million Libyans and that has cost us a lot,” Boujemaa Rmili, a spokesman for the Nidaa Tounes party which forms part of the governing coalition.

    Migrants from Syria and Sahel countries into Algeria are estimated at 55,000, a source from Algeria’s red crescent told Reuters. “We have done what we can to offer them the basics including food, medicine, host centres, and we have allowed the Syrian kids to study in our schools,” the source said.

    HOSPITALITY?

    Gulf officials and those defending Gulf policies say the outrage overlooks the billions donated to Syrian refugee camps abroad and the delicate demographics of countries where expatriate workers already nearly outnumber locals.

    “Qatar has provided over $2 billion in aid to the Syrian people in addition to the $106 million provided by Qatar’s semi-governmental institutions,” a Qatari diplomat said.

    Others felt Gulf states should go further.

    “(The Gulf) should accept Syrian refugees. Saudis and Syrians have always been brothers and sisters. Aside from the fact that our religion requires us to do so, helping refugees should be a natural reaction to what we have seen in the media,” 22-year old Saudi student Noor Almulla said.

    Another Saudi student, Sara Khalid, 23, said Gulf Arab states “as their neighbours and fellow Muslims” had a greater responsibility to Syrian refugees than Europeans.

    While none of the Gulf Arab states have signed onto key global agreements defining refugee status and imposing responsibilities on countries to grant asylum, the United Nations Refugee Agency praised the Gulf’s “hospitality.”

    “The six GCC governments continue to respect international standards with regards to protecting refugees,” especially in not repatriating them back to their war-torn homes, Nabil Othman, the UNHCR’s representative in the Gulf told Reuters.

    While authorities generally apply “humanitarian considerations” to those overstaying their visas, Othman said work or local sponsorship still mostly defined residency status.

    Foreign workers outnumber locals five to one in the UAE and Qatar, where well-heeled European families and South Asian workers are omnipresent while long-robed citizens are rare. Refugee camps are, and will likely remain, non-existent.

    “The numbers of foreigners are overwhelming. Here we have 90 percent – do you want to turn local people into minorities in their own countries? They already are, but to do it really?” said UAE Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political scientist.

    Over the decades, Saudi Arabia has become home to around half a million Syrians and the UAE to over 150,000, and the welcome extended to these and other expat professionals has helped fuel a boom in Gulf economies.

    But since the unrest and wars unleashed by the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings in 2011, those governments have adopted a stricter line on accepting Palestinians, Syrians and Shi’ite Muslims – a sign of just how much the rich and stable Gulf ruled by absolute monarchs is wary of importing political contagions.

    Iyad al-Baghdadi, a Palestinian blogger and activist deported from the UAE last year, has criticized the response of the Gulf states and laments the closed borders and repression.

    Recalling time spent in a Norwegian refugee camp with Syrian refugee friends, he said on Twitter: “Something about this felt absolutely alien – three grown Arab Muslim men who were made homeless and are seeking refuge in… Scandinavia.”

    “The Arab world is 5 million square miles. When my son was born, among the worst thoughts was how it has no space for him.”

     

  • Steve Jobs movie wins reviewer praise, Oscar hopes

    While the positive views were not unanimous, Variety.com was impressed. Its reviewer said that Fassbender, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, gave Jobs “the brilliant, maddening, ingeniously designed and monstrously self-aggrandizing movie he deserves.”

    It described the movie as a “terrific actors’ showcase and an incorrigibly entertaining ride that looks set to be one of the fall’s early must-see attractions.” The website also listed Fassbender as a “no-brainer best actor Oscar contender.”

    Hollywood Reporter said the movie is “clearly positioned as one of the prestige titles of the fall season and will be high priority viewing for discerning audiences around the world.”

    A New York Times blog said the audience “responded warmly” to the film when it aired at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Saturday.

    Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he was impressed with the movie, according to Deadline Hollywood. It cited Wozniak saying he felt he was “actually watching Steve Jobs and the others” rather than actors and that he gave “full credit to Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin for getting it so right.”

    Indiewire.com said the movie would “factor in the Oscar race,” and that Fassbender and Kate Winslet, who plays Macintosh marketing chief Joanna Hoffman, “dazzle with their fleet-tongued performances, unlike anything they have done before.”

    The Guardian, however, gave a more mixed review, suggesting it would mostly appeal to “the Apple geek.” It said Steve Jobs was “Boyle’s best film in years” and that “Fassbender excels.” But it said that while the movie “appears to be admirably unsentimental in its portrayal of Jobs, by the end we’re getting close to Apple-sponsored hero iWorship.”

    The Chicago Tribune, also not totally won over, said the movie was “never less than entertaining visually, but a little toothless dramatically.”

    The movie, due to be released by Comcast’s Universal Pictures on Oct. 9, is expected to be shown at the New York Film Festival. Indiewire said Boyle would return to the editing room to put the finishing touches on the movie before the New York screening.

    The festival screening occurred a day after the opening of “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” a widely reviewed documentary about Jobs directed by Alex Gibney.

  • Boeing opens commercial spaceship plant in Florida

    “This is a point in history that reflects a new era in human spaceflight,” Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said at a grand opening ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center.

    Boeing’s newly named CST-100 Starliner spaceships will be prepared for flight in a processing hangar once used by NASA’s space shuttles. The capsule’s debut test flight is targeted for 2017.

    Starliners will fly from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard Atlas 5 rockets, which are built and flown by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) and Boeing.

    NASA is paying up to $4.2 billion for a Starliner test flight and up to six missions to the station. The U.S. space agency has a similar contract with privately owned SpaceX, which intends to accomplish the work for $2.6 billion.

    NASA previously contributed $621 million to Boeing and $545 million for SpaceX for capsule design and development.

    Both Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon capsules can carry seven-member crews, or a mix of crew and cargo, to and from the station, a $100 billion laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

    Muilenburg declined to say how much of its own money Boeing is putting into the project, but said its ultimate success will depend on customers beyond NASA.

    Boeing already has agreements to provide space transportation services for privately owned Bigelow Aerospace, which plans to lease out space aboard its planned orbiting outposts for scientific research and commercial programs. A prototype Bigelow habitat is scheduled to be launched and attached to the space station by early 2016 for a two-year test flight.

    Boeing’s refurbishment of the retired space shuttle hangar was partly financed by Florida, which so far has invested about $2 billion to lure aerospace companies to the state.

    On Sept. 15, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to be at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to unveil a new commercial space project, also backed by state and local economic development agencies.

    Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, is expected to announce plans for a rocket manufacturing plant in an industrial park adjacent to Kennedy Space Center. The company also plans to lease a mothballed launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, state and local officials familiar with the project said.

  • Three-man international crew safely reaches space station

    The Soyuz TMA-18M blasted off to the $100 billion space laboratory from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday to take Russian Commander Sergei Volkov, Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen into orbit.

    “The Soyuz has now successfully docked at the ISS,” a NASA TV presenter said after the spaceship reached the 15-nation orbiting outpost at about 1040 Moscow time (0740 GMT).

    In less than two hours, hatches are to open, and the trio will float in weightlessness into the station which is currently manned by a six-member crew.

    Mogensen, dubbed “Denmark’s Gagarin” after the Soviet cosmonaut and first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, took Danish-made exercise bikes and 20 of Danish toymaker LEGO’s plastic figures into orbit.

    He and Aimbetov, Kazakhstan’s third cosmonaut, are due to return to Earth on Sept. 12 together with veteran Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who has been working aboard the ISS since March. By then, Padalka will have racked up a total of 878 days in space, more than any other person.

    Volkov will land next March together with NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian Mikhail Kornienko, who will have spent one year in space by that time.

    This time it took two days to reach the ISS, rather than a six-hour approach usually taken in recent years. Russian space agency Roscosmos said last month the altitude of the ISS, lifted in July to avoid space debris, required the slower approach.

    On Thursday, ballistics experts from Russia’s Mission Control and U.S. space agency NASA advised the Soyuz crew to make a maneuver in order to avoid a collision with a third stage of a Japanese rocket launched in 1989, Roscosmos said.

  • Google hopes to reenter China by fall: tech website

    The company hopes to get Chinese government approval for a China version of its Play store mobile app, The Information reported, citing people familiar with the plan. (bit.ly/1NfthB8)

    The tech giant is also planning to extend support of a version of Android for wearable devices in the country, The Information cited one of the people as saying.

    Google has assured Chinese authorities that it will follow local laws and block Play store apps that the government deems objectionable, one person familiar with the plans told the website.

    The Play store app will only work on devices running the recently unveiled “M” version of Android, and only on devices that comply with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requirements, The Information reported.

    Google is also planning to offer new incentives to phone makers to upgrade Android phones to the latest versions of its operating system, one person familiar with the plans told the website.

    Google was not immediately available for comment.

  • G20 eyes faster economic reforms as cheap credit not enough for growth

    But they also said they were confident growth would pick up and, as a result, interest rates in “some advanced economies” — code for the United States — would have to rise.

    “Monetary policies will continue to support economic activity consistent with central banks’ mandates, but monetary policy alone cannot lead to balanced growth,” the communique of the G20 finance ministers and central bankers said.

    “We note that in line with the improving economic outlook, monetary policy tightening is more likely in some advanced economies.”

    The wording defied pressure from emerging markets to brand an expected U.S. rate rise as a risk to growth.

    “We heard different opinions on the possible Fed decision. Some think the Fed needs to make a decision sooner rather than later, while others think it should delay,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cevdet Yilmaz told a news conference.

    To limit the volatility of capital flows from emerging economies into dollars — the reason for concern about a future Federal Reserve hike — G20 financial leaders said they would avoid any surprise or excessive moves.

    “We will carefully calibrate and clearly communicate our actions, especially against the backdrop of major monetary and other policy decisions, to minimize negative spillovers, mitigate uncertainty and promote transparency,” they said.

    Concern about the turbulence that might be caused by a possible Fed rate hike was amplified by investor worries over an economic slowdown in China, the world’s second-biggest economy.

    G20 officials said they discussed the devaluation by China of its yuan currency in August, a move some may see as a realignment to market rates rather than a move to help exports.

    “Many supported the measures that China took… the ministers were very tolerant,” Russian deputy finance minister, Sergei Storchak told a news briefing.

    The Chinese devaluation as well as the stock market plunge on growth jitters were all part of a difficult path to a more liberal economy, officials said.

    “It’s an unbelievably difficult transformation and it’s not surprising that there are bumps, that it’s not a perfectly smooth process, and I think we had plenty of explanations, opportunity to ask questions, and it was a dialogue, and a very open one,” IMF head Christine Lagarde said after the meeting.

    But some were less impressed.

    “Their explanations weren’t very good. They should have been much clearer,” said Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso about the Chinese.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew noted that global economies were keen to see the world’s second-largest economy move to an exchange rate that reflected market fundamentals.

    “When the world has called on China to move toward a more market-determined exchange rate, it’s in the context of doing so in an orderly way with clearly articulated policies that can be understood and that reinforce themselves in a positive way,” he said in a statement.

    LOW RATES ALONE “WON’T CUT IT”

    G20 officials welcomed strengthening activity in some economies but said that growth fell short of expectations because reforms were not being implemented quickly enough.

    Last year, G20 leaders agreed to boost global output over the next five years by 2 percent above what was already expected at the time through coordinated reforms and investment.

    But they were behind schedule, the G20 communique indicated.

    “We are making progress toward our commitments (but)… more effort is needed for implementation,” the statement said.

    Lagarde was even more explicit, making clear governments had for too long relied on the supply of cheap cash from central banks that have been running ultra-loose monetary policy.

    “Monetary policy alone will not cut it. It is necessary. It is recommended from our perspective, particularly in Europe and in Japan still, but it will not cut it on its own,” she said.

    “Clearly in the fiscal sphere as well as in the structural reforms sphere, more needs to be done, and it needs to accompany and eventually take the baton from the central bank governors.”

    But, in what appeared to be a vicious circle, the reforms were made more difficult by the weaker global growth, Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver told reporters.

    “We’re making progress, but the base that we hoped we would have, we haven’t arrived at, because the growth has been disappointing and the projections have been downgraded,” Oliver said, adding that one-third of the G20’s extra growth commitments have been implemented.

    Boosting investment was key, the G20 financial leaders agreed. Governments will prepare their final investment strategies by November, when G20 leaders are to meet to discuss them in Antalya in Turkey.

    While not a topic of the agenda, officials informally discussed on the sidelines China’s ambitions for its yuan currency to become part of the special drawing rights (SDR), a virtual currency used only by the IMF.

    Washington’s Lew voiced an openness to that happening, as long as China carried out promised reforms.

    “If they make the kinds of reforms that they have committed to and indicated they are prepared to make, there’s an openness to a positive outcome of the review.”

  • IMF's Lagarde says Fed should not rush its rate rise decision

    Many emerging market economies are concerned that a Fed rate rise would trigger large outflows of capital from emerging economies into dollar-denominated assets, creating market turmoil that would hurt growth.

    Finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s 20 biggest economies discussed the issue thoroughly at a meeting in Ankara, Lagarde told a news conference after the talks.

    “It should really do it for good, if I may say,” Lagarde said. “In other words, not give it a try and have to come back.”

    “So, what we have said is, the IMF thinks that it is better to make sure that the data are absolutely confirmed, that there is no uncertainty, neither on the front of price stability, nor on the front of employment and unemployment, before it actually makes that move,” she said.

    “And that would call for being in the curve, rather than necessarily ahead of the curve or indeed behind the curve.”

  • Clinton says she paid staffer to maintain private email server

    After a campaign appearance in New Hampshire, Clinton told reporters the payments went to information technology specialist Bryan Pagliano, who this week declined to produce documents and testify before a U.S. House of Representatives committee about the server, invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

    “With respect to personal services that he provided to me and my family, we obviously paid for those services and did so because, during a period of time, we continued to need his technical assistance. And I think that’s in the public record,” Clinton said.

    Clinton, a former U.S. senator and first lady who is the front-runner for her party’s 2016 presidential nomination, has been criticized for using the unsecured server to conduct government business when she was the top U.S. diplomat from 2009-13 as well as for how she handled classified information.

    Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said on Twitter: “Bryan was hired by the Clinton family as a consultant in order to help out periodically with the management of the system in Chappaqua that hosted the family’s emails.”

    Chappaqua is the New York town where Clinton lives.

    The Washington Post earlier reported the Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for computer services before he joined the State Department, citing an April 2009 financial disclosure form he filed.

    Even after he arrived at the State Department in May 2009, the Clintons continued to pay Pagliano to maintain the server, the Post reported. The paper quoted a campaign official as saying the arrangement with Pagliano ensured that taxpayer dollars were not spent on a private server that was also used by Clinton’s family and aides to former President Bill Clinton.

    Pagliano was the IT director for Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign and went to work for the State Department when Clinton took up the Cabinet post in the Obama administration.

    Clinton has in the past hired staff to work for her simultaneously in public and private capacities, most notably top aide Huma Abedin, the Post said.

    Clinton said on Friday she was sorry that her use of a personal email account while secretary of state had caused confusion, and blamed herself for “not thinking a lot” about the matter when she took the job.

  • Global concerns may shrink Wall Street's third-quarter estimates

    Wall Street expects a 3.4 percent decline in earnings for the S&P 500 .SPX for the quarter. Estimates have already fallen for 9 out of 10 of the benchmark index’s sectors so far this year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

    S&P revenue is expected to fall 2.8 percent for the quarter, led by steep declines in the energy and materials sectors. As companies tend to revise guidance around the end of the quarter, estimates may become even less optimistic.

    “Analysts will likely be pulling in their reins going into the quarterly reports and the pre-announcement season. This could happen fairly quickly,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

    The dollar index .DXY, measuring the greenback against a basket of major currencies, has risen 0.8 percent so far this quarter after falling 2.9 percent last quarter. Ghriskey sees the currency’s strength hurting the competitiveness of U.S. exports against local products overseas and imports here, resulting in shrinking revenue and earnings for U.S. multinationals.

    In addition, demand is likely slower in many overseas markets with slowing growth in China and recessions in Brazil and Russia hurting both revenue and earnings.

    Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, says that since the majority of S&P companies tend to beat earnings estimates every quarter, he will focus more on revenue than the bottom line, which can be tweaked with cost cuts and share buybacks to beat estimates.

    But Paulsen is not optimistic about the coming quarter.

    “It seems clear to me that top-line sales results will be a little disappointing again,” he said. “If you look at what’s going on in global economies, it doesn’t paint a real good picture of what top-line growth will be like. The question is: ‘How much of that is already factored in?’”

    U.S. telecommunications .SPLRCL, which is mostly insulated from global markets, is the only S&P sector that has shown improving estimates for both third-quarter earnings and revenue.

    With crude oil prices falling sharply, the energy sector .SPNY is faring the worst, with current expectations for a 62 percent earnings decline and a 33 percent revenue drop.

    Analysts expect the materials sector .SPLRCM to report a 11.8 percent earnings decline due to falling commodities prices and a 10.4 percent revenue drop. They see earnings for industrials .SPLRCI, which have big overseas exposure, falling 4.9 percent and revenue falling 5 percent.

    Many investors hope the equity market becomes less volatile after August’s sharp swings. But earnings weakness could make jittery market participants question valuations all over again.

    “A lot of people think the market will come back. If we see fundamentals that challenge that story, that could be a very significant part of this earnings season,” said Paulsen.