Somalia government money 'goes missing' - BBC News
Large sums of money received by Somalia's interim UN-backed government have not been accounted for, a World Bank report says.
The report, seen by the BBC, is being circulated at talks in Turkey on how to end Somalia's decades of anarchy.
It alleges a discrepancy of about $130m (£85m) in the accounts over two years.
UK foreign minister William Hague told the BBC that an international board to oversee the distribution of aid funds needed to be established urgently.
Somalia's transitional government mandate expires in August when it is due to hand over to an elected president.
'Big question mark'The revelations in the World Bank report come as several hundred Somali politicians meet representatives of more than 50 countries in Istanbul to try to win new funding for the long-term reconstruction of country.
The report stops short of making specific allegations, but does not rule out corruption as a possible explanation for the missing government revenue funds.
"There is a discrepancy in what comes in and there's a lack of accounting of how money has been spent," the report's author Joakim Gundel is quoted by US broadcaster Voice of America as saying.
"So that opens naturally a big question mark for sure."
The report, which looks at the years 2009 and 2010, also says the transitional government has no real accounting system nor does it publicly disclose financial statements.
Contacted by the BBC, Mr Gundel said he would not make any comment about the report until later on Friday.
But VOA reports him as saying that the missing millions could significantly bolster Somalia's security without relying on foreign donations.
The conference in Istanbul is the second major international gathering this year about Somalia's crisis.
In London in February, at talks hosted by the UK government, it was agreed that a financial management board to oversee aid should be established.
"The details of this need to be finalised with the government of Somalia - and frankly I was hoping it could be done by now, by this conference in Istanbul - if it is not signed here, well then it needs to signed in the next few weeks," Mr Hague told the BBC Somali Service.
Last month, leaders of disparate Somali factions agreed to a timetable that will elect a new president by 20 August, ending the transition period of the interim government.
The Horn of Africa country has had no effective central government since 1991, and has been wracked by fighting ever since - a situation that has allowed piracy and lawlessness to flourish.
Mr Hague said it was important that those at the conference understood that deadlines were met and that the 18,000-strong African Union force in Somalia was properly funded.
"I hope it [the conference] will keep up the momentum, particularly towards a successful and legitimate political process in Somalia, towards making sure that development money can be spent properly and transparently in Somalia... And we'd like to see, of course, the continued success of African Union forces," the UK foreign secretary said.
All Somalia's rival groups have been invited to participate in the Istanbul talks, expect for the Islamist al-Shabab group, which joined al-Qaeda earlier this year.
Despite facing pressure on a number of military fronts, its fighters control much of the country.
In recent months, troops from Ethiopia and the African Union force, as well as pro-government militias, have helped government forces gain territory from al-Shabab but the militants continue to stage attacks in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere.
Money saving website sells for £87m - Belfast Telegraph
Friday, 1 June 2012
MoneySavingExpert.com, which was set up by Mr Lewis in 2003 and now sends a weekly email to around five million subscribers, is to be bought by price comparison website MoneySupermarket.
Mr Lewis, who is well known as a television pundit on money matters, will receive 60 million upfront in a mixture of cash and shares and a further 27 million conditional on meeting targets over the next three years.
He plans to donate 10 million to charity from the deal, including 1 million to Citizens Advice, while he will retain full control over the website.
According to Google Analytics, the MoneySavingExpert website attracted 39 million unique visitors and around 277 million page impressions in the year to October 31. It generated revenues of 15.7 million over the same period.
Mr Lewis said the deal, which needs the approval of MoneySupermarket shareholders, ensured the website would be around for many years to come.
He added: "MoneySavingExpert.com has become part of people's daily lives, far bigger than the man who founded it, and now is the right time for it to stand on its own two feet."
Mr Lewis said he chose Moneysupermarket because it is not owned by any product providers and had signed up to an editorial code which ensures the website's content will be free from commercial pressures.
He will stay as editor-in-chief for the next three years, with the help of Moneysupermarket's resources and the website's existing 42-strong staff.
"After that, the door is open for me to carry on, and I hope to do so, though perhaps with fewer hours than now, so I can spend more time on my media work and other projects I'm passionate about. These include getting financial education on the curriculum," Mr Lewis said.
FOREX-Euro near 2-year low on Spain woes, Japan warns on yen - Reuters UK
* Euro near 2-year low vs dollar on Spanish bank concerns
* Yen off highs, market becoming wary of intervention
* Japan threatens action vs yen rise (Recasts, adds quote, changes dateline PVS SINGAPORE)
By Anirban Nag
LONDON, June 1 (Reuters) - The euro was near a two-year low against the dollar on Friday and stayed close to its lowest in more than a decade versus the yen on growing uncertainty about how Spain will recapitalise its ailing banking sector and fix its public finances.
Japan said the yen's strength was being driven by speculators and stepped up warnings that it could intervene to curb the currency's rise, saying it would act decisively if excessive market moves continued.
The euro fell to as low as $1.2324 on trading platform EBS at one point, its weakest since July 2010. It last fetched $1.2345, down 0.1 percent on the day, with a drop towards $1.20 likely as bears remain firmly in control.
The drop in the common currency came as Spaniards sent money abroad in droves, worried about the health of the banking system. Bank of Spain data showed a net 66.2 billion euros ($82.0 billion) was sent abroad in March, the most since records began in 1990.
"It is looking very bearish for the euro with the latest capital flows data showing a significant amount leaving Spanish banks, all of which indicate they will probably need official help," said Peter Kinsella, currency strategist at Commerzbank.
Any help from the European rescue fund for Spain would mean an additional tax burden on Germany, Europe's paymaster, and could hurt the safe-haven status of German bunds, he added.
"It is not a situation where there is much help for the euro and chances are it is headed towards $1.20."
With German two-year yields near zero, traders said a lot of safe-haven flows have, so far, stayed within the single currency area. But if that were to change, the euro's decline against the dollar and the yen could accelerate considerably.
The euro's selloff has gained steam this week as Spain's borrowing costs surged on worries it may need to issue more debt to recapitalise its banks, adding stress to markets already frayed by anxiety that Greece may exit the euro zone.
The rising borrowing costs risk pushing Spain towards an international bailout. The yield spread between Spanish 10-year government bonds and German Bunds have risen to euro-era highs this week, and the euro has fallen almost in lock step with that move.
"We're looking for $1.18 by the end of Q3, and at this rate, it could happen before that," said Callum Henderson, global head of FX research for Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore.
"During this risk-off environment, the U.S. dollar is the only place to be," he added.
YEN INTERVENTION JITTERS
Apart from the dollar, the safe-haven yen has also been in demand. The euro was steady against the yen at 96.90 yen , not far from an 11-1/2-year low of 96.48 yen struck the previous day.
On Thursday, the euro got a brief lift after The Wall Street Journal said the International Monetary Fund was discussing a contingency plan for a rescue loan to bail out Spain's third largest bank. The report, however, was specifically refuted by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
The euro may not get much respite even if Spain gets an international bailout, said Standard Chartered's Henderson.
"If Spain had to be bailed out, the market would instantly focus its attention on Italy. Current European Union and IMF resources cannot fund bailouts of both Spain and Italy," he said.
So the risk of contagion will support the safe-haven yen. The Japanese currency's broad surge this week, including its rise to a 3-1/2-month high versus the dollar, are making market players wary about the potential for Japanese yen-selling intervention, traders say.
Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Japan would act if excessive yen strength continued while the country's top currency diplomat signalled Japan was willing to act alone as it was becoming clear that yen rises were being driven by speculators.
The dollar edged up 0.1 percent to 78.46 yen but remained close to Thursday's low of 78.21 yen, the dollar's lowest level against the yen since mid-February.
A fall in the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield to a record low this week has cut the yield advantage of Treasuries over Japanese government bonds, and has helped drag the dollar lower against the yen.
Traders say the dollar could come under renewed pressure against the yen if U.S. jobs data due on Friday comes in weak. The data is expected to show U.S. employers created 150,000 jobs in May. (Additional reporting by Masayuki Kitano in Singapore; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Money in politics is a public choice problem, not an electoral one - Examiner
Over at Reason, Ed Krayewski offers up some great thoughts on money in politics in the midst of reporting on Gov. Buddy Roemer (R-LA) suspending his "quixotic" presidential campaign. Roemer, a Republican turned Americans Elect candidate, ran on a platform of capping donations at $100 and not accepting any PAC money - hence the relevancy:
"Politicians don’t need money to corrupt them, they can do that fine all by themselves; members of Congress can spend their entire careers enriching themselves on the taxpayer dime and not run afoul of a single law. No corporation forced former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson to hide cash in a freezer and no corporation held a gun to any member of Congress that used their ever broadening powers to legislate and regulate commercial affairs to personally enrich themselves.
For all the talk of getting money out of politics, corporations often seem to be the diversionary scapegoat while the politicians try to get at the money. The idea that free of the influence of money politicians will suddenly lose their appetite for power, control and self-aggrandizement is delusional. It has no basis in human history, in psychology or, frankly, in common sense. Money in politics, as I noted after President Obama announced his “evolution” on gay marriage, is a good thing. Politicians are interested in self-preservation, not because corporations made it so, but because it’s in the nature of a politician. The influence of money in politics, be it corporate money, small donors, big donors or advocacy groups, serves to diversify the voices that reach government and provides a necessary check and balance to any politician’s tendency to self-enrichment.
Money is no resource to shun on the quest for the White House; there’s no reason money can’t lubricate a free market in politics the way it makes the everyday exchange of goods and services so smooth and efficient, when government’s not getting in the way."
Rather than imposing limits on campaign contributions, we need to remove the perverted incentives that invite an influx of money to Washington and distort free markets.
A good place to start is by scrapping the entire federal tax code – where individuals, groups, and corporations are constantly looking to curry favor and gain preferential treatment.
Next up are all the frivolous regulations that perpetuate the corporatist (crony-capitalist) machine. Regulators themselves often lack a sophisticated level of familiarity regarding the industries they’re supposed to be regulating. Lobbyists end up flocking to Washington each time a new regulatory board is created, salivating like Pavlov’s dog over the opportunity to write the regulations for their own industry rather than those actually tasked to regulate. Through regulatory capture and cartelization of industry, large incumbent corporations are able to suppress competition in their particular market.
This type of behavior is textbook rent seeking. Public choice explains how the phenomenon occurs:
"In modeling the behavior of individuals as driven by the goal of utility maximization … economists do not deny that people care about their families, friends, and community. But public choice, like the economic model of rational behavior on which it rests, assumes that people are guided chiefly by their own self-interests and, more important, that the motivations of people in the political process are no different from those of people in the steak, housing, or car market. They are the same human beings, after all. As such, voters “vote their pocketbooks,” supporting candidates and ballot propositions they think will make them personally better off; bureaucrats strive to advance their own careers; and politicians seek election or reelection to office. Public choice, in other words, simply transfers the rational actor model of economic theory to the realm of politics."
Moreover, the idea that regulation is necessary to protect people is muted by the fact that basic protections for producers, consumers, and non-actors alike already exist in common law principles: fraud, collusion, nuisance, unconscionable bargain, duress, and undue influence. Rather than focusing time and energy on the futile exercise of trying to limit money from electoral politics, we should focus on eliminating policies that create conditions in which free markets get taken hostage.
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Forex: USD/JPY lingers above 78.00 - FXStreet.com
Forex Signals - EURUSD June Trading - Int'l Business Times
Recap: We were saved by the false breakouts yesterday, helping to keep our losses minimal as the markets drifted along without any sort of conviction. First was our long from 1.2411 at 10:12 UTC - that candle closed at 1.2405 getting us out of the long with a small 6 pip loss. Then our short was triggered on the support break at 1.2341 - that entry candle closed at 1.2362, kicking us out of our trade with a 21 pip loss. Total EU for the day: -27 pips. Remember, a key part of any swing trading strategy is to keep our losses small and let our profits run and false breakouts are just one of the tools we use to do so with our system.
No money for brain research - Lancashire Evening Post
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