Vatican bank money laundering risk: probe

Italian investigators say the Vatican bank operated in a way that facilitated money laundering. Source: AAP

ITALIAN investigators have said the Vatican bank operated in a way that facilitated money laundering, according to leaked papers quoted by two Italian newspapers on Saturday after a three-year inquiry.

The bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR in Italian) did not carry out enough checks on its clients, and account holders were allowed to transfer large sums on behalf of others.

"There is a high risk that the way the IOR operates, without specifying its real clients, it can be used as a screen to hide illegal operations," prosecutors wrote in a document that was quoted by Corriere della Sera.

They also faulted Italian banks that accepted transfers from the IOR for failing to probe the origin of the money, which is then moved into other banks.

"The IOR can easily become a channel for the laundering of money with a criminal origin, they said.

They also contradicted IOR statements that its account holders are all religious congregations or clergy.

"There are also private individuals who, because they enjoy a particular relationship with the Holy See, can deposit money and open accounts," they said.

The investigation centred on a 23 million euro ($A32.73 million) transfer made from the Vatican bank to Italian lender Credito Artigiano in September 2010.

Three million euros were then sent on to Banca del Fucino and 20 million to JP Morgan Frankfurt.

The transfer was signed off by IOR's then director general Paolo Cipriani and his deputy Massimo Tulli, who both resigned last week.

Prosecutors are set to file charges against them.

La Repubblica said the two were also being accused over a dozen other smaller transfers to JP Morgan.

Pope Francis has set up a committee to investigate the bank and is said to be planning a major shake-up of the scandal-ridden institution as part of broader reforms of the Vatican bureaucracy.

The Vatican is reforming its finances in order to be included on a "white list" of states that respect international rules against money laundering.

Italian police last month arrested a senior cleric on suspicion of money laundering and fraud for allegedly plotting to smuggle millions of euros into Italy.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Snowden's hopes rise on asylum offer

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has offered asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden. Source: AAP

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden remained stranded in a Moscow airport for the 14th day amid rising hopes he may finally be able to leave Russia after being offered asylum by Venezuela.

The saga surrounding the fugitive former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor took a new turn late on Friday when Venezuela's leftist President Nicolas Maduro offered to grant him "humanitarian asylum".

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had only moments earlier also said his Latin American country could offer a safe haven for one of Washington's most wanted men "if circumstances permit".

Snowden, 30, had earlier been denied asylum by many of the 21 countries to which he had applied last week.

The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website, which has been supporting Snowden's cause, said he had recently applied to six additional countries it refused to name.

But it was far from clear how exactly Snowden could reach another nation from the transit zone of Russia's sprawling Sheremetyevo international airport.

He has been stripped of his passport by the US authorities and a refugee pass initially believed to have been offered to him by Ecuador has since been declared invalid.

Snowden could only take flights from Sheremetyevo and not another Moscow airport to which visiting foreign dignitaries such as Maduro have access because he cannot move beyond Russian passport control.

Maduro made his intentions clear in an address at an independence day event in Caracas.

"As head of state of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela, I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young Snowden ... to protect this young man from the persecution launched by the most powerful empire in the world," Maduro said.

Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega voiced a slightly more toned down message only minutes earlier.

"We are open, respectful of the right to asylum, and it is clear that if circumstances permit it, we would receive Snowden with pleasure and give him asylum here in Nicaragua," Ortega said at a public event.

Ecuador had been seen as the American's best hope when he arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 after leaking secrets about the extent of the US data surveillance programme to the press.

But the leftist government in Quito has yet to consider his application.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to extradite Snowden to the US while still stressing that he would like to see him gone as soon as possible.

"Russia is not happy that he is here. If it wanted to offer him asylum, this would have been done right away," said Carnegie Moscow Centre analyst Maria Lipman.

She noted that Putin himself was a former KGB spy who cares deeply about the safety of state secrets.

"Putin does not want to help someone who reveals secrets - Putin is very serious about this," said Lipman.

"He would like to get rid of Snowden, but this is getting more and more difficult," the analyst said.

Putin has denied ever questioning Snowden about the details of the US spy network and has even suggested that doing so was not worth the effort.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

'World's biggest cocaine dealer' deported

COLOMBIAN police have arrested an alleged boss of Italy's Calabrian mafia, who is considered the most wanted drug trafficker in Europe, the defence ministry said.

Roberto Pannunzi, who is wanted in Italy on drug trafficking charges, was detained in a Bogota shopping centre with the help of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the ministry said in a statement.

"When he was captured, Pannunzi identified himself with a fake Venezuelan identification card bearing the name Silvano Martino," it said.

The statement said Pannunzi is the "chief of the 'Ndrangheta criminal organisation."

In April, Colombia captured another suspected top Italian mafia member, Domenico Trimboli, alleged to be a lynchpin between the Medellin drug cartel and the 'Ndrangheta, which is based in the Calabria region in southern Italy.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Search called off for American schooner

THE search has been called off for the American schooner Nina which went missing with seven people on board in the Tasman Sea.

The 21m sailing vessel was travelling from Opua in the Bay of Islands to Newcastle in Australia on May 29 with six Americans and one British man aboard.

It struck winds up to 110km/h and 8m swells and has not been heard from since June 4.

Extensive searching over the past 11 days of an area more than eight times the size of New Zealand has failed to find any trace of the schooner.

No more searching is planned unless new information comes to light, Rescue Co-ordination Centre New Zealand operations manager John Seward said on Friday.

But radio broadcasts will continue to be made in New Zealand and Australia in the search for new information, he said.

Those on the Nina are David Dyche III, 58, and wife, Rosemary, 60, their son David Dyche IV, 17, friend Evi Nemeth, 73, Kyle Jackson, 27, Danielle Wright, 18, and Briton Matthew Wootton, 35.

The vessel is equipped with a satellite phone, a tracking device and an emergency beacon that has not been activated.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

NZ government signs SkyCity deal

THE New Zealand government and SkyCity have signed a deal over the construction of a convention centre in Auckland.

The casino will fully fund the $NZ402 million ($A348 million) centre in exchange for gambling concessions.

The contract was signed on Friday, a spokesman for NZ Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce has confirmed to NZ Newswire.

The details of the deal will be released on Saturday morning, he said.

The negotiations were originally supposed to be completed by June 14, but were pushed out to June 30, then July 5 after the sides failed to reach an agreement.

A commitment to complete the deal for the New Zealand International Convention Centre was unveiled on May 13.

It was announced then that the convention centre would cater for up to 3500 international conference delegates at any one time, with construction expected to begin next year and opening for business in 2017.

SkyCity would operate the convention centre for at least 35 years, and fund its construction, fit-out and land costs, in exchange for:

* extending SkyCity's Auckland casino licence, which is due to expire in 2021, out to 2048, and an amendment to cover all of SkyCity's properties in Federal Street

* 230 more pokie machines on the casino floor

* 40 more gaming tables

* a further 12 gaming tables that can be substituted for automated table game player stations, but not pokie machines

* up to 17 per cent of its pokie machines and automatic table games will be able to accept banknotes of greater than $20

* cashless gaming technology on all pokie machines and automatic table games at its Auckland casino.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Popes have no faith in gay marriage

THE Vatican has issued an unprecedented religious text co-written by Pope Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI in which the two popes said faith should serve the "common good" but restated their opposition to gay marriage.

Francis paid tribute to pope emeritus Benedict XVI in the encyclical, saying that the ex-pontiff had "almost completed" the text before stepping down in a historic resignation this year and that he himself had merely added "further contributions."

The 82-page text stresses that there is no contradiction between the Catholic faith and the modern world and calls for more dialogue with scientists, other religions and non-believers.

It also restates the Catholic Church's position on marriage saying it should be a "stable union of man and woman."

"This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God's own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation," reads the text.

While some passages in the encyclical have a more academic and ponderous feel characteristic of Benedict XVI, others contain the simpler expressions and brighter outlook of his successor.

Examples of Francis's input could be references to the need to protect nature and to sustainable development, as well as his oft-repeated phrase: "Let us refuse to be robbed of hope".

Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted there were "differences of style, sensibility and accent" between the two popes in the text but said there was "substantial continuity of the message".

Francis and Benedict, who both live within the walls of the Vatican City and wear the white papal vestments, met publicly on Friday at a ceremony in the Vatican for the unveiling of a new statue.

Benedict became the first pope to resign of his own free will in 700 years in February and Francis was elected to succeed him in March as the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years.

The central message of the encyclical, entitled Lumen Fidei (Light of Faith) is that faith should be considered a "common good".

"Its light does not simply brighten the interior of the Church, nor does it serve solely to build an eternal city in the hereafter, it helps us build our societies," it says.

The text also calls for a "return to the true basis of brotherhood", saying that the ideal of equality without faith "cannot endure".

In another passage the encyclical says that believers should be humble and not "presumptuous".

"As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force... Faith is not intransigent, but grows in respectful coexistence with others."

Encyclicals are papal circular letters addressed to the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church that are intended to summarise a pontiff's thoughts on a particular aspect of Church life.

Some of them have gone down in history as significant landmarks in Church history.

Pope Leo XII in 1891 published Rerum Novarum in which he undertook to engage the Catholic Church in social issues, denouncing living conditions for the working class and encouraging workers to organise themselves into associations.

In 1914, Benedict XV denounced the horrors of World War I in Ad beatissimi apostolorum principis and Pius XI in Mit brennender Sorge in 1937 condemned Nazi racism.

In Paul VI's Humanae Vitae in 1968, Paul VI condemned all forms of contraception, while John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae in 1995 called for opposition to laws legalising abortion and euthanasia.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

New home sales continue recovery

Sales of new homes rose 1.6 per cent in May, new industry figures show. Source: AAP

SALES of new homes are continuing their rise from the lows experienced in 2012.

New home sales rose for the fourth month in a row, with a 1.6 per cent improvement in May, taking monthly sales to their highest level in a year and a half, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) said on Wednesday.

HIA chief economist Harley Dale said there was solid evidence of modest growth in new residential construction and that was expected to continue into the new financial year.

"That outcome was important, following as it did a sustained period of weakness which saw activity in a majority of markets reach, historically, very low levels," he said.

"The key is whether a new home building recovery can be sustained, and at a growth rate sufficient to meaningfully assist the Australian economy with its rebalancing acts."

As mining and resource investment falls it's hoped other parts of the economy will pick up pace - rebalancing the economy.

Dr Dale said government help in increasing the supply of new housing was needed to help the Australian economy make the transition.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

S&P cuts Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche

Standard & Poor's has cut the credit ratings for Barclays Bank, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Source: AAP

RATINGS agency Standard & Poor's has lowered the long-term counterparty credit ratings of Barclays Bank Plc, Credit Suisse AG and Deutsche Bank AG to "A" from "A-plus".

The agency on Tuesday kept its "A/A-1" long and short-term ratings on Switzerland's UBS AG.

All remain at investment grade, and S&P said the outlooks on all four are stable.

"We see increasing risks for some large Europe-based banks operating in investment banking, as regulators and uncertain market conditions make operating in the industry more difficult," S&P said.

In particular, these banks' debtholders face higher credit risks because of tighter regulation, fragile global markets, stagnant European economies, and rising risk of financial crisis-related lawsuits.

S&P said Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and UBS are "among the most exposed in Europe" to global regulatory changes.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Rudd reckons Abbott lacks 'ticker'

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd suspects Tony Abbott lacks the "ticker" to debate him on key policy areas.

Mr Abbott has been "lying" to the Australian people about the state of the economy, his ability to turn back asylum seeker boats and the impact of carbon pricing, Mr Rudd says in his first major television interview since retaking the leadership from Julia Gillard.

"So what I would say to Mr Abbott - you've been doing this for a long time, it's time we had a properly moderated debate ... on his chosen subjects," Mr Rudd said on the ABC's 730 program.

"Mr Abbott, I think it is time you demonstrated to the country you have a bit of ticker on this.

"He's the boxing blue. I'm the glasses-wearing kid in the library.

"Come on, let's have the Australian people form a view about whether his policies actually have substance, whether they actually work, or whether they are just slogans."

On his now-broken pledge never to return to the Labor leadership, Mr Rudd said Ms Gillard had vacated the spot and brought on the caucus ballot.

He said a second reason was the prospect of defeat at the 2013 election.

"The Australian Labor Party and the government was on track towards a catastrophic defeat and I wasn't about to stand idly by and see everything we worked for for the last five or six years go down the gurgler as Mr Abbott set about ripping it apart."

He said he was not motivated by revenge, but taking up the fight to Mr Abbott and coming up with a positive plan for the future.

Mr Rudd said he was working through policy changes but it would be an "orderly process".

He said he wanted to take the time to "think and take the best advice".

Asked whether Labor would be punished for its long leadership turmoil, Mr Rudd said he had faced four Liberal leaders over a period of four years after he took on the Labor leadership.

"In political parties these things happen from time to time," he said.

A spokesman for Mr Abbott told AAP the opposition leader would debate Mr Rudd once the prime minister "ends the uncertainty and names the election date".

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Road tolls would reduce traffic: report

TOLLS and congestion fees may be the answer to reducing traffic and improving the state of Australian roads.

An Infrastructure Australia (IA) report, released on Tuesday, argues there is reduced accountability for governments to provide quality infrastructure under the current taxpayer system.

"To get the infrastructure we want, when we want it, we need to pay more as users," the report said.

It says congestion pricing in London has reduced traffic by 21 per cent, increased average travel speeds by 37 per cent and reduced road emissions.

Revenue raised by the fee is invested back into public transport, contributing to increased bus and passenger rail patronage.

IA also called for a single national fund to be established to roll over the many different infrastructure investment sources.

The fund would account for over $100 billion for projects such as the National Broadband Network and clean energy funding.

AI says the current funding model has overlapping purposes, different assessment frameworks and different decision making mandates.

Australia's future economic performance would largely depend on how its major cities are planned, the report says.

This will be particularly important considering each of Australia's five biggest capital cities will nearly double their population by 2056.

Denser cities was the answer to more productive living, it said.

The closer businesses are to each other and to a deep pool of skilled labour, the report argued, the higher their productivity.

For individuals, this proximity also means lower costs when looking for a job.

The Australian Industry Group welcomed the report's findings.

"The time is right to make reforms that will facilitate greater and more astute investment, including from the private sector, and encourage efficient use of infrastructure," the group's chief Innes Willox said.

The Urban Development Institute of Australia said addressing Australia's infrastructure problems must be a key priority for the next federal government.

18.16 | 0 komentar | Read More