CAIRO | Sat Mar 30, 2013 4:41pm EDT

(Reuters) - The first commercial flight between Egypt and Iran in 34 years took off on Saturday, the latest step towards normalizing ties broken following the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution.
Egypt and Iran agreed to resume direct flights in October 2010 before President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power, but no flights were made.
"A flight by Air Memphis, owned by Egyptian businessman Rami Lakah, took off from Cairo to Tehran earlier on Saturday carrying eight Iranians including diplomats," one airport official said adding that the airline could later carry out more tourist and business trips between Egypt and Iran.

 

Diplomatic relations between Iran and Egypt were cut in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran when the government in Cairo gave sanctuary to the deposed shah.
But ties improved over the years, and have become significantly better since the election of Islamist Mohamed Mursi as president of Egypt in June 2012.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Egypt in February, the first visit by an Iranian leader to Cairo in more than three decades, and called for a strategic alliance with Egypt and offered a loan to the cash-strapped Arab state.
Mursi visited Iran in August to attend an international summit where he initiated a quartet committee that included Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia to discuss ways to end the Syrian civil war. Saudi Arabia later left the group.



Flight between Iran and Egypt is just the start for Iran to get a foothold in Egypt and causing disarray.  It seems that the Arab Spring is a fight for new reform, but it is also a window of opportunity for Iran to enter those countries. The Middle East and Africa is a mess and I wonder what it will look like in a few years from now.

Sun Mar 31, 2013 12:44am EDT

* U.S. environmental agency categorizes pipe rupture as "major spill"
* Exxon shuts Pegasus pipeline after thousands of barrels spilled
* Twenty-two homes evacuated
* Second spill in the United States involving crude from Canada this week
By Matthew Robinson and David Sheppard
NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil was working to clean up thousands of barrels of oil in Mayflower, Arkansas, after a pipeline carrying heavy Canadian crude ruptured, a major spill likely to stoke debate over transporting Canada's oil to the United States.

 

Exxon shut the Pegasus pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Pakota, Illinois, to Nederland, Texas, after the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon, the company said in a statement.
Exxon, hit with a $1.7 million fine by regulators this week over a 2011 spill in the Yellowstone River, said a few thousand barrels of oil had been observed.
A company spokesman confirmed the line was carrying Canadian Wabasca Heavy crude. That grade is a heavy bitumen crude diluted with lighter liquids to allow it to flow through pipelines, according to the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), which referred to Wabasca as "oil sands" in a report.
The spill occurred as the U.S. State Department is considering the fate of the 800,000 bpd Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude from Canada's oil sands to the Gulf Coast. Environmentalists, concerned about the impact of developing the oil sands, have sought to block its approval.


Nothing will happen to Exxon-maybe some fines, but the pipeline will go through. The Government is just pounding its chest, but money will win out in the end.  The pipeline will continue to carry the Canadian crude through the United States.

By Kevin Krolicki, Scott DiSavino and Taro Fuse

TOKYO | Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:45pm EDT

(Reuters) - Over the past two weeks, Japanese government officials and Tokyo Electric Power executives have repeatedly described the deadly combination of the most powerful quake in Japan's history and the massive tsunami that followed as "soteigai," or beyond expectations.
When Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu apologized to the people of Japan for the continuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant he called the double disaster "marvels of nature that we have never experienced before".

 

But a review of company and regulatory records shows that Japan and its largest utility repeatedly downplayed dangers and ignored warnings -- including a 2007 tsunami study from Tokyo Electric Power Co's senior safety engineer.
"We still have the possibilities that the tsunami height exceeds the determined design height due to the uncertainties regarding the tsunami phenomenon," Tokyo Electric researchers said in a report reviewed by Reuters.
The research paper concluded that there was a roughly 10 percent chance that a tsunami could test or overrun the defenses of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant within a 50-year span based on the most conservative assumptions.
But Tokyo Electric did nothing to change its safety planning based on that study, which was presented at a nuclear engineering conference in Miami in July 2007.
Meanwhile, Japanese nuclear regulators clung to a model that left crucial safety decisions in the hands of the utility that ran the plant, according to regulatory records, officials and outside experts.
Among examples of the failed opportunities to prepare for disaster, Japanese nuclear regulators never demanded that Tokyo Electric reassess its fundamental assumptions about earthquake and tsunami risk for a nuclear plant built more than four decades ago. In the 1990s, officials urged but did not require that Tokyo Electric and other utilities shore up their system of plant monitoring in the event of a crisis, the record shows.
Even though Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, (NISA) one of the three government bodies charged with nuclear safety, cataloged the damage to nuclear plant vent systems from an earlier earthquake, it did not require those to be protected against future disasters or hardened against explosions.


Shame on them, because to know that tsunamis are prevalent in Japan and to do nothing about the problems that  were known is incomprehensible.  The outcome of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could have been so much worse. What is wrong with people, greed.

By Nate Raymond and Hugh Bronstein

NEW YORK/BUENOS AIRES | Sat Mar 30, 2013 9:20pm EDT

(Reuters) - Argentina challenged a U.S. court over the weekend by proposing that "holdout" bond investors be repaid only about one sixth the money federal judges hearing the case say they are owed, setting the stage for a legal showdown in New York.
The terms offered by Argentina are the same as those accepted by bondholders who chose to participate in the country's 2010 sovereign bond restructuring. The holdouts rejected that restructuring and are holding out for full repayment.

 

Aside from the implications the case has for Argentina's finances, it could also have wide ramifications for the way future sovereign restructurings are carried around the world.
Argentina defaulted on $100 billion in sovereign debt in 2002 at the height of a financial crisis in Latin America's third largest economy. The bonds now under dispute were issued in New York, which is why the case is being heard in U.S. court.
Elliott Management affiliate NML Capital Ltd, one of the lead plaintiffs, has said that it will not accept 2010 terms They and other holdouts are sure to argue that Argentina's proposal does not respond to the court's request.
"The court said 'You owe the holdouts $1.3 billion. Tell us how you are going to pay that to them,'" said Josh Rosner, managing director at research firm Graham Fisher & Co in New York.
"Instead of answering how they will pay the full amount, Argentina responded with a plan for paying a much smaller amount," he said. "Argentina is flirting with technical default, which would take a serious toll its economy."
The specter of technical defaults comes from the fact that a U.S. District Court in New York has said that until the holdouts start getting paid, Argentina cannot make payments to holders of the restructured bonds.
Elliott stands currently to receive $720 million from Argentina following a New York judge's order in November, according to Argentina.
But the bonds NML could take had a market value of just $186.8 million before a major decision in the case last October favoring the holdouts, or $120.6 million as of March 1, the filing said. Argentina estimates NML paid about $48.7 million in 2008 for its stake in the bonds.
"The Republic is prepared to fulfill the terms of this proposal promptly upon Order by the Court by submitting a bill to Congress that ensures its timely implementation," Jonathan Blackman, Argentina's U.S. lawyer, wrote.
Around 92 percent of Argentina's defaulted bonds were restructured in 2005 and 2010, with bondholders receiving 25 cents to 29 cents on the dollar.
But holdouts led by NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management have fought for years for full payment. Argentina calls these funds "vultures."
In October, the 2nd Circuit upheld a trial judge's ruling by finding Argentina had violated a so-called pari passu clause in its bond documents requiring it to treat creditors equally.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in Manhattan subsequently ordered Argentina in November to pay the $1.33 billion owed to the bondholders into an escrow account by the time of its next interest payment to holders of the exchanged debt.
The 2nd Circuit heard an appeal of that order on February 27. Two days later, it directed Argentina to provide details of "the precise terms of any alternative payment formula and schedule to which it is prepared to commit."


The American courts found a loopole pari passu clause in its bond documents requiring it to treat creditors equally.
 It seems that between 2005 and 2010 only received 25 cents to 29 cent on the dollar and so why do the courts thinks that full payment is equally. I think with the Argentina economy they should be happy to get anything, so if I were them I would take what is being offered before there is no money left.

By Ulf Laessing

CAIRO | Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:51am EDT

(Reuters) - An IMF delegation will arrive in Egypt on Wednesday for talks with the government on a $4.8 billion loan, a government spokesman said on Sunday, as Cairo seeks to conclude a deal vital to easing a deep economic crisis.
Spokesman Alaa El Hadidi added that Egypt would not seek any emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund and faced no "crisis" in funding the import of essential commodities.
The most populous Arab country has been seeking a loan from the Fund to ease economic strains after two years of political upheaval. Reserves of foreign currency have fallen to critically low levels, threatening Egypt's ability to buy in supplies of wheat, of which it is the world's biggest importer, and fuel.
President Mohamed Mursi's government initialed a deal with the IMF last November but postponed final ratification in December in the face of unrest triggered by a political row over the extent of his powers.
Hadidi, seeking to allay public concerns over power cuts and long queues at petrol stations, ruled out an emergency loan, as suggested by the IMF. He added that the country was still able to buy essential imports



 I think it is a good idea that the IMF is getting involved to help Egypt, because to help ease the countries woes. The IMF will help the government in more ways than just money, it will help with the unrest in the county.

By David Chance

SEOUL | Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:58pm EDT

(Reuters) - The United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers on practice runs over South Korea on Thursday, in a rare show of force following a series of North Korean threats that the Pentagon said have set Pyongyang on a dangerous path.
The drill by the two B-2 Spirit bombers - flying all the way from the United States and back - appeared to be the first exercise of its kind and showed America's ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes "quickly and at will," the U.S. military said.
The bomber flights, and the unusual public announcement of them by the U.S. military, appeared designed to send a message of Washington's resolve to North Korea amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.
In recent weeks, North Korea has said it canceled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and has cut all communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.
North Korea has threatened South Korea with war and the mainland United States with a pre-emptive nuclear strike, although it is far from clear it has the ability to carry out the latter threat.


 Kim Jong Un, what a idiot, moron, and etc. I just wonder what is in his head that he would want to put his people in a place that they would go to war. I have no words to even try to understand a person who would do that to his people. I hope the United States take care of this situation quickly.

By Thomas Ferraro and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON | Sun Mar 31, 2013 2:45pm EDT

(Reuters) - With U.S. business and labor now in agreement, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has resolved all major issues in a pending deal to overhaul the U.S. immigration system and aims to unveil it after Congress reconvenes in the second week of April, key lawmakers said on Sunday.
The lawmakers said that while there was no final deal yet, they hope and even expect there to be one soon after the measure is put into legislative language so all eight senators in the bipartisan group can review it.

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest U.S. business group, and the AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation, reached an elusive agreement on a guest worker program on Friday, clearing the way for the writing of a full bill.
The bill will include an earned pathway to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, bolstered border security and ways for business to meet the need for both high-skilled and low-skilled workers.
"With the agreement between business and labor, every major policy issue has been resolved," said Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and a leader of the so-called Gang of Eight, which has four Democrats and four Republicans.



 Same old same old, let illegals immigrants become legal and strengthen our boarders. The illegal immigrants become legal and our (boarders will still not get the security they need).  United States is saying, come to America illegally and as long as you don't get caught for a few years we will pass a law that says you can stay and become legal. Meanwhile resources for boarder states of Mexico are dwindling and putting the states as risk for bankruptcy and the same is being slowing done to other states.