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Sunday, June 17, 2012
Greek voters to decide euro future
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greeks voted on Sunday in an election that could decide whether their heavily indebted country stays in the euro zone or is forced towards the exit, potentially unleashing shocks that could break up Europe's single currency.
Opinion polls are banned in the final two weeks of the campaign but party officials' own estimates on election day showed the radical leftist SYRIZA bloc, which wants to scrap the punishing austerity package demanded by international lenders, neck and neck with the conservative New Democracy party, which broadly supports it.
The European Union and International Monetary Fund have said a new government must accept the conditions of a 130-billion-euro ($164-billion) Greek bailout agreed in March or funds will be cut off, driving Athens into bankruptcy.
All the main parties say they will keep Greece in the single currency, but SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras believes he can renegotiate the deal. He is betting that European leaders cannot afford the financial market turmoil that would be unleashed by cutting a member of the euro zone loose.
Tsipras, a 37-year old former communist student radical, has shot from obscurity to global celebrity in a matter of weeks. He appeared buoyant and confident as he cast his vote in hot summer weather at an Athens polling station.
"We are optimistic. The future belongs to the bearers of hope. We will win," he told a jostling media scrum.
On the right, establishment heir and New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras says rejection of the EU/IMF bailout would mean a return to the drachma and even greater calamity, although he, too, wants to ease some aspects of the package.
Samaras, smiling but accompanied by nothing like the media attention enjoyed by Tsipras, told reporters in the Peloponnesian town of Pylos where he cast his ballot: "Tomorrow will bring a new beginning for Greece."
Opinion polls show Greeks, weary and disillusioned after five years of deep recession, overwhelmingly favor remaining in the euro, but there is bitter anger over repeated rounds of tax hikes, slashed spending and sharp cuts in wages and pensions.
Many voters are also furious with New Democracy and the other traditional ruling party, PASOK, blaming them for decades of corruption and waste which have left them with a ruined economy and one of the heaviest debt burdens in the world.
"I voted for the bailout because these are the terms that will keep us in Europe," said 66-year-old English teacher Koula Louizopoulou after casting her ballot in Athens, hinting that she had chosen New Democracy.
"It's the first time I feel depressed after voting, knowing that I voted again for those who created the problem, but we don't have another choice," she added.
An unexpected 1-0 victory over Russia by the Greek national soccer team at the Euro 2012 championships on Saturday provided a boost to voters' spirits but the streets in Athens were generally quiet as the last hours of voting began.
There was little sign of enthusiasm at the polling stations.
"I used to vote for the main parties but not anymore. I'm done with them, since they got us here. It's time for things in Greece to change," said 31 year-old mechanic Vassilis Yanellis.
Police went to a television station in Athens where two grenades were thrown but they did not explode and officers said they did not believe the incident was related to the vote.
MOVE ON
A previous election on May 6 created weeks of uncertainty when no party was able to form a government and markets will now watch anxiously for the first signs of a result, with exit polls due shortly after voting ends at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT).
First official results are due around 9.30 p.m. local time (1830 GMT).
The party gaining the most votes gets an automatic 50-seat bonus added to their tally but neither New Democracy or SYRIZA is expected to win more than about 30 percent of the vote. So whichever emerges as the top party will have to negotiate a coalition with smaller groups.
The Socialist PASOK party, virtually wiped out in the inconclusive May election, would join its old rivals New Democracy in a pro-bailout unity government, an option SYRIZA has repeatedly ruled out.
Five opinion polls published before the ban took effect two weeks ago put New Democracy narrowly ahead. Two other polls had SYRIZA leading and pollsters said the race was too close to call.
But whoever wins power may find it is short-lived and, despite the insistence of EU politicians, some adjustment of the bailout terms may be inevitable if Greece is to get on top of a public debt amounting to 165 percent of gross domestic product.
"It is a scenario I see as likely and if that is the condition presented for Greece to stay and then move on, I would say it is probably something that should be attempted," Angel Gurria, head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, told Reuters in an interview.
Central banks from Tokyo to London are readying arsenals to defend banks and national currencies against any post-election turmoil. The result will dominate a meeting of the Group of 20 world economic powers on Monday and Tuesday in Mexico.
Finance officials in the euro zone have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from cash dispensers, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario.
Euro zone officials have hinted they might give a new Greek government some leeway on how it reaches debt targets set by the EU/IMF bailout package, but would not change the targets themselves.
Euro zone paymaster Germany warned Greeks on Saturday the bailout would not be renegotiated.
"That's why it's so important that the Greek elections preferably lead to a result in which those that will form a future government say: 'Yes, we will stick to the agreements'," Chancellor Angela Merkel told a party conference.
A Greek exit from the single currency would heap further pressure on two far larger European economies - Spain has already received up to 100 billion euros to save its struggling banks and Italy has also slipped closer to crisis.
TEST
Even if New Democracy emerges victorious, it is likely to face a strong protest movement led by the newly empowered SYRIZA, and any new government will take the reins of a country on the verge of bankruptcy.
Five years of recession and more than two years of acute crisis have started to fray the edges of Greek society, undergoing its severest test since the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1974.
The streets of central Athens are scarred by repeated waves of protests, some hospitals are short of vital medicines and reports of suicides caused by the crisis have become routine.
The far-right Golden Dawn party won seats in the first election, illustrating the fragmentation of a stressed society wrestling with unemployment of almost 23 percent and plummeting living standards.
Some global businesses and banks are in retreat.
Europe's biggest retailer Carrefour said on Friday it was selling up in Greece, a day after French bank Credit Agricole moved to take direct control of its Albanian, Bulgarian and Romanian units from its Greek bank Emporiki.
($1 = 0.7939 euros)
(Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou Writing by Matt Robinson and James Mackenzie)
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Saudi Arabia prepares to bury prince and consider next heir to throne
A special council of royal family members is expected to meet later this week ?to choose the next crown prince after the passing of Nayef Abdul-Aziz.
Crown Prince Najef, seen here in a file photo from May, has died; his replacement will be named by a council of his family.
Hassan Ammar/AP
EnlargeSaudi?royal officials received the body of Crown Prince Nayef Abdul-Aziz in Jiddah on Sunday after a flight from Geneva. He was the second heir to the throne to die outside the country in less than a year.
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A burial ceremony was set for the holy city of Mecca, where the 88-year-old King Abdullah gathered with royal family members and international envoys. Abdullah has now outlived two appointed successors from among the elderly group of sons of?Saudi's?founding monarch, King Abdul-Aziz.
Health issues increasingly preoccupy the ruling inner circle in?Saudi?Arabia?and show the vivid contrast between a leadership born at the dawn of?Saudi's?oil-rich age and the current population heavily weighted toward youth ? with more than half under 25 years old.
Saudi?authorities have led the efforts in the Western-allied Gulf to counter Arab Spring-inspired calls for reforms, using a combination of crackdowns, intimidation and lavish spending to offer state jobs and handouts. Gulf officials have proposed closer cooperation on security matters, including monitoring social media.
The 78-year-old Nayef, the country's interior minister, was considered wary of even the modest changes brought by King Abdullah, including pledges to allow women to vote and run in the next municipal elections in 2015. Women activists had planned Sunday to mark the anniversary of a campaign to challenge the ultraconservative kingdom's ban on female driving, but they postponed the protests because of the official mourning period for Nayef.
The leading figure as the next heir to the throne, 76-year-old Defense Minister Prince Salman, also is not viewed as a dynamic reformer willing to confront the behind-the-scenes power center in?Saudi?Arabia ??the Islamic religious establishment that gives the monarchy its legitimacy to rule.
Later this week, a special council of royal family members is expected to convene to select the next crown prince of OPEC's top oil producer. The wider succession shake-up also will be closely watched.
It opens the possibility that a member of the so-called "third generation" ? the thousands of younger descendants of King Abdul-Aziz ? could move into positions traditionally considered in line for the throne.
In 2010, Salman had spinal surgery and has suffered at least one stroke, leaving him with limited movement in his left arm, said Simon Henderson, a?Saudi?affairs expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The?Saudi?leadership keeps a tight lid on health-related issues. The cause of the crown prince's death in Geneva was not disclosed.
Nayef left the country in late May for what was described as a "personal vacation" that would include undisclosed medical tests. Earlier this year, he was treated at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, but no details have been officially disclosed.
Nayef's predecessor, Prince Sultan, 80, died in October in New York after an unspecified illness.
As interior minister since 1975, Nayef was in charge of internal security forces. He built up his power in the kingdom though his fierce crackdown against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks in the US and a broader campaign to prevent the growth of Islamic militancy among?Saudis.
The 9/11 attacks at first strained ties between the two allies,?Saudi?Arabia?and the US. For months, the kingdom refused to acknowledge that any of its citizens were involved in the suicide airline bombings. Nayef finally became the first?Saudi?official to publicly confirm that 15 of the 19 hijackers were?Saudis. That came in a February, 2002 interview with The Associated Press.
Nayef took a leading role in combatting the Al Qaeda branch in Yemen as well. In 2009, Al Qaeda militants tried to assassinate his son, Prince Muhammad, who is deputy interior minister and commander of counterterrorism operations. A suicide bomber posing as a repentant militant blew himself up in the same room as the prince but failed to kill him.
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Unmanned Air Force space plane lands in Calif.
FILE - This undated file image provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the X-37B spacecraft. The unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday, June 16, 2012, at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, File)
FILE - This undated file image provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the X-37B spacecraft. The unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday, June 16, 2012, at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, File)
FILE - This Feb. 8, 2011 file image provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the X-37B during encapsulation within the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 5-meter fairing in Titusville, Fla. The unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday, June 16, 2012, at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission. (AP Photo/US Air Force, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? An unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission.
The spacecraft, which was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in March 2011, conducted in-orbit experiments during the mission, officials said. It was the second such autonomous landing at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles. In 2010, an identical unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth after seven months and 91 million miles in orbit.
The latest homecoming was set in motion when the stubby-winged robotic X-37B fired its engine to slip out of orbit, then pierced through the atmosphere and glided down the runway like an airplane.
"With the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, the X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development," said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37B's program manager. "The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs. We're proud of the entire team's successful efforts to bring this mission to an outstanding conclusion."
With the second X-37B on the ground, the Air Force planned to launch the first one again in the fall. An exact date has not been set.
The twin X-37B vehicles are part of a military program testing robotically controlled reusable spacecraft technologies. Though the Air Force has emphasized the goal is to test the space plane itself, there's a classified payload on board ? a detail that has led to much speculation about the mission's ultimate purpose.
Some amateur trackers think the craft carried an experimental spy satellite sensor judging by its low orbit and inclination, suggesting reconnaissance or intelligence gathering rather than communications.
Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who runs Jonathan's Space Report, which tracks the world's space launches and satellites, said it's possible it was testing some form of new imaging.
The latest X-37B was boosted into orbit atop an Atlas 5 rocket. It was designed to stay aloft for nine months, but the Air Force wanted to test its endurance. After determining the space plane was performing well, the military decided in December to extend the mission.
Little has been said publicly about the second X-37B flight and operations. At a budget hearing before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee in March, William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, made a passing mention.
That the second X-37B has stayed longer in space than the first shows "the flexibility of this unique system," he told lawmakers.
Defense analysts are divided over its usefulness.
Joan Johnson-Freese, professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College, said such a craft could give the U.S. "eyes" over conflict regions faster than a satellite.
"Having a vehicle with a broad range of capabilities that can get into space quickly is a very good thing," she said.
Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist and scientific consultant for the Federation of American Scientists, thinks the capabilities of the X-37B could be done more cheaply with a disposable spacecraft.
"I believe one of the reasons that the mission is still around is institutional inertia," he said.
The arc of the X-37 program spans back to 1999 and has changed hands several times. Originally a NASA project, the space agency in 2004 transferred it to the Pentagon's research and development arm, DARPA, and then to the secretive Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into development, but the current total spent remains a secret.
Built by Boeing Government Space Systems, a unit of the company's satellite manufacturing area, the 11,000-pound space plane stands 9 1/2 feet tall and is just over 29 feet long, with a wingspan of less than 15 feet. It possesses two angled tail fins rather than a single vertical stabilizer. Once in orbit, it has solar panels that unfurl to charge batteries for electrical power.
McDowell of the Jonathan's Space Report sees a downside. He noted it'll be tough for the Air Force to send up such planes on short notice if it has to rely on the Atlas V rocket, which requires lengthy preparations.
"The requirement to go on Atlas V is a problem; they may need to look at a new launch vehicle that would be ready to go more quickly," he said.
___
Online:
X-37B fact sheet: http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=16639
Vandenberg AFB: http://www.vandenberg.af.mil
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Bomb damages tax office in southern Italy: police
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