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A senior U.S. Treasury official on Friday rejected calls to recapitalize class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Fannie Mae and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Freddie Mac , saying it would take at least 20 years to make sure they were adequately funded and that in the meantime taxpayers would be on the hook. In remarks to a housing conference, Treasury Undersecretary Mary Miller repeated the Obama administration's call that the two so-called government-sponsored enterprises be wound down. "Critics of reform would suggest that we can simply recapitalize the GSEs and avoid difficult decisions around creating a new system," she said. "Even if truly rehabilitating the GSEs were possible, recapitalizing them adequately would take at least 20 years."   true       "During these 20 years, the taxpayer would remain at risk of having to bail out the GSEs during another downturn," Miller added class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Fannie Mae

Britain could become the first major class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy to tighten monetary policy since the 2008 financial crisis, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has signalled, sending sterling shooting towards a five-year high against the dollar on Friday. British government bond yields soared, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> construction stocks tumbled and interest rate class="mandelbrot_refrag"> futures priced in a first hike by December after Carney said rates could rise sooner than class="mandelbrot_refrag"> markets had thought - his most hawkish comment to date. "There's already great speculation about the exact timing of the first rate hike and this decision is becoming more balanced," Carney said in a speech late on Thursday alongside British finance minister George Osborne. "It could happen sooner than markets currently expect." Few economists had expected rates to increase until the sec

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Japan on Friday denied Beijing's claims that its Self-Defence Force planes came "dangerously close" to Chinese aircraft in an incident over the East class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China Sea on Wednesday, demanding China takes down the footage allegedly showing the incident. _0"> The tit-for-tat accusations and denials are part of a long-running territorial dispute between Asia's largest economies. They follow a similar incident on May 24, when class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Japan said Chinese aircraft came within a few dozen metres of its warplanes. class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China , where bitter memories of Japan's wartime militarism run deep, lays claim to Japanese-administered islets in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. China declared its air defence zone covering most of the East China Sea last year despite protests by Japan and the Uni

South Korean on Friday police arrested the brother of a South Korean businessman linked to a ferry disaster in April in which hundreds of school children drowned, as the net appeared to tighten around the fugitive's family. But Yoo Byung-un, 73, a businessman and photographer, is still on the run, eluding one of the country's biggest and most bizarre manhunts for more than a month, centred on a huge church sect compound south of Seoul. [ID:nL4N0OT3MC] His elder brother, Yoo Byung-il, was arrested near the leafy compound in Anseong, where police are checking all passing vehicles and pedestrians.   true       Yoo Byung-un's daughter, Yoo Som-Na, has been held in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> France since May 28 after Interpol called for her arrest "for fraud and embezzlement". She was denied bail on Wednesday Yoo Byung-un is wanted on charges of embezzlement, negligence and tax evasion stemming from a web of business holdings centred on I-One-I, an

The head of the junta that seized power in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Thailand last month said on Friday that an interim government would be set up by August, the first time he has given a clear date on delegating any sort of power in the country. General Prayuth Chan-ocha, in an address to senior military officials, announced the date as part of a three-phase plan of reconciliation, formation of a government and elections to be rolled out by the ruling National Council for Peace and Order. "A government will be set up by August, or at the very latest September," Prayuth told a meeting devoted to the 2015 national budget. He did not say whether the government would be comprised of civilian or military types.   true       The army took power on May 22 in a bloodless coup after six months of sometimes violent street protests pitting mainly rural supporters of ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra against her Bangkok-based, royalist opponents. Prayuth re

Hundreds of Pakistani families have fled from a surge of fighting between Pakistani government forces and militants into neighboring class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Afghanistan , an Afghan government official said on Friday. _0"> Pakistani government forces have been launching air strikes against Pakistani Taliban fighters in a northwestern valley near the Afghan border in recent days, after Taliban fighters raided the country's biggest airport, in Karachi, late on Sunday. Missile-firing U.S. drone aircraft have also, for the first time in six months, attacked militants this week in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, a lawless militant stronghold on the Afghan order.   true       Millions of Afghan civilians have for decades sought shelter in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Pakistan to escape war in their homeland but the fighting in Pakistan this week has sparked a rare flow of civilians the other way. "Around 300 Pakistani families have

Shi'te Muslim class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Iran is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters. The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic's leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party. Officials say class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Iran will send its neighbor advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to help its ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki check what Tehran sees as a profound threat to regional stability, officials and analysts say.   true       Islamist militants have captured swathes of territory including the country's second biggest city Mosul. Tehran is open to the possibility of working with the United States to

Tunisian police killed two Islamist militants during clashes near the Algerian border and seized weapons and bombs, the government said on Friday, two weeks after Islamists attacked a government minister's home in one of their boldest attacks. Tunisian forces are engaged in a crackdown on the hardline Islamist group Ansar al Sharia and launched a major assault this year on the Chaambi mountains in the west, close to the Algerian border, where Islamist militants have taken refuge. Clashes broke out on Thursday night in the northwest of the city of Jendouba,‮‮ Interior Ministry spokesman Ali Aroui said.   true       "Our forces killed two members of the terrorist group in Jendouba in exchange of fire... Tunisian police seized weapons, bombs and military costumes during the confrontation with Islamist militants", Aroui added. Four police were killed last month when Islamists opened fire on the interior minister's family home in the city of Kasserine. The minister L

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine said on Friday it was ready to pay a compromise price for Russian class="mandelbrot_refrag"> natural gas for 18 months to avert the threat of Moscow cutting off supplies and allow time to reach a long-term pricing agreement. Andriy Kobolev, chief executive of state gas company Naftogaz, said the price of $326 per 1,000 cubic metres - higher than what Kiev wants to pay and lower than what Russia demands - was proposed by the European Commission during talks. In talks that are made even more difficult by the conflict in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine , in which Kiev accuses Moscow of backing a separatist rebellion in eastern regions, Russia has threatened to cut off supplies to Ukraine if it fails to start paying off billions of dollars in debts by Monday.   true       The Russian Energy Ministry has ruled out holding any more talks with Kiev and the EU before the Monday deadline. "In our opinio

Afghans head to the polls on Saturday for the second time in 10 weeks to elect a president who will take office as most foreign forces prepare to leave after nearly 13 years of inconclusive war. _0"> None of the eight candidates who contested the first round of the election on April 5 won more than 50 percent of the vote meaning the top two contenders have to face off on Saturday. The two men aiming to succeed President Hamid Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from a third term, are a former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, and an ex-World Bank economist and former class="mandelbrot_refrag"> finance minister, Ashraf Ghani.   true       The winner will inherit an unfinished war and an class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy in the doldrums. The Taliban are still strong and Afghanistan's foreign-trained army has never put to rest questions about its effectiveness, especially in the absence of foreign troops, the bulk of whom will leave b

Nigeria is studying the military tactics used by Sri Lanka to crush the rebel Tamil Tigers for its own battle against Islamist group Boko Haram, the defense ministry said, after holding talks with officials from the island nation. Abuja has been criticized for its failure to contain the militant group, which has killed thousands since 2009 and has stepped up its devastating attacks after abducting more than 200 girls from a school in northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram, which wants to carve out an Islamist state in northern Nigeria, has exposed severe weaknesses in Abuja's security forces and heaped political pressure on President Goodluck Jonathan, who has declared a "full-scale operation" against the group.   true       High-ranking members of Nigeria's military met with a Sri Lankan delegation to discuss counter-insurgency tactics, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement late on Thursday. The chief of Nigeria's defense staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh,

Wearing sporting gear including cycling gloves, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi asked Egyptians on Friday to cycle and walk more to help the cash-strapped government that spends tens of billions of dollars a year on fuel subsidies. _0"> The former army chief gave one of his first speeches since last Sunday's inauguration to several hundred Egyptians on bicycles at a military college in the capital Cairo before taking part in a cycling marathon. Cyclists are rarely seen in Cairo where chaotic traffic regularly clogs up large parts of the city.   true       class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Egypt spent about 170 billion Egyptian pounds ($24 billion), or around a fifth of its budget, on energy subsidies this fiscal year ending June 30, state media quoted the government as saying this month, and plans to cut that to 104 billion next year. Energy prices in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Egypt are among the lowest in the world and although successive gover

A Chinese official said on Friday that class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China will never send military forces to the scene of an increasingly ugly spat with Vietnam over an oil rig in the South China Sea and accused Hanoi of trying to force an international lawsuit. A senior U.S. official in Washington dismissed the Chinese statement as "patently ridiculous" and said Beijing had been using air force and navy as well as coastguard assets "to intimidate others." Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have squared off around the rig despite a series of collisions after the Chinese platform was towed into disputed waters in early May.   true       Vietnam has accused class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China of sending six warships, but Yi Xianliang, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, said that Beijing had never sent military forces. "I can tel

Some of the schoolgirls abducted by militant group Boko Haram may never return home, Nigeria's influential former president Olusegun Obasanjo said, in some of the most pessimistic comments yet on their fate from a member of the country's elite. Obasanjo said President Goodluck Jonathan's administration had taken too long to respond to the April mass abduction. Once Jonathan's mentor and one of his strongest political allies, Obasanjo turned against him last December. "I believe that some of them will never return. We will still be hearing about them many years from now," Obasanjo told the BBC's Hausa-language radio service on Thursday, in comments echoed in an interview with Nigeria's Premium Times website.   true       The warning from Obasanjo, who stepped down in 2007 and nurtured Jonathan's own rise to power, will dismay parents who have now waited 60 days for any news of their daughters, taken from a school in the village of Chibok in nor

Chinese police said on Friday they had arrested a prominent human rights lawyers on charges of causing a disturbance and illegal access to personal information, in a case that has sparked an outcry among rights workers in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China and the West. Pu Zhiqiang, one of China's most outspoken dissidents, was detained last month after he attended a meeting in a private home to commemorate the bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Police also detained four other activists but later released them.   true       Beijing police had formally arrested Pu on "suspicion of the crimes of causing a disturbance and illegal access to the personal information of citizens after approval from the prosecutors", the police said on their official microblog. "As for Pu Zhiqiang's other alleged crimes, the public security organs will conduct further investigation," the police said. Pu's lawyer, Zhan

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not altered her view that Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker should become president of the European Commission, a government spokesman said on Friday. _0"> "The German chancellor has very clearly said, including in her recent speech to parliament, that she is in favor of Jean-Claude Juncker becoming the next European Commission president and that she will work towards him getting a majority," Steffen Seibert said, adding that "nothing has changed" in this regard.   true       (Reporting by Stephen Brown and Michelle Martin)

Dozens of aircraft briefly vanished from air-traffic control radars in Austria, class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany , the Czech Republic and Slovakia this week and last in separate incidents that Slovak authorities blamed on military electronic warfare exercises. _0"> Air-traffic controllers in Austria and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany said data about the planes' position, direction, height or speed went missing on June 5 and June 10, but the outages posed no serious danger to people on the aircraft travelling at high altitude. Their Czech and Slovak counterparts also encountered cases of vanishing aircraft on the same days. "The disappearance of objects on radar screens was connected with a planned military exercise which took place in various parts of Europe on June 5 and 10 and whose goal was the interruption of radiocommunication frequencies," the Slovak state Air Traffic Services company said in a statement.   true    

The leader of South Africa's AMCU union said on Friday a wage deal with the top three platinum producers was imminent, signalling a possible end to a crippling five-month strike that has disrupted global output of the metal. Workers from the Association of Mineworkers and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Construction Union (AMCU) begged leader Joseph Mathunjwa on Thursday to end the country's longest mining strike and sign the latest offer - an increase of about 20 percent, or 1,000 rand ($93) a month. Mathunjwa told Johannesburg radio he would take the offer to more AMCU members at mines on Friday, before meeting with management at Lonmin ( id="symbol_LMI.L_0"> LMI.L ) ( id="symbol_LONJ.J_1"> LONJ.J ), Anglo American Platinum ( id="symbol_AMSJ.J_2"> AMSJ.J ) and Impala Platinum ( id="symbol_IMPJ.J IMPJ.J ) later or over the weekend to relay the response of his miners to their offer.   true       _3"> "

Croatia's Supreme Court has confirmed a guilty verdict against former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader for taking a bribe from Hungarian oil group MOL in exchange for allowing it a dominant position in Croatian oil firm INA. _0"> The ruling will not automatically annul a disputed INA shareholder agreement that Zagreb and MOL reached in 2009, but may serve as a legal basis for Croatia to start a new court process to render it null and void. "This verdict confirms our view that the Croatian interests were not protected in the process of INA's sale to MOL. It also confirms that the talks (with MOL) the government initiated and the arbitration procedure before international bodies were fully justified," class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Economy Minister Ivan Vrdoljak said in a statement.   true       The ruling was confirmed by Zagreb county court spokesman Kresimir Devcic. "The Supreme Court has modified the original verdict to eight years and six mo