Greek focus for eurozone meeting

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23 January 2012 Last updated at 12:16 GMT The talks could be crucial to the future of the euro Eurozone finance ministers are to meet later, with the Greek debt crisis likely to dominate proceedings.

On the agenda will be what form Greek debt restructuring should take as part of a second bailout package for Athens.

It comes after negotiators for private creditors left Greece without a deal to write off some of the country's debts.

Separately, IMF boss Christine Lagarde has said the eurozone needs economic growth and bigger financial firewalls to resolve debt issues.

Deadline

The Institute of International Finance (IIF), which represents Greece's creditors, said a technical team would remain to work further on the details.

European leaders agreed in principle last year that private lenders would voluntarily write off 50% of their loans to Greece, but private creditors still need to agree to the terms of the deal.

A 130bn euro ($168bn; £108bn) rescue package from the EU and IMF is crucial if Greece is to meet its next debt repayment deadline in two months.

Without the second bailout Greece will not be able to pay back 14.5bn euros in maturing bonds in March.

If Greece defaults on its debts it could cause further economic havoc in the eurozone, and undermine the common currency.

'Solvency crisis'

Christine Lagarde met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday.

After the meeting, Ms Lagarde said that the eurozone needed a "larger firewall" to prevent the debt crisis spreading.

"Without it, countries like Italy and Spain that are fundamentally able to repay their debts could be forced into a solvency crisis by abnormal financing costs," she said.

She suggested "folding" money left in the eurozone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, into the new European Stability Mechanism bailout fund, when the latter comes into force some time this year.

She also said the European Central Bank should "provide the necessary liquidity support to stabilise bank funding and sovereign debt markets."

And she repeated her view that "across-the-board, across-the continent, budgetary cuts will only add to recessionary pressures".

'Market wolf'

A leading Australian economic report warned on Monday of the wider global implications of a eurozone meltdown.

The quarterly Deloitte-Access Economics Business Outlook said it was "marginally" more likely the eurozone would manage to get through its current problems.

For the time being, the report said, the European Central Bank looked able to keep the "market wolf from the sovereign debt door" but that the region was bound for recession.

The euro hit its highest level in nearly three weeks against the dollar on Monday, at $1.2998 on hopes of positive signs from the finance ministers' meeting.

And the common currency was up 0.4% against the pound at 83.42 pence.

Source BBC

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Mandatory Halloween meeting to occupy some Alabama sex offenders

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By Kelli Dugan

MOBILE, Ala | Thu Oct 27, 2011 7:08pm EDT

MOBILE, Ala (Reuters) - Authorities in one southeast Alabama county have special Halloween plans for certain sex offenders, designed to keep trick-or-treaters safer and parents more at ease.

The Russell County Sheriff's Department has ordered nearly a quarter of the county's registered sex offenders -- those either on parole or probation -- to spend three hours of All Hallows' Eve at their own little party in the county commission chambers.

There won't be any party favors, but those in attendance will receive a timely, and mandatory, update on the latest registration requirements, said Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor.

"My thought process in this was that to protect our kids. If we save one somebody from becoming a (sex offender's) victim, then it's done its job," he said.

The program is a joint venture between the sheriff's office and the Alabama Department of Pardons and Paroles. About 35 of the county's 150 registered sex offenders are either on parole or probation, but Taylor said his office can only encourage the remaining 115 offenders to attend the meeting voluntarily.

"We can't make them do it, but for the ones that it's voluntary, we're hoping they'll come on in and get some help with their next registration," Taylor said, noting about one dozen offenders had already volunteered to attend the program by late Thursday afternoon.

Alabama law requires sex offenders to register four times per year at a cost of $10 per registration. Any offender who voluntarily attends the Halloween meeting will have the fee for their next registration period waived, Taylor said.

"This is just something we felt we needed to do for the safety of our community, and I really think it's going to be a good thing," he said.

Russell County is not alone in its quest to contain any holiday-induced threats to its littlest residents, but laws governing the activities of convicted sex offenders on Halloween vary widely from city to city and state to state.

Although no statewide law bars sex offenders from handing out candy to Alabama trick-or-treaters, neighboring Florida enacted a law in 2010 that not only bans that but also bars offenders from wearing costumes children might find appealing.

In California's Riverside County, two separate cities passed ordinances within the past week barring sex offenders from passing out candy, and sheriff's deputies in Virginia's Loudon County will visit residences of sex offenders Monday night to ensure all parole or probation requirements are being met.

A spokesman with the Loudon County Sheriff's Office said "Operation Porch Lights Out" also prohibits violators on probation or parole from turning on their porch lights, answering their doors for trick-or-treaters or displaying "inviting" decorations on Halloween.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Syrian opposition stage meeting

The meeting was drawn from members of Syria's established opposition

  More than 2,000 people are thought to have died since the anti-government protests began More than 200 Syrian opposition figures have met near Damascus in an effort to unite anti-government groups. The meeting, held at a private farm outside the capital, follows months of protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
No arrests were made, although the opposition figures who attended were monitored by security officials.
Saturday's meeting comes two days after opposition parties in exile formed the Syrian National Council in Turkey.
Dr Samir Aita, an opposition figure living abroad who attended the Damascus meeting, said the event was significant.
"The importance of this meeting lies in the fact that it is happening in Damascus, on Syrian soil, in support of the protesters despite all the security difficulties," he said.
Inspired by anti-government protests in Tunisia and Egypt, the opposition movement began more than five months ago as a series of protests against Syria's authorities.
A violent crackdown by security forces has since left more than 2,200 people dead, according to the UN.
The government says hundreds of its personnel have been killed.
Most of the people who attended the opposition meeting were drawn from Syria's established opposition - who have spent years of their life in prison, says the BBC's Lina Sinjab in Damascus.
Representatives of the protesters did not attend, fearing arrest, but they supported the meeting and their demands were read out, she adds.
One activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, denied any involvement with the conference and said it could only form an alliance or coalition with the traditional opposition once the government had been toppled.
The opposition asked for no international intervention, no sectarianism and no violence.
Embryonic assembly
At Thursday's meeting in Istanbul, members of Syria's opposition groups chose 140 people to form a "national council".
Its aim is to organise and give a public face to protests against Mr Assad.
It will also co-ordinate the opposition's policies against the Syrian leadership.
Half of those selected are in Syria, with the remainder drawn from opposition figures in Syria's disapora.
There have been earlier attempts to unite the country's opposition under one banner, but this attempt is being cast as having the full backing of all opposition groups, in effect an embryonic Syrian national assembly.
Speaking on Thursday, an opposition spokeswoman, Basma Qadmani, said: "After completing the first level of consultative meetings, groups of revolutionary youth, political movements and personalities, activists and technocrats decided to found the Syrian National Council."
Yasser Tabbara, another member of the council, said it had not yet elected a president.
"We are in a democratic process. This is an inaugural meeting," he told the AFP news agency.

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