The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Venezuela's Maduro to seek decree powers in graft fight
- U.S. sets up intelligence surveillance technology review body
- Mexico proposes energy reform, some investors sceptical
| Venezuela's Maduro to seek decree powers in graft fight Posted: CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday he will ask for decree powers last used by his predecessor Hugo Chavez to ramp up a fight against corruption that has begun to cost him politically with supporters. Maduro, who served as Chavez's foreign minister and vice president, narrowly won an election four months ago after his socialist mentor died of cancer. He has struggled with slowing economic growth and rising inflation while also trying to impose control on the diverse coalition he inherited from Chavez. It ranges from military officers to businessmen, leftist ideologues and armed militants. A new anti-corruption drive that Maduro launched with great fanfare has led to the arrest of some relatively senior officials from state-run businesses and institutions. But it has suffered from a widespread public perception that "big fish" with political connections have been spared. In a nationally televised speech, Maduro said he would ask the National Assembly, which is dominated by his supporters, to grant him decree powers to step up his battle to defeat graft. "I'm going to call a national emergency in the fight against corruption, and I'm going to ask for special powers in order to change the laws," he said. "If I have to change all the laws to confront corruption, I'm going to do it." To be granted decree powers, Maduro would need the votes of three-fifths of the National Assembly, or 99 deputies. His ruling Socialist Party holds 98 seats, so he would need just one independent lawmaker to back him. Chavez governed for months using decree powers that he requested from lawmakers in 2010 to push through reconstruction and relief projects after floods left nearly 140,000 homeless. At the time, critics accused him of exploiting the disaster to sideline the Assembly before the arrival of a raft of opposition legislators elected that year. Chavez later said he was being demonized around the world for ruling by decree, and at one point said he would give up the powers if the post-flood measures were put in place quickly. It was unclear what laws Maduro might change by decree, and he gave few details in his speech. In its latest annual index of perceptions of corruption, global watchdog Transparency International ranked Venezuela as the ninth most corrupt country in the world. Among the senior officials caught up in Maduro's anti-graft campaign are five who are charged with embezzling $84 million from a China-financed development fund. But many Venezuelans openly wonder why some individuals widely believed to be corrupt, including heavyweight figures close to the government, have not been brought to justice. Some "Chavistas" see that as a betrayal of their late hero's memory, so the perception that his administration is soft on corruption has become a challenge for Maduro that rivals violent crime and the economy. (Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Xavier Briand) |
| U.S. sets up intelligence surveillance technology review body Posted: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday launched a formal review of its electronic intelligence gathering that has come under widespread criticism since leaks by a former spy agency contractor. The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will examine the technical and policy issues that arise from rapid advances in global telecommunications, the White House said in a statement. The group will assess whether U.S. data collection "optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust," the statement said. The high-level group of outside experts has 60 days to deliver its interim findings. A final report and recommendations are due on December 15. A separate statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed the review. Neither the White House nor Clapper released details on the size or composition of the panel. In a news conference at the White House on Friday, President Barack Obama vowed to improve oversight of surveillance and restore public trust in the government's programs. The formal review is one of four measures unveiled by Obama, who said he had ordered a review of the surveillance programs before ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post. Obama's other measures include plans to work with Congress to pursue reforms of Section 215 of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act that governs the collection of so-called "metadata" such as phone records, and reform of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which considers requests from law enforcement authorities on intelligence-gathering targets. Obama also vowed to provide more details about the NSA programs to try to restore any public trust damaged by the Snowden disclosures. Civil liberty groups demanded more details on Obama's plans, but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called the announcement "a victory of sorts for Edward Snowden and his many supporters. The Obama administration has vigorously pursued Snowden to bring him back to the United States to face espionage charges for leaking details of U.S. surveillance programs to the media. Snowden is now in Russia, where he has been granted a year's asylum. (Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by Xavier Briand) |
| Mexico proposes energy reform, some investors sceptical Posted: MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - President Enrique Pena Nieto on Monday proposed an overhaul of Mexico's energy industry to offer private companies profit-sharing contracts, but investors said it might be too cautious and some sold Mexican assets. The proposal calls for changes to key articles of the constitution that ban certain contracts and make oil, gas, petrochemicals and electricity the sole preserve of the state, in a bid to lure investment to stem sliding oil output. If enacted, the reform would mark the largest private sector opening in decades for Mexico's energy industry, which was nationalized in 1938 and is controlled by state monopoly Pemex. However, the centrist government's bill stops short of proposing concessions to tap Mexican oil, or production-sharing, that were viewed as the best-case scenarios by oil companies. It also avoids giving private companies ownership over Mexico's oil and gas and instead gives them a share of profits, in cash but not oil. It was not yet clear how attractive the reform would be for oil majors such as BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. Energy Minister Pedro Joaquin Coldwell said the government had "not spoken with the big oil companies" about the reform. Chevron Corp welcomed "any decision by the government and people of Mexico to provide new opportunities for investments" but said it had not yet reviewed the proposal. An executive with an independent U.S.-based oil company said the proposal lacks the main element oil companies require. "If the operators aren't going to own the reserves, it would be really hard" to view the reform as a game-changer. "That's how we're judged by Wall Street, by growing production and growing reserves," the executive added, requesting anonymity. Mexico's proposal falls short of frameworks in oil-producing peers such as Brazil, Colombia and Norway, which allow companies to keep a share of output, and its success will now likely hinge on how generous the profit-sharing contracts are. Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya said the new contract plan would auction new, unexplored oil and gas fields to private companies. Mexico's ample deep water oil and shale gas reserves are often cited as likely to figure into new contracts. The proposal will be sent to Congress this week and is expected to pass because the government has backed away from more aggressive reform that would have faced bitter opposition from the left. "The reform neither promotes nor contemplates production-sharing contracts," Pena Nieto said in a televised address from his official residence. "What it seeks to do is reach profit-sharing contracts which allow the nation to keep total control over the oil," he added, saying that oil and gas reserves would remain under the exclusive ownership of the state. "Pemex is neither being sold nor privatized." Finance Minister Luis Videgaray told analysts the contracts would include "moderate" royalties payable to the government in addition to income tax and rents, which are standard elsewhere in the world. Some have suggested that breaking up the 75-year-old Pemex could double foreign investment in Mexico and improve growth, potentially providing the biggest leg-up to its economy since the North American Free Trade Agreement two decades ago. The government would also offer permits in association with Pemex to refine, transport and store hydrocarbons and petrochemicals. Under the proposal, the state would also retain control of electricity transmission and distribution currently controlled by state monopoly CFE, while strengthening electricity regulator CRE and the energy ministry. But it would further open electricity generation to more private investment. PLAN 'MAY BE TOO CAUTIOUS' "It may not be enough," said Marcelo Mereles, a partner at Mexico City-based energy consultancy EnergeA. "It might be an improvement on the current legal setup, but I don't know if it's going to be enough to make Mexico attractive at a global level. It may be too cautious." Fred Lawrence, vice-president of economics and international affairs at leading Washington-based oil industry association Independent Petroleum Association of America, was more upbeat. "It's very interesting ... It would be much better than what was there before for an E&P (exploration and production) company," he said. Mexico's peso currency weakened after the announcement and the stock market also dropped. Mexican petrochemical companies that stood to benefit from stronger reforms fell sharply, giving up some recent big gains. Mexico has the biggest proven oil reserves in Latin America after Venezuela and Brazil, at nearly 14 billion barrels. It also has shale-gas resources that might be as high as 460 trillion cubic feet, according to Pemex data. The reform proposal tries to tread a fine line between the demands of leftist and conservative lawmakers on an emotive issue that overshadows Pena Nieto's wider reform agenda. The energy overhaul is the cornerstone of a wide-reaching reform package he hopes will boost growth in Mexico, Latin America's No. 2 economy, and lift its energy industry into the modern era. But it is politically divisive. The proposal seeks to tweak the language from one paragraph in Article 27 of the constitution to allow profit-sharing oil contracts. Oil companies are awaiting details of the language of the ensuing so-called secondary laws that include the fine print of how to implement the bill to gauge how far-reaching and lucrative the reform will be and how contracts will be structured. Those details are expected to emerge later in the year at best. The proposal also gave an insight into a fiscal reform, due later this year, aimed at boosting Mexico's paltry tax revenues. Mexico leans on Pemex to fund about a third of the federal budget, which has hampered its ability to invest in abundant, but technically challenging deep-water reserves. The reform would ease the financial burden on Pemex, lessening the amount used to prop up the government and using the leftover money to reinvest in the company or to be paid out as a dividend for the government to invest in public spending. (Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Luc Cohen, Ana Isabel Martinez, Anahi Rama and Miguel Gutierrez; Editing by Kieran Murray and Ken Wills) |
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