G20 in South Korea - global bank tax?
5 June 2010
The G20 will put to rest proposals for a global bank tax, introducing new language in their communique that recognises some countries did not have bank bailouts and therefore may seek alternative policies, a senior G20 official said on Saturday.
'Finance ministers and central bank governors from the group leading emerging and developed nations will issue a communique later on Saturday that agrees to the principle that banks should bear the costs of government bailouts, but only where they actually occurred.
Their final statement will recognise "a range of policy approaches" for ensuring taxpayers are not on the hook for bank failures in the future, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The meeting in the South Korean port city of Busan is preparing the groundwork for a leaders' summit in June later this month in Toronto.
The official said the text is different from previous communiques in that it broadens the focus from simply fixing problems in banks when they occur by setting the stage for policies that would fund bank resolutions as well.
The G20 will repeat its pledge to agree to new bank capital rules by a November summit in Seoul but will make no nod to talk of delaying implementation of those rules beyond 2012.
The statement will also refer to the European debt crisis as a reminder of the challenges still facing the global recovery and will call for greater transparency by banks, but without mentioning the euro zone specifically.
It will say there is a need for countries to tackle fiscal deficits, tailoring their plans to individual needs.' (Reuters)
The G20 officials discussed in detail policies they should adopt across the globe to prevent a return to the global current account balances that many believe contributed to the financial crisis.
They will agree this weekend on which policies are needed, including on issues like China's foreign exchange policy, to ensure sustained global recovery. The communique will not explicitly mention these policies, leaving that to the leaders in Toronto.
But there is not yet agreement on whether individual countries will commit to specific policies and submit their plans to review by their G20 peers, the official said, although that is the hope of some.)
The G20 will put to rest proposals for a global bank tax, introducing new language in their communique that recognises some countries did not have bank bailouts and therefore may seek alternative policies, a senior G20 official said on Saturday.
'Finance ministers and central bank governors from the group leading emerging and developed nations will issue a communique later on Saturday that agrees to the principle that banks should bear the costs of government bailouts, but only where they actually occurred.
Their final statement will recognise "a range of policy approaches" for ensuring taxpayers are not on the hook for bank failures in the future, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The meeting in the South Korean port city of Busan is preparing the groundwork for a leaders' summit in June later this month in Toronto.
The official said the text is different from previous communiques in that it broadens the focus from simply fixing problems in banks when they occur by setting the stage for policies that would fund bank resolutions as well.
The G20 will repeat its pledge to agree to new bank capital rules by a November summit in Seoul but will make no nod to talk of delaying implementation of those rules beyond 2012.
The statement will also refer to the European debt crisis as a reminder of the challenges still facing the global recovery and will call for greater transparency by banks, but without mentioning the euro zone specifically.
It will say there is a need for countries to tackle fiscal deficits, tailoring their plans to individual needs.' (Reuters)
The G20 officials discussed in detail policies they should adopt across the globe to prevent a return to the global current account balances that many believe contributed to the financial crisis.
They will agree this weekend on which policies are needed, including on issues like China's foreign exchange policy, to ensure sustained global recovery. The communique will not explicitly mention these policies, leaving that to the leaders in Toronto.
But there is not yet agreement on whether individual countries will commit to specific policies and submit their plans to review by their G20 peers, the official said, although that is the hope of some.)
MALEV Hungarian Airlines wins the Best Airline Eastern Europe award at the 2010 World Airline Awards
20 May 2010
MALEV Hungarian Airlines was named the winner of the Best Airline Eastern Europe Award at the 2010 World Airline Awards, that took place in Hamburg.
http://www.malev.com
Asiana Airlines named Airline of the Year 2010 at the 2010 World Airline Awards.
http://www.worldairlineawards.com/Awards-2010/easteurope.htm
Tags: Malév, airline, skytrax, Budapest Airport, Kovacs Attila Mate, Budapest, Hungary
MALEV Hungarian Airlines was named the winner of the Best Airline Eastern Europe Award at the 2010 World Airline Awards, that took place in Hamburg.
http://www.malev.com
Asiana Airlines named Airline of the Year 2010 at the 2010 World Airline Awards.
http://www.worldairlineawards.com/Awards-2010/easteurope.htm
Tags: Malév, airline, skytrax, Budapest Airport, Kovacs Attila Mate, Budapest, Hungary
Oberstar opposes United-Continental deal
8 May 2010
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the House Transportation committee is asking the Justice Department to block the planned combination of United Airlines and Continental.
Congressman Jim Oberstar is a Democrat from Minnesota. He says the United-Continental deal will move the country toward having an airline system dominated by three mega-carriers. The deal would make United the world's largest airline.
In 2008, Oberstar opposed the purchase of Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines by Delta Air Lines. Antitrust regulators approved it anyway.
United and Continental have said only a handful of their domestic routes overlap.
The deal needs approval from antitrust regulators and shareholders. The companies are hoping to close it by the end of the year.
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the House Transportation committee is asking the Justice Department to block the planned combination of United Airlines and Continental.
Congressman Jim Oberstar is a Democrat from Minnesota. He says the United-Continental deal will move the country toward having an airline system dominated by three mega-carriers. The deal would make United the world's largest airline.
In 2008, Oberstar opposed the purchase of Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines by Delta Air Lines. Antitrust regulators approved it anyway.
United and Continental have said only a handful of their domestic routes overlap.
The deal needs approval from antitrust regulators and shareholders. The companies are hoping to close it by the end of the year.
SEC Staffers Watched Porn as System Crashed
23 April 2010 Kovacs Attila Mate
Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.
The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.
The staffers' behavior violated government-wide ethics rules, it says.
It was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The memo was first reported Thursday evening by ABC News. It summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:
A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.
An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.
Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.
The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.
California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said it was "disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse."
He said in a statement that SEC officials "were preoccupied with other distractions" when they should have been overseeing the growing problems in the financial system.
An SEC spokesman declined to comment Thursday night.
About 16 percent of men with Internet access at work admit to looking at online porn while at the office, according to a 2006 survey by Websense Inc.
Former SEC spokesman Michael Robinson said he shares the public's outrage about SEC staffers who enjoyed porn on the taxpayer dime when they were supposed to be keeping the markets safe.
"That kind of behavior is just intolerable and atrocious," said Robinson, now with Levick Strategic Communications. He said he expects SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and her team are "very focused on" the issue.
Schapiro has had other worries in recent days. She has been parrying Republican attacks after announcing civil fraud charges Friday against Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Agency officials had hoped the charges would mark a new era of tougher oversight of Wall Street. They followed high-profile embarrassments including the failure to catch Ponzi kings Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford.
But soon after Goldman charges were filed, Republicans began questioning the timing of the announcement. The news came as the Senate prepared to take up a sweeping overhaul of the rules governing banks and other financial companies.
Republican lawmakers also accused the SEC of being influenced by politics. The SEC's commissioners approved the Goldman charges on a rare 3-2 vote. The two who objected were Republicans.
Schapiro is a registered independent who has been appointed by presidents of both parties.
Tags: CNBC, SEC, crisis, Kovacs Attila Mate, Washington
Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says.
The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed.
The staffers' behavior violated government-wide ethics rules, it says.
It was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
The memo was first reported Thursday evening by ABC News. It summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:
A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.
An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.
Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.
The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.
California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said it was "disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse."
He said in a statement that SEC officials "were preoccupied with other distractions" when they should have been overseeing the growing problems in the financial system.
An SEC spokesman declined to comment Thursday night.
About 16 percent of men with Internet access at work admit to looking at online porn while at the office, according to a 2006 survey by Websense Inc.
Former SEC spokesman Michael Robinson said he shares the public's outrage about SEC staffers who enjoyed porn on the taxpayer dime when they were supposed to be keeping the markets safe.
"That kind of behavior is just intolerable and atrocious," said Robinson, now with Levick Strategic Communications. He said he expects SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and her team are "very focused on" the issue.
Schapiro has had other worries in recent days. She has been parrying Republican attacks after announcing civil fraud charges Friday against Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Agency officials had hoped the charges would mark a new era of tougher oversight of Wall Street. They followed high-profile embarrassments including the failure to catch Ponzi kings Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford.
But soon after Goldman charges were filed, Republicans began questioning the timing of the announcement. The news came as the Senate prepared to take up a sweeping overhaul of the rules governing banks and other financial companies.
Republican lawmakers also accused the SEC of being influenced by politics. The SEC's commissioners approved the Goldman charges on a rare 3-2 vote. The two who objected were Republicans.
Schapiro is a registered independent who has been appointed by presidents of both parties.
Tags: CNBC, SEC, crisis, Kovacs Attila Mate, Washington
China and its mentor: Singapore
20 April, 2010 Kovacs Attila Mate
China's economic model has been extraordinarily successful. But the Asian giant didn't create it out of thin air.
It had a role model.
A generation before China began to take off, another smaller country - also dominated by an ethnic Chinese populace - demonstrated how rapid growth could be combined with political stability.
We're talking, of course, about Singapore.
Last week, Singapore demonstrated yet again that it might well have the answer to some of China's current problems. The Asian island city-state said its economy grew at an annualized rate of 32% in the first quarter - and then revalued its currency in order to prevent the Singapore economy from overheating.
As investors, we need to look at the mentor, as well as at the pupil.
And yet, apart from its lack of democratic freedoms, China's principal failure to match Singapore has come in the areas of economic freedom (including secure property rights) and corruption - the Asian giant ranks only 140 th out of 179 countries on the Index of Economic Freedom and 79 th out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index.
Still, China has labor costs that are nowhere near as high as those of Singapore, meaning the larger country retains considerable room for inefficiency. Nevertheless, as it gets richer, moving up the Heritage Foundation and Transparency International lists should be a top priority for China.
How to Play Singapore for Profit
Singapore's recovery from the 2008-09 recession has been rapid. By advancing at an annualized rate of 32%, Singapore's economic growth for this year's first quarter outpaced the same measure for the first three months of 2009 by a stunning 13.1%.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) - the nation's central bank - raised its exchange-rate target for the Singapore dollar by an undisclosed amount of 2% to 3%. The objective: To keep the Singapore economy from overheating and boiling over.
Needless to say, rapid economic growth and danger of overheating is a problem for China, too, and a modest revaluation of the yuan may well prevent economic overheating and inflation, quite apart from making the U.S. Congress happy. For all those reasons, China is believed to be carefully watching the results of the MAS' reaction to Singapore's torrid growth.
For those who don't have a broker active out there, there is iShares Trust MSCI Singapore index Exchange-Traded Fund (NYSE: EWS), which has net assets of $1.6 billion and an expense ratio of only 0.55%. But these are always tricky investments, remember...
Tags: crisis, management, Singapore, investment, strategy, European Union, Kovacs Attila Mate
China's economic model has been extraordinarily successful. But the Asian giant didn't create it out of thin air.
It had a role model.
A generation before China began to take off, another smaller country - also dominated by an ethnic Chinese populace - demonstrated how rapid growth could be combined with political stability.
We're talking, of course, about Singapore.
Last week, Singapore demonstrated yet again that it might well have the answer to some of China's current problems. The Asian island city-state said its economy grew at an annualized rate of 32% in the first quarter - and then revalued its currency in order to prevent the Singapore economy from overheating.
As investors, we need to look at the mentor, as well as at the pupil.
And yet, apart from its lack of democratic freedoms, China's principal failure to match Singapore has come in the areas of economic freedom (including secure property rights) and corruption - the Asian giant ranks only 140 th out of 179 countries on the Index of Economic Freedom and 79 th out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index.
Still, China has labor costs that are nowhere near as high as those of Singapore, meaning the larger country retains considerable room for inefficiency. Nevertheless, as it gets richer, moving up the Heritage Foundation and Transparency International lists should be a top priority for China.
How to Play Singapore for Profit
Singapore's recovery from the 2008-09 recession has been rapid. By advancing at an annualized rate of 32%, Singapore's economic growth for this year's first quarter outpaced the same measure for the first three months of 2009 by a stunning 13.1%.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) - the nation's central bank - raised its exchange-rate target for the Singapore dollar by an undisclosed amount of 2% to 3%. The objective: To keep the Singapore economy from overheating and boiling over.
Needless to say, rapid economic growth and danger of overheating is a problem for China, too, and a modest revaluation of the yuan may well prevent economic overheating and inflation, quite apart from making the U.S. Congress happy. For all those reasons, China is believed to be carefully watching the results of the MAS' reaction to Singapore's torrid growth.
For those who don't have a broker active out there, there is iShares Trust MSCI Singapore index Exchange-Traded Fund (NYSE: EWS), which has net assets of $1.6 billion and an expense ratio of only 0.55%. But these are always tricky investments, remember...
Tags: crisis, management, Singapore, investment, strategy, European Union, Kovacs Attila Mate
Goldman Sachs under fire, getting cover and up again
17 April, 2010 Attila Mate Kovacs
Things turned around in the final hour of trading, with the Dow, VIX and shares of Goldman Sachs recovering following news that the SEC vote to sue the company was 3 to 2 — on party lines — which gave investors some encouragement that if the SEC vote was that close, getting the charges to stick might also be.
Also, Goldman is scheduled to report earnings Tuesday morning and is expected to blow the lid off of expectations.
Some market pros said news of the SEC vote helped investors shrug off worries about the case and focus on Goldman's earnings.
Goldman shares finished up 1.6 percent, after shedding 13 percent on Friday. Earlier, FBR removed Goldman from its "top picks" list.
The parameters of the Goldman probe are yet unknown — regulators in the U.K. and Germany are reportedly considering charges against the brokerage.
Meanwhile, a former employee of John Paulson, the hedge-fund manager who bet against the Goldman bundle of subprime mortgages, told the SEC that this deal was the only one like that.
And Rochdale Securities analyst Dick Bove said in a morning research note that the SEC's case against Goldman was weak but it could still jeopardize the stability of the financial industry.
House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank said this fraud case against Goldman Sachs increases the chance that financial reform will pass.
Despite fears in the market, Fritz Meyer, senior market strategist at Invesco AIM said he sees the S&P 500 "scratching its way" toward 1,500 in the next seven quarters.
Meyer said he likes the financial sector as it has the “furthest to recover.” He also likes industrials, materials, consumer discretionary and energy as oil prices are expected to head higher.
Tags: crisis, management, Goldman Sachs, investment, strategy, European Union, Attila Mate Kovacs
Things turned around in the final hour of trading, with the Dow, VIX and shares of Goldman Sachs recovering following news that the SEC vote to sue the company was 3 to 2 — on party lines — which gave investors some encouragement that if the SEC vote was that close, getting the charges to stick might also be.
Also, Goldman is scheduled to report earnings Tuesday morning and is expected to blow the lid off of expectations.
Some market pros said news of the SEC vote helped investors shrug off worries about the case and focus on Goldman's earnings.
Goldman shares finished up 1.6 percent, after shedding 13 percent on Friday. Earlier, FBR removed Goldman from its "top picks" list.
The parameters of the Goldman probe are yet unknown — regulators in the U.K. and Germany are reportedly considering charges against the brokerage.
Meanwhile, a former employee of John Paulson, the hedge-fund manager who bet against the Goldman bundle of subprime mortgages, told the SEC that this deal was the only one like that.
And Rochdale Securities analyst Dick Bove said in a morning research note that the SEC's case against Goldman was weak but it could still jeopardize the stability of the financial industry.
House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank said this fraud case against Goldman Sachs increases the chance that financial reform will pass.
Despite fears in the market, Fritz Meyer, senior market strategist at Invesco AIM said he sees the S&P 500 "scratching its way" toward 1,500 in the next seven quarters.
Meyer said he likes the financial sector as it has the “furthest to recover.” He also likes industrials, materials, consumer discretionary and energy as oil prices are expected to head higher.
Tags: crisis, management, Goldman Sachs, investment, strategy, European Union, Attila Mate Kovacs
F1 needs Asia to become a global brand
16 April, 2010 Attila Mate Kovacs
The strong support Lotus Racing has had at its home grand prix in Malaysia has shown Formula One it needs other Asian teams in order to form a true global brand, team principal Tony Fernandes said.
Home fans cheered as Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy produced 19 competitive laps for Lotus in the opening practice session.
Lotus is contesting the Formula One World Championship with full support from the Malaysian government and its 1Malaysia initiative. The team is fully financed by Malaysian entrepreneurs which gives the it a strong Malaysian character throughout all areas of its operation.
The team's top management is headed up by AirAsia founder and CEO Tony Fernandes in his role as Team Principal and Malaysian Riad Asmat, in the position of Chief Executive Officer.
Mike Gascoyne, who has previously worked for McLaren, Tyrrell, Jordan, Renault and Toyota, oversees all technical development for the team in his position as Chief Technical Officer.
On December 14, at a ceremony attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak in Kuala Lumpur, the team announced a line-up that includes Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen and Fairuz Fauzy.
"It is a reflection of the determination and status of Lotus F1 Racing to return to Formula 1 that they have hired two race winning drivers for their debut season," said the team at the time.
Tags: crisis, management, F1, Formula1, Lotus, investment, strategy, European Union, India, AirAsia, McLarren, Jordan, Attila Mate Kovacs
The strong support Lotus Racing has had at its home grand prix in Malaysia has shown Formula One it needs other Asian teams in order to form a true global brand, team principal Tony Fernandes said.
Home fans cheered as Malaysian driver Fairuz Fauzy produced 19 competitive laps for Lotus in the opening practice session.
Lotus is contesting the Formula One World Championship with full support from the Malaysian government and its 1Malaysia initiative. The team is fully financed by Malaysian entrepreneurs which gives the it a strong Malaysian character throughout all areas of its operation.
The team's top management is headed up by AirAsia founder and CEO Tony Fernandes in his role as Team Principal and Malaysian Riad Asmat, in the position of Chief Executive Officer.
Mike Gascoyne, who has previously worked for McLaren, Tyrrell, Jordan, Renault and Toyota, oversees all technical development for the team in his position as Chief Technical Officer.
On December 14, at a ceremony attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib Tun Razak in Kuala Lumpur, the team announced a line-up that includes Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen and Fairuz Fauzy.
"It is a reflection of the determination and status of Lotus F1 Racing to return to Formula 1 that they have hired two race winning drivers for their debut season," said the team at the time.
Tags: crisis, management, F1, Formula1, Lotus, investment, strategy, European Union, India, AirAsia, McLarren, Jordan, Attila Mate Kovacs
Airspace closures all over Europe
April 16 Kovacs Attila Mate
Disruption of air traffic because of the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland will be significant on Saturday, European aviation control agency Eurocontrol said on Friday.
Eurocontrol officials told a news conference that some 12,000 to 13,000 flights were likely to operate in European airspace on Friday, compared with about 29,500 normally. On Thursday, there were 20,334 flights, it said previously.
The ash was expected to spread further south and east, Eurocontrol said.
Here is a list of countries affected as of 1500 GMT on Friday:
AUSTRIA - Austrian airspace will be completely closed in stages. Vienna and Linz airports to be shut from 1645 GMT, Salzburg and Innsbruck from 1700 GMT, Graz and Klagenfurt from 2000 GMT. Authorities said the airspace closure was likely to continue into Saturday.
BELGIUM - Airspace closed until Saturday 0800 GMT.
BRITAIN - English airspace is closed until 0000 GMT Saturday. Limited flights from Scotland and Northern Ireland operating until 1800 GMT Friday.
BULGARIA - Sofia airport open but flights to western Europe cancelled.
DENMARK - Airspace closed until Saturday 0600 GMT.
EGYPT - Egypt cancelled 15 flights to Europe on Friday, but Cairo International airport open.
ESTONIA - Airspace closed until Saturday 2400 GMT.
FINLAND - Airspace and airports closed until Sunday 18 1200 GMT. Finnair will cancel all traffic until then.
FRANCE - Airports across northern France, including Paris, will remain closed until Saturday 0600 GMT.
GERMANY - Takeoffs and landings have stopped at a total of 13 airports in Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Muenster, Duesseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Saarbruecken, Berlin, Leipzig, Erfurt and Dresden. Aircraft can still land at airports in southern Germany such as Stuttgart or Munich.
GREECE - Greek airports were operating on Friday but about 85 flights to Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and the Czech Republic were cancelled.
HUNGARY - Hungary will close its airspace from 1700 GMT on Friday for 24 hours.
ITALY - Rome's Fiumicino airport has cancelled 34 flights to northern Europe. Alitalia has cancelled all its flights to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.
LATVIA - Airspace closed until Saturday, 0600 GMT.
LITHUANIA - All fights cancelled and some airspace closed, but local media report air control saying that airspace is technically still open.
LUXEMBOURG - Airspace closed until 1600 GMT.
NETHERLANDS - Airspace closed.
NORWAY - Closed for Friday.
POLAND - Only one airport, in the southeastern city of Rzeszow, is open after airspace over the country was closed.
ROMANIA - Bucharest main airport open, though around 60 flights to and from western Europe were cancelled on Friday. Air traffic administration will close northwestern airspace from 0000 GMT.
RUSSIA - The airport in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad said it had closed to flights until at least 1700 GMT as the cloud of ash began spreading towards European parts of Russia. In Russia proper, airspace is open but authorities say they expect the cloud of ash to have spread across the European parts of Russia by 1800 GMT. No major airports have been closed yet.
SLOVAKIA - All commercial flights from Bratislava cancelled since 1300 GMT Friday. Emergency, security and some small private flights will continue.
SPAIN - Madrid airport open. Iberia has cancelled all its flights to London, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Stockholm and Warsaw.
SWEDEN - Closed for Friday.
SWITZERLAND - Civil aviation authorities are temporarily closing Swiss airspace from midnight Friday, when they expect the ash cloud to reach the country, until Saturday 0700 GMT.
UKRAINE - Kiev's Borispol airport open. Two of Ukraine's biggest airlines cancelled some 11 west-bound flights on Friday.
Tags: crisis, management, airline industry, strategy, European Union, Iceland, volcano, Kovacs Attila Mate
Disruption of air traffic because of the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland will be significant on Saturday, European aviation control agency Eurocontrol said on Friday.
Eurocontrol officials told a news conference that some 12,000 to 13,000 flights were likely to operate in European airspace on Friday, compared with about 29,500 normally. On Thursday, there were 20,334 flights, it said previously.
The ash was expected to spread further south and east, Eurocontrol said.
Here is a list of countries affected as of 1500 GMT on Friday:
AUSTRIA - Austrian airspace will be completely closed in stages. Vienna and Linz airports to be shut from 1645 GMT, Salzburg and Innsbruck from 1700 GMT, Graz and Klagenfurt from 2000 GMT. Authorities said the airspace closure was likely to continue into Saturday.
BELGIUM - Airspace closed until Saturday 0800 GMT.
BRITAIN - English airspace is closed until 0000 GMT Saturday. Limited flights from Scotland and Northern Ireland operating until 1800 GMT Friday.
BULGARIA - Sofia airport open but flights to western Europe cancelled.
DENMARK - Airspace closed until Saturday 0600 GMT.
EGYPT - Egypt cancelled 15 flights to Europe on Friday, but Cairo International airport open.
ESTONIA - Airspace closed until Saturday 2400 GMT.
FINLAND - Airspace and airports closed until Sunday 18 1200 GMT. Finnair will cancel all traffic until then.
FRANCE - Airports across northern France, including Paris, will remain closed until Saturday 0600 GMT.
GERMANY - Takeoffs and landings have stopped at a total of 13 airports in Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Muenster, Duesseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Saarbruecken, Berlin, Leipzig, Erfurt and Dresden. Aircraft can still land at airports in southern Germany such as Stuttgart or Munich.
GREECE - Greek airports were operating on Friday but about 85 flights to Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and the Czech Republic were cancelled.
HUNGARY - Hungary will close its airspace from 1700 GMT on Friday for 24 hours.
ITALY - Rome's Fiumicino airport has cancelled 34 flights to northern Europe. Alitalia has cancelled all its flights to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.
LATVIA - Airspace closed until Saturday, 0600 GMT.
LITHUANIA - All fights cancelled and some airspace closed, but local media report air control saying that airspace is technically still open.
LUXEMBOURG - Airspace closed until 1600 GMT.
NETHERLANDS - Airspace closed.
NORWAY - Closed for Friday.
POLAND - Only one airport, in the southeastern city of Rzeszow, is open after airspace over the country was closed.
ROMANIA - Bucharest main airport open, though around 60 flights to and from western Europe were cancelled on Friday. Air traffic administration will close northwestern airspace from 0000 GMT.
RUSSIA - The airport in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad said it had closed to flights until at least 1700 GMT as the cloud of ash began spreading towards European parts of Russia. In Russia proper, airspace is open but authorities say they expect the cloud of ash to have spread across the European parts of Russia by 1800 GMT. No major airports have been closed yet.
SLOVAKIA - All commercial flights from Bratislava cancelled since 1300 GMT Friday. Emergency, security and some small private flights will continue.
SPAIN - Madrid airport open. Iberia has cancelled all its flights to London, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Stockholm and Warsaw.
SWEDEN - Closed for Friday.
SWITZERLAND - Civil aviation authorities are temporarily closing Swiss airspace from midnight Friday, when they expect the ash cloud to reach the country, until Saturday 0700 GMT.
UKRAINE - Kiev's Borispol airport open. Two of Ukraine's biggest airlines cancelled some 11 west-bound flights on Friday.
Tags: crisis, management, airline industry, strategy, European Union, Iceland, volcano, Kovacs Attila Mate
Travel chaos from volcanic ash cloud worst since 9/11
April 16 Kovacs Attila Mate
A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spread out across Europe on Friday causing air travel chaos on a scale not seen since the September 11 attacks and costing airlines hundreds of millions of dollars.
Significant disruption of European air traffic was expected on Saturday because of the dangers posed by volcanic ash drifting from Iceland, aviation officials said. Airports in much of Britain, France and Germany remained closed and flights were set to be grounded in Hungary and parts of Romania.
"I would think Europe was probably experiencing its greatest disruption to air travel since 9/11," a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain's aviation regulator, said.
"In terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we've probably seen."
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, U.S. airspace was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services.
Disruption from the volcanic ash eruption in Iceland is costing airlines more than $200 million a day, the air industry body IATA said.
"At current levels of disruption, IATA's initial and conservative estimate of the financial impact on airlines is in excess of $200 million per day in lost revenues," the International Air Transport Association said in a statement.
Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to six months if the eruption continues, but even if it short-lived the financial impact on airlines could be significant.
The fallout hit airline shares on Friday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair
down between 1.4 and 3.0 percent.
David Castelveter, a spokesman with the Air Transport Association of America trade group, said U.S. airlines had canceled at least 170 flights to and from Europe.
MOUNTING COSTS
The flight cancellations would cost carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa about 10 million pounds ($16 million) a day, transport analyst Douglas McNeill said.
"To lose that sum of money isn't a very pleasant experience but it's of limited commercial significance as well," he told BBC TV.
"A couple of days like this won't matter too much. If it goes on for weeks, that's a different story."
In France, state-controlled airports operator Aeroports de Paris faced losses of 5 million euros a day or more, analysts said.
Joe Sultana, head of network operations at European air control agency Eurocontrol, said the situation was unprecedented.
"We understand the economic impact, both to the airlines and the general European economy, but safety comes first," he said.
The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, hurling a plume of ash 6 to 11 km (4 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere.
Officials said it was still spewing magma and although the eruption could abate in the coming days, ash would continue drifting into the skies of Europe.
Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverized rock that can damage engines and airframes.
In addition to travel problems, health officials warned that the volcanic ash could also prove harmful to those with breathing difficulties.
In 1982, a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding toward the ground before it was able to restart its engines.
The incident prompted the aviation industry to rethink the way it prepared for ash clouds.
PLUME DRIFTING
In Brussels, European aviation control officials told a news conference that some 12,000 to 13,000 flights were likely to operate in European airspace on Friday, compared with about 29,500 normally. The ash was expected to spread further south and east.
An official at the World Meteorological Organization said it was impossible to say when flights would resume.
"We can only predict the time that flights will resume after the eruption has stopped, but for as long as the eruption is still going on and still leading to a significant eruption, we cannot say," said Scylla Sillayo, a senior official in the WMO's aeronautical meteorology unit.
Polish officials said Sunday's funeral for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife who were killed in a plane crash last Saturday looked set to go ahead as planned.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, returning from a trip to the United States, was diverted to Portugal and was expected to spend the night in Lisbon.
The air problems have proved a boon for other transport firms. All 58 Eurostar trains between Britain and Europe were operating full, carrying some 46,500 passengers, and a spokeswoman said they would consider adding more services.
London taxi firm Addison Lee said it had taken requests for journeys to Paris, Milan, Zurich and Salzburg in Austria.
Tags: crisis, management, airline industry, strategy, European Union, Iceland, volcano, Kovacs Attila Mate
A huge ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spread out across Europe on Friday causing air travel chaos on a scale not seen since the September 11 attacks and costing airlines hundreds of millions of dollars.
Significant disruption of European air traffic was expected on Saturday because of the dangers posed by volcanic ash drifting from Iceland, aviation officials said. Airports in much of Britain, France and Germany remained closed and flights were set to be grounded in Hungary and parts of Romania.
"I would think Europe was probably experiencing its greatest disruption to air travel since 9/11," a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain's aviation regulator, said.
"In terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we've probably seen."
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York, U.S. airspace was closed for three days and European airlines were forced to halt all transatlantic services.
Disruption from the volcanic ash eruption in Iceland is costing airlines more than $200 million a day, the air industry body IATA said.
"At current levels of disruption, IATA's initial and conservative estimate of the financial impact on airlines is in excess of $200 million per day in lost revenues," the International Air Transport Association said in a statement.
Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to six months if the eruption continues, but even if it short-lived the financial impact on airlines could be significant.
The fallout hit airline shares on Friday with Lufthansa, British Airways, Air Berlin, Air France-KLM, Iberia and Ryanair
down between 1.4 and 3.0 percent.
David Castelveter, a spokesman with the Air Transport Association of America trade group, said U.S. airlines had canceled at least 170 flights to and from Europe.
MOUNTING COSTS
The flight cancellations would cost carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa about 10 million pounds ($16 million) a day, transport analyst Douglas McNeill said.
"To lose that sum of money isn't a very pleasant experience but it's of limited commercial significance as well," he told BBC TV.
"A couple of days like this won't matter too much. If it goes on for weeks, that's a different story."
In France, state-controlled airports operator Aeroports de Paris faced losses of 5 million euros a day or more, analysts said.
Joe Sultana, head of network operations at European air control agency Eurocontrol, said the situation was unprecedented.
"We understand the economic impact, both to the airlines and the general European economy, but safety comes first," he said.
The volcano began erupting on Wednesday for the second time in a month from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, hurling a plume of ash 6 to 11 km (4 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere.
Officials said it was still spewing magma and although the eruption could abate in the coming days, ash would continue drifting into the skies of Europe.
Volcanic ash contains tiny particles of glass and pulverized rock that can damage engines and airframes.
In addition to travel problems, health officials warned that the volcanic ash could also prove harmful to those with breathing difficulties.
In 1982, a British Airways jumbo jet lost power in all its engines when it flew into an ash cloud over Indonesia, gliding toward the ground before it was able to restart its engines.
The incident prompted the aviation industry to rethink the way it prepared for ash clouds.
PLUME DRIFTING
In Brussels, European aviation control officials told a news conference that some 12,000 to 13,000 flights were likely to operate in European airspace on Friday, compared with about 29,500 normally. The ash was expected to spread further south and east.
An official at the World Meteorological Organization said it was impossible to say when flights would resume.
"We can only predict the time that flights will resume after the eruption has stopped, but for as long as the eruption is still going on and still leading to a significant eruption, we cannot say," said Scylla Sillayo, a senior official in the WMO's aeronautical meteorology unit.
Polish officials said Sunday's funeral for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife who were killed in a plane crash last Saturday looked set to go ahead as planned.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, returning from a trip to the United States, was diverted to Portugal and was expected to spend the night in Lisbon.
The air problems have proved a boon for other transport firms. All 58 Eurostar trains between Britain and Europe were operating full, carrying some 46,500 passengers, and a spokeswoman said they would consider adding more services.
London taxi firm Addison Lee said it had taken requests for journeys to Paris, Milan, Zurich and Salzburg in Austria.
Tags: crisis, management, airline industry, strategy, European Union, Iceland, volcano, Kovacs Attila Mate
Polish plane crash in Russia seems like a decapitation of Polish society
April 9 Kovacs Attila Mate
POLAND’S awful history makes it no stranger to tragedy, grief and shock. But not for decades has it suffered a trauma such as the death of President Lech Kaczynski, along with dozens of other senior Polish politicians and officials, in an air crash on April 10th.
The presidential plane was carrying a delegation to Katyn, to commemorate the mass murder of a previous Polish elite: the 20,000 reservist officers murdered by Stalin’s NKVD in 1940.
The symbolism of the tragedy to many Poles is almost unbearable. In 1943 General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the leader of the Polish wartime government, died in a plane crash in Gibraltar. No foul play was proved there, but many Poles believe that he was murdered because of his resolute determination to expose the Katyn massacre—which the Soviet Union blamed on the Germans. Now another Polish president, closely involved in the same issue, has died in an all too similar manner.
Polish historical sensitivies about Russia mean that many see the coincidence as sinister rather than tragic. But the plane tried to land four times, in bad weather. Accident is the overwhelmingly likely cause.
Yet like Katyn, which eliminated the flower of the pre-war Polish elite, the plane crash also seems like a decapitation of Polish society. Among the 96 people who died were the chief of the Polish general staff, the head of the central bank, the director of the Institute of National Remembrance (which investigates and documents crimes such as Katyn) and many other of the country’s top public figures. Many politicians from the opposition Law and Justice Party, which is led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president’s twin brother, were among the delegation.
A growing pile of flowers outside the presidential palace in Warsaw attested to the public’s stunning sense of loss. Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister, who broke the news to the prime minister, Donald Tusk, this morning said that the head of government wept on hearing it. Both men had been at Katyn earlier in the week, at a ceremony attended by the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The hawkish Mr Kaczynski did not attend that ceremony, instead insisting on his own visit three days later.
The tragedy brings big upsets in Polish political life and in other institutions. The presidential elections, due to be held in October, will be brought forward. Mr Kaczynski had been facing a tough challenge from Bronislaw Komorowski, a close ally of Mr Tusk. Mr Komorowski is also speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament. In that capacity, he now becomes acting president.
Mr Kaczynski, like his brother, was known for personal integrity and his deep roots in Poland’s anti-communist opposition movement. He was a vehement critic of both German and Soviet historical crimes against Poland, and a strong supporter of countries such as Georgia. He was modest and charming in private, although visibly ill-at-ease on big public occasions and prone to gaffes and unnecessary controversies.
Mr Kaczynski’s wife, Maria, died in the crash. The couple had one daughter.
Tags: crisis, management, Poland, Kaczynski, Russia, politics, Katyn, airline industry, Kovacs Attila Mate
POLAND’S awful history makes it no stranger to tragedy, grief and shock. But not for decades has it suffered a trauma such as the death of President Lech Kaczynski, along with dozens of other senior Polish politicians and officials, in an air crash on April 10th.
The presidential plane was carrying a delegation to Katyn, to commemorate the mass murder of a previous Polish elite: the 20,000 reservist officers murdered by Stalin’s NKVD in 1940.
The symbolism of the tragedy to many Poles is almost unbearable. In 1943 General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the leader of the Polish wartime government, died in a plane crash in Gibraltar. No foul play was proved there, but many Poles believe that he was murdered because of his resolute determination to expose the Katyn massacre—which the Soviet Union blamed on the Germans. Now another Polish president, closely involved in the same issue, has died in an all too similar manner.
Polish historical sensitivies about Russia mean that many see the coincidence as sinister rather than tragic. But the plane tried to land four times, in bad weather. Accident is the overwhelmingly likely cause.
Yet like Katyn, which eliminated the flower of the pre-war Polish elite, the plane crash also seems like a decapitation of Polish society. Among the 96 people who died were the chief of the Polish general staff, the head of the central bank, the director of the Institute of National Remembrance (which investigates and documents crimes such as Katyn) and many other of the country’s top public figures. Many politicians from the opposition Law and Justice Party, which is led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the late president’s twin brother, were among the delegation.
A growing pile of flowers outside the presidential palace in Warsaw attested to the public’s stunning sense of loss. Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister, who broke the news to the prime minister, Donald Tusk, this morning said that the head of government wept on hearing it. Both men had been at Katyn earlier in the week, at a ceremony attended by the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The hawkish Mr Kaczynski did not attend that ceremony, instead insisting on his own visit three days later.
The tragedy brings big upsets in Polish political life and in other institutions. The presidential elections, due to be held in October, will be brought forward. Mr Kaczynski had been facing a tough challenge from Bronislaw Komorowski, a close ally of Mr Tusk. Mr Komorowski is also speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament. In that capacity, he now becomes acting president.
Mr Kaczynski, like his brother, was known for personal integrity and his deep roots in Poland’s anti-communist opposition movement. He was a vehement critic of both German and Soviet historical crimes against Poland, and a strong supporter of countries such as Georgia. He was modest and charming in private, although visibly ill-at-ease on big public occasions and prone to gaffes and unnecessary controversies.
Mr Kaczynski’s wife, Maria, died in the crash. The couple had one daughter.
Tags: crisis, management, Poland, Kaczynski, Russia, politics, Katyn, airline industry, Kovacs Attila Mate
Suicide bombings hit Moscow Metro - At least 35 people have been killed after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow Metro trains in the morning rush hour
( 29/03/2010) Kovacs Attila Mate
Twenty-three died in the first blast at 0756 (0356 GMT) as a train stood at the central Lubyanka station, beneath the offices of the FSB intelligence agency.
About 40 minutes later, a second explosion ripped through a train at Park Kultury, leaving another 12 dead.
No-one has said they carried out the worst attack in the capital since 2004.
“ We can assume that belts with explosive devices were attached to their bodies ”
Yuri Syomin Moscow Chief Prosecutor
But the BBC's Richard Galpin in the Russian capital says past suicide bombings there have been blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in the troubled North Caucasus region of Chechnya.
In February, Chechen rebel president Doku Umarov warned that "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia... the war is coming to their cities".
Moscow's metro is one of the busiest subways in the world, carrying some 5.5m passengers a day.
'No fire'
Emergency services ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said the first explosion tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at Lubyanka at the peak of the rush hour.
The station, on both the busy Sokolnicheskaya and Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya lines, is close to the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
CCTV footage posted on the internet showed motionless bodies in the lobby and emergency workers treating victims.
The second blast at Park Kultury, which is six stops away from Lubyanka on the Sokolnicheskaya line, came at 0838 (0438 GMT). It struck at the back of the train as people were getting on board.
Afterwards, the entire Metro system was closed down as a precaution.
"According to preliminary information provided by the Federal Security Service, two female suicide bombers were involved," Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told reporters gathered outside Park Kultury.
In the Park Kultury blast, the bomber was wearing a belt packed with plastic explosives and set it off as the train's doors opened, a spokesman for Russia's top investigative body said.
Federal prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into "suspected acts of terrorism".
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is currently visiting Siberia, is "receiving detailed information from security agencies and social services about the work on helping the victims", a spokesman said.
Russian forces have scored a series of successes against militants in recent weeks. In February, at least 20 insurgents were reportedly killed in an operation by Russian security forces in Ingushetia.
There was a major attack on the Moscow Metro in February 2004, when at least 39 people were killed by a bomb on a packed train as it approached the Paveletskaya Metro station.
Six months later, a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a station, killing 10 people. Both attacks were blamed on Chechen rebels.
In November, the Caucasian Mujahadeen claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed 26 people on board an express train travelling from Moscow to Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
Tags: crisis, management, Russia, politics, Putin, Moscow, Chechen, train, bomb, terrorism, intelligence, Kovacs Attila Mate
Twenty-three died in the first blast at 0756 (0356 GMT) as a train stood at the central Lubyanka station, beneath the offices of the FSB intelligence agency.
About 40 minutes later, a second explosion ripped through a train at Park Kultury, leaving another 12 dead.
No-one has said they carried out the worst attack in the capital since 2004.
“ We can assume that belts with explosive devices were attached to their bodies ”
Yuri Syomin Moscow Chief Prosecutor
But the BBC's Richard Galpin in the Russian capital says past suicide bombings there have been blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in the troubled North Caucasus region of Chechnya.
In February, Chechen rebel president Doku Umarov warned that "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia... the war is coming to their cities".
Moscow's metro is one of the busiest subways in the world, carrying some 5.5m passengers a day.
'No fire'
Emergency services ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said the first explosion tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at Lubyanka at the peak of the rush hour.
The station, on both the busy Sokolnicheskaya and Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya lines, is close to the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
CCTV footage posted on the internet showed motionless bodies in the lobby and emergency workers treating victims.
The second blast at Park Kultury, which is six stops away from Lubyanka on the Sokolnicheskaya line, came at 0838 (0438 GMT). It struck at the back of the train as people were getting on board.
Afterwards, the entire Metro system was closed down as a precaution.
"According to preliminary information provided by the Federal Security Service, two female suicide bombers were involved," Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told reporters gathered outside Park Kultury.
In the Park Kultury blast, the bomber was wearing a belt packed with plastic explosives and set it off as the train's doors opened, a spokesman for Russia's top investigative body said.
Federal prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into "suspected acts of terrorism".
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is currently visiting Siberia, is "receiving detailed information from security agencies and social services about the work on helping the victims", a spokesman said.
Russian forces have scored a series of successes against militants in recent weeks. In February, at least 20 insurgents were reportedly killed in an operation by Russian security forces in Ingushetia.
There was a major attack on the Moscow Metro in February 2004, when at least 39 people were killed by a bomb on a packed train as it approached the Paveletskaya Metro station.
Six months later, a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a station, killing 10 people. Both attacks were blamed on Chechen rebels.
In November, the Caucasian Mujahadeen claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed 26 people on board an express train travelling from Moscow to Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
Tags: crisis, management, Russia, politics, Putin, Moscow, Chechen, train, bomb, terrorism, intelligence, Kovacs Attila Mate