Japan seeks exemption on U.S. sanctions on Iran: Nikkei

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is seeking an exemption from proposed new U.S. sanctions against Iran that could effectively freeze Tehran's use of payments for oil, the Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

Japanese Finance Minister Koriki Jojima asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at an October 11 meeting in Tokyo for Washington to exempt Japanese banks, the report said, citing unidentified sources familiar with the matter.

Geithner said the matter was being considered, the report said.

Japanese government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Other importers of Iranian oil besides Japan are also likely to voice their opposition to the proposed new sanctions.

U.S. lawmakers are considering expanding economic sanctions on Iran -- measures that already have helped push that country's currency into free fall but have not yet convinced Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees, has said he is looking at ways to freeze an estimated 30 percent of Iran's foreign currency reserves held in banks outside the country.

Currently, Japanese buyers of Iranian oil pay Iran for crude imports in yen via accounts set up at Japanese banks by Iran's central bank, and the funds later get transferred to Iran's private banks.

But the proposed new U.S. sanctions would effectively freeze those assets, and if the measures are implemented, Iran would no longer be able to use Japan's oil payments freely, which could further curb Japan's oil purchases from Iran, the Nikkei report said.

The United States is expected to set the details of the new sanctions from now on and implement them from around February, the report added.

Japan has cut Iranian crude imports significantly to comply with existing U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

The West has applied sanctions on Iran because it suspects Tehran wants to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

For the first eight months of 2012, Japan imported 191,731 barrels per day of Iranian crude, down more than 40 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).

(Reporting by Bangalore Newsroom and Osamu Tsukimori in TOKYO; Editing by Ed Davies)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-seeks-exemption-u-sanctions-iran-nikkei-024750137.html

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Twitter blocks neo-Nazi group's messages in Germany

16 hrs.

Maria Sheahan and Alexandra Hudson , Reuters

FRANKFURT?/?SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In response to a request by German authorities, Twitter on Thursday blocked messages in Germany posted by a right-wing group banned by local police.?

Twitter's move marked the first time it has implemented a new feature, called "Country Withheld Content", that allows the service to narrowly censor tweets considered illegal in one specific country.?

A Twitter spokesman confirmed Thursday that the account operated by the Besseres Hannover group and all of its content have been blocked for German users, but "remains visible to Twitter users in other countries".?

As it rolled out its blocking tool for the first time, Twitter found itself caught in the crosswinds of public pressure, a situation likely to become frequent as the service, now boasting 140 million monthly active users and growing, continues to expand in reach and influence.?

"I will not go so far as to call the policy good, but they're attempting to do the least damage" because Twitter's blocking tool only applies to users in one country," said Eva Galperin, a coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital free speech advocacy group.?

Some Twitter users chimed in with concern.?

"And now Twitter will censor accounts based on requests from governments," a user from Chicago named Brian Stanish tweeted. "What if this happened before the Arab Spring?"?

The Anti-Defamation League praised Twitter's move, but said it needed to go further to ban offensive and hate speech in its terms of service. Compared to social media services like Google Inc's YouTube and Facebook, Twitter currently has one of the most lax terms-of-service restricting speech, reflecting the company's long-stated position that it would rather err on the side of free speech.?

Earlier this week, the ADL criticized the company for allowing the "#unbonjuif" ? or "a good Jew" ? hashtag to circulate in France, which prompted a flurry of anti-Semitic tweets. Speech that incites hate toward people or groups based on religion, race or ethnicity may be prosecuted under French law.?

Robert Trestan, the Cyber-hate Response group director at the ADL, said Twitter was increasingly the social media platform of choice for anti-Semitic groups compared to Facebook.?

"Twitter is the easiest way to spread that message and use those hashtags," Trestan said?

For its part, Twitter's top executives have long vowed to resist censorship except when it conflicts with local law. Alex Macgillivray, Twitter's general counsel, declared in 2011 that Twitter would represent the "free speech wing of the free speech party".?

Following the announcement that Twitter had blocked the neo-Nazi group Thursday, MacGillivray tweeted: "Never want to withhold content; good to have tools to do it narrowly & transparently," and linked to a copy of the police letter.?

The Twitter spokesman said the move to block messages Thursday by Besseres Hannover ? which means "a better Hanover" ? came at the request of police in the northern German city.?

According to Hanover police, Besseres Hannover was banned on September 25 and ordered to halt all its activities. Public prosecutors searched the homes of more than 20 suspected members of the group last month who are accused of forming a criminal organization with the intention of committing crimes.

Police said the group had 40 members and had recently distributed copies of its far-right magazine at schools.?

Hanover Police President Axel Brockmann said in a statement last month he had pledged when taking office "to crush this group of neo-Nazi and far-right activists wherever it appeared".?

Authorities and residents across Germany have become more sensitive to the threat of far-right militants since revelations last year that a neo-Nazi cell waged a seven-year racist killing spree through the country, murdering nine people, mostly of Turkish origin.?

This?story was updated at 7:34 p.m. ET.?Additional reporting by Gerry Shih.

(c) Copyright ThomsonReuters 2012. Check for restrictions at:?http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/twitter-blocks-neo-nazi-groups-messages-germany-1C6547010

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Uniqlo to rev up U.S. expansion with online shopping

(Reuters) - Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo is turning to e-commerce in a bid to speed up its expansion in the United States and take on more established rivals like H&M and Zara in that market.

Uniqlo, a unit of Japan's Fast Retailing Co Ltd, will launch its U.S. online shopping site next week, as a key component of an effort to earn $10 billion in overall North American sales by 2020.

Uniqlo opened its first U.S. store in 2006, but still only has five locations, with recently opened shops in San Francisco and New Jersey, along with its other three in Manhattan.

But expansion is set to go full throttle, with 20 to 30 new U.S. stores opened annually over the next few years.

And the new e-commerce site is essential to widening its reach to potential customers, even as the new stores are set up.

"By opening this e-commerce site now, we are able to cater to customers across the United States," Uniqlo USA CEO Shin Odake told Reuters in an interview last week.

He declined to say what percentage of business the company hoped online sales would represent.

Fast Retailing Co's ambitious expansion plan for newer markets like the United States and China comes amid slower growth at home.

The retailer's ambition is to leapfrog Zara, H&M and Gap Inc as the world's top apparel retailer by 2020, and online shopping is at the center of that goal.

In the United States, H&M, a unit of Sweden's Hennes & Mauritz SA, has 250 stores, while Zara, a unit of Spanish company Inditex S.A. operates about 50.

H&M and Zara, known as "fast fashion" retailers, offer trendy clothes at low prices aimed at shoppers who want to frequently refresh their wardrobes.

ONLINE PUSH

An e-commerce site offers Uniqlo a way to catch up with H&M, which said recently it will launch its U.S. shopping site in mid-2013, delayed from an originally planned launch this fall. Zara launched its U.S. website in September 2011, while Gap's namesake brand began offering online shopping in 1997.

Uniqlo already has e-commerce sites in Britain, China and Japan and will use a similar format for its U.S. site.

Launching a successful site, especially one catering to a younger, tech-savvy clientele, can be daunting and involved. Add to that the challenges of shorter lead times between ordering and receiving merchandise than for traditional retailers, and the result is a costly and complex endeavor for fashion chains.

"You need to have photographs of everything. You need to be able to zoom in and zoom out, turn the image 360 degrees," said Retail Systems Research analyst Paula Rosenblum. "When you're turning merchandise eight to nine times a year, that's expensive."

That's why H&M, and even companies like off-price retailer TJX Cos Inc's T.J. Maxx, a fast-growing U.S. chain, have yet to set up online U.S. shopping sites, she said.

Many fashion chains side-step those problems by offering online only a fraction of their in-store merchandise. They also create online exclusives.

Still, Odake said Uniqlo's U.S. website will offer everything its stores do, plus extra sizes and fits for a few items like men's ultra-light down jackets or women's corduroy leggings.

"Basically, our e-commerce and our store experience should be the same," he said.

The uniqlo.com site, designed with Razorfish and Digitas, units of French advertising company Publicis Groupe, will have a recommendation engine based on a customer's preferences and prior purchases.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr and Bernadette Baum)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uniqlo-rev-u-expansion-online-shopping-130335855--sector.html

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European bank supervisor step closer but deal hazy

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, center, looks at Director General of Business Europe Philippe de Buck during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. European leaders are gathering again in Brussels to discuss how to save the euro currency from collapse and support countries facing too much debt and not enough growth. At left is European Council President Herman Van Rompuy. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, center, looks at Director General of Business Europe Philippe de Buck during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. European leaders are gathering again in Brussels to discuss how to save the euro currency from collapse and support countries facing too much debt and not enough growth. At left is European Council President Herman Van Rompuy. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

French President Francois Hollande, center, arrives for a meeting of European Socialist Party leaders prior to an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. European leaders are gathering again in Brussels to discuss how to save the euro currency from collapse and support countries facing too much debt and not enough growth. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a meeting of the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives for a meeting at a hotel prior to an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. European leaders are gathering again in Brussels to discuss how to save the euro currency from collapse and support countries facing too much debt and not enough growth. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? European leaders took a step toward creating a single supervisor for banks in countries that use the euro on Friday but remained vague about its start date.

Although the leaders meeting in Brussels said their decisions were key to shoring up banks and eventually giving them access to loans from Europe's bailout fund, many observers were struggling to figure out exactly what had been achieved.

Rather than finding new measures to fight the crisis, the leaders focused on establishing a timeline for those they had already agreed to.

They decided to try to have the legal framework for the European banking supervisor in place by Jan. 1 and have it operational sometime in 2013. The supervisor needs to be in place before European countries can work on the next big step in their crisis-fighting plan ? giving their bailout fund, the ESM, the power to rescue banks directly, bypassing national governments.

That step is crucial because banks remain at the core of Europe's financial problems. Many are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy after the investments they made up in boom times ? including in government bonds and real estate ? have plummeted in value. Some governments have stepped in to save their banks, only worsening their own balance sheets in the process.

European leaders want to shield troubled governments from the burden of supporting their banks. That would be a huge relief to countries like Spain, which are facing the prospect of taking on enormous debts ? and worrying markets in the process ? in order to bail out their banks.

"The objective is simple: we want to break this relationship between the management ? often the poor management ? of banks and the consequences for state budgets," said Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, as he headed into the second day of a summit meeting in Brussels.

But the answer is not simple. Some countries, led by France and Italy, are pushing for quickly giving the European bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, the power to directly loan money to banks. But in order to get that power, banks first need to be under the supervision of the European Central Bank ? hence the urgency of settling the supervisor question.

Leaders of those countries declared victory on the issue on Friday.

"The new system will begin in 2013, and by that year it will operate recapitalizing the banks without the direct participation of governments," said Italian Premier Mario Monti.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her allies were singing a different tune. Merkel has repeatedly said that the quality of supervision should take precedence over speed.

In Berlin, lawmakers in her party were claiming they'd won.

"The chancellor said here yesterday that, as far as the banking union and banking supervision are concerned, thoroughness goes before speed," Norbert Barthle, a senior lawmaker with Merkel's Christian Democrats, said.

The compromise included something for both ? all 6,000 banks will be included, as France had wanted, and there was a mention that leaders would try to get a legal framework for the supervisor in place by Jan. 1. That allowed countries that are pushing for speed to say they'd held to the promise to get a deal by the end of the year.

But there is no firm deadline for the single supervisor to be up and running ? other than to say that work on its operational implementation "will take place during the course of 2013."

Analysts were struggling to see what was new.

"The real question then is whether this is a step towards allowing the European bailout funds to recapitalize banks directly and thus reduce the link between an individual sovereign and its banking system," said Gary Jenkins of Swordfish Research. "The answer appears to be 'yes' although we have of course been here before."

Thorny questions still remain about which banks would be eligible for the direct loans. Ireland, for instance, was forced into a bailout because of the expense of saving its banks ? but it's unclear whether its banks would be eligible for relief from the bailout fund.

Leaders move into discussions on foreign policy on Friday, but economic issues were likely to overshadow those talks. On the agenda is how to deal with militants in Mali, a government crackdown in Syria and Iran's nuclear program.

___

Don Melvin in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-10-19-Europe-Financial%20Crisis/id-f284ec6240f54935824bdc52eb5bf508

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