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President of Cyprus Criticizes Bank Chief

April 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

President Nicos Anastasiades did not say what the central bank governor, Panicos O. Demetriades, had done to draw his ire. But he suggested that Mr. Demetriades’s actions had led to the resignations on Friday of three central bank board members.

Mr. Demetriades, an appointee of the previous left-wing administration, told the Cypriot newspaper Phileleftheros that his cooperation with the government and Parliament was a given in order to deal with the country’s severe financial crisis, but that the central bank’s independence must be respected.

Lawmakers have criticized Mr. Demetriades over his role in talks with the country’s euro zone partners and the International Monetary Fund, which culminated in a 23 billion euro ($30 billion) rescue package.

The terms of the bailout require Cyprus to raise 13 billion euros of the overall amount by imposing losses on deposits over 100,000 euros in the country’s two largest banks, Bank of Cyprus and Laiki.

Laiki experienced heavier losses from bad Greek debt and loans than the larger Bank of Cyprus. Laiki will be broken up in to a “good” bank that will be folded into Bank of Cyprus and a “bad” bank that will be wound down.

As part of its bank restructuring, and to prevent a run on its banks, Cypriot authorities have imposed a series of capital controls — the first that any country has applied in the euro zone’s 14-year history — including a daily 300 euro limit on withdrawals.

Officials said the restrictions would be lifted gradually until trust in banks is restored. On Sunday, the authorities raised the monthly domestic bank-to-bank transfer limit for individuals to 50,000 euros from 10,000 euros. For businesses, the transfer limit rose to 300,000 euros from 50,000 euros, but documents justifying the transfer must be presented.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/business/global/president-of-cyprus-criticizes-bank-chief.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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China Toughens Restrictions on Internet Use

December 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The decision came as government censors have sharply stepped up restrictions on China’s international Internet traffic in recent weeks. The restrictions are making it harder for businesses to protect commercial secrets and for individuals to view overseas Web sites that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive.

The new regulations, issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, allow Internet users to continue to adopt pseudonyms for their online postings, but only if they first provide their real names to service providers, a measure that could chill some of the vibrant discourse on the country’s Twitter-like microblogs. The authorities periodically detain and even jail Internet users for politically sensitive comments, such as calls for a multiparty democracy or accusations of impropriety by local officials.

Any entity providing Internet access, including over fixed-line or mobile phones, “should when signing agreements with users or confirming provision of services, demand that users provide true information about their identities,” the committee ordered.

In recent weeks, Internet users in China have exposed a series of sexual and financial scandals that have led to the resignations or dismissals of at least 10 local officials. International news media have also published a series of reports in recent months on the accumulation of wealth by the family members of China’s leaders, and some Web sites carrying such reports, including Bloomberg’s and the English- and Chinese-language sites of The New York Times, have been assiduously blocked, while Internet comments about them have been swiftly deleted.

The regulations issued Friday build on a series of similar administrative guidelines and municipal rules issued over the past year. China’s mostly private Internet service providers have been slow to comply with them, fearing the reactions of their customers. The committee’s decision has much greater legal force, and puts far more pressure on Chinese Internet providers to comply more quickly and more comprehensively, Internet specialists said.

In what appeared to be an effort to make the decision more palatable to the Chinese public, the committee also included a mandate for businesses in China to be more cautious in gathering and protecting electronic data.

“Nowadays on the Internet there are very serious problems with citizens’ personal electronic information being recklessly collected, used without approval, illegally disclosed, and even traded and sold,” Li Fei, a deputy director of the committee’s legislative affairs panel, said on Friday at a news conference in Beijing. “There are also a large number of cases of invasive attacks on information systems to steal personal electronic information, as well as lawbreaking on the Internet through swindles and through defaming and slandering others.”

Mr. Li denied that the government was seeking to prevent the exposure of corruption.

“When citizens exercise these rights according to the law, no organization or individual can use any reason or excuse to interfere, and cannot suppress them or exact revenge,” he said. “At the same time, when citizens exercise their rights, including through use of the Internet, they should stay within the bounds of the Constitution and the laws, and must not harm the legitimate rights and interests of the state, society, the collective or of other citizens.”

A spokesman for the National People’s Congress said that 145 members of the committee voted in favor of the new rules, with 5 abstaining and 1 voting against them.

The requirement for real names appeared to be aimed particularly at cellphone companies and other providers of mobile Internet access. At the news conference, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Zhao Zhiguo, said that nearly all fixed-line services now had real-name registration, but that only about 70 percent of mobile phones were registered under real names.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/world/asia/china-toughens-restrictions-on-internet-use.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Media Decoder Blog: The Breakfast Meeting: Tighter Internet Rules in China, and ‘Thunderbirds’ Creator Dies

December 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

New rules issued by the Chinese government Friday will make it easier to monitor who is using the Internet and tamp down some of the vibrant discourse on the country’s Twitter-like microblogs, Keith Bradsher reported. That discourse in recent weeks has publicized sexual and financial scandals that have led to the resignations or dismissals of at least 10 local officials, as well as accounts in Bloomberg News and The New York Times about the wealth of the country’s top leaders. The rules, which come with much greater legal force than earlier regulations, require Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for monitoring what appears online. The government also included a mandate for businesses in China to be more cautious in gathering and protecting electronic data.

The nation’s public libraries are shifting with the times, recognizing that lending out physical books is only the beginning of their engagement with users, Karen Ann Cullotta writes. In part, the libraries are trying to fill the void left by disappearing book stores — which can mean highlighting best sellers like “50 Shades of Grey” in order to serve the public, who are viewed as “customers.” But also, they have become minor technology centers, both by providing high-speed Internet connections and classes.

  • On Room for Debate, there is a discussion of what role libraries should play as books are increasingly read digitally and are stored in the “cloud.” One commenter, Susan Crawford, notes ruefully that for many people, the library is the only way to connect to the Internet — a heavy burden for libraries to bear; another, Matthew Battles, writes of libraries:

They’ve acted as gathering points for lively minds and as sites of seclusion and solace. For making knowledge and sharing change, we still need such places — and some of those, surely, we will continue to call “the library.”

Gerry Anderson, the British filmmaker behind the futuristic marionettes-based TV series “Thunderbirds,” died on Wednesday at age 83, William Yardley reports. The series made its debut in 1965, employing a technique Mr. Anderson called “Supermarionation,” combining the words super, marionette and animation to describe his process, which was later imitated by the “South Park” creators in “Team America: World Police.” Mr. Anderson’s characters were part of an international rescue team that enthralled a generation in Britain.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/the-breakfast-meeting-tighter-internet-rules-in-china-and-thunderbirds-creator-dies/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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2 Top Deputies Resign as Crisis Isolates Murdoch

July 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Les Hinton, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal since 2007, who oversaw Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper subsidiary when voice mail hacking by journalists was rampant, and Rebekah Brooks, who has run the British papers since 2009 and become the target of unrelenting public outrage, both resigned in the latest blow to the News Corporation and its besieged chairman.

At first incensed by the assault on his company’s reputation, Mr. Murdoch insisted as late as Thursday that the executives had performed “excellently” in dealing with the crisis since it erupted two weeks ago. He was said to be loath to lose either of them, and became convinced that they had to leave only over the last several days, as executives and outside advisers flew in to help manage the crisis from the company’s gleaming granite and glass offices in Wapping, East London.

In arriving at the final decision, Mr. Murdoch was joined by his two sons, James and Lachlan, and Joel I. Klein, a senior News Corporation executive and former New York City Schools chancellor.

The resignations came on a day when Mr. Murdoch made a series of public mea culpas. He wrote a letter to be published in all British newspapers over the weekend acknowledging that the company did not address its problems soon enough. “We are sorry,” it begins.

He also visited the family of a murdered 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler, whose voice mail was hacked by reporters at The News of the World while she was still listed as missing. According to the Dowler family’s lawyer, Mark Lewis, Mr. Murdoch held his head in his hands and apologized for the actions of his employees, who deleted phone messages after the girl’s mailbox had been filled so they could collect more new messages.

Mr. Lewis said that Mr. Murdoch apologized “many times,” and that he was “very humbled, he was very shaken and he was very sincere.”

Whether these actions will do anything to quiet the backlash against the News Corporation is unclear. Mr. Murdoch, Ms. Brooks and James Murdoch, the company’s deputy chief operating officer and Rupert’s younger son, are set to testify next week before Parliament, where they will face questions from politicians who have become suddenly unafraid to publicly condemn the man whose favor they once saw as a key to political success.

Mr. Murdoch has become an increasingly isolated figure, not only in Britain but within his own company. The departure in recent years of top executives who often provided a counterweight to his famous irascibility and stubbornness has left him surrounded by fewer people who can effectively question his decisions. He initially rejected Ms. Brooks’s offer to resign from News International, his British subsidiary, despite advice to accept it from senior News Corporation executives, said people briefed on the company’s discussions.

Ms. Brooks, who was editor of The News of the World when the abuses began in 2002, repeatedly told the Murdochs that she knew nothing of the hacking and that she would be exonerated when all the facts came out.

In her farewell message, Ms. Brooks acknowledged that she had become a distraction. “The reputation of the company we love so much, as well as the press freedoms we value so highly, are all at risk,” she wrote. “As chief executive of the company, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt and I want to reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place.”

On Friday, former staff members at The News of the World questioned why Ms. Brooks did not resign earlier. “Our paper was sacrificed to save her career, and now she’s gone as well,” one former employee said, requesting anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his position in severance negotiations. “Who knows why they’ve chosen to do it now, as she’ll have to appear before the select committee anyway.”

Until Friday, Mr. Hinton had been largely an offstage figure in the scandal. But questions grew about what he knew about the improper practices going on at the newspapers under his watch, even though he has testified twice before Parliament saying that he believed the hacking was limited to one rogue journalist and a private investigator employed by The News of the World.

John F. Burns reported from London, and Jeremy W. Peters from New York. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris, and Ravi Somaiya from London.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/world/europe/16hacking.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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