Less than 12 hours after German Chancellor Angela Merkel emerged from an all-night crisis summit on Oct. 27, Joerg Asmussen appeared in front of lawmakers in Berlin to sell the deal he helped broker in Brussels.
One in eight people earning at least $1 million annually was audited by the Internal Revenue Service last year, making them far likelier to be examined than those making below $200,000, according to IRS data released Thursday.
Just 1 in 100 individuals earning less than $200,000 had their income tax returns examined, the IRS said.
The 12 percent of millionaire earners audited in 2011 was appreciably higher than the 8 percent who were audited in 2010. IRS officials said the high ratio was part of an effort to demonstrate that tax laws are applied fairly.
“That has been something we’ve concentrated on to assure that there’s equity in the system, to assure that those at the lower end of the spectrum know that those at the higher end of the spectrum are subject to the same rules and enforcement as everyone else,” Steven Miller, deputy IRS commissioner for services and enforcement, said in an interview.
In recent weeks, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have sought to boost taxes on the wealthy as a way to pay for jobs programs, a theme they are expected to continue in this presidential and congressional election year. IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said the growing portion of millionaire earners’ returns audited is not related to politics.
“The IRS is an agency of civil servants, and we base our audit decisions on tax issues _ nothing else. We don’t play politics here,” she said.
Between 2004 and 2009, the percentage of millionaire earners audited ranged between 5 percent and 7 percent.
The data was divided into only three categories of income: below $200,000, $200,000 and up, and $1 million and higher.
About 1 in 25 people earning $200,000 and more was audited in 2011.
The IRS also audited a greater proportion of large corporations than smaller ones, the data shows.
Last year, 1 percent of corporations with assets under $10 million were audited. Among corporations with assets of $250 million and up, 28 percent were audited.
The IRS said its enforcement efforts to collect all taxes owed _ which include audits, court cases and other activities _ netted $55 billion last year. That is nearly $3 billion less than the previous year, which Miller attributed to a falloff in estate taxes and corporations writing off their losses.
All together, the IRS audited nearly 1.6 million of the 141 million individual income tax returns that were filed. In 2010 _ the most recent year available _ more than 8 in 10 individuals audited ended up paying additional taxes.
The agency collected a total of $2.3 trillion in revenue last year from individuals and businesses, including the $55 billion from its enforcement efforts.
The IRS figures also showed that:
_In 2011, the agency garnisheed wages or seized money from bank accounts 3.7 million times, put liens on property 1 million times and seized 776 pieces of property.
_77 percent of individual returns were filed electronically last year, up from 69 percent in 2010.
_70 percent of callers to IRS taxpayer information telephone lines got through, slightly less than the 74 percent who reached someone in 2010. Miller attributed that to budget cuts to the agency.
_The information IRS officials dispensed over the phone to taxpayers was accurate 93 percent of the time, the same as the previous year.
_The IRS website, http://www.irs.gov, was visited 319 million times in 2011, a slight increase.
The data was presented by federal fiscal years, which begin on the previous Oct. 1.
A top European Central Bank official has publicly discussed the reasons for his surprise resignation, saying he is not satisfied with the direction Europe’s currency union has taken.
Juergen Stark said in an interview in Monday’s edition of Germany’s Wirtschaftswoche magazine that the ECB had done its job by keeping inflation under control across the eurozone, which it does through adjusting interest rates.
But he said some governments had tolerated excessive wage costs and unsustainable real estate booms that preceded today’s debt crisis.
Stark is leaving at the end of the year, 2 1/2 years before the end of his eight-year term on the bank’s six-member executive board. The council runs the bank day-to-day at its Frankfurt heaquarters, while interest rate decisions are taken by the broader 23-member government council, on which Stark also sits.
Stark was quoted as saying that “there is a broad theme that serves as the reason for this: that I am not satisfied with the way this currency union has developed.”
Stark said the ECB had done its part by keeping inflation under control but could not be expected to clean up policy mistakes by individual governments that ran up too much debt or let their economies become uncompetitive through high labor costs.
“Don’t overburden the central bank,” he said.
He said governments should have avoided financial trouble by reining in labor costs. Stark was quoted as saying governments also failed to rein in excessive real estate booms that collapsed and contributed to the eurozone debt crisis. He didn’t mention individual countries but wage costs rose in Greece, hampering the economy and state finances, and Ireland and Spain had debt-fueled real estate booms that collapsed.
The ECB earlier said Stark was leaving at year-end for personal reasons.
Analysts have said he appears to have left because of opposition to the European Central Bank’s program to buy government bonds. But Stark was not quoted in the interview as mentioning the bond purchase program.
The purchases lower the borrowing costs faced by indebted governments such as Italy and Spain. High borrowing costs are threatening to leave them unable to be able to borrow anew to pay off bonds that are maturing, resulting in a disastrous default that would shake the eurozone and global economy.
The bank and its President Mario Draghi have said the program is limited and only aimed at steering interest rates, and that governments must reform their finances and not wait for a central bank bailout.
Stark repeated his longstanding opposition to calls for the ECB to sharply increase the bond purchases through its power to create new money. He said that would violate the prohibition in the EU treaty on the ECB using its monetary powers to finance governments, although it is a step that the U.S. Federal Reserve has been allowed to take.
Stark dismissed calls by “real or self-styled experts” to use the “big bazooka” of printing money. “It is a fundamental arrangmenet of a currency union that the monetary financing of state debts through the ECB is not permitted,” he said.
European markets were little changed Thursday after the European Central Bank delivered another interest rate cut before a crucial summit of European Union leaders that could determine whether the euro currency survives or not.
The decision by the European Central Bank to reduce its main interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1 percent was expected and investors will be looking to see if its new ECB President Mario Draghi hints at further cuts in the months ahead amid growing signs of a recession in the 17-country eurozone.
“Expectation is growing that the ECB may look to cut its main policy rate below the current record low of 1 percent in coming months if the economic situation continues to deteriorate,” said Chris Williamson, an analyst at Markit.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.3 percent at 5,562 while Germany’s DAX rose 0.2 percent to 6,043. The CAC-40 in France was 0.3 percent lower at 3,164. The euro was 0.2 percent higher at $1.3417.
Wall Street was poised for modest gains on the open _ Dow futures were up 0.1 percent at 12,231 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures rose 0.1 percent to 1,265.
Traders were looking to Draghi’s press conference later Thursday to see what he says about the bank’s limited bond-buying program.
Draghi has said the central bank is ready to do more to support bond markets provided that European politicians agree to closer budget controls among the 17 countries that use the euro. Germany and France have proposed a plan on closer fiscal unity that will dominate debate at Friday’s EU summit.
Investors hope if European governments can agree to tighter spending oversight, the ECB will step up its support for the bond markets. It currently buys bonds in the markets, but only reluctantly, and in small quantities.
“The ECB has made it clear that the sequencing of events is all-important, a hint that if the EU takes a significant step towards more fiscal discipline then it will continue to support the market in size and maybe in words as well,” said Gary Jenkins, an analyst at Evolution Securities.
“Let’s hope what is decided is enough to keep the ECB satisfied, so that it keeps up its support for markets,” he added same day payday loans.
Hopes that Europe was finally readying a decisive plan to deal with its crippling debt crisis had helped stocks rise over the past couple of weeks, as well as pushing the borrowing rates of countries like Italy down to more manageable levels.
The ten-year yield on Italy’s bonds is currently trading around the 6 percent mark, down on the 7 percent level that it traded at as recently as last week. Borrowing rates of over 7 percent are considered unsustainable and eventually caused Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek financial bailouts.
The French-German proposal to enshrine tougher budget rules in European treaties is being met with resistance by the European Council, an institution that defines the priorities of the entire 27-nation EU. Its president, Herman Van Rompuy, favors a simpler route _ amending existing rules that apply to the 17 euro countries to avoid the trickier step of requiring every country to approve the new treaty.
The potential for disagreement at the summit weighed on Asian stocks earlier as it had done in Europe and the U.S. on Wednesday.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.7 percent to 8,664.58, dragged down by weaker-than-expected machinery orders. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.4 percent to 1,912.39 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.7 percent to 19,107.81.
But mainland Chinese shares rose, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gaining 0.1 percent to 2,329.82 after losing more than 1 percent earlier in the day to approach an intraday low for the year. The Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.1 percent to 970.95.
Oil prices rose modestly in line with the modest advance in Europe _ benchmark oil for January delivery was up 38 cents to $100.87 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange
____
Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Robert Deluce is the president and chief executive officer of Porter Airlines. In our series on the financial habits of notable Canadians, Deluce told the Toronto Star’s Emily Mathieu what he learned working at his family’s hunting and fishing charter business, the significance of a 1956 Oldsmobile and why, when it comes to purchases and sales, almost everything is negotiable.s
How did your family influence your attitude toward money?
My family is very entrepreneurial, so I’ve always looked at finances from a business perspective. Whether as an individual or a household it’s important to understand your revenue streams and expenses, and to look for quality and value when making decisions about how to spend money wisely.
What is the best financial advice you ever received?
I’ve always had to earn my own money. Even though I was involved in a family business, there was no free ride for me or my eight siblings. My parents always made sure that we were compensated for the work we did. I appreciate the value of money because of this.
What lessons did you take away from your first job?
My parents started a hunting and fishing charter business in 1951 in Northern Ontario called White River Air Services. I later boarded as a student at St. Michael’s College School in Toronto and worked at the family business when I went home during summer holidays. I would pump gas, load aircraft and do other odd jobs while learning the ropes as a teenager. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was my apprenticeship for running a business, and an airline in particular.
What was the first item you purchased with your own money?
The first item of any significance was the purchase of an old 1956 Oldsmobile from my grandfather for $500. This was in 1968 while I was attending McGill University.
What has been your savviest investment?
The purchase of a home in 1987 from an investment banker on the day after the stock market tumbled. After doing a really light “freshen up” renovation, which consisted primarily of interior paint, we resold the house six months later for about $400,000 more than we had paid for it.
What is your worst spending habit?
Like many people, my morning coffee is a habit that adds up. Of course, I have to have the premium drinks, which makes it worse.
How do you prefer to pay, cash, card or debit?
Credit card. It helps me keep track of expenses and I always pay the full balance every month. Cash is my back up. I never use debit cards.
What hard financial lessons have you learned?
Never leave yourself with only one supplier; you must have choice and some tension to ensure value.
What is your best money-saving advice?
Everything is negotiable. Rarely should you pay the sticker price for a product or service. You can get a better price simply by asking, comparing suppliers, buying in larger quantities or employing other strategies. Sometimes you can negotiate more value by having upgrades or bonus items included in the cost. If you’re somewhere, like in a grocery store, where this doesn’t usually apply, you can still save money by planning ahead and buying staple items when they’re on sale before you absolutely need them and have no choice but to pay the going rate that day. Never be in a hurry to conclude the transaction. And if you are buying a car, absolutely do not ask for a certain colour as your first item of discussion.
Are there any money saving tips you can pass on to travellers?
It’s important to know what you’re getting for your ticket when flying. You can usually choose from various fare types and each one gives you different benefits. Buying the lowest fare usually means you’ll have to pay extra to make changes later on, but you save upfront. A premium fare has things like this built into the upfront price. You should purchase according to your needs and be aware of fees if they’re required for baggage, seat selection, etc. We try to offer real value at Porter by including certain amenities that other airlines either don’t offer or make you pay for.
Do you worry about retirement?
I don’t plan on retiring anytime soon, but I do have a financial plan.
Are money and success the same thing?
I don’t think so. There are a lot of ways to make money, but success is something that you earn. Most successful people also have a sense of accomplishment. This may come from building a business or contributing to a cause where there is also benefit to others, not just you. Often this has nothing to do with making money or your total net worth.
House Speaker John Boehner publicly blessed a Republican deficit-reduction plan Tuesday that would raise $300 billion in additional tax revenue while overhauling the IRS code, bucking opposition by some GOP presidential hopefuls and colleagues wary of violating a longstanding point of party orthodoxy.
Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, spoke as time grew perilously short for agreement by the deficit-fighting “supercommittee.” The panel has until a week from Wednesday to vote on any compromise, but several officials said that in reality, perhaps as little as 48 or 72 hours are available to the six Republicans and six Democrats.
While Boehner’s voice is important, his endorsement does not mean all Republicans will follow him or that a deal is in sight. Republicans have been unified for two decades in opposition to higher taxes, while Democrats on the supercommittee insist on additional revenue before they will agree to cuts in benefit programs like Medicare as part of a compromise.
The speaker said that the plan, outlined a week ago to Democrats on the committee, was “a fair offer.” Adding tax reform would generate economic growth, he said, speaking as the supercommittee groped uncertainly for a compromise to reduce red ink by $1.2 trillion or more over a decade.
Any deal must be certified by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as meeting the $1.2 trillion target, circulated to lawmakers and then posted publicly before the committee takes formal action. Failure to act would trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic deficit cuts in 2013 that both sides say they want to avoid.
The full committee hasn’t met in several days, but various subgroups have been in near constant contact.
More than deficit reduction is at stake, one year into an era of divided government.
Democrats are hoping to add elements of President Barack Obama’s jobs legislation to any deficit-cutting deal, including extensions of a Social Security payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits that are due to expire at the end of the year. A comprehensive rewrite of farm programs may hang in the balance, too, and lawmakers also must pass legislation to assure sufficient funds to reimburse doctors who treat Medicare patients.
As the pace of private talks intensifies, the two sides vie publicly for the high ground in public opinion.
“I am still hopeful that a few Republicans will put their country first and come to us with a credible offer with real revenue,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., co-chair of the supercommittee, told reporters as she emerged from a late-afternoon meeting.
Earlier, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said GOP members on the committee outlined a proposal several days ago and have yet to receive a response from Democrats. “It’s been a long week, waiting for a counter-proposal,” he said.
The twin issues of taxes and benefit programs have long been stumbling blocks in budget negotiations.
In negotiations last summer, according to numerous officials, President Barack Obama and Boehner were considering sizeable cuts to benefit programs as well as an overhaul of the tax code that would have raised as much as $800 billion in additional revenue _ money that Republicans said at the time would have come from economic growth pay day loan lenders. The talks ultimately failed.
In his comments Tuesday, Boehner cited the importance of tax overhaul in the proposal that Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., made to supercommittee Democrats last week.
“It’s important for us to, in my opinion, reform the tax code. And we’ve got the highest business tax rate in the world. We’ve got a personal tax system that’s so complicated it costs Americans about $500 billion a year to comply with the current tax code,” he said.
Boehner asserted that the changes would “make America more competitive and produce more economic growth. And so I do believe that reforming the code is a step in the right direction. The details of how we get there, frankly, I think are yet to be worked out.”
Republican officials have said the offer made by Toomey envisions an overhaul that would drop the top tax rate on personal income to 28 percent from the current 35 and shave or eliminate some itemized deductions that are commonly used. The top corporate rate would also fall.
The result would be an estimated $250 billion in additional revenue over a decade, they estimate.
Despite Boehner’s comments _ and Toomey’s credentials as an opponent of tax increases _ GOP presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry said they were prepared to oppose a plan along the lines of the one under consideration. Another candidate, Mitt Romney, brushed aside a question on the subject.
Supercommittee Republicans also support a proposal that would replace the current measurement of inflation used to adjust income tax brackets and cost-of-living increases with another, less generous one. They estimate it would result in an estimated $50 billion in higher tax revenue and reduce spending by roughly three times that amount.
Obama backed a similar plan last summer in his talks with Boehner. More recently, Democrats on the supercommittee included it in an offer, although liberals made clear their unhappiness and it was subsequently jettisoned.
Both Boehner and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the GOP co-chair of the supercommittee, explained the Republican proposal to members of the rank-and-file at a closed door meeting.
According to numerous officials who attended, Hensarling displayed charts that sought to place the offer in the context of other scenarios that might occur if there is no agreement. Among them are increases in tax rates that would occur beginning on Jan. 1, 2013, if all of the cuts enacted when President George W. Bush was in office expire as currently scheduled.
“They haven’t thrown me out, so I guess I got a good reception,” Hensarling later said of his reception.
The press likes to cast itself as society’s guardian. On Monday, the judge leading the investigation into Britain’s deepening phone hacking scandal vowed to find an answer to the question: Who guards the guardians?
For years, the British media’s answer has been that it mainly looks after itself. But following explosive allegations of pervasive criminality at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid, Lord Justice Brian Leveson suggested it was time for a change.
“Guarding the guardians is not an optional add-on,” he said.
Britain’s phone hacking inquiry was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron shortly after the scandal boiled over in July, pulling the lid off illegal spying at the nation’s best-selling Sunday newspaper and exposing police corruption.
It’s one of several investigations spurred by public anger over unethical practices at the now defunct paper. The long-running scandal has threatened Murdoch’s global media empire, which includes the Wall Street Journal and dozens of other properties.
Parallel inquiries launched by police, prosecutors and parliamentarians have called Murdoch to Britain for dramatic testimony before lawmakers, led to more than a dozen arrests and the resignation of several top-ranking Murdoch executives, including News International CEO Rebekah Brooks and The Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton.
The first part of Leveson’s inquiry seeks to go beyond assigning blame to individual journalists or newspapers to evaluate the media’s wider role: Is the press above the law? Is it too close to police and politicians? Does society’s guardian need a powerful guardian of its own? These are some of the questions on his agenda.
Although the News of the World has few defenders, editors and broadcast bosses have publicly voiced concern that recommendations from any inquiry could leave Britain’s press less aggressive _ and less free. Few if any want more government regulation _ especially since Britain’s press already labors under strict libel laws and contentious new privacy rules.
While inquiry counsel Robert Jay said that the importance of a free press was “almost self-evident,” he warned that the media may not necessarily like the solutions the inquiry finds for tricky ethical issues.
“These solutions will not necessarily have been the solutions which the press themselves would have devised,” he said.
Leveson said he hoped to have the first part of his inquiry wrapped up by the end of 2012.
He’s expected to recommend either scrapping or radically reforming the Press Complaints Commission, the self-regulatory body whose failure to get to grips with the hacking scandal has been roundly criticized. The scope of his inquiry’s recommendations will hinge in part on whether illegal behavior is found to have been limited largely to the News of the World or whether it was practiced more widely.
There seemed to be plenty of evidence that shady practices were widespread at Monday’s hearing.
Jay told the inquiry _ whose proceedings were broadcast live over the Internet _ that it appeared that illegal interception of voicemails went beyond the News of the World. He said that the inquiry had seen the names of no fewer than 28 News International employees in the notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator which the News of the World paid to illegally eavesdrop on its victims.
The words “The Sun” _ a possible reference to the News of the World’s sister-title _ also cropped up in Mulcaire’s notes, Jay said. So, too, did a name linked to the Daily Mirror, the Sun’s left-wing rival.
Jay said that the evidence on phone hacking pointed to what he described as “at the very least, a thriving cottage industry.”
The inquiry was briefly disrupted when David Sherborne, a lawyer for phone hacking victims, said that a Trojan, or data-stealing virus, had been found on his computer _ raising the possibly that he was being hacked.
The otherwise cool and clinical Leveson briefly seemed speechless.
“I’m not often thrown, but Mr. Sherborne has managed to do that,” he said. Sherborne later said the problem was being dealt with.
Sherborne was one of several dozen lawyers and journalists packed into a room at London’s neo-gothic Royal Courts of Justice, with more in a spillover tent pitched into a nearby courtyard.
A handful of members of the public came to watch the proceedings as well _ among them Bob Dowler, whose daughter Milly had her phone hacked by the News of the World at the height of the media frenzy over her disappearance in 2002.
Dowler’s case was the first to arouse broad public anger when it was reported by the Guardian newspaper in July, though several celebrities had earlier won settlements from News International. Among the people who will be legally represented at the hearings are “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, singer Charlotte Church, actor Hugh Grant and actress Sienna Miller.
Katriona Ormiston, a 21-year-old journalism student, said she was there to see media history being made.
“Obviously it’s got quite a big impact on the future,” she said.
Scratch the Timbits the next time you order that double-double. How about a nice slab of lasagna instead?
Tim Hortons announced Monday it
The United States has raised the tempo in its war against al-Qaida in Yemen, killing nine of the terror group’s militants in the second, high-profile airstrike in as many weeks. The dead in the late Friday night strike included the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, the prominent American-Yemeni militant killed in a Sept. 30 strike.
Yemeni officials on Saturday attributed the recent U.S. successes against al-Qaida to better intelligence from an army of Yemeni informers and cooperation with the Saudis, Washington’s longtime Arab allies.
The successes come even as Yemen falls deeper into turmoil, with President Ali Abdullah Saleh clinging to power in the face of months of massive protests. Saturday saw the worst bloodshed in weeks in the capital, Sanaa: At least 18 people were killed when Saleh’s troops fired on protesters and clashed with rivals. Witnesses estimated up to 300,000 people joined Saturday’s demonstrations, the largest in the capital in several months.
“Everyone with interests in Yemen, including al-Qaida and the Americans, is raising the stakes at this time of uncertainty” said analyst Abdul-Bari Taher. “The Americans are wasting no time to try and eliminate the al-Qaida threat before the militants dig in deeper and cannot be easily dislodged.”
Also dead in the Friday airstrike in the southeastern province of Shabwa was Egyptian-born Ibrahim al-Banna, identified by the nation’s Defense Ministry as the media chief of the Yemeni branch of the al-Qaida.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch is known, is considered by the U.S. the most dangerous of the terror network’s affiliates after it plotted two recent failed attacks on American soil. Its fighters and other Islamic militants have taken advantage of Yemen’s chaos to seize control of several cities and towns in a southern province. That has raised American fears they can establish a firmer foothold in the strategically located country close to the vast oil fields of the Gulf and overlooking key shipping routes.
The U.S. airstrikes in Shabwa pointed to Washington’s growing use of drones to target al-Qaida militants in Yemen. The missile attacks appear to be part of a determined effort to stamp out the threat from the group.
Yemeni officials familiar with the U.S. military drive against al-Qaida in Yemen said a shift of strategy by the Americans was finally yielding results, with human assets on the ground directly providing actionable intelligence to U.S. commanders rather than relying entirely on Yemen’s security agencies the Americans had long considered inefficient or even suspected of leaking word on planned operations.
They said there were as many as 3,000 informers on the U.S. payroll around the country _ some without even knowing it.
The Saudis, on the other hand, have traditionally kept an elaborate patronage system and an information network in Yemen, their neighbor to the south. They have for decades paid monthly stipends to key tribal leaders, military commanders and politicians to secure their loyalty. They also paid ordinary Yemenis to provide them with intelligence.
“The Saudis are making their information available to the Americans,” said one of the defense officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information. “Both them and the Americans are broadening their cooperation without direct Yemeni involvement.”
Tribal elders in the area where Friday’s strikes took place said the dead included Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki, the 21-year-old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim preacher and savvy Internet operator who became a powerful al-Qaida recruiting tool in the West and who was on a U one hour payday loan.S. capture-or-kill list. The elder al-Awlaki and another propagandist, Pakistani-American Samir Khan, were killed in the Sept. 30 srike.
The tribal elders, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals, said four other members of the al-Awlaki clan and another local militant were also killed in the same drone attack. There was no immediate confirmation of the younger al-Awlaki’s death from Yemeni authorities.
Security officials said the strike was one of five carried out overnight by American drones on suspected al-Qaida positions in Shabwa and neighboring Abyan province in Yemen’s largely lawless south. They said two more militants were killed and 12 wounded in other strikes in the two provinces.
The first strike late Friday targeted a house in the Azan district of Shabwa, but hit just after al-Qaida militants had a meeting in the building, security officials and tribal elders said.
They said a second strike then targeted two sport utility vehicles in which the seven were traveling, destroying the vehicles and leaving the men’s bodies charred. It was not clear whether other participants in the meeting were targeted in separate strikes.
Yemen’s al-Qaida offshoot has taken advantage of the political turmoil roiling the country. Saleh, who has ruled the country for more than 30 years, has been struggling to stay in power in the face of eight months of massive street protests demanding his ouster and the defection to the opposition of key aides and military commanders.
In Sanaa, forces loyal to Saleh opened up on protesters with assault rifles and anti-aircraft guns, medical officials and witnesses said. The casualty figures _ 12 dead and up to 300 wounded _ were confirmed by Mohammed al-Qubati, director of the field hospital set up at Change square, the name given to a central Sanaa intersection that saw the birth of the eight-month-old, anti-Saleh uprising.
The medical officials requested anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to journalists.
In Sanaa’s northern district of Hassaba, fighting between Saleh’s forces on one side and anti-regime tribesmen and renegade troops on the other killed two civilians and four supporters of tribal chief Sadeq al-Ahmar, a one-time regime ally who defected to the opposition in March. At least 13 people were wounded in the fighting.
A three-story building housing an independent TV station, Al-Saeedah, in the area took a direct hit, destroying the channel’s equipment and studios, according to a statement by the management. The privately-owned station went off the air.
Khaled al-Ansi, a prominent leader of the protest movement, blamed the death of the proetsters on opposition parties, arguing that their acceptance of a U.S.-backed settlement plan proposed by Yemen’s Gulf Arab neighbors gave Saleh license to kill protesters at will. The plan provides for the Yemeni leader to step down and hand over power to his deputy in exchange for immunity.
“The political parties are participants in the killings,” said al-Ansi. “The immunity from prosecution is giving Saleh a temptation to kill more of us.”
The European Union’s plan to force international airlines to buy permits for their carbon dioxide emissions is in line with international law, Europe’s highest court said in a preliminary opinion Thursday.
Several U.S. and Canada-based airlines and airlines associations had sued the EU for its plan to include them in the emissions trading scheme as of next year. Under that plan, all airlines would have to have emissions permits for flights to and from EU airports. So far only large factories and power plants are part of the scheme.
Among several complaints, the airlines had argued that the EU did not have the jurisdiction to require permits for emissions produced during the entire flight, or even stretches that cross the air space of non-EU countries.
But the ECJ’s Advocate General Juliane Kokott disagreed with their arguments Thursday.
“The inclusion of international aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme is compatible with the provisions and principles of international law invoked,” she said in her opinion to the court. The advocate general’s opinion is not binding for the court but is followed in most cases.
The emissions trading scheme is the EU’s main tool in its fight against climate change. The EU has argued that it planned to include all airlines into its scheme since most other major states and regions do not have a similar system. Forcing only European airlines to buy permits would have put them at a competitive disadvantage compared to their foreign competitors and undermined the effectiveness of the scheme.
“I am glad to see that the Advocate General’s opinion concludes that (the) EU Directive is fully compatible with international law,” the EU’s Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard said. “The EU reaffirms its wish to engage constructively with third countries during the implementation of this legislation.”