A tropical depression that swept in from the Pacific on Wednesday caused mudslides and chaos on roads and forced thousands of people to abandon their homes in the chain of countries between Mexico and South America, killing 81 so far.On Saturday, the death toll stood at 45 in the region, home to some of the poorest countries in the Americas. El Salvador, a nation of some 6 million, was the worst affected overnight, with accidents pushing up the number of victims there to 32.”The situation has got even worse, it’s still raining heavily in various parts of the country,” El Salvador’s president, Mauricio Funes, said in an address late on Sunday,Many of those killed in the country died in mudslides, an official from local emergency services said.The rainfall was so strong in the area around the municipality of Ciudad Arce, northwest of San Salvador, that rescue operations had to be suspended for a time.Guatemala also reported more dead, bringing its death toll to 28, while the total rose to 13 in Honduras. At least eight people have also died in Nicaragua. No deaths were reported in Costa Rica, though dozens of families have been evacuated.Rain was still falling in parts of the region. The weather has also hit southeastern Mexico, where swollen rivers have affected thousands of people, notably in Tabasco state.At least four people died in Mexico earlier in the week when Category Two Hurricane Jova struck from the Pacific, forcing the country’s busiest port to close.
By Jesús AguadoMADRID, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The auction of troubled Spanish
savings bank Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo could be delayed
until after the November election because of the European Union
regulator’s new demands on banks for measuring capital strength,
a source close to the deal said.”These new requirements, which are still to be defined,
could mean that the CAM auction is not completed at the end of
October and could be delayed until after the November general
elections,” the source said.Due diligence is yet to be finalised, the source said,
adding Spanish retail bank Popular’s recent surprise
acquisition of smaller rival Pastor has kept the Bank
of Spain busier than the CAM auction.Leading Spanish retail banks Santander , BBVA
and CaixaBank were considered the only banks
with the financial capacity to take over CAM, financial sources
said.Mid-sized Sabadell has said it made a non-binding
offer for CAM and will likely be keener than ever to get its
hands on the Alicante-based savings bank after losing out to
Popular over Pastor, the sources said.A spokesman for the Bank of Spain said that, in principal,
“there is no change in the timetable for the CAM auction”.The European Banking Authority has said lenders must achieve
a core tier one ratio of at least 7 percent in the current round
of internal stress tests, sources told Reuters on
Tuesday.”If the situation in the markets was complicated already,
this additional uncertainty over how banks are going to raise
their capital levels is going to make it even more difficult to
sell an institution with problems like CAM,” said Jose Carlos
Diez, chief economist at Intermoney Valores.Tough market conditions have already scuppered Spain’s plans
to sell part of its lucrative state lottery, as well as the
country’s two biggest airports.The multi-billion euro privatisation of Barcelona and Madrid
airports was postponed for three months after bidders struggled
to raise financing.CAM GUARANTEESThe Bank of Spain took over CAM in July, injecting 5.8
billion euros ($7.8 billion) of state funds and preparing the
Valencia-based bank for sale. It has offered to share the risk
of future losses with any potential buyer, according to a
central bank source.Across the bank, bad loans as a percentage of total loans
stood at 19.5 percent at end-June, more than half the Spanish
average. CAM reported losses of 1.1 billion euros for the first
half of 2011.In addition, CAM has 1.4 billion euros of debt obligations in
2011 and 5.9 billion in 2012.A source at one of the banks involved in the auction process
said it will be essential to guarantee the winning bidder
additional liquidity to meet these debt obligations.A senior Madrid-based banker said the CAM sale was likely to
drag on until after next month’s elections to avoid any negative
press for the government and, more importantly, for the
centre-right opposition People’s Party.The Valencia region is a stronghold for the PP, which is
expected to win a landslide victory in November.
* Person briefed on matter says bank is Julius BaerBy Lynnley BrowningOct 11 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday indicted two
former private bankers with Julius Baer on charges of
selling tax evasion services to wealthy Americans, drawing yet
another Swiss bank into the crosshairs of the U.S. Justice
Department amid a widening crackdown on offshore tax evasion.While the indictment of the two bankers, Daniela Casadei
and Fabio Frazzetto, did not name their employer and referred
only to “Swiss Bank #1,” that bank is Julius Baer, according to
a person briefed on the matter.The two bankers and an unspecified number of unnamed
colleagues helped about 180 wealthy American clients of Julius
Baer hide about $600 million in assets in secret Swiss bank
accounts that went undeclared to the U.S. Internal Revenue
Service, according to the indictment.Casadei and Frazzetto were accused of conspiracy to defraud
the United States.Bank Julius Baer, one of Switzerland’s oldest private
banks, is part of Bank Julius Baer Group, a large asset
management firm that is traded on the Swiss stock exchange.The bank, headquartered in Zurich, could not immediately be
reached for comment.The charges against the two bankers come as the U.S.
Justice Department turns up the heat on Swiss banks that help
wealthy American clients evade taxes.Credit Suisse AG received a target letter, a step toward
possible indictment, in July, and about a dozen other banks are
under criminal scrutiny. Scores of bankers and clients have
been indicted over the past year or so.TRICKS OF THE TRADEThe latest indictment, by federal prosecutors in the
Southern District of New York, sheds new light on the tricks of
the trade in Swiss private banking.It accused Casadei and Frazzetto of helping American
clients open Swiss accounts in code names, encouraging them to
put assets in the names of foreign relatives, setting up sham
corporate entities to hide their clients’ ownership of the
assets, and reassuring clients that they would not be found out
because the bank no longer had an office in New York.In 2005, Swiss bank giant UBS AG bought a
21.5 percent stake in Julius Baer in a transaction in which
Baer simultaneously bought more than $3 billion in private
banking assets from UBS. UBS later sold the stake.For one American client who travelled to Zurich to meet
with Casadei, the banker provided what she called “travelling
statements,” or bank statements that did not identify the
client, who had inherited his assets, by name, the indictment
said. The bankers also used a dual-coding system for accounts,
with the number identifying the owners of accounts different
from the number of the actual account, it said.The indictment also referred to two unnamed client advisers
— a term for private bankers — at the bank and to a second
Swiss bank, identified only as “Swiss Bank #2.”One unnamed client adviser told American clients to
transfer her funds from Julius Baer to the second Swiss bank,
and to use obscuring names, known as “fantasy” names, such as
“the Hydrangea Account,” “the Red Rubin Account” and “The
Green-White House Account,” to hide her ownership of both bank
accounts, according to court papers. The unnamed client adviser
joined UBS’s Zurich office in 2005.The identity of the second bank could not be immediately
learned.ADVICE THAT CLIENTS IGNORE THE UBS INVESTIGATIONAccording to the prosecutors, Casadei told the American
client that because the bank “no longer had a presence in the
United States,” it was immune from the criminal investigation
of UBS by the U.S. Justice Department.Similarly, Frazzetto told one client that his bank “was not
exposed to investigation like UBS” because it “did not have a
presence in the United States,” but he urged clients
nonetheless not to carry any documents identifying Julius Baer
as their bank, according to the indictment.In 2009, after years of being investigated by the U.S.
Justice Department, UBS AG averted indictment for selling tax
evasion services to wealthy American clients of its private
bank. It agreed to pay $780 million, enter into a
deferred-prosecution agreement and turn over around 255 client
names as part of the deal.According to court papers, Casadei also told one client in
South Carolina who was spooked by the UBS probe that he could
continue to maintain his account at Julius Baer with secrecy by
hiring a third-party independent financial adviser to
administer his account at the bank. Casadei provided the client
with a list of the third-party advisers, according to the court
papers. The third-party advisers, Casadei said, were former
employees of the bank who had left to set up their own firms.Casadei also advised one client to use an Israeli cousin as
the nominee holder of an account held by two sisters, according
to the prosecution case, and Frazzetto had a client use a trust
named “Horsal” in the offshore tax haven of Liechtenstein.According to court papers, Casadei worked at Julius Baer’s
Zurich office from at least the early 1990s through 2010 and
Frazzetto worked at the Zurich office from around 2005 through
around 2010. The two bankers were said to have managed U.S.
client assets worth $13.2 million, and Frazzetto U.S. client
assets worth $20.5 million.The nationalities and locations of the two bankers were not
specified in the indictment.
Stiglitz argues that now is “no time for a trade war with China” — Project Syndicate
EU banks could need up to $266 billion — CNBC
How the EuroTARP could play out — FT Alphaville
Welcome to the end of the Fake Recovery — Credit Writedowns
Michael Lewis says that Wall Street’s fingerprints are all over the EU crisis (Video) — Reuters
Ben Bernanke “can’t blame” the Occupy Wall Street protesters — ThinkProgress
Morgan Stanley is fighting “anonymous blogs and market whispers” — DealBook
Facebook is now as big as the entire internet was in 2004 — Royal Pingdom
Microsoft may actually buy Yahoo this time — Reuters
“Bill Gross feels fat” — Dealbreaker
