This liveblog has been retired, future updates will appear here
July 25, 2011
Latest (12:46pm ET)
Norway killer tells judge two more cells exist : Johan Ahlander and Aasa Christine Stoltz, Reuters
Police updates via BBC liveblog
Investigation into Mr Breivik’s links to Poland still going on – Norwegian police.
Nobody has been arrested in Poland with links to the Breivik case – Norwegian police.
Police point out that Mr Breivik appeared to contradict himself, saying variously he had acted alone and had worked with two other “cells”.
Police say today’s hearing was held in a closed court because they were “worried about giving out too much information”. “One of the reasons was that we thought that other people might be implicated.”
(9:39am ET)
Reuters Picture of Anders Behring Breivik arriving at court.
@ketilbstensrud said:
TRANSLATED QUOTES FROM ANDERS BEHRING BREIVIK ON HIS MOTIVE, READ OUT BY JUDGE KIM HEGER (THIS INFORMATION HAS EMERGED IN POLICE INTERROGATION):
“The objective for the attacks was to hand people a powerful message. The accused wanted to cause the Labour party as much damage as possible, so that recruitment would be limited in the future.
“The operation was not about killing as many as possible, but to provide a significant signal that simply could not be misunderstood [because] as long as the Labour party maintains their ideological line of politics, whereby they deconstruct Norwegian culture and ‘mass-import’ Muslims, they must be held accountable for treason. One cannot allow one’s country to be colonised by Muslims.”
Reuters TV image of Anders Behring Breivik being transported to a hearing this morning. Full slideshow here.
Video of Anders Behring Breivik transported out of court.
The alleged Norway bomber/shooter Anders B. Breivik was in court this morning. Updates via Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star
July 23, 2011
Latest (7:58pm ET)
VG Nett claims Anders B. Breivik has confessed to police both the shooting in Utøya and bombing in Oslo.
His lawyer has also told Norway’s NRK television channel he made the confession, according to The Australian.
(5:25pm ET)
Reuters reports through shooting suspect’s lawyer, he believed his actions were ‘atrocious’ but ‘necessary’; He’s willing to explain himself in court.
YouTube has now pulled the alleged #Utøya shooter’s manifesto video citing violation of terms of service. Some are reposting it, one mirror is here but is likely to be pulled as well. Storyful has a copy here as well.
Here’s a Twitvid version via @alphaleah
(4:56pm ET)
Norweigan police verify the authenticity of the YouTube video posted below alleged to be posted by alledged Utøya shooter Anders B. Breivik according to Sky News senior correspondent Ian Woods.
Alleged manifesto of alleged Utøya shooter Anders B. Breivik, via @ketilbstensrud in the form of a Word doc seen here below:
2083+ +a+European+Declaration+of+Independence
Google translation of NRK report on Breivik’s manuscript via @avinunu
(3:59pm ET)
Video for informational purposes only. It has not been established that this video is connected to the alledged Utøya shooter Anders B. Breivik, though he is featured at the end of the video. Images of him are shown from 12.02. via BerwickAndrew and Storyful. Our Reuters report on the video can be found here.
(2:43pm ET)
Amateur video via @jweb, posted by permagnus82 on YouTube, just before and after the explosion in Oslo
(2:11pm ET)
Norway death toll may rise to 98, police say : Gwladys Fouche, Reuters
(1pm ET)
VG Nett journalist Rune Thomas Ege reports on police press conference
(12:01pm ET)
Scenes in Oslo today: outside parliament, mourners leaving flowers outside a church
@ketilbstensrud said:
BREAKING: update on that shopping centre being closed off in downtown Oslo: Police clarify that Stenersgata [right by ‘Oslo City’] was evacuated by special forces as a dramatic search for a wanted individual was carried out. It appears as if the search for that second gunman (who still is at large) is indeed in full motion, but it has not been confirmed by officials. Expect updates any time soon.
(11:21am ET)
Photos of the youth group in Utøya before the massacre : Aufnorge Flickr
A first person account by a 23 year-old survivor of the Utøya shooting : Storyful
Photos of the car and more details at Dagbladet.no
July 22, 2011
(11:19pm ET)
Norway shooting suspect’s social media trail examined : Chris Taylor, Mashable
KOMU News uses Google+ Hangout to interview Norwegians, including someone who witnessed the bombing via @ckanal
Analysis: Questions over far-right link in Norwegian attacks : William Maclean, Reuters
(10:02pm ET)
Norwegian police say at least 80 killed in shootings at Utøya. Police say killings are of “catastrophic dimensions”, may rise above 80
(9:24pm ET)
Former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, PJ Crowley
Many (Daily Mail, HuffPo, Sky News) are reporting the identity and details of the alleged Utoya shooter, we will hold off until we are able to gain a stronger confirmation.
The suspect in general terms is reported to be a white male of Norwegian descent with ties to anti-Muslim groups.
(6:47pm ET)
Our latest Reuters video on the Oslo bombing and shooting in Utoya
(5:43pm ET)
Follow @Reuters for breaking reports.
(5:03pm ET)
A wider shot of the aftermath of the explosion, from @geirolav
Washington Post has put together a great list of Twitter accounts to follow for Oslo updates.
(4:24pm ET)
Anne K Petterøe
Channel 4 news video of area, smoke and debris still fresh around the blast.
Reuters rough cut videos concerning the situation
Chaos in Oslo following blast
(4:03pm ET)
Via Norweigian journalist Rune Hakonsen
(3:57pm ET)
The NYT is reporting that a terror group has claimed responsibilty for the attack:
“Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism. The message said the attack was a response to Norwegian forces’ presence in Afghanistan and to unspecified insults to the Prophet Muhammad.”
(3:44pm ET)
Reuters spoke to a witness at Utoeya, northwest of Oslo, who relayed the following about the shooting incident: “Ive seen it with my own eyes, at least 20 dead people lying in the water.”
@AP
Livestream of Norwegian Public Broadcaster NRK
First photo at Utoya via Egeli
Oslo Terrorists Allegedly Claim Responsibility Via Jihadi Forums, YouTube : Fast Company
(1:26pm ET)
Official police statement on Oslo explosion
VG Nett Journalist Rune Thomas Ege
(12:52pm ET)
Brad Frenette, digital journalist and editor at Vancouver Sun
Kim Rathcke Jensen, China correspondent for Danish newspaper Berlingske
@BreakingNews co-founder Rodrigo Javier
Mick Hodgkin, Al Jazeera English TV
Radio NRJ GM Ketil B. Stensrud
Second blast caught on cell phone via tomikx This video was debunked as a fake, h/t @AndrewVazzano
(12:09 PM ET)
Four killed at Labour party youth meeting, according to Sky News
@BreakingNews co-founder Rodrigo Javier
Gunman in Utöya, Norway : Journalisti, uncertain if there’s a link to explosions. Here’s a photo taken at the camp earlier today, via @kjetilvevle
A Norwegian government official told the AP that there are still people trapped in buildings near the bomb site, but didn’t elaborate further.
(11:36am ET)
Reuters slideshow of explosion aftermath.
Here is our Reuters report on likely suspects for the attack.
@BBCBreaking
At least two people have been killed according to police quoted by local news agency NTB. NTB also reports that Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is safe.
The BBC has an excellent combination of live streaming video and text reports from Oslo here.
@niekfroma passed along this grim photo of an overturned vehicle.
Reuters has a rough cut of video from the scene below:
(11:30 am ET)
Photos by Anthony Perritano, submitted to Reuters.com:
Sky News producer Tim Gatt
Video from bystander in Oslo via Stardestroyer65
@ReutersFlash
Slideshow of the images streaming into Twitter right now on the #oslo hashtag
(10:53am ET)
Andreas Lunde at Demotix has a slideshow of images showing the devastation, be warned some images are graphic.
Here’s our Reuters report from Walter Gibbs and Alister Doyle : Blast rocks central Oslo, Norway PM’s office
Livestream of Norwegian TV station VGTV
Another view of the explosion’s aftermath from @gregersrygg
@morganflame has some amazing footage of the aftermath of the explosion
Images from an explosion in Oslo are streaming in via social media and local media in Norway:
Here’s one of the earliest images from @chaglen
Slideshow of images from nrk.no
Aftenposen.no has been covering the event from the moment it occured, posting some of the first images.
MOSCOW Oct 18 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan, the second-largest
ex-Soviet economy and oil producer after Russia, has enough
reserves to weather a new wave of financial crisis and keep its
currency stable, the National Bank governor told Reuters Insider
TV.Central Asia’s largest economy fared relatively well during
the global crisis and resumed rapid growth last year, when gross
domestic product expanded 7.3 percent after a 1.2 percent rise
in 2009. GDP is forecast to grow 7 percent this year.Grigory Marchenko, a banking veteran who was once proposed
to head the International Monetary Fund, said Kazakhstan was
enjoying relatively high commodity prices, enabling the Central
Asian state’s economy to grow 7 percent in the first six months
of 2011.Even if there was a fall in commodity prices, the
cornerstone of Kazakhstan’s export-oriented economy, it would
use its National Fund of $41 billion, Marchenko said on Tuesday.”The National Fund of Kazakhstan … that’s about 25 percent
of our GDP, so it is quite a comfortable cushion. Even if the
second wave (of the crisis) materialises, even if it is twice as
bad as the previous one, that means we will have to spend only a
half of our fund,” Marchenko said.During the crisis of 2008-09, the country spent around $10
billion out of the fund to support the economy, Marchenko said.He added that the country’s tenge currency was likely
to fluctuate near the current level. The weighted average of the
tenge stood at 147.89 per dollar on Tuesday, appreciating from
148.36 earlier this month, its weakest since early 2011.”Basically, it (the tenge rate) has been extremely stable in
the past two and a half years. I think it would be the same,”
Marchenko said.He reiterated that the National Bank would buy up domestic
gold output from next year, indicating it favours gold over
exposure to the ailing dollar.”I think we will buy all the gold produced in Kazakhstan in
the next 2-3 years, which means 20 to 25 tonnes a year,”
Marchenko said.He did not say how much the central bank was going to spend
on this, adding only that it would be “as much as necessary”.The gold assets of Kazakhstan’s central bank have grown by
29.5 percent since the end of last year to $4.0 billion as of
Aug. 31, amounting to 11.1 percent of the country’s net gold and
foreign currency reserves. International gold prices hit a
record $1,920 an ounce in early September.Kazakhstan’s central bank has joined central banks of other
emerging economies in stocking up on gold reserves amid concerns
fuelled by the ailing dollar and waning confidence in the
resilience of the global economy.The country produced 21.4 tonnes of gold, including 9.7
tonnes of refined gold, in January-July of this year. It plans
to boost gold output to 33 tonnes this year from 20 tonnes in
2010.
Now the European Commission has thrown its weight behind the
IMF’s push in September for a eurozone banking recapitalisation,
forced recaps of European lenders appear inevitable. The
question now becomes, how should they be done?Even before EC president Jose Manuel Barroso’s statement to
the EU parliament on Thursday proposing a recapitalization,
senior FIG bankers were arguing against pure equity injections
that dilute existing shareholders.”Banks will do everything to avoid taking government money:
sell assets, reduce RWA, stop lending. Plus any bank would loath
to raise equity at the current levels,” said one banker.It might not be that simple. Quite simply the world believes
a Greek default is coming and it might be followed by others.According to Goldman Sachs research, 50 of 91 European banks
could fail a revised regulatory stress test with a combined
short-fall of EUR139bn, and if the core Tier 1 capital ratio is
set at 9% instead of 7% the gap could be EUR300bn.When the US authorities stemmed American banks’ downward
spiral in 2008, the recapitalization was complemented by various
liquidity provisions and asset price stabilization measures but
ultimately by a regulatory threat that the state would inject
capital if the private sector would not.The majority of bankers who spoke to IFR believe some sort
of repeat of the US experience is possible. A European version
of TARP would entail banks being provided with capital via
preferred shares and warrants.Prefs would not be Basel 3 compliant but that need not be a
bad thing as they would then clearly be seen as only temporary.Later on, the injection could be followed by conversion into
common stock or private equity raises.This type of operation is clearly going to be an expensive
exercise. Barroso said banks should first use private sources of
capital, and threw a wild card into the mix by saying this
should potentially include restructuring and conversion of debt
to equity instruments.Bondholders have warned that coercive liability management
similar to what happened in Ireland, where Tier 1 investors
suffered losses of up to 90% on their bonds, would be
dangerous.Barroso has said that, if necessary, national governments
should provide support, and should this not be available, then
recapitalisation should be funded via a loan from the EFSF.Paul Achleitner, Allianz board member, is pushing for a
transformation of the European Financial Stability Facility into
a sovereign debt insurer.This would dramatically increase the fire power of the
Triple A EUR440bn fund without requiring another painful round
of EU government approvals.One banker likened this to an asset protection scheme (APS)
of the type used to protect Royal Bank of Scotland after an
initial state injection of capital had proved insufficient.”The capital benefit from the APS because of the reduction
of risk weighting is immense,” he said.Furthermore, structured carefully, under Eurostat rules the
APS would appear on states’ balance sheets only when actual
losses occur.The APS concept is also behind various bad-bank plans used
for ABN, LBBW, BayernLB, KBC and UBS, although Eurostat’s
accounting treatment is different in that circumstance because
assets are transferred in a bad bank.The Allianz idea would only guarantee new issuance. Whether
existing sovereign debt would benefit or be shunned because
investors consider it subordinated is an open question but
hitherto APS schemes have only supported existing portfolios.There are big questions whether it’s possible to
recapitalize banks via traditional mechanisms without
destabilizing markets further as this would imply that sovereign
debt does not possess the risk-free status it had previously
been assumed to hold.And there is no certainty on timing, size or the source of
losses due to sovereign exposure. Ideally this uncertainty needs
to be eliminated and attempting to calculate the quantum risks
sending the wrong signals about the size of the problem and the
ways to reduce it.Most importantly, there is little political appetite for
further injections of capital that cost the taxpayer money, but
this needs to be weighed against the requirement for demand from
equity and fixed income investors.”There needs to be a limit to excessive dilution, and
second, bondholders cannot feel their are being overly hit,”
said one banker.Given this, another option that some have considered is the
issuance of a form of contingent capital which might convert
into capital at times of stress, although pre-emption rights
might make it difficult to execute.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (cleancookstoves.org), headed by the United Nations Foundation and championed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, seeks to cut down on indoor air pollution in some of the globe’s poorest countries, where the most common way to cook is on an open fire inside the home.These household cooking fires contribute to 2 million deaths annually, more than are caused by malaria, according to the World Health Organization, which makes this the leading environmental cause of death.To help change this, some $150 million to $200 million worth of research needs to be done over the next decade to see that clean cookstoves get into the homes of the women most vulnerable to the hazards of indoor pollution, the scientists wrote in the journal Science.The research should include examinations of respiratory, cardiovascular and cancer risks as well as such life-cycle concerns as maternal, neonatal and child health, said Dr. William Martin II of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health, one of the report’s authors.”The role of women in reducing the health risks associated with household air pollution is critical,” Martin wrote from Moscow in response to emailed questions. “They are almost always the end users of the new stove of fuel technology. If it does not meet their needs, it will not be used, end of story.”The cookstoves are barely stoves at all, frequently just three flat stones to sit a pot on over a fire of twigs, without a chimney to get the smoke out of the house.WOMEN AND CHILDREN AT HIGHEST RISKWomen and children living in extreme poverty are at the highest risk of health problems from household smoke, because they tend to stay home during the day, while men are away and less exposed to indoor air pollution, the report said.Women and girls often are the fuel-gatherers, a time-consuming and hazardous task that can put them at risk of attacks when they venture far from their villages. The cooking fire is frequently just three flat stones to sit a pot on over a fire of twigs, without a chimney to get the smoke out of the house.More efficient stoves could cut the amount of fuel needed, and the risk to those who gather it.The idea of getting safer cookstoves into the homes of nearly 3 billion of the world’s poorest people has been tried for decades, but with limited success, the scientists wrote.There has been a lack of awareness of the problem, limited research into the health risks, a lack of affordable stoves and fuels and the logistical hurdle of distribution in poor areas.Research could also address just how much emissions of smoke and soot must be reduced by cleaner cookstoves to produce substantial health benefits.Giving the stoves away does not work, since that devalues them in the eyes of users, but making them too costly is another drawback, the scientists found.Men are often concerned about the price of the stoves, but if they are shown to save money on fuel and if the stoves can be paid for in a matter of months, they see long-term savings and become more enthusiastic, Miller wrote.There is no one-size-fits-all solution, he wrote, because “cooking is one of the most unique cultural practices around the world.” This means the design must be adaptable even if the inner workings are quite similar.
By Junko FujitaTOKYO, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Tokio Marine Capital, a Japanese
private equity firm affiliated with Tokio Marine Holdings
, has launched the sale of drugmaker Showa Yakuhin Kako
Co in a deal that could be worth as much as 70 billion yen ($905
million), according to three people with direct knowledge of the
matter.Tokio Marine Capital has hired Citigroup to manage the
sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified because
the information is not public.Tokyo-based Showa Yakuhin Kako is 50 percent owned by Tokio
Marine Capital. Polaris Capital Group, another Japanese buyout
firm, owns 23 percent, and a private equity arm of PineBridge
Investments has another 23 percent; these two also plan to sell
their stakes, the people said.Officials at Tokio Marine Capital, Polaris and PineBridge
declined to comment.Tokio Marine Capital invested in Showa Yakuhin Kako in 2008
with Polaris and PineBridge, a formerly a unit of AIG.The sale comes as Tokio Marine Capital raises money for a
new fund. The firm said in August it had obtained 10 billion yen
from investors in Japan and overseas and was continuing to raise
money.Japan’s private equity market is getting a boost this year,
lifted also by the planned purchase by U.S. private equity firm
Bain Capital of restaurant chain Skylark from a unit of Nomura
Holdings for $3.4 billion.MBK Partners aims to sell Japanese software maker Yayoi in a
deal that could raise about 75 billion yen ($969 million).Private equity firms have conducted $2 billion worth of
transactions so far this year, compared with $3.2 billion in
2010, according to Thomson Reuters data.The market peaked in 2007 when $21.5 billion worth of deals
were completed.
