1 Greece scrambles to finalise fiscal reform (Helena
Smith in The Guardian) Greek government officials are racing to complete a list
of reform proposals that will be scrutinised by the country’s international
creditors this week as Athens seeks an extension to its €240bn bailout.
Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, sent
draft proposals to creditors at the European Union, the European Central Bank
(ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Sunday, in order to receive
feedback before making a formal submission by Monday’s deadline. If the reforms
are accepted, Friday’s tentative agreement for a vital four-month loan
extension will go ahead.
Claiming Greece was “at the start of a new phase” as
it prepares for a four-month reprieve that will allow it to devise its own
economic agenda, the politician said the inventory would include labour law
reforms and changes to legislation regarding non-performing loans. Both are
seen as especially sensitive for a nation worn down by five years of gruelling
austerity – the price of its rescue funds.
Alexis Tsipras’s government, catapulted into power a
month ago, is playing a delicate balancing act between placating the bodies
keeping Greece afloat and sticking to the anti-austerity policies on which it
was elected. Highlighting the difficulties the government would almost
certainly face, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, conceded that
Athens would have “a hard time explaining the deal to Greek voters”.
2 HSBC chief holds Swiss bank account (BBC) HSBC has
confirmed that its chief executive Stuart Gulliver uses a Swiss bank account to
hold his bonuses. The bank was responding to a report in the Guardian that Mr
Gulliver has £5m in the account which he controls using a Panamanian company. The
bank pointed out that Mr Gulliver lives in Hong Kong and pays taxes there and
has also paid any taxes required in the UK. The statement did not mention the
Panamanian company.
The Guardian article does not suggest any wrongdoing
on Mr Gulliver's behalf, but it will add to the questions over HSBC's
activities in the tax advisory business. Allegations emerged earlier this month
that HSBC had helped people evade UK tax using hidden HSBC accounts in Geneva. The
Financial Conduct Authority, HMRC, Swiss prosecutors and MPs on the Treasury
Committee are looking into the allegations.
Last weekend the bank published an apology - signed
by Stuart Gulliver - to its customers and staff adding that it had completely
overhauled how it conducted its business since 2008. The former director of
public prosecutions, Lord Ken Macdonald, has said HSBC has left itself open to
criminal charges in the UK over the tax-dodging scandal. The QC said there were
strong grounds to investigate the bank for "cheating" HM Revenue and
Customs (HMRC).
3 India air pollution cuts 660m lives short by 3
years (San Francisco Chronicle) India's filthy air is cutting 660 million lives
short by about three years, according to research that underlines the hidden
costs of the country's heavy reliance on fossil fuels to power its economic
growth with little regard for the environment.
While New Delhi last year earned the dubious title
of being the world's most polluted city, India's air pollution problem is
extensive, with 13 Indian cities now on the World Health Organization's list of
the 20 most polluted.
That nationwide pollution burden is estimated to be
costing more than half of India's population at least 3.2 years of their lives,
according to the study, led by Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago
and involving environmental economists from Harvard and Yale universities. It
estimates that 99.5 percent of India's 1.2 billion people are breathing in
pollution levels above what the WHO deems as safe.
"The extent of the problem is actually much
larger than what we normally understand," said one of the study's
co-authors, Anant Sudarshan, the India director of the Energy Policy Institute
of Chicago. "We think of it as an urban problem, but the rural dimension
has been ignored." Added up, those lost years come to a staggering 2.1
billion for the entire nation, the study says.
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