EU backs limited treaty change to ward off crises - Reuters

By Jan Strupczewski and Julien Toyer

BRUSSELS | Thu Oct 28, 2010 8:33pm EDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Thursday supported calls by Germany and France for limited changes to the bloc's main treaty to help shore up Europe's defenses against any new financial crises.

EU leaders agreed at a summit that changes were needed to create a permanent system to handle sovereign debt problems and endorsed tougher budget rules, including sanctions on states that do not keep deficits and debt in check.

But Berlin failed to win widespread support for demands to suspend the voting rights of member states which breach the rules. This would have required more radical treaty change and will be looked at only after the other measures are dealt with.

The leaders asked Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the EU Council grouping national governments, to prepare changes to the Lisbon treaty in time for agreement at a summit in December and said he should work on them with the European Commission.

"Today we took important decisions to strengthen the euro zone," Van Rompuy told a news conference after discussions described by several participants as heated and emotional.

"We recommend a robust and credible permanent crisis resolution mechanism to safeguard the financial stability of the euro zone as a whole."

The changes to the treaty are to be agreed by mid-2013 and are part of Europe's efforts to ensure it can cope with any repeat of the Greek sovereign debt crisis this year which threatened the future of the euro.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, says a permanent system must replace the ad-hoc 440-billion euro safety net created in May for all euro zone states. It also says it should be partly funded by the private sector and entail strict conditions.

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE

France and Germany, the 27-country EU's dominant powers, initially faced hostility to their demands to amend the treaty to create a permanent structure for handling debt crises, enhance financial stability and support the euro.

Most leaders opposed big changes to a charter that took eight years to negotiate and became law only 10 months ago. Any change to an EU treaty must be approved unanimously and ratified by all member states, either in a vote of parliament or via a referendum. The European Parliament should also agree.

But the leaders eventually accepted, in some cases reluctantly, that small amendments were needed to protect the euro, although Britain made its backing dependent on keeping EU spending in check and Poland tied its support to a deal on pension reforms, EU diplomats said.

Any sign that the leaders were scaling back efforts to tighten budget discipline could unsettle financial markets worried by debt problems in euro zone countries such as Portugal, Ireland and Greece.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who needs strong backing for treaty change to fend off criticism at home of her handling of the euro zone crisis, told reporters that the euro and the European Union itself could be in danger.

Berlin, which wants to ensure the permanent structure has a sound legal base, had threatened to block the budget reforms if no deal was reached.

If the EU is so concerned about another Sovereign Debt issue which could cripple the Eurozone, why doesn’t it seek to charge the organizations who illegally funded money to the Greek state as an example.

Why is it that the very few politicians who abuse the right of Power are always the ones who continuously walk away from such fraud leaving behind the innocent Greek Citizens to cough up the bill?

Billions of dollars has dissapeared from the Greek books, while the Citizens are left to pay the biils, and with what money ?

I am a strong believer of the Eurozone, but perhaps to solve an issue we need to identify the core issues.

Lending Billions of dollars to such states leads to corruption and fraudelent activity by the Very Powers who where Voted in by the people.

Instead of placeing measures such as sanctions perhaps the Eurozone needs to be realistic about the actually output of these economies before such states are given Billions of Dollars to dispurse, perhaps the Eurozone should look at the banks, arent they the ones who have created this global financial crisis?
Why is it that the people should suffer from the very few Greedy Bankers?

Apollonas.

Apollonas Report As Abusive

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Inquiry Puts Halliburton in a Familiar Hot Seat - New York Times

In recent years, the giant energy services company has found itself under scrutiny over allegations that it performed shoddy, overpriced work for the United States military in Iraq, bribed Nigerian officials to win energy contracts and did brisk business with Iran at time when it faced sanctions.

On Thursday, a government investigation panel said that Halliburton might have played an important role in the April explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico by supplying cement that the company knew was unstable to BP, which used it to seal the well. Halliburton has repeatedly blamed BP, the owner of the well, of failing to test the cement and making other errors that led to the accident, which killed 11 people and spewed millions of barrels of crude oil into the gulf.

“Halliburton has a history of walking on the energy high beam without a net,” said Chris Ruppel, managing director of capital markets at Execution Noble, an international investment bank. “Because they have been very aggressive, working on very high-profile types of projects, when anything goes wrong, they will be front and center.”

The company, which was led by former Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000, has drawn repeated fire for some of its past actions, mostly involving its Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary, which it finished selling in 2007. Last year, for example, Halliburton and KBR agreed to pay $579 million to settle charges brought by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with bribes that KBR had paid to top Nigerian officials over a decade. The companies still face criminal liability in Nigeria over the episode, which involved contracts to build a liquefied natural gas complex.

Several experts said on Thursday that the report by the staff of the commission investigating the accident could have legal and business consequences for Halliburton, which is based in Houston. Investors were certainly concerned, sending the company’s stock plunging 16 percent in the minutes after the report was released. The shares ended the day at $31.68, down 8 percent.

Halliburton had no immediate comment on the report but said it would issue a statement Thursday. A company spokeswoman did not respond to a request to discuss Halliburton’s earlier actions in Iraq and elsewhere.

In its report, investigators said that internal tests run by Halliburton found that the cement mixture it had developed for use at BP’s well, called Macondo, did not meet industry standards for stability. Halliburton had shared some but not all of the test results with BP, and the companies proceeded to use the faulty mixture.

The report did not conclude that the problems with the cement caused the disaster, but did say that they raised the likelihood that a blowout would occur.

Lawyers suing BP, Halliburton and other companies on behalf of workers killed or injured in the disaster seized on the report, arguing that it would expand Halliburton’s potential liability.

“The report makes clear for all to see that, by rushing the cement job, BP and Halliburton put their corporate profits ahead of worker safety,” Paul Sterbcow, a plaintiffs’ lawyer in New Orleans, said in a statement.

Cement failure is a frequent cause of deepwater oil well blowouts. And Halliburton, which is one of the world’s biggest producers of oilfield cements, also provided the material used in an offshore well near Australia that blew out last year.

In a securities filing this month, Halliburton defended its cement work for BP and said that if BP had properly tested the cement after it was laid in the well, “these tests would have revealed any problems with our cement.”

Oil industry experts were split on the report’s business implications for Halliburton. “It’s going to make people take a second look for other options, other cement companies,” said Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, director of petroleum geoscience programs at the University of Houston.

But Robert MacKenzie, managing director for energy and natural resources research at FBR Capital Markets, had a different view, calling the stock market response an overreaction. “I don’t think a report written by nontechnical people is going to affect industry perception,” he said, adding that Halliburton “does billions of dollars of work every year, and one job doesn’t make a reputation among their customers.”

Indeed, Halliburton, a global company with $14.7 billion in revenue last year, has weathered a string of public controversies.

While KBR was still part of Halliburton, it came under intense scrutiny for large cost overruns and was accused of shoddy work in construction projects for United States military operations in Iraq. In 2003, the Halliburton subsidiary had received a multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract from the American government for work in the war-torn country.

In 2007, Congressional Democrats criticized Halliburton for moving the offices of its chief executive from Houston to Dubai, charging that it was an effort to lower its taxes. The company countered that the second headquarters allowed it better business opportunities.

That year, Halliburton also said that it was ending its business dealings in Iran. Under longstanding American sanctions, American companies are forbidden from conducting most business with Iran.

Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, said harsh criticisms of Halliburton were based on “attitudes that harken back to the Cheney connection and the Bush years that make them convenient punching bags.”

“They are worldwide giants in what they do, and they are thoroughly reputable,” Mr. Hunt said. “They have a strong, proven record of quality work.”

But Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the company resembled Zelig, the fictional Woody Allen film character who repeatedly turned up unexpectedly at events.

“Except Zelig was innocent,” Mr. Markey said. “Halliburton thinks cutting corners is good business.”

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Google Place Search Emphasizes Local SEO - Mediapost.com

Google began rolling out Place Search to combine local and organic listings on Google.com when searchers look for information around location. It aggregates results based on places, so searchers can compare information, but there are a few things SEO experts will want to play close attention to when optimizing Web sites for local search.

When Google's search engine believes the searcher wants information about a location, it returns local businesses high in the search engine results page. The new results in Place Search supports longer descriptions and reviews. Scroll down the page and the map follows along in the browser window.

Google Place Search will lead to more SEO work for companies that focus on small business optimization. Andrew Shotland, founder of Local SEO Guide, says the tool favors small businesses in Google's search results. "It intensifies the competition for local rankings," he says. "Previously, if you couldn't rank in Google's Seven Pack, the local set of results when they detect a relevant local query, you could always rank in the Web results shown around the map. If you weren't good at maps SEO you would be at Web SEO and get by."

The new change allows map listings to dominate the page and pushes non-local organic listings down or off the page. Businesses that ranked well in organic search results and had a map listing will now see the two merge. That merge will reduce the number of Web results on the page by one, explains Shotland. He also says that means Web sites that don't have a physical location in the city get pushed off the page.

Sites that have customer reviews have an exaggerated prominence in the search results, Shotland says.

David Harry, community manager at the SEO Training Dojo, says the ability to rank high in the search engine results pages for local search will require SEO professionals to consider domain extensions like .com .ca .co.uk; and information on the site that might appear on the contact page and in the footer. He says it is make sure it's accurate for each location if the business has more than one. He suggests updating local directories and make sure the business is listed on Web sites such as local directories and Google Maps.

For the better part of a year, Google has been asking local companies from restaurants to lawyer offices to "claim their business" listing by adding information about their Web site, telephone number and local address. IT generates a listing for the location in Google Maps, allowing searchers to find the business, get information and leave a review.

The tool will compete for space with listings on Yelp, Citysearch and other local directories. And now with Marissa Mayer behind the helm supporting local as the vice president of geographic and local services at Google, we will likely see much more innovation focused on local in the near future.

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