Tag: portugal
Portugal’s Guterres Poised To Be Next U.N. Secretary-General

Portugal’s Guterres Poised To Be Next U.N. Secretary-General

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres is poised to be the ninth United Nations Secretary-General and is expected to be formally recommended to the 193-member General Assembly for election by the Security Council on Thursday, diplomats said.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, president of the 15-member council for October, said he hoped the council would unanimously recommend Guterres, who was also the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015.

Guterres, 67, would replace Ban Ki-moon, 72, of South Korea, who will step down at the end of 2016 after serving two terms. Guterres was prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and also served as president of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005.

“Today after our sixth straw poll we have a clear favorite and his name is Antonio Guterres,” Churkin told reporters with his 14 council colleagues standing behind him on Wednesday.

“We wish Mr. Guterres well in discharging his duties as the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the next five years,” Churkin said.

The council has been holding informal secret ballots since July in a bid to reach consensus on a candidate. Members had the choices encourage, discourage or no opinion. Guterres has come out on top of all the polls and on Wednesday received 13 encourage votes and two no opinion votes.

“In the end, there was just a candidate whose experience, vision, and versatility across a range of areas proved compelling,” U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters.

“If we have these trans national threats and we don’t have somebody at the helm of the United Nations that can mobilize coalitions, that can make the tools of this institution … work better for people, that’s going to be more pain and more suffering and more dysfunction than we can afford,” she said.

Diplomats said one of the no opinion votes was cast by one of the five veto wielding powers, which are Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain.

The Security Council will adopt a resolution, traditionally behind closed doors, recommending that the General Assembly appoint Guterres for a five-year term from Jan. 1, 2017. The resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes to pass.

“We hope it can be done by acclamation,” Churkin said.

Thirteen people were nominated in the race to become the next U.N. chief, but three had already withdrawn before Wednesday’s secret ballot. In a bid for more transparency in the opaque selection process, the candidates were for the first time able to make election campaign-style pitches to the General Assembly.

When Guterres spoke to the General Assembly in April, he said he was a candidate to become secretary-general because “the best place to address the root cause of human suffering is at the center of the U.N. system.” He spoke in English, French and Spanish during the two-hour long town hall meeting.

Guterres, a devout Catholic, spoke about his decade as the U.N. refugee chief as “an extraordinary privilege but a terrible frustration because there was no humanitarian solution for their plight.” He said the solution was always political.

He described a U.N. chief as “acting with humility, without arrogance, without giving lessons to anybody, but working as a convener, as a facilitator, as a catalyst and behaving like an honest broker, a bridge builder and a messenger for peace.”

Seven of the candidates for secretary-general were women amid a push by civil society groups and a third of the 193 U.N. member states for the first female U.N. chief in the 71-year history of the world body, which has had eight male leaders.

The WomanSG lobby group described the win by Guterres as “a disaster for equal rights and gender equality” and said it was an outrage that it appeared the female candidates were “never seriously considered.”

In April, Guterres pledged to present a roadmap for gender parity at all levels of the United Nations if elected.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft paid tribute to all the candidates and in particular the women.

“Although it’s high time for a woman … the most important thing for the UK was the qualities of leadership of this position,” he told reporters.

He said Guterres was the person to “provide a convening power and a moral authority at a time when the world is divided on issues, above all like Syria.”

The U.N. Director at Human Rights Watch, Louis Charbonneau, said: “Ultimately, the next U.N. secretary-general will be judged on his ability to stand up to the very powers that just selected him, whether on Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, the refugee crisis, climate change or any other problem that comes his way.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Grant McCool)

IMAGE: Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in Geneva, Switzerland December 18, 2015.  REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File photo

Portugal Bank Got Goldman Sachs Loan Before Collapse: WSJ

Portugal Bank Got Goldman Sachs Loan Before Collapse: WSJ

Washington (AFP) — Goldman Sachs stands to lose money on a multi-million euro loan it made to one of Portugal’s largest banks a month before it collapsed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The U.S. investment bank made the $835-million loan in July through a Luxembourg financing vehicle it created at a time when Banco Espirito Santo, on the verge of bankruptcy, found it nearly impossible to borrow money directly in capital markets, the newspaper said.

The loan proved to be only a brief lifeline for BES, which was bailed out and dismantled in August. A recapitalization of nearly 5 billion euros was paid for largely with public money.

The Journal said Goldman Sachs would lose money on the previously undisclosed deal.

Quoting a source familiar with the matter, it said the U.S. bank had planned to sell the debt to outside investors but struggled to find buyers.

Goldman Sachs managed to sell part of the debt at a loss to hedge funds specialising in distressed debt but still holds part of the liability, which has lost value, the newspaper said. It did not specify how much the bank stands to lose.

The so-called special purpose vehicle (SPV) used to make the loan is being probed by Portuguese regulators looking at BES’s collapse.

Last month Credit Suisse acknowledged it created SPVs that allegedly allowed the Portuguese bank to keep issuing debt despite its financial woes.

AFP Photo/Mario Tama

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Last-Gasp Portugal Deny U.S. Shock Win At The World Cup

Last-Gasp Portugal Deny U.S. Shock Win At The World Cup

Manaus (Brazil) (AFP) – Portugal snatched a dramatic equalizer deep into injury time to force a 2-2 draw with the United States and keep their World Cup hopes flickering on Sunday.

Varela headed in a cross from Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo in the fifth and final minute of stoppage time at the Amazonia Arena in Manaus to grab a vital point.

The last-gasp leveler deprived the United States of a famous win which would have seen them complete a remarkable qualification from Group G, which also includes Germany and Ghana.

It also saved Ronaldo and Portugal from an embarrassing first round elimination from a group they were firmly expected to qualify from.

The result leaves the United States and Germany level on four points in Group G, with Portugal and Ghana on one apiece.

A draw between the Germans and Americans in the final round of matches on Thursday would see both teams advance.

U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann hailed his team’s heroic display.

“Obviously the last second is unfortunate but my guys were magnificent,” he said.

“We just have to get a result against Germany.”

The Americans were left cursing a late equalizer just seconds from the final whistle after a battling performance.

Portugal winger Nani had shot the Europeans into the lead on five minutes but Klinsmann’s side rallied thereafter and dominated for long periods.

They got their reward when Jermaine Jones equalized on 64 minutes with a rasping shot.

Then nine minutes from time Dempsey chested in a shot to put the U.S. 2-1 up.

It seemed as if that would be enough for victory but Portugal poured forward with one last desperate attack to score.

In other games Sunday, teenager Divock Origi fired Belgium into the last 16 with a 1-0 win over Russia in Group H.

Algeria trounced South Korea 4-2 to notch a long-awaited first World Cup win in 32 years in the day’s other game.

Belgian substitute Origi pounced on 88 minutes to settle a drab encounter at the Maracana Stadium.

Belgium coach Marc Wilmots said Origi’s match-winning contribution illustrated the depth and hunger in his squad.

“I know people are not happy to be on the bench,” said Wilmots.

“But what is important is Belgium being able to rely upon totally devoted players when they are called upon.

“For the last 20 minutes I had people dying to be brought off the bench.”

The win saw Belgium guaranteed a place in the second round ahead of their final group game against South Korea.

But the defeat leaves Fabio Capello’s Russia facing a tense battle to qualify, with only one point from two games.

“Of course I still believe. We have no other option than to go out and beat Algeria,” Capello told reporters

Algeria thrust themselves into pole position to qualify along with Belgium after thumping a woeful South Korea in Porto Alegre in Group H’s other game.

It was Algeria’s first win at a World Cup since the 1982 finals in Spain.

Islam Slimani, Rafik Halliche and Abdelmoumene Djabou effectively settled the contest before half-time as Algeria raced into a 3-0 lead.

Son Heung-Min gave Korea a flicker of hope five minutes after half-time, but Yacine Brahimi made it 4-1 on 62 minutes.

Koo Ja-Cheol added a consolation goal for Korea, who must now beat Belgium in their final match on Thursday to have any chance of making the last 16.

AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini

Portugal Set To Exit Eurozone Bailout

Portugal Set To Exit Eurozone Bailout

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

LONDON — Three years after it was forced to seek a humiliating international rescue, Portugal is set to become the latest eurozone country Saturday to exit its bailout program and regain control of its finances amid a halting economic recovery.

At the order of the foreign lenders who granted it a $107 billion rescue package in 2011, Portugal has imposed a series of harsh austerity measures that have boosted unemployment and shrunk its economy. But the government insists that it has succeeded in the drive to get its house back in order and that Portugal’s modest economic growth of the last year heralds a return to health.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho is expected to convene a special Cabinet meeting Saturday to mark the end of Lisbon’s dependence on emergency loans and of its submission to outside monitoring of its finances.

Other European leaders are also eager to characterize the event as an important milestone in their struggle to come through the debt crisis that brought the euro currency union to the brink of extinction two years ago and triggered a prolonged recession. Last December, Ireland became the first country to exit its bailout program, followed a month later by Spain, which had borrowed money to shore up its tottering banks.

But analysts say the economic picture remains mixed for Portugal and for Europe as a whole. Disappointing figures released earlier this week showed that the 18-nation eurozone registered growth of just 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014, primarily on the back of a strong performance by powerhouse Germany.

France, the zone’s second-largest economy, was static. After a few promising quarters, Portugal — already Western Europe’s poorest country — slipped back slightly.

And though Lisbon has made strides in slashing its large budget deficit, its pile of debt has swollen to more than twice the level that European rules say it should be.

“This is a highly indebted economy, both on the public and private side. Public-sector debt was at nearly 129 percent of GDP by the end of last year,” said Antonio Garcia Pascual of Barclays Capital Research. “The recovery will be soft. That’s the nature of recoveries with a lot of debt.”

Garcia Pascual cited progress for Portugal’s exports, its competitiveness and its political situation, with Passos Coelho’s government appearing more stable than it was a year ago.

But experts warn Lisbon against relaxing its guard. More reforms are necessary to lower labor costs and make Portugal more competitive, and further spending cutbacks will be hard to avoid to bring the budget deficit down to acceptable levels. Whether the government will persevere with such unpopular measures is unclear, particularly without the prodding of the “troika” of bailout monitors — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

“The troika is on its way out, but the structural crisis is far from being resolved,” Bruno Proenca, executive director of Portugal’s Diario Economico newspaper, wrote Friday. “Economic growth is still anemic and fragile. … Unemployment is very high, triggering a social earthquake.”

AFP Photo/Louisa Gouliamaki