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U.N. Atomic Agency Chief Confirms Iran Is Fulfilling Nuclear Deal

U.N. Atomic Agency Chief Confirms Iran Is Fulfilling Nuclear Deal

PARIS (Reuters) – Iran has kept to a nuclear deal it agreed with six world powers last year limiting its stockpiles of substances that could be used to make atomic weapons, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told French daily Le Monde.

Confirming the findings of a confidential report by the U.N. agency seen by Reuters last month, IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano said Tehran had observed the deal which was opposed by hardliners inside Iran and by skeptics in the West.

“The deal is being implemented since January without any particular problem,” he told Le Monde in an interview published on Saturday.

“There was a small incident in February: the stock of heavy water very slightly exceeded the limit set – 130 tonnes. But we immediately signaled that to Iran which took all the necessary measures,” he said.

Under its July deal with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, Iran is allowed to have 130 tonnes of heavy water, a moderator in reactors like the one it has disabled at Arak and a chemical it produces itself.

The stock briefly reached 130.9 tonnes, the agency reported in February.

“Apart from that, I can certify that Tehran respects its commitments to the letter. The Iranians are doing what they promised the international community,” Amano said.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

IMAGE: Iranians celebrate on the streets following a nuclear deal with major powers, in Tehran July 14, 2015.  REUTERS/TIMA

Internet Caretaker ICANN To Escape U.S. Control

Internet Caretaker ICANN To Escape U.S. Control

San Francisco (AFP) — The head of the private agency entrusted with running the Internet has said that the group is on course to break free of U.S. oversight late next year.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) chief Fadi Chehade expressed his confidence in the move during a press briefing at the opening of the nonprofit organization’s meeting this week in Los Angeles.

“ICANN is in a very solid, confident place today,” Chehade said of its readiness for a ‘post U.S.-government role’ in charge of the Internet addressing system.

The timeline for the shift is months rather than years, according to Chehade.

While cautioning that there was no strict deadline, he said that substantial progress has been made toward ICANN being answerable to a diverse, global group of “stakeholders” and not the just the U.S. government, as has long been the case.

The U.S. government in March of this year announced that it is open to not renewing a contract with ICANN that expires in about 11 months, provided a new oversight system is in place that represents the spectrum of interests and can be counted on to keep the Internet addressing structure reliable.

ICANN plans to hand a proposal fitting the bill to the U.S. Department of Commerce next year.

“If the U.S. government is satisfied, they would not renew the contract,” Chehade said.

“There are many people in the community who would like to see we not renew the contract past 2015.”

If U.S. officials are unhappy with the proposal, the contract could be renewed for a short period to allow time for it to be revised.

– Grabs for control –

As the U.S. steps back from overseeing ICANN, states and corporations are grabbing for the reins.

ICANN has gone from being behind the scenes tending to the task of managing website addresses to being center stage in a play for power on the Internet.

“Governments want to exert control over the sweeping transnational power of the Internet that is effecting their policies, politics, social fabric, and/or their economic conditions,” Chehade told AFP just days before the group gathered in Los Angeles to tackle an array of hot issues.

“The other groups are large corporations concerned about security issues,” he continued while discussing forces striving for influence over the organization.

“Therefore, they are stepping in with force to figure out how to reduce potential harm to customers and to their businesses.”

Governance of the Internet will be a high-profile topic at the ICANN 51 meeting that will continue through October 16 in Los Angeles.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker addressed the gathering on Monday, affirming support for ICANN being accountable to the “global multistakeholder community” and not to any single organization.

“Let me be clear about this,” Pritzker said.

“The United States will not allow the global Internet to be co-opted by any person, entity or nation seeking to substitute their parochial world view for the collective wisdom of this community.”

The ICANN 51 agenda includes tackling whether identities of those running websites should be public or whether privacy should be safeguarded and operators true names revealed only with proper court orders.

Another hot topic is the historic roll-out of a vast array of new domain names that has seen controversy over website address endings such as .wine or .gay.

“There is quite a bit of thematic focus on the top-level domain space,” Chehade said, referring to online neighborhoods making debuts.

“ICANN is not in the content policing business; this is not what we do,” he added when asked about potential for some domain operators to allow inappropriate material.

“We just want to make sure the company that gets the domain can deliver on what they say and do it with reliability.”

AFP Photo/Roslan Rahman

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Fed Proposes Higher Capital Rule For Largest Banks

Fed Proposes Higher Capital Rule For Largest Banks

Washington (AFP) — U.S. regulators plan to raise capital requirements for the largest banks above global standards to ensure they do not place the financial system at risk, a top central banker said Tuesday.

Daniel Tarullo, a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors, said it would set a capital surcharge for so-called too-big-to-fail banks which rely too much on short-term funding.

The surcharge would be more stringent than the capital standards already agreed internationally for “global systemically important banks” which, if they faltered, could damage the financial system.

“Reliance on this type of funding can leave firms vulnerable to runs that threaten the firm’s solvency and impose externalities on the broader financial system,” Tarullo told the U.S. Senate banking committee.

Tarullo said the proposed surcharge goes beyond that decided by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the international body which has sought to toughen bank capital standards worldwide.

“The financial crisis made clear that policymakers must devote significant attention to the potential threat to financial stability posed by our most systemic financial firms,” Tarullo said.

The tougher surcharge is “designed to reduce the probability of failure of a GSIB to levels that are meaningfully below those for less systemically important firms.”

He said regulators hope the new measure will discourage banks from relying on short-term capital for funding and generally to establish a more solid, less risky capital footprint, such as boosting more stable shareholder funds.

The measure could raise costs especially for JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, both of which rely more on short-term funding for capital needs than others.

Last week the Federal Reserve set new general capital surcharges for the largest banks — those with more than $250 billion in consolidated assets — based on the Basel standards but with some more stringent aspects and an accelerated implementation timeline.

Banks with more than $50 billion in assets were given a somewhat lower capital surcharge.

AFP Photo/Karen Bleier

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Internet Titans To Protest ‘Fast Lanes’ Wednesday

Internet Titans To Protest ‘Fast Lanes’ Wednesday

San Francisco (AFP) — Streaming television titan Netflix will be among websites displaying a dreaded spinning wheel icon on Wednesday to rally support for blocking Internet “fast lanes.”

It’s part of a massive “Internet Slowdown” protest — joined by dozens of top Internet firms and advocacy groups, including WordPress and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The spinning symbols — usually used to denote a slow-loading page — won’t actually slow website performance, but they will link to battleforthenet.com/sept10th, where there are ways to take action to defend “net neutrality.”

California-based Netflix posted the link Monday at its Twitter account, urging others to join the campaign.

“The free and open Internet has been central to the economy and to global free expression,” said Paul Sieminski, general counsel of Automattic, a web development firm that runs blogging service WordPress.

“Everyone has to step up now and do everything they can to protect it,” Sieminski said.

“We need our leaders to stand up to the cabal of cable and phone giants that have called the shots in Washington for too long,” Free Press Action Fund president Craig Aaron said in a release.

More than 100 technology firms, including titans Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, came out in May against suggested rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that seemingly run counter to the cherished ideal of “net neutrality.”

Under the FCC rules, Internet service providers with virtual strangleholds on some U.S. cities would be able to charge tolls for data to get priority in “fast lanes.”

Such rules “would enable phone and cable Internet service providers to discriminate both technically and financially against Internet companies and to impose new tolls on them,” Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other Internet firms said in a letter to the FCC.

“This represents a grave threat to the Internet.”

The FCC has been adamant that it remains committed to net neutrality and is trying to create rules that can withstand legal scrutiny.

Two prior attempts, the most recent in 2010, by the FCC to hold broadband service providers to standards were stymied by U.S. District Court decisions that such moves were outside the agency’s scope of authority.

The FCC contends there is a “gap” in oversight of ISPs, because the court struck down its efforts to ban blocking or slowing of online data.

The U.S. Congress could safeguard Net Neutrality with legislation.

Net neutrality advocates argue that letting Internet firms with deep pockets pay for faster data transmission will put innovative young startups at a disadvantage.

AFP Photo/Jay Directo

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