Santander.

Santander. It’s a bit mental when the Santander personally wants to ‘limpar o meu cebo’… It feels like a true challenge for my off soul… The small intuition is wandering if I can (however the results I had), transform my dare into a success. How had the recent developments changed my view for future directions? If “one team” died, (Deepwater) and other simply “seized” during the (Visa card) acquisition? Was my Values Chart Theme switched out? The hot words have been exchanged, but, for the first time I can see the things from a more detached point of view… And they are telling me that it’s good time to spend my time (and the santander’s value chart), - and to be focused on money. Focused on how I can save, how I can make more, or, at least, how I can make what I have last longer. Once my finances fell into place, - I can start appreciate those from left side (EdF, - for example), of the brain more.

- Who is the Juror?
- Santander, your Highness…

Spanish banks rage at end of ECB offer. June 28 2010 19:43. Spanish banks have been lobbying the European Central Bank to act to ease the systemic fallout from the expiry of a €442bn ($542bn) funding programme this week, accusing the central bank of “absurd” behaviour in not renewing the scheme. On Thursday, the clock runs out on the ECB financing programme – the largest amount ever lent in a single liquidity operation by the central bank – under the terms of the one-year special liquidity facility launched last summer. One senior bank executive said: “Any central bank has to have the obligation to supply liquidity. But this is not the policy of the ECB. We are fighting them every day on this. It’s absurd.” Another top director said: “The ECB’s policy is that they don’t want to provide maturity of more than three months. But they have to adapt.” Banks across the eurozone, but in Spain in particular, have found it hard in recent weeks to secure liquid funding in the commercial markets, with inter-bank funding virtually non-existent. The €442bn ECB facility, which charges interest at a rate of 1 per cent, is not set to be renewed, something that banks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe say ignores current commercial realities. A special offer of six-day liquidity will tide banks over until the following week’s regular offer of seven-day funds. On Wednesday, the ECB will also be offering unlimited three month liquidity, and further offers of three-month liquidity will keep banks going until at least the end of the year. “The system is just not working,” agrees Simon Samuels, banks analyst at Barclays Capital in London. “We’re approaching the third year of liquidity support and still the market cannot survive unaided.” BarCap estimates that at least €150bn of the ECB funding that is maturing will not be rolled over into shorter-term three-month schemes, forcing banks to shrink their own lending. Spain’s banks have been among the hardest hit by the faltering confidence in the eurozone economies in recent months following problems with the country’s smaller savings banks, or cajas. The bigger commercial banks, led by Santander and BBVA, feel unfairly tarred. The euro’s monetary guardian has also come under pressure from German banks to provide one-year loans. It stopped offering such loans late last year, when it began unwinding exceptional measures taken after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It resisted reintroducing such offers even when its “exit strategy” was thrown into reverse last month by the escalating eurozone debt crisis. ECB policymakers worry that providing cheap loans for such a long period distort markets and could restrict the room for manoeuvre in monetary policy. Lending by eurozone banks to businesses and households is improving only modestly, in spite of the pickup in economic activity. Loans to the private sector grew at an annual rate of 0.2 per cent in May, up from 0.1 per cent in April, according to ECB figures released on Monday. Lending to households was strongest, although the annual rate of decline in lending to corporations also slowed.

PT falls 3% as telecom and is the most falls in Europe. 28/06/10 15:00. The square deal in Portuguese adverse terrain falls heavily influenced mainly by Portugal Telecom and Brisa. The index includes the key listed nationals, the PSI 20, retreated 0.58% to 7177.04 points on Thursday sesssão consecutive losses in Lisbon, while 13 shares protagonists gains. The Portuguese stock market went in the opposite direction to the other European markets, which recorded the first session of gains in five sessions. Leading the falls were in the PSI 20 Portugal Telecom shares, which fell 3.16% to 8.28 euros, following the 'downgrade' the recommendation given by Santander. The Spanish bank has revised downward today the recommendation for the Portuguese operator to 'buy' to 'hold' due to the gains won by almost 30% since early May and maintained a price target of PT in 8 euros per share, below the current quote. PT thus presents the worst performance on the Bloomberg index that gathers 21 European telecoms and showed slight gains of 0.65%. Brisa already lost 2.2% to 5.32 euros, after BNP Paribas of these papers have initiated coverage with a recommendation from 'underperform' and a 'target' of 5.50 euros. The press were also the titles of banking, with BCP and BES dropping 0.9%. BPI, in turn, followed in the opposite direction, advancing 0.6%.

Man arrested after bank siege. Monday, June 28 08:44 pm. A man in his 30s has been arrested after an armed siege at a bank.The arrest came three hours after a suspected gunman took a number of hostages in the incident at Barclays Bank in Church Road, Ashford, west London. Superintendent Duncan Greenhalgh of Surrey Police said: "Shortly before 4pm, Surrey Police received reports that a man with a firearm had entered Barclays Bank in Church Road, Ashford. A number of people were inside the bank at the time and being prevented from leaving. "This was a fast-moving incident and police were on the scene within minutes. Trained hostage negotiators made contact with an individual inside the bank and just after 7pm a man came out of the bank and was contained by armed police. The man, said to be in his 30s, was detained after a three-hour armed siege by police at a branch of Barclays Bank in Ashford, Middlesex.
It is believed he entered the bank at 4pm brandishing a sawn-off shotgun then handcuffed the staff and customers using plastic cable ties and made them put on white boiler suits. One of the hostages said he ordered them to blackout the windows of the bank using spray paint. When police responded to the scene and told the suspect to surrender he is understood to have shouted to them that he had “dynamite” with him inside. A witness who saw the arrest said that a “shaven-headed, white portly man” finally emerged from the bank smoking a cigarette before he was handcuffed and led away. All the people involved are being assessed by medical teams but there have been no serious injuries. "This was obviously a very traumatic experience for those members of the public and bank staff caught up in it but I am extremely pleased with the quick and effective response from officers who brought this situation to a close without injury to anyone, including the suspect."

US authorities 'bust Russian spy ring'. Monday, June 28 10:25 pm. 4 mins ago. Ten alleged members of a “deep- cover” Russian spy ring whose ultimate goal was to infiltrate U.S. policy-making circles have been arrested, the Justice Department said. The arrests yesterday in the New York area, in Boston and in Arlington, Virginia, are the result of an investigation by U.S. authorities into the ring, which began operating in the 1990s, according to two criminal complaints unsealed today. The alleged agents posed as American and Canadian citizens, some of them living in the U.S. for more than 20 years, with the goal of becoming “Americanized” and passing intelligence back to the Russian Federation, according to the complaints. The conspiracy involved at least three unnamed Russian government officials, according to the complaints. U.S. officials collected evidence on the alleged spies through wiretaps and e-mail monitoring, the use of hidden microphones and video cameras and secret searches of some of the defendants’ homes, according to the charges. The alleged spies were instructed to remain in place for years before they could deliver useful intelligence, according to the charges. According to the charges, two of the defendants, known as Richard Murphy and Cynthia Murphy, received a coded message in 2009 from the Moscow headquarters of the Russian Federation foreign intelligence service, instructing them on their duties. ‘Service Trip’ “You were sent to USA for long-term service trip,” read the message, decoded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the government. “Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc. -- all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e. to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in U.S. and send intels [intelligence reports] to C[enter].” By using illegal documents, agents assumed false identities before getting university degrees, took jobs and joined professional associations, according to the complaint. Agents also lived together, posing as married couples and having children to deepen their cover, or “legend,” the FBI said. Before coming to the U.S., agents were trained in spycraft, learning foreign languages, the use of encrypted messages and the avoidance of detection of their work, according to the FBI. One method that agents learned was a “brush-pass” or “flash meeting” in which they secretly passed items or payments to another while walking past them in public, according to the FBI. Encrypted Messages. Prosecutors said federal agents determined the defendants used a process called “steganography,” or messages that are secretly encrypted within electronic images. Federal agents found such encrypted messages on a computer disk recovered from a 2005 search of the New Jersey residence. The defendants also made use of “radiograms” in which they used coded bursts of data sent by a radio transmitter that can be picked up by a radio receiver set to a proper frequency. As the messages are transmitted, radiograms sound like the transmission of Morse code, the U.S. said in court papers. The government charged 11 individuals, including the 10 arrested, with conspiring to act as illegal agents of the Russian Federation within the U.S., according to a Justice Department statement. The 10 defendants are expected to appear in court today. The 11th hasn’t been arrested, according to the statement. Nine of the defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. The defendants face as many as 20 years in prison on the money laundering conspiracy charges. The charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general carries a prison sentence of as long as five years.

France Telecom to pull out of Le Monde bid. June 28 2010 12:46. A trio of businessmen have won the race to take over Le Monde, France’s most prestigious daily newspaper, after a rival consortium including France Telecom and Prisa of Spain said on Monday it would withdraw its offer. The winning trio of Matthieu Pigasse, a Lazard banker, Pierre Bergé, the former business partner of Yves Saint Laurent, and Xavier Niel, the telecoms billionaire have agreed to invest around €100m in return for control of the cash-strapped daily. Le Monde’s supervisory board will meet on Monday afternoon – in theory to choose a new owner. In fact, it has no choice because France Telecom and Claude Perdriel, owner of Le Nouvel Observateur magazine, said they would terminate their joint bid with Prisa, the Spanish media group, after it was overwhelmingly rejected in a vote by Le Monde staff on Friday. In a statement, France Telecom said it and Le Nouvel Observateur had agreed to keep its offer on the table “out of respect for Le Monde board members” but said it would withdraw it after the board meeting “whatever the decision”. The victory of Mr Pigasse, Mr Bergé and Mr Niel is a blow to President Nicolas Sarkozy who intervened in the recapitalisation to try to thwart their bid. Mr Sarkozy summoned Eric Fottorino, Le Monde’s editor, to the Elysée palace this month and threatened to withhold state subsidies to the newspaper’s printworks if the trio took ownership of such highly influential title. Mr Sarkozy took issue with the suitability of Mr Niel, who started his fortune investing in adult entertainment. But the president’s motives were more likely political, given the sympathies of Mr Pigasse and Mr Bergé for Mr Sarkozy’s socialist opponents and the trio’s determination not take instructions from the Elysée. Le Monde journalists were furious at Mr Sarkozy’s interference and suspicious about the involvement of France Telecom, which is 26 per cent owned by the French state. The journalists voted by 91 per cent on Friday in favour of the Pigasse-Bergé-Niel bid because it offered better guarantees of editorial independence, was a “more coherent offer” and promised to avoid redundancies. In particular, the winning trio say they want to bring about closer integration of Le Monde’s newspaper and website operations, which are not only editorially separate but are owned separately. Le Monde’s journalists stand to do much better from the winning bid than had been expected when the race to recapitalise the highly indebted newspaper was launched this year. Under the existing complex ownership structure, the editorial staff have a control of a majority of the capital and a veto over the editorial line and choice of editor. Staff expected to lose their guarantees of editorial independence as a result of the recapitalisation and dilution of their stake. But the winning consortium has promised to preserve the staff’s power of veto over the choice of editor and any subsequent takeover. The journalists may even maintain a blocking minority through a foundation set up on their behalf by their generous new owners. However, there remain some question marks about the complex transactions required to complete the recapitalisation, not least whether Lagardère, the French media group, and Prisa will remain as investors in Le Monde. The new owners may also have to dig deeper into their pockets if they want to return Le Monde to health.