New York can't object to $115 million AIG shareholder deal: judge

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman cannot stop a $115 million settlement between American International Group Inc shareholders and the insurer's former chief executive and others, a U.S. judge ruled on Monday.
The New York Attorney General lacks standing to object to the settlement, U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts in Manhattan wrote in her decision. She also denied Schneiderman's request to intervene.
Batts will decide whether to approve the accord reached in 2009 between shareholders and former AIG Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, former Chief Executive Howard Smith, other executives and Greenberg's companies C.V. Starr & Co and Starr International Co.
The judge set a fairness hearing for April 10 and could approve the settlement afterward. If she does and no one appeals, it would effectively end a high-profile civil fraud case against Greenberg and Smith brought by the Attorney General's office in 2005.
A spokesman for Schneiderman did not immediately return a call for comment. A spokeswoman for Boies, Schiller & Flexner, which represents Greenberg and his companies, had no immediate comment. Lawyers for the shareholders and Smith also did not immediately return calls for comment.
The New York Attorney General's plea for the parties to re- negotiate raises concerns of "undue delay" and demands court action based on "sheer speculation and hotly contested expert evaluations," the judge wrote in her ruling.
In August, Schneiderman urged Batts to reject the accord, saying an expert for shareholders made a math error that caused the payout to be too low. Lawyers for the shareholders responded the error had no significant effect.
They also said it was "entirely speculative" to expect the shareholders to fare better in new talks.
Lawyers for Greenberg, Smith and the Starr entities had also urged approval of the settlement.
At issue is a 2000 transaction with General Re Corp, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc , which various government investigators have said allowed AIG to inflate loss reserves by $500 million without transferring risk.
Schneiderman argued a math error by the expert caused the transaction to get no weight in the calculation of damages.
Projections and arguments as to the amount of damages include nothing, $100 million, $543 million, $1.2 billion and $6.5 billion, the highest estimated by the New York attorney general's expert, the judge said in her ruling.
The state case against Greenberg and Smith was brought by former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer under the Martin Act, New York's powerful securities fraud law. Greenberg and Smith are awaiting an appeal in the case at the state's highest court.
If the federal accord is approved before the state case, the "broad terms of the releases" would preclude New York pursuing its case on behalf of AIG shareholders, Schneiderman has said in court papers.
The case is In re American International Group Inc Securities Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 04-08141.

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Insight: In "fiscal cliff" bill, White House was key to corporate tax breaks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Congress rushed last week to approve a "fiscal cliff" tax bill that raised income taxes on the wealthy, Washington lobbyists were fretting over a drama that was playing out within the negotiations: whether the bill would include about $64 billion in tax breaks for businesses.
The bill extended several tax breaks backed by both parties, including $14.3 billion in credits for research and development projects for thousands of U.S. businesses. But it also had other provisions - breaks for companies involved in wind energy, auto racing, rum, Hollywood films and much more.
In the end, the bill approved by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama included all of those things, thanks partly to the White House's interest in promoting wind and other alternative sources of energy, and in subsidizing research and development costs for companies.
It also became a lesson in how Washington's taste for dishing out favors to special interests is alive and well, despite bipartisan calls for the government to reduce the tax credits it gives businesses and individuals at a time when the nation's debt tops $16 trillion and is growing.
Some business lobbyists told Reuters they were surprised that the package of tax credits - which had been approved by the Democrat-led Senate Finance Committee in August - survived the negotiations over the tax bill. The main part of the bill extended Bush-era income tax cuts for individuals with incomes of less than $400,000 and couples who make less than $450,000.
The longer the negotiations dragged on, lobbyists for various causes had figured, the more likely the bill would focus solely on the core issues of the talks: raising income taxes on the wealthy, allowing a payroll tax cut for all Americans to expire, and extending unemployment insurance benefits.
The lobbyists' expectations also were lowered by the emergence of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, as a key negotiator in the talks.
McConnell has spoken on the Senate floor about the need to rethink Congress' approach to various tax breaks, saying that many had been "reflexively extended" for years "without any meaningful review or oversight."
His words were echoed in September by 47 House Republicans who had urged Republican Speaker John Boehner to eliminate the wind energy tax credit, which had split the Republican Party and drawn criticism from Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president.
But in the final hours of the negotiations over the fiscal cliff bill, lobbyists pushing the additional tax breaks appear to have had a key ally: President Obama, who during his re-election campaign had touted the need to increase the nation's investment in alternative energy sources such as wind.
Tax credits for the energy industry make up a big chunk of the "add-ons" that were attached to the fiscal cliff bill - about $18.1 billion worth, of which $12.1 billion represents a dramatic expansion of write-offs for wind energy investments.
McConnell's spokesman, Don Stewart, said the White House insisted that it would a "deal breaker" if the entire package of tax credits was not in the bill. Stewart also said the White House initially wanted to make all of the tax breaks permanent, rather than extend them only through the end of this year.
"The White House ... can't deny that the only reason the (business tax breaks were) included in the final agreement is because the president insisted" they be in there, Stewart said.
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday said that Obama supported the overall package of tax breaks for businesses. He emphasized that the president favored the wind energy credit and tax benefits for research and development to encourage "job-creating research investments."
Carney also said that many of the tax breaks in the fiscal cliff bill had bipartisan support.
"It would strain the credulity of everyone in this room to suggest that Republicans did not support or want tax credits for business," Carney said during his daily briefing to reporters.
Some Democratic strategists said that given the rush to get a fiscal cliff bill through Congress before U.S. financial markets opened for the new year last Wednesday, it likely seemed unrealistic to pick apart the package of tax credits - known as "extenders" - that had passed the Senate Finance Committee on a bipartisan, 19-5 vote.
So the package - with its $222 million credit for the rum industry, a $78 million write-off for the owners of NASCAR auto racing tracks and tax credits for the film industry that could total $248 million, among other things - survived intact, like a holiday bonus to Washington's lobbyists.
"I reacted, like, 'Wow,' " said Rich Gold of Holland & Knight, who lobbied for tax breaks for wind energy and railroad maintenance.
He represented the Juno Beach, Florida-based company NextEra Energy as well as the Greenwich, Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming, a freight rail company.
"The (fiscal cliff) package had gotten so skinny," Gold said, "that I just didn't expect it to happen at the end of the day."
THE WAY WASHINGTON WORKS
Outrage over the tax breaks flowed from small-government advocates and conservative voices such as the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which called the tax credits a "crony capitalist blowout."
Such business tax breaks are called extenders because lawmakers usually extend them all at once, adding them to other tax bills as they move through Congress. Government budget analysts project their total costs over 10 years, even though many of the breaks are extended for only one or two years at a time.
During a session in which a bitterly divided Congress had trouble passing any legislation, let alone a controversial tax bill, the fiscal cliff package was the only vehicle for such tax breaks in the final hours of the session that ended Wednesday. A new Congress, including House and Senate members just elected in November, began meeting Thursday.
Critics and supporters alike said that tucking expensive tax incentives into last-minute bills is how Washington has worked for years.
"They always do this," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. The difference this time was that more people were watching the high-stakes talks over the fiscal cliff bill, he said.
"Many people are being made aware of these tax breaks," Schatz said.
Republican strategist John Feehery, who favors the wind energy tax credit, said the fiscal cliff deal was never expected to reform the U.S. tax code, as some in Washington had hoped.
"This was not going to be a tax reform package. This was going to be an agreement or disagreement over whether we keep the current tax policies in place. And these extenders are, by and large, keeping current policy in place," said Feehery, who leads a group called the Red State Renewable Alliance, which touts the benefits of the wind industry in conservative states.
'CORPORATE WELFARE'?
Like Feehery and White House spokesman Carney, supporters of tax credits for wind energy and other industries argue that such incentives often boost the economy and create jobs.
Critics argue that the breaks are "corporate welfare," handed out to whoever can hire the best lobbyists or contribute the most to lawmakers' campaigns.
During the past two years, the American Wind Energy Association spent $4.5 million lobbying and gave more than $335,000 in campaign contributions to federal candidates, most of them members of Congress, according to the Senate's lobbying database and the watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics.
Fiscal conservatives aren't the only ones lobbying against such tax breaks.
Those opposing the wind energy credits include some in the nuclear power industry, which itself has received more than $100 billion in federal subsidies since the 1940s, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Chicago-based Exelon Corp, the largest nuclear power operator in the United States, spent $6.4 million on lobbying during the first 10 months of 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Exelon also is investing in wind energy but was a vocal voice against the tax credit approved by Congress, saying in a statement that "wind energy can and should stand on its own in competing with other clean energy alternatives."
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a member of the Senate Finance Committee who first proposed the wind energy tax credit back in 1992, said that such provisions are not a giveaway by the U.S. Treasury because they encourage investments that might not otherwise be made.
"Using the tax code to stimulate investment is altogether different than appropriating money," he said.
LAWMAKERS TORN
Even so, Grassley's vote on the fiscal cliff bill reflected how some lawmakers were torn over the legislation to prevent income tax increases on most Americans.
Last summer, Grassley joined five other Republicans and 13 Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee in voting for the package of tax credits that wound up being included in the fiscal cliff bill.
But when the Senate voted 89-8 last week to approve the bill, Grassley was among the eight senators opposing it even though it included the wind energy credits he calls crucial to a developing industry in his state.
"The big picture is what ruled as far as I was concerned," Grassley told Reuters in an interview. "The bill does nothing on the expenditure side. ... It didn't cut down on the deficit."
By contrast, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, a longtime critic of special-project spending known as "earmarks," said he reluctantly voted for the "flawed" agreement because he didn't want to see income taxes go up on all Americans.
Without action by Congress, the Bush-era tax cuts that save middle-class families about $2,000 a year would have expired at the end of 2012.
McCain's distaste for the tax credits in the bill was clear.
"It's hard to think of anything that could feed the cynicism of the American people more than larding up must-pass emergency legislation with giveaways to special interest and campaign contributors," he said in a statement.
After the Senate approved the fiscal cliff deal early on New Year's Day, it moved to the House, where some Republicans complained about the "bloated" package during a closed-door party meeting. But the objectors decided they did not have the votes to amend the bill, House Republican aides said.
The deal passed the House on a vote of 257-167, with opponents of the wind energy credit making up a good chunk of the Republicans' "no" votes. Some are vowing to return to the issue in the new congressional session.
"With taxpayers on the hook for unsustainable corporate welfare, there's no question we're going to come back to it in the new Congress," Representative Mike Pompeo, a Kansas Republican, said in an e-mail.

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Palestinians change their name following UN bid

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian president has ordered his government to officially change the name of the Palestinian Authority to "State of Palestine."
The move follows the November decision by the United Nations to upgrade the Palestinians' status to that of a "non-member observer state."
President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that all official Palestinian stamps, stationery and documents will now bear the new name.
A statement from his office said the move was aimed at enhancing Palestinian "sovereignty on the ground" and was a step on the way to "real independence." Israel still controls most of the West Bank.
Israel objected to the Palestinian statehood bid at the U.N., calling it a unilateral step aimed at bypassing direct peace negotiations. Abbas denied that.
Israel had no comment Sunday.

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Assad calls on Syrians to defend the country

BEIRUT (AP) — President Bashar Assad called on Syrians to defend their country against Islamic extremists seeking to destroy the nation, dismissing any prospect of dialogue with the "murderous criminals" he says are behind the uprising even as he outlined his vision for a peaceful settlement to the civil war.
In a one-hour speech to the nation in which he appeared confident and relaxed, Assad struck a defiant tone, ignoring international demands for him to step down and saying he is ready to hold a dialogue — but only with those "who have not betrayed Syria."
He offered a national reconciliation conference, elections and a new constitution but demanded regional and Western countries stop funding and arming rebels trying to overthrow him first.
Syria's opposition swiftly rejected the proposal. Those fighting to topple the regime, including rebels on the ground, have repeatedly said they will accept nothing less than the president's departure, dismissing any kind of settlement that leaves him in the picture.
"It is an excellent initiative that is only missing one crucial thing: His resignation," said Kamal Labwani, a veteran secular dissident and member of the opposition's Syrian National Coalition umbrella group.
"All what he is proposing will happen automatically, but only after he steps down," Labwani told The Associated Press by telephone from Sweden.
On top of that, Assad's new initiative is reminiscent of symbolic changes and concessions that his government made earlier in the uprising, which were rejected at the time as too little too late.
Speaking at the Opera House in central Damascus, Assad told the hall packed with supporters — who frequently broke out in cheers and applause — that "we are in a state of war."
"We are fighting an external aggression that is more dangerous than any others, because they use us to kill each other," he said. "It is a war between the nation and its enemies, between the people and the murderous criminals."
Assad has rarely spoken since the uprising against his rule began in March 2011, and Sunday's speech was his first since June. His last public comments came in an interview in November to Russian TV in which he vowed to die in Syria.
On Sunday, he seemed equally confident in his troops' ability to crush the rebels fighting his rule, even as they edge in closer than ever to his seat of power, Damascus.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad's speech was "beyond hypocritical." In a message posted on his official Twitter feed, Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one."
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's office said in a statement that the bloc will "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition."
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Assad's speech was filled with "empty promises" and repetitive pledges of reform by a president appeared out of touch with reality of the Syrian people.
"It seems (Assad) has shut himself in his room, and for months has read intelligence reports that are presented to him by those trying to win his favor," Davutoglu told reporters in the Aegean port city of Izmir on Sunday.
Turkey is a former ally of Damascus, and while Ankara first backed Assad after the uprising erupted, it turned against the regime after its violent crackdown on dissent.
At the end of his speech and as he was leaving the hall, he was mobbed by a group of loyalists shouting: "With our blood and souls we redeem you, Bashar!"
The president waved and blew kisses to the crowd on his way out.
Assad acknowledged the enormous impact of the conflict, which the United Nations recently estimated had killed more than 60,000 people.
"Suffering is overwhelming Syrian land. There is no place for joy in any corner of the country in the absence of security and stability," he said. "I look at the eyes of Syria's children and I don't see any happiness."
The Internet was cut in many parts of Damascus ahead of the address, apparently for security reasons.
As in previous speeches, Assad said his forces were fighting groups of "murderous criminals" and jihadi elements and denied that there was an uprising against his family's decades-long rule.
He stressed the presence of religious extremists and jihadi elements among those fighting in Syria, calling them "terrorists who carry the ideology of al-Qaida" and "servants who know nothing but the language of slaughter."
He said Syria will not take dictates from anyone — a reference to outside powers — and urged his countrymen to unite to save the nation.
Outlining his peace initiative, he said: "The first part of a political solution would require regional powers to stop funding and arming (the rebels), an end to terrorism and controlling the borders."
He said this would then be followed by dialogue and a national reconciliation conference and the formation of a wide representative government which would then oversee new elections, a new constitution and general amnesty.
Assad made clear his offer to hold a dialogue is not open to those whom he considers extremists or carrying out a foreign agenda, essentially eliminating anyone who has taken up arms against the regime.
"We never rejected a political solution ... but with whom should we talk? With those who have an extremist ideology, who only understand the language of terrorism?" he said. "Or should we with negotiate puppets whom the West brought?"
"We negotiate with the master, not with the slave," he said.
As in previous speeches and interviews, he clung to the view that the crisis in Syria was a foreign-backed agenda and said it was not an uprising against his rule.
"Is this a revolution and are these revolutionaries? By God, I say they are a bunch of criminals," he said.

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AP Interview: Palestinian PM blasts Arab donors

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian self-rule government is close to being "completely incapacitated," largely because Arab countries haven't delivered hundreds of millions of dollars in promised aid, the Palestinian prime minister said in an interview Sunday.
If allowed to continue, the Palestinian Authority's unprecedented financial crisis will quickly double the number of Palestinian poor to 50 percent of a population of roughly 4 million, Salam Fayyad told The Associated Press.
Fayyad said the malaise is further boosting the political appeal of the Islamic militant Hamas while discrediting him and other proponents of a nonviolent path to statehood in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Hamas seized Gaza from Fayyad's boss, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a 2007 takeover, leaving Abbas with only the West Bank.
The failure of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to deliver on many of its promises, coupled with recent Israeli concessions to Hamas, "has produced a reality of a doctrinal win for what Hamas stands for, and correspondingly a doctrinal defeat for the Palestinian Authority," Fayyad said.
The Palestinian Authority was established nearly two decades ago, as part of interim peace deals with Israel, and was meant to make way after five years for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations repeatedly broke down, at times amid bursts of violence, and failed to produce a final deal.
After the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, which resulted in harsh Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement, the Palestinian Authority became heavily dependent on foreign aid. It has received hundreds of millions of dollars each year since then, but has struggled to wean itself off foreign support.
Fayyad said his budget deficit has widened in recent years, blaming Arab states that broke aid promises.
"The financing problem that we've had ... in the last few years is solely due to some Arab donors not fulfilling their pledge of support in accordance with Arab League resolutions," Fayyad said. European countries kept all their aid commitments and the U.S. honored most, with the exception of $200 million held up by Congress last year, he added.
The crisis worsened sharply after the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in late November, at the request of Abbas, to recognize a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in 1967. Israel objected to the U.N. upgrade, accusing Abbas of trying to bypass negotiations.
Starting in December, Israel halted the monthly transfers of about $100 million in tax rebates it collects on behalf of the Palestinians. That sum amounts to about one-third of the monthly operating costs of the Palestinian Authority. Fayyad said he now only takes in about $50 million a month in revenues.
On Sunday, Abbas declared that his Palestinian Authority would be known as the State of Palestine from now on, in keeping with U.N. recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state in November.
Fayyad's heftiest monthly budget item is the government payroll. The Palestinian Authority employs some 150,000 people, including civil servants and members of the security forces. About 60,000 live in Gaza and served under Abbas before the Hamas takeover, but they continue to draw salaries even though they've since been replaced by Hamas loyalists.
In recent months, the government has paid salaries in installments.
Fayyad said he managed to pay half the November salaries by getting another bank loan, using as collateral a promise by the Arab League to cover whatever money Israel might withhold in retaliation for the U.N. bid. The money from the Arab states never came, and Fayyad said he can't pay the rest of the November salaries, let alone December wages.
The Palestinian Authority already owes local banks more than $1.3 billion and can't get more loans. It also owes hundreds of millions of dollars to private suppliers, and some have stopped doing business with the government.
Fayyad said his government is on "the verge of being completely incapacitated." About 1 million Palestinians who depend on government salaries "are at a very serious threat of being pushed into a circle of poverty," he said. This would double the poverty rate, which currently stands at 25 percent in the West Bank and Gaza, he said.
Fayyad said these dire consequences would happen in "short order," but he would not give specifics.
Mohammed Sobeih, an official in the 22-nation Arab League, acknowledged Sunday that the Palestinian Authority is in a "critical situation." He said the head of the league has written to member states urging them "to pay the pledged $100 million."
The growing hardships have sparked repeated protests in the West Bank. Civil servants have held several warning strikes. On Sunday, the union decided to step up protests, calling for four days of strikes over the next two weeks.

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BMW to pare back car discounts in Germany: magazine

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - BMW will cut back on sales discounts in Germany and focus on maintaining profit margins rather than market share, Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer told German weekly WirtschaftsWoche.
"We have decided that this year in Germany we will not defend market share at any price, and that profitability must come first," Reithofer told the magazine.
The volume of discounts will therefore be pared back substantially. "We're not just talking 5,000 cars," Reithofer told the magazine.
Auto manufacturers in Germany often give large dealerships cash bonuses to "self register" a purchase by the dealership, rather than a real customer, as a way to flatter monthly sales figures.
Based on currently available statistics, BMW still holds the crown of being the world's biggest maker of premium cars, ahead of rivals Mercedes-Benz and Audi.
Separately, Reithofer said the premium auto maker needs to sell a "five digit number" of electric vehicles from 2020 onwards in order to comply with European Union emission rules to cut BMW's average carbon dioxide emission level to 101 grams per kilometer per vehicle.

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SAP CEO says China to become as important as U.S.: paper

 German business software maker SAP sees potential for one million new customers in China, five times the number it currently has world-wide, German weekly paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said.
"China will be as important for us as the United States," SAP's co-Chief Executive Jim Hagemann Snabe told the paper, according to an advance extract.
Snabe said SAP wants to open the Chinese market by securing a deal with authorities to allow cloud computing services.
"We want to find a solution with Chinese authorities this year if possible," Snabe told the paper.
As part of SAP's growth strategy, it plans to invest around $2 billion in China by 2015.

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Depardieu flies to Russia, may receive passport

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman says French actor Gerard Depardieu has flown to Sochi, where he is likely to meet with Putin and receive a Russian passport.
Putin on Thursday approved the actor's application for Russian citizenship, causing a scandal in France, where Depardieu has been fighting a proposed 75 percent income tax on the superrich.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by the state RIA Novosti news agency as saying Depardieu arrived Saturday in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics, and could meet with Putin on Saturday evening.
Peskov said "it cannot be excluded that during the meeting Depardieu could receive a passport.

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Composición de un grupo de usuarios OpenNMS independiente; conferencia prevista para marzo 2013

Un grupo de usuarios OpenNMS ha creado la OpenNMS Foundation Europe como organización sin ánimo de lucro para promover la gestión de red en general y la plataforma de gestión de red OpenNMS en particular.
"La OpenNMS Foundation Europe acoge a todos aquellos usuarios de OpenNMS dentro de la comunidad OpenNMS, no solo a aquellos que contribuyen al código. Hemos integrado con éxito a aquellos que contribuyen al código, pero si uno fuese únicamente un usuario satisfecho que deseara compartir con el resto y aprender de ellos, estaríamos mucho peor organizados", ha explicado Alex Finger, presidente de la OpenNMS Foundation Europe. "Ahora disponemos de un lugar en el que reunir a los seguidores de OpenNMS y difundir nuestros conocimientos y experiencia en relación con el producto. Queremos abogar por el open source y enseñar a los demás a utilizar OpenNMS. La fundación es una forma de ampliar esta comunidad". La agenda de la conferencia de usuarios prevista para el año que viene ya está repleta de las historias y experiencias de estos usuarios, y completada por una formación básica y avanzada de la aplicación.
Tarus Balog, CEO del grupo OpenNMS Group (la empresa con ánimo de lucro detrás de OpenNMS), ha declarado: "Una de las plataformas de gestión más exitosa de todos los tiempos fue OpenView, de Hewlett-Packard. En gran medida, este éxito se puede atribuir a la comunidad independiente y activa desarrollada por el grupo de usuarios OpenView Forum. El hecho de que la fundación promueva todavía más OpenNMS y haga hincapié en la naturaleza open source del software nos anima y entusiasma".
La conferencia de usuarios OpenNMS está prevista para la semana del 11 de marzo de 2013, y tendrá lugar en la Universidad de Fulda, Alemania. La información completa sobre dicha conferencia y las oportunidades de patrocinio están disponibles en http://opennms.eu.
ACERCA DE OPENNMS
OpenNMS (www.opennms.org) es la primera plataforma de aplicación de gestión de red de empresa desarrollada siguiendo el modelo open source. Es una alternativa de software totalmente gratuita frente a los productos comerciales como HP Operations Manager, IBM Tivoli, y CA Unicenter.
ACERCA DE LA OPENNMS FOUNDATION
La OpenNMS Foundation Europe (www.opennms.eu) es una organización registrada sin ánimo de lucro de Alemania. La fundación promueve la educación, investigación, defensa e intercambio de conocimientos en torno a la gestión de red con software open source y, específicamente, OpenNMS. Está abierta para aquellas personas y empresas interesadas en formar parte de dicha comunidad.
ACERCA DEL GRUPO OPENNMS
El grupo OpenNMS (www.opennms.com) mantiene el proyecto OpenNMS. Dicho grupo también ofrece asistencia comercial, servicios y formación para la plataforma OpenNMS.
El comunicado en el idioma original, es la versión oficial y autorizada del mismo. La traducción es solamente un medio de ayuda y deberá ser comparada con el texto en idioma original, que es la única versión del texto que tendrá validez legal.

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US designates Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra front a 'terrorist' group at lightning speed

The US State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria a foreign terrorist organization Monday.
The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.
The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the "Nusra Front") is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein. During the Iraq war, Sunni Arab tribesmen living along the Euphrates in eastern Syria flocked to fight with the friends and relatives in the towns along the Euphrates river in Anbar Province.
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The terrain, both actual and human, is similar on both sides of that border, and the rat lines that kept foreign fighters and money flowing into Iraq from Syria work just as well in reverse. Now, the jihadis who fought and largely lost against the Shiite political ascendancy in Iraq are flocking to eastern Syria to repay a debt of gratitude in a battle that looks more likely to succeed every day.
The Nusra Front has gone from victory to victory in eastern Syria and has shown signs of both significant funding and greater military prowess than the average citizens' militia, with veterans of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya among its numbers.
The US of course aided the fight in Libya to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the chance to fight and kill Americans was the major drawing card.
In Iraq, the US toppled a Baathist dictatorship dominated by Sunni Arabs, opening the door for the political dominance of Iraq's Shiite Arab majority and the fury of the country's Sunni jihadis. In Syria, a Baathist regime dominated by the tiny Alawite sect (a long-ago offshoot of Shiite Islam) risks being brought down by the Sunni majority. Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in the odd position of now rooting for a Baathist regime to survive, frightened that a religiously inspired Sunni regime may replace Assad and potentially destabilize parts of his country from Haditha in Anbar's far west to the northern city of Mosul.
For the US, the situation is more complicated still. The Obama administration appears eager for Assad to fall, but is also afraid of what might replace him, not least because of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile. If the regime collapses, the aftermath is sure to be chaotic, much as it was in Libya, where arms stores were looted throughout the country. The presence of VX and sarin nerve gas, and the fear of Al Qaeda aligned militants getting their hands on it, has the US considering sending in troops to secure the weapons.
That's the context in which today's designation was made – part of an overall effort to shape the Syrian opposition to US liking, and hopefully have influence in the political outcome if and when Assad's regime collapses. But while the US has been trying to find a government or leadership in waiting among Syrian exiles, Nusra has been going from strength to strength. Aaron Zelin, who tracks jihadi groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes in a recent piece for Foreign Policy that 20 out of the 48 "martyrdom" notices posted on Al Qaeda forums for the Syria war were made by people claiming to be members of Nusra.
Zelin writes that it's highly unusual for the US to designate as a terrorist group anyone who hasn't attempted an attack on the US. In fact, the US only designated the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, which had been involved in attacks on US troops there for over a decade, this September.
His guess as to why the US took such an unusual step?
The U.S. administration, in designating Jabhat al-Nusra, is likely to argue that the group is an outgrowth of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). While there is not much open-source evidence of this, classified material may offer proof -- and there is certainly circumstantial evidence that Jabhat al-Nusra operates as a branch of the ISI.
Getting Syria's rebels to disavow Jabhat al-Nusra may not be an easy task, however. As in Iraq, jihadists have been some of the most effective and audacious fighters against the Assad regime, garnering respect from other rebel groups in the process. Jabhat al-Nusra seems to have learned from the mistakes of al Qaeda in Iraq: It has not attacked civilians randomly, nor has it shown wanton disregard for human life by publicizing videos showing the beheading of its enemies. Even if its views are extreme, it is getting the benefit of the doubt from other insurgents due to its prowess on the battlefield.
Will it hurt the group's support inside Syria? It's hard to see how. The US hasn't formally explained its logic yet, but it's hard to see how that will matter either. The rebellion against Assad has raged for almost two years now and the country's fighters are eager for victory, and revenge. The US has done little to militarily assist the rebellion, and fighters have been happy to take support where they can get it.
Most of the money or weapons flowing into the country for rebels has come from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and some of that support, of course, has ended up in the hands of Islamist militias like Nusra.

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