Iranian planes are getting fuel - foreign ministry

 

　　TEHRAN, July 6 (Reuters) - Iranian planes continue to refuel at airports around the world, an official said on Tuesday, a day after an Iranian news report that the country's aircraft had been denied fuel in Germany, Britain and a Gulf Arab state.

　　The Financial Times said oil major BP (BP.L) had stopped refuelling Iranian jets, a move which would add to a growing list of companies shunning trade with the Islamic state amid a U.S.-led drive to isolate Tehran over its nuclear programme.

　　Iran has been hit by a new wave of international sanctions over its nuclear enrichment activities which the West fears could lead it to make a bomb, something Tehran denies it wants.

　　The United States has also stepped up its push to isolate Tehran economically. On Thursday, President Barack Obama signed into law far-reaching sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports and deepen its international isolation.

　　But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called reports that some countries were refusing fuel supplies to Iranian planes due to U.S. sanctions part of a "psychological war".

　　"This news is not right. No such limitation has been imposed," Mehmanparast told a news conference .

　　"The spread of inaccurate news is done in line with creating a negative atmosphere. It's a kind of psychological war against our people," he said.

　　His comments appeared to ignore the fact that first news of the ban came on Monday from a senior Iranian official. The secretary of the Iranian Airlines Union was quoted by Iran's ISNA news agency as saying Britain, Germany and the UAE has denied fuel to Iran Air and Mahan Airlines. [ID:nLDE66418N]

　　The conflicting statements combined with failure by companies involved to speak out clearly added to the confusion surrounding the situation.

　　The German Transport Ministry said there was no ban on refuelling Iranian flights and a British government source said London was not aware of any cut to supplies and that any such a decision would be up to private companies.

　　A source in the UAE familiar with the issue said a private company there had refused to refuel an Iranian plane, but the UAE had not imposed a ban.

　　BP declined to confirm the Financial Times report but said: "We fully comply with any international sanctions imposed in countries where we operate."

　　Samuel Ciszuk, a senior analyst at IHS Global Insight, said that if the report proved correct "it could suggest that BP is trying to be pro-active in managing political relations in the U.S. which are already under tremendous strain because of the Gulf (of Mexico) spill".

　　"The last thing they need now is having a U.S. congressman, for example, saying they are helping Iran."

　　Over the past weeks a number of countries and firms have cut back on imports of Iranian crude oil. Other companies have stopped providing Iran with refined petroleum. [ID:nLDE65R1O2]

　　In late June, France's Total (TOTF.PA) said it had stopped gasoline sales to Iran, becoming the latest oil company to do so. The U.S. law sanctions any company worldwide that exports gasoline or other refined petroleum products to Iran.

　　Despite being the world's fifth-largest oil producer, Iran lacks sufficient refining capacity and has to import up to 40 percent of its gasoline needs.

　　The UAE took steps last week to tighten its crucial role as a trading and financial lifeline for Iran. The UAE Central Bank asked financial institutions to freeze the accounts of 40 entities and an individual blacklisted by the United Nations for assisting Iran's nuclear or missile programmes.

　　Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has played down the potential economic impact of sanctions, calling a fourth round of U.N. sanctions as important as a "used handkerchief".

　　(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Dubai; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

Poll Finds Deep Concern About Energy and Economy

　　

　

　　Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.

        Those are among the findings of the latest nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll.

　　The poll, which examines the public’s reaction to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, highlights some of the complex political challenges the Obama administration faces. For instance, despite intense news coverage and widespread public concern about the economic and ecological damage from the gulf disaster, most Americans remain far more concerned about jobs and the nation’s overall economy.

　　And in that regard, President Obama does not fare well: 54 percent of the public say he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs, while only 34 percent say he does, an ominous sign heading into this fall’s midterm elections.

　　Respondents were nearly evenly split on the president’s handling of the economy — 45 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove. His job approval rating remains just below 50 percent. And by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

　　They are also impatient with Mr. Obama’s response to the oil disaster in the gulf, by a large margin, and attribute the spill to risks taken by BP and its partners in the failed well, according to the poll, which was conducted by telephone from June 16 to 2o with 1,259 adults.

　　The survey included an in-depth look at the attitudes of people most directly affected by the oil spill — those living in counties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi that border the Gulf of Mexico.

　　Gulf Coast residents, whose communities are most affected by the leak and whose livelihoods have been linked to oil for generations, are more likely than Americans over all to say they are confident that those who were affected by the spill will be fairly compensated by BP. A majority say the Obama administration has a lot or some control over whether BP will pay for the damages caused by the spill. Last week, the president received a promise from BP executives to create a $20 billion fund to pay damage claims from the accident.

　　Gulf Coast residents are also more likely than other Americans to support increased drilling off the coastlines of the United States.

　　By a large margin, the public over all said more regulation of offshore drilling to protect the environment was needed, but respondents were also more likely to attribute the BP accident to a failure of the federal government to enforce existing rules than to a lack of adequate regulation.

　　Reba Davis, 78, a retired vocational nurse in Abilene, Tex., one of the poll respondents, said she believed that BP took shortcuts to save money in drilling the doomed well, but she also said the government needed to take a stronger hand in overseeing offshore operations.

　　“The responsibility totally lies with BP and the regulatory system in our country, which is pretty slim and needs to be ramped up and enforced,” Mrs. Davis said in a follow-up telephone interview.

　　Large majorities disapprove of the way BP is handling the spill and have little faith in the oil industry generally to act in the public interest. By a 2-to-1 margin, they trust the federal government more than BP to handle the cleanup efforts in the gulf.

　　Yet they also think the Obama administration could be doing more to fix the damage from the leak. Fifty-nine percent said Mr. Obama did not have a clear plan for dealing with the spill.

　　Lewis Cullen, 78, an insurance executive who retired to Orange Beach, Ala., said the spill had slashed the value of his home. “If I wanted to sell my property I couldn’t, and anyway it would be worth half of what it was last year,” Mr. Cullen said. “It’s going to take years for this to go away. I read there’s a good possibility they won’t be able to stop it ever.”

　　The dependence of local residents on gulf-related industries like fishing and oil is evident in the poll. About 3 in 10 said they or someone in their household worked in those industries.

　　They are divided on the benefits of the government’s six-month moratorium on offshore drilling put into place after the Deepwater Horizon blowout, while the majority of Americans think it is a good idea.

　　Two months after the rig explosion and fire, just 18 percent of Americans think that BP will be able to stop the leak in the next month. Instead, about half, 48 percent, think it will take the oil company several more months; 16 percent think it will take a year or longer; and 7 percent say the company will never be able to stop the leak.

　　Respondents who live in the counties in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi that have been most affected by the oil spill gave similar responses.

　　Yet optimism is resilient. Two-thirds of all Americans, including about the same proportion of Gulf Coast residents, say that despite severe environmental damage, the fish, birds, turtles and other wildlife of the region will recover. And about 8 in 10 Americans, including more than 7 in 10 Gulf Coast residents, say the region’s economy, including businesses like tourism and fishing, will eventually bounce back.

　　The longer that people think the oil will continue to leak, the less likely they are to think that the region’s ecology and economy will recover. Still, even among those who think the leak will continue for another year or longer, most are optimistic.

　　Two-thirds of those living along the Gulf Coast say they have been affected by the oil spill; a third say they have been directly affected, and another third indirectly affected. They cite lost jobs and income and damage to local fisheries as the main consequences of the spill. Forty-five percent are very concerned that they or someone in their household will be unemployed in the coming year. Eight in 10 gulf residents say their communities are suffering financially.

　　“Obama has put a moratorium on deep-well drilling, and it’s going to kill us,” said Barbara Hebert, 71, of Houma, La., a retired nurse anesthetist. “Next year this is going to be a ghost town. We don’t want the industry shut down. Just go over the plans and see that safety issues are taken care of.”

　　Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

Giving In on Trading, Bankers Turn to Other Losses

　　

　　

　　WASHINGTON — Bankers have all but given up on defeating one of the most contentious provisions in the financial regulation bill — one that would effectively bar federally insured banks from trading for their own accounts — and are now focusing on battles like heading off a prohibition on derivatives trading.

         As House and Senate negotiators head into a final push to send the legislation to President Obama, they have largely agreed to stricter limits on so-called proprietary trading than those envisioned in the versions passed by either chamber.

　　That outcome would be a victory for the White House and for the provision’s most dogged advocate, Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman.

　　But with the so-called Volcker Rule now likely to become law after appearing to be dead at earlier points in the legislative process, banks are battling hard to fend off further restrictions on their activities.

　　Much of the action centers on a provision sponsored by Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas, to effectively bar banks from trading derivatives, the complex instruments that have been implicated in the financial system chaos that followed the near collapse of the mortgage market in 2008.

　　On Monday, Mrs. Lincoln offered to ease some of the toughest elements of her provision, but not enough to assuage Wall Street’s concerns.

　　Under her latest proposal, banks would have two years to spin off their derivatives arms. A bank holding company could still maintain a derivatives operation — but as a separate affiliate with its own capital, not as part of a commercial bank. In addition, companies that are not major dealers in derivatives would be exempted from her ban.

　　Even so, the six largest Wall Street banks, which dominate the derivatives trading business, quickly indicated that they would lobby fiercely to defeat the entire provision.

　　The House-Senate conference committee is to take up a variety of other issues on Tuesday, including the regulation of credit rating agencies, and in coming weeks it will address other flash points with the banks, like limits on credit card fees.

　　But the likelihood that the legislation will include a relatively tough version of the Volcker Rule on proprietary trading shows how the climate has grown more difficult over the last few months for Wall Street, banks and their lobbyists.

　　Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a leader of the conference process, said last week that House and Senate negotiators had reached “conceptual agreement” on a proposal by Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Carl Levin of Michigan, both Democrats, to expressly forbid banks from trading for their own accounts or from investing in hedge funds or private equity funds.

　　The House bill, approved in December before Mr. Obama endorsed the ban on proprietary trading, gives the Federal Reserve the right, but not the obligation, to prohibit proprietary trading by a “systemically important” financial company. The Senate bill, approved last month, calls for a study of the effects of a ban on proprietary trading and empowers a systemic risk council to put a ban into effect.

　　Days after Mr. Obama said in January that he wanted new financial regulations to include a ban on proprietary trading by federally insured banks, Mr. Volcker went to Capitol Hill to explain the concept.

　　“Every banker I speak with knows very well what ‘proprietary trading’ means and implies,” Mr. Volcker told members of the Senate Banking committee in early February.

　　Four months later, Congress is still debating what it means.

　　Some members of the conference committee were expressing concern last week that Congress had not laid out the specifics of what Senator Richard C. Shelby called “the Volcker concept” — exactly what activity was to be allowed and what was to be forbidden.

　　“Despite assurances from high-ranking Treasury officials that clarity would be provided on what constitutes proprietary trading and what does not, no such clarity has been provided,” Mr. Shelby said. “This is why I call it a concept.”

　　If few members of Congress can agree on a definition of the Volcker Rule, even fewer have been willing to oppose its inclusion in the final version of the bill. The logic behind the ban is, for some members of Congress, more certain: banks should not be allowed to use a guarantee of government deposit insurance — indirectly financed by taxpayers — to provide themselves with cheap capital that they then use for risky trading activities.

　　The big banks argue that the Volcker proposal is misguided, for several reasons. Although losses at major Wall Street and banking firms were clearly driven in part by sophisticated trading operations that turned out to be far riskier than assumed, the banks assert that the financial crisis of 2008 was a lending-based crisis caused by reckless loans made to unqualified home buyers. It was not, they say, a trading crisis.

　　While supporters of the trading ban urge banks to get back to “plain vanilla” lending, the banks say that trading can in fact be a less risky activity.

　　All financial activities entail risk, said John Dearie, an executive vice president of the Financial Services Forum, which represents the 19 largest banks, insurers and other financial services companies. But between the two, he said, lending “is arguably the riskiest activity that any financial entity can engage in. It is money out the door that banks hope will be paid back.”

　　For all the intensity of the arguments, even the stricter version of the Volcker Rule would not greatly change the risk structure of most banks. Few banks engage in proprietary trading to any great degree, their lobbying groups insist.

　　Goldman Sachs has said proprietary trading accounts for about 10 percent of its revenue. Financial analysts estimate the figure is about half that for institutions with large commercial banking operations, like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

　　And while it looks like there is considerable support for a strengthened version of the Volcker Rule, Congress did see fit to carve out a few exemptions for banks to trade for their own accounts — in government securities.

　　Perhaps mindful that the federal government is burdened with debt related in part to the financial crisis and its aftermath, the proposals say that banks will continue to be allowed to trade government bonds, including securities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae and other government-sponsored enterprises.

　　Sewell Chan contributed reporting.

Advertise on NYTimes.comGender Gap for the Gifted in City Schools

　　

　　

　　Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

　　At New York City schools for the gifted, like the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, 56 percent of kindergartners are girls. More Photos »

　　By SHARON OTTERMAN

　　Published: May 31, 2010

　　　　

 

　　When the kindergartners at the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, one of New York City’s schools for gifted students, form neat boy-girl rows for the start of recess, the lines of girls reach well beyond the lines of boys.

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　　Gender Breakdown in Schools for Gifted: ‘It’s Kind of Weird’

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　　Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

　　Experts say young girls tend to have greater maturity and verbal skills. More Photos »

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　　A similar imbalance exists at gifted schools in East Harlem, where almost three-fifths of the students at TAG Young Scholars are girls, and the Lower East Side, where Alec Kulakowski, a seventh grader at New Explorations in Science and Technology and Math, considered his status as part of the school’s second sex and remarked, “It’s kind of weird and stuff.”

　　Weird or not, the disparity at the three schools is not all that different from the gender makeup at similar programs across the city: though the school system over all is 51 percent male, its gifted classrooms generally have more girls.

　　Around the city, the current crop of gifted kindergartners, for example, is 56 percent girls, and in the 2008-9 year, 55 percent were girls.

　　Educators and experts have long known that boys lag behind girls in measures like high school graduation rates and college enrollment, but they are concerned that the disparity is also turning up at the very beginning of the school experience.

　　Why more girls than boys enter the programs is unclear, though there are some theories. Among the most popular is the idea that young girls are favored by the standardized tests the city uses to determine admission to gifted programs, because they tend to be more verbal and socially mature at ages 4 and 5 when they sit for the hourlong exam.

　　“Girls at that age tend to study more, and the boys kind of play more,” said Linda Gratta, a parent at the Anderson School on the Upper West Side, one of the most selective. “But it’s a mixed bag. The day of the test, you could be the smartest boy in the world and just have a bad day.” She said that Timothy, her first-grade son, had approximately 10 boys and 18 girls in his class.

　　Biases and expectations among adults are often in play when determining which children count as gifted, and fewer boys appear to end up in gifted programs nationally. A 2002 study by the National Academy of Sciences reported that boys were “overrepresented in programs for learning disabilities, mental retardation and emotional disturbance, and slightly underrepresented in gifted programs,” said Bruce A. Bracken, a professor at the College of William & Mary who wrote one of the two exams that the city uses to test gifted children. He said the implications of the study were “disturbing.”

　　Dr. Bracken’s assessment, which makes up 25 percent of a child’s gifted score in the city, has been field tested for gender bias, and during a recent round of testing in Virginia, no gender differences in the score were recorded. But the longer Otis-Lennon Ability Test, the other 75 percent of the gifted exam, is “more verbal than some of the other tests,” which could play to girls’ strengths, said David F. Lohman, a professor and testing expert at the University of Iowa.

　　The city’s Department of Education mandated the use of the two tests for admission to gifted programs beginning in 2008; before that, individual schools and districts each devised its own criteria. These typically included a mix of standardized intelligence tests, interviews, observation and, for later grades, class work. The additional leeway in admissions sometimes led to an effort to create gender balance in classes.

　　“Up until about five years ago, there was more of a conscious effort to balance by gender,” said Estelle Schmones, who retired last year as a gifted teacher at Public School 110 in Manhattan. Like other educators and parents, Ms. Schmones noted that the number of girls in some gifted programs had been creeping up over the past several years.

　　David Cantor, the press secretary for the Education Department, said that any role the tests might play in contributing to the gender gap was not known, because the city did not tally the gender of those who took or passed the test, only those who enrolled in gifted classes. Still, Mr. Cantor said, “A good test for giftedness should be able to control for differences in what children have been exposed to, and for the early verbal development we see more often in girls.”

　　The imbalance stands in contrast with the gender makeup of the eight high schools, including Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School, that use the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test to select students. All have more boys than girls, in keeping with research that shows that boys tend to catch up with girls, especially in mathematics, through middle school and, at the high end of the achievement spectrum, surpass them. (La Guardia High School, the prestigious school for music, art and the performing arts, has three girls for every boy.)

　　Whatever might be keeping young boys from entering gifted programs at equal rates might also be what can cause stumbles once they get in. For some of the boys, “their social and emotional development is not at the same level as their intellectual development,” said Donna Taylor, the principal of the Brooklyn School of Inquiry. She estimated that she spent about half her day helping her kindergarten and first-grade boys as they ran into trouble with issues like collaboration, self-control and sharing.

　　The difference could be observed one day last week in the lunchroom, where a cluster of boys sat at one end of a table, fooling around until one of them spilled a carton of chocolate milk. The girls sat calmly at the other end, eating meatballs without a stain on their sundresses.

　　Because the children are extremely bright, correcting their behavior sometimes comes with a twist.

　　During recess on Wednesday, Sydney, a kindergartner, got angry when Benjamin, a first grader, grabbed away a ball he was playing with. When Ms. Taylor got the boys together to talk over their feelings, Sydney tried to grab the ball back.

　　“Have you heard the expression, two wrongs don’t make a right?” she asked Sydney.

　　“Three lefts make a right,” he replied.