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Bad loans from Spanish banks, a major source of concern to financial markets, rose in July to the highest level in 16 years at nearly seven per cent, the Bank of Spain said on Monday. Bank loans whose recovery is in doubt amounted to 124.7 billion euros ($A166.5 billion), or 6.94 per cent of total assets, in July, the central bank said in a report - the highest ratio since February 1995. That compares to a revised bad loan ratio in June of 6.69 per cent. The central bank had previously said the bad loan ratio was 6.42 per cent that month. Advertisement: Story continues below Bad loans at Spanish lenders, especially its regional savings banks which account for half of all lending, have risen steadily since the collapse of the property sector at the end of 2008. The bad loan ratio at Spanish banks stood at 3.37 per cent at the end of 2008. Earlier this month Spain's struggling Caja Mediterraneo, under state control since July, reported a bad loan ratio of 19 per cent, fuelling concerns about the state of balance sheets across the banking sector. The financial health of Spanish banks is at the heart of market fears that Spain could follow the example of Ireland, Greece and Portugal in seeking a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The government and Bank of Spain have forced a wave of consolidation in the sector this year and are requiring banks to quickly increase the proportion of core capital they hold to above international norms. In July, Moody's threatened to lower the ratings of four Spanish banks, including the euro zone's largest, Santander, as well as the country's confederation of savings banks. The three other banks concerned are BBVA, CaixaBank and La Caixa.
Posted in: Spanish banks hit by spike in bad loans
What can the Rolling Stones, Eurythmics and the blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire possibly have in common? More than you think -- at least that's the bet behind Super Heavy, a five-strong supergroup fronted by Mick Jagger whose new album comes out Monday. Five stars from the worlds of rock, soul, pop, reggae and world music -- Jagger, Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, soulwoman Joss Stone, Bob Marley's youngest son Damian and AR Rahman who scored the "Slumdog" soundtrack -- have brought their eclectic styles together for the occasion. The motley make-up of Jagger's new supergroup, the term used when musicians team up on the model of Cream in the 1960s or Damon Albarn's Gorillaz, has raised some eyebrows in music circles. But Jagger insists the resulting album -- titled simply Super Heavy -- is "not all weird". Super Heavy was the brainchild of Dave Stewart, who said he was inspired by the mish mash of sounds he heard wafting through the window of his home above Saint Ann's Bay in Jamaica. "It's kind of the jungle, and sometimes I'd hear three sound systems all playing different things. I always love that, along with Indian orchestras," Stewart told Rolling Stone magazine earlier this year. "I said to Mick, ?How could we make a fusion?'" A few phone calls later and plans for the troupe -- who together claim 11 Grammy Awards -- were in the works, with a first jam session held in Los Angeles six months on, in early 2010. "We didn't know what the hell we were doing," said the Eurythmics founder and co-writer of such 1980s hits as "Sweet Dreams" and "Talking to an Angel". "We were just jamming and making a noise. It was like when a band first starts up in your garage. We might have a 22 minute jam, and it would become a six minute song." Jagger -- who plays the guitar and harmonica as well as singing on the album -- has warned it is "a different kind of record than what people would expect." "It's not all weird and strange though," he told Rolling Stone of the result, a concentrate of musical styles drawn from around the planet. The rhythms and vocals of Damian Marley, who has worked with some of the top names in US hip-hop, leave a strong mark, along with AR Rahman's Bollywood-tinged melodies, some of them sung in Urdu. Joss Stone's deep voice adds a touch of glamour and emotion, while Mick's own performance is Jagger to the hilt. The first single off the album, "Miracle Worker," went on sale online on July 7 and the AZ record label, part of the Universal music group, releases the full album worldwide on Monday. The idea of a supergroup stems back to the 1960s when Cream brought together Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Graham Bond Organisation in 1966 -- becoming a rock monument in its own right. Two years on, David Crosby of The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills and Graham Nash of The Hollies split from their bands and reformed as Crosby, Stills and Nash, producing its now-classic vocal harmonies and folk guitar, sometimes with Neil Young. Less of a hit despite an A-list cast, the Traveling Wilburys was set up in 1988 by Bob Dylan, George Harrison, US rockers Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra. The supergroup trend has resurfaced in recent years, spurred in part by the globe-trotting tastes of Blur frontman Damon Albarn, the creative mind behind both the Gorillaz music project and the 2007 supergroup album "The Good the bad and the Queen." Jack White of The White Stripes also helped found two supergroups in the past decade, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. And in 2009, Them Crooked Vultures brought together rock legend Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and the multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones, of Led Zeppelin fame.
Back in early September, the recruitment committee of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry announced that recruitment companies would be established and will be licensed to bring in housemaids from Morocco, East Asia and South Africa. The move has caused outrage in unusual places. The reason for this recruitment move, according to a Saudi chamber official, was that they were turning to Morocco and other countries to get its domestic workers following a dispute with the Philippines and Indonesia, the largest suppliers of housemaids to the Gulf countries. The dispute has centered on pay and conditions, but Indonesia had earlier this year also criticized the Saudi government for beheading an Indonesian maid. Of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia, over 70% are domestic helpers. The ban on maids from Indonesia and the Philippines hit Saudi households hard, causing many to resort to hiring illegal maids over Ramadan. The Saudis are reliant on foreign workers to perform their household tasks for them and very few Saudi women will work in such menial positions despite high unemployment, as they would be looked down on by other Saudis. The ban came into effect following the two countries attempts to introduce regulations for the work conditions of their nationals. Trade Arabia said both countries demanded better working conditions for their employees. Saudi walked away from the negotiations abruptly and decided to look for domestic employees from countries such as Morocco who they perceive as not as concerned about imposing regulations to protect their workers. It also became clear that lower rates of pay could be offered to other nationals. Right from the beginning the scheme ran into problems in respect to recruiting maids from Morocco. The recruitment committee said that the immediate employment of Moroccan maids could prove an issue as there were no official recruitment offices in Morocco to process the papers of prospective domestic helps. It was suggested that there could be a way around the problem with Saudi citizens being given work visas to bring housemaids from Morocco on their own. The whole issue of Saudi maids has been at the centre of international protests for years, especially in regard to exploitation, sexual harassment and torturing of foreign housemaids. The notion that individual Saudi's could fly to Morocco and find a young woman and take her back to Saudi, is truly worrying and will, no doubt, offend our readers. The chairman of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, warned Saudi citizens against contacting any offices claiming to be able to send housemaids from Morocco to the Kingdom. "They are all fake. You should not heed the false claims of these fake offices." he warned prospective employers. The spokesman of the Labor Ministry, Hattab Al-Anzi, said the recruitment offices would grant citizens work visas for housemaids from Morocco. "It is now the responsibility of the citizen to look for authorized private recruitment offices to bring workers from Morocco," he said. Then, suddenly, the plan to import maids from Morocco ran into even more problems. Those fighting to stop the "maid-trade" got support from an unlikely source - Saudi women. They objected to the importing of Moroccan girls, not because they didn't think they would work hard, or that they were against the exploitation of young foreign women. No - it was because they thought the Moroccan women were too beautiful. At first it sounded like a sick joke, but the Saudi women were serious. "Many Saudi woman have objected to plans to import domestic workers from Morocco…they say the Moroccan women are beautiful and this will cause continuous anxiety and concern in Saudi families,” - 'Sharq' Daily It is a relatively rare for the voices of Saudi women to be raised in protest. This year there have been notable exceptions as some women protested for the right to drive, whilst others demanded the right to vote. Now they have another common cause - to ban female domestic maids from Morocco. It started slowly, but over a few days the protests grew to the point where the Saudi women inundated the government with complaints that Moroccan women are just too beautiful and may lure their husbands away. According to the website Emirates 24 the Shura Council was “deluged by demands from Saudi women” "Moroccan women are so attractive that their husbands could easily fall for them…others said Moroccans are good at magic and sorcery and that this could enable them to lure their husbands.” - 'Sharq' Daily If the women of Saudi Arabia fail to stop this "maid-trade" then it is imperative that the Moroccan government scrutinize the contracts and conditions of every maid taken to Saudi. They should also take steps to educate Saudi women to understand that while Moroccan women may be beautiful, they are not dangerous.
Entering the Andalucian property market is like entering a minefield. Some will emerge unscathed and others will step on the unexploded bomb. There is no reliable map to guide you. The tripwire for the unlucky is a poorly-policed system for urban planning and land management, which has resulted in an estimated 300,000 illegal buildings in this region of Spain alone. The consequences of owning an illegal property are many and varied, ranging from unexpected and expensive urbanisation costs to land grab, court proceedings, fines, denial of access to basic services or in the worst case scenario, demolition of your property. Since the problem emerged over a decade ago, the regional government has made efforts to cauterize the wound. It has introduced new regulations which attempt to ensure that mistakes are not repeated. However, it has thus far failed to effectively tackle the stockpile of illegal housing which continues to stink up the market place. Its latest legal manoeuvre, a draft decree, describes a complex, sometimes ambiguous, lengthy and expensive solution which fails to bring any immediate relief to those facing demolition or denied access to basic services. More decisive action is required in my view. The market demands it and the homeowners desperately need it. As president of AUAN (Abusos Urbanisticos Almanzora, NO), an association of some 700 British homeowners who have become trapped in this mess, I have a fairly detailed perspective on the problem and its possible solutions. I believe that the following should be done. Change the law The genie is out of the bottle and cannot be returned or ignored. The regional government must create a complete and up-to-date legal framework to deal with illegal constructions. This requires changes to the planning laws, rather than clarification of its finer details via various decrees. For example, current planning law does not recognise the existence of a house in the countryside unless it is associated with farming or is more than 25 years old. This does not conform to the needs of rural communities, the demands of the market or the current reality of homes in the countryside. Current planning law does not permit the segregation of a rural parcel of land to create a building plot. In reality, such parcels exist in large numbers, and must be dealt with to solve pressing problems with title to land and the property on it. Introduce interim measures Realistically, a properly-ordered solution will take years to implement. In the meantime, prosecutors are obligated to seek demolition of illegal properties and service providers are obligated to deny access to basic services such as electricity and water, creating untenable situations for the homeowner. Interim legal measures are required whilst fair and just solutions are put in place. Remove planning powers from small town councils In my experience small councils lack the funding and the technical expertise to prepare complicated town plans. There is also the frequently irresistible temptation to rezone the land of friends and family as lucrative building land at the expense of the wider community. A centralised function would create economies of scale and be more impartial. Act decisively against illegal construction It is easy to find examples of continued illegal construction. There are less than 50 planning inspectors in Andalucia for a land mass of 33,694 square miles. The complicated intermingling of politics, business, wealth and favours in small Spanish towns makes it unlikely that such activities will be reported. Citizens alerting the authorities to illegal construction need a means to protect their anonymity. Compensate Create a fund to compensate those whose homes have been demolished through failings in the system rather than any wrongdoing on the part of the unsuspecting homeowners. Divert money from marketing campaigns for this purpose. It will do more good. The government of Andalucia has complete control over planning matters within its borders. This gives them the power to amend the law to solve the problem. One can only hope that they heed the demand for change not only from Spanish nationals who are similarly affected and who will have their say in the coming elections, but also from the thousands of foreign homeowners who were encouraged to settle here only for their investment to be wiped out and their dreams shattered. If Spain wishes to remain the premier choice for European retirees and to bring in much needed new investment, it needs to make changes that will offer the security demanded by purchasers. If it continues to ignore the mistakes of the past or papers over the cracks with piecemeal legislation, consumers and the property industry as a whole will continue to be badly served.
