{{A breakdown of US intelligence’s multi-billion dollar “black budget” has been revealed in files disclosed by leaker Edward Snowden to the Washington Post.}}
The CIA’s budget is the most expensive, $14.7bn (£9.5bn) out of $52.6bn in total for 16 intelligence agencies, according to the files.
Two of those agencies are also actively hacking into foreign computer networks, reports the Washington Post.
The US has not made public a breakdown of the total intelligence budget.
The newspaper published charts detailing the budget, but did not post all the documents, citing “sensitive details” after US officials expressed concerns about risks to methods and sources.
According to the Washington Post, the CIA’s budget has grown more than 50% since 2004.
‘Priority’ intelligence targets
The files also reportedly show the budget of the National Security Agency (NSA), America’s electronic spying organisation – it apparently requested $10.8bn for 2013, making it second only to the CIA.
Nearly $5bn of the CIA’s budget is allocated to human intelligence operations, with almost $67m of that total reserved for funding the false identities of its overseas spies, according to the files.
The CIA and the NSA have also launched “offensive cyber operations” to hack into or sabotage enemy computer networks, according to the files.
The documents reportedly refer to China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel as “priority” counterintelligence targets. Israel is an American ally, though it has previously conducted espionage against the US.
The NSA is denying one part of Friday’s report – that the agency planned to investigate up to 4,000 cases of possible internal security breaches before Mr Snowden made his disclosures to the media.
{{A battling Dan Evans could not take his surprise US Open run into the second week as he lost to Spanish 19th seed Tommy Robredo in four sets.}}
The Briton, 23, had two set points on his own serve to force a decider but could not convert, and Robredo won the third-round match 7-6 (8-6) 6-1 4-6 7-5 in three hours and 13 minutes.
Robredo, who struggled with a leg injury in the closing stages, fought back superbly from 5-3 down in the fourth set to claim victory.
Evans, ranked 179th, earned £60,000 in prize money for his efforts and enough points to get close to the world’s top 150, but missed out on a possible dream fourth-round match against Roger Federer.
“It was a tough one, especially to go down in the fourth set after serving for it and having two set points,” Evans told media.
“I felt in pretty much total control of the match. The last point is always the hardest one and I couldn’t get that last point of the set to take it to a fifth.
“I just played two really loose points – that’s all it was. They came at the wrong time. I just have to learn on that for next time.”
It was the British number three’s sixth match in 10 days at Flushing Meadows after coming through three rounds of qualifying, then beating 11th seed Kei Nishikori and world number 52 Bernard Tomic.
He had never won a match in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament before New York, and playing under lights on the Louis Armstrong Stadium, albeit in front of a sparse crowd, was a far cry from the Challenger events he is more used to.
{{The body of an Indian soldier killed in an air crash in the Himalayas 45 years ago has been recovered, the army says.}}
The remains of NCO Jagmail Singh were found on the Dhakka glacier in northern Himachal Pradesh state.
The soldier’s identity was established by an identity disk, an insurance policy and a letter found in his pocket, the spokesman said.
The army transport plane crashed in February 1968, killing all 98 soldiers on board.
Nothing more was heard from the aircraft after it made radio contact near the Rohtang pass, which links Himachal Pradesh with Indian-administered Kashmir.
According to media reports, the debris of the Antonov-12 was discovered by accident by a team on the Dhakka glacier in 2003.
Four other bodies were recovered in subsequent search missions.
{{A teenager has been found guilty of taking part in the fatal gang rape of a woman on a Delhi bus last year.}}
He was convicted on charges of rape and murder over the crime, committed when he was aged 17.
The teenager, who cannot be named, has been sentenced to three years in a reform facility, the maximum term possible for a juvenile.
He had denied the charges, as do four adult men also on trial for the same attack.
The victim’s mother left the court in tears, and told reporters that the teenager should be hanged.
“By not punishing this teenager, this verdict is encouraging other teenagers to indulge in such acts and does not provide any safety to girls,” she said, according to Reuters news agency.
The time that he has served in detention since his arrest will count towards his sentence, correspondents say.
The four others accused in the case could face the death penalty.
A fifth adult defendant was found dead in his cell in March and prison officials said they believed he hanged himself.
The gang rape of the 23-year-old woman last December caused uproar across India and triggered a national debate about the treatment of women.
The verdict in the case of the teenager – now aged 18 – had been deferred several times before.
{{German Chancellor Angela Merkel and centre-left election rival Peer Steinbrueck are due to take part in their only televised election debate.}}
The event is seen as the Social Democrat (SPD) leader’s biggest chance to claw back Mrs Merkel’s lead in the opinion polls before this month’s vote.
Although the chancellor’s conservative bloc is expected to win, her coalition partners are faring poorly.
The 90-minute debate starts at 18:30 GMT and will be aired on main channels.
With three weeks to go before the 22 September vote, the two candidates will be grilled by four journalists before an estimated TV audience of up to 20 million.
Peer Steinbrueck will face the first question and Angela Merkel will have the final answer, with each answer limited to 90 seconds.
So far, there have been few campaign issues that have exposed major policy differences between the two figures and the parties have focused on their personalities.
Mr Steinbrueck is often witty but prone to gaffes, while Mrs Merkel often seems less than comfortable in the cut and thrust of live debatelocal media reports.
{{Russian President Vladimir Putin has challenged the US to present to the UN evidence that Syria attacked rebels with chemical weapons near Damascus.}}
Mr Putin said it would be “utter nonsense” for Syria’s government to provoke opponents with such attacks.
US President Barack Obama says he is considering military action against Syria after intelligence reports that 1,429 people were killed on 21 August.
UN weapons inspectors have left Syria after gathering evidence for four days.
They crossed into neighbouring Lebanon. They are due to go to the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in the Netherlands.
The US says hundreds of children were among those killed in the suspected chemical weapons attacks, which the US says was carried out by the Syrian government.
Syria said the US claim was “full of lies”, blaming rebels for the attacks.
US President Barack Obama Obama said on Friday the US was planning a “limited, narrow” military response that would not involve “boots on the ground”.
The inspectors’ departure from Syria removes both a practical and a political obstacle to the launch of US-led military action, correspondents say.
{{Pope Francis has named a new secretary of state, in what is seen as his most significant appointment since he became leader of the Catholic Church in March.}}
Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a 58-year-old Vatican diplomat, replaced Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, 79, who is retiring.
Cardinal Bertone, appointed by Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict, had been widely criticised over last year’s so-called “Vatileaks” scandals.
Leaked documents revealed corruption and infighting at the Vatican.
The secretary of state heads the Roman Curia, the central administration of the Catholic Church, and is the Pope’s chief adviser.
Archbishop Parolin, an Italian, is currently the Vatican’s nuncio – or ambassador – in Venezuela.
The BBC’s David Willey in Rome says his appointment marks the beginning of the replacement or dismissal of several former key members of Benedict’s administrative team.
Pope Francis has also promised to stamp out abuses at the Vatican bank – officially known as the Institute for Religious Works.
Shortly after his appointment, he set up a commission to investigate the bank and report back to him personally.
He later he issued a decree to combat money-laundering.
The Vatileaks scandals erupted in 2012, when former Pope Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, published confidential documents from Vatican offices alleging widespread corruption and mismanagement.
Gabriele was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail for stealing the papers, but he was subsequently pardoned by Benedict.
{BBC}
{{The first Japanese astronaut to live aboard the International Space Station is preparing for a return flight, this time to serve as commander, officials said on Wednesday.}}
Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is due to leave in November with a pair of veteran astronauts from the United States and Russia.
Wakata, 50, is expected to take command of the orbital research outpost in March, marking the first time a Japanese astronaut will lead a human space mission.
“It means a lot to Japan to have its own representative to command the International Space Station,” Wakata told a news conference broadcast from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“It’s a big milestone for Japan … to have this experience,” he said.
In 2009, Wakata became the first astronaut from Japan to live aboard the $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.
Japan, one of 15 nations participating in the project, provided the station’s largest and most elaborate laboratory, named Kibo, as well as cargo resupply ships.
Wakata, who was part of two missions on NASA’s now-retired space shuttles, is training for his fourth flight along with NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, both 53.
Mastracchio, a veteran of three shuttle missions and one of NASA’s most experienced spacewalkers, will be making his first long-duration flight. Tyurin will be living aboard the station for a third time.
Command of the station typically rotates between a U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut. In 2009, Belgium astronaut Frank De Winne became the first European to command the station. Canada’s first commander, Chris Hadfield, was in charge from March until May.
Wakata, a native of Saitama, Japan, holds a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering, a master’s in applied mechanics and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from Kyushu University. Before being selected as an astronaut in 1992, he worked as an aircraft structural engineer for Japan Airlines.
Wakata’s first two spaceflights, in January 1996 and October 2000, were aboard NASA space shuttles. He was Japan’s first live-aboard space station resident from March to July 2009. Upon returning to the station in November, Wakata will serve as a flight engineer before taking over command in March.
{{Switzerland’s economy will gain momentum in the coming months, buoyed in part by an improvement in business sentiment in surrounding euro zone countries, the leading Swiss indicator suggested on Friday.}}
The KOF barometer, a gauge of the economy’s performance in about six months’ time, rose to 1.36 points in August, its highest level since November 2012, from a revised 1.25 points in July, beating expectations for 1.33 in a Reuters poll.
“The year-on-year growth rate of Swiss Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the near future can therefore be expected to be positive,” the KOF institute said in a statement, adding the core GDP module of the indicator was pointing sharply upwards.
Switzerland’s economy has fared better than those of its austerity-hit European neighbors although sluggish exports to the Europe Union, its biggest trading partner, remained a concern in July.
However, recent data from the euro currency bloc, including business sentiment and private sector growth in Germany, has been more upbeat.
In June, the Swiss government slightly increased its 2013 growth forecast to 1.4 percent, while the Swiss National bank (SNB) stuck to its forecast of 1-1.5 percent growth.
“The KOF says Swiss industry is doing better, that is no surprise. As Europe improves you see the key impact it has on Switzerland,” J. Safra Sarasin economist Alessandro Bee said.
Swiss exports have been supported by a cap the SNB imposed on the soaring franc currency in 2011. But the central bank has warned that the franc remained overvalued and continued to pose risks to the economy.
SNB board member Fritz Zurbruegg said this month the cap on the safe-haven currency would be kept in place for as long as needed.
The Pentagon is taking a harder look at proposed foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies given the increasing financial complexity of such deals, but continues to encourage foreign investment, a top U.S. defense official said this week.
“If you have a deal that is in the interest of the U.S. economy and does not impinge on national security, we will approve it,” said Brett Lambert, the Pentagon’s representative on an interagency committee that reviews foreign takeovers.
Lambert, who retires Saturday after four years as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for manufacturing and industrial policy, bristled at the suggestion that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was making it difficult for foreign investors to acquire U.S. companies.
“It’s completely the opposite,” Lambert told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
He said foreign interest in U.S. companies remained high, given the continued importance of the U.S. defense market despite recent budget cuts, and said he expected the number of foreign transactions reviewed by CFIUS to double in coming years from more than 100 last year.
“You have foreign capital that wants to come in, which we want, which we encourage. The question is how do we allow that foreign capital to come in while protecting national security,” Lambert said.
He acknowledged that the Defense Department and other agencies involved in the CFIUS review process were often taking longer to review transactions but said that was largely because of the increasing complexity of the transactions.
Lambert said high-profile cases that were rejected tended to generate headlines but the majority of cases were approved, including some with conditions.
He declined to discuss specific CFIUS cases under review, including a $4.7 billion bid by a Chinese company to take over Virginia-based pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc.
The most recent CFIUS report to Congress showed that the committee reviewed 111 transactions in 2011, of which 40 were investigated under a longer 45-day review. Six of the notices were withdrawn. Data for 2012 has not been released.
U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about various takeover bids by Chinese firms in recent years, but CFIUS approved plans by China’s largest auto parts maker in January to buy car battery maker A123 Systems Inc.
In February, CFIUS approved the $15.1 billion purchase of Canadian oil firm Nexen Inc by China’s state-owned CNOOC Ltd., although it imposed conditions limiting its operation of wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
CFIUS rejected a bid by another Chinese-owned company, Ralls Corp, to build wind farms near a U.S. military site in Oregon, but the company has challenged that decision in court.
Lambert said the Nexen case showed U.S. authorities were willing to work with companies seeking to invest in the United States as long as they showed a willingness to compromise. “We can come to accommodations. We will work with the companies but they have to respect our national security concerns.”
Lambert said foreign companies seeking to invest in the United States should hire lawyers who had already shepherded other deals through the process.
He said government officials also welcomed contact with companies involved in mergers or acquisitions, noting that senior officials in the proposed merger of Europe’s EADS, the parent of Airbus, and Britain’s BAE Systems had been forthcoming about their plans.
Lambert said meeting those officials helped him keep Pentagon leaders informed about the merger, which ultimately collapsed.
Lambert co-founded a national security consultancy, DFI International, in 1989 and then sold it in 2007 to Detica, a London-based firm that was subsequently taken over by BAE Systems. He said he reviewed the CFIUS files on the DFI sale after coming to the Pentagon to understand the process better from the government’s point of view.
