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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Citigroup admitted on Thursday that its security was breached by cyber thieves who gained access to thousands of data of the bank’s North America credit card customers.

The bank disclosed that the hacking incident was discovered after routine monitoring.

Citigroup said it is contacting clients whose information such as names, credit card numbers, residence and email addresses were exposed. The number of affected customers is about 210,000 or 1 percent of the bank’s 21 million credit card clients in North America.

The bank said other vital data such as Social Security number, date of birth, card expiration date and card security code were not accessed by the hackers.

It declined to provide more details on the incident, but said the company has put in place enhanced procedures to prevent a repeat of the hacking incident.

Citigroup warned the affected card holders to be on the lookout for scams, phishing and phone calls that would claim to come from Citibank and their subsidiaries.

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Per-pupil money schools receive will be cut by nearly $8 million, and direct funding to popular programs such as learning centers and adult education will be eliminated as part of the state Department of Education’s plan to tackle a $32.8 million budget reduction over the next two fiscal years.

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Commentary: Republicans swept the last election promising fiscal conservatism. YNNs Harvey Kronberg looks at the 82nd Legislature and questions whether they kept their promise.

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Former Tory backers voice concern over government’s economic policy as critics say chancellor needs plan B

Some of Britain’s leading economists are warning the chancellor, George Osborne, that the economy is too fragile to withstand his drastic spending cuts and that he must draw up a plan B.

Experts, including two former Whitehall advisers and two signatories of last year’s high-profile letter backing the Tories’ cuts, have told the Observer that they have profound concerns about the direction of Treasury policy.

Since the chancellor laid out his plans to balance the books by the end of the parliament in his “emergency budget” a year ago, the outlook has deteriorated markedly. Growth has gone flat over the past six months and a slew of dismal data has raised fears that the UK could be sliding towards a double-dip recession, as the US recovery wanes and the Greek debt crisis rattles the eurozone.

Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who until February was chief economist at the Cabinet Office, advising the prime minister, said: “You do not gain credibility by sticking to a strategy that isn’t working.”

He said that the recent slowdown in growth was partly the result of factors outside the government’s control, but insisted: “It isn’t just about the international environment, it’s because of the strategy the government has followed.”

Another former Whitehall insider, Vicky Pryce, the head of the government’s economic service before becoming a director at FTI Consulting, said that ministers would be advised to begin preparing the ground for a U-turn: “It’s a very risky situation, and I think that at some stage they’ll panic.”

Professor John Muellbauer of Oxford University, an expert on the housing market who signed the letter to the Sunday Times last year supporting the Conservatives’ approach, said: “Things are going badly. I had hoped that the focus in the budget would be on improving growth in the places where there are growth prospects, and also maintaining infrastructure investment, and that they would tackle failures of planning.”

Tim Besley, a former Bank of England monetary policy committee member who orchestrated the letter, said: “Everybody has been disappointed with growth.” He still believes that the chancellor must stick to his guns, but complained that the Treasury had failed to articulate where growth would come from in the months ahead. “The disappointing growth has almost nothing to do with the fiscal plans of the government – I’m coming to the view that it’s just a long, slow, hard slog – but what I would like to see from the government is a much more clearly defined growth strategy.” Danny Blanchflower, another former MPC member, said: “Economic policy is in disarray.”

The increasingly bleak prospects for recovery have also prompted more than 50 prominent leftwing academics to write to the Observer to demand that the government pursues a plan B, to boost jobs and growth. The signatories – including Sir Tony Atkinson and David Marquand of Oxford University, Marcus Miller of Warwick and Richard Grayson of Goldsmiths in London, a former Liberal Democrat policy director – say that if Osborne keeps to his policy, there will be “a lot more pain and a lot less gain”. They call for a crackdown on tax evasion, a targeted industrial policy – including investment in green technologies – and higher taxes on the rich to create jobs and growth, saying, “these are the foundations of a real alternative”.

A Treasury spokesman said: “We haven’t seen anything that makes us question what we are doing.” The political argument over who can be trusted with the economy has intensified in recent days. Osborne’s predecessor, Alistair Darling, accused him on Radio 4′s Today programme of being “mendacious” in insisting that the government had to slash spending or risk a Greek-style meltdown.

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said: “The disappointing figures we’ve had, particularly on manufacturing, seem to be further evidence that the economic recovery is stalling. We’re now set for slower growth, higher inflation and higher unemployment than was forecast a year ago. And the result is that the government is now set to borrow £46bn more than they had planned.”

Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, writing on the Observer’s Comment is Free website , says that Labour needs a credible economic and fiscal strategy of its own. He concedes that the party did not spend “every pound wisely”, but insists that the deficit was caused by the global banking crisis, rather than spending. Economic policy George Osborne Public finance Banking Conservatives Ed Balls Heather Stewart Daniel Boffey guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Obama administration has found an unexpected ally in a ratings agency in the White House’s battle with Republican legislators over spending cuts and hiking the federal debt limit. On Thursday, Moody’s warned that it may downgrade Washington’s credit rating if the U.S. debt ceiling is not hiked soon.

Moody’s said that the U.S. credit rating could downgraded because of a very small, but increasing risk of a short-lived default, which would likely translate into higher interest rates at a time when the country’s recovery is again on the slow lane.

The ratings agency anticipated there would be a political battle between the Obama administration and Republican legislators before the debt ceiling would be lifted, but Moody’s said that it failed to consider the worsening conflicting positions between the two parties. Washington wanted to raise the debt limit to $16.7 trillion from the current $14.3 trillion, but with no major spending cuts.

Moody’s warning came on the heels of a lower outlook by Standard & Poor’s of the AAA U.S. debt rating to negative from stable because of the political wrangling.

The House voted on Tuesday not to hike the federal debt limit without major spending cuts. At the Wednesday White House meeting of Republican legislators with U.S. President Barack Obama, the legislators asked the administration for a detailed plan on budget cuts to solve the impasse.

House Speaker John Boehner justified the lower house’s refusal to give in to Obama’s request because raising the debt limit beyond spending cuts would cost jobs for Americans. Obama, however, warned that failure to hike the debt limit soon would lead to dire consequences for the fragile, but recovering U.S. economy.

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BNP Paribas cut its target price on Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India and said it expects steelmakers’ margins to come under pressure in the first half of fiscal 2012.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Obama administration considers reports that hackers in China tapped into the e-mail accounts of American government and military leaders to be a “serious” national security issue, a White House spokesman said Thursday.

On Wednesday, Internet giant Google reported that hackers based in Jinan, China had used phishing software to seek e-mail account information of top U.S. government and military officials. They also sought information on Chinese dissidents, journalists and South Korean government officials.

“We’re looking into these reports,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. “We have no information that any official government accounts were accessed.”

He declined to give more detail about hackers into Google’s e-mail accounts, saying he would prefer to await results of an FBI investigation.

“The president is obviously aware of it,” Carney said.

Hundreds of e-mail accounts were reportedly compromised, including one belonging to a Cabinet-level government official.

Google said in a blog post that it has disrupted the phishing software and notified its customers who might have been affected.

The phishing programs typically try to trick e-mail customers into revealing their passwords so their accounts can be accessed by other persons.

It is uncertain how much information from U.S. government personnel might have been transferred to Google e-mail, or G-mail, accounts. Carney acknowledged that government officials use the Internet widely.

“We are definitely instructed that we need to conduct all of our work on official government accounts,” Carney said.

In addition, government agencies – such as the General Services Administration – increasingly uses G-mail to conduct business.

The Chinese government is denying that it sponsored the hacking.

Carney sidestepped the source of the e-mail infiltration by saying, “I’m not going to confirm anything about origins. The FBI is investigating it.”

Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement that the “Chinese government is firmly opposed to any cyber criminal activity, including hacking . . . [and] is ready to cooperate with the international community to combat against it.”

He also said that “any blame against China in this [latest incident] is groundless and with an ulterior motive.”

Nevertheless, Google traced the attack on its e-mail accounts to Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan. The Chinese military often uses computer scientists trained at the school.

The same school was blamed for a cyber attack against Google in a separate incident last year. The incident prompted Google to transfer its Internet services for China to Hong Kong to put it out of reach of Chinese censors.

About the same time, Internet service provider Yahoo blamed Chinese hackers for attacking its e-mail service.

The Obama administration responded to the latest Google hacking incident Thursday on the same day the House Energy and Commerce Committee considered the possibility of a new federal law to improve Internet security.

A bill set to be introduced soon would require Internet companies to notify customers promptly when their personal data is hacked.

“Consumers have a right to know when their personal information has been compromised and companies have a responsibility to promptly alert them,” said Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that held the hearing Thursday.

Witnesses included officials from Sony Corp. and Alliance Data Systems Corporation’s Epsilon Data Management unit. Both companies have been victims of recent high-profile hacking attacks.

Millions of customers of the companies had their names, e-mail addresses and credit card numbers accessed by the hackers.

The lawmakers criticized the company executives for failing to adequately protect the private information and for not notifying their customers quickly about the security breaches.

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Goods exports from India increased 34.42% to $ 23.8 bn in April 2011 compared same month of previous fiscal while imports increased by a lower 14.13%.

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Tokyo, Japan (AHN) – A political tremor may hit Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan as the opposition plan to file a no-confidence motion.

The Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito are ready to submit their joint motion as early as Wednesday. The vote appears to be a test of the legislator’s trust in Kan, particularly the way he handled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis.

Even within the Democratic Party of Japan, which Kan heads, there is dissatisfaction with the prime minister’s performance.

Former LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa went one step ahead of the no-confidence vote and challenged Kan to resign from his position. Nakagawa cited as basis for his quit call to Kan a recent survey which found that 80 percent of respondents did not trust the government’s announcements on the damaged nuclear plant.

Kan said he would not resign. He said he has the duty to resolve the nuclear crisis at all cost. Kan could even beat the no-confidence motion by dissolving the Lower House of the Japanese Diet and calling an election.

Kan is not only struggling with the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, but also with other economic problems caused by the magnitude 9 temblor that shook Japan on March 11.

Data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released on Tuesday showed that the country’s unemployment rate went up to 4.7 percent in April. However, the figure excludes the impact of the earthquake on the Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures, which saw widespread infrastructure damage and job losses.

The Labor Department also reported that average salaries in the third-richest economy shrank in April for the second consecutive month by 1.4 percent, although industrial production for the same month grew by 1 percent.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis made ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgrade to junk status, the credit rating of the operator of the ill-fated facility, Tokyo Electric Power Company. The utility firm’s rating drastically went down by five notices because of uncertainty of government bailout for Tokyo Electric.

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See Search Box lower down this column for searches of Finfacts news pages. Where there may be the odd special character missing from an older page, it’s a problem that developed when …

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