View
1
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
YELLOW
* * * * * * WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2015 ~ VOL. CCLXV NO. 57 WSJ.com HHHH $3 .00
BAGHDAD—Clobbered by falling oil prices,Iraq is headed over a fiscal cliff, unable to makecritical investments needed to keep its oil flow-ing and still pay the skyrocketing costs of fight-ing Islamic State extremists, according to gov-ernment officials.
Without a recovery in oil revenues, some fearthe country is again sliding toward a breakup.
“We’re battling on two fronts, both ISIS andoil,” said Mudher Salih, a former senior centralbank official who advises Prime Minister Haideral-Abadi on financial policy.
One of the few bright spots for Iraq in recentyears has been an impressive expansion of oilproduction. The second-largest exporter in theOrganization of the Petroleum Exporting Coun-
BY BILL SPINDLE tries, Iraq has added up to a million barrels aday of new capacity, to the surprise of manydoubters. That has provided a fountain of cashthat has smoothed over many of Iraq’s chal-lenges.
But with global oil prices halving in recentmonths, Iraq’s finances are eroding rapidly. Rev-enues are expected to fall by 40% this year, leav-ing a deficit of more than $20 billion, equivalentto one-fifth of spending.
Officials familiar with the government budgetsay even that $101 billion of planned revenuecould prove to be an overly rosy projection. It isbased on an average oil price of $56 for the yearand exports of 3.3 million barrels a day. It as-
Please see IRAQ page A6
DROP IN OIL THREATENSIRAQ TERROR FIGHT
Country’s coffers are squeezed as cost of battling Islamic State soars
DJIA 17662.94 g 332.78 1.85% NASDAQ 4859.79 g 1.7% NIKKEI 18665.11 g 0.7% STOXX600 389.66 g 0.9% 10-YR. TREAS. À 19/32 , yield 2.130% OIL $48.29 g $1.71 GOLD $1,160.10 g $6.30 EURO $1.0700 YEN 121.13
|
CONTENTSArts in Review.......... D5Business News.. B2,3,8Global Finance........... C3Heard on the Street C12Home & Digital...... D2,3Media & Marketing B6
Property Report .. C6-8Opinion................... A11-13Sports.............................. D6Technology................... B4U.S. News................. A2-5Weather Watch........ B8World News........... A6-9
s Copyright 2015 Dow Jones & Company.All Rights Reserved
>
What’sNews
Clinton said she used a per-sonal email account as secretaryof state because it wasmoreconvenient, as she sought totamp a controversy ahead of anexpected presidential bid.A1, A4The CIA helped the JusticeDepartment develop technol-ogy to scan data fromU.S. cell-phones, part of a secret alliancebetween the two agencies.A1 Iraqi fighters have begunbattling Islamic State insideTikrit, as government troopsand Shiite militias try to uprootmilitants from strongholds. A6U.S. lawmakers are urgingtheWhite House to lend sur-plus drones to Jordan for thefight against Islamic State. A6A new Islamic State videopurports to show a child exe-cuting an Israeli Arabman ac-cused of spying for Israel. A7 Florida would be the statehardest hit if the SupremeCourt strikes down health-insurance subsidies. A2 The White House is weigh-ing steps to make it easier toexpunge certain student loansthrough bankruptcy. A3 Labor unions plan to freezecampaign contributions to law-makers in a push to opposefast-track trade legislation. A4The U.S. moved to dropcharges against a federal em-ployee it had accused of ille-gally downloading data. A2Ferguson,Mo.’s city man-ager resigned in the wake of aJustice Department report crit-icizing the city’s governance.A4 The U.S. is seeing a steadyrise in children born to un-married, cohabiting couples,according to CDC data. A3
The Fed is strongly consid-ering removing a barrier
to raising rates as early asJune by dropping a promise tobe “patient” before acting. A1The euro slid to $1.0700, a12-year low, on signs of a U.S.rate rise just as the ECB beginsits stimulus program. C1, C4U.S. stocks sold off. TheDow fell 332.78, or 1.8%, to17662.94 on fears a soaring dol-lar would hurt U.S. profits. C4 Tidjane Thiamwill face arange of challenges at CreditSuisse when he takes over aschief from Brady Dougan. C1 Prudential PLC plans toname U.S. head Mike Wellsas CEO, succeeding Thiam. C2 BNYMellon came underfire from activist investorMarcato Capital, which is call-ing for the CEO’s ouster. C1Medicare is opposing anFDA safety plan to include IDnumbers from medical de-vices on claims forms. B1 Bitcoin-technology firm 21said it raised $116 million inventure funding, a record fora digital-currency startup. C1 Ex-J.P. Morgan executiveBlythe Masters will head anew trading platform for bit-coin and other digital assets. C2A cable-TV trade group isblaming subscription video-streaming services for fuelinga drop in cable viewership. B1Apple’s pull onmall trafficgives it clout to negotiate lowrents, putting upward pressureon other tenants’ leases. B1Duke agreed to pay share-holders about $146million tosettle claims it failed to disclosedetails of its Progress deal. B2
Business&Finance
World-Wide
The Federal Reserve isstrongly considering removing abarrier to raising short-term in-terest rates as early as June bydropping its promise to be “pa-tient” before acting.
Discussions about interest-rate guidance and an uncertaininflation outlook are likely totake center stage at the Fed’snext meeting March 17-18. Fedofficials on Tuesday began theirself-imposed premeeting black-out period, in which they stopmaking public comments on theeconomy or policy.
Officials made clear in recentinterviews and public speechesthey want to move away fromthe pledge to be patient as theylook to move beyond the easy-money policies that defined thepostcrisis period. They first cuttheir benchmark federal-fundsrate to near zero in 2008. TheFed has said in its official policystatement since December thatit will be patient before raisingthe rate.
Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellenhas said the patience promisemeans the Fed won’t raise ratesat the next two policy meetings.Thus, if the Fed removes “pa-tient” next week, it would openthe door to a discussion about arate increase at its June meet-ing.
Several officials have saidPlease see FED page A2
BY JON HILSENRATH
Fed EyesJune forKey RateDecisions
Hillary Clinton, seeking to tampa simmering controversy beforethe expected launch of her presi-dential campaign, said she used apersonal email account instead ofa government address during herfour years as secretary of state be-cause it was more convenient.
In retrospect, she said, sheshould have used separate ac-counts. “I thought using one de-vice would be simpler, and, obvi-ously, it hasn’t worked out thatway,” Mrs. Clinton told a newsconference Tuesday at theUnited Nations in New York.“Looking back, it would havebeen probably…smarter to haveused two devices.”
As secretary of state from2009 until early 2013, Mrs. Clin-ton exclusively used a personalemail account managed througha private computer server thattraced to her home in Chap-paqua, N.Y. That gave Mrs. Clin-
ton control over her communica-tions, and also partially blockedefforts by the media and publicto use public-records laws to ex-amine the department’s work.
Mrs. Clinton ruled out allow-ing an independent authority toexamine the server, as some Re-publicans have called for. Shecited personal privacy.
The nation’s former top diplo-mat said she had “absolute con-fidence” she had turned over allemails connected to officialbusiness after the State Depart-ment requested such recordslast year. She said the vast ma-jority of her work-related emails
were already in the agency’s ar-chives, because they were sentto other officials’ governmentemail addresses. Her office saidabout 10% of her work emailsweren’t sent to government ac-counts. Mrs. Clinton said shedidn’t send any classified infor-mation over email.
The news conference left ahandful of questions not fully re-solved, including how it is possi-ble to determine whether Mrs.Clinton turned over all work-re-
Please see EMAIL page A4
BY LAURA MECKLERAND JOSH DAWSEY
Clinton Regrets Email ChoiceFormer secretary of statecalls personal accountmore convenient, rejectsexamination of server
LucasJackson/Re
uters
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks about her email use during a news conference at the United Nations in New York Tuesday.
Tech Pet PeevesThe 12 most annoying things about technologyPERSONAL JOURNAL | D1
Disney RecyclesFairy Tales
BUSINESS & TECH. | B1
The Euro’s Slide
NEW WORLD ORDER: Theeuro tumbled Tuesday to itslowest point against the dollarin nearly twelve years andstocks dropped in the U.S. asthe global financial systemreacted to recent moves bycentral banks. C1
Euro performance
THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.Source: FactSet
5
–25
–20
–15
–10
–5
0
%
’152014
U.S. dollar
British pound
Japanese yen
Mario Draghi, ECBpresident, stronglyhints at quantitativeeasing.
WASHINGTON—The CentralIntelligence Agency played a cru-cial role in helping the JusticeDepartment develop technologythat scans data from thousandsof U.S. cellphones at a time, partof a secret high-tech alliance be-tween the spy agency and do-mestic law enforcement, accord-ing to people familiar with thework.
The CIA and the U.S. MarshalsService, an agency of the JusticeDepartment, developed technol-ogy to locate specific cellphonesin the U.S. through an airbornedevice that mimics a cellphonetower, these people said.
Today, the Justice Depart-ment program, whose existencewas reported by The Wall StreetJournal last year, is used to huntcriminal suspects. The sametechnology is used to track ter-ror suspects and intelligence tar-gets overseas, the people said.
The program operates spe-cially equipped planes that flyfrom five U.S. cities, with a fly-ing range covering most of theU.S. population. Planes areequipped with devices—somepast versions were dubbed “dirt-boxes” by law-enforcement offi-cials—that trick cellphones intoreporting their unique registra-tion information.
The surveillance systembriefly identifies large numbersof cellphones belonging to citi-zens unrelated to the search.The practice can also briefly in-terfere with the ability to makecalls, these people said.
Some law-enforcement offi-cials are concerned the aerialsurveillance of cellphone signalsinappropriately mixes traditionalpolice work with the tactics andtechnology of overseas spy workthat is constrained by fewerrules. Civil-liberties groups saythe technique amounts to a digi-
Please see PHONES page A10
BY DEVLIN BARRETT
CIA AidedProgramTo Spy onU.S. Phones
For These Musicians, Hot LicksProvide Cold Comfort
i i i
Players in Sweden make music fromice instruments; beware of melting violins
LULEA, Sweden—Charlie Sexton hastoured the globe withBob Dylan, opened forDavid Bowie and jammedwith Ronnie Wood andKeith Richards of theRolling Stones.
But until last month,the Texas guitar virtuosohad never performed in-side an igloo, using instrumentsmade of ice.
So he had to be chided to zipup his jacket before belting outany hot licks on a recent Saturday,lest he melt his guitar with bodyheat. A violin was already crackedand the show hadn’t even startedyet.
“These instruments are just sofragile,” said Mr. Sexton, 46 yearsold, currently a member of Mr. Dy-lan’s backing band. “It’s prettywild.”
He was part of a con-tingent of musicians whotraveled from Austin, thecapital of the Lone StarState, to Lulea, Sweden,a city some 60 milesfrom the Arctic Circle,for an exceptionally coolcross-cultural jam ses-sion called Ice Music.
The artists met, wroteand performed songswith players from Swe-den and Denmark, using
violins, cellos and other instru-ments whose bodies were sculptedfrom ice.
The concerts, part of a largerseries of Ice Music shows runningthrough March, were held in twoigloos, connected with an archover the stage, to create a distancefrom the audience and curtail tem-peratures near the instruments.
Or rather, the icestruments, asthey are known. They are hand-crafted by Ice Music founder Tim
Please see MUSIC page A10
BY ANNA MOLINAND MIGUEL BUSTILLO
Ice cello
Heard on the Street: A coldworld out there for the Fed... C12
Analysis: Email furor could pushClinton into race sooner........... A4
Iraqis enter Tikrit in fight with militants................. A6
‘Looking back,it would’ve beenbetter for me to
use two separatephones and two
email accounts.’HILLARY CLINTON
CloudSuite™Fashion
infor.com/cloud
CloudSuite™Food &Beverage
CM Y K CompositeCompositeMAGENTA CYAN BLACK
P2JW070000-6-A00100-1--------XA CL,CN,CX,DL,DM,DX,EE,EU,FL,HO,KC,MW,NC,NE,NY,PH,PN,RM,SA,SC,SL,SW,TU,WB,WEBG,BM,BP,CC,CH,CK,CP,CT,DN,DR,FW,HL,HW,KS,LA,LG,LK,MI,ML,NM,PA,PI,PV,TD,TS,UT,WO
P2JW070000-6-A00100-1--------XA
Recommended