Lukashenko wants Russia to decide on future of integration projects

 MINSK, 20 September (BelTA) – Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko urged Russia to determine the future of joint integration projects. The head of state made the statement at the meeting with State Secretary of the Union State Grigory Rapota, BelTA has learned. Alexander Lukashenko remarked that the main issue he wanted to discuss with Grigory Rapota was, of course, the integration projects and the problems in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. “I do not conceal and will not conceal that many problems have been outlined in our country, there has been too much criticism of the integration at the level of the two states, at the level of the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS. Although the CIS can fulfill and fulfills its functions and moves forward at a set pace, the Eurasian Economic Union and the Union State of Belarus and Russia are, of course, in the spotlight,” the head of state stressed. The President remarked that last year the trade and economic relations of Belarus and Russia were far from the desired level. The counties have not managed to catch up yet. “It is very bad. We have been always proud of the fact that the trade turnover went up in physical terms in spite of the decrease in money terms. It means that we started to export bigger volumes of products to Russia and reduced prices by half. Does Belarus benefit from it? No, it doesn't,” Alexander Lukashenko said. “We have been making little to no progress in the talks on gas prices for several months. In this context, Russia reduced the export of oil to Belarus. We perceive it as pressure on Belarus. But I will not tolerate any pressure, and Belarusians will not tolerate it either,” the head of state said. Alexander Lukashenko added that the delivery of certain Belarusian products to Russia, for example, foodstuffs purchased by the European Union, is blocked. “For some reasons they are treated as “low-quality” products in Russia. But the reason is clear: when we deliver high-quality goods at reasonable prices to Russia we cost Russian agricultural oligarchs a pretty penny,” the Belarusian leader said. “They put pressure on the government (you know perfectly well that they are well-connected), and the government gives instructions to various civil servants in Rosselkhoznadzor and other agencies. They give green light to a number of Belarusian enterprises and ban the products of others. There is undisguised pressure.” “Why an I openly speaking about it? Because I am sick and tired of it, it must be stopped. I am saying all this because you must understand what the development background of our Union State project is. The things that I have said do not mean that we will phase out integration projects, but we will optimize our participation in them,” the President said. “I have given a corresponding instruction to the government and the Belarus President Administration. Now we are thoroughly analyzing our participation, first of all, in the Eurasian Economic Union. If the situation remains the same, what for will we need so many civil servants there? There are about 1,000 people in the so-called government of the EEU right now. And what are the results? What for do we need to keep so-many highly-qualified specialists in Moscow? The best people are working there. We can employ them here.” The head of state stressed that he is raising these topical issues for a reason. “I reiterate that we should not conceal them. We must decide whether we should deepen integration or not. And the main thing is to decide if we are going to fulfill the agreements and obligations or not. This is the main issue for us,” the Belarusian leader stated. “You are well aware of the situation in Belarus. You know perfectly well that we are not going to put the carriage before the horse and strain anyone. We do not need it. We have been always trying to adjust to our neighbors because we do not want to pose obstacles to them. But we also have our interests. Therefore, I would like to listen to your opinion, to the opinion of the Permanent Committee regarding our prospects. As a person committed to our unity, please step up efforts to protect our common interests at the level of the government and the President of Russia, because we need to move forward,” Alexander Lukashenko concluded.
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Belarus mulls over social research on family

 MINSK, 20 September (BelTA) – A sociological study entitled as Family building, stability in family relations and birth rate aBelarus mulls over social research on family relations and birth rate in 2017mid the changing social and economic living standards of Belarusians will kick off in Belarus in January 2017, Marianna Sokolova, head of the project to support the implementation of the national demographic security program of the Republic of Belarus, told BelTA. According to Marianna Sokolova, the preparations for this large-scale social survey are nearing completion. “Belarus will be the first European country where the research will be run with the help of a new strategy of the UNECE's Generarions and Gender program, which is an absolute novelty with the use of tablets. Partaking in the survey will be 10,000 respondents from all the parts of the country,” she said. The survey will be conducted by the Center of Sociological and Political Studies of the Belarusian State University. The project will be run from January to October 2017. On 20 September Minsk played host to a seminar on demographic issues for Belarusian media representatives. The seminar was organized by the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and held as part of the project to support the implementation of the national demographic security program of the Republic of Belarus, financed by UNFPA and the Government of the Russian Federation. The main goal of the seminar was to determine the key themes and forms to popularize the state program “The health of the nation and demographic safety of the Republic of Belarus” slated for implementation in 2016-2020. The seminar was used as an open platform to hold a dialogue between journalists, representatives of government bodies and organizations, foreign experts (among the participants was Director of the Center for Social Demography and Economic Sociology of the Institute of Social and Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Ryazantsev).
Read full text at: http://eng.belta.by/society/view/belarus-mulls-over-social-research-on-family-relations-and-birth-rate-in-2017-94601-2016/
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Work starts on wall near Calais 'Jungle' migrant camp

Work starts on wall near Calais 'Jungle' migrant camp

AFP / Philippe HuguenWorkers dig the foundations of a wall near the "Jungle" migrant camp in Calais, northern France, on September 20, 2016

Building work began Tuesday on a wall in the northern French city of Calais to clamp down on repeated attempts by migrants to stow away on trucks heading for Britain.

The British-funded wall, one kilometre (half a mile) long and four metres (13 feet) high, will pass within a few hundred metres of the sprawling migrant camp known as the "Jungle", which charities say now houses more than 10,000 people.

The concrete wall will extend the wire fences that already run down each side of the main road leading to the city's port.

It has been widely criticised by rights groups, and by local residents who say it will fail to stop migrants from trying to board trucks.

Britain is paying the 2.7 million euro ($3 million) cost of the wall, which local authorities in Calais say will be completed by the end of the year.

AFP / Sabrina BlanchardAn anti-migrant wall for Calais

The Jungle camp has become a sore point in relations between France and Britain, the main destination for most of the migrants who gather there.

Migrants from the camp sometimes use tree branches to create roadblocks to slow trucks heading for Britain.

When the trucks slow down, migrants try to clamber into the trailers to stow away as the vehicles head to Britain through the Channel Tunnel or on ferries.

Just last week, a 14-year-old Afghan boy was killed by a car in Calais as he tried to get onto a truck.

- 'Money down the drain' -

AFP / Philippe HuguenWorkers pour concrete to build the 4-metre high wall in Calais which will stretch for one kilometre on September 20, 2016

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said this month the Jungle would be closed down "as quickly as possible" but said it would be done in stages.

Calais residents want the government to set a date for the entire camp to be razed.

Local authorities say the wall is also designed to dissuade people traffickers from operating around the Jungle.

It will be made of concrete panels that can be removed when no longer needed.

"This wall is going to prevent migrants from getting onto the road every night. They put tree trunks, branches, gas cylinders" in the road to stop the trucks, Calais port chief executive Jean-Marc Puissesseau said earlier this month.

AFP / Philippe HuguenThe population of the 'Jungle' migrant camp has swelled by more than 1,000 people since August

"We can no longer continue to put up with these repeated assaults," he said.

But critics of the wall have compared it to those erected by central European countries to block the entry of migrants from southern Europe.

Others say it is pointless.

Francois Guennoc, vice president of the L'Auberge des Migrants charity which works with Jungle residents, said to be effective the wall would have to stretch for dozens of kilometres. It was "money down the drain", he told AFP.

The Jungle's population has increased by more than 1,000 since August to more than 10,000, charities said Monday.

The figures are disputed by French authorities, who according to the last official count on August 19 put the number of migrants at 6,900.

Migrants from Sudan make up the largest group at 43 percent, according to L'Auberge des Migrants and the British non-governmental organisation Help Refugees, while 33 percent are from Afghanistan.

Around nine percent are Eritreans and seven percent are Pakistanis.

The charities also noted an alarming rise in the number of minors in the camp with 1,179 now living there, and they noted that most were unaccompanied. The youngest was just eight years old.

20SEP2016

US clings to hope of truce as Syria sinks into chaos

AFP / Omar haj kadourThe UN said at 18 trucks in the 31-vehicle humanitarian aid convoy were destroyed en route to Orum al-Kubra, on the western outskirts of Aleppo, on September 20, 2016

As Syria plunged back into bloodshed and the UN suspended humanitarian aid convoys Tuesday, world powers struggled to convince themselves that a ceasefire can be salvaged.

US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that US-Russian attempts to broker a truce in the civil war are "not dead" and promised international talks will resume this week.

President Barack Obama backed his top diplomat, saying a short time later that there was "no ultimate military victory to be won" and calling on nations to pursue the "hard work" of diplomacy.

But Kerry's terse declaration, after a brief meeting in New York of the International Syria Support Group, could not conceal a pessimistic mood among his fellow foreign ministers.

AFP /More than 300,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011

Kerry arrived for the ISSG meeting with his Russian opposite number and constant sparring partner Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, co-chair of the 23-nation group.

Relations between the nominal partners were already at a low ebb after a mistaken US-led coalition air strike on Saturday killed dozens of Syrian soldiers.

Then, on Monday, the negotiations appeared doomed after the Syrian army declared an end to the US-Russian brokered ceasefire and a UN aid convoy was hit in an air strike.

But Kerry nevertheless took the opportunity of the ISSG members being gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly to convene crisis talks.

AFP / Omar haj kadourThe convoy was delivering food and non-food aid for some 78,000 people trapped in Aleppo, according to the UN

The mood was grim and the brief meeting inconclusive, but it allowed Kerry and UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura a chance to insist that the process has not collapsed.

The talks lasted less than an hour and participants said the mood was tense but serious.

Kerry's spokesman John Kirby said the ministers "agreed that, despite continued violence, there was still an imperative to pursue a nationwide cessation of hostilities based on the arrangement reached last week in Geneva between the United States and Russia.

"Quite frankly, the Kerry-Lavrov process is the only show in town and we've got to get that show back on the road," Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said.

AFP / Omar haj kadourHumanitarian aid is strewn across the floor in the town of Orum al-Kubra, after a convoy delivering aid was hit by a deadly air strike on September 19, 2016

His French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault warned that trust was breaking down in the US-Russian partnership and said other countries should help push the process forward.

"It was a fairly dramatic meeting, the mood was gloomy. Is there hope? I can't answer that yet, but we should do everything we can," he told reporters.

"The US-Russian negotiation has reached its limit. There's a lot left unsaid. The Russians and the Americans can't do it alone."

- 'Savage attack' -

Officials said participants had agreed to reconvene -- probably on Friday -- but analysts warned that more failures would not come without political costs.

Without a ceasefire, attempts to deliver aid to starving civilians or to broker a political dialogue will fail.

AFP / Abd DoumanyAid deliveries to desperate Syrian civilians were a key element of the US-Russia deal

"A failed ceasefire means that the other two prongs of the approach are doomed," Emile Hokayem from the International Institute for Strategic Studies told AFP.

US officials have demanded that Russia take responsibility for what they said was an air strike on a UN aid convoy near the northern city of Aleppo by either Russian or allied Syrian warplanes.

The Russian defense ministry has denied any role in the attack, attempting to point the figure at rebels against Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime.

A short distance across Manhattan at the UN meeting, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon denounced the "sickening, savage and apparently deliberate attack" that left around 20 dead.

Pool/AFP / Kevin HagenUS Secretary of State John Kerry (left) speaks with UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura during talks in New York, on September 20, 2016

And Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed that it had poisoned the mood at the ISSG, where delegates were "heavy with indignation."

"All were clearly aware of the fact that we find ourselves once more at a threshold for Syria," he said.

"There's only one viable path for Syria and that is to always make a new effort to reduce violence. In order to achieve this, also the regional powers have to do more."

- Fighting rages -

Meanwhile, air raids and shelling continued on frontlines around Syria, where more than 300,000 have died since Assad began efforts to suppress a popular revolt.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 barrel bombs -- crude explosives packed with scraps of metal -- were dropped on Aleppo on Tuesday.

Monday's strike on the aid convoy provoked outrage from UN officials, with aid chief Stephen O'Brien warning that if deliberate, "it would amount to a war crime".

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Monday night's raid destroyed at least 18 of 31 vehicles and a Red Crescent warehouse.

"Much of the aid was destroyed," the IFRC said, stressing that "the attack deprives thousands of civilians of much-needed food and medical assistance."

- 'Barrel bombs' -

Omar Barakat, who headed the local Red Crescent branch, was wounded in the strike and later died, IFRC spokesman Benoit Carpentier told reporters in Geneva.

The strike came just hours after the Syrian army announced the end of the truce Monday, accusing rebels of failing to "commit to a single element" of the US-Russia deal.

Aleppo residents spent the night huddled in their apartments sharing news via text messages and heard loud intermittent booms early Tuesday.

The ceasefire was already under strain after a US-led coalition strike on Saturday hit a Syrian army post near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

Washington says coalition forces were targeting the jihadist Islamic State group, which is not party to the ceasefire and hit the soldiers, by mistake.

20SEP2016

Breakingviews Scarce bonds and bank pain limits Bank Of Japan next move

By Quentin Webb

(The author is as   columnist. )

Quentin Webb is an Associate Editor at Reuters Breakingviews. He covers mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and private equity in Asia. He joined the Hong Kong bureau in May 2015 after four years in London. Before becoming a columnist, he was a news reporter for Reuters, where his last role was as European M&A correspondent. He has also worked as a correspondent in Brussels and as a credit-markets reporter. Follow Quentin on Twitter @qtwebb

Bond scarcity and bank pain will inform the Bank of Japan’s next move in its battle to revive inflation. While a hot and humid Tokyo emptied out for the summer, BOJ technocrats spent the last few weeks slaving over an in-depth policy review. This will form the crux of the central bank’s board meeting on Sept. 20 to 21.

The results of this “comprehensive assessment” matter because BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has pioneered the use of bold tools to fight deflation and stoke growth in what remains, despite years of stagnation, the world’s third-largest economy. Huge bond-buying has swelled the central bank’s balance sheet above 450 trillion yen ($4.4 trillion) – equivalent to nearly a full year of Japanese GDP. The BOJ also spends 6 trillion yen a year on stocks – it already owns 3 percent of the Japanese equity market. This year it also introduced negative interest rates.

Partly due to these policies, Japan now enjoys effectively full employment, wages are rising, and prices are no longer falling. But the bank’s main goal of 2 percent annual inflation, coupled with self-reinforcing expectations of future price rises, remains elusive. The malaise contrasts with the United States. There, a stronger recovery means the Federal Reserve could soon raise rates for the second time in a year, moving monetary policy a bit closer to normal levels.

The Tokyo gathering will not force a drastic rethink. One ex-policymaker recently suggested the BOJ focus first on an easier goal of 1 percent inflation. But that is off-limits: Kuroda and Deputy Governor Hiroshi Nasako both stressed in recent speeches that the 2 percent target is here to stay. The time frame may be changing, however: after missing a 2-year deadline repeatedly, both BOJ leaders simply stressed a desire to hit the goal as soon as possible.

More broadly, the overall three-pronged strategy of quantity (massive bond buying), quality (buying equity funds) and negative interest rates also looks secure: the central bank thinks this has made a big contribution to Japan’s economic turnaround under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Ample space

Nonetheless, the BOJ cannot keep buying 80 trillion yen ($775 billion) a year of government bonds indefinitely. It already owns about 40 percent of the market, according to Deutsche Bank. That has smothered liquidity and it could soon start running short of supply. But nor does the BOJ want spark a destabilising spike in bond yields by suggesting it will soon start to “taper” bond-buying.

One suggestion is that it ease away from its specific target of expanding Japan’s “monetary base” by introducing a wider range – perhaps 70 to 90 trillion yen. It might also buy some time by adding different securities to its basket, such as Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP) bonds, a form of off-balance sheet government debt.

The risk of the current policy running out of steam is one reason Reuters says the BOJ is now leaning towards emphasising negative interest rates. That may seem odd because its decision in January to introduce a 0.1 percent negative rate on a sliver of deposits that lenders keep with the central bank has proved controversial and in some ways counterproductive.

In his Sept. 5 speech, however, Kuroda insisted there was “still ample space for further cuts in the negative interest rate.” The bank thinks negative rates have made borrowing cheaper and spurred lending, though Kuroda now acknowledges that the policy hurts bank profitability and plays havoc with insurers and pension funds. Japan’s financial watchdog reportedly thinks negative rates could lop 300 billion yen off profits at Japan’s three “megabanks” this year.

So any descent further into negativity might have to be balanced with concessions to the financial industry. One option is to scale back buying of long-term bonds, thereby allowing yields to rise. This would enable banks to exploit the difference between short- and long-term borrowing costs, improving their profitability. In recent weeks the yield curve has already steepened somewhat, perhaps anticipating such a move. Other targeted measures could include offering banks more funding for lending.

Timing matters, too. The BOJ can’t ignore external market ructions – including those created by its policies. The shock of negative rates, for example, unhelpfully whacked stocks and ended up strengthening the yen.

That’s why Kuroda and his colleagues must keep an eye on the Fed, whose meeting concludes just after the BOJ’s. A U.S. rate rise would lift the dollar and weaken the yen, aiding Japan’s exporters and importing inflation. But a dovish Fed could cause unwelcome yen strength. So the BOJ might prefer to lay out its the findings and wait until October, when it will have a clearer idea of what’s going on elsewhere, before acting.

Kuroda insists that “new ideas should not be off the table”, and that there is no limit to monetary policy, only different trade-offs between costs and benefits. But then he also believes that explicitly printing money to finance spending – so-called “helicopter money” – cannot be done in Japan. In reality, it seems like there is not much else left in the BOJ toolkit.

Phantom voters, smuggled ballots hint at foul 

Voters across Russia handed a sweeping victory to President Vladimir Putin's allies in a parliamentary election on Sunday. But in two regions Reuters reporters saw inflated turnout figures, ballot-stuffing and people voting more than once at three polling stations.

In the Bashkortostan region's capital Ufa, in the foothills of the Urals, Reuters reporters counted 799 voters casting ballots at polling station number 284. When officials tallied the vote later in the day, they said the turnout was 1,689.

At polling station 591 in the Mordovia regional capital of Saransk, about 650 km south-east of Moscow, reporters counted 1,172 voters but officials recorded a turnout of 1,756.

A Reuters reporter obtained a temporary registration to vote at that station, and cast a ballot for a party other than the pro-Putin United Russia. During the count, officials recorded that not a single vote had been cast for that party.

Election officials at the stations denied there were violations or count irregularities.

It is unlikely that any irregularities at these polling stations would have been on a scale that could have affected the result.

The incidents are only a narrow snapshot of what was happening across Russia's 11 time zones and thousands of polling stations on an election day that was a test of whether support for Putin and his allies had held up despite a recession and Western sanctions. Reuters was unable to assess independently if such practices were widespread.

Reuters sent reporters to a random sample of 11 polling stations across central and western Russia on polling day, including in and around Moscow.

At three of them, there were large discrepancies between the number of voters Reuters reporters counted, and the number that officials recorded. At four of the other eight, there were also some irregularities, including smaller discrepancies in the voter tallies and people saying they had been paid or pressured to vote.

Ella Pamfilova, chairwoman of Russia's Central Election Commission, told news briefings that the vote had been more transparent than the previous election, citing the use of live webcams in some polling stations.

She said the webcams had shown some cases of vote-rigging, and that they would be investigated. But she said no one had brought the commission concrete evidence of large-scale fraud.

After the last parliamentary election in 2011, which was also won comfortably by the pro-Putin United Russia party, allegations from opposition activists of widespread electoral fraud prompted large protests in the capital Moscow.

The Central Election Commission did not respond when asked by Reuters to comment on the incidents seen by reporters. Requests for comment sent to the regional election commissions for Bashkortostan and Mordovia also received no replies.

Sunday's election was "far from anything that could be called free and fair", Golos, a non-governmental organization that monitors Russian elections, said in a statement. "The results ... of the monitoring show the practice of using illegal techniques continues."

It said its conclusions were based on information collected by observers it posted to polling stations in 40 out of more than 80 Russian regions. It said violations reported by the observers included ballot-stuffing and people voting more than once.

VOTING TWICE

Putin, a leader many Russians credit with standing up to the West and restoring national pride, cemented his supremacy over the country's political system when the ruling United Russia party took three-quarters of the seats in parliament, paving the way for him to run for a fourth term as president. [nL8N1BV1GB]

Latest official results from the election put the party he founded 16 years ago on 54.2 percent of the vote, with the closest runners-up far behind. Turnout was 47 percent, much lower than the last parliamentary vote.

Election officials collate two sets of turnout figures – one that includes only people who showed up at a polling station in person to vote, and a second, larger figure, that also includes votes cast at home by disabled voters. In order to make a direct comparison, Reuters compared its own count of voters with the first official figure, for people who voted in person.

On polling day, Reuters reporters operated in teams, with at least one person staying inside each station from the start of voting until the end of the count.

In Mordovia's capital Saransk, a man dressed in a sports jacket and dark blue trousers came into polling station 591 to cast his vote, then came back again 20 minutes later and was seen once again putting his vote into the ballot box.

Asked why he came back a second time, he had no clear explanation, saying only that his wife had his keys so he could not get into his home.

Election officials at the polling station declined to explain why people were allowed to vote twice.

A woman with dyed orange hair, and a blonde man with a beard, turned up together at polling station number 424 in the village of Atemar in Mordovia, and a Reuters reporter saw each of them vote.

An hour later, they were back, and joined the queue to vote again. Asked to explain why, the woman said she was accompanying her husband who had not voted. Election officials issued the husband with another ballot paper before telling the reporter to move away from the ballot boxes.

In Atemar, reporters counted 669 voters at polling station number 424 while officials counted 1,261.

The station's chief election official, Svetlana Baulina, brought in about 10 ballot papers wrapped up in a red raincoat, and mixed them up with other ballots being counted on a table.

Baulina declined to comment when asked why she had carried in ballots in a coat.

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'NO VIOLATIONS'

At all three locations where Reuters found large discrepancies in turnout figures, United Russia was the overwhelming winner in the official count.

In Saransk, when asked about the gap between the turnout counted by Reuters reporters and the official figure at station 591, local election chief Irina Fedoseyeva said: "You're also human, you can make mistakes too."

When asked about why the reporter's vote for a party other than United Russia did not register in the official count, she said the reporter could recount the vote himself if he didn't believe the result.

"If this is how things have turned out, then that's how it's turned out," she said.

Election official Baulina at Atemar's polling station 424 said of the discrepancy there: "We don't know how you counted. Might the button (of a count clicker) get stuck?"

At station number 284 in Bashkortostan's Ufa, election chief Fairuza Akhmetziyanova said: "We had no violations."

Officials at polling station number 285 in Bashkortostan refused to let a Reuters reporter in, citing the need to obtain permission from local authorities. There is no such requirement for international media under Russian election rules.

During the count at polling station number 591 in Saransk, election officials drew a line on the floor in chalk and told a Reuters reporter not to cross it.

In the Bashkortostan village of Knyazevo, officials at polling station 62 ruled that the Reuters reporter should be removed after concerns were raised with them about the reporter's mechanical counter by a voter identified as A.Z. Minsafin in a document drafted by the officials.

That voter said the reporter was making "strange manipulations" with an object which "could testify to the presence of an object of radioactive nature, which is a threat to health and life", according to the document.

The ruling to remove the reporter was not enforced.

(Reporting by Svetlana Burmistrova in Bashkortostan, Vladimir Soldatkin and Alexander Winning in Mordovia, Andrei Kuzmin, Kira Zavyalova, Denis Pinchuk in Velikiye Luki, Anton Zverev, Darya Korsunskaya and Anastasiya Lyrchikova in Aleksin, Zlata Garasyuta, Anastasia Teterevleva, Natalya Shurmina and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe; Editing by Pravin Char)

Wells Fargo CEO apologizes for 'unethical' bogus accounts

The chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) on Tuesday apologized for the bank's years-long practice of opening as many as 2 million bogus customer accounts that generated fees for the lender.

"I accept full responsibility for all unethical sales practices," CEO John Stumpf told a congressional panel.

Stumpf said later, "I apologize to all of the American people and our customers and I will make it right."

The bank's board of directors is examining what action it should take against company executives, Stumpf told the Senate Banking Committee.

Earlier this month, the lender agreed to pay $190 million in penalties and customer payouts to settle a case in which bank employees created credit, savings and other accounts without customer knowledge.

Of the $190 million in the settlement, only $5 million will go directly to compensate customers, many of whom might have only paid a small fee on unwanted accounts.

But lawmakers said phony bank accounts might have hurt customer credit ratings, potentially increasing the cost of a mortgage or car loan. New credit card applications and consumer borrowing trends can weight on an individual's credit report.

Thomas Curry, the Comptroller of the Currency, said in prepared testimony that his agency is considering action against individual Wells Fargo executives.

"The OCC may take formal enforcement actions against institution-affiliated parties, including directors, officers, and employees, who violate any law or regulation, engage in unsafe or unsound practices, or breach fiduciary duty," Curry told a hearing of the senate committee.

Sherrod Brown, the senior Democrat on the senate panel, blasted Wells Fargo for exploiting customers and the bank’s slow response to control the abuse.

"I was stunned when I learned about the breadth and duration of this fraud," the Ohio lawmaker said in his opening remarks.

Wells Fargo has acknowledged bank employees abused customers over five years and about 5,000 employees were fired in that time.

Former bank employees have said they were under intense pressure to add accounts for each bank customer.

Abuses were found as early as 2011, Stumpf said, but bank executives only realized the scale of the problem early last year.

At that time, Stumpf said, bank executives came to recognize a pattern of creating phony accounts could be used to boost unwarranted fees.

“It never dawned on us that there could be a cycle,” the CEO said.

By early 2015, thousands of bank employees had been fired, the Los Angeles Times newspaper had reported the abuses and prosecutors were investigating.

“It just sort of begs the issue of where was management,” Brown said.

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Brown pressed Stumpf to pledge to go back prior to 2009 in his review. Stumpf said he would "take it under advisement."

Brown said employees were caught "forging signatures, and stealing identities, Social Security numbers, and customers’ hard-earned cash, so as to hang on to their low-paying jobs and make money for the high-paying executives at Wells Fargo."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in a letter to bank customers released on Tuesday, said Stumpf "owes all of you a clear explanation as to how this happened under his watch."

Clinton, who was criticized during the Democratic primaries for representing Wall Street interests, laid out a plan to address what she called "the culture of misconduct and recklessness" in the banking system.

It included "clawing back" the compensation of individual executives involved in wrongdoing and breaking up big banks that are not managed effectively.

Officials from the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump did not immediately reply to requests for comment on the Wells Fargo matter.

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker in Washington and Dan Freed in New York; Writing by Nick Zieminski; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Pak can't be cowed down by Indian threats: Minister

From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Sep 20 (PTI) Pakistan will not succumb to the threats by India and would continue to support Kashmiris' struggle for self-determination, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan said today.

"Kashmiris' legitimate and just struggle for self-determination cannot be suppressed by state repression," Khan told Prime Minister of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) Raja Mohammad Farooq Haider Khan who called on him here.

According an official statement, the two leaders held detailed discussion on the alleged oppression of innocent Kashmiris by India and the continuing human rights abuses.

"Pakistan will not succumb to threats by India and will not shy away from providing political, diplomatic and moral support to the people of occupied Kashmir," he said.

He said that the violation of human rights in Kashmir and rejection by India of the UN resolution was a challenge not only for the UN but also for other countries which are considered as champions of democratic values.

He said the Indian attitude of hurling baseless allegation at Pakistan and its avoidance to hold meaningful talks with Pakistan are the main hurdle for peace in the region.

In one of the deadliest attacks on the Indian Army in recent years, 18 soldiers were killed and as many others injured as heavily armed militants stormed a battalion headquarters of the force in Kashmir's Uri town early Sunday.

Four militants involved in the terror strike were killed by the Indian Army.

India's DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh has said all the four killed militants were foreign terrorists and had carried with them items which had Pakistani markings and that initial reports indicated that they belonged to Pakistan-based Jaish-E-Mohammed terrorist group.

"We reserve the right to respond to any act of the adversary at the time and place of our own choosing," Lt Gen Singh had said.