BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Syria rejected on Monday a request by Arab League foreign ministers that President Bashar al-Assad hand over power to a deputy and set up a new unity government, saying the plan was part of a "conspiracy against Syria."
"Syria rejects the decisions of the Arab League ministerial council ... and considers them a violation of its national sovereignty and a flagrant interference in its internal affairs," state news agency SANA quoted an official source as saying.
The statement did not mention the ministers' decision to extend the mission of Arab League observers, who have faced criticism over their failure to stem the bloodshed in Syria since they first deployed last month.
Arab foreign ministers called on Assad on Sunday to hand over to a deputy and set up a new unity government, as a prelude to early parliamentary and presidential elections.
Assad has faced more than 10 months of protests against his rule and a growing armed rebellion. The United Nations says 5,000 people have been killed in the security crackdown. The authorities say they are fighting foreign-backed armed "terrorists" who have killed 2,000 soldiers and police.
"Syria condemns this decision which is part of the conspiracy against Syria," the official source said, saying that instead of cutting off the flow of money and weapons to "terrorist groups" in Syria, the ministers were issuing "inflammatory statements."
The source criticized the Arab League for ignoring reforms which Assad has promised, including a referendum on a new constitution, and which were lacking "in many of the Arab states leading the hostile campaign against Syria."
(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
In this Dec. 19, 2012 file photo, Jeffrey Lacker, President, Richmond Federal Reserve, speaks during the Charlotte Chamber's Economic Outlook Conference in Charlotte, N.C. As the Fed's policy committee meets for the first time this year, its roster of voting members is rotating slightly, as it does each year. And its new makeup suggests fewer members would oppose further steps to boost the economy. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)
In this Dec. 19, 2012 file photo, Jeffrey Lacker, President, Richmond Federal Reserve, speaks during the Charlotte Chamber's Economic Outlook Conference in Charlotte, N.C. As the Fed's policy committee meets for the first time this year, its roster of voting members is rotating slightly, as it does each year. And its new makeup suggests fewer members would oppose further steps to boost the economy. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2007 file photo, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart speaks at an Atlanta Press Club luncheon, in Atlanta, Ga. As the Fed's policy committee meets for the first time in 2012, its roster of voting members is rotating slightly, as it does each year. And its new makeup suggests fewer members would oppose further steps to boost the economy.(AP Photo/Gene Blythe, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? If Chairman Ben Bernanke decides the economy needs more help from the Federal Reserve this year, he probably won't face as much resistance as he did last year.
Call it the changing of the guard.
As the Fed's policy committee meets for the first time this year, its roster of voting members is rotating slightly, as it does each year. And its new makeup suggests fewer members would oppose further steps to boost the economy.
Twice last year, Fed action to try to further lower long-term interest rates drew three dissenting votes out of 10. It was the most dissents in nearly 20 years. The "no" votes came from three regional Fed bank presidents who worried that additional moves to try to reduce long-term rates could fan inflation.
A fourth regional bank president twice dissented last year for the opposite reason: He wanted to go further to help the economy.
All four dissenters have lost their votes on the Fed's policymaking committee.
Replacing them are: Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Richmond regional Fed bank; John Williams of the San Francisco Fed; Sandra Pianalto of the Cleveland Fed; and Dennis Lockhart of the Atlanta Fed.
Should Bernanke push a new bond-buying program, only Lacker is seen as a probable dissent.
Lacker is viewed as the most "hawkish" of the new voting members, Williams the most "dovish." Hawks tend to be most concerned that super-low interest rates could ignite inflation. Doves put a higher priority on boosting the economy and reducing unemployment.
Pianalto and Lockhart are seen as centrists unlikely to break from the majority view.
In the past, the Fed has bought bonds to try to drive down long-term interest rates, encourage borrowing and spending and lift stock prices. The goal is to increase economic growth and hiring.
In December, Lacker told reporters he was "hard-pressed to see the rationale" for any further Fed efforts to increase growth.
Yet overall within the Fed this year, "I think there will be a little less militancy and a little more willingness to move forward with the chairman," predicts Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial.
That said, few economists expect the Fed to pursue more bond purchases soon, unless a European recession were to shrink U.S. economic growth and threaten the gains the economy has made in recent months.
"Bernanke will have the votes to pursue an easier credit policy if he needs to do so, but I just don't think the Fed will go further unless Europe goes bad," said David Wyss, former chief economist at Standard & Poor's. "Things in the U.S. economy are beginning to look better ? not great, but better."
Bernanke already starts the year with a base of support within the Fed. The policy committee normally comprises 12 voting members:
? Seven Fed governors in Washington.
? The president of the New York Fed.
? Four of the 11 other regional bank presidents, who serve one-year rotating terms. This group is where dissents typically come from.
The seven governors, including the chairman, always have a vote. So does the New York Fed's president. All these members traditionally back the chairman.
On the Fed's board, two of the seven seats are vacant, even though President Barack Obama has nominated replacements for them: Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economics professor who is a Democrat, and Jerome Powell, a Treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration who is a Republican.
Twinning a Democrat and a Republican was an Obama effort to win Senate confirmation for both. But Senate Republicans have threatened to hold up those nominations because of Obama's use of a recess appointment to install Richard Cordray as the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Even if the board seats remain vacant, Bernanke will continue to command unanimous support on the board.
No announcements of further action to try to lift the economy through bond purchases are expected when the Fed's meeting ends Wednesday. Most analysts think Fed members want to put off such a step to see if the economy can extend the gains it's made in recent months.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said he thinks further bond buying is likely this year only if Europe's financial crisis destabilized U.S. financial markets and threatened the U.S. economy.
"Further bond buying will depend on two things: that the economy continues to struggle and that concerns about deflation rise," Zandi said.
Deflation is a prolonged drop in wages, prices and the value of assets like stocks and houses. The country last suffered serious deflation during the 1930s.
Zandi said he felt more bond buying isn't probable this year because he is forecasting the economy will perform better.
"My outlook is for an economy that is still soft but not struggling," Zandi said.
Hiring has picked up. Factories are busier. Gasoline prices are well off their highs. The depressed housing industry appears a little healthier. And stocks have reached their highest point since summer.
The stronger job growth has raised hopes more jobs will soon accelerate income and spending. The result could be what economists call a "virtuous cycle," in which businesses respond to growing demand by hiring even more.
Should that happen, the Fed might decide that further steps to energize the economy aren't necessary.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? The European Union agreed Monday to suspend visa bans on the president of Myanmar and other senior officials, following reforms that have included the release of hundreds of political prisoners.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels hailed a "remarkable program of political reform" in Myanmar and the government's commitment to economic and social development.
They said that in response, the EU would suspend visa bans on Myanmar's president, Thein Sein, the country's vice-presidents, cabinet members and parliamentary speakers.
In a statement, the ministers also pledged to promote reform by increasing assistance to reduce poverty and for professional training and by strengthening dialogue with the government. They also called for "progressive engagement" by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Further reforms, including the release of remaining political prisoners, the holding of free and fair by-elections in April and progress in resolving ethnic conflicts could lead to more sanctions being eased by the end of April, they said.
"These changes are opening up important new prospects for developing the relationship between the European Union and Burma/Myanmar," the statement said of Myanmar's reforms.
EU sanctions were imposed after bloody military crackdowns on a pro-democracy movement led by Nobel Prize-winning dissident Aung San Suu Kyi.
They target nearly a thousand firms and institutions with asset freezes and visa bans have affected almost 500 people. The sanctions also include an arms embargo, a prohibition on technical assistance related to the military and investment bans in the mining, timber and precious metals sectors.
"QUITE EXTRAORDINARY CHANGES"
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said "quite extraordinary changes" had taken place in Myanmar in the last weeks and months and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was important to recognize the progress made.
Ashton said she aimed to visit the country soon -- probably after the April ballot.
"Colleagues who have already been there have experienced a real sense of transition in that country," she said. "We are working closely with Aung San Suu Kyi and I will visit Burma in coordination with her -- we've done this entirely with her."
She said the aim of the visit would be to offer "full support in what we hope will be a very successful transition."
The reforms in Myanmar have followed a March election that saw a new government take over from a military junta and have included loosening media restrictions and other repressive laws, peace talks with ethnic insurgents and the freeing of hundreds of political prisoners.
Ashton sent her top foreign policy adviser to Myanmar last year, and the EU, in a move to encourage reform, slightly eased sanctions last April by suspending travel bans and asset freezes on 24 civilian government officials.
Earlier this month, the European Union said it would open a representative office in Myanmar to manage aid programs and promote political dialogue.
Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner who was freed in 2010, has reversed her stance on boycotting Myanmar's army-dominated political system following the reforms and has agreed to stand in the April polls.
The lifting of sanctions could lead to Western investment in oil, gas and other sectors to compete with Myanmar's neighbors, especially India, Thailand and China.
The United States has decided to upgrade diplomatic ties with Myanmar as a result of its reforms and is considering lifting its sanctions if the by elections are fair and open.
As big as France and Britain combined, Myanmar lies between India, China and Southeast Asia with ports on the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea, all of which make it an energy security asset for Beijing's landlocked western provinces and a U.S. priority as Obama strengthens engagement with Asia.
Its resources include natural gas, timber and precious gems. Myanmar is building a multibillion-dollar port through which oil can reach a 790-km (490-mile) pipeline under construction with Chinese money and workers.
Dog skull dates back 33,000 yearsPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Daniel Stolte stolte@email.arizona.edu 520-626-4402 University of Arizona
A dog skull unearthed in a Siberian cave presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and suggests modern dogs may be descended from multiple ancestors
If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something.
An ancient dog skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and, together with equally ancient dog remains from a cave in Belgium, indicates that domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event.
In other words, man's best friends may have originated from more than one ancient ancestor, contrary to what some DNA evidence previously has indicated.
"Both the Belgian find and the Siberian find are domesticated species based on morphological characteristics," said Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and co-author of the study that reports the find.
"Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth."
The Altai Mountain skull is extraordinarily well preserved, said Hodgins, enabling scientists to make multiple measurements of the skull, teeth and mandibles that might not be possible on less well-preserved remains. "The argument that it is domesticated is pretty solid," said Hodgins. "What's interesting is that it doesn't appear to be an ancestor of modern dogs."
The UA's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the Siberian skull.
Radioactive carbon, or carbon-14, is one of three carbon isotopes. Along with naturally occurring carbon dioxide, carbon-14 reaches the surface of the Earth by atmospheric circulation, where plants absorb it into their tissues through photosynthesis.
Animals and humans take in carbon-14 by ingesting plants or other animals that have eaten plants. "Carbon-14 makes it into all organic molecules," said Hodgins. "It's in all living things."
"We believe that carbon-14 production is essentially constant over time," said Hodgins. "So the amount of carbon-14 present in living organisms in the past was similar to the levels in living organisms today. When an animal or plant dies, the amount of carbon-14 in its remains drops at a predictable rate, called the radioactive half-life. The half-life of radiocarbon is 5,730 years."
"People from all over the world send our laboratory samples of organic material that they have dug out of the ground and we measure how much carbon-14 is left in them. Based on that measurement, and knowing the radiocarbon half-life, we calculate how much time must have passed since the samples had the same amount of carbon-14 as plants and animals living today."
The researchers use a machine called an accelerator mass spectrometer to measure the amount of radioactive carbon remaining in a sample. The machine works in a manner analogous to what happens when a beam of white light passes through a prism: White light separates into the colors of the rainbow.
The accelerator mass spectrometer generates a beam of carbon from the sample and passes it through a powerful magnet, which functions like a prism. "What emerges from it are three beams, one each of the three carbon isotopes," said Hodgins. "The lightest carbon beam, carbon-12, bends the most, and then carbon-13 bends slightly less and carbon-14 bends slightly less than that."
The relative intensities of the three beams represent the sample's carbon mass spectrum. Researchers compare the mass spectrum of an unknown sample to the mass spectra of known-age controls and from this comparison, calculate the sample's radiocarbon age.
At 33,000 years old, the Siberian skull predates a period known as the Last Glacial Maximum, or LGM, which occurred between about 26,000 and 19,000 years ago when the ice sheets of Earth's last ice age reached their greatest extent and severely disrupted the living patterns of humans and animals alive during that time. Neither the Belgian nor the Siberian domesticated lineages appear to have survived the LGM.
However, the two skulls indicate that the domestication of dogs by humans occurred repeatedly throughout early human history at different geographical locations, which could mean that modern dogs have multiple ancestors rather than a single common ancestor.
"In terms of human history, before the last glacial maximum people were living with wolves or canid species in widely separated geographical areas of Euro-Asia, and had been living with them long enough that they were actually changing evolutionarily," said Hodgins. "And then climate change happened, human habitation patterns changed and those relationships with those particular lineages of animals apparently didn't survive."
"The interesting thing is that typically we think of domestication as being cows, sheep and goats, things that produce food through meat or secondary agricultural products such as milk, cheese and wool and things like that," said Hodgins.
"Those are different relationships than humans may have with dogs. The dogs are not necessarily providing products or meat. They are probably providing protection, companionship and perhaps helping on the hunt. And it's really interesting that this appears to have happened first out of all human relationships with animals."
###
Reference:
A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum, PLoS One
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Dog skull dates back 33,000 yearsPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Daniel Stolte stolte@email.arizona.edu 520-626-4402 University of Arizona
A dog skull unearthed in a Siberian cave presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and suggests modern dogs may be descended from multiple ancestors
If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something.
An ancient dog skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and, together with equally ancient dog remains from a cave in Belgium, indicates that domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event.
In other words, man's best friends may have originated from more than one ancient ancestor, contrary to what some DNA evidence previously has indicated.
"Both the Belgian find and the Siberian find are domesticated species based on morphological characteristics," said Greg Hodgins, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and co-author of the study that reports the find.
"Essentially, wolves have long thin snouts and their teeth are not crowded, and domestication results in this shortening of the snout and widening of the jaws and crowding of the teeth."
The Altai Mountain skull is extraordinarily well preserved, said Hodgins, enabling scientists to make multiple measurements of the skull, teeth and mandibles that might not be possible on less well-preserved remains. "The argument that it is domesticated is pretty solid," said Hodgins. "What's interesting is that it doesn't appear to be an ancestor of modern dogs."
The UA's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory used radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the Siberian skull.
Radioactive carbon, or carbon-14, is one of three carbon isotopes. Along with naturally occurring carbon dioxide, carbon-14 reaches the surface of the Earth by atmospheric circulation, where plants absorb it into their tissues through photosynthesis.
Animals and humans take in carbon-14 by ingesting plants or other animals that have eaten plants. "Carbon-14 makes it into all organic molecules," said Hodgins. "It's in all living things."
"We believe that carbon-14 production is essentially constant over time," said Hodgins. "So the amount of carbon-14 present in living organisms in the past was similar to the levels in living organisms today. When an animal or plant dies, the amount of carbon-14 in its remains drops at a predictable rate, called the radioactive half-life. The half-life of radiocarbon is 5,730 years."
"People from all over the world send our laboratory samples of organic material that they have dug out of the ground and we measure how much carbon-14 is left in them. Based on that measurement, and knowing the radiocarbon half-life, we calculate how much time must have passed since the samples had the same amount of carbon-14 as plants and animals living today."
The researchers use a machine called an accelerator mass spectrometer to measure the amount of radioactive carbon remaining in a sample. The machine works in a manner analogous to what happens when a beam of white light passes through a prism: White light separates into the colors of the rainbow.
The accelerator mass spectrometer generates a beam of carbon from the sample and passes it through a powerful magnet, which functions like a prism. "What emerges from it are three beams, one each of the three carbon isotopes," said Hodgins. "The lightest carbon beam, carbon-12, bends the most, and then carbon-13 bends slightly less and carbon-14 bends slightly less than that."
The relative intensities of the three beams represent the sample's carbon mass spectrum. Researchers compare the mass spectrum of an unknown sample to the mass spectra of known-age controls and from this comparison, calculate the sample's radiocarbon age.
At 33,000 years old, the Siberian skull predates a period known as the Last Glacial Maximum, or LGM, which occurred between about 26,000 and 19,000 years ago when the ice sheets of Earth's last ice age reached their greatest extent and severely disrupted the living patterns of humans and animals alive during that time. Neither the Belgian nor the Siberian domesticated lineages appear to have survived the LGM.
However, the two skulls indicate that the domestication of dogs by humans occurred repeatedly throughout early human history at different geographical locations, which could mean that modern dogs have multiple ancestors rather than a single common ancestor.
"In terms of human history, before the last glacial maximum people were living with wolves or canid species in widely separated geographical areas of Euro-Asia, and had been living with them long enough that they were actually changing evolutionarily," said Hodgins. "And then climate change happened, human habitation patterns changed and those relationships with those particular lineages of animals apparently didn't survive."
"The interesting thing is that typically we think of domestication as being cows, sheep and goats, things that produce food through meat or secondary agricultural products such as milk, cheese and wool and things like that," said Hodgins.
"Those are different relationships than humans may have with dogs. The dogs are not necessarily providing products or meat. They are probably providing protection, companionship and perhaps helping on the hunt. And it's really interesting that this appears to have happened first out of all human relationships with animals."
###
Reference:
A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum, PLoS One
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
(Reuters) ? When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon.
"In an instant, anything can happen," she told Reuters. "And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared."
Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as "preppers." Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.
They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.
Preppers, though are, worried about no government.
Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a "survival center," complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon.
"I think this economy is about to fall apart," she said.
A wide range of vendors market products to preppers, mainly online. They sell everything from water tanks to guns to survival skills.
Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck seems to preach preppers' message when he tells listeners: "It's never too late to prepare for the end of the world as we know it."
"Unfortunately, given the increasing complexity and fragility of our modern technological society, the chances of a societal collapse are increasing year after year," said author James Wesley Rawles, whose Survival Blog is considered the guiding light of the prepper movement.
A former Army intelligence officer, Rawles has written fiction and non-fiction books on end-of-civilization topics, including "How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It," which is also known as the preppers' Bible.
"We could see a cascade of higher interest rates, margin calls, stock market collapses, bank runs, currency revaluations, mass street protests, and riots," he told Reuters. "The worst-case end result would be a Third World War, mass inflation, currency collapses, and long term power grid failures."
A sense of "suffering and being afraid" is usually at the root of this kind of thinking, according to Cathy Gutierrez, an expert on end-times beliefs at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Such feelings are not unnatural in a time of economic recession and concerns about a growing national debt, she said.
"With our current dependence on things from the electric grid to the Internet, things that people have absolutely no control over, there is a feeling that a collapse scenario can easily emerge, with a belief that the end is coming, and it is all out of the individual's control," she told Reuters.
She compared the major technological developments of the past decade to the Industrial Revolution of the 1830s and 1840s, which led to the growth of the Millerites, the 19th-Century equivalent of the preppers. Followers of charismatic preacher Joseph Miller, many sold everything and gathered in 1844 for what they believed would be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Many of today's preppers receive inspiration from the Internet, devouring information posted on websites like that run by attorney Michael T. Snider, who writes The Economic Collapse blog out of his home in northern Idaho.
"Modern preppers are much different from the survivalists of the old days," he said. "You could be living next door to a prepper and never even know it. Many suburbanites are turning spare rooms into food pantries and are going for survival training on the weekends."
Like other preppers, Snider is worried about the end of a functioning U.S. economy. He points out that tens of millions of Americans are on food stamps and that many U.S. children are living in poverty.
"Most people have a gut feeling that something has gone terribly wrong, but that doesn't mean that they understand what is happening," he said. "A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it."
So, assuming there is no collapse of society -- which the preppers call "uncivilization" -- what is the future of the preppers?
Gutierrez said that unlike the Millerites -- or followers of radio preacher Harold Camping, who predicted the world would end last year -- preppers are not setting a date for the coming destruction. The Mayan Calendar predicts doom this December.
"The minute you set a date, you are courting disconfirmation," she said.
Tegeler, who recalls being hit by tornadoes and floods in her southwestern Virginia home, said that none of her "survival center" products will go to waste.
"I think it's silly not to be prepared," she said. "After all, anything can happen."
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Greg McCune)
ATHENS?? Greece and its private bondholders drew closer on Friday to a bond swap deal that would prevent the country from sinking into a chaotic default and ease the euro zone's debilitating debt crisis.
Cash-strapped Greece is fast running out of time as it pushes to wrap up an agreement by Monday paving the way for a fresh injection of aid before 14.5 billion euros ($18.5 billion) of bond repayments fall due in March.
Bankers and government officials close to the talks say an agreement to cut Greece's debt is in sight and that the two sides may be able to present a joint proposal at a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday.
"We are very close to wrapping it up," one source close to the negotiations told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
After a breakdown in talks last week over the coupon, or interest payment, that Greece must offer on its new bonds raised fears of a disastrous bankruptcy, the two sides resumed negotiations on Thursday.
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Charles Dallara, the head of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) representing bondholders, started a new meeting on Friday morning.
According to one Greek banker, senior euro zone finance officials have scheduled a conference call for Friday afternoon.
The stakes could not be higher. Greece needs to have a deal in the bag before funds are doled out from a 130 billion euro rescue plan that the country's official lenders, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, drew up in October.
The paperwork involved alone is expected to take weeks, meaning failure to secure a deal soon could put Athens at risk of a chaotic default in March, which in turn could jolt the financial system and tip the global economy into recession.
A large chunk of the bond swap must be agreed by noon on Friday and formalized before Monday's meeting of euro zone finance ministers, Venizelos has said.
"The deal must be completed. There is no more time left," said a Greek government official who requested anonymity.
Adding to the pressure, officials from the "troika" of foreign lenders have begun meetings with the Greek government on Friday to discuss reforms and plans to finalize that bailout package.
Progress has been hard to come by in the latest round of negotiations, with bankers worried about suffering losses far higher than the 50 percent writedown they were expected to take on the nominal value of their bonds.
Actual losses for investors are expected to be much higher depending on the terms, such as the coupon, being negotiated.
A source close to the talks earlier said Athens and its foreign lenders had initially offered a coupon of just over 3.5 percent, but bondholders rejected that as too low. They were seeking a coupon of at least 4 percent, the source said.
One of the options being considered is a coupon that rises after staying stable for the first 10 years, another source close to the talks has said.
According to Greek press reports not identifying their sources, the two sides may agree a coupon ranging between 3 and 5 percent, depending on the new bonds' maturities, resulting in a loss for investors of between 65 and 70 percent in terms of net present value.
Investors have also bridled at Greece's threat to enforce losses if not enough bondholders sign up to the deal.
The swap is aimed at cutting 100 billion euros off Greece's over 350 billion euro debt load. The second bailout - drawn up on condition Greece pushes through painful cuts and structural reforms - is expected to reduce Greece's debt to a more manageable 120 percent of gross domestic product in 2020 from about 160 percent now.
Greece is stumbling through its worst economic crisis since World War Two, with unemployment at record highs and near-daily protests and strikes against austerity measures that have deepened an already brutal recession.
Nearly one out of two youths is unemployed and anger against waves of tax hikes and pay cuts is running high.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
OMG did you see Steve Tyler sing the national anthem at the AFC Championship game today? If not then you missed a horrendous rendition of the infamous song. Seriously it was god-awful and I have the video to prove it. As I sat here anxiously awaiting the AFC Championship game between the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots I got the oh so not great pleasure of listening to Tyler belt out the national anthem. To say he was bad is an understatement, it literally hurt my ears listening to him sing or attempt to sing I should day. When Steven was first announced I thought he was kind of a rather odd choice but then I was told he was a Patriots fan, not sure if that is true or not but it is what I was told. Anyway I just so happened to not be paying attention to the TV when the performance began but boy did I quickly tune in as soon as I herd his voice because it was painful. I honestly can?t describe to you how bad it was, al I can say is it sucked. I understand that Tyler is not as on [...]
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