Obama administration readies more Iran sanctions (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The United States is readying a range of unilateral sanctions against Iran, as well as additional measures with international partners, should the Islamic republic fail to answer fresh questions about its nuclear ambitions posed by a report released Tuesday by a United Nations watchdog.

While U.S. officials see the International Atomic Energy Agency's report as a vindication of its long-held assertion that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons, the new intelligence wasn't likely to be a game-changer. U.S. officials insisted they were still focused on using sanctions and diplomatic channels to punish Iran for its nuclear efforts, and steered clear of any suggestion that the international community was moving closer to taking military action.

The IAEA report reveals for the first time that Iran is suspected of conducting secret experiments whose sole purpose is the development of nuclear arms. It's the strongest sign yet that Iran seeks to build a nuclear arsenal, despite Tehran's claims to the contrary.

Senior Obama administration officials said much of the intelligence contained in the report was already known to the U.S., though the report was unique in its scope and level of details. And it puts the U.N.'s imprimatur on some claims and strands of evidence gathered by the U.S., which could prove valuable as the Obama administration lobbies governments around the world to toughen their own sanctions against Iran.

One official said the U.S. would be consulting with international partners in the coming days on ways to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, though they offered no detail on what entities in Iran could be targeted.

The U.S. already has slapped sanctions on dozens of Iranian government agencies, financial and shipping companies as well as officials over the nuclear program and could target additional institutions like Iran's Central Bank. It also has pushed the U.N. Security Council, which previously has imposed four rounds of international sanctions on Iran, for increased penalties.

But in light of Iran's continued defiance, some, including many in Israel, have argued that military action is the only solution. Speculation has run high in Israel over the past week that the government there is contemplating a strike, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned of that possibility ahead of the report's release.

Israel considers Iran to be its most dangerous enemy and the only regional power that poses an existential threat to it.

U.S. officials said they were consulting regularly with the Israeli government on the nuclear threat posed by Iran, but wouldn't take a position on Israel's warning of possible military action.

Despite the fresh intelligence showing that Iran appears to be pushing forward in its quest for nuclear weapons, Obama administration officials insist economic sanctions are taking a toll on Tehran. Officials said Tuesday that Iran's economy had been severely slowed and the country increasingly isolated under the pressure of sanctions.

All of the U.S. and administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the report.

Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the IAEA report showed the international community was running out of time to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. She urged Congress to pass two bills recently adopted by her committee that would tighten and expand sanctions on Iran's energy sector.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was planning to hold a hearing in the coming weeks to look at additional steps the U.S. can take against Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's report outlines the extent of its findings on the Islamic republic's alleged secret nuclear weapons work, including clandestine procurement of equipment and design information needed to make nuclear arms; high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge; and computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead.

One senior administration official said the computer modeling was of particular concern because there is no application of such studies to anything other than a nuclear bomb.

Iran contends that its program is designed to generate electricity, not build weapons.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have ratcheted up in recent weeks following the Obama administration's contention that the Iran's elite foreign action unit, the Quds Force, was behind a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. in Washington.

Iran has vehemently denied anything to do with the alleged plot.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111108/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_iran_nuclear

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Good Reads: Iran's nuclear program and America's man in Southeast Asia, Jim Thompson

Today's papers focus on an IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program that is sparking calls for tougher sanctions. And Foreign Policy looks back to American spy and silk merchant Jim Thompson.

So, it appears that Iran has maintained a nuclear weapons program, and the United Nations? International Atomic Energy Agency isn?t happy about it.

Skip to next paragraph

In yesterday?s Monitor, Istanbul bureau chief Scott Peterson lays out the evidence and what it tells us about how far Iranian scientists had gotten to building a nuclear explosive device, and fitting it into missiles. The documentation for the IAEA report came from ?a laptop said by the US to have been spirited out of Iran in 2004.?

Peterson also notes that the trail of evidence for Iran?s nuclear program leads to the father of Pakistan?s nuclear weapons program, A.Q. Khan, who apparently gave information on how to build a bomb to Libya.

The IAEA also noted that Iran has received a "similar package of information" from the illegal nuclear network of Pakistani A. Q. Khan that had been given to Libya. That information, seen in Libya by the IAEA in 2004, "included details on the design and construction of, and the manufacture of components for, a nuclear explosive device."

The Guardian includes all those juicy details about how to enrich uranium ? surely you?ll remember this from your high school physics class ? and writer Julian Borger notes that the IAEA took special care in its investigation, knowing that it had to overcome global skepticism about the source and reliability of its information.

"What is striking is the totality and breadth of the information. Virtually every component of warhead research has been pursued by Iran," said a source close to the IAEA. "The agency has very, very, high confidence in its analysis. It did not want to make a mistake, and it was aware it had a very high threshold of credibility to meet. So it would not be published unless they had that high level of confidence."

In The New York Times, David E. Sanger and William J. Broad note that the IAEA is generally an agency noted for its caution, which makes this report all the more striking ? and, even for some skeptics, convincing.

The I.A.E.A. report?s detailed revelations are a fascinating role reversal from 2003, when the United States and Britain claimed Iraq was seeking to rekindle its nuclear program. In that case, the agency warned that the Bush administration?s case was weak and that some of the evidence was forged. Now, it is the normally cautious agency that is taking the lead, arguing that years of study had led it to the conclusion that, despite Iran?s denials, the country engaged in an active program to design nuclear warheads, among other technologies.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/Jg5aqJYpFBg/Good-Reads-Iran-s-nuclear-program-and-America-s-man-in-Southeast-Asia-Jim-Thompson

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Launchpad LA Receives VC Funding: $50,000 Per Startup

Launchpad LA today announces it will accept applications for its third class of Los Angeles-based tech startups. There are significant VC commitments and every entering company will get $50,000 in funding plus free office space. The program was founded in 2009 by LA-based venture capitalist Mark Suster and has received funding from several prominent investors including Rincon Ventures (largest seed stage investor in SoCal), Idealab (first major incubator built by Bill Gross), Baroda Ventures, GRP Partners, David Cohen (founder of TechStars), David Tisch (founder of TechStars NY). Launchpad LA has also signed up many prominent VC & individual advisors including: VCs: 500 Startups, BlueRun Ventures, First Round Capital, Foundry Group, Menlo Ventures, MK Capital Individuals: Jason Calacanis, Paul Kedrosky, Peter Levin (Principal, GeekChicDaily/Nerdist Industries), Howard Lindzon & Eric Ries 23 companies have graduated from Launchpad LA: 19 have received funding and 5 have been acquired. For full details read on ...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LvyEF8E1iT0/

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Report: Cain sought dinner date with fifth woman (Politico)

A former USAID worker claims Herman Cain asked her to set up dinner with a woman who attended a speech he gave in 2002, the Washington Examiner is reporting tonight.

The worker?? 40-year-old Donna Donella, of Arlington, Va.?? told the paper that the moment came after Cain gave a paid speech in Egypt that year. A woman in the crowd posed a query to Cain during the speech, the Examiner said.

Continue Reading

Donella told them: ?And after the seminar was over, Cain came over to me and a colleague and said, ?Could you put me in touch with that lovely young lady who asked the question, so I can give her a more thorough answer over dinner???

She was "suspicious of Cain's motives and delined to set up the date," the Examiner reporter wrote.

That prompted Cain to reply, "Then you and I can have dinner." Instead, some of Donella's co-workers suggested a group outing.

?I couldn?t swear that he had some untoward intentions, but we all thought his tone was suspect and we didn?t feel comfortable putting him in touch with that woman,? Donella, whom the Examiner identified as an independent who voted for President Barack Obama in the last election, was quoted as saying.

She said she didn't witness any "inappropriate sexual behavior" at the group dinner. But she claimed he asked the waiter for two $400 bottles of wine, and then stiffed the rest of the group when it came time to pay.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1111_67819_html/43528699/SIG=11m00d0md/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67819.html

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Penn St ex-coach, others charged in child sex case (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? An explosive sex abuse scandal and possible cover-up rocked "Happy Valley" on Saturday when former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, once considered Joe Paterno's heir apparent, was charged with sexually assaulting eight boys over a 15-year period. Among the allegations was a 2002 incident in which a graduate assistant for the team said he saw Sandusky assault a boy in the shower at the Nittany Lions' practice center.

Sandusky retired in 1999 but continued to use the school's facilities for his work with The Second Mile, a foundation he established to help at-risk kids. The state grand jury investigation also resulted in perjury charges against Tim Curley, Penn State's athletic director, and Gary Schultz, vice president for finance and business. The two administrators were accused of failing to alert police ? as required by state law ? of their investigation of the allegations.

"This is a case about a sexual predator who used his position within the university and community to repeatedly prey on young boys," Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said in a statement.

Paterno, who last week became the winningest coach in Division I football, was not charged, and the grand jury report did not appear to implicate him in wrongdoing.

Under Paterno's four-decades-and-counting stewardship, the Nittany Lions became a bedrock in the college game and fans packed the stadium in State College, a campus town routinely ranked among America's best places to live and nicknamed "Happy Valley." Paterno's teams were revered both for winning games ? including two national championships ? and largely steering clear of trouble. Sandusky, whose defenses were usually anchored by tough-guy linebackers ? hence the moniker, "Linebacker U" ? spent three decades at the school. The charges against him cover the period between 1994 and 2009.

Sandusky, 67, was arrested Saturday and released on $100,000 bail after being arraigned on 40 criminal counts. Curley, 57, and Schultz, 62, were expected to turn themselves in on Monday in Harrisburg.

The allegations against Sandusky, who started The Second Mile in 1977, range from sexual advances to touching to oral and anal sex. The young men testified before a state grand jury that they were in their early teens when some of the abuse occurred; there is evidence even younger children may have been victimized. Defense attorney Joe Amendola said Sandusky has been aware of the accusations for about three years and has maintained his innocence.

"He's shaky, as you can expect," Amendola told WJAC-TV after Sandusky was arraigned. "Being 67 years old, never having faced criminal charges in his life, and having the distinguished career that he's had, these are very serious allegations."

A preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday would likely be delayed, Amendola said. Sandusky is charged with multiple counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor, as well as single counts of aggravated indecent assault and attempted indecent assault.

No one answered a knock at the door Saturday at Sandusky's modest, two-story brick home at the end of a dead-end road in State College. A man who answered the door at The Second Mile office in State College declined to give his name and said the organization had no comment.

The grand jury said eight boys were targets of sexual advances or assaults by Sandusky. None was named, and in at least one case, the jury said the child's identity remains unknown to authorities.

One accuser, now 27, testified that Sandusky initiated contact with a "soap battle" in the shower that led to multiple instances of involuntary sexual intercourse and indecent assault at Sandusky's hands, the grand jury report said.

He said he traveled to charity functions and Penn State games with Sandusky, even being listed as a member of the Sandusky family party for the 1998 Outback Bowl and 1999 Alamo Bowl. But when the boy resisted his advances, Sandusky threatened to send him home from the Alamo Bowl, the report said.

Sandusky also gave him clothes, shoes, a snowboard, golf clubs, hockey gear and football jerseys, and even guaranteed that he could walk on to the football team, the grand jury said, and the boy also appeared with Sandusky in a photo in Sports Illustrated. He testified that Sandusky once gave him $50 to buy marijuana, drove him to purchase it and then drove him home as the boy smoked the drug.

The first case to come to light was a boy who met Sandusky when he was 11 or 12, the grand jury said. The boy received expensive gifts and trips to sports events from Sandusky, and physical contact began during his overnight stays at Sandusky's home, jurors said. Eventually, the boy's mother reported the allegations of sexual assault to his high school, and Sandusky was banned from the child's school district in Clinton County in 2009. That triggered the state investigation that culminated in charges Saturday.

But the report also alleges much earlier instances of abuse, and details failed efforts to stop it by some who became aware of what was happening.

Another child, known only as a boy about 11 to 13, was seen by a janitor pinned against a wall while Sandusky performed oral sex on him in fall 2000, the grand jury said.

And in 2002, Kelly said, a graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assault a naked boy, estimated to be about 10 years old, in a team locker room shower. The grad student and his father reported what he saw to Paterno, who immediately told Curley, prosecutors said.

Curley and Schultz met with the graduate assistant about a week and a half later, Kelly said.

"Despite a powerful eyewitness statement about the sexual assault of a child, this incident was not reported to any law enforcement or child protective agency, as required by Pennsylvania law," Kelly said.

There's no indication that anyone at school attempted to find the boy, or follow up with the witness, she said.

Curley denied that the assistant had reported anything of a sexual nature, calling it "merely `horsing around,'" the 23-page grand jury report said. But he also testified that he barred Sandusky from bringing children onto campus and that he advised Penn State president Graham Spanier of the matter.

The grand jury said Curley was lying, Kelly said, adding that it also deemed portions of Schultz's testimony not to be credible.

Schultz told the jurors he also knew of a 1998 investigation involving sexually inappropriate behavior by Sandusky with a boy in the showers the football team used.

But despite his job overseeing campus police, he never reported the 2002 allegations to any authorities, "never sought or received a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002," the jurors wrote. "No one from the university did so."

Lawyers for both Curley and Schultz issued statements saying they are innocent of all charges.

In response to a request for comment from Paterno, a spokesman for the athletic department said all such questions would be referred to university representatives, who released a statement from Spanier calling the allegations against Sandusky "troubling" and adding Curley and Schultz had his unconditional support.

He predicted they will be exonerated.

"I have known and worked daily with Tim and Gary for more than 16 years," Spanier said. "I have complete confidence in how they handled the allegations about a former university employee."

Sandusky, once considered a potential successor to Paterno, drew up the defenses for the Nittany Lions' national-title teams in 1982 and 1986. The team is enjoying another successful run this season; at 8-1, Penn State is ranked No. 16 in the AP Top 25 and is the last undefeated squad in Big Ten play. The Nittany Lions were off Saturday.

As the head football coach, Paterno has spent years cultivating a reputation for putting integrity ahead of modern college-sports economics. It's a notion that has benefited Penn State's marketing and recruiting efforts over the decades and one that the Big Ten school's alumni proudly tout years after they leave.

"We're supposed to be one of the universities to follow after, someone to look up to," said sophomore Brian Prewitt of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "Now that people on the top are involved, it's going to be bad."

___

Scolforo reported from Harrisburg.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111106/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_penn_state_ex_coach_allegations

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Obama prods Europeans on economy

CANNES, France ?? Conceding a fragile global recovery and plodding job growth back home, President Barack Obama said Friday he is confident European leaders are fixing their ominous debt crisis that threatens to undermine the United States and his own shot at a second term.

A year shy of the election, Obama said the American economy is growing, but "way too slow."

The president capped his role at a brisk G-20 summit essentially where he started it, offering solidarity to his European peers with none-too-subtle signals it was their responsibility to clean up the economic mess in their own backyards.

At issue is an evolving rescue package across the 17 nations sharing the euro as their common currency. The plan could prevent a default in Greece, put up a financial firewall against future trouble and reassure markets about the credibility of the euro.

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   1. Obama prods Europeans on economy

      Updated 88 minutes ago 11/4/2011 8:23:32 PM +00:00 President Barack Obama said Friday he is confident European leaders are fixing their ominous debt crisis that threatens to undermine the United States and his own shot at a second term.

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"I am confident that Europe has the capacity to meet this challenge," Obama said in a news conference at the meeting of leading industrialized and developing countries.

PhotoBlog: All wet

"I know it isn't easy, but what is absolutely critical ? and what the world looks for in moments such as this ? is action," he said. "That's how we confronted our financial crisis in the United States."

The drama of Greek's messy internal struggles and their potential to derail the entire European effort hung over the summit in this French Riviera resort, as did a gloomy rain.

While Obama met with world leaders, a news jobs report showed the American economy added 80,000 jobs in October, and that the job expansion in the previous two months was better than first thought.

Job market shows gains but faces huge risks

The unemployment rate dropped slightly to 9 percent. Should it remain anywhere close to that level a year from now, Obama will face re-election with the highest jobless rate in recent times.

"The least of my concerns at the moment is the politics of a year from now," Obama said. "I'm worried about putting people back to work right now because those folks are hurting and the U.S. economy is underperforming."

He cast the jobs report as positive but said the pace of the recovery shows "once again that the economy's growing way too slow."

Story: Greece PM faces crucial confidence vote

Obama repeatedly tried to keep the focus on his confidence that Europe is on its way to solving its financial woes. "I can say that we've come together and made important progress to get our economic recoveries on a firmer footing," Obama said.

Still, important questions had not been answered. Leaders of the economic powers did not agree on how to increase the firepower of the International Monetary Fund to help stem the European debt crisis.

Obama acknowledged that there is hard work left to do. But he said Europe had a foundation with the right elements: a way ahead for indebted Greece, a credible firewall to contain the crisis and a plan to strengthen European banks.

"All of us have an enormous interest in Europe's success and all of us will be affected if Europe is not growing, and that certainly includes the United States," Obama said. "If Europe isn't growing, it's harder for us to do what we need to do for the American people: creating jobs, lifting up the middle class and putting our fiscal house in order."

Obama even extended some political sympathy, reminiscing about the economic difficulties he faced upon taking office in 2009.

Instead of working with a single legislative body as he did, Obama noted that there are multiple parliaments, commissions and institutions involved in solving Europe's crisis. He said some of his counterparts joked that he had gotten a crash course in European politics in the past couple of days.

What Obama was not, clearly, was the center of attention here. The United States came into this gathering in a supporting role.

He talked economic cooperation with Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez and congratulated her for recently winning re-election. He joined the summit host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in saluting service members from both their countries who fought in a NATO-led campaign that drove Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from power.

Obama was on his way home Friday, but not for long. He is to leave on Nov. 11 for another economic summit, in Hawaii, before traveling to Australia and Indonesia.

Stalled joblessness poses significant problems for Obama, who has been unable to get Republican support for elements of his $447 billion jobs plan.

"As soon as I get some signal from Congress that they're willing to take their responsibilities seriously, I think we can do more," the president said. "But that's going to require them to break out of the rigid ideological positions that they've been taking. And the same is true, by the way, when it comes to deficit reduction."

Directing his remarks at Europe and the United States, Obama said: "There's no excuse for inaction. That's true globally. It's certainly true back home, as well, and I'm going to keep on pushing it regardless of what the politics are."

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45163857/ns/politics-white_house/

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Italy accepts IMF monitoring, EU looks for support (Reuters)

CANNES, France (Reuters) ? Italy, under fierce pressure from financial markets and European peers, has agreed to have the IMF and the EU monitor its progress with long delayed reforms of pensions, labor markets and privatization, senior EU sources said on Friday.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his government close to collapse after more loyalists defected on Thursday, agreed to the step in late-night talks with euro zone leaders and U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Cannes, France.

The Italian move came after Greece stepped back from a proposed referendum that could have triggered its exit from the euro area and agreed to seek national consensus in support of a 130 billion euro ($178 billion) new bailout program.

"We need to make sure there is credibility with Italy's targets -- that it is going to meet them. We decided to have the IMF involved on the monitoring, using their own methodology, and the Italians say they can live with that," one EU source said.

"Italy has no problem with surveillance at all, even with the IMF being involved," he said, adding that the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund would each report separately on how Italy was meeting its targets.

The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the European Central Bank, the IMF and European Union institutions also discussed with Obama ways of ramping up the IMF's warchest to help prevent contagion from the euro zone's debt crisis plunging the world economy back into recession.

A G20 source said no figures were agreed but the boost to IMF resources, mostly from large emerging countries such as China, could be in the range of $300-350 billion.

EU officials said three options were under consideration, including the possibility of pooling the euro zone countries' rights to borrow from the IMF to build a fighting fund to support vulnerable sovereigns such as Italy and Spain.

The concession by Berlusconi was an attempt to shore up his country's perilous position on bond markets, where its borrowing costs soared well above 6 percent this week, raising doubts about its long-term ability to cope with a debt pile of 120 percent of gross domestic product.

An official Italian source denied that Italy was being singled out for special surveillance and said the whole euro zone would be under closer monitoring. However, he confirmed that Rome was willing to request IMF advice on implementing the commitments it gave EU leaders on specific reforms on October 27.

BEYOND GREEK DRAMA

G20 leaders will try to look beyond the Greek drama that has shaken their annual gathering and agree on measures on Friday that will convince markets the risk of further euro zone contagion can be stemmed.

Delegates gathered in the Riviera resort of Cannes found themselves watching the euro zone battle to snuff out its biggest fire yet as Greece threw a rescue deal into question and seemed on the brink of quitting the euro.

The EU source said a precautionary credit line was not seen as a credible option for Italy, where one of the main problems has been market confidence.

"With the general climate and Italy's lack of credibility, every small setback or problem is compounded and makes things worse, so the markets cannot have confidence," he said.

Greece's future in the euro zone may hinge on a vote of confidence in Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou late on Friday night.

If he wins, government sources say he has pledged to step aside and make way for an interim national unity government that would enact the EU/IMF bailout plan, receive a vital aid installment and pave the way for early elections next year.

However, if he loses, Greece will be plunged into deeper political turmoil and may face a hard default and possible exit from the 17-nation single currency area.

But analysts are already eyeing Italy as a test case for the anti-crisis package agreed in Brussels last week.

"Italy holds the key to the euro zone debt crisis," BNP Paribas analyst Luigi Speranza wrote in a research note late on Thursday. "Developments in Italy are a crucial test for the credibility of the anti-crisis framework set up by the EU."

Concern is growing that Italy, the euro area's No. 3 economy and biggest government bond market, could go the way of Greece and require a bailout without rapid action.

Berlusconi has repeatedly promised to make deep reforms, balance the budget in 2013 and trim the public debt, but there are doubts about his commitment.

A clause in a draft communique for the Cannes summit, obtained by Reuters, showed Italy would only be held to bring its budget "close to" balance in 2013 as part of a package of economic pledges aimed at reducing economic imbalances.

SARKOZY AMBITIONS OVERTAKEN

The fast-moving Greek fiasco dominated the last meeting of France's G20 presidency and crushed any hopes by President Nicolas Sarkozy of making a last-minute breakthrough on big early goals such as rethinking the global monetary system.

The draft statement seen by Reuters showed the G20 is considering an IMF proposal to create a new short-term credit line to help countries hit by crippling economic shocks.

G20 sources said IMF resource talks were looking at an extension of the fund's New Agreements to Borrow (NABS), due to expire next year, and the injection of billions of dollars into the global economy through a special allocation of its Special Drawing Rights.

"It all depends on Sarkozy, how hard he pushes," one said.

The plan to ramp up SDRs should also help manage fears rippling through markets over Europe's crisis.

"The crisis in Europe is causing a global systemic crisis including Asia. Rather than creating a new global framework, everyone is expecting the IMF to become more proactive," Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said.

"The focus of debate is how to set up a firewall but we consider that the IMF should become one big wall."

Several sessions of grueling talks ahead of this week's G20 summit had patched over differences between Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel about how to fix Europe's debt woes and led to an October 27 deal they had hoped would reassure markets.

Yet news Papandreou's call on Monday for a referendum on Greek measures in the agreement appeared to turn the deal on its head, until Sarkozy and Merkel summoned the prime minister to Cannes and told him Greece would get no more aid until it confirmed it would meet its EU/IMF commitments.

Final G20 sessions on Friday will focus on largely agreed topics like commodity transparency and financial regulation issues like the risks posed by high-frequency trading.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Gernot Heller, Giselda Vagnoni; Writing By Paul Taylor and Catherine Bremer)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111104/bs_nm/us_g20

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