Brent slips towards $107 on potential Iran deal

Brent crude slipped towards USD 107 on Wednesday as a potential deal between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog eased fears of oil supply disruptions, while concerns over the debt crisis in the euro zone and a slowing Chinese economy weighed on demand.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency expects to sign a deal with Iran soon to unblock investigations into suspected work on nuclear bombs in the oil-producing country, increasing the prospect of a resolution to a conflict over the issue.

Brent crude had dropped 74 cents to USD 107.67 a barrel by 0553 GMT and US July crude had fallen 77 cents to USD 91.07, with economic concerns weighing as the World Bank cut its economic growth forecast for China, the world's second-largest oil consumer.

Nagging fears of a messy Greek exit from the euro zone also remained ahead of a Wednesday meeting of European leaders. Germany has dismissed a French-led call for euro zone governments to issue common bonds, cooling hopes the meeting would produce fresh measures to tackle the region's debt problems.

"Elections (in Greece) and the EU Ministers' meeting could potentially cause a lot of headline-driven movements in oil prices," said Tony Nunan, a Tokyo-based risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp.

"The Greece situation is similar to Iran in the sense that it is going to drag out. With Greece in the euro zone, any changes will take time as the euro zone needs approval from parliament. It's a slow-moving train wreck."

Waning optimism about the summit drove shares, commodities and the euro down against the dollar, with the dollar index strengthening.

A stronger greenback can pressure dollar-denominated commodities such as oil by making them more expensive to consumers using other currencies.

The World Bank warned that Europe's seething debt crisis could inflict even bigger damage if it worsens, with sluggish US and European demand and a softening Chinese property market combining to weigh on the Chinese economy in the near term.

It also cut its economic growth forecast for China this year to 8.2 percent from 8.4 percent previously, adding that a slowing China will drag growth in emerging East Asia to two-year lows this year.

HIGH OIL INVENTORIES

US crude oil inventories rose 1.5 million barrels last week, industry group the American Petroleum Institute said in a report late on Tuesday, further hurting oil prices.

Ahead of weekly reports on US oil inventories, crude stocks were expected to have risen 1.0 million barrels last week, a Reuters survey of analysts showed.

The EIA's weekly report is due on Wednesday at 1430 GMT.

Europe is also facing a glut of high quality crude oil grades, only a year after Libya created a serious shortage, as demand from the continent falls and the US cuts imports due to greater domestic supply.

This has led to a steep weakening in values for many high quality sweet and low-sulphur grades, a rare development that suggests oil futures prices have room to correct further in an oversupplied market.

"In the short term, I'm quite bearish as ramped-up supply from Saudis and growing inventory in the United States shows the oil fundamentals are not that strong," said Nunan.

Increased production from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya has helped push US crude oil inventories to a peak and allowed Iran's customers to seek alternative barrels in the face of tightening sanctions on Tehran.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY HOPES

But hopes for fresh economic stimulus from China and a moderate economic recovery in Japan capped losses in oil prices.

Chinese media reported on Wednesday that Beijing will stick to active fiscal and prudent monetary policies in a bid to sustain relatively fast economic growth, quoting Vice Premier Li Keqiang.

This followed a report on Tuesday that China would speed infrastructure investments.

As widely expected, the Bank of Japan has kept monetary policy steady on Wednesday, maintaining its view that Japan's economy will resume a moderate recovery.

Also providing a bright spot, the latest data from US showed the pace of sales of existing homes in April rose to its fastest in nearly two years and a falloff in foreclosures helped bring a surprise jump in prices.

Need to raise petrol prices urgently, says Rangarajan

The government needs to raise petrol prices urgently to address the twin problems of fiscal deficit and current account deficit, C Rangarajan, Chairman of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council told CNBC-TV18 in an exclusive interview today.

"There will be a temporary impact on WPI (wholesale price index) inflation when petrol prices are raised, but the impact on fiscal deficit will be much more if (petrol) prices are not raised," Rangarajan told CNBC-TV18.

Cutting fuel subsidy, or in other words, hiking retail fuel prices is the key to the government lowering its fiscal deficit as well as trimming its import bill as crude accounts for roughly a third of the total bill.

Rangarajan said the slide in the rupee was much more than anticipated, and that the problem was being aggravated by lack of foreign capital flows into the country. The rupee today touched a fresh record low of 55.82 to the dollar today even as the Reserve Bank of India is using every weapon in its arsenal to support the currency.

"What is really needed is to revive sentiment to enable large capital flows," he said, adding that the RBI should use forex reserves to prevent abrupt swings in the rupee, and the government should use broader macro economic policy as a tool to encourage capital flows.

Secret case against Pakistan officer for allegedly plotting to take over the Army

From his prison cell, a senior Pakistani officer accused of plotting with a shadowy Islamist organization to take over the military released his political manifesto: His call was for the army to sever its anti-terror alliance with the United States, which he contends is forcing Pakistan to fight its own people.

"This may help us redeem some of our lost dignity and we badly need that," Brigadier Ali Khan writes in the six-page document obtained by The Associated Press. The US, he says, might retaliate by cutting military and economic aid, but "do they not always do this at will? ... Our fears that the heavens will fall must be laid to rest."

The manifesto reveals the ideological underpinnings of the most senior Pakistani military officer detained for alleged ties to Islamist extremists. The accusations against Brigadier Khan go to the heart of a major Western fear about Pakistan: that its army could tilt toward Islamic extremism or that a cabal of hardline officers could seize the country's most powerful institution, possibly with the help of Al Qaeda or associated groups like the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani leaders dismiss such worries as ungrounded.

Details of the case, made public for the first time by The AP, point to efforts by some Islamist groups to recruit within Pakistan's military, though their success appears mixed. They also give a rare look into the discontent among some in the military over the rocky relationship with the United States, currently on hold after American airstrikes killed 24 Pakistani border troops in November.

Brigadier Khan, who was arrested a year ago, faces charges of conspiring with four other officers and a British member of Hizb ut-Tahrir to recruit officers to the group including the commander of the army's 111 Brigade, which covers the capital and has been historically linked to army coups.

One witness at his ongoing court-martial said Khan discussed sending an F-16 jet crashing into the army headquarters, though that allegation has been withdrawn, according to Brigadier Khan's lawyer Inam-ul-Rahiem. Pakistan's army declined to comment on the trial, which is supposed to be secret.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Pakistan and several other Muslim countries, professes non-violence and is not connected to terrorist groups like the Pakistani Taliban or Al Qaeda. But the outfit makes no secret of its desire to penetrate the armies of Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan, and foment an "Islamic coup" to establish a global "caliphate."

In interviews, Brigadier Khan's family and two of his army colleagues insisted he was innocent and has been targeted because of a falling out with senior officers and his political views - particularly his stance against the alliance with the US Brigadier Khan's lawyer has denied the charges and says no concrete evidence has been presented at the trial.

But one of the colleagues said Brigadier Khan did meet with members of Hizb ut-Tahrir and tried to enlist other officers, though the colleague played down the importance of the contacts.

"He was easy prey," said the colleague, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was worried about prejudicing the case. "He walked into a trap. He was fed up with the government and (army chief General Ashfaq Parvez) Kayani."

But he said Brigadier Khan walked away from the group when it was clear his fellow officers were not interested in joining. The colleague said that he himself had also been approached by Hizb ut-Tahrir, via a cousin, but had turned them down.

"Our brother is honest and outspoken," said Brigadier Khan's younger brother Bashir Ahmed. "He may have spoken against higher authorities and they don't like people to speak that way. That's why they are holding him."

At a meeting with other officers days after the May 2, 2011, raid by US commandos that killed Osama bin Laden, Brigadier Khan spoke out against the operation, which he and others on the forces considered a national humiliation.

Brigadier Khan was arrested on May 5 and his manifesto presents himself as a "victim" of the Osama raid.

His lawyer, Rahiem, sought to submit the tract to a government commission investigating the Osama incident, but it was rejected. Some of the passages were included in a letter he sent to General Kayani some time before his arrest, Mr Rahiem said.

The manifesto doesn't call for an armed insurrection, support Islamic militancy or mention Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Rather, it is a refutation of Pakistan army's alliance with Washington, along the lines of what is often espoused by right-wing, Islamist Pakistanis. It buttresses its arguments with conspiracy theories, including that the United States was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In Afghanistan, he recommends a United Nations force of mostly Muslim nations to replace the current US-led one.

Pakistan's army has has long portrayed itself as a bulwark against extremism, even as it has to sought to harness militants to fight for its interests in Afghanistan and India. While many officers are secular or irreligious, a growing number are thought to have embraced a more conservative form of Islam over the last 10 years, like the country they are drawn from.

Brigadier Khan was known to be a conservative Muslim. At army staff college, he had the nickname "Mullah Rocketi" - roughly "rocket cleric" - and was lampooned in a graduation skit as a cleric, said one of his colleagues.

At the same time, anti-Americanism has been rising, fueled by anger at US drone strikes in the tribal regions, the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in 2011 and the US border post attack in November.

Some soldiers and officers have carried out occasional, but serious, terrorist attacks against the institution they once served. Militant sieges against army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 and against a navy base in Karachi weeks after the Osama raid are both alleged to have had inside help.

The 600,000-member army releases little data on its enrollment or makeup, so its hard to say whether it is undergoing Islamization. A study last year on what limited data found no evidence the force was recruiting disproportionately from conservative areas of the country.

Lieutenant General Khalid Rabbani, who commands 150,000 troops in the northwest leading the fight against militancy, scoffed at the notion his men could become attracted to extremism. "This is absolute rubbish, leaps and bounds away from reality," he said. "We are as disciplined a force as the British or American or any other first class army in the world."

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country teeming with disgruntled Muslims, is a strategic priority for Hizb ut-Tahir, ex-members and analysts said.

A Britain-based spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is strong among British Pakistanis, declined comment on Brigadier Khan. But he said the group has recruited officers and would continue to do so.

"We call on the people in the armed forces to use their authority and fulfill their Islamic duty of stopping the political and military leaderships' transgressions," Taji Mustafa said in an email.

Nepal plane crash

A small plane owned by a private company crashed in northwest Nepal on Monday, killing 15 people including 13 Indians, an official said.

The Dornier aircraft owned by private Agni Air company was carrying 18 passengers and a crew of three on a flight from the resort town of Pokhara to Jomsom when it crashed while landing at the mountain airstrip.

"Among those killed are 13 Indians and two Nepalis," Kathmandu airport official Mahesh Shrestha said.

Six survivors had been taken to a hospital in Pokhara and the condition of at least one of them is critical, he said.

Two Danish tourists were among those rescued.

Jomsom, about 125 km (79 miles) northwest of Kathmandu, is a gateway for trekking in the region where Mount Annapurna, the world's 10th highest mountain, is located.

In September last year, 19 people returning after viewing Mount Everest were killed when their plane crashed in bad weather near Kathmandu.

It was not immediately clear what caused Monday's crash.

Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountain peaks, including Mount Everest.

Tens of thousands of hikers and foreign tourists go to Mount Everest and other trekking routes to see the lofty Himalayan peaks every year.

Tourism, a key source of earning for impoverished Nepal, accounts for nearly four percent of the gross domestic product and employs tens of thousands of people.

Anna Hazare breaks silence, says no rift in team

As fresh cracks appeared in Team Anna after the expulsion of a Muslim leader, Anna Hazare on Monday said there was no rift in the group over the "leakage" of information or yoga guru Ramdev.

In his first reaction after the expulsion of Mufti Shameem Kazmi after he was allegedly found recording the proceedings of Core Committee meeting in Noida in UP, Hazare said that there is no fallout over the issue.

"There is no rift. What rift are you talking about? A team member who leaked information yesterday, there was a problem. People in our team had asked why he did so. So he said he would not come back," he told reporters.

"If there was a rift, they would have been fighting and there is no fallout," Hazare said. Kazmi has claimed he quit the camp as the group was turning anti-Muslim.

Hazare also said there were no differences in the team over the participation of Ramdev in the anti-corruption movement. "Right now, for over a month, I will tour Maharashtra. He has our support in his campaign against black money and we have his support on Jan Lokpal. We are all fighting together on tackling corruption," he said. He said during the all-India tour, he and Ramdev will share stage wherever they meet. However, he said, there will be no joint tour.

His comments came amid growing unease in Team Anna over the "one-up manship" of Ramdev, with whom they had stitched an alliance to fight for the cause. There were discussions on Team Anna's association with Ramdev, whom a section of the activists' believe has a "credibility crisis" due to allegations levelled against the yoga guru.

At the meeting on Sunday, it was reiterated that there will not be a joint campaign with Ramdev but the two sides will extend support to each other in the fight against corruption.

Team Anna member and lawyer Prashant Bhushan said, "We have begun a movement against corruption and on that pretext, Ramdev supports us but we have no common platform or any consensus.

"We do have a consensus regarding these issues and common concerns regarding the country," he said.