Sun Life sells U.S. annuity business, shares drop

TORONTO (Reuters) - Sun Life Financial Inc will sell its U.S. annuity business for $1.35 billion to a firm connected to Guggenheim Partners in a deal that should reduce the exposure of the insurer's earnings to market swings and boost its cash levels.
While the deal could bring long-term benefits to Sun Life, whose earnings have been derailed by wild market swings during recent years, investors pulled the company's shares down by nearly 4 percent as the financial terms fell short of initial expectations.
"The stock's sort of correcting back because the deal isn't quite as big a windfall as I think the market was anticipating," said National Bank financial analyst Peter Routledge.
Delaware Life Holdings, owned by certain Guggenheim clients and shareholders, will rename itself Delaware Life Insurance Co following the cash purchase. Guggenheim will provide investment management services to the new company.
Sun Life, Canada's No. 3 insurer, said last year it would stop selling variable annuities and individual life products in the United States to focus more on group insurance and voluntary benefits.
Variable annuities - retirement products that guarantee the investor a minimum monthly payment - became a source of earnings volatility for Sun Life in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. That is because low interest rates and Canadian accounting rules force insurers to take upfront losses on products that will not come due for years.
"The business makes money, but not enough," said Routledge.
Weak equity markets and low bond yields sent Sun Life's profit down 87.5 percent during the second quarter of 2012 and caused losses during the third and fourth quarters of 2011.
EARNINGS HIT
The deal will cut Sun Life's profit by 22 Canadian cents a share annually and reduce book value by C$950 million ($965 million), the company said in a statement. According to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, Sun Life was expected to earn C$2.53 a share on a net basis in 2013.
The deal has also prompted Sun Life to take a second look at its 2015 financial targets, which include a goal of C$2 billion in operating profit.
In an interview, Sun Life Chief Executive Dean Connor said he would update the market on the targets after the deal closes, which is expected during the second quarter next year.
"I'm not saying we will necessarily reduce them. I'm not saying we will necessarily leave them as they are, because we don't know yet," he said.
The deal is also expected to reduce the company's earnings sensitivity to equity markets by 50 percent and its sensitivity to interest rates by 35 percent, compared with estimates on September 30.
It will raise Sun Life's cash position to C$1.9 billion.
"Over time, we'll redeploy that cash to fund growth," said Connor. He said the growth could include acquisitions on the "smaller end of the spectrum."
Sun Life, which also owns U.S. asset manager MFS Investment Management, is targeting growth in its Asian business.
SHARES DOWN
Sun Life shares, which have outperformed its rivals with a 47 percent year-to-date rise coming into Monday's session, ended down 3.9 percent at C$26.74 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Despite the strong rise this year, the stock still trades at less than half its all-time high set in 2007.
Robert Sedran, an analyst at CIBC World Markets, said in a research note that the earnings and book value reductions were worse than he had expected.
"Moreover, while the decline in the earnings sensitivity to market variables improves the risk-reward profile, we did not view those sensitivities as excessive to begin with," he said.
However, he said the deal will free up time and capital that would otherwise have been engaged in what is essentially a closed business, which is a positive.
Morgan Stanley & Co advised Sun Life on the transaction financials.
Law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP was legal adviser to Sun Life, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom advised Guggenheim Partners.

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FactSet forecasts second-quarter results largely below estimates, shares fall

(Reuters) - FactSet Research Systems Inc reported lower-than-expected first-quarter revenue, and the financial information provider forecast current-quarter results largely below estimates as banks and brokerages cut costs.
FactSet shares fell 5 percent before the bell on Tuesday.
The company, which provides data to portfolio managers, research analysts and investment bankers, forecast second-quarter earnings of $1.11 to $1.13 per share, on revenue of $212 million and $215 million.
Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $1.13 per share on revenue of $216.3 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
FactSet's financial sector clients are cutting staff and trimming costs to cope with increased regulation and a struggling global economy.
In the United States, financial companies have announced plans to cut 28,000 jobs through the first nine months of this year, compared with 54,000 during the same period in 2011, according to executive placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
FactSet said its net income rose to $49.8 million, or $1.11 per share, in the first quarter, from $45.5 million, or 99 cents per share, a year earlier.
The company earned $1.22 cents per share, excluding items.
Revenue rose 7.5 percent to $211.1 million for the quarter ended November 30.
Analysts on average had expected earnings of $1.11 per share, on revenue of $212.3 million.
FactSet rival Thomson Reuters Corp, the owner of Reuters News, last month reported a 15 percent fall in operating profit for the quarter ended September 30, on declining revenue and higher costs in its division that serves the financial industry.
FactSet's shares closed at $96.39 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

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Jefferies results beat estimates on higher fixed-income revenue

(Reuters) - Jefferies Group Inc reported a higher-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit as the investment bank benefited from higher earnings from its fixed-income unit, and said its business expansion in Asia has started delivering.
The midsized investment bank has been expanding in China and India and recently poached bankers from the Royal Bank of Scotland to expand its business in China.
Jefferies said it also benefited from a pickup in trading across the board in September thanks to fresh stimulus plans from the U.S. Federal Reserve, and that it was gaining market share from larger rivals. The Fed had unveiled a program to purchase $40 billion in mortgage bonds.
The company saw its trading revenue more than double to $293 million from $141 million a year earlier.
"Our competitive position is very strong so across the products within fixed income I think we're gaining market share," Chief Executive Richard Handler said on a post-earnings conference call.
As the first investment bank to report earnings, Jefferies is often viewed as an indicator for larger Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley .
Jefferies, founded in 1962 in Los Angeles to trade large stock orders away from the New York Stock Exchange, agreed last month to be bought by top shareholder Leucadia National Corp for $2.76 billion in stock.
"Combining our company with an extremely well-capitalized parent will allow us to continue to aggressively add value to our clients," Jefferies said in a statement on Tuesday.
Compensation costs at the company remained high with the company paying 59.9 percent of net revenue to employees, in line with previous periods but higher than the 50 percent industry peers generally target.
Net income rose to $72 million, or 31 cents per share, in the fourth quarter from $48 million, or 21 cents per share, a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, earnings were 35 cents per share.
Analysts had expected the company to earn 32 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue for the quarter rose 39 percent to $769 million, above estimates of $722.6 million. Investment banking revenue rose 8 percent to $283 million.
Jefferies shares, which have risen 12 percent since the Leucadia deal was announced in mid-November, was trading up 2.5 percent at $18.70 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday

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Oracle 2Q earnings rise 18 pct as tech spending up

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Oracle says its latest quarterly earnings rose 18 percent as companies splurged on more software and other technology toward the end of the year.
The results announced Tuesday are an improvement from Oracle's previous quarter, when the company's revenue dipped slightly from a year earlier.
The latest quarter spanned September through November. That makes Oracle the first technology bellwether to provide insights into corporate spending since the Nov. 6 re-election of President Obama and negotiations to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff began to heat up.
Oracle Corp. earned $2.6 billion, or 53 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter. That compares with net income of $2.2 billion, or 43 cents per share, last year.
Revenue increased 3 percent to $9.1 billion.

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Oracle sees third-quarter profit of 64 to 68 cents per share

OSTON (Reuters) - Oracle Corp, the world's No. 3 software maker, said it expects to report non-GAAP earnings per share of 64 cents to 68 cents in its fiscal third quarter.
Oracle forecast that third-quarter new software sales and cloud subscriptions sales will rise 3 percent to 13 percent from a year earlier.
The company said its sees third-quarter hardware products sales flat to down 10 percent from a year ago.
Chief Executive Larry Ellison said he expects hardware systems revenue to start growing from the fiscal fourth quarter.
Oracle President Mark Hurd said that Oracle is gaining share against SAP in Europe.

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What's behind Russia's bill banning US adoptions?

A Russian bill that had seemed initially like a tit-for-tat response to US legislation now looks to be exploding into broad legislation that bars almost any US citizen from engaging in non-business activity in Russia – including the adoption of Russian children.
Russia's State Duma on Wednesday passed a bill, in key second reading, that would ban all adoptions of Russian children by US citizens, order the closure of any politically-active nongovernmental organization with US funding, and block US passport-holders from working in any nonprofit group that authorities deem connected with politics. The bill passed the 450-seat Duma overwhelmingly, with just 15 deputies opposed.
The now radically-amended Dima Yakovlev bill, named after one of 19 Russian children who have died because of alleged negligence of his American adoptive parents in the past two decades, goes far beyond the originally-stated intent to respond to the US Senate's Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Obama last week.
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The initial bill, which passed first reading last Friday, would have levied economic and visa sanctions against US officials allegedly involved in human rights abuses against Russians. Among the categories of Americans to be hit in the original bill were adoptive parents who abused their Russian-born children and officials involved in the extradition and prosecution of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a New York court last year.
Experts say that might have been a straightforward symmetrical response to the Magnitsky Act, which targets Russian officials implicated in the 2009 prison death of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other alleged individual human rights abusers.
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But with the amendments loaded on this week, the bill that Duma deputies seem set to pass on third reading Friday – a prerequisite for it reaching the desk of President Vladimir Putin – casts a far wider net.
The Kremlin has not so far commented. But the proposed adoption ban has met with unexpected pushback from some Russian government departments. One of those is the Foreign Ministry, which has spent years negotiating a bilateral US-Russia adoption agreement that finally came into force last month.
CAUTION
The adoption ban "is not right, and I am sure that the State Duma will make the right decision in the end," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the official ITAR-Tass agency before the Duma voted. "International adoption as an institution has a full right to exist."
Others who've cautioned the Duma against making "emotional" decisions that might need to be corrected later include the speaker of the upper house of parliament, Valentina Matvienko, and education minister Dmitry Livanov.
Some analysts say the Duma is out in front of the Kremlin, in passing even more draconian laws than they are asked to, because deputies of the majority United Russia faction are still stung by the accusations of the protest movement that erupted at the time of Duma elections a year ago, claiming that the pro-Kremlin party won by fraud and voter coercion, and were therefore an illegitimate parliament.
"They are still offended by all the criticism, and the jibes that United Russia is 'the party of rogues and thieves'," says Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow.
"They were given the task to react to the Magnitsky Act, but they started adding all sorts of amendments onto it.... I think they are doing this just out of spite, to show the opposition that they have the power, and they can do what they want. It's very likely that Putin will play 'good cop' in the end, and remove some measures, like the adoption ban, when this lands on his desk," Mr. Mukhin says.
ADOPTION
Other experts say that the long-running political opposition to foreign adoptions is a key plank in the program of emerging Russian nationalists, and that genuine support for this measure in the Duma shouldn't be underestimated.
Russia has officially suspended adoptions several times in the past few years, usually amid the media storm that results any time an adopted Russian child dies through abuse or negligence at the hands of American parents.
About 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by American families in the past two decades, of whom a confirmed 19 have died in circumstances of parental abuse or negligence. In one case that led to a tsunami of outrage in Russia, a 7-year-old Russian boy was put on a plane to Moscow by his adoptive mother with a "to whom it may concern" note pinned to his clothes saying he was too much trouble to look after.
There are about 650,000 registered orphans in Russia, but Russian law requires that only those who cannot be adopted domestically – usually for health reasons – may be made available for foreign adoption.
"If they go ahead and ban adoptions to the US, we'll have to close down," says Galina Sigayeva, a representative of New Hope Christian Services, a US adoption agency that's specialized in Russia for almost 20 years, and has been through all the past crises and managed to retain its accreditation amid ever-tightening restrictions.
"We have assisted in the adoption of 140 children to the US, and we have kept in touch with all of them and followed their lives in America. This is our duty. All of those children had health problems, and had been rejected for adoption by Russian citizens. So what kind of gloomy future do children like this face if the Duma closes down adoptions to the US?" Ms. Sigayeva says.

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South Korea elects its first woman president, Park Geun-hye

The United States has proposed a boundary between Lebanon and Israel's maritime economic zones to help end a lingering dispute over rival claims and open up oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
If the idea is accepted by both sides, it will reduce the risk of renewed conflict between the two enemy states and hasten Lebanon’s efforts to begin tapping the billions of dollars of natural gas estimated to be lying beneath the seabed.
The proposal, which was submitted to both countries recently, is a compromise on the overlapping exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries individually submitted by Lebanon and Israel, which left 330 square miles in dispute.
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There are major economic interests at stake. The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in March 2010 that the Levantine basin, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Cyprus, could hold as much as 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of gas. The estimated gas deposit represents about 8.5 percent of known global total deposits, according to an assessment by USGS in June.
“The US has offered some ideas and the parties have them under careful consideration,” said a source familiar with the US proposal who would only discuss the subject under condition of anonymity. “Both sides appear to be interested in an equitable solution, which sums up what international law requires in resolving disputes of this nature.”
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The US has been mediating a solution between Lebanon and Israel since mid-2011, partly to neutralize another potential trigger for war, partly to allow both countries to peacefully exploit the fossil fuel wealth beneath the seabed of the eastern Mediterranean, and partly in the hope that US oil companies can secure exploitation contracts.
Surveys conducted off the Lebanese coast have confirmed Lebanon’s untapped oil and gas wealth.
Gibran Bassil, Lebanon’s energy minister, has claimed that surveys have shown that the area off the southern Lebanon coast alone contains 12 trillion cubic feet of gas which “could be enough to cover Lebanon’s electricity production needs for the next 99 years.”
Lebanon submitted its proposed EEZ boundary with Israel to the United Nations in October 2010, selecting an endpoint 82 miles out at sea, equidistant between coastal promontories on Cyprus, Israel, and Lebanon – standard cartographic procedure for such cases.
But in July 2011, Israel submitted its own version of the boundary to the UN. Its end point lay some 10 miles northeast of Lebanon’s final point, creating a 330 square mile overlap.
The maritime dispute quickly provoked bellicose rhetoric. Israel, which already moved ahead with parceling up oil and gas concessions in its northern coastal waters, has drawn up a multimillion dollar plan to defend its interests, while Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah warned the Jewish state to stay out of the disputed zone.
Nabih Berri, the Lebanese parliamentary speaker, said in September that “we will not compromise on any amount of water from our maritime borders and oil, not even a single cup."
However, Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s prime minister, is believed to be supportive of a quick resolution to the dispute. And despite his defiant tone, Mr. Berri has been the most active Lebanese leader in pushing for the exploitation of Lebanon’s off-shore resources, suggesting that the value of the fossil fuel waiting to be tapped will overcome reservations over a compromise with Israel.
Furthermore, new technologies and rising fuel prices are making economically viable many oil and gas reservoirs around the world that were previously considered commercially unattractive. If Lebanon and Israel cannot resolve their EEZ boundary, international oil companies may choose to exploit oil and gas opportunities elsewhere rather than invest in an area that could prove the trigger for a future war.

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Israel moves to further seal off Jerusalem from West Bank

Israeli officials today approved plans for 2,612 new homes to be built on Givat HaMatos, or Airplane Hill, which is set to become the first new Jerusalem neighborhood to be built outside Israel's internationally recognized borders since 1996.
The placement profoundly concerns Palestinians and advocates of a two-state solution. They say that it and other building projects under way would make drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state unworkable by fragmenting Palestinian areas, and thus could deal a devastating blow to the two-state solution.
“I believe that Givat HaMatos is a deal-breaker,” says Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney and founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, which tracks developments that could jeopardize a two-state solution. “How many times can you cut a worm in half and the worm starts wiggling?”
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Some 549 new homes in Givat HaMatos for Arab residents were also approved yesterday, but went largely unnoticed amid a series of Israeli moves to expand building in East Jerusalem and the highly controversial area of E1, which would create an Israeli bubble deep into the West Bank. Critics of Givat HaMatos have called it a mini-E1.
The US State Department yesterday used unusually strong language to criticize what it characterized as a “continuing pattern of provocative action” that jeopardizes a two-state solution.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes issue with that criticism. “Jerusalem is our capital and we feel like it’s not particularly controversial or provocative at all for us to build in it – we’ve been here for 3,000 years now,” says Paul Hirschson, deputy spokesperson for the ministry. “It’s not only a geographical area, it’s an idea. It’s our idea, and we put it on the map.”
DRIVING A WEDGE
In the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Old City, and expanded the borders of the city to include strategic high ground. As a result, the size of the city more than tripled virtually overnight. Israel annexed the whole area, proclaiming a united Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital. But the international community never recognized that annexation beyond the pre-1967 border, also known as the Green Line due to the color of magic marker that was used to draw the map, and considers the expanded portions of the city to be occupied land.
While much of East Jerusalem remains predominantly Arab, the Jewish presence there has expanded to roughly 200,000. Jewish neighborhoods have been established in areas that drive a wedge between Arab areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, in what some say is a calculating political game akin to tick-tack-toe. The cumulative effect, say Palestinians and their supporters, is that it is becoming increasing impractical to establish a viable, contiguous Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
Under the Clinton Parameters, laid out by President Clinton in 2000 and widely accepted as the guidelines for drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state, Arab areas would be assigned to Palestine and Jewish areas would be assigned to Israel.
But Mr. Seidemann says that the establishment of Givat HaMatos would make it impossible to implement the Clinton Parameters, because it would cut off the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa from the West Bank. Mr. Hirschson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs disputes this, and takes issue with the “racial” perspective on building in Jerusalem, saying at the end of the day, Israel is building for Israeli residents – Jewish and Arab.
Givat HaMatos would also put the final link in a largely Jewish “buffer” between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And it would connect Har Homa, the last neighborhood to be established outside the 1967 lines, with Jerusalem – creating a southern bubble similar to the eastern bubble of E1 and the adjacent Maale Adumim area, though on a smaller scale.
“We are witnessing today a very crucial moment … a moment of irreversibility,” Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian presidential candidate and democracy activist, told journalists at a dinner yesterday. “If people expect that Palestinians will accept living in a system of Bantustans, a system of apartheid … then they are mistaken.”
A CHILL WIND IN BETHLEHEM
While the uptick in building plans has hit all Palestinians hard, they have put a particular damper on Christmas festivities in Bethlehem this year, squeezing the beleaguered Christian community and their Muslim neighbors both economically and politically.
“I’m not a Christian man, but to me, Christianity is a very important part of why Palestine is a holy land,” says senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath, standing on a grassy knoll of Givat HaMatos with the Mar Elias monastery behind him. “This is at the heart of a part of Palestine in which Christian Palestinians have a real presence. That is being threatened.”
Traditionally the Christmas procession to Bethlehem begins at the Mar Elias monastery, but today it is separated from Bethlehem by the concrete wall erected by Israel after a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings beginning in 2000.
Today, Palestinians are confined to 13 percent of the Bethlehem District, with wide swaths of land taken up by Israeli homes and related infrastructure, such as roads for West Bank settlers.
Building is continuing apace in Har Homa. Israel plans to extend its separation barrier through the nearby Christian town of Beit Jala, renowned for its olive oil. The plans, which would cut off 58 families from their olive groves, are pending an Israeli supreme court decision in February.
In addition, there is talk of reestablishing an Israeli military outpost in neighboring Beit Sahur, a stronghold of nonviolent resistance and the birthplace of the International Solidarity Movement during the first intifada.
“For us it’s very scary, it’s reminiscent of what happened in Jabal Abu Ghomoneih [Har Homa],” says activist and professor Mazin Qumsiyeh. “Bethlehem has become like a ghetto.”
A local Catholic priest finds hope only in appealing to a higher authority.
“Only God can help us … only God can change the mind of everybody to give us our rights,” says Ibrahim Shomali.

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Newtown shooting cranks up Canada's gun-control debate

Though the massacre in Newtown, Conn., last week has drawn sympathy from all over the world, it has a particular resonance in Canada.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 26 victims dead, including 20 children, comes just a week after the 23rd anniversary of Canada's own "Montreal Massacre," which reshaped the country's gun laws. Moreover, it occurred even as Canadians recently renewed calls for stricter controls on firearms access here amid ongoing efforts by the Conservative government to ease firearms laws.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered his condolences to the Newtown victims' families while calling the shootings “senseless.” But critics here accuse Mr. Harper's government of practically standing alone among Western nations in rolling back gun-control protections in recent years – most noticeably by scrapping the "long-gun" registry, which logged all of the country's rifles and shotguns, in 2011.
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“It has been a useful issue for the Conservative government over the last few years; the registry for a long time was a symbol of government waste,” says Blair Brown, an associate professor of history at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and the author of “Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada.”
There are an estimated 8 million legally owned guns in Canada, representing about 18 percent of Canadian households. Canada's gun laws are more strict than those of the US. Canadian federal law requires that all restricted and prohibited weapons – including all handguns – be registered with the government. Canada also requires licenses to buy, own, and use firearms.
Canada's strict gun regime, including the now repealed long-gun registry, was introduced by the Liberal government in the mid-1990s, in large part prompted by the Montreal Massacre, in which, on Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine shot and killed 14 women at the Montreal's École Polytechnique before killing himself.
Montreal was also the setting for another school shooting in 2006, at Dawson College, where one student was killed and 19 were wounded before the killer turned his guns on himself. And Toronto has increasingly been the setting in recent years of messy gun battles and shootings in crowded public places, often with guns that have either been smuggled in from the US or stolen from registered gun owners.
HAS GUN-LAW RELAXATION GONE TOO FAR...
Canadian gun-control advocates argue that still more restrictions are needed. They point out that the type of hunting rifle used by Lepine in Montreal is sold by Canadian Tire, an iconic Canadian chain of hardware stores – much as critics of America’s gun culture note that the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, used in the Sandy Hook shootings, is readily sold by chains like Wal-Mart.
And Heidi Rathjen, who witnessed the Montreal Massacre in 1989 and is now part of a group of survivors and family members of the tragedy who advocate for stricter gun controls, says that rifles, shotguns, and many assault-style weapons remain easily accessible in Canada.
To Ms. Rathjen, the Harper government has done more to erode gun laws than simply scrap the long-gun registry: “They’ve weakened provisions around licensing. While it remains true that you need a license to purchase a gun, a seller no longer has to check the validity of your permit.”
“The fact that there’s been terrible shootings and gun-related deaths has never made a difference. They’ve been very uncompromising in their position, they’ve done everything they could to please the gun lobby, and they plan to do more,” adds Rathjen.
Still, the government has shown signs that there are limits to how far it'll go. Earlier this month, on the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, the prime minister distanced himself from several recommendations of the government-appointed Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee – a group comprised almost entirely of gun enthusiasts and advocates – when it was reported that the committee recommended eliminating all together the most restrictive “prohibited” category of firearms – which includes automatic assault rifles.
“The government has absolutely no intention of weakening that category of protection,” Harper was quoted as saying in the Toronto Star.
Another conservative recommendation that would see gun licensing go from five-years to a 10-year renewal term – which opposition critics pointed out would provide less opportunity to do background and mental health checks of registered gun owners – was later dropped. And mental health and gun ownership have gained renewed traction as details of the Sandy Hook killer come out.
... OR NOT FAR ENOUGH?
But to Canada’s gun lobby, the existing licensing and registration regime is restrictive enough. According to Blair Hagen, with Canada’s National Firearms Association, if the government recognized the right of citizens to bear arms, it would make any debate about their safe use and ownership a lot easier.
“All of the emphasis has been put on controlling and limiting the access to the firearms, and in some ways I can understand that,” says Mr. Hagen. “But the effects and failures of that system have to be accounted for now. How can you stop a determined person from getting access to these things? Seems to me if they’re determined, no law is going to stop them.”
Like their southern counterparts, the US National Rifle Association, the NFA is reluctant to talk about gun control in light of the Newtown tragedy. “Is this the time to talk about those things, after a massive tragedy like this? I don’t think so. I think it’s got to be done a lot more rationally, and done with a purpose rather than a reaction,” says Hagen.
But Rathjen questions whether the NFA and others opposed to gun control will ever commit to such a discussion willingly. She points out that Harper took a hard line on an assault-weapons ban – but only after the CFAC’s recommendations came to light after gun-control advocates pressed the matter, and in the midst of Canada marking the anniversary of its saddest chapter of gun violence.
“I don’t know if this makes any difference to them – the human tragedy of the Sandy Hook shootings – because they’ve ignored the evidence, they’ve ignored the opinions of experts that say that the long-gun registry is essential, that say that it saves lives, that it helps reduce gun-related crime,” she says.

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Palestinians begin returning to Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Refugees have started returning to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria after fighting between rebels and government-allied forces sent them fleeing, but the status of the Palestinian refugees, along with hundreds of thousands of others displaced by the Syrian conflict, remains a top concern for observers outside the country.
The Associated Press reports that, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, "hundreds of people have returned" to Yarmouk after fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad drove out as many as two-thirds of the camp's 150,000 residents by United Nations estimates.
The battle at Yarmouk, located in southern Damascus, began Dec. 14, as pro-Assad Palestinian fighters attacked anti-Assad Palestinian rebels based in the camp. Al Jazeera English reported yesterday that although Syrian troops did not participate in the fighting within the camp, they provided support to the pro-Assad fighters, cutting off the camp from the outside and launching air strikes into the camp, which reportedly killed at least eight people on Dec. 16.
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Al Jazeera noted that pro-Assad newspaper Al-Watan reported earlier this week that the government was preparing for a major assault on Yarmouk.
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AP adds that while fighting has eased, some rebels still remain in the camp. Damascus-based Palestinian official Khaled Abdul-Majid told the AP that Cairo-based Palestinian leaders are negotiating the rebels' exit. Palestinian refugees in Syria have been divided over which side to ally themselves with in the ongoing civil war.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been affected by the conflict. Some 1 million people are expected to have fled Syria by mid-2013, and another 2 million have already been displaced within the country, reports BBC. The UN has issued an appeal for $1.5 billion for relief efforts in Syria.
The UN has registered more than half a million refugees so far, with between 2,000 and 3,000 arriving every day in countries neighboring Syria.
"Unless these funds come quickly, we will not be able to fully respond to the life-saving needs of civilians who flee Syria every hour of the day – many in a truly desperate condition," Panos Moumtzis of the UNHCR said.
"We are constantly shocked by the horrific stories refugees tell us," he added. "Their lives are in turmoil. They have lost their homes and family members. By the time they reach the borders, they are exhausted, traumatised and with little or no resources to rely on.
UN officials said they would need to provide food, shelter, medicines and even schools for them over the next year.
Syria is home to nearly half a million Palestinian refugees living in 12 camps around the country, including Yarmouk, according to the AP. Al Arabiya reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday called on the UN to help the Palestinian refugees displaced by the fighting in Syria to return to Gaza and the West Bank.

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