Scotland votes no

It truly has been a dramatic and historic night. The eyes of the world have been firmly on the Scottish people, who in the course of the past 24 hours rejected independence in a referendum choosing to stay part of its 307-year-old union with England and Wales.

An estimated 55% of voters rejected Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s plans for his country to become a separate nation – although there were big majorities for independence in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, and in Dundee.

Edinburgh, the country’s capital, voted no, along with Aberdeen, and a host of other areas that might have been expected to have voted yes.

But in the end the vote was not as close as the last few polls - and the incredible energy and enthusiasm of the yes campaign on polling day - had suggested. Turnout was approximately 85% - unknown since the 1950s.

In an early-morning concession speech, Salmond said he accepted the verdict of the people but noted that Scotland had not chosen independence “at this stage”, suggesting he may return to the idea of independence.

“We have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics,” he said.

The Scottish first minister also warned the three main parties in the UK that they must make good on their promises of further devolution for Scotland by 22 January 2015. The last-ditch promise made by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat party leaders is proving controversial, particularly among prime minister David Cameron’s Tories.

“The people of Scotland have spoken” declared Alistair Darling, the former chancellor of Great Britain who led the campaign to keep the union.

Cameron spoke this morning, saying he was delighted Scots had voted to keep the union and suggesting the issue of Scottish independence had been settled for a generation - even for “a lifetime”.

Further devolution would now be taken forward by Lord Smith of Kelvin, the prime minister said - not just for Scotland, but for Wales, Northern Ireland and England too. The controversial question of Scottish MPs voting on English matters needed an answer, he said.

The Queen is expected to speak this afternoon, focusing on the reconciliation of the nation.

The Pentagon wants a plane that can attain incredibly fast speeds while also possessing the ability to hover. The experimental Phantom Swift X-Plane will fulfill that role, and now Boeing has secured a $9 million to continue work it started roughly one year ago.

The idea for the aircraft, which resulted from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) VTOL X-Plane competition in 2013, will eventually be powered by an all-electric drive and measure 13 meters nose to tail and 15 meters from wingtip to wingtip, the military blog Defense Tech reported Aug. 28. The finished product is also expected to weight between 10,000 to 12,000 pounds.

“Boeing will continue to refine their design of the [VTOL] experimental aircraft, bringing it to a preliminary design review level,” the Department of Defense said in a statement, global security website IHS Janes reported Aug. 27. “Specifically, Boeing will complete the following milestones: system definition review; interim progress review; and preliminary design review.”

DARPA awarded the funds for a 16-month option on an existing 7-month base contract, IHS Janes reported. Of the four companies vying for a shot at making the Phantom Swift X-Plane, Boeing was the sole company capable of building and flying a scale model of the aircraft, the website reported.

....if Scotland left the union

A fortnight ago, about 130 business leaders, who between them employ 50,000 people in Scotland, wrote an open letter in the Scotsman newspaper saying No Thanks to separation. The group, led by the chief executive of engineering giant Weir, Keith Cochrane, said the “business case” for Scottish independence had not been made.

Kingfisher boss Cheshire does not believe Scotland will be able to keep the pound, which would mean repricing 35,00 products, with the cost being passed on to customers. He called on other business leaders to come out and make similar points, saying “It’s now or never.”

Jean-Bernard Levy, the head of France’s Thales – Britain’s second-largest defence contractor – said a yes vote would force the company to reconsider its facilities on both sides of the border.

BP boss Bob Dudley, said he does not want to see Scotland “drifting away” from the UK, because independence would almost certainly mean higher costs for his business.

HSBC chairman Douglas Flint has warned that uncertainty over Scotland’s currency could prompt capital flight from the country and leave it in a “parlous” financial state.

Weir, one of Scotland’s biggest companies, said independence will “guarantee” higher costs for business but produce few and uncertain benefits, after commissioning a report on the economics.

Standard Life, one of the main pillars of Scotland’s finance industry, has set up English subsidiaries as a part of “contingency” planning that could see it quit Scotland.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Scotland’s biggest bank, has tried not to raise the temperature despite harbouring concerns over the risks to its credit rating and business.

Lloyds Banking Group has warned of a “material impact” on its costs and borrowing, implying a knock-on impact for businesses and customers for the owner of Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland.

Alliance Trust, a pensions and savings firm based in Dundee, has been registering companies in England.

Former Sainsbury’s boss Justin King, was accused of scaremongering by the Scottish National party when he warned that independence could mean higher food prices north of the border. Asda and Morrisons have also warned consumers would face higher prices, reflecting the higher transport costs for some remote areas.

 

 

Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has said it could take years for an independent Scotland to be integrated into the EU, as all 28 countries would need to unanimously agree.

"It's clear that if one part of a state separates, it converts itself into a third territory with respect to the EU," he said, pointing to treaties and remarks by EU leaders. "They can ask to be integrated and begin a process that could take years. In the case of Spain it took eight years." Rajoy has previously suggested he would block Scotland's entry into the EU. With the referendum in Scotland only hours away, the strength of the yes campaign has buoyed separatists in Catalonia and put the Spanish government on the defensive. Madrid argues that unlike Scotland, any type of vote for independence in Catalonia would violate the country's 1978 constitution, which states that such issues must be decided by all Spaniards. Rajoy's remarks to parliament on Wednesday came in response to a question from Aitor Esteban, a Basque Nationalist party MP, who asked: "If the yes campaign wins tomorrow's Scottish referendum, will your government facilitate the integration of Scotland in the European Union?" Rajoy said he had spoken to representatives from the 28 countries in the EU and that "everyone in Europe thinks that these processes are tremendously negative because they generate economic recessions and more poverty for everyone". They act like a "torpedo to the vulnerabilities of the EU, which was created to integrate states, not to fragment them. Strong states are what's needed today," he said. Rajoy sought to draw a clear line between the secession movements in Scotland and Catalonia. "There are many differences between the process of Scotland and that of here. The main one is that Scotland has virtually no powers compared to Catalonia and other autonomous regions."

On Tuesday, Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García Margallo, said his government would do everything it could to block any sort of referendum from taking place in Catalonia. "Each and every Spaniards is the owner of each and every square centimetre of the country," he said. On Wednesday, he said Scottish secession would be a catastrophe. "It would start a process of Balkanisation that nobody in Europe wants," he said. Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, has long argued that it would be possible for the country to renegotiate membership of the EU from within. In a speech on the subject in April, he said it would be absurd to deny the people of Scotland entry. "The Scottish government recognises that continued membership of the EU will require negotiations on the specific terms. That is only right and proper, but these negotiations will be completed within the 18-month period between a yes vote in September and achieving independence in March 2016," he said. "Scotland will ask for continued membership on the basis of 'continuity of effect'." "Five and a quarter million people ceasing to be EU citizens against their will … is more than absurd. There is simply no legal basis in the EU treaties for any such proposition. And it is against the founding principles of the European Union."

Russia's ruling party is heading to a convincing victory in Crimea's polls, less than six months after annexing the region.

A preliminary count on Monday showed Crimea's regional branch of the United Russia party was leading with 71.04 percent of votes, after 50 percent of the ballots had been counted, Crimea's electoral commission said. The ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), led by firebrand lawyer Vladimir Zhirinovsky who backs the Kremlin, was running second with just over eight percent of the vote. No other party appeared to have broken the five percent barrier for representation in the Crimean regional parliament, with a turnout of around 52 percent. The residents of the Black Sea peninsula were voting to select politicians for the parliaments of Crimea and Sevastopol, and for local city councillors. In polls for the regional parliament of the city of Sevastopol, United Russia had won 76 percent, while LDPR won 7 percent, with 65 percent of the votes counted.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who leads the United Russia, said the vote proved Russia was acting legitimately in Crimea.  "All the participants in the electoral campaign in Crimea have proved to us and our neighbours that power in Russia is based on legal procedures," Medvedev said on Monday in remarks released by the government. However critics called foul, saying politics in the region had come to resemble the Soviet political landscape, with the election characterised by favoritism towards Russian President Vladimir Putin's ruling party. "Suddenly, in three months everything became United Russia here," Andrei Brezhnev, head of the Communist Party of Social Justice said.  Ukraine condemned the votes as illegitimate in a statement issued by its foreign ministry.

Russia's gas supplies to Poland have dropped by 45%, Poland's state gas firm PGNiG says, amid tensions over Ukraine.

The news came just hours after Poland stopped providing gas to Ukraine through "reverse-flow" pipelines. The Russian gas volumes were 24% lower on Tuesday and 20% lower on Monday, according to PGNiG. That shortfall prompted Poland to halt reverse-flow. Poland and Ukraine rely heavily on Russian natural gas. Russia is in a pricing dispute over gas with Ukraine. Some analysts believe Russia, which stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in June over the pricing dispute, is punishing Poland for sending gas to Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have been fighting pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine since April, after the separatists declared independence in two regions. Russia has denied arming the rebels and sending soldiers across the border. On Wednesday Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom denied Poland's allegation that it had reduced gas supplies. "Currently exactly the same volume of gas is being delivered to Poland as on previous days - 23m cubic metres daily," Gazprom said in a statement (in Russian) quoted by Russia's Ria Novosti news agency. Hungary and Slovakia pump much more gas to Ukraine than Poland via reverse-flow, but they have not yet reported a significant drop in their supply from Russia.

Earlier this year Gazprom and Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of consequences if EU member states went ahead with reverse-flow deliveries to Ukraine. Mr Putin argued that such deliveries would undermine existing gas contracts with the EU.

The Russian business daily Kommersant reports (in Russian) that this week Poland asked for extra Russian gas supplies because of a cold snap, but Gazprom refused, saying it did not have enough gas to pump into Russia's underground storage tanks.