LulzSec member: Group is ‘bored’

LulzSec member: Group is ‘bored’

NEW YORK

A member of a publicity-seeking hacker group that sabotaged websites over the past two months and is dissolving itself says his group isn’t disbanding under pressure from the FBI or enemy hackers.

“We’re not quitting because we’re afraid of law enforcement,” the LulzSec member said in a conversation with The Associated Press over the Internet voice program Skype. “The press are getting bored of us, and we’re getting bored of us.”

The group’s hacking has included attacks on law enforcement and releases of private data. It said unexpectedly Saturday it was dissolving itself.

Investors advised to expect less

BASEL, Switzerland

Investors should prepare themselves for smaller profit margins as banks stash away more capital to avoid another global financial crisis, the world’s major central bankers cautioned Sunday.

They also advised central banks around the world that interest rates might need to rise soon to bring inflation under control.

The Bank for International Settlements said new rules for banks to gradually increase their capital cushions likely would result in more-predictable and smaller returns.

But the bank, an umbrella organization for the world’s major central banks, also said in its annual report that bank managers and shareholders haven’t adjusted expectations accordingly.

It said rates might have to be raised because “tighter global monetary policy is needed in order to contain inflation pressures and ward off financial stability risks.”

Bachmann: Scare tactics on debt limit

WASHINGTON

On the eve of her entry into the 2012 GOP presidential race, Rep. Michele Bachmann said “scare tactics” are being used by those warning of an economic calamity unless Congress raises the government’s borrowing limit by an August deadline.

The three-term congresswoman from Minnesota said the U.S. could avoid a default by paying only the interest on U.S. obligations while lawmakers work on a deal to cut spending dramatically as part of a new debt ceiling.

Such an approach has been derided as unworkable by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Bachmann, a tea-party favorite, planned to kick off her campaign today in Waterloo, Iowa, her birthplace. The Iowa Poll released Saturday night by The Des Moines Register showed her in a statistical tie with Republican rival Mitt Romney among likely caucus-goers.

Brazilian elected head of food agency

ROME

Brazil’s one-time food- security minister, Jose Graziano da Silva, on Sunday was elected director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.N. agency tasked with reducing world hunger at a time of near-record high food prices.

Graziano, currently FAO’s regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, won on the second ballot in a 92-88 vote of the 180 member states voting.

Associated Press