ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece agreed to harsh terms for a new three-year bailout Tuesday and vowed to push it through parliament this week, despite mounting dissent in the ruling left-wing party.

With the country facing the risk of a debt default next week, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had sought to speed up the talks and get approval of a deal this week.

After Greece and its creditors reached an accord on the main points on Tuesday, Tsipras called for an emergency session of parliament for a vote late Thursday.

Greece needs to start tapping the new bailout — worth 85 billion euros ($93 billion) — so that it can make a key debt repayment next week and secure its future in the euro.

The draft agreement forces Tsipras to accept what he had vowed to resist only months ago: the sale of some state property and deep cuts to pensions, military spending and ending tax credits to people considered vulnerable.

Officials in Athens and the European Union said a few issues were left to be ironed out Tuesday.

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A man reads a newspaper outside a shop in in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki, Tuesday, …

"We are very close. Two or three very small details remain," Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said as he emerged Tuesday morning from all-night discussions with creditors.

The European Commission, a key negotiator in the talks, confirmed the progress. Annika Breidthardt, the Commission's spokeswoman for economic affairs, said the details were expected to be cleared up later in the day.

Dissenters in Tsipras' left-wing Syriza party, who want to end bailout talks and return to a national currency, promised to fight the deal, describing it as a "noose around the neck of the Greek people."

Tsipras requested an end to the summer recess to allow for the two-day approval procedure and to get a vote before a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Friday.

The agreement still requires approval from higher-level representatives, and senior finance officials from the 28 EU nations were holding a conference call Tuesday.

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In this Friday, July 31, 2015 file photo, Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos arrives for a mee …

Germany, the largest single contributor to Greece's two previous bailouts and among the toughest negotiators so far, remained cautious on the timing for a final deal. "We will have to examine the results that come in the course of today," deputy finance minister Jens Spahn told n-tv television.

Investors cheered the news of progress.

Greece's government borrowing rates fell, a sign investors are less worried about a default. The 2-year bond yield dropped by 4.2 percentage points to 14.73 percent. The Athens Stock Exchange, which reopened recently after being shut for five weeks during the most severe part of Greece's financial crisis closed up 2.1 percent.

Cash-strapped Greece needs more money by Aug. 20 at the latest, when it has a debt repayment of just over 3 billion euros to make to the European Central Bank.

The government insisted it has also gained key concessions from lenders: greater control over labor reforms, avoiding a "fire sale" of state assets, and softer deficit targets.

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Greece's Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis, left, arrives at a hotel to continue talks with bai …

It said it had agreed to have a 0.25 percent government deficit this year and a 0.5 percent surplus next year, when not counting the cost of servicing debt. Those so-called primary surpluses would rise to 1.75 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent in 2018.

The surpluses are more ambitious than those of many European countries — Spain, for example, is not expected to achieve a primary surplus before 2018. That's largely because the creditors want to make sure Greece is able to start paying off its debt load as soon as possible.

The government claims the creditors wanted even more ambitious surplus targets, and that the targets it agreed to mean it has will be able to spare the country budget cuts worth about 20 billion euros.

"This practically means that with the current agreement there will be no fiscal burden — in other words new measures — in the immediate future," the government said in a note.

Banks will be strengthened with new cash infusions by the end of the year and will have an immediate boost of "at least 10 billion euros," it said. The government insists this means there is no longer any danger that the banks may have to raid bank deposits to restore their financial health.

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A man works at his coffee shop in the main meat market of the northern Greek port city of Thessaloni …

The government also said that banks will not make repossessions and auctions of primary residences will not occur within 2015.

Greece has relied on bailouts worth a total 240 billion euros ($263 billion) from eurozone members states and the International Monetary Fund since concern over its high debts locked it out of bond markets in 2010. To secure the loans, successive governments have had to implement spending cuts, tax hikes and reforms.

While the austerity has reduced budget overspending, the measures compounded a deep recession and pushed unemployment to a record high. Figures next week are expected to confirm that Greece's recession deepened in the second quarter.

Though the government was elected on a staunchly anti-austerity platform in January, it has been forced into a policy U-turn after bailout talks came close to collapse last month.

While Greece's parliament ratified further tax hikes and reforms, the rebellion by hardline Syriza lawmakers has left Tsipras' party with only a nominal parliamentary majority.

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Greece's Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis arrives at a hotel to continue talks with bailout ne …

That has stoked speculation that Tsipras will call early elections after the bailout deal is signed. Tsipras still retains strong personal support in opinion polls, which show Syriza heading for a potentially big victory.

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Lorne Cook in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

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BEIJING (AP) -- China rattled global financial markets Tuesday by devaluing its currency — an effort, in part, to revive economic growth.

The yuan's value declined 1.9 percent, its biggest one-day drop in a decade. The move could help Chinese companies by making their products less expensive in global markets. U.S. stocks plummeted, partly on fears about a worsening economic slowdown in China.

WHAT EXACTLY DID CHINA DO?

China doesn't let its currency trade freely in financial markets as the United States does. Instead, it links the yuan's value to the U.S. dollar. Then it restricts trading to a band 2 percent above or below a daily target set by the People's Bank of China. On Tuesday, the central bank set the target 1.9 percent below Monday's level — the biggest one-day change in a decade. It also made a technical change to give market forces more influence in determining the yuan's value: Its daily target will now be based on the previous day's closing value. That change will allow the yuan to make bigger, faster moves up or down and better reflect investors' outlook on the prospects for China and its currency, said David Dollar, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

WHY DID CHINA DEVALUE ITS CURRENCY?

The People's Bank of China said it acted because the yuan has been rising even when market forces say it should be falling. Worried Chinese have been moving money out of the country, putting downward pressure on the yuan. Yet the yuan has remained up anyway because of its link to the dollar, which has been rising. An overvalued yuan has hurt Chinese exporters by making their products more expensive overseas. In July, Chinese exports plunged 8.3 percent year over year.

China's economy already needed help. The economy is expected to grow less than 7 percent this year, its slowest rate since 1990, and could decelerate even more next year. The stock market has been in a freefall since June.

"This move won't solve some of the pressing problems China faces," Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University Channel Islands, cautioned in a research note. "There is too much excess capacity, especially in basic industries like steel, aluminum ... A real-estate bubble is alive and well. Chinese banks are loaded with a lot of problem loans. The gyration in the stock market won't go away. "

HOW WILL CHINA'S TRADING PARTNERS BE AFFECTED?

Investors fear the worst. U.S. stocks sank Tuesday, dragged down by falling shares in such big exporters as Caterpillar and General Electric. In theory, a weaker yuan could reduce exports of U.S. goods to China, already down nearly 5 percent this year through June.

But economists doubt that a one-day 2 percent drop in the yuan — a move China has called a one-time event — will do much damage to exports from the United States or other countries.

"Two percent is no big deal," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "Ten percent over the next few months would be a big deal."

American politicians, who have long charged that China keeps its currency artificially low to give its exporters an edge, denounced the devaluation. "Today's news that China has yet again lowered the value of its currency is another harsh reminder that we cannot afford to sit idly by as China refuses to play by the rules," Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman said in a statement.

But economists didn't see Beijing's move as an effort to defy market forces and reduce the yuan to an artificially low level. Rather, they perceived an attempt by China to catch up to an economic reality that dictates a cheaper yuan. And the plan to let market forces play a bigger role in determining the yuan's level is something the U.S. government itself has called for.

In a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department said: "China has indicated that the changes announced today are another step in its move to a more market-determined exchange rate. We will continue to monitor how these changes are implemented and continue to press China on the pace of its reforms."

MIGHT THE FEDERAL RESERVE DELAY A RATE HIKE?

Probably not. True, a cheaper yuan hurts U.S. exporters and likely depresses U.S. inflation, which is already below the annual 2 percent rate the Fed targets. But Tuesday's move wasn't big enough by itself to make much difference. So the Fed is likely to go ahead, possibly at its September meeting, and raise the short-term rate it controls, which has been pinned near zero since 2008. The U.S. economy grew at a steady 2.3 percent annual from April through June, and U.S. unemployment has fallen to a seven-year low 5.3 percent.

If the U.S. economy continues to look healthy, wrote JP Morgan Chase economist Michael Feroli, "the yuan move will largely be a sideshow " by September's Fed meeting.

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Wiseman contributed from Washington.

Associated Press Videos
Raw: Unarmed Texas Football Player Fatally Shot

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — A police officer who killed an unarmed college football player during a suspected burglary at a Texas car dealership was fired Tuesday for making mistakes that the city's police chief said caused a deadly confrontation that put him and other officers in danger.

Arlington officer Brad Miller, 49, could also face criminal charges once police complete their investigation, Police Chief Will Johnson said.

Called to the scene of a suspected burglary early Friday morning, Miller pursued 19-year-old Christian Taylor through the broken glass doors of a car dealership showroom without telling his supervising officer, Johnson said.

Instead of helping to set up a perimeter around the showroom, Miller confronted Taylor and ordered him to get down on the ground, Johnson said. Taylor did not comply. Instead, he began "actively advancing toward Officer Miller," Johnson said.

Miller's field training officer, who had followed Miller into the showroom, drew his own Taser. The training officer heard a single pop of what he thought was Miller's Taser, but Miller actually had drawn his service weapon and fired it at Taylor, who is believed to have been 7 to 10 feet away from the officer, Johnson said. After Taylor continued to approach, Miller fired his gun three more times.

"This is an extraordinarily difficult case," Johnson said. "Decisions were made that created an environment of cascading consequences and an unrecoverable outcome."

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FILE- This undated file photo provided by the Arlington Police Department shows police officer Brad …

The Arlington Municipal Patrolman's Association issued a statement Tuesday night decrying Johnson's decision. The group said it supports "Miller's right to be judged fairly and completely on facts instead of a snapshot developed in only days," and also expressed sympathy for Taylor's family.

"We again ask that citizens obey the commands of police officers in order to prevent these tragedies from occurring in the future," the association said.

An attorney for Miller did not have an immediate comment on Johnson's announcement. Taylor's family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taylor's death came two days before the anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed, black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Taylor, who was black, was a graduate of an Arlington high school and a football player at Angelo State University in West Texas. Miller is white.

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This photo provided by Angelo State University shows Christian Taylor. A police officer in suburban …

At a protest Tuesday night outside the Arlington police headquarters, about 60 demonstrators demanded that Miller be charged with a crime.

The firing was "not enough justice," said Matthew Higgins, 20, one of Taylor's former high school classmates. "If it was a white person, it probably would have been different.

There is no video of the shooting itself, though security camera footage from Classic Buick GMC dealership's parking lots shows Taylor walking around and damaging some vehicles.

Police on Tuesday released audio of a 911 call made by the company manning the exterior cameras. In the audio, the caller tells a 911 operator that a "thin black man with a blond Mohawk" was seen jumping on the windshield of a gray Ford Mustang.

Before his final confrontation with Miller, Taylor allegedly held up a set of car keys and told another officer that he intended to steal a car, Johnson said. He had driven a vehicle through the glass front doors of the showroom and, after officers arrived, was slamming his body into the side of a different part of the building to try to escape, the chief said.

"It is clear from the facts obtained that Mr. Taylor was non-compliant with police demands," Johnson said.

But the chief said he ultimately decided Miller's mistakes required his firing. While he said he had "serious concerns" about Miller's use of deadly force, Johnson said it would be up to a grand jury to decide whether Miller's actions were criminal.

Miller joined the police department in September and graduated from the city police academy earlier this year. Police said Miller cannot appeal his firing because he was a probationary employee.

He was undergoing field training and assigned to a more senior officer, though he was a licensed police officer authorized to carry a weapon. Police have previously said that he had never fired his weapon in the line of duty before.

But Johnson stressed that officers in training "have the skills, the decision-making process, the authority" to act correctly in the field.

"Although the investigation is not over, my hope is that the information shared today can assist in the healing process," Johnson said. "Some communities and our nation have been torn apart by similar challenges."

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Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant in Dallas contributed to this report.

BY: Morgan Chalfant
August 10, 2015 12:22 pm

Cyber spies in China have been accessing the private emails of “many” top Obama administration officials since at least April 2010, according to top secret documentation and a senior official in the U.S. intelligence community.

NBC News reported:

The email grab — first codenamed “Dancing Panda” by U.S. officials, and then ”Legion Amethyst” — was detected in April 2010, according to a top secret NSA briefing from 2014. The intrusion into personal emails was still active at the time of the briefing and, according to the senior official, is still going on. In 2011, Google disclosed that the private gmail accounts of some U.S. officials had been compromised, but the briefing shows that private email accounts from other providers were compromised as well.

According to the intelligence official, the personal email accounts of “all top national security and trade officials” were targeted in the cyber attack. Government email addresses, however, were not compromised because of their security.

News of the massive breach comes just as former secretary of State Hillary Clinton is facing scrutiny for her use of a private email account during her time working in the Obama administration. Clinton served as secretary of State from January 2009 to February 2013, indicating that her email account was likely targeted in the cyber attack.

However, the NSA document and the intelligence official did not specifically name the individuals ultimately affected.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a criminal probe into the security of Clinton’s private email system in the wake of revelations about several messages containing classified information from multiple intelligence agencies.

Throughout her presidential campaign, Clinton has denied sending or receiving classified information on her personal email account while at the State Department.

The “Dancing Panda” cyber attack campaign pointed to in the 2014 NSA briefing was one of over 30 “intrusion sets” carried out by China that U.S. intelligence revealed last year in classified documents. These “intrusion sets” yielded more than 600 successful cyber attacks.

China is also the suspected source of the large-scale cyber attack against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that compromised the personal data of 22.1 million people.

Meanwhile, President Obama has been thanking China for its role in finalizing the Iran nuclear arms deal.

(The Washington Free Beacon)