Mubarak Goes on Trial in Egypt

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, bedridden and looking sickly, was wheeled into the cage of a Cairo courtroom Wednesday morning to be put on trial for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters earlier this year.

The former autocrat's courtroom appearance gripped millions of Egyptians awestruck by the reversal of fortune of a man who ruled the Arab world's most populous nation for three decades with an iron fist.

The first Arab leader overthrown by his own people to face justice, Mr. Mubarak, 83 years old, was ferried by military aircraft from his hospital bed in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el Sheikh. A white ambulance helicopter Wednesday morning deposited the former president at the trial's venue, the Police Academy in Cairo's outskirts. There, he was wheeled on a stretcher into a specially constructed metal cage for defendants.

Standing in the cage alongside were his two sons Alaa and Gamal—as well as the former minister of interior and several former law-enforcement officials. Egyptian television is broadcasting the proceedings live. If convicted, Mr. Mubarak could be sentenced to death, judicial officials said.

Egypt's military rulers, who seized power from Mr. Mubarak amid massive pro-democracy protests on Feb. 11, were initially reluctant to prosecute a fellow general officer who is seen by many as a war hero because of his role as air-force commander during Egypt's 1973 conflict with Israel. It was only in May that Egypt's prosecutors announced they would try the former president, yielding to mounting pressure from the country's liberals, leftists and Islamists alike.

Many Egyptians doubted that the country's interim military rulers would put their former boss, a former air force chief, on trial. But after months of intensifying protests, Egypt's military council made good on its promise to put the country's longtime leader on trial.

Mubarak had not been seen in public since he delivered a defiant speech on Feb. 10, vowing he would not resign. A day later, he hastily traveled to the resort town of Sharm el Sheikh after the country's military chiefs forced him to step down.

The former leader has been hospitalized in in Sharm el-Sheikh for months. Mubarak's lawyer has said the 83-year-old is too ill to be put on trial, but Egypt's health minister certified in recent days that Mubarak is fit enough for the proceedings.

Earlier the judge heard from several lawyers representing relatives of slain demonstrators. The attorneys complained that many relatives of killed protesters had not been allowed inside the courtroom.

As the hearing proceeded, clashed broke out outside the courtroom as groups that appeared to be Mubarak supporters clashed with riot police officers. The dueling sides threw rocks for a few minutes, until security forces intervened to stop the fight.

"We are here because we love our father," the pro-Mubarak crowd chanted before the melee broke out. "No matter what you do we're his children and we'll protect him.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio,,born November 11, 1974 is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator (2004). In addition, he has won a Silver Bear, a Chlotrudis Award and a Satellite Award among others, and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.[

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, DiCaprio started his career by appearing in television commercials prior to landing recurring roles in TV series such as the soap opera Santa Barbara and the sitcom Growing Pains in the early 1990s. He made his film debut in the comedic sci-fi horror film Critters 3 (1991) and received first notable critical praise for his performance in This Boy's Life (1993). DiCaprio obtained recognition for his subsequent work in supporting roles in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and Marvin's Room (1996), as well as leading roles in The Basketball Diaries (1995) and Romeo + Juliet (1996), before achieving international fame in James Cameron's Titanic (1997).

Since the 2000s, DiCaprio has been nominated for awards for his work in such films as Catch Me If You Can (2002), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), Blood Diamond (2006), The Departed (2006), and Revolutionary Road (2008). His latest films Shutter Island (2010) and Inception (2010) rank among the biggest commercial successes of his career. DiCaprio owns a production company named Appian Way Productions, whose productions include the films Gardener of Eden (2007) and Orphan (2009).

A committed environmentalist, DiCaprio has received praise from environmental groups for his activism. His romantic relationships have been widely covered in the media. Following a high-profile relationship with Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen, he was in a relationship with Israeli model Bar Refaeli.

Early life and family

DiCaprio, an only child, was born in Los Angeles, California. His German-born mother, Irmelin (née Indenbirken), is a former legal secretary, and his father, George DiCaprio, is an underground comic artist and producer/distributor of comic books. DiCaprio's mother moved from Oer-Erkenschwick at the Ruhr, Germany, to the U.S. during the 1950s, while DiCaprio's father is a fourth-generation American of half south-Italian (from the Naples region) and half German descent (from Bavaria in southern Germany). DiCaprio's maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken (1915–2008), who was born Yelena Smirnova, was a Russian immigrant to Germany. In a 2010 conversation with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, DiCaprio stated that his grandfather was also Russian, and added: "So I am really half-Russian".

DiCaprio's parents met while attending college and subsequently moved to Los Angeles. He was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked.DiCaprio was raised Catholic. His parents divorced when he was a year old and he lived mostly with his mother.

DiCaprio and his mother lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park, and at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district (which was later converted into a local public library), while his mother worked several jobs to support them. He attended Seeds Elementary School and graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years.

Career,Early career

DiCaprio's career began with his appearance in several commercials and educational films. After being booted off the set of children's television series Romper Room for being disruptive at the age of five, DiCaprio followed his older stepbrother Adam Farrar into television commercials, landing an ad for Matchbox cars at 14. In 1990, he got his break on television when he was cast in the short-lived series based on the movie Parenthood. After Parenthood, DiCaprio had bit parts on several shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne, as well as a brief stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara, playing the young Mason Capwell. His involvement in Parenthood and the daily soap earned him a nomination for the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor each.

Personal life

DiCaprio is a close friend of Tobey Maguire, whom he met while auditioning for the Parenthood series in 1990 and is a longtime friend of both fellow actors Kevin Connolly and Lukas Haas, and Titanic and Revolutionary Road co-star Kate Winslet. He was a childhood friend of the late Christopher Pettiet.

His romantic relationships have been widely covered in the media. DiCaprio has dated women including model Kristen Zang on-and-off for several years, and British model and socialite Emma Miller. In 2001, he met Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen with whom he had an on-and-off relationship until their separation in 2005. DiCaprio began a relationship with model Bar Refaeli in November 2005 after meeting her at a Las Vegas party thrown for members of U2. In the course of their trip to Israel in March 2007, the couple met with Israeli president Shimon Peres and visited Refaeli's hometown of Hod HaSharon. The relationship was on hold for a period of six months starting in June 2009; in early 2010, the romance was rekindled. In May 2011, it was reported that the couple had ended their romantic relationship, although still remaining friends.

DiCaprio owns a home in Los Angeles and an apartment in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. In 2009, he bought an island in Belize on which he is planning to create an eco-friendly resort. He also owns an apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly building overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan.

DiCaprio's first film of 2002 was the crime-comedy Catch Me If You Can, based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, used his charm, confidence, and several different personas, to make millions in the 1960s writing bad checks. Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-starring Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken, the film was shot in 147 different locations in only 52 days, making it "the most adventurous, super-charged movie-making" DiCaprio had experienced yet. Catch Me If You Can received favourable reviews and proved to be an international success, becoming Dicaprio's highest-grossing film since Titanic with a total of US$351.1 million worldwide. Roger Ebert praised his performance, and noted that while "DiCaprio, who in recent films  has played dark and troubled characters, is breezy and charming here, playing a boy who discovers what he is good at, and does it. The following year, DiCaprio received his third Golden Globe nomination for his work on the film.

Also in 2002, DiCaprio appeared in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, a historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. Director Scorsese initially struggled selling his idea of realizing the film until DiCaprio became interested in playing protagonist Amsterdam Vallon, a young leader of the Irish faction, and thus, Miramax Films got involved with financing the project.Nonetheless production on the film was plagued by blown-out budgets and producer-director squabbles, resulting in a marathon eight-month shoot and, at US$103 million, the most expensive film Scorsese had ever made. Upon its release, Gangs of New York became a financial and critical success however. DiCaprio's acting was well-received but remained overshadowed by Daniel Day-Lewis' performance among most critics.

Forging a collaboration with Scorsese, the two paired again for a biopic of the eccentric and obsessive American film director and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004). Centering on Hughes' life from the late 1920s to 1947, DiCaprio initially developed the project with Michael Mann, who decided against directing it after back-to-back film biographies in Ali and The Insider. The actor eventually pitched John Logan's script to Scorsese, who quickly signed on to direct.Altogether, DiCaprio reportedly spent more than a year and a half in preparation for the film which was not necessarily shot in continuity because of actors and locations schedules.

2008–present

In 2008, DiCaprio starred in Body of Lies, a spy film based on the novel of the same name by David Ignatius, set in context of the Middle East and the War on Terror, unfolding the story of three men battling a terrorist organization, and each other. Directed by Ridley Scott and co-starring Russell Crowe and Vince Colosimo, DiCaprio dyed his hair brown and wore brown contacts for the role, which he chose to pursue because he considered it a throwback to political films in the 1970s such as The Parallax View (1974) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The film received mixed reviews from critics, and at a budget of US$67.5 million, became a moderate box office success, grossing US$115 million worldwide.

The same year, DiCaprio reunited with Kate Winslet to film the drama Revolutionary Road (2008), directed by Winslet's then-husband Sam Mendes. As both actors had been reluctant to make romantic films similar to Titanic, it was Winslet who suggested that both should work with her on a film adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates after reading the script by Justin Haythe, knowing that plot had little in common with the 1997 blockbuster. Once DiCaprio agreed to do the film, it went almost immediately into production. He noted that he saw his character as "unheroic" and "slightly cowardly" and that he was "willing to be just a product of his environment. Portraying a couple in a failing marriage in the 1950s, DiCaprio and Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the suburbs to prepare themselves for Revolutionary Road, which earned them favorable reviews. For his portrayal DiCaprio garnered his seventh nomination from the Golden Globes.

DiCaprio continued his run with Scorsese in the 2010 psychological thriller film Shutter Island (2010), based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. Co-starring Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo and Michelle Williams in supporting roles, the actor played U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, who is investigating a psychiatric facility located on an island and comes to question his own sanity. With US$41 million, the film opened at number-one at the box office, giving both DiCaprio and Scorsese their best box office opening yet.

Also in 2010, DiCaprio starred in director Christopher Nolan's science-fiction film Inception. Inspired by the experience of lucid dreaming and dream incubation, DiCaprio portrays the character of Dom Cobb, an "extractor" who enters the dreams of others to obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible. Cobb is promised a chance to regain his old life in exchange for planting an idea in a corporate target's mind.DiCaprio, the first actor to be cast in the film, was "intrigued by this concept — this dream-heist notion and how this character's gonna unlock his dreamworld and ultimately affect his real life.Released to critical acclaim, the film grossed over US$21 million on its opening day, with an opening weekend gross of US$62.7 million.

Environmental activism and philanthropy

A committed environmentalist, DiCaprio has received praise from environmental groups for his activism. In the past, he has opted to fly on commercial flights instead of chartering private jets, and it was reported that he drives a hybrid car and has solar panels installed on his house. In an interview with Ukula about his 2007 film 11th Hour, DiCaprio cited global warming as "the number-one environmental challenge.

At the 2007 Oscar ceremony, DiCaprio and former Vice President Al Gore appeared to announce that the Academy Awards had incorporated environmentally intelligent practices throughout the planning and production processes, thus affirming their commitment to the environment, and on July 7, 2007, DiCaprio presented at the American leg of Live Earth. In 2010, his environmental work earned DiCaprio a nomination for the VH1 Do Something Award. The awards show, produced by VH1, is dedicated to honoring people who do good and is powered by Do Something, an organization that aims to empower and inspire young people.

In 1998, DiCaprio and his mother donated $35,000 for a "Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center" at the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, the site of his childhood home. It was rebuilt after the 1994 Northridge earthquake and opened in early 1999. During the filming of Blood Diamond, DiCaprio worked with 24 orphaned children from the SOS Children's Village in Maputo, Mozambique, and was said to be extremely touched by his interactions with the children. In 2010, he donated $1,000,000 to relief efforts in Haiti after the earthquake.

During the 2004 Presidential election, DiCaprio campaigned and donated to John Kerry's presidential bid. FEC showed DiCaprio gave $2300 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, the maximum contribution an individual can give in an election cycle.

In November 2010, DiCaprio donated $1,000,000 to the Wildlife Conservation Society at Russia's tiger summit. DiCaprio arrived late after two near-miss flights, causing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to describe him as a "muzhik" or "real man".

In 2011, DiCaprio joined the Animal Legal Defense Fund's campaign to free Tony, a tiger who has spent the last decade at the Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete, Louisiana.

Filmography

Acting

Film

Year Title Role Notes

1991 Critters 3 Josh

1992 Poison Ivy Guy

1993 This Boy's Life Tobias "Toby" Wolff Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Emerging Actor

1993 What's Eating Gilbert Grape Arnie Grape Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Emerging Actor

National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor

Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture

1994 The Foot Shooting Party Bud

1995 The Quick and the Dead Fee Herod, "The Kid"

1995 The Basketball Diaries Jim Carroll

1995 Total Eclipse Arthur Rimbaud

1996 Romeo + Juliet Romeo Montague Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor – Romance

Silver Bear for Best Actor

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (Shared with Claire Danes)

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (Shared with Claire Danes)

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Performance

1996 Marvin's Room Hank Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

1997 Titanic Jack Dawson Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor – Drama

MTV Movie Award for Best Performance

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (Shared with Kate Winslet)

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (Shared with Kate Winslet)

Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

1998 The Man in the Iron Mask King Louis XIV/Philippe

1998 Celebrity Brandon Darrow Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Hissy Fit

2000 The Beach Richard Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor – Drama

Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Chemistry (Shared with Virginie Ledoyen)

2001 Don's Plum Derek Filmed in 1995

2002 Catch Me If You Can Frank William Abagnale Jr. Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Liar

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Italian Online Movie Award for Best Actor

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Performance

2002 Gangs of New York Amsterdam Vallon Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (Shared with Cameron Diaz)

Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Liplock (Shared with Cameron Diaz)

2004 The Aviator Howard Hughes Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

MTV Movie Award for Best Performance

Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actor

Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Italian Online Movie Award for Best Actor

Nominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor – Drama

Nominated—Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor or Actress in a Visual Effects Film

2006 The Departed William "Billy" Costigan Jr. Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble

Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actor

Gransito Movie Award Best Actor

Italian Online Movie Award for Best Actor

National Board of Review Award for Best Cast

Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture

Satellite Award for Best Cast – Motion Picture

Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role

Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Actor of the Year (Also for Blood Diamond)

Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Empire Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor

Nominated—People's Choice Award for Best On-Screen Match-Up (Shared with Matt Damon & Jack Nicholson)

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor – Drama

Nominated—Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor

2006 Blood Diamond Danny Archer Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Actor of the Year (Also for The Departed)

Nominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Nominated—St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association for Best Actor

Nominated—Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor – Drama

2007 The 11th Hour Narrator/Producer Documentary

2008 Body of Lies Roger Ferris

2008 Revolutionary Road Frank Wheeler Palm Springs International Film Festival Award for Best Ensemble Performance

Nominated—Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast

Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association for Best Actor

2010 Shutter Island Teddy Daniels Italian Online Movie Award for Best Actor

Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor – Horror/Thriller

Nominated—Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Actor of the Year (Also for Inception)

Nominated—National Movie Award for Performance of the Year

Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actor (Also for Inception)

Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Scream Awards for Best Horror Actor

2010 Hubble 3D Narrator Documentary

2010 Inception Dom Cobb Scream Award for Best Science Fiction Actor

Nominated—Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Actor of the Year (Also for Shutter Island)

Nominated—Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble

Nominated—Empire Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Irish Film and Television Award for Best International Actor

Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actor (Also for Shutter Island)

Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite On-Screen Team

Nominated—Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast

Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actor

Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama

Nominated—Scream Award for Best Ensemble

Nominated—Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble

Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best WTF Moment (Shared with Ellen Page)

2011 J. Edgar J. Edgar Hoover Post-production

Moody's

Moody's Corporation (NYSE: MCO) is the holding company for Moody's Analytics and Moody's Investors Service, a credit rating agency which performs international financial research and analysis on commercial and government entities. The company also ranks the credit-worthiness of borrowers using a standardized ratings scale. It is one of the Big Three credit rating agencies and has a 40% share of the world market, as does its main rival, Standard & Poor's; Fitch Ratings has a smaller share.

Moody's was founded in 1909 by John Moody. Top institutional owners of Moody's include Berkshire Hathaway and Davis Selected Advisers.

History

Moody's was founded in 1909 by John Moody, beginning with Analyses of Railroad Investments, "a book about railroad securities, using letter grades to assess their risk. Moody's Investors Service was incorporated on July 1, 1914, and soon extended coverage to US municipal bonds. By 1924, Moody's ratings covered nearly 100 percent of the US bond market.

In the 1970s, Moody's expanded into commercial debt, and also began the practice, along with other ratings agencies, of charging bond issuers for ratings as well as charging investors.

The number of countries covered by Moody's has risen from 3 in 1975, to 33 in 1990, to over 100 by 2000. Announcements by Moody's of possible or actual downgrades of a country's bond rating can have a major political and economic impact, as for example in Canada in 1995.

Criticism

Credit rating agencies such as Moody's have been subject to criticism in the wake of large losses in the asset-backed security collateralized debt obligation (ABS CDO) market that occurred despite being assigned top ratings by the credit rating agencies. For instance, losses on $340.7 million worth of ABS collateralized debt obligations (CDO) issued by Credit Suisse Group added up to about $125 million, despite being rated AAA by Moody's.

Similarly, large companies such as AIG, Lehman Brothers had AAA and AA rating until they went bankrupt in 2009.

Power and influence

Moody's has been accused of "blackmail". In one example the German insurer Hannover Re was offered a "free rating" by Moody's. The insurer refused. Moody's continued with the "free ratings", but over time lowered its rating of the company. Still refusing Moody's services, Moody's lowered Hannover's debt to junk, and the company in a few hours lost $175 million in market value.

"As the housing market collapsed in late 2007, Moody's Investors Service, whose investment ratings were widely trusted, responded by purging analysts and executives who warned of trouble and promoting those who helped Wall Street plunge the country into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. A McClatchy investigation has found that Moody's punished executives who questioned why the company was risking its reputation by putting its profits ahead of providing trustworthy ratings for investment offerings.

Portugal controversy

Portugal's foreign debt downgrade to the category Ba2 "junk" has infuriated the European Union and Portugal alike. Moody's has been accused of fuelling speculation and bias towards European assets. Furthermore the legitimacy of US based rating agencies has also been put in question. State owned utility and infrastructure companies like ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, Energias de Portugal, Redes Energéticas Nacionais, and Brisa – Auto-estradas de Portugal were also dowgraded despite having solid financial profiles and significant foreign revenue.

Portuguese citizens promptly classified Moody's actions as economic terrorism and spawn several initiatives on social sites, namely Facebook, to express their outrage. Mainly the initiatives were aimed at disrupting Moody's website. On the 11th of July, the website was temporarily unavailable in Portugal and a few other countries, due to a coordinated DDoS attack. Portuguese IP's were temporarily blocked from the web server in order to minimize the disturbance.

Moody's ratings

Includes the differences with Standard and Poor's ratings.

Long-term obligation ratings

Investment grade

Aaa: Moody judges obligations rated Aaa to be the highest quality, with the "smallest degree of risk".

Aa (Aa1, Aa2, Aa3): Moody judges obligations rated Aa to be high quality, with "very low credit risk", but "their susceptibility to long-term risks appears somewhat greater". (AA+, AA and AA- in S&P)

A (A1, A2, A3): Moody judges obligations rated A as "upper-medium grade", subject to "low credit risk", but that have elements "present that suggest a susceptibility to impairment over the long term". (A+, A and A- in S&P)

Baa1, Baa2, Baa3: Moody judges obligations rated Baa to be "moderate credit risk". They are considered medium-grade and as such "protective elements may be lacking or may be characteristically unreliable".

Speculative grade (also known as "High Yield" or "Junk")

Ba1, Ba2, Ba3: Moody judges obligations rated Ba to have "questionable credit quality.

B1, B2, B3: Moody judges obligations rated B as speculative and "subject to high credit risk", and have "generally poor credit quality.

Caa1, Caa2, Caa3: Moody judges obligations rated Caa as of "poor standing and are subject to very high credit risk", and have "extremely poor credit quality. Such banks may be in default.

Ca: Moody judges obligations rated Ca as "highly speculative and are "usually in default on their deposit obligations".

C: Moody judges obligations rated C as "the lowest rated class of bonds and are typically in default, and "potential recovery values are low".

Special

WR: Withdrawn Rating

NR: Not Rated

P: Provisional

Short-term taxable ratings

P-1 Moody judges Prime-1 rated issuers as having "a superior ability to repay short-term debt obligations".

P-2: Moody judges Prime-2 issuers as having "a strong ability to repay short-term debt obligations".

P-3: Moody judges Prime-3 rated issuers as having "an acceptable ability to repay short-term obligations".

NP: Moody considers "Not Prime" rated issuers as not falling "within any of the Prime rating categories".

Moody notes that "Canadian issuers rated P-1 or P-2 have their short-term ratings enhanced by the senior-most long-term rating of the issuer, its guarantor or support-provider.

Short-term tax-exempt ratings

Unlike S&P, Moody's has separate categories for short term municipal bonds. The ratings categories largely overlap, though, and have the same implications for the ability to repay short-term obligations.

Individual bank ratings

Moody's also rates each bank's financial strength. These ratings differ from deposit ratings in that they measure how likely the bank is to need assistance from third parties.

A: "superior intrinsic financial strength

B: "strong intrinsic financial strength

C: "adequate intrinsic financial strength

D: :"modest intrinsic financial strength, potentially requiring some outside support at times"

E: "very modest intrinsic financial strength, with a higher likelihood of periodic outside support"

Executive officers

Raymond W. McDaniel Jr. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Linda S. Huber - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Moody’s Affirms U.S. Rating, Warns of Downgrades

WASHINGTON — Moody's Investors Service said Tuesday that the United States will retain its triple-A bond rating following passage of legislation to boost the debt ceiling. But the agency put a “negative” outlook on the rating, raising the specter of a future downgrade.

Moody's said in a statement that the bill signed into law by President Barack Obama dealt with the immediate threat of a default that would have resulted from a failure to raise the country's borrowing limit.

But the agency assigned a negative outlook to the triple-A rating to indicate that there is still a risk of a downgrade if the government's fiscal discipline weakens or the economy deteriorates significantly.

A credit-rating downgrade typically leads to higher interest rates, and would have a huge impact on the economy by making it more expensive for the government, companies and consumers to borrow money. Moody's has never given the U.S. government anything lower than its top rating since it began evaluating the country's debt in 1917.

Earlier in the day, fellow ratings agency Fitch Ratings said that the action by Congress to boost the debt ceiling and make spending cuts was an important first step but “not the end of the process.”

Fitch said it expects to conclude its review of its U.S. debt rating by the end of August. Officials at Fitch suggested that they are looking for more progress in attacking the federal government's debt problems.

The outlook for the U.S. grade is now negative, Moody’s said in a statement yesterday after President Barack Obama signed into law a plan to lift the nation’s borrowing limit and cut spending following months of wrangling between Democratic leaders and Republican lawmakers.

The compromise “is a positive step toward reducing the future path of the deficit and the debt levels,” Steven Hess, senior credit officer at Moody’s in New York, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We do think more needs to be done to ensure a reduction in the debt to GDP ratio, for example, going forward.”

JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated that a downgrade would raise U.S. borrowing costs by $100 billion a year, while Obama said it could hurt the broader economy by increasing consumer borrowing costs tied to Treasury rates. The ratio of general government debt, including state and local governments, to gross domestic product is projected to climb to 100 percent in 2012, the most of any AAA-ranked country, Fitch said in April.

“A downgrade is a sign that Congress is failing to address a real fiscal issue,” Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said in an interview before the announcements.

Still, U.S. bonds and the dollar’s strength have signaled increased demand for the assets of the world’s largest economy even as prospects of a downgrade rose. Treasury yields average about 0.70 percentage point less than the rest of the world’s sovereign debt markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes show. The difference has expanded from 0.15 percentage point in January.

Investors from China to the U.K. are lending money to the U.S. government for a decade at the lowest rates of the year. For many of them, there are few alternatives outside the U.S., no matter what its credit rating.

The dollar represents 60.7 percent of the world’s currency reserves, compared with the 26.6 percent for the euro, which has the next biggest portion, according to the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

“Regardless of the rating, Treasuries are going to be seen as the safe haven,” said Matthew Freund, a senior vice president at USAA Investment Management Co. in San Antonio, where he helps oversee about $50 billion in mutual fund assets. “The U.S. remains one of the strongest, most dynamic economies in the world.”

China’s central bank will “closely” monitor U.S. efforts to tackle its debt, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in a statement today, reaffirming that his nation will diversify its foreign- exchange reserves. China’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. cut its credit rating for the U.S. to A from A+ with a negative outlook, it said in an e-mailed statement today.

Credit rating agency

Credit rating agency (CRA) is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations as well as the debt instruments themselves. In some cases, the servicers of the underlying debt are also given ratings.

In most cases, the issuers of securities are companies, special purpose entities, state and local governments, non-profit organizations, or national governments issuing debt-like securities (i.e., bonds) that can be traded on a secondary market. A credit rating for an issuer takes into consideration the issuer's credit worthiness (i.e., its ability to pay back a loan), and affects the interest rate applied to the particular security being issued.

The value of such security ratings has been widely questioned after the 2007-09 financial crisis. In 2003 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission submitted a report to Congress detailing plans to launch an investigation into the anti-competitive practices of credit rating agencies and issues including conflicts of interest. More recently, ratings downgrades during the European sovereign debt crisis of 2010-11 have drawn criticism from the EU and individual countries.

A company that issues credit scores for individual credit-worthiness is generally called a credit bureau (US) or consumer credit reporting agency (UK).

Uses of ratings

Credit ratings are used by investors, issuers, investment banks, broker-dealers, and governments. For investors, credit rating agencies increase the range of investment alternatives and provide independent, easy-to-use measurements of relative credit risk; this generally increases the efficiency of the market, lowering costs for both borrowers and lenders. This in turn increases the total supply of risk capital in the economy, leading to stronger growth. It also opens the capital markets to categories of borrower who might otherwise be shut out altogether: small governments, startup companies, hospitals, and universities.

Ratings use by bond issuers

Issuers rely on credit ratings as an independent verification of their own credit-worthiness and the resultant value of the instruments they issue. In most cases, a significant bond issuance must have at least one rating from a respected CRA for the issuance to be successful (without such a rating, the issuance may be undersubscribed or the price offered by investors too low for the issuer's purposes). Studies by the Bond Market Association note that many institutional investors now prefer that a debt issuance have at least three ratings.

Issuers also use credit ratings in certain structured finance transactions. For example, a company with a very high credit rating wishing to undertake a particularly risky research project could create a legally separate entity with certain assets that would own and conduct the research work. This "special purpose entity" would then assume all of the research risk and issue its own debt securities to finance the research. The SPE's credit rating likely would be very low, and the issuer would have to pay a high rate of return on the bonds issued.

However, this risk would not lower the parent company's overall credit rating because the SPE would be a legally separate entity. Conversely, a company with a low credit rating might be able to borrow on better terms if it were to form an SPE and transfer significant assets to that subsidiary and issue secured debt securities. That way, if the venture were to fail, the lenders would have recourse to the assets owned by the SPE. This would lower the interest rate the SPE would need to pay as part of the debt offering.

The same issuer also may have different credit ratings for different bonds. This difference results from the bond's structure, how it is secured, and the degree to which the bond is subordinated to other debt. Many larger CRAs offer "credit rating advisory services" that essentially advise an issuer on how to structure its bond offerings and SPEs so as to achieve a given credit rating for a certain debt tranche. This creates a potential conflict of interest, of course, as the CRA may feel obligated to provide the issuer with that given rating if the issuer followed its advice on structuring the offering. Some CRAs avoid this conflict by refusing to rate debt offerings for which its advisory services were sought.

Ratings use by government regulators

Regulators use credit ratings as well, or permit ratings to be used for regulatory purposes. For example, under the Basel II agreement of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, banking regulators can allow banks to use credit ratings from certain approved CRAs (called "ECAIs", or "External Credit Assessment Institutions") when calculating their net capital reserve requirements. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) permits investment banks and broker-dealers to use credit ratings from "Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations" (NRSRO) for similar purposes. The idea is that banks and other financial institutions should not need keep in reserve the same amount of capital to protect the institution against (for example) a run on the bank, if the financial institution is heavily invested in highly liquid and very "safe" securities (such as U.S. government bonds or short-term commercial paper from very stable companies).

CRA ratings are also used for other regulatory purposes as well. The US SEC, for example, permits certain bond issuers to use a shortened prospectus form when issuing bonds if the issuer is older, has issued bonds before, and has a credit rating above a certain level. SEC regulations also require that money market funds (mutual funds that mimic the safety and liquidity of a bank savings deposit, but without Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insurance) comprise only securities with a very high NRSRO rating. Likewise, insurance regulators use credit ratings to ascertain the strength of the reserves held by insurance companies.

In 2008, the US SEC voted unanimously to propose amendments to its rules that would remove credit ratings as one of the conditions for companies seeking to use short-form registration when registering securities for public sale.

This marks the first in a series of upcoming SEC proposals in accordance with Dodd-Frank to remove references to credit ratings contained within existing Commission rules and replace them with alternative criteria.

Under both Basel II and SEC regulations, not just any CRA's ratings can be used for regulatory purposes. (If this were the case, it would present a moral hazard).[citation needed] Rather, there is a vetting process of varying sorts. The Basel II guidelines (paragraph 91, et al.), for example, describe certain criteria that bank regulators should look to when permitting the ratings from a particular CRA to be used. These include "objectivity," "independence," "transparency," and others. Banking regulators from a number of jurisdictions have since issued their own discussion papers on this subject, to further define how these terms will be used in practice. (See The Committee of European Banking Supervisors Discussion Paper, or the State Bank of Pakistan ECAI Criteria).

In the United States, since 1975, NRSRO recognition has been granted through a "No Action Letter" sent by the SEC staff. Following this approach, if a CRA (or investment bank or broker-dealer) were interested in using the ratings from a particular CRA for regulatory purposes, the SEC staff would research the market to determine whether ratings from that particular CRA are widely used and considered "reliable and credible." If the SEC staff determines that this is the case, it sends a letter to the CRA indicating that if a regulated entity were to rely on the CRA's ratings, the SEC staff will not recommend enforcement action against that entity. These "No Action" letters are made public and can be relied upon by other regulated entities, not just the entity making the original request. The SEC has since sought to further define the criteria it uses when making this assessment, and in March 2005 published a proposed regulation to this effect.

On September 29, 2006, US President George W. Bush signed into law the "Credit Rating Reform Act of 2006". This law requires the US Securities and Exchange Commission to clarify how NRSRO recognition is granted, eliminates the "No Action Letter" approach and makes NRSRO recognition a Commission (rather than SEC staff) decision, and requires NRSROs to register with, and be regulated by, the SEC. S & P protested the Act on the grounds that it is an unconstitutional violation of freedom of speech. In the Summer of 2007 the SEC issued regulations implementing the act, requiring rating agencies to have policies to prevent misuse of nonpublic information, disclosure of conflicts of interest and prohibitions against "unfair practices".

Recognizing CRAs' role in capital formation, some governments have attempted to jump-start their domestic rating-agency businesses with various kinds of regulatory relief or encouragement. This may, however, be counterproductive, if it dulls the market mechanism by which agencies compete, subsidizing less-capable agencies and penalizing agencies that devote resources to higher-quality opinions.

Ratings use in structured finance

Credit rating agencies may also play a key role in structured financial transactions. Unlike a "typical" loan or bond issuance, where a borrower offers to pay a certain return on a loan, structured financial transactions may be viewed as either a series of loans with different characteristics, or else a number of small loans of a similar type packaged together into a series of "buckets" (with the "buckets" or different loans called "tranches"). Credit ratings often determine the interest rate or price ascribed to a particular tranche, based on the quality of loans or quality of assets contained within that grouping.

Companies involved in structured financing arrangements often consult with credit rating agencies to help them determine how to structure the individual tranches so that each receives a desired credit rating. For example, a firm may wish to borrow a large sum of money by issuing debt securities. However, the amount is so large that the return investors may demand on a single issuance would be prohibitive. Instead, it decides to issue three separate bonds, with three separate credit ratings—A (medium low risk), BBB (medium risk), and BB (speculative) (using Standard & Poor's rating system).

The firm expects that the effective interest rate it pays on the A-rated bonds will be much less than the rate it must pay on the BB-rated bonds, but that, overall, the amount it must pay for the total capital it raises will be less than it would pay if the entire amount were raised from a single bond offering. As this transaction is devised, the firm may consult with a credit rating agency to see how it must structure each tranche—in other words, what types of assets must be used to secure the debt in each tranche—in order for that tranche to receive the desired rating when it is issued.

There has been criticism in the wake of large losses in the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market that occurred despite being assigned top ratings by the CRAs. For instance, losses on $340.7 million worth of CDOs issued by Credit Suisse Group added up to about $125 million, despite being rated AAA or Aaa by Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Group.

The rating agencies respond that their advice constitutes only a "point in time" analysis, that they make clear that they never promise or guarantee a certain rating to a tranche, and that they also make clear that any change in circumstance regarding the risk factors of a particular tranche will invalidate their analysis and result in a different credit rating. In addition, some CRAs do not rate bond issuances upon which they have offered such advice.

Complicating matters, particularly where structured finance transactions are concerned, the rating agencies state that their ratings are opinions (and as such, are protected free speech, granted to them by the "personhood" of corporations) regarding the likelihood that a given debt security will fail to be serviced over a given period of time, and not an opinion on the volatility of that security and certainly not the wisdom of investing in that security. In the past, most highly rated (AAA or Aaa) debt securities were characterized by low volatility and high liquidity—in other words, the price of a highly rated bond did not fluctuate greatly day-to-day, and sellers of such securities could easily find buyers.

However, structured transactions that involve the bundling of hundreds or thousands of similar (and similarly rated) securities tend to concentrate similar risk in such a way that even a slight change on a chance of default can have an enormous effect on the price of the bundled security. This means that even though a rating agency could be correct in its opinion that the chance of default of a structured product is very low, even a slight change in the market's perception of the risk of that product can have a disproportionate effect on the product's market price, with the result that an ostensibly AAA or Aaa-rated security can collapse in price even without there being any default (or significant chance of default). This possibility raises significant regulatory issues because the use of ratings in securities and banking regulation (as noted above) assumes that high ratings correspond with low volatility and high liquidity.

Criticism

Credit rating agencies do not downgrade companies promptly enough. For example, Enron's rating remained at investment grade four days before the company went bankrupt, despite fact that credit rating agencies had been aware of the company's problems for months. Some empirical studies have documented that yield spreads of corporate bonds start to expand as credit quality deteriorates but before a rating downgrade, implying that the market often leads a downgrade and questioning the informational value of credit ratings. This has led to suggestions that, rather than rely on CRA ratings in financial regulation, financial regulators should instead require banks, broker-dealers and insurance firms (among others) to use credit spreads when calculating the risk in their portfolio.

Large corporate rating agencies have been criticized for having too familiar a relationship with company management, possibly opening themselves to undue influence or the vulnerability of being misled. These agencies meet frequently in person with the management of many companies, and advise on actions the company should take to maintain a certain rating. Furthermore, because information about ratings changes from the larger CRAs can spread so quickly (by word of mouth, email, etc.), the larger CRAs charge debt issuers, rather than investors, for their ratings. This has led to accusations that these CRAs are plagued by conflicts of interest that might inhibit them from providing accurate and honest ratings. At the same time, more generally, the largest agencies (Moody's and Standard & Poor's) are often seen as promoting a narrow-minded focus on credit ratings, possibly at the expense of employees, the environment, or long-term research and development.These accusations are not entirely consistent: on one hand, the larger CRAs are accused of being too cozy with the companies they rate, and on the other hand they are accused of being too focused on a company's "bottom line" and unwilling to listen to a company's explanations for its actions.

While often accused of being too close to company management of their existing clients, CRAs have also been accused of engaging in heavy-handed "blackmail" tactics in order to solicit business from new clients, and lowering ratings for those firms . For instance, Moody's published an "unsolicited" rating of Hannover Re, with a subsequent letter to the insurance firm indicating that "it looked forward to the day Hannover would be willing to pay". When Hannover management refused, Moody continued to give Hannover Re a rating, which were downgraded over successive years, all while making payment requests that the insurer rebuffed. In 2004, Moody's cut Hannover's debt to junk status, and even though the insurer's other rating agencies gave it strong marks, shareholders were shocked by the downgrade and Hannover lost $175 million USD in market capitalization.

The lowering of a credit score by a CRA can create a vicious cycle, as not only interest rates for that company would go up, but other contracts with financial institutions may be affected adversely, causing an increase in expenses and ensuing decrease in credit worthiness. In some cases, large loans to companies contain a clause that makes the loan due in full if the companies' credit rating is lowered beyond a certain point (usually a "speculative" or "junk bond" rating). The purpose of these "ratings triggers" is to ensure that the bank is able to lay claim to a weak company's assets before the company declares bankruptcy and a receiver is appointed to divide up the claims against the company. The effect of such ratings triggers, however, can be devastating: under a worst-case scenario, once the company's debt is downgraded by a CRA, the company's loans become due in full; since the troubled company likely is incapable of paying all of these loans in full at once, it is forced into bankruptcy (a so-called "death spiral"). These rating triggers were instrumental in the collapse of Enron. Since that time, major agencies have put extra effort into detecting these triggers and discouraging their use, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires that public companies in the United States disclose their existence.

Agencies are sometimes accused of being oligopolists, because barriers to market entry are high and rating agency business is itself reputation-based (and the finance industry pays little attention to a rating that is not widely recognized). Of the large agencies, only Moody's is a separate, publicly held corporation that discloses its financial results without dilution by non-ratings businesses, and its high profit margins (which at times have been greater than 50 percent of gross margin) can be construed as consistent with the type of returns one might expect in an industry which has high barriers to entry.

Credit Rating Agencies have made errors of judgment in rating structured products, particularly in assigning AAA ratings to structured debt, which in a large number of cases has subsequently been downgraded or defaulted. The actual method by which Moody's rates CDOs has also come under scrutiny. If default models are biased to include arbitrary default data and "Ratings Factors are biased low compared to the true level of expected defaults, the Moody’s method will not generate an appropriate level of average defaults in its default distribution process. As a result, the perceived default probability of rated tranches from a high yield CDO will be incorrectly biased downward, providing a false sense of confidence to rating agencies and investors. Little has been done by rating agencies to address these shortcomings indicating a lack of incentive for quality ratings of credit in the modern CRA industry. This has led to problems for several banks whose capital requirements depend on the rating of the structured assets they hold, as well as large losses in the banking industry. AAA rated mortgage securities trading at only 80 cents on the dollar, implying a greater than 20% chance of default, and 8.9% of AAA rated structured CDOs are being considered for downgrade by Fitch, which expects most to downgrade to an average of BBB to BB-. These levels of reassessment are surprising for AAA rated bonds, which have the same rating class as US government bonds. Most rating agencies do not draw a distinction between AAA on structured finance and AAA on corporate or government bonds (though their ratings releases typically describe the type of security being rated). Many banks, such as AIG, made the mistake of not holding enough capital in reserve in the event of downgrades to their CDO portfolio. The structure of the Basel II agreements meant that CDOs capital requirement rose 'exponentially'. This made CDO portfolios vulnerable to multiple downgrades, essentially precipitating a large margin call. For example under Basel II, a AAA rated securitization requires capital allocation of only 0.6%, a BBB requires 4.8%, a BB requires 34%, whilst a BB(-) securitization requires a 52% allocation. For a number of reasons (frequently having to do with inadequate staff expertise and the costs that risk management programs entail), many institutional investors relied solely on the ratings agencies rather than conducting their own analysis of the risks these instruments posed. (As an example of the complexity involved in analyzing some CDOs, the Aquarius CDO structure has 51 issues behind the cash CDO component of the structure and another 129 issues that serve as reference entities for $1.4 billion in CDS contracts for a total of 180. In a sample of just 40 of these, they had on average 6500 loans at origination. Projecting that number to all 180 issues implies that the Aquarius CDO has exposure to about 1.2 million loans.) Pimco founder William Gross urged investors to ignore rating agency judgments, describing the agencies as "an idiot savant with a full command of the mathematics, but no idea of how to apply them.

Ratings agencies, in particular Fitch, Moody's and Standard and Poors have been implicitly allowed by governments to fill a quasi-regulatory role, but because they are for-profit entities their incentives may be misaligned. Conflicts of interest often arise because the rating agencies, are paid by the companies issuing the securities — an arrangement that has come under fire as a disincentive for the agencies to be vigilant on behalf of investors. Many market participants no longer rely on the credit agencies ratings systems, even before the economic crisis of 2007-8, preferring instead to use credit spreads to benchmarks like Treasuries or an index. However, since the Federal Reserve requires that structured financial entities be rated by at least two of the three credit agencies, they have a continued obligation.

Many of the structured financial products that they were responsible for rating, consisted of lower quality 'BBB' rated loans, but were, when pooled together into CDOs, assigned an AAA rating. The strength of the CDO was not wholly dependent on the strength of the underlying loans, but in fact the structure assigned to the CDO in question. CDOs are usually paid out in a 'waterfall' style fashion, where income received gets paid out first to the highest tranches, with the remaining income flowing down to the lower quality tranches i.e. It has also been suggested that the credit agencies are conflicted in assigning sovereign credit ratings since they have a political incentive to show they do not need stricter regulation by being overly critical in their assessment of governments they regulate.

Rating agencies have come under criticism for a narrow-minded view of government default from investors' perspective. A government that does not run a sustainable budget might be forced to print money to meet credit payments, this will then inflate the economy and devalue the currency. USA is for example thought to be unlikely to default on their payments since they have the printing power of the dollar, which a country like Greece does not have for its currency, the Euro. However the Euro, which was introduced in year 1999 on an even exchange rate with the dollar, was trading almost 50% higher than the dollar only 10 years after its launch. At that time, because of investor fear for a default in the peripheral states of EU, Greece's government bond credit rating was in the junk bond category, while the USA credit rating was still in the top category. The criticism escalated in summer, 2011, when the European Commission and EC President and former Portuguese premier José Manuel Barroso, respectively, criticized Moody's downgrade of Portuguese bonds.

After Moody's reported a surge in "toxic" municipal debt (money owed to banks by municipalities) in China in summer, 2011, Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Ting Lu deemed the assessment “too pessimistic," saying he disagreed with the assumptions and the math and the translation-of-terms used by the rating agency. Moody's had also estimated that "between 8% to 12% of loans extended by Chinese banks could eventually be classed as non-performing," according to a news report. As part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Congress ordered the U.S. SEC to develop a report, titled "Report on the Role and Function of Credit Rating Agencies in the Operation of the Securities Markets" detailing how credit ratings are used in U.S. regulation and the policy issues this use raises. Partly as a result of this report, in June 2003, the SEC published a "concept release" called "Rating Agencies and the Use of Credit Ratings under the Federal Securities Laws"that sought public comment on many of the issues raised in its report. Public comments on this concept release have also been published on the SEC's website.