Madrid says the urban enclaves are integral parts of Spain. They are surrounded by Morocco, which views the Spanish presence as anachronistic and claims sovereignty.

But improving relations were jeopardised in November 2007 by Spanish King Juan Carlos' II first visit to the territories in more than 30 years, which King Mohammed VI strongly condemned.

Spain also controls a scattering of islets along the north African coast, including uninhabited Perejil, which was at the centre of a spat in 2002 when Moroccan soldiers occupied it before being removed by the Spanish army.

More recently, differences over Ceuta and Melilla have not prevented a warming of relations between Morocco and Spain, particularly economic ones. Morocco's premier has advocated "neighbourly" talks on the issue.

With its rebuilt 15th century cathedral, shipyards and a fish-processing plant, Ceuta is viewed by Spain as the more strategically-valuable enclave. The town is a 90-minute ferry ride from mainland Spain.

Melilla, conquered in 1497, is a modern town with a distinctive old quarter.

The enclaves are surrounded by fences, intended to deter illegal immigrants. But Ceuta and Melilla are nonetheless used by many Africans as stepping-stones to Iberia. Many migrants are caught and some drown while attempting to make the sea crossing. People trafficking is common.

After a series of increasingly-desperate attempts by would-be immigrants to surmount the barriers in 2005, Spain and Morocco agreed to deploy extra troops to try to secure the borders.

Ceuta and Melilla are linked to Spain by ferry services to Malaga, Algeciras and Almeria. Borders and defence are controlled by Madrid. Tourism is an important money-earner with duty-free goods being a big draw for visitors.

An overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted in a January 2011 referendum to secede and become Africa's first new country since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993.

The new nation stands to benefit from inheriting the bulk of Sudan's oil wealth, but continuing disputes with Khartoum and a lack of economic development cloud its immediate future.

Formed from the 10 southern-most states of Sudan, South Sudan is a land of expansive grassland, swamps and tropical rain forest straddling both banks of the White Nile.

It is highly diverse ethnically and linguistically. Among the largest ethnic groups are the Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk.

Unlike the predominantly Muslim population of Sudan, the South Sudanese follow traditional religions, while a minority are Christians.

As Sudan prepared to gain independence from joint British and Egyptian rule in 1956, southern leaders accused the new authorities in Khartoum of backing out of promises to create a federal system, and of trying to impose an Islamic and Arabic identity.

In 1955, southern army officers mutinied, sparking off a civil war between the south, led by the Anya Nya guerrilla movement, and the Sudanese government.

The conflict only ended when the Addis Ababa peace agreement of 1972 accorded the south a measure of autonomy.

But, in 1983, the south, led by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its armed wing, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), again rose in rebellion when the Sudanese government cancelled the autonomy arrangements.

At least 1.5 million people are thought to have lost their lives and more than four million were displaced in the ensuing 22 years of guerrilla warfare. Large numbers of South Sudanese fled the fighting, either to the north or to neighbouring countries, where many remain.

The conflict finally ended with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, under which the south was granted regional autonomy along with guaranteed representation in a national power-sharing government.

The agreement also provided for a referendum in the south on independence in 2011, in which 99% of southern Sudanese voted to split from Sudan.

Long based on subsistence agriculture, South Sudan's economy is now highly oil-dependent. While an estimated 75% of all the former Sudan's oil reserves are in South Sudan, the refineries and the pipeline to the Red Sea are in Sudan.

Under the 2005 accord, South Sudan received 50% of the former united Sudan's oil proceeds, which provide the vast bulk of the country's budget. But that arrangement was set to expire with independence.

In January 2012, the breakdown of talks on the sharing of oil revenues led South Sudan to halt oil production and halve public spending on all but salaries.

A deal in March 2013 provided for Sudan to resume pumping South Sudanese oil in May, and created a demilitarised border zone.

Despite the potential oil wealth, South Sudan is one of Africa's least developed countries. However, the years since the 2005 peace accord ushered in an economic revival and investment in utilities and other infrastructure.

Alongside the oil issue, several border disputes with Sudan continue to strain ties. The main row is over border region of Abyei, where a referendum for the residents to decide whether to join south or north has been delayed over voter eligibility.

The conflict is rooted in a dispute over land between farmers of the pro-South Sudan Dinka Ngok people and cattle-herding Misseriya Arab tribesmen.

Another border conflict zone is the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan's South Kordofan state, where violence continues between the largely Christian and pro-SPLA Nuba people and northern government forces.

Inside South Sudan, a cattle-raiding feud between rival ethnic groups in Jonglei state has left hundreds of people dead and some 100,000 displaced since independence.

And several rebel forces opposed to the SPLM-dominated government have emerged, including the South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA) of Peter Gadet and a force led former SPLA general George Athor. Juba says these forces are funded by Sudan, which denies the accusation.

The question posed by today's Scotland Analysis Paper from the Treasury is whether a Scotland that separated from the rest of the UK would be able to retain the bigger banks that are part of that industry.

This is something of concern to the two largest Scottish banks, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bank of Scotland, and to Bank of Scotland's owner, Lloyds Banking Group. Its registered office is in Edinburgh, and can therefore be seen as Scottish in its entirety, although its top management is based in a London head office.

Directors of these banks are loathe to talk in public about their fears, because they don't want to be seen as influencing the highly charged debate on Scotland's future.

The nub of the problem was described to me by a senior Scottish banker: any big bank with a domicile or home in an independent Scotland might be seen as a much riskier borrower than an equivalent bank based in the UK, and it would therefore become much more expensive for that bank to borrow or raise vital finance.

"In my view," said the banker, "The moment that it looked as though Scotland were to win independence, funding costs would rise significantly, so RBS and Lloyds would have to move their homes to the City of London".

So is this banker right? I should say his views are held by all the bankers I have spoken to about this over many months. But it doesn't mean they are correct, which is why it is worth unpicking their arguments.

There are basically two reasons why RBS and Lloyds might be viewed by those who lend to them as an altogether riskier proposition if Scotland separated from the rest of the UK.

First, they are very big relative to the size of the British economy, and they are enormous in proportion to the Scottish economy.

For example, the assets or loans and investments of British banks relative to the size of British GDP is around 500%.

Now many would say that shows that Britain's banking industry is way too big for the health and stability of the British economy.

It means, arguably, that if there was another systemic crisis for banks any time soon, the costs of saving those banks for a second time would be unaffordable for taxpayers – bankrupt banks would bankrupt the state.

Which is why officials such as Andy Haldane at the Bank of England are beginning to ask whether the big missing part of banking reform in recent years has been the absence of any attempt to curtail the size of banks.

If Haldane is right that size matters, in a bad way, then the implications for an independent Scotland would be troubling indeed – because in a nominal sense, Scottish banking assets are equivalent to 1,250% of Scottish GDP.

Just RBS on its own, according to its latest published balance sheet, has loans and investments of £1.3tn, equivalent to more than eight times Scottish GDP.

The Treasury's paper says that the bailout provided by the UK authorities to RBS in the crisis of 2008 would have been equivalent to 211% of Scotland's GDP – which suggests that an independent Scotland, all other things being equal, would not have been able to afford to bail out RBS.

It is probably worth pointing out at this juncture that Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister and proponent of Scottish independence, supported RBS's ill-judged takeover in 2007 of the bulk of ABN Amro, the deal which massively increased both RBS's size and precariousness.

So, some would say, it is quite tricky for Mr Salmond to argue that all things would not have been equal in an autonomous Scotland.

Anyway, the point is that when investors and companies lend to a bank and when they invest in them, they look at what would happen to that bank if all went pear-shaped and said bank got into a serious financial mess.

They look at whether the government of the country which is home to that bank would bail the bank out in a crisis – thus reducing losses for the bank's creditors – and whether the relevant government could in practice afford to bail out the bank.

The point is that those who lend to RBS would note that the UK government was, in practice, only just able to afford to bail it out.

And they would have considerable doubts about whether the government of an independent Scotland would have deep enough pockets to do the same.

So if Scotland were to become independent, all other things being equal (the ghastly weasel words again), they might either refuse to lend to RBS or charge prohibitively expensive interest rates for doing so.

In those circumstances, RBS would have to pack its bags and move to London pronto.

Also, it is not just the strain on government finances of bailing out a bank that would be a concern to creditors of RBS and Lloyds.

There would be an even more pressing concern for them, which would be the banks' access to emergency liquidity and emergency loans when commercial sources of money dry up.

The great triggers both of the 2007/8 global banking crisis and the 2012 eurozone banking crisis were that providers of credit to banks went on strike – and central banks had to step in with life-supporting loans.

Any bank with its headquarters in Scotland would need certainty about which central bank it could turn to for money when markets freeze – which central bank would be its lender of last resort.

Here is the thing: the Bank of England would only be prepared to act as the provider of loans to Scottish banks in a crisis if it was in charge of regulating and supervising these banks, as at present.

The Bank of England could not risk its own viability, and British taxpayers money, on supporting banks it could not boss around, in a supervisory sense.

Or to put it another way, the practicalities of whether RBS and Lloyds could continue to be Scottish banks are intricately bound up in a separate, hugely important, debate – which is whether Scotland would be part of a formal sterling zone, with the Bank of England as central bank for a separated Scotland.

And for Scotland to be a formal part of such a sterling zone, the Bank of England and HM Treasury would wish to impose constraints on the financial risks that Scotland's banks could take – to limit liabilities for British taxpayers.

Which could be yet another reason why Scottish banks might wish to move to London, where the Bank of England would judge their sustainability – and therefore the magnitude of risks they could take – on the basis of the British government's resources rather than the Scottish government's.

A couple of things follow, about the necessary conditions for an RBS or a Lloyds to remain headquartered in an independent Scotland (this is all on the assumption that an independent Scotland would view the high-skilled jobs associated with these banks having a Caledonian home as worth the risks of underwriting the banks' liabilities).

First, that investors – the notorious Mr Market – would impose limits on the scope of Scottish independence, if it wishes to remain the domicile of big banks.

This is uncontroversial. It is precisely what Mr Market is saying to the eurozone's governments if they wish their currency union to survive – namely that they have to pool their financial resources, and cede a degree of autonomous control over taxing and spending, to save the euro.

Second, that the more the British government is successful in reducing the innate riskiness of all British banks and their size, the easier it would be for Scotland to secede and keep its big banks.

(Boise, ID – April 4, 2013) Starting today, small-scale suction dredge miners may begin applying for a new federal water discharge permit to lawfully operate their dredges in Idaho’s rivers lakes and streams.Mining for gold using small suction dredges is a popular activity in Idaho with hundreds of dredges in use, especially during the summer. Small-scale suction dredge miners (using intake nozzles of five inches in diameter or less and engines rated at 15 horsepower or less) will need to apply for coverage under the new Clean Water Act general permit. Larger suction dredges are not covered by this general permit and need to be authorized under a separate individual permit.
There is no fee to apply for the EPA General Permit.

According to Dan Opalski, Director of EPA’s Water Office in Seattle, the new general permit protects water quality and the people, fish and wildlife that depend on clean water.

“Miners can help protect water quality by applying for the permit, understanding the limits and following the ‘best practices’ for small suction dredge operations,” said EPA’s Opalski. “Many waters in Idaho are already closed, due to existing state and other federal designations. This general permit protects additional waters, including those with threatened and endangered salmon, steelhead, white sturgeon and bull trout, as well as waters within Tribal Reservations.”

To legally operate small suction dredges in Idaho, miners must apply to EPA to be covered by the EPA General Permit, as well as check with the Idaho Department of Water Resources or other state or federal authority for any additional permits that may be required.

The EPA General Permit also contains:

Special conditions
Required best practices for dredging equipment operations
Areas that are open to small suction dredge mining
Monitoring and reporting requirements

If an operator isn’t eligible to be covered under this general permit, they can apply for an individual permit from EPA. EPA encourages operators to review the permit and access helpful information at: http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/water.nsf/npdes+permits/idsuction-gp and also check with the appropriate land manager before applying for a permit from EPA.

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WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that it will provide grants of $340 million to the state of New York and $229 million to the state of New Jersey for improvements to wastewater and drinking water treatment facilities impacted by Hurricane Sandy. The funding announced today will help storm-damaged communities in both states as they continue to recover from the damage caused by the storm on Oct. 29, 2012.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, wastewater and drinking water treatment systems in New York and New Jersey were so severely damaged that some could not provide safe drinking water or treat raw sewage. The funding announced today will give states the capacity to further reduce risks of flood damage and increase the resiliency of wastewater and drinking water facilities to withstand the effects of severe storms similar to Sandy.

“As communities continue to recover following Hurricane Sandy’s devastation, it’s important that their efforts to rebuild our infrastructure such as wastewater and drinking water facilities are approached in a sustainable way,” said EPA Acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe. “These funds are another critical step in the administration’s ongoing effort to help New York and New Jersey recover and move forward in a way that ensures local communities are stronger than ever before.”

“With extreme weather conditions increasingly becoming the norm, Congress wisely provided funding to make sure our wastewater and drinking water facilities can withstand Hurricane Sandy-sized storms,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. "This funding will help vulnerable communities in New Jersey and New York become more resilient to the effects of climate change.”

These funds, which will be provided to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, were authorized by the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 and signed into law by President Obama on Jan. 29, 2013. In addition to protecting drinking water systems and maintaining water quality, the funding will provide for 6,000 short-term construction jobs.

The funds will be awarded as grants to the states and most will be given out to local communities as low or no interest loans that will be paid back to the states. Up to 30 percent of the money can be awarded as grants to communities rather than as loans.

Almost 60 percent of the funds will go to New York and about 40 percent of the funds will go to New Jersey for both the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund programs. The determination of how the funds should be allotted to New Jersey and New York was based on the percentage of the population living in impacted counties that FEMA designated for disaster assistance.

Projects will be selected by the states of New Jersey and New York using project priority ranking systems that are based on elements of the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act and state regulations. The highest rankings will be given to proposed projects that will most ensure water quality or provide the most protection to drinking water systems. Applicants may submit projects that incorporate green infrastructure, such as wetlands and detention basins to collect stormwater or natural features like sand dunes that are capable of mitigating storm water impacts; raise equipment from basements; and provide backup sources of energy that are renewable.

The states will review the proposed projects from impacted communities and then submit Intended use plans that include the recommended projects to EPA for review. The Intended use plans will be subject to public comment periods (30 days in New Jersey and 45 days in New York). Following these comment periods, EPA will evaluate the intended use plans and award the grants to the states.

The Disaster Relief Appropriations Act provided EPA with $500 million for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and $100 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. The funding provided by the act is subject to sequestration, which has reduced the money available by $25 million for wastewater improvements and $5 million for drinking water. It also includes funding for EPA to administer the program.

Today’s funding complements the efforts of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force created by President Obama. The Task Force works closely with federal, state and local officials to help communities address rebuilding challenges, use funding as effectively as possible and provide oversight to ensure it is used as it was intended. Other federal support includes:

- The Federal Emergency Management Agency has obligated more than $1 billion to support state and local rebuilding efforts. It has also disbursed more the $1.3 billion directly to impacted families, covering eligible repair costs and meeting temporary housing needs.

- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has approved disaster recovery plans for New York and New Jersey, which means $3.5 billion in funding will be available for home and small business owners.

- The U.S. Small Business Administration has also provided more than $2 billion in disaster loans to homeowners and small businesses.

- The Federal Transit Administration’s Emergency Relief Program has allocated $2 billion in funding and the Federal Highway Administration’s Emergency Relief Program has allocated $584 million to repair and rebuild damaged infrastructure.

- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has allocated $474 million in Social Services Block Grants to help provide services to survivors and rebuild damaged health care facilities.

More information about the federal government’s response to Sandy: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/hurricane/sandy

More information on the EPA’s response to Sandy and today’s announced funding: http://www.epa.gov/sandy

Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/eparegion2

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The Saudi stock market recorded nominal gains yesterday, as the Tadawul All-Share Index (TASI) closed higher to 7,147.42, adding 8.11 points or 0.11 percent for the entire day.

After falling over 53.9 points during the session it bottomed out at 7,090.12 points level and started to rise again and finally crossed the break-even line.

The market cap indices ended the day in mixed territories.

Sector indices performed in a mixed fashion, with eight sectors accumulating an aggregate of 227 points and seven sectors trimming 145.7 points jointly.

Retail showed the best performance among sectoral indices, rising 118.6 points or 1.37 percent to close the day at 8,773.43. Real Estate Development was other significant advancer which gained 1.01 percent for the day.

Media and Publishing sector, on the other hand, posted the largest losses, falling 2.2 percent to 2,923.21.

Insurance sector also continued its downward fall, declining further by 1.72 percent and closing at 1,147.69.

Again heavyweights’ performance remained almost balanced with small positive/negative changes.

The market breadth remained unfavorable, with 48 stocks witnessing advances and 86 others marking a decline.

Saudi Indian Company for Co-operative Insurance (WAFA Insurance) dominated the top gainers chart at Tadawul, surging by 6.78 percent to finish at SR 126.

Market activity was high, specifically SR 6.0 billion were poured into the market. Trading volume was impressive, with about 225 million shares changed hands in the market, a significant 24.3 percent growth over the previous level. The 50-day average for trading volume is closer to 201.4 million shares.

Jabal Omar Development Company and Bank Albilad were significant gainers among most active stocks, moving upward by 2.3 percent and 1.3 percent respectively.

Albilad with trades over 21.9 million shares worth SR 525.5 million topped the volume and value charts, capturing 9.7 percent of the overall market volume.