ANTIQUES SHOPS

The IEA, which advises on energy policies of oil consuming nations, said the world was better supplied with oil now than in recent years but warned against calling it an over-supplied market.

"Memories are indeed short: crude prices remain very high in historical terms, and are acting as a drag on household and government budgets in OECD and emerging markets alike," the IEA said in its monthly report.

The report came out as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was due to meet in Vienna this week to discuss production volumes running at a multi-year highs.

"Nobody knows exactly how oil supplies will develop this summer," said the IEA, referring to the upcoming embargo by the European Union on Iranian oil and continuing talks between Iran and world powers on Tehran's nuclear programme.

The IEA said other bullish factors for oil prices included power sector oil demand this summer and stockpiling by major non-OECD economies including China, which have been accumulating crude in the past months ahead of the Iranian embargo.

It said preliminary data indicated imports of Iranian crude by major consumers had fallen by 1 million barrels per day in April and May from levels seen at the end of last year.

"In months ahead, Iran may need to shut in production volumes if export markets remain similarly constrained and storage fills up," the IEA said.

The agency left its global oil demand growth forecast broadly unchanged at 820,000 bpd.

It said its call on OPEC's oil and stocks also remained broadly unchanged although it was 1 million bpd higher for the second half of 2012 at 30.9 million bpd. The figure was still 1 million bpd higher than OPEC's current production levels.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by James Jukwey)

Speaking at the Leveson inquiry, John Major, whose tenure as British Prime Minister lasted between 1990 and 1997, said the founder of News Corporation had met him in 1997, asking him to change his stance on Europe.

"Just before the 1997 election it was suggested to me to try to get closer to the Murdoch press and I agreed that I would invite Mr Murdoch to dinner and we did have dinner in February 1997," Major told the inquiry.

"The dinner would have contained the usual amount of political gossip that these occasions tend to have."

"It became apparent in discussion that Mr Murdoch said that he didn't like our European policies and wished me to change our European policies. If we couldn't change those policies he could not and would not support the government.

"It is not often someone sits in front of a prime minister and says to a prime minister: 'I would like you to change your policy or my organisation cannot support you'," Major added.

He said he thought Murdoch was "edging towards" a referendum on leaving the European Union.

But he did not change his views after pressure from Murdoch.

"I made it pretty clear we weren't going to change our policies and we moved on to other matters," he added.

In April, Murdoch told the inquiry: "I have never asked a prime minister for anything."

The Conservatives lost the 1997 election to a resurgent Labour party under Tony Blair, supported by Murdoch titles The Sun and the Times.

(Editing by Steve Addison)

Bankers said up to 800 million euros ($1 billion) were leaving major banks daily and retailers said some of the money was being used to buy pasta and canned goods, as fears of returning to the drachma were fanned by rumors that a radical leftist leader may win the election.

The last published opinion polls showed the conservative New Democracy party, which backs the 130 billion euro ($160 billion) bailout that is keeping Greece afloat, running neck and neck with the leftist SYRIZA party, which wants to cancel the rescue deal.

As the election approaches, publishing polls is now legally banned and in the ensuing information vacuum, party officials have been leaking contradictory "secret polls".

On Tuesday, one rumor making the rounds was that SYRIZA was leading by a wide margin.

"This is nonsense," one reputable Greek pollster said on condition of anonymity. "Our polls show the picture has not changed much since the last polls were published. Parties may be leaking these numbers on purpose to boost their standing."

The pollster said there was some consolidation, with voters turning to New Democracy and SYRIZA from smaller parties but the pool of undecided voters remained unusually large so close to the election and the result was impossible to predict.

Both parties say they want Greece to remain in the single currency but SYRIZA has pledged to scrap the bailout agreement signed in March which has imposed some of the toughest austerity measures seen in Europe in decades.

The European Union and International Monetary Fund have warned that Greece, which has only enough cash to last for a few weeks, must stick to the conditions of the bailout deal or risk seeing funds cut off.

EURO OR DRACHMA DILEMMA

New Democracy has been telling voters they must choose between the euro or the drachma, while SYRIZA promises to end the austerity measures imposed by Greece's international lenders, such as salary and pension cuts, that have driven many Greeks into abject poverty.

Fears that Greece will collapse financially and leave the euro have slowly drained Greek banks over the last two years. Central bank figures show that deposits shrank by about 17 percent, or 35.4 billion euros ($44.4 billion) in 2011 and stood 165.9 billion euros ($208.1 billion) at end-April.

Bankers said the pace was picking up ahead of the vote, with combined daily deposit outflows from the major banks at 500-800 million euros ($625 million to $1 billion) over the past few days, and 10-30 million euros ($12-36 million) at smaller banks.

"This includes cash withdrawals, wire transfers and investments into money market funds, German Bunds, U.S. Treasuries and EIB bonds," said one banker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Retailers said consumers were stocking up on non-perishable food while almost all other goods were seeing a huge drop in sales as cash-strapped Greeks have no money to spare in the country's fifth year of recession.

"People are terrified by the prospect of returning to the drachma and some believe it's good to fill their cupboard with food products," said Vassilis Korkidis, head of the ESEE retail federation.

"It's over the top, we must not panic. Filling the cupboard with food doesn't mean we will escape the crisis," he said.

(Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by Giles Elgood)

The appointment reflects BlackRock's ambition to raise its profile in Europe's fragmented funds industry, where it competes with scores of firms that have a tight hold on their domestic markets via relationships with local banks.

It also fits with the New York-based investment house's efforts to forge a reputation for advising governments and regulators, a role often played by big investment banks such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N).

Since the euro zone crisis erupted, BlackRock has advised policymakers on the restructuring of Irish and Greek sovereign debt, echoing its work with the U.S. Federal Reserve following the collapse of insurer AIG.

Supremely well connected among policymakers and bankers, Hildebrand's appointment is expected to aid BlackRock's expansion in this lucrative line of business.

He was appointed vice chairman of the Financial Stability Board, the regulatory task force for the Group of 20 economies, just months before the scandal broke. He also relinquished that post upon leaving the SNB.

BlackRock is not the first fund manager to sign up an ex-central banker. Five years ago, Allianz AG's (ALVG.DE) Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco) hired former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan as a consultant on economic issues.

In his new job, Hildebrand will be based in BlackRock's offices in London and will take charge of the firm's largest institutional client relationships in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific from October.

He will lead a small team of existing BlackRock staff and a number of new hires that will focus on guiding major clients on investment against a backdrop of uncertain central bank policy, political change and turbulent global markets.

"He will contribute a unique perspective on global markets and economic trends to BlackRock's investment teams and also represent the firm to senior government officials and regulators across EMEA and Asia Pacific," BlackRock said in a statement.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMEBACK

Hildebrand resigned from the Swiss National Bank (SNB) after he failed to prove he had not been involved in lucrative currency trades by his wife, Kashya, just weeks before he oversaw the introduction of a cap on the Swiss franc's value.

The former Moore Capital hedge fund manager, who controlled his own portfolio while at the SNB, was later found not to have broken the central bank's old rules, which were tightened up after the scandal.

He joined the SNB in 2003, rising to chairman in 2010, and won praise for helping to orchestrate the 2008 bailout of UBS (UBSN.VX), which prompted tougher Swiss banking regulations.

Since March, he has been a visiting fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University - where he studied at Lincoln College and received his doctorate in international relations in 1994.

Hildebrand made his first public appearance in Switzerland since the scandal last week at an economic conference, where he discussed the euro zone crisis and the urgent need to stabilize the European banking system.

His latest move marks a return to the private sector, where he began his career before becoming a central banker. Before the SNB, Hildebrand worked as chief investment officer at Swiss banks Union Bancaire Privee in Geneva and Vontobel in Zurich.

BlackRock, founded more than 20 years ago as a one-room bond investment firm, has become the world's largest publicly traded asset manager through a series of acquisitions, led by Chairman and Chief Executive Larry Fink. It has around $3.7 trillion in assets.

Shares in BlackRock, valued at $30 billion, have slipped 3 percent so far this year, underperforming a 3 percent gain on the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI.

(Reporting by Jochelle Mendonca, Emma Thomasson and Sinead Cruise; Writing by Ian Geoghegan; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Neil Fullick and Jane Merriman)