Npr news in brief

[historylover]

October 20, 2008
UN: 20 Million Jobs At Risk Due To Financial Crisis

An estimated 20 million jobs will be lost by the end of 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis, a United Nations agency said Monday.

The International Labor Organization said construction, real estate, financial services and the auto sectors are likely to see the most job losses. The agency based its estimate on International Monetary Fund projections.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said the agency is trying to steer governments, employers and workers toward discussing job creation as a means of resolving the crisis.

"We have to talk about the financial crisis in terms of what happens to people and what happens to jobs and enterprises," he told reporters.

The ILO does not yet have a regional breakdown of projected job losses, which Somavia said would take global unemployment to 210 million in late 2009 from 190 million last year. It would be the first time global unemployment has topped 200 million.

Somavia said countries with large domestic markets that do not depend heavily on exports would be able to weather the crisis better, citing as an example China, where exports make up only 11 percent of the economy.


Powell Would Be Adviser In Obama White House

Barack Obama said Monday that former Secretary of State Colin Powell would have a role as a top presidential adviser if the Illinois senator wins the race for the White House.

Obama, speaking on NBC's Today show, made the remark a day after Powell, a Republican who served as secretary of state in the Bush administration until 2005, endorsed him for president.

"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Obama said in an interview aired Monday. "Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss."

Being a top presidential adviser, especially on foreign policy, would be familiar ground to Powell, a retired four-star general who also served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War.

In the NBC interview, Obama said Powell did not give him a heads up before he crossed party lines and offered his endorsement.


Global Credit Crisis Puts Squeeze On China's GDP

China's growth rate slowed to 9.0 percent in the third quarter -- dragged down by the global credit crisis and a weak property sector -- leaving its economy on course for its first year of single-digit expansion since 2002.

China's annual gross domestic product growth fell from 10.1 percent in the second quarter. In 2007, it grew at 11.9 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

It is not possible to pinpoint when gross domestic product last grew more slowly because the NBS does not publish updated quarterly data when it revises its annual GDP figures.

Some economists estimate there was at least one weaker quarter in 2004. However, the last time full-year growth failed to reach double digits was in 2002, when it was 9.1 percent.


Taliban Kill Christian Aid Worker In Kabul

Taliban gunmen claimed responsibility for killing a Christian aid worker in the Afghan capital, saying she was targeted because she was spreading her religion.

The dual South African-British national, who worked with handicapped Afghans, was shot to death by gunmen who drove by on a motorbike in western Kabul, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

"This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to the people of Afghanistan," militant spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press. "Our (leaders) issued a decree to kill this woman. This morning our people killed her in Kabul."

The aid group SERVE - Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises - identified the woman as 34-year-old Gayle Williams. A spokeswoman for the group in Kabul denied that its workers were proselytizing, which is prohibited by law in Afghanistan.


Bernanke Endorses Second Stimulus Package

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Monday that another government stimulus package could be needed to avoid a lengthy slowdown in the economy.

Testifying before the House Budget Committee, Bernanke endorsed another stimulus, including measures that would help consumers, home buyers, business and others. Democrats have pushed for another stimulus package, but the Bush administration has been reluctant.

"With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate," Bernanke said in a prepared statement.

The White House quickly signalled that President Bush is "open" to the idea of a fresh stimulus package.

Bernanke said any stimulus package would need to begin quickly to entice people and businesses to boost spending and prop up the economy during the period in which economic activity would be otherwise weak.

It was the first time Bernanke had endorsed a second stimulus package. The government sent out about $100 billion in tax rebate checks over the summer to try to jump-start the economy, but consumer spending has struggled since then.

Retail sales fell for three consecutive months through September.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that banks who apply to sell equity to the federal government would be expected to make use of their new capital and boost lending.

The Treasury previously announced it was investing $125 billion in nine of the largest U.S. banks, acquiring preferred stock.

"This is an investment, not an expenditure, and there is no reason to expect this program will cost taxpayers anything," Paulson said.


Alaska Senator To Take Stand Again In His Defense

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was set to return to the witness stand on Monday in his federal trial on charges of lying on about more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other gifts.

Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican, has pushed for a speedy trial in Washington in hopes of clearing his name before Election Day.

A strong Democratic challenger is taunting the 84-year-old lawmaker from afar, accusing him of ducking debates and using his legal predicament to his advantage.

During his two days of testimony so far, Stevens has been razor-sharp on some matters and fuzzy on others. At one point, he said that he couldn't read his own writing.


October 20, 2008
Anti-Government Protesters Throng Thai Capital

Thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched in Thailand's capital city of Bangkok on Monday to denounce alleged police brutality earlier this month when two protestors died and hundreds were wounded in clashes with authorities.

The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has occupied the prime minister's compound since August, is calling for the elected government to step down. The group said it was bringing thousands more protestors to the capital before a court ruling in a graft case against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday.

Current Prime Minister Somhai Wongsawat, a brother-in-law of Thaksin, has come under pressure from military leaders to quit, but he has said he will wait for the result of an investigation before deciding on his political future.

Thailand's supreme court is due to rule Tuesday on whether Thaksin was guilty of a conflict of interest.


Bernanke Calls For New Stimulus Plan

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday that continued weakness in the nation's economy calls for another round of government stimulus, an idea congressional Democrats have been pushing.

Bernanke's remarks before the House Budget Committee marked his first endorsement of more stimulus after billions in stimulus refunds went out to taxpayers earlier this year.

"With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate," Bernanke testified.

The first round of stimulus was credited with a slight uptick in consumer spending, but consumers cut back sharply as rising unemployment, harder-to-get credit, shrinking paychecks and falling home values made people much more cautious.

Bernanke suggested that Congress produce a stimulus package that is timely, well targeted and limit the longer-term affects on the government's budget deficit, which hit a record high in the recently ended budget year.

 

[historylover]

October 21, 2008
Wall Street Lower After Asian, European Gains

Wall Street opened lower on Tuesday after Asian markets made healthy gains overnight and Europe put in a mixed performance, encouraged by lower interbank lending rates that could signal credit markets are returning to normal.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 80 points in the first half-hour of trading on Tuesday.

By afternoon, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down about 0.3 percent. Earlier, the Nikkei average rose 3.3 percent or 300.66 points to 9,306.25. The broader Topix rose 3.2 percent to 956.64.

Shares in France's largest banks -- Societe Generale and BNP Paribas -- climbed quickly on news that they and four other banks will get a 10 billion euro cash injection from the French government.

Stock markets have been buoyed this week by the fall in interbank lending rates in light of the flurry of government efforts to put money into banks, and by coordinated interest rate reductions and massive short-term credits to banks by central banks.


Fed To Buy Loans From Money Market Funds

The Federal Reserve said Tuesday it would begin buying commercial paper from money market mutual funds that have been squeezed by investors cashing out of the market.

The move, which effectively grants short-term loans to the funds, is the latest effort by the central bank to break a logjam in the credit markets that has slowed lending and threatens to cause to trigger a deep and painful recession.

"The short-term debt markets have been under considerable strain in recent weeks as money market mutual funds and other investors have had difficulty selling assets to satisfy redemption
requests," the Fed explained.

The funds had trouble selling assets quickly enough to cover those redemptions. The Fed's new facility is meant to be a backstop the funds.

The Fed is tapping its Depression-era emergency powers and creating a new, temporary facility to buy the paper under a program managed by JP Morgan Chase. The plan will be in place until April 30 unless the Fed sees a reason to extend it.


Thai Leader Thaksin Found Guilty Of Corruption

Thailand's Supreme Court on Tuesday found former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra guilty of corruption and sentenced him in absentia to two years in prison.

Tuesday's 5-4 ruling was the first against the former leader since he was ousted by a 2006 military coup after being accused of abuse of power.

The nine judges ruled that Thaksin helped facilitate his wife's purchase of lucrative Bangkok real estate from a state agency in 2003 when he was still prime minister.

Thaksin's wife, Pojaman, was acquitted in the case. She and Thaksin have been liveing in exile in Britain.

The former leader faces several other corruption-related cases.

Thaksin, who had been one of Thailand's richest men, has repeatedly maintained that the charges are politically motivated.

The ruling will do little to calm tensions in Thailand -- where Thaksin remains popular among the rural poor -- and will be seen as a further blow to Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law.

Saudis Arrest Nearly 1,000 Militants

Saudi authorities have indicted 991 suspected militants on charges they were involved in terrorist attacks over the last five years.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said "deviant groups" adopting the mindset of al-Qaida were seeking to disrupt "the way of life, economy and principles of Saudi society."

He blamed militants for launching more than 30 attacks that have killed 164 people and wounded more than 1,000 since May 2003.

The move is a significant step in a place where authorities only reluctantly hold trials for terror suspects, who could receive death sentences.

The government fears a public backlash if it takes overly harsh measures against the militants, and it wants to avoid accusations it's just trying to please the U.S.


Mexican Inmates Killed In Prison Fight

At least 21 inmates have been killed in a fight among prisoners that broke out at a prison in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, authorities said.

The Public Safety Department of Mexico's Tamaulipas state said the fight at the prison, across the border from McAllen, Texas, involved a confrontation between two groups of inmates and also left 12 prisoners wounded.

Mexican state and federal police worked to bring the prison under control.

Authorities ringed the prison with soldiers and police and were negotiating with inmates to get access to a section that was consumed by fire.

Authorities did not say what sparked the confrontation, nor did the statement give details on the condition of the wounded, saying only they had been taken to local hospitals for treatment.

Last month, two riots at La Mesa state prison in the Mexican border city of Tijuana killed at least 23 people, including two inmates from the U.S.

Obama To Take Day Off To Visit Sick Grandmother

Sen. Barack Obama will briefly halt campaign appearances to fly to Hawaii to visit his gravely ill grandmother, the candidate's campaign said.

The announcment was made as Obama was en route from Orlando, Fla., to Miami Monday night.

The senator's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, is seriously ill. An Obama spokesman said her health has deteriorated in recent weeks and the senator needs to get back to Hawaii to visit her. The campaign would not reveal details of her illness.

Obama has often spoken of Dunham, his mother's mother, during the campaign. He has said she played an important role in his upbringing, and he devoted a portion of his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver to talking about her influence on him.

Obama will fly to Hawaii after an event in Indiana on Thursday. He is expected to resume campaign appearances on Saturday.

 

[historylover]

October 22, 2008
Cuomo Says AIG Will Freeze Payments To Execs

American International Group Inc. will freeze payments to a former CEO and employees of the unit that was the main source of the company's financial problems, a letter from the New York attorney general said Wednesday.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wrote in a letter to AIG's new chairman, Edward Liddy, that after his office's review of company documents, the insurance and finance giant agreed to stop payments under former chief executive Martin Sullivan's $19 million pay package.

AIG also confirmed that no payments will be made from the $600 million compensation and bonus pools of its Financial Products subsidiary, including $69 million the former head of the
subsidiary, Joseph Casano, could have been paid and about $93 million that five other top executives might have been eligible to receive.

Company spokesman Joe Norton said Cuomo's letter was consistent with AIG's actions and discussions with the attorney general. After a meeting last week, Liddy and Cuomo issued a joint statement that payments to outgoing chief financial officer Steven Bensinger were stopped and the company would help Cuomo recover any illegal expenditures.

Cuomo said Wednesday that the next step for his office will be investigating how to recoup executive bonuses paid previously, saying a fraud law could apply depending on timing, circumstances and contracts. Handling AIG's case should be regarded as a template for other companies that require government help, he said.

"If a company required the bailout ... it's evidence the management failed," Cuomo said.

"Taxpayers are, in many ways, now like shareholders of your company, and the new AIG has a responsibility to them in the first instance," Cuomo wrote Liddy, noting the $120 billion bailout will leave the U.S. Treasury holding AIG stock.


World Stock Markets Sag As Recession Fears Nag

World stock markets sagged Wednesday as weak corporate earnings fed fears of a global recession.

In the U.S., poor earnings from large companies across sectors -- Wachovia Corp., Boeing and Merck & Co. -- illustrated how wide the downturn has spread. One bright spot was McDonald's Corp., where third-quarter profits rose thanks to the strength of its low-priced meals.

Even with the aggressive steps the government has already taken, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told interviewer Charlie Rose Tuesday, "Clearly, we're going to have a number of difficult months ahead of us in terms of the real economy."

The Dow Jones industrial average sank 514.45 points, or 5.69 percent, to end unofficially at 8,519.21, based on the latest data. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slumped 58.26 points, or 6.10 percent, to finish unofficially at 896.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 80.93 points, or 4.77 percent, to close unofficially at 1,615.75.

Asian markets veered sharply lower Wednesday, with Tokyo's Nikkei index tumbling 6.79 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 6.2 percent, while South Korea's main index shed 5.1 percent.

The major European indexes - Britain's FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and the CAC-40 in France - all slipped about 4 percent.

In South America, Brazil's Bovespa dropped more than 9.3 percent and Argentina's Merval index dropped almost 18 percent, after falling 11 percent Tuesday. Argentina's president announced plans to nationalize private pension funds to protect retirees from the global financial crisis.

World leaders will gather in Washington on Nov. 15 to discuss the meltdown. A senior administration official said Wednesday that the forum will be the first in a series of international meetings to discuss what economists predict could be a long and deep downturn.


Iraqis Want Changes To Security Pact

Iraqi officials said Wednesday they are seeking some changes in a draft agreement that would keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the end of this year.

Iraq's Cabinet decided on Tuesday to demand amendments to the pact, despite having agreed last week to a "final draft" after months of painstaking negotiations with Washington.

The Iraqi government has said it will draw up the proposed amendments soon and submit them to U.S. negotiators.

The document being negotiated would give U.S. troops the legal protection to stay in the country after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of this year.

The final draft that was reviewed by the Cabinet would require U.S. troops to leave Iraq in 2011 unless Iraq asks them to stay, and it would give Iraqis some limited authority to prosecute Americans accused of committing serious crimes while off-duty and off-base.

State department spokesman Robert Wood said time is running out. "The door is closing; it is not completely shut, but it is closing because Dec. 31 is coming up and we need to have a legal basis for our troops to operate," he said.


Stevens Corruption Case Goes To Jury

Jurors began deliberating the fate of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on Wednesday, days before the Senate's longest serving Republican faces voters in the Nov. 4 election.

Stevens, 84, is charged with lying on Senate financial disclosure forms about $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts he received from his friend, millionaire businessman Bill Allen.

The 84-year-old lawmaker testified that he is innocent and that his wife paid all the bills the couple received for the renovations. He characterized the gifts as loans.

Stevens is counting on a speedy verdict that will send him back to Alaska vindicated in time
for Election Day. He is locked in a tight race with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.


Pakistan Asks For IMF Aid To Avoid Default

Pakistan officials on Wednesday asked for help from the International Monetary Fund to avoid defaulting on billions of dollars in loans and avoid a financial crisis.

Pakistani economists say up to $5 billion is needed to avoid defaulting on sovereign debt due for repayment next year, but that $8 billion more may be need overall.

Iceland, Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine have also turned to the IMF for financing to ease the current crisis.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the fund, said in a statement that Pakistan has requested discussions with the IMF "to meet the balance of payments difficulties the country is experiencing as a result of high food and fuel prices and the global financial crisis."

He said an IMF mission will begin discussions with Pakistani authorities in the next few days to discuss a program aimed at strengthening economic stability and enhancing confidence in the financial system.

"The amount of (IMF) financing under a stand-by arrangement has yet to be determined," he said.

Created in 1944 to rebuild the world financial system after World War II, the IMF initially helped developed nations lend to one another. By the 1990s, it had evolved into a rescue fund for troubled emerging economies - but gave them little say on the terms of their loans.

Global Financial Summit Set For Nov. 15

Leaders from 20 nations will meet in Washington on Nov. 15 to address the global financial crisis, the White House announced Wednesday.

The first in a series of meetings will be held to discuss underlying causes of the financial crisis, review progress being made to address it and start developing reforms needed to ensure it does not happen again, White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

"The president had spent the past couple of days on the phone with a lot of different leaders talking to them about their thoughts about this meeting," Perino said.

The meetings will include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.

At the first meeting, working groups will be set up to develop recommendations to be considered by leaders in subsequent summits. The White House will host a dinner on the eve of the summit. The location of the meeting, however, has not yet been announced.

It is not knows if the president elect will attend the summit, or if subsequent summits
would be held while Bush is still in office.

 

[jibbijib]

Coles notes?

 

[historylover]

October 23, 2008
Stocks Rebound From 5-Year Lows

Blue chip stocks rebounded from five-year lows, but technology stocks fell Thursday in another volatile day of trading.

Stocks bounced in and out of positive territory on a day when the Labor Department reported an unexpectedly large rise in jobless claims, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned of a "significant" rise in unemployment.

But as the closing bell neared, bargain hunting lifted share prices. With energy and pharmaceutical shares leading the way, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 172.04 points, or 2.02 percent, to end unofficially at 8,691.25. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 11.34 points, or 1.26 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 11.84 points, or 0.73 percent.

Little noticed amid the Wall Street tumult has been a gradual but definite easing of credit. The key London Interbank Offering Rate (LIBOR) -- to which many loan rates are tied and which has been as high as 5 percent -- has fallen to 3.25 percent.


FBI Posts Threatening Letter On Web Site

A threatening letter mailed to a Chase Bank branch in Colorado said it was "payback time" for the "theft of tens of thousands of people's money," according to images of the letter posted on the FBI's Web site Thursday.

The FBI posted the letter, the envelope and some facts about the case on its Web site Thursday in hopes of catching the person responsible.

More than 50 threatening letters -- most filled with a white powder -- were mailed this week from Amarillo, Texas, FBI officials said. The letters went to Chase bank branches, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision in 11 cities.

"People who have mailed these kinds of hoax letters in the past have received some serious jail time," says Special Agent Richard Kolko, Chief of the FBI's National Press Office in Washington, D.C. "This investigation will continue until those responsible are arrested, and we appreciate the public's support by providing information."

The letter posted on the FBI Web site said anyone breathing in the powder would die within ten days; so far, tests for any dangerous toxins have been negative. The note identifies a specific person, whose name was blacked out by the FBI, and the FDIC as the ones to thank for "your demise."

The FBI would not identify the person whose name was deleted.


Panel Seeks To Oust Juror In Stevens Trial

The judge presiding over the corruption trial of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens refused to dismiss a juror from deliberations Thursday after complaints that the woman engaged in "violent outbursts."

Jurors sent a note to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan asking him to send one juror home. The note said the female juror was rude, disrespectful and unreasonable. "She has had violent outbursts with other jurors, and that's not helping anyone," Sullivan said the note read.

Jurors began deliberating Stevens' fate on Wednesday. The Senate's longest serving Republican is charged with lying on Senate financial disclosure documents to conceal $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from his friend, millionaire oil contractor Bill Allen.

During testimony, Stevens declared his innocence. He maintained that his wife paid all the bills she received for the renovations and other items in his home were loaned to him and were not gifts.

Sullivan spoke with the jurors and told them they had an important job, then encouraged them to continue.


NYC Mayor Wins Fight To Extend Term Limits

The New York City Council voted Thursday approved a change to the city's term limits law that will allow Mayor Michael Bloomberg to seek re-election next year.

The bill gives city officeholders the option of three consecutive four-year terms. It passed on a 29-22 vote.

City officials had been limited to two eight-year terms. Bloomberg's second term concludes at the end of 2009.

Bloomberg announced his plans to change the term-limits law and seek re-election three weeks ago. He had opposed changing the law earlier in his administration, but has said he needs a third term to deal with the city's financial crisis.

Foreclosures Jump 71 Percent In Third Quarter

U.S. foreclosure filings grew by 71 percent in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2007, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc.

Nearly 766,000 homes across the country received at least one foreclosure-related notice from July through September. By the end of the year, RealtyTrac expects more than a million bank-owned properties to have piled up on the market -- about a third of all properties for sale in the U.S.

Meanwhile, a government report said home prices fell for the 12 months ending in August.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index showed that home prices fell 5.9 percent over the one-year period, with a cumulative decline since prices peaked in April 2007 of 6.5 percent.

The FHFA monthly index, formerly called the OFHEO monthly house price index, is calculated using purchase prices of houses backing mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed
by Fannie Mae FNM.P or Freddie Mac FRE.P. The index was introduced in the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's fourth quarter 2007 House Price Index, or HPI, report.

California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan and Nevada, accounted for more than 60 percent of all foreclosure activity in the quarter, with California alone making up more than a quarter of all foreclosure filings.


U.S., Russia Remove Spent Fuel From Hungary

A top energy department official said Thursday that the U.S. and Russia have successfully removed spent nuclear fuel from a Soviet era reactor in Hungary.

Over the past few weeks, 341 pounds of enriched uranium made its way from a research reactor Hungary by rail and sea to a storage facility in Siberia. William Tobey, a deputy administrator at the national nuclear security administration, said it was a bit different than past removals.

"This was our largest shipment ever of such material and it was also a more complicated removal because of various forms of transportation that were used," Tobey said.

Tobey said the Bush administration and Russian officials have continued to cooperate on non-proliferation issues despite disagreements over Russia's war in Georgia during the summer.

 

[Jagger69]

Dude.....I appreciate the stance but in the future just give me the link. Thanks.

 

[historylover]

October 24, 2008
U.S. Stocks Fall On Recession Fears

U.S. stocks slid Friday in a worldwide sell-off as investors fled equities on fears that the economic slowdown could be deeper than feared.

In the overnight hours, selling was so fierce that trading in U.S. stock index futures was frozen until after Wall Street's opening bell.

Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.30 points, or 3.59 percent, to end unofficially at 8,378.95.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slid 31.34 points, or 3.45 percent, to finish unofficially at 876.77. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 51.88 points, or 3.23 percent, to close unofficially at 1,552.03.

For the week, the the Dow unofficially dropped 5.4 percent, the Nasdaq tumbled 9.3 percent and the S&P 500 lost 6.8 percent.


Chrysler To Cut 25 Percent Of Salaried Work Force

Chrysler LLC announced Friday that it is cutting 25 percent of its white-collar workforce.

Company CEO Bob Nardelli announced the cuts in a letter to employees, saying the automaker will make the reductions through a mix of voluntary buyouts, retirement packages and layoffs. Chrysler employs about 18,500 white-collar workers.

But even more people stand to lose their jobs with the company. Chrysler also said Friday it will cut about 25 percent of its contract employees.

Friday's announcement came just one day after the company said it will cut 1,825 jobs by eliminating one shift at a Toledo, Ohio, Jeep plant and accelerating the closure of its sport utility vehicle factory in Newark, Del..

Vice Chairman and President Tom LaSorda said Friday that sales projections for the rest of this year and in 2009 aren't looking good, and he indicated that more factory closures could be coming. Chrysler's sales were down 25 percent through the first nine months of the year, the worst decline of any major automaker.

Dave Cole, chairman of the Ann Arbor, Mich., -based Center for Automotive Research, said Chrysler is doing what's necessary in light of dramatic sales declines.

"I think they're really doing what they have to do," Cole said. "What we have seen is a precipitous decline in sales, which means the revenue shortfall is enormous, and that's really created a huge cash problem for the entire industry."

Cole said the move could also set the stage for a possible merger. Chrysler's owner, Cerberus Capital Management, has reportedly been in preliminary talks with General Motors.


European Markets See Lowest Close In 5 Years

European shares fell to their lowest close in more than five years on Friday, as official data appeared to show Europe is headed into a recession.

Britain's FTSE 100 sank 5 percent and the pound tumbled below $1.53 in its biggest drop in at least 37 years after a report showed the British economy contracted more than forecast in the third quarter. The British economy has not shrunk since 1992.

Meanwhile, the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, for overnight dollars rose, as the increased likelihood of a global recession spurred banks to hoard cash, even though policy makers have pumped money into financial markets.

Another report said Europe's manufacturing and service industries contracted at a record pace in October. Shares in Swedish carmaker Volvo sank 14 percent and French auto giant Renault said it would stop production temporarily at sites in France and abroad because of declining demand in the auto sector.

The fall in European stocks mirrored heavy declines in Asia.

Sales Of Existing Homes Rise In September

Sales of existing homes rose 5.5 percent in September -- the first year-over-year increase since 2005, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday.

Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri all saw gains in home sales, as buyers took advantage of sliding home prices.

The number of unsold houses declined by a little more than 1.5 percent.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, said trimming the housing inventory is the first step to stabilizing home prices.

"Once home prices stabilize, then Wall Street, mortgage-backed security valuation, all those elements will stabilize. So, the key to starting up the economy is to get the housing markets on the move," Yun said.

Although a continuing credit crisis is rattling Wall Street, low interest rates and government guarantees for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are, for the moment, keeping residential mortgages flowing to home buyers, Yun said.


Judge Suspends Jury Deliberations In Stevens Case

Jury deliberations in Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption trial were suspended Friday after the presiding judge allowed a juror to go to California because her father died.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said he would speak with the juror Sunday night and determine whether she could return Monday. He said he might delay deliberations until Tuesday or call in an alternate.

Prosecutors asked Sullivan to bring an alternate juror onto the panel so deliberations could continue, but the judge declined.

The first two days of deliberations have been marked by reports of stress and violent outbursts in the jury room and Sullivan said jurors might benefit from a break.

If an alternate is tapped, jurors would be ordered to start deliberating anew.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens is charged with lying for years on Senate financial disclosure documents to conceal $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from his friend, millionaire oil contractor Bill Allen.

During testimony, Stevens declared his innocence. He maintained that his wife paid all the bills she received for the renovations and other items in his home were loaned to him and were not gifts.

Stevens, 84, is locked in a tight race for re-election with Democrat Mark Begich.


OPEC Slashes Oil Production

OPEC on Friday said it would slash oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day beginning next month to compensate for plunging prices amid falling demand.

Fears of a global recession have sent the price of oil below $70 per barrel in recent days, a 50 percent drop from its record high during the summer.

"Oil prices have witnessed a dramatic collapse -- unprecedented in speed and magnitude," said a statement from the 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. "This slowdown in demand is serving to exacerbate the situation in a market which has been oversupplied with crude for some time."

The size of the cut reflected concerns within the cartel that the bottom appears to be falling out of the market.

Despite the announcement of a production cut, oil prices sagged even more on Friday, suggesting that the market was more concerned with the economic turmoil reaching into all corners of the globe than crude availability.

October 24, 2008
U.S. Motorists Drive 15 Billion Miles Less In August

U.S. motorists drove 15 billion miles less in August than they did a year earlier, down 5.6 percent for the biggest monthly decline ever, as high gasoline prices and a weak economy cut into highway travel, the Transportation Department said Friday.

Over the 10-month period since last November, highway travel was down 78.1 billion miles from the year-ago period, the department said.

 

[AFA]

I used to listen to NPR every night on my way to school. Loved it.

 

[historylover]

I used to listen to NPR every night on my way to school. Loved it.

Appreciate the encouraging words.:hatsoff:

 

[historylover]

October 27, 2008
U.S. Stocks Slide; Average Gas Price Drops

U.S. stocks slid Monday amid growing concerns about the severity of a global economic slowdown and the bleak outlook for corporate profits.

Trading remained volatile throughout the day, with the three major indexes moving rapidly between positive and negative territory.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 203.18 points, or 2.42 percent, to end unofficially at 8,175.77. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 27.83 points, or 3.17 percent, to finish unofficially at 848.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 46.13 points, or 2.97 percent, to close unofficially at 1,505.90.

Phone company Verizon Communications' VZ.N solid profit helped blue chips, and efforts by the U.S. Federal Reserve to backstop the commercial paper market also lent some support to stocks.

Shares of energy companies dropped on the bet that a slowing economy will hurt energy demand. ConocoPhillips COP.N shed 0.5 percent to $48.23 as U.S. crude oil futures Clc1 slipped below $64 a barrel.

Meanwhile, falling crude oil prices and dropping petroleum demand pushed down gasoline costs, which have declined 98 cents in the last month.

The average U.S. retail gasoline price fell 26 cents over the last week to $2.66 a gallon, the cheapest pump price since March 2007, the Energy Department said Monday.

The national price for regular unleaded gasoline is down 22 cents from a year ago, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly survey of service stations.

In the EIA's weekly survey, gasoline was the most expensive on the West Coast at $3.05 at gallon, down 23 cents. San Francisco had the highest city price at $3.27, down 22 cents.

The Gulf Coast had the lowest regional price at $2.46 a gallon, down 27 cents. Houston had the lowest city pump price, down 35 cents to $2.41.


U.S. Official: Syria Raid Targeted Al-Qaida Operative

A raid inside Syria near the Iraqi border successfully targeted a key al-Qaida operative who funneled weapons and fighters into Iraq, a U.S. government official said Monday.

The official told NPR that the raid was not carried out by U.S. military forces, but was part of President Bush's secret, worldwide directive for U.S. intelligence operatives to go after al-Qaida.

The claim is being disputed by Syrian officials, who on Monday condemned the U.S. for the attack.

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said U.S. military helicopters flew from Iraq into Syrian airspace on Sunday and leveled an attack on a farm, killing eight civilians.

The Iraqi foreign minister called for an investigation and warned that Syria would fight back if such a raid happened again.The U.S. has accused Syria of failing to stop al-Qaida fighters travelling through Syria into Iraq.


642 Arrested In Child Prostitution Raids

More than 600 adults were arrested and 47 children were rescued in a three-day roundup targeting people who force children into prostitution, the FBI announced Monday.

The roundup by federal, state and local law enforcement officials occurred in 29 cities dismantled 12 large-scale prostitution operations run through call services, truck stops, casinos and Web sites, FBI Director John Pistole said.

Pistole said the arrests were made possible by intelligence gathered during a similar series of raids in June.

"Sex trafficking of children remains one of our most violent and unconscionable crimes in this country," Pistole said.

The 47 rescued children ranged in age from 13 to 17, and all but one are female. Ten of the children had been reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Pistole said.

A total of 642 people were arrested. The FBI says they include 73 pimps and 518 adult prostitutes.

The operation was part of a larger, five-year initiative that has led to the recovery of 575 children and the dismantling of 36 criminal operations since June 2003.

Child prostitution has taken on a new urgency in recent years with the growth of online networks where pimps advertise the youngsters to clients. The FBI generally gets involved in child prostitution cases that cross state lines.

A University of Pennsylvania study estimated that nearly 300,000 children in the United States are at risk of being sexually exploited for commercial purposes.


Alaska's Stevens Guilty Of Lying About Gifts

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted Monday of lying about $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts he received, throwing his upcoming re-election bid into uncertainty.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts of making false statements on Senate financial disclosure forms.

Stevens, 84, was convicted of lying about home renovations and expensive gifts he received. In testimony, the lawmaker said his wife was responsible for paying the bills for the remodeling project and that she had paid all the bills she received.

Stevens is locked in a tough Senate race against Democrat Mark Begich. Despite being a convicted felon, he is not required to drop out of the race or resign from the Senate. If he wins re-election, he can continue to hold his seat because there is no rule barring felons from serving in Congress. The Senate could vote to expel Stevens on a two-thirds vote.

Stevens also said furniture and other expensive items were left at his home without his consent -- many of them for years -- and that they were loans, not gifts.

The monthlong trial revealed that employees for oil services company VECO Corp. transformed the senator's modest mountain cabin into a modern, two-story home with wraparound porches, a sauna and a wine cellar.

Stevens' wife, Catherine, testified that she paid $160,000 in bills -- the only ones she received -- for the remodeling project.

Stevens asked for an unusually speedy trial, hoping he'd be exonerated in time to return to Alaska and win re-election.


ATF Thwarts Obama Assassination Plot

Federal law enforcement officials said Monday they have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate presidential candidate Barak Obama.

In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn., federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee. The crime spree was to end with the Obama assassination attempt.

The two men didn't expect to be successful, but they wanted to die trying, said Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF's Nashville field office.

Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman, of West Helena, Ark., are being held without bond on charges of possessing an unregistered firearm, conspiring to steal firearms, and threatening a candidate for president.


September New Homes Sales Rise

New home sales gained some ground in September, but sales were still down 33 percent from a year ago.

The Commerce Department said sales of new single-family homes rose 2.7 percent last month and inventories shrank as builders slashed prices to their lowest level in four years amid the continuing housing crisis.

The median sales price of $218,400 was the lowest since the $211,600 level reached in September 2004, when the housing market was on the upswing. The housing inventory of 394,000 was the lowest since the 383,000 homes for sale in June 2004.

The 7.3 percent decline in inventory from August was the sharpest on record. At the current sales pace, it would take 10.4 months to clear the overstock of homes compared to the 11.4 months reported in August.

"The tremendous overbuild suggests that prices will remain under year on year pressure out at least through mid-2009," said TJ Marta, rates strategist at RBC Barclays Capital Markets in New York.

Across the regions, the strength of markets varied greatly with sales down 21.4 percent in the Northeast and up 22.7 percent in the West. The Midwest was down 5.8 percent while the South was up 0.7 percent.

The pace of existing home sales rose sharply in September to a 5.18 million-unit annual rate to log the first year-over-year increase in sales in nearly three years, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors on Friday.


October 27, 2008
UN Peacekeepers Attack Rebels In Eastern Congo

Peacekeepers attacked rebels in eastern Congo with helicopter gunships Monday while crowds of protesters threw rocks outside four U.N. compounds, angered at what they claimed was a failure to protect them from advancing rebel forces.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg said the peacekeepers fired Monday at rebel forces surging on Kibumba, about 28 miles north of the provincial capital of Goma.

In December, U.N. officials also used helicopters to repel the rebels, killing hundreds under their mandate to protect civilians in the vast Central African country that has been ravaged by years of dictatorship and civil war.

Rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda has threatened to take Goma in defiance of calls from the U.N. Security Council for him to respect a U.N.-brokered January cease-fire.

 

[Legzman]

God damn...20 millions jobs lost by the end of next year? Yea...that'll really help the economy...

 

[historylover]

October 28, 2008
Automakers Seek Government Help Beyond Bailou

U.S. automakers are seeking federal help beyond the money that Congress has made available for them as part of a financial industry bailout and a measure to retool their assembly plants for more fuel-efficient cars, the White House said Tuesday.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the auto industry has talked to the Bush administration about funding on a much broader scale than the two programs approved by Congress earlier this fall.

"No doubt that the automakers are big important companies, important to a lot of families and important to a lot of regions in this country," Perino said. "We are capable of competing at a level where these companies can succeed, they might just need a little help. And that's what Congress asked us to help provide them."

General Motors Corp. is pursuing about $5 billion to $10 billion in aid from the government, said an industry official, who declined to be identified because the discussions were private. GM officials declined comment on the talks.

The requests have come as General Motors and Chrysler LLC are discussing a potential merger amid an economic downturn, weak auto sales and hardships for the companies.

GM has approached members of Congress and the administration about a number of ways that government funding could be used to help the company, including playing a part in a Chrysler deal, said a person briefed on the negotiations. The person asked not to be identified because no deal has been completed.

Perino said the "decisions about their futures - and potential mergers - will be decided by them." Analysts have said government funding might be necessary to seal a deal because of the difficult economic conditions and frozen credit markets.

The Bush administration would have an interest in the automakers' survival because of the magnitude of the pension obligations it would face in a bankruptcy and the potential for massive job losses.

Chrysler employs about 49,000 in the U.S. and has about 125,000 pensioners. GM has 177,000 U.S. workers and around 500,000 people receiving pensions.

The Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., estimates that for each auto manufacturing job, there are 7.5 jobs with parts makers and other companies, projections that helps the auto industry account for millions of jobs.

But any role by the government in facilitating a merger between GM and Chrysler would face scrutiny from Congress because it would likely lead to significant job losses as the two companies combine operations.

The White House is focused on two major options at its disposal to aid the industry, Perino said. They include the $25 billion in loans approved by Congress for fuel-saving technology or money to free up auto credit through the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

Perino said the White House is trying to help automakers avoid bankruptcy by accessing a portion of the $25 billion in low-interest loans, which were meant to help companies retool plants to build fuel-efficient vehicles. GM has been seeking about $5 billion in funding from the program.


Iraqis Outline Changes To Security Agreement

The Iraqi government will send the U.S. a list of changes it's demanding in a long-discussed agreement on the status of American forces in the country, an Iraqi spokesman said Tuesday.

An Iraqi spokesman said there are some changes in the content of the deal, which is needed to provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq past the first of this year.

The Iraqi cabinet has approved amendments to the Status of Forces Agreement, which lays out how long U.S. troops can remain in Iraq and how they can operate.

U.S. officials have made significant concessions in order to get a deal, and they've said they don't want to see substantial changes.

Among the concessions is an agreement to withdraw all U.S. combat forces by the end of 2011 and to allow American troops to be tried in Iraqi courts for certain offenses committed when they're off duty.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander, warned the Iraqis that if the deal is not approved, the U.S. will no longer be able to provide security, aid and training to Iraqi forces.


U.S. Stocks Surge Before Closing Bell

U.S. stocks ended sharply higher on Tuesday, with the Dow surging almost 11 percent to
close back above 9,000 as investors scooped up beaten-down shares and optimism grew that the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks will cut interest rates further.

The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 889.35 points, or 10.88 percent, to end unofficially at 9,065.12, based on the latest available data. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index surged 91.58 points, or 10.79 percent, to finish unofficially at 940.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 143.57 points, or 9.53 percent, to close unofficially at 1,649.47.


Consumer Confidence Plunges To Lowest On Record

Consumers' confidence in the U.S. economy plunged to its lowest level on record in October, according to an index published Tuesday by the Conference Board, a private research group.

In October the index decreased to 38 from 61.4 in September. It was the lowest level since the Conference Board began tracking consumer sentiment in 1967 and the third-steepest drop. A year ago, the index was at 95.2.

With the financial sector in turmoil, rising unemployment, and the housing sector in disarray, consumers are feeling pessimistic said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center.

"This is really going to pose a challenge for the retailers with the holiday season around the corner," she said.

Franco said there has been a surge in the percentage of consumers expecting business conditions to worsen over the next several months, and there is a big increase in the percentage of consumers expecting a decline in jobs.

Consumers also expect income levels to decrease while the price of goods increases, she said.


Japan PM Says North Korean Leader In Hospital

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is believed to be in the hospital recovering from a stroke, but is likely to be able to run the country, Japan's prime minister said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Taro Aso told lawmakers in Tokyo that his government had information that Kim likely remains hospitalized.

"His condition is not so good. However, I don't think he is totally incapable of making decisions," Aso said.

The head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, Kim Sung-ho, told lawmakers in Seoul that the North Korean leader is "not physically perfect" but appears to remain in command.

South Korean and U.S. officials say Kim, 66, suffered a stroke, reportedly in August. North Korea has strenuously denied there is anything wrong him.


Home Prices Plunge Record 16.6 Percent In August

Prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged a record 16.6 percent in August from a year earlier, dropping more than 30 percent of their value in Las Vegas and Phoenix, Standard & Poor's said on Tuesday.

The index has been showing price declines every month for nearly two years. It tracks prices across 20 major metropolitan areas around the U.S. In the latest report, prices fell in all but two cities -- Cleveland and Boston.

"The downturn in residential real estate prices continued, with very few bright spots in the data," David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's, said in the statement.

A huge supply of unsold homes, tighter lending standards and record foreclosures have pushed down home prices, deflating a bubble from the early part of this decade.

Pat Newport, a housing economist with IHS Global Insight, said it is hard to know where the bottom is.

"We're in uncharted territory. We've never had this number of foreclosures, and now with foreclosures still rising, the economy's gone into recession, Newport said. "All we can do is make an educated guess about when things will turn around."

Newport thinks prices will keep falling in most cities through next year. But he said a lot depends on figuring out how to stop foreclosures and persuade banks to make loans.


October 28, 2008
Former Detroit Mayor Sentenced To 120 Days

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced Tuesday to 120 days in jail for obstruction of justice, nine months after a newspaper story about text messages ignited a scandal at City Hall.

Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner also ordered Kilpatrick to pay a $1 million fine and said the former mayor would not be given an opportunity for early release.

The Democratic ex-mayor pleaded guilty last month to obstruction of justice, admitting he lied about an affair with his chief of staff while testifying in a civil lawsuit in 2007. He also pleaded no contest to assaulting a sheriff's detective.

The 38-year-old Kilpatrick left office Sept. 18 after nearly seven years as mayor.


'Christian Science Monitor' To Drop Daily Print Edition

The publisher of The Christian Science Monitor on Tuesday announced plans to drop the paper's daily print edition, becoming the first national newspaper to focus on publishing online.

The Boston-based general-interest paper will continue to print a weekend edition, but plans to drop the daily edition in April, the paper's editor said.

Founded in 1908 and the winner of seven Pulitzer Prizes, the paper's circulation has fallen from a peak of 230,000 in 1970 to about 50,000; however, its online traffic has soared. The newspaper gets about 5 million page-views per month, compared with about 4 million five years ago and 1 million a decade ago.

The Monitor was one of the first newspapers in the country to put content online, beginning in 1995, when correspondent David Rohde was taken prisoner in Bosnia.

"Obviously, this is going to help with our costs, but it also enables us to put much more emphasis on the Web and basically put our reporting assets and our editorial assets where we think growth will be in a very tough industry in the future, which we think is the Web," said John Yemma, the paper's editor.

 

[historylover]

October 29, 2008
U.S. Stocks Fall Before Closing Bell

The market staged another late-session fade, taking the key averages down from their best levels of the day.

The Dow ended down 74 points to 8,990; the S&P lost 10 points to 930; and the Nasdaq composite gained nearly 8 points to 1,657. The market had rallied after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a-half point.

NYSE volume was 6.9 billion shares. Volume on the Nasdaq stock market came to 2.7 billion shares.

In Europe, stock markets closed mostly higher Wednesday on expectations of interest rate cuts around the world.

Britain's FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed 316.16 points, or 8.1 percent, higher at 4,242.54 and France's CAC-40 was up 287.65 points, or 9.2 percent, at 3,402.57.

Germany's DAX was slightly lower though after a 40 percent slump in Volkswagen AG shares. VW's biggest shareholder Porsche AG said it will offer some stock to ease liquidity constraints that had pushed up VW shares fivefold in the preceding two days.

The DAX closed 14.76 points, or 0.3 percent, down at 4,808.69.

Earlier, Japan's Nikkei index closed 589.98 points, or 7.7 percent, higher at 8,211.90 in the wake of the Dow Jones' 889 point rally Tuesday.

The renewed buying was stoked by expectations that both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan would cut interest rates this week and provide a further stimulus to the world economy.
The Fed did cut its target fed funds rate by half a percentage point to 1 percent Wednesday afternoon.

The European Central Bank and Bank of England are also expected to follow suit and cut borrowing costs at their next scheduled rate-setting meetings next Thursday. There's even some talk that the two banks may bring forward their expected rate cuts to Thursday.


Justice Dept. Approves Delta-Northwest Deal

Delta Air Lines on Wednesday received U.S. antitrust approval to buy Northwest Airlines Inc for about $2.6 billion, clearing the way for creation of the world's largest airline.

After a six-month investigation the Justice Department's antitrust division found that the combination would likely benefit U.S. consumers and was unlikely to substantially lessen competition, the department said.

The new airline would keep the Delta name and be based in Atlanta, which is home to Delta now. Delta chief executive Richard Anderson would head the new company.

Shareholders of both companies in September approved the plan for Delta to acquire its smaller rival.

The all-stock deal gives Northwest shareholders 1.25 Delta shares for each Northwest share, valuing the deal at about $2.6 billion based on Delta's Tuesday close at $8.16 a share.

Delta is now the world's third largest airline and Northwest the fifth largest.

The only remaining hurdle is a federal lawsuit which is set for trial in San Francisco next week. The lawsuit was filed in June by 28 airline passengers who believe a merger would violate antitrust law and substantially decrease competition.

Delta hopes to obtain a single Federal Aviation Administration operating certificate in 15 to 18 months.


GM's Sales Plunge Nearly 19 Percent

General Motors Corp. said Wednesday that third quarter sales in North America plunged nearly 19 percent and global sales fell 11.4 percent as demand for GM vehicles weakened amid growing economic pressures.

GM's global sales fell to 2.1 million vehicles in the third quarter. For the first nine months of the year, GM's global sales were down 5.8 percent, reflecting economic pressures in the U.S. and Western European markets, the company said.

Gas prices, tight credit and a slowing economy continue to batter GM.

In North America, Cadillac sales were down 27 percent from the same time last year. Hummer's sales plummeted nearly 60 percent.

GM is trying to sell the once-hot Hummer brand, but has yet to find a buyer. Without strong sales, GM is burning through $1 billion a month, analysts estimated.

Worried about running out of money, the company is pressing for a government help. GM plans to use any money it can get to finance a merger with Chrysler. But analysts said a merger would mean shutting more plants. The resulting layoffs would probably number in the tens of thousands.


UN Urges U.S. To Lift Cuban Embargo

The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the United States to repeal its 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba.

The vote Wednesday in the 192-member world body was 185 to 3, with 2 abstentions. Last year, the vote was 184 to 4 with 1 abstention.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said before the vote that it will be up to the next U.S. president to decide whether the embargo is a failed policy. But he stressed that the United States will never bring the Cuban people to their knees.

U.S. diplomat Ron Goddard said the embargo is justified because the Cuban government is undemocratic and restricts political and economic freedom.


September Factory Orders Unexpectedly Strong

The nation's factories are showing some signs of life amid the economic slowdown, according to a Commerce Department report released on Wednesday.

The government said new orders for manufactured goods came in unexpectedly strong in September. Analysts had expected a decline, but the Commerce Department said that orders for durable goods -- or items intended to last three years or more -- rose by 0.8 percent, the largest increase in three months.

September's positive figures for durable goods follows a 5.5 percent drop in August.

The September increase was the largest gain since a 1.4 percent rise in June, but all the strength came in the transportation sector. Demand for commercial aircraft, an extremely volatile category, shot up by 29.7 percent, and orders for motor vehicles rose by 3 percent, the biggest gain in more than a year.


Fed Cuts Interest Rate By A Half-Point

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut a key interest rate by a half of a percentage point in hopes of helping the U.S. avoid a deep recession.

The Fed's decision takes its target for overnight bank lending to 1 percent, the lowest since June 2004. Wall Street was united in the opinion the Fed would lower rates, although views were split on the likely size of the move.

The U.S. central bank has cut benchmark overnight rates from 5.25 percent in nine steps over the past 13 months to counter a financial storm that started with the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market and spread around the world.

 

[L3ggy]

That can't be good....For you.

 

[historylover]

October 30, 2008
Six Governors Urge Support For Auto Industry

The governors of six states are urging federal officials to give immediate help to the auto industry in order to avert a disaster for state governments, according to a letter released Thursday.

"While all sectors of the economy are experiencing difficult times, the automotive industry is particularly challenged," said the letter from the governors of Michigan, Delaware, Kentucky, New York, Ohio and South Dakota. "As a result, the financial well-being of other major industries and millions of American citizens are at risk. Immediate action is needed to address this crisis."

The letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged immediate action, saying that auto industry suppliers, vendors, dealers, other businesses and communities are in need of help.

The letter said that without federal assistance, the pressure from increased unemployment claims and diminished tax revenue from the economic crisis facing automakers "threatens to create an unmanageable disaster at the state level."

Sent Wednesday, the letter was released Thursday by Democratic Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's office.

The Bush administration approved $25 billion in low-interest loans last month to help automakers and suppliers meet new fuel economy standards by retooling plants, but Granholm said the industry needed additional, no-strings loans.

General Motors Corp and Cerberus Management Capital are in talks about combining GM and Chrysler LLC, but financing is an obstacle.


Stocks Close Higher; Oil Drops On Weak GDP

U.S. stocks rose Thursday as investors snapped up shares trading near their lowest levels in five years.

The Dow gained nearly 190 points to 9,180; the S&P surged about 24 points to 954; and the Nasdaq composite added 41 points to 1,698.

Meanwhile, oil prices fell Thursday as economic data suggested the nation has fallen into a recession.

The price of oil had jumped more than 7.5 percent on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut weakened the dollar. OPEC production cutbacks have also helped put a floor under prices this week, but concerns about energy demand reasserted themselves in futures markets Thursday.

The Commerce Department reported that the real gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent in the third quarter, and it is widely expected GDP will decline more steeply in the fourth quarter. Weaker growth domestically and globally is seen reducing oil usage. U.S. light, sweet crude closed down $1.54 at $65.96 a barrel -- less than half its July peak.


American Express To Cut 7,000 Jobs

American Express Co. said Thursday that it plans to cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of
its worldwide work force, in an effort to slash costs by $1.8 billion in 2009.

The fourth largest U.S. credit card issuer said it is also suspending management level salary increases next year and instituting a hiring freeze.

The job cuts will be across various business units, but will primarily focus on management positions, the company said.

Additionally, American Express said it plans to scale back investments in technology and marketing and business development, and streamline costs associated with some rewards programs. The company also expects to cut expenses for consulting and other professional services, travel and entertainment and general overhead.

As a result, American Express plans to take a restructuring charge of between $240 million and $290 million in the fourth quarter.

The company has been gearing up for a big restructuring for some time, first announcing in July that it planned to reduce overall costs and staffing levels, and take a related charge during the second half of the year.

"The re-engineering program we announced today will help us to manage through one of the most challenging economic environments we've seen in many decades," said Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

"It will also put us in position to ramp up investment spending as economic conditions improve so that we can take advantage of the substantial opportunities that will be available to us over the medium to long term," he said.

Last week, American Express reported a better-than-expected 24 percent decline in third-quarter profit.


Exxon Mobil Posts Record Profit

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a U.S. corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter.

Yet numbers contained within the company's most recent financial report revealed production numbers that continue to sag.

The Irving, Texas-based company has reported unprecedented back-to-back quarters, the end of the most recent coinciding with a rapid plunge in crude prices. Benchmark oil prices fell another $2.91 to $64.59 Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, about 56 percent off record highs in July.

Exxon said net income jumped nearly 58 percent to $2.86 a share in the July-September period. That compares with $9.41 billion, or $1.70 a share, a year ago.

The previous record for U.S. corporate profit was set in the last quarter, when Exxon Mobil earned $11.68 billion.

Revenue rose 35 percent to $137.7 billion.

Exxon Mobil's results got a boost of $1.62 billion in the most-recent quarter from the sale of a natural gas transportation business in Germany. It also took a special, after-tax charge of $170 million for a punitive damages award related to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Excluding those items, third-quarter earnings amounted to $13.38 billion -- nearly 15 percent above its previous profit record from the second quarter.

As expected, Exxon Mobil reaped massive earnings from its exploration and production arm, where net income rose 48 percent to $9.35 billion. Higher oil and natural gas prices
propelled results, even though production was down from the third quarter a year ago.

Oil producers are coming off a quarter during which crude prices reached an all-time high of $147.27.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, said Thursday its third-quarter net profit jumped 22 percent from a year ago, also despite falling production.

Florida Jury Convicts Son Of Ex-Liberian President

A federal jury in Miami has convicted the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor in the first case brought under a 1994 U.S. law allowing prosecution for torture and atrocities committed overseas.

Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., was convicted Thursday of torture and conspiracy charges after two days of jury deliberations. He faces a possible life sentence.

Prosecutors said the 31-year-old Emmanuel was involved in killings and torture in Liberia as head of an elite security unit in his father's government known as the "Demon Forces."

Charles Taylor is on trial before a United Nations war crimes tribunal and atrocities charges from conflicts in west Africa during his presidency.

 

[historylover]

October 31, 2008
Alleged U.S. Missile Targets Al-Qaida In Pakistan

Suspected U.S. missiles hit a house frequented by an Arab militant near the Afghan border Friday and killed 15 people, intelligence officials said, in the latest alleged American attack on targets inside Pakistan.

It was unclear if the Arab, identified as Abu Kasha Iraqi, was among those killed, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Suspected U.S. missile attacks have killed at least two senior al-Qaida commanders in Pakistan's wild border zone this year, putting some pressure on extremist groups accused of planning attacks in Afghanistan - and perhaps terror strikes in the West.

However, a marked uptick in their frequency over the last two months has badly strained America's seven-year alliance with Pakistan.

The strike Friday took place in Mir Ali village in North Waziristan, the officials said, citing reports from agents and informers in the area.

The United States rarely confirms or denies firing the missiles, which are launched from unnamed drones.


Markets Mixed Despite Rate Cuts

Wall Street opened lower on Friday but was trading mixed by mid-morning, following on a similar performance in Europe Asia. The lackluster trading occurred despite rate cuts by the Fed and Japan's central bank. European markets also opened lower.

The slump in Japan also came as investors were mulling the latest numbers on the U.S. economy showing a third-quarter contraction -- a likely sign that a recession is underway. European shares were off 0.5 percent.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index sank 5 percent to 8,576.98 amid persistent worries about earnings. Investor sold shares after the previous day's 10 percent surge and ahead of a three-day weekend in Japan.

South Korea's market extended the previous session's 12 percent rally with the Korea Composite Stock Price Index gaining 2.6 percent to 1,113.06. Australia's key index climbed out of negative territory to close 0.4 percent higher.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid 2.5 percent to 13,968.67 after vaulting 12.8 percent Thursday. Smaller Asian markets such as the Philippines and Taiwan both rose 4 percent or more, while Jakarta's main index shot up 7 percent.

In India, the benchmark Sensex index surged nearly 7 percent as traders caught up with Thursday's rally in Asian markets, when investors cheered a U.S. Federal Reserve rate cut and further central bank steps to boost dollar liquidity in emerging markets.


U.N. Calls For Congo Dialogue As Refugees Flee

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda should keep a cease-fire declaration and engage in dialogue as thousands of refugees in the area continued to flee in the aftermath of heavy fighting.

Nkunda has threatened to occupy an eastern city unless U.N. peacekeepers guaranteed a cease-fire, while foreign envoys scrambled to secure peace on the Rwanda-Congo border. Nkunda's Tutsi rebels sent tens of thousands of civilians fleeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, raising fears of a repeat of the 1998-2003 war in the African state.

"This ceasefire should be kept," Ban told a news conference in New Delhi.

Rebels from Nkunda's renegade movement manned several checkpoints outside the city, which were littered with plastic and metal canisters from rocket launchers.

Nkunda launched a low-level rebellion three years ago claiming Congo's transition to democracy had excluded the Tutsi ethnic group. Despite agreeing in January to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, he resumed fighting in August.

He alleges the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter half a million Rwandan Tutsis in 1994.

Congo has charged Nkunda himself with involvement in war crimes, and Human Rights Watch says it has documented summary executions, torture, and rape committed by soldiers under Nkunda's command in 2002 and 2004.


Pakistani Authorities Try To Reach Quake Victims

Rescuers were struggling to distribute aid to a remote mountainous part of southwestern Pakistan on Friday, two days after a strong earthquake struck there killing more than 300 people.

The quake, in Baluchistan, Pakistan's poorest province, also left some 20,000 people homeless.

The terrain in the affected region is remote and some roads are blocked by landslides, so Pakistani military helicopters were being used to distribute food, blankets and tents.

The 6.4-magnitude quake hit a poor mountainous region near the Afghan border before dawn Wednesday. It destroyed 3,000 houses.

Provincial minister Zamrak Khan said reports of fatalities were still arriving and that bodies of 215 people killed had been buried so far. However, he said reports from four badly hit districts indicated that others had been interred without informing authorities and that the real toll was "somewhere above 300."


Consumer Spending Drops For September

Consumer spending was down more last month than at any time in the past four years, while incomes suffered because of Hurricane Ike.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that personal spending fell by 0.3 percent last month, the biggest decline since June of 2004. That followed flat readings in both July and August, contributing to the worst quarterly performance in 28 years.

Incomes showed a 0.2 percent rise in September, just half of the August increase, a slowdown that partly reflected the adverse effects of Hurricane Ike along the Gulf Coast. The storm cut into rental payments and earnings from businesses affected by the rough weather and its aftermath.

The September spending decline was slightly worse than economists expected and confirmed that the economy hit a wall in the third quarter because of the weakness in consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity.


China Melamine Fears Prompt Poultry Slaughter

Chinese farmers have been forced to slaughter tens of thousands of chickens over fears of melamine contamination, state media said on Friday.

Public fears about food safety have seen egg prices plummet in local markets, and wholesalers refuse stock not carrying melamine inspection certificates. Plunging demand in Beijing has prompted dozens of farmers in Baoding to slaughter tens of thousands of chickens in recent days, the Beijing Youth Daily said.

Melamine is a compound used in making plastic chairs and other things, but is often added to food to cheat nutrition tests. At least four children died and tens of thousands were made ill from drinking milk formula adulterated with melamine this year.

Shanghai's Livestock Office was set to check more than 100 feed producers in the city, and promised tests for the city's seafood products if any feed were found to contain melamine, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said on Friday.

Melamine was banned in feed last year in the wake of a pet food scandal that was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States last year, but has since been found in chicken feed used by major egg producers in northern China.

 

[historylover]

Unregulated Credit Default Swaps Led to Weakness

by Alex Blumberg
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96395271

Former AIG CEO Martin Sullivan testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill on Oct. 7, as lawmakers examined AIG's role in the financial crisis. AP


In Depth



All Things Considered, October 31, 2008 · It's a fair guess that a couple of months ago, few people outside the financial world had even heard the words "credit default swaps." But now the obscure and unregulated financial instruments are shouldering much of the blame for destabilizing the global financial system.

Earlier this month, Congress got its own tutorial on credit default swaps from Eric Dinallo, the New York state insurance superintendent.

"It's where you own a bond. Let's just say you own Ford bonds and you want to hedge your risk that Ford is going to default on those bonds. So you go to a third party and you ask them to essentially insure you against that default," Dinallo said earlier this month at a House Oversight Committee hearing on the bailout for insurance giant AIG.

The government rescued AIG last month to prevent it from going bankrupt because it had promised a lot of money, which it didn't have, to people holding credit default swap agreements with the company.

"From recollection, I don't believe the number got to $500 billion, but it was certainly in totality around $400 billion," says former CEO Martin Sullivan.

One problem for AIG: Many of the people it owed money to had not bought credit default swaps from them for insurance; they'd bought them for speculation.

How Credit Default Swaps Work

Here's how it works. Let's say there's a guy named Frank and he has a life insurance policy. When he dies, the beneficiary gets a million dollars. Now imagine a whole bunch of other people saying, "I want a million dollars if he dies, too." And so they take out life insurance policies on Frank. Now imagine Frank dies, and all those people bought their policies from the same company. That company, more or less, was AIG.

Netting

But the fact that the biggest insurance company in the world was brought down by these unregulated securities might not even be the scariest part. Usually, people who traded credit default swaps did something different from what AIG did — something that was supposed to make them safer, but might possibly have made the whole system more dangerous. They did something called "netting."

Imagine a hedge fund that has assets of $100 million and a hunch that the investment bank Lehman Brothers is going down. It goes to AIG and buys a credit default swap on $1 billion. It pays AIG $20 million a year, and the deal is, if Lehman can't pay its debts, AIG owes it $1 billion.

Now, over the next few months, the hedge fund's hunch starts to look more likely. Lehman starts looking riskier. Its profits go down, say, and unfavorable news comes out about it. When this happens, Lehman becomes, basically, more expensive to insure. Just like the more traffic accidents one has, the higher the insurance premiums, the sicker a company looks, the more it costs to buy a credit default swap protection against it.

And the hedge fund is perfectly poised to take advantage of that. It goes out and starts selling credit default swap protection. But because people are more scared about Lehman, the price is higher. The hedge fund can now sell it for $40 million a year. So it is paying $20 million, but taking in $40 million, a net profit of $20 million a year. And its position is "hedged," or totally safe. If Lehman defaults, the hedge fund will owe its buyer $1 billion, but AIG will owe it $1 billion. The trades net out. And in the meantime, the hedge fund is taking in a cool $20 million a year.

And this situation, in which every trade was matched on the other side with another trade, was much more common. The hedge fund would sell protection to Morgan Stanley, say, and buy it from Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs, in turn, would sell protection to a hedge fund, which in turn would buy from another hedge fund, and so on down the line.

Satyajit Das, a risk consultant with nearly 20 years of experience working with credit default swaps, says that netting works fine as long as everyone stays in business.

"If the chain breaks down anywhere where one party does not actually honor their contracts, then the losses multiply rapidly," he says. "It links everybody together in this unholy chain and so what happens is if one party has a problem, then everybody else has a problem."

The Greatest Danger

Jon Zucker, who worked at a credit default swap desk at a major bank for five years until 2007, says if everyone in the chain knew the financial stability of everyone else in the chain, then all this would be fine. The problem, however, is because every deal is private, so they don't know.

"You don't know; it's far from transparent," he says. "You know the notion is that I'm working here at NY Money Center Bank and some small bank in Asia goes down and suddenly it just hits a tipping point and several other banks fail and suddenly it's affecting me.

"I never had a clue."

And this lack of information is what has been causing huge problems. It is one reason credit has been freezing up. Banks have been afraid to trade with one another because they don't know what bets anyone has made.

And this, in turn, was one reason the government felt it had to step in with a bailout — because all the banks are linked through these credit default contracts. If one bank goes down, they all could.

Hindsight

The questions then are: Is it fair for taxpayers to be mad? And who should they be mad at? Is it possible to set up a situation where the mistakes won't affect you?

"There is a lot of 20/20 hindsight review of this, saying people should have caught all this stuff," Zucker says. "I'm not altogether sure of that, but one thing I can say is that in terms of intent, there was no intent to regulate.

"And from that point of view, they should be held accountable for some of these mistakes."

Recently, regulators have started to take action. Earlier this month, Congress held hearings on how best to regulate the credit default swap market. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, who has been criticized for lax oversight of the financial markets, recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, calling for greater regulation of the credit default swaps.

Most people seem to believe the best thing would be to set up a central clearinghouse for credit default swaps, or an exchange, where they could be publicly traded like options, or commodity futures. But everyone says it's a complex world: The people who invent these financial products are making small fortunes, and that regulators will always be playing catch-up.

 

[historylover]

Pew Poll Shows McCain Narrowing Gap


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96476869
All Things Considered, November 2, 2008 · The final Pew Research Center poll of the 2008 presidential election gives Barack Obama a 49 to 42 percent lead over his rival, John McCain. Though still a significant lead, it's suddenly a much tighter race than Obama's 15-point lead from last week.

There are two things closing the gap, says Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. First, McCain has made some gains among whites, independents and middle-income voters. But the other boost he's enjoying comes from narrowing the pool of responses from registered voters to likely voters.

Typically, Republican voters tend to vote more regularly than some Democratic voting groups — particularly young people and blacks, Kohut says. So while turnout is up among those groups, it's also up across the board — giving Republicans a boost when the poll focuses on likely voters.

It may not be as strong as a week ago, but Obama's lead in the Pew poll agrees with several national polls that have him ahead by a 5-point average.

"This is a pretty substantial lead," Kohut says. "We haven't had a lead for a candidate this substantial since 1996, when President Clinton was leading Sen. Dole in the final weekend of the campaign."

But that's not the only poll data leaning in Obama's favor.

The strength of each candidate's support among likely voters has historically been a significant indicator of a race's outcome. According to the Pew poll, 36 percent of likely voters say they strongly support Obama, while only 24 percent say they are strong supporters of McCain.

"Typically," Kohut says, "if we look back to elections going back to 1960, invariably the candidate with the stronger support wins the election."

Despite the numbers, Kohut warns, you can't take voters for granted. But he admits that it would take something pretty big to upend what most of the polls are showing. "But in an election where the unexpected is the expected," Kohut teases, "who knows?"


Can States Change Color With Two Days To Go?

by Don Gonyea and Scott Horsley
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96460989

Sen. John McCain spoofed the presidential campaign Saturday as Tina Fey played Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.


See the video

Watch McCain on Saturday Night Live

NPR.org, November 2, 2008 · The candidates are busy trying to take states out from under each other with just two days to go until Election Day. Barack Obama is finishing his campaign exclusively in states that voted twice for President Bush, while John McCain is reaching out to blue state Pennsylvania. Also stepping onto the presidential campaign stage this weekend was Vice President Dick Cheney — though whose campaign he helped is a matter of perspective.

Cheney Hits The Campaign Trail

"I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Sen. John McCain," Cheney said to applause in Laramie, Wyo., on Saturday. The vice president was there campaigning for incumbent Republicans running for the U.S. House and Senate.

For the Obama campaign, Cheney's return was a kind of gift that the candidate wasted no time in unwrapping.

"Dick Cheney," Obama started, before a chorus of boos rang out from the crowd in Springfield, Mo. "No need to boo — you just need to vote," he quipped. "Dick Cheney came out of his undisclosed location and hit the campaign trail."

This summer, neither the president nor the vice president campaigned much. President Bush made no public appearances this fall on behalf of either John McCain or any GOP congressional candidates. Cheney, once a mainstay for campaigning congressmen, has been nearly as invisible.

That's at least in part because Obama has been calling a vote for McCain a vote for four more years of Bush-Cheney. On Saturday, Obama made the delight of the Democratic campaign apparent.

"I'd like to congratulate Sen. McCain on this endorsement," Obama told the crowd, "because he really earned it."

Obama Focuses On Red States

On Saturday, Obama was in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri. He will spend all of Sunday in Ohio. The Democrat is counting on wins in at least one or two of these states to nail down an Electoral College victory Tuesday.

His concentration on these red states reflects confidence that his party will hang on to all of the states Democrats carried four years ago, leaving Obama free to pursue states that Republicans never expected to be in play this year. Missouri is one example.

"I thought there weren't supposed to be any Democrats in Greene County," U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) teased the 35,000-plus crowd before introducing Obama in Springfield on Saturday.

GOP Hoping Pennsylvania Turns Red

McCain sees Pennsylvania as one of his last, best chances to win a blue state — a state that Democrats have carried in recent elections.

The Republican presidential nominee is hoping to pick off enough conservative Democrats and independents, along with Republicans from Pennsylvania's midsection to capture the state for the GOP for the first time since 1988.

"Thank you, Pennsylvania," McCain told a crowd in the small town of Perkasie, between Allentown and Philadelphia.

"We need to win in Pennsylvania on Nov. 4, and with your help, we're going to win here in Pennsylvania. And we're going to bring real change to Washington."

For months now, McCain has been touting tax cuts as the key to reviving the nation's sagging economy. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says the biggest beneficiaries of McCain's plan would be the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans. But by repeatedly invoking "Joe the Plumber" in recent weeks, McCain has managed to repackage his proposal as a boon to small business. And that made an impression on Pennsylvania voter Louise Kennedy.

"My son has a small business. And I believe that is true — that he is for small business." Kennedy, who's a supporter of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, is also drawn to McCain because of his opposition to abortion.

"I'm a conservative first, but I'm also a believer," Kennedy said. "I'm a born-again believer, and I believe in what he stands for."

Although polls still show Obama leading in the state, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell says it's close — and McCain says he's closing in.

McCain Spoofs Campaign On SNL

Despite the mad dash to the finish, McCain still had time to poke fun at his political predicament. On Saturday, he took a detour to New York for a guest spot on Saturday Night Live. He spoofed Obama's big-budget, half-hour TV buy with a cheaper "infomercial" of his own. The role of running mate Sarah Palin was played, of course, by former SNL cast member Tina Fey.

"Are you someone who likes fine jewelry, and also respects a politician who can reach across the aisle?" McCain said to the camera. "You can't go wrong with McCain Fine Gold. It commemorates the McCain-Feingold Act — and also looks great with evening wear."

With the end of the campaign in sight, McCain will stump Sunday in New Hampshire, where he made the biggest comeback in his career — so far.

 

[historylover]

November 4, 2008
Record Voter Turnout Prompts Concerns

Record turnout was expected Tuesday in a historic presidential race, with polling officials concerned about possible long lines and malfunctioning machines that have plagued previous elections.

Lawsuits alleging voter suppression surfaced in the hotly contested state of Virginia. A judge refused late Monday to extend poll hours or add voting machines to black precincts in some areas. The NAACP, in a federal lawsuit, demanded those changes, saying minority neighborhoods would experience overwhelming turnout and there weren't enough electronic machines.

U.S. District Judge Richard Williams denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, but ordered election officials to publicize that people in line by 7 p.m., the polls' closing time, would be allowed to cast ballots.

Republican John McCain's campaign sued the Virginia electoral board hours before polls opened, trying to force the state to count late-arriving military ballots from overseas.

McCain, a former POW from the Vietnam War, asked a federal judge to order state election officials to count absentee ballots mailed from abroad that arrive as late as Nov. 14.

Lines stretching around buildings and lasting for hours have already plagued many states with early voting, including Florida, Georgia and Colorado. Voter registration numbers are up 7.3 percent from the last presidential election. Democrats saw their registration numbers increase by 12.2 percent, while Republicans saw their ranks grow by only 1.7 percent, according to a recent analysis by The Associated Press.


China, Taiwan Sign Historic Deal On Air Links

Taiwan and China on Tuesday agreed to expand passenger and cargo flights and allow shipping links across the Taiwan Strait, a step that could draw the rivals toward closer cooperation in other areas.

The historic deal highlighted the dramatic improvement in relations between Taiwan and China in recent months. The two sides split amid a bloody civil war in 1949.

The two sides also agreed to hold high-level talks every six months and focus on building closer financial ties in the next round of meetings.

After signing the pact, Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin smiled and shook hands with his Taiwanese counterpart, Chiang Pin-kung. They sipped champagne and held up two lines of framed calligraphy that said, "Peaceful negotiation creates a win-win situation."

For nearly six decades, Taiwan banned direct flights and shipping with China, fearing China might attack with bombers and warships disguised as civilian vessels.

But the rivals began relaxing restrictions on flights in July when their envoys met in Beijing. They signed a confidence-building deal then that allowed 36 weekly flights from five mainland cities.


Pakistan: Next U.S. President Must End Strikes

Pakistan's prime minister warned on Tuesday that the next U.S. president must halt missile strikes on insurgent targets in his country or risk failure in its efforts to end militancy in the region's Muslim militancy.

Yousuf Raza Gilani said visiting U.S. Gen. David Petraeus "looked convinced" when he warned him the strikes were inflaming anti-American sentiment but that he got no guarantee the attacks
would end.

Gilani's remarks in an interview with The Associated Press underscore how shaping a policy to deal with the militant threat in nuclear-armed Pakistan and its new civilian leaders will be a key aask for the next U.S. president.

They also revealed the rising strain the missile strikes have placed on relations between the two nations seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forced them into an uneasy alliance.

"No matter who the president of America will be, if he doesn't respect the sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan ... anti-America sentiments and anti-West sentiment will be there," said Gilani in his heavily guarded residence atop a hill in the capital, Islamabad.

 

[historylover]

Obama Sails To Sweeping, Historic Victory
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96596393
by Jennifer Ludden

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Barack Obama addresses supporters during his election night victory rally at Grant Park on Nov. 4, 2008, in Chicago. AFP/Getty Images

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McCain Concedes To Obama

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Sen. John McCain is joined on stage by wife, Cindy, during his concession speech in his hometown of Phoenix, Ariz., Tuesday night. AP

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Transcript Of John McCain's Concession Speech

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NPR's Election Coverage

Nov. 4, 2008
Exit Polls: Economy Weak, Nation On Wrong Track
Nov. 5, 2008
Democrats Win Four Senate Seats In March To 60
Nov. 5, 2008
Democrats Look East For House Seats Early On
Nov. 4, 2008
Democrats Grab Governorship In Missouri

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Thousands of supporters of Sen. Barack Obama wait for the first African-American president-elect to speak at Grant Park in Chicago Tuesday night. AP


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Edna Johnson reacts to Barack Obama's acceptance speech during an election night party Tuesday at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. AP


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Supporters of Barack Obama celebrate his victory in Chicago's Grant Park Tuesday night. AFP/Getty Images


NPR.org, November 5, 2008 · Democrat Barack Obama was elected America's 44th president and its first African-American commander in chief Tuesday night, in a sweeping victory that redrew the country's political map.

In his acceptance speech before a throng of emotional supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, Obama echoed the main theme of his campaign, saying, "Change has come to America." But he also acknowledged the enormousness of the task he faces.

"For even as we celebrate tonight," he said, "we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. "

Republican John McCain conceded the election shortly after 11 p.m. EST, telling supporters in Phoenix that Obama "has achieved a great thing for himself and his country" with his historic win.

Obama's Electoral College landslide included all of the states that voted Democratic four years ago. But he also won a number of key states that had supported President Bush, including Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia and Indiana —the last two of which had not voted for a Democratic president since 1964.

Obama also captured voters across income and education levels, age group and race. He trailed McCain among the white vote, though he did better among this group than John Kerry did four years ago.

Obama's win comes as Americans face the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the dramatic downturn played to his advantage. Exit polls Tuesday showed the economy was the main issue on voters' minds, and two-thirds said they were worried or very worried that the crisis will affect their families.

The day brought big gains for Democrats in the House and Senate as well.

A Historic Election

Throughout the nearly two-year campaign, Obama himself rarely raised the historic significance of his race. Asked in an interview with 60 Minutes why he didn't talk more about the fact that he is African-American, Obama smiled and said he figured people could see that. But the nation's first black president-elect is an emotional milestone for many others.

"We have witnessed a nonviolent revolution, a revolution of ideas," Rep. John Lewis of Georgia told NPR. Lewis shared the stage with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. the day the civil rights leader delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech" and said he was thinking of King as Obama's strong showing became apparent.

"I felt like shouting, but I just said, 'Hallelujah, hallelujah,' 'cause I knew Martin Luther King himself was looking down on us saying, 'Hallelujah,' " Lewis said.

Obama did often discuss his biracial biography — son of a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya — and argued that he could bridge the country's long-standing racial divides.

His candidacy energized African-Americans, who turned out as never before. They increased their share of the electorate to 13 percent, and nearly one-fifth were first-time voters. Some said they never imagined a black man would be elected president in their lifetime.

In his acceptance speech, Obama mentioned one voter in Atlanta, 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper, born a generation past slavery, at a time when she could not vote because she was black and a woman.

In Cooper's lifetime, "a man touched down on the moon," Obama said, "a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change."

McCain acknowledged Obama's achievement in his concession speech and said, "Let there be no reason now for any Americans to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth."

A Changing Map

Obama's coalition of support goes well beyond the African-American community. He is the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter to win a majority of the popular vote, a vindication of his "50-state strategy" that even some in his own party once viewed as quixotic. By the end of Tuesday, broad swaths of the American political map that had been solid red in recent elections had undergone a dramatic transformation.

"It's possible that he will be the reverse Reagan," says Columbia University historian Manning Marable.

Like Reagan, Marable says, Obama is a charismatic leader whose appeal transcends partisan politics. He says Obama has built his support on a "three-legged stool" made up of African-Americans, Hispanics and young voters of all races.

In North Carolina, for example, exit polls show 73 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Obama, even though McCain was stronger among every other age group. In Virginia, exit polls showed Obama ahead with every age group except those 65 and older.

There are also 1.6 million more Hispanic voters this year, including a half-million newly naturalized citizens, and they chose Obama over McCain by a margin of 2 to 1. Hispanics make up large parts of the electorate in the key swing states of New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, all of which Obama carried.

Adding to Obama's advantage, there are simply more registered Democrats than Republicans now. Republicans have dropped from 37 percent of the electorate in 2004 to 32 percent today, as the number of Democrats and independents has increased.

Obama also had the best-financed campaign in memory, using the Internet to solicit a large number of new donors and breaking a promise to accept limited public financing for the general campaign. This allowed Obama to blanket the airwaves with ads attacking McCain on the economy, his health care plan and other issues.

McCain, too, aired a series of negative ads, and the last few weeks of this nearly two-year-long battle turned bitter. Twice in his concession speech, when McCain mentioned Obama's win, the crowd erupted into boos. McCain quieted them, urging all Americans to "find the necessary compromises and bridge differences."

In his speech, Obama also reached out to McCain's supporters.

"I may not have won your vote," he said, "but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president, too."

A Tough Climate For McCain

Much of Tuesday night's electoral shift can be attributed to President Bush's dismal approval ratings, which posed a burden for McCain. Obama consistently sought to link the two, asserting that McCain's economic policies in particular would be a continuation of Bush's.

At one time it was thought this election would turn largely on the war in Iraq. McCain touted the success of the so-called troop surge — a measure he pushed for and Obama opposed — saying that the strategy improved security in that country. But most Americans now believe the war was a mistake, and exit polls show that only 1 in 10 voters considered Iraq an important election issue.

The impact of McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate is not so clear. Before the election, polls showed that a majority of Americans believed she was unprepared for the job. But exit polls were mixed — 59 percent of voters said Palin was a factor in their choice, but they split their votes between the two candidates. The loudest cheers during McCain's concession speech came when he thanked a teary-eyed Palin, calling her "an impressive new voice in our party."

Democratic Gains In Congress

The sweeping support for Obama carried over into some congressional races, with Democrats picking up at least five seats in the Senate. But a prime target — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — held on, and Democrats fell shy of the vetoproof majority of 60.

Democrats made double-digit gains in the House, where all 435 seats were up for election.

In the last weeks of his campaign, McCain repeatedly invoked the prospect of a Democratic-controlled Congress to suggest that only he could provide a check on unfettered liberal control of Washington. Now even some Democrats are calling for moderation.

"We can't get too ecstatic," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told NPR. His own state went for Obama this time, but it has been closely split between the two parties in past elections. "I think if we don't build coalitions and govern in a bipartisan way, we're going to have some problems."