From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Japan to launch 'fresh stimulus package'
AFP
Sun Feb 15, 7:35 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan is to launch a fresh stimulus package as the world's second largest economy faces a sizeable contraction, a ruling party official and local media said.
Prime Minister Aso Taro will "shortly" announce a plan to compile the fresh economic package, Yoshihide Suga, a senior official of Aso's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), told reporters.
Some LDP members already suggested that the package should be worth 20 trillion yen to 30 trillion yen (217 billion yen to 326 billion yen), Suga said, adding: "I think we need such a size." |
2 Obama targets housing fix after stimulus victory
by Jitendra Joshi, AFP
1 hr 33 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama readied to head west to unveil a new strategy to arrest the epidemic of home foreclosures after his gargantuan economic stimulus plan finally cleared Congress.
Aides to the president -- who Saturday called the 787-billion-dollar package of investment and tax cuts "a major milestone on our road to recovery" -- said he would outline his housing plan in Phoenix, Arizona on Wednesday.
The day before in Denver, Colorado, Obama will sign the stimulus package into law, setting the seal on the first major legislative triumph of his young presidency. |
3 Saudi king's government shakeup hailed as 'bold'
by Paul Handley, AFP
1 hr 43 mins ago
RIYADH (AFP) – Saudis on Sunday cheered King Abdullah's sweeping government shakeup as a bold step forward, a day after he sacked two powerful conservative religious figures and named the country's first-ever woman minister.
"Bold reform," Al-Hayat newspaper said in its headline, while the Saudi Gazette heralded the shakeup as a "boost for reform" in the Muslim kingdom.
"Everything is fantastic. This is what we have been fighting for," said Ibrahim Mugaiteeb, leader of the Human Rights First Society, who has done battle with successive governments over rights violations. |
4 GM, UAW talks break off and Chrysler talks stall
By Kevin Krolicki and Poornima Gupta, Reuters
1 hr 19 mins ago
DETROIT (Reuters) – Talks between the United Auto Workers and General Motors Corp central to a turnaround plan for the struggling automaker have broken down over the issue of retiree healthcare costs, a person briefed on the talks said on Saturday.
A parallel set of talks between Chrysler LLC and the UAW over similar concessions were continuing over the weekend but little progress had been made, a person briefed on those negotiations said.
The breakdown of talks at GM and the stalled negotiations at Chrysler come with just three days remaining until both automakers must submit new restructuring plans to the U.S. government as a condition of the $17.4 billion in federal aid that has kept them both operating since the start of the year. |
5 Afghanistan to join in regional U.S. policy review
By Hamid Shalizi, Reuters
1 hr 12 mins ago
KABUL (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has welcomed a request from Afghanistan to take part in an inter-agency review of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Afghan president and the U.S. regional envoy said on Sunday.
The review, ordered by Obama last week, will look at both military and non-military aspects of U.S. policy as American and NATO troops struggle in Afghanistan against a growing Taliban insurgency that also threatens Pakistan.
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he was "very very thankful that President Obama has accepted the proposal of Afghanistan joining a strategic review of the war against terrorism." |
6 Obama to lift ban on stem cell research soon: aide
Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 10:01 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama will soon issue an executive order lifting an eight-year ban embryonic stem cell research imposed by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, a senior adviser said on Sunday.
"We're going to be doing something on that soon, I think. The president is considering that right now," Obama adviser David Axelrod said on "Fox News Sunday."
In 2001, Bush limited federal funding for stem cell research only to human embryonic stem cell lines that already existed. It was a gesture to his conservative Christian supporters who regard embryonic stem cell research as destroying potential life, because the cells must be extracted from human embryos. |
7 Israel's Olmert confirms Pope to visit in May
Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 10:26 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Pope Benedict will visit Israel in May, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday, confirming the spring pilgrimage and avoiding any mention of tense Catholic-Jewish relations over a Holocaust-denying bishop.
"This May, we will receive a special visitor, Pope Benedict XVI," Olmert told his cabinet, without giving an exact date. "President Shimon Peres will accompany him to various sites in Israel."
Olmert, who is usually effusive in his praise of friendly foreign leaders, said matter-of-factly that he hoped Benedict's pilgrimage "would be conducted in the proper atmosphere and be as successful as the previous pope's visit." |
8 U.S. officers probed on Iraq rebuilding: report
Reuters
Sat Feb 14, 9:29 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. officials looking into irregularities in the early portion of the $125 billion U.S.-led effort to rebuild Iraq have expanded the inquiry to include senior U.S. military officers who oversaw the program, The New York Times reported on its website.
Citing senior government officials with whom it conducted interviews, as well as court documents, the Times reported that investigators had subpoenaed the personal bank records of a colonel, now retired, in charge of reconstruction contracting in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, when the operation expanded greatly in scope to repair Iraq's infrastructure.
Investigators were also examining the activities of an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was a senior contracting officer in Baghdad in 2004, the Times said citing two federal officials involved in the inquiry. |
9 Global warming seen worse than predicted
By Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
Sat Feb 14, 4:46 pm ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.
"The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously," Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
Field said "the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious" than any of the climate predictions in the IPCC's fourth assessment report called "Climate Change 2007." |
10 Pakistan, pro-Taliban group in peace talks
By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer
20 mins ago
ISLAMABAD – Pakistani officials on Sunday hammered out a peace deal with a Taliban-linked group that could lead to the enforcement of elements of Islamic law in parts of the northwest, prompting militants in the blood-soaked Swat Valley to declare a 10-day cease-fire as a goodwill gesture.
The agreement, expected to be formally announced Monday, could re-spark U.S. criticism that Pakistan's truces with insurgents merely gives them time to regroup. Although several of its past deals failed, Pakistan says force alone cannot defeat al-Qaida and Taliban fighters sowing havoc in its northwest and attacking U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
Swat is a former tourist haven that has fallen under heavy militant sway despite a lengthy army offensive. Regaining Swat is a major test for Pakistan's shaky civilian leadership. Unlike the semiautonomous tribal regions where al-Qaida and Taliban have long thrived, the valley is supposed to fall fully under government control. |
11 Crude oil is getting cheaper — so why isn't gas?
By CHRIS KAHN and JOHN PORRETTO, AP Energy Writers
2 hrs 23 mins ago
NEW YORK – Crude oil prices have fallen to new lows for this year. So you'd think gas prices would sink right along with them.
...
On Thursday, for example, crude oil closed just under $34 a barrel, its lowest point for 2009. But the national average price of a gallon of gas rose to $1.95 on the same day, its peak for the year. On Friday gas went a penny higher.
To drivers once again grimacing as they tank up, it sounds like a conspiracy. But it has more to do with an energy market turned upside-down that has left gas cut off from its usual economic moorings. |
12 Survey shows polar seas are no biological desert
By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer
1 hr 53 mins ago
BANGKOK, Thailand – The polar oceans are not biological deserts after all.
A marine census released Monday documented 7,500 species living in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, including several hundred that researchers believe could be new to science.
And, in one of the biggest surprises, researchers said they discovered dozens of species common to both polar seas — separated by nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers). |
13 Belgium opens new Antarctic polar research station
By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 15, 8:56 am ET
BRUSSELS – Belgium opened a new 20 million euro ($26 million) "zero emissions" polar science station in Antarctica on Sunday, returning to the continent to study climate change 42 years after closing its first base there.
The Princess Elisabeth research hub is totally energy self-sufficient and also aims not to emit any carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Belgian-based International Polar Foundation that runs the base.
The octagonal, spaceship-like base sits on stilts on a ridge a few miles (kilometers) north of the Soer Rondane Mountains. It will focus on analyzing nearby deep ice shelves. |
14 Amid nurse shortage, hospitals focus on retention
By RASHA MADKOUR, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 30 mins ago
MIAMI – Newly minted nurse Katie O'Bryan was determined to stay at her first job at least a year, even if she did leave the hospital every day wanting to quit.
She lasted nine months. The stress of trying to keep her patients from getting much worse as they waited, sometimes for 12 hours, in an overwhelmed Dallas emergency room was just too much. The breaking point came after paramedics brought in a child who'd had seizures. She was told he was stable and to check him in a few minutes, but O'Bryan decided not to wait. She found he had stopped breathing and was turning blue.
"If I hadn't gone right away, he probably would have died," O'Bryan said. "I couldn't do it anymore." |
15 Iraqi election commission acknowledges fraud
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 14 mins ago
BAGHDAD – Iraqi officials acknowledged Sunday that there was some fraud in last month's provincial elections but not enough to force a new vote in any province.
Faraj al-Haidari, chairman of the election commission, said final results of the Jan. 31 voting would be certified and announced this week. Voters chose members of ruling provincial councils in an election seen as a dress rehearsal for parliamentary balloting by the end of the year.
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Despite the drop in violence, a U.S. soldier was killed Sunday by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq, the U.S. announced. At least three other people were killed by attacks Sunday in other parts of the country, according to police. |
16 Calif. budget fix stalls with too few GOP votes
By JUDY LIN, Associated Press Writer
40 mins ago
SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried Sunday to salvage a proposal to close California's $42 billion deficit after an all-night legislative session failed to produce a new budget.
The governor and legislative leaders from both parties warned that California faces insolvency unless the Legislature enacts a midyear budget fix.
Blame for the inaction was fixed on the state Senate, where Republicans were refusing to put up the three votes necessary to reach the required two-thirds majority. The Assembly appeared ready to pass the mix of deep spending cuts and tax increases but was awaiting signals that the Senate would do the same. |
17 White House wants changes in executive pay rules
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 18 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Facing a stricter approach to limiting executive bonuses than it had favored, the Obama administration wants to revise that part of the stimulus package even after it becomes law, White House officials said Sunday.
While President Barack Obama plans to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill in Denver on Tuesday, his administration will seek changes in the government's approach to executive compensation, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said.
"We all have the same goal. We all have the same sentiment. And we want to do something that's workable, and we'll work with them to get to that point," Axelrod said on "Fox News Sunday." |
18 Baby-faced dad, 13, raises "broken Britain" fears
By GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 15, 9:52 am ET
LONDON – Ahhh, Britain. The land of Shakespeare and the Beatles, Churchill and the Queen. Rolling green hills, groovy London shops, hip plaids splashed over raincoats and umbrellas.
Cut to the reality of 2009: the highest teen pregnancy rate in western Europe, a binge drinking culture that leaves drunk teens splayed out in the streets and rising knife crime that has turned some pub fights into deadly affairs.
...
In the latest symbol of what some are calling "broken Britain," 13-year-old Alfie and his 15-year-old girlfriend Chantelle became parents last week. The news sparked a flurry of handwringing from the media — and even ordinary folk admitted it didn't help that Alfie barely looked 10, let alone 13, as he cradled his newborn daughter. |
19 In pop culture, new heroes emerge in Arab world
By TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer
2 hrs 9 mins ago
CAIRO – Abu Essam's footsteps echo loudly as he walks through the narrow alleys of Damascus' old city. Around him in 1930s Syria, tall stone buildings block the scorching sun.
Cautiously, he walks on. Around the next corner he could find the key to the gate to free prisoners captured by Syria's colonial ruler, France. Or he could face a shot from a French soldier's rifle. As he turns the corner, a shot rings out — but it is the soldier who is dead.
This is not Syria of 75 years ago, however. It is a rolling, 3-D video game on Wael El-Zanaty's cell phone, and his thumb is a blur of motion as he navigates the alleys and fires at soldiers. |
20 China editorial slams 'Buy American' provision
Associated Press
Sun Feb 15, 3:44 am ET
BEIJING – Measures in a $789 billion U.S. stimulus package that favor American goods are a "poison" that will hurt efforts solve the financial crisis, an editorial by China's official news agency said.
Provisions in the U.S. stimulus bill approved Friday favoring American steel, iron and manufactured goods for government projects are protectionist measures that could trigger trade disputes, said the editorial issued late Saturday by the Xinhua News Agency.
"History and economics have told us, facing a global financial crisis, trade protectionism is not a solution, but a poison to the solution," the editorial said. |
21 North Korea offers possible olive branch to US
By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 15, 6:12 am ET
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea is ready to improve relations with "friendly" countries, the communist country's No. 2 leader said Sunday ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Asia.
The remark by Kim Yong Nam, North Korea's ceremonial head of state, could be an olive branch to Washington before Clinton's trip — even though it came amid reports the North is gearing up to test-fire a long-range missile in an apparent attempt to grab President Barack Obama's attention.
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"We will develop relations with countries that are friendly toward us," Kim told a national meeting held as part of celebrations on the eve of the 67th birthday of leader Kim Jong Il, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency. |
22 Crisis leaves Russian ambitions thwarted at Rome G7
By Gleb Bryanski, Reuters
1 hr 49 mins ago
ROME (Reuters) – Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin may have felt it as a sign of the times that he was among the last at Rome's Excelsior hotel to see the closing statement from this weekend's meeting of global policymakers.
The worst economic crisis in a decade has hit Russia's chances of taking a stronger role in the G7/G8 groups of industrialized nations and it was hard to escape the feeling on Saturday that the clout it had achieved thanks to record high oil prices has evaporated.
Russia has never been accepted as a fully-fledged member by those in the G7 club of free-market democracies, but in recent years it had been pushing hard for a change of mind. There was little sign of that in Rome. |
23 One year after secession, Kosovo remains fragile
By Fatos Bytyci, Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 4:37 am ET
PRISTINA (Reuters) – A year after declaring independence, Kosovo has its own flag, its own national anthem -- even its own intelligence services.
But anyone phoning the former Serbian province on a landline still has to dial through Serbia. And the fact that the euro is the national currency sits oddly in a country for whom European Union membership is a distant dream.
Recognized as independent by more than 50 countries including the United States and most EU states, but shunned by others including Russia, China and Serbia, Kosovo's political stability is precarious. |
24 Guantanamo detainee fit to travel: British diplomats
Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 10:53 am ET
LONDON (Reuters) – A British resident held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay is well enough to travel to Britain if a request to release him is approved, the Foreign Office (FCO) said on Sunday.
British officials, including a doctor, visited Binyam Mohamed, who has been on hunger strike since January, on Saturday.
"They also met with medical staff at the facility. There are no immediate medical concerns that would prevent him from traveling to the UK, should the United States government agree to the UK's request for release and return," the FCO said in a statement. |
25 Medvedev vows new deal for Russians as crisis bites
By Oleg Shchedrov, Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 12:16 pm ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday promised Russians, alarmed by a worsening economic crisis, a new deal of more government openness in exchange for their loyalty and support.
"I consider that the authorities are obliged to speak about this (crisis) frankly and directly, to speak about the decisions which the authorities are taking to overcome the crisis and about the difficulties with which we are faced," he said.
"We will indeed overcome ... Everything will be normal," he said, adding that he promised to be frank about the state of the nation in regular television addresses. |
26 Mandela joins Zuma at ANC election rally
By Michael Georgy, Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 11:48 am ET
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former South African President Nelson Mandela has joined ruling ANC leader Jacob Zuma at an electoral rally in a "historic show of confidence" ahead of an April 22 poll, the ANC said on Sunday.
In his first appearance at a campaigning event before the parliamentary vote, Mandela, 90, addressed a rally in Eastern Cape along with Zuma, the African National Congress (ANC) said.
The province is expected to be a main battleground in the election the ANC is widely expected to win, despite facing its first serious political challenge since the end of apartheid from COPE, a party made up of ANC defectors. |
27 France's Sarkozy aims to defuse economic protests
By Francois Murphy, Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 9:07 am ET
PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicholas Sarkozy will try this week to defuse protests against his economic plans but talks with unions will be tough with unemployment rising, growth tumbling and Caribbean unrest threatening to spread.
More than a million people took to the streets across France two weeks ago in protest at Sarkozy's policies, demanding pay rises and protection for jobs in the face of the downturn, and trade unions have penciled in another protest next month.
Sarkozy's 26 billion euro ($33.6 billion) stimulus plan has focused on public spending projects such as building roads and modernizing rail links rather than helping consumers directly. Unions and the political left have called on him to change tack. |
28 Zimbabwe's MDC says official faces new charges
By MacDonald Dzirutwe, Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 8:44 am ET
HARARE (Reuters) – An official in Zimbabwe's MDC party has been charged with planning terrorism and insurgency just days after the opposition joined in a unity government with President Robert Mugabe, his lawyer said on Sunday.
The development threatens the credibility of the new government, whose formation after long negotiations was aimed at leading Zimbabwe out of a political and economic crisis.
MDC Treasurer General Roy Bennet is expected to appear in court on Monday to face the charges, his lawyer, Trust Maanda, said. |
29 Thirty years on, Khmer Rouge torturer faces justice
By Ek Madra, Reuters
Sat Feb 14, 11:09 pm ET
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Thirty years after the fall of Cambodia's "Killing Fields" regime, 78-year-old Chum Manh will finally see his torturer stand trial.
Nearly every Cambodian family lost loved ones during the 1975-79 period of Khmer Rouge rule that claimed an estimated 1.7 million lives.
Despite committing genocide in one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century, none of Pol Pot's surviving henchmen ever faced justice. Until now. |
My namesake.
30 Russia's Artisanal Moonshine Boom
Time Magazine
2 hrs 38 mins ago
Every August, Nikolai Gusev juices hundreds of unwashed apples which grow at his dacha, west of Moscow. For a month he waits patiently for the juice to ferment and turn into a wine. He then distills the mixture, and stores the remaining liquid in a barrel for several months. The result is a highly potent drink (45% alcoholic), with an apple aftertaste which is the favorite tipple of his friends. "I had too many apples at my dacha and instead of throwing them away I wanted to do something with them, for me making moonshine is just a little bit of fun," Gusev says. |
From Yahoo News U.S. News |
31 Nation's peanut growers reeling from outbreak
By BETSY BLANEY, AP Agriculture Writer
Sun Feb 15, 2:14 pm ET
LUBBOCK, Texas – With hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work and the economy in a nosedive, the U.S. peanut industry expected sales to soar this year.
Americans tend to turn to peanut products to stretch their food dollars in tough times, avoiding more expensive protein sources such as steak and ground beef.
Enter an ongoing salmonella outbreak that has sickened some 600 people in 43 states and been linked to nine deaths, and those rosy predictions after a record growing season have been dashed. |
32 Sin City worries its image hurts business travel
By OSKAR GARCIA, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 15 mins ago
LAS VEGAS – Sin City is worried that its well-honed style is crimping its business.
Born of carefully crafted slogans — "What happens here stays here" — and smiling, sequined showgirls, the image of a 24-hour adult Disneyland with free-flowing booze and casino chips is making the tourist destination seem radioactive to companies keen on not appearing frivolous as they seek government bailouts.
In the past two weeks, at least four major companies canceled meetings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — not because of costs but because of appearances. Even President Barack Obama questioned the propriety of flying off to Las Vegas if taxpayers were helping foot the bill. |
33 NYPD reloads after Mumbai with training program
By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 15 mins ago
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The nation's largest police department launched a counterterrorism initiative this month to train a new team of officers with semiautomatic rifles loaded with armor-piercing bullets. The officers also are being trained in tactics for close quarters combat and rescuing hostages in hotels and other high-rise buildings. |
34 Washington painting in NY gets new frame, touchup
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 31 mins ago
NEW YORK – The iconic painting that depicts George Washington crossing the Delaware River is getting even more dazzling. The plain frame that held the room-size painting is being replaced with an ornate recreation of its original.
A recently discovered photograph showing Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" with an elaborate border during an 1864 exhibition inspired the Metropolitan Museum of Art to replace the plain frame.
The masterwork's current frame "minimized it," said Carrie Rebora Barratt, the Met's curator of American paintings and sculpture, although it's difficult to imagine how the painting, more than 21 feet by 12 feet, could be missed. |
35 Uncovering ancient secrets beneath the surface
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Sun Feb 15, 1:10 pm ET
CHICAGO – Scholars are reconsidering what ancient Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes knew of the concept of infinity, and archaeologists may have found a fossil brain millions of years old, thanks to new ways of looking beneath the surface of ancient objects.
Using modern X-ray and spectral imaging, researchers are uncovering two ancient manuscripts by Archimedes, who lived in Sicily in the third century B.C., Uwe Bergmann of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Sunday.
In the 1300s the texts were scraped off the parchment and written over to create a prayer book, Bergmann said. But now scholars have been able to discern the original writing of Archimedes' "The Method" and "The Stomachion," volumes that exist nowhere else. |
36 Economic woes test historically black colleges
By ERRIN HAINES, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 15, 12:34 pm ET
ATLANTA – Historically black colleges and universities, which for decades have been educating students who can't afford to go — or can't imagine going — elsewhere, have been particularly challenged by the nation's economic meltdown.
Enrollments at the schools have declined at the same time endowments have dropped and fundraising sources have dried up. The same is true at most universities, but often students at HBCUs need more aid to stay on course.
"What's most difficult for our institutions is that they are tuition-driven," said Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund. "They don't have large endowments, and even the ones who do, have seen a large reduction in the value of those endowments." |
37 Stimulus bill expected to restart mine cleanup
By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer
Sun Feb 15, 11:46 am ET
WASHINGTON – When the Beal Mountain mine opened in 1988 near Butte, Mont., its owner promoted open-pit cyanide leaching for extracting gold from ore as modern and environmentally friendly.
Pegasus Gold Corp., a Canadian company, extracted nearly 460,000 ounces of gold over a decade before closing the mine and declaring bankruptcy in 1998.
It left behind a 70-acre, cyanide-contaminated leach pond with a leaky liner and tons of rubble that sends selenium-laced runoff into streams, threatening cutthroat trout and other fish. The $6.2 million reclamation bond posted by the company doesn't come close to covering the full cost to clean up the mine, which could total nearly $40 million. |
38 Stanford curtails financing amid probe: report
Reuters
21 mins ago
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Texas billionaire Allen Stanford's offshore bank, which is under federal investigation, recently curtailed financing commitments to two small firms, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Saturday, citing regulatory filings.
Stanford International Bank Ltd. of Antigua failed to provide $16 million in funding to a telecommunications firm in Florida and an Alabama health-care company said it could not complete a $62 million merger when funding fell through.
According to the healthcare firm called Emageon Inc., Stanford had planned to provide the funding to complete the deal, the Journal reported. Stanford spokesman Brian Bertsch declined to comment to the newspaper. |
39 States eager to start spending stimulus money
By Carey Gillam, Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 10:31 am ET
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (Reuters) – The lightly traveled stretch of road on the outskirts of a small Midwestern city may look like a minor two-lane street.
But local officials see the rutted road as a prime candidate for a $2.5 million face-lift, paid for by the federal government.
Council Bluffs, Iowa, is one of hundreds of U.S. communities eager to tap into an expected flood of money from the economic stimulus bill meant to combat the recession. |
40 Credit Suisse acts on U.S. offshore clients: report
Reuters
Sun Feb 15, 6:30 am ET
ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss bank Credit Suisse is taking steps to change its relationship with U.S. clients in view of new, stricter rules on the taxation of U.S. residents' assets abroad, Swiss paper Sonntag said on Sunday.
Mindful of the problems that rival UBS is facing in the United States, Credit Suisse is writing to its U.S. clients holding Swiss accounts asking them to sign a form -- the so-called W9 form -- that would reveal them to U.S. tax authorities, the newspaper said.
UBS is at the center of an high-profile U.S. investigation that alleges that the Swiss bank has helped rich Americans to hide money away from the taxman in Swiss accounts. UBS said last year it would stop offering offshore services to U.S. citizens. |
41 Biofuels may speed up, not slow global warming: study
by Mira Oberman, AFP
Sat Feb 14, 6:32 pm ET
CHICAGO (AFP) – The use of crop-based biofuels could speed up rather than slow down global warming by fueling the destruction of rainforests, scientists warned Saturday.
Once heralded as the answer to oil, biofuels have become increasingly controversial because of their impact on food prices and the amount of energy it takes to produce them.
They could also be responsible for pumping far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they could possibly save as a replacement for fossil fuels, according to a study released Saturday. |
42 Barbie celebrates 50th birthday at the catwalk
AFP
Sat Feb 14, 6:40 pm ET
NEW YORK (AFP) – New York's Fashion Week celebrated Barbie's 50th birthday Saturday with a catwalk debut for the famous doll.
Organized under tents in Bryant Park, close to Times Square, the event drew throngs of fans of the fantastic plastic model, many of them young girls brandishing their pink invitations in a bid to cut through the crowd.
Some 500 one foot-tall (29-centimeter) dolls were lined up in the entry hall inside huge letters spelling out Barbie's name. |
43 Why the 2010 Census Stirs Up Partisan Politics
Time Magazine
Sun Feb 15, 1:15 am ET
When Republican Senator Judd Gregg announced on Thursday that he no longer wished to be the Commerce Secretary nominee, he said that the decision was based in part on serious disagreements with the Obama White House over the 2010 census. That night on Fox News, Sean Hannity called Obama's plans for the census process "the biggest White House power grab ever," as his guest Karl Rove voiced agreement. The same day, House Republicans declared that the White House had "an unprecedented plan" for the census that "will taint results and open doors to massive waste of taxpayer funds." |
44 Obama faces tough decisions on US auto industry
By TOM KRISHER AND KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writers
1 hr 39 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration faces difficult choices on the fate of the U.S. auto industry, weighing the cost of pouring billions more into struggling companies against possible bankruptcies that could undermine plans to jump-start the economy.
General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC are racing against a Tuesday deadline to submit plans to the government to show how they can repay billions in government loans and return to viability despite a sharp decline in auto sales.
The terms of the federal loans set "targets" for concessions, largely from debt-holders and the United Auto Workers union, but concession talks have made little progress with just a couple days left before the initial deadline. |
45 FBI turns to fraud after focus on terror
by Lucile Malandain, AFP
Sat Feb 14, 3:57 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – With the economic crisis unrelenting, the United States is stepping up its fight against white collar crime, which has been trumped by the fight on terror.
"Let's give our law enforcement agencies the tools and resources they need, said Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, at a a hearing Wednesday.
"All the ordinary Americans who have suffered the brunt of this (economic crisis) want to know that we're doing everything possible" to combat white collar crime, he added. |
46 German man arraigned for smuggling coral
AFP
Fri Feb 13, 7:15 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A German man was arraigned Friday in a US district court in Alexandria, Virginia for having smuggled endangered coral into the United States, where he sold it, the Justice Department said.
A grand jury indicted Gunther Wenzek in July 2008 in Portland, Oregon, where he had smuggled the coral from reefs off the coast of the Philippines. He was arrested late Wednesday at the Dulles Airport outside of Washington while en route for a pet exhibition in Orlando, Florida.
Wenzek had been the subject of investigation since 2007, after he tried to ship a container full of fragments of endangered coral to Portland. Agents later seized two containers with a total of over 40 tons of coral he had shipped to a customer in the city. |
Also over 70 Stories of Interest from Saturday, in the Top, World, and U.S. News categories at DocuDharma including-
4 Valentine's Day Stories
4 more Peanut Stories-
3 more Guantanamo Stories-
2 more Saudi Shakeup Stories-
2 Stories from Reuters on repeating Soviet mistakes in Afghanistan-
2 Stories on Darwin-
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