Home » September 30th, 2011
Entries posted on “September, 2011”
WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Mortgage rates have skated near record lows for weeks. But now it can finally be said: Long-term rates in the United States have never been lower. This week, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.01 percent, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said in its weekly report. That’s the lowest since it began keeping records in 1971. Until now, Freddie had pointed to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that rates were lower in the early 1950s, when long-term mortgages typically lasted just 20 or 25 years. But Freddie says that’s no longer true: Today’s average 30-year rate is even lower than the average 20- or 25-year rate was in the 1950s. The NBER’s data show that between July 1950 and February 1951, long-term rates averaged 4.08 percent. Today’s average 30-year rate is 4.01 percent. Both are higher once you include the extra fees most buyers pay. Those fees are called points; one point equals 1 percent of a loan amount. If you include fees and points comparable to today’s low rates, the 1950-51 average would be 4.33 percent, Freddie Mac said Friday. Today’s average on the 30-year, with extra fees factored in, is 4.17 percent. The average on a 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, also ticked down to 3.28 percent this week. Economists say that’s the lowest rate ever for that loan. Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which has risen this week to around 2 percent. A week ago, it touched 1.74 percent — the lowest level since the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis started keeping daily records in 1962. As recently as July, the 10-year exceeded 3 percent. Rates on mortgages could fall further after the Federal Reserve announced last week that it would take further action to try to lower long-term rates. Still, low rates have so far done little to boost home sales or refinancing. Many would-be buyers or homeowners don’t have enough cash or home equity to get a new loan. The Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.
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NEW YORK (AP & staff) — The worst quarter for stocks since the peak of the financial crisis is ending on another down note. Stocks fell broadly Friday on fresh signs that Europe’s debt problems and the U.S. economy continue to languish. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 133 points, or 1.2 percent, to 11,012 at 2:30 Eastern time. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have all lost more than 10 percent this quarter, the first time that’s happened since the financial crisis crested at the end of 2008. Markets have been wracked this summer by growing fears about a possible default by Greece and the increasing likelihood of a global recession. Uneven economic data have touched off sudden bouts of buying and selling. All 10 industry groups in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost ground. Materials, industrials and financial companies each fell more than 2 percent. The broad index dropped 17 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,143. The S&P 500 is down 13 percent since July 1, the start of the third quarter. That’s the biggest quarterly drop since the three months ended Dec. 31, 2008, when global financial markets seized up. Excluding that period, the S&P has not dropped this much in a quarter for nine years. “The market has really seen some damage this quarter,” said Mike Hurley, portfolio manager of Highland Trend Following Fund. The weakness appears to be the start of a longer decline, Hurley said, because bonds are gaining value and interest rates are low. Traders also are selling commodities such as oil, which would lose value in an economic downturn as demand for them declines. “Lower interest rates and commodity prices are definitely an indication that the market thinks economic activity is going to be weak,” Hurley said. Stocks in France, England and Germany fell on the latest signs of discord among European leaders. Germany and France proposed managing their shared currency through meetings of national leaders, rather than by a central bureaucracy. The chief of the existing bureaucracy balked at the proposal. Persistent squabbling over financial policy has been a major obstacle to achieving a lasting solution to Europe’s debt crisis. France and Germany, the currency union’s strongest economies, want countries to coordinate their spending and borrowing more closely. Other countries see that as a threat to their sovereignty. Many European leaders and traders believe Greece will default in the coming [...]
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NEW YORK (AP & staff) — AT&T has asked a court to eject rival Sprint Nextel from the process that looks at whether AT&T should be allowed to buy T-Mobile USA. Sprint, the nation’s third-largest cellphone company, and a smaller phone company, Cellular South, both want to be parallel participants in the Justice Department’s suit against AT&T’s acquisition on antitrust groups. Participating would give them a chance to affect the proceedings, even if the Justice Department is the most important objector to the deal. AT&T on Friday filed a motion to have the complaints by the two phone companies dismissed, saying Sprint and Cellular South are speaking in their own interests, not the public’s. Sprint says AT&T’s motion is without merit, and it will respond next week. AT&T shares fell 15 cents to $28.69 in late afternoon trading.
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BEIRUT (AP & staff) — Syrian troops fought intense battles Friday with hundreds of fellow soldiers who have turned their weapons against the regime of President Bashar Assad, revealing the increasingly militarized nature of an uprising started months ago by peaceful protesters. Across the country, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets as they do each Friday, braving gunfire by government forces who have waged a relentless crackdown. At least 11 protesters were killed and scores were wounded, human rights groups said. Opposition activists and the government confirmed a fourth straight day of battles in Rastan, just north of the central city of Homs. The fighting, which began with a government assault on Tuesday, is some of the most intense since the outpouring against Assad’s regime began in mid-March. The army defections as well as reports that once-peaceful protesters are increasingly taking up arms to fight the 6-month-old government crackdown have raised concerns of the risk of civil war in a country with a deep sectarian divide. Around 250 tanks and other army vehicles began entering the town early in the day, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “The army has been trying to push forward in Rastan for the past four days but they have not been able to,” said an activist who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitivity of the topic. The Syrian government has banned foreign journalists and placed heavy restrictions on local media coverage, making it difficult to independently verify events on the ground. The U.N. says some 2,700 people have already died in the government crackdown since mid-March. The army defectors involved in battles in the Rastan area and in the Jabal al-Zawiyah region in the northern Idlib province number around 2,000, according to another prominent rights activist who also spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter. Syria has a volatile sectarian divide, making this kind of civil unrest one of the most dire scenarios. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. The town of Rastan, from which the Syrian army draws many of its Sunni Muslim recruits, has seen some of the largest numbers of defections to date. Syria-based rights activist Mustafa Osso said Rastan had witnessed more defections in recent days and the deserters were fighting to prevent troops loyal [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — The Obama administration says it has read the “riot act” to Syria’s ambassador to the United States over an attack on the top American envoy to Syria. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says the Syrian ambassador was summoned to the department after Thursday’s assault on American Robert Ford. Nuland says the Syrian official was reminded in unusually blunt terms that Ford is President Barack Obama’s personal representative in Syria and that the assault on Ford was an attack on the United States. Ford was not injured in the incident outside the office of a Syrian opposition figure he was meeting, but several armored embassy vehicles were damaged. Nuland said the U.S. is demanding compensation.
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP & staff) — A man accused of killing the leader of the San Jose Hells Angels in a shootout at a Nevada casino has been arrested on a college campus in San Francisco, authorities said Friday. Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez, an alleged member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang, was taken into custody Thursday after a University of California, San Francisco police sergeant spotted him in a parked car just a block from campus police headquarters, UCSF Police Chief Pam Roskowski said Friday. Sgt. John Gutierrez was on routine patrol when he spotted a 2011 Chevrolet Malibu with Washington state license plates and saw a man inside acting nervously shortly after 8 p.m., Roskowski said. Gutierrez then asked Gonzalez, 53, of San Jose, for his keys and driver’s license. A background check quickly revealed Gonzalez’s arrest warrant in the Nevada murder. He was arrested without incident. “It’s just good old-fashioned police work,” Roskowski said of Gutierrez, noting authorities across California and Nevada were told to be on the lookout for Gonzalez. “The sergeant is an experienced investigator who simply trusted and followed his instincts.” Gonzalez is being held in the San Francisco jail pending his extradition back to Sparks, Nev., where police accuse him of killing Jeffrey “Jethro” Pettigrew, 51, of San Jose during a shootout inside John Ascuaga’s Nugget hotel and casino last Friday. Gonzalez allegedly shot Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the Hells Angels and a city transportation worker, four times in the back, authorities said. They believed Gonzalez was in hiding and feared rival bikers would track him down before they could. It wasn’t immediately known if Gonzalez has an attorney. Two Vagos members also were wounded in the Sept. 23 shootout, and a third was shot in the stomach the next morning by a gunman in a passing car. Saturday’s shooting happened a few blocks from the Nugget and the town square where the 18th annual Street Vibrations motorcycle rally was being held. Sparks Mayor Geno Martini canceled the event and declared a state of emergency amid fears the gang violence might continue. One other person has been arrested in last weekend’s shootout. Cesar Villagrana, 36, of Gilroy, Calif., did not enter a plea during his initial arraignment Thursday on multiple felony charges, including assault with a deadly weapon. Police say video surveillance shows Villagrana, a Hells Angel, pulling out a [...]
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WARSAW, Poland (AP & staff) — These are frustrating times for those yearning to see Western democratic standards take root in Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet states wedged between Russia and the West. Most of the troubled region’s countries have been backsliding or stagnant regarding democracy recently, damaging their on-and-off struggle for deeper integration with the West. Meanwhile, the European Union, which has tried to inspire transformative change with promises of eventual EU membership for some, is mostly focused these days on solving its own economic crisis in the euro zone, showing less interest than before in a region still mired in corruption and other problems. That declining interest comes as the United States also has played a less visible role in countries such as Georgia as President Barack Obama “resets” ties with Russia. At an EU summit in Warsaw, European leaders tried to re-ignite the passion in both the EU and the East for closer integration, reminding both sides of why they should continue their courtship. The two-day summit closed Friday with a declaration in which EU leaders said they “acknowledge the European aspirations” of a group of ex-Soviet countries — indicating that the EU’s doors remain open to them in the future, if they make far-reaching democratic changes. None, however, have any realistic chance of joining for years to come. This is because of their recent track records and because the EU itself is so bogged down by the Greek debt crisis and questions about the euro’s future that some are now questioning if the EU can even survive in its current form. The summit in Warsaw was devoted to the Eastern Partnership, an initiative launched by Sweden and Poland in 2009 to deepen the EU’s ties with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan. “You can see just from the names that these are countries which each have their own problems to solve, and even in some cases regional conflicts,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told those gathered on Friday. Of the six countries in the group, only Moldova has shown any significant progress on reforms recently, according to Olaf Osica, director of the Warsaw-based Center for Eastern Studies. Inspiring democratic change in eastern Europe is a mission of existential importance to Poland, which holds the rotating EU presidency and is using that role to keep eastern European issues on the bloc’s agenda. Poland, a leader of [...]
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TORONTO (AP & staff) — Two ice shelves that existed before Canada was settled by Europeans diminished significantly this summer, one nearly disappearing altogether, Canadian scientists say in new research. The loss is important as a marker of global warming, returning the Canadian Arctic to conditions that date back thousands of years, scientists say. Floating icebergs that have broken free as a result pose a risk to offshore oil facilities and potentially to shipping lanes. The breaking apart of the ice shelves also reduces the environment that supports microbial life and changes the look of Canada’s coastline. Luke Copland is an associate professor in the geography department at the University of Ottawa who co-authored the research. He said the Serson Ice Shelf shrank from 79.15 square miles (205 square kilometers) to two remnant sections three years ago, and was further diminished this past summer. Copland said the shelf went from a 16-square-mile (42-square-kilometer) floating glacier tongue to 9.65 square miles (25 square kilometers), and the second section from 13.51 square miles (35 square kilometers) to 2 square miles (7 square kilometers), off Ellesmere Island’s northern coastline. This past summer, Ward Hunt Ice Shelf’s central area disintegrated into drifting ice masses, leaving two separate ice shelves measuring 87.65 and 28.75 square miles (227 and 74 square kilometers) respectively, reduced from 131.7 square miles (340 square kilometers) the previous year. “It has dramatically broken apart in two separate areas and there’s nothing in between now but water,” said Copland. Copland said those two losses are significant, especially since the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has always been the biggest, the farthest north and the one scientists thought might have been the most stable. “Recent (ice shelf) loss has been very rapid, and goes hand-in-hand with the rapid sea ice decline we have seen in this decade and the increasing warmth and extensive melt in the Arctic regions,” said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, remarking on the research. Copland, who uses satellite imagery and who has conducted field work in the Arctic every May for the past five years, said since the end of July, pieces equaling one and a half times the size of Manhattan Island have broken off. Co-researcher Derek Mueller, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s geography and environmental studies department, said the loss this past summer equals up [...]
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP & staff) — Florida decided Friday to hold its Republican presidential primary on Jan. 31, snubbing a party rule against fast-track delegate-selection for 2012 and triggering angry responses from traditional early voting states which will now likely rejigger their calendars to stay ahead. The move actually thwarts efforts by both major political parties to delay presidential primaries and caucuses. Their aim has been to avoid a repeat of the 2008 scenario, when states jumped ahead of each other at that time in attempts to increase their influence in the process. In Florida, a special nine-member committee appointed by legislative leaders and Gov. Rick Scott voted 7-2 to set the January date two days after House Speaker Dean Cannon announced that’s what it was expected to do. Cannon and other Florida GOP leaders said they didn’t want to jump the traditional early states but wanted to make sure Florida was fifth, even the move was a violation of party rules. “We’re the biggest swing state in the union,” said Republican former Gov. Bob Martinez, a member of the selection panel. “Texas is red, New York is blue, California’s blue, and we’re 10 electoral votes greater than Ohio. … So I think this is a real, real election in Florida.” Cannon, who is not on the committee, noted that Florida had done the same thing four years ago with a late-January primary that played a key role in selecting Arizona Sen. John McCain as the Republican nominee. All major Democratic candidates, though, boycotted Florida because the early primary violated party rules. “The sky didn’t fall and the moon didn’t turn into blood,” Cannon said. Officials in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina say they’ll probably change their dates to stay ahead of Florida. They are the only states allowed to go before March 6 under Republican and Democratic party rules. Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn condemned Florida’s action and said his caucus still will remain first, consistent with tradition. He said a date will be set after New Hampshire announces when it will hold its primary. “The arrogance shown by Florida’s elected leadership is disappointing, but not surprising,” Strawn said in a statement. “Equally troubling is to see this petulant behavior rewarded with our national convention.” The convention will be in Tampa, and Strawn said the penalty should include refusing to credential or seat any member of Florida’s [...]
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP & staff) — NATO says one of its helicopters made a “precautionary” landing after coming under small arms fire in southern Afghanistan. The alliance says the CH-47 helicopter was conducting a medical evacuation and had one patient on board in Friday’s incident. It says in a statement that shortly after the landing, another military helicopter arrived and took the patient, passengers and crew to a nearby NATO facility. The statement does not report any casualties suffered as a result of the helicopter incident. NATO says the landing site has been secured and efforts are under way to recover the helicopter. No other details were released.
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MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP & staff) — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is condemning the Obama administration for killing an American born al-Qaida operative without a trial. Paul, a Texas congressman known for libertarian views, says the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki on Yemeni soil amounts to an “assassination.” Paul warned the American people not to casually accept such violence against U.S. citizens, even those with strong ties to terrorism. Anwar al-Awlaki was considered one of the most influential al-Qaida operatives wanted by the United States. U.S. and Yemen officials say he was killed in a U.S. air strike targeting his convoy Friday morning. Paul made the comments to reporters after a campaign stop Friday at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. He said America’s leaders must think hard about “assassinating American citizens without charges.”
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — President Barack Obama declared the killing of a fiery American-born cleric a “major blow” to al-Qaida’s most active affiliate, and vowed a vigorous U.S. campaign to prevent the terror network and its partners from finding a haven anywhere in the world. Anwar al-Awlaki, and a second American, Samir Khan, were killed by a joint CIA-U.S. military air strike on their convoy in Yemen early Friday. Both men played key roles in inspiring attacks against the U.S., and their killings are a devastating double blow to al-Qaida’s most dangerous franchise. Seeking to justify the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen, Obama outlined al-Alwaki’s involvement in planning and directing attempts to murder Americans. “He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 2010,” Obama said. “And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.” After three weeks of tracking the targets, U.S. armed drones and fighter jets shadowed al-Alwaki’s convoy early Friday, then drones launched their lethal strike. The strike killed four operatives in all, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. Al-Awlaki was targeted in the killing, but Khan, who edited a slick Jihadi Internet magazine, apparently was not targeted directly. Al-Awlaki played a “significant operational role” in plotting and inspiring attacks on the United States, U.S. officials said Friday. Khan, who was from North Carolina, wasn’t considered an operational leader but had published seven issues online of Inspire Magazine, a widely read Jihadi site offering advice on how to make bombs and the use of weapons. Obama praised Yemen’s government and security forces for its close cooperation with the U.S. in fighting Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, arguably the terror network’s most dangerous affiliate. With al-Awlaki’s death, Obama said AQAP remains “a dangerous but weakened terrorist organization.” Following the strike, a U.S. official outlined new details of al-Awlaki’s involvement in anti-U.S. operations, including the attempted Christmas 2009 bombing of a Detroit.-bound aircraft. The official said that al-Awlaki specifically directed the men accused of trying to bomb the airliner to detonate an explosive device over U.S. airspace to maximize casualties. The official also said al-Awlaki had a direct role in supervising and directing a failed attempt [...]
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LONDON (AP & staff) — Since stepping down as Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair has built up a formidable work portfolio: He’s an international peacemaker, a consultant for investment bank JP Morgan, a pricey public speaker and a philanthropist. He’s so many things to so many people that it’s starting to cause him trouble — with human rights groups, the Palestinian Authority, and even current British Prime Minister David Cameron, who described Blair’s deals with Moammar Gadhafi’s regime as “dodgy deals in the desert.” Rights workers who have tried to track his activities find it’s sometimes unclear which job he is doing — or who is paying him to do it. Crucially, when he’s in the Arab world as the Middle East Quartet’s peace envoy some of the very parties he’s meant to be negotiating with aren’t sure whose interests he’s representing. “The problem is a lack of transparency over how Tony Blair has organized his business affairs,” said Robert Palmer, a campaigner at pressure group Global Witness. “If former leaders are appearing on a public stage, it’s important that they do all they can to make sure they are seen to be open and clear over what they are doing.” Blair’s effectiveness and impartiality in the Middle East are under attack from the Palestinian Authority, which accuses him of acting “like an Israeli diplomat” after he refused to support their decision to sidestep negotiations and to ask the Security Council for admission to the United Nations as a state. At the same time, the collapse of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya has led to the discovery of documents that show that Blair maintained ties to the Libyan leader even after he left office. Blair famously mended Britain’s ties with Libya, bringing the country back into the international fold following years of pariah-status isolation due in part to the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in 1988. Blair’s diplomatic efforts eventually led to international companies, such as Britain’s BP, resuming operations there. He has since been a frequent visitor to the country. British media have focused in particular on Blair’s dual role as Middle East peace negotiator and consultant to JP Morgan. In 2009, Blair brokered a deal that allowed a mobile operating company, Wataniya, to provide telephone services in Palestine. Blair played a key role in persuading Israel to free up the necessary frequency for Wataniya to [...]
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BEIRUT (AP & staff) — Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters Friday as thousands rallied across the country to call for the downfall of President Bashar Assad’s regime, activists said. Troops also clashed with armed anti-regime forces in central regions. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one person was killed in the central city of Hama and at least seven people were wounded in another central area, Homs. The protests spread from the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs to the southern province of Daraa, the northwestern province of Idlib as well as Hama and Homs. Many of the protesters expressed solidarity with residents of the rebellious town of Rastan just north of Homs, where fighting has been raging for three days between troops and army defectors. Amateur videos posted online by activists showed thousands of people shouting in support of the rebellion in Rastan, where fighting continued Friday. “Rastan will overthrow the regime,” read one banner waved by protesters in the Damascus neighborhood of Qadam. Many of the protesters there covered their faces with scarves or masks to hide their identities. The Syrian government has banned foreign journalists and placed heavy restrictions on local media coverage, making it difficult to independently verify events on the ground. The U.N. says some 2,700 people have already died in the government crackdown against the uprising that began in mid-March. The protests on Friday followed the week’s main Muslim prayer services and were similar to demonstrations held across Syria every Friday for the past six months since the uprising against Assad erupted in the country’s south. A military official said Friday that two days of clashes between Syrian troops and anti-Assad forces in Rastan killed seven soldiers and policemen. The official said 32 Syrian troops were also wounded in the fighting as government forces conducted a “qualitative” operation on Thursday and Friday in an effort to crush “gunmen” holed up inside the town. The government describes its armed opponents there as “terrorist armed groups,” not army defectors. The official said the gunmen had terrorized citizens, blocked roads and set up barriers and explosives, and were responsible for the deaths of the seven troops. The comments by the unidentified official were carried by state-run news agency, SANA, on Friday. Rastan has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting in the six-month uprising against Assad, pitting the military against hundreds of army defectors, according [...]
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP & staff) — Italy’s foreign minister, in his first visit to Libya since Moammar Gadhafi’s fall, says his country is ready to unfreeze 2.5 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in frozen Libyan assets. Franco Frattini said Friday that Italy has authorization to release the money as requested for urgent projects to help Libya’s new rulers rebuild their country despite continued fighting with supporters of the fugitive leader on three fronts. Frattini is the latest in a string of foreign dignitaries to travel to Libya after revolutionary forces seized Tripoli and much of the rest of the country late last month. On Thursday, U.S. Sen. John McCain and three other Republican senators traveled to Tripoli. The British, French and Turkish leaders also have visited. BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: TRIPOLI, Libya (AP & staff) — U.S. Sen. John McCain called Libya’s revolutionaries an inspiration to the world, singling out activists in Syria, Iran, China and Russia, Thursday as he led a Republican delegation to Tripoli. It was the most prominent American delegation to travel to the Libyan capital since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. McCain, a former presidential candidate from Arizona, expressed confidence in Libya’s new leaders but urged them to rein in armed groups and to press the hunt for Gadhafi, who has continued to try to rally supporters from his hiding place. McCain said he was thrilled to be in Tripoli after traveling in April to the then-opposition’s eastern stronghold of Benghazi. “I’ve dreamed of returning to a liberated capital of a free Libya ever since I visited Benghazi in April and our visit to Tripoli today has been exhilarating and hopeful,” McCain said. But he expressed concern about the proliferation of weapons and armed groups, saying it was important for the country’s leadership “to continue bringing the many armed groups in this city and beyond it under the responsible control of its legitimate governing authority.” “It’s also important to bring this war to a dignified and irreversible conclusion, to bring Gadhafi and his family and his fighters to justice, while ensuring that past wrongs do not become a license for future crimes, especially against minorities,” he said. Interpol placed another of Gadhafi’s sons, al-Saadi, on the equivalent of its most-wanted list on Thursday, placing pressure on the government of Niger to surrender a man accused of overseeing bloody repressions. A Niger presidential spokesman has said al-Saadi Gadhafi [...]
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BERLIN (AP & staff) — The head of the EU’s executive on Friday dismissed as unrealistic the French and German proposal to manage the eurozone through meetings of member states, saying decision-making needed to be centralized in European bureaucracies above sovereign nations. France and Germany — representing about half of the bloc’s output — have proposed holding two annual summits where eurozone governments would focus on economic policy. Believing the 17 eurozone economies, with their 330 million citizens, could be governed “by two annual meetings of the heads of government is an illusion,” Jose Manuel Barroso told the Friday edition of German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Instead, the president of the European Commission wants stronger EU institutions. “It will never work to leave the rules for a stable eurozone to the member states alone,” he was further quoted as saying. The EU leaders’ more immediate preoccupation was ensuring the swift passage of expanded powers for the bloc’s euro440 billion ($600 billion) bailout fund, European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF. Germany, which pays the lion’s share of European bailouts, became the 13th member of the eurozone to support the expansion of the rescue fund Thursday. Parliament’s upper house, representing Germany’s states, gave the final stamp of approval to the law on Friday afternoon. Austria’s parliament was also set to vote on the new powers for the EFSF Friday. The fund will be able to buy government bonds and lend money to banks and governments before they are in a full-blown crisis, making Europe’s response to market jitters more rapid and pre-emptive. In debt-heavy Greece, the heart of the currency zone’s sovereign debt crisis, international debt inspectors were trying to complete a review of the country’s austerity reforms, but strikes and protests were delaying meetings. A morning meeting at the transport ministry in Athens was delayed to the evening. The delegation of EU, ECB and IMF officials drove away after finding the building under occupation and protesting employees in the courtyard. The debt inspectors’ review of Greece’s progress is critical for Athens to receive the next installment of bailout loans. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was set to meet Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Paris later Friday to discuss the debt crisis. Papandreou met Germany’s Merkel for similar talks Tuesday. Greece was saved from default by an initial euro110 billion bailout in May last year before the EFSF was established to help any [...]
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WASHINGTON (AP & staff) — Consumers spent slightly more last month but earned less for the first time in nearly two years. The new data on spending and incomes suggest Americans tapped their savings to cope with steep gas prices and a weaker economy. The Commerce Department said Friday that consumer spending rose 0.2 percent in August after a revised 0.7 percent increase in July. Incomes fell 0.1 percent. That’s the poorest showing since a similar 0.1 percent drop in October 2009. Americans saved less money. The savings rate fell to its lowest level since late 2009. A decline in income growth could slow the economy, if it causes households to cut back on spending. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. The economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.9 percent in the first six months of the year, the slowest growth since the recession officially ended more than two years ago. Economists expect only slightly better growth in the second half of this year, based on expectations that consumers will spend more. Some are predicting growth of around 2 percent in the second half of the year. That level of growth would ease recession fears, but it’s not enough to lower the unemployment rate, which was 9.2 percent in August. Consumer confidence stayed weak in September after the economy experienced a number of shocks this summer. Lawmakers fought over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, Standard & Poor’s downgraded long-term U.S. debt, the stock market fluctuated wildly and Europe’s debt crisis intensified. Employers have pulled back on hiring. In August, they added no new jobs. Some pressures are easing. Gasoline prices are now roughly $3.46 per gallon. While that is higher than last year, the price is down nearly 52 cents from this year’s peak price of $3.98. The Federal Reserve last week agreed to shift $400 billion of its portfolio of Treasury securities to try to drive down long-term interest rates. It was the Fed’s latest unconventional move seeking to give the economy a boost.
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(AP & staff) – U.S. stock futures fell Friday as traders prepared to close out what has been the worst quarter since the peak of the financial crisis. Markets were racked this quarter by escalating fears about a default by Greece. Many European leaders and traders appear convinced that Greece will default in the coming weeks or months. It appears Greece’s lenders and neighbors are preparing as best they can to prevent that from causing a worldwide financial panic. As a result, traders have reacted quickly to news and rumors from Europe. Markets have gyrated wildly in some of the most volatile trading on record. The Dow Jones industrial average swung more than 100 points in more than half of the trading days this quarter. At 8:55 a.m. Eastern time, Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures were down 14 points, or 1.2 percent, at 1,143. Dow futures were down 123, or 1.1 percent, at 10,976. Nasdaq 100 futures were down 22, or 1 percent, at 2,168. All three major indexes have lost more than 10 percent so far this quarter, for the first time since the financial crisis crested at the end of 2008. The S&P 500 index is down about 12.13 percent from the start of the quarter. That’s the most since it fell 22.6 percent the three months ended Dec. 31, 2008. Those months marked the worst financial disruption in recent history. Banks stopped lending to each other, businesses and consumers. Some of the biggest financial companies failed or were sold to each other in shotgun marriages. The government stepped in with trillions in emergency aid for banks, other financial companies and automakers. Excluding that unsettling period, the S&P has not dropped this much in a quarter for nine years. Traders also have responded strongly to U.S. economic data, which has flirted with some positive news but mostly signaled a global slowdown. A recession in the U.S. looks increasingly likely, mainly because of Europe’s struggles and an apparent weakness in developing countries that have driven recent global growth. The government said Friday that consumers spent slightly more last month but earned less for the first time in nearly two years. That suggests that people are tapping their savings to meet higher gas prices and offset lost wages. The savings rate fell to its lowest level since late 2009. Meanwhile Friday, there were more signs of division in Europe. [...]
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PARIS (AP & staff) — Leading rights activists and cultural figures are urging the United Nation’s culture and education agency to reject a prize Friday named after the president of Equatorial Guinea, whose regime is accused of gross human rights violations. At a lavish summit in his country earlier this year, Teodoro Obiang Nguema persuaded the African Union to pass a motion calling on UNESCO to approve the life sciences prize in his name. Western diplomats say UNESCO may now be forced to create the prize at a meeting Friday of its executive board in Paris. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu is among those urging UNESCO to reject the prize. A letter signed by him and other leading authors and activists from around the world says they are “deeply troubled by the well-documented record of human rights abuse, repression of press freedom and official corruption that have marked his (Obiang’s) rule.” The tiny nation located on the coast of Central Africa spent several times its yearly education budget to build the new $800 million resort to house those attending the Summer summit. Outside of an 18-hole golf course, a five-star hotel, and a spa, the country built a villa for each of the continent’s 52 presidents in attendance. Each one came with a gourmet chef and a private elevator leading to a suite overlooking the mile-long artificial beach that had been sculpted out of the country’s coast especially for them. The $3 million UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Prize for Research in the Life Sciences was first proposed in 2008 and UNESCO initially agreed to create it, only to suspend it as outrage erupted over the provenance of the money and accusations of abuses by Obiang against his people. The African Union agreed on a resolution in favor of the prize at the summit. Armed with the resolution, the 13 African delegates on UNESCO’s executive board are threatening to force a vote on the prize at the board meeting in Paris on Friday, said five officials taking part in the discussion. Together, the Arab and African delegations account for 20 out of 58 votes on the board at UNESCO, whose stated mission is the promotion of peace and human rights through cultural dialogue. Thirty votes are needed for the measure to pass; fewer if some governments abstain. Equatorial Guinea’s Minister of Information Jeronimo Osa Osa Ecoro told The Associated Press by [...]
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WARSAW, Poland (AP & staff) — The European Union president says the bloc still expects to finalize association talks with Ukraine by the end of the year. Herman Van Rompuy spoke at a news conference in Warsaw at the end of a two-day summit devoted to the Eastern Partnership, an initiative launched in 2009 to deepen the EU’s ties with Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and to spur them into embracing the EU’s political and economic standards. Prospects for concluding negotiations with Ukraine had appeared at risk because of the imprisonment and trial of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Western leaders view the trial of Tymoshenko, the country’s key opposition figure and a leader of the Orange Revolution, as politically motivated and a sign of Ukraine’s weak commitment to the rule of law. Van Rompuy said EU officials expressed their opposition to Tymoshenko’s trial repeatedly at the summit, where Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was in attendance. He said EU leaders “expressed our concern” about the selective use of judicial procedures against members of the past administration. “This is a serious matter in our relations and we are expressing ourselves very clearly on this matter,” Van Rompuy said. EU leaders issued a final declaration at the summit saying they “acknowledge the European aspirations and the European choice” of some countries on the 27-nation bloc’s eastern periphery, language indicating that they are keeping open the prospect of enlargement in the future for those who embrace democracy. Leaders, however, have stressed that any new enlargement is not a realistic prospect for now. EU leaders issued another declaration condemning Belarus for its “deteriorating” record on human rights and rule of law. Belarus on Friday boycotted the summit, protesting its pointed decision to exclude the country’s autocratic leader, Alexander Lukashenko.
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LONDON (AP & staff) — Stocks fell on Friday as optimism over Germany’s approval for a beefed-up European rescue fund faded and investors closed trades ahead of the end of the fiscal quarter, which has seen the biggest losses since 2008, when the world was heading into its deepest recession since World War II. Though the German Parliament’s support of an expanded bailout facility on Thursday has helped soothe some concerns over Europe’s debt crisis, investors are aware that there are many hurdles ahead, not least the possibility of a Greek debt default. However, much of Friday’s trading activity is being influenced by the confluence of the month and quarter-end. Many fund managers try to get their portfolios to look as healthy as possible at such junctures and that prompts some volatility. “Today will mostly be about wrapping up the third quarter,” said Kit Juckes, an analyst at Societe Generale. “Random-seeming month-end moves are guaranteed.” In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 1.3 percent to 5,131 while Germany’s DAX fell 2.5 percent to 5,500. The CAC-40 in France was 1.8 percent lower at 2,972. Wall Street is also poised to open lower — Dow futures were down 1.1 percent at 10,983 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell 1.2 percent at 1,144. The focus later will be on a raft of U.S. economic figures to see if the recent improvement in the dataflow continues. Top of the list will be a survey of manufacturing conditions in and around the Chicago area and the University of Michigan’s latest assessment of consumer confidence. “There is enough to keep traders busy, but this market still feels like one that is in a holding pattern waiting for the next stage of the European drama to unfold,” said Ben Critchley, market strategist at IG Index. On Thursday, investors were cheered by some upbeat U.S. figures as well as the German ‘yes’ vote. The Commerce Department said the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the April-June quarter, up from an estimate of 1 percent made a month ago. The improvement reflected more consumer spending and a bigger boost from trade. Further good news emerged from the Labor Department, which found that jobless claims last week dropped 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 391,000, the lowest level since April 2. It’s the first time applications have [...]
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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP & staff) — Rare 13th-century frescoes are to be returned to Cyprus from an American museum where they have been exhibited for the last 28 years, the leader of the divided island’s Orthodox Christian church said on Friday. Archbishop Chrysostomos II says the Houston-based Menil Collection agreed to return the Byzantine frescoes early next year on the church’s insistence not “to allow them to remain there even for one second longer.” “I salute this decision by the Menil Collection because embarking on a court battle would honor neither us nor the Collection,” said the Archbishop. Antiquities smugglers looted the frescoes from the Ayios Themomianos church in northern Cyprus following a 1974 Turkish invasion that split the island into a Turkish-speaking north and a Greek-speaking south. Menil Collection founder Dominique de Menil obtained the frescoes in 1983, and struck an agreement with the Cyprus church to keep and exhibit them in a purpose-built chapel in Houston. A decade later, the Cyprus church granted the museum a loan extension until Feb. 2012 in recognition of its efforts to reassemble and restore the fragmented frescoes. But Chrysostomos said that he has turned down additional requests to keep the frescoes longer, offering instead to dispatch an iconographer to recreate them on the chapel’s dome and apses, along with a gift of ten late-19th and early-20th century icons. The frescoes depict Christ Pantocrator surrounded by a frieze of angels, as well as the Preparation of the Throne attended by Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist. Another section depicts the Virgin flanked by Archangels Michael and Gabriel. Cyprus Antiquities Department Director Maria Hadjicosti said officials will oversee the entire operation to transport the frescoes back to the island. The church says scores of religious artifacts, including icons and mosaics, were looted from Greek Cypriot churches in the island’s north. Many have since appeared on the international art market. Chrysostomos said “millions” have been spent purchasing them with the purpose of repatriating them. The church’s biggest success was the recovery of several priceless 6th century mosaics. “We’ll rest only when all our antiquities, all our ecclesiastical objects return to where they belong,” he said. Christianity in Cyprus stretches to the faith’s earliest years. The Apostle Paul is said to have preached the gospel in Cyprus in A.D. 45 and converted the island’s Roman governor Sergius Paulus — the first Roman official to undergo [...]
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HOLLY, Colo. (AP & staff) — Eric Jensen surveys his dusty cantaloupe field and seems equally stunned and puzzled at the fate that has befallen his crop: row upon row of melons rotting on the vine. Jensen is the co-owner of the Colorado farm where health officials say a national listeria outbreak originated, making his withering fields the epicenter of a food scare that has sickened dozens of people from Wyoming to Maryland and caused 16 deaths. Jensen has no idea how his cantaloupes became infected, and neither do the Food and Drug Administration investigators who have intermittently been in this town of 800 people near the Kansas border since the outbreak started earlier this month. Regardless of how it happened, the situation has left the town and farm reeling and in fear. Jensen had to quit growing and shipping cantaloupes after the outbreak was discovered — a staggering blow to a region where cantaloupe has always been a proud local tradition. Until the listeria infections started showing up, Holly’s field workers would bring melons into town to share, just as they have for generations. And it wasn’t uncommon for Holly residents to stop by Jensen Farms to buy freshly picked cantaloupe. Now, not even the local grocery store has any of the fruit. No one in Holly has been sickened, but people are frightened by the prospect of contracting listeria. The bacteria can have an incubation period of a month or more, and it principally affects the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. “I ate that cantaloupe, and I gave some of it to my 97-year-old mother,’” said Wanda Watson, co-owner of the Tasty House Cafe. “I’m watching her real close. It’s scary because it could be up to two months before you get sick.” Sherri McGarry, a senior adviser in the FDA’s Office of Foods, said the agency is looking at the farm’s water supply and the possibility that animals wandered into Jensen Farms’ fields, among other things, in trying to figure out how the cantaloupes became contaminated. Listeria bacteria grow in moist, muddy conditions and are often carried by animals. The water supply for farms in the Holly area comes from wells and irrigation ditches that tap the nearby Arkansas River. There’s no shortage of thoughts around town about the potential causes. “Well water? I doubt it. Ditch water? Well, there’s some probability, but it’s low,” [...]
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MIAMI (AP & staff) — Forecasters say Hurricane Ophelia is rapidly gaining strength and is expected to pass east of Bermuda. At 8 a.m. EDT, Ophelia had winds approaching 105 mph (169 kph). The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the center of Ophelia was about 665 miles (1,070 kilometers) south of Bermuda, and was moving north-northwest at about 9 mph (15 kph). It was expected to speed up and pass east of Bermuda on Saturday. A tropical storm watch is effect for Bermuda. Ophelia reached hurricane strength Thursday afternoon and became a Category 2 storm by Friday. It is the fourth hurricane of the season. Earlier, Ophelia caused flooding and cut off communities on Dominica. Tropical Storm Philippe remains far from land, moving west-northwest with winds of about 45 mph (72 kph).
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ATLANTA (AP & staff) — In his first domestic policy speech as a presidential candidate, Rick Perry is outlining his record as Texas governor and accusing rival Mitt Romney of governing Massachusetts the same way President Barack Obama governs the country. The address, set for Friday at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, discusses Perry’s record on health care and the environment. But Perry offers few policy proposals, instead focusing on criticizing Obama, hitting Romney’s health care law and opening a more aggressive line of attack on Romney’s record on climate change. “As Republican voters decide who is best suited to lead this country in a new direction by stopping the spending spree and scrapping Obamacare, I am confident they will choose a nominee who has governed on conservative principles, not one whose health care policies paved the way for Obamacare,” Perry says, according to prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press. Perry contrasts Romney’s plan with the medical malpractice reform he signed as governor of Texas, and argues that both Romney and Obama have governed more liberally than he has. “What we are seeing in America today is a conservative awakening, a revival born out of a deep concern that liberals have used the machinery of the federal government to impose a nanny state that limits our freedom and that targets free enterprise,” he says. “I knew when I got into this race I would have my hands full fighting President Obama’s big government agenda. I just didn’t think it would be in the Republican primary,” Perry adds. The address signals that Perry plans to continue aggressively attacking his chief rival even as he faces some stumbling blocks in his own campaign. After a shaky debate performance, Perry admitted that he used “inappropriate” language when he called Republican rivals “heartless.” Perry was defending a Texas law that allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state universities if they meet certain criteria. As part of the offensive, Perry is turning to Romney’s environmental record. “In Texas, we’ve cleaned the air while creating jobs and adding millions in population. Another state — Massachusetts — was among the first states to implement its own cap-and-trade program which included limits on carbon emissions for power plants,” Perry says in his speech. Perry also accuses Romney of relying on environmental advisers who went on to work in the Obama administration. Environmental Protection Agency official [...]
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