Heeding widespread concerns about how much of its users' personal data it shares on the web, Facebook said it will begin implementing simpler privacy settings on Wednesday.
"I can confirm that our new, simpler user controls will begin rolling out tomorrow. I can't say more yet," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday.
Currently, users of the popular social-networking site must navigate through some 170 privacy options. Some Facebook members have said they're confused by the settings, while others have threatened to delete or deactivate their Facebook accounts until the site gives them more control over their info.
Tuesday's announcement suggests Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making good on a recent promise.
"There needs to be a simpler way to control your information," he wrote in an op-ed piece published Monday in the Washington Post. "In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services."
The recent backlash against Facebook came after the site, which has more than 450 million members, introduced a new tool last month to spread Facebook users' preferences and data to partner sites around the web.
miercuri, 26 mai 2010
Oil inspectors took company gifts, watchdog group finds
The situation in the Gulf keeps getting worse, and so far, there's no end in sight. Anderson Cooper reports live tonight from the region as BP makes another attempt to stop the leak. Watch "AC360°" tonight at 10 ET on CNN for the latest on stopping the leak.
Washington (CNN) -- Federal inspectors overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted meals and tickets to sporting events from companies they monitored, the Interior Department's inspector general concluded in a report released Wednesday.
In one case, an inspector in the Minerals Management Service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, conducted inspections of four offshore platforms while negotiating a job with the company, the report states. Others let oil and gas company workers fill out their inspection forms in pencil, with the inspectors writing over those entries in ink before turning them in.
Some in the same office accepted tickets to the 2005 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, a college football bowl game in Atlanta, Georgia. One inspector told an office clerk, "Everyone has gotten some sort of gift before at some point" from companies they regulated, according to the report.
Investigators from the inspector general's office, the Interior Department's independent watchdog agency, took their findings to federal prosecutors in Louisiana, the report states. But the U.S. attorney's office in Lake Charles declined to bring charges, according to the report.
Full coverage of the Gulf oil spill
"Through numerous interviews, we found a culture where the acceptance of gifts from oil and gas companies were widespread throughout that office," the report states. However, that culture waned after a supervisor in the agency's New Orleans, Louisiana, regional office was fired for taking a gift from a regulated company in 2007, the report found.
The period covered in the report is well before the April explosion that sank the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, resulting in a massive oil spill that well owner BP and federal authorities are trying to cap a month later. But Mary Kendall, the Interior Department's acting inspector general, said she pushed for the report's early release in the wake of the disaster.
"Of greatest concern to me is the environment in which these inspectors operate -- particularly the ease with which they move between industry and government," Kendall wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Many of the inspectors joined MMS from the industry and had relationships with people in the business that originated "well before they took their jobs with industry or government."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said the report showed the agency's safety enforcement procedures need an extensive overhaul.
"They're supposed to be the cops on the beat, and instead they're out tailgating at sports events with people they're supposed to be policing," said Wyden, who leads a Senate Environment subcommittee on public lands. "That's just not acceptable."
The Lake Charles investigation was launched shortly after another scandal emerged from within the MMS. A September 2008 inspector general's report found regulators in the agency's Colorado office received improper gifts from energy industry representatives and engaged in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations with them.
Salazar, who has ordered a widespread shake-up of the agency since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, called Tuesday's report "yet another reason to clean house."
"This deeply disturbing report is further evidence of the cozy relationship between some elements of MMS and the oil and gas industry," Salazar said in a statement on the report. He pledged to follow through with the inspector general's recommendations, "including taking any and all appropriate personnel actions including termination, discipline and referrals of any wrongdoing for criminal prosecution."
While the report predates the Deepwater Horizon spill, Salazar said he has asked Kendall to investigate whether inspectors failed to enforce standards aboard the rig. Its sinking left 11 men lost at sea and oil spilling into the Gulf.
Kendall is scheduled to appear before the House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday. Wyden said Salazar "is heading in the right direction" by reorganizing the agency, but he said MMS needs a bigger shakeup.
"Secretary Salazar has moved, in my view, as it relates to royalty payments and financial irregularities," he said. "Now he has got to come down with hobnail boots on some of these ethical violations, and drain the safety swamp."
MMS collected nearly $10 billion in royalties from the energy and mining industries in 2009. Salazar announced last week that he was splitting up the agency to separate its energy development, enforcement and revenue collection divisions, saying they have conflicting missions.
The associate director for the agency's Offshore Minerals Management Program is leaving at the end of May, a month earlier than planned, in the wake of the Gulf spill.
That official, Chris Oynes, launched the investigation that resulted in former New Orleans, Louisiana, supervisor Donald Howard's firing in 2007. Howard later pleaded guilty after being accused of failing to report gifts from an offshore drilling contractor valued at more than $6,600, according to the report.
Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, said earlier this month that the agency has been lax about collecting royalties from an industry it sees as "a partner, a client."
She pointed out that Randall Luthi, its previous director, left at the end of the Bush administration to become president of the National Ocean Industries Association, the trade association that represents offshore drillers.
"That really gives you a picture of the people who have been running the shop here," Brian said.
Washington (CNN) -- Federal inspectors overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico accepted meals and tickets to sporting events from companies they monitored, the Interior Department's inspector general concluded in a report released Wednesday.
In one case, an inspector in the Minerals Management Service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, conducted inspections of four offshore platforms while negotiating a job with the company, the report states. Others let oil and gas company workers fill out their inspection forms in pencil, with the inspectors writing over those entries in ink before turning them in.
Some in the same office accepted tickets to the 2005 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, a college football bowl game in Atlanta, Georgia. One inspector told an office clerk, "Everyone has gotten some sort of gift before at some point" from companies they regulated, according to the report.
Investigators from the inspector general's office, the Interior Department's independent watchdog agency, took their findings to federal prosecutors in Louisiana, the report states. But the U.S. attorney's office in Lake Charles declined to bring charges, according to the report.
Full coverage of the Gulf oil spill
"Through numerous interviews, we found a culture where the acceptance of gifts from oil and gas companies were widespread throughout that office," the report states. However, that culture waned after a supervisor in the agency's New Orleans, Louisiana, regional office was fired for taking a gift from a regulated company in 2007, the report found.
The period covered in the report is well before the April explosion that sank the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, resulting in a massive oil spill that well owner BP and federal authorities are trying to cap a month later. But Mary Kendall, the Interior Department's acting inspector general, said she pushed for the report's early release in the wake of the disaster.
"Of greatest concern to me is the environment in which these inspectors operate -- particularly the ease with which they move between industry and government," Kendall wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Many of the inspectors joined MMS from the industry and had relationships with people in the business that originated "well before they took their jobs with industry or government."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said the report showed the agency's safety enforcement procedures need an extensive overhaul.
"They're supposed to be the cops on the beat, and instead they're out tailgating at sports events with people they're supposed to be policing," said Wyden, who leads a Senate Environment subcommittee on public lands. "That's just not acceptable."
The Lake Charles investigation was launched shortly after another scandal emerged from within the MMS. A September 2008 inspector general's report found regulators in the agency's Colorado office received improper gifts from energy industry representatives and engaged in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations with them.
Salazar, who has ordered a widespread shake-up of the agency since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, called Tuesday's report "yet another reason to clean house."
"This deeply disturbing report is further evidence of the cozy relationship between some elements of MMS and the oil and gas industry," Salazar said in a statement on the report. He pledged to follow through with the inspector general's recommendations, "including taking any and all appropriate personnel actions including termination, discipline and referrals of any wrongdoing for criminal prosecution."
While the report predates the Deepwater Horizon spill, Salazar said he has asked Kendall to investigate whether inspectors failed to enforce standards aboard the rig. Its sinking left 11 men lost at sea and oil spilling into the Gulf.
Kendall is scheduled to appear before the House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday. Wyden said Salazar "is heading in the right direction" by reorganizing the agency, but he said MMS needs a bigger shakeup.
"Secretary Salazar has moved, in my view, as it relates to royalty payments and financial irregularities," he said. "Now he has got to come down with hobnail boots on some of these ethical violations, and drain the safety swamp."
MMS collected nearly $10 billion in royalties from the energy and mining industries in 2009. Salazar announced last week that he was splitting up the agency to separate its energy development, enforcement and revenue collection divisions, saying they have conflicting missions.
The associate director for the agency's Offshore Minerals Management Program is leaving at the end of May, a month earlier than planned, in the wake of the Gulf spill.
That official, Chris Oynes, launched the investigation that resulted in former New Orleans, Louisiana, supervisor Donald Howard's firing in 2007. Howard later pleaded guilty after being accused of failing to report gifts from an offshore drilling contractor valued at more than $6,600, according to the report.
Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, said earlier this month that the agency has been lax about collecting royalties from an industry it sees as "a partner, a client."
She pointed out that Randall Luthi, its previous director, left at the end of the Bush administration to become president of the National Ocean Industries Association, the trade association that represents offshore drillers.
"That really gives you a picture of the people who have been running the shop here," Brian said.
Stocks recover from plunge
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks erased most losses by the close Tuesday, with the Dow ending down just 22 points after having fallen close to 300 points earlier in the session, as worries about the global economy were tempered.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) dropped 22 points, or 0.2%, recovering from larger losses earlier in the day. In the first hour of trading the Dow fell as much as 292 points to 9,774.48, the lowest level since Nov. 4.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) dropped 22 points, or 0.2%, recovering from larger losses earlier in the day. In the first hour of trading the Dow fell as much as 292 points to 9,774.48, the lowest level since Nov. 4.
Airlines add fees for peak summer days
(CNN) -- Summer vacation just got more expensive, as the five largest U.S. airlines introduced "peak air travel surcharges" virtually every day while school is out for much of the country.
American, Continental, Delta, United and US Airways are adding $10 to $30 on top of published fares every day (except July 4) from June 10 to August 22. (July 4 is an extremely slow day for travel, experts say.)
"I think it was to be expected," said Gabe Saglie, senior editor at Travelzoo.com. "I think the airline industry, for months now, has been looking at summer 2010 as the light at the end of the tunnel, counting on people finally loosening the belt a little bit ... after a good year and a half of belt-tightening or curtailing or even eliminating vacationing."
Even discount airline AirTran is getting in on the act, though its surcharge is a flat $10 and applies to only 25 days in that date range, according to data published by Farecompare.com. Other discount airlines have resisted the trend.
The surcharge is figured into the final price that travelers are quoted, not listed separately like the notorious baggage fees that have become common across most of the commercial airline industry.
"It's part of what I consider to be rather clever marketing," Saglie said. "Pushing a very low fare is one thing, [but] by the time you've paid for your ticket and arrived at your destination, it's a very different picture.
"Between point A and point B, you're checking bags at a fee, you're buying sodas at a fee, you're getting an aisle seat vs. a middle seat at a fee, and so the surcharge is just joining this family of fees that airlines are using to supplement these fares that are lower than they've been in a long time," he said.
Airlines benefit from raising prices via surcharges because one filing changes thousands of airfares, which means they don't have to pay the filing fees for raising each route's fare individually, Farecompare CEO Rick Seaney wrote on his blog.
Consumers should focus on what they can do to keep their costs down, Orbitz spokeswoman Jeanenne Tornatore said. She suggested travelers do the following:
• Book early to take advantage of advance-booking discounts and to get the best fare dates.
• Be flexible with travel dates. "That gives you the flexibility to look at some of these dates that may have lower fares. We tend to see some of the Fridays and Saturdays being the peak days when people are leaving for their vacations," so earlier in the week is often better for prime tourist destinations, she said.
Fees on Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be less than on Sunday or Friday, Saglie said.
See Farecompare's surcharge calendar
• Book your airfare and hotel as a package. "You're almost always going to save on the total when you book those together as a package rather than booking your airfare and then booking your hotel separately," Tornatore said. The hotels and airlines like to unload excess inventory as a bundled package to avoid showing low prices for either, she said.
• Try to avoid extra fees, such as for baggage. "If you can pack it into a carry-on bag and check less baggage, you'll avoid those fees that are on top of the increased airfare," Tornatore said.
"The airlines have been moving in the direction of a la carte pricing for some time, and it's not likely to stop," said Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor at Travelocity. "Travelers need to concentrate on hotels to get value on their vacations."
Average daily rates at domestic hotels are slightly lower than in summer 2009 and 14 percent lower than in 2008, Brown said.
Saglie avoided criticizing the airline industry for finding new ways to charge higher fares.
"It certainly talks to the fact that consumers need to be more aware," he said. "It's more of a fend-for-yourself approach to travel that we're seeing these days, where the more informed and aware the consumer is, the more money they stand to save when they travel."
American, Continental, Delta, United and US Airways are adding $10 to $30 on top of published fares every day (except July 4) from June 10 to August 22. (July 4 is an extremely slow day for travel, experts say.)
"I think it was to be expected," said Gabe Saglie, senior editor at Travelzoo.com. "I think the airline industry, for months now, has been looking at summer 2010 as the light at the end of the tunnel, counting on people finally loosening the belt a little bit ... after a good year and a half of belt-tightening or curtailing or even eliminating vacationing."
Even discount airline AirTran is getting in on the act, though its surcharge is a flat $10 and applies to only 25 days in that date range, according to data published by Farecompare.com. Other discount airlines have resisted the trend.
The surcharge is figured into the final price that travelers are quoted, not listed separately like the notorious baggage fees that have become common across most of the commercial airline industry.
"It's part of what I consider to be rather clever marketing," Saglie said. "Pushing a very low fare is one thing, [but] by the time you've paid for your ticket and arrived at your destination, it's a very different picture.
"Between point A and point B, you're checking bags at a fee, you're buying sodas at a fee, you're getting an aisle seat vs. a middle seat at a fee, and so the surcharge is just joining this family of fees that airlines are using to supplement these fares that are lower than they've been in a long time," he said.
Airlines benefit from raising prices via surcharges because one filing changes thousands of airfares, which means they don't have to pay the filing fees for raising each route's fare individually, Farecompare CEO Rick Seaney wrote on his blog.
Consumers should focus on what they can do to keep their costs down, Orbitz spokeswoman Jeanenne Tornatore said. She suggested travelers do the following:
• Book early to take advantage of advance-booking discounts and to get the best fare dates.
• Be flexible with travel dates. "That gives you the flexibility to look at some of these dates that may have lower fares. We tend to see some of the Fridays and Saturdays being the peak days when people are leaving for their vacations," so earlier in the week is often better for prime tourist destinations, she said.
Fees on Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be less than on Sunday or Friday, Saglie said.
See Farecompare's surcharge calendar
• Book your airfare and hotel as a package. "You're almost always going to save on the total when you book those together as a package rather than booking your airfare and then booking your hotel separately," Tornatore said. The hotels and airlines like to unload excess inventory as a bundled package to avoid showing low prices for either, she said.
• Try to avoid extra fees, such as for baggage. "If you can pack it into a carry-on bag and check less baggage, you'll avoid those fees that are on top of the increased airfare," Tornatore said.
"The airlines have been moving in the direction of a la carte pricing for some time, and it's not likely to stop," said Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor at Travelocity. "Travelers need to concentrate on hotels to get value on their vacations."
Average daily rates at domestic hotels are slightly lower than in summer 2009 and 14 percent lower than in 2008, Brown said.
Saglie avoided criticizing the airline industry for finding new ways to charge higher fares.
"It certainly talks to the fact that consumers need to be more aware," he said. "It's more of a fend-for-yourself approach to travel that we're seeing these days, where the more informed and aware the consumer is, the more money they stand to save when they travel."
Shuttles for sale: Less than 130 million miles, new paint
Kennedy Space Center, Florida (CNN) -- So you're in the market for a new vehicle. Any chance you'd consider one with more than 100 million miles on the odometer, a neat white paint job and a sticker price of $28.8 million? Probably not.
Even if you were ready to plunk down nearly $30 million, chances are your garage can't fit a space shuttle next to the lawn mower. But there are a few places willing to pay the price. And for the most part, they've got the space, too.
When the shuttle Atlantis touches down Wednesday morning (weather permitting), the orbiter will become the first of the three remaining shuttles to officially retire. By the end of the year, Discovery and Endeavour will follow.
The question is: Where will they retire to?
"These are unique spacecraft, and they truly are one-of-a-kind, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.
"Each one is a little different, and they are the only reusable spacecraft in the world, ever. I can't imagine an institution ... not wanting to have it for public display," he told CNN.
About two dozen museums and institutions around the country have submitted paperwork to take title on one of the most technologically advanced machines ever built -- a crown jewel for any entity which can afford one.
"We're not selling them, remember. This is what it's going to cost to get it cleaned up, make it safe to display and then actually get it there," said Beutel.
The price includes removal of any toxic chemicals and flying it to the nearest airport aboard the 747 shuttle transport jet.
Some of the institutions vying for one of the three shuttles include the usual suspects: the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington; the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City; the privately run Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex near the shuttle launch pads in Florida; the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, Texas; the Air Force National Museum, in Ohio; and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.
NASA has earmarked the oldest shuttle, Discovery, for the Smithsonian, which already houses an extensive collection from the U.S. space program, including artifacts from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs and Enterprise, the test shuttle.
But the Air and Space Museum's entire annual budget, at $28 million, wouldn't cover NASA's asking price for Discovery, and since NASA has typically provided space artifacts at no charge, the museum has balked.
"Questions about costs associated with the transfer of Discovery, which have been estimated by NASA, have not been resolved although the Museum is exploring options," the Smithsonian said in a written statement supplied to CNN.
Others, however, are eager to pony up a check.
"Between our cash and our loan arrangements, we could take the shuttle tomorrow and get ready to go," said Bill Moore, the chief operating officer of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
But whoever takes charge of a space shuttle not only has to pay NASA dealer prep and transportation charges, that entity will also have to build an enclosed, temperature-controlled facility to house it.
"We need a wonderful building to put the shuttle in. It just demands that," said Moore.
"We want to put in the artifacts. We want to tell the story of the people that serviced and got this wonderful bird ready to fly," he told CNN.
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex expects to draw a double digit increase in visitors yearly to see whichever shuttle they might acquire. Currently, about 1.5 million people visit each year.
"We get visitors from around the world. When they see a space-flown artifact ... they get emotional about these pieces of equipment," said Moore.
Up the Eastern Seaboard, the retired aircraft carrier Intrepid sits off Manhattan's west side. The mighty ship once raced across the Pacific Ocean to pick up astronauts and space capsules after splash down, and now its officials want the museum it anchors to be the new home for a space plane, too.
"It's the tourist capitol of the world, and we just really feel that we want to help bring the most eyeballs that we possibly can to what is this technological masterpiece," said Susan Marenoff, executive director of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
Marenoff says that the museum would have to move the Concord supersonic jet, currently on display, and put the shuttle in its current spot. She expects more than $106 million in economic benefit if the museum hosts one of the shuttles.
"The shuttle itself just offers the opportunity for science and education programs to be brought to multicultural institutions, generations of people that will be able to come and really learn what this icon is all about," said Marenoff.
Although Atlantis will be the the first of the shuttles to end scheduled flights, the second-oldest shuttle won't be quickly shipped out to pasture. It will be prepared to make another flight, if necessary, as a future rescue mission.
Of course, NASA hopes it never has to fly that mission. And when all three shuttles are safely on Earth for the last time, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor will be stripped down and readied for delivery in mint condition.
Well, almost, said NASA's Beutel.
"About as mint condition as you're going to get for a thing that has traveled over 115 million miles in a 25-year period."
Even if you were ready to plunk down nearly $30 million, chances are your garage can't fit a space shuttle next to the lawn mower. But there are a few places willing to pay the price. And for the most part, they've got the space, too.
When the shuttle Atlantis touches down Wednesday morning (weather permitting), the orbiter will become the first of the three remaining shuttles to officially retire. By the end of the year, Discovery and Endeavour will follow.
The question is: Where will they retire to?
"These are unique spacecraft, and they truly are one-of-a-kind, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel.
"Each one is a little different, and they are the only reusable spacecraft in the world, ever. I can't imagine an institution ... not wanting to have it for public display," he told CNN.
About two dozen museums and institutions around the country have submitted paperwork to take title on one of the most technologically advanced machines ever built -- a crown jewel for any entity which can afford one.
"We're not selling them, remember. This is what it's going to cost to get it cleaned up, make it safe to display and then actually get it there," said Beutel.
The price includes removal of any toxic chemicals and flying it to the nearest airport aboard the 747 shuttle transport jet.
Some of the institutions vying for one of the three shuttles include the usual suspects: the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington; the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City; the privately run Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex near the shuttle launch pads in Florida; the Johnson Space Center outside Houston, Texas; the Air Force National Museum, in Ohio; and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Illinois.
NASA has earmarked the oldest shuttle, Discovery, for the Smithsonian, which already houses an extensive collection from the U.S. space program, including artifacts from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs and Enterprise, the test shuttle.
But the Air and Space Museum's entire annual budget, at $28 million, wouldn't cover NASA's asking price for Discovery, and since NASA has typically provided space artifacts at no charge, the museum has balked.
"Questions about costs associated with the transfer of Discovery, which have been estimated by NASA, have not been resolved although the Museum is exploring options," the Smithsonian said in a written statement supplied to CNN.
Others, however, are eager to pony up a check.
"Between our cash and our loan arrangements, we could take the shuttle tomorrow and get ready to go," said Bill Moore, the chief operating officer of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
But whoever takes charge of a space shuttle not only has to pay NASA dealer prep and transportation charges, that entity will also have to build an enclosed, temperature-controlled facility to house it.
"We need a wonderful building to put the shuttle in. It just demands that," said Moore.
"We want to put in the artifacts. We want to tell the story of the people that serviced and got this wonderful bird ready to fly," he told CNN.
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex expects to draw a double digit increase in visitors yearly to see whichever shuttle they might acquire. Currently, about 1.5 million people visit each year.
"We get visitors from around the world. When they see a space-flown artifact ... they get emotional about these pieces of equipment," said Moore.
Up the Eastern Seaboard, the retired aircraft carrier Intrepid sits off Manhattan's west side. The mighty ship once raced across the Pacific Ocean to pick up astronauts and space capsules after splash down, and now its officials want the museum it anchors to be the new home for a space plane, too.
"It's the tourist capitol of the world, and we just really feel that we want to help bring the most eyeballs that we possibly can to what is this technological masterpiece," said Susan Marenoff, executive director of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
Marenoff says that the museum would have to move the Concord supersonic jet, currently on display, and put the shuttle in its current spot. She expects more than $106 million in economic benefit if the museum hosts one of the shuttles.
"The shuttle itself just offers the opportunity for science and education programs to be brought to multicultural institutions, generations of people that will be able to come and really learn what this icon is all about," said Marenoff.
Although Atlantis will be the the first of the shuttles to end scheduled flights, the second-oldest shuttle won't be quickly shipped out to pasture. It will be prepared to make another flight, if necessary, as a future rescue mission.
Of course, NASA hopes it never has to fly that mission. And when all three shuttles are safely on Earth for the last time, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor will be stripped down and readied for delivery in mint condition.
Well, almost, said NASA's Beutel.
"About as mint condition as you're going to get for a thing that has traveled over 115 million miles in a 25-year period."
Asian investors get cold feet on euro bonds
(FT) -- Imagine you have a mountain of spare cash: would you invest it in eurozone government bonds right now? If you are a large Japanese investor, the answer is "maybe not".
Last week Barclays Capital, the British investment bank, produced the latest part of a long-running survey of Japanese bond investors, which tries to determine attitudes towards dollar and euro bonds.
This revealed that a hefty two-thirds of Japanese investors quietly fear that the latest €750bn aid package will have "not much" impact on the eurozone's woes -- up from a mere third of investors that expressed scepticism two weeks ago (when the package emerged).
Unsurprisingly, those same investors are getting cold feet about euro bonds: at the start of the year almost 80 per cent of the survey's respondents preferred euro debt to dollar debt, but that proportion is now below 30 per cent.
Japanese investors are not just worried about debt issued by the peripheral economies of Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece; they seem pretty uneasy about German bonds too.
This is a striking straw in the wind. Japan's institutional investors are powerful in global markets since they command vast funds. As they are also conservative and publicity-shy, it is often hard to know what they are doing.
If this survey is correct, it could also point to the direction other Asian investors are taking. For example, it appears that China's powerful sovereign wealth funds started raising their purchases of eurozone bonds last year in an attempt to reduce their high exposure to dollar risk.
But there are widespread rumours that the Chinese are also getting cold feet -- not in the sense that they are actually selling those euro holdings, but rather that they are refraining from buying too much more euro debt. Everyone is trying to work out what is happening with the economies of Portugal, Greece and others, said one senior Chinese finance official last week: "There is anxiety. The situation is not clear."
It will not be easy for the eurozone countries to quell that concern. One of the issues spooking Asian investors is the sluggish nature of growth in Europe. Another is the unpredictable nature of policymaking (as shown by Germany's unilateral clampdown on short sales last week).
But the third -- and perhaps more subtle -- issue is the uncertainty about how to assess the riskiness of individual eurozone bonds. The key issue at stake, as Credit Suisse pointed out in a recent research note, is that in the eyes of the capital markets the functioning of the eurozone has had uncanny echoes of the collateralised debt obligation instruments that banks were flogging in the days of the credit boom.
Think for a moment about how a CDO works: essentially, it is a financial product that allows bankers to pool a diverse collection of loans (such as mortgages). Most crucially, it is usually claimed that the total bundle of loans is safer than any individual credit. To use banking jargon, what a CDO does is provide "credit enhancement", turning dodgy debt into something that looks safer.
Hence the fact that during the credit boom, mortgage bonds with a triple B credit rating were used to build CDOs with a triple A stamp (the logic behind this was that diversified portfolios of mortgage should expose investors to less risk).
On paper, the eurozone does not look exactly like a CDO, since eurozone governments have never tried to "bundle" their debt. Instead, governments have continued to issue separate national bonds. But ever since the euro was created, investors have priced eurozone bonds in roughly the same way; thus the weak countries have enjoyed a "credit enhancement".
But faith in the financial alchemy of this single currency has spectacularly crumbled, just as faith in those CDOs fell apart. As a result, it is tough for anyone to know how to price eurozone debt. While that is unlikely to prompt Asian investors to sell existing stock, it does mean they are likely to pause before making new purchases.
That is not good news for any European government needing to sell its bonds; nor, for that matter, for financial markets as a whole.
Last week Barclays Capital, the British investment bank, produced the latest part of a long-running survey of Japanese bond investors, which tries to determine attitudes towards dollar and euro bonds.
This revealed that a hefty two-thirds of Japanese investors quietly fear that the latest €750bn aid package will have "not much" impact on the eurozone's woes -- up from a mere third of investors that expressed scepticism two weeks ago (when the package emerged).
Unsurprisingly, those same investors are getting cold feet about euro bonds: at the start of the year almost 80 per cent of the survey's respondents preferred euro debt to dollar debt, but that proportion is now below 30 per cent.
Japanese investors are not just worried about debt issued by the peripheral economies of Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece; they seem pretty uneasy about German bonds too.
This is a striking straw in the wind. Japan's institutional investors are powerful in global markets since they command vast funds. As they are also conservative and publicity-shy, it is often hard to know what they are doing.
If this survey is correct, it could also point to the direction other Asian investors are taking. For example, it appears that China's powerful sovereign wealth funds started raising their purchases of eurozone bonds last year in an attempt to reduce their high exposure to dollar risk.
But there are widespread rumours that the Chinese are also getting cold feet -- not in the sense that they are actually selling those euro holdings, but rather that they are refraining from buying too much more euro debt. Everyone is trying to work out what is happening with the economies of Portugal, Greece and others, said one senior Chinese finance official last week: "There is anxiety. The situation is not clear."
It will not be easy for the eurozone countries to quell that concern. One of the issues spooking Asian investors is the sluggish nature of growth in Europe. Another is the unpredictable nature of policymaking (as shown by Germany's unilateral clampdown on short sales last week).
But the third -- and perhaps more subtle -- issue is the uncertainty about how to assess the riskiness of individual eurozone bonds. The key issue at stake, as Credit Suisse pointed out in a recent research note, is that in the eyes of the capital markets the functioning of the eurozone has had uncanny echoes of the collateralised debt obligation instruments that banks were flogging in the days of the credit boom.
Think for a moment about how a CDO works: essentially, it is a financial product that allows bankers to pool a diverse collection of loans (such as mortgages). Most crucially, it is usually claimed that the total bundle of loans is safer than any individual credit. To use banking jargon, what a CDO does is provide "credit enhancement", turning dodgy debt into something that looks safer.
Hence the fact that during the credit boom, mortgage bonds with a triple B credit rating were used to build CDOs with a triple A stamp (the logic behind this was that diversified portfolios of mortgage should expose investors to less risk).
On paper, the eurozone does not look exactly like a CDO, since eurozone governments have never tried to "bundle" their debt. Instead, governments have continued to issue separate national bonds. But ever since the euro was created, investors have priced eurozone bonds in roughly the same way; thus the weak countries have enjoyed a "credit enhancement".
But faith in the financial alchemy of this single currency has spectacularly crumbled, just as faith in those CDOs fell apart. As a result, it is tough for anyone to know how to price eurozone debt. While that is unlikely to prompt Asian investors to sell existing stock, it does mean they are likely to pause before making new purchases.
That is not good news for any European government needing to sell its bonds; nor, for that matter, for financial markets as a whole.
Business turns buck on the back of Japan PM's fashion
Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- When pictures of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's multi-colored button down shirt started spreading on the Internet, people around the world cringed.
But not Peter Crawfurd and Michael Yang. They saw brilliance.
"Extraordinary," said Yang, of Hatoyama's purple, red, yellow, blue and green shirt. "That's exactly what we see in the Japanese prime minister. Mr. Hatoyama is a great symbol for that. We believe in individuality and people should be able to dress as they want."
And for $500, you can own your own Hatoyama shirt.
Crawfurd and Yang, two 26-year-old buddies who met in high school in Denmark, run a build-your-own-shirt business based in China. By build, they mean pick your own fabrics, cuts and colors on their Web site, www.ShirtsMyWay.com.
The company claims users can design over 7 trillion different men's dress shirts, by breaking the shirt into components and custom- tailored fits. You pick, they make, and ship it to your door. They said they like very individual fashion choices.
Which is why even though they're not the original designers of Hatoyama's shirt, they're launching a replica, a special "Prime Minister Hatoyama shirt," so you, too, can have Hatoyama's every color of the rainbow shirt.
They are convinced someone out there really does want it.
"Regardless of what people out there think is fashionable or not, it's one of the bravest moves we've ever seen," said Yang. "We honor his bravery because it takes a brave man to face the world with so many colors, especially a man in his position. We stand behind him 100 percent."
"There's a lot of integrity in what he's doing," added Crawfurd. "Just because he's prime minister, doesn't mean he loses this part of him."
The entrepreneurs are by no means just looking to honor Japan's leader. They see a business opportunity by coat tailing off the Internet buzz on Hatoyama's bold shirt.
But they also think critics are "too harsh," said Yang. "I don't know what else to say. Yes, too harsh."
The Prime Minister under fire this week, from both outside the political halls of Tokyo and within, after he backed out of a campaign promise to move a disputed U.S. air base off the island of Okinawa. But as tensions in the Korean peninsula and pressure from Washington mounted, the prime minister caved on that campaign promise on Sunday.
This week, the political fallout has begun. Members of the opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party, are now calling on him to resign. In Okinawa, it is full-on name calling, with residents saying he is a liar.
National polls show his approval ratings are below 30 percent.
But outside of Japan, at least two entrepreneurs are cheering him on. They just launched their Hatoyama shirt special Wednesday morning in Asia and say they have already gotten an order. They hope customers will at least want to look like the prime minister, regardless of the political turmoil Hatoyama currently faces.
But not Peter Crawfurd and Michael Yang. They saw brilliance.
"Extraordinary," said Yang, of Hatoyama's purple, red, yellow, blue and green shirt. "That's exactly what we see in the Japanese prime minister. Mr. Hatoyama is a great symbol for that. We believe in individuality and people should be able to dress as they want."
And for $500, you can own your own Hatoyama shirt.
Crawfurd and Yang, two 26-year-old buddies who met in high school in Denmark, run a build-your-own-shirt business based in China. By build, they mean pick your own fabrics, cuts and colors on their Web site, www.ShirtsMyWay.com.
The company claims users can design over 7 trillion different men's dress shirts, by breaking the shirt into components and custom- tailored fits. You pick, they make, and ship it to your door. They said they like very individual fashion choices.
Which is why even though they're not the original designers of Hatoyama's shirt, they're launching a replica, a special "Prime Minister Hatoyama shirt," so you, too, can have Hatoyama's every color of the rainbow shirt.
They are convinced someone out there really does want it.
"Regardless of what people out there think is fashionable or not, it's one of the bravest moves we've ever seen," said Yang. "We honor his bravery because it takes a brave man to face the world with so many colors, especially a man in his position. We stand behind him 100 percent."
"There's a lot of integrity in what he's doing," added Crawfurd. "Just because he's prime minister, doesn't mean he loses this part of him."
The entrepreneurs are by no means just looking to honor Japan's leader. They see a business opportunity by coat tailing off the Internet buzz on Hatoyama's bold shirt.
But they also think critics are "too harsh," said Yang. "I don't know what else to say. Yes, too harsh."
The Prime Minister under fire this week, from both outside the political halls of Tokyo and within, after he backed out of a campaign promise to move a disputed U.S. air base off the island of Okinawa. But as tensions in the Korean peninsula and pressure from Washington mounted, the prime minister caved on that campaign promise on Sunday.
This week, the political fallout has begun. Members of the opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party, are now calling on him to resign. In Okinawa, it is full-on name calling, with residents saying he is a liar.
National polls show his approval ratings are below 30 percent.
But outside of Japan, at least two entrepreneurs are cheering him on. They just launched their Hatoyama shirt special Wednesday morning in Asia and say they have already gotten an order. They hope customers will at least want to look like the prime minister, regardless of the political turmoil Hatoyama currently faces.
British Airways ponders legal action over strike
London, England (CNN) -- British Airways has hinted at possible legal action over the strike by cabin crew, saying Wednesday it had written to remind their union to "retain all relevant paperwork."
"This is standard legal procedure for all pending court cases," a BA spokesman said in a statement.
The current strike is due to end Friday, but the Unite union plans two more walkouts in the next few weeks.
Have you been affected? Send your images, video
BA said the letter to Unite does not mean it is appealing the decision by a London court this month, which overturned an injunction to stop the strikes. In seeking the injunction, BA had claimed of irregularities in the way Unite polled its members.
Video: BA faces another strike
RELATED TOPICS
* British Airways plc
"The union would have been fully aware that the point of law over the communication of the strike ballot result would come to a full court case in due course," said the BA spokesman, who asked not to be named in line with policy.
Is British Airways' reputation in a tailspin?
The union was not immediately available for comment.
British Airways said Tuesday it was managing to fly despite the strike.
More than 70 percent of its passengers were able to take their flights Monday, BA said.
Figures were not yet available for Tuesday. Unite, which represents most of British Airways' 15,000 cabin crew, said Tuesday the strike was "holding well."
The dispute is over pay and working conditions for cabin crew members, including BA's plans to reduce the number of cabin crew on some flights. BA says it is a cost-saving measure, but the union says it will help to damage the BA brand.
"This is standard legal procedure for all pending court cases," a BA spokesman said in a statement.
The current strike is due to end Friday, but the Unite union plans two more walkouts in the next few weeks.
Have you been affected? Send your images, video
BA said the letter to Unite does not mean it is appealing the decision by a London court this month, which overturned an injunction to stop the strikes. In seeking the injunction, BA had claimed of irregularities in the way Unite polled its members.
Video: BA faces another strike
RELATED TOPICS
* British Airways plc
"The union would have been fully aware that the point of law over the communication of the strike ballot result would come to a full court case in due course," said the BA spokesman, who asked not to be named in line with policy.
Is British Airways' reputation in a tailspin?
The union was not immediately available for comment.
British Airways said Tuesday it was managing to fly despite the strike.
More than 70 percent of its passengers were able to take their flights Monday, BA said.
Figures were not yet available for Tuesday. Unite, which represents most of British Airways' 15,000 cabin crew, said Tuesday the strike was "holding well."
The dispute is over pay and working conditions for cabin crew members, including BA's plans to reduce the number of cabin crew on some flights. BA says it is a cost-saving measure, but the union says it will help to damage the BA brand.
Economist: Europe debt hurting Wyo. energy prices
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – The state's economy will benefit if Greece and other European countries don't default in their debt crisis and if their government spending is reduced, an economist said Tuesday.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said Wyoming's economy should improve if the value of the dollar comes down, which should happen "when things get settled in Greece."
"If so, then I'm very bullish on energy, very bullish on agriculture," said Goss, who spoke at an economic forum sponsored by the Wyoming Business Alliance and the Wyoming Heritage Foundation.
The European debt crisis is driving up the value of the U.S. dollar, which makes American products more expensive in foreign markets, he said.
"That has hurt Wyoming," he said. "It will continue to hurt Wyoming because it makes energy less competitive. It drives down the prices of oil, it drives down the prices of natural gas to a lesser extent."
Steady growth in China, Indian and Indonesia should help energy prices because growing economies need increasing amounts of energy, Goss said.
Other uncertainties constraining the economies of Wyoming and the nation include those about health care reform, taxes, cap and trade, China and government spending, he said.
Reduced government spending is a key to solving the financial problems besetting countries, Goss said.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said Wyoming's economy should improve if the value of the dollar comes down, which should happen "when things get settled in Greece."
"If so, then I'm very bullish on energy, very bullish on agriculture," said Goss, who spoke at an economic forum sponsored by the Wyoming Business Alliance and the Wyoming Heritage Foundation.
The European debt crisis is driving up the value of the U.S. dollar, which makes American products more expensive in foreign markets, he said.
"That has hurt Wyoming," he said. "It will continue to hurt Wyoming because it makes energy less competitive. It drives down the prices of oil, it drives down the prices of natural gas to a lesser extent."
Steady growth in China, Indian and Indonesia should help energy prices because growing economies need increasing amounts of energy, Goss said.
Other uncertainties constraining the economies of Wyoming and the nation include those about health care reform, taxes, cap and trade, China and government spending, he said.
Reduced government spending is a key to solving the financial problems besetting countries, Goss said.
Barrage of risk hits US markets
NEW YORK (AFP) – US stock markets suffered heavy losses Tuesday as investors recoiled at news of Europe's deepening debt crisis, tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the prospect of a US bank overhaul.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average spent most of the morning trading session well under the symbolic 10,000 point mark, after clawing back a fraction of the 250-plus-point drop seen at the open.
Concerns about the health of the eurozone and tensions between North and South Korea sent investors fleeing from the stock market into safe-haven investments such as US government bonds.
By 1530 GMT, two hours after the open, the Dow was down 195.36 points (1.94 percent) to 9,870.00.
Similar hits were seen in the tech-rich Nasdaq index, which lost 46.79 points, or 2.11 percent to 2,166.76.
The broad-based S&P 500 was down 20.90 points, or 1.95 percent to 1,052.75.
All 30 of the Dow's stocks were down, with shares in consumer and financial firms hit hardest.
Markets, rocked by fresh turmoil in the Spanish banking sector, were also hit by the prospect of severe austerity measures in the eurozone that could slam the brakes on the fragile global economic recovery.
"There a combination of factors pulling the rug out from under the market," said IG Index analyst David Jones.
"European debt concerns are brought to the fore again as four of Spain's banks have been pushed into a merger by the government in a move to try and strengthen the region's financial institutions.
Concerns that the European debt crisis might spill beyond stock markets -- hitting financial institution and consumer demand -- forced a rise in save-haven US bonds.
"Treasuries are solidly higher amid some flight-to-safety buying," said Charles Schwab analysts.
Shares in Caterpillar, normally seen as a bellwether for broader economic health and consumer demand, traded down more than five percent.
Amid the turmoil, news of improved US consumer confidence went largely unnoticed.
Consumer confidence improved for the third straight month in May, according to a survey released by the Conference Board Tuesday, as Americans saw a rosier outlook for jobs and businesses.
The poll asks 5,000 US households a series of questions about their level of confidence in the economy. The results produce an index were 100 points would signify total confidence and zero represents absolute pessimism.
The research firm's consumer confidence index for May stood at 63.3 points, up from a revised 57.7 percent last month.
"The improvement has been fueled primarily by growing optimism about business and labor market conditions. Income expectations, however, remain downbeat," said Lynn Franco, the head of the board's consumer research department.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average spent most of the morning trading session well under the symbolic 10,000 point mark, after clawing back a fraction of the 250-plus-point drop seen at the open.
Concerns about the health of the eurozone and tensions between North and South Korea sent investors fleeing from the stock market into safe-haven investments such as US government bonds.
By 1530 GMT, two hours after the open, the Dow was down 195.36 points (1.94 percent) to 9,870.00.
Similar hits were seen in the tech-rich Nasdaq index, which lost 46.79 points, or 2.11 percent to 2,166.76.
The broad-based S&P 500 was down 20.90 points, or 1.95 percent to 1,052.75.
All 30 of the Dow's stocks were down, with shares in consumer and financial firms hit hardest.
Markets, rocked by fresh turmoil in the Spanish banking sector, were also hit by the prospect of severe austerity measures in the eurozone that could slam the brakes on the fragile global economic recovery.
"There a combination of factors pulling the rug out from under the market," said IG Index analyst David Jones.
"European debt concerns are brought to the fore again as four of Spain's banks have been pushed into a merger by the government in a move to try and strengthen the region's financial institutions.
Concerns that the European debt crisis might spill beyond stock markets -- hitting financial institution and consumer demand -- forced a rise in save-haven US bonds.
"Treasuries are solidly higher amid some flight-to-safety buying," said Charles Schwab analysts.
Shares in Caterpillar, normally seen as a bellwether for broader economic health and consumer demand, traded down more than five percent.
Amid the turmoil, news of improved US consumer confidence went largely unnoticed.
Consumer confidence improved for the third straight month in May, according to a survey released by the Conference Board Tuesday, as Americans saw a rosier outlook for jobs and businesses.
The poll asks 5,000 US households a series of questions about their level of confidence in the economy. The results produce an index were 100 points would signify total confidence and zero represents absolute pessimism.
The research firm's consumer confidence index for May stood at 63.3 points, up from a revised 57.7 percent last month.
"The improvement has been fueled primarily by growing optimism about business and labor market conditions. Income expectations, however, remain downbeat," said Lynn Franco, the head of the board's consumer research department.
NY and NJ bet big on Meadowlands Super Bowl
The big bet for Super Bowl 2014? The weather.
Tourism leaders in New York and New Jersey are hoping thousands of football fans flock to the region in the dead of winter wearing overcoats with deep pockets.
The Super Bowl could bring in as much as $550 million to the region, according to some estimates. But these measures, sports and economic experts say, are an inexact and vary based on factors ranging from what teams are playing to the weather.
That's not such a big deal in Miami or Los Angeles, but the average temperature for the Meadowlands area in February is somewhere between 24 to 40 degrees, with several inches of rain. And the game is usually at night, when temperatures drop. Did we mention there's no roof on the new $1.6 billion stadium?
That may keep some fair-weather fans away and the die-hards too, if their flights are canceled due to snow.
"The quality of the game itself or the fans — depending on how drunk they are — may feel the effects of the cold weather," said Allen Sanderson, sports economist at the University of Chicago.
Still, those in the region's tourism industry were thrilled at Tuesday's news that Meadowlands secured the bid.
"This is a huge shot in the arm," said Mark Giangiulio, Chairman of the Board of the New Jersey Hotel and Lodging Association, and general manager of the Grand Summit Hotel in Summit, N.J.
The Super Bowl will bring thousands of fans during what's traditionally the slowest time of year for the hotel industry in the Northeast.
The freezing weather usually scares away tourists and occupancy rates typically sink to around 50 to 60 percent in February. The Super Bowl should boost them back to the 80s — a level that hotels usually see only in the spring and summer, Giangiulio said. And hotel rates will soar during Super Bowl week.
"They'll be the highest" posted rate of the year, he said. "People who go to this expect to pay."
Chris Heywood, a spokesman for NYC & Co., the city's tourism arm, said the Super Bowl is expected to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the city, in part from an estimated 250,000 visitors expected to attend the NFL Experience public trade show. About 50,000 to 60,000 people are expected to stay in the city's hotels, while media sponsors and corporate sponsors will also be adding their cash to the mix, according to his estimate.
Separately, a study commissioned by the owners of the New York Jets and Giants football teams estimated the game could bring as much as $550 million to the New York-New Jersey region, said Alice McGillion, spokeswoman for the new Meadowlands Stadium. The study was completed as part of the bidding process, and no breakdown of the sum was released.
Sports marketing and economic experts though, say these estimates are typically over-inflated and inexact. If two smaller market teams come to the game, it hurts results. If the teams are from nearby, it cuts into the hotel and restaurant revenue. And rental cars, typically a big measure in these estimates, won't likely be used as much at this site, given the weather and availability of public transportation.
"Move the decimal point one place to the left," Sanderson said.
There is, however, the novelty effect of the location which could draw a few fans or at least sell advertising. And with the location so close to New York, corporations are more likely to go as they could do more networking while in the area.
The bigger economic issue, sports experts say, is the selection of this site underscores implicit agreement between many areas and the league that if they build new stadiums, they will get a Super Bowl. That encourages other cities to get taxpayer money to renovate or build new stadiums.
The Meadowlands Stadium will become home to the Jets and Giants this season.
"Is it risky? Of course it is, but it's a measured approach to take care of those that finance the NFL," said David Carter a professor of sports marketing at the University of Southern California.
"What would the economic impact be for the NFL if the Super Bowl was not held there?"
Tourism leaders in New York and New Jersey are hoping thousands of football fans flock to the region in the dead of winter wearing overcoats with deep pockets.
The Super Bowl could bring in as much as $550 million to the region, according to some estimates. But these measures, sports and economic experts say, are an inexact and vary based on factors ranging from what teams are playing to the weather.
That's not such a big deal in Miami or Los Angeles, but the average temperature for the Meadowlands area in February is somewhere between 24 to 40 degrees, with several inches of rain. And the game is usually at night, when temperatures drop. Did we mention there's no roof on the new $1.6 billion stadium?
That may keep some fair-weather fans away and the die-hards too, if their flights are canceled due to snow.
"The quality of the game itself or the fans — depending on how drunk they are — may feel the effects of the cold weather," said Allen Sanderson, sports economist at the University of Chicago.
Still, those in the region's tourism industry were thrilled at Tuesday's news that Meadowlands secured the bid.
"This is a huge shot in the arm," said Mark Giangiulio, Chairman of the Board of the New Jersey Hotel and Lodging Association, and general manager of the Grand Summit Hotel in Summit, N.J.
The Super Bowl will bring thousands of fans during what's traditionally the slowest time of year for the hotel industry in the Northeast.
The freezing weather usually scares away tourists and occupancy rates typically sink to around 50 to 60 percent in February. The Super Bowl should boost them back to the 80s — a level that hotels usually see only in the spring and summer, Giangiulio said. And hotel rates will soar during Super Bowl week.
"They'll be the highest" posted rate of the year, he said. "People who go to this expect to pay."
Chris Heywood, a spokesman for NYC & Co., the city's tourism arm, said the Super Bowl is expected to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the city, in part from an estimated 250,000 visitors expected to attend the NFL Experience public trade show. About 50,000 to 60,000 people are expected to stay in the city's hotels, while media sponsors and corporate sponsors will also be adding their cash to the mix, according to his estimate.
Separately, a study commissioned by the owners of the New York Jets and Giants football teams estimated the game could bring as much as $550 million to the New York-New Jersey region, said Alice McGillion, spokeswoman for the new Meadowlands Stadium. The study was completed as part of the bidding process, and no breakdown of the sum was released.
Sports marketing and economic experts though, say these estimates are typically over-inflated and inexact. If two smaller market teams come to the game, it hurts results. If the teams are from nearby, it cuts into the hotel and restaurant revenue. And rental cars, typically a big measure in these estimates, won't likely be used as much at this site, given the weather and availability of public transportation.
"Move the decimal point one place to the left," Sanderson said.
There is, however, the novelty effect of the location which could draw a few fans or at least sell advertising. And with the location so close to New York, corporations are more likely to go as they could do more networking while in the area.
The bigger economic issue, sports experts say, is the selection of this site underscores implicit agreement between many areas and the league that if they build new stadiums, they will get a Super Bowl. That encourages other cities to get taxpayer money to renovate or build new stadiums.
The Meadowlands Stadium will become home to the Jets and Giants this season.
"Is it risky? Of course it is, but it's a measured approach to take care of those that finance the NFL," said David Carter a professor of sports marketing at the University of Southern California.
"What would the economic impact be for the NFL if the Super Bowl was not held there?"
NY income tax hike may hurt NJ tax collections
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York state's income tax hike on wealthy taxpayers may have caused a surprising drop in neighboring New Jersey's tax collections, a New Jersey budget expert said on Tuesday.
New Jersey residents who work in New York get credits on tax bills for the income tax payments they owe New York.
Last year, the Empire State raised the tax rate for annual income above $300,000 to 7.85 percent and for annual income above $500,000 a year to 8.97 percent.
But New York used a "recapture" provision -- which was obscured by New York officials and missed by tax experts -- to instead tax the entire income of these wealthy individuals at the two higher rates, according to written testimony by David Rosen, New Jersey legislative budget and financial officer.
More than 20,000 New Jerseyans have annual incomes that top $500,000 a year and the state had estimated New York's higher income tax rates would cost it $300 million in the fiscal year that ends on June 30.
But thanks to the recapture provision, that estimate might have been off by $200 million, said Rosen.
And even more tax revenue could be siphoned to New York because it also raised rates on the many New Jerseyans who earn at least $300,000 a year, he said.
Rosen predicted that the state will have to find an extra $767 million to balance its budget over the next 13 months. The testimony appears on the web site: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/budget_2011/Rosen_testimony_05252010.pdf.
Separately, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, addressing think tank the Manhattan Institute in New York on Tuesday, called on unions to make sacrifices to help the state close an $11 billion deficit for fiscal 2011.
"If we continue to allow a minority group of union leaders to define for us our standard of living, then we are bound to be Greece, we are bound to bury our children under a mound of taxes and debt," he said.
Only last week, Christie, a Republican, vetoed the Democratic-controlled legislature's income tax increase for million1aires.
Christie warned the legislature, which is facing November elections, against rejecting his budget remedies, which include asking voters to cap local spending increases at 2.5 percent a year.
The governor would impose the same limit on the state's discretionary spending, a category that excludes debt service or federally required programs.
"If you don't listen to the people of New Jersey, the people of New Jersey will show you another way to make a living," he said.
New Jersey residents who work in New York get credits on tax bills for the income tax payments they owe New York.
Last year, the Empire State raised the tax rate for annual income above $300,000 to 7.85 percent and for annual income above $500,000 a year to 8.97 percent.
But New York used a "recapture" provision -- which was obscured by New York officials and missed by tax experts -- to instead tax the entire income of these wealthy individuals at the two higher rates, according to written testimony by David Rosen, New Jersey legislative budget and financial officer.
More than 20,000 New Jerseyans have annual incomes that top $500,000 a year and the state had estimated New York's higher income tax rates would cost it $300 million in the fiscal year that ends on June 30.
But thanks to the recapture provision, that estimate might have been off by $200 million, said Rosen.
And even more tax revenue could be siphoned to New York because it also raised rates on the many New Jerseyans who earn at least $300,000 a year, he said.
Rosen predicted that the state will have to find an extra $767 million to balance its budget over the next 13 months. The testimony appears on the web site: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/budget_2011/Rosen_testimony_05252010.pdf.
Separately, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, addressing think tank the Manhattan Institute in New York on Tuesday, called on unions to make sacrifices to help the state close an $11 billion deficit for fiscal 2011.
"If we continue to allow a minority group of union leaders to define for us our standard of living, then we are bound to be Greece, we are bound to bury our children under a mound of taxes and debt," he said.
Only last week, Christie, a Republican, vetoed the Democratic-controlled legislature's income tax increase for million1aires.
Christie warned the legislature, which is facing November elections, against rejecting his budget remedies, which include asking voters to cap local spending increases at 2.5 percent a year.
The governor would impose the same limit on the state's discretionary spending, a category that excludes debt service or federally required programs.
"If you don't listen to the people of New Jersey, the people of New Jersey will show you another way to make a living," he said.
Oil rises to near $70 on stocks, US gasoline drop
SINGAPORE – Oil prices rose to near $70 a barrel Wednesday in Asia as a drop in U.S. gasoline supplies and rebounding Asian stock markets bolstered confidence that demand for fuel is rising.
Benchmark crude for July delivery was up $1.13 to $69.88 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dropped $1.46 to settle at $68.75 on Tuesday.
Gasoline supplies unexpectedly fell last week, dropping by 3.2 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday. Analysts had expected an increase of 150,000 barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Crude supplies at the key Cushing, Oklahoma storage terminal fell 772,000 barrels while overall inventories of crude and distillates rose, the API said.
"A draw in stocks at the Cushing, OK hub is potentially a bullish signal for crude oil," energy consultant The Schork Group said in a report.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration is scheduled to announce its supply report later Wednesday.
Most major Asian stock markets bounced back Wednesday from losses this week, boosting the optimism of oil traders who often look to equities as a barometer of overall investor confidence.
However, this month's debt crisis in Europe has lowered expectations for the global economy. Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its forecast for the average oil price in the second half to $78 a barrel from $92 as slower economic growth undermines crude demand.
"Almost all of the (oil demand) growth will be generated in emerging markets while we have sharply reduced our forecasts for the developed world," the bank said in a report.
In other Nymex trading in June contracts, heating oil rose 0.95 cent to $1.8812 a gallon, and gasoline gained 1.97 cents to $1.9505 a gallon. Natural gas jumped 2.1 cents to $4.072 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, the Brent crude July contact was up 78 cents to $70.33 on the ICE futures exchange.
Benchmark crude for July delivery was up $1.13 to $69.88 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract dropped $1.46 to settle at $68.75 on Tuesday.
Gasoline supplies unexpectedly fell last week, dropping by 3.2 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday. Analysts had expected an increase of 150,000 barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Crude supplies at the key Cushing, Oklahoma storage terminal fell 772,000 barrels while overall inventories of crude and distillates rose, the API said.
"A draw in stocks at the Cushing, OK hub is potentially a bullish signal for crude oil," energy consultant The Schork Group said in a report.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration is scheduled to announce its supply report later Wednesday.
Most major Asian stock markets bounced back Wednesday from losses this week, boosting the optimism of oil traders who often look to equities as a barometer of overall investor confidence.
However, this month's debt crisis in Europe has lowered expectations for the global economy. Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its forecast for the average oil price in the second half to $78 a barrel from $92 as slower economic growth undermines crude demand.
"Almost all of the (oil demand) growth will be generated in emerging markets while we have sharply reduced our forecasts for the developed world," the bank said in a report.
In other Nymex trading in June contracts, heating oil rose 0.95 cent to $1.8812 a gallon, and gasoline gained 1.97 cents to $1.9505 a gallon. Natural gas jumped 2.1 cents to $4.072 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, the Brent crude July contact was up 78 cents to $70.33 on the ICE futures exchange.
Fed boss: Fed must be free from political meddling
TOKYO – The Federal Reserve and other central banks must protect their ability to make key economic decisions free from political interference, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.
As governments move ahead on reforms to prevent another global financial crisis like the one in 2008, Bernanke stressed the importance of the Fed and central banks in other countries maintaining their independence over setting interest rates, known as monetary policy.
The Fed, for instance, often must make decisions such as boosting rates to keep inflation in check that are unpopular with politicians but are necessary for a healthy economy.
Politicians generally prefer holding interest rates low, which stimulate the economy and hiring.
"Such gains may be popular at first, and thus helpful in an election campaign, but they are not sustainable and soon evaporate, leaving behind inflationary pressures that worsen the economy's long-term prospects," Bernanke said in a speech at a conference in Tokyo on the future of central banking in a globalized economy.
"Thus political interference in monetary policy can generate undesirable boom-bust cycles that ultimately lead to both a less stable economy and higher inflation," he said.
Bernanke's comments come as Congress edges closer to completing action on revamping U.S. financial rules, and subjecting the Fed to more oversight.
A provision contained in a House-passed bill doesn't specifically carve out monetary policy from congressional audits as current law does. However, the House bill says the audits shouldn't interfere or dictate the setting of interest rates. A Senate-passed bill, on the other hand, provides for a one-time audit of the Fed's emergency lending program. Congress must reconcile the two bills before a final vote is taken.
Bernanke said the Fed's emergency loan program to banks also should be free of political interference. For years, the Fed — as a lender of last resort — has made low-cost loans to banks when they couldn't get financing elsewhere. The identities of banks drawing the loans aren't made public for fear of causing a run on the institution and defeating the purpose of the backstop.
He also said he thinks the Fed's decisions on purchasing long-term securities, a move to drive down interest rates, also should be protected from political meddling.
Congress' audit provisions emerged in response to populist anger over the Fed's role in bailing out Wall Street banks during the 2008 crisis. The rescues provoked public outrage at a time when many Americans are struggling with nearly double-digit unemployment, stagnant wages and rising home foreclosures.
In his speech, Bernanke didn't talk about the future course of interest rates in the United States or the European debt crisis, which has rattled Wall Street and stock markets around the globe.
But in a question-and-answer session afterward, Bernanke said central banks around the world generally agree on aiming for inflation of around 2 percent. The Federal Reserve does not issue an official target, though individual members of the Federal Open Market Committee provide quarterly opinions of where inflation should be in five or six years, he said.
"Despite increases in inflation a few years ago and now declines to very low levels in the United States, inflation expectations are remarkably stable," Bernanke said. "And that is in turn a factor which helps to stabilize inflation itself."
At its last meeting in late April, the Fed maintained a pledge to hold rates near record lows for an "extended period" to support the economic recovery in the United States.
Even as the Fed must retain its independence, Bernanke said it and other central banks must be accountable to lawmakers. The Fed has taken steps to be more open about its dealings and about its thoughts on setting interest rates.
Bernanke also said he does not want dollar-swap arrangements between the Fed and other central banks to become permanent. While they have played an important role in stabilizing financial markets, they should be used as an emergency backstop, he said.
Earlier this month, the Fed revived a program with other central banks to swap currencies. The Fed is lending much-in-demand dollars to other central banks in exchange for their currencies. In turn, the central banks can lend the dollars out to banks in their home countries to prevent financial crises from spreading.
As governments move ahead on reforms to prevent another global financial crisis like the one in 2008, Bernanke stressed the importance of the Fed and central banks in other countries maintaining their independence over setting interest rates, known as monetary policy.
The Fed, for instance, often must make decisions such as boosting rates to keep inflation in check that are unpopular with politicians but are necessary for a healthy economy.
Politicians generally prefer holding interest rates low, which stimulate the economy and hiring.
"Such gains may be popular at first, and thus helpful in an election campaign, but they are not sustainable and soon evaporate, leaving behind inflationary pressures that worsen the economy's long-term prospects," Bernanke said in a speech at a conference in Tokyo on the future of central banking in a globalized economy.
"Thus political interference in monetary policy can generate undesirable boom-bust cycles that ultimately lead to both a less stable economy and higher inflation," he said.
Bernanke's comments come as Congress edges closer to completing action on revamping U.S. financial rules, and subjecting the Fed to more oversight.
A provision contained in a House-passed bill doesn't specifically carve out monetary policy from congressional audits as current law does. However, the House bill says the audits shouldn't interfere or dictate the setting of interest rates. A Senate-passed bill, on the other hand, provides for a one-time audit of the Fed's emergency lending program. Congress must reconcile the two bills before a final vote is taken.
Bernanke said the Fed's emergency loan program to banks also should be free of political interference. For years, the Fed — as a lender of last resort — has made low-cost loans to banks when they couldn't get financing elsewhere. The identities of banks drawing the loans aren't made public for fear of causing a run on the institution and defeating the purpose of the backstop.
He also said he thinks the Fed's decisions on purchasing long-term securities, a move to drive down interest rates, also should be protected from political meddling.
Congress' audit provisions emerged in response to populist anger over the Fed's role in bailing out Wall Street banks during the 2008 crisis. The rescues provoked public outrage at a time when many Americans are struggling with nearly double-digit unemployment, stagnant wages and rising home foreclosures.
In his speech, Bernanke didn't talk about the future course of interest rates in the United States or the European debt crisis, which has rattled Wall Street and stock markets around the globe.
But in a question-and-answer session afterward, Bernanke said central banks around the world generally agree on aiming for inflation of around 2 percent. The Federal Reserve does not issue an official target, though individual members of the Federal Open Market Committee provide quarterly opinions of where inflation should be in five or six years, he said.
"Despite increases in inflation a few years ago and now declines to very low levels in the United States, inflation expectations are remarkably stable," Bernanke said. "And that is in turn a factor which helps to stabilize inflation itself."
At its last meeting in late April, the Fed maintained a pledge to hold rates near record lows for an "extended period" to support the economic recovery in the United States.
Even as the Fed must retain its independence, Bernanke said it and other central banks must be accountable to lawmakers. The Fed has taken steps to be more open about its dealings and about its thoughts on setting interest rates.
Bernanke also said he does not want dollar-swap arrangements between the Fed and other central banks to become permanent. While they have played an important role in stabilizing financial markets, they should be used as an emergency backstop, he said.
Earlier this month, the Fed revived a program with other central banks to swap currencies. The Fed is lending much-in-demand dollars to other central banks in exchange for their currencies. In turn, the central banks can lend the dollars out to banks in their home countries to prevent financial crises from spreading.
Bangladesh economic growth slows to seven-year low
DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh said Wednesday that its economy grew at the slowest pace for seven years as the global downturn hit exports while drought and floods cut into agriculture and power troubles rocked industry.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said growth in the year to June came in at 5.54 percent, the lowest since 2002-2003, when the economy expanded just 5.3 percent.
Bangladesh's financial year runs to the end of June, but the government published the growth figures ahead of the annual budget due on June 10.
Ziauddin Ahmed, a deputy director at the bureau, said the figure was helped by a better-than-expected 6.5 percent expansion of the services sector, which now makes up more than half of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
But the government and central bank's forecast of six percent growth has proved optimistic, as industry only grew five percent, while agriculture expanded 2.77 percent.
"Bangladesh's industry is dependent on exports. But shipments were battered by the worst ever global economic recession," said Zaid Bakht, head of research the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, a government think-tank.
"The energy crisis also affected industrial growth," Bakht said. Bangladesh is in the grips of the worst utilities crisis in its history, with chronic power shortages taking a heavy toll on industry.
Overall exports were down one percent year on year in the nine months to the end of March, with apparel, which accounted for 80 percent of 15.56 billion dollar shipments last year, seeing a fall in orders.
Bakht said farming had also had a bad year with prolonged drought and flash floods hitting crucial rice crops, which are the mainstay of agriculture in the country.
This was somewhat offset as services continued to grow rapidly because of domestic demand fuelled by money sent home by the country's seven million migrant workers, he added.
Remittances were up nearly 20 percent to 8.27 billion dollars in the first nine months of the year and are projected to cross the 11 billion dollar threshold by June 2010.
The statistics office said GDP almost touched 100 billion dollars, nearly double the figure seven years ago, due to an average six percent growth annually during that period.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) said growth in the year to June came in at 5.54 percent, the lowest since 2002-2003, when the economy expanded just 5.3 percent.
Bangladesh's financial year runs to the end of June, but the government published the growth figures ahead of the annual budget due on June 10.
Ziauddin Ahmed, a deputy director at the bureau, said the figure was helped by a better-than-expected 6.5 percent expansion of the services sector, which now makes up more than half of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
But the government and central bank's forecast of six percent growth has proved optimistic, as industry only grew five percent, while agriculture expanded 2.77 percent.
"Bangladesh's industry is dependent on exports. But shipments were battered by the worst ever global economic recession," said Zaid Bakht, head of research the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, a government think-tank.
"The energy crisis also affected industrial growth," Bakht said. Bangladesh is in the grips of the worst utilities crisis in its history, with chronic power shortages taking a heavy toll on industry.
Overall exports were down one percent year on year in the nine months to the end of March, with apparel, which accounted for 80 percent of 15.56 billion dollar shipments last year, seeing a fall in orders.
Bakht said farming had also had a bad year with prolonged drought and flash floods hitting crucial rice crops, which are the mainstay of agriculture in the country.
This was somewhat offset as services continued to grow rapidly because of domestic demand fuelled by money sent home by the country's seven million migrant workers, he added.
Remittances were up nearly 20 percent to 8.27 billion dollars in the first nine months of the year and are projected to cross the 11 billion dollar threshold by June 2010.
The statistics office said GDP almost touched 100 billion dollars, nearly double the figure seven years ago, due to an average six percent growth annually during that period.
Ethiopian opposition chief rejects poll result
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – An Ethiopian opposition party leader on Wednesday rejected the results of parliamentary elections which gave long-time ruler Meles Zenawi a landslide win and demanded a new poll.
"In view of the fact that both the election process and the voting day were not free and fair... AEUP has decided not to accept the result of the elections," said Hailu Shawl, the head of All Ethiopians Unity Party.
Hailu told reporters that the party had also decided to demand a re-run as its observers were beaten and driven away from polling stations across the country.
"We have asked the NEBE (electoral panel) to conduct both national and regional re-election of people's representatives as soon as possible," he added.
Hailu was the leader of the now-defunct Coalition for Unity and Democracy which made unprecedented wins in the 2005 elections whose results the party also disputed, sparking violence that killed some 200 people.
His All Ethiopian Unity Party is not part of the eight-member Medrek opposition coalition that had been more visible in Ethiopia's electoral process and Sunday's elections.
He said the provisional results which showed the ruling EPRDF party had won 499 seats in results from 536 constituencies and Medrek only one in the capital Addis Ababa were not true.
"Look at the results, they don't look real. We'll wait for what the board says and decide what path to take," Hailu said. "Going to court is an option."
Medrek itself said Tuesday the electoral process was flawed, but one of its leaders ruled out street protests such as the ones five years ago which led bloodshed.
European Union observer mission also said the weekend polls were unfair, citing restricted political freedoms and use of state resources to by the ruling party.
The United States' top diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, also said they had failed to meet international standards.
However Meles, who has ruled Africa's second most populous nation for nearly two decades, said the results sent a clear message to the opposition and warned them against causing any troubles.
"I believe that the people of Ethiopia... have unequivocally sent a clear message to the opposition parties in our country," he told tens of thousands of supporters who turned out Tuesday for a victory rally.
"They must accept the decision of our great and proud people and not become tools of external forces that don't have the right to act as the ultimate judges of our elections."
"In view of the fact that both the election process and the voting day were not free and fair... AEUP has decided not to accept the result of the elections," said Hailu Shawl, the head of All Ethiopians Unity Party.
Hailu told reporters that the party had also decided to demand a re-run as its observers were beaten and driven away from polling stations across the country.
"We have asked the NEBE (electoral panel) to conduct both national and regional re-election of people's representatives as soon as possible," he added.
Hailu was the leader of the now-defunct Coalition for Unity and Democracy which made unprecedented wins in the 2005 elections whose results the party also disputed, sparking violence that killed some 200 people.
His All Ethiopian Unity Party is not part of the eight-member Medrek opposition coalition that had been more visible in Ethiopia's electoral process and Sunday's elections.
He said the provisional results which showed the ruling EPRDF party had won 499 seats in results from 536 constituencies and Medrek only one in the capital Addis Ababa were not true.
"Look at the results, they don't look real. We'll wait for what the board says and decide what path to take," Hailu said. "Going to court is an option."
Medrek itself said Tuesday the electoral process was flawed, but one of its leaders ruled out street protests such as the ones five years ago which led bloodshed.
European Union observer mission also said the weekend polls were unfair, citing restricted political freedoms and use of state resources to by the ruling party.
The United States' top diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, also said they had failed to meet international standards.
However Meles, who has ruled Africa's second most populous nation for nearly two decades, said the results sent a clear message to the opposition and warned them against causing any troubles.
"I believe that the people of Ethiopia... have unequivocally sent a clear message to the opposition parties in our country," he told tens of thousands of supporters who turned out Tuesday for a victory rally.
"They must accept the decision of our great and proud people and not become tools of external forces that don't have the right to act as the ultimate judges of our elections."
Mexico arrest Cancun mayor on drug charges
CANCUN, Mexico – Mexican federal police have arrested the mayor of the resort city of Cancun on drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime charges, the latest blow to 2010 state and local elections already marred by violence and allegations of drug cartel involvement.
Gregorio Sanchez, who took a leave of absence from the Cancun mayoral post to run for governor of the Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo, was taken into custody Tuesday at Cancun's international airport after arriving on a flight from Mexico City.
The federal Attorney General's Office said Sanchez is suspected of offering information and protection to the Zetas drug gang and the Beltran Leyva cartel, which are active in Quintana Roo.
Officials said they could not immediately recall another case in which a gubernatorial candidate had been arrested on drug charges.
"This takes us all by surprise, it is unprecedented," said current Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez Cantu.
Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the federal Attorney General's Office, said the charges allege Sanchez played a role in fomenting or aiding drug trafficking, engaging in organized crime and making transactions with illicitly obtained funds.
Sanchez's website carried an article in which the candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party and two smaller parties said he was being persecuted for political reasons.
The site quoted Sanchez as saying he had been threatened. "Resign from the race, or we are going to put you in jail or kill you," Sanchez said in describing one of the threats.
A Twitter account linked to the site vowed to continue Sanchez's campaign and asked people to protest his arrest and vote for him.
Observers have voiced fears that Mexico's drug cartels could seek to infiltrate politics and control the July 4 local elections in 10 states by supporting candidates who cooperate with organized crime and killing or intimidating those who don't
On May 13, gunmen killed Jose Guajardo Varela, a candidate for mayor of Valle Hermosa, a town in the border state of Tamaulipas which has been ravaged by drug gang violence. The leader of Guajardo Varela's conservative National Action Party said the candidate had received threats telling him to quit the race.
And in December, the newspaper Reforma published a photograph of Jesus Vizcarra, a candidate for governor of the northern state of Sinaloa, attending a party many years ago with a man identified as Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the No. 2 leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
However, until now, no candidate has been firmly linked to drug cartels.
Sanchez, a populist who pledged to bring services to the impoverished majority of residents who live on the outskirts of the glittering resort, took on the established and entrenched political machine of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The political fight in the state has been bitter — soldiers discovered two apartments fitted out with equipment for telephone eavesdropping that local media said may be linked to political espionage.
But drug cartels have long been active in the state, as well.
In 2009, prosecutors arrested Cancun's police chief, Francisco Velasco, to investigate whether he protected the Zetas drug gang.
Velasco already was detained for questioning in the killing of retired Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello, whose bullet-riddled body was found in a car in early 2009, shortly after the Cancun city government hired him as a security consultant to combat local corruption and asked him to set up the elite force.
Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located, has seen its share of officials detained for allegedly aiding drug cartels, including a former governor who was arrested in May 2001 just after he left office and was later sentenced to 36 years for money laundering and helping a drug cartel smuggle narcotics.
Former Quintana Roo governor Mario Villanueva was extradited to the United States this month to face an indictment accusing him of conspiring to import hundreds of tons of cocaine and launder millions of dollars in bribe payments through Lehman Brothers in New York and other financial institutions.
Bundles of cocaine sometimes wash ashore in the region because smugglers drop drugs from boats or small planes for gangs to retrieve and move into the United States.
But authorities have also carried out highly publicized arrests of mayors in the past, only to have charges against them evaporate.
Twelve mayors from President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan were arrested on charges of protecting the La Familia cartel in 2009, but all except two have since been released for lack of evidence.
Gregorio Sanchez, who took a leave of absence from the Cancun mayoral post to run for governor of the Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo, was taken into custody Tuesday at Cancun's international airport after arriving on a flight from Mexico City.
The federal Attorney General's Office said Sanchez is suspected of offering information and protection to the Zetas drug gang and the Beltran Leyva cartel, which are active in Quintana Roo.
Officials said they could not immediately recall another case in which a gubernatorial candidate had been arrested on drug charges.
"This takes us all by surprise, it is unprecedented," said current Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez Cantu.
Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the federal Attorney General's Office, said the charges allege Sanchez played a role in fomenting or aiding drug trafficking, engaging in organized crime and making transactions with illicitly obtained funds.
Sanchez's website carried an article in which the candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party and two smaller parties said he was being persecuted for political reasons.
The site quoted Sanchez as saying he had been threatened. "Resign from the race, or we are going to put you in jail or kill you," Sanchez said in describing one of the threats.
A Twitter account linked to the site vowed to continue Sanchez's campaign and asked people to protest his arrest and vote for him.
Observers have voiced fears that Mexico's drug cartels could seek to infiltrate politics and control the July 4 local elections in 10 states by supporting candidates who cooperate with organized crime and killing or intimidating those who don't
On May 13, gunmen killed Jose Guajardo Varela, a candidate for mayor of Valle Hermosa, a town in the border state of Tamaulipas which has been ravaged by drug gang violence. The leader of Guajardo Varela's conservative National Action Party said the candidate had received threats telling him to quit the race.
And in December, the newspaper Reforma published a photograph of Jesus Vizcarra, a candidate for governor of the northern state of Sinaloa, attending a party many years ago with a man identified as Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the No. 2 leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
However, until now, no candidate has been firmly linked to drug cartels.
Sanchez, a populist who pledged to bring services to the impoverished majority of residents who live on the outskirts of the glittering resort, took on the established and entrenched political machine of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The political fight in the state has been bitter — soldiers discovered two apartments fitted out with equipment for telephone eavesdropping that local media said may be linked to political espionage.
But drug cartels have long been active in the state, as well.
In 2009, prosecutors arrested Cancun's police chief, Francisco Velasco, to investigate whether he protected the Zetas drug gang.
Velasco already was detained for questioning in the killing of retired Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello, whose bullet-riddled body was found in a car in early 2009, shortly after the Cancun city government hired him as a security consultant to combat local corruption and asked him to set up the elite force.
Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located, has seen its share of officials detained for allegedly aiding drug cartels, including a former governor who was arrested in May 2001 just after he left office and was later sentenced to 36 years for money laundering and helping a drug cartel smuggle narcotics.
Former Quintana Roo governor Mario Villanueva was extradited to the United States this month to face an indictment accusing him of conspiring to import hundreds of tons of cocaine and launder millions of dollars in bribe payments through Lehman Brothers in New York and other financial institutions.
Bundles of cocaine sometimes wash ashore in the region because smugglers drop drugs from boats or small planes for gangs to retrieve and move into the United States.
But authorities have also carried out highly publicized arrests of mayors in the past, only to have charges against them evaporate.
Twelve mayors from President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan were arrested on charges of protecting the La Familia cartel in 2009, but all except two have since been released for lack of evidence.
Iraqi election results closer to being certified
BAGHDAD – Iraq's election commission says it's sending the final results of the March 7 elections to the Supreme Court for certification.
Commission spokesman Qassim al-Aboudi says the results will be sent to the court on Wednesday. He didn't say when their certification was expected but once they are certified, it will clear a major obstacle to the formation of the new government.
Al-Aboudi says the commission has rejected all appeals of the results by candidates, which paved the way for submitting the tally to the court.
A Sunni-backed bloc won the most seats in the 325-member parliament, but fell far short of a majority.
An alliance of two Shiite blocs — which together are just four seats short of a majority — is now expected to form the next government.
Commission spokesman Qassim al-Aboudi says the results will be sent to the court on Wednesday. He didn't say when their certification was expected but once they are certified, it will clear a major obstacle to the formation of the new government.
Al-Aboudi says the commission has rejected all appeals of the results by candidates, which paved the way for submitting the tally to the court.
A Sunni-backed bloc won the most seats in the 325-member parliament, but fell far short of a majority.
An alliance of two Shiite blocs — which together are just four seats short of a majority — is now expected to form the next government.
Malaysia's 93-year-old "lotus" woman regrets bound feet
SEKINCHAN, Malaysia (Reuters) – Lim Guan Siew once had bound feet that were considered the height of feminine beauty in China, but the 93-year-old who now lives in Malaysia says it is a fate she wishes she had avoided.
Lim, whose family fled Fujian province in southern China in 1946 during the country's civil war and settled in Malaysia, was born in 1917 and first had her feet bound when she was seven years old.
Foot binding was officially banned in 1912, but families continued the practice despite it being illegal, especially in remote areas.
"My family wasn't very rich, but I bound my feet just because I wanted to get married," the softly-spoken woman said in her home in Sekinchan, a small Malaysian town some 90 kms (56 miles) from the Malaysian capital.
Instead of the 3-inch (8 cm) "golden lotus" feet that many rich families aspired to when their daughters' feet were bound, Lim's now unbound feet have grown to 5 inches in length, but she still needs special shoes, manufactured locally to fit her.
Lim is one of a very few ethnic Chinese women who still have to live with their deformity. Many have passed away.
Aged seven, Lim's mother started the process of breaking and binding her daughter's feet to achieve the then-ideal of perfection and Lim recalls bathing her feet every three to five days in order to bend them the desired pointed shape.
It took Lim more than a year before she said she could walk again with feet that had been moulded to conform to an ideal that pervaded some parts of China from the 10th century to the start of the 20th.
"I would never do that if I had a second chance," Lim said with a smile as she admired her new shoes, hand-made by a Malaysian shoemaker whose business specialises in making shoes for the "golden lotus" women.
When Lim, then aged 30 arrived in Malaysia with her 10-year-old daughter, she was forced to work as an agricultural labourer according to her son, not an easy task for a woman with deformed feet.
AN ANCIENT ART
The tiny leather shoes that Lim was so proud of came last week from "Wah Aik," a shop in the Malaysian coastal city of Malacca, some 200 km away, that once had a lucrative business supplying the needs of the Chinese community in this mainly Muslim country in Southeast Asia.
Yeo Eng Tong, Tony Yeo and Raymond Yeo, are the third generation of shoemakers in the family business that started in 1918 and who say that foot-binding was not practised by the substantial locally born Chinese population that started settling here in the 15th century.
"My father told me all the bound feet ladies came to this shop to order shoes, all of them came in trishaws or cars, in the 1960s and 1970s," said Raymond Yeo.
"Most of the shoes are sold to tourists as souvenirs, although sometimes we may receive orders from ladies with bound feet, but it's fewer now," said Tony Yeo in their shop in a district now popular with tourists.
"It will disappear soon, we just can't help it," added Raymond.
Lim, whose family fled Fujian province in southern China in 1946 during the country's civil war and settled in Malaysia, was born in 1917 and first had her feet bound when she was seven years old.
Foot binding was officially banned in 1912, but families continued the practice despite it being illegal, especially in remote areas.
"My family wasn't very rich, but I bound my feet just because I wanted to get married," the softly-spoken woman said in her home in Sekinchan, a small Malaysian town some 90 kms (56 miles) from the Malaysian capital.
Instead of the 3-inch (8 cm) "golden lotus" feet that many rich families aspired to when their daughters' feet were bound, Lim's now unbound feet have grown to 5 inches in length, but she still needs special shoes, manufactured locally to fit her.
Lim is one of a very few ethnic Chinese women who still have to live with their deformity. Many have passed away.
Aged seven, Lim's mother started the process of breaking and binding her daughter's feet to achieve the then-ideal of perfection and Lim recalls bathing her feet every three to five days in order to bend them the desired pointed shape.
It took Lim more than a year before she said she could walk again with feet that had been moulded to conform to an ideal that pervaded some parts of China from the 10th century to the start of the 20th.
"I would never do that if I had a second chance," Lim said with a smile as she admired her new shoes, hand-made by a Malaysian shoemaker whose business specialises in making shoes for the "golden lotus" women.
When Lim, then aged 30 arrived in Malaysia with her 10-year-old daughter, she was forced to work as an agricultural labourer according to her son, not an easy task for a woman with deformed feet.
AN ANCIENT ART
The tiny leather shoes that Lim was so proud of came last week from "Wah Aik," a shop in the Malaysian coastal city of Malacca, some 200 km away, that once had a lucrative business supplying the needs of the Chinese community in this mainly Muslim country in Southeast Asia.
Yeo Eng Tong, Tony Yeo and Raymond Yeo, are the third generation of shoemakers in the family business that started in 1918 and who say that foot-binding was not practised by the substantial locally born Chinese population that started settling here in the 15th century.
"My father told me all the bound feet ladies came to this shop to order shoes, all of them came in trishaws or cars, in the 1960s and 1970s," said Raymond Yeo.
"Most of the shoes are sold to tourists as souvenirs, although sometimes we may receive orders from ladies with bound feet, but it's fewer now," said Tony Yeo in their shop in a district now popular with tourists.
"It will disappear soon, we just can't help it," added Raymond.
In India, Banking on the Morning After
While American women celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Pill this month, women in India are embracing a different method of personal contraception. By the end of today, over 100 million will have taken a birth control pill, but it's acceptance in the world's second most populous nation has been dismally low. According to the 2005-2006 National Family Health Survey, only 49% of Indian women use modern contraceptives, and of these, only 3% are on the Pill.
Instead, among urban India's increasingly educated and independent women, it's emergency contraception that has taken over the market. The 'morning after pill' brands, which include i-pill, Unwanted 72, and Preventol, are readily accessible over the-counter drugs throughout India, as they are in at least 40 other countries including the U.S., U.K., and Australia. "There's an alarmingly high utilization of emergency contraception, which has almost become synonymous with the 'i-pill'," says Dr. Rishma Dhillon Pai, a consultant gynecologist at the Jaslok and Lilavati hospitals in Mumbai, and the Vice President of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI). (Watch a video about the birth control pill's influence.)
Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical giant which sells the morning after pill for $1.60, has sold an average of 200,000 units of the drug each month since 2007, according to local media reports. The i-pill alone outsells both condoms and other oral contraceptive pills. For the year ending June 2009, American research firm ACNielsen valued India's emergency contraceptive segment at over $16,850,000 - a 245% growth in sales since the drug's release. Last month, India's Piramal Healthcare bought the rights to the i-pill from Cipla for some $20,800,000 in an all-cash transaction.
New Delhi has promoted emergency contraception as an option for women since 2002 and made it available over the counter in 2005. But it wasn't until Cipla came out with the i- pill in 2007, marketing it to modern young women through television and magazine advertising, that women took to it. Pai says when asked about their primary method of contraception, many of her young female patients say they use the i-pill. "Sometimes, they're using the pill three or four times a month," she says.
In 1966, two Yale University researchers, gynecologist John McLean Morris and endocrinologist Gertrude van Wagenen first discovered the morning after pill, but it took years before the first prescription- only version of the drug became available in 1984 in the U.K. In the US, after much politically charged debate, the FDA approved over-the- counter sales for Plan B, manufactured by Duramed Pharmaceuticals, to women and men 18 and older. It had been available by prescription since 1999. (See a brief history of birth control.)
But doctors and healthcare workers worry that young women may be at risk by taking the morning-after pill too often. "When a product is cheap, available over the counter, completely [anonymous], and is something you don't have to plan for, it's extremely convenient," says Pai. "But extreme convenience doesn't mean extreme safety or extreme rationality." Similar to Plan B in the U.S., the popular i-pill contains levonorgestrel, which, though generally considered safe, can cause side effects such as nausea, vomiting, weakness, and menstrual changes. "I didn't realize that using the i-pill a few times a month could have negative consequences," says a 21-year-old college student who asked that her name be withheld. "There was never any need to consult a doctor about it, and it's weird talking to my mom. I just asked friends and that's what they said they did." Doctors in India have also reported finding an increasingly high level of hormone changes in young women who're using the emergency pill three or four times a month, and are concerned that even though pregnancy may be avoided, by shunning condoms, women are making themselves vulnerable for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. "Ten years ago, I had never treated a patient with herpes," says Pai. "Now they come through regularly."
Though preventative oral contraceptives are widely regarded as the most reliable method of birth control, the Indian government's past focus on surgical female sterilization may have slowed their adoption. "Around two or three decades ago, the concern was that India's population was a burden and it needed to be controlled," says K.G. Santhya, an associate with the poverty, gender, and youth program of the international non-profit Population Council.
Now, they are up against the mass advertising effort of the companies that manufacture the morning after pills. The ads, some experts say, use catchphrases such as "tension free" to appeal to young women, and don't emphasize that the products are meant for use in emergencies only. Though the upsurge in use of emergency contraceptives mostly effects women in India's cities, health advocates are nevertheless stressing the need for educating women both in urban and rural areas about the morning after pill, which, when used wisely, can be instrumental in changing the way women approach sex. Seventy-eight percent of pregnancies in India are unplanned and at least 25% unwanted, according to FOGSI.
Pai agrees that the morning-after pill should continue to be sold over the counter. What's needed, she says, is proper sex education that covers how different contraceptives work. Many young women coming to her today, she says, aren't even aware of the differences between emergency contraception and preventative oral contraceptives. So when young girls arrive at her hospital, they're already in a crisis situation. "Our system hasn't moved as fast as the girls have," she says. "The girls are leading a modern lifestyle, and our system is still stuck a whole generation behind. As a result, we're not keeping up in terms of genuinely liberating our girls."
Instead, among urban India's increasingly educated and independent women, it's emergency contraception that has taken over the market. The 'morning after pill' brands, which include i-pill, Unwanted 72, and Preventol, are readily accessible over the-counter drugs throughout India, as they are in at least 40 other countries including the U.S., U.K., and Australia. "There's an alarmingly high utilization of emergency contraception, which has almost become synonymous with the 'i-pill'," says Dr. Rishma Dhillon Pai, a consultant gynecologist at the Jaslok and Lilavati hospitals in Mumbai, and the Vice President of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI). (Watch a video about the birth control pill's influence.)
Cipla, an Indian pharmaceutical giant which sells the morning after pill for $1.60, has sold an average of 200,000 units of the drug each month since 2007, according to local media reports. The i-pill alone outsells both condoms and other oral contraceptive pills. For the year ending June 2009, American research firm ACNielsen valued India's emergency contraceptive segment at over $16,850,000 - a 245% growth in sales since the drug's release. Last month, India's Piramal Healthcare bought the rights to the i-pill from Cipla for some $20,800,000 in an all-cash transaction.
New Delhi has promoted emergency contraception as an option for women since 2002 and made it available over the counter in 2005. But it wasn't until Cipla came out with the i- pill in 2007, marketing it to modern young women through television and magazine advertising, that women took to it. Pai says when asked about their primary method of contraception, many of her young female patients say they use the i-pill. "Sometimes, they're using the pill three or four times a month," she says.
In 1966, two Yale University researchers, gynecologist John McLean Morris and endocrinologist Gertrude van Wagenen first discovered the morning after pill, but it took years before the first prescription- only version of the drug became available in 1984 in the U.K. In the US, after much politically charged debate, the FDA approved over-the- counter sales for Plan B, manufactured by Duramed Pharmaceuticals, to women and men 18 and older. It had been available by prescription since 1999. (See a brief history of birth control.)
But doctors and healthcare workers worry that young women may be at risk by taking the morning-after pill too often. "When a product is cheap, available over the counter, completely [anonymous], and is something you don't have to plan for, it's extremely convenient," says Pai. "But extreme convenience doesn't mean extreme safety or extreme rationality." Similar to Plan B in the U.S., the popular i-pill contains levonorgestrel, which, though generally considered safe, can cause side effects such as nausea, vomiting, weakness, and menstrual changes. "I didn't realize that using the i-pill a few times a month could have negative consequences," says a 21-year-old college student who asked that her name be withheld. "There was never any need to consult a doctor about it, and it's weird talking to my mom. I just asked friends and that's what they said they did." Doctors in India have also reported finding an increasingly high level of hormone changes in young women who're using the emergency pill three or four times a month, and are concerned that even though pregnancy may be avoided, by shunning condoms, women are making themselves vulnerable for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. "Ten years ago, I had never treated a patient with herpes," says Pai. "Now they come through regularly."
Though preventative oral contraceptives are widely regarded as the most reliable method of birth control, the Indian government's past focus on surgical female sterilization may have slowed their adoption. "Around two or three decades ago, the concern was that India's population was a burden and it needed to be controlled," says K.G. Santhya, an associate with the poverty, gender, and youth program of the international non-profit Population Council.
Now, they are up against the mass advertising effort of the companies that manufacture the morning after pills. The ads, some experts say, use catchphrases such as "tension free" to appeal to young women, and don't emphasize that the products are meant for use in emergencies only. Though the upsurge in use of emergency contraceptives mostly effects women in India's cities, health advocates are nevertheless stressing the need for educating women both in urban and rural areas about the morning after pill, which, when used wisely, can be instrumental in changing the way women approach sex. Seventy-eight percent of pregnancies in India are unplanned and at least 25% unwanted, according to FOGSI.
Pai agrees that the morning-after pill should continue to be sold over the counter. What's needed, she says, is proper sex education that covers how different contraceptives work. Many young women coming to her today, she says, aren't even aware of the differences between emergency contraception and preventative oral contraceptives. So when young girls arrive at her hospital, they're already in a crisis situation. "Our system hasn't moved as fast as the girls have," she says. "The girls are leading a modern lifestyle, and our system is still stuck a whole generation behind. As a result, we're not keeping up in terms of genuinely liberating our girls."
Car bomb hits outside NATO base in Kandahar city
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A car bomb exploded Wednesday outside a small NATO military base in southern Afghanistan's largest city, wounding two Afghans and destroying several cars, police said.
It was the latest in a string of bold attacks on high-profile NATO targets in the past two weeks, following a Taliban announcement of a spring offensive against alliance and Afghan forces — their response to the Obama administration's vow to squeeze the militants out of Kandahar province strongholds.
The blast occurred around 11:30 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) in a parking lot used by Afghans visiting Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar city, said Gen. Shafiq Fazli, the police commander for southern Afghanistan. The base houses a few hundred Canadian soldiers, along with American military police and U.S. and Canadian government employees working on development projects.
Fazli said no one was killed. A police officer said that at least one security guard and one Afghan who works at the base were wounded. The officer gave only one name — Khalid.
Wednesday's blast destroyed 11 cars that were parked in the lot, along with more than a dozen motorbikes and bicycles, Fazli said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
People reached by phone inside Camp Nathan Smith said they had been ordered into bunkers but that the area appeared quiet since the explosion. They spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the attack had not been released.
The string of attacks began on May 18, when a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a NATO convoy in the capital, killing 18 people including six NATO service members — five Americans and a Canadian.
The next day, dozens of Taliban militants attacked the main U.S. military base — Bagram Air Field — killing an American contractor in fighting that lasted more than eight hours.
Then on Saturday, insurgents firing rockets, mortars and automatic weapons tried to storm Kandahar Air Field — NATO's main base in the south. Kandahar Air Field is about 20 kilometers outside of the city, while Camp Nathan Smith is in downtown Kandahar.
In eastern Nuristan province, police have been battling hundreds of insurgents for four days, officials said. At least seven militants and one police officer have died so far in the fighting in Nuristan's Barg-e-Matal district, the Interior Ministry said in statement.
The insurgents attacked the district government building on Sunday and a small police force has been trying to keep them at bay since, said Gen. Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, the provincial police chief.
"Their are many fewer police than attackers but we have the locals helping us," Jangulbagh said, explaining that villagers have grabbed their guns and joined the police in the fight. He said the police have asked for reinforcements, but none have arrived yet.
Nuristan Gov. Jamaludin Badar said they've also asked NATO forces for help.
It was the latest in a string of bold attacks on high-profile NATO targets in the past two weeks, following a Taliban announcement of a spring offensive against alliance and Afghan forces — their response to the Obama administration's vow to squeeze the militants out of Kandahar province strongholds.
The blast occurred around 11:30 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) in a parking lot used by Afghans visiting Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar city, said Gen. Shafiq Fazli, the police commander for southern Afghanistan. The base houses a few hundred Canadian soldiers, along with American military police and U.S. and Canadian government employees working on development projects.
Fazli said no one was killed. A police officer said that at least one security guard and one Afghan who works at the base were wounded. The officer gave only one name — Khalid.
Wednesday's blast destroyed 11 cars that were parked in the lot, along with more than a dozen motorbikes and bicycles, Fazli said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
People reached by phone inside Camp Nathan Smith said they had been ordered into bunkers but that the area appeared quiet since the explosion. They spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the attack had not been released.
The string of attacks began on May 18, when a Taliban suicide bomber attacked a NATO convoy in the capital, killing 18 people including six NATO service members — five Americans and a Canadian.
The next day, dozens of Taliban militants attacked the main U.S. military base — Bagram Air Field — killing an American contractor in fighting that lasted more than eight hours.
Then on Saturday, insurgents firing rockets, mortars and automatic weapons tried to storm Kandahar Air Field — NATO's main base in the south. Kandahar Air Field is about 20 kilometers outside of the city, while Camp Nathan Smith is in downtown Kandahar.
In eastern Nuristan province, police have been battling hundreds of insurgents for four days, officials said. At least seven militants and one police officer have died so far in the fighting in Nuristan's Barg-e-Matal district, the Interior Ministry said in statement.
The insurgents attacked the district government building on Sunday and a small police force has been trying to keep them at bay since, said Gen. Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, the provincial police chief.
"Their are many fewer police than attackers but we have the locals helping us," Jangulbagh said, explaining that villagers have grabbed their guns and joined the police in the fight. He said the police have asked for reinforcements, but none have arrived yet.
Nuristan Gov. Jamaludin Badar said they've also asked NATO forces for help.
Jamaica police gain hold on drug lord's stronghold
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Security forces gained a tenuous hold on the slum stronghold of a powerful reputed drug lord, while Jamaica's embattled leader promised an independent investigation into the roughly 26 civilian deaths during the operation.
Thousands of police and soldiers have stormed the Tivoli Gardens ghetto in search of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who is wanted by the U.S. on drug and gun charges. Three days of street battles with heavily armed supporters of the underworld boss had claimed at least 30 lives by late Tuesday.
The fight with gang gunmen has spilled into troubled areas just outside the capital, Kingston, and complaints are rising that innocents are being caught in indiscriminate gunfire.
In a Tuesday address to legislators, Prime Minister Bruce Golding indicated he was taken aback by the intensity of the assault in the heart of West Kingston's ramshackle slums, which he represents in Jamaica's Parliament.
"The government deeply regrets the loss of lives, especially those of members of the security forces and innocent, law-abiding citizens caught in the crossfire. The security forces were directed to take all practical steps to avoid casualties as much as possible," he said.
Golding vowed that the "most thorough investigations" would be undertaken to examine all deaths caused by security forces, which have developed a reputation for slipshod investigations and for being too quick on the trigger. In the same speech, he also said security agents would go after "criminal gunmen in whatever community they may be ensconced."
Government officials told reporters all the dead civilians in West Kingston were men. But distressed people inside the slums who called local radio stations asserted there had been indiscriminate shootings during the all-out assault that police and soldiers launched Monday.
Security forces on Tuesday only permitted two government investigators and Red Cross staff to enter the Tivoli Gardens area, where supporters of Coke began massing last week after Golding dropped his nine-month refusal to extradite him to the U.S. Coke has ties to Golding's Labour party, and Tivoli Gardens delivers significant votes for it.
Coke was still at large despite the assault on his stronghold, National Security Minister Dwight Nelson said.
The gunmen fighting for Coke say he provides services and protection to the poor West Kingston community — all funded by a criminal empire that seemed untouchable until the U.S. demanded his extradition.
Coke has built a loyal following and turned the neighborhood into his stronghold. U.S. authorities say he has been trafficking cocaine to the streets of New York City since the mid-1990s, allegedly hiring island women to hide the drugs on themselves on flights to the U.S.
Members of Coke's Shower Posse and affiliated gangs began barricading his stronghold last week following Golding's abrupt reversal on Coke's extradition on drug- and gunrunning.
Golding had stonewalled the U.S. request for nine months, straining relations. A U.S. State Department report earlier this year questioned the Caribbean island's reliability as an ally in the war against drugs, and Golding's stance drew domestic opposition that threatened his political career.
The government imposed a monthlong state of emergency for the tense Kingston area Sunday, after an eruption of violence by gangsters that security forces called unprovoked.
The violence has not touched the tourist meccas along the island's north shore, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Kingston, or the nearby Montego Bay airport. However, Jamaican officials said they were very concerned about the impact on tourism.
"The entire Caribbean and the world is trying to pull itself out of a recession. This kind of hit, if one can call it that, comes at a very, very bad time," said Wayne Cummings, president of Jamaica's Hotel and Tourist Association.
Along the pitted and trash-strewn streets of West Kingston that few tourists ever see, residents say Coke is feared for his strong-arm tactics, but also is known for helping slum dwellers with grocery bills, jobs and school fees.
Coke's influence extends well beyond the capital. Police say gunmen from gangs that operate under the umbrella of his Shower Posse elsewhere on the island have been flocking to his defense.
U.S. federal prosecutors in New York say drug traffickers in the United States routinely sent Coke gifts, including clothes, accessories and car parts in recognition of his influence over the American cocaine trade.
"Mr. Coke is a strongman whose tentacles spread far and wide," said the Rev. Renard White, a leader of a Justice Ministry peace initiative that works in Jamaica's troubled communities.
Thousands of police and soldiers have stormed the Tivoli Gardens ghetto in search of Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who is wanted by the U.S. on drug and gun charges. Three days of street battles with heavily armed supporters of the underworld boss had claimed at least 30 lives by late Tuesday.
The fight with gang gunmen has spilled into troubled areas just outside the capital, Kingston, and complaints are rising that innocents are being caught in indiscriminate gunfire.
In a Tuesday address to legislators, Prime Minister Bruce Golding indicated he was taken aback by the intensity of the assault in the heart of West Kingston's ramshackle slums, which he represents in Jamaica's Parliament.
"The government deeply regrets the loss of lives, especially those of members of the security forces and innocent, law-abiding citizens caught in the crossfire. The security forces were directed to take all practical steps to avoid casualties as much as possible," he said.
Golding vowed that the "most thorough investigations" would be undertaken to examine all deaths caused by security forces, which have developed a reputation for slipshod investigations and for being too quick on the trigger. In the same speech, he also said security agents would go after "criminal gunmen in whatever community they may be ensconced."
Government officials told reporters all the dead civilians in West Kingston were men. But distressed people inside the slums who called local radio stations asserted there had been indiscriminate shootings during the all-out assault that police and soldiers launched Monday.
Security forces on Tuesday only permitted two government investigators and Red Cross staff to enter the Tivoli Gardens area, where supporters of Coke began massing last week after Golding dropped his nine-month refusal to extradite him to the U.S. Coke has ties to Golding's Labour party, and Tivoli Gardens delivers significant votes for it.
Coke was still at large despite the assault on his stronghold, National Security Minister Dwight Nelson said.
The gunmen fighting for Coke say he provides services and protection to the poor West Kingston community — all funded by a criminal empire that seemed untouchable until the U.S. demanded his extradition.
Coke has built a loyal following and turned the neighborhood into his stronghold. U.S. authorities say he has been trafficking cocaine to the streets of New York City since the mid-1990s, allegedly hiring island women to hide the drugs on themselves on flights to the U.S.
Members of Coke's Shower Posse and affiliated gangs began barricading his stronghold last week following Golding's abrupt reversal on Coke's extradition on drug- and gunrunning.
Golding had stonewalled the U.S. request for nine months, straining relations. A U.S. State Department report earlier this year questioned the Caribbean island's reliability as an ally in the war against drugs, and Golding's stance drew domestic opposition that threatened his political career.
The government imposed a monthlong state of emergency for the tense Kingston area Sunday, after an eruption of violence by gangsters that security forces called unprovoked.
The violence has not touched the tourist meccas along the island's north shore, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Kingston, or the nearby Montego Bay airport. However, Jamaican officials said they were very concerned about the impact on tourism.
"The entire Caribbean and the world is trying to pull itself out of a recession. This kind of hit, if one can call it that, comes at a very, very bad time," said Wayne Cummings, president of Jamaica's Hotel and Tourist Association.
Along the pitted and trash-strewn streets of West Kingston that few tourists ever see, residents say Coke is feared for his strong-arm tactics, but also is known for helping slum dwellers with grocery bills, jobs and school fees.
Coke's influence extends well beyond the capital. Police say gunmen from gangs that operate under the umbrella of his Shower Posse elsewhere on the island have been flocking to his defense.
U.S. federal prosecutors in New York say drug traffickers in the United States routinely sent Coke gifts, including clothes, accessories and car parts in recognition of his influence over the American cocaine trade.
"Mr. Coke is a strongman whose tentacles spread far and wide," said the Rev. Renard White, a leader of a Justice Ministry peace initiative that works in Jamaica's troubled communities.
Ahmadinejad urges Obama to accept nuke swap deal
KERMAN, Iran – Iran's president is urging Barack Obama to accept a nuclear fuel swap deal, warning the U.S. leader will miss a historic opportunity for improved cooperation from Tehran.
Mahmoud Ahamdinejad says there are those "who want to pit Mr. Obama against the Iranian nation and bring him to the point of no return, where the path to his friendship with Iran will be blocked forever."
Washington says Iran's offer — brokered last week by Brazil and Turkey — is an attempt by Tehran to avoid a new round of U.N. sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, which the West fears is geared toward nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad also on Wednesday assailed Russia, saying it caved into American pressure for more sanctions against Iran.
Mahmoud Ahamdinejad says there are those "who want to pit Mr. Obama against the Iranian nation and bring him to the point of no return, where the path to his friendship with Iran will be blocked forever."
Washington says Iran's offer — brokered last week by Brazil and Turkey — is an attempt by Tehran to avoid a new round of U.N. sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, which the West fears is geared toward nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad also on Wednesday assailed Russia, saying it caved into American pressure for more sanctions against Iran.
Abonați-vă la:
Comentarii (Atom)