Go to Financial Times original
General Motors on Wednesday reported a wider net loss of $3.3bn for the first quarter as the flagging US car market and problems at GMAC, its financing arm, and Delphi, its biggest supplier, took their toll.
Revenue for the quarter was $42.7bn, down slightly from $43.4bn a year ago, as the problems facing its US business failed to offset strong growth of its business in China, Brazil, Russia and India.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
New U.S. carrier in Gulf a "reminder" to Iran: Gates
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has temporarily added a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf as a "reminder" to Iran, but this was not an escalation of American forces in the region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Mexico, Gates flatly denied a suggestion that the presence of two U.S. carriers in the Gulf could be a precursor to military action against Tehran.
"This deployment has been planned for a long time," Gates said. "I don't think we'll have two carriers there for a protracted period of time. So I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."
He declined to elaborate on his remarks and provided no details about the deployment.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the second carrier arrived in the Gulf on Tuesday to replace one on duty that was expected to depart the region in two days.
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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has temporarily added a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf as a "reminder" to Iran, but this was not an escalation of American forces in the region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Mexico, Gates flatly denied a suggestion that the presence of two U.S. carriers in the Gulf could be a precursor to military action against Tehran.
"This deployment has been planned for a long time," Gates said. "I don't think we'll have two carriers there for a protracted period of time. So I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."
He declined to elaborate on his remarks and provided no details about the deployment.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the second carrier arrived in the Gulf on Tuesday to replace one on duty that was expected to depart the region in two days.
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Jesse Jackson urges Haiti debt relief
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 29 (Reuters) - U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson called for urgent debt relief for Haiti on Tuesday to ease the burden of a food crisis that sparked violent protests in the impoverished Caribbean nation earlier this month.
Jackson said Haiti owed the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank about $1.5 billion, with debt service payments reaching some $70 million a year.
"We want this debt canceled and the people relieved of its burden," Jackson told a news conference at the presidential palace following a meeting with President Rene Preval.
"That money can be used and invested in roads, schools, bridges, health, houses and education," Jackson said.
He also vowed to help mobilize food assistance for poor Haitians, stung by rising prices and already low living standards in a country where most people survive on less than $2 per day.
Jackson spoke as he wound up a three-day fact-finding visit to Haiti. The visit was prompted by a recent week of riots and looting over food prices in which at least six people were killed.
Prices of Haitian staples such as rice, beans, wheat, flour, corn and cooking oil have at least doubled during the past six months.
The outspoken civil rights leader, who has made several trips to Haiti in the past, said U.S. lawmakers needed to declare "an emergency alert" on behalf of their Caribbean neighbor.
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White House undermines EPA on cancer risks, GAO says
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WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting nonscientists have a bigger - often secret - role, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The administration's decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program's credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.
At issue is the EPA's screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.
A new review process begun by the White House in 2004 is adding more speed bumps for EPA scientists, the GAO said in its report, which will be the subject of a Senate Environment Committee hearing Tuesday. A formal policy effectively doubling the number of steps was adopted two weeks ago.
Cancer risk assessments for nearly a dozen major chemicals are now years overdue, the GAO said, blaming the new multiagency reviews for some of the delay. The EPA, for example, had promised to prepare assessments on 10 major toxic chemicals for external peer review by the end of 2007, but only two reached that stage.
GAO investigators said extensive involvement by EPA managers, White House budget officials and other agencies has eroded the independence of EPA scientists charged with determining the health risks posed by chemicals.
The Pentagon, the Energy Department, NASA and other agencies - all of which could be severely affected by EPA risk findings - are being allowed to participate "at almost every step in the assessment process," said the GAO.
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US watchdog presses for mortgage rescues
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The US should fight the housing crisis by using low-cost government loans to help borrowers pay down unaffordable mortgages, Sheila Bair, one of the country’s top banking regulators, proposes.
Writing in the Financial Times on Wednesday, Ms Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, says the new government loans should cover up to 20 per cent of the value of the existing mortgages.
These loans, which would be interest-free for the first five years, would be used to pay down part of the existing mortgage. In return for the cash, lenders would reduce payments on the remaining part of the mortgage to affordable levels, defined as a proportion of income. They would also pay a fee to cover the government’s funding costs over the initial five-year period.
“Voluntary loan modifications have helped but it is not enough,” Ms Bair told the FT in an interview.
She said her plan allows the government “to leverage its lower borrowing costs to significantly reduce foreclosures with no expansion of contingent liabilities and very little net cost”.
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The US should fight the housing crisis by using low-cost government loans to help borrowers pay down unaffordable mortgages, Sheila Bair, one of the country’s top banking regulators, proposes.
Writing in the Financial Times on Wednesday, Ms Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, says the new government loans should cover up to 20 per cent of the value of the existing mortgages.
These loans, which would be interest-free for the first five years, would be used to pay down part of the existing mortgage. In return for the cash, lenders would reduce payments on the remaining part of the mortgage to affordable levels, defined as a proportion of income. They would also pay a fee to cover the government’s funding costs over the initial five-year period.
“Voluntary loan modifications have helped but it is not enough,” Ms Bair told the FT in an interview.
She said her plan allows the government “to leverage its lower borrowing costs to significantly reduce foreclosures with no expansion of contingent liabilities and very little net cost”.
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Powering Down the Patriot Act
In the wake of another damaging report detailing the bureau's abuse of its data-gathering power, Congress is seeking to limit the use of national security letters
Go to Mother Jones original
There's a move afoot on Capitol Hill to rein in some of the vast powers conferred upon government investigators by the Patriot Act, the infamous, hastily crafted law written in response to the 9/11 attacks. New legislation has been introduced in both houses of Congress intended to curb the FBI's ability to collect private data on virtually anybody using a tool called a national security letter (NSL). The bills come in the wake of yet another damaging FBI inspector general report on the bureau's abuse of its expanded authorities.
"The privacy of American citizens is a core value in our society," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former federal prosecutor and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, at an April 23 hearing on the FBI's use of NSLs. "I think this is our next really big civil liberties issue."
And addressing that issue may start with a bill, sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), which would both drastically limit the circumstances under which these secretive orders are issued and strictly regulate how the information obtained is handled by the FBI.
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Go to Mother Jones original
There's a move afoot on Capitol Hill to rein in some of the vast powers conferred upon government investigators by the Patriot Act, the infamous, hastily crafted law written in response to the 9/11 attacks. New legislation has been introduced in both houses of Congress intended to curb the FBI's ability to collect private data on virtually anybody using a tool called a national security letter (NSL). The bills come in the wake of yet another damaging FBI inspector general report on the bureau's abuse of its expanded authorities.
"The privacy of American citizens is a core value in our society," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a former federal prosecutor and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, at an April 23 hearing on the FBI's use of NSLs. "I think this is our next really big civil liberties issue."
And addressing that issue may start with a bill, sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), which would both drastically limit the circumstances under which these secretive orders are issued and strictly regulate how the information obtained is handled by the FBI.
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