US stocks dip in absence of 'fiscal cliff' deal

Label:





NEW YORK: US stocks fell Wednesday amid uncertainty about whether a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" could be reached by an end-of-year deadline.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 24.49 points (0.19 percent) to finish the session at 13,114.59.

The broad-market S&P 500 lost 6.83 points (0.48 percent) at 1,419.83, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 22.44 points (0.74 percent) at 2,990.16.

"Investors in the US returned to business in the midst of the omnipresent tick-tick-ticking of the fiscal cliff clock," said analysts with Charles Schwab & Co.

The White House and Congress have until the end of the month to reach a compromise on how to avert a year-end crisis that could lead to stiff tax hikes and drastic budget cuts.

Experts say a dive over the so-called "fiscal cliff" could drive the world's biggest economy back into recession.

Obama was to head back to the capital late Wednesday from a shortened family Christmas break in Hawaii, and lawmakers are also expected back in Washington on Thursday.

Stocks in focus during the midweek session included those of online video giant Netflix, which gained 0.47 percent in the wake of an outage of its online film streaming service on Christmas Eve. On Wednesday, Netflix blamed Amazon for the incident, which rents out computing power in datacenters in the Internet "cloud." Amazon dropped 3.86 percent.

US commodities and derivatives market InterContinentalExchange (ICE) and its transatlantic peer NYSE Euronext were down 0.03 percent and up 0.09 percent respectively, after at least one shareholder complaint was filed to contest their planned fusion, announced last week.

Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion meanwhile soared 11.5 percent, recovering after a plunge on Friday on investor fears that its new smartphone platform will thin the ranks paying for its service.

Tech heavyweight Apple meanwhile lost 1.4 percent.

Bond prices rose. The 10-year US Treasury yield fell to 1.76 percent from 1.77 percent late Monday, while the 30-year dipped to 2.93 percent from 2.94 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely. Markets were closed Tuesday in observance of Christmas Day.

-AFP/ac



Read More..

Manmohan congratulates Japan's new PM Shinzo Abe

Label:
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday congratulated Shinzo Abe, the new PM of Japan, on the victory of his Liberal Democratic Party in the general elections recently held in Japan. The PM underlined the importance of the strategic and global partnership between India and Japan and noted that Abe has been a key architect of this partnership, sources said.

He emphasized that the bilateral relationship between the two countries is of immense importance to ensure peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world. He also noted that the rapid growth in the bilateral economic engagement (through trade, investment and flagship projects) has brought rich dividends to both the countries.

Singh expressed confidence that Japan's economy will further prosper and Japan will play an important role in the world affairs under his leadership and emphasized on working with him for further strengthening India's relations with Japan.

Read More..

Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

Label:








































































































');

























































































































 $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_saleprice_t +'';
} else {
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
}
html += '
';

$("#ecom_43331 ul.ecommerce_all_img").append(html);




o.totItems++;

}// end for loop
} // end if data.response.numFound != 0

if(o.totItems != o.maxItems){
if(o.defaultItems.length > 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage && !o.searchComplete){
o.doSearchPage();
} else if(!o.searchComplete) {
o.byID = false;
o.doSearch();
}
}// end if
}// end parseResults function

o.trim = function(str) {
return str.replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
}

o.doSearchPage = function(){
o.byID = false;

var tempSearch = window.location.search;
var searchTerms ="default";
var temp;

if( tempSearch.substr(0,7) == "?search"){
temp = tempSearch.substr(7).split("&");
searchTerms = temp[0];
} else {
temp = tempSearch.split("&");
for(var j=0;j 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage){
o.doSearchPage();
} else {
o.doSearch();
}

}// end init function

}// end ecommerce object

var store_43331 = new ecommerce_43331();





store_43331.init();









































































































































































Read More..

WH Lashes Out at 'Congressional Stupidity'

Label:

With only days to come up with a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, the White House said “congressional stupidity” was damaging the economy but an agreement can be reached if Republican leaders don’t get in the way.


President Obama cut his Hawaiian vacation short and headed back to Washington today while the Senate is scheduled to reconvene on Thursday. House Speaker John Boehner said previously that he would give House members a 48 hour notice of any upcoming vote, which means that the soonest the House could consider a bill would be Saturday — just two days before a deadline to make a deal or trigger a rise in taxes and steep budget cuts.


Boehner, R-Ohio, and other GOP leaders issued a statement today following a conference call saying, “The House has acted on two bills which collectively would avert the entire fiscal cliff if enacted. Those bills await action by the Senate.  If the Senate will not approve and send them to the president to be signed into law in their current form, they must be amended and returned to the House.”


While Boehner put the onus on the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a White House official used testy language to  put the responsibility back on Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.


“What we need is for the Senate Minority Leader not to block a vote and for Boehner to allow a vote,” a White House official told ABC News. “The hits from our economy are not coming from outside factors they’re coming from Congressional stupidity.”


Reid’s plan would serve as a Democratic counterpart to Boehner’s plan B, which failed to gain enough support for a vote last week. Boehner left the ball in the Senate’s court after withdrawing  his plan Thursday.


Any plan from Reid is expected to include extending the Bush tax cuts for Americans making $250,000 or less.


Related: What if Bush tax cuts expire?


This has been a sticking point for the left and the right throughout discussions. Democrats believe that lower- and middle-class families should keep the  tax cut, while letting it expire for households making more than $250,000. Republicans counter that no Americans should be forced to pay higher taxes come Jan. 1, though Boehner’s plan would have required those making more than $1 million to lose the cut.


Reid could also propose cuts to tax deductions to generate more federal revenue.


Related: Can the mortgage deduction survive the fiscal cliff?


Michael Ettlinger, vice president for economic policy at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, said that would make his plan very similar to Obama’s.


“I think this is likely to go smaller more than bigger as they try to gather votes in the Senate,” Ettlinger told ABC News Wednesday. “The Democratic vision of things is fairly clear. Where the Senate Republicans are willing to go is less so. That’s going to be the issue.”


Dan Holler of conservative policy advocacy group Heritage Action for America expects the plan to include an extension of unemployment benefits, something he says would be “extremely counterproductive for the economy.”


Democrats “see it as one of the most stimulative things you can do,” Holler told ABC News Wednesday. “Heritage has great research to go ahead and say this doesn’t really help.”


Related: Fiscal Cliff negotiators search for cuts without sacrifice.


In addition to an immediate measure to stop taxes from going up, Holler suggested there would be a mechanism to compel leaders to do more further down the road, a method he said has not historically been effective at reducing the deficit.


“I think Republicans are going to look at the entire package skeptically,” Holler said of Reid’s expected plan.


Boehner press secretary Michael Steel told ABC News the speaker’s office “will take a look” at Reid’s proposal once he brings it up for a vote or shares his ideas with the House.


Garnering consensus among both parties will be difficult for any plan now. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is trying to bring D.C. politicians together with every coffee cup sold in the District.


Critics have called into question  Boehner’s ability to bring his own party together.


“It seems that, in the House now, Boehner has no control over his extreme right-wing faction,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on MSNBC Wednesday. “You have, over in the House, a situation where the Republicans are saying, ‘Hey, we don’t think billionaires should pay a nickel more in taxes, but we do think there should be devastating cuts in programs that are impacting working families who are already hurting as a result of the recession.’ So that’s the problem that we have.”


Read More..

Federal workers feel unease over potential layoffs, furloughs unleashed by ‘fiscal cliff’

Label:

Federal employees have been skeptical for months that the biggest cuts to government spending in history could really happen. But with the “fiscal cliff” a week away, workers are now growing increasingly alarmed that their jobs and their missions could be on the line.


President Obama and members of Congress headed out of town late last week for a Christmas break without reaching a deal to avoid $110 billion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts, which would hamstring operations ranging from weather forecasting and air traffic control to the purchase of spare parts for weapons systems. So civil servants are bracing for the blow, wondering whether their work will be upended — and whether they may be forced to take unpaid days off.


“This could change day by day,” said Antonio Webb, 25, who works in the mail service that handles correspondence for the Department of Homeland Security. “You could come into work and the next day they say, ‘We don’t need you because we have to cut so much.’ ”

Many federal workers have become jaded after a two-year pay freeze and congressional fights over spending that keep agencies lurching from one stopgap budget to another. Until recently, few employees thought it could come to this: Budget cuts of 8 to 10 percent divided equally between military and domestic agencies. Only a few programs, like Social Security, veterans benefits and some services for the poor, are exempted.

“Sure, we continue to do our jobs,” said Carl Eichenwald, who works in enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency. “But all of this uncertainty is disruptive for our mission. A lot of time gets spent spinning wheels. We won’t know whether we can do inspections. Do we have 100 percent of our budget, or 85 percent?”

Top congressional aides said Monday that discussions of how to avert the fiscal cliff had come to a virtual standstill. Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had not spoken since Friday.

Each side in the negotiations urged the other to come up with a way around the impasse. A senior Democratic aide said Boehner needs to return from the holiday with a “cleared head and a readiness to deal.” The aide said that there is no time for Democrats to unilaterally advance a bill in the Senate, adding that they can press forward with legislation only if they are assured by Republican leaders of GOP support.

A senior Senate Republican aide insisted, however, that it is now up to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats to figure out what they can pass in the Senate without worrying about the Republican-controlled House.

As the year-end deadline approaches, federal employees have been told very little by their bosses about how their agencies are preparing to carry out huge spending reductions.

“It seemed like we were almost immune to thinking that something real was going to come of it,” said Fernando Cutz, an analyst for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Then came an e-mailed memo on Thursday from agency heads to employees. The cuts would be “significant and harmful to our collective mission.” Furloughs “or other personnel actions” — layoffs — remain a real possibility.

Read More..

Hawkish Abe to be named Japan's next prime minister

Label:





TOKYO: Japan's conservative leader Shinzo Abe is to be named as the country's new prime minister Wednesday, after he swept to power on a hawkish platform of getting tough on diplomacy while fixing the economy.

The powerful lower house will name the 58-year-old as leader in an extraordinary session Wednesday afternoon, following a resounding national election victory for his Liberal Democratic Party earlier this month.

As Japan's seventh premier in less than seven years, Abe will replace outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda whose Democratic Party of Japan suffered a stinging defeat at the polls.

The party, which came to power in 2009, was seen as being punished for policy flip-flops and its clumsy handling of last year's atomic disaster at Fukushima.

Noda's cabinet is to resign en masse Wednesday morning before the LDP-controlled lower house names Abe as Japan's leader.

Abe, who previously served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007, is expected to form a new cabinet later in the day as he rushes to draft an extra budget to spur the nation's flagging economy.

Japanese media have suggested Abe was likely to tap close associates and senior party members for key posts.

Taro Aso, another former prime minister in Japan's revolving-door political system, was widely expected to be named as both Abe's deputy and also finance minister, the reports said.

Japan's new foreign minister was likely to be Fumio Kishida, 55, who served as a state minister in charge of Okinawan affairs under Abe's previous tenure.

The expected appointment was seen as a reflection of Abe's desire for progress on the relocation of US military bases in the southern island chain.

Sadakazu Tanigaki, the head of the LDP when the party was in opposition after ruling Japan for most of the past six decades, is tipped to become the country's justice minister, the reports said.

Abe won conservative support with nationalistic pronouncements on diplomacy in the midst of a territorial row with Beijing over a group of East China Sea islands, saying Japan would stand firm on its claim to the chain.

But he quickly toned down the campaign rhetoric and has said he wants improved ties with China, Japan's biggest trading partner.

Abe called for a solution through what he described as "patient exchanges".

The new leader, whose key campaign platform was reviving the world's third-largest economy, has also said he would look at revising Japan's post-war pacifist constitution, alarming officials in China and South Korea.

He vowed to pressure the Bank of Japan for further easing measures to boost growth, while also promising big government spending to spur the economy.

Analysts said Abe was likely to hold off drastic policy measures ahead of upper house elections next year, while the LDP's moderate junior coalition partner New Komeito could balance his right-leaning instincts.

-AFP/ac



Read More..

i-age protests rob govt comfort zone

Label:
NEW DELHI: Frequent street mobilization with participation of politically non-aligned public has left parties and governments bereft of the comfort of not being seriously questioned or held to account in between elections when voters express their anger through the ballot.

Activists and opposition leaders argue that the response of the government to a swiftly developing situation like the one that unfolded in Delhi over the past week shows that the Centre announced a slew of measures only after being brought under intense pressure.

Although the government appeared to be reactive rather than proactive, it has had to respond in a manner that its predecessors did not consider necessary. The trigger for this was the toll the protests took of government's credibility.

Aam Aadmi Party member Yogendra Yadav hit out at the government accusing it of lacking political skills to respond to the public's anger and disappointment. "The government has shown itself to be particularly short-sighted. The people in the political establishment lack political skills. They should have anticipated the people's emotion much earlier and responded to it," he said.

I&B minister Manish Tewari defended the government, saying, "We understand the anguish and concern of the protestors. However, violence is neither a solution nor an end in itself. It is indeed unfortunate that a law enforcement officer succumbed to the depredations of the protest. The government has taken a series of measures for the quick prosecution of the crime which no civilized society countenances or tolerates as well as measures to address the systemic problem of the security and safety of women."

Yadav also found PM Manmohan Singh's speech wanting on several fronts. "If you say on Day 1 that you have three daughters, it has some meaning. But to say it Day 8, it is just a joke. The government has state power and they have used it to put down a peaceful protest," he added.

CPM leader Brinda Karat said the incident had only demonstrated the lack of political will on the part of the government. "There is total drift and lack of political direction on the part of the government whether it is PM's ineffectual speech or home minister's remarks," she said.

Karat, who led a delegation of women's groups to meet President Pranab Mukherjee a day earlier, said there were small but critical steps like taking action against buses with tinted glasses that the government had not done so far. "This was an occasion when the top cop should have taken responsibility," she added.

Read More..

Photos: Humboldt Squid Have a Bad Day at the Beach

Label:

Photograph by Chris Elmenhurst, Surf the Spot Photography

“Strandings have been taking place with increased frequency along the west coast over the past ten years,” noted NOAA’s Field, “as this population of squid seems to be expanding its range—likely a consequence of climate change—and can be very abundant at times.” (Learn about other jumbo squid strandings.)

Humboldt squid are typically found in warmer waters farther south in theGulf of California (map) and off the coast ofPeru. “[But] we find them up north here during warmer water time periods,” said ocean sciences researcherKenneth Bruland with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).

Coastal upwelling—when winds blowing south drive ocean circulation to bring cold, nutrient-rich waters up from the deep—ceases during the fall and winter and warmer water is found closer to shore. Bruland noted that climate change, and the resulting areas of low oxygen, “could be a major factor” in drawing jumbo squid north.

Published December 24, 2012

Read More..

Gunman Killed Firemen With Bushmaster, Left Note

Label:











A convicted killer, who shot dead two firefighters with a Bushmaster assault rifle after leading them into an ambush when they responded to a house fire he set in Western New York, left behind a typewritten note saying he wanted to "do what I like doing best, killing people," police said.


William Spengler, 62, set his home and a car on fire early Monday morning with the intention of setting a trap to kill firefighters and to see "how much of the neighborhood I can burn down," according to the note he wrote and which police found at the scene. The note did not give a reason for his actions.


Spengler, who served 18 years in prison for beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer in 1981, hid Monday morning in a small ditch beside a tree overlooking the sleepy lakeside street in Webster, N.Y., where he lived with his sister, police said today in a news conference.


Police said they found remains in the house, believed to be that of the sister, Cheryl Spengler, 67.


As firefighters arrived on the scene after a 5:30 a.m. 911 call on the morning of Christmas Eve, Spengler opened fire on them with the Bushmaster, the same semi-automatic, military-style weapon used in the Dec. 14 rampage killing of 20 children in Newtown, Conn.




"This was a clear ambush on first responders… Spengler had armed himself heavily and taken area of cover," said Gerald Pickering, the chief of the Webster Police Department.


Armed with a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a Mossman 12-gauge shotgun, and the Bushmaster, Spengler killed two firefighters, and injured two more as well as an off-duty police officer at the scene.


As a convicted felon, Spengler could not legally own a firearm and police are investigating how he obtained the weapons.


One firefighter tried to take cover in his fire engine and was killed with a gunshot through the windshield, Pickering said.


Responding police engaged in a gunfight with Spengler, who ultimately died, likely by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.


As police engaged the gunman, more houses along Lake Ontario were engulfed, ultimately razing seven of them. Some 33 people in adjoining homes were displaced by the fire.


SWAT teams were forced to evacuate residents using armored vehicles.


Police identified the two slain firefighter as Lt. Michael Chiapperini, a 20-year veteran of the Webster Police Department and "lifetime firefighter," according to Pickering, and Tomasz Kaczowka, who also worked as a 911 dispatcher.


Two other firefighters were wounded and remain the intensive care unit at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.


Joseph Hofsetter was shot once. He sustained an injury to his pelvis and has "a long road to recovery," said Dr. Nicole A. Stassen, a trauma physician.


The second firefighter, Theodore Scardino, was shot twice and received injuries to his left shoulder and left lung, as well as a knee.



Read More..

Son of late icon Kennedy rules out US Senate run

Label:





WASHINGTON: A son of late political icon Edward Kennedy said Monday he will not run for the US Senate in Massachusetts -- the same state his father represented for nearly five decades -- US media reported.

Edward Kennedy Jr's brother, former US representative Patrick Kennedy, had said over the weekend that the health care lawyer was seriously considering running for the US Senate seat that John Kerry will vacate if he is confirmed as secretary of state.

But Kennedy Jr, who lives in neighboring Connecticut, denied in a statement that he was seeking public office in Massachusetts.

"Although I have a strong desire to serve in public office, I consider Connecticut to be my home, and I hope to have the honor to serve at another point in my future," the 51-year-old said in the text cited by CNN.

Kennedy, who also owns a house at his family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, said he was "extremely grateful for all the offers of support" of a potential run, and left the door open to running "at another point in my future."

A source familiar with his decision said Kennedy had ruled out a run because he did not want to uproot his family, did not feel right about moving from Connecticut to Massachusetts to run for the seat and Connecticut officials have urged him to stay for a later political campaign there, according to the Globe.

"He really wants to run," an unnamed family friend told CNN. "He just thinks this isn't the way to do it. Uprooting his family right now doesn't make sense."

If Kennedy had run, he likely would have had to face outgoing Republican Senator Scott Brown, who was defeated last month in his bid to be re-elected to the seat left vacant when the late Edward Kennedy died in 2009.

Just six weeks after Democratic consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren defeated Brown in the November election, President Barack Obama nominated Kerry on Friday to be his secretary of state.

If Kerry is confirmed in the post, Brown is expected to vie for his Senate seat. Among Democrats, US Representatives Michael Capuano and Ed Markey have hinted at a possible run.

-AFP/ac



Read More..

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)