Free Internet Press Newsletter - Thursday August 16 2007 - (813)

Thursday August 16 2007 edition
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Asian Market Continue Slump In Thursday Trading 2007-08-16 03:06:59 Asian stocks tumbled on Thursday, heading for their biggest daily fall since the attacks on the United States in September 2001, as persistent fears about a global credit squeeze sapped investor appetite for risky assets. The yen jumped to five-month highs as currency carry trades were unwound, while emerging market bonds, stocks and currencies were dumped in favor of safe-haven government bonds amid worries about spreading U.S. subprime mortgage problems. "The subprime issue will probably take months to play out so trading is going to be very nervous for a while," said Eric Betts, equities strategist at Nomura Australia. "Anyone who has a financial interest, like a bank or a fund, may have some unexploded mines waiting to go off, so people are bailing out ahead of time." Read The Full Story Approved Home Loans No Longer A Done Deal 2007-08-16 03:06:27 Joy Siegel, a Bethesda, Maryland, lawyer who handles home-sale closings, uses a spreadsheet to track which mortgage lenders are filing for bankruptcy protection these days. "It's getting incredibly nerve-wracking for us," said Siegel, president of Settlement Pros. "There are banks I haven't even heard of, pages and pages of them, who have stopped making loans." Investors were rattled Wednesday after a stock analyst predicted that the nation's largest mortgage lender might soon do the same. Shares in Countrywide Financial fell 13 percent after a Merrill Lynch report raised the possibility that the lender could be approaching bankruptcy. The stocks of other financial firms with investments in mortgages, including KKR Financial Holdings and Scottish Re Group, were also battered because of fears that the mortgage problem is metastasizing. These problems are unfolding in an extremely fragmented industry, which is why it has become difficult for people who are buying or selling homes, and the professionals working with them, to figure out which lenders they can depend on to close a deal. Read The Full Story Strong Quake Kills At Least 17 In Peru 2007-08-16 03:05:35 A powerful earthquake shook Peru's coast near the capital on Wednesday, toppling some buildings and killing at least 17  people. Authorities said the quake generated a tsunami but it wasn't destructive. Health Minister Carlos Vallejos said there were 17 confirmed deaths in southern Peru, but Civil Defense put the death toll at 22 without providing details. Peru's highly respected Cable news station Canal N reported that the 7.9 magnitude quake had caused a church to collapse in the city of Ica south of Lima, killing 17 people and injuring 70. The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake hit at 6:40 p.m. (7:40 p.m. EDT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima at a depth of about 25 miles. Four strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of 5.4 to 5.9 were felt afterward. Read The Full Story FDA Warns Parents On Cold Medicines 2007-08-16 03:04:57 Hoping to halt the growing number of injuries to infants and toddlers, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory Wednesday warning parents never to give cough and cold medicines to children under the age of 2 unless instructed to do so by a doctor. The warning is part of a broad reassessment by the agency of the safety of the popular medicines, which have been blamed for hundreds of adverse reactions and a handful of deaths in children under the age of 2. The F.D.A. will convene a panel of independent experts on Oct. 18 to discuss whether more prohibitions or warnings are warranted. Such meetings often signal that the agency is seriously concerned about the safety of the drugs under review. The drugs’ labels currently advise parents to see a doctor before giving the medicines if their child is under the age of 2, but too many parents are failing to heed this advice, said the agency. Read The Full Story Breaking News: Three Major Earthquakes Strike Peru 2007-08-15 20:50:15 Three Major Earthquakes Strike Peru Three major earthquakes struck Peru on Wednesday evening - a magnitude 7.7, then two magnitude 7.5 quakes a moment later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The first two quakes struck offshore, while the third was on land. There were power outages in Lima, the capital, and people ran onto the streets in panic as the quakes shook office buildings, Reuters reported. Read The Full Story Property Crisis In U.S. Deepens 2007-08-15 20:49:54 The crisis gripping America's property market was bared Wednesday in figures showing a slump in home sales and a collapse in confidence among builders. Defaults on U.S. home loans have caused a credit crunch which is reverberateing around the world as billions of dollars in liabilities flow through the global financial system. Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic swung wildly from hour to hour. In London, England, after dropping by 100 points at one stage, the FTSE 100 index closed down 34 at 6,109. In New York, a late plunge sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 167 points to 12,861, below 13,000 for the first time since April. Poorer households in America are struggling to keep up repayments on risky, so-called sub-prime mortgages. The National Association of Home Builders said sentiment in the construction industry was at its lowest for 16 years. Its index of confidence, with a midpoint of 50 for a neutral outlook, fell 2 points to 24 during July. Estate agents painted a similar picture. Quarterly sales of existing homes dropped by 10.8% according to the National Association of Realtors, with falls in 41 of America's 50 states. Read The Full Story Giuliani: Palestinian State Would Endanger U.S. 2007-08-15 20:49:21 A leading Republican presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, has declared he is against the creation of a Palestinian state at present because it would "support terrorism" and endanger U.S. security. He underscored his uncompromising approach to foreign policy by adding he would be prepared to destroy Iran's nuclear plants "should all else fail". In an interview with Foreign Affairs magazine, Giuliani said "too much emphasis" had been placed on promoting negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Article continues The U.S. president, George Bush, has said he supports a two-state solution and leaders of Israel and the Palestinians met last week to discuss "fundamental issues" ahead of the creation of a Palestinian state. Read The Full Story Countrywide Financial Corp. Cut By Merrill, Bankruptcy Possible 2007-08-15 14:31:34 Countrywide Financial Corp shares fell as much as 9.2 percent Wednesday after the largest U.S. mortgage lender was downgraded to "sell" from "buy" by a Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst, who said bankruptcy might be possible if liquidity worsens. The downgrade by analyst Kenneth Bruce came a day after Calabasas, California-based Countrywide said foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies in July had risen to their highest levels since at least early 2002. That helped send Countrywide shares down 8.1 percent. "If enough financial pressure is placed on Countrywide, or if the market loses confidence in its ability to function properly, then the model can break, leading to an effective insolvency," Bruce wrote, according to a person who has seen the report. "If liquidations occur in a weak market, then it is possible for Countrywide to go bankrupt." Countrywide did not immediately return a call for comment. Read The Full Story Death Toll Rises To 250 In Iraq Suicide Bombings 2007-08-15 14:30:21 The death toll following a series of bomb attacks on two Iraqi villages near the Syrian border rose to 250 Wednesday, with 300 to 350 wounded, and the number of dead could rise further as rescuers continued to dig through the rubble, said local Iraqi officials. The authorities could still not estimate the full magnitude of the attack because there were areas with collapsed houses that the recovery workers had not yet been able to reach. Four truck bombs exploded in the two villages in a Kurdish-speaking district of the country on Tuesday, destroying houses and sending the hundreds of wounded to at least six hospitals as far as 150 miles away, the authorities said. In the hours after the blasts, victims were still buried in dusty rubble as American helicopters ferried away the wounded. “Half the houses are completely collapsed because they were made from clay,” said Capt. Mohammed Ahmad of the Iraqi Army’s 3rd Division. He said scores of families were obliterated in the blast that wiped out a market and a bus station. Read The Full Story China Announces Media Crackdown 2007-08-15 14:29:49 China Wednesday disclosed a crackdown on “false news reports, unauthorized publications and bogus journalists,” two months before the opening of the politically sensitive Communist Party congress, which is held once every five years. The crackdown, confirmed by the government’s official web site, comes after a television journalist was given a one-year prison sentence and a $130 fine on Sunday for allegedly fabricating a story about Beijing dumpling makers that were said to use cardboard as filler. According to The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and the State Press and Publication Administration together warned that, “Those who intentionally fabricated news that caused public anxiety and tarnished the nation’s image would be harshly dealt with or even prosecuted if they broke the law.” “Their news organizations would also be penalized,” added the newspaper. Read The Full Story	Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites To Grow, Other Tech Tools To Grow 2007-08-16 03:06:45 Law Enforcement Getting New Access To Secret Imagery The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers. A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security  will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance. Administration officials say the program will give domestic security and emergency preparedness agencies new capabilities in dealing with a range of threats, from illegal immigration and terrorism to hurricanes and forest fires, but the program, described Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, quickly provoked opposition from civil liberties advocates, who said the government is crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement. Read The Full Story Early Clash Over Progress Report On Iraq War - Specifics Are At Issue 2007-08-16 03:06:05 Senior congressional aides said Wednesday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense. White House officials did not deny making the proposal in informal talks with Congress, but they said yesterday that they will not shield the commanding general in Iraq and the senior U.S. diplomat there from public congressional testimony required by the war-funding legislation President Bush signed in May. "The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in response to questions Wednesday. The skirmishing is an indication of the rising anxiety on all sides in the remaining few weeks before the presentation of what is widely considered a make-or-break assessment of Bush's war strategy, and one that will come amid rising calls for a drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq. Read The Full Story As U.S. Steps Up Pressure On Iran, Allies Worry About The Aftereffects 2007-08-16 03:05:20 America's allies are increasingly concerned about the Bush administration's plans to unilaterally escalate pressure on Iran, fearing that an evolving strategy may also set in motion a process that could lead to military action if Iran does not back down, according to diplomats and officials of foreign countries. Although they share deep concern about Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions, European and Arab governments are particularly alarmed about new U.S. moves, including plans to cite Iran's entire Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "specially designated global terrorist." The move would block the elite unit's assets and pressure foreign companies doing business with its vast commercial network. Allies are less concerned about that step than they are about the new momentum behind it, and the potential for spillover in a region reeling with multiple conflicts. "If the region is strewn with crises, then there's potential for real disaster. There's a fear that they will all merge into a super-emergency bigger than any one country can deal with," a leading Arab envoy said. Read The Full Story UPDATE: Peru Capital, Lima, Rocked By Earthquakes 2007-08-15 21:57:21 Intellpuke: I've posted two article here. The first is by BBC News and below it, is an article by Fairfax Media with input by Reuters. Here's the BBC News article: An earthquake of magnitude at least 7.5 has hit Peru, centred 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital, Lima, the U.S. Geological Survey reports. It hit near the town of Chincha Alta, and was 40 kilometers (25 miles) below the earth's surface, the USGS said. The force of the quake shook buildings in the capital in two bursts of about 20 seconds each, witnesses said, and caused some power failures. A tsunami warning has been issued for Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia. Read The Full Story U.S. Army Suicides Highest In 26 Years 2007-08-15 20:50:04 U.S. Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report. The report, obtained by the Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since the 102 suicides in 1991. "Iraq was the most common deployment location for both (suicides) and attempts," said the report. The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars and 71 who weren't. About twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war, said the report. Read The Full Story Environmental Group Says Some Baby Bibs Contain Lead 2007-08-15 20:49:37 Some vinyl baby bibs made in China and sold at Toys "R'" Us stores contain lead levels well above federal safety limits for lead in paint, a California environmental group said Wednesday. A bib with "Winnie the Pooh" characters and store-brand bibs sold under the Koala Baby and Especially for Baby labels all tested positive for lead in concentrations three to four times what the Environmental Protection Agency allows in paint, according to the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, California. The group bought the four bibs at San Francisco Bay-area Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Stores and contracted with a private lab that specializes in product safety to perform the tests. "There's plenty of ways to make bibs without lead," said Caroline Cox, the center's research director. "I don't think we should be exposing children to this toxic metal unnecessarily." Read The Full Story U.S. Considers Terrorist Label For Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps 2007-08-15 14:31:48 The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday. If imposed, the declaration would signal a more confrontational turn in the administration’s approach to Iran and would be the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations. The Revolutionary Guard is thought to be the largest branch of Iran’s military. While the United States has long labeled Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, a decision to single out the guard would amount to an aggressive new challenge from an American administration that has recently seemed conflicted over whether to take a harder line against Tehran over its nuclear program and what American officials have called its destabilizing role in Iraq. According to European diplomats, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned of the move in recent conversations with European counterparts, saying that a delay in efforts to win approval from the United Nations Security Council for further economic sanctions on Iran was leaving the administration with little choice but unilateral action. Read The Full Story California's Gun I.D. Bill Aims At Illegal Weapons Market 2007-08-15 14:30:41 Proposed state legislation in California would require that new handguns imprint information on shell casings. Opponents say the procedure would be susceptible to tampering. A proposed state bill requiring all new handguns to be stamped with microscopic identification tags could significantly decrease violence and shut down the illegal gun market if passed, proponents said in a news conference Tuesday. The Crime Gun Identification Act, AB 1471, would require that lasers be used to create a "microstamp" of each gun's make, model and serial number that would become imprinted onto shell casings when a bullet is fired. The technology was demonstrated Tuesday by its co-inventor, Todd Lizotte, at the Los Angeles Police Academy. The microstamp is designed to help law enforcement officials trace shell casings back to a gun's registered owner, said Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), who wrote the bill. Opponents of AB 1471 - mostly gun lobbyists, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - believe the technology is vulnerable to tampering and does not prevent unlicensed criminals from using the stamped guns. Read The Full Story Russian Officials: Bomb Derailed Passenger Train 2007-08-15 14:30:03 A bomb set along railroad tracks exploded and derailed a passenger train Monday night between Moscow and St. Petersburg, wounding scores of passengers and shutting down service on one of Russia's busiest rail lines. No one was killed, but at least six people were seriously wounded, and the authorities suggested that passengers had been spared in part by luck. The bomb exploded as the train was traveling near a section of track that crosses a bridge 60 feet above a road, but the train cleared the bridge before it derailed, and the cars slid onto their sides without falling down the slope or onto the road below. At least 60 of the more than 230 people on board the train were wounded, the authorities said. One railway official said on national television that 90 people had been treated. Read The Full Story
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