Free Internet Press Newsletter - Saturday January 10 2009 - (813)

Saturday January 10 2009 edition
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Israel, Hamas Reject U.N. Cease-Fire Resolution 2009-01-09 16:59:11 Israel and Hamas on Friday rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling the plan "unworkable" and a Hamas official saying it "does not take the Palestinian interest into consideration." The Israeli military continued its assault on the Palestinian territory, shelling more than 50 targets overnight, and Hamas responded Friday by firing at least a dozen rockets into southern Israel. "The firing of rockets this morning only goes to show that the U.N. decision is unworkable and will not be adhered to by the murderous Palestinian organizations," Olmert said in a statement. He said the Israeli military "would go on defending citizens." A Hamas official in Beirut, Osama Hamdan, complained to news services that the discussions about the cease-fire did not include Hamas and the resolution does not deal with the issues of opening the border crossings or ending the Israeli incursion. Hamas, he said, "is not interested in it because it does not meet the demands of the movement." The 15-nation U.N. Security Council adopted its resolution Thursday by a vote of 14 to 0. The United States abstained, although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. government supported the text and objectives of the resolution. The U.N. also suspended humanitarian aid deliveries on Friday in Gaza, citing Israeli attacks on its facilities and personnel. Read The Full Story Illinois House Impeaches Gov. Blagojevich 2009-01-09 16:58:46 The Illinois House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Friday to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) for abuse of power, setting up a trial in the state Senate that could remove him from office. The House voted 114 to 1 to impeach Blagojevich a day after a special committee unanimously recommended impeachment following hearings on a variety of allegations, including federal corruption charges that led to his arrest last month. Among other alleged offenses, Blagojevich was accused in an FBI affidavit of conspiring last year to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. In a separate development Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court cleared the way for former state attorney general Roland W. Burris to assume Obama's vacated Senate seat for the remaining two years of his term. The court ruled that the Illinois secretary of state does not need to sign Burris' appointment to make it valid. Blagojevich appointed Burris as Obama's Senate replacement Dec. 30 in defiance of Democrats in Illinois and on Capitol Hill. Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White refused to certify the appointment, and Senate Democrats vowed to block Burris from taking the seat. However, Democratic leaders have relented in recent days, indicating they would be guided in part by the state Supreme Court's ruling. The court said nothing in state law requires White's signature on the governor's appointment of Burris. Read The Full Story Jobs Report Causes Slide On Wall Street 2009-01-09 16:58:08 Wall Street took a turn downward in the last hour Friday. Stock markets has struggled all day, falling on news that unemployment had jumped to its highest point in 16 years. The job losses fell short of the direst predictions, and they did not set off a breathless cascade of selling like the routs of mid-November. In early afternoon trading, shares tried to regain those losses, but that fell short and the sellers took over. At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down about 140 points, or 1.6 percent, while the wider Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 2.1 percent. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite, which had risen sharply on Thursday, fell 2.8 percent. On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment rose to 7.2 percent in December, from a revised 6.8 percent in November. Employers cut 2.6 million jobs in 2008, some 524,000 in December alone. “The numbers confirm what we already know - that the economy’s in a lot of trouble,” said Ryan Detrick, an analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “The question is whether the Fed’s done enough to bring us out of this malaise. There’s a lot of uncertainty out here right now.” Read The Full Story Gallup Poll: Majority Of Americans Back Stimulus Package 2009-01-09 16:57:21 A narrow majority of Americans favor the Democratic leadership's efforts to put a $775 billion economic stimulus package on President-elect Barack Obama's desk quickly after he takes office. A Gallup poll released Thursday found 53 percent in favor of such a bill, 36 percent opposed. Broader majorities backed several specific components of Obama's plan - including tax cuts for individuals, families and businesses and increased spending on infrastructure - while fewer were in favor of expanded aid to state governments. Along party lines, Democrats expressed broadest support for the overall plan (67 percent), followed by a slim majority of independents who backed it (54 percent); 34 percent of Republicans said they support the bill. Ideological leanings, however, further divide the Republican Party. Moderate and liberal Republicans were about evenly split on the plan (46 percent in favor, 44 percent opposed), while conservative Republicans tilted heavily against the package (68 percent opposed it). Turning to the policies that may make up such a plan, more than seven in 10 told Gallup's pollsters they backed job creation via spending on infrastructure (78 percent favor), tax cuts for businesses to encourage job creation (75 percent) and tax cuts of up to $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals (72 percent). Read The Full Story Somali Pirates Free Saudi Super Tanker 2009-01-09 16:56:58 Somali pirates freed a Saudi supertanker seized in the world's biggest ship hijacking for a $3 million ransom on Friday, an associate of the gang said. The capture of the Sirius Star and its $100 million cargo of crude in November drew attention to a surge in piracy off Somalia that has brought global navies rushing to protect one of the world's most important shipping lanes. Farah Osman, speaking to Reuters from Haradheere port near where the tanker had been held, said the pirates had wanted more money but finally agreed $3 million for the ship. A regional maritime group confirmed the release. "The last batch of gunmen have disembarked from the Sirius Star. She is now steaming out to safe waters," said Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers Assistance program, based in the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Read The Full Story	Salmonella Outbreak Hits Across U.S. 2009-01-09 16:58:56 A nationwide salmonella outbreak that has struck 42 states has put about one in five of its victims in the hospital, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Nearly 400 people have become ill in the outbreak that might have killed one person. An elderly woman in Minnesota had the infection when she died, although it's not clear that salmonella was the cause, a health department spokesman there said. The same type of salmonella bacteria has been lab-confirmed in 388 cases nationwide, said the CDC, which is leading the investigation but has not yet released the list of states or determined which foods may have caused people to become sick. However, health officials in California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Ohio have confirmed cases. Ohio and California reported the most, with 51 cases each. Nationally, all the illnesses began between Sept. 3 and Dec. 29, but most of the people grew sick after Oct. 1. Read The Full Story U.S. Supreme Court To Rule On Voting Rights Act 2009-01-09 16:58:29 The Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether Congress went too far in extending the life of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights legislation now being challenged as antiquated in an America that elected an African-American president. The court will decide the constitutionality of the central provision of the act, which seeks to protect minority voting rights by requiring a broad subset of the nation's states and jurisdictions to receive federal approval before making any changes to its voting procedures. In addition, the court accepted another case that will examine the role of race in public life. Justices said they will also hear a discrimination lawsuit filed by white firefighters who are challenging a city's decision to throw out a promotion exam because not enough black applicants scored well on the test. The Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, at a time when literacy tests and other schemes were routinely used, especially in parts of the deep South, to intimidate and exclude black voters. It has been expanded to include other minorities and its duration extended four times, mostly recently in 2006 by overwhelming congressional majorities. Read The Full Story U.S. Jobless Rate Jumps To 7.2 Percent In December 2009-01-09 16:57:59 The U.S. economy shed 524,000 jobs in December, completing a year of declining employment and labor market weakness that is beginning to rival some of the country's steepest recessions. The unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent, from 6.8 percent. New data from the Labor Department showed that during the past year U.S. employers have eliminated 2.6 million jobs, swelling the ranks of the jobless to more than 11 million people. Nearly 2 million jobs have been eliminated in the past four months alone. The drop in employment spread throughout the economy, with both the manufacturing and service sectors shrinking their payrolls. Only education and health service companies and government increased hiring. Job losses are expected to continue in coming months, and President-elect Barack Obama Thursday said the unemployment rate threatens to reach double digits in the absence of new government spending programs. Read The Full Story U.S. Consumer Credit Falls By Record Amount In November 2009-01-09 16:57:10 Consumers cut back on their borrowing by a record amount in dollar terms in November, another sign of trouble for the rapidly weakening economy. The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that borrowing through credit cards and other consumer loans dropped $7.94 billion in November, the biggest decline in 65 years of record-keeping. That also was much larger than the $500 million decline economists expected, and left total consumer credit outstanding at $2.57 trillion. The drop represented a decline of 3.7 percent at an annual rate from October, the biggest fall in percentage terms since a 4.3 percent plunge in January 1998. Analysts are worried the economy's troubles could trigger a major retrenchment by consumers that will make the current recession, already the longest in a quarter-century, even worse. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of total economic output. Read The Full Story Hearst Looks To Sell, Or Close, Seattle Newspaper 2009-01-09 16:56:38 The Hearst Corporation will stop printing the Seattle Post-Intelligencer unless it can find a buyer in the next 60 days, company executives told the newspaper’s employees on Friday. Steven R. Swartz, president of the company’s Hearst Newspapers division, flew from the corporate headquarters in New York to deliver the news, at a newsroom meeting convened shortly after noon in Seattle, standing alongside Roger Oglesby, the publisher, and David McCumber, the managing editor. “Swartz said Hearst is selling the P-I, beginning a 60-day process, at the end of which they will no longer continue to print the Seattle P-I if there is no buyer,” said one journalist who was present and requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing the executives. “They may go to all-digital with a much-reduced staff, or they may cease entirely.” The prospects of a sale appear poor, considering the paucity of people willing to buy into a declining industry, while the economy is in recession. Many newspapers have been offered for sale in the last year but have not sold, drawing very few offers, and at prices the owners deemed to low - including such well-known names like the Chicago Sun-Times and the Miami Herald. Read The Full Story
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