Gunfire erupted in Ivory Coast’s main city Saturday morning just blocks from the presidential palace, as fighters loyal to the internationally recognized president sought to remove the incumbent who refuses to cede power.
An AP journalist heard gunfire and explosions Saturday morning about two city blocks from Laurent Gbagbo’s presidential palace in Abidjan.
Rebels loyal to internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara made a lightning advance through the country this week, seizing the administrative capital on Wednesday before heading to Abidjan, the country’s largest city.
Gbagbo has rejected calls to step down. His aides said Friday they will never give in, even though nearly 80 percent of the country and now large swaths of Abidjan are controlled by fighters loyal to Ouattara.
Gbagbo, 65, has not been seen in public since the offensive began, but those in his inner circle said Friday he was still in Abidjan and would fight until the end. Ouattara has ordered land and sea borders closed to seal all the exits in case Gbagbo attempts to flee.
Ouattara’s victory with 54 percent of the vote was recognized first by the country’s electoral commission and then by the United Nations. He has been recognized by governments around the world, and leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to French President Nicolas Sarkozy have made personal appeals to Gbagbo to step down.
For most of the standoff, it was Gbagbo’s security forces that committed abuses against civilians, according to visits to local morgues by The Associated Press, eyewitness reports by AP reporters and photographers, and interviews with Ivorians and human rights officials. Those reports bolstered Ouattara’s international stature, and his supporters only recently started to arm themselves and fight back.
That could change now that Ouattara has accepted help from a northern-based rebel group, whose members make up the majority of the fighters assaulting Abidjan.
On Saturday, aid workers and other sources said hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers are based in the western Ivory Coast town where the International Committee of the Red Cross said more than 800 people were massacred.
Red Cross spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said “communal violence” erupted in Duekoue, apparently on Tuesday. The area has been a hotbed for conflict between two tribes, one that supports Ouattara and the other, Gbagbo.
The day before the killings, on Monday, Duekoue was taken by the fighters loyal to Ouattara.
Ouattara’s government Saturday denied those fighters were involved in any atrocities, and blamed any killings on Gbagbo forces acting as they retreated. Their statement did not refer specifically to Duekoue.
Krimitsas said Red Cross teams visited Duekoue Friday and saw a “huge number of bodies.”
At least 1 million people have fled Abidjan and 494 have been killed during the four months of violence waged by Gbagbo’s security forces. Early on, world leaders offered him amnesty and a golden parachute in return for leaving peacefully. The U.N. has said his regime will be investigated for possible crimes against humanity.
__
Associated Press writer Michelle Faul contributed to this story from Johannesburg.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told lawmakers Thursday that the U.S. and other nations are prepared to tap back-up oil reserves if Libya unrest continues and severely disrupts oil supplies.
Libya is the first oil exporting nation to be engulfed in the political upheaval spreading across North Africa and the Middle East, and investors have been worried that chaos in the region will drive crude prices even higher.
Price spikes have followed increasingly violent protests in Libya that have claimed more than 1,000 lives, according to the United Nations. Libya’s ambassador to the United States has estimated the death toll at 2,000.
Geithner said Treasury is monitoring oil prices and a potential supply disruption and is prepared to act.
"It’s important to note that there is considerable spare oil production capacity globally, and we and other major economies possess substantial strategic reserves of oil," he said in prepared remarks. "If necessary, those reserves could be mobilized to help mitigate the effect of a severe, sustained supply disruption."
The Treasury secretary reassured lawmakers that underlying inflation remains low nationwide paydayloans. And he said the U.S. has "considerable spare oil production capacity" it could consider tapping in the event of a "major" supply disruption.
When asked how long Americans can expect prolonged oil price hikes and whether longer-term hikes would slow economic growth, Geithner said that was "not something we can know for certain today."
"Most investors regard this as a temporary increase and expect prices to come down gradually over the rest of this year," he said. "That would give us more confidence, if that was right, that it will have modest effects on growth and inflation."
Geithner also talked about U.S. sanctions against Libya. He said that federal officials have frozen $32 billion in assets under U.S. control, up from $30 billion last week. It’s the largest amount of frozen assets of any U.S. sanctions programs so far.
The trade deficit widened in December, closing out a year in which America’s trade gap ballooned by the largest amount in a decade.
The Commerce Department says the deficit in December increased 5.9 percent to $40.6 billion. It grew because a 2.6 percent gain in imports outpaced a 1.8 percent rise in exports.
For all of 2010, the U.S. trade deficit rose to $497.8 billion, a 32.8 percent surge. It was the biggest annual percentage gain since 2000 business card templates. In 2009, the deficit had fallen to the lowest point in eight years as demand for imports plunged.
Economists believe the deficit will keep widening in 2011 but that U.S. manufacturers will benefit from a weaker dollar, which makes their goods more competitive in foreign markets.
Among the dozens of new tablets expected to be released this year in competition with Apple
Electronics retailer RadioShack says Julian Day will retire as chairman and CEO at the company’s next shareholder meeting in May.
The company says he will be succeeded as president and CEO by Jim Gooch, 43, the current chief financial officer. Gooch was named president effective immediately as part of the company’s succession plan, and will assume the CEO post upon Day’s retirement.
RadioShack plans to split the chairman and CEO roles after Day, 57, retires guaranteed approval cash loans. Under the changes, Daniel R. Feehan will become non-executive chairman of the board. He has been a director since 2003 and is currently president and CEO of Cash America International Inc.
General Electric Co. says its fourth-quarter income increased 52 percent on strong growth in equipment orders. It also cites improvement in its lending business.
The industrial and financial giant on Friday reported net income of $4.46 billion, or 42 cents per share, for the final three months of the year. That compares with $2.94 billion, or 28 cents per share, for the same part of 2009.
The company says earnings from continuing operations were 36 cents a share. That tops analyst’s expectations for earnings of 32 cents per share.
Its revenue increased 1 percent to $41.4 billion from a year ago. That beats Wall Street expectations for revenue of $40.3 billion.
Orders grew 12 percent year-over-year overall, including a 20 percent increase in equipment orders and a 5 percent expansion in services. Orders grew 4 percent at GE’s energy infrastructure business, and the total company backlog increased to a record $175 billion.
The economy will remain sluggish early next year as the lingering effects of the recession continue to drag on growth and the benefit of government stimulus fades, a panel of professional forecasters said Monday.
In its November outlook, the National Association for Business Economics predicts that the U.S. economy will grow 2.7% this year. That’s a slight improvement from the October survey, but is a far cry from the 3.2% rate the survey had projected in May.
Richard Wobbekind, the association’s president, said in a statement that NABE members expect economic growth to be "sub-par" in the first quarter of next year, and "moderate" for 2011 overall.
The dim outlook reflects ongoing "balance-sheet restructuring" as consumers and businesses pay down debt and remain cautious about spending, he said. In addition, the inventory restocking that helped boost economic activity earlier this year will be "diminished" going forward, as will government supports under last year’s Economic Recovery Act.
While NABE economists are concerned about the long-term effects of the U.S. budget deficit, high unemployment, changes in business regulation and rising commodity prices, they do not expect the economy to relapse into recession or suffer deflation.
"Confidence in the expansion’s durability is intact," said Wobbekind.
Looking ahead, NABE expects economic growth of 2.4% in the first three months of next year, a slight improvement from the October survey. For the full year, NABE sees gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, expanding 3% in 2011.
Despite the modest growth forecast, the economists anticipate conditions in the labor market will improve slowly in the second half of next year, with employers expected to 150,000 to 170,000 jobs per month.
The unemployment rate will hold above 9.5% in the first six months of 2011, before easing to 9.2% by the end of the year, according to NABE.
Given the weary job market and "negligible growth" in household net worth, the economists expect retail sales this holiday season to be subdued, rising 2.5% from last year.
However, business spending on equipment and software will strengthen into next year, and the "tepid" recovery in the housing market will remain intact, the economists said.
The U.S. trade deficit will continue to widen as the outlook for exports has deteriorated while import growth was revised higher in the November survey. The net-export deficit will top $460 billion in 2011, according to NABE.
Global trade imbalances have been in the spotlight recently as economies with large deficits, including the United States, have called on surplus countries such as China to increase domestic consumption and refrain from devaluing currencies.
While the economists said there is a relatively low risk of "competitive currency depreciation" next year, they still expect the U.S. dollar to remain weak.
The dollar has been under pressure since the Fall, as investors bet the Federal Reserve would pump more money into the economy. The central bank officially announced its $600 billion bond-buying program earlier this month.
With that in mind, the economists expect the Fed to hold short-term interest rates near zero until late 2011, "due to the mix of persistently high unemployment and very low inflation."
Long-term interest rates will also remain low, the survey said, with the 10-year Treasury note now expected to yield 3.25% by the end of 2011, compared with 3.75% in the last survey.
Regulators on Friday shut down three banks in Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, lifting the number of U.S. banks that have failed this year to 149 as soured loans pile up and the economy limps forward.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the banks, the largest by far being First Banking Center, based in Burlington, Wis., with $750.7 million in assets.
First Michigan Bank, based in Troy, Mich., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of First Banking Center. In addition, the FDIC and First Michigan Bank agreed to share losses on $515.6 million of First Banking Center’s loans and other assets.
The failure of First Banking Center is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $142.6 million.
Also seized were Gulf State Community Bank in Carrabelle, Fla., with $112.1 million in assets, and Allegiance Bank of North America in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., with $106.6 million in assets.
Centennial Bank, based in Conway, Ark., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of Gulf State Community Bank. Vist Bank, based in Wyomissing, Pa., is acquiring the assets and deposits of Allegiance Bank.
In addition, the FDIC and Centennial Bank agreed to share losses on $84.4 million of Gulf State Community Bank’s loans and other assets. Centennial said the acquisition was the latest in a series in Florida under its strategy.
Centennial and the failed bank have competed directly in the Tallahassee and Franklin County markets in Florida, according to regulators. Separately Friday, the Federal Reserve Board approved the transaction, finding that the harmful effects of Centennial’s takeover on competition in the two markets are outweighed “in the public interest” by its benefit to the communities in those areas.
The failure of Gulf State Community Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $42.7 million.
Florida has been the hardest hit state for bank failures. Gulf State Community Bank was the 28th bank to fail in the state this year guaranteed approval cash advance loans. Other states that have seen large numbers of bank failures are California, Georgia and Illinois, amid an avalanche of bad loans, especially for commercial real estate.
The FDIC and Vist Bank agreed to share losses on $86.2 million of Allegiance Bank’s assets. The failure of Allegiance Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $14.2 million.
The 149 closures nationwide so far this year tops the 140 shuttered in all of 2009 and is the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago. By this time last year, regulators had closed 123 banks.
The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund about $36 billion; the failures so far this year have cost around $21 billion, less because the banks failing in 2010 have on average been smaller. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008, the year the financial crisis struck with force; only three succumbed in 2007.
The growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, and its deficit stood at $15.2 billion as of June 30.
The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list jumped to 829 in the second quarter from 775 three months earlier, even as the industry as a whole had its best quarter since 2007, making $21.6 billion in net income. Banks with more than $10 billion in assets _ only 1.3 percent of the industry _ accounted for $19.9 billion of the total earnings.
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $52 billion from 2010 through 2014.
Depositors’ money _ insured up to $250,000 per account _ is not at risk, with the FDIC backed by the government. That insurance cap was made permanent in the financial overhaul law enacted in July.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hit back on Friday at critics of the U.S. central bank’s bond-buying program and issued a thinly veiled attack on China’s policy of keeping its currency on a leash.
Bernanke, facing a chorus of protests about the asset-buying spree from within and outside the central bank, said a more vigorous U.S. economy was essential to fuel the global recovery and dismissed charges he was debasing the dollar.
“The best way to continue to deliver the strong economic fundamentals that underpin the value of the dollar, as well as to support the global recovery, is through policies that lead to a resumption of robust growth in a context of price stability in the United States,” Bernanke said in a speech to a conference at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.
The Fed’s November 3 decision to buy a further $600 billion in U.S. government debt with new money generated outrage among policymakers in many nations, who accused the United States of seeking to weaken the dollar to gain an export edge.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the policy “clueless” while domestic critics have argued the policy could ignite inflation and fuel asset bubbles.
Fed officials circled their wagons this week to defend the program. Two added their endorsement on Thursday, but another expressed opposition and a fourth said monetary policy should not play the main role in driving a stronger recovery instant payday loans no faxing.
STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENTS
“Deficits and surpluses are generated by many countries’ behavior not a single currency,” Bernanke said in a later panel discussion with IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet.
“It will be very difficult for exchange rates by themselves to restore the balance and so I think structural adjustments on both sides are necessary,” Bernanke said.
Strauss-Kahn said he too recognized the difficulties involved but said global imbalances could not be tackled without “important changes in the relative values in the currencies.”
“We need to move in that direction,” he said.
Addressing international criticism of the Fed’s action, Bernanke said much of the recent weakness of the dollar reflected an unwinding of the increases that were notched as investors fled to the safety of the greenback during the European sovereign debt crisis in the spring.
Many emerging economies have worried that volatile investment inflows sparked by the dollar’s decline could be destabilizing — either fuelling inflation or asset bubbles.
Bernanke said the failure of some emerging market economies with trade surpluses to allow their currencies to appreciate was making the problems those countries face worse.
“Currency undervaluation by surplus countries is inhibiting needed international adjustment and creating spillover effects that would not exist if exchange rates better reflected market fundamentals,” he said, without explicitly pointing to China.
U.S. officials have long argued that an undervalued Chinese yuan gives the Asian export powerhouse an unfair advantage.
Bernanke said inflexible currencies were preventing a needed rebalancing of global growth and could end up destabilizing the world economy.
“For large, systemically important countries with persistent current account surpluses, the pursuit of export-led growth cannot ultimately succeed if the implications of that strategy for global growth and stability are not taken into account,” he said.
SOCIAL COST
Bernanke said sluggish U.S. growth, falling inflation and an unemployment rate that has hovered near 10 percent for months convinced Fed policymakers they needed to pump in more stimulus.
“On its current economic trajectory, the United States runs the risk of seeing millions of workers unemployed or underemployed for many years,” he said in his speech. “As a society, we should find that unacceptable.”
Bernanke said a fiscal program that combined near-term measures to enhance growth and steps to address long-range deficits would be an important complement to Fed policies no teletrack payday loans.
The Fed’s bond-buying plan — know as quantitative easing or QE, for short — won a surprise endorsement on Thursday from a policymaker who had been seen as an internal critic.
“I believe that QE is a move in the right direction,” Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota told a conference in Chicago.
Cleveland Fed chief Sandra Pianalto also defended the plan as a way to help lift “uncomfortably low” inflation and fend off the risk of a debilitating broad drop in prices.
However, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said the costs of the program did not outweigh the benefits, while Fed Governor Kevin Warsh said the economy faced problems that monetary policy could not solve.
“Monetary policy has an important role to play,” Warsh told business leaders in Chicago. “But it is not a predominant role.”
Instead, he said, businesses need more certainty in terms of fiscal, trade and regulatory policies.
Valley sushi restaurant Zen 32 is closing its doors. Operators cite a number of reasons for the closing, including the costs associated with a desired remodel.
The trendy asian-fusion grille was a long-time standard in Phoenix, offering up sushi, a grill menu and a popular outdoor patio at the corner of 32nd Street and Camelback Road in the Camelback Corridor.
The sushi-n-sake spot, which had received four stars from online reviewers such as Trip Advisor and others, is expected to close its doors by the end of the month, but will continue to offer its weekday sushi Happy Hour from 4:30 to 6:30 p payday loan lenders.m. Monday through Friday and a reverse happy hour starting at 10 p.m. nightly.
For more: www.zen32.com
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0