Outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh will leave soon to Oman, en route to medical treatment in the United States, Yemeni officials said on Saturday, part of an American effort to get the embattled strongman out of the country to allow a peaceful transition from his rule.
Washington has been trying for weeks to find a country where Saleh can live in exile, since it does not want him to settle permanently in the United States. The mercurial president, who has ruled for more than 33 years, has repeatedly gone back and forth on whether he would leave.
The officials’ comments Saturday suggested Oman, Yemen’s neighbor, could be a potential home for him. Three officials said he would go, but they were divided on whether he would remain in exile in Oman or return to Yemen after treatment. His return, even if he no longer holds the post of president, could mean continued turmoil for the impoverished nation at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
After nearly a year of protests demanding his ouster, Saleh in November handed his powers over to his vice president and agreed to step down. A unity government between his party and the opposition has since been created. However, Saleh _ still formally the president _ has continued to influence politics from behind the scenes through his family and loyalists in power positions.
The U.S. does not want to take him in, concerned it would be seen by Yemenis as harboring a leader they say has blood on his hands for the killings of protesters. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates already have rejected Saleh, American officials said.
Senior ruling party figure Mohammed al-Shayef told The Associated Press that Saleh would travel “in the coming days” to Oman, then head to the United States for treatment of wounds he suffered in an June assassination attempt.
After treatment, Saleh would return to Yemen to head his People’s Congress Party, said al-Shayef, who is also a prominent tribal leader. Another top party official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk of the plans, gave the same itinerary, though he said Saleh would pass through Ethiopia en route from Oman to the U.S.
Saleh himself has spoken in recent weeks of working as an opposition politician after he leaves the presidency.
However, an official in the prime minister’s office said Saleh “is supposed” to return to Oman to stay after his U.S. treatment is completed.
The official said Saleh’s powerful son Ahmed was currently in Oman, arranging a residence for his father. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk the press. It did not seem that Ahmed, who commands the elite Republican Guard that has been at the forefront of the crackdown on protests, would remain in Oman.
The unity government has been struggling to establish its authority in the face of Saleh’s continuing strength in the country. Like Saleh’s son Ahmed, Saleh’s nephew also commands one of Yemen’s best trained and equipped security forces, and the president’s loyalists remain in place in the government and bureaucracy.
Saleh agreed to step down under a U.S.-approved and Gulf-mediated accord with the opposition in return for immunity for prosecution.
Yemen’s parliament on Saturday approved the immunity law, a key step toward Saleh’s formal retirement from his post. Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi signed it into law later in the day.
Saleh is scheduled to hand over the presidency to his vice president on Feb. 21.
The law grants Saleh complete immunity for any crimes committed during his rule, including the killing of protesters during the uprising against his regime. However, parliament limited the scope of immunity for other regime officials and excluded immunity for terrorism-related crimes.
Initially, the law would have similarly given complete immunity to everyone who served Saleh’s governments throughout his rule, sparking a public outcry and a new wave of protests. In response, the law was changed to grant them immunity only on “politically motivated” criminal acts. That apparently would not cover corruption charges.
Most protesters have rejected the accord entirely, saying Saleh should not be given immunity and demanding he be prosecuted.
Human Rights Watch said Saturday in a statement that the law allows senior officials to “get away with murder” and “sends the disgraceful message that there is no consequence for killing those who express dissent.”
China
President Barack Obama, saying he
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said his rapprochement with China will encourage other nations to strengthen trade with the island and make it less dependent on the mainland, rebutting opposition criticism that he
Record drought ravaged parts of Texas and Oklahoma this year, but Missouri was hard hit, too — and now the state’s dairy and cattle industries are scrambling to cope with the aftereffects of the parched summer as they prepare for winter.
“We’ve heard an awful lot about the extreme drought in Texas and Oklahoma, and areas farther west,” said Mike Collins, a professor of plant science at the University of Missouri. “But if you look at the drought map, it projects into Missouri.”
Last month, in fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated 101 Missouri counties natural disaster areas because of the drought, and one estimate puts the loss to the state’s grain farmers at nearly $350 million. University of Missouri researchers say the state would need to get an unlikely 13 feet of snow this winter to compensate for the scorching heat and lack of rain that shrank crop yields last summer.
“In mid-Missouri and particularly as you go southwest, (the soil) was pretty well depleted four to six feet down. There’s not much left there for plant growth,” said Randy Miles, a soil scientist with the university. “We need to recharge the piggy bank, so to speak.”
The drought’s impact is reaching into all areas of agriculture, and could eventually hit consumers. Corn farmers in Missouri lost roughly 24 million bushels of yield because of the drought, and the state’s soybean farmers about 20 million. The drought also scorched pasture and forage lands, and now, hay — a newly precious commodity — has been heading out of state by the truckload.
“We see a lot of hay moving east to west,” Collins said. “A lot of hay heading west on the interstate.”
Missouri is the country’s third-largest producer of hay, but this year hay is in such great demand from cattle and dairy farmers in neighboring states that producers, here and elsewhere, are scrambling to secure enough of it to make it through the winter.
“I had to drive 100 miles north, to get it from a guy in Green Ridge,” said Darrel Franson, a cattle farmer who heads the Missouri Forage and Grassland Council. “In the half an hour I’m talking to him, his phone rings three times, with producers from Texas willing to buy anything he’s got, at any price.”
Cattle ranchers and dairy farmers typically grow much of the hay they feed their animals. But this year, burned-up pasture land forced them to feed hay months before they typically would. At the same time, the weather shrank hay yields by as much as 15 to 30 percent in some places.
Some worry that, by mid-winter, producers will be caught without enough to feed their animals.
“In January or February, the farmer is going to take a walk out into his pasture and see his cows are thin. He’s going to run in and say, ‘Ma, the cows are awful thin.’ Then they’re going to look at the ground and see there’s no grass there,” Franson said. “They’re going to get on the phone to get some hay, and they won’t find any.”
DAIRY FARMER FEARS
The situation is not just a question of scarcity, but of quality. Hay that survives the weather isn’t the most nutritious, which means cows need more of it. Dairy cows, particularly, need better-quality hay to produce better milk, and for the higher-quality hay, producers are paying as much as $300 a ton.
“That’s well above what we normally see,” Collins said.
The state’s dairymen are especially concerned.
“This is going to be one of the toughest challenges I’ve seen in my lifetime, seeing these cows through the winter,” said Larry Purdom, head of the Missouri Dairy Association. “A lot of times in the past when hay prices were up, we could use corn, but that’s been at record highs, and that’s expensive now, too.”
The state’s dairy herd has shrunk to about 90,000 from 100,000 in recent years, Purdom said, and could get even smaller as aging dairy farmers decide to sell their cows and get out of the business rather than face higher feed costs.
“This is serious,” Purdom said. “We have eight or nine processing plants in the state, and if we don’t have milk for them, we’re worried they’ll take their operations somewhere else, and that means jobs.”
Cattle ranchers, too, are being forced to pay higher feed prices, and some are selling off their animals.
“I sold 20 percent of my herd,” Franson said. “I have to match up my cattle with my forage supply.”
Cattle ranchers, however, are still in the black, with high beef prices buoyed by demand overseas and a shrunken American cattle population.
“Given where prices are today, producers are trying to take advantage of that,” said Jeff Windett, of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association.
So are the state’s hay producers. “Anytime you have a situation like this, it makes it difficult for some,” Collins said. “But for farmers in the business of producing hay, this is an excellent year.”
Researchers at the University of Missouri and the states’ farmers, however, are worried about next year. If soil moisture isn’t adequately replenished over the winter months, farmers could face depleted soils for a second year. That puts farmers in an odd situation: Hoping for a bad winter.
“If we don’t get enough input over the next few months, we could go into the next season without enough moisture,” Miles said. “Even though it might not be that amenable to some, and it may create some slushy driving hazards and so on, from a soil moisture viewpoint, more snow and rain may be more valuable long term.”
With Europe trying to resolve its debt worries and the U.S. attempting to whittle down high unemployment, prudent moves are in order.
Whatever the health of the economy, average investors face the prospects of extremely low interest yields and high market volatility. Everyone’s already had some experience with this queasy scenario, so it should be manageable if not invigorating.
Keeping collective blood pressure high, presidential campaigns will constantly remind us of all the economic problems that are in need of timely solutions.
So, as we bid the past year goodbye, here are New Year’s financial resolutions for 2012:
Bank holding company Washington Mutual Inc. has agreed to a settlement with some creditors involved in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case and has filed a new reorganization plan.
Washington Mutual said in a statement late Monday that the settlement will allow it to distribute more than $7 billion to its creditors. The settlement must still be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
“The comprehensive settlement announced today represents a fair and reasonable recovery for the thousands of equity holders of the company who have been following this case closely for three years,” Michael Willingham, chairman of the committee of equity security holders appointed in the company’s Chapter 11 proceedings.
Washington Mutual’s bankruptcy case is three years old and its reorganization plans have twice been rejected by Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary Walrath. The company is hoping to exit bankruptcy protection by the end of February. It has a hearing scheduled for Jan. 11, 2012 in which the bankruptcy court will consider approval of the reorganization plan’s disclosure statement. The company also plans to ask the bankruptcy court for a mid-February hearing to confirm its reorganization plan fast cash online.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu’s Seattle-based flagship bank in 2008 and sold its assets to JPMorgan for $1.9 billion in the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
Under terms of the settlement, the reorganized assets of Washington Mutual will include equity interests in WMI Investment Corp. and WM Mortgage Reinsurance Co.
A reorganized Washington Mutual will receive $75 million in funding from certain creditors. Exit financing provided by settlement noteholders will include a $125 million senior secured credit facility that will be used to fund working capital as well as for general corporate purposes and eligible originations and acquisitions.
The majority of the reorganized company’s common equity will be distributed to its current preferred and common equity holders. Its board will initially be made up of four members chosen by the equity committee and one member selected by lenders under the credit agreement.
In late July, Roberts Mayfair Hotel co-owner Mike Roberts owned up when we reported that his company had not paid hourly workers in a timely fashion.
The downtown St. Louis hotel, he acknowledged, had been late on some payrolls, but only because of a temporary glitch in transferring data to a payroll contractor.
“I don’t recognize this as a long-standing problem,” Roberts said at the time.
It may not have been a long-standing problem then.
But it is now.
Mayfair employees have continued to complain periodically about the hotel failing to deliver checks on paydays, which come every two weeks. Lately, they have been joined by employees of the the Comfort Inn the Roberts Brothers operate in the Central West End.
And the problems appear to have spread beyond St. Louis. Complaints about tardy payrolls have also filtered in from the staff of a Houston hotel co-owned by Mike Roberts and his brother and business partner, Steven.
Delayed compensation has become so routine at the Central West End location that new hires say they were advised of the problem prior to being offered a job.
One employee said he accepted the offer anyway.
“There’s nothing else out there,” he lamented.
Fearing termination if they are identified publicly, seven Mayfair and Comfort Inn employees spoke this week on the condition of anonymity.
“It’s an employer’s market,” said one worker. “If they let us go, they’ll just hire someone else the next day.”
The employees say delinquent checks have caused them to miss rent, utility bills and cellphone payments.
“I’m constantly borrowing money to pay my bills,” said another employee. “I feel like a teenager again.”
Each of the seven employees interviewed said they know cash-strapped co-workers who have been forced to leave mandatory prescriptions at a pharmacy.
“They are messing with people’s lives,” said one employee.
Another worker and her two children now face eviction unless she can come up with the money to cover the penalties, equal to the monthly rent of $775, imposed when tardy paychecks resulted in late payments to her landlord in two consecutive months.
“I kept telling (the landlord), ‘I’ll pay you today if they pay us,’” the employee said. “But they never paid us. It took me two years to find a job. If I’d known it was going to be like this, I’d have kept on looking.”
The employees are especially vexed by what they say is the Roberts’ habit of stretching the rules. By law, an employer has 16 days to compensate its employees for work performed during the most recent pay period. The Roberts, the employees say, regularly push the envelope to the 16th day.
On Wednesday Nov. 30 for example, the Mayfair employees received paychecks they were due Nov. 15.
The checks, they said, did not include overtime earned when the hotel filled to capacity during the baseball playoffs, a recent business conference and a religious convention.
“We’ll never get caught up,” said the employee who fears she’ll soon be evicted.
Despite their own hardships, the employees are for the most part not devoid of empathy. They acknowledge the brothers, who once rode high on the profits from their telecommunications and real estate holdings, have also hit a tough patch.
Roberts Broadcasting in October filed for bankruptcy protection, a step toward reorganizing a company beset with liens connected to licensing fees for television stations in St. Louis, Mississippi, Indiana and South Carolina.
“I sympathize with them, because of the economy,” said one worker. “But I wish they’d come clean with us, bring us all into the ballroom or something and tell us directly what’s going on.”
Instead, Mayfair and Comfort Inn employees say all they know is to dread paydays - anxiety exacerbated by the impending holiday season.
Contacted Wednesday afternoon, Mike Roberts said he was not inclined to comment but suggested a reporter call back Thursday morning.
Even if the Roberts come through in December, the employee wondering how she’ll cover back rent and penalties already anticipates further problems come the new year.
“If they can’t pay us on time what’s going to happen with our taxes in January when they’re supposed to give us our W-2?” she asked.
India
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledges the pace of economic growth is likely to be “frustratingly slow,” after the Fed downgraded its forecast for the next two years.
Bernanke says the central bank is looking for economic activity and labor market conditions to improve gradually over the next two years, but at a sluggish pace.
Bernanke cited the debt crisis in Europe as a particular concern. He says that could have adverse effects on confidence and growth. He says the Fed is closely monitoring the situation.
It was Bernanke’s third news conference this year, a practice he started in April in an effort to provide more background on the Fed’s actions and its thinking behind its latest economic forecast.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0