A key central bank survey showed Thursday that confidence at major Japanese manufacturers fell over the last quarter, as the export-reliant country battled a strong yen and an increasingly precarious global economy.
In the Bank of Japan’s “tankan” survey of business sentiment, the main index for big manufacturers fell to minus 4, in the first deterioration in two quarters. Three months ago, it stood at 2.
The figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are good minus those saying conditions are unfavorable, with 100 representing the best mood and minus 100 the worst.
The result is in line with Kyodo News agency’s average market forecast.
Japan has been battling a strong yen, which has hit multiple historic highs this year against the dollar. Amid economic uncertainty in Europe and the U.S., global investors have looked to the Japanese currency as a relatively safe haven.
But Japan relies on exports to drive growth, and the yen’s appreciation has hit companies such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp. hard. When the yen climbs, it reduces the value of exporters’ overseas profits when repatriated to Japan payday advance.
That has forced companies to shift more production overseas, prompting worries about a hollowing out of Japanese industry.
Big non-manufacturers were feeling slightly more optimistic. Their confidence index rose to 4 from 1 three months earlier.
Medium-sized manufacturers’ reading was flat, at minus 3, while the small manufacturers’ index improved to minus 8, up from minus 11.
The tankan, which helps guide monetary policy, showed that large companies overall plan to boost capital spending by 1.4 percent this fiscal year through March 2012. The figure is down from 3 percent in the September survey.
Large manufacturing companies assume an average exchange rate of 79.02 yen per dollar for this fiscal year, compared with 81.15 yen three months ago.
The Bank of Japan surveyed 10,846 companies nationwide. About 99 percent responded.
The bank’s next policy board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.
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.
Peruvian Cabinet chief Salomon Lerner resigned Saturday after less than five months in the post and was replaced by the interior minister, who inherits an unresolved dispute over the country’s biggest mining investment.
The reason for Lerner’s resignation was not explained, but he was recently involved in failed attempts to negotiate an end to protests that stalled the $4.8 billion Conga gold mining project, which has been plagued by increasingly violent protests.
His resignation letter, posted online by the newspaper La Republica, does not make direct reference to the conflict but hints Lerner was unhappy with the government’s handling of it.
As Cabinet chief, Lerner wrote in the 1 1/2-page resignation letter, “our direct mandate has been dialogue and the seeking of consensus to avoid confrontation between Peruvians.”
After just one day of talks that Lerner led with local officials who fear the Conga project could taint and diminish water supplies affecting thousands, President Ollanta Humala on Dec. 5 called a state of emergency in four affected northern provinces for 60 days.
Lerner’s replacement, Interior Minister Oscar Valdes, is a 62-year-old former army officer who quit the military as a lieutenant in 1991 and became a successful executive at various businesses in the southern coastal city of Tacna, most recently a trucking company and pasta producer.
Humala, 49, was a student of Valdes in the 1980s at Peru’s military academy.
Humala, who canceled a trip to Argentina for the Saturday inauguration of President Cristina Fernandez, had no immediate comment on the change.
A successful businessman of Jewish descent, Lerner was twice campaign manager for the center-left Humala, a former army officer who lost the 2006 race and then won election last June.
The fate of the Conga project, whose principal owner is U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corp., is considered key to prospects for other mining investments in Peru, which gets 61 percent of export income from the sector.
A windfall tax that the industry agreed to, and that Lerner played a key role in brokering, is helping to underwrite social welfare programs that Humala promised during the election campaign.
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’s commerce minister said Friday that the decision to open the country’s $400 billion retail sector to global chains such as Wal-Mart has a built-in safety net for small shops and farmers.
Anand Sharma told reporters that the Indian cabinet’s decision late Thursday allowing 51 percent foreign ownership of supermarkets would vastly improve decrepit infrastructure that causes massive food waste in a country plagued by malnutrition and high inflation.
Sharma said the new rule would only apply in cities with more than one million people. The minimum investment would be $100 million and half of this would have to be invested in rural infrastructure and refrigerated transport and storage. Thirty percent of the produce sourced by the retailer would also have to come from small and medium enterprises.
Top retailers such as Wal-Mart and Tesco have lobbied for years for a chance to build stores in the nation of 1.2 billion people and political deadlock on long-promised reforms in retail and other areas has helped cool foreign investor interest in India. Foreign retailers have Indian partners in wholesale operations, but no retail stores.
The Cabinet also allowed 100 percent foreign ownership of single-brand retail operations, up from 51 percent.
Advocates see the move as a way to strengthen India’s creaking food distribution system.
The country suffers chronically high malnutrition and soaring inflation, but it’s not for lack of food. It is the world’s second largest grower of fresh produce, yet loses an estimated 40 percent of fruit and vegetables to rot because of a lack of refrigerated trucking and warehouses, poor roads, inclement weather and corruption. That translates into lower incomes for farmers and higher prices for consumers.
If companies like Wal-Mart and Tesco can open shops of their own, the investments they make in improving farming techniques and getting produce into stores more efficiently, could bring down food inflation and possibly improving rural incomes.
Sharma said the policy would have a “multiplier effect” and tens of millions of people would gain jobs.
Analysts say India’s darkening economic prospects gave fresh urgency to the decade-long talks on opening up India’s retail sector. Many see Thursday’s move as an attempt by the ruling Congress Party to reassert its leadership, which has been weakened by corruption scandals, soaring inflation and slowing growth.
“When the government’s credibility seems to be under significant question, this is one way to give a message that the government is still in business and it means business,” said Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail consultancy Technopak Advisors.
The cabinet this month also indicated that it is open to allowing 26 percent foreign investment in pension fund management _ another headline item in the Congress Party’s promised second wave of economic reforms, which follow a round of liberalization forced by a balance of payments crisis in the early 1990s.
The central bank has raised interest rates by 5.25 percentage points over the last 18 months but that hasn’t been enough to control runaway inflation or the rupee’s freefall. Food inflation, which quickly becomes a political issue in India, has been bouncing into the double digits since 2008 and now stands at 9.1 percent.
“Monetary policy interventions have not been able to control inflation,” Singhal said. “Now they have to look into supply side policy, which could have an impact.”
International investors, who have grown increasingly wary of corruption, surprise tax bills and shifting regulations in India, have also put pressure on the government to make good on old promises to grant them greater access.
Rajan Bharti Mittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Enterprises, said Friday that the retail move was a “major landmark in India’s economic reforms process.”
Bharti’s joint venture with Wal-Mart has 13 wholesale outlets in India and sources produce from thousands of farmers.
“We have always stated that development of organized retail in India will bring immense benefits across the value chain _ from farmers to small manufacturers and above all to consumers, while creating enormous employment opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid,” Mittal said in a statement.
Wal-Mart, British-based Tesco PLC and French-based retailer Carrefour welcomed the decision.
“This legal evolution should contribute to modernize the Indian food supply chain and to fight against food inflation for the benefit of Indian customers,” Carrefour said in a statement.
The change, which does not require approval by India’s fractious Parliament, was opposed by the Trinamool Congress Party, a key partner in the ruling coalition, and the main opposition BJP party. The country has struggled to find consensus because of concerns that competition from the foreign retail giants could hurt millions of small shopkeepers, as well as the poor.
Sharma said the new policy had been reached through a “transparent and democratic process of consultation with all the stake holders.”
India’s $400 billion retail sector is the nation’s second-largest employer, after agriculture, according to consulting firm Deloitte.
Ashish Sanyal, managing director of retailing consultancy AMP Retail Services, said small businesses had nothing to fear from the big chains.
“At the end of the day this is like the high tide. All boats will rise. We will learn from the big retailers,” he said.
Whether people celebrate or criticize Occupy Wall Street, the movement has reinvigorated calls for local buying just in time for the manic holiday shopping season.
Buying local and American-made became a battle cry for some in the movement that blames big business greed for shuttering American operations and shipping those jobs overseas.
“Some people talk about buying local and not supporting large chain stores, but really I think we want to encourage people to think consciously about where they shop,” said Zach Chasnoff, 33, of south St. Louis.
Chasnoff has wielded a bullhorn at a few Occupy St. Louis rallies, though he said he couldn’t speak as a representative of a movement. He said he’d been waiting for an opportunity to ignite this particular discussion.
Chasnoff owns a house painting business that fluctuates from two to seven employees during his busy season. When the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008, he was virtually unemployed for about seven months and didn’t know if he’d keep his house, he said. Meanwhile, bank bailouts and news of continued executive bonuses infuriated him. He blames greed for companies’ transferring jobs overseas and cheap foreign goods for undercutting American-made items.
Many economists challenge that logic, saying that free trade ultimately benefits the U.S.
“It feels almost anti-patriotic to buy goods made elsewhere right now. You are perpetuating the loss of manufacturing jobs,” Chasnoff said, echoing long-standing protests by some against, for instance, buying foreign cars.
Buying local, on the other hand, puts consumers, not corporations, in control, he said.
Would it work?
Steve Farazzi, a professor of economics at Washington University, said that the wage disparity concerns at the root of the Occupy Wall Street movement wouldn’t be solved by shopping at boutiques and farmers markets.
“I’d have a hard time telling people that their holiday shopping patterns will have an important impact on income distribution,” Farazzi said.
If globalization has killed American jobs and driven down wages, then the tool to combat the trend would be higher wages in emerging markets such as China, not necessarily closing operations there. China’s extremely cheap labor is the problem for American workers, not the fact that Chinese workers have jobs formerly held by Americans, Farazzi explained.
Rising global wages would level the playing field for American workers, he said, and it would increase the demand for all goods if we have more people who can afford to buy. But Farazzi acknowledged that a push to boost wages for Chinese workers
A decade ago, Rusdi Kirana sat on the grass at an air show in Britain, eating burgers with his wife. “I didn’t know anybody,” he says, “and nobody knew me.” That will change now that his company, Lion Air, has announced the biggest order ever from Boeing.
The once little-known Indonesian airline says it is planning to buy 230 planes from Boeing Co. The bill _ with a list price of $21.7 billion _ is to be paid over 12 years though bank financing.
Dozens of airlines have emerged in Indonesia since it deregulated its aviation industry in the 1990s, making air travel affordable for the first time for many across the sprawling island nation of 240 million, and luring passengers away from ferries and trains.
Kirana _ a travel agent before he and his brother, Kusnan, pooled $850,000 to start Lion Air in 1999 _ saw the opportunity and jumped.
“Last year we had 21 million passengers, this year I think I can carry 27 million,” said the 48-year-old CEO, adding that with plans for an open-sky arrangement in Asia by 2015, a massive Boeing purchase “is not much of a gamble.”
Kirana said his company’s first plane was a leased Boeing 737-200, which flew from Jakarta to the tiny airport of Pontianak on jungle-clad Borneo island.
“I didn’t have any money after that, because it all went to pay for the deposit on the aircraft,” he said.
Though the name Lion Air doesn’t resonate internationally, it’s hardly an unknown, said Peter Harbison, executive chairman of the Sydney-based Center for Asia Pacific Aviation.
“It’s operating 67 aircraft at the moment and had 125 on order before this deal,” he said, adding with new routes to Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan, it’s clear it wants to be a real player in the region as well.
“It’s a bet on Asia,” Harbison said of the proposal to buy the 230 planes _ most of which are 737 Max, a new version of Boeing’s most popular plane with more fuel-efficient engines.
The biggest market for now is home.
The number of air passengers in Indonesia jumped 22 percent from 43 million in 2009 to 53 million in 2010, according to Indonesia’s statistics agency.
That trend has continued in 2011.
But the country also has had its share of accidents, raising concerns that the supply of trained aviation professionals, regulatory oversight and ground infrastructure can’t keep up with growth.
In 2007, the European Union banned all of Indonesia’s 50 airlines from landing on its runways for two years, and Lion Air has not gone unscathed.
In 2004, a Lion Air MD-82 crash-landed at the airport in Surakarta, killing 25 people in its only fatal accident. There also have been scores of other incidents, including hard landings and overshooting runways, some causing injuries or damage to planes.
“Yes, we’ve had some problems,” said Kirana, adding that planes now have equipment that warns pilots when they are flying too high or too fast. “But we’re improving.”
With 50,000 passengers a day, his bet, he says, is on the future.
Royal Ahold NV, the Dutch owner of U.S. supermarket chains Giant and Stop & Shop, reported a 5 percent rise in operating profit for the third quarter, as growth in the U.S. offset a decline in the Netherlands.
Overall operating profit rose to euro300 million ($405 million), and sales were up 2.5 percent to euro6.86 billion. Net profit was up 15 percent to euro257 million ($346 million), but strongly affected by one-time items.
Margins were about unchanged overall, though the company’s performance differed sharply in the U.S. and the Netherlands.
Chief Executive Dick Boer said the company won market share in both markets. In the U.S., Ahold pursues a strategy of offering relatively low prices and relatively decent quality, which it sums up as “value for money.”
“Customers remain cautious in their spending and focus on value in an inflationary environment,” he said in a statement Thursday.
U.S. sales rose 8.5 percent to $5.8 billion, and operating margins improved to 4.1 percent of sales from 3.7 percent as the company was more than able to pass on price increases to customers. Operating profit rose $41 million to $237 million.
In the Netherlands, where Ahold operates the dominant Albert Heijn chain, the company trimmed prices and sacrificed margins in order to add to its lead as the country’s largest retailer. Sales rose 4.5 percent to euro2.3 billion, but operating margins fell to 6 cash till payday advance.4 percent from 7.1 percent and operating profit actually declined by euro7 million to euro149 million.
Albert Heijn offers top-quality produce at above-average prices.
SNS Securities analyst Richard Withagen said in a note that Ahold’s performance was better than expected, especially in the U.S., but he repeated a Hold recommendation on the shares.
The net profit figure was hit by a Nov. 4 New York Supreme Court ruling that Ahold disclosed in a footnote. Ahold said as a result of the ruling, it had taken a charge of euro94 million to resolve a lease dispute with a former subsidiary that will impact earnings through 2031. Ahold said it would appeal the ruling, though it was not immediately clear what higher court it could appeal to.
Ahold offset the charge with a tax windfall: it released a euro109 million provision it has been holding to resolve a tax issue it says dates from before 2004. The company did not say why it chose to book the gain this quarter, though it made the company’s bottom line appear more or less in line with its operating results, rather than showing a large loss.
Shares were up 1.2 percent to euro9.53 in volatile early trading in Amsterdam.
Hundreds of police officers in riot gear raided the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York City in the pre-dawn darkness Tuesday, evicted hundreds of demonstrators and demolished the tent city that was the epicenter of a movement protesting what participants call corporate greed and economic inequality.
The police action began around 1 a.m. and lasted several hours as officers with plastic shields and batons pushed the protesters from their base at Zuccotti Park. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said around 200 people were arrested, including dozens who tried to resist the eviction by linking arms in a tight circle at the center of the park. A member of the City Council was among those arrested during the sweep.
Tents, sleeping bags and equipment were carted away, and by 4:30 a.m., the park was empty. It wasn’t clear what would happen next to the demonstration, though the new enforcement of rules banning tents, sleeping bags or tarps would effectively end an encampment that started in mid-September.
“At the end of the day, if this movement is only tied to Liberty Plaza, we are going to lose. We’re going to lose,” said Sandra Nurse, one of the organizers, referring to the park by the nickname the demonstrators have given it. “Right now the most important thing is coming together as a body and just reaffirm why we’re here in the first place.”
Hundreds of protesters marched through lower Manhattan as the workday began, chanting and looking for a new space to gather. A state court judge called an 11:30 a.m. hearing on the legality of the eviction, following an emergency appeal by the National Lawyers Guild, and issued a temporary restraining order barring the city from preventing protesters from re-entering the park.
As of midmorning, though, the park remained surrounded by police barricades and officers keeping everyone out. A few dozen demonstrators sat on the sidewalk just outside the police line, waiting. In the meantime, workers used power washers to blast the plaza clean.
The surprise action came two days short of the two-month anniversary of the encampment. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he ordered the sweep because health and safety conditions and become “intolerable” in the crowded plaza.
“From the beginning, I have said that the city has two principal goals: guaranteeing public health and safety, and guaranteeing the protesters’ First Amendment rights,” he said. “But when those two goals clash, the health and safety of the public and our first responders must be the priority.”
He said that people would be allowed to return as soon as this morning, but that the city would begin enforcing the rules set up by the park’s private owners banning camping equipment.
That left demonstrators wondering what to do next. There was talk among some Tuesday of trying to occupy another park or plaza, but there are no immediate plans to do so, Nurse said.
The eviction began in the dead of night, as police officers arrived by the hundreds and set up powerful klieg lights to illuminate the block.
Officers handed out notices from Brookfield Office Properties, the park’s owner, and the city saying that the plaza had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous. A commander announced over a bullhorn that everyone had to leave. Many did, carrying their belongings with them. Others tried to make a stand, even chaining themselves together with bicycle locks.
In contrast to the scene weeks ago in Oakland, where a similar eviction turned chaotic and violent, the police action was comparatively orderly. But it wasn’t entirely bloodless.
“The cops hit my legs with a baton,” said demonstrator Max Luisdaniel Santos, 31, an unemployed construction worker, pulling up his pants to show some swollen scars on his calf. “Then they shoved my face into the ground.”
He pulled open his cheek to show where his teeth had cut into the flesh as he hit the stone paving payday advance lenders.
“I was bleeding profusely. They shoved a lot of people’s faces into the ground,” Santos said as he stood near the park Tuesday morning, looking shaken. He said he lost his shoes in the scuffle, but wasn’t arrested.
One person was taken to a hospital for evaluation because of breathing problems.
City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who has been supportive of the Occupy movement, was among those arrested outside of the park. Kelly, the police commissioner, said he was trying to get through police lines to reach the protesters.
Protesters were able to grab about $2,500 in cash that was at the plaza before police kicked them out, said Pete Dutro, who is in charge of the New York City movement’s finances.
“We got all the dough,” Dutro said. “It’s on my person.”
Bloomberg said the evacuation was conducted in the middle of the night “to reduce the risk of confrontation in the park, and to minimize disruption to the surrounding neighborhood.”
“The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” Bloomberg said. “Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with, as the park has been taken over by protesters, making it unavailable to anyone else.”
He said the city would contest the motion filed by the National Lawyers Guild, a civil rights organization that has been representing arrested protesters.
Concerns about health and safety issues at Occupy Wall Street camps around the country have intensified, and protesters in several cities have been ordered to take down their shelters, adhere to curfews and relocate so that parks can be cleaned.
The surprise ouster at Zuccotti Park came as the movement was at its most vulnerable. A rift had been growing in recent weeks between the park’s full-time residents and the movement’s power players, most of whom no longer lived in the park.
The protesters who actually made things happen _ the ones who planned marches and rallies and set plans into motion _ held meetings in donated office space high above the park, in skyscrapers just like the ones housing the bankers they were protesting.
Some residents of Zuccotti Park have been grumbling about the recent formation of a “spokescouncil,” an upper echelon of organizers who held meetings at a high school near police headquarters. Some protesters felt that the selection of any leaders whatsoever wasn’t true to Occupy Wall Street’s original anti-government spirit: That no single person is more important or more powerful than another person.
But other protesters felt that Occupy Wall Street needed to be bigger than Zuccotti Park _ that they had, in a sense, outgrown it.
Occupy encampments have come under fire around the country and even overseas as local officials and residents have complained about possible health hazards and ongoing inhabitation of parks and other public spaces.
Anti-Wall Street activists intend to converge at the University of California, Berkeley, on Tuesday for a day of protests and another attempt to set up an Occupy Cal camp, less than a week after police arrested dozens of protesters who tried to pitch tents on campus.
The Berkeley protesters will be joined by Occupy Oakland activists who said they would march to the UC campus in the afternoon. Police cleared the tent city in front of Oakland City Hall before dawn Monday and arrested more than 50 people amid complaints about safety, sanitation and drug use.
In London, authorities said they were resuming legal action to evict a protest camp outside St. Paul’s Cathedral after talks with the demonstrators stalled.
Here’s a look at some major retailers’ layaway programs:
Toys R Us
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