US economic woes continue
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits declined slightly last week, leaving applications above levels consistent with a healthy economy.
Weekly applications dropped by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 403,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The previous week s figure was revised up to 409,000.
Applications are ticking down. The four-week average fell for the fourth straight week to 403,000. A month ago it was 422,250. Still, applications need to fall consistently below 375,000 to signal sustainable job growth. They haven t been below that level since February.
Economists have been closely watching the unemployment benefits report since fears of another recession intensified in August. Layoffs and applications tend to rise at the beginning of recessions. The slow decline in applications suggests hiring remains sluggish but layoffs aren t worsening.
Employers pulled back on hiring this spring, after rising gas prices cut into consumer spending and Japan s March 11 earthquake disrupted supply chains. That slowed U.S. auto production.
Auto output has rebounded in the past couple of months and gas prices have come down from their peak in early May. Those trends likely boosted growth in the July-September quarter to about 2.5 percent, economists predict. That s an improvement from the 0.9 percent annual rate in the first six months of this year. But it s not enough to spur much job growth. Employers have added an average of only 72,000 jobs per month in the past five months. That s far below the 100,000 per month needed to keep up with population growth. And it s down from an average of 180,000 in the first four months of this year.
In September, the economy generated 103,000 net jobs. That was enough to calm recession fears, but it wasn t enough to lower the unemployment rate, which stayed at 9.1 percent.
Hillary Clinton meets Gilani
Other high level officials of the government and army including Chief the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, DG-ISI General Shuja Pasha, Minister for Finance Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir along with other officials were also present on the occassion.
Clinton was accompanied by a high powered contingent that included Central Intelligence Agency chief David Petraeus, and US Joint Chiefs of Staff Committe chairman General Martin Dempsey.
Earlier, Clinton had said that a major offensive was under way against Haqqani militants in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan must act to remove safe havens on its side of the border.
Catholic Bishop Robert W. Finn Indicted on Child Abuse
It is being described about Robert W. Finn (who is known as Catholic Bishop) that this priest has been indicted along with Kansas City-St. Joseph’s diocese by a grand jury. Both have been indicted in a child abuse case only because they were unable to report on this charge, said by prosecutors in Missouri while talking to media on Friday evening, sources said.
It is further being described about Robert W. Finn (who is also known as a class A misdemeanor) that this indictment may lead him a sentence of maximum of one year behind bars. Mr. Finn (a renowned 58-year-old priest) may also be fined in this case for USD $1,000 while the diocese may face a fine as well, said by the Jean Peters-Baker who is known as prosecutor of the Jackson County.
Jean Peters-Baker further said that both were pleaded not guilty by the grand jury on Friday afternoon. The importance of this charge (i.e. child abuse) should not be diminished by knowing the fact that the complaint is a misdemeanor complaint because this is a prominent or significant charge, Peters-Baker said. A charge of the same nature has no history of being leveled ever before, he added.
It is alleged that the pictures were in the knowledge of Catholic Bishop Robert W. Finn beginning December 16 last year but the priest did not bother to report these pictures to higher authorities even till May this year. Later on, the report was made and sent to authorities by an official in diocese, sources said.
European shares edge up ahead of key U.S. jobs data
LONDON: European shares edged up on Friday ahead of a key U.S. labour report that may show whether the world’s biggest economy is headed for a recession, and after two days of sharp gains on optimism for bank recapitalisation.
U.S. employment likely grew only modestly in September, with hiring too weak to pull down a lofty jobless rate and dispel recession fears. The data is due at 1230 GMT.
“Anything (in the U.S. data) that looks negative could reverse the relief rally, though it’s likely to be an inconclusive number,” Bill Blain, strategist at NewEdge Group in London, said, adding he was sceptical about the main driver of the rally.
“There is no plan to recapitalise the banks. All there is, is chitter-chatter. The equity markets are phenomenally stupid. The market is hearing what it wants to hear.”
European governments are simultaneously contemplating making banks take a bigger writedown on Greek debt, taxing their financial transactions and boosting their capital base.
At 1102 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.1 percent at 941.79 points, having hit a five-week closing high on Thursday. It is down more than 16 percent in 2011.
Although euro zone banks retained some of the gains made this week after sharp bounces from weakness, two UK banks fell after Moody’s downgraded their credit ratings. Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group fell 3.5 and 3.6 percent respectively
Trading volume on RBS was about 74 percent of the 30-day average by midday.
“I was surprised to see the UK banks getting hit by Moody’s — they took the hit early and to me look a lot better (than euro zone banks). I’d buy RBS before I buy any European bank at the moment,” Blain said.
TRADING RANGE
“European equities are in another unnatural trading range,” Citigroup strategists said in a note, adding a break to the downside “requires disorderly euro area debt default, banking collapse in Europe or global recession”.
They said upside would require “a lot of hard work from policymakers and politicians and an orderly end-game to this stage of the euro area sovereign debt crisis”.
Citi said it backed the latter scenario.
The European benchmark gained 6 percent in the previous two sessions and is on track for a second consecutive weekly gain.
It went as high as 947.52 earlier in the session and moved above its 50-day moving average for the first time since late July, breaking above the neckline of an inverse head and shoulders chart pattern shaped over the past five weeks, sending a strong bullish signal to chartists.
“European stock indexes as well as shares in a number of sectors such as banking, insurance, oil, utilities and telecoms, seem to be stabilising. This is the result of extremely low valuation,” Cholet Dupont strategist Vincent Guenzi said.
The sharp losses suffered by European stocks over the past two and a half months have knocked valuation ratios to levels not seen since the heat of the financial crisis in early 2009. AGENCIES
Pak sacrifices saved US
In an interview with an American TV channel, Abdullah Haroon said the American allegation that Pakistan was supporting terrorists was baseless and shameful. He said Pakistan was a strong US ally on war on terror and the US should not make Pakistan a scapegoat for her failure in Afghanistan.
Haqqani network is created by the CIA. The American administration has admitted that the US with the help of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and former president Burhanuddeen Rabani were holding talks with the Taliban. The US also had asked the UN to lift ban on Taliban, Abdullah Haroon said and added the murder of Rabani was the failure of US security in Afghanistan.
Sarah Palin won’t run for president in 2012
On Wednesday, the former vice-presidential candidate and the acknowledged star of the Republican Party Sarah Palin finally announced that she is not going to run for the presidency in 2012. A day before that another Republican hopeful, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also announced his decision not to run.
The former Alaska governor’s supporters founded a group called Organize4Palin to build a grassroots network and essentially campaign for her: go to county meetings, stump for Palin with politically connected Iowans, and form a loose campaign structure for what they saw as an inevitable Palin campaign. It turned out not to be.
Sarah Palin made her decision known Wednesday releasing a statement to ABC News and telling radio host Mark Levin that she will not enter the presidential race. Wednesday evening she told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News that she “apologize(s) to those disappointed” with her decision saying that she had heard from them over the last few hours and hopes they understand “you don’t need a title to make a difference in this country.”
As the news broke that she would not run those supporters that were the most invested said they were “disappointed,” but had “no regrets.”
What is questionable, though, is whether the Republicans will be able to come up with an electable candidate. Until recently there seemed to be only too viable contenders – Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, with chances for Chris Christie to intervene and change the scene. After Christie’s decision not to run, one would suppose that the field has narrowed to two candidates. But then unexpectedly businessman and columnist, former chairman and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain made a strong showing at some Republican caucuses, and now he is considered to be on equals if not ahead of Rick Perry whose support has faltered.
The problem is that Republican primaries starting next January and the general elections in November are very different. And the candidate most liked by the party and Republican-leaning independents might not be as welcomed by the majority of general voters. Therefore, winning the party nomination may play a trick on the frontrunner preventing him from winning the votes of the center, which will inevitably determine the general outcome.
Perry, who has dropped in the polls recently following unimpressive debate performances, issued a statement calling Palin “a good friend, a great American and a true patriot. I respect her decision and know she will continue to be a strong voice for conservative values and needed change in Washington.”
The man who picked her as his running mate in 2008, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said on Twitter that Palin will “continue to play an important role in our party and for our nation.”
Later, the former Alaska governor told Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren, “You don’t need a title to make a difference in this country.”
Palin urged voters not to wait for perfection from the current Republican field of contenders.
“There is no one perfect candidate, and I want people to keep that in mind and not be extremely disappointed in a politician,” she said.
Statement released by Palin on her decision.
October 5, 2011
Wasilla, Alaska
After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.
My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.
From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.
I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.
Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.
In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.
Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country!
God bless America.
– Sarah Palin
Woman claims shes vampire
A woman accused of having lured a teenage boy to a house where a group beat him to death says that she is a vampire.
“I know this is going to be crazy, but I believe that I’m a vampire. Part of a vampire and part of a werewolf,” 18-year-old Stephanie Pistey said. Apparently, Pistey confirmed to police that the five people including herself involved in the July murder of Jacob Hendershot, 16, near the panhandle city, were members of a vampire cult.
Pistey, who was arrested last Monday on charges of having fooled the boy into coming to the house where he was murdered, said in an interview that “Jacob didn’t deserve to die” and that she did not know that the others were going to beat him to death. At first, police thought that Hendershot was killed because Pistey had accused him of rape, but now the motives for the murder are not clear.
She denied drinking Hendershot’s blood, but she said that she had drunk the blood of her boyfriend.
Is Pakistan helping Haqqanis attack US in Afghanistan?
ISLAMABAD: Sirajuddin Haqqani does not carry a gun or wear a turban as he moves stealthily through the Waziristan wilderness along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, hoping to avoid detection and getting hit by a US missile from a drone aircraft.
Yet, from his safe houses and mountain redoubts, the guerrilla commander has directed some of the most brazen attacks against US forces in Afghanistan, and is now seen as one of the most dangerous warlords in the Taliban insurgency. Washington, with ever more strident accusations, thinks he is getting help from Pakistan’s shadowy but powerful ISI intelligence agency.
The Haqqani network is a “veritable arm” of the ISI, and the agency was in contact with the group during last week’s startling attack on the American embassy in Kabul, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a US Senate committee on Thursday.
Interior minister Rehman Malik rejected the accusations and warned against a unilateral US ground attack on the Haqqanis, believed to be based in the mountains of North Waziristan. “The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never.
Our government is already cooperating with the US … but they also must respect our sovereignty,” Malik said in an interview with Reuters this week. Sirajuddin, the head of a group his father founded in the 1980s, says he’d look forward to a US ground attack.
“The United States will suffer more losses (in North Waziristan) then they suffered in Afghanistan,” he told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
Still, he doesn’t take chances, especially with drones overhead a constant worry — 57 drone strikes have peppered the region so far this year, according the New American Foundation, a think-tank that keeps a database of such attacks. Some 55 members of his family, including his brother, have been killed in such attacks.
According to the New American database, at least a quarter of the drone attacks since 2008 have targeted the Haqqanis. “I always avoid travelling in a motorcade of armed fighters, as it puts your life in danger,” he said, adding that is also why he doesn’t wear a turban, standard head-dress for all male Afghans, or carry a gun.
Yet he is far from being a desperate fugitive on the run. He acknowledges that Haqqani fighters now number around 15,000, making it probably the largest force among the Taliban warlords. He also moves easily across the border to areas of eastern Afghanistan where the Haqqanis are entrenched.
He even mediates disputes among the Taliban and takes part in their meetings in Afghanistan. “His word is enough,” said Mahmood Shah, a former Pakistan intelligence official who monitored militants for years.
The forbidding terrain of Waziristan, which forms an ill-defined border with Afghanistan, is also his ally. “There are certain houses and villages where the bathroom is in Afghanistan and the bedroom is in Pakistan and this creates some issues,” Malik, the interior minister, said. “That no-man’s land there is not (in the) control of Pakistani forces or Afghan authorities or the US forces.”
After 9/11
When the US invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fled through the arid hills into North and South Waziristan.
The ISI, which backed the Taliban when the group came to power in the mid-1990s, seemed to turn a blind eye — or even helped — in their escape to Waziristan’s badlands. Sirajuddin said they were a shattered and dispirited group at first, in shock and awe of American power.
“Those were the harsh days of my life as all senior Mujahideen leaders were silent and were underground after the invasion of Afghanistan,” said Sirajuddin, who is believed to be in his mid-30s. “None of them were even willing to be called Taliban as the United States, through its media campaign, had created the wrong impression of its power and intelligence.”
As was the case with Osama bin Laden, the group’s patriarch and founder Jalaluddin Haqqani was a legendary mujahideen commander who worked with the Americans in the 1980s to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan.
Former US Congressman Charlie Wilson, whose relentless fund-raising for the Afghan resistance was depicted by Tom Hanks in the movie “Charley’s War”, once called Jalaluddin “goodness personified.” He even visited the White House when Ronald Reagan was president.
Pakistan’s ISI was an integral part of the nexus, funnelling secret US funds — Congress had outlawed US aid to Pakistan at the time — to the mujahidden for weapons such as the anti-aircraft Stinger missile.
The relationship continued long after the Soviets left Afghanistan in the 1990s and was even exposed in some embarrassing links. The Cruise missiles the Clinton Administration fired at bin Laden’s camp in Eastern Afghanistan in 1998, after attacks on US embassies in Africa, killed several militants — and the team of ISI agents training them.
That legacy is at the heart of Washington’s distrust of the ISI, and particularly its ties to the Haqqanis. “We sometimes say: You are controlling — you, Pasha — you’re controlling Haqqani,” one US official said, referring to ISI head Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha. “Well, Pasha will come back and say … ‘no, we are in contact with them’. Well what does that mean?” the official continued, speaking on condition of anonymity. Pakistan has repeatedly denied backing the Haqqani group.
Peace initiative
When a suicide bomber on Tuesday assassinated former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading talks with the Taliban aimed at a political settlement of the war, the finger of suspicion was initially pointed at the Haqqanis.
A Haqqani commander in a call to Reuters denied that but no one else has claimed responsibility. Sirajuddin told Reuters the group was not opposed to peace talks, but wants them to be broader based than what has been proposed to him.
“They offered us very important positions, but we rejected and told them they would not succeed in their nefarious designs. They wanted to divide us,” he told Reuters in another interview last Saturday. “We would support whatever solution our shura members suggest for the future of Afghanistan,” he said referring to the Afghan Taliban leadership.
US officials say the Haqqani network has been responsible for some of the most spectacular attacks against American targets in Afghanistan over the past year or so, including the US embassy attack that killed five police and 11 civilians in addition to three suicide bombers.
Sirajuddin half-heartedly denied responsibility for that attack. “For some reasons, I would not like to claim that fighters of our group carried out the recent attack on the US embassy and NATO headquarters.
Our central leadership, particularly senior members of the shura, suggested I should keep quiet in the future if the US and its allies suffer in the future.”
The Haqqanis have also been blamed for a raid on Kabul’s top hotel, an assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and a suicide bombing of the Indian embassy. They are believed to have helped an al Qaeda suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents at a US base in eastern Afghanistan last year.
The Haqqani’s power and influence in Afghanistan is now such that they are indispensable to any settlement of the decade-long Afghan conflict, America’s longest war, experts say. “If there is to be a meaningful cessation of hostilities, the Haqqanis will have to be part of the peace process,” said Vahid Brown, an expert on Islamic militancy and author of a new book, “Fountainhead of Jihad: the Haqqani Nexus”.
For now, Sirajuddin is one of the world’s most wanted men with a $5 million bounty on his head. He said he discovered that while listening to the Voice of America. “I don’t know why, but I could not sleep that night,” he said in Thursday’s interview. “In the morning, I tuned into a Pashto-language broadcast of the Voice of American and came to know about this. “I have chosen the path of jihad and I know very well about the hardships and fruits of this path.” AGENCIES
Two men caught with 260 baby alligators
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers say they surprised two Sumter County men when the men came off Lake Apopka with a couple of sacks full of recently hatched alligators.
Robert “Bo” Martin Duval, 32, and Christopher Cork Scroggins, 22, both of Bushnell, were booked into Lake County jail early Thursday on felony possession/capture of hatchling alligators along with misdemeanour conspiracy charges.
Duval had additional felony charges of possession of firearms and ammunition by a convicted felon. The firearms were concealed under some vegetation in the airboat boat. FWC Officer David Straub and FWC Reserve Officer were on surveillance at the Montverde boat ramp when the two men returned from the night on Lake Apopka.
“You have got me, and I have a lot of alligator hatchlings,” Duval said as the officers approached him and Scroggins.
“Unfortunately, there is an illegal market for hatchling alligators, and people who participate in this type of poaching have no regard for our resources or the laws that protect them,” Straub said.
Officers returned the hatchlings to the lake alive. Duval and Scroggins later bailed out on $13,000 and $3,000 bonds, respectively.
Charges are pending against a woman who assisted the two men at the boat ramp, and the incident is still under investigation.
Possessing/capturing hatchling alligators is a third-degree felony, which, on conviction, carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is a second-degree felony, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Ramirez charged with hitting wife
Ramirez, 39, who is originally from the Dominican Republic and won two World Series titles with the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and 2007, was arrested on Monday after his wife, Juliana, complained to police that he hit her face with an open hand during a heated argument at their Weston, Florida, home, a police report said.
Ramirez
Judge John Hurley set Ramirez’ bail at $2,500 and barred him from contacting his wife. Ramirez was charged with battery and taken to a Davie, Florida, jail on Monday, the police report said.
According to the report, the former World Series Most Valuable Player acknowledged that the couple had an argument while in bed. But Ramirez told police that he only grabbed his wife by the shoulders and shook her, causing her to hit her head against the bed s headboard.
“She was afraid that the situation might escalate even further so she promptly called police,” arresting officer Jose Campos said in his written statement.
