Economic news online

Auto Insurance Comparison Quotes – Are Essential

noreply@blogger.com (klr) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:47:00 +0000

There are certain professions that help in lowering of the policy rates. As in the case of pilots where they are so much safety conscious and are in a habit of giving attention to every minute detail. As a result these people are less likely get involved in accidents and hence less likely to make insurance claims and finally get more affordable insurance policies. Not only the pilots but the engineers are also benefited because of their profession in getting affordable policy coverage as they are well acquainted with every technical detail of a car and are at a lower risk for an insurance company. A teacher and military personnel is also benefited in this context.

The cost of an auto insurance coverage is not only done by looking at the past driving record or the credit score but also depends on the model of the car bought by the policy holder. The Luxury vehicles generally command higher premium rates as these are very expensive to replace and maintain. These cars are at a higher risk of getting stolen away. The insurance companies also see to the cost of car repairing and its safety rating before quoting a policy price. It is a pricey affair to insure sports cars or the SUVs that are more vulnerable to accidents.

It is great to start up insurance with no down payment. It gives you the affordable premiums to your automobile pay. Low down payment is a great way when you are leasing a new auto mobile. No one wants to face the accident but in case if you suffer an accident. The first important thing is to check whether someone got hurt. If all human beings are safe than you need to check whether your vehicle is in safe mode or not. At this time auto insurance helps a lot to compensate the loss due to accident.

It is quite interesting to note that a person’s place of residence helps him attract better policy rates. The insurance companies group various areas into different risk categories. A person residing in an area under high risk category is bound to pay higher rates than the one residing in an area within owner risk category.

How to Buy Cheap Auto Insurance

noreply@blogger.com (klr) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:46:00 +0000

It is getting a common practice of all the individuals of comparing a number of quotes online and choosing the best suited coverage policy providing the insured maximum number of benefits. Online quotes give the maximum information at a single click of the mouse and it is a hassle free process that doesn’t let the customer take too many pains and he/she get the things done correctly in no time. Making comparisons of all the available auto insurance schemes is only possible online from the various reputable sites that ensure making a better choice.

It is very essential for the customer to build up a trust in the company and be confident of not being cheated later on. For this purpose the customer gets to know about the companies that can be trusted by getting online only through comparisons. Not only this but getting online lets the customer get the work done in a more convenient manner as is does not involve any skill. The work can be done in a very short period of time without getting into problems and in a simple manner.

Different plans available online help one find out a deal with maximum benefits, one that is cheap and affordable due to its lower premium rates. The quotations available online can be gone through in few minutes. It is a simple (not involving skills); quick and time managing task process that is available at single click of the mouse. However there are other ways of buying the policies, either directly or through the broker, but they is more time consuming disturbing for the customer. It is better to do auto insurance comparison quotes to get the cheapest quote.

In case of the online services one has to just go through the details, compare and download the forms of the best suited policy coverage. Online information provides all the guidelines and other details about the policy that is being offered in a more comprehensive manner. This enables one to take care of the necessary requirements one should make before buying a vehicle. This helps in attaining a better insurance policy. Online policy quotes are helpful in gaining knowledge about the dos and the don’ts that one should keep in mind to save oneself from higher quotes. For instance, it tells about insuring an automobile that is inexpensive and does not have heavy engines. In such a case one would avoid buying sports cars to get benefits on the policy rates.

Auto Insurance Comparison – The Best Way

noreply@blogger.com (klr) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:45:00 +0000

It is mandatory for a person to have policy coverage in order to possess a driving license. If uninsured, one mite has to face many problems like suspension of the license along with the registration for a period of about 3 year. In order to get rid of this get problem one has to get an auto insurance done and pay fine.

A number of factors should be kept in mind to maintain the car security. These factors not only help one keep the car secured but also recover it after it has been stolen. Factors like having an alarm in the car, engraving the car’s VIN number on its windscreen, an anti theft protection and many such features helps one ensure car security. Buying a combined insurance policy for all the cars is a more sensible and cost reducing affair that one could implement.

For your new purchased auto vehicle you must have an auto insurance plan. Having no down payment for your auto mobile is a great way in itself. It helps in cutting some initial costs of the vehicle while purchasing.

There is no shortage of companies who offers the no down payment policies for your auto mobile. And also you do not need to have an expert mind to choose up these policies .you must be having an idea of these policies prevailing in the market so that you may choose the best plan or policy for your auto vehicle. For choosing up the policies you may consult your friends, if they are having an on going no down payment auto insurance. Even you may go with the internet. You must know your auto mobile’s model number. You can search out the prevailing policies in the market that may suits your vehicle.

The best option to seek for these insurance companies is through internet. They provide a proper guidance to the people or in other terms public who generally wants the best product of all available in the market. The internet option makes it easy to seek for rates and quotes and use it as per the terms and conditions required for selecting the best cheap auto insurance company. This helps people to step in different companies to know their status by knowing their rates and quotes.

Southeastern Could Lose $500 Million on IBM-Sun Deal

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Sun Microsystems Inc.’s biggest shareholder could face a loss of more than $500 million on its investment if Sun sells to International Business Machines Corp. under terms discussed last week.

Southeastern Asset Management Inc. paid a total of $2.13 billion, or an average of $13.25 a share, for its 22 percent stake in Sun, according to a January regulatory filing. A deal at $9.40 a share would mean a payout of about $1.5 billion for Southeastern.

Southeastern’s situation highlights the dilemma for some Sun investors: whether to push for the takeover and accept some losses, or count on Sun Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Schwartz to turn around the business. Sun’s shares had fallen about 80 percent in the two years leading up to March 18, when reports of IBM’s $7 billion offer emerged.

In addition to the stock holdings, Southeastern’s Longleaf Partners Fund paid $10.1 million for call options that give it the right to purchase 5 million Sun shares at $10 each. Those options, now “underwater,” expire in January 2010.

Southeastern, the investment advisory firm run by Mason Hawkins and Staley Cates, first reported investing in Sun in the third quarter of 2007, when the stock traded at an average price of $20.99 a share. Jason Dunn, a vice president at the Memphis, Tennessee-based firm, declined to comment.

IBM, the world’s largest computer-services company, offered $9.10 or $9.40 a share for Sun, according to differing accounts of the negotiations. That’s almost double the $4.97 Sun’s shares traded at on March 17, the day before the acquisition reports. Sun’s board unanimously rejected the offer last weekend, one person familiar with the matter said.

Board Meeting

Sun’s board was scheduled to meet yesterday to discuss the next steps for the company, according to a person familiar with the matter. Kristi Rawlinson, a spokeswoman for Sun, said the company doesn’t comment on the activities of its shareholders.

Sun, based in Santa Clara, California, rose 2 cents to $6.68 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

In October, Southeastern announced its switch from being a passive to active investor in Sun. That meant it could have more involvement in the management and governance, and be able to talk with other companies about “transactions of a significant nature,” Southeastern said at the time.

On Dec. 8, Sun, whose stock was trading at $3.83, let Southeastern pick two new independent directors for its board. Hawkins and Cates said in a letter to investors later that month that Sun needed to cut costs after losing revenue from financial-services firms. The fund managers estimated that Sun’s cash amounted to more than half its market value.

Sun’s Losses

Sun posted losses totaling $1.89 billion in the past two quarters after customers cut back purchases of server computers, which account for almost half of Sun’s sales. Sun is now headed for its biggest annual loss in six years.

Some shareholders have already decided to sell their holdings. Relational Investors LLC, once Sun’s third-largest holder, sold its 4.7 percent stake on concern that talks with IBM would break down, Ralph Whitworth, founder of San Diego- based Relational Investors, said this week in an interview.

Whitworth said he may buy Sun’s shares again if they fall further and executives show a “strong commitment to address their cost structure.”

Obama Stakes His Fortunes on Failed Banksters: Jonathan Weil

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:28:00 +0000

Now that we have a rough idea how President Barack Obama and his lieutenants plan to prop up insolvent financial institutions using taxpayers’ money, we’re left with a more difficult question: Why?

Why doesn’t the Obama administration force insolvent banks and insurance companies to come clean about their losses first? It’s the “why” that’s so vexing. The who, what, when, and how are mere details, by comparison.

More than anyone else’s, it should be in Obama’s political self-interest to accelerate the worst of the financial crisis and get as much of the inevitable pain behind us as quickly as possible. Every day he waits is one less day he will have between the time we hit rock bottom and the next election. And yet, Obama and his minions are doing all they can to delay the reckoning, which only will make it worse.

When publicly owned companies change management, often the smartest thing a new chief executive officer can do is clear the decks and take a “big bath” charge to earnings. In other words, the company writes off all its worthless assets and reports huge losses, pushing every conceivable drop of red ink into the past. The new CEO gets to blame his predecessor’s dumb mistakes. The company gets a fresh start with the investing public.

Obama could have taken the same approach with the banks the moment he took office, while he still had standing to blame the financial crisis on George W. Bush’s administration, stupid regulators, and corrupt lawmakers -- that is, everyone but himself.

Executive Order

He could have ordered all U.S. financial institutions to immediately confess whatever losses they hadn’t yet recognized. And he could have backed that up by vowing to prosecute every officer, director and auditor the Justice Department could find who had approved numbers they knew to be wrong.

Obama didn’t do that. And now, six months into the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, his administration’s approach to the financial crisis is largely indistinguishable from its predecessor’s. The only objective, it seems, is to buy time, in hopes that an economic recovery somehow will materialize and lift the financial system back to health.

The Obama administration’s “strategy,” for lack of a better word, is to keep plying broken financial institutions with as much taxpayer money as the government can print. And so the government will keep subsidizing failed mega-banks indefinitely, rather than placing any into receivership or liquidating them.

Taxpayers at Risk

The latest iteration of this policy is the Treasury Department’s Public-Private Investment Program. In short, struggling financial institutions will be encouraged to swap their most toxic mortgage-related assets with one another at inflated prices. The purchases will be financed by big government loans, so that taxpayers are at risk for the bulk of any losses.

If the government wanted transparency, it would force financial institutions to write down their bad assets now, and figure out afterward which companies deserve taxpayer support. Instead, the Treasury plans to recapitalize them first, keep their current financial condition hidden, and let their failed managers stay in their jobs.

The key assumption underlying this plan is that the declines in the values of these companies’ toxic assets are the result of private investors’ temporary reluctance to buy them, and that prices will rebound if Treasury can revive the markets where these assets trade.

Proper Values

The Treasury hasn’t explained why it believes the assets’ proper values are their original book values, rather than the prices unsubsidized investors are willing to pay for them. (This is one of the points made in an April 7 report by the U.S. bailout program’s Congressional Oversight Panel.) If Treasury’s hunch proves wrong, the government will need to rely on something other than a rising economy to restore the banks to solvency.

So why don’t Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke force the banks to write down their troubled assets first, as a condition of government assistance? We can only speculate, because their explanations so far have made no sense.

Perhaps they’re scared the markets would panic if large, insolvent financial institutions started telling investors just how undercapitalized they are. There’s the distinct chance some of Obama’s advisers are beholden to failed banksters, because they used to work for them and may want to do so again someday.

Manpower Shortage

There also could be a manpower problem. The government might not have enough employees to seize all those sickly banks and supervise the process of winding them down. Probably, it’s some combination of those and other factors.

Why else would the Treasury tell the 19 biggest U.S. banks to undergo “stress tests” of their financial health, and then put the banks in charge of performing the tests on themselves? Those reasons also might help explain why regulators pressured the board that sets U.S. accounting standards to weaken the rules on mark-to-market accounting, so the banks could hide their losses and show more capital.

Whatever the case, as long as the government refuses to remove the cancer of zombie banks from our financial system, there’s little hope the U.S. will return to robust economic growth anytime soon. And the longer our wounded banks are allowed to stagger along with no end-game in sight, the greater the risk for Obama that voters will conclude he’s as responsible for blowing the cleanup as others were for causing the crisis.

Budget Deficit in U.S. Swelled to $192.3 Billion in March

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:27:00 +0000

The U.S. budget deficit surged in March as the shrinking economy cut tax payments by companies and individuals and the government spent more.

The excess of spending over revenue climbed to $192.3 billion, compared with a gap of $48.2 billion in the same month a year earlier. Spending increased to $321.2 billion and revenue fell 28 percent to $129 billion.

The deficit six months into the 2009 fiscal year already exceeds the record set in the entire previous year. Rising job losses and subdued spending are cutting into tax receipts at the same time that the government commits billions of dollars to bolster the economy, now in its second year of a recession.

“A weaker labor market, slowing economy and weaker corporate profits will provide some downward pressure on the receipts side of the equation in coming months,” Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal in New York, said before the report.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast a March deficit of $165 billion, according to the median estimate of 28 projections. Projections ranged from deficits of $137.3 billion to $200 billion.

During the first half of fiscal year that began Oct. 1, the country’s deficit swelled to a record $956.8 billion, compared with a $313 billion shortfall during the same period a year earlier.

Corporate tax receipts totaled $56.2 billion through March, down from $129.5 billion in the first half of fiscal 2008, the Treasury said. Individual income tax collections are down 15 percent so far this fiscal year to $429.7 billion compared with $503.5 billion in the year-earlier period.

Projected Gap

The deficit in 2008 totaled a record $454.8 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimated on March 20 that the gap will swell to $1.85 trillion this fiscal year.

Almost half of the $94.2 billion, or 41 percent, surge in government spending last month compared with March 2008 reflected cash infusions to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest mortgage underwriters. Fannie Mae received $15.2 billion last month and Freddie Mac got $30.8 billion, the government said.

President Barack Obama in February signed into law a $787 billion stimulus program that he pledged will preserve or create 3.5 million jobs. Since then, the administration has also committed funds to help U.S. automakers and to spur investors to buy real estate assets that are clogging banks’ balance sheets.

Obama has signed a $410 spending bill to provide funding for most government operations through Sept.30.

Obama Plan

The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate last week approved drafts of Obama’s 2010 budget that largely adhere to the administration’s priorities. The House approved a $3.55 trillion plan on April 2 that echoes Obama’s calls for revamping the health-care system, rewriting education policies and reining in global warming.

Obama said last week the U.S. needs to reduce its deficit after the economic crisis passes.

“Once we have stabilized the economy we are going to have to bring these huge deficits down,” Obama told reporters April 2 in Baden-Baden, Germany.

Obama Sees ‘Glimmers of Hope’ of Improving Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:25:00 +0000

President Barack Obama said the U.S. economy is “starting to see progress” toward recovery even as it is “still under severe stress.”

“What we’re starting to see is glimmers of hope,” the president told reporters at the White House after getting an update on the economy from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

While Obama cited a 20 percent increase in government- backed loans to small businesses “over the last month alone,” he added that “right now we’re still seeing a lot of job losses, a lot of hardship.”

The talks centered on stimulating the economy, stabilizing banks, reducing strain in the credit markets, the rising jobless rate, mortgage refinancing and the health assessment of banks, including “stress tests” being conducted by the Fed.

“We have always been very cautious about prognosticating, and that’s not going to change,” Obama said. “The economy’s still under severe stress, and obviously during these holidays we have to keep in mind that whatever we do ultimately has to translate into economic growth, and jobs, and rising incomes for the American people.”

Helping Homeowners

Obama told reporters he and his experts discussed stabilization in the financial system and efforts to keep people in their homes as a result of government programs to modify loans, leading to a pickup in refinancing.

The average rate on a U.S. 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 4.73 percent in the week ended April 3, the lowest since 1971. Fed policymakers last month kept the benchmark lending rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent.

Obama didn’t mention the status of the Fed’s tests being conducted to see how the 19 largest U.S. banks would hold up if the recession worsens. Results may be released later this month.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Obama said. He didn’t take reporters’ questions.

There are signs of economic improvement. Orders placed with factories rose 1.8 percent in February, the first gain since July. Purchases of existing homes rose 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 4.72 million in February amid lower prices.

To be sure, the recession that began in December 2007 lingers. The unemployment rate rose to 8.5 percent in March, the highest level since 1983, and employers have cut payrolls by 5.1 million workers since the start of the downturn, the worst performance in the postwar era.

The economy probably shrank at a 5 percent annual rate in the first quarter, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey earlier this month.

Top Advisers

Also attending today’s meeting were Mary Shapiro, chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; John Dugan, Comptroller of the Currency, an arm of the Treasury Department that regulates national banks; and Obama’s top economic advisers, Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, and Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Summers yesterday expressed confidence that the U.S. recession is nearing an end.

Japan Output Slumps for Fifth Month as Exports Tumble

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:24:00 +0000

Japanese industrial production fell for a fifth month in February, the longest losing streak since 2001, as exports collapsed.

Factory output declined 9.4 percent from January, when it plummeted a record 10.2 percent, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo. Inventories fell an unprecedented 4.2 percent.

Companies surveyed said they will increase production in March and April as they begin to replenish stockpiles they managed to get rid of even as demand evaporated. Manufacturers worldwide are cutting inventories, a sign that output may pick up later this year, providing relief for a global economy that is contracting for the first time in six decades.

“Production cuts may already be bottoming out,” said Shinichiro Kobayashi, a senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting Co. in Tokyo. “We should remember that that doesn’t necessarily mean overseas demand is already recovering.”

The yen traded at 98.15 per dollar at 10:16 a.m. in Tokyo from 98.08 before the report was published. The currency is heading for its worst quarter since 2001 as the world’s second- largest economy deteriorates faster than the U.S. and Europe. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 1.2 percent.

Japan’s exports plunged a record 49.4 percent in February from a year earlier as sales of cars and electronics dried up. Toyota Motor Corp., forecasting its first net loss in more than five decades, plans to cut thousands of jobs and slash domestic production by half this quarter.

Tankan Survey

Sentiment among the nation’s largest manufacturers has fallen to its lowest level in more than 30 years, economists predict the Bank of Japan’s Tankan survey will show on April 1. The country’s largest firms plan to cut investment by 12 percent next fiscal year, the biggest pullback since at least 1983, economists predict the survey will show.

Prime Minister Taro Aso is preparing his third stimulus package since October to counter the slump. Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said on March 22 that a plan of as much as 20 trillion yen, double the total amount pledged since October, is “not out of line” as the economy heads for its worst recession since 1945.

“The longer this stretches out, the harder the domestic economy is going to be hit,” said Martin Schulz, senior economist at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. “The government really needs to come out with another package.”

Spending Billions

Governments around the world are spending billions of dollars to spur domestic demand as global trade seizes up. Economists say a Japanese recovery hinges on whether a combined $1.4 trillion of spending in the U.S. and China, the country’s two biggest markets, is enough to revive demand for its cars and electronics in the second half of the year.

There are signs a recovery may be stirring in the U.S., Japan’s biggest market. U.S. orders for durable goods rose in February for the first time in seven months. Inventories of long-lasting durable goods fell for a second month and new home sales increased for the first time since July.

In Japan, the drop in inventories adds to evidence that the worst of the manufacturing slump may be over. Companies said they would increase production 2.9 percent this month and 3.1 percent in April, today’s survey showed.

Nippon Steel Corp. said last month output should improve next quarter because customers have used up their stockpiles. Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third-largest automaker, said on Feb. 26 it will raise domestic production next month.

“Companies have succeeded, as you can see in today’s data, at cutting inventories back,” Richard Jerram, chief Japan economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo, said on Bloomberg Television. “They’re starting to move production back more into line with demand, which is still depressed but obviously going to be a stronger level than the January- February period.”

New York $131.8 Billion Plan Boosts Higher-Income Tax

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:22:00 +0000

New York Governor David Paterson and legislative leaders said they agreed on a budget that calls for higher income taxes on households with adjusted income exceeding $300,000.

New York, the third-largest U.S. state, faces a record deficit of at least $16.2 billion for the year beginning April 1, as the national economy’s contraction at an annual rate of 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter and layoffs on Wall Street cut tax collections.

The plan includes $6 billion of spending cuts, and $5.2 billion of new or increased taxes in a total budget of $131.8 billion. The overall spending plan is swollen by an additional $6.2 billion of money from the federal stimulus plan that must be spent in the current fiscal year ending March 31, according to the Division of Budget.

The agreement “closes the largest deficit in state history, stabilizes our finances and institutes critical reforms,” Paterson said in a statement issued Sunday evening.

Senate leadership has agreed to curb future property tax growth by linking increases to personal income, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith said. New York has the highest taxes in the nation, if local property taxes are added to state charges on incomes and sales taxes by the state and local governments.

The budget agreement was reached yesterday after weeks of closed-door sessions between Paterson, Smith and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. All three are Democrats from Manhattan.

No Republican Negotiators

It was the first budget since 1965 in which the Republican leader of the Senate wasn’t among the three top negotiators. Democrats won a 32-30 majority in the chamber in last November’s election.

The higher tax income rates are proposed to end after three years. Joint-filers with adjusted income above $300,000 would pay a top 7.85 percent, and those earning above $500,000 would pay 8.97 percent, the same top rate as neighboring New Jersey, the Division of Budget said. The possibility that a higher tax rate would lead wealthy New Yorkers to leave the state was debated in the months leading to the budget agreement.

New York’s existing top tax rate is 6.85 percent for joint filers with adjusted incomes above $40,000.

No Transit Help

Additional financial support for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that may allow it to withdraw or reduce planned subway and commuter rail fare increases and service cuts weren’t included in the spending plan.

Spending reductions were pared with the help of a $6.2 billion funding increase from the federal government, part of the stimulus package approved earlier this year. The additional money helped restore some cuts Paterson proposed for hospitals, nursing homes and home care involved in the Medicaid health program for the poor.

State aid to schools, the largest item in the budget, will total $21.9 billion, up $405 million from this year. Schools are also expected to receive an additional $852 million of stimulus funds.

Paterson warned lawmakers that the federal money will last only two years, and if it was used in lieu of spending cuts, the state may find itself facing future budget crises.

Bill Printing

Seven of the nine bills in the budget package were printed in time that they may be voted on as soon as March 31. Paterson and lawmakers promised a budget by the April 1 start of the new fiscal year, a deadline that previous administrations often failed to meet. Before 2005, the state had 20 consecutive years of late spending, with delays sometimes lasting into August, causing problems for schools and others reliant on state aid.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre, Long Island, said in the days leading up to the budget agreement that Republicans in that chamber were united in opposing higher taxes and fees because they will hurt the economy and stifle job creation.

Sunday morning, the bills were in stacks one-foot high (30.5 centimeters) on lawmakers’ desks.

In his initial budget presented in December, Paterson proposed $9.1 billion of spending cuts. That prompted a barrage of radio and television advertising by labor unions urging the reductions be restored with money from higher income taxes. A Marist College poll released earlier this month found Paterson’s approval rating at 26 percent, the lowest in the 27 years that the school has conducted opinion sampling on the state’s governors.

Obama Says U.S. Will Consult With Pakistan on Terrorism Strikes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:21:00 +0000

President Barack Obama said the U.S. will consult with Pakistan before raiding militant bases on Pakistani territory, as he called on leaders in Islamabad to be “much more accountable” in combating terrorism.

“If we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we’re going after them,” Obama said in an interview on CBS television’s “Face the Nation” program yesterday. “But our main thrust has to be to help Pakistan defeat these extremists.”

The U.S. expects some accountability from Pakistan and its understanding of the “severity and the nature of the threat” from the terrorists.

Pakistan has told the U.S. it considers missile strikes on its territory counterproductive. The Pakistani government says it is doing all it can to combat militants and is pursuing a strategy of selective military action, coupled with political and economic development programs, to try to persuade tribal leaders to expel foreign fighters sheltering along the border with Afghanistan.

Thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda members crossed into Pakistan’s tribal region after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The U.S. says al-Qaeda leaders have established bases in the area.

“Our plan does not change the recognition of Pakistan as a sovereign government,” Obama said in the interview taped on March 27. “We need to work with them and through them to deal with al-Qaeda. But we have to hold them much more accountable.”

Economic Aid

The U.S. will give Pakistan the “tools” to defeat al- Qaeda, the president said. Obama has endorsed legislation to increase economic and development aid to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion annually for five years in exchange for that country cracking down on militants.

“One of the concerns that we’ve had building up over the last several years is a notion, I think among the average Pakistani, that this is somehow America’s war and that they are not invested,” Obama said, according to a transcript. “That attitude, I think, has led to a steady creep of extremism in Pakistan and that is the greatest threat” to the government.

The U.S. must recognize that the task of working with Pakistan isn’t just military, he said. Development and aid assistance are part of the package.

Combating extremism both in Pakistan and Afghanistan involves a comprehensive strategy that “doesn’t just rely on bullets and bombs,” Obama said.

Sending Troops

It relies on “agricultural specialists, on doctors, on engineers, to help create an environment in which people recognize that they have much more at stake in partnering with us and the international community than giving in to some of these extremist ideologies,” he said.

Obama announced last week that he will send 4,000 more U.S. soldiers, in addition to the 17,000 military personnel he already has ordered for Afghanistan, to train Afghan forces to take a bigger role in providing security. The announcement came after a review of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pakistan last week denied a report in the Wall Street Journal that it has given the U.S. “tacit permission” to use drones to attack militants. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the government has told the U.S. it opposes such strikes.

U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan’s borderlands have been effective and more than half of an initial list of 20 top al- Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured during the past six months, the Journal reported.

Find out your brainsex

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:53:00 +0000

A neuropsychologist who writes about male and female-oriented brains is at the front line of the struggle to try and make the boys in Britain's schools enthusiastic about learning.

Dr Ann Moir has applied her knowledge of gender differences to the classroom and devised a series of radical - some say controversial - tactics that have resulted in schools encouraging and teaching boys to “play-fight”.

Body sex does not necessarily match brain sex so Dr Moir has devised a test to determine the gender of the brain.

Answer yes or no depending on whether you agree or not with the following statements:

1 It's easy for me to sing in tune, singing alone

2 When I was younger, winning was really important to me

3 It's easy for me to hear what people are saying in a crowded room

4 As a child I enjoyed going as high as possible when climbing trees

5 If someone interrupts what I am doing it's difficult to go back to it

6 I find it easy to do more than one thing at once

7 I find it easy to know what someone is feeling just by looking at their face

8 I like to collect things and sort them into categories

9 I solve problems more often with intuition than logic

10 As a child, I loved playing games where I pretended to be someone I knew or a character I had created

11 At school it was easy for me to write neatly

12 As a child, I enjoyed taking things apart to see how they work

13 I get bored easily so I need to keep doing new things

14 I don't like fast speeds, they make me nervous

15 I enjoy reading novels more then non-fiction.

16 I can find my way more easily using a map rather than landmark directions

17 I keep in regular contact with my friends and family

18 As a child, I enjoyed physical sports

19 Imagining things in three dimensions is easy for me. For example: I can see in my mind's eye just how an architects' drawings or plans will look once built

20 As a child, I loved doing things like 'wheelies' on my bike

Now work out your score and turn over to see how ‘male’ or ‘female’ your brain is:

If you answered ‘Yes’ to questions: 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17 score 1 point each.

(‘No’ answers to these questions receive 0 points.)

If you answered ‘No’ to questions: 2, 4, 5, 8, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20 score 1 point each.

(‘Yes’ answers to these questions receive 0 points.)

How to work out how ‘male’ or ‘female’ your brain is

• The higher your score out of twenty, the more female your brain.

• Middle scores show a more mixed brain.

• The lower the score out of twenty, the more male your brain.

Very Male Very Female

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

To take part in the brainsex survey go to http://www.brainsexmatters.com/

Other indicators of brainsex:

Hands are a further marker for brain organisation. Combining the questionnaire results together with the following finger pattern result may give you a clearer picture of your brain organisation.

Which hand pattern most fits yours?

A large number of studies show that comparative finger length matches brain organisation.

The key digits, counting from your thumb, are the 2nd and 4th digits (your index and ring fingers respectively). When looking at your own hands, you should view them with the palms towards you and measure from the crease at the base of your finger.

• A typical male brain correlates with:

The index finger (2nd digit) is shorter than the ring finger (4th digit).

• A typical female brain correlates with:

The index and ring fingers are the same length; occasionally the index finger is longer than the ring finger.

Sometimes, however, one hand is the male pattern and the other the female pattern – this requires further research as to the significance for brain organisation.

Background to Brainsex Test

The questions are based on a very large number of sex differences found in the research. Body sex does not necessarily match brain sex. In my experience many of us have mixed brain – we fall on a continuum.

There are a large number of studies that show relative digit length correlate with many male/female patterns of behaviour.

Parents lose court fight to keep baby OT alive

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:50:00 +0000

The parents of a gravely ill baby boy failed last night in their attempt to overturn a court ruling that gave doctors the power to end his treatment and allow him to die.

Born in May last year, the nine-month-old baby suffers from a rare metabolic disease and has lived in an intensive care unit since he was three weeks old, kept alive on a ventilator.

On Thursday a judge at the High Court ruled that the baby, named only as OT, was in constant pain and gave the medical team treating him the right to stop painful invasive treatment and to take him off the ventilator, replacing that treatment with palliative care.

But Mrs Justice Parker placed a temporary stay on the order to allow the child’s parents to try to reverse the decision at the Court of Appeal.

Last night that attempt failed. Two judges — Lord Justice Ward and Lord Justice Wilson — refused them permission to challenge the ruling.

Lord Justice Ward had been told that the parents could not face hearing the decision of the court and were waiting outside. “We are not unmindful of the horror of their predicament,” he said.

The parents of baby OT do not accept that his condition is as serious as doctors have claimed and still believe that he could one day recover, go home and go to school. They want doctors to keep him alive as long as possible, so long as that does not cause him unacceptable suffering.

Lord Justice Ward asked their lawyers to pass on the message that although the hearing seeking permission to appeal had been conducted “in a brusque, uncaring, unfeeling way on a crude issue of law”, it was impossible not to feel the “deepest sympathy for their predicament”.

“One has great respect and admiration for them,” he said.

The judges said that they would give their reasons for rejecting permission to appeal at a later date. The court order allowing doctors to withdraw treatment now comes into effect immediately, though Caroline Harry Thomas, QC, for the NHS Trust involved, which cannot be identified, told the court that “there will be no unseemly rush” to withdraw treatment.

The parents of OT said that they were “devastated”. The Court of Appeal ruling follows a ten-day hearing, partly conducted at the baby’s bedside this week, which Mrs Justice Parker described as a “desperately sad and anguished case”.

The baby’s condition was deteriorating and at one stage it was thought that he would not last the week.

She rejected claims by the father that doctors and nurses treating the child had infected him to speed up his death and that they could have done more. At his bedside this week she said the father had tried to interfere with treatment and shouted: “This is murder! This is murder!” She said this outburst was a result of the terrible strain of the situation.

She accepted that the baby’s parents “love him devotedly” but said the father’s belief that he would one day go to school was “sadly, wholly unrealistic”.

She said the child was already suffering severe brain damage and that after his latest relapse, it was possible that his lungs had been damaged. The evidence suggested that he would not live more than three years: he faced a future of progressive organ failure and invasive treatment to keep him alive.

As well as granting orders to take the child off the ventilator, she gave doctors and nurses the right not to keep him alive with painful invasive treatment. One doctor said what they were doing amounted to torture.

The judge said that she accepted that “the sanctity of life is not absolute, requiring treatment that is futile”.

Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee, said there was “a good deal of case law” surrounding such cases.

“Sometimes there will be an agreement between the medical team and the parents. Where that breaks down and where the medical team feel that there is undue stress being put on a child, undue pain and with no chance of a decent outcome the medical team will go to the court and ask them to determine it.”

Cruel dilemmas

— Charlotte Wyatt was born in 2003 — three months prematurely and weighing only 1 lb — with severe brain and lung damage. Her parents won a court battle to ensure that she was revived in the event of a collapse. The child survived with severe disabilities, but living in care, as her parents struggled to meet her 24-hour healthcare needs

— In 2004 Luke Winston-Jones died at the age of ten months, at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool. Doctors had been granted permission by the High Court to withhold life-saving treatment by “aggressive” medical ventilation. Luke had been born with Edwards syndrome, a rare genetic disorder

— In 2006 a child identified only as MB, suffering from a degenerative muscle-wasting disease, was given the right to be kept alive on a life-support machine against the wishes of his doctors

— In 2007 Mr Justice Holman ruled that a seriously ill baby girl should undergo a bone marrow transplant that would give her a 50 per cent chance of life, despite her parents’ wish to spare her further suffering.

Obama Defends Health Care, Education Budget Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:15:00 +0000

President Barack Obama said he won’t scale back his plans to revamp the health-care and education systems in his proposed $3.6 trillion budget and challenged Republican critics to do more than “just say no.”

Obama, gearing up for a fight in Congress over his fiscal 2010 spending blueprint, met privately with the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees before issuing a public rebuttal to Republicans who have criticized his plan as including too much spending at a time when deficits are ballooning.

“‘Just say no’ is the right advice to give your teenagers about drugs. It is not an acceptable response” to economic policies “proposed by the other party,” Obama said at the White House with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota and House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt of South Carolina at his side.

“The American people sent us here to get things done and at this moment of enormous challenge, they are watching and waiting for us to lead,” he said.

Republicans and some Democrats have questioned whether Obama’s budget is too ambitious at a time when the budget deficit is projected to hit $1.75 trillion this year and the U.S. is in the midst of deepest recession in decades.

Future Plans

At issue are proposals including the economic impact of Obama’s $646 billion cap-and-trade system to control greenhouse gas emissions; how to pay for the president’s $634 billion health care initiative; the effect of Obama’s plan to limit the value of itemized tax deductions for those making more than $250,000 a year and a proposal to increase taxes, starting in 2011, on individuals earning more than $200,000 and on households earning more than $250,000.

Obama repeated his vow to halve the deficit by the end of his first term and said his budget will trim the growth of discretionary spending.

“What we will not cut back, however, are those investments that are directly linked to our long-term prosperity,” he said, citing his plans for health care, education and energy.

Republicans are largely united in opposing Obama’s budget.

“The president and his allies in Congress want to spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much,” Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said in the Republicans’ weekly radio address on March 14.

Cost Questions

Still, some Democrats, including Conrad, are raising questions about the cost of Obama’s plan. Conrad last week said Obama’s plan to overhaul the health-care system “gives many of us great pause” because of the price tag.

The White House plans to send to Congress a detailed budget proposal by late April.

Democrats in the House and Senate are struggling to assemble a spending blueprint, called a budget resolution, in time for the April 15 deadline. The resolution doesn’t have the force of law but serves as a guide for tax and spending bills later in the year that reflect Obama’s priorities.

Obama is bracing for a fight, activating an all-out grass- roots campaign through the Democratic National Committee and a 13-million-member e-mail list built from his 2008 presidential candidacy to fight for his budget, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Coca-Cola Flees Commercial Paper for Safety in Bonds

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Coca-Cola Co. is fleeing commercial paper for the safety of long-term bonds.

The world’s largest soft-drink maker joins a growing number of borrowers reducing their dependence on the debt this year as the market sinks to its lowest since seizing up after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September.

Coca-Cola, health-insurer WellPoint Inc. and more than 30 other companies are issuing bonds and using the proceeds to repay their short-term IOUs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The amount of commercial paper outstanding shrank 16 percent since Jan. 7 to $1.48 trillion last week and daily issuance dropped to a four-year low, according to the Federal Reserve.

“People want to push down their debt levels, build up their cash war chests and have lots of sources of funding, just in case one of the legs of their stools gets kicked out,” said Peter Crane, president of Crane Data LLC, a money-fund tracking firm in Westborough, Massachusetts.

By lessening their reliance on commercial paper, borrowers are paying higher interest rates to avoid the risk of not being able to roll over the debt every few weeks. With the gap between short- and long-term debt rates the widest in at least two decades, the cost of swapping $1 billion of 30-day paper with long-term debt can cost more than $75 million in additional annual interest, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bloomberg data show.

Recession Extension

A lack of confidence in commercial paper, which matures in nine months or less and is used to meet everyday expenses such as payrolls, may extend the worst U.S. recession since at least 1982 because treasurers will lose the ability to raise cash quickly and cheaply, said Adolfo Laurenti, senior economist at Mesirow Financial Inc. in Chicago.

The economy will likely contract 1.8 percent this year, after expanding 1.1 percent in 2008, according to the median estimate of 65 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

An increase in the premium banks charge each other for short-term loans, the so-called Libor-OIS spread, shows how commercial-paper refinancing risks are rising. The gauge of bank reluctance to lend climbed to a nine-week high of 1.08 percentage points March 13 from a four-month low of 0.89 percentage point Jan. 15. It has since eased back to 1.07 percentage points.

WellPoint, the largest U.S. health insurer by enrollment, sold $1 billion of 5- and 10-year notes Feb. 2 at rates as high as 7 percent to repay commercial paper with an average yield of about 2 percent, according to Chief Financial Officer Wayne DeVeydt. The move by the Indianapolis-based company cut outstanding short-term debt to about $500 million, he said.

“What we’ve really done is hedged against another crash in the CP market,” he said.

‘Incredibly Dangerous’

Reliance on short-term credit is “incredibly dangerous,” DeVeydt said. “If you have another run on the bank, which is really what happened to many companies in the fourth quarter of last year, you’re not going to get access to other long-term debt.”

Corporate bonds rated A yielded 8 percent on March 11, or 7.47 percentage points more than short-term debt due in 30 days and ranked A-1/P-1/F1, according to Merrill and Bloomberg data.

Companies are taking advantage of recent demand for investment-grade bonds that pushed borrowing costs for A rated borrowers to below 7 percent in February from a 17-year high of 9.6 percent Oct. 30, Merrill data show. Non-financial companies sold more than $142 billion this year, a record pace, according to Bloomberg data.

The commercial paper market contracted $280 billion in the past nine weeks, and is down from a peak of $2.22 trillion in July 2007, Fed data show. Non-financial paper outstanding fell $35.1 billion to $188.7 billion in the same period.

Lesson Learned

“Everyone learned the lesson” from Lehman’s demise, Laurenti said.

The risk that a solvent company loses access to short-term debt and goes under “is high in everyone’s mind,” he said. “So unless you really have to, why go to the commercial paper market?”

Restoring confidence in commercial paper is one way policy makers aim to fix credit markets. The Fed started purchasing unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper directly from companies on Oct. 27. At the peak in January, the Fed shouldered the risk for $365 billion of commercial paper, central bank data show. The total is now $247 billion.

Financial firms are replacing some commercial paper with notes backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Crane said. The companies, which lost access to the bond market last September, have sold $209 billion of FDIC-backed bonds since Nov. 25, Bloomberg data show. The FDIC guarantee can also be used to sell commercial paper.

General Electric Notes

General Electric Co. cut its financing arm’s commercial paper borrowing by about a third to $60 billion this year as part of a plan to reduce overall debt. At the same time, GE Capital Corp. sold $36.6 billion of FDIC-backed notes, Bloomberg data show.

The company, which lost its AAA rating at Standard & Poor’s last week and is now ranked one step lower at AA+, sold commercial paper at “favorable” rates throughout the market seizure, GE spokesman Russell Wilkerson said.

Switching from commercial paper to bonds will boost the economy and improve corporate balance sheets, said James Merli, head of U.S. debt syndicate at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York.

“If you’re a treasurer or a CFO, you’d rather have more stable sources of funding,” he said.

Coca-Cola sold $2.25 billion of 5- and 10-year notes March 3 to repay maturing commercial paper, Bloomberg data show. The Atlanta-based company agreed to pay as much as 4.875 percent to replace short-term debt with an average yield of 0.41 percent, according to a regulatory filing.

‘Continued Concern’

The difference amounts to about $48 million in extra annual interest on every $1 billion borrowed and used to replace commercial paper. Coca-Cola had $5.4 billion of paper outstanding as of Dec. 31.

Part of Coca-Cola’s reason for reducing long-term debt related to “continued concern about financial institutions’ situations,” spokesman Dana Bolden said in an e-mail. “We continue to have a sizable commercial paper balance outstanding and are seeing our commercial paper program functioning very well.”

The market for commercial paper backed by assets such as auto loans and credit cards seized up in August 2007 at the beginning of the credit crisis as defaults on subprime home loans began to soar. It fell 37 percent over five months to $772.8 billion, from its peak in August 2007 of $1.22 trillion.

Breaking the Buck

After Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, the broader market froze. The next day, the flagship $62.6 billion money- market fund of Reserve Management Corp. became only the second of its kind to break the buck as its net asset value fell below $1-a-share because of its stake in Lehman’s commercial paper

Non-financial investment-grade companies face higher refinancing risk because of a weakening economy and tightened credit markets, according to a Moody’s Investors Service report yesterday. In addition, debt-rating cuts may restrict access to short-term borrowings from investors, Crane said.

Newark, New Jersey-based Prudential Financial Inc., the second-largest U.S. life insurer, and Genworth Financial Inc. lost access to the Fed’s commercial paper facility after their short-term debt ratings were cut to second tier.

Kicked Out

Genworth said it borrowed $930 million from one of its revolving credit lines three days after the Richmond, Virginia- based company said it was ineligible to participate in the Fed’s facility. Many companies with second-tier ratings have been unable to sell commercial paper, with issuance plunging by more than half from seven months ago, Fed data show.

Pitney Bowes Inc., the world’s largest maker of postal meters, raised $300 million on March 2 in an offering of 6.25 percent notes to repay commercial paper and “take some of that risk off the table,” said Helen Shan, vice president and treasurer of the Stamford, Connecticut-based company.

“What we are concerned about is really the uncertainty,” Shan said. “We don’t know where things will be for the rest of the year. I wish I did.”

Intel, Lockheed Tell Obama on Taxes, F-22: Not in This Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:11:00 +0000

That’s Intel Corp.’s argument against new taxes on overseas income. It’s Overstock.com Inc.’s objection to making unions easier to form. Ditto Lockheed Martin Corp.’s case against scrapping production of the F-22 jet.

U.S. companies are stepping up their fight against President Barack Obama’s proposals not aimed squarely at reviving the economy. They say Obama is trying to do too much, taking the focus off fixing credit markets and proposing ideas that may hurt rather than help.

“There are so many priorities that there is no priority,” said Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobbying group. “There is nothing more important than fixing the housing and financial markets.” Obama “is saying we can do it all at once.”

Making an issue of an economy that shrank 6.2 percent last quarter, the steepest plunge in 27 years, is a potent strategy that may derail Obama’s agenda on issues from taxes to climate change, said Jeffrey Berry, a professor of political science who specializes in lobbying at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

“It’s a strategic argument, well-designed and well- timed,” Berry said. While companies typically say the timing is bad as they try to stall proposals, “it’s much more effective now in the depths of this recession.”

Tackle It All

Obama argued for tackling his entire agenda even amid a crisis in a speech to business executives in Washington on March 12.

“Problems in the financial markets, as acute and urgent as they are, are only a part of what threatens our economy,” Obama said. “We must not use the need to confront them as an excuse to keep ignoring the long-term threats to our prosperity.”

Semiconductor makers including Santa Clara, California- based Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, sent executives to Washington last week to press Democratic lawmakers and the administration to drop plans to end the deferral of U.S. taxes on overseas earnings. The companies call it a tax hike.

“If you want to decrease our competitiveness, then increasing our tax rate is exactly the right thing to do,” Intel Chairman Craig Barrett told reporters on March 11.

The tax “actually works the opposite of the way the Obama administration is describing,” said John Daane, chief executive officer of Altera Corp., the world’s second-largest maker of programmable chips. “Our profits would go down,” and the company would have to cut jobs, adding to unemployment, he said.

Cost to Companies

The tax on overseas income, proposed in Obama’s budget submission last month, might cost companies such as General Electric Co., Exxon Mobil Corp., Caterpillar Inc. and Ford Motor Co. a total of $362 billion, according to an analysis by Height Analytics, a Washington-based investors’ advisory group.

“This is going to be a very big fight,” said William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which is leading the lobbying against the tax on behalf of companies.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Burger King Holdings Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Overstock.com are trying to stop so-called card check legislation, which would make it easier for employees to approve unions. Labor groups, which spent $100 million in the 2008 campaign to elect Democrats, have made it their top priority this year.

Not the Time

Companies say the plan would increase labor costs.

“Card check is a misguided proposal -- especially right now,” said Jonathan Johnson, president of Salt Lake City-based Overstock.com, the Internet seller of discounted name-brand goods.

Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat who co-sponsored the measure in 2007, expressed reservations about the rule change this year. “It is a different time, and the economy is in a much different situation,” Pryor said in an interview this month in Washington.

Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin is trying to continue production of the F-22 fighter jet, the most expensive aircraft in U.S. history, as the Obama administration reviews weapons programs for possible cuts.

During the past three weeks, Lockheed bought daily newspaper advertisements that focused on 1,000 companies and 95,000 workers dependent on the project.

“If you’re looking for stimulus and to stop the bleeding and job losses, step one is to stabilize the current situation,” Larry Lawson, Lockheed’s F-22 program manager, said in an interview. Cutting the F-22 would mean Lockheed and its suppliers “would start laying people off,” he said.

Seeking, Opposing

Drugmakers Eli Lilly & Co. and AstraZeneca Plc said on Feb. 26 they would lose “several hundred million” dollars from Obama’s proposal to mandate deeper discounts for drugs they sell to Medicaid, the health plan for the poor. Health-care stocks, led by Humana Inc., slid after the Obama’s budget plan called for stripping insurers of $175 billion over 10 years by forcing them to compete for Medicare contracts. The shares have since recovered.

Some companies are simultaneously seeking government aid while opposing the administration’s initiatives. General Motors Corp. is trying to get as much as $16.6 billion in U.S. help to avoid bankruptcy as it seeks to persuade Obama to abandon his campaign pledge to let California set stricter auto emissions standards.

Lobbyists for U.S. Steel Corp., the largest U.S. steelmaker by sales, are asking for U.S. help to prevent a surge of imports from China while fighting Obama’s plans to establish new limits on carbon dioxide emissions to slow global warming.

Mosquito laser gun offers new hope on malaria

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:19:00 +0000

AMERICAN scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.

Scientists have speculated for years that lasers might be used against mosquitoes, which kill nearly 1m people a year through malaria.

The laser – dubbed a weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD) – has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.

“We like to think back then we made some contribution to the ending of the cold war,” Dr Jordin Kare, another astrophysicist, told The Wall Street Journal. “Now we’re just trying to make a dent in a war that’s claimed a lot more lives.” The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito’s wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. The research is backed by Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire.

It is speculated that lasers could shield villages or be fired at swarming insects from patrolling drone aircraft. “You could kill billions of mosquitoes a night,” said one expert.

Sir Liam Donaldson: charge by the alcoholic unit to combat culture of 'passive drinking'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:18:00 +0000

The Chief Medical Officer said today that excessive drinking should be made as socially unacceptable as smoking, as he proposed controversial moves to raise the minimum cost of alcohol.

Unveiling the proposals in his annual report, which set him on a collision course with government and the drinks industry, Sir Liam Donaldson proposed regulations forcing shops to charge at least 50p per unit of alcohol.

The proposals would, if implemented, result in every can of beer costing at least £1 and a bottle of wine coming to a minimum of £4.

Gordon Brown immediately emphasised that he opposed the plans, claiming that the majority of responsible drinkers should not be punished for the behaviour of the few.

However, Sir Liam stressed that they were crucial as a tool to combat a nation-wide phenomenon which he described as "passive drinking" - the devastating knock-on effect of excessive alcohol consumption on wider society, such as the loved ones of drinkers, those killed by drink-driving, and the financial burden on NHS.

Referring to the Prime Minister's decision to reject his plan, he drew parallels with the debate over the smoking ban which he initiated long before it became mainstream policy at Westminster.

"I don’t mind being a football if a goal is scored in the end," he said. "I got a very hard time when I proposed smoke-free public places."

Writing in his report, Sir Liam said that binge-drinking was "killing us as never before" and that radical measures were needed to combat it.

"England has a drink problem and the whole of society bears the burden," Sir Liam said. "The massive effects of heavy drinking on innocent parties are easily underestimated and frequently ignored.

"The concept of passive drinking and the devastating collateral effect that alcohol can have on others must be addressed on a national scale."

He added: "Cheap alcohol is killing us as never before. The quality of life of families and in cities and towns up and down the country is being eroded by the effects of excessive drinking."

The Chief Medical Officer said that, if a 50p minimum price per unit policy was introduced this year, there would be 3,393 fewer deaths, 97,900 fewer hospital admissions, 45,800 fewer crimes, 296,900 fewer sick days, and a total benefit of over £1 billion per year.

The plans received a lukewarm reception in Westminster, however, with the Prime Minister flatly rejecting a uniform price-rise along with the Conservatives, the drinks and retail industries.

"As we crack down on binge and under-age drinking it’s also right that we do not want the responsible, sensible majority of moderate drinkers to have to pay more, or suffer, as a result of the excesses of a small minority," Mr Brown said.

In further recommendations to curb binge-drinking, Sir Liam said licensing laws should be tightened to reflect the full impact of drinking in each region. In order to do this, he said that fewer bars and nightclubs should be opened in areas where there were high rates of cirrhosis of the liver or breast cancer cases caused by alcohol.

Sir Liam also unveiled a series of other proposals to improve the nation's health in his report.

These included ensuring an improvement in the diagnosis of prostate cancer, of which one case is diagnosed every 18 minutes.

He said that it was vital to better publicise the symptoms of so-called 'pussycat' prostate cancer - a chronic, slow-growing form of the disease which is often not identified in time.

Compulsory pre-testing counselling would give prospective patients a clearer idea which symptoms to look out for, he said.

"Men diagnosed with early, localised prostate cancer face an enormously difficult decision of whether to have radical treatment and risk the side effects or take the small chance that their cancer may progress and threaten their life. It is vital that men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer are truly informed of the risks and benefits of any treatment," he said.

In separate plans, hospitals and hospices should improve their management of people in chronic pain by developing a "pain score" with which to monitor patients alongside more conventional methods, such as blood tests and pulses.

The Chief Medical Officer added that awareness should be increased about the dangers of antibiotics, which he said were being used more and more frequently but which themselves caused disease.

Case study: Female circumcision, the daughter

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:10:00 +0000

When Zarah was 7 she saw her older sister being pinned to the ground by a room full of women. Then she heard her sister scream and quickly realised that she was next in line to have her genitals mutilated.

Unfortunately for Zarah, now 33, there was nowhere to run in her aunt’s home in Somalia. Both she and her sister, then 10, had been taken there by their mother for a “holiday”. “When that happened to me, I immediately lost all trust in my mother and I think that hasn’t changed to this day,” Zarah said. “In fact, I’ve lost trust in both my parents because my father was also aware of what was going to happen to us.”

Zarah said that the psychological scars were worse than the pain. She has nightmares, and relationships have been ruined by her fear of intimacy.

“It always affects you psychologically because the memories never go away,” she said. “I’ve told a couple of former partners about what I had been through and they were understanding. But there’s a big part of me that seems unable to overcome it all.”

Zarah added: “My mother told me after the event, ‘Don’t ever tell anybody’.” Such secrecy was what allowed the practice to go in the UK, she said. “We all know that it goes on even here, but we have no proof. But if I do find out, I will immediately contact the police. No one deserves to go through this.”

Mosquito laser gun offers new hope on malaria

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:50:00 +0000

Knowledge doesn’t always mean power

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:48:00 +0000

Everyone knows that scientific advance has the capacity to do harm as well as good. Screening for cancer, for example, may detect the disease early and thus save life; but this has to be balanced against the unnecessary worry caused to those – who may be many more – who test positive but do not have the disease.

Will knowing our own genetic predisposition to disease do us more harm than good? My gut feeling is that it will.

First, most diseases are not straightforwardly genetic. To have a certain gene or combination of genes does not mean that one is certain to get a disease. Genetic differences play an important, but not an all-important part in the pattern of diseases from which we suffer.

Thus, having a certain genetic constitution may tell us that we are four times as likely to get disease X as the next man, or that we have a 17.5 per cent chance of developing disease Y after the age of 55. But what are we to do with this information, apart from worry about it?

It is difficult to keep in mind that what matters to us is not our relative chance of contracting a disease, but our absolute chance of contracting it. Why should I worry if my possession of a certain gene pattern makes me ten times more likely than my neighbour to contract a particular disease, if his chance is only one in ten million? On the other hand, if the possession of a certain gene pattern renders me susceptible to a disease whose environmental determinants are known, then I can take avoiding action if the risk is sufficiently big and the disease sufficiently severe to make it worthwhile.

Moreover, if we do not gather the information, how will we ever understand the interaction between genetic endowment and environmental factors in the causation of disease?

What about the question of whether life insurance companies should have access to our genetic code and alter our premiums accordingly? In principle, there is no objection, since they already do something similar when they ask us about the health of our relatives.

Nevertheless, there is something very Brave New Worldish about the whole idea. By the way, what exactly is wrong with the Brave New World? We all feel very strongly that it is wrong, but not many of us are able to put our fingers on precisely why.

Brain drain fears as Barack Obama lifts ban on stem-cell funding

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:42:00 +0000

British doctors are predicting a damaging brain drain of scientists to the US after President Obama's move today to lift the Bush Administration's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

Mr Obama's decision to overturn the funding ban is aimed at increasing the chance of finding cures for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and other afflictions. Yet it also promises to provide a new stream of financial support that could prove tempting for British researchers who are struggling to raise the money they need for their experiments, scientists said.

Mr Obama will sign an executive order lifting Mr Bush's funding ban. It is controversial with anti-abortion groups because stem cells are harvested from embryos that are destroyed in the process, an act that President Bush said crossed a “moral line”.

Stephen Minger, of King's College London, a stem-cell scientist who left the US for Britain because of the Government's more enthusiastic attitude to his research, said that the new American position posed significant challenges for British science.

“The UK remains an extremely competitive place to do stem-cell research, but if that is to be maintained the Government needs to make a sustained commitment to funding the field properly,” he said. “Competition for grants is extremely fierce, and many good funding applications are being turned down. We want to keep British scientists in Britain, but if the NIH [US National Institutes of Health] does make a lot of money available, that will obviously be tempting to many people.”

One of Professor Minger's own projects, for stem-cell research with human-animal hybrid embryos, recently failed to attract funding from the Medical Research Council.

Even though President Bush banned the NIH from financing most embryonic stem-cell research, US funding has long outstripped that available in Britain. Scientists based in America have always been free to experiment with embryonic stem cells using private funds and many states have also provided large sums.

The Medical Research Council spent £25.5million on all stem-cell research last year, 39 per cent of which went on embryonic projects. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine spends $300million (£210million) a year. “Not all of this goes on embryonic research, but the money is already there in the US,” Professor Minger said. “Whether President Obama's move leads to more NIH funding remains to be seen: there will be legal challenges ahead. The significance is chiefly symbolic, in that it shows there is no longer a political bias against embryonic stem cells.”

Britain's advantage over the US in stem-cell research has always been political rather than financial: while the US Government has been opposed to embryonic stem-cell research and has blocked much of it, Britain has been enthusiastic. That no longer applies, making the US more attractive for stem-cell scientists.

The US also has a single body, the Food and Drug Administration, that is responsible for all regulation of stem-cell trials. British researchers, by contrast, must deal with three agencies: the Human Tissue Authority, the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Robin Lovell-Badge, of the UK National Institute for Medical Research, said: “We absolutely have to streamline the regulation, or we will get nowhere. The end of the US funding ban is undoubtedly good news – this is an international field, and we have been deprived of the leadership the NIH can bring. But it does pose challenges for the UK. We need to make sure our funding and regulation are competitive.”

Yet it may be several months before the NIH starts to spend more on this field. Mr Obama's move will almost certainly face legal challenges, based on the “Dickey-Wicker amendment”. That is a 1995 rider passed by Congress along with an appropriations Bill that bans federal grants that go toward research involving the destruction of human embryos.

G20 nations issue pledge to avoid protectionism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:39:00 +0000

THE chancellor said last night that the “grave” global economic situation would not turn into a repeat of the Great Depression of the 1930s because of the actions being taken by governments to boost their economies and avoid a damaging trade war.

Alistair Darling, after chairing a meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bankers in West Sussex, contrasted the readiness of countries to act now with their failure to do so during the 1930s.

The G20, which comprises the western industrial countries plus big emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil and Russia, issued a strong commitment against protectionism, saying they would fight all forms of it and maintain open markets.

They also signalled a clampdown on hedge funds, risky financial instruments and tax havens. Tim Geithner, America's Treasury secretary, said reform was vital so “we never face a crisis like this again”.

The finance ministers of the G20 countries, who between them account for 85% of the world economy, also pledged that they would take sustained action to end the global recession.

The meeting, which was intended to set the scene for the April 2 gathering of global leaders in London, papered over any differences of opinion.

“Decisive, co-ordinated and comprehensive action” had been taken to boost growth and cut unemployment, they said, and further action would be taken if necessary.

This could give Darling cover to announce a giveaway in his April 22 budget, but Treasury officials said no decisions had been taken on whether the pledge of action would result in further measures.

The chancellor, who had announced tax cuts and spending increases worth £20 billion in his November pre-budget report, has been playing down the prospect of additional action, although he has hinted at measures to help savers.

Darling said he welcomed the G20's commitment to take “whatever action is necessary” to end the global recession and added that it was vital to boost confidence as well as supporting the banking system.

He was backed up by Geithner who said the decisions taken yesterday would help to bring the recession to an end sooner.

As well as agreeing action to boost growth, the finance ministers and central bankers set out a framework for dealing with bank rescues and for future regulation. Hedge funds will be more closely regulated, as will the sophisticated derivatives' markets that had provoked the global financial crisis.

Last week Europe’s tax havens, including Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Jersey and Switzerland, entered into information sharing agreements.

The communiqué glossed over underlying divisions between the countries over whether further public spending would help the recovery. While Britain and the United States have led calls for more fiscal stimulus measures, Germany and France have been more cautious.

Obama Gives Reassurances on U.S. Debt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:24:00 +0000

President Obama reassured China and other countries on Saturday that their investments in United States government debt were safe as he seeks to finance record deficit spending to pull the American economy out of its deep recession.

“There’s a reason why even in the midst of this economic crisis, you’ve seen actual increases in investment flows here into the United States,” Mr. Obama told reporters. “I think it’s a recognition that the stability not only of our economic system but our political system is extraordinary.”

He added, “Not just the Chinese government, but every investor can have absolute confidence in the soundness of investments in the United States.”

Mr. Obama’s comments came a day after China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, expressed worries about the safety of Beijing’s $1 trillion investment in American debt. Mr. Obama needs foreign investors to finance a projected $1.75 trillion budget deficit this year, pumped up by stimulus spending and bank bailouts, and none is more critical than China, the largest overseas holder of United States government bonds.

Mr. Obama offered his assurances after a meeting with Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. They discussed energy cooperation and the economic crisis, trying to coordinate ideas before upcoming summit meetings.

Mr. da Silva pressed Mr. Obama to help reopen global trade talks known as the Doha Round and to lower tariffs that keep Brazilian biofuels out of the American market. Mr. Obama said they had a “wonderful meeting of the minds” and expressed interest in making progress on trade, but he indicated no tariff changes were afoot anytime soon.

Mr. da Silva’s early visit to the White House suggested that Mr. Obama planned to pick up where President George W. Bush left off in trying to make Brazil a key to United States policy in Latin America. David Fleischer, a political science professor at the University of Brasília, said the meeting “reinforces Brazil’s growing leadership in the region.”

Mr. da Silva has been a leading voice in urging the United States to moderate its dealings in Latin America.

He has also made a point of linking himself with Mr. Obama, citing similarities between their origins and the challenges they overcame to lead their countries. Sitting next to him in the Oval Office, Mr. da Silva said he prayed more for Mr. Obama than he did for himself and, with all the troubles confronting him, would not want to be in the American president’s shoes.

Mr. Obama smiled and replied, “You sound like you’ve been talking to my wife.”

Jobless Rate Above 10% Defines Recession as Bernanke Predicted

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Sergio Barreto landed his first job out of college during the recession that began in 1990, as a mechanic for United Airlines. He survived the next one a decade later, selling semiconductor materials. This time, he may be out of luck.

Barreto, who has an engineering degree from San Jose State University and 12 years experience in the chip industry, has been out of work since he was laid off in December with a month’s severance pay from closely held CoorsTek Inc.’s sales office in Fremont, California.

“I was very surprised because I was one of the top sellers,” said Barreto, 46, whose wife gave birth to their second child in October. “I’m in survival mode.”

At least 4.4 million jobs have been claimed by the U.S. recession that began in December 2007, cutting across the country and the economy. Positions have been eliminated by employers as diverse as Microsoft Corp., KB Toys Inc., Dartmouth College and the nonprofit organization that produces “Sesame Street.”

“This recession is incredibly broad-based,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Parts of the country that have traditionally weathered recessions fairly well are being impacted.”

Contractions are usually centered in one sector or region, such as manufacturing in the Midwest in 1982, he said. This one, propelled by a credit crisis spawned by a real-estate slump, is simultaneously rooted in housing, financial services and auto manufacturing, he said.

Highest Since 1984

Unemployment climbed in January in every U.S. state except Louisiana, and the decline there, to 5.1 percent from 5.5 percent in December, was due to rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina, the Labor Department said.

The jobless rate topped 10 percent in four states, led by Michigan, where at 11.6 percent it was the highest since May 1984, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

South Carolina, at 10.4 percent, and California, with 10.1 percent, also saw their steepest rates in a quarter-century. Unemployment in Rhode Island was 10.3 percent, greater than since at least 1976, according to the data.

Wyoming’s was the lowest in January at 3.7 percent.

An average unemployment rate of 10 percent for a period of time is “certainly well within the realm of possibility,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said during congressional testimony on March 10.

‘Like a Cancer’

While that outcome isn’t the “central tendency” of Fed forecasters, the central bank is using that level in an adverse scenario model that will determine whether banks need more capital, Bernanke said.

Workers bearing the brunt span economic, social and regional lines, according to interviews conducted around the country. They include Mimi Bardet, who is losing a six-figure job this month after 23 years at Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Brothers in Burbank, California, and Tanya Jones, who moved back to subsidized housing in Trenton, New Jersey, and gave up her 2002 Ford Explorer after she lost a $1,500-a-week nursing-home job in November.

“It’s like cancer -- there are so many people who know somebody going through this,” said Lynne Bee, 52, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, who was fired as a dental office manager in January.

California, which led the nation in mortgage foreclosures last month, had the most job losses, with 79,300. Next were Michigan and Ohio, battered by the auto industry collapse, with 60,800 and 59,600, respectively.

‘More Discouraging’

Southern states where the population is rapidly growing through immigration or migration have also been hard hit as their shrinking economies can no longer absorb the labor force, Vitner said. Georgia and Florida each had an 8.6 percent unemployment rate in January, and neither state topped 6 percent in 2001, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“I’ve tried to shift around to different professions and change my work status, but it just keeps hitting different markets,” said Mark Risetter, 54, a Dallas machinist laid off six weeks ago from Atco Rubber Products Inc., which makes insulated ducts for homes.

For Risetter, who has leukemia that is in remission, it was the third job loss since 1982. “It’s more discouraging now than it’s been in the past,” he said.

At the height of the Depression in 1933, 24.9 percent of the workforce was unemployed and shantytowns of crates and abandoned cars sprang up, according to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York.

‘Shocked’

In Sacramento, there’s an echo in the dirt along the American River, where more than 300 people have pitched tents. Fewer than a dozen tents were at the site a year ago, said Joan Burke, director of advocacy at Sacramento Loaves & Fishes, which provides food and medical services.

“These are people that haven’t been homeless before and are shocked to find themselves in this situation,” she said.

At Ministry of Caring in Wilmington, Delaware, 10.4 percent more meals were served last year than in 2007, some to people who once had steady jobs, said Brother Ronald Giannone, a Capuchin Franciscan friar and the nonprofit’s executive director.

“We’re seeing what I call the ‘new poor,’” he said. “The last thing in the world these people ever expected to do was to have to rely on our facilities to eat, but when it comes down to paying the utilities or buying food, they are opting to keep the lights on.”

One Exception

Delaware’s 6.7 percent unemployment rate is already higher than the 5.8 percent at which it peaked in the 2001 recession, said John Stapleford, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com who monitors mid-Atlantic states.

Nationally, the jobless rate moved to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February.

The rate will reach 9.4 percent this year and remain above last month’s rate through at least 2011, threatening the nation’s longer-term growth potential, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

One exception to the grim data is in Washington, D.C., and neighboring Maryland and Virginia. The Obama administration may create 100,000 jobs to help administer the $787 billion economic stimulus package, said Max Stier, who runs the Partnership for Public Service, a non-profit group that monitors government employment.

15,000 People

With federal spending in the metro area increasing in 2009, as it has every year since 1983, that is trickling into the local economy, according to the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Sales at Morton’s steakhouse in downtown Washington are up almost 3 percent from the same time a year ago, said Dan Festa, 41, the general manager. The restaurant has hired nine servers since December, he said.

Business at Washington’s Ritz-Carlton hotel is comparable to two years ago, before the recession hit, said Elizabeth Mullins, who oversees four of the chain’s hotels.

“So far, touch wood, we’re lucky to be in DC!” Mullins said. “I don’t want to rub it in, but I’m so glad to be here.”

Dollar Falls on Bets Banking Crisis Ebbs, Paring Haven Demand

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:48:00 +0000

The dollar fell the most against the euro since December on speculation the worst of the U.S. banking crisis may be over, reducing demand for the greenback as a refuge from global financial turmoil.

The Swiss franc posted a record decline against the euro this week after the Swiss National Bank started buying currencies on March 12 to stem its appreciation. The yen fell for a fourth week against the euro as U.S. stocks had their biggest rally since November, encouraging speculation Japanese investors bought higher-yielding assets overseas.

“Positions are favoring a rally in risky assets,” said Aroop Chatterjee, a currency strategist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. “The seeds for a recovery have been sown.”

The U.S. currency lost 2.1 percent to $1.2928 per euro from $1.2653 on March 6. The yen weakened 1.9 percent to 126.65 per euro from 124.34 in the longest stretch of weekly losses since early January. Japan’s currency gained 0.3 percent to 97.95 per dollar from 98.25. The franc dropped 4.5 percent to 1.5320 against the euro from 1.4657, the biggest decline since the 16- nation currency was introduced in 1999.

The Dollar Index, which the ICE uses to track the greenback’s performance against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, fell 1.2 percent to 87.428, the biggest weekly loss since December. It reached 89.624 on March 4, the highest level since April 2006.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis told reporters after a speech in Boston on March 12 that his company was profitable in January and February, joining JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. in signaling the three biggest U.S. banks are recovering from a dismal 2008.

Pandit Ignites Rally

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit ignited a 10.7 percent rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index when he said in an internal memo early this week that his bank turned a profit in the first two months of 2009.

“The talk of gloom and doom starts to dissipate after the banks said they are still making money,” said Matthew Kassel, director of proprietary trading at ING Financial Markets LLC in New York. “People sitting on a lot of long yen positions will start to square up.” A long position is a bet that a currency will appreciate.

Sweden’s krona was the biggest gainer versus the dollar this week, appreciating 6.7 percent to 8.6241 on a global rally in stocks. The currency slid to 9.3309 on March 5, the weakest level since October 2002, on concern write-downs on about $100 billion of Swedish banks’ holdings in eastern Europe states will strain government budgets and curb lending.

Yen in February

The yen dropped 7.9 percent against the dollar in February even as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index plunged 11 percent. Evidence Japan’s economy was spiraling deeper into a recession eroded demand for the yen as a refuge from financial turmoil. Japan’s government reiterated on March 12 that the economy contracted last quarter at the fastest pace since 1974.

“I’m still pretty bullish on dollar-yen,” said Jessica Hoversen, a foreign exchange analyst with MF Global Ltd. in Chicago. “Their economy looks as bad as ours and possibly worse.” The yen may fall to 100 against the dollar as soon as next week, she predicted.

The yen weakened 4.5 percent to 9.8199 per South African rand, 4.1 percent to 51.50 versus New Zealand’s dollar and 1 percent to 77.07 against Canada’s dollar this week.

Swiss Franc

The Swiss franc reached 1.5401 yesterday, the weakest level since December, after the Swiss National Bank said a day earlier that it began buying currencies in its first solo intervention in foreign-exchange markets since 1992 and halved the target lending rate to 0.25 percent.

Before the central bank intervened, franc appreciated 10 percent versus the euro and 30 percent versus the pound since the end of July as investors sought refuge in Switzerland as global financial turmoil deepened.

“We see significant value in maintaining Swiss franc shorts,” currency strategists led by London-based Victoria Courmes at Citigroup wrote in a research note yesterday. “We believe there is the potential for policy makers to have considerable success in devaluing the currency.” A short position is a bet an asset will decline.

Pound Versus Dollar

The pound fell for a third week against the dollar, dropping 0.7 percent to $1.4002.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said at the Group of 20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers that the British government has already plowed “a lot” of money into the economy and that the amount of stimulus in the budget is “continually” under review. He spoke yesterday to reporters as G-20 delegates gathered outside London for meetings to discuss how best to fight the global recession.

The dollar’s decline versus the euro this week may be tempered by speculation the G-20 will fail to agree on measures to support the euro-area’s economy, analysts said.