Yemen’s embattled president must speed up reforms and begin a transfer of power according to a plan backed by the international community, said a U.N. envoy on Monday.
Jamal Benomar visited Yemen for a week to promote a Gulf-backed proposal that calls for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to transfer power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Saleh told a TV interviewer that he will sign, but he did not say when.
Saleh has resisted the proposal despite nearly nine months of protests against his 30-year rule. Several times he said he would sign, only to back away at the last minute. Months of international diplomacy has failed to resolve the crisis.
Benomar held meetings with opposition figures on Monday, including Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who leads a military unit of defectors siding with the opposition and protecting protesters.
Earlier in his trip, Benomar met with Saleh and his deputy.
In a rare interview with foreign media, Saleh told the TV channel France 24 that he would sign the Gulf-backed package, but he would not say when that would happen or what was preventing him from doing so, vaguely noting that there was no time mechanism in the accord online payday loan lenders. The interview was broadcast late Monday.
“Definitely, definitely,” Saleh replied when asked if he intended to leave power. “I believe that anyone who grips on to power is crazy.” He said he would step down 90 days after the agreement goes into effect, but he did not say when that would be.
Mediators and opposition figures have become exasperated with what they see as Saleh’s stalling tactics.
He said that the media was lying when reporting he refused to sign the agreement. He accused armed militias of infiltrating peaceful demonstrations in Yemeni cities.
Pro-Saleh forces regularly engage in deadly clashes with armed tribesmen and military defectors who support the protesters in Yemen’s largest cities, and al-Qaida-linked militants have taken control of entire towns in the country’s restive south.
Security has collapsed across the Arab world’s poorest nation during the nine-month popular uprising.
Greece’s embattled prime minister asked the country’s president on Sunday to host a meeting between him and the head of the opposition in an attempt to find a way out of a political crisis, as pressure mounts to ensure Greece avoids bankruptcy and remains in the eurozone.
Prime Minister George Papandreou told ministers in an emergency Cabinet meeting that he asked President Karolos Papoulias to convene the meeting Sunday night, his ministers said.
Political leaders are struggling to agree on creating an interim government. Papandreou has said he will resign once power-sharing talks conclude on a replacement.
Conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras has insisted the resignation come first.
Samaras’ party spokesman, Yiannis Michelakis, said that while they were aware of Papandreou’s comments, there had been no invitation from the president for talks. If such an invitation were extended to Samaras, he would attend, Michelakis said in a statement cash advance no faxing.
Papandreou narrowly survived a confidence vote in his government Saturday night, mid-way through his four-year term, amid increasing calls from both the opposition and many of his own lawmakers that he resign.
The crisis was sparked after Papandreou’s shock announcement Monday night that he wanted to put a new European debt deal aimed at rescuing his country’s economy to a referendum. The plan for such a vote caused an uproar in Europe, roiled international markets and led to calls in Greece for Papandreou’s resignation, with lawmakers saying he had endangered Greece’s bailout.
The prime minister withdrew the plan on Thursday, after Samaras indicated his party would back the new debt deal, agreed on after marathon negotiations in Europe on Oct. 27.
With financial help from St. Clair County, a Michigan company will build a perishable-goods warehouse at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah. The facility will handle fresh fruit and vegetables bound for international markets.
The deal announced Thursday includes $2.15 million from the county in upfront money and for refrigeration equipment for the warehouse, which will cost up to $5.7 million.
North Bay Produce Inc. of Traverse City, Mich., will build the 36,448-square-foot warehouse, which will be completed by the middle of next year, officials said.
In exchange for the county’s help, the airport will own the warehouse after 15 years, officials said.
North Bay specializes in year-round production and marketing of fresh fruit and vegetables for customers in North America, Latin America and Europe Business Card Holders. County officials said the warehouse will help North Bay open a shipping route to Asia.
“A large portion of the product they will handle at Mid-America flies, and we look forward to hosting their worldwide air activity,” said County Board Chairman Mark Kern. “This is the anchor tenant for our international trade route linking Latin America with Asia.”
North Bay’s president, Mark Girardin, said the company searched for three years to find a distribution center in the Midwest.
The refrigeration equipment the county is contributing to the project came from a MidAmerica warehouse the Boeing Co. began using last year for assembly operations.
The Toronto Historical Board plaque is the first hint to would-be buyers that 7 Wellesley Ave. is every bit as special as its $775,000 price tag.
And it is.
This classic Cabbagetown Victorian is a historic home without a history.
It
The maker of BlackBerry smartphones says the problems that have plagued users worldwide were caused by a core switch failure within the company’s infrastructure.
Research in Motion Ltd. says that a transition to a back-up switch did not function as tested, causing a large backlog of data.
In an update Tuesday, it said it is now working to clear the backlog and restore normal service as soon as possible.
Large numbers of BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina are experiencing problems for a second day, with many unable to access email and messaging services.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
LONDON (AP) _ BlackBerry’s woes spread on Tuesday as the smartphone’s maker reported service disruptions for a second straight day in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and fresh problems in Latin America and India.
Research in Motion Ltd., which makes BlackBerry devices, acknowledged there were ongoing problems Tuesday, hours after it said services were operating normally and the cause of delays in subscriber services a day earlier had been resolved.
“Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays,” the company said in a statement, adding that it is “working to restore normal service as quickly as possible payday loans.”
Research in Motion Ltd. also apologized for “any inconvenience,” as Twitter and the Internet lit up with condemnation over a delayed response to problems some users had reported for hours.
In Britain, Vodafone UK told customers via Twitter that service was not fully restored. Rival T-Mobile UK blamed “a European-wide outage on the BlackBerry network” which it said was affecting all mobile operators. There were also reports of problems elsewhere in Europe, such as Spain.
In addition, the disruptions were experienced in the Middle East and Africa.
Etisalat, which operates in the United Arab Emirates, apologized for “the further interruption” to Blackberry services, “once again due to RIM problems.”
And Kenya’s Safaricom Ltd. said on Twitter that its Blackberry customers were experiencing a “technical fault,” while South Africa’s Vodacom told subscribers the issues were affecting multiple networks and countries.
There were no reports of any problems in the U.S.
Angry smartphone users took to Twitter to vent frustration with the company and bemoaned the loss of their messaging capabilities, questioning why the company took so long to restore services.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1.6 percent early Tuesday, bringing it into what many consider to be a bear market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell near a record low as investors piled into lower-risk assets.
Stocks fell broadly as investors worried that Greece might be edging closer to default, which would cause heavy losses for banks that hold Greek debt and rattle global financial markets. Greece has said it wouldn’t be able to make budget cuts it had agreed to as part of a deal to receive emergency loans.
The S&P 500 fell 20 points, or 1.8 percent, to 1,079 as of 10:15 a.m. That brought the widely used index 21 percent below its April 29 high of 1,363, meeting the criteria of a bear market.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 207, or 1.9 percent, to 10,448.The Dow is 18 percent below its recent peak, just shy of the 20 percent decline market watchers consider to be a bear market.
The Nasdaq composite dropped 28, or 1.2 percent, to 2,307.
Bank of America fell 3.9 percent, the most of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow average. American Express Co. and General Electric Co. each lost 3 percent.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.72 percent, just above its record low of 1.71 percent reached on Sept. 22. Bond yields fall as prices rise.
In testimony before Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy is weaker than the central bank expected and that poor job growth continues to undercut consumer confidence. He warned Congress that deep spending cuts may impede a recovery.
In corporate news, Apple Inc. is widely expected to announce the newest version of its iPhone Tuesday. Tim Cook, who took over the company’s CEO role from co-founder Steve Jobs in August, is expected to unveil the new smartphone at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. The company lost 0.6 percent in early trading.
Bank of America Corp. lost 7 percent to $5.15 as investors continued to be troubled by its exposure to soured mortgages securities and a several-day outage of its website. The company’s stock lost 9 percent Monday to $5.53, a level not seen since 2009.
European indexes also declined sharply. Benchmark indexes in Germany, France, and Spain each lost more than 3 percent.
International pressure grew on Europe to find a lasting solution to the debt crisis that is shaking global financial markets, as the leaders of Greece, Germany and France were to hold talks Wednesday in an emergency teleconference.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Europe’s leaders know they’ve “been behind the curve” but he also sought to soothe investors, claiming the eurozone governments understood the severity of the situation and have the financial firepower “to do what it takes to hold this thing together.”
Fears that Greece was heading rapidly towards a chaotic default have roiled markets for days, both across the 17-nation eurozone and globally.
Many investors are convinced Greece will not be able to fix its public finances under its current economic plans. Interest rates on the country’s 10-year government bonds soared to new record highs hitting the alarming level of 25.3 percent on Wednesday, more than 23 points higher than the German equivalent.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out this week to calm the market jitters and to distance herself from her vice chancellor, Philipp Roesler, and others who suggested a Greek bankruptcy was possible.
Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will discuss the situation Wednesday evening, after a government meeting Papandreou called to address urgent fiscal reforms. The finance ministers from the wider 17-nation eurozone will meet on Friday in Poland.
Hours before the teleconference, Sarkozy and his prime minister “with a single voice reaffirmed France’s determination to put everything in place to save Greece,” French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said of a Cabinet meeting in Paris.
Sarkozy wants the call to focus on “the need for efforts in return and commitment from Greece,” she said.
Europe’s big trading partners, like the U.S. and China, made clear that they want the crisis contained.
Geithner, who will join eurozone finance ministers this weekend in a meeting in Poland, stressed that European governments have to show they “stand behind” the financial system so that it can fund and finance the economic recovery.
“I think they recognize that they’re going to have to do more to earn the confidence of the world,” Geithner said in an interview with American news channel CNBC.
As Treasury chief and previously in his role as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner has been central in the U.S. response to the financial crisis that flared up after the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank in 2008.
He dismissed suggestions Europe was about to have its own Lehman moment. “Europe has a tradition of much more indulgence, support for their institutions. … there is no chance that the major countries of Europe will let their institutions be at risk,” he said.
China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said European countries needed to tackle their debt problems and make changes to help restore global financial stability and steady economic growth. Beijing has shown interest in helping financially troubled European countries by investing or buying their bonds.
“Countries must first put their own house in order,” Wen said.
It was unclear whether there would be statements after Wednesday’s teleconference from any of the three countries involved. Indications as to how the talks went would likely affect markets.
Roesler said Germany would deliver a “clear signal to the Greek government” that it must push ahead with reforms, including an ambitious privatization program that has lagged far behind targets.
Speaking during a visit to Rome, Roesler said it was “fundamentally important to re-establish the strength of the Greek state.” He said he planned to go to Greece with a delegation of German industrialists to see what investments could be made to help the Greek economy.
Traders hoped that some form of new support would emerge from the talks, pushing Greek shares higher. The main Athens index outperformed its counterparts in Europe, closing up 1.67 percent.
Some analysts were more skeptical, however.
“I could only see (the teleconference) having a damage-limitation objective because there have been too many rumors … as to what Germany or what our European partners are thinking about Greece,” said economist Vangelis Agapitos.
The main fear of a Greek bankruptcy is that it could destabilize other financially troubled European countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Spain or Italy. It would also have a knock-on effect on banks, many of which are large holders of Greek government bonds. Moody’s on Wednesday downgraded the credit ratings of two French banks, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole.
“We are confronted with the most serious challenge of a generation. This is a fight for the jobs and prosperity of families in all our member states,” European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. “This is a fight for the economic and political future of Europe. This is a fight for what Europe represents in the world. This is a fight for European integration itself.”
Greece relies on funds from last year’s euro110 billion ($150 billion) international bailout. But the lifeline could be cut if the country continues to miss fiscal and reform targets.
The quarterly payout depends on reviews by Greece’s international debt inspectors _ the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known as the troika.
The next batch, worth euro8 billion, is due in late September, but there were fears the troika would not approve its disbursement after the debt inspectors suspended their review earlier this month. They are due to return to Athens in coming days. Without the next installment, the country has enough cash to keep it going only until mid-October.
Greece’s government spokesman, Elias Mossialos, said Monday he believed the country would receive the funds.
In July, Greece was granted a second, euro109 billion rescue package, but the terms of that deal have yet to be finalized, with Finland asking for extra collateral guarantees.
____
Pylas reported from London. Gabriele Steinhauser in Brussels, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Theodora Tongas in Athens and Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed.
KINCARDINE
JEFFERSON CITY
Stocks are plunging at the opening of trading on news that the U.S. economy added no new jobs last month. Treasury yields fell and gold rose.
The jobs report was the weakest in almost a year. It renewed fears that the U.S. might slip back into recession.
A strike by 45,000 Verizon workers lowered the job totals. Those workers are back on the job. Private employers added 17,000 jobs. Without the Verizon strike the total would have been 62,000.
Ten minutes after the opening bell, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 245 points, or 2.1 percent, at 11,248. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down 27, or 2.3 percent, at 1,176. The Nasdaq composite index is down 56, or 2.2 percent, at 2,490.
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