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Egyptian soldiers clashed with hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo for a second consecutive day on Saturday, in a resurgence of turmoil just days after millions voted in parliamentary elections.
The clashes underlined simmering tensions between activists and security officers and threatened to ignite a new round of violence after two peaceful days of voting in balloting considered the freest and fairest in the country’s modern history.
Hundreds of protesters threw stones early Saturday at security forces that have sealed off the streets around the country’s parliament building with barbed wire. Soldiers on rooftops pelted the crowds below with stones, prompting many of the protesters to pick up helmets, satellite dishes or sheets of metal to try to protect themselves.
The violence first began early Friday morning after soldiers stormed an antimilitary protest camp outside the Cabinet building near Tahrir Square, expelling demonstrators demanding an end to military rule and an immediate transfer of power to a civilian authority. At least seven protesters were killed in the violence, activist said. Scores have been injured.
The military took over after longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular revolt in February. Rights groups and activists charge that the military is carrying on the practices of the old regime, including arresting and beating dissidents.
Mustafa Ali, a protester who was wounded by pellet shot in clashes last month, on Saturday accused the military of instigating the violence to “find a justification to remain in power and divide up people into factions.”
The young activists who led the protests against Mubarak have not translated that success into results at the polls, where Islamist parties won a clear majority of seats in the first round of voting last month over the more liberal parties that emerged from the uprising. Results from this week’s second round are expected in the coming days, with the rest of the country set to vote next month.
Images of troops protecting polling centers and soldiers carrying the elderly to the polls have served to boost the military’s image as guardians of the country. The military remains the ultimate authority on all matters of state in absence of a president.
The second round of voting took place Wednesday and Thursday in nine of the country’s 27 provinces. It covered vast rural areas where the religious stand of Islamist parties has strong support.
Thousands of Cyprus government workers held a three-hour strike Tuesday to protest a proposed two-year salary freeze they regard is unfair.
Even limited strikes are rare in the eurozone member of 800,000 people with a bloated public sector that takes up around a third of all government spending.
But trade unions said they were not adequately consulted in talks between the government and opposition parties _ which hold a majority in Parliament _ in hammering out the deal.
The strike closed schools early but did not affect airports, sea ports and hospitals.
In Nicosia, hundreds of protesters booed and mocked lawmakers entering and exiting parliament, and union leaders said they should have targeted tax dodgers and the rich, not public employees.
“We unreservedly say no to these false dilemmas that make workers easy prey, while provocatively leaving businesses, big capital and generally those who have untouched,” said Glafcos Hadjipetrou, boss of the PASYDY union.
Finance Minister Kikis Kazamias told union leaders they were left out of the talks because he needed a quick deal because the island faces sanctions under EU rules if it doesn’t agree on deficit-cutting measures by mid-December.
“This was something that shouldn’t be considered the rule, but rather the exception,” Kazamias said.
Cyprus is trying to slash its fiscal deficit and restore investor confidence following credit rating downgrades _ mainly due to its banks heavy exposure to debt-laden Greece _ that have brought it a step above junk status.
The island, with a euro18 billion ($23.8 billion) economy, has been largely locked out of international markets for loans to pay its bills and refinance its debt, as interest rates on its bonds have shot up as a result of the downgrades.
Cyprus is relying on a euro2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) loan from Russia at an interest rate much lower than what markets are offering to see it through until around middle of next year.
Austerity measures the government is trying to push through parliament include raising a sales tax from 15 to 17 percent, a scale-based levy on private sector salaries above euro2,500 ($3,312), reducing social benefits by euro200 million ($265 million) and reducing public sector positions.
Lawmakers will hold separate votes this week on the budget and additional austerity measures, which aim to shrink the deficit from the current 6.5 percent of gross domestic product to 2.4 percent.
Bank of America agreed to pay $315 million to settle claims by investors that they were misled about mortgage-backed investments sold by its Merrill Lynch unit.
The settlement was disclosed in court papers filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and requires the approval of a judge.
The class action lawsuit was led by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi pension fund. The fund claimed that the investments were backed by poor quality mortgages written by subprime lenders Countrywide Financial Corp., First Franklin Financial, and IndyMac Bancorp, a bank that failed in 2008.
The settlement represents another attempt by Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp. to put its legal issues behind it. In the first half of the year alone the bank put up $12.7 billion to settle similar claims from different groups of investors.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff has to approve the settlement, something that could prove difficult since the settlement includes no admission of guilt from Bank of America no fax cash advance.
Just last week, Rakoff struck down a $285 million settlement that Citigroup Inc. reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement would have imposed penalties on Citigroup even as it allowed the company to deny allegations that it misled investors.
Rakoff said the public has a right to know what happens in cases that touch on “the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives.” In such cases, the SEC has a responsibility to ensure that the truth emerges, he wrote.
In 2009, Rakoff had rejected a $33 million settlement between the SEC and Bank of America on similar grounds, calling it a breach of “justice and morality.”
A funny thing happened here in the past few years. More young adults moved into the St. Louis region than moved out.
Not as many as in some so-called “cooler” cities, and maybe only because fewer people were moving in general from 2008 to 2010 as the nation wrestled with a deep recession and weak recovery.
But in each of those three years, according to new census data crunched by the Brookings Institution, on average, 870 more people age 25 to 34 came to the St. Louis area than left it. That is the opposite of what happened the previous three years and runs counter to the general trend of recent decades. After a long time spent watching young adults move away, and the St. Louis region slowly get grayer, a lot of people say this seems like progress pay day loans.
Wooing young people has been a big focus in recent years for the groups that try to grow St. Louis’ economy. Ranging from efforts by the Regional Chamber and Growth Association to St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, “talent” initiatives and young adult councils have been launched in a bid to stem what some call a “brain drain” and spur fresh thinking in a place that is sometimes seen as stodgy and closed. Grass-roots groups have sprung up with the same ideas.
For an aging region, young adults are a sort of economic vitamin boost. People in their late 20s and early 30s are building careers and choosing where to settle down. Capturing them, and their talent, can mean a stronger workforce, which helps grow and attract companies
Workers continued to stash more money in their 401(k) plans in the third quarter, but the stock market’s sharp decline only left them further behind in reaching their savings goals.
The average balance in Fidelity Investments’ plans dropped nearly 12 percent, falling to $64,300 by the end of September from $72,700 three months earlier, the company said Wednesday.
That setback snapped four consecutive quarters of increases, and even put investors behind where they stood a year ago. Their balances were down 2 percent compared with September of last year, according to Fidelity, the largest workplace savings plan provider, with 11.7 million participants.
Blame the 14 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index in the third quarter. Investors worried about the European debt crisis and slow economic growth at home, leading to the stock market’s worst quarterly loss since the financial crisis in late 2008.
Workers’ 401(k)s are typically invested in bonds along with stocks to help reduce volatility. Third-quarter investment gains for bonds helped offset some of the stock market’s decline, preventing deeper damage to account balances.
The damage also was eased because workers set aside more from their paychecks to stash in 401(k)s, while employers increased matching contributions.
Fidelity said 84 percent of plan participants contributed over the past 12 months, the highest level in more than two years. Their average contribution was $5,890, setting a record, and up $200 from the same period a year earlier. Employers contributed an average $3,320, an increase of $220.
Over the past 10 years, about two-thirds of annual increases in account balances have been due to workers’ added contributions and company matches, with one-third the result of investment returns, said Beth McHugh, Fidelity’s vice president of market insights.
There are several reasons why changes in account balances don’t match the performance of market indexes. Results depend on the performance of the specific funds an investor holds. Plus, participants in 401(k)s also pay investment fees, which chip away at returns. Investment earnings and contributions can grow tax-free in employer-sponsored 401(k)s, which the government established to encourage saving for retirement.
Balances have risen eight of the 10 quarters since early 2009, when the stock market meltdown reduced the average to $46,200.
Workers who have stayed in the market haven’t been able to rely on investment gains to build up 401(k) savings, because stocks remain about 23 percent below their historic peak in October 2007. Instead, they’ve had to rely on contributions from themselves, and their employers.
Fidelity’s 401(k) participants appear to recognize that, McHugh said. Each quarter for the past two and half years, more workers have increased their contributions than cut them.
However, Fidelity reported a recent slight increase in hardship withdrawals from 401(k)s, reflecting the financial stress many workers face as the economic recovery struggles to find momentum. About 2.3 percent took hardship withdrawals over the 12 months ended Sept. 30. In the latest 12-month period, workers making hardship withdrawals removed an average $5,800.
“People are still looking at their retirement accounts as a source of funds,” McHugh said. “We recommend people look at it as a last resort.”
The major reason? Hardship withdrawals can subject the participants to taxes and possible early withdrawal penalties, if they occur before age 59 1/2. Withdrawals also leave less money in an account to grow as a result of potential market gains and compounding, setting an investor back further in reaching their goals.
Actress Sienna Miller told a media ethics inquiry Thursday that she was left paranoid and scared by years of relentless tabloid pursuit that ranged from paparazzi outside her house to the hacking of her mobile phone.
Miller said the surveillance, and a stream of personal stories about her in the tabloids, led her to accuse friends and family of leaking information to the media. In fact, her cell phone voice mails had been hacked at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.
Miller, 29, became a tabloid staple when she dated fellow actor Jude Law. She said the constant scrutiny left her feeling “very violated and very paranoid and anxious, constantly.”
“I felt like I was living in some sort of video game,” she said.
She called the paparazzi focus on her terrifying.
“For a number of years I was relentlessly pursued by 10 to 15 men, almost daily,” she said. “Spat at, verbally abused.
“I would often find myself, at the age of 21, at midnight, running down a dark street on my own with 10 men chasing me. And the fact they had cameras in their hands made that legal.”
Miller, the star of “Layer Cake” and “Alfie,” was one of the first celebrities to take the News of the World to court over illegal eavesdropping. In May, the newspaper agreed to pay her 100,000 pounds ($160,000) to settle claims her phone had been hacked.
The newspaper’s parent company now faces dozens of lawsuits from alleged hacking victims.
Miller, who looked confident as she gave evidence at London’s Royal Courts of Justice, said challenging Murdoch’s media conglomerate had been a difficult decision.
“I was very nervous about taking on an empire that was richer and far more powerful than I will ever be,” she said. “It was very daunting.”
“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who has campaigned to keep her children out of the media glare, is due to give evidence later Thursday about media intrusion.
Prime Minister David Cameron set up the inquiry amid a still-unfolding scandal over illegal eavesdropping by the Murdoch-owned tabloid. Murdoch closed down the News of the World in July after evidence emerged that it had illegally accessed the mobile phone voice mails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in its search of scoops.
More than a dozen News of the World journalists and editors have been arrested over allegations of illegal eavesdropping, and the scandal has also claimed the jobs of two top London police officers, Cameron’s media adviser and several senior Murdoch executives.
The inquiry, led by Judge Brian Leveson, plans to issue a report next year and could recommend major changes to media regulation in Britain.
Miller took the stand after another witness was allowed to give evidence in private. The courtroom was cleared of the press as the witness, identified only as HJK, testified about suffering intrusions while in a relationship with a well-known figure, whose identity was also kept secret.
Former Formula One boss Max Mosley, who has campaigned for a privacy law since his interest in sadomasochistic sex was exposed in the News of the World, broadened the focus in testimony Thursday, discussing the difficulty of squashing malicious stories in the Internet age.
Mosley successfully sued the News of the World over a 2008 story headlined “Formula One boss has sick Nazi orgy with five hookers.” Mosley has acknowledged the orgy, but argued that the story _ obtained with a hidden camera _ was an “outrageous” invasion of privacy. He said the Nazi allegation was damaging and “completely untrue.”
Mosley said he has had stories about the incident removed from 193 websites around the world, and is currently taking legal action “in 22 or 23 different countries,” including proceedings against search engine Google in France and Germany.
“The fundamental thing is that Google could stop this appearing but they don’t or won’t as a matter of principle,” he said. “The really dangerous things are the search engines.”
“You work all your life to try and achieve something or do something useful,” Mosley added. “And suddenly something like this happens and that’s what you’re remembered for.”
High-profile witnesses still to come include CNN celebrity interviewer Piers Morgan, who has denied using phone hacking while he was editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper.
The hearings have heard allegations of media malpractice and intrusion that extend far beyond the News of the World.
Witnesses have included celebrities like actor Hugh Grant and ordinary people pursued in times of grief, including the parents of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler, whose voice mails were accessed by the News of the World after she disappeared in 2002.
Her parents said the hacking gave them false hope their daughter was still alive during the investigation into her disappearance.
On Wednesday, the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann said they were left distraught by false stories and the publication of private information by the tabloid press.
Kate and Gerry McCann told the inquiry they felt powerless in the face of stories, based on concocted evidence, suggesting they had killed their daughter. Madeleine had vanished when she was three during the British family’s 2007 vacation in Portugal.
A California solar panel manufacturer that received a half-billion dollar loan from the federal government before declaring bankruptcy says it’s been unable to attract much interest from potential buyers to take over its operations.
Instead, Solyndra LLC is looking at a piecemeal sale of its assets, with separate auctions for its machinery and equipment, real estate and intellectual property.
Solyndra officials told a U.S. bankruptcy trustee Tuesday that no qualified bidders have come forward to buy the company and take over its manufacturing operations.
Chief restructuring officer Todd Neilson said Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra had received only one bid for a sale of the whole company.
“It was extremely low-ball,” he explained. “It was mainly designed to take the equipment and the real estate at an extraordinarily low price.”
Neilson said fewer than five potential bidders, mostly from other countries, are still conducting due diligence. But it is “highly unlikely” that a buyer willing to buy Solyndra outright and continue its operations would emerge, he said.
Solyndra representatives blamed the lack of interest on the economy, not on the political fallout stemming from Solyndra’s failure.
“It’s a difficult economic environment. It’s a difficult industry,” Debra Grassgreen, a Solyndra bankruptcy attorney, said after a creditors meeting Tuesday.
Solyndra, which received a $528 million federal loan and was touted by the Obama administration as a “green jobs” creator, filed for bankruptcy protection in September. The filing came several months after a February loan restructuring in which some $70 million borrowed from private investors got priority over $385 million in taxpayer money for repayment in the event of a default.
Under the February restructuring, Argonaut Ventures and another private investment firm, Madrone Partners LP, stand to be repaid before U.S bad credit payday advance. taxpayers. Congressional leaders have said allowing private investors to move ahead of taxpayers for repayment may have been illegal.
Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House.
Following its bankruptcy filing, Solyndra became the target of separate investigations by the FBI and congressional Republicans.
Testifying before a House committee last week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu defended the federal loan to Solyndra, but at that same time said he was unaware of many details about the loan or financial problems that Solyndra faced, including predictions by DOE staff two years ago that the company would likely face severe cash-flow problems.
Chu also denied that he was influenced by Kaiser, who invested $400 million in Solyndra. Kaiser has said he played no part in helping Solyndra win the 2009 loan, but emails released earlier this month show that he discussed Solyndra with the White House on at least one occasion. Kaiser also directed business associates on how to approach the White House and the Energy Department to help Solyndra deal with its financial problems.
Chu denied that anyone in the White House ever contacted him to make a political decision on the loan and said cheap imports from China, the collapse of the European market for solar panels, and other market changes led prices for Solyndra’s product to fall.
While prospects for a takeover of Solyndra’s operations appear dim, officials said an auction of the company’s non-core assets, such as office equipment, went better than expected.
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Trouble on two fronts in the European debt crisis sent American stocks tumbling Wednesday to their biggest loss since the rocky trading of last summer. The Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 400 points.
Stocks were down from the opening bell after borrowing costs in Italy spiked to dangerous levels, a sign that investors are losing faith in Italy’s ability to repay its national debt.
“Italy is potentially too big to bail out, but that’s the problem,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “It’s spiraling out, and the question is now, how do you fix it?”
In Greece, meanwhile, power-sharing talks aimed at avoiding a default broke down in chaos.
The Italian economy is more than six times larger than that of Greece, which so far has been the center of the continent’s debt problem. American investors are worried that the consequences from Europe could include a freeze in lending, the disintegration of the euro currency or a bruising recession that would hurt the U.S.
They sold stocks as a result. The Dow finished down 389.24 points, at 11,780.94.
“The market loves a quick solution, and we’re obviously not getting one,” said Mark Lehmann, director of equities of JMP Securities.
The slide in stocks was broad: Only a single stock in the Standard & Poor’s 500, Best Buy, finished higher for the day. Financial companies were among the hardest hit because they would suffer first if Europe’s debt problem spins out of control.
Morgan Stanley stock plunged 8 percent and Goldman Sachs 7 percent. In regulatory filings last week, Morgan Stanley reported it had $1.8 billion in liabilities related to Italy, and Goldman said it had $28 billion related to all of Europe.
Markets fear that a chaotic default by Greece would lead to huge losses for European banks. That could cause a global lending freeze similar to what happened after the investment house Lehman Brothers fell in 2008.
In Italy, where the crisis is only beginning, the country’s borrowing rate has skyrocketed to a level that is widely considered to be unsustainable. The higher rates will make it far more difficult and expensive for Italy to roll over its debts. It has over $400 billion to raise in 2012 alone. Italy’s total economy is about $2 trillion.
The 389-point decline for the Dow was the worst since Sept. 22. The S&P 500 closed down 46.82 points at 1,229.10. The S&P, the broadest major stock index, declined 3.7 percent, its worst day since Aug. 18.
Over the summer, swings of 3 or 4 percent a day for the stock market were common. Investors were focused on a debt showdown in Washington and fear of a second recession.
Lately, Europe has pushed everything else to the back burner, and the volatility has continued. Last week, the Dow fell 276 points Monday and 297 points Tuesday, both because of instability in Europe. It rose 100 or more three of the next five days.
The Nasdaq composite index finished Wednesday down 105.84, or 3.9 percent, at 2,621.65.
European stock markets fell sharply, too. The main stock index in Italy finished the day down 3.8 percent. The DAX index in Germany and the CAC-40 in France each declined 2.2 percent.
In the United States, prices rose for assets seen by investors as reasonably safe. The dollar rose 1.6 percent against the euro, a reflection of the instability in the 17 nations that use the euro.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.96 percent from 2.08 percent Tuesday, a steep drop. Falling Treasury yields are a sign of rising bond prices, both indications that investors feel safe buying American debt.
In Italy, the yield on the benchmark government bond blew past 7 percent. That was considered an important level because Greece, Portugal and Ireland required bailouts from other nations when their bond yields hit 7 percent.
Italy is of more concern because it has the third-largest economy in Europe _ more than twice as big as Greece, Portugal and Ireland combined. And its debt, $2.6 trillion, is too large for other European countries to erase.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi promised late Tuesday to step aside after a new budget is passed, but there are concerns that the transition will be difficult. Markets see Berlusconi as an impediment to far-reaching economic reforms.
The benchmark Italian bond rate spiked to 7.4 percent, a startling increase of 0.82 percent point from the day before. It settled down later in the day, to 7.26 percent.
In Greece, Prime Minister George Papandreou told the nation that the political parties were joining together to save it from going broke. Then power-sharing talks broke down, and political leaders failed to name a new prime minister.
Papandreou threw world markets into turmoil last week when he stunned European leaders by announcing he would put a hard-fought bailout deal for Greece up for a popular vote. He later backed off that plan and announced he would step aside.
When an interim government takes over for him, its main job will be to secure the next $11 billion or so of the $150 billion bailout package set up for Greece last year.
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