WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama Monday said multi-million-dollar bonuses planned for executives and traders at bailed-out insurance giant AIG were an “outrage” and vowed to pursue a clampdown.
“How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” he said at the White House, pledging to “pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
source : jang.com.pk
WASHINGTON: The United States is praising Pakistan’s plan to reinstate a fired Supreme Court chief justice whose supporters had threatened to march on the capital.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters Monday that the decision by Pakistan’s leaders had “brought Pakistan back from the brink.”
Wood says Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s calls over the weekend to U.S.-allied President Asif Ali Zardari, who had refused to restore the independent-minded justice, and to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif were meant to signal a concern over the situation and a desire for a nonviolent outcome.
Wood was careful to note that there were no U.S. demands and “no threats at all” in Clinton’s calls.
source : jang.com.pk
DUBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday officially named South Africa as the new hosts of the biennial Champions Trophy this year.
The ICC Board had met via teleconference to discuss a recommendation made by the ICC Chief Executives’ Committee to discuss the venue of the Champions Trophy.
The decision was made after concerns were expressed over weather conditions in Colombo during the dates set aside for the tournament, 24 September to 5 October.
With the need to minimise risk and create certainty around the event, the meeting agreed to recommend that Cricket South Africa (CSA) be sought as the alternative host, with Wanderers and Centurion as the venues, provided agreement on the financial arrangements can be reached. Originally planned for Pakistan, the venue for the event had to be shifted due to security concerns.
ICC President David Morgan said: “I think the Board has made a sensible decision that will give the event every chance of success. We now have clarity on the subject and we can make firm plans for what is going to be a great spectacle of ODI cricket.
“With Wanderers and Centurion, Cricket South Africa can provide two world-class venues in what is effectively one location and as we know from the ICC World Twenty20 2007, weather conditions in the area around Johannesburg in September and October are stable and ideal for cricket.
“I would like to thank Sri Lanka Cricket for its commitment to offer an alternative to Pakistan. And also, I want to acknowledge its willingness to step aside in this matter. I’d also like to thank CSA for putting its hand up and offering to host this event.”
The Board also considered expressions of interest from other potential venues. However, in order to attain immediate certainty and clarity, South Africa was identified as the preferred location on this occasion.
The teleconference also unanimously agreed that the dates for next year’s ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies would be between 30 April and 16 May.
The tournament will take place in St Lucia, Guyana, Barbados and St Kitts with the latter island staging matches in the women’s tournament that will take place at the same time.
source : jang.com.pk
LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Mian Nawaz Sharif paid tribute to lawyers, civil society, students, people and the media on their brave show for the restoration of deposed judges.
Speaking at Geo News program ‘Capital Talk’ here on Monday, Nawaz said that this success became possible over determination of the entire nation.
He said: “Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has phoned him and agreed to implement the charter of democracy (CoD).
source : jang.com.pk
LAHORE: Pakistan People Party (PPP) Punjab’s Parliamentary Leader Raja Riaz said on Monday that restoration of deposed judges had proved the presence of a democratic person at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.
Speaking to newsmen here, he said that any dictator could not make such decisions.
He said that PPP wanted to reinstate all deposed judges, but could not do so over fears of collision among institutions. Riaz said that restoration of judiciary would strengthen the democracy.
Some elements who want to derail the democracy have failed in their motives, he said.
source : jang.com.pk
PESHAWAR: NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said Monday that restoration of deposed judges by the democratic forces would bury the doctrine of necessity once for all.
In a statement issued here, Hussain welcomed the Prime Minister’s move to reinstate deposed judges and termed it a wise decision.
He said that the decision had prevented the country from a major crisis and now the government could focus the progress and prosperity of the country.
The minister hoped that the doctrine of necessity would be buried once for all.
source : jang.com.pk
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s spin bowler Ajantha Mendis was released from hospital on Monday, two weeks after the squad was attacked by unidentified gunmen in Pakistan, his manager Roshan Abeysinghe said.
Mendis, who had shrapnel extracted from his head and back, said he was delighted to go home.
Thilan Samaraweera, who had a bullet removed from his left thigh, remained under observation at a private hospital, doctor Geethanjana Mendis said.
Tharanga Paranavitana, who had a bullet taken out of his chest, and British assistant coach Paul Farbrace were discharged over the weekend.
The convoy of players, officials and coaches on their way to the second Test match in Lahore on March 3 was ambushed by gunmen firing automatic weapons, grenades and a rocket launcher.
Seven Sri Lankan players and Farbrace were injured, and the squad was flown home immediately. Eight Pakistanis were killed by the attackers, who escaped capture.
Mendis said psychologists hired to counsel the team were due to wrap up their programme this week.
“The medical team handling their post-trauma side say the players are a bit shaken up, but those not injured can resume training next week,” he said.
source : jang.com.pk
LONDON: Britain welcomed Monday the reinstatement of Pakistan’s deposed top judge and the cancellation of an opposition march as signs of “real political leadership” to defuse a threatened crisis.
“The steps taken to defuse the political crisis in Pakistan show real political leadership by all concerned,” said Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a statement.
President Asif Ali Zardari’s decision to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and former premier Nawaz Sharif’s response in calling off the Long March “demonstrate that both men are willing to put the interests of Pakistan first.
“I hope that all parties will now quickly come together around a common agenda to consolidate the political steps made, and to agree measures that will strengthen democracy and impartial justice in Pakistan,” Miliband said.
source : jang.com.pk
LAHORE: The long march led by Pakistan Muslim League-N Chief Nawaz Sharif has reached GPO Chowk, Lahore.
The long march comprises thousands of participants including lawyers, political workers and members of civil society.
Police tried to block the way of caravan led by Nawaz Sharif who came out of his house in spite of the government orders of detention served to him. However, the police retreated after a little while giving way to the caravan.
At GPO Road, clash broke out between enraged protesters and police which used heavy shelling to disperse the protestors.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Qamar-uz-Zaman Kaira has said that the government has not received any report about blockade of TV channel anywhere in the country.
He said that some cable operators had readjusted the placements of channels.
source : jang.com.pk
VIENNA: OPEC ministers have called for an end to overproduction by some members as they sought to slice nearly a million barrels per day from world supply and boost prices but without further shocking the anemic global economy.
Their comments suggested that Sunday’s oil ministers’ meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries might opt for a call on all members to honor production quotas, instead of deciding to slash output outright.
Most members of the 12-nation organization had been clear in favoring reduced output in the days preceeding Sunday’s full meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Still they had left open whether they want to lower output quotas or if they favor a solution less likely to hurt the struggling global economy by simply seeking to end overproduction by some nations above levels allotted to them.
Algerian energy and mines minister Chakib Khelil called for both on Saturday.
“Comply and cut,” he told reporters asking what he preferred. But recognition that direct cuts could backfire appeared to prevail on the eve of the meeting.
While slashing production could raise prices in the short term, it could also lead to further depressing demand, as strugglingeconomies cut back on pricey crude they cannot afford. Pushing forfull quota compliance instead would be less harmful.
OPEC cuts agreed on since September were meant to take a daily 4.2 million barrels off the market. But the 11 members underproduction quotas are still overshooting their joint daily target level of just under 25 million barrels by about 800,000 barrels a day.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan Abdul Hai Gilani has resigned from the post to mark his protest against the torturing of lawyers, locking up of High Court and tear-gas shelling in Lahore.
Talking to Geo News, Abdul Hai Gilani said lawyers have been subjected to torture and tear-gas shells have been fired in the vicinity of Lahore High Court.
He said the whole country has been blocked with the help of containers.
“I have resigned from the post of Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan in protest against all these acts,” Abdul Hai Gilani said.
source : jang.com.pk
MIRPUR: Several containers have been placed at Mangla dam in an attempt to stop the caravans of Azad Kashmir from participating in the long march and subsequent sit-in in Islamabad.
All entry and exit points of the city have been blocked to thwart the long march. The long queues of vehicles can be seen in the area.
Besides, the people carrying passports and visas are not being allowed to go to the airport.
On this occasion, lawyers and citizens chanted anti-government slogans in protest against such harsh measures.
source : jang.com.pk
MADRID: Real Madrid bounced back from their UEFA Champions League disappointment after defeating Athletic Bilbao 5-2 to cut Barcelona’s lead at the top in Spain to just three points.
Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, top of the table for most of the season, can restore their lead to six points with victory over Almeria on Sunday.
Real saw their European dreams go up in smoke on Tuesday at Anfield as Liverpool overran them in a humiliating 4-0 win and they let out their frustration at San Mames.
Dutch forward Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, cup-tied for the Champions League, scored twice to turn the game in Real’s favour after Bilbao had come from two goals down to level.
Arjen Robben put Real ahead before Argentine centre-back Gabriel Heinze added another heading in a 34th minute free-kick. Heinze scored an own goal minutes later and Fernando Llorente levelled despite Bilbao being reduced to ten men with Francisco Yeste harshly sent off for pushing goalkeeper Iker Casillas. Huntelaar then took centre stage with a second half brace before substitute Gonzalo Higuain completed the scoring from the penalty spot.
source : jang.com.pk
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Mian Shahbaz Sharif has said that that the rulers should respect the wish and message of their slain leader Benazir Bhutto and restore the deposed chief justice.
Speaking to Geo News senior analyst Kamran Khan here on Sunday, Shahbaz Sharif said: “President Asif Ali Zardari has humiliated the nation by not fulfilling the promises he made regarding restoration of judiciary.”
“There is no need to call any Aristotle and Socrates for the implementation of agreements,” he said.
He said that PML-N never asked its people to damage public or private properties and appealed to the people to take part in the long march in peaceful manner.
“Nawaz Sharif has said that our first priority is to restore judges,” he added.
source : jang.com.pk
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has contacted the leaders of coalition parties.
According to sources, the Prime Minister Sunday contacted by telephone Muttahida Qaumi Movement Chief Altaf Hussain, Awami National Party Chief Asfandyar Wali, Chief Jamiat Ulema-i- Pakstan Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman and Chief of Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) Pir Pagara and discussed the situation emerging as a result of long march and sit-in.
source : jang.com.pk
KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has dispatched a 40-page report to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani comprising proposed reforms for the next General Election.
This was announced by the ECP Secretary General Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad at a press conference here on Sunday.
He said: “We have proposed the government to consult the election commission about formation of interim government in the report.”
Dilshad said that caretaker prime minister and ministers would not be eligible to contest the polls according to the proposed reforms.
source : jang.com.pk
LOS ANGELES – Hollywood has met Bollywood at the Academy Awards, and the makers of Oscar champ “Slumdog Millionaire” hope it’s a sign of future melding between the U.S. dream factory with its counterparts in India and elsewhere in the world.
A tale of hope amid adversity and squalor in Mumbai, “Slumdog Millionaire” came away with eight Oscars, including best picture and director for Danny Boyle.
The low-budget production was a merger of India’s brisk Bollywood movie industry, which provided most of the cast and crew, and the global marketing reach of Hollywood, which turned the film into a commercial smash, said British director Boyle.
“We’re Brits, really, trapped in the middle, but it’s a lovely trapped thing,” Boyle said backstage. “You can see it’s going to happen more and more. There’s all sorts of people going to work there. The world’s shrinking a little bit.”
It was a theme Oscar voters embraced through the evening with other key awards honoring films fostering broader understanding and compassion.
Sean Penn won his second best-actor Oscar, this one for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk in “Milk,” while Kate Winslet took best actress for “The Reader,” in which she plays a former concentration camp guard coming to terms with the ignorance that let her heedlessly participate in Nazi atrocities.
Penn had harsh words for protesters outside the Oscars holding anti-gay signs.
“I’d tell them to turn in their hate card and find their better self,” Penn said. “I think that these are largely taught limitations and ignorances, this kind of thing. It’s really sad in a way, because it’s a demonstration of such cowardice, emotional cowardice, to be so afraid of extending the same rights to your fellow man as you’d want for yourself.”
As expected, Heath Ledger became just the second performer to win an Oscar posthumously, receiving the supporting-actor award for the menace and mayhem he wreaks as Batman villain the Joker in “The Dark Knight.” Penelope Cruz was the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar with her supporting prize as a volatile artist in a three-way romance in Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
Ledger’s award was accepted by his parents and sister on behalf of the 3-year-old daughter he had with actress Michelle Williams. The win came 13 months after Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs on Oscar nominations day last year.
His sister, Kate Ledger, said backstage that her brother sensed he was creating something special with “The Dark Knight.”
“When he came home Christmas a year ago, he had been sending me shots and bits and pieces of the film,” Kate Ledger said. “He hadn’t seen it, but he knew. I said, `I have a feeling, this is it for you,’ and I said, `You’re going to get a nomination from the academy.’ He just looked at me and smiled. He knew.”
“I think he would have been quietly pleased, because I think he enjoyed the performance he did,” said Ledger’s mother, Sally Bell. “He was very proud of what he did. Heath was never one to be over the top with anything. He would be quietly pleased it was being recognized by his peers in the industry.”
“Slumdog Millionaire” started as an unlikely candidate for the sort of industry and audience recognition it has garnered, presenting a cast of unknowns and a Dickensian tale of an Indian orphan rising above his street-urchin roots.
Though set in a foreign land, the film tells a universal story of optimism that has been eagerly embraced by U.S. audiences.
“This country has changed, from the moment we started making the film to the moment it was released,” “Slumdog” producer Christian Colson said. “I think America is cool again, for the first time in my lifetime. … I think this is a symptom of how it’s beginning to embrace a more-globalized view of the world.”
Boyle earned the directing prize with his first Oscar nomination in a career of hip movies that include the drug romp “Trainspotting” and the zombie horror tale “28 Days Later.”
“Slumdog Millionaire” has all the trademark elements of Boyle: raw and relentless energy, rich visual whimsy, a sense of childlike yearning, and a seamless mix of the harrowing and hilarious.
The film follows the travails and triumphs of Jamal, who artfully dodges a criminal gang that mutilates children to make them more pitiable beggars. Jamal witnesses his mother’s violent death, endures police torture and struggles with betrayal by his brother, while single-mindedly hoping to reunite with the lost love of his childhood.
Fate rewards Jamal, whose story unfolds through flashbacks as he recalls how he came to know the answers that made him a champion on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
“Slumdog” writer Simon Beaufoy, who won the adapted-screenplay Oscar, said the film clicked with audiences stung by the recession and the realization that “this money thing, it’s been shown to be a real false idol.”
“It’s come out at a time when the value of money, which has been raised to this extraordinary height, is suddenly being shown to be a kind of very shallow thing,” Beaufoy said. “The financial markets are crashing around the world, and a film comes out which is ostensibly about being a millionaire. Actually, what it’s about, it’s a film that says there’s more important things than money: love, faith and family. And that struck a chord with people.”
Oscar organizers shook things up a bit after last year’s show drew the lowest TV ratings ever. Song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman was host instead of the usual standup comedian, and he kept the show to three and a half hours, relatively brisk for a ceremony that has topped four hours some years.
The Oscars have been criticized in the past for devoting so much time to technical categories that average movie fans care little about. This time, the show abridged many of those awards, with Will Smith hammering through four such categories in quick succession, including sound mixing and film editing.
That allowed more time for the show to linger with celebrities. Each acting prize was presented by five past winners of the same awards, among them Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Kline, Sophia Loren, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine and Robert De Niro.
Winslet finally walked off with an Oscar after five previous losses. While Winslet said she had been practicing Oscar speeches since childhood, holding a shampoo bottle instead of a golden statuette, she still felt “like a little girl from Reading,” her hometown in England.
“Did you see my mum and dad? My mum won a pickled onion competition in their local pub just before Christmas, and that was a big deal,” Winslet told reporters backstage. “You just don’t think that these dreams that seem so silly and so impossible could ever really come true.”
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On the Net:
Academy Awards: http://www.oscars.org
source : news.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON – Brace yourself: The recession is projected to worsen this year. The country stands to lose a sizable chunk of economic activity in 2009 as consumers at home and abroad retrench in the face of persistent economic troubles. And the U.S. unemployment rate — now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years — is expected hit a peak of 9 percent this year.
That gloomy outlook came from leading forecasters in the latest survey by the National Association for Business Economics to be released Monday. The new estimates are roughly in line with other recent projections, including those released last week by the Federal Reserve.
“The steady drumbeat of weak economic and financial market data have made business economists decidedly more pessimistic on the economic outlook for the next several quarters,” said NABE president Chris Varvares, head of Macroeconomic Advisers.
All told, Varvares and his fellow forecasters now expect the economy to shrink by 1.9 percent this year, a much deeper contraction than the 0.2 percent dip projected in the fall.
If the new forecast is correct, it would mark the first time since 1991 the economy actually contracted over a full year and would be the worst showing since 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession.
Vanishing jobs, shrinking nest eggs, rising foreclosures and tanking home values have forced American consumers to cut back, which in turn has caused businesses to lay off workers and slash costs in other ways, feeding a vicious downward cycle for the economy.
The current recession, which started in December 2007, is posing a major challenge to Washington policymakers, including President Barack Obama and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. That’s because its root causes — a housing collapse, credit crunch and financial turmoil — are the worst since the 1930s and don’t lend themselves to easy or quick fixes.
“As the news on the economy has darkened, so too, have the forecasts,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. “We are suffering a period of maximum stress on the economy.”
The economy is expected to remain feeble this year — even with new efforts by the administration and Congress to provide relief.
Just over the past few weeks, a $787 billion recovery package of increased government spending and tax cuts was signed into law, the president unveiled a $75 billion plan to stem home foreclosures and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said as much as $2 trillion could be plowed into the financial system to jump-start lending.
In terms of lost economic activity in 2009, the biggest hit will come in the first six months, forecasters said.
NABE forecasters now expect the economy to slide backward at a staggering pace of 5 percent in the current January-March quarter. That’s a sharp downgrade from the 1.3 percent annualized drop projected in the old survey.
“Further pronounced weakness in housing and deteriorating labor markets underscore the risks for 2009,” Varvares said.
Many economists believe that the current quarter will be the worst of the recession in terms of the bite to gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is the broadest barometer of the country’s economic health.
The second quarter of this year also will be a lot weaker, with the forecasters now calling for the economy to contract at a 1.7 percent pace, compared with the prior projection of 0.5 percent growth.
In the second half of this year, the economy should expand, but still less than what economists thought just a few months ago. NABE forecasters believe home sales and housing construction should hit bottom by the middle of the year, which would help stabilize the economy. Home prices, however, are expected to keep falling, according to other experts.
NABE forecasters predicted that when all is said and done the recession will have caused GDP to decline 2.8 percent. That would be “slightly less than the 3.1 percent during the early ’70s,” according to the survey of 47 forecasters taken between Jan. 29 and Feb. 12.
Even in the best-case scenario, with the recession ending sometime in the second half of this year, employment conditions will be tough.
Some of the forecasters said the nation’s unemployment rate could rise as high as 9 percent for all of 2009 and hit 10 percent next year. In 2008, the jobless rate averaged 5.8 percent, the highest since 2003. The survey’s median forecast — or middle point — called for the unemployment rate to rise to 8.4 percent this year and 8.8 percent next year.
Companies touching every part of the economy have announced thousands of layoffs already this year and more cuts came last week. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., said it will cut nearly 5,000 jobs, or almost 7 percent of its work force, this year, following the elimination of about 4,000 jobs in the second half of last year. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, which are asking the government for billions more in aid to remain viable, announced plans to cut 50,000 more jobs, 47,000 of which would be at GM.
The Fed said the unemployment rate could stay elevated into 2011. Some analysts think the jobless rate won’t drift down to a more normal range of around 5 percent until 2013 — at the earliest.
Companies won’t ramp up hiring until they feel confident that any recovery has staying power. That’s why employment is usually the last piece of the economy to reap the benefits of a recovery.
“A meaningful recovery is not expected to take hold until next year,” said Varvares.
NABE predicts GDP will rebound in 2010, averaging 2.4 percent over the course of the year. The Fed, too, is forecasting that the economy will grow again in 2010_ and will pick up momentum in 2011.
Even so, the Fed is still guarded about any turnaround.
Given all the negative forces weighing on consumers and businesses, the economic recovery “would be unusually gradual and prolonged,” the Fed said.
source : news.yahoo.com
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