Just Plain Wrong

Singh, who enjoys a reputation for honesty in India’s murky political world, has been battling to protect his image against accusations of failing to act over the government’s cut-price sale of mobile telephone licences in 2008.

“I have nothing to hide from the public at all,” Singh, 78, declared at a Congress party annual strategy meeting, adding he would write to the chairman of parliament’s public accounts committee asking to appear before it.

Spain, in the eye of financial markets which are shunning its debt bonds, has done much right in fighting the crisis, but must reform its labour legislation and employment practices, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

The economy, which stalled in the third quarter after edging out of deep recession, is now set for subdued growth but the bursting of its property bubble will leave “lasting” scars and the unemployment rate, now about 20 percent, will remain among the highest in the European Union.

Even well qualified young graduates find they are shut out of the work place year after year.

Spain’s overall unemployment rate, just under 20 percent, is already the highest in the European Union. But for those under 25 the rate is more than 40 percent, catching 860,000 young people.

With US and European consumers stuck in uncertainty, global brands are pinning their hopes on Asia, where the buying binge usually stretches from Christmas to the Lunar New Year which will take place in early February.

Singapore’s fashionable Orchard Road is teeming with foreign shoppers, many of them from Southeast Asian countries whose currencies have appreciated sharply against the US dollar this year.

Business leaders formalised paperwork — adding to the 20 billion dollars’ worth of deals signed Friday — under blanket security at Islamabad’s five-star Marriott Hotel, where a huge suicide truck bomb killed 60 people in 2008.

Boosting trade and investment with poverty-stricken Pakistan have been the main focus of the first visit in five years by a Chinese premier to the country that is on the front line of the US-led war on Al-Qaeda.

“Christmas will be a lot of trouble,” he said, while thoughts of the New Year are just as bleak.

With three young children and a mortgage to pay, the 39-year-old is fighting to keep his family afloat as Ireland struggles to heal its wounded economy with the bitter medicine of savage cuts and a massive international bailout.

Genzyme, a U.S.-based biotech company that makes drugs for rare diseases, maintains that Campath, a drug it is testing for multiple sclerosis, could generate peak annual sales of $3.5 billion. It aims to strengthen that argument at an investor meeting in New York on Monday.

France’s Sanofi sees peak annual sales closer to $700 million. The discrepancy is central to Genzyme’s argument that it is worth more than the $69 a share being offered by Sanofi.

Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka said in an interview with Reuters and other media that Sony would struggle to make the TV division profitable this year and that he was not expecting substantial profits from the operations in the next financial year.

Television sales in Japan, which ballooned this year with a government stimulus plan and the digitization of terrestrial broadcasting, are expected to tumble from December, while an uncertain job market is weighing on U.S. shoppers’ appetite for big-ticket items.

Housing figures next week may inject a dose of sobriety into these forecasts. Anticipation of a strong expansion, coupled with worries about the budget deficit following a new tax deal in Washington, have pushed Treasury bond yields that directly affect mortgage rates sharply higher.

This raises the concern that a still-struggling housing sector, the epicenter of the country’s worst financial crisis in generations, may yet see further deterioration.

Smaller financial institutions, in particular, continue to feel the impact of the struggling housing market, weak economy and high unemployment. The bulk of this year’s closures have been smaller institutions, each with less than $1 billion in assets. Large banks have recovered more quickly from the financial crisis.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) has said it expects bank closures to peak this year after 140 closures in 2009.

Lawmakers had considered the $858 billion deal on the so-called Bush tax cuts the best vehicle for extending BABs, which expire with the stimulus plan at year end. The U.S. House of Representatives killed the possibility of an extension when it approved the deal late Thursday. President Barack Obama signed it into law on Friday.

With the end of BABs, the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market could see depressed prices and greater volatility. The bonds made up more than a quarter of all new municipal debt sold this year and have been largely attributed with restarting stalled municipal credit markets.

The 86-year-old leader repeated threats to nationalize foreign firms, threatening to retaliate against firms such as Rio Tinto (RIO.L) (RIO.AX) and Anglo American (AAL.L) (AGLJ.J), which operate in Zimbabwe.

“We ask them, think again, think now. Is it sanctions or no sanctions. We will be very, very strict to the extent of refusing investment from those countries (that have imposed sanctions),” Mugabe told ZANU-PF supporters at the end of the party’s annual conference.

The two lawsuits, filed by each state attorney general in Arizona and Nevada state courts, seek potentially massive fines against the bank and compensation for customers.

Arizona accuses Bank of America of violating a 2009 consent judgment in which it committed to widespread home loan modifications. The bank failed to follow through, leaving borrowers in limbo, according to the suit.

The Securities and Exchange Commission launched the new phase of its investigation by sending out a fresh round of subpoenas last week to big banks including Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Wells Fargo & Co, the sources said.

Months ago, the SEC began looking into the banks’ foreclosure practices following allegations that mortgage servicers were using shoddy paperwork to evict delinquent borrowers from their homes.

Moody’s cut Ireland’s rating by a stunning five notches during a European Union summit meant to restore confidence in the euro zone by creating a permanent financial safety net from 2013 and vowing to do whatever it takes to protect the euro.

Moody’s cut Ireland’s rating to Baa1, three notches above junk, with a negative outlook from Aa2 and warned further downgrades could follow if Dublin was unable to stabilize its debt situation, caused by a banking crash after a decade-long property bubble burst.

China overtook the United States in 2009 as the world’s biggest car market, with sales surging 45 percent to 13.6 million vehicles. Monthly sales this year have seen double-digit percentage growth and analysts are forecasting sales may climb roughly 30 percent to about 17 million vehicles for the full year.

Such explosive growth may not continue in 2011 because a tax cut on new vehicle purchases is expected to end. But a rebate of 3,000 yuan ($450) on cars with small engines will stay in place, as the government seeks to encourage people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles.

After the attack on the publisher of such blogs as Gawker, Gizmodo and Jezebel exposed account information on as many as 1.4 million people, several unrelated companies had to freeze their accounts and force users to reset passwords.

Gawker Media itself didn’t have all that much sensitive information about its users. But the usernames and passwords obtained there could open doors to more valuable accounts elsewhere, including e-mail and banking.

“I do deserve it,” the 49-year-old says. “I’ve done everything I could to try and get a job. I tried to get back into the retail industry. I made the effort to, at my age, go back to college.”

President Barack Obama extended unemployment benefits for Smith and millions of other Americans when he signed tax-cut legislation Friday. It helps people who have been out of work more than 26 weeks but less than 99 weeks, though the benefits vary greatly from state to state.

Cold weather and transport disruptions typically cause shortages most years, but the problem has been complicated by coal producers’ unhappiness over price controls that are crimping their profits.

China’s State Grid, the government power provider, said in reports seen Monday on its websites that recent winter storms had pushed demand higher while worsening traffic bottlenecks, hindering coal deliveries.

The announcement comes as emerging countries try to control the movement of so-called “hot money” from abroad that they say drives up the value of their currencies and destabilizes their markets. Foreign investors have sought higher returns in fast-growing developing economies amid ultra-low interest rates and other stimulatory monetary policies in advanced countries such as the United States and Japan.

South Korea has already announced limits on investments by domestic and foreign banks in foreign exchange derivatives trading and is moving to bring back a tax on foreign investment in government bonds as ways to shield itself against potential financial instability.

Now, all it needs are customers.

Last month, the nation’s first offshore wind farm nailed down its first buyer when the Massachusetts Department of Public Utility approved a deal that sees Cape Wind selling half its power to National Grid, the state’s largest electric utility.

“They had been intoxicated, loud and obnoxious,” according to an internal company report of the incident, which noted that Afghanistan’s deputy director for elections and a foreign diplomat were also in the lounge. “Complaints were made regarding the situation.” DynCorp fired the three guards.

Such episodes represent the headaches that U.S. contractors can cause in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. They are indispensable to the State Department’s mission overseas, handling security, transportation, construction, food service and more. But when hired hands behave badly – or break the law – they cast a cloud over the American presence.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank’s move adds to similar actions by Mastercard Inc. and PayPal Inc. Though previous moves have prompted reprisals by hackers, Bank of America’s site is as well-protected as they come, security experts say.

Its site was problem-free through midafternoon Saturday.

Now, Drew Oliver thinks it’s time for bacteria, viruses and other maligned microorganisms to share the love.

Instead of standard Christmas gifts, a growing number of people are looking under the tree for giant stuffed cold germs, cuddly E. coli, hugworthy heartworm and other oddities from Oliver’s Stamford-based company, Giant Microbes. Oliver says the toys are true to the microbes they represent except, of course, for their eyes and enhanced colors.

Bank of America violated Arizona’s consumer fraud law by misleading consumers who tried to reduce their monthly payments to keep their homes, state Attorney General Terry Goddard said. The bank also violated the terms of a 2009 consent agreement requiring its Countrywide mortgage subsidiary to implement a loan modification program, the Arizona lawsuit alleges.

Hundreds of homeowners kept making their mortgage payments because Bank of America repeatedly assured them that their loans were being modified, Goddard said. Instead, many lost their homes anyway.

Now the 1,800-kilometer (1,125-mile) passage is part of an even grander scheme: a $150 billion plan to bring water from the mighty Yangtze river to the parched north in what is the world’s most expensive infrastructure project.

Increasingly, a group of rising economies – from Brazil to the United Arab Emirates – is building the showcase projects that once were mainly the pride of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. America’s Hoover Dam made headlines in the 1930s; today, it is China’s $25 billion Three Gorges Dam.

The Air Resources Board passed the regulations unanimously, saying businesses struggling during a recession need more time to replace or upgrade aging equipment.

Clean air advocates countered that the move only ensured more harmful soot would be emitted into California’s air.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the three Georgia banks: Appalachian Community Bank of McCaysville, with $68.2 million in assets; Chestatee State Bank, based in Dawsonville, with $244.4 million in assets; and Atlanta-based United Americas Bank, with $242.3 million in assets.

The FDIC also seized Bank of Miami, based in Coral Gables, Fla., with $448.2 million in assets; First Southern Bank of Batesville, Ark., with $191.8 million in assets; and Community National Bank of Lino Lakes, Minn., with $31.6 million in assets.

At issue is who will ultimately benefit from the savings? The Federal Reserve’s proposal to cap these fees, officially known as interchange fees, at 12 cents per transaction would enable retailers to pass on annual savings of $10 billion to $13 billion to consumers. But banks and card networks maintain that retailers will pocket the savings. This would leave consumers to bear the brunt of the new law through higher costs for banking and reduced rewards programs.

In releasing its proposal Thursday, Fed staff said they found the cost to banks for processing is between 7 cents and 12 cents per transaction. Yet every time a customer swipes a debit card, the average fee is 44 cents.

In a report being circulated in Congress, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general identified several weaknesses in a key Federal Aviation Administration airline maintenance oversight program. Unless FAA fixes those weaknesses, the report said, its ability to “effectively oversee” the nation’s aviation system is lessened.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report on Friday.

A social worker unemployed for more than two years, she’s one of hundreds of thousands who will get no help from the new law because they’ve already used up all the benefits available to them.

“I have no money,” Kittrell says. “Everything is gone.”

Canada’s fourth-largest bank announced Friday that it was acquiring Marshall & Ilsley Corp. for $4.1 billion in stock, doubling its presence in the U.S. from 321 branches to 695.

The news sent shares of M&I surging 18 percent, up $1.06, to $6.85, while U.S.-traded shares of the Bank of Montreal fell $4.40, or 7.1 percent, to $57.26.

Miles from the blinking marquees of the Las Vegas Strip, this is where neon signs go to die.

In a city that hums of impulse and overstimulation, where investors flock to what’s hot and new and visitors empty their wallets at the promise of instant entertainment, the three-acre lot that displays relics from classic Las Vegas buildings offers a rare opportunity for retrospection.

Environmental groups said the new standards will ultimately mean a cleaner river but criticized the EPA for allowing GE to cap – or, leave covered-over PCBs in the river – up to 11 percent of the total project area, not counting rocky or other hard-to-reach areas. When those trouble spots are included, the new standards mean up to 21 percent of the area could be capped.

“There will still be some level of PCBs under that cap,” said Ned Sullivan of the environmental advocacy group Scenic Hudson. “That’s the major disappointment.”