Monday, October 13, 2008
Iceland Consumers Flooding Supermarkets
Icelandic Shoppers Splurge...
After a four-year spending spree, Icelanders are flooding the supermarkets one last time, stocking up on food as the collapse of the banking system threatens to cut the island off from imports. ``We have had crazy days for a week now,'' said Johannes Smari Oluffsson, manager of the Bonus discount grocery store in Reykjavik's main shopping center. ``Sales have doubled.'' Bonus, a nationwide chain, has stock at its warehouse for about two weeks. After that, the shelves will start emptying unless it can get access to foreign currency, the 22-year-old manager said, standing in a walk-in fridge filled with meat products, among the few goods on sale produced locally.
GM to Shut Wisconsin, Michigan Plants
GM to Shut Wisconsin, Michigan Plants
General Motors Corp. says it will close its metal stamping plant near Grand Rapids, Mich., by the end of 2009, costing about 1,340 hourly jobs. Workers at the factory in the suburb of Wyoming, Mich. were notified Monday afternoon of the planned shutdown. The move comes as GM tries to cut costs in the middle of a U.S. sales slump and global financial crisis that has led to a big slump in vehicle sales. The automaker announced earlier Monday that it would end sport utility vehicle production at its Janesville, Wis., factory in December, which is earlier than previously announced. The plant will close in mid-2009.
Royal Bank of Scotland Under State Control
Royal Bank of Scotland Under State Control
The Chancellor will move to take control of the Royal Bank of Scotland today by injecting £20 billion of taxpayers’ money. The Government is also expected to take over HBOS in the most dramatic extension of state ownership in the British economy since the war. The bank’s rescue takeover by Lloyds TSB appeared to be on the brink of collapse last night. As governments around the world scramble to prevent the collapse of the global financial system, Alistair Darling will unveil plans for a £40 billion “recapitalisation” of the banking sector.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Bush Signs Bailout Bill
U.S. President George W. Bush has signed into law an unprecedented $700 billion US plan aimed at easing the financial sector's credit crisis. He added his signature shortly after the legislation was passed, 263-171, by the House of Representatives on Friday. "We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said after the vote. He warned that the U.S. economy, however, "continues to face serious challenges."His sentiments were echoed by House members as they prepared to cast their vote Friday afternoon. "Let's not kid ourselves: We're in the midst of the recession," said House minority leader John A. Boehner. "It's going to be a rough ride, but it will be a whole lot rougher ride" without the rescue plan. The vote capped two weeks of upheaval in Congress, punctuated by daily warnings that the United States would be forced to confront its gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression if federal politicians failed to act.
Lift-off For China
Lift-off For China Space Mission
China has launched its third manned space mission - which is to feature the country's first spacewalk. The Shenzhou VII capsule soared into orbit atop a Long-March II-F rocket from the Jiuquan spaceport in Gansu province in the northwest of China. The 70-hour flight will include a spacewalk undertaken by 42-year-old fighter pilot Zhai Zhigang. Mr Zhai is joined on the mission by two other "yuhangyuan" (astronauts) - Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng.The rocket lit up the darkness as it blasted off from Jiuquan at 2110 Beijing Time (1310 GMT). China's president Hu Jintao met the three astronauts before the lift-off, wishing them success on the nation's riskiest space mission yet.
Worst Job Loss In 5 Years
Payrolls Sink 159,000The U.S. economy lost 159,000 jobs in September, the worst since March 2003, the Labor Department reported Friday. The economy has now lost 760,000 jobs this year, further evidence that the economy was in a recession even before the financial market crisis of the past few weeks."Whatever the government might or might not do to try to bail out the financial system, a consumer-led recession is upon us, and it promises to be a serious one," wrote Josh Shapiro, economist for MFR Inc. The unemployment rate was steady at 6.1% as expected, with 9.5 million Americans looking for work, the government said. An alternative measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers rose from 10.7% to 11%, the highest since April 1994
Auto Sales Plunge
Major automakers reported plunging U.S. sales for September -- led by a 34 percent slide at Ford Motor Co -- as an escalating credit crisis hit the slumping industry and raised new doubts about when the world's largest auto market would stabilize. The 26-percent drop in industry-wide auto sales was sharper than expected and coincided with a crisis on Wall Street that automakers said rocked consumer confidence and made it harder for remaining shoppers to finance vehicles. Sales were down 24 percent at Honda Motor Co, 32 percent at Toyota Motor Corp and 37 percent at Nissan Motor Co. Chrysler LLC sales were down 33 percent
House Clears $25bn For Carmakers
House Clears $25bn For Carmakers
The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a $25bn package of low-cost loans to help hard-pressed carmakers and their suppliers finance plant modernisation at a time of restricted access to public capital markets. The automotive loans are separate from the proposed $700bn bail-out for the banking sector, which is still being debated in Congress. The House approved the measure 370-58, setting the stage for Senate approval within days.
Venezuela To Build Nuclear Technology
Venezuela To Build Nuclear Technology
President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow. Chavez said he accepted an offer from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for assistance in building a nuclear reactor. "Russia is ready to support Venezuela in the development of nuclear energy with peaceful purposes and we already have a commission working on it," Chavez said. "We are interested in developing nuclear energy.
Iran To Launch Satellite
Iran To Launch Satellite
Iran plans to launch a satellite into space soon using an Iranian-made rocket, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. Iran has in the past launched satellites using rockets built by other nations, but this was the first announcement of such a launch with an all-Iranian made rocket. Ahmadinejad said the rocket will have 16 engines and will take a satellite some 430 miles into space, according to a state television report Thursday.
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