Thursday, August 17, 2006

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- President Bush signed into law with much fanfare today a measure revamping the US private pension system that also makes the first of his tax cuts permanent.
- A federal judge ordered the US government to stop wiretapping international telephone calls between suspected terrorists and their US-based affiliates without court warrants.
- Robert Merton, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and co-founder of defunct hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, shut down his new firm’s latest fund after three months because it didn’t raise enough money.
- Crude oil in NY fell and gasoline dropped to a four-month low on decreased motor-fuel demand as the summer driving season ends.
- Gold prices in NY fell to a three-week low as falling energy costs eroded the appeal of the metal as a hedge against inflation.
- Connecticut Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman has a 12 percentage point lead over Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont in a three-way race with Lieberman running as an independent.

Wall Street Journal:
- Terracom, a company run by a US tech entrepreneur, is building a high-tech Internet service in strife-ridden Rwanda.
- Dell’s(DELL) recall of 4.1 million laptop batteries may prompt buyers to turn to Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) and other computer makers during the summer selling season.
- The New York Board of Trade futures marketplace has been approached by potential acquirers including CBOT Holdings, owner of the Chicago Board of Trade; Intercontinental Exchange; and the NY Merc.
- US companies are borrowing more money than they have for several years, to fund leveraged buyouts and acquisitions, rising capital spending and bigger dividends and share buybacks.
- US cable-tv companies may have to carry out network upgrades if they’re to stay abreast of competitors in the high-speed Internet business, according to a report by Cable Labs.
- Powerline adapters made my Netgear, Linksys Group and Belkin Components offer a simple and inexpensive way to route Internet connections around households over regular electrical power lines.

NY Times:
- Wal-Mart Stores(WMT), the largest private employer in the US, has become a target of Democrats running for national office. Senators including Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, John Edwards and Evan Bayh have denounced the retailer.
- Carl Icahn said yesterday that he planned to create a special fund to buy more Time Warner(TWX) stock.
- Mobile dentistry in corporate parking lots is a growing industry in the Western US.
- The US Transport Security Administration wants to add to its ranks of behavior screeners at airports.
- More white couples in the US adopted black children in 2004 compared with 1998, citing an analysis of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect.
- Forensic scientists from around the world are evaluating bones, clothes, identity papers and spent bullet cases exhumed from mass Iraqi graves in an effort to reconstruct the final moments of Saddam Hussein’s victims.

Chronicle of Higher Education:
- Former US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton have joined forces with the United Negro College Fund to raise money for historically black institutions damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Hospodarske Noviny:
- The Czech Republic’s output of wind-generated electricity may grow as much as 2000% in the next 4 years, after the country adopted incentives for investment.

Le Monde:
- France plans to send only a symbolic contribution to the expanded UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, prompting UN concerns that this may send a negative signal to other potential participants.

Bild Zeitung:
- A growing number of Germans are living off state welfare payments. Some 41.5% of the country’s 39 million households receive welfare.

Xinhua News Agency:
- China’s State Council today imposed the first sanctions on local leaders for ignoring polices aimed at cooling the economy.

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