Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Saddam Hussein pleaded not guilty to charges of torture and murder in a massacre of Iraqi villagers, as a five-member special tribunal in Baghdad began a trial that may end in the ousted dictator’s execution. The trial was adjourned until Nov. 28.
- Shares of the Chicago Board of Trade surged more than 50% in their first day of trading as investor demand for a stake in the global $1,100 trillion futures industry overshadowed the collapse of broker Refco.
- Russia confirmed an outbreak of a lethal strain of bird flu south of Moscow while Romania said a second location in its Danube River delta area was hit by the virus that has killed 60 people in Asia.
- Crude oil and gasoline fell after the Energy Dept. reported an unexpected increase in US inventories of the motor fuel, which have been stretched since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita moved through the Gulf of Mexico.
- Hurricane Wilma, the strongest on record in the Atlantic Ocean, intensified into a Category 5 storm with 175mph winds and is forecast to strike Florida’s western coast between Tampa and the Keys by this weekend.

Wall Street Journal:
- Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo! are being blamed for the rise in phony Web logs known as “splogs”, created to carry advertisements that promote other Web Sites.
- GM, DaimlerChrysler AG and Volkswagen AG are among world automakers racing to develop their own versions of hybrid-fuel engines to challenge Toyota’s popular Prius models.

USA Today:
- The White House plans to nominate a successor to retiring Fed chairman Greenspan in early to mid-November.

NY Times:
- The US and the Red Cross said 200,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees are living in hotels, not 600,000 as previously stated.
- New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to reduce fares this holiday season by tapping into an unexpected surplus.
- New Jersey will create a statewide umbilical and placental blood bank to be used by stem cell researchers and transplant doctors.
- Johnson & Johnson has told Guidant that it wants to negotiate a lower price than the $25.4 billion it agreed in December to pay for Guidant.

LA Times:
- The Orange County, California, commercial office market had its lowest vacancy rates in a decade as growing companies sought more space, citing Cushman & Wakefield.

Tehran Times:
- Iran restarted production at two oilfields developed by Royal Dutch Shell Plc after shutting them down for a week.

Financial Times Deutschland:
- Symbian Ltd., a maker of mobile operating systems partly owned by Nokia Oyj, is in talks with SAP AG to start a cooperation agreement.

Die Welt:
- The US and Canada attract more well-educated migrants than the European Union with 87% of people moving to the EU being poorly educated or having no education at all.

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