Tag: Docudharma Times

 Tea Party

Protest Against?

Bush’s Tax Policies

These People Are

Incredibly Stupid

Thai protest leaders call halt after deadly clash



By AMBIKA AHUJA and CHRIS BLAKE

The Associated Press

Tuesday, April 14, 2009; 2:35 AM

BANGKOK — Leaders of demonstrations that plunged the Thai capital into chaos said Tuesday that they were calling off their protests following rioting and clashes that left two dead and more than 120 injured across Bangkok.

About 2,000 die-hard protesters began to abandon their encampment around the seat of government, as combat troops ringed the demonstrators’ last stronghold making preparations for a crackdown.

“We have decided to call off the rally today because many brothers and sisters have been hurt and killed.

Allied Militants Threaten Pakistan’s Populous Heart

This article was reported by Sabrina Tavernise, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Eric Schmitt and written by Ms. Tavernise.

By SABRINA TAVERNISE, RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: April 13, 2009

DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan – Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab, the province that is home to more than half of Pakistanis, reinvigorating an alliance that Pakistani and American authorities say poses a serious risk to the stability of the country.

The deadly assault in March in Lahore, Punjab’s capital, against the Sri Lankan cricket team, and the bombing last fall of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the national capital, were only the most spectacular examples of the joint campaign, they said.

USA

America’s hidden unemployment crisis

Temp workers easily cast aside but have little safety net

BusinessWeek  

Over the past decade, U.S. businesses increasingly have relied on contract workers as a way to keep a lid on health care and retirement benefit costs and to give them more flexibility to adjust payrolls as conditions change. Now, with the American economy flashing code red, companies from Wall Street to Silicon Valley are casting off temporary workers and freelancers left and right, typically without any severance pay.

While the ability to shed contingent workers helps protect corporate profits, economists say it’s a net negative for the economy. That’s because while companies may save on labor costs, they aren’t likely to use those savings to boost investment with the economy so weak, preferring instead to rebuild their balance sheets.

 A Tea Party for Stupidity

Americans stick to their guns as firearms sales surge

Amid fears that President Obama is planning a clampdown on guns, Chris McGreal reports from Culpeper, Virginia, on a new US arms race

Chris McGreal

The Guardian, Monday 13 April 2009

At the Guns and Ammo Warehouse they are reluctant to admit Barack Obama is right about very much. But customers enjoy the thought that his controversial campaign comment, that “bitter” small-town Americans are clinging to their guns, has proved more true than the president could have imagined.

Firearms sales have surged in the six months since Obama’s election as millions of Americans have gone on a buying spree that has stripped gun shops in some parts of the country almost bare of assault weapons and led to a national ammunition shortage.

The FBI says that since November more than seven million people applied for criminal background checks in order to buy weapons, a figure excluding the many more buying at thousands of gun shows in states such as Virginia, without facing any checks.

Clashes Over Thai Protests Intensify

Janesara Fugal contributed reporting from Bangkok

By SETH MYDANS and THOMAS FULLER

Published: April 13, 2009

BANGKOK — The Thai army clashed with demonstrators here early Monday after thousands of anti-government protesters defied a state of emergency, massing in the streets, climbing atop armored military vehicles and attacking the prime minister’s motorcade.

In one clash at a major intersection, soldiers fired shots from automatic rifles and tear gas at the protesters, who answered with gasoline bombs. The intersection leads to a major road out of the city.

The gunfire appeared to be aimed above the protesters; hospitals reported more than 70 injured, many from tear gas. Four of the casualties had gunshot wounds, including two civilians and two soldiers, according to a hospital official quoted by the Reuters news agency.

USA

An Early Military Victory for Obama



By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 13, 2009; Page A09

It was one of the earliest tests of the new American president — a small military operation off the coast of a Third World nation. But as President Bill Clinton found out in October 1993, even minor failures can have long-lasting consequences.

Clinton’s efforts to land a small contingent of troops in Haiti were rebuffed, for the world to see, by a few hundred gun-toting Haitians. As the USS Harlan County retreated, so did the president’s reputation.

For President Obama, last week’s confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.

Tea Party

Rabbits Invited Along

With Mad Hatters

Key U.N. Powers Agree on N. Korea Statement



By Colum Lynch

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, April 12, 2009; Page A12

UNITED NATIONS, April 11 — The U.N. Security Council’s five permanent powers and Japan reached agreement Saturday on a statement condemning North Korea’s April 5 rocket launch over Japan. The text would revive a 2 1/2 yearold threat of financial and travel sanctions against individuals and entities linked to Pyongyang’s missile program.

The pact set the stage for a likely agreement as early as Monday by the 15-nation council on a statement that would also demand that North Korea not conduct any additional missile tests. It ended a diplomatic standoff between the United States and China, which blocked an American-backed effort to rally international criticism of North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The rebels on the mountain

In a guerrilla-held area lush with pastures, streams and groves, villagers go about self-sufficient lives very different from those of the displaced people huddled in dry, dusty camps below.

By Edmund Sanders

April 12, 2009

Reporting from Jebel Marra, Sudan – To enter rebel-controlled territory at the base of this extinct Darfur volcano, you have to walk across a 100-yard no man’s land that separates government soldiers from Sudan Liberation Army fighters. As we leave the United Nations trucks and cross a barren field toward our SLA hosts, rebel silhouettes sprout on the mountaintops standing guard. It feels oddly — and a little amusingly — like some sort of hostage exchange.

Getting here took nearly as much negotiation. There were awkward teas with local bureaucrats and a flurry of satellite phone calls with various insurgents before we finally procured the needed government stamps and rebel permissions. Roads to the mountain are so bandit-ridden that even the government advises against using them. Little wonder no journalist had visited in seven months.

It’s agreed that U.N. peacekeepers can drop us at rebel lines but proceed no farther, because the SLA faction that controls Jebel Marra doesn’t trust them any more than it does the government.

USA

HUD’s Dollar Homes falls short of mission

The federal program sets out to help poor families buy homes. Instead, housing contractors and investors are reaping the benefits, records show.

 By William Heisel

April 12, 2009

Jerry and Carol Ptacek bounced from one cramped apartment to another most of their adult lives, so they could hardly believe their luck when they were able to buy a San Bernardino house for the bargain price of $63,000.

Nine years later, they are renters again — a testament to the failure of the federal government’s Dollar Homes program.

Congress launched the program in 1998 to clear the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s books of foreclosures and provide affordable housing. Local governments would buy the homes for $1, fix them up and resell them at a discount to poor families, who would get a chance to put down roots in the community.

At least that’s how it was supposed to work.

Tea Bagged In Tokyo

Wednesday: Green Tea For All

Music By: Glen Beck And The Fearmongers

Showdown Seen Between Banks and Regulators



By STEPHEN LABATON and EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: April 10, 2009

WASHINGTON – As the Obama administration completes its examinations of the nation’s largest banks, industry executives are bracing for fights with the government over repayment of bailout money and forced sales of bad mortgages.

President Obama emerged from a meeting with his senior economic advisers on Friday to say “what you’re starting to see is glimmers of hope across the economy.” But there were also signs of growing tensions between the White House and the nation’s banks over the next phase of the financial rescue.

Some of the healthier banks want to pay back their bailout loans to avoid executive pay and other restrictions that come with the money. But the banks are balking at the hefty premium they agreed to pay when they took the money.

Massive Stimulus Packages Add to Japan’s Pile of Debt

Spending Plans Balloon to $270 Billion, Mostly Borrowed

By Blaine Harden

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, April 11, 2009; Page A09

TOKYO, April 10 — Japan, which soothed the pain of its ruptured bubble economy in the 1990s with massive government borrowing, is again swallowing giant doses of deficit medicine.

To recover from a global downtown that has hurt Japan more than any industrialized nation, Prime Minister Taro Aso announced on Friday his third and largest stimulus package since coming to power last September. At a cost of $150 billion, it brings the total amount of new spending to $270 billion, about 5 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product.

USA

America wants to see Ruth Madoff behind bars

The jets and boats have been seized, her jewels may be next and she is ostracised by her high-society friends. But America wants more: to see Ruth Madoff behind bars

By Stephen Foley in New York

 Saturday, 11 April 2009

For once, there is no one camped on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 64th Street. No television camera crew. No breathless newspaper reporters. Not even a lone paparazzo. For more than three months, 64th and Lex were the co-ordinates for an extraordinary media scrum, and even for some public protests, while a certain Bernard and Ruth Madoff looked down from their penthouse above.

But Bernard Madoff is in jail now, guilty pleas entered to all 11 of the fraud and perjury charges laid on him. His wife and companion of 50 years? She still has the $7m (£4.8m) apartment – for now – and the services of the security guards she hired to protect it after she and her husband shot to infamy.

Republicans Are So Delusional

One Might Think They Were Using

Illegal Substances  

Extremist Web Sites Are Using U.S. Hosts

Ease and Anonymity Draw Taliban, al-Qaeda

By Joby Warrick and Candace Rondeaux

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, April 9, 2009; Page A01

On March 25, a Taliban Web site claiming to be the voice of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” boasted of a deadly new attack on coalition forces in that country. Four soldiers were killed in an ambush, the site claimed, and the “mujahideen took the weapons and ammunition as booty.”

Most remarkable about the message was how it was delivered. The words were the Taliban’s, but they were flashed around the globe by an American-owned firm located in a leafy corner of downtown Houston.

The Texas company, a Web-hosting outfit called ThePlanet, says it simply rented cyberspace to the group and had no clue about its Taliban connections. For more than a year, the militant group used the site to rally its followers and keep a running tally of suicide bombings, rocket attacks and raids against U.S. and allied troops. The cost of the service: roughly $70 a month, payable by credit card.

What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia

Drought, fires, killer heat waves, wildlife extinction and mosquito-borne illness — the things that climate change models are predicting have already arrived there, they say.

 By Julie Cart

April 9, 2009

Reporting from The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia — Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty boots and slid into a chair, taking his place at the dining room table where most of the critical family issues are hashed out. Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done .

“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men — big, strong grown men. We’re holding on by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperate times.”

A result of climate change?

“You’d have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise,” Eddy said.

They call Australia the Lucky Country, with good reason. Generations of hardy castoffs tamed the world’s driest inhabited continent, created a robust economy and cultivated an image of irresistibly resilient people who can’t be held down. Australia exports itself as a place of captivating landscapes, brilliant sunshine, glittering beaches and an enviable lifestyle.

USA

U.S. citizens caught up in immigration sweeps

The detentions, which in some cases have nearly led to the deportation of citizens or legal residents, are drawing increased attention.

By Andrew Becker and Patrick J. McDonnell

April 9, 2009

Reporting from Tacoma, Wash., and Los Angeles — Rennison Vern Castillo thought his legal troubles were nearly over at the end of a jail stay for harassing his ex-girlfriend. But then a U.S. immigration hold order blocked his release.

“They think you’re here illegally,” a jailhouse guard said to him.

Castillo, mystified, insisted it was all a mistake. Though born in Belize, he had come of age in South Los Angeles, spoke fluent English, served a stint in the Army and had become an American citizen about seven years earlier.

He had some legal problems, but being in the country unlawfully was not one of them. Castillo said he wasn’t worried — not until he was shackled and transferred to a federal detention center. He spent months in custody before an appeals panel blocked his deportation and an immigration judge finally ordered Castillo set free.

Life Is Just A

Fantasy For

Newt Gingrich And

That’s All It Is

Italy earthquake survivors face up to aftermath as death toll rises to 179

Deadliest earthquake for almost 30 years leaves 1,500 injured and thousands homeless

John Hooper in Onna, Abruzzo

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 April 2009 07.41 BST

There were 12 of them. Four of the bodies were in shiny new coffins. The rest were still in their improvised shrouds – quilts, sheets and even a gaily coloured curtain.

All round the paddock in which the dead had been laid out under a line of trees, there were other signs of the unbearable lightness of modern disaster: a woman in a blush-pink dressing gown who stood at the end of the line of coffins making the sign of the cross as the tears gushed down her cheeks; a man in a souvenir cap advertising Radio 101 who sat on a rock with his head bowed, just a yard or two from the grimly swathed bodies of his neighbours; the woman in the spangled Playboy bunny top who was pleading with her half-delirious, tear-stained friend not to go back into the centre of the village where rescue workers were burrowing in the ruins of what until 3.30am yesterday had been a pretty little village under the snow-capped Apennines.

A missile launch for dummies



By Donald Kirk  

SEOUL – Call it a success or failure, North Korea’s launch on Sunday of a long-range missile, supposedly carrying a satellite that failed to go into orbit, demonstrates conclusively Pyongyang’s ability to deliver a warhead to a distant target.

In that sense, the latest version of the Taepodong-2 accomplished what North Korea had wanted – and also bore out United States, Japanese and South Korean charges of violating United Nations resolutions adopted in 2006 when the North entered the ranks of the nuclear powers by testing a small warhead.

The UN Security Council this time is not about to enforce the previous resolutions, much less adopt a meaningless statement of “condemnation”. The council, after three hours of closed-door palaver on Sunday, failed to agree to anything after calls for restraint by both China and Russia, North Korea’s only friends and one-time Korean War allies.

USA

Report Calls CIA Detainee Treatment ‘Inhuman’



By Joby Warrick and Julie Tate

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, April 7, 2009; Page A06

Medical officers who oversaw interrogations of terrorism suspects in CIA secret prisons committed gross violations of medical ethics and in some cases essentially participated in torture, the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a confidential report that labeled the CIA program “inhuman.”

Health personnel offered supervision and even assistance as suspected al-Qaeda operatives were beaten, deprived of food, exposed to temperature extremes and subjected to waterboarding, the relief agency said in the 2007 report, a copy of which was posted on a magazine Web site yesterday. The report quoted one medical official as telling a detainee: “I look after your body only because we need you for information.”

That Missile Went

For A Swim

At Least 27 Are Dead as Buildings Fall After Quake in Italy



By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: April 6, 2009

ROME – At least 27 people died and thousands were left homeless when an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 shook central Italy early Monday morning, seriously damaging buildings in the mountainous Abruzzo Region east of Rome, officials told Italian news media.

The epicenter was in L’Aquila, a picturesque Medieval fortress hill town, where eight people died and more were trapped under rubble, officials said.

The situation is “extremely critical, as many buildings have collapsed,” Luca Spoletini, a spokesman for Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, told the ANSA news agency. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared a state of emergency in the region.

UN divided on North Korea rocket launch

By Jon Herskovitz and Louis Charbonneau, Reuters

Monday, 6 April 2009

The United Nations failed to agree on a response to North Korea’s long-range rocket launch despite pressure from Washington and its allies for action, while regional powers weighed the extent of the new security threat.

Analysts said Sunday’s launch of the rocket – which flew over Japan during its 3,200 km (2,000 mile) flight – was effectively a test of a ballistic missile designed to carry a warhead as far as the US state of Alaska.

They said an emboldened North Korea would use the first successful launch of its Taepodong-2 missile to extract concessions for showing up at any future round of six-party talks on ending its nuclear programme. It could also seek to water down obligations it signed onto under previous negotiations.

“With this capability, North Korea is equipped with the infrastructure to play the nuclear game and raise the stakes in the six-way talks,” said Kim Tae-woo, a nuclear and weapons expert at the Korea Institute for Defence Analysis.

“As a result, more will have to be given to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear programme.”

USA

Blacks at Odds Over Scrutiny of President



By Krissah Thompson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 6, 2009; Page A01

Jeff Johnson knows how to make his audiences squirm. The young, black radio and TV political commentator waits for the discussion to turn to the topic being talked about ceaselessly, incessantly, ad nauseam: the meaning of the barrier-breaking election of Barack Obama.

Then, in his laid-back style, he says, “The real issue for me is that history is not enough.” That’s when the mood becomes tense.

“Black folks, in particular, get irritated,” says Johnson, who travels the lecture circuit, hosts a half-hour show on Black Entertainment Television and has a weekly spot for social criticism on a radio program popular with black listeners.

North Korea Throws

Caution And Missiles

To The Wind

Defiant N. Korea Launches Missile

Neighbors Express Dismay; U.S. Decries ‘Provocative Act’

By Blaine Harden

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, April 5, 2009; Page A01

TOKYO, April 5 — North Korea launched a long-range missile Sunday morning, defying repeated international warnings, worrying its neighbors and setting up the prospect of increased sanctions.

The launch, from a base on the country’s northeast coast, came shortly after 10:30 p.m. Saturday EDT, the U.S. State Department reported.

The three-stage rocket flew over Japan, with its first two booster stages falling harmlessly into the Sea of Japan — also known as the East Sea — and Pacific Ocean, respectively.

North Korea said the “peaceful” launch would put a communications satellite into orbit, and South Korean officials confirmed that the rocket was carrying a satellite. But President Obama called it a “provocative act” with which North Korea has “further isolated itself from the community of nations.”

U.S.: North Korean ‘satellite’ did not make orbit

Antarctic ice shelf half the size of Scotland on verge of collapse



Paul Harris in New York

The Observer, Sunday 5 April 2009

A huge ice shelf in the Antarctic is in the last stages of collapse and could break up within days in the latest sign of how global warming is thought to be changing the face of the planet.

The enormous Wilkins ice shelf is now barely attached to land. The latest reports show that a thin sliver of ice attaching it to the Antarctic’s Charcot Island is rapidly collapsing and threatening to break.

The Wilkins shelf is about half the size of Scotland, or the same size as the US state of Connecticut. It is the largest slab of ice so far to disintegrate and retreat in the Antarctic. Pictures from the European Space Agency show that fresh rifts have appeared in Wilkins’ ‘ice bridge’ to Charcot Island and that a large chunk of ice has broken away, though the shelf still remains attached to other pieces of land. ESA estimated that the loss of the ice bridge could see the northern half of Wilkins break free, representing up to 1,400 square miles of ice floating off on the ocean in a gigantic ice berg.

USA

FBI database links long-haul truckers, serial killings

The growing database includes more than 500 female victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies dumped at truck stops, motels and other spots along popular trucking routes crisscrossing the U.S.

By Scott Glover

April 5, 2009

The FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truckers are responsible for the slayings of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near highways over the last three decades.

Federal authorities first made the connection about five years ago while helping police link a trucker to a string of unsolved killings along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and several other states. After that, the FBI launched the Highway Serial Killings Initiative to track suspicious slayings and suspect truckers.

A computer database maintained by the FBI has grown to include information on more than 500 female crime victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies discarded at truck stops, motels and other locations along popular trucking routes crisscrossing the U.S.

The database also has information on scores of truckers who’ve been charged with killings or rapes committed near highways or who are suspects in such crimes, officials said. Authorities said they do not have statistics on whether driving trucks ranks high on the list of occupations of known serial killers.

Don’t Know Much About

History  Don’t Know Much About Biology

Don’t Know Much About Anything

At All

Bill O’Reilly’s Mantra  

Administration Seeks an Out On Bailout Rules for Firms

Officials Worry Constraints Set by Congress Deter Participation

By Amit R. Paley and David Cho

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, April 4, 2009; Page A01

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.

The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

Porsche Finds Fortune From Unlikely Outsourcing



By CARTER DOUGHERTY

Published: April 3, 2009

UUSIKAUPUNKI, FINLAND – Outsourcing to less-expensive places like India, China, Taiwan and Eastern Europe became routine for many American and Western European companies over the past decade. But what’s Porsche doing in Finland?

Since 1997, Porsche, the German sports car manufacturer, has headed north to this tongue-twister of a Finnish town instead of east, a move that helps explain why it is still making money even as so many automakers are tapping government aid to weather the worst industry downturn in a generation.

During the fat years, Valmet Automotive cranked out thousands of cars in Uusikaupunki to supplement Porsche’s production in Germany. Now, the assembly lines here are slowing, which means that Valmet, rather than Porsche, is bearing much of the burden of the global auto industry’s distress.

USA

Shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., ‘truly an American tragedy’

13 are slain at a crowded immigration services center. The gunman also killed himself, authorities believe. Evidence may point to Jiverly Wong or Jiverly Voong, formerly of Southern California.

By Geraldine Baum and Anna Gorman

10:55 PM PDT, April 3, 2009

Reporting from Los Angeles and Binghamton, N.Y. — For immigrants in chilly Binghamton, the doorway to America opens through the friendly building on Front Street. But Friday, the American Civic Assn. — a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams — became a killing zone.

A gunman barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, thwarting escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.

Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the gunman gave no warning. “I don’t think there was any conversation,” he said.

As the gunman entered the building, he killed one receptionist and shot another in the stomach. She pretended to be dead, hiding under a table and waiting for a chance to call 911, while he moved down the hall. In a nearby room he opened fire on a group taking a citizenship class.

Police arrived less than two minutes after receiving the receptionist’s call at 10:31 a.m., Zikuski said. Amid the carnage, they found a body believed to be the shooter’s, along with two handguns, body armor, ammunition and a magazine. He apparently shot himself.

Its Not Just North

Korean Missiles

What About Those American

Journalists Seized By

That Country?

Congress Approves Budget

$3.5 Trillion Spending Plan Paves Way for Obama Goals

By Lori Montgomery

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, April 3, 2009; Page A01

Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama’s ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday, endorsing a $3.5 trillion spending plan that sets the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities.

Voting along party lines, the House and Senate approved budget blueprints that would trim Obama’s spending proposals for the fiscal year that begins in October and curtail his plans to cut taxes. The blueprints, however, would permit work to begin on the central goals of Obama’s presidency: an expansion of health-care coverage for the uninsured, more money for college loans and a cap-and-trade system to reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

USA

Northrop Grumman-TRW whistle-blower case settled

The defense contractor agrees to resolve claims of faulty satellite parts, and the federal government in turn settles a separate dispute, meaning no money changes hands.

By Peter Pae

April 3, 2009

In one of the nation’s largest settlements in a whistle-blower case, Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to pay the federal government $325 million to resolve claims that TRW, which it acquired in 2002, provided defective parts for a spy satellite program in the 1990s.

But in an unusual twist, the federal government also announced Thursday that it had settled a separate, long-running dispute with Northrop and agreed to pay the aerospace company $325 million — essentially meaning that no money will change hands.

In an e-mail, a Justice Department official said that because the two settlements with Northrop were of equal amounts, “no money is exchanged.”

Though Century City-based Northrop was the loser in the whistle-blower case, it successfully resolved a 13-year-old dispute over a missile program that was canceled in 1995 for what the government said were cost and schedule overruns.

 So, the Republican’s Gave

The U.S. A Budget

Was It Ground Hog Day Or

Fools Gold

China Vies to Be World’s Leader in Electric Cars



By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: April 1, 2009

TIANJIN, China – Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit’s Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today.

“China is well positioned to lead in this,” said David Tulauskas, director of China government policy at General Motors.

USA

U.S. Urges GM to Consider Bankruptcy

Government Plan to Split Ailing Brands From Stronger Ones Is an Option, Firm Says

By Peter Whoriskey

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, April 2, 2009; Page A14

The Obama administration’s auto task force has pressed General Motors to consider a form of bankruptcy that would split the company in two, with one entity containing the unprofitable units and the other in essence becoming the new GM consisting of the company’s more successful brands, people familiar with the matter say.

The company prefers not to ever enter bankruptcy because the mere word would stir fear among consumers and further damage sales. But GM will be forced to do so if it fails to win concessions from its bondholders, union and dealers within 60 days. Then bankruptcy court would compel GM stakeholders to make sacrifices, rehabilitating the company by clearing away billions of dollars of debts from its balance sheet.

“They’re all options. They’re all being studied,” Kent Kresa, GM’s new chairman, said in an interview. “The preferred [option] is to do it outside of bankruptcy.”

 So, the Republican’s Gave

The U.S. A Budget

Was It Ground Hog Day Or

Fools Gold

China Vies to Be World’s Leader in Electric Cars



By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: April 1, 2009

TIANJIN, China – Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit’s Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today.

“China is well positioned to lead in this,” said David Tulauskas, director of China government policy at General Motors.

USA

U.S. Urges GM to Consider Bankruptcy

Government Plan to Split Ailing Brands From Stronger Ones Is an Option, Firm Says

By Peter Whoriskey

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, April 2, 2009; Page A14

The Obama administration’s auto task force has pressed General Motors to consider a form of bankruptcy that would split the company in two, with one entity containing the unprofitable units and the other in essence becoming the new GM consisting of the company’s more successful brands, people familiar with the matter say.

The company prefers not to ever enter bankruptcy because the mere word would stir fear among consumers and further damage sales. But GM will be forced to do so if it fails to win concessions from its bondholders, union and dealers within 60 days. Then bankruptcy court would compel GM stakeholders to make sacrifices, rehabilitating the company by clearing away billions of dollars of debts from its balance sheet.

“They’re all options. They’re all being studied,” Kent Kresa, GM’s new chairman, said in an interview. “The preferred [option] is to do it outside of bankruptcy.”