Shares plunged on Wall Street and the dollar fell sharply tonight after an increase in jobless claims and weak signals from industry prompted fears that the US is heading for a double-dip recession.
The Dow Jones index fell 200 points at one stage in morning trading in New York after the US labour department reported that 500,000 new claims for unemployment benefit were filed in the week ending 14 August – an increase of 12,000 on the previous week and the highest figure for nine months.
The already gloomy mood was compounded when the Philadelphia Fed, one of the Federal Reserve's 12 regional reserve banks, published its monthly health check on manufacturing in America's mid-Atlantic region. The survey, seen by Wall Street as a barometer of US industrial conditions, showed activity had contracted unexpectedly for the first time since July 2009.
President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass a bill providing support for small businesses, but Wall Street believes the threat to the world's biggest economy will also require action by the Federal Reserve to expand the money supply through its quantitative easing programme. James Bullard, president of the St Louis Fed, said tonight that the central bank would need to step up its purchases of bonds should the threat of deflation intensify.
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On June 29, 2010, Ankara, in a first sign of frustration, called on Iran to return "as soon as possible" to the negotiating table over a nuclear fuel swap deal. According to a senior Turkish diplomat, Turkey voted against tougher UN sanctions under the condition that Iran would engage itself in talks on its controversial nuclear program. However, on June 28, 2010 Ahmadinejad announced that any negotiations will be postponed until late August in order to "punish" Western powers. Tehran left it unclear when and if it will continue to talk with Brazil and Turkey, its two allies.
A senior Fatah leader said here on Thursday that the Israeli-Palestinians proximity talks did not yield any progress that meets previously set conditions.
The meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Tuesday did not provide any good signs, Nabil Shaath, a Fatah Central Committee member, told reporters in Cairo after meeting with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa.
Shaath and Moussa discussed the Middle East peace process and ways to achieve the Palestinian reconciliation and end the Israeli embargo imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007.
"There has not been any progress through the indirect talks, and thus, a meeting (of the Arab Peace Initiative Follow-up Committee) requested by the Palestinian National Authority and was agreed to by Secretary-General of the Arab League, will take place soon," Shaath said, adding "that meeting will assess the whole situation and will make an Arab decision on the issue."
According to the Fatah leader, the Palestinian decision will be submitted to the Arab Peace Initiative Follow-up Committee's meeting scheduled for July 29, to coordinate a concerted Arab action.
A Qassam rocket landed near a building in one of the communities in the Sdot Negev Regional Council early Wednesday, causing damage to a packing-house. There were no reports of injuries.
Avi Aptelboim, head of the community's emergency squad, reported that "a Color Red siren was sounded at around 4 am, followed by a rocket which landed inside the community, near the packing-house. The packing-house sustained heavy damage and it won't be operated today. There were no injuries, thank God." "The rocket landed right next to the packing-house.
The equipment near the packing-house was damaged, and the building itself sustained damage from shrapnel," said one of the residents.
Maze cartoon a Lamboghini racing down the road. Analogy of the economy. Created by Yonatan Frimer
Maze cartoon of a motorcycle lableled, "middle east" speeding down a road in the direction of war, and away from the direction of peace. Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Turkey’s provocative flotilla—often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission—has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli.
It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts, Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long-, medium- and short-range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War.
Should Syria move its own scuds to (Click here to read the full article)
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Gulf residents outraged by BP CEO's yacht outingVENICE, La. (AP) - Just when it seemed Gulf residents couldn't get any more outraged about the massive oil spill fouling their coastline, word came Saturday that BP's CEO was taking time off to attend a glitzy yacht race in England.
Tony Hayward's latest public relations gaffe didn't sit well with people in the U.S. who have seen their livelihoods ruined by the massive two-month oil spill.
"Man, that ain't right. None of us can even go out fishing, and he's at the yacht races," said Bobby Pitre, 33, who runs a tattoo shop in Larose, La. "I wish we could get a day off from the oil, too."
As social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook lit up with anger, BP spokespeople rushed to defend Hayward, who has drawn withering criticism as the public face of his company's halting efforts to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Robert Wine, a BP spokesman at the company's Houston headquarters, said it's the first break Hayward has had since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers and setting off the undersea gusher.
"He's spending a few hours with his family at a weekend," Wine said Saturday. "I'm sure that everyone would understand that."
Not Mike Strohmeyer, who owns the Lighthouse Lodge in Venice, on Louisiana's southern tip, who said Hayward was "just numb."
"I don't think he has any feelings," he said. "If I was in his position.....
Pictures of Tony Hayward yachting at the Isle of Wight billed as a PR nightmare and insulting to those affected by oil slick
Images of the beleaguered BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, attending a yacht race on the Isle of Wight, just 48 hours after a hostile interrogation by a US congressional committee on the Gulf Coast oil spill, have provoked sharp criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.
President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, condemned Hayward's attendance at the event as "part of a long line of PR gaffes and mistakes" on ABC television, adding: "I think that we can all conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting".
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Israel could see what was coming. Before the convoy set sail, Israeli leaders pleaded with Turkish officials to stop it; they offered to allow the supplies to be delivered through an Israeli checkpoint. But Erdoğan’s government let it go anyway. Thus, Israel had no choice but to intervene directly. And those on the boat made sure it turned violent.
Now, Turkey is milking the event for all it’s worth. It accused Israel of state-sponsored terrorism. It compared the psychological impact of the incident on Turks to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Americans. Turkish President Abdullah Gül called the Israeli raid a crime against humanity and said Israeli-Turkish relations will never be the same. Erdoğan labeled it a massacre. Turkish armed forces announced several cutbacks in cooperation with Israeli forces. The government also offered to supply Turkish naval protection for the next “aid” convoy to Gaza; “This would be, in effect, an act of war,” wrote Mark Steyn, “—more to the point, an act of war by a nato member against the State of Israel.”
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NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - Around the turn of every year, bankers can think of only one thing: the size of their bonuses.
Even beyond bonus season, they run different scenarios and assumptions, trying to calculate their number.
This distracts them so much that the bigger the bonus at stake, the worse the performance, according to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who lays out his theory in his new book "The Upside of Irrationality" (HarperCollins, $27.99).
"For a long time we trained bankers to think they are the masters of the universe, have unique skills and deserve to be paid these amounts," said Ariely, who also wrote the New York Times bestseller "Predictably Irrational."
"It is going to be hard to convince them that they don't really have unique skills and that the amount they've been paid for the past years is too much."
Ariely's findings come as regulators try to rein in Wall Street's bonus culture after the 2008 financial collapse. The financial industry argues it needs to pay large bonuses to attract and motivate its top employees.
In an experiment in India, Ariely measured the impact of different bonuses on how participants did in a number of tasks that required creativity, concentration and problem-solving.
One of the tasks was Labyrinth, where the participants had to move a small steel ball through a maze avoiding holes. Ariely describes a man he identified as Anoopum, who stood to win the biggest bonus, staring at the steel ball as if it were prey.
"This is very, very important," Anoopum mumbled to himself. "I must succeed." But under the gun, Anoopum's hands trembled uncontrollably, and he failed time after time.
A large bonus was equal to five months of their regular pay, a medium-sized bonus was equivalent to about two weeks pay and a small bonus was a day's pay.
There was little difference in the performance of those receiving the small and medium-sized bonuses, while recipients of large bonuses performed worst.
SHOCK TREATMENT
More than a century ago, an experiment with rats in a maze rigged with electric shocks came to a similar conclusion. Every day, the rats had to learn how to navigate a new maze safely.
When the electric shocks were low, the rats had little incentive to avoid them. At medium intensity they learned their environment more quickly.
But when the shock intensity was very high, it seemed the rats could not focus on anything other than the fear of the shock.
This may provide lessons for regulators who want to change Wall Street's bonus culture, Ariely said. Paying no bonus or smaller bonuses could help fix skewed incentives without loss of talent.
"The reality is, a lot of places are able to attract great quality people without paying them what bankers are paid," Ariely said. "Do you think bankers are inherently smarter than other people? I don't." (Reporting by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
The United Nations Security Council approved a new round of sanctions against Iran last week for its refusal to curb the country's nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies suspect is aimed at producing weapons. Iran denies that.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran favors a dialogue with the West, but will announce its conditions soon. He said the carrot-and-stick approach doesn't work and Iran will not make "one iota of concessions" to the West.
"You showed bad temper, reneged on your promise and again resorted to devilish manners," he said of the powers that imposed sanctions. "We set conditions (for talks) so that, God willing, you'll be punished a bit and sit at the negotiating table like a polite child," he told a crowd during a visit to the central Iranian town of Shahr-e-Kord. His speech was broadcast live on state TV.
Click here to read the full AP article| Maze Of Monkeys jumping off a building in 3-D maze goodness Maze Kong - by Yonatan Frimer | Mushroom Maze Maze-a-delic by Yonatan Frimer |
Smugglers in Egypt and Gaza worry their trade will be adversely affected by returning Palestinians lugging goods bought for cheaper prices in Egypt. They know a total termination of the blockade will spell the end of their industry.
This feeling is a common (and, yes, somewhat scary) experience that a group of neuroscientists think they can better explain. In an experiment with rats, researchers at MIT identified two distinct neural circuits in the brain that show distinct changes when the rats were learning to navigate a maze and, later, after they mastered the task.
The rats were placed in a maze that had chocolate sprinkles at the end. The activity in specific parts of their brains was analyzed as they learned the maze, which included a T-juncture where they had to stop and choose to turn right or left. The rats performed the maze repeatedly until they had learned it.
The study showed that one specific neural circuit became stronger with practice. A second neural circuit showed high activity occurring at times when the rats had to make a decision in the maze. But as they learned the maze, activity in this circuit declined. The task had become habitual.
So, arriving at school in one piece wasn't just a matter of luck. "It is good to know that we can train our brains to develop good habits and avoid bad ones," the lead author of the study, Ann Graybiel, said in a news release.
Understanding how specific regions of the brain change through learning could help in developing new treatments for brain-based diseases. The study was published Thursday in the journal Neuron.
-- Shari Roan
Photo credit: Advanced Cell Technology Inc.
