In Friday's Americas papers

25 January 2008 11:19  [Source: ICIS news]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Front Page

Glum mood bodes ill for GOP
Just when it seemed Americans couldn't get any gloomier about the country's direction, they have. That finding, from the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, could leave Republicans the gloomiest of all, as prospects for their party darken further in a presidential election year.

Lobbyists smoothed the way for a spate of foreign deals
Two years ago, the US Congress pressured the Arab emirate of Dubai to back out of a deal to manage US ports. Today, governments in the Persian Gulf, China and Singapore have snapped up $37bn of stakes in Wall Street, the bedrock of the US financial system. Lawmakers and the White House are welcoming the cash, and there is hardly a peep from the public.

Italy is cast adrift As Prime Minister Prodi resigns
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned after narrowly losing a confidence vote in the Senate, thrusting Italy into months of uncertainty before a government with a clear political mandate can take power.

Money & Investing

French bank rocked by rogue trader
The rogues' gallery of banking has a new candidate for membership: 31-year-old trader Jerome Kerviel. In one of the banking world's most unsettling recent disclosures, France's Societe Generale SA said Kerviel had cost the bank $7.2bn by making huge unauthorised trades that he hid for months by hacking into computers.

Criticism of rate cut mounts
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faces a perception problem: It looks like he is too ready to respond to a falling stock market.

Washington sets $150bn plan to jolt economy
Congress and the White House hammered out an economic stimulus package that would put $150bn into the hands of consumers and businesses while seeking to revive the market for large mortgages.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Front Page

Kenya’s political rivals meet
For the first time since Kenya plunged into postelection chaos four weeks ago, the nation’s warring political leaders met face to face on Thursday, but afterward opposition leaders accused the president of being a fraud.

US asking Iraq for wide rights on war
With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the US broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.

Business Day

French bank says rogue trader lost $7bn
A French bank announced Thursday that it had lost $7.2bn, not because of complex subprime loans, but the old-fashioned way - because a 31-year-old rogue trader made bad bets on stocks and then, in trying to cover up those losses, dug himself deeper into a hole.

Throughout Asia, exporters brace for tremors from a US pullback
Asian exporters are already feeling the effects of an American economic downturn - effects that may be magnified by a weak dollar, volatile world markets and fears that more bad loans may be ticking in the coffers of American companies.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Front Page

Deal spotlights rarity of bipartisan action
As they unveiled a $150bn package of tax breaks for consumers and businesses yesterday, Republicans and Democrats hoped to rescue not only a troubled economy but also a government that increasingly has seemed as if it could not get anything done.

French bank links lone futures trader to $7bn fraud
For five years, Jerome Kerviel toiled in the back offices of Societe Generale, learning the intricacies of the six-layer security system that France's second-largest bank used to protect its money, investors and customers from fraud, according to bank officials here.

Business

Lockheed Martin sees profit rise 10%
Lockheed Martin said yesterday that its fourth-quarter profit rose nearly 10 percent, fueled by strong sales in its satellite, information technology and missile defense businesses, even as its sales of fighter planes declined.

Bush, House hammer out $150bn stimulus bill
House leaders and the Bush administration reached agreement yesterday on a $150bn economic stimulus package that would quickly send hundreds of dollars to poor and middle-class workers while offering businesses one-time incentives to invest in new equipment.

GLOBE AND MAIL, Canada

Front Page

Forces kept Ottawa in the dark on halting detainee transfers
The military did not tell the government that it suspended the transfer of prisoners taken by Canadian troops to Afghan authorities in November, the Prime Minister's Office says.

Optimism turns to gloom in Karzai's hometown
When journalists wanted to find optimism in the wreckage of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, correspondents bumped along the dirt roads south of Kandahar city to a cluster of mud huts known as Karz.

Business

Greenspan on the defensive
The biggest barrier to stabilizing the chaotic US housing market is the oversupply of homes that cash-strapped builders are flogging at rock-bottom prices, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says.

Prentice hints that Ford plant is eligible for federal aid
Industry Minister Jim Prentice says Ford might yet qualify for federal help to reopen an engine plant in Windsor, Ont., because Ontario manufacturers would be eligible to tap the Harper government's $1bn economic hardship fund if the province agrees.

BUENOS AIRES HERALD

Front Page

Sarmiento line to go under ground
The government awarded a contract yesterday worth more than three billion pesos to an international consortium as part of a project to put the Sarmiento railway line under ground.

Markets still dizzy
World markets seesawed in volatile trade yesterday as persistent worries about a US recession undid the boost that Tuesday’s surprise Federal Reserve interest rate cut gave to global markets.

Gazans burst into Egypt
On foot, in cars and in donkey carts, tens of thousands of Gazans flooded into Egypt yesterday through a border fence blown up by militants - puncturing a gaping hole in Israel’s airtight closure of the Gaza Strip, straining relations between Israel and Egypt, and boosting the militants of Hamas.

By: Staff Reporter
+44 20 8652 3214

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