Tuesday, August 4, 2009
BMW Reports 76% Drop in Quarterly Profit
PARIS — BMW reported Tuesday that second-quarter net profit fell 76 percent as it sold fewer vehicles. But the German luxury automaker said that it had begun to see hints of stabilization in the market.
Bayerische Motoren Werke said it sold 18.1 percent fewer vehicles in the April-June period compared to a year earlier. Net profit was €121 million, or $174 million, as revenue slid 10.9 percent to €13 billion.
“Despite some tentative positive signals, a lasting and wide-ranging recovery is not yet in sight,” Norbert Reithofer, the chief executive, said Tuesday in Munich, where the company is based.
The automaker said it sold 338,190 cars in the second quarter as sales of its BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce brands all fell. BMW motorcycle sales declined 14.7 percent to 29,742 units.
BMW noted that overall car sales in some markets continued to show double-digit declines, and it predicted the United States, Japan, Britain and continental Europe would see “several years of declining passenger car registration figures before the markets stabilize at a low level.”
BMW’s North American market sales fell 27.1 percent from a year earlier, while European market sales fell 18.1 percent.
But it said the second quarter represented an improvement from the first three months of the year, as its sales volume decreased at a slightly slower rate. In June, it noted, it sales volumes were equal to or even above year-earlier levels in several markets, including mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which drove Asian market sales up 1.9 percent.
The company said it was unable to offer earnings guidance for the rest of the year because of the tremendous uncertainty in the auto market. However, deliveries to customers are “expected to stop the downwards trend registered in the first six months of the year.”
BMW’s German rival Daimler, maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, last week posted a second-quarter net loss of €1.1 billion, but it also predicted that its business would pick up in the second half.
Auto sales in the United States and several European countries, including France and Germany, have been supported in recent months by so-called “Cash for Clunkers” programs in which governments offer incentives for consumers to scrap inefficient older cars. But analysts say those programs have mostly benefited the lower end of the market, rather than the luxury segment, where cars can be priced over $100,000.
The company cut its worldwide workforce to 98,261 employees by the end of the second quarter, down 7.3 percent from a year earlier.
Shares of BMW, which have gained 52 percent this year, slipped 0.4 percent in Frankfurt morning trading.By DAVID JOLLY
UBS Posts $1.3 Billion Quarterly Loss
LONDON — UBS posted a $1.3 billion quarterly loss on Tuesday, the third in a row for Switzerland’s biggest bank, and blamed costs linked to its reorganization program.
The loss widened to 1.4 billion Swiss francs in the second quarter from 395 million francs in the same period a year earlier. The company cited costs related to job cuts and charges to improve the bank’s debt position, and it said clients continued to withdraw money from its wealth management units even though the rate of net outflows slowed from the first quarter.
The bank gave a bleak outlook, saying that a sustainable economic “recovery is not yet visible.”
“Our outlook remains cautious, consistent with our view that economic recovery will be constrained by low credit creation and the structural weaknesses in consumers’ and governments’ balance sheets,” the bank said in a statement.
Oswald Grübel , the bank’s chief executive, has cut about 7,500 jobs, reduced risk-weighted assets and sold a unit in Brazil in an effort to return the company to profitability. Credit Suisse and other UBS rivals have recently reported higher earnings as strong performances of their investment banking units outweighed rising bad loans at their retail operations. At UBS, the investment banking business had a pretax loss of 1.85 billion francs, down from 5.24 billion francs a year ago.
Mr. Grübel is looking to streamline operations and repair the bank’s reputation, which was damaged by its exposure to products linked to the subprime mortgage market and a legal dispute in the United States.
UBS remains embroiled in a legal battle with the U.S. government over demands that it release the names of thousands of its clients. The bank already settled some aspects of the lawsuit, which is linked to claims that UBS helped wealthy clients evade U.S. taxes. The company has said it plans to resolve the rest to repair its reputation.
UBS, which relied on $5.5 billion government aid to improve its capital base, said net outflows at its wealth management and Swiss bank unit were 16.5 billion francs, mainly from clients outside Switzerland, compared to 23.4 billion francs in the first quarter. Wealth Management Americas lost 5.8 billion francs, down from 16.2 billion francs in the first quarter.
The bank took a charge of 1.2 billion francs on its own debt and paid 582 million francs in reorganizing costs. It also booked a goodwill impairment of 492 million francs related to the sale of UBS Pactual in Brazil.
Earnings at the wealth management and Swiss bank unit halved while the pretax loss at its wealth management Americas unit was reduced to about a third. Earnings in the asset management unit dropped 77 percent.
Northern Rock, the British lender that was bailed out by the government after a run on the bank, also presented a bleak outlook on the economy on Tuesday and continues to struggle to get bad loans under control. The bank, which is now owned by the British government, said its net loss widened to £770.9 million, or $1.3 billion, in the first half from £592 million a year earlier.
Late payments on mortgages rose to 3.9 percent of mortgages in the first half, higher than the national average.
Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, two British lenders that also count the government among their major shareholders, are also due to report earnings figures this week. Some analysts expect they too will say that more clients are struggling to repay debt as unemployment rises and house prices fall.By JULIA WERDIGIER
New Leader Tries to Get Toyota Back on the Road
DETROIT — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are not the only ones working through wrenching restructurings. Toyota is, as well, though with a much lower profile.
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Daniel Roland/Associated Press
Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, is the grandson of its founder.
Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, is the grandson of its founder.
The results have yet to show, and in fact, no one at Toyota expects 2009 to be anything but dismal. (On Tuesday, the company reported a loss of $819 million for the first quarter.)
Its new president, Akio Toyoda, has moved quickly since taking charge in June, when he declared his dismay at the company’s financial crisis.
“Like everyone in the company, I am extremely frustrated” about the automaker’s decline, Mr. Toyoda said at his first news conference as president. “So we must start again from the ground up.”
His first target was Toyota’s top management. Already, 40 percent has retired or been reassigned.
Four of Toyota’s five executive vice presidents, the group that now leads the company under Mr. Toyoda, are new to their jobs. Only one, Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota’s product development chief, is a holdover from the team that surrounded Mr. Toyoda’s predecessor, Katsuaki Watanabe.
Further, the four newcomers are each in charge of a global region on top of duties within the company. (Mr. Uchiyamada is the only one with a single focus.)
Now Mr. Toyoda is headed for the United States. On Wednesday, he will address a management seminar sponsored by the Center for Automotive Research, near Traverse City, Mich., an annual gathering of the clan in the auto industry.
Toyota dealers and employees, many of whom know Mr. Toyoda from the years he worked in the United States, are eager for a shot of adrenalin from their new boss, the grandson of Toyota’s founder.
“He knows the business,” said P. Compton Cramer Jr., the owner of Cramer Toyota of Venice, Fla., who first met Mr. Toyoda a decade ago.
“He’s going to bring a new kind of energy to the company,” added Josephine Cooper, Toyota’s group vice president of government and industry affairs, who had been Mr. Toyoda’s hostess in Washington before his promotion.
Mr. Toyoda’s biggest problem, executives and analysts say, is transforming a lineup dotted with mundane-looking vehicles that buyers bought because of their reliability, not because of their style appeal.
It is a problem shared with Detroit, where executives are striving to inject their automobiles with excitement, too. Unlike G.M., Ford and Chrysler, however, Toyota cannot reach back to its roots and tap into a DNA of sexy sheet metal.
And it faces a difficult balancing act: become too aggressive, and Toyota risks chasing off the practical-minded consumers who have been its base for a half-century. Some have already been scared off.
Pamela Templeton, an owner of Fort Myers Toyota in Florida, said Toyota was caught “a little flat-footed” when gas prices hit record levels last year. Despite a longtime focus on small cars, the company bet heavily this decade on trucks like the Tundra and sport utility vehicles like the FJ Cruiser.
So did Ms. Templeton, who spent $13 million to open a separate 165,000-square-foot showroom just for light trucks. The market’s demise forced her to eliminate customer pampering like a massage chair and cappuccino machine. “We had to make hard choices, and I’d rather keep people than fluff,” she said.
Only two years ago, Toyota was riding the crest of a deliberate growth strategy in which it doubled in size and became the world’s biggest car company. Although most carmakers have suffered, Toyota’s rapid decline shocked many at the automaker and the experts who follow it.
Yoshimi Inaba, named by Mr. Toyoda as Toyota’s new head of North American operations, faces heavy pressure to turn things around here. “Without North America, we are not likely to come back to global proficiency,” Mr. Inaba told reporters in Detroit last month.
Toyota has an advantage over its Detroit rivals in its streamlined processes for engineering and building its cars, said James P. Womack, an author and expert on company efficiency. But he said the company, famous for caution and self-reflection, strayed when growth, not quality, became its main concern.
“They sort of quit being paranoid,” Mr. Womack said. “I’m neutral to buy on Toyota over the long term. It’s going to take them a while to get back on their feet.”
Ms. Cooper faces a unique concern in Washington, where the Obama administration spent $65 billion this year to shepherd G.M. and Chrysler through bankruptcy and to pay for their restructurings.
She said she was constantly being asked how her company, which spent years trying to emphasize its investments in the United States, viewed the White House support for its rivals.
“My job is to make sure there is not more attention paid to Toyota because of this,” Ms. Cooper said.
But Toyota cannot avoid scrutiny as it decides what to do with its half of New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or Nummi, a 25-year-old joint venture with G.M. in Fremont, Calif.
G.M. has pulled out of the deal and classified the plant as one of the assets of the old G.M., which are being liquidated in bankruptcy.
Toyota said last week that it might dissolve its half of the venture, which was the brainchild of Mr. Toyoda’s father, Shoichiro Toyoda, and paved the company’s way into the American car market in 1984.
That has set up a confrontation with the United Automobile Workers union, which represents workers at the plant. Sergio Santos, the local union president, argues that the plant’s experienced work force is among the country’s best, consistently ranking ahead of other Toyota factories on productivity surveys.
“We have Super Bowl trophies to back up what we do,” Mr. Santos said.
Union leaders are pressing lawmakers in California to provide incentives so Toyota can keep the plant open, while U.A.W. leaders have urged members to lobby Congress for worker protections.
Even if the venture dissolves, Mr. Santos said he hoped the plant could be sold back to Toyota or another new owner like Roger Penske, the former racecar driver and entrepreneur who recently purchased Saturn.
Senior executives in Japan will make the final decision on Nummi, Ms. Cooper said.
Closing the plant would be a turning point for Toyota, representing both the end of its first chapter in the United States and an acknowledgment of its harsh financial reality, Mr. Womack said.
He said the downturn had presented Toyota with the chance to stop emulating Detroit and to detour to a more realistic path.
Ms. Templeton, the Florida dealer, agreed. “Instead of trying to be the manufacturer for everyone, they need to get back to being the best,” she said.
Mary M. Chapman contributed reporting.By MICHELINE MAYNARD
Toyota Posts $819 Million Loss
TOKYO — Toyota Motor said Tuesday it lost a net ¥77.8 billion yen, or $819 million, in the quarter that ended in June as global vehicle sales continued to slump. But the Japanese automaker trimmed its loss forecast for the current fiscal year by about 18 percent, to $4.7 billion.
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Toyota, which posted a record loss for the fiscal year that ended in March, said losses in the last three months were smaller than expected thanks to stringent cost-cutting and a decline in inventory.
Government stimulus measures aimed at spurring purchases of low-emission vehicles in Japan and elsewhere provided somewhat of a boost, leading the company to revise upward both its sales and earnings forecasts for the full year. But sluggish sales in the United States, the company’s biggest market, as well as a stronger yen, which erodes the value of overseas earnings, cut into its bottom line.
Toyota sold 1.4 million automobiles globally in the quarter, 56 percent fewer than a year earlier. Vehicle sales in North America dipped 47 percent to 387,000.
Net sales for the April-June period dipped 38.3 percent from the same period last year to ¥3.836 trillion, contributing to an operating loss of ¥194.9 billion.
“Although we were able to make certain improvements in fixed cost and cost reduction efforts, the decline in vehicle sales and the appreciation of the Japanese yen had a severe impact on our earnings,” Toyota Senior Managing Director Takahiko Ijichi said in a statement.
Toyota has been hammered by the global economic slowdown just as it was expanding its lineup and had forayed into new markets.
For the first time, the company is moving toward closing a major auto assembly plant — New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. in northern California — after General Motors, its joint venture partner in the factory, pulled out of the arrangement.
A bright spot for Toyota has been its new Prius gas-electric hybrid, which has been the best selling car in Japan for two straight months, buoyed in part by government tax breaks on “green” vehicles.
Akio Toyoda, grandson of Toyota’s founder, took the helm of the company in June and has reshuffled top management — including appointing a new North America chief — in a bid to get the company back on track.By HIROKO TABUCHI
山葉機車虧損擴大 股價跌幅8個月來最大
（中央社台北4日綜合外電報導）全球第二大機車製造商山葉機車 (Yamaha Motor JP-7272)將全年虧損預測調高為4倍，達1820億日圓 (19億美元)後，股價應聲重挫，跌幅創8個月來最大。
山葉機車股價一度下跌多達11.3%，報1079日圓，尾盤報1096日圓。該公司先前預測將淨損420億日圓；山葉也公佈上半年虧損747億日圓。
山葉機車調降其銷售預測12%，主要是失業率不斷攀升且薪資下滑，減低重型機車Royal Star的需求。山葉計畫未來三年在日本關掉三家工廠。該公司今年的北美機車銷售預測也下修35%，歐洲銷售預測則調降8% 。
「歐美的消費者憂心忡忡，不會把錢花在機車上，」富國資本管理執行長Yuuki Sakurai表示。「即使經濟復甦，也不會回到兩年前的水準。」
山葉機車有約41%的銷售來自歐洲和北美。該公司表示，日圓升值將使營運獲利減少766億日圓。
標普：中國房地產下半年將有波動
（中央社記者王曼娜香港4日電）國際信貸評等機構「標準普爾」今天將中國房地產業的短期展望由「負面」調整為「中性」，但標普警告說，中國政府可能在下半年推出樓市調控措施，將導致房地產市場大幅波動。
標準普爾信用分析師符蓓今天在傳媒電話會議上表示，今年中國大陸放寬房地產信貸貸放，促使上半年大陸房地產市場銷售大幅上升，住宅市場已走出谷底。
她說，由於大陸樓價已累積一定升幅，民眾買樓意願減弱，加上住房供應量開始減少，相信下半年大陸住房成交量應會回落，但樓價波動不大。
符蓓又說，大陸房地產資產已出現泡沫化跡象，為防止樓市過熱，估計中國政府下半年將推出樓市調控措施，但當局汲取了過去幾年宏觀調控的經驗後，這次應會更加審慎。
標普警告說，由於大陸經濟只是暫時復甦，若中國政府推出針對樓市調控措施，將導致房地產業大幅波動。
瑞銀連3季虧損 受組織重整拖累
（中央社台北4日綜合外電報導）瑞士市值首大銀行瑞士銀行 (UBS AG CH-UBSN)今天公佈連續第三季虧損，主要受組織重整與債務費用所拖累。
瑞銀第2季淨損擴大至14億瑞郎 (13.2億美元)，優於分析師預估的15億瑞郎，上年同季虧損3.95億瑞郎。
執行長葛魯柏 (Oswald Gruebel) 2月上任以來共裁員7500人，並出售巴西分支，籌資38億瑞郎。
分析師指出，瑞銀與美國達成和解，擺平美國索取5萬2000名客戶帳戶資料的爭議後，有助達成葛魯柏的目標，防止瑞銀理財部門客戶出走。
荷蘭國際集團 (ING Groep)倫敦分析師AlainTchibozo指出，「瑞銀與美國就避稅爭議取得協議後，已將此一風險拋諸腦後。管理層如今將有充分時間專注組織重整。」 (譯者：中央社趙蔚蘭)
擬參與內安令2大集會‧157人在隆被捕
（吉隆坡）在兩場大集會開始之前，截至下午1點半，警方已在吉隆坡市中心一帶逮捕了157名準備參與反對內安法令及支持內安法令集會的人士。
吉隆坡總警長拿督威拉莫哈末沙都表示，警方是依據刑事法典105條文扣留這些人士。
在占米回教堂，警方前後發射約100枚催淚彈，場面混亂。
他透露，警方派出5000名警員在非法集會地點駐守，它們為國家回教堂、瑪莫草場、中央藝術坊、國家皇宮、占美回教堂及國企十合購物中心。
他一再勸告公眾儘快疏散，以確保安全。
較早前，沙都也證實，警方今日（週六，8月1日）早上8點便在反對內安法令示威其中一個集中地點，即國家回教堂一帶逮捕13人。
這一批人是乘坐一輛客貨車，在上述時間抵達國家回教堂時即遭警方扣留。
3000人湧出遊行
警措手不及
國家回教堂是兩大陣營都選中的集合地點，警方在這裡嚴陣以待，約3000人在回教堂內祈禱，於下午2點一起涌出來，令警方措手不及。最終，這批遊行者在國家銀行前被警方截住，並發射催淚彈驅散。
中午1點半，一批為數300人的集會者從十合購物中心步行至敦霹靂路；此時，警方也派出直升機在隆市中心上空盤旋，監督情況。
下午2點左右，約3000人在國家回教堂祈禱完畢，準備步出回教堂外，警方也搜查這批人士，吉隆坡總警長沙都更親自參與搜查及逮捕行動。
律師公會派出4名代表到此處瞭解情況，這批集會者由回教黨總財政哈達南利及中委朱基菲帶領，當哈達南利欲站著對集會者發言時，警方則上前強行逮捕他，現場支持者見狀，馬上以“人海戰術”包圍著他，阻止警方逮捕哈達南利。
這批為數3000人的民眾步出回教堂後，沿著古晉路步行至國家銀行一帶，嘗試與另一批集會者會合，途中甚至經過武吉阿曼警察總部。
但警方與鎮暴隊已在國家銀行前“恭候”集會者，迫使集會者改變原有計劃，步行至敦霹靂路。
鎮暴隊於中午2點半發射首枚催淚彈，連續發射超過10枚催淚彈，現場一片混亂。警方之後多次發射催淚彈疏散人群。集會者見鎮暴隊一再發射催淚彈，紛紛四散逃走。
在旁負責採訪的記者也“中招”，紛紛受到催淚彈的影響，眼睛感到刺痛。警方隨後進入拉惹拉勿路，準備逮捕其餘集會者。
催淚彈跌破
眾人落荒逃
國家皇宮門前有重重警察及聯邦後備隊嚴密駐守，“方圓”300呎的範圍都不見有示威者靠近，場面出奇寧靜。不過，一顆催淚彈被整裝的聯邦後備隊人員弄跌爆破，催淚的煙霧因此四散，導致眾人落荒而逃，場面狼狽。
警方和聯邦後備隊汲取了較早前“反對英文教理大集會”的經驗，週六派出許多警察及聯邦後備隊在所有皇宮路的進出道路封路駐守，即使有示威者欲像上次大集會般，從甘榜亞答路取道進人皇宮路範圍也被阻止。
在國家皇宮前300呎範圍內，有超過200名警察、12輛聯邦後備隊卡車、10輛警車、2輛水炮車、救援車駐守，顯見警方對此次的大集會和示威行動表現高度戒備。
據聞，警方在早上6時已經陸續到場駐守，並在上午時段於皇宮路往八打靈再也的賽益布特拉路、甘榜亞答路設路障。
在場駐守的十五碑警區主任萬巴克力受詢時拒絕透露駐守警察的人數，不過，記者所見現場一片寧靜，警方還搭建涼篷讓駐守的警員喝茶和午餐。
約在下午2時，正當一群聯邦後備隊成員準備披上“戰衣”前往崗位駐守時，突把一顆催淚彈跌掉在地，以致催淚彈爆破煙散，眾人見狀紛紛逃跑。
現場駐守的媒體記者也受波及，赶緊戴上口罩從國家皇宮門前的範圍逃至對面路，但動作遲緩者已被催淚彈薰至眼淚鼻涕直流。
下午2時30分有數名公眾往國家皇宮方向靠近的公眾被警方截停查詢身份證，他們過後也被警方扣留。
無法衝破警戒備示威解散
截至下午4時，無論是支持或反對內安法令示威者都無法沖破警方在國家皇宮前設下的重重戒備。最終，各路人馬分別退到安全地點，宣佈解散。
不時有一些疑是示威者的公眾靠近國家皇宮，但是，他們都被警方及聯邦後備隊截停和逮捕。
警方也從國家皇宮的駐守範圍調動了一輛水炮車前往布特拉世貿中心方向提供支援。
萬巴克力受詢時聲稱，警方還未決定何時解除封路，不過，他們將會視情況封鎖或撤鎖設路障和封路行動。
發百枚催淚彈驅人群
在占米回教堂，警方前後發射約100枚催淚彈，場面混亂。群眾被驅散後，分別到其他地點聚集，直至下午3點半分別宣告解散集會。
上午11點，身穿黑色T-恤及手拿布條海報的人士陸續從四面八方步行至占米回教堂附近，大批制服警員、便衣及鎮爆隊不敢怠慢，駐守在回教堂附近，隨時後備，並開始檢查人群。
直升機開始在空中盤旋，監督情況。
12點45分，警方封鎖敦霹靂來往方向的路段。1點左右，當所有的支持者從占米回教堂祈禱完畢，步出回教堂完畢時，回教黨青年團副主席阿占蘇巴威開始發言，遭到警方的勸告，要他們立刻疏散。
可是，約1000名支持者完全不理會警方，警方立刻採取逮捕行動，場面一片混亂，鎮爆隊發射6至7枚催淚驅趕人群，支持者只好步行到回教堂對面的小巷，再朝十合購物中心方向走去，豈料，鎮爆隊再次發約20枚射催淚彈，人群再度“雞飛狗走”，現場一片混亂。
約100名鎮爆隊及警員在靠近吉隆坡市政局大廈外駐守，禁止人群朝十合購物中心方向前進，後來卻聽說十合購物中心發生混亂，部份警員立刻到此購物中心進行援助。
2點半，1000人步行至十合購物中心，卻再度遭到催淚彈“襲擊”。3點左右，約50名鎮爆隊在獨立廣場嚴正以待，一群支持者企圖衝入獨立廣場的草場，結果遭鎮爆隊以催淚彈及水炮對付。
撞倒外國記者挑釁提告
3名來自外國通訊社的記者及拍攝隊伍在進行拍攝時，其中一名記者被一名便衣警員撞倒，豈料這名警員不但沒有道歉，還大聲挑戰記者若不滿意的話，可以投訴他。
這名外國記者非常生氣，卻無可奈何，不斷向其他同行表達不滿，還指大馬警方非常不禮貌。
民眾阻捕老婦與警碰撞
原屬“支持內安法令聯盟”集合陣營的中央藝術坊並未預期般遭封路及大塞車厄運，只有近40名警員及一輛囚犯車在現場。路人及遊客依舊可自由來往，但若有黑衣或紅衣者聚集一起則將遭警員逮捕。
截至下午3時，警方在中央藝術坊共逮捕了近60名可疑人物。他們都是因為身穿黑衣或紅衣而被警方強拉上囚犯車，其中一人還是年近60多歲的巫裔婦女。當時，近數十名民眾疑阻止警方要帶走年邁的巫裔婦女，而與警方發生推撞。
警方是在下午1時先逮捕了29人，並將他們押上因犯車及載往蕉賴警局，接著再陸續逮捕其他可疑人士。
支持內安令聯盟取消遊行
支持內安法令聯盟並未舉行集會，現場完全不見回教徒協商理事會成員，但卻有一名自稱為MAGARAN法律顧問莫哈末凱里聲稱，他們不是人數不足而導致示威流產，而是當局在事前曾接獲警方警告，不准進行集會及身穿白色衣服，他們因此決定取消遊行，改為開車至國家皇宮呈交備忘錄。
他們一行人分乘數輛車，於下午2時半前往國家皇宮呈交支持及修改內安法令備忘錄。
他說，支持內安法令聯盟代表全國365個非政府組織，表示支持內安法令繼續存在，惟1960年內安法令存有部份弱點及過時，因此他們提議修改法令中的其中5項條文。
其中4項修改內安法令建議：
（一）修改第8（1）條文將現有的“如果部長滿意有關扣留任何人是為防範做出危害國家安全的事情”改成“如果部長在研究警方的調查後感到滿意，可扣留任何人”。
（二）修改第73（3）條文有關威脅國家安全而被警方扣留的人在無需部長的批准下進行調查期間（扣留期）從現有的60天減至30天。
（三）修改第73（3）（b）及第73（3）（c）條文要求在國會尋求通過，將警方扣留超過48小時及不超過30天的權限改由法庭推事決定。
（四）第16條文將現有的“沒有強制規定部長必須揭發疑不符合國家利益文件或資料”修改為“在官方機密法令下，強制性部長必須揭發對不符合國家利益的證據”。
警封鎖月亮總部捕西華
下午4時許，在回教堂總部聚集聆聽民聯領袖演說的群眾準備離開，但警方大隊人馬已到場包圍，採取進一步的驅散和逮捕行動，形勢緊張。
警方封鎖回教黨總部，並逮捕公正黨副主席西華拉沙及其助理。
根據警方說詞，直至下午1時30分逮捕157人，過後群眾展開遊行後，警方再逮捕數十人，因此逮捕人數將遠超200人。
內長不與示威者妥協
為巫統淡馬魯瓜拉吉撓區部大會主持開幕的內政部長拿督斯里希山慕丁再次強調，政府絕對不會向參與示威活動的人士妥協，反之會採取嚴厲行動付他們。
他表示，他已經勸告這些人士不要煽動這項非法活動，不然他們將會面對警方的對付。
大專生參與必受對付
高等教育部長拿督斯里莫哈末卡立說，參與反對或支持內安法令會的大專生將不豁免被採取法律行動。
他表示，倘若有學生涉及，他們其實都只是受害者，要不就是被特定人士為己利所利用。
“不過，我不會因此而包庇他們。”
他週六在萬宜為東盟大學Build-and-Break競賽主持開幕後，詢及高教部是否會向參 與參與非政府組織，即廢除內安法令聯盟（GMI）及立場對立的回教徒協商理事會（Perwaris）與土著權威組織（Perkasa）在吉隆坡號召的大集 會的大學生採取行動時，如此表示。
援助律師派冊子被捕
當反內安法令大集會參與者週六陸續進入吉隆坡市中心時，法律援助律師布絲芭華蒂正在惹米回教堂輕快鐵站附近向來來往往的行人派發律師公會印製的《警方和你的權利》冊子。
結果，布絲芭華蒂被警方視為參與反內安法令集會的一份子，成了60多名於中午12時30分被逮捕的其中一人。
不過，布絲芭華蒂知道她的權利――全印在律師公會分發給公眾的冊子內，她因而與警方交涉。
當布絲芭華蒂的同事在商討如何讓她獲釋時，警員則設法不讓媒體接近她。數分鐘後，她重獲自由。
輕快鐵“略過”2站
下午3時10分，輕快鐵“略過”占美回教堂站和中央藝術坊兩個站，不在那裡停車，乘客被指示在金馬站或吉隆坡中環站下車。
多名乘客向《光明日報》投訴，他們被逼過了站才下車，必須步行非常遠才能抵達目的地。
每3分鐘發一次催淚彈
後備聯邦部隊（FRU）於下午2時40分至3時10分之間，在瑪莫草場向準備前往獨立廣場的反對內安法令遊行隊伍發射超過5次的催淚彈，導致現場一片混亂。
下午2時40分，FRU向古晉路方向發射水炮。5分鐘後，當局再發射第二次水炮及催淚彈，強制聚集在附近的反對內安法令遊行隊伍。
眼見遊行者遲遲未退，FRU在3時10分，再次往獨立廣場方向發射催淚彈，平均每3分鐘發射一次，約發了三至四次，催淚彈數目暫時未明。
現場約有超過500名後備聯邦部隊成員及7輛水炮車。據悉，在這次的行動中，當局除了調動隆市的聯邦後備部成員外，也調動森州、怡保及柔佛的成員提供援助。
群眾湧入洗臉擠爆公廁
金馬警區主任祖卡奈親自率領約60名警員到東姑阿都拉曼路附近驅散人群，禁止所有人進入此路段。所有的商店也關門，避免殃及無辜，就連汽水或礦泉水也不賣給人群。
一間設立在東姑阿都拉曼路的收費公共廁所也因場面混亂，工作人員不知所蹤，遭催淚彈擊中的人群湧入廁所內洗臉及清洗眼睛，導致廁所一片人海，地上更是一片濕淋淋。
印尼‧小客機墜毀山區‧大雨濃霧妨礙搜救
（印尼‧雅加達）印尼搜救小組週一（8月3日）繼續在東部巴布亞省的山區，尋找前一天失蹤的小型客機。
不過，到目前為止，還未尋到飛機的蹤影。
印尼警方稱，他們深信這架週日（8月2日）上午在東部巴布省山區失蹤的默帕蒂航空公司小型飛機，已經墜毀；機上13名乘客及3名機組人員，兇多吉少。
警方派出4架飛機到當地搜尋，但天氣惡劣，大雨及濃霧夾攻，令搜救工作受阻。
巴布亞島密林叢生，山脈縱橫，以往在當地失事墜毀的飛機幾乎無一找到殘骸。
印尼‧火車相撞18人受傷
（印尼‧雅加達）印尼今日（週二，8月4日）發生火車相撞事故，造成18人受傷。
事發在印尼西爪哇茂物市，一列駛往雅加達的特快火車，撞向停在同一條軌道上的一列經濟廂火車。
方目前還在調查火車相撞的原因，包括這列經濟廂火車為甚麼會突然停在軌道上。
17名傷者中包括了一名工程師，他們已被送往醫院接受治療。另外還有一名工程師仍被困在火車的殘骸中，救援人員正進行解救。
韓國‧克林頓訪朝“英雄救美‧或晤金正日遊說釋放2女記者 Bill Clinton in North Korea to Seek Release of U.S. Reporters
（韓國‧首爾）美國前總統克林頓今日（週二，8月4日）突然訪問朝鮮，估計此行是為了“英雄救美”，爭取2名被朝鮮拘押的美國女記者獲釋。
據報導，克林頓有可能會見朝鮮最高領導人金正日本人，親自遊說朝方放人。
美國女記者（圖：美聯社）
朝高官到機場接機
據朝鮮中央社報導，克林頓的班機當天飛抵平壤朝鮮順安機場，朝鮮最高人民會議常任委員會副委員長楊亨燮和副外交部長金桂冠前往機場迎接，一名花童還向克林頓獻上鮮花。
克林頓是自美國前總統卡特1994年訪問朝鮮以來，第2位訪問朝鮮的美國前總統，也是繼2000年前國務卿奧爾布賴特之後，訪問朝鮮身份最高的美國官員。
克林頓突然訪問朝鮮，外界推測，他是為解決被朝鮮扣押的2名美國籍亞裔女記者凌志美和李誠恩（前譯李雲娜）的問題。
代表團沒美政府官員
外交消息稱，克林頓的代表團沒有包括美國政府官員。
韓聯社報導，克林頓可能在平壤同朝方官員進行談判，遊說當局釋放2名被定罪判監的美籍華裔和韓裔女記者，而如果朝鮮答應放人，克林頓可能會親自把2人帶回國。
美國國務院至今尚未針對克林頓訪朝事件置評。但克林頓的妻子、國務卿希拉里較早前曾表示，希望朝鮮政府特赦2名女記者。她們3月在朝鮮接壤中國邊境被捕，2人被指非法進入朝鮮，以及犯下重大罪行，7月被判勞改12年。
朝裔教授：美或向朝道歉
一名朝鮮裔美國大學教授7月透露，朝鮮政府表示如果美國方面就凌、李2人非法入境一事做出正式道歉，他們就會釋放這2名記者。
這位姓樸的教授曾以非正式的身份在平壤和華盛頓之間進行過斡旋。
樸教授還說，朝鮮推遲了把這2位女記者送往勞改營的日期，凌志美和李誠恩目前仍然被軟禁在一個招待所內。
Zhang Binyang/Xinhua, via Associated Press
Former President Bill Clinton shook hands with a North Korean official in Pyongyang. Mr. Clinton flew into Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in an unmarked jet early Tuesday morning local time, Central TV, a North Korean station, reported. The White House declined to comment.
Citing television footage from Pyongyang, The Associated Press said Mr. Clinton was greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers.
The reported presence of the nuclear negotiator raised the question of whether talks would range beyond the fate of the two journalists to the broader relationship centering on North Korea’s nuclear program. The journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.”
The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea.
The choice of Mr. Clinton would mark his first public mission on behalf of the administration. His wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.
Mr. Clinton is the first former American president to travel to North Korea since 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang — with Mr. Clinton’s half-hearted blessing — to try to strike a deal to suspend the North’s nuclear work in return for concessions from the United States. Ultimately that led to the 1994 nuclear accord, which froze North Korea’s production of plutonium until the deal fell apart in 2003.
As president, Mr. Clinton was initially ambivalent about Mr. Carter’s intervention. But Mr. Carter’s trip also proved that a former president could break a logjam, and Mr. Clinton has some cards to play with the North, because he came close to traveling to the country in December, 2000, the last days of his presidency, in hopes of striking a deal to contain North Korea’s missiles as well. Mr. Clinton decided not to go because the deal was not pre-cooked, and his advisers feared he would be appearing desperate for an end-of-presidency deal.
Relations with the North have descended rapidly since then. Under the Bush administration, the North exited the 1994 agreement, harvested enough plutonium for approximately eight nuclear weapons, and tested one. Mr. Obama never had time to get talks off the ground with the North before it conducted a second nuclear test and terminated the one significant deal it struck with the Bush administration. It is in the process of restarting its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.
The big unknown of this trip is whether Mr. Clinton can also jump-start the broader relationship, at a time of apparent succession struggle in North Korea. It seemed questionable that the North Koreans would allow him to meet the “Dear Leader,” Kim Jong-il, who suffered a stroke last summer and appears to be in continued poor health.
In fact, the jailing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee came amid a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States since Pyongyang tested that second nuclear device in May and then launched several ballistic missiles.
In recent months, the White House has marshaled support at the United Nations for strict sanctions against the North Korean government, including a halt to all weapons sales and a crackdown on its financial ties.
But the administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign separate from this case, which American officials have portrayed as a humanitarian issue, appealing to North Korea to return the women to their families.
“Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,” the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said to reporters in June.
At the time they were detained, Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. They were researching a report about North Korean women sold through human traffickers and refugees who had fled to search for food in China.
The administration initially said the charges against the women were “baseless.” But last month, Mrs. Clinton said the United States was now seeking “amnesty” for the women, signaling a readiness to acknowledge some degree of culpability in return for their freedom.
“The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Mrs. Clinton said in early July. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.”
David Sanger contributed reporting from Aspen, Colo., and Choe Sang-hun contributed from Seoul.By MARK LANDLER and PETER BAKER
澳洲‧警方動員搜查墨爾本19地‧挫恐襲陰謀逮4人
（澳洲‧墨爾本）澳洲今日（週二，8月4日）成功挫敗一起可能成為澳洲歷來最嚴重的恐怖襲擊陰謀！
維多利亞州警方當天凌晨在墨爾本展開大規模反恐行動，出動逾400名警力，突擊搜查19處地點，逮捕4名懷疑密謀在澳洲本土策動恐怖襲擊的男子。
澳洲維多利亞省警力週二凌晨在南部城市墨爾本多處展開突擊行動，成功挫敗了恐怖襲擊陰謀；圖為警員封鎖其中一間房子，展開蒐證調查工作，並向附近居民（中）錄取口供。（圖：美聯社）
被逮捕的4名男子是索馬里及黎巴嫩裔的澳洲籍男子，年齡介於22至26歲，他們週三（8月5日）被押往法庭提堂。
其中一名25歲男子被控一項與恐怖組織有聯繫罪名；其他3人目前仍在接受警方訊問。
圖潛入軍營自殺襲擊
警方指出，情報單位和警方自1月起就與美國方面合作，查緝4人所屬組織，相信他們同索馬里的武裝組織“青年黨”有聯繫，最近更曾到索馬里接受訓練。
嫌犯密謀潛入澳洲軍事基地、軍營，使用自動武器殺死儘量多的人後再自殺，以報復澳洲派軍隊介入多個回教國家的事務。
澳洲署理聯邦警察首長尼格斯表示：“如果他們得手，這可能是澳洲境內最嚴重的恐怖襲擊”
“青年黨”是強硬激進的回教組織，此組織早已被美國列為恐怖組織。
陸克文：澳拒絕自阿撤軍
澳洲總理陸克文表示，今次逮捕動“嚴重”地敲起恐怖主義的警鐘，但他拒絕考慮從阿富汗撤出1550名澳洲軍隊。
他表示，澳洲暫時無須提高恐怖襲擊警戒級別，但事件提醒大家，恐怖活動仍然威脅澳洲。
他說：“今日的逮捕成果提醒了所有澳洲人民，恐怖主義的威脅仍然存在，這需要我們的安全當局持續保持警惕。”
陸克文並誓言，不會因此將澳洲軍隊從阿富汗撤離，儘管駐軍阿富汗行動一直以來“不得人心”，但這是切斷武裝份子培訓機會的重要行動。
他說：“如果我們已經準備好要對付各階級恐怖主義的威脅，我們必須對付恐怖主義的培訓中心。”
澳洲在阿富汗部署了約1550名軍人，截至7月，已有11名澳洲士兵在阿富汗殉職。
20 Quick facts and unanswered questions about 9/11
First, how did Israeli security forces witness a transfer of anthrax between two groups that didn't have it, at a meeting that never even took place?
Obviously the Israelis were lying and obviously they were trying to blame the anthrax attack on Al Qaeda and then connect them to Iraq. The notes that accompanied the anthrax letters also tried to blame Al Qaeda as they were sent from the same locations as the Hijacker cells shortly after 911 and they read Death to America and Death to Israel thus trying to pass themselves off as Muslim terrorists. How did "Ivins" know where the hijack cells were and how did he get to New Jersey and Florida and remain at work on time in Maryland all at once on his own? Obviously he didn't. Israel knew where the cells were because it was their set up. They mailed it. It seems to me like there was a plan to do this back in 93.
1 Israel is caught lying about Anthrax saying they SAW Iraqis pass anthrax to Al qaeda in Prague.
2 Then real anthrax which is genetically proven to have come from within the US, is sent from the same areas as the hijacker cells. (how did one guy know where they were and travel across the country so fast so many times? and all without flying) Why was it sent to the two senators who opposed the Patriot Act? That certainly wasn't in Al qaeda's interests.
3 Israel is busted with a spy ring with agents living right next door to said hijackers.
4 The notes try to blame it all on Muslims and equate America enemies with Israel's enemies.
5 Whoever really sent anthrax had knowledge of where to send it from as well as access to weapons grade anthrax. The first suspect blamed came from a letter sent BEFORE there was news of the event. And the accused reported that the sender was one Philip Zack who was BUSTED IN THE PAST STEALING ANTHRAX FROM THE SAME LAB, yet this individual is never questioned by the FBI or Justice Department.
6 Philip Zack is a hard line anti-Muslim scientist was bust in 1992 stealing anthrax just months before the first WTC bombing which ended up a botched FIB operation, which supposedly set up a "drill" to catch some terrorist by using an agent to supply them with fake explosives which they were going to bust them with in a sting, only the sting never came and the explosives were real. The rented trucks and bomb making equipment go back to Josey Hadas an Israel Mossad agent. The issue is dropped.
(what is the pint in trying to set up Al Qaeda or Muslims when they were obviously already in as much trouble as possible. So why risk going to jail just to set up an enemy that is already done for UNLESS you needed that to implicate Iraq.)
7 Israelis are busted in a van full of explosives on 911 on the George Washington Bridge, and live reports are made about this. Later a second group of Israelis are busted celebrating outside another van which had traces of explosives. Between the two vans there were five men all together and each one of them failed lie detector tests about 9/11.
8 All of the said vans belonged to Urban Moving Systems which turns out to be a Mossad front.
9 Then 12 cpu hard drives are confiscated by the FBI from the Urban moving systems head quarters (just 4 miles from where anthrax was sent in NJ by the way) all the evidence is classified.
10 Multiple reports of secondary explosions occur live on 9/11.
11 Police even find a parked van with a "suspicious" device which they think is a bomb. (could this also have been an Urban Moving Systems van? all we know is that it was also white)
12 WTC survivors report over and over again that there were explosions in the basements of the towers.
13 A prepackaged media tape sent from Israel of dancing Palestinians (which turned out to be a fraud) is aired on every American TV news program.
14 Prominent Zionists make billions from the collapse of the WTC and financial erasing of the pentagons missing money. (2.3 trillion dollars)
15 Odigo warns employees of an attack before it happened.
16 Bush claims twice that he saw the first plane hit the towers live on TV the day of the event which is impossible.
17 PNAC shovels out reports in great detail to launch a war on Iraq and falsely tie it to 911 based on the Israeli reports.
18 DHS is created and the pre written Patriot act is introduced by super Zionist.
19 Though there few few deaths in Virginia the people most responsible for tracking missing money seemed to have been unluckily killed because they were on flight 77 and their computers were in the naval and financial wing of the pentagon which was the only side hit.
20 I write about all of this and my websites disappear then in 2004 in Japan I later find comverse spying on my computer.
There is much more to it than that. A film thus far un-refuted by 911 cultists or conspiracy deniers has been out for some time. It's the successor to the film Iraq, 911, PNAC, all roads lead to Israel. It's called War by Deception.
It's never any more clear who is behind these wars and the events of 911. Who can get away with murder daily and have it unreported on the mass media. Who stood to gain, and who the Neocons pledge themselves too. It's not an ominous illuminati or the Vatican or the freemasons or the space lizards (skrulls). All of that junk is poisoning the well. We went to war for Israel plain and simple. Israel is a cash cow for the MIC. The next war on America's horizon is with Iran based on the Mossad's "smoking lap top" and this is for ISRAEL'S interest not America's and certainly not humanity's.
Watch the film War By Deception. I don't claim to be a film maker but I am a researcher and I put the information in there. There is no way around it.All Roads Lead to Israel.
by Ryan Dawson
Obviously the Israelis were lying and obviously they were trying to blame the anthrax attack on Al Qaeda and then connect them to Iraq. The notes that accompanied the anthrax letters also tried to blame Al Qaeda as they were sent from the same locations as the Hijacker cells shortly after 911 and they read Death to America and Death to Israel thus trying to pass themselves off as Muslim terrorists. How did "Ivins" know where the hijack cells were and how did he get to New Jersey and Florida and remain at work on time in Maryland all at once on his own? Obviously he didn't. Israel knew where the cells were because it was their set up. They mailed it. It seems to me like there was a plan to do this back in 93.
1 Israel is caught lying about Anthrax saying they SAW Iraqis pass anthrax to Al qaeda in Prague.
2 Then real anthrax which is genetically proven to have come from within the US, is sent from the same areas as the hijacker cells. (how did one guy know where they were and travel across the country so fast so many times? and all without flying) Why was it sent to the two senators who opposed the Patriot Act? That certainly wasn't in Al qaeda's interests.
3 Israel is busted with a spy ring with agents living right next door to said hijackers.
4 The notes try to blame it all on Muslims and equate America enemies with Israel's enemies.
5 Whoever really sent anthrax had knowledge of where to send it from as well as access to weapons grade anthrax. The first suspect blamed came from a letter sent BEFORE there was news of the event. And the accused reported that the sender was one Philip Zack who was BUSTED IN THE PAST STEALING ANTHRAX FROM THE SAME LAB, yet this individual is never questioned by the FBI or Justice Department.
6 Philip Zack is a hard line anti-Muslim scientist was bust in 1992 stealing anthrax just months before the first WTC bombing which ended up a botched FIB operation, which supposedly set up a "drill" to catch some terrorist by using an agent to supply them with fake explosives which they were going to bust them with in a sting, only the sting never came and the explosives were real. The rented trucks and bomb making equipment go back to Josey Hadas an Israel Mossad agent. The issue is dropped.
(what is the pint in trying to set up Al Qaeda or Muslims when they were obviously already in as much trouble as possible. So why risk going to jail just to set up an enemy that is already done for UNLESS you needed that to implicate Iraq.)
7 Israelis are busted in a van full of explosives on 911 on the George Washington Bridge, and live reports are made about this. Later a second group of Israelis are busted celebrating outside another van which had traces of explosives. Between the two vans there were five men all together and each one of them failed lie detector tests about 9/11.
8 All of the said vans belonged to Urban Moving Systems which turns out to be a Mossad front.
9 Then 12 cpu hard drives are confiscated by the FBI from the Urban moving systems head quarters (just 4 miles from where anthrax was sent in NJ by the way) all the evidence is classified.
10 Multiple reports of secondary explosions occur live on 9/11.
11 Police even find a parked van with a "suspicious" device which they think is a bomb. (could this also have been an Urban Moving Systems van? all we know is that it was also white)
12 WTC survivors report over and over again that there were explosions in the basements of the towers.
13 A prepackaged media tape sent from Israel of dancing Palestinians (which turned out to be a fraud) is aired on every American TV news program.
14 Prominent Zionists make billions from the collapse of the WTC and financial erasing of the pentagons missing money. (2.3 trillion dollars)
15 Odigo warns employees of an attack before it happened.
16 Bush claims twice that he saw the first plane hit the towers live on TV the day of the event which is impossible.
17 PNAC shovels out reports in great detail to launch a war on Iraq and falsely tie it to 911 based on the Israeli reports.
18 DHS is created and the pre written Patriot act is introduced by super Zionist.
19 Though there few few deaths in Virginia the people most responsible for tracking missing money seemed to have been unluckily killed because they were on flight 77 and their computers were in the naval and financial wing of the pentagon which was the only side hit.
20 I write about all of this and my websites disappear then in 2004 in Japan I later find comverse spying on my computer.
There is much more to it than that. A film thus far un-refuted by 911 cultists or conspiracy deniers has been out for some time. It's the successor to the film Iraq, 911, PNAC, all roads lead to Israel. It's called War by Deception.
It's never any more clear who is behind these wars and the events of 911. Who can get away with murder daily and have it unreported on the mass media. Who stood to gain, and who the Neocons pledge themselves too. It's not an ominous illuminati or the Vatican or the freemasons or the space lizards (skrulls). All of that junk is poisoning the well. We went to war for Israel plain and simple. Israel is a cash cow for the MIC. The next war on America's horizon is with Iran based on the Mossad's "smoking lap top" and this is for ISRAEL'S interest not America's and certainly not humanity's.
Watch the film War By Deception. I don't claim to be a film maker but I am a researcher and I put the information in there. There is no way around it.All Roads Lead to Israel.
by Ryan Dawson
5 more banks fail
Regional banks in Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and New Jersey fall, bringing the national tally up to 69 for 2009. The closures cost the FDIC $912 million.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Regulators shut down five regional banks Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said, bringing the total number of banks to fail in the United States to 69 this year.
Friday's bank closures will cost the FDIC fund $911.7 million, bringing the total cost for failed banks to $15.13 billion this year. That compares with $17.6 billion in all of 2008.
First State Bank of Altus, based in Altus, Okla., was shut down and Herring Bank, headquartered in Amarillo, Texas, will take over all of the deposits of the failed bank. As of June 19, the First State Bank of Altus had total assets of $103.4 million and deposits of $98.2 million. The failed bank was the first to go down in the state of Oklahoma in 2009.
If you have problem please visit here .... http://bit.ly/2iAxyIMeanwhile, Integrity Bank, headquartered in Jupiter, Fla., was shuttered and Stonegate Bank, based out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will assume all of the deposits of Integrity Bank. As of June 5, Integrity Bank had total assets of $119 million and total deposits of $102 million. The failed Florida bank was the fourth to fail in the state so far this year.
The third bank to go down Friday was the Peoples Community Bank, based in West Chester, Ohio. The First Financial Bank, National Association, headquartered in Hamilton, Ohio, will take over all of the deposits of the failed bank. The failed bank was the first bank to be closed in Ohio in 2009, and as of March 31, had total assets of $705.8 million and total deposits of $598.2 million.
The fourth bank to fall Friday night was the First BankAmericano, based in Elizabeth, N.J., and the Crown Bank, of Brick, N.J. will take over the deposits. As of July 16, First BankAmericano had total assets of $166 million and total deposits of $157 million. The failed N.J. bank was the second bank in the state to fall in 2009.
The fifth and biggest bank of the night to fail was Mutual Bank in Harvey, Ill., which had total assets of $1.6 billion and total deposits of $1.6 billion. Mutual Bank's 12 branches will reopen on Saturday as branches of United Central Bank of Garland, Texas, which has assumed all deposits from Mutual Bank.
The number of bank failures so far in 2009 has almost tripled last year's total of 25.
Smaller regional banks have been hammered in the downturn. Many of the banks failed because local residents and commercial real estate developers that took out loans have been unable to pay them back. 
By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer
The Bastards Never Die
Well, for starters, the above title is a damned lie, since this little screed is not a history. It's just rumination on the tilting point at which Americans started the slide into the deepest sort of cultivated consumer consciousness -- which is to say our corporate managed engorgement and swinedom at the service of the rich.
Very rich families and corporatists, to whom, as in earlier articles, we shall refer to as "the bastards," have always been with us. Even Tom Jefferson thought periodic revolution against wealth and authority was desirable to keep these bastards in check. Which implies that he figured they would inevitably get us by the throat down on the floor from time to time.
But the bastards scared the hell out of later presidents too. Abe Lincoln feared the large corporations born of business profiteering during the U.S. Civil War -- the military industrial complex of the day -- easily constituted the greatest threat to the American republic. Being president and all, he couldn't call them what they were, and settled for the term "money power," and predicted that, "money power will … work upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
And as everyone knows, Dwight Eisenhower famously feared the same military-industrial complex was busy taking over the nation. What we never hear about though, is that Eisenhower's definition of the complex included among the bastards, not only the military defense industry corporations, but also right alongside them the news media and the university and private research establishments.
If nothing else can be said for the bastards, we must admit they do plan far ahead, (or seemed to anyway, before the latest meltdown) even if only to screw us blind, which is usually the case. Since the early robber baron era of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, just after the turn of the century, the bastards understood that the key to national domination was oil -- creating an economic culture based on petroleum -- and planned toward that end. Big corps su ch as E.I. DuPont had invested heavily in the oil industry since the turn of the century, and especially since the 1930s creating synthetic materials such as plastics, in which the public was decidedly uninterested in buying. Then World War II came along, creating big demand for synthetics such as nylon for parachutes, tires, tents, ropes. DuPont and similar bastards had drawn a royal flush.
SCREAMING MAN HERE!: RIGHT! IT'S THE ONLY SURE RACKET. ASK ICE MAN CHENEY. YOU MAKE STUFF, SELL IT TO THE PENTAGON MOB AND RAM THE PRICE CLEAR UP THEIR ASSES. THEN THEY BLOW THE STUFF UP, INCENERATE IT, AND COME BACK FOR MORE AT DOUBLE THE PRICE BECAUSE NOW THERE'S A SHORTAGE! FOR A FAST DEPENDABLE BUCK, YOU CAN'T BEAT INDUSTRIAL SCALE WARFARE WITH A GODDAMNED STICK!
Unfortunately all good things end, no matter how bloody profitable. But those super-expanded wartime corporations that had cranked out planes and tanks were not going to downsize just because we had run out of Dresdens 
to bomb. They intended to remain dominant and even expand. With the war drawing to a close, and with fewer burning jeep tires on the battlefields and fewer parachutes left dangling in the trees of Belgium, American citizens were going to have to eat the slack. The bastards would have to stuff'em fuller than a Christmas goose; ma ke them eat petroleum based synthetics, if it came down to that. Which it eventually did of course, in the form of petrochemical agriculture, food dyes, etc.
SCREAMING MAN: YOU GOTTA A FUCKING PROBLEM WITH NUMBER TWO RED DYE OR SOMETHING, ASSHOLE? DON'T BULLSHIT THESE PEOPLE, YOU FLAMING OLD FRAUD! I'VE SEEN YOU EAT A WHOLE BOX OF PINK HO-HOS BEHIND A BOTTLE OF JAY DEE AND SOME COLUMBIAN BUD! AM I GONNA HAVE TO TAKE MY NEEDLE NOSED PLIERS TO YOUR LYING ASS?
Plastics, heralded as durable and everlasting (and today lamented for the same reason) eventually gobbled up nearly every other material market, in the from of jewelry, dashboards, dishes, clothing, napkin rings, perfume bottles, knickknacks, flooring and carpeting, resin building materials, vinyl raincoats and boots, molded furniture, radio sets … America was remade in the image of open chain hydrocarbons. That nine tenths of what was produced and marketed was unnecessary, and downright shitty did not go unnoticed by the American public, which had been deeply distrustful of plastics and synthetics from the time they were first ballyhooed at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. People were just not buying the sales job. But the combination of wartime shortage frustrations and massive industrial public relations delivered the one-two punch, and the consumer knuckled under. Or perhaps they were just worn down by indu stry PR, which enlisted the help of trusted figures such as Frank Capra and Walt Disney, among others, along with in-school industry propaganda for the next generation: "Our story of the miracle of plastics starts with an oil well in a faraway place by the Persian Gulf … "
AND IT GODDAMNED WELL IS GONNA END THERE TOO! IN ABOUT 15 MINUTES, IF IT HASN'T ALREADY! DOES ANYBODY REALIZE THE NUMBER OF SARAH PALIN BLOW-UP DOLLS SHIPPED TO THE TROOPS IN IRAQ? IF THAT'S THE KIND OF ARMY WE'RE SENDING TO KILL OFF THE PALM VERMIN, THEN WE'RE GONERS ALREADY!
As I was saying, the bastards not only created an economy by and for themselves, based on the black sticky stuff, they also built a civilization. From the tallest building right down to the petrochemical soaked dirt in which the food supply is grown, and all along the chain through processing and plastic packaging and distribution, The black stuff was cheap and it was plentiful, so long as the bastards were willing to buy off the top dog sheiks like ibn Saud, who would in turn keep the dusky peasantry in line through good old perennials such as beheadings and public stonings.
SCREAMING MAN MISSES THOSE POST 9/11 BEHEADING VIDEOS, DON'T YOU? IT WAS SO EASY TO TELL WHO AMERICA'S ENEMIES WERE THEN. BUT AT LEAST WE'VE STILL GOT BEN BERNANKE AND BILL GATES.
During the 1940s AND '50S while ibn Saud was fathering some 60 children by 22 wives in Arabia and dishing out corporeal punishment to the far flung wretches of his kingdom, here at home the corporations were doing their own hit jobs on the this nation's peasantry -- the farmers. Petroleum based synthetics, with legislative help, wiped out one quarter of the domestic cotton market in the first few years following the war, along with flax for linen, and hemp fiber, replacing them with ugly but profitable synthetic nylon and polymer textiles. Not to mention replacement of literally hundreds of farm produced natural organic materials for medicines, cosmetics, milk by products such as casein for glues and paints, with synthetic petro-based commodities, all of which were mercilessly hammered into the populace as "miracles of modern science."
Kings may croak, but cash lives forever
The fact that the bastards were corporate entities made them more powerful than any robber baron's best wet dream, because their power and reach extended beyond human mortality. Deathless corporations and trusts replaced the mortal thieves such as Rockefeller and Morgan; and despite the advent of income taxes, capital continued to aggregate in the bastards' coffers, particularly financial bastards, at what was seen then as an unimaginable scale. "Money for nothin' and chicks for free ..."
Powered entirely by balance sheets, and existing for the sole le purpose of wealth accumulation, parting with any assets was antithetical to their very purpose. Not to mention the logic of the wealth based stockholders. The majority of assets were held by elite, whose main accomplishment was then and still is coming from families that commandeered some substantial portion of the public medium of exchange in order to derive more wealth.
WHOA THERE FATSO! WHOSE FAMILY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE? PARIS HILTON'S? OR MAYBE ALICE WALTON'S? PARIS HILTON HAS EARNED EVERY JEWEL ENCRUSTED THONG IN HER CLOSET! FROM TUSH TO TITTIES, WE'VE SEEN EVERYTHING PARIS HILTON HAS TO OFFER. AND IT'S WORTH A FEW BILLION TO KEEP HER IN CIRCULATION. GIVES THE MEN OF THIS MISERABLE WORKHOUSE NATION SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN. SOMETHING TANGIBLE. SOMETHING THEY CAN ACTUALLY SEE AND WHACK OFF TO. HER DIRTY FLICK, "1 NIGHT IN PARIS" WAS A GIFT TO ALL MANKIND. LET THE LESBIANS FIND THEIR OWN PARIS HILTON … BUT ALICE WALTON? SCREAMING MAN WOULDN'T FUCK HER WITH YOUR WHANG, BUSTER! THAT MISERABLE DRUNKEN BITCH RAN DOWN AND KILLED A FIFTY YEAR OLD WOMAN IN TEXAS. WHAT'D SHE GET? A $925 FINE! SHE HAS 20 BILLION DOLLARS AND GETS OFF FOR LESS THAN A THOU. AND WHAT DOES ALICE GIVE US? CHINK MADE FLIPFLOPS AND GODDAMNED PLASTIC PATIO CHAIR S THAT BUCKLE LIKE OBAMA AT A BAILOUT PARTY! GIVE THE SCREAMING MAN PARIS HILTON ANY DAY. NOW, FATSO … YOU WERE SAYING?
Hell, I can't remember. Oh yes, the bastards. Once you are born into the Royal Court of the Kingdom of Bastardy and are issued your caviar spoon, no further effort is required to amass capital. You simply keep on withholding capital from those who had create it -- the working masses -- keep captive the economic lifeblood upon which all others depend. Observe, for instance, the banking industry's present refusal to unass any money for credit, despite the hundreds of billions handed to them as a taxpayers' gift, a bailout AFTER they'd ripped off their shareholders and customers, and looted their own institutions from the inside.
UPSET ARE YOU, FATSO? LET THE SCREAMER TELL YOU HOW IT REALLY IS. IT WAS ALL AN ACT. THE FED WAS JUST PRINTING AND HANDING OUT WORTHLESS WALLPAPER -- WHICH THE BANKING BASTARDS, WITH ALL DUE APLOMB, WILL PAY BACK IN KIND. THEN THE BASTARDS WILL BE DECLARED SOLVENT, FAT AND HEALTHY AS A BUNCH OF PARK BEARS. MEANWHILE, YOU GODDAMNED PEASANTS WILL CONTINUE TO ANGUISH OVER THE BAILOUTS LONG AFTER THE REAL RIP-OFF IS IN. THE ONE YOU NEVER SAW AND CAN'T EVEN WRAP YOUR SORRY POINTED FUCKING HEADS AROUND. THE REAL DOUGH IS SPREAD ACROSS DUBAI, MONACO, LONDON, AND FOR SAFETY'S SAKE, BEIJING. WHILE YOU ANGUISH, PAT E OF UNBORN VEAL CALF IS BEING SERVED TO THE REAL BASTARDS UP ON THE 50th FLOOR. THEY POUR ANOTHER GLASS OF 1999 PERRIER-JOUET, AND CHORTLE AT THE DISMEMBERMENT OF A NO-TALENT HACK LIKE BERNIE MADOFF. THAT HAPLESS SMALLTIME JEW GREASEBALL WHO CAME INTO THE GAME WITH $5,000 IN PENNY STOCKS THAT HE BOUGHT WITH MONEY HE MADE INSTALLING SPRINKLERS. NEVER A REAL PLAYER LIKE US, EVEN WITH HIS BULLSHIT WALL STREET TITLES. JUST A DUMB FUCK FROM QUEENS WHO DIDN'T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT A SCAM. LET THE SERFS GNAW AT HIM. KEEPS 'EM BUSY AND OUT OF OUR HAIR. LOOK, THEY'VE PULLED ONE OF HIS ARMS OUT OF ITS SOCKET. CHRIST, NOW THEY'VE RUINED LUNCH."
THAT'S WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON, FATSO.
The bastards. Why have they lasted this long? Purely on their own merits, most American corporations probably would not have survived the 1930s. By then our wildly fluctuating economy was already demonstrating the folly of overly concentrated capital and power. What was needed, said the big players who'd wrecked the economy with their uncontrolled speculation and greed, was, lo and beshit, a controlled economy! One even more controlled by corporations. Problem was, the only entity capable of such control was the government. And unfortunately, the Constitution of the United States was founded on a separation of business and state to the same degree as that of church and state.
If the bastards were to run the economy, if Americans were going to be pistol whipped down the road to "prosperity through unprecedented consumption," then government authority by Constitutional law would be necessary. As a 1937 shareholder's report of the E.I. DuPont Company "the revenue-raising power of government [taxation] must be converted into "an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas" and a "social reorganization." Uh oh! Just whose sudden new ideas? And what kind of social reorganization?
The report stated bluntly that to realize further extensive profit from its wartime investments, the U.S. government "must be the primary tool." While their plans to use the government were put into the shareholder's report, they were never publicly discussed.
FDR saves the bastards' bacon
The chance to pull it off came ironically or maybe not so ironically, with Roosevelt's New Deal. FDR was, contrary to the subsequent hagiography that has grown up around his grave, was first and foremost a capitalist and was determined to save capitalism. Given his affluent background and times, he, like everyone else, could not imagine anything but capitalism as the nation's economic system. Yet nowhere in the Constitution is capitalism specified as America's preferred economic system. His lifelong circle of fr iends and associates consisted entirely of the elites of family and corporate wealth, which meant that it also included some of his enemies. But together they created a host of "emergency legislation," in much the same fashion as 911 let George W. Bush get away with so much under the excuse of a national threat. Even allowing for the resistance of some wealthy elites, FDR favored the bastards' plans toward a thoroughly corporatized national economy.
The Supreme Court, however, a stickler for details such as the U.S. Constitution, did not see things Roosy's way. It would take a rewriting of the U.S. Constitution for the government to crawl into bed with the corporations. So every piece of legislation FDR and his cohorts created got snagged in Supreme Court and just kept piling up.
The key for FDR and the Princes of Bastardy turned out to be taxation. To control society means to control individual behavior. The Constitution prohibits that, except for those few powers granted in the Constitution, such as the coinage of money or declaring war. Throughout the 1930s the public watched FDR and the corporatists duke it out with the Supreme Court. While the public was engaged in the debate over FDR's threatened stacking of the court, FDR and the bastards managed to accomplish their agenda in controlling opposing social behavior -- taxing it to death. The government is granted the power to tax by god! And=2 0the Roosevelt era saw the art of behavior modification through taxation perfected.
Now in changing American social behavior through taxation there are two rules. The first tax must be a very logical one. And the second must be one created of whole cloth, a manufactured one to counter a manufactured threat. So after the Supreme Court knuckled under to FDR's threat to divide up the judicial limelight by appointing more justices, a more compliant court happily passed a $200 tax on machine guns -- the equivalent of $3,000 today -- the same tax, incidentally, that allowed the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms division) and the FBI to invade the Branch Davidians at Waco. It was unconstitutional as hell. But the court understood public relations. What kind of deranged fucker needed a machine gun anyway? Well, there was There was John Dillinger (whose penis was 14 inches long, according to folk legend of the day, which was either threatening, or vastly intriguing, depending upon one's sex or moral perspective on life). There was Seymour "Blue Jaws" Magoon, Bonnie and Clyde, Pittsburg Phil, Baby Face Nelson, Al Capone, Bummy Davis. And if there was any further doubt, there was also the fact that the members of Murder Incorporated were Jewish, Italian or Irish. Ah ha! More proof to the then-majority Anglo Americans of naked immigrant depravity. So two hundred bucks per tommy gun it would be under the 1937 Machine Gun Tax Act.
The second tax the court upheld was the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. Most Americans had never heard the word marijuana. The tax act had adopted a little known Mexican street term as a name in order to demonize it, and differentiate it from the thousands of acres of government hemp being grown for naval ropes, etc. Never mind that in the entire previous year only a couple of pounds of the stuff were seized by border police. A $200 an ounce tax had worked on machine guns, so a $200 tax per ounce was placed on hemp cultivation without permit, and no permits were issued. And so as an added bonus -- or maybe intentionally -- the synthetic fiber industry and the plastics industry saw its most threatening long term competitor, hemp, eliminated.
And for the first time in the history of the United States the bastards could use the government to tell farmers what seeds they could put into the earth. In short order by way of the New Deal, through various agricultural acts, corporatists, through government policy, had control over the land even though they did not own it. The chief competitors to industrial food giants and synthetics industry, the small farmer producers of thousands of natural goods and raw materials, were eventually taxed or regulated out of existence. At the same time, subsidies for big-time agri-biz producers started snowballing. A nation of consumers of synthetics was cultivated in the next generation. The result we see around us,20obese Americans willingly wearing the bastards' brands on acrylic clothing … and guzzling synthetic soft drinks, Americans who've never once considered that the pizza crusts they gnaw at start out with a grain crop called wheat.
Ten thousand years of agriculture was synthesized into money. The soil-to-city chain of small farms, villages, and towns to the great city markets was destroyed. Those ever more profitable compressed gobs of humanity in the cities and suburbs could be cultivated for maximum productivity and profit as the bastards increased their domination of the needs hierarchy. If you made a movie of this, swapping out the humans for some sort of large intelligent rodent or insect, and left everything else as it really is in American life, people would call it chilling science fiction.
Long story short: The bastards won.
This distillation of how they won, this little piece of feral scholarship, is sure to be disputed by hairsplitting pinheads in political science and history departments. The "Oh but …" crowd. Which is OK with me. Everybody needs a job, I suppose. But that's the view from here in the cheap seats among the non-players, the fuckees in the great fuck-the-proles game of bastard politics and ever bigger money. Call this a pulp comic summary of post war history. It's not a very damned funny history. Maybe that's why we cho ose not to remember it. Here in the United States of Amnesia. We cannot retain what happened last week, much less history. But I'm trying here folks. I really am.
SCREAMING MAN: BULLSHIT FOLKS! DON'T BELIEVE A WORD FROM THIS GODDAMNED BEER SOAKED, REDNECK WHO CAN'T SPELL AND THINKS HE'S A GENIUS BECAUSE HE KNOWS HOW TO BRING UP WIKIPEDIA ON HIS BROWSER. IF AND WHEN HE'S SOBER ENOUGH. THE SCREAMING MAN HAS BEEN TRAPPED INSIDE BAGEANT'S BLOATED, DISEASED CARCASS FOR SIXTY TWO YEARS, AND THE SCREAMER CAN TELL YA THIS: IF BRAINS WERE DYNAMITE BAGEANT WOULDN'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO BLOW OFF A GOOD FART. YOU'VE JUST WASTED TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES OF COMPANY TIME. NOW GO TAKE UP SOMETHING USEFUL, LIKE NARCOTICS. FOR CHRISSAKE GET A LIFE!
Joe Bageant is author of the book, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War. (Random House Crown), about working class America. He is also a contributor to Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance from the Heartland (AK Press). A complete archive of his on-line work, along with the thoughts of many working Americans on the subject of class may be found on ColdType and Joe Bageant’s website, joebageant.com.
Hawaii's homeless, rousted from parks, now living in remote areas
Remote, unimproved and isolated O'ahu beaches have become the newest homeless refuge for some of those forced to vacate Wai'anae Coast park encampments in recent months.
With fewer beach parks available, homeless camps are spreading to unimproved coastal stretches — with Ma'ili Point and an area beyond Kea'au Beach Park chief among the sites.
These areas are increasingly favored by homeless who want no part of the shelter system. That's because of an incorrect perception that these locations are outside the jurisdiction of Honolulu police enforcing the effort to keep reclaimed city beaches free of tent city populations.
While homeless-service workers say the number of tent dwellers has increased in these locations, precise figures have been elusive. A City & County of Honolulu Point-in-Time Count of Homeless conducted in May noted that volunteers along the Wai'anae Coast did not survey "homeless individuals residing in areas that they felt were unsafe to visit."
Some unimproved and secluded beach locations present additional health and sanitation risks as more tent dwellers move in and take over. And police report that a recent rise in crime at Kea'au Beach Park and the bush area beyond could be a result of overcrowding.
"We're discussing what we can do when they congregate on our beaches," said Russ Saito, homeless-solutions coordinator for the state, referring to a bush area on unimproved city state, and private lands in Makaha with a reputation so fearsome it's often referred to as "the wild west."
"In the area past Kea'au Beach Park, it's hard even for us to ask our outreach providers to go out there. Because many of them are women, and that's not exactly the safest environment."
Utu Langi, who in addition to running the Next Step shelter in Kaka'ako, feeds Wai'anae Coast homeless on weekends through his program Hawai'i Helping the Hungry Have Hope, said he has noticed the growing population of unsheltered people in isolated coastal areas.
"The natural reaction to the closing of these parks is that they (homeless folks) hide out," said Langi. "They tend to find places that are kind of hard to access. When if comes down to our trying to provide for some of their needs, it's pretty challenging."
More than two years ago, the City and County of Honolulu adopted a strategy to clean up and reclaim city beach parks along the Wai'anae Coast taken over by an explosion of tent dwellers made homeless largely by rapidly rising home prices beginning around 2003.
The strategy became feasible after Hawai'i Gov. Linda Lingle passed an emergency proclamation that allowed the state to fast-track an emergency and transitional homeless shelter system along the Leeward Coast.
Once that system was in place, city police began systematically giving homeless beach people four weeks' notice to leave a particular beach park by a certain date, after which it would be closed to the public while work crews cleaned and improved the facilities.
When a park reopened, signs were posted stating it would be closed nightly from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. — making it difficult for tent dwellers to regain a foothold.
Since October 2006, hundreds of beach dwellers on the Wai'anae Coast have been displaced as city work crews have conducted park improvement projects at more than half a dozen major beach parks.
In June, a large and long-standing encampment at Depots Beach in Nanakuli disappeared. Two weeks ago, city crews shut down Lahilahi Park in Makaha after the last of some three dozen homeless people pulled up stakes and departed on July 19.
Tulutulu Toa, homeless-ness specialist for the Wai'anae Community Outreach program, said 20 of those at Lahilahi have signed up at the state's emergency homeless shelter in Wai'anae. As for the rest, there's no telling where they could be.
"Some of the individuals move, but we don't know where they move to," she said. "They move in with friends or relatives, or they move to another beach."
More and more, they are moving to an area between Lualualei Naval Road in Nanakuli and Ma'ili Point along Farrington Highway.
One person who moved there after being evacuated from another beach park is Renee Barrett, 47. Barrett says she has spent much of her life in prison and admits she's had problems with drug and alcohol abuse. That's in the past, she insists. Now, she wants only to stay on the beach.
"This is my lifestyle," said Barrett. "I refuse to go in the shelters. It would be like I'm institutionalized again. I've maxed out my time."
If she's ever forced to leave the water's edge, she'll find shelter on somebody's porch, she said. Or she'll sleep on the sidewalk: "I know how to survive."
According to Toa, some move to unimproved beaches because they believe those are outside Honolulu Police Department jurisdiction.
"Yes, that's correct," said Toa, who believes the Nanakuli to Ma'ili Point stretch will be evacuated and cleaned by the city and county before the end of this year. If and when that happens, Kea'au Beach Park in Makaha — already the most crowded and remote beach park population on the Wai'anae Coast, and a growing concern for police — could explode and spill over into the vast thicket known as "the wild west."
Toa tells tent dwellers she invites into the shelter system that one day all beaches along the Wai'anae Coast — including those in the farthest reaches — will be evacuated, cleaned and thereafter closed overnight. Whether there would be enough shelter space to accommodate the waiting homeless, were they to decide they even wanted it, is anybody's guess.
And it is highly unlikely that more shelter space will be built, given the state's budget crisis, Saito said.
Meanwhile, time seems to be running out for those who sleep under the stars. Honolulu Police Maj. Michael Moses warned that no beaches along the Wai'anae Coast are outside police jurisdiction.
"Ma'ili Point is actually on unimproved city and park land," said Moses. "And we have jurisdiction at state parks — different rules, though. We can enforce state park rules, which actually are stricter than the city park rules."
Implosion Goes Wrong, Building Rolls Over (VIDEO)
Officials in Turkey are trying to figure out why a building demolition went wrong. Instead of imploding, the structure fell over, narrowly missing a neighboring apartment building. TODAY's Ann Curry reports.
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House dip to last two more years
THE HOUSE price slump will continue apace this year and next, according to a starkly bearish annual forecast from the National Housing Federation (NHF) released today.
In a gloomy report the group has warned of a sharp 12.2 per cent fall in total in England during this year, and a further 4.6 per cent fall next year, ahead of stabilisation in 2011 in the form of a meagre 1.1 per cent rise.
The group said house prices will be 20 per cent higher than now in 2014, meaning homeowners and stricken buy-to-let investors face a gruelling five-year wait before the damage done by the collapse of the property bubble is repaired.
The downbeat report pours cold water on the latest Nationwide Building Society report, which last week suggested prices across the UK could register an overall rise this year.
But, the NHF also said the stabilisation seen in 2011 would be followed by a bumper 7.5 per cent price rise the following year, and then a stellar 8.4 per cent rise in 2013 and a 6.4 per cent gain in 2014.
NHF chief executive David Orr said: “Our research shows that, while house prices are falling in the short term, they will inevitably increase in the long term because of a fundamental under-supply of housing.”
He added that only 60 per cent of the required level of new homes is currently being built, guaranteeing eventual price rises.
by JOHN KENCHINGTON
In a gloomy report the group has warned of a sharp 12.2 per cent fall in total in England during this year, and a further 4.6 per cent fall next year, ahead of stabilisation in 2011 in the form of a meagre 1.1 per cent rise.
The group said house prices will be 20 per cent higher than now in 2014, meaning homeowners and stricken buy-to-let investors face a gruelling five-year wait before the damage done by the collapse of the property bubble is repaired.
The downbeat report pours cold water on the latest Nationwide Building Society report, which last week suggested prices across the UK could register an overall rise this year.
But, the NHF also said the stabilisation seen in 2011 would be followed by a bumper 7.5 per cent price rise the following year, and then a stellar 8.4 per cent rise in 2013 and a 6.4 per cent gain in 2014.
NHF chief executive David Orr said: “Our research shows that, while house prices are falling in the short term, they will inevitably increase in the long term because of a fundamental under-supply of housing.”
He added that only 60 per cent of the required level of new homes is currently being built, guaranteeing eventual price rises.
by JOHN KENCHINGTON
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