Weekend News Digest

Although he oversaw some of the worst bloodshed of the 20th century, Suharto is credited with developing the economy and will be buried with the highest state honors Monday at the family mausoleum.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and others from the country’s political elite prayed over his body. Yudhoyono declared a week of national mourning and called on Indonesians “to pay their last respects to one of Indonesia’s best sons.”

The American military, meanwhile, reported two soldiers killed in separate bombings in Baghdad – one on a foot patrol Saturday near the northwestern area of Kazimiyah and another whose vehicle was struck Sunday by a roadside bomb in the city’s northeast.

The United States has said Iraqi security forces will take the lead in Mosul as a major test of Washington’s long-range plans, which seek to keep a smaller American force in Iraq as backup for local soldiers and police.

The president and House leaders have agreed on a proposal to provide tax rebate checks to 117 million families and give businesses $50 billion in incentives to invest in new plants and equipment. The goal is to help head off a recession and boost consumer confidence.

“I don’t think the Senate is going to want to derail that deal,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said. “And I don’t think the American people are going to have much patience for anything that would slow down the process.”

Naivasha District Commissioner Katee Mwanza told Reuters eight people were burnt and 11 others hacked to death, the latest victims of violence which has killed 750 people since a disputed election on December 27.

The running battles between members of President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and Luos and Kalenjins who back his rival Odinga threatened to undermine mediation by Annan, who called on both parties on Sunday to name four officials for further talks.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, wiped out a 3-point McCain advantage overnight to pull into a deadlock with the Arizona senator at 30 percent. The margin of error in the poll is 3.4 percentage points.

Romney enjoys big leads among Republican voters who describe themselves as conservative or very conservative, while McCain has an edge among Florida moderates ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

Kerviel, 31, turned himself in to police on Saturday, two days after Societe Generale said it had lost a staggering 4.9 billion euros (7.15 billion dollars), the biggest in investment banking history.

Prosecutors extended his detention for questioning for another 24 hours. They must now decide on Monday whether to release Kerviel or place him under formal investigation.

Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was not committed to “cutting relations with the United States forever,” despite tensions with Washington over its nuclear program and U.S. accusations that Iran has fomented violence in neighboring Iraq.

Iran regularly calls for a change in behavior from the United States, which cut diplomatic ties in 1980 after radical students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took diplomats hostage during the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“President Bush… should be seen by the world as an apostle of lies and a preacher of destruction and terrorism,” said a statement from Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who has followers throughout the Shiite Muslim world.

Bush “should be tried as the number one liar in the world,” Fadlallah said, reacting to a US study that said the American president lied 260 times about Iraq’s weapons capacity ahead of the war.

Sunday marked exactly one month since the Dec. 27 disputed president election which sparked the violence that has transformed this once-stable African country, pitting longtime neighbors against each other and turning towns where tourists used to gather for luxury holidays into no-go zones.

It also complicated the task of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the latest international mediator trying to promote talks between President Mwai Kibaki and his chief rival, opposition leader Raila Odinga. The two met Thursday for the first time since the election.

The Election Commission’s decision seemed certain to stir fresh criticism by Kremlin opponents that the March 2 vote has been slanted in favor of Dmitry Medvedev, 42, the first deputy prime minister who Putin has backed to be his successor.

Kasyanov, who had little chance of winning the election, said Russia under Putin was now on “the slippery slope towards thievish totalitarianism” and urged a boycott of the vote.

The cost is estimated at $10 billion – and it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime. A developer wants to build the tunnel with private money, recouping his costs by charging drivers $25 each way and by selling advertising.

Developer Vincent Polimeni says the tunnel between Oyster Bay and Rye on the New York mainland would let travelers going between Long Island and New England avoid crowded New York City highways and help alleviate traffic congestion.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret. It was not clear how long ago the satellite lost power, or under what circumstances.

“Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, when asked about the situation after it was disclosed by other officials. “Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause.”

There is concern among General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co, Chrysler LLC — and supporters in Congress and at state level — that the California initiative may survive court challenges and possibly be adopted by New York, Pennsylvania, and more than a dozen other states.

Adding pressure is a fresh U.S. Senate proposal that would force the administration of George W. Bush to let California enforce its plan, which has been in federal legal limbo since 2002.

Advocacy group Public Citizen, founded by former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, urged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday to “immediately increase its warnings … about the use of botulinum toxin” because of “serious adverse reactions, including deaths, linked to the drug.”

However neither Allergen Inc, the company that produces and sells Botox, nor the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, which groups surgeons that use the product, believe further warnings are necessary.

Retiree Georgina Wilborn, 70, and her daughter Ola, a 45-year-old homemaker, agreed to pay 400 dollars a month for the next 15 years to buy their home back from the developer who snapped it up at auction.

Their modest two-bedroom house in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio was seized in 2006 because the women could no longer keep up with mortgage payments.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, casts himself as a business-savvy economic turnaround artist amid recession anxiety, while McCain, the Arizona senator and former Vietnam veteran, portrays himself as a courageous wartime commander in chief in a dangerous world.

“He has an enormous disadvantage when it comes to the topics of changing Washington or fixing our economy,” Romney said Sunday, arguing that he is far stronger than McCain on both issues.

With not quite 12 months left in his term, the deeply unpopular president is slated to revive a few bold ideas — like his May 2007 call to double US funding to battle AIDS — and argue that US-led forces are winning in Iraq.

But he faces a US economy in crisis; the uncertain fate of his suddenly personal, late-game Middle East peace drive; a struggle over ending North Korea’s nuclear programs; and tensions with Iran over its atomic ambitions.

Bernanke, 54, who took over as Fed chairman from Alan Greenspan in February 2006, confronts what some say is the nation’s worst economic crisis in decades, possibly since the Great Depression.

Bernanke “has done a great job given the cards he has been dealt,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates.

Though President George W. Bush’s six-country diplomatic strategy still had broad support, the public criticism exposed doubts over where it was leading, according to non-proliferation experts who favor US engagement with Pyongyang.

Some speculate that the secretive Stalinist state may be hedging its bets as it sizes up the US presidential election campaign to succeed Bush and a new South Korean president who takes office in February.

On Monday night, Bush will make his State of the Union address. If it looks like the proposed $150 billion tax rebate for Americans could hit a snag in Congress, the markets’ fears about consumer spending could balloon again.

Then on Wednesday, the Fed – which helped put a floor under the market last week by making an emergency, three-quarter-point rate cut – will finish its two-day meeting and release its rate decision. A failure to deliver the quarter-point reduction traders are betting on, or signs that the Fed is hesitant to loosen its policy further, could send stocks sliding.

His company, Erie Shipbuilding LLC, has since hired about 150 workers and equipped the facility on Lake Erie with sophisticated metalworking tools – including robots. It now has orders to build eight oceangoing barges and plans to hire additional workers as needed.

But as his order book fills, VanEnkevort faces a problem hampering dozens of other midsize commercial shipyards across the country: a shortage of skilled, experienced workers capable of assembling and welding freight ships.

The agreement involves Clayton Holdings, of Shelton, Conn., a publicly held company that is a major provider of mortgage due diligence services to investment banks, The New York Times reported. Clayton was provided immunity from civil and criminal prosecution although there was no evidence of its wrongdoing, according to the newspaper.

Calls to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office and Clayton by The Associated Press were not immediately returned Saturday.

Deep losses in stock markets around the world last Monday spurred the U.S. central bank into making its biggest rate cut in more than 23 years on Tuesday, but the stocks drop came as 144-year-old Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) unwound positions taken by a rogue trader.

“Disclosures that unwinding of rogue trades also contributed to the weekend meltdown have nurtured perceptions that a new ‘Bernanke put’ has appeared,” Morgan Stanley economists Richard Berner and David Greenlaw wrote on Friday, referring to Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the central bank.

The approval may be a reflection of how much easier it has become for companies to merge under the Bush administration, antitrust lawyers said.

“I would frankly expect that they will (get approval), in part because it’s the Department of Justice,” said Ben Sharp of Perkins Coie LLP, reflecting a view among some experts that the department challenges few mergers.

The move, announced on Saturday, came one day after U.S. regulators said they would review the study, called Enhance, which showed Vytorin worked no better than a generic in preventing the build-up of arterial plaque.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was not advising doctors to stop prescribing Vytorin, but shares of the two companies fell on Friday as news of the review unnerved investors.

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:

• Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.
• Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.
• Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns.
• Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

The remote-controlled drone will patrol waters off Australia’s North Stradbroke Island, taking pictures scientists hope will enable them to count the migrating whales, Sydney’s Sun-Herald newspaper said.

Scientists hope using the five-metre (16-foot) wingspan drone will result in a more accurate estimate of the animals’ numbers and help convince Japan to stop its annual whale hunt.