New York Post’s Non Apology Apology
Followed By An Attack On Its Critics
Trouble Trickles From Steep Drop in Oil Prices
Once Flush Global Economies, Energy Projects Stall
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 20, 2009; Page A01
The precipitous fall in the price of oil in recent months, while good for consumers, has contributed to the confusion in the global economy, wreaking havoc with the budgets and economies of oil-exporting nations and putting many expensive energy projects on hold.
In Canada, where President Obama visited yesterday, the drop in oil prices has done more to slow development of controversial oil sands projects than the protests of environmental groups, who note that the energy-intensive process of mining those sands contributes to global warming. Executives in the past have said oil must cost $60 to $90 a barrel to justify the investment.
Clinton suggests North Korea’s Kim Jong Il may step down soon
The secretary of State says the U.S. and allies are trying to figure out how to respond to a change of power. Experts fear a new regime could be even more belligerent.
By Paul Richter
February 20, 2009
Reporting from Seoul — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that U.S. officials and allies were scrambling to prepare for the possible departure from power of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, a development she said threatened to increase turbulence in one of the world’s most heavily armed regions.
Arriving in Seoul for security talks, Clinton said persistent signs in the secretive Pyongyang government suggested that a change of leadership might be at hand. She said the South Korean government had been especially concerned about possible developments inside its impoverished northern neighbor.
“Everybody’s trying to read the tea leaves about what’s happening and what’s likely to occur,” Clinton told reporters on her plane during a flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Seoul, broaching a topic that has rarely been discussed publicly by U.S. officials.
Clinton said that even a peaceful succession “creates more uncertainty, and it could create conditions that are even more provocative” as the ascendant leadership tries to consolidate power.
USA
U.S. Tries a Trillion-Dollar Key for Locked Lending
By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: February 19, 2009
Credit cards, home equity lines, student loans, car financing: none come cheaply or easily in these credit-tight times. The banks, the refrain goes, just will not lend money.
But it is not simply the banks that are the problem. It is also what lies behind them.
Largely hidden from view is a vast financial system that serves as the banker to the banks. And, like many lenders, this system is in deep trouble. The question is how to fix it.
Most banks no longer hold the loans they make, content to collect interest until the debt comes due. Instead, the loans are bundled into securities that are sold to investors, a process known as securitization.
The Globe and Mail reports