The Tea Party
Of Disappointment
Deals Help China Expand Its Sway in Latin America
By SIMON ROMERO and ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: April 15, 2009
CARACAS, Venezuela – As Washington tries to rebuild its strained relationships in Latin America, China is stepping in vigorously, offering countries across the region large amounts of money while they struggle with sharply slowing economies, a plunge in commodity prices and restricted access to credit.
In recent weeks, China has been negotiating deals to double a development fund in Venezuela to $12 billion, lend Ecuador at least $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant, provide Argentina with access to more than $10 billion in Chinese currency and lend Brazil’s national oil company $10 billion. The deals largely focus on China locking in natural resources like oil for years to come.
The pain from Hillsborough tragedy remains
A crowd of 30,000 gathers at Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium on the 20th anniversary of the disaster that killed 96 and injured hundreds.
By Chuck Culpepper
April 16, 2009
Reporting from Liverpool, England — Even 7,305 days on, city buses stilled. Trains paused. Subways rested. Taxis pulled over and idled. Ferries shut off and let the river nudge them. Pubs held two-minute silences. Radio stations hushed.
At precisely 3:06 p.m. on Wednesday, a metropolitan area of 800,000 strived to sound like a small town, even inside a stadium renowned as one of the loudest on Earth, where organizers of a memorial for the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough soccer tragedy expected about 10,000 for tribute.
An astonishing 30,000 filed from long, snaking queues into Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium in a bracing wind that rippled the organist’s sheet music, and they continued to file in at 3:06 when they, too, forged a vast quiet broken only by babies and toddlers and church bells ringing 96 times in the distance.
USA
Bank Test Results May Strain Limits Of Bailout Funding
Much Rides on Size of Capital Needs
By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 16, 2009
As the Obama administration works to complete its stress tests for gauging the health of major banks, it could confront another problem: how to pay for shoring up any weaknesses the tests reveal.
No one yet knows the extent of the banks’ needs. But a senior administration official said yesterday this will be clear once tests on the nation’s 19 major banks are done and the results are released early next month.
The administration would be hard-pressed to ask Congress for more rescue funds to plug the holes. Anger on Capitol Hill is high, especially after the furor over bonuses paid to employees at American International Group. The troubled insurer had earlier received more than $170 billion in bailout funds.
