Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling have the same view of the U.K. economy, and the Labour party's leadership is secure, U.K. Justice Secretary Jack Straw said today.
Straw spoke on the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Andrew Marr Show a day after Darling said in a Guardian newspaper interview that the U.K. is facing “arguably the worst'' economic crisis for the last 60 years. He later changed his assertion to say he was referring to global conditions.
Brown is preparing to announce measures to shore up the economy next month and bolster dwindling voter support for the ruling Labour party. The economy may tip into a recession after growth stagnated in the second quarter and ended the U.K.'s longest stretch of expansion in more than a century.
“The message from the government, from Gordon and Alistair, has been the same,'' Straw said. “There won't be a leadership challenge.''
The opposition Conservative Party's lead over Labour widened to 22 points from 8 points at the beginning of the year in a YouGov Plc poll finished on Aug. 21.
U.K. house prices declined the most in almost two decades in August as banks curtailed mortgage lending, Nationwide Building Society said. Unemployment may rise to around 2 million by the end of the year, said Bank of England policy maker David Blanchflower Aug. 28.
The central bank probably will leave the key interest rate at 5 percent at its meeting this week as they battle inflation that's more than double their 2 percent target. The consumer price index climbed to 4.4 percent in July as oil and food prices soared.
Rift Grown
A rift has grown between Darling and Brown over the prime minister's insistence that the Treasury fund a plan for the government to underwrite mortgages to help homeowners avoid default, according to the Mail on Sunday bad credit payday loan. The Treasury opposes the plan, which could cost up to 40 billion pounds ($73 billion), the paper said today.
The Independent on Sunday said today Stephen Carter, a strategist for Brown, plans to shift to a “lower-key'' role. The change comes after Brown had to quash speculation of a bid for his job following a call by Foreign Secretary David Miliband's “for real change'' in the government.
“It reveals simultaneously that the prime minister has lost authority over his cabinet, the chancellor has lost confidence over his own economic policies and the rest of the cabinet has lost confidence in the government,'' Willem Hague, a Conservative member of parliament who speaks on foreign policy, said on Sky News today.
Darling Comments
Darling added to his comments in the Guardian newspaper in a television interview yesterday.
“What is happening to every country in the world, ours included, is that we have a credit crunch the like of which we have not seen for generations,'' Darling told the BBC News. “We have that at the same time as oil and food prices are going up. But I also am clear that the fundamentals of our economy are strong.''
Straw today rejected the idea that a Conservative government could do a better job than the current Labour leadership.
“We've had a good period of economic management which has for sure provided us with a serious platform to weather these storms,'' he said. “We face turbulence, and the question for the country is, who is better to take us through this turbulent period, is it an experienced pilot and co-pilot, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, or David Cameron and George Osbourne, who have no experience flying a large plane whatever.''
A New Mexico-based biomedical research organization will open an office at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis.
Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute targets the prevention, treatment and cure of respiratory disease.
The institute will locate its Center for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research at the campus in October. The center seeks to improve human health through research on the risk, cost and progression of respiratory and related diseases, as well as comparative analysis on the risk, cost and effectiveness of pharmaceutical treatments for those ailments.
Scientists at the center conduct independent and collaborative research with government organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration as well as pharmaceutical manufacturers and contract research organizations.
California financier David Murdock is establishing the N.C payday loans. Research Campus at the site of the former Pillowtex Corp. headquarters and manufacturing site.
The site, envisioned as a 350-acre life-sciences hub, has attracted plenty of Triangle attention. Companies such as Raleigh’s Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) and Wilmington’s PPD Inc. (Nasdaq: PPDI) will open offices there. And Duke University, the UNC System and the North Carolina Community College System are all working with Murdock at the facility.
Three veteran commercial photographers have joined forces to form River Imaging, a photography co-op that’s aimed at reducing costs and securing new business.
Children’s photographer Al Lang has opened his studio at 1940 River Road to lifestyles/fitness photographer Rick Lohre and food specialist Randy Hoover. All three now share the 15,000-square-foot space with four shooting bays, two prep kitchens, 4,000 square feet of prop storage and five client meeting lounges. The studio also houses Mad Macs Graphics, a digital retouching company owned by Jeff Siereveld cash advance flexible payments.
Hoover said all four companies continue to operate separately, but can share expenses and jointly market their services under the River Imaging name.
“We may already have a big job that we can collaborate on,” said Hoover, who declined to name the prospective client, but said it was a Tennessee company that plans to visit River Imaging’s studios soon.
European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said inflation among the 15 countries sharing the euro is “too high'' and must be brought below the bank's limit.
“Inflation is still high, too high,'' he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday in Cortina D'Ampezzo. “We have a 2 percent target and we must bring it back to 2 percent — below 2 percent.''
Bini Smaghi is the fourth policy maker this week to signal that the ECB hasn't moderated its resolve to fight inflation even as economic growth falters. Inflation in the euro area is running at twice the ECB's limit, driven by record oil and commodity prices. The Frankfurt-based bank raised its key rate to a seven-year high of 4.25 percent in July to prevent higher consumer prices from pushing up wages, entrenching inflation even further.
The euro rose as high as $1.4758 from $1.4720 after Bini Smaghi's comments were published. The yield on the Euribor interest rate futures contract for December 2009 rose as much as 4 basis points.
Bini Smaghi said the ECB has only one tool for fighting inflation — interest rates.
Higher Rates?
“But we're not the only players. There are others,'' Bini Smaghi said. “Everyone must adhere to this objective, which is price stability.''
Fellow Governing Council members Axel Weber and Lucas Papademos said Aug no fax payday advance. 27 the bank may need to raise interest rates further should the inflation outlook deteriorate. Executive Board member Juergen Stark told German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung earlier this week that he already sees “broad-based second-round effects emerging.''
Their comments prompted investors to reduce bets that a cooling economy will force the ECB to lower borrowing costs.
“It doesn't seem to me that we have rates, monetary policy that's too restrictive,'' Bini Smaghi said yesterday during a roundtable discussion in Cortina D'Ampezzo.
The euro-area economy, which contracted 0.2 percent in the second quarter, is at risk of a “genuine recession'' as a stronger currency hurts exports, house prices fall and inflation erodes purchasing power, Standard & Poors said earlier this week.
Still, “I don't expect inflation to come down necessarily just with weaker growth,'' ECB council member Weber said in an interview published Aug. 27. “If the economic outlook brightens somewhat again toward the end of the year and next year, which I still expect, we'll have to see if action is necessary.''
Two credit unions on Maui have voted in favor of a merger.
The boards of both the Lahaina Federal Credit Union and the Valley Isle Community Federal Credit Union voted unanimously in favor of the merger, which was approved by the National Credit Union Administration.
Under the merger, which is targeted for Oct. 1, all members will be under the Valley Isle Community FCU name.
Valley Isle Community FCU, the second largest credit union on Maui, will have assets totaling more than $89 million and a membership base of approximately 11,400 following the merger, the company said no fax payday loan.
Qwest Communications International Inc. has reached a tentative agreement with its largest union about a day after a labor contract had expired.
The Denver-based Qwest announced the three-year deal early Monday with the Communications Workers of America, which represents about 20,000 of its employees in 13 states.
Qwest (Q, Fortune 500) also reached a tentative agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents the company’s employees in Montana.
The company did not release details of the two contracts.
CWA members had voted to authorize a strike, but none was called when the contract expired after 11:59 p.m pay day loans. Saturday.
Upscale department store chain Nordstrom Inc. reported a 21% drop in second-quarter profit on Thursday and cut its full-year forecast, as its affluent consumers pull back on fashion spending in a tough economy.
The Seattle-based chain said Thursday that it earned $143 million, or 65 cents per share, in the 3-month period ended Aug. 2, compared to $180 million, or 71 cents per share, a year earlier.
Total sales fell 4.3% to $2.29 billion.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected profits of 64 cents per share on revenue of $2.31 billion.
Nordstrom (JWN, Fortune 500) reported a 6% drop in same-store sales for the overall company. Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, are considered a key indicator of a retailer’s health.
The company said that results at its department stores continue to be challenging, while its discount concept called Nordstrom Rack has maintained strong sales growth. Nordstrom suffered a 9% decline in same-store sales, while Nordstrom Rack enjoyed a 6.3% gain payday advance. Sales for Nordstrom Direct, its e-commerce division, increased 14.6%.
The company said it now expects earnings per share for its fiscal year ending Jan. 31 to be in the range of $2.55 to $2.65 per share. That’s down from an earlier forecast of $2.65 to $2.80 per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect $2.68 per share for the year.
Nordstrom announced its earnings results after the regular markets closed.
On Wednesday, department store chain Macy’s Inc. (M, Fortune 500) also posted a lower second-quarter profit and warned that its full-year earnings will be below expectations.
That, along with a pared-down outlook from key supplier Liz Claiborne (LIZ, Fortune 500) and a somber government report on retail sales in July, suggests a persistent slowdown for retailers as they face the critical back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons.
BP PLC said it shut down an oil pipeline that runs through Georgia on Tuesday as a precautionary measure, but added that it is unaware of any Russian bombings on pipelines in the region.
BP (BP) said the 90,000-barrel-a-day pipeline to Supsa on Georgia’s Black Sea coast from Baku in Azerbaijan will remain closed indefinitely.
Another pipeline operated by the London-based oil company in the former Soviet Republic, the larger Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, is already out of action after a fire last week on its Turkish stretch. The BTC pipeline usually provides around 1 million barrels of Caspian crude to international markets.
BP spokesman Robert Wine said the Baku-Supsa line was closed because it runs through the center of Georgia, where there was greater risk of conflict.
However, he added that BP had no reports of damage to pipelines in Georgia, despite claims from some officials there that Russian forces had attacked the lines.
"I think those reports out there are inaccurate," he said.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul also said Tuesday that fighting in Georgia had not damaged the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Georgian ports on the Black Sea are a main shipping point of Caspian Sea crude from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan quick payday loan. More than 500,000 barrels leave these ports daily, and plans are afoot to expand capacity by an additional 200,000 barrels a day.
The Baku-Supsa pipeline was only reopened a few weeks ago after 18 months of inaction. It has the capacity to pump up to 150,000 barrels a day, but has recently been pumping around 90,000 barrels a day.
BP said it still has no timeframe on the potential reopening of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline after it was damaged by a fire late last Tuesday. Kurdish rebels took responsibility for sabotaging the pipeline.
Workers for Botas International Ltd., which operates the BTC line, put out the fire on Monday and are expected to carry out a closer inspection of the damage over the coming days.
A third pipeline that runs to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, which BP uses to export oil, but does not operate, remains open.
Wine said there was still some production in oil fields in the Caspian Sea, but it had been reduced because of the pipeline closures.
A fatal bus crash north of Dallas that killed at least 16 people is the latest in a series of motorcoach accidents that has prompted Congress to speed up the process tightening regulations involving bus operators.
Proposed federal legislation would require bus operators to provide additional training, enhanced safety measures and new safety equipment to protect and restrain passengers.
The Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act of 2007, or Senate Bill 2326, is one such bill, proposed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-TX, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. The bill, which was introduced last year, will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of the Senate’s Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure Safety and Security subcommittee, Hutchinson’s office confirmed Tuesday. The sponsoring lawmakers hope to have the bill passed by the end of this year.
The act includes provisions for improved safety technologies, better training for bus operators and drivers, as well as advanced security devices and measures to protect passengers from being ejected or severely injured during rollovers, fires and other serious accidents. The bill also asks the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to enhance its federal safety standards when dealing with the bus industry and to enhance the requirements of drivers and motorcoach companies.
A sister bill, H.R payday loans. 4690, has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Penn. The bill proposes amending federal transportation law to require the Secretary of Transportation to introduce updated federal motor vehicle safety standards to keep motorcoach passengers protected during major accidents.
In addition, to the recent wreck north of Dallas, legislators say three people were killed and 27 were injured in Northern Mississippi on Aug. 1 when a bus carrying tourists to the airport overturned. On Aug. 9, 29 bus passengers were injured when a casino bus in Las Vegas swerved off an interstate, hitting a center divider. Four of the passengers ended up in critical condition. In 2005, 23 people from a nursing home were killed when their bus caught fire on the way to Dallas as it was evacuating the gulf because of Hurricane Rita.
Malaysia's central bank expects slowing economic growth to cool inflation, fueling speculation borrowing costs won't be raised to cap prices.
Inflation will “moderate'' in 2009, particularly in the second half of the year, Governor ZetiAkhtar Aziz told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today. Bank Negara Malaysia's goal is to avoid a “fundamental'' economic slowdown, she said.
“This is a pretty strong indication that the overnight policy rate will remain unchanged at least until the end of the year,'' said Azrul Azwar Ahmad Tajudin, an economist at Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. “The concern of an economic slowdown seems to preoccupy policy makers slightly more than risks of runaway inflation.''
Malaysia's central bank last month unexpectedly left interest rates at 3.5 percent, even after inflation reached a 26-year high fast cash. Higher borrowing costs may weigh on domestic spending in Malaysia, which is relying on the consumer to power the economy as a U.S. slowdown hurts demand for the Asian nation's exports.
The central bank is due to release its next monetary policy statement on Aug. 25. Inflation in June was 7.7 percent. Malaysia last raised its benchmark interest rate in April 2006.
Zeti also said swings in the value of Malaysia's ringgit have reflected major currency changes and any intervention by the central bank will be done to maintain “orderly market conditions.''
“We will not be intervening to affect the underlying trend of the currency,'' she said.
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