Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/188010768?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Guatemala president: Mexican gang seeks control (AP)
MEXICO CITY ? Guatemala's newly inaugurated president says Mexico's Zetas drug cartel sought to take over the drug trade in Guatemala by co-opting or killing local traffickers.
President Otto Perez says the Zetas offered deals for gangs willing to form part of their network, and killed those who refused.
The Zetas have been blamed for Guatemala's biggest drug-related massacre, the slaughter of 27 cattle ranch workers in May.
Perez says he is seeking to verify reports from ex-President Alvaro Colom that rival drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been in Guatemala.
Perez told the Mexican television network Televisa Monday that the Zetas started moving into Guatemala about four years ago.
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Turkey reacts angrily after Republican candidate Perry says it is ruled by Islamic terrorists (Star Tribune)
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Crisis kills revival in Europe microcosm Belgium (Reuters)
ANTWERP, Belgium (Reuters) ? The stunning, narrow 16th century Gothic houses in the centre of Antwerp are dwarfed by the nearby modern port, which stretches to the size of 22,000 soccer pitches.
From it, there is a stream of ships carrying everything from cars to cosmetics around the world - 15,200 ships in 2011.
But what was shaping up as a record-breaking year for Belgium's second city turned sour. The euro zone debt crisis smashed into the continent's economy and the country's debt-reducing austerity program is doing nothing for immediate growth.
Cutbacks by businesses, governments and households quietened the frenetic deliveries of containers on the dockside.
"We were on track to have a new, all-time record for cargo flows, but then the crisis came," said Eddy Bruyninckx, chief executive of the port, one of Europe's biggest.
"As long as it goes on, it will keep affecting us," he said.
The debt crisis that began in Greece two years ago has crushed Europe's recovery from the 2008/2009 global financial crisis, potentially shrinking euro zone output by up to 1.5 percent this year by ratings agency Standard & Poor's estimate.
Belgium is a kind of mini-Europe, and not just because it hosts the European Union's headquarters.
The north speaks a Germanic language, Dutch, and has prospered through trade and hi-tech industries. In southern Belgium, the locals speak French, a Latin language, and suffer joblessness and slow growth. Many in the north resent subsidizing the south.
The economic slump, meanwhile, has revealed a deeper weaknesses that is a microcosm of the EU's malaise. High debt, an ageing population and a growing mismatch between workers' skills and the jobs on offer mean Belgium, just like the euro zone, must reinvent itself to avoid prolonged stagnation.
After a 2 percent expansion in 2011, Belgian economic output is expected to grow just 0.5 percent this year, the central bank says. But Belgium's finance ministry and business leaders are more pessimistic, seeing virtually no expansion.
Antwerp port reflects that downturn. It forecasts no growth in cargo volumes in the first half of 2012, and beyond that there is little clarity.
The change in fortunes is not just from the loss of confidence stemming from the debt crisis.
Belgium, like much of Europe, is embarking on 12.6 billion euros in spending freezes and cuts this year to bring its deficit below the EU's limit, while banks are unwilling to lend. But business leaders say the strategy is misguided.
"Cost-cutting doesn't mean that you stop investing. You'll kill entrepreneurship," said Jo Libeer, the head of the business chamber in Dutch-speaking Flanders, his Antwerp office overlooking the grey waters of the river Scheldt that are constantly dredged to allow the massive ships to pass.
"There's only one solution to get out of the crisis, and that's investing in entrepreneurship," he said.
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For a graphic on Belgium: http://link.reuters.com/zaw85s
For full euro zone coverage: http://r.reuters.com/xyt94s
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PANIC IN THE EURO ZONE
Belgian entrepreneurs are finding it tough and for some, the sharp focus on cuts in the euro zone have had more impact than the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008, which caused the world's deepest downturn since the 1930s.
Christine Buelens, the chief executive of Flanders-based engineering research company Metalogic, lost one of her biggest clients earlier this month, when a French firm cancelled plans for her firm to test new anti-corrosive technologies for chemical storage tanks that would extend their lifespan.
"2008 was one of our best years, but now there's a panic reaction to cut costs," said Buelens, whose highly specialized business is the kind that business leaders say Belgium needs more of. "Our French client cancelled their project purely for financial reasons."
One blow to Antwerp was triggered in when ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, in October permanently closed production of liquid steel in the French-speaking city of Liege, a decision unions say could cost 500 jobs.
That has also fed back into lost business at Antwerp port, where imports of iron ore that fed the blast furnaces in Liege have fallen and reduced dry bulk traffic by 6.5 percent in 2011.
"In 2010, people thought we were getting back to doing business, but Lehman Brothers taught us how quickly a financial crisis can start hurting the real economy," the port's Bruyninckx said.
Franco-Belgian banking group Dexia also learned that lesson in October. The euro zone crisis starved it of the credit it needed to keep operating, pushing it towards collapse until Belgium, France and Luxembourg stepped in with state guarantees and Belgium nationalized its local retail business.
FINISHED AT 59?
Belgium could never have insulated itself from the crisis.
But the post-Lehman revival masked the need for reform - a task that is complicated by Belgium's regional divide. It took politicians more than 500 days to form a government after elections in June 2010.
Flemish businessman Paul Kumpen, who exports his Ridley bicycles to 44 countries and has an annual turnover of 25 million euros, says he is tired of paying one of the world's highest tax burdens when the revenues are seen as poorly spent.
"For every 100 euros I make, I pay 52 to the taxman, so I'm getting just 48 euros to reinvest while the government runs an inefficient public sector and pays the pensions of Belgians who retire at 55," said Kumpen, himself 62.
Despite the stereotypes that it is southern Europeans who retire too early, Belgium's official retirement age at 65 is two years lower than Spain, while unofficially many people retire at 59, compared to 62 in Greece, according to the Paris-based OECD.
One in four of all unemployed Belgians are over 50, and getting them to stay longer in the workforce is a challenge.
At the other end of the scale, ambitious companies that want to build on Belgium's promise as a logistics and hi-tech economy say they cannot find the highly-skilled graduates they need.
Only 15 materials engineers -- needed in industries such as aerospace and chemicals -- graduate in Belgium every year and that makes Metalogic's Buelens' life very difficult.
"It's a struggle for life, it's almost impossible," Buelens said. "The last people I recruited included two Polish engineers, someone from China and another from Portugal."
Even with unemployment at 8 percent in Belgium, Flanders has 307,000 jobs it cannot fill because of a mismatch between what companies need and the skills of the unemployed.
"People don't move within the country, there's a big mobility issue," said Libeer, echoing a problem across the EU.
Joblessness, early retirement and an inefficient public sector have pushed Belgium's public debt to almost 100 percent of GDP, leaving less money to pay the growing pensions bill.
Still, at Antwerp port, work is underway on the banks of the Scheldt to build the world's biggest lock at a cost of 340 million euros to handle ever-larger ships that ply world trade.
It is a sign of the optimism that is in short supply across Europe these days and signals the hope that growth will return if European leaders can find a solution to the crisis.
"It is in everyone's interest to deal with it," Bruyninckx said. "And today, not tomorrow."
(Writing by Robin Emmott.; Editing by Sebastian Moffett/Jeremy Gaunt)
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Obama takes on big government: `It has to change' (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Seeking more power to shrink the government, President Barack Obama on Friday suggested smashing six economic agencies into one, an election-year idea intended to halt bureaucratic nightmares and force Republicans to back him on one of their own favorite issues.
"The government we have is not the government we need," Obama told business owners he'd gathered at the White House. Lawmakers seemed willing to at least consider his ideas.
Sounding like a manager of a disorganized company, and looking like one by pointing to slides as he spoke, Obama asked Congress to give him a kind of reorganization power no president has had since Ronald Reagan. It would guarantee Obama a vote, within 90 days, on any idea he offers to consolidate agencies, provided it saves money and cuts the government.
His first potential target: Merging six major trade and commerce agencies into a one-stop-shopping department for American businesses. The Commerce Department would be among those that would cease to exist.
Attacking senseless duplication across the executive branch he runs, Obama said: "Why is it OK for our government? It's not. It has to change."
Politically, Obama is seeking advantage on the turf often owned by Republicans: Smaller government.
He is attempting to directly counter Republican arguments that he has presided over the kind of regulation, spending and debt that can undermine the economy ? a dominant theme of this year's debate and one often cited by his potential re-election rival, Republican Mitt Romney.
Obama said he would use his expanded authority to recommend the collapsing of other agencies across the government, not just in the business field, without getting specific. Congress would keep the final say over any proposal. But fast-track power would give Obama a stronger hand to skip much of the outside lobbying and turf battles and get right to a vote.
Congressional reaction was mixed, but generally followed a pattern from both parties ? support for making government more efficient, and wariness about how Obama's plan could upend the trade American trade agenda or undermine the prerogatives of Congress.
Republicans skeptically pointed to Obama's past promises as the size of the nation's debt keeps growing.
"It's not often that we see real proposals from this administration to make government smaller," said Rep. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "I look forward to reviewing the proposal and hope that it will be the first of many to unravel the red tape."
Indeed, Obama promised more plans to shrink things if given more power, citing inefficiencies all across the government.
In an unusual united front that underscored some bipartisan skepticism, the chairmen of two of Congress' most powerful committees joined in a statement that questioned the president's desire to wrap the U.S. Trade Representative office into a new agency. The House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont, said government cannot be reduced "at the expense of programs that are helping businesses, ranchers and farmers create jobs."
For Obama, it was all about common sense.
He spoke of business people who deal with the government as part of their daily life and are exasperated by a maze of agencies, permits and websites.
"We can do this better," he told them. "So much of the argument out there all the time is up in 40,000 feet, these abstract arguments about who's conservative or who's liberal. ...You guys are just trying to figure out, how do we make things work? How do we apply common sense? And that's what this is about."
Obama had an imperative to deliver. He made the promise to come up with a smart reorganization of the government in his State of the Union speech last January.
Not in decades has the government undergone a sustained reorganization of itself. Presidents have tried from time to time, but each part of the bureaucracy has its own defenders inside and outside the government, which can make merger ideas politically impossible. That's particularly true because "efficiency" is often another way of saying people will lose their jobs.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she hoped Congress would quickly approve Obama's proposal, which she said tracked with worries Democrats have been hearing from small business owners.
Beyond the politics, the merger Obama offered would have big implications for trade and commerce in America.
Presidents held a fast-track reorganizational authority for about 50 years until it ran out during Reagan's presidency in 1984, the White House argued.
Obama wants to merge: the Commerce Department's core business and trade functions; the Small Business Administration; the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative; the Export-Import Bank; the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; and the Trade and Development Agency.
The White House says 1,000 to 2,000 jobs would be cut, but the administration would do so through attrition. The administration says the consolidation would save $3 billion over 10 years by getting rid of duplicative overhead and programs, although it has yet to spell out any plan in detail.
Obama's announcement treads on ground that Romney, the Republican front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, frequently stakes out on the campaign trail. Romney often says he would try to shrink government by eliminating offices that duplicate functions performed somewhere else, citing as examples more than 80 different workforce training programs.
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said streamlining government was always a potentially good idea but expressed suspicion about whether the plan by Obama would really help business. Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, pledged Obama's plan would get a careful review.
But he added: "It's interesting to see the president finally acknowledge that Washington is out of control."
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Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt, Alan Fram, Erica Werner and Ken Thomas contributed to this story.
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Careers In The Automotive Technician Field | Budget Rent a Car
It can be a challenge to land a prime spot on a race car pit crew. Yet vehicle dealerships across the country are scrambling to find qualified automotive technicians for their own ?pit crews?-even with salaries of $ 30,000 to $ 70,000 or more, depending on the market and the technician?s level of training.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the auto industry will need 35,000 new technicians every year through 2010.
Lucrative But Overlooked Careers
With that in mind, an unusual contest is getting into gear with the purpose of increasing awareness about this lucrative and rewarding yet often-overlooked career, and support training opportunities for future technicians. It?s called the No. 29 Goodwrench Expertise Challenge. And it is a challenge. ?Historically, being an automotive technician has been depicted as a dirty, dead-end kind of job,? said Peter Lord, executive director, GM Service Operations.
?That old stereotype could not be further from the truth. Today?s cars and trucks are very sophisticated-the computer technology in them alone, for example, is nearly 1,000 times more powerful than what took the Apollo mission to the moon.?
?Dealerships need trained, qualified technicians because they know that satisfaction with vehicle service and repair work is closely tied to how customers view their vehicles and the dealership.?
The Challenge benefits automotive technician training like this: If driver Kevin Harvick?s No. 29 car wins two out of 12 selected NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races beginning May 28 with the Coca-Cola 600, GM Goodwrench will set up a $ 200,000 scholarship fund to encourage Automotive Youth Educational Systems (AYES) high school students to continue their automotive technical education by attending GM Automotive Service Educational Program (ASEP) colleges. AYES is a nonprofit business and education partnership that creates automotive technology career opportunities for promising young men and women at automotive dealerships. It was founded in 1995 by former GM Chairman Jack Smith as a way to address the growing need for technicians.
Spreading The Word
?There are thousands of NASCAR fans-and others-who are ideal candidates for a career as an automotive technician,? said Larry Cummings, CEO of AYES. ?The Expertise Challenge is a fun and engaging way to help spread the word about these great career opportunities.?
Students enrolled in GM ASEP two-year programs earn while they learn, rotating their time between classes and interning at GM dealerships and other GM service centers. There are 66 GM ASEP participating schools in 38 U.S. states, 15 in Canada and one in the People?s Republic of China. Successful students graduate with an associate?s degree, and either are ready for or have passed their National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification test. More than 2,000 students are currently enrolled in the program, and there are more than 14,000 graduates.
If Harvick and the team meet the Expertise Challenge by winning two of the 12 select races, GM Goodwrench will award 29 Grand Prizes, which consist of an all-new 2007 Chevy Avalanche, a $ 1,000 GM vehicle maintenance certificate and a trunk full of Reese?s products.
Program Rules Available
If only one race is won during the promotion, two lucky winners will be awarded an all-new 2007 Chevy Avalanche, a $ 1,000 GM vehicle maintenance certificate, and a trunk full of Reese?s products. They will also donate $ 25,000 to the GM Goodwrench Scholarship Fund. If no races are won during the promotion, the promotion will still give away an all-new 2007 Chevy Avalanche, a $ 1,000 GM vehicle maintenance certificate, and a trunk full of Reese?s products to one lucky winner, and provide a $ 25,000 donation to the GM Goodwrench Scholarship fund.
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Source: http://budget-rent-a-car-jordan.com/careers-in-the-automotive-technician-field/
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