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President Barack Obama, offering an election-year prescription to spur the economy, said the wealthiest Americans should pay more taxes in the name of fairness, to bring down the deficit and ensure those trying to make ends meet don
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The U.S. bond market is neutralizing budget deficits as an election-year campaign weapon.
Interest payments will cost the government 3.1 percent of gross domestic product this year, according to Office of Management and Budget and International Monetary Fund data compiled by Bloomberg. That
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The body of a woman wearing a life vest was recovered by Italian coast guard divers Saturday from a narrow underwater corridor of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia, raising the death toll to 12 in the week-old accident that has sent some light fuel spilling into the Mediterranean off Tuscany.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press that the victim was found during a particularly risky inspection of an evacuation staging point at the ship’s rear.
“The corridor was very narrow, and the divers’ lines risked snagging” on objects in the passageway, Nicastro said. To permit the coast guard divers to get into the area, Italian navy divers had preceded them, setting off charges to blast holes for easier entrance and exit, he said.
The woman’s nationality and identity were not immediately known.
Before the corpse was found, 21 people were listed as missing. One of the women on the list is a Peruvian crew member, the others are passengers.
Three bodies were found in the waters near the ship in the first hours after the accident’ since then the rest of the victims have all been found inside the Concordia, apparently unable to get off the ship during a chaotic evacuation via lifeboats and later by helicopters. Some survivors jumped off and swam to safety.
The Concordia hit a reef and ran aground on Jan. 14, while passengers dined, about two hours after the ship had set sail from the port of Civitavecchia on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Costa Crociere has said the captain had deviated without permission from the vessels in an apparent maneuver to sail close to Giglio, a Tuscan island, to impress passengers aboard.
Search and rescue efforts for survivors and bodies have meant that an operation to remove heavy fuel in the Concordia’s tanks hasn’t yet begun, although specialized equipment has been standing by for days.
On Saturday, light fuel, apparently from machinery aboard the capsized Costa Concordia, was detected near the ship.
But Nicastro said there was no indication that any of the nearly 500,000 gallons (2,200 metric tons) of heavy fuel oil has leaked from the ship’s double-bottomed tanks. He said the leaked substance appears to be diesel, which is used to fuel rescue boats and dinghies and as a lubricant for ship machinery.
There are 185 tons of diesel and lubricants on board the crippled vessel, which is lying on its side just outside Giglio’s port. Nicastro described the light fuel’s presence in the sea as “very light, very superficial” and appearing to be under control.
Although attention has been concentrated on the heavy fuel oil in the tanks, “we must not forget that on that ship there are oils, solvents, detergents, everything that a city of 4,000 people needs,” Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, told reporters in Giglio.
Gabrielli, who is leading rescue, search and anti-pollution efforts for the Concordia, was referring to the roughly 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew who were aboard the cruise liner when it ran into the reef, and then, with sea water rushing into a 70-meter (230-foot) gash in its hull, listed and finally fell onto its side.
Considering all the substances aboard the Concordia, “contamination of the environment, ladies and gentlemen, already occurred” when the cruise liner capsized, Gabrielli told a news conference.
Vessels equipped with machinery to suck out the light fuel oil were in the area, officials told Italian TV.
Earlier on Saturday, crews removed oil-absorbing booms used to prevent environmental damage in case of a leak. Originally white, the booms were grayish.
Divers resumed their search of the wreckage Saturday after data indicated the cruise ship had stabilized in the sea off Tuscany. Italian news reports said that the divers were also trying to locate the captain’s safe, in case it might contain documentation useful to the criminal probe.
The Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest for investigation of alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all were evacuated. Schettino insists he helped coordinate the evacuation from Giglio’s docks after leaving the ship when the Concordia lurched to one side.
The search had been suspended Friday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears the ship could roll off a rocky ledge of sea bed and plunge deeper into the sea. An abrupt shift could also cause a leak in the Concordia’s fuel tanks, polluting the pristine waters around Giglio, part of a seven-island Tuscan archipelago.
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U.K. retail sales rose in December as stores cut prices to lure consumers during the year-end holiday shopping season.
Sales including fuel rose 0.6 percent from November, when they fell a revised 0.5 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The December increase matched the median forecast of 21 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. From a year earlier, sales were up 2.6 percent.
The gain may not be maintained as U.K. unemployment rises, inflation outpaces wage increases and consumer confidence falls. With global growth cooling and the euro-area crisis damping export demand, concerns are growing that Britain is heading for another recession. A report today indicated Chinese manufacturing shrank for a third month in January.
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Officials say a German woman who was listed among the missing from the cruise ship grounding off Italy has been located alive in Germany, bringing the number of people still unaccounted for to 21.
The Grosseto prefect’s office says Gertrud Goergens identified herself to police. Her name was removed from the official list of missing late Wednesday.
Italian authorities released the names of the missing Wednesday as the search for passengers and crew aboard the Costa Concordia was suspended because the ship shifted slightly from its perch on rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio.
So far eleven bodies have been recovered; 21 people remain unaccounted for.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
ROME (AP) _ The first victim from the Costa Concordia diaster was identified Wednesday _ a 38-year-old violinist from Hungary who had been working as an entertainer on the stricken cruise ship.
Sandor Feher’s body was found inside the wreck, and identified by his mother who traveled to the Italian city of Grosetto, according to Hungary’s foreign ministry.
The $450 million Costa Concordia cruise ship was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into a reef Friday off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after the captain made an unauthorized maneuver. The death toll stands at 11, with 22 people still missing.
Italian rescue workers suspended operations Wednesday after the cruise ship shifted slightly on the rocks near the Tuscan coast, creating deep concerns about the safety of divers and firefighters searching for the missing.
Jozsef Balog, a pianist working with Feher on the ship, told the Blikk newspaper that Feher was wearing a lifejacket when he decided to return to his cabin to pack his violin. Feher was last seen on deck en route to the area where he was supposed to board a lifeboat.
According to Balog, Feher helped put lifejackets on several crying children before returning to his cabin.
Italian authorities earlier released the names of 24 passengers and 4 crew still missing, a list that includes six bodies which have been pulled from the ship since Monday. The missing included 13 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans and one person each from Hungary, India and Peru.
Instruments attached to the ship detected the movements early Wednesday even though firefighters who spent the night searching the area above water for the missing could not detect any movement.
“As a precautionary measure, we stopped the operations this morning, in order to verify the data we retrieved from our detectors, and understand if there actually was a movement, and if there has been one, how big this was,” said Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini.
By late afternoon, officials still did not have enough data to reassure them that the ship had stopped resettling. The latest victims were discovered after navy divers exploded holes in the hull of the ship to allow easier access.
Premier Mario Monti offered his first comment on the disaster Wednesday, telling a press conference in London that it “could and should” have been avoided.
Monti also thanked the residents of Giglio, which has a wintertime population of about 900, for opening their doors to the 4,200 refugees who struggled ashore with nothing and were given clothes, food and shelter.
And he acknowledged concerns about the 500,000 gallons of fuel still aboard the ship.
“Everybody can be assured that the Italian authorities are both taking care of the prevention and limitation of any environmental negative implications of this accident, as well as in the first place providing all the necessary help to those affected.”
Passengers were still making their way home, with consistent claims that crew members were ill-prepared to handle an emergency evacuation.
“The crew members had no specialized training _ the security man doubled as the cook and bartender, so obviously they did not know what to do,” passenger Claudia Fehlandt told Chile’s Channel 7 television after being embraced by relatives at Santiago’s airport.
“In fact, the lifeboats, even the ones that did get lowered, they did not know how to lower them and they cut the ropes with axes,” she said.
Much of the focus has been on the cruise ship captain’s actions.
In a dramatic phone conversation released Tuesday, a coast guard official was heard ordering Capt. Francesco Schettino, who had abandoned the ship with his first officers, back on board to oversee the evacuation. But Schettino resisted, saying it was too dark and the ship was tipping dangerously.
“You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me?” the Coast Guard officer shouted as the Schettino sat safe in a life raft and frantic passengers struggled to escape after the ship rammed into a reef off the Tuscan coast. “It is an order. Don’t make any more excuses. You have declared ‘Abandon ship.’ Now I am in charge.”
The officer confronted him with an expletive-laced order to get back on board, which has quickly entered the Italian lexicon. The four-word phrase has become a Twitter hashtag and Italian media have shown photos of T-shirts bearing the command.
Schettino, later in the same exchange, denied having abandoned the ship, replying that he had tripped and fell.
“I did not abandon a ship with 100 people on board, the ship suddenly listed and we were thrown into the water,” Schettino said, according to a transcript published Wednesday in the Corriere della Sera paper.
Jailed since the accident, Schettino appeared Tuesday before a judge in Grosseto, where he was questioned for three hours. The judge ordered him held under house arrest _ a decision that federal prosecutors are planning to challenge.
Schettino’s lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, told a news conference Wednesday in Grosetto that house arrest made sense given there was no evidence the captain intended to flee. He cited the fact that the captain coordinated the evacuation from the shore after leaving the ship.
“He never left the scene,” Leporatti said. “There has never been a danger of flight.”
Leporatti added the captain was upset by the accident, contrary to depictions in the Italian media that he did not appear to show regret.
“He is a deeply shaken man, not only for the loss of his ship, which for a captain is a grave thing, but above all for what happened and the loss of human life,” the lawyer said.
Criminal charges including manslaughter and abandoning ship are expected to be filed by prosecutors in coming days. Schettino faces a possible 12 years in prison if convicted of the abandoning ship charge alone.
_____
Barry reported from Milan.
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Strikes and demonstrations against Greek austerity measures hit the capital Athens on Tuesday, as international debt inspectors returned to decide whether the country’s reforms are strong enough for it to secure a vital bailout.
The officials from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, which are lending money to Greece to keep it from bankruptcy, are expected to press the government for faster cost-cutting reforms.
Greece’s continued access to bailout loans depends not only on delivery on its austerity promises but also on negotiations with private creditors on a bond swap deal aiming to cut its debt by euro100 billion ($127 billion). It needs to get an agreement soon if it is to secure more rescue loans, with a bond repayment of euro14.5 billion due in late March.
Some 10,000 protesters took part in rallies in central Athens over potential pay cuts in the recession-battered private sector. Anti-austerity strikes in the capital disrupted public transport and other services. Journalist unions also launched a 48-hour strike.
Police said a plain-clothed officer from the anti-terrorism division was beaten and seriously injured by a group of some 30 protesters who took his handgun. The rally was otherwise peaceful.
Under government pressure, unions and employers are due to launch talks Wednesday to explore ways of slashing labor costs. Lower-level members of the debt of the debt inspection team started the talks in Athens on Tuesday, with the mission chiefs due Friday.
Meanwhile, Greece saw its borrowing rates ease marginally in a bill auction on Tuesday. Unable to issue long-term debt due to untenably high borrowing interest rates of 33 percent, the country maintains a market presence through regular treasury bill auctions.
The public debt agency said it raised euro1.625 billion ($2.06 billion) in a sale of 13-week treasury bills, an interest rate of 4.64 percent, compared with 4.68 percent in the last such auction in December.
Demand for the bills was 2.90 times the amount on offer, roughly the same as last month.
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European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said Standard & Poor
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U.K. factory output prices unexpectedly fell in December for the first time in 18 months as the cost of petroleum products such as gasoline plunged.
The cost of goods at factory gates declined 0.2 percent from November, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Annual price growth slowed to 4.8 percent, the least in a year. On the month, economists had forecast a 0.1 percent gain in December, according to the median of 17 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.
Declines in prices for commodities such as oil may ease inflation pressure in the economy as producers and manufacturers pass lower costs onto consumers. The Bank of England, which maintained its bond-purchase target at 275 billion pounds ($422 billion) yesterday, has forecast that consumer-price growth will ease
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America’s retailers enjoyed a record 2011 and their first $400 billion sales months ever. But the final month of the year was a dud.
Sales eked out a 0.1 percent increase in December, lifting sales to a seasonally adjusted $400.6 billion.
It was the second straight month that sales have topped $400 billion. The government revised November sales to show a 0.4 percent gain, twice the original estimate.
For all of 2011, sales totaled a record $4.7 trillion. That was a gain of nearly 8 percent over 2010 _ the largest percentage increase since 1999.
Steady sales gains have fueled a 20 percent surge from the low during the Great Recession. Monthly sales are even 6 percent above their pre-recession high. The figures confirm evidence that the economy was strengthening as 2011 ended.
Still, December’s increase was the weakest in seven months. Excluding volatile auto purchases, overall sales actually fell 0.2 percent. It was the first such drop since May 2010.
Part of the reason was lower gasoline prices. Those prices reduced sales at gasoline stations by 1.6 percent. Excluding gas stations, overall retail sales would have risen 0.3 percent in December.
Another factor was heavy discounting during the holiday shopping season. Many retailers said they had to offer cut prices in December to attract shoppers.
Separately, more people applied for unemployment benefits last week, the government said. Applications rose 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 399,000. But the gain was largely due to companies letting go of workers after the holiday season.
Economists downplayed the increase. It followed three months of declines that had reduced the number of unemployment applications to their lowest level in more than three years.
And businesses increased their stockpiles in November to meet rising consumer demand. That gain likely boosted economic growth in the final months of 2011. Companies are rebuilding stockpiles after cutting them last summer amid fears of another recession. It means many anticipate higher consumer spending.
The government’s report on retail sales showed that holiday discounts weakened department store sales. They fell 0.2 percent in December. A broader category that includes department stores like Macy’s and big chains such as Wal-Mart showed an even larger drop last month: 0.8 percent.
Compared with the same time last year, retail sales have risen 6.4 percent.
An earlier survey of 25 major retail chains by the International Council of Shopping Centers found that revenue in December at stores open at least a year rose 3.5 percent over the same month a year ago.
That survey’s figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal changes; the government’s sales figures are. The government report is also a broader gauge. It covers purchases at all retailers, not just at major national chains. It also includes auto dealerships, restaurants and bars, grocery stores and gasoline stations.
Though December’s retail sales were disappointing, analysts said they still expect consumers to help the economy strengthen further, especially because businesses have stepped up hiring payday loan no faxing. More jobs mean more people with money to spend.
“Although consumer spending is not particularly robust, households do continue to spend and provide moderate support for the overall economy,” said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics.
The strength last month was led by a 1.5 percent jump in auto sales. Furniture store sales rose 1 percent. Hardware stores reported a 1.6 percent increase. But sales at electronics and appliance stores sank nearly 4 percent.
Restaurants and bars fared slightly better over the holidays. Their sales rose 0.7 percent.
The government’s retail sales report is its first look each month at consumer spending, which accounts for roughly 70 percent of economic activity. A healthy report typically signals a stronger economy.
Compared with the same time last year, retail sales have risen 6.4 percent.
This week, the Federal Reserve issued a report saying the final six weeks of 2011 were among the economy’s best last year. The report pointed to higher holiday and auto sales, along with increased travel.
The job market has brightened, too. Employers added 200,000 jobs in December. And the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest in nearly three years.
Many analysts predict that economic growth rose to an annual rate of roughly 3 percent in the final three months of 2011. That would be an improvement from the summer, when the annual rate was just 1.8 percent. And it’s much better than the 0.9 percent growth rate in the first six months of 2011.
For the holiday season, many retailers drew customers by staying open on Thanksgiving Day or offering sharp discounts. Discounting helped generate record sales at the start of the shopping season and in the days before Christmas.
U.S. automakers have said that November and December were their two best sales months in 2011. Their U.S. sales rose 10 percent to 12.8 million in 2011, a 23 percent jump from the recession year of 2009.
Chrysler Group reported sales surged 26 percent for all of 2011. General Motors Co. saw sales rise 13 percent for the year. Ford Motor Co. reported an 11 percent gain for 2011.
Because the government’s retail sales report is seasonally adjusted, the current month can be compared with the previous month. But the figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.
A separate government report each month measures consumer spending. It’s an even more inclusive gauge. It covers all spending at retailers _ for both durable goods like cars that are expected to last for years and nondurable goods such as food.
This report also covers spending on services. Services include items such as doctor’s visits, airline tickets, apartment rentals and utility bills. The service category makes up two-thirds of consumer spending and isn’t covered in the retail surveys.
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