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
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.
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.
European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said Standard & Poor
Republican Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and Bob Corker of Tennessee criticized the Federal Reserve for overstepping its role by making policy recommendations on how the U.S. government should try new ways to spur the housing market.
Hatch, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said the housing study sent by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to Congress last week, along with recent Fed speeches,
U.S. stock futures are falling Thursday as the European debt crisis again becomes the key driver of market sentiment.
Stock markets in London, Germany and France have all declined. The euro has dropped to a 15-month low against the dollar.
The concern in the markets has centered on the state of Europe’s banks following UniCredit’s announcement Wednesday that it was selling new shares at a large 69 percent discount to Tuesday’s closing price.
Banks are an integral part of the debt crisis because they hold government bonds. A default or steep fall in the value of government bonds could inflict heavy losses on banks and choke off credit to the European economy. That’s why regulatory authorities want Europe’s banks to raise their buffers by euro115 billion (149 billion) over the next few months. The worry in the markets is that banks will have to offer sharp discounts to raise the funds.
U.S. economic reports have the potential to shift sentiment. Key releases later Thursday include the Institute for Supply Management’s monthly survey of the services sector as well as indicators on the pace of hiring in the private sector.
The latter may affect market expectations for Friday’s closely-watched nonfarm payrolls data for December. The figures often set the market’s tone for a week or two after their release. The expectation is that the U No teletrak payday loan.S. economy generated around 150,000 jobs during December.
Positive economic news propelled U.S. stocks to a big rally on Tuesday. Those gains held Wednesday as automakers reported strong sales in December.
Less than two hours before trading opens in New York, futures on the Dow Jones industrial average are down 55 points to 12,301. Futures for the broader S&P 500 index have fallen 7 points to 1,266.
European stocks fell, though most indexes remained higher for the year so far. Germany’s DAX was down 0.7 percent at 6,066 while the CAC-40 fell 1 percent to 3,163. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.7 percent lower at 5,629.
Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 percent to close at 8,488.71. South Korea’s Kospi index lost 0.1 percent at 1,863.74, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.5 percent to 18,813.41. Benchmarks in Singapore and Taiwan were also higher.
Mainland China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 1 percent to 2,148.45, its lowest level in almost three years. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 3.5 percent to 813.99. More than 100 companies plunged to the daily limit of 10 percent.
U.K. shopper numbers fell yesterday as discounting and mild weather failed to entice cost-conscious Britons to spend, according to market researcher Experian Footfall.
Visits to shops and malls fell 0.7 percent on Dec. 27, compared to the Tuesday after Christmas last year, Experian Footfall said by e-mail. Shopper numbers surged 21.5 percent on Boxing Day, Dec. 26, with extended hours helping boost business limited last year by Sunday trading restrictions. The four-day U.K. holiday weekend ended on a Tuesday in both 2010 and 2011.
Stores including Debenhams Plc (DEB), the U.K.
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