Obama arrives in Indonesia, final stop on 9-day trip to Asia-Pacific region

BALI, Indonesia — Obama arrives in Indonesia, final stop on 9-day trip to Asia-Pacific region

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Eyewitnesses state Somali police shot one person dead and wounded two at a distribution of food aid in the capital.

Witness Abdulkhadir Abdi states police fired to control unruly crowds at a camp for displaced families in Mogadishu’s Wadajir district.

Witness Ali Muhummad states one man was killed and two others wounded in Thursday’s incident. He states the police also looted some of the food themselves. Many police have not been paid in months and the weak U.N.-backed government is unable to control its own security forces. Fatal shootings and looting at food distributions are common.

Two people were killed in separate incidents within the past week at distributions by Turkish aid agencies.

The U.N. declared parts of war-ravaged Somalia famine zones in July.

GENEVA — The U.N. weather bureau states La Nina conditions re-emerged in August and will likely continue through the rest of 2011 and into early next year.

The La Nina phenomenon is characterized by cooler sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, greater rainfall in the southern Pacific, and dry conditions in parts of east Africa, southwest Asia and the southern United States.

The World Meteorological Organization states La Nina conditions could strengthen to “moderate intensity” but probably will be considerably weaker than the most recent ones linked to flooding and drought in parts of the world.

La Ninas — the opposite of El Ninos — normally trigger some extremes, such as flooding in Australia and drought in Texas.

BERLIN — Germany’s justice minister is pledging a quick and comprehensive investigation of the crimes of a small band of neo-Nazis and how they managed to operate under the radar of authorities for years, allegedly killing 10 people and robbing a string of banks.

She states “we all have a responsibility to ensure that extreme-right, nationalistic and anti-Semitic groups and networks are not able to again come together.”

The group is suspected of killing eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman over the past decade. Two people have been arrested, and two others died last week in an apparent suicide.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sears Holdings Corp.’s third-quarter loss widened, dragged down by weakness in Canada, declining consumer electronics sales and softer clothing sales at its Kmart stores.

The operator of Sears and Kmart stores reported Thursday that it lost $421 million, or $3.95 per share, for the period ended Oct. 29. A year earlier it lost $218 million, or $1.98 per share.

Removing a pension expense and other items, Sears lost $2.57 per share.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected a smaller loss of $2.29 per share.

CEO Lou D’Ambrosio stated in a statement that the retailer was not satisfied with its performance but that there were some bright spots, such as better sales of clothing at its Sears stores and an nearly 20 percent increase in its domestic on-line business.

Sears and Kmart both saw their gross margin rates drop, with Kmart hurt by more markdowns for clothing and home goods and Sears mostly hampered by reduced margins in its home appliance and consumer electronics categories.

Quarterly revenue slipped 1 percent to $9.57 billion from $9.68 billion, missing Wall Street’s estimate of $9.63 billion.

D’Ambrosio stated the revenue decline was partly due to fewer Sears and Kmart stores being in operation.

The Hoffman Estates, Ill., company stated revenue at its Sears stores open at least a year dipped 0.7 percent and fell 0.9 percent at its Kmart stores. Sears stores were hurt by fewer sales of appliances and consumer electronics, while Kmart stores were hindered by consumers filling more prescriptions with generic drugs as well as a drop off sales of clothing and home goods.

The figure dropped 7.8 percent for Sears Canada.

This metric is a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

The company’s total debt was $4.6 billion as of Oct. 29 compared with $4 billion as of Oct. 30, 2010.

Sears Holdings has more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada.

VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear agency’s most recent resolution on Iran criticizes Tehran’s nuclear defiance, but with language moderate enough to secure Russia’s and China’s support.

Diplomats characterize the document, obtained by The Associated Press, as a compromise. It will be put before the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board over the next two days.

The U.S. and its allies had sought to deliver tougher demands for Iran to begin cooperating with an International Atomic Energy Agency probe of allegations that Tehran is secretly working on nuclear arms. But Russia and China were opposed to any overtly harsh document.

The resolution expresses “serious concern” over Iran’s defiance of the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA’s board. Those two bodies want Tehran to stop activities that could be used to make nuclear arms and grant a probe of its alleged secret weapons work.

Submited by jessica - Comment RSS 2.0 - leave a comment - trackback

Recent Posts

Tag clouds

Partner