Business and Finance

Two European Union leaders have called on the upcoming G-20 summit of wealthy and developing countries to build on EU plans to stabilize the debt-burdened eurozone and further boost the global recovery.

EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso wrote in a letter to G-20 leaders that there was “continued need for joint action” to get the world economy back on track.

A three-pronged deal reached last Thursday by the EU appears to have met expectations for some kind of major action, and stock markets rallied in Europe and around the world in response. The EU plan retools the eurozone’s underpowered bailout fund, calls on banks to take 50 percent losses on Greek bonds, and orders them to raise euro106 billion ($150 billion) in new capital by June.

The buoyant mood could be shortlived if G-20 leaders do not use their summit in Cannes, France, on Thursday and Friday to build on those achievements, the two leaders said in their letter payday loans online.

“Whilst we in Europe will play our part, this cannot alone ensure global recovery and rebalanced growth. There is a continued need for joint action by all G20 partners,” the letter, sent out on Saturday, said.

“More needs to be done at the global level. Many of the distortions underlying the large pre-crisis imbalances are still to be addressed,” the two warned.

U.S. President Barack Obama has already said the European plan to tackle the its debt crisis would have an impact on the U.S. economy, but stopped short of saying whether it would be enough to prevent another global recession.

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The complex network of flood defenses erected to shield Thailand’s capital from the country’s worst floods in nearly 60 years was put to the test early Saturday as coastal high tides hit their peak. No major breaches were immediately reported.

Fear gripped Bangkok early in the day as tides along the Gulf of Thailand crested at about 9 a.m. and pushed the city’s main waterway, the Chao Phraya river, to its brink. Overflows so far have lightly inundated riverside streets from Chinatown to the famed Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

But the white-walled royal Grand Palace was dry, less than 24 hours after being ringed by ankle-deep water, and the landmark remained open to tourists. Many visitors carried parasols to protect themselves from the blistering sunshine.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said in her weekly radio address that floodwaters that had wreaked havoc to provinces north of Bangkok in the last several weeks had started to recede, and she urged citizens to let the crisis take its course.

“We have the good news that the situation in the central region has improved as runoff water gradually decreased,” she said. “I thank people and urge them to be more patient in case this weekend is significant because of the high tide.”

She also said that the government had implemented a plan to accelerate the drainage rate and that water in the greater Bangkok area should recede by the first week of November.

Meanwhile, the streets of downtown Bangkok _ the country’s financial heart _ were bone-dry and bustling with taxis, restaurant-goers and tourists snapping pictures. But the city remained in peril, as high tides along the gulf were expected to crest again late in the day, threatening to obstruct the flood runoff from the north. The government also is worried major barriers and dikes could break.

Also on Saturday, the government’s Flood Relief Operations Center was forced to move its headquarters from its base at Don Muang airport, which is used mostly for domestic flights, to a government building nearby after a power transformer malfunctioned. Authorities were forced to shut down the airport this week after floodwaters rushed in.

On Friday, saffron-robed monks and soldiers piled sandbags outside the capital’s most treasured temples and palaces as the Chao Phraya swelled precariously beyond its banks. Most of the water receded at low tide, but worried Bangkokians were buying up bright orange lifejackets and inflatable boats, fearing the worst is yet to come.

“You have to prepare,” said Fon Kanokporn, a banker who bought a rubber boat from a store that had several hanging from trees out front as advertisements.

Employees at the shop said they had sold well over 3,000 boats in the last week. The brisk business is a measure of the fear gripping Bangkok and a reflection of the tragedy of neighboring provinces that have been submerged for weeks. Several buyers said they needed boats because their submerged homes outside the capital were no longer accessible by road.

Three months of relentless monsoon rains have caused the worst flooding in Thailand in more than half a century, triggering a national crisis that has overwhelmed Yingluck’s government online payday loans.

The water has crept from the central plains south toward the Gulf of Thailand for weeks, engulfing a third of the country and killing nearly 400 people and displacing 110,000 more. Now, Bangkok is in the way _ surrounded by behemoth pools of water flowing around and through the city via a complex network of canals and rivers.

On Friday, army trucks dumped thousands of sandbags outside the riverside Siriraj Hospital, where Thailand’s ailing and revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej has stayed since 2009.

Elsewhere along the Chao Phraya, dozens of monks at the 200-year-old Temple of the Dawn stacked hundreds more along a secondary barrier to protect against river overflows.

“It’s likely going to get higher, but I don’t think its going to get high enough to cause chaos,” said Phramaha Abhin, a 42-year-old monk. Still, he said, “we cannot neglect the risk to this temple. It’s one of the country’s landmarks, one of the things Thailand is known for. We have to protect it.”

The State Railway of Thailand said all train services from Bangkok to southern Thailand were suspended after the tracks in Bangkok’s suburbs were submerged by floodwaters.

Thais and expatriates alike continued to leave Bangkok as foreign governments urged their citizens to avoid the threatened city, citing transportation difficulties and shortages of certain food items.

Seven of Bangkok’s 50 districts _ all in the northern outskirts _ are heavily flooded, and residents have fled aboard bamboo rafts and army trucks and by wading through waist-deep water. Eight other districts have seen less serious flooding.

New flooding was reported Friday in the city’s southeast when a canal overflowed in a neighborhood on the outer parts of Sukhumvit Road. And high tides briefly touched riverside areas closer to the city’s central business districts of Silom and Sathorn. But the day passed without major incident.

“It is clear that although the high tides haven’t reached 2.5 meters (8.2 feet), it was high enough to prolong the suffering of those living outside of the flood walls and to threaten those living behind deteriorating walls,” Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra said.

The flood walls protecting much of the inner city are 8.2 feet high, and Saturday’s high tide was expected to reach 8.5 feet (2.6 meters).

International charity Save the Children said it was concerned that crocodiles and snakes were lurking in stagnant floodwaters it said are growing filthier by the day.

“Every day we see children playing in the water, bathing or wading through it trying to make their way to dry ground,” said Annie Bodmer-Roy, the group’s spokeswoman in Thailand.

The aid group said many families have been left without access to running water or clean toilets.

“There is a very real risk of waterborne or communicable diseases such as diarrhea and skin infections taking hold if families can’t maintain basic standards of hygiene,” Bodmer-Roy said. “It is essential that the risks facing children in this crisis are understood and steps taken to keep them safe.”

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MetLife Inc. says its net income increased tenfold in the third quarter, boosted largely by its acquisition of Alico last year.

The nation’s biggest life insurer says it earned $3.55 billion, or $3.33 per share, in the three months ended Sept. 30. That’s compared with $286 million, or 32 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned $1.11 per share. Analysts had forecast a profit of $1.05 per share, according to FactSet.

The New York company said total international sales more than doubled as a result of its acquisition of American Life Insurance, or Alico, from American International Group Inc. last year.

Alico operates in more than 50 countries and was expected to help MetLife expand in Japan, Europe and Latin America.

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Canada

Forecasters say Tropical Storm Rina has formed in the Caribbean Sea off the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua and could become a hurricane by Tuesday.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center reports Monday that the storm’s center is located about 190 miles (305 kilometers) southwest of Grand Cayman.

It has maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (72 kph) and is moving northwest near 6 mph (9 kph).

Forecasters expect Rina to gain strength in the next two days and say it could become a hurricane by Tuesday night. The storm is forecast to bring at least an inch of rain along the northeast coast of Honduras and at least 2 inches of rain over the Cayman Islands.

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WASHINGTON

World stock markets rose Friday, putting aside concerns that European leaders might not come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the region’s chronic debt crisis in time for a weekend summit.

Oil prices hovered above $86 per barrel and the dollar was higher against the euro but dipped against the yen.

European shares were higher in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.5 percent to 5,411.82. Germany’s DAX was 0.6 percent higher at 5,802.16 and France’s CAC-40 added 1 percent to 3,115.71. Wall Street was set to open higher, with Dow Jones industrial futures up 0.1 percent at 11,482 and S&P 500 futures 0.1 percent higher at 1,211.50.

Asian gains were muted after a sluggish start of the trading day.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed little changed at 8,678.89. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.2 percent to 18,025.72. South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.8 percent to 1,838.38 and benchmarks in Singapore and Taiwan also rose.

Thailand’s SET index was up 0.5 percent to 914.08, clawing back some of Thursday’s losses even as the country’s capital Bangkok braced for the possibility that floodwaters will defeat a network of barriers and inundate the city.

Mainland Chinese shares lost ground, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.6 percent to 2,317.28, its lowest close in 31 months. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.6 percent to 959.12. Shares in financials led gains while shares in glass and nonferrous metals weakened.

Worries that Europe’s troubles could get worse have kept markets on edge for weeks, and analysts said the volatility could continue for the near future.

“What you see now is one day of gains and one day of losses,” said Tom Kaan of Louis Capital Markets in Hong Kong. “With what has been happening in the world, there is still no confidence and I think this will continue to the end of the year.”

The Greek government is widely expected to go through some kind of default or restructuring of its debt, which could deliver a severe blow to an already weak European economy.

Signs of a modest economic uptick in the U.S. helped boost shares of Japanese exporters that count on American consumers for sales. Yamaha Motor Corp. rose 2.7 percent and Panasonic Corp. was 1.6 percent higher.

Heavy equipment shares also rose. Japan’s Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. gained 1.2 percent and South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. added 2.2 percent.

But shares of Japanese automotive giants Honda Motor Corp. and Toyoto Motor Corp. slipped after severe flooding forced a halt to their assembly lines in Thailand. Honda fell 0.4 percent and Toyota, 0.2 percent.

Samsung Electronics Co. rose 1.4 percent after the company announced it had surpassed Apple Inc. in smartphone sales in the July-September quarter. Yonhap news agency cited Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung’s mobile division, as estimating that the company had shipped more than 20 million smartphones in the third quarter.

Wall Street trading was choppy as talks in Europe appeared to falter because of differences between Germany and France over how to protect European banks from the consequences of a default.

A messy default by Greece could lead to deep losses for European banks that hold Greek debt. If that causes them to pull back on lending to each other, it could cause another freeze in global credit markets like the one in late 2008 after Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Wall Street rose slightly Thursday on news that a second summit meeting would take place next week after it became clear that France and Germany would not be able to bridge their difference in time for Sunday’s meeting.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 0.3 percent to close at 11,541.78. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.5 percent to 1,215.39. The Nasdaq composite lost 0.2 percent to 2,598.62.

But analysts cautioned investors to rein in expectations of a solution to Europe’s debt crisis.

“Whether this Sunday’s EU Summit can live up to investor expectations remains to be seen … the precedent set by previous summits already bodes ill for detailing of any new policy initiatives,” Credit Agricole CIB wrote in a research note.

Sunday’s summit was supposed to deliver a comprehensive plan to finally get a grip on the currency union’s debt troubles. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday they needed more time after it became clear that the two countries disagreed on some key points of the plan.

Benchmark crude for December delivery was up 16 cents at $86.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 22 cents to settle at $86.07 in New York on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3721 from $1.3777 late Thursday in New York. The dollar fell to 76.70 yen from 76.85 yen.

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Heralding a splash of good news on jobs, President Barack Obama on Wednesday praised a series of companies that have promised to hire 25,000 veterans or military spouses within two years, calling it a sign of patriotism and business savvy. He pushed his economic agenda anew to a military audience, this time with first lady Michelle Obama at his side.

“We ask you to fight, to sacrifice, to risk your lives for your country,” Obama told an audience of thousands of people at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. “The last thing you should have to do is fight for a job when you come home. Not here. Not in the United States of America.”

In this military setting, Obama’s pitch for his jobs bill was far less partisan than it has been across his bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia. He didn’t target at length the Republican lawmakers who have voted against his plan, promising more broadly to keep pushing Congress to pass a bill that’s now been broken into pieces.

The president’s day-long swing through Virginia does, however, have deep political undertones. Obama won the traditionally Republican-leaning state in 2008, but his poll numbers here are down, and some of the state’s high-profile Democrats are staying away from the president’s events.

The final day of Obama’s bus tour had a different feel primarily because the Obamas were together as the president campaigned for his ideas and, in turn, for his re-election. The president and Mrs. Obama made a surprise stop at a roadside pumpkin patch, scooping up some orange and white pumpkins, apples and peanuts.

Then they stopped for lunch at Anna’s Pizza and Italian Kitchen, having a meal with four veterans from different parts of the nation who had attended the earlier event at the base.

In their comments, Obama and the first lady both sought to assure veterans and their families that the country was behind them and that employers are, too. The American Logistics Association, which includes major companies like Tyson Foods Inc. and Coca-Cola Co., is pledging to hire 25,000 people by the end of 2013.

Michelle Obama called it the largest coordinated effort by the private sector to hire veterans that the nation has seen in years.

Mrs. Obama is leading a national campaign to rally the country around its veterans.

The president said that every company should want to hire veterans because of their leadership experience, mastery of cutting-edge technology and other skills. Obama is asking Congress to approve separate tax credits worth thousands of dollars for businesses that hire veterans who’ve been out of work for at least six months, including those with disabilities free 3-in-1 credit report.

As Obama has been traveling, lawmakers back in Washington were taking the first steps to break his nearly $450 billion jobs bill into pieces for possible votes. It’s the only way elements of the measure stand a chance of passing, given that Senate Republicans blocked action on the full package last week.

The bus trip has given the president the opportunity to promote elements of his jobs plan in places the White House says would benefit most should the measures pass.

Obama has spoken at high schools and community colleges where the administration says new spending would prevent teacher layoffs, as well as a small, regional area airport near Asheville, N.C., where Obama pressed for government funds to renovate an outdated runway.

Wednesday’s stops were following a similar pattern.

Obama has proposed a Returning Heroes tax credit of up to $5,600 for businesses that hire unemployed veterans who have been out of work for six months or more, as well as a Wounded Warriors tax credit of nearly $10,000 for unemployed veterans with service-related disabilities who also have been looking for work for at least six months.

“When I first proposed this idea in a joint session of Congress, people stood up and applauded on both sides of the aisle,” Obama said about tax credits to encourage hiring of veterans. “So when it comes for a vote in the Senate, I expect to get votes from both sides of the aisle. Don’t just applaud about it. Vote for it.”

Obama was on his way to North Chesterfield, Va., where he was to speak at a local fire station. He was returning to Washington later Wednesday.

Republicans have criticized Obama’s bus trip as being more focused on selling the president’s re-election than solving the country’s economic woes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday: “”Let’s park the campaign bus, put away the talking points, and do something to address this jobs crisis.”

Top Virginia Democrats, including Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, are not expected to appear with the president Wednesday, nor is Tim Kaine, the former governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who is running to replace the retiring Webb.

However, Virginia’s popular Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell did meet with the president Wednesday morning at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

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Scratch the Timbits the next time you order that double-double. How about a nice slab of lasagna instead?

Tim Hortons announced Monday it

The United States has raised the tempo in its war against al-Qaida in Yemen, killing nine of the terror group’s militants in the second, high-profile airstrike in as many weeks. The dead in the late Friday night strike included the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, the prominent American-Yemeni militant killed in a Sept. 30 strike.

Yemeni officials on Saturday attributed the recent U.S. successes against al-Qaida to better intelligence from an army of Yemeni informers and cooperation with the Saudis, Washington’s longtime Arab allies.

The successes come even as Yemen falls deeper into turmoil, with President Ali Abdullah Saleh clinging to power in the face of months of massive protests. Saturday saw the worst bloodshed in weeks in the capital, Sanaa: At least 18 people were killed when Saleh’s troops fired on protesters and clashed with rivals. Witnesses estimated up to 300,000 people joined Saturday’s demonstrations, the largest in the capital in several months.

“Everyone with interests in Yemen, including al-Qaida and the Americans, is raising the stakes at this time of uncertainty” said analyst Abdul-Bari Taher. “The Americans are wasting no time to try and eliminate the al-Qaida threat before the militants dig in deeper and cannot be easily dislodged.”

Also dead in the Friday airstrike in the southeastern province of Shabwa was Egyptian-born Ibrahim al-Banna, identified by the nation’s Defense Ministry as the media chief of the Yemeni branch of the al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch is known, is considered by the U.S. the most dangerous of the terror network’s affiliates after it plotted two recent failed attacks on American soil. Its fighters and other Islamic militants have taken advantage of Yemen’s chaos to seize control of several cities and towns in a southern province. That has raised American fears they can establish a firmer foothold in the strategically located country close to the vast oil fields of the Gulf and overlooking key shipping routes.

The U.S. airstrikes in Shabwa pointed to Washington’s growing use of drones to target al-Qaida militants in Yemen. The missile attacks appear to be part of a determined effort to stamp out the threat from the group.

Yemeni officials familiar with the U.S. military drive against al-Qaida in Yemen said a shift of strategy by the Americans was finally yielding results, with human assets on the ground directly providing actionable intelligence to U.S. commanders rather than relying entirely on Yemen’s security agencies the Americans had long considered inefficient or even suspected of leaking word on planned operations.

They said there were as many as 3,000 informers on the U.S. payroll around the country _ some without even knowing it.

The Saudis, on the other hand, have traditionally kept an elaborate patronage system and an information network in Yemen, their neighbor to the south. They have for decades paid monthly stipends to key tribal leaders, military commanders and politicians to secure their loyalty. They also paid ordinary Yemenis to provide them with intelligence.

“The Saudis are making their information available to the Americans,” said one of the defense officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information. “Both them and the Americans are broadening their cooperation without direct Yemeni involvement.”

Tribal elders in the area where Friday’s strikes took place said the dead included Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki, the 21-year-old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim preacher and savvy Internet operator who became a powerful al-Qaida recruiting tool in the West and who was on a U one hour payday loan.S. capture-or-kill list. The elder al-Awlaki and another propagandist, Pakistani-American Samir Khan, were killed in the Sept. 30 srike.

The tribal elders, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals, said four other members of the al-Awlaki clan and another local militant were also killed in the same drone attack. There was no immediate confirmation of the younger al-Awlaki’s death from Yemeni authorities.

Security officials said the strike was one of five carried out overnight by American drones on suspected al-Qaida positions in Shabwa and neighboring Abyan province in Yemen’s largely lawless south. They said two more militants were killed and 12 wounded in other strikes in the two provinces.

The first strike late Friday targeted a house in the Azan district of Shabwa, but hit just after al-Qaida militants had a meeting in the building, security officials and tribal elders said.

They said a second strike then targeted two sport utility vehicles in which the seven were traveling, destroying the vehicles and leaving the men’s bodies charred. It was not clear whether other participants in the meeting were targeted in separate strikes.

Yemen’s al-Qaida offshoot has taken advantage of the political turmoil roiling the country. Saleh, who has ruled the country for more than 30 years, has been struggling to stay in power in the face of eight months of massive street protests demanding his ouster and the defection to the opposition of key aides and military commanders.

In Sanaa, forces loyal to Saleh opened up on protesters with assault rifles and anti-aircraft guns, medical officials and witnesses said. The casualty figures _ 12 dead and up to 300 wounded _ were confirmed by Mohammed al-Qubati, director of the field hospital set up at Change square, the name given to a central Sanaa intersection that saw the birth of the eight-month-old, anti-Saleh uprising.

The medical officials requested anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to journalists.

In Sanaa’s northern district of Hassaba, fighting between Saleh’s forces on one side and anti-regime tribesmen and renegade troops on the other killed two civilians and four supporters of tribal chief Sadeq al-Ahmar, a one-time regime ally who defected to the opposition in March. At least 13 people were wounded in the fighting.

A three-story building housing an independent TV station, Al-Saeedah, in the area took a direct hit, destroying the channel’s equipment and studios, according to a statement by the management. The privately-owned station went off the air.

Khaled al-Ansi, a prominent leader of the protest movement, blamed the death of the proetsters on opposition parties, arguing that their acceptance of a U.S.-backed settlement plan proposed by Yemen’s Gulf Arab neighbors gave Saleh license to kill protesters at will. The plan provides for the Yemeni leader to step down and hand over power to his deputy in exchange for immunity.

“The political parties are participants in the killings,” said al-Ansi. “The immunity from prosecution is giving Saleh a temptation to kill more of us.”

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