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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Federal extended unemployment benefits for 2 million long-term jobless Americans will run out Nov. 30 unless Congress acts within the next few weeks.

State unemployment benefits run out after 26 weeks, but the unemployed can qualify for up to an additional 73 weeks of jobless benefits from the federal government in times of high unemployment, such as now. The unemployment rate is at 9.6 percent and has been at just under 10 percent all year.

Almost 15 million people are unemployed and about 9.5 million have collected federal jobless benefits in 2010 that average around $290 per week.

Only about 65 percent of working age Americans are participating in the labor force with either a part- or full-time job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure is normally 89 percent or higher.

In addition, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities credits unemployment benefits with keeping about 3.3 million jobless Americans out of poverty last year.

Republicans have blocked extensions of federal jobless benefits several times this year, claiming it would be bad for the economy because it would add to the nation’s deficit.

Lawmakers return to Congress on Nov. 15 to work a week before taking a break for Thanksgiving. If jobless benefits are extended, it must be done then or benefits will expire on Nov. 30, leaving unemployed workers without a check.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – American authorities say packages intercepted overseas contained explosives destined for the United States. President Barack Obama was alerted late Thursday night, according to the White House, and ordered security officials to be on alert.

“Last night, intelligence and law enforcement agencies discovered potential suspicious packages on two planes in transit to the United States,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. Based on close cooperation among U.S. government agencies and with our foreign allies and partners, authorities were able to identify and examine two suspicious packages, one in East Midlands, United Kingdom and one in Dubai.”

“Both of these packages originated from Yemen. As a result of security precautions triggered by this threat, the additional measures were taken regarding the flights at Newark Liberty and Philadelphia International Airports,” Gibbs added.

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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates David Rosenberg – Economic growth is returning to the Middle East, but not quite at the pace of the go-go years of soaring oil prices and massive real estate development.

An International Monetary Fund report released Sunday estimated the combined economies of the region stretching from Morocco to Pakistan would expand by 4.2 percent this year, almost double the pace of 2009. They will grow even faster in 2011, with the region clocking an expansion of 4.8 percent.

“We expect most countries in the region to grow faster in 2010 and 2011 than in 2009,” Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, said in a press release.

Although the global financial crisis took down the region’s highest flying economies, most of the Middle East weathered the worst economic contraction well. The world economies shrank 0.6 percent in 2009 as the impact of bad home loans in the U.S. reverberated through the world’s financial markets. In the Middle East, economies continued to expand, albeit at a pokier 2.3 percent pace.

The Middle East’s oil exporters will likely see economic growth pick up to 3.8 percent from 1.1 percent in 2009 as oil prices climb to an average of $76 a barrel, according to the Washington, DC-based IMF. In 2011, the rate of growth will probably accelerate to 5 percent as oil prices average $79 a barrel. Still, that leaves the oil economies growing at a slower pace than in the pre-recession years.

Oil exporters remain too vulnerable to fluctuations in the global price of petroleum, which traded at $82.10 on Friday. While not all Middle East’s big oil exporters are that heavily dependent on oil for economic output, they all rely on oil revenue for half or more of their government budgets.

For the Middle East’s oil importers, the pick-up in growth will be less dramatic. GDP growth will reach 5 percent this year, a 0.4 percentage point improvement over 2009, before slowing to 4.4 percent in 2010, the IMF report said. Egyptian GDP growth will show steady improvement this year and next, although well below the pre-recession rates when growth exceeded 6.5 percent annually. Pakistan, reeling from the impact of floods last summer, will see economic growth slow considerably from previous forecasts.

The IMF report warned that as strong as the recovery has been for the region, it is still not enough to provide jobs for the Middle East’s large and growing population of young people. It estimated that half the population is under age 25 while the average jobless rate in 2008 was 11 percent. For the region to create enough jobs, its combined economy would have to grow 6.5 percent annually over a sustained period, something it has never managed to do.

“There is now a recovery happening in the emerging markets in the region,” Ahmed said at a forum in Dubai. “But they are not growing fast enough to create the jobs they need.”

The Middle East needs 18.5 million jobs over the next decade, about 7 million more than it will create if it keeps to its previous rate of growth, the IMF said, admitting this was a “tall order.”

For all its oil wealth, the Middle East lags behind the world’s emerging economies. Since 1990, GDP has increased 55 percent for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, but the emerging Asian economic powers have boosted their output by 200 percent in the same period, the IMF said. The region’s governments can accelerate economic growth by paring back on government regulation and privatizing state-owned enterprises and liberalizing labor markets. The Middle East also needs to redirect more of its trade from the slower-growth economies of Europe to burgeoning Asia, it said.

Inflation is also rearing up in some Middle East countries, the IMF warned. In Saudi Arabia it accelerated from 3.5 percent in October 2009 to 6.1 percent last August. In Iran, consumer prices were moderating until recently – showing from a 30 percent rise at the end of 2008 to 7 percent a year ago. But they have since begun rising to a 10 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2010, the IMF report said.

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Washington, D,C., United States (AHN) – Financial analysts told a special congressional panel Thursday that corporate executives should have their pay tied more closely to the investment risks of their companies.

Congress is investigating claims that excessive executive compensation contributed to the housing crisis and recession that started in December 2007.

They also are trying to determine how government can intervene to prevent the bad decisions of executives from dragging down the rest of the economy.

“Risk is not a factor in compensation,” Rose Marie Orens, a senior partner at Compensation Advisory Partners consulting firm in New York, told the congressional panel.

Currently, most executives are paid a percentage of a company’s earnings, which can reach into the tens of millions of dollars per year at some large corporations.

However, they do not risk losing their own money when they make decisions that hurt a company or its customers.

The pay system also encourages them to invest money in ways designed to earn a quick profit, according to witnesses before the Congressional Troubled Asset Relief Program Oversight Panel.

An example mentioned during the hearing involved Countrywide Financial Corp., a company that provides mortgages to homebuyers.

Its executives loosened credit terms to allow more people to qualify for home loans. When their personal finances failed, they were unable to pay back the mortgages.

As a result, many of them lost their homes through foreclosure, which contributed to the recession.

Investment firms Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were accused of making similar bad decisions to make credit easily available to customers.

The corporate executives made more money for themselves by extending the easy credit, but they also dragged down the nation’s economy.

“Has any executive of Bear Stearns lost their health care and had to go to an emergency room to get it,” asked Damon Silvers, a member of the congressional panel.

“Not to my knowledge,” said Kevin Murphy, finance chairman at the University of Southern California Business School.

The Bush administration appointed a “special master” to develop recommendations on how corporate executives are paid.

The recommendations from Kenneth Feinberg, the special master, include requiring corporate executives to accept a base pay that is consistent with salaries of other management employees.

Any incentive compensation they receive would be only in the form of corporate shares.

They would be forbidden by the Securities and Exchange Commission from selling the shares for a period of years.

A delay of years before they could sell stock would discourage them from trying to win quick profits for their companies that reflect bad business decisions, Feinberg said.

In addition, their retirement benefits – sometimes called “golden parachutes” – would be more limited.

Feinberg also recommended a bigger role for the Securities and Exchange Commission in monitoring executive pay, which now is determined almost exclusively by the corporations.

“I don’t think we approve anyone’s pay package – maybe one or two people – over $10 million,” Feinberg said Thursday before the congressional panel.

Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), a member of the panel, said he liked the idea of limiting incentives for executives to company stock rather than cash.

He implied it would make them invest more wisely.

“If the market goes down, they should take the hit,” Kaufman said.

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San Francisco, CA, United States (AHN) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted at a San Francisco forum that Washington is inclined to allow more oil sands from Canada. She made the statement in response to a question from the audience at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

The indication of the potential policy came at a time that TransCanada’s application to extend its Keystone XL pipeline project is still pending. The proposal involves 1,700 miles of pipeline to transport fuel sourced from bitumen from Alberta to Texas, doubling exports to as much as 900,000 barrels per day.

TransCanada’s proposal is under review by the State Department, which is being hounded by lobby groups to reject the project following the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster this year.

Clinton said the department has not yet finished all the analysis on the TransCanada proposal, but said Washington is inclined toward the project because it’s a choice of being dependent on “dirty oil” from Canada or from the Middle East.

Clinton acknowledged tolerating “dirty oil” is a reality that the U.S. government has to face until it has sufficient clean, renewable energy available to meet the growing demand for power.

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Port Angeles, WA, United States (AHN) – A hiker at the Olympic National Park in Washington State was killed on Saturday after being gored in the thigh by a mountain goat, according to park officials.

Robert H. Boardman, 64, of Port Angeles, was airlifted to the Olympic Medical Center from Klahhane Ridge at 2:47 p.m. but was pronounced dead on arrival. Park rangers later shot dead the mountain goat, which had been observed to be aggressive.

Boardman, his wife, Susan Chadd, and their friend, Pat Willits, had stopped for lunch at an overlook when a goat appeared. Boardman told Chadd and Willits to leave before trying to shoo away the goat.

The goat gored Boardman, who then fell unconscious. Bill Baccus, a park ranger, arrived at the scene and shooed away the goat. His wife then tried to resuscitate the injured Boardman to no avail.

At 1:23 p.m., park rangers called the Coast Guard. The rescuers arrived with a helicopter around 1:51 p.m. and found Boardman without a pulse. The Coast Guard crew also performed CPR on the victim, who never regained consciousness.

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Port Angeles, WA, United States (AHN) – A hiker at the Olympic National Park in Washington State was killed on Saturday after being gored in the thigh by a mountain goat, according to park officials.

Robert H. Boardman, 64, of Port Angeles, was airlifted to the Olympic Medical Center from Klahhane Ridge at 2:47 p.m. but was pronounced dead on arrival. Park rangers later shot dead the mountain goat, which had been observed to be aggressive.

Boardman, his wife, Susan Chadd, and their friend, Pat Willits, had stopped for lunch at an overlook when a goat appeared. Boardman told Chadd and Willits to leave before trying to shoo away the goat.

The goat gored Boardman, who then fell unconscious. Bill Baccus, a park ranger, arrived at the scene and shooed away the goat. His wife then tried to resuscitate the injured Boardman to no avail.

At 1:23 p.m., park rangers called the Coast Guard. The rescuers arrived with a helicopter around 1:51 p.m. and found Boardman without a pulse. The Coast Guard crew also performed CPR on the victim, who never regained consciousness.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – An anti-sexting technology patent submitted by Apple has been approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Originally filed in 2008, the technology prevents users from sending or receiving “objectionable” text messages.

Although it’s not specifically called an anti-sexting feature, the patent’s official title “Text-based communication control for personal communication device” will give parents that specific control as a feature.

Parents worried about the messages their children are receiving and potentially sending can now have a type of “big brother” watchdog installed.

The technology “evaluates whether or not the communication contains approved text based on, for example, objective ratings criteria or a user’s age or grade level, and, if unauthorized, prevents such text from being included in the text-based communication,” according to the patent description.

Additionally, “If the control contains unauthorized text, the control application may alert the user, the administrator or other designated individuals of the presence of such text. The control application may require the user to replace the unauthorized text or may automatically delete the text or the entire communication.”

Sexting is a growing problem in adolescent age-groups and Apple is notorious for its vehement measures to keep X-rated content off the iPhone and other devices such as the iPad.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The nation’s largest bank, Bank of America, on Friday halted foreclosures in all 50 states, becoming the first major bank to take that action.

Bending to mounting political pressure, Bank of America (BAC) announced it would stop all foreclosure proceedings and pending sales of homes indefinitely. It had taken that action last week in 23 states that require court approval for foreclosures.

At issue is the practice of beginning the foreclosure process using so-called “robo-signers,” people who signed hundreds or thousands of documents every day without reviewing the details of any foreclosure.

Bank of America announced it would begin a nationwide review of all its foreclosures. The bank services about 14 million mortgages and approximately 14 percent of those loans are past due or in foreclosure.

The bank announced it would resume foreclosures once its review was complete, but also said that so far bank officials had found that their assessments in mortgages sent for foreclosure was accurate.

Mortgage lenders have been under investigation by the federal government and the attorneys general in several states for sloppy and inaccurate foreclosures. U.S. lawmakers on Friday called on other mortgage lenders to follow Bank of America’s action.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The last labor report before the mid-term elections showed that the United States economy lost 95,000 jobs in September. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.6 percent.

Job losses were higher than economists expected. However, most of the job losses came as government entities shed employees, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued Friday.

Government employment declined by 159,000 jobs as the federal government shed 77,000 of the remaining temporary Census workers and cash-strapped local governments around the country shed 76,000 permanent employees. Some of those job losses were offset by an increase of 64,000 private sector jobs, which meant the economy only lost 95,000 jobs net.

The labor force participation rate of working-age Americans remained unchanged at 64.7 percent of the total labor force. In normal times, about 89 percent of the labor force has employment.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also revealed that:

• The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose by 612,000 over the month to 9.5 million. Over the past 2 months, the number of such workers has increased by 943,000. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
• About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in September, up from 2.2 million a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
• Among the marginally attached were 1.2 million discouraged workers in September, an increase of 503,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

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