Tag Archives: U.S.
Afghanistan war marks 10th year quietly
Kabul, Afghanistan (AHN) – Friday marks the 10th year of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. The milestone will pass quietly. There was little observance by U.S. troops still in Afghanistan who just weeks earlier celebrated the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
There is not much to celebrate or commemorate. More than 2,700 troops from the United States and its partners have died during the 10 years of war, according to a CNN count. Of those, 1,780 were American.
During the decade-long war, two landmark events occurred. The Taliban has been forced out of power and Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy Seals.
Since the conflict began, the number of casualties has risen every year with a significant increase from 2008 to 2009. At least 296 coalition troops died in 2008. The number nearly doubled to 517 in 2009, the year President Obama authorized a surge of 33,000 U.S. forces to Afghanistan to combat the violence.
In 2011, plans were outlined to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, beginning with pulling the 33,000 surge troops out by the end of 2012, and the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014. The move was followed by withdrawal announcements by most NATO nations.
The Afghanistan war was once viewed as a necessity by a majority of Americans. It has now become widely unpopular as U.S. concerns have turned to the ailing economy and high unemployment. And many in Afghanistan are equally disappointed, saying they don’t see any changes in their country.
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European debt crisis heats up U.S. presidential rhetoric on economy
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The New York Stock Exchange closed up but the Nasdaq was down Thursday as fears continue that the European debt crisis is getting out of control.
A default among major European countries is likely to drag down the U.S. economy too, possibly into another recession, according to economists.
The risk to the U.S. economy is bringing warnings from President Barack Obama and becoming part of the campaign rhetoric of his opponents in the 2012 presidential race.
Obama said during a cross-country tour this week to promote his job creation proposals that Europe’s debt crisis is “scaring the world.”
He is urging European leaders to move quickly to resolve their debt problems.
He blamed setbacks this year for the U.S. recovery on international turmoil, such as European debt and Arab Spring uprisings that drove up oil prices.
Europe’s biggest unknown is Greece, where the government is seeking a bailout from the European Union as its debt rises.
The 17 member nations are considering enlarging the European Financial Stability Facility, a fund that would provide bailout loans and financial incentives when any one of the Union’s economies stumbles.
Finland voted this week to enlarge the fund, which would require each European Union country to contribute more money.
However, all of the member countries must approve the proposal before the fund could be enlarged.
“They have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced,” Obama said during a speech in Mountain View, Calif. “It is now being compounded with what is happening in Greece.”
China joined the United States during a recent International Monetary Fund meeting to encourage the European Union to control its debt crisis.
“So they are going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world and they are trying to take responsible actions but those actions haven’t been quite as quick as they need to be,” Obama said.
The United States exports about $240 billion in goods to Europe each year but imports about $320 billion.
Many of the jobs in Obama’s $447 billion job creation proposal depend on a strong import-export market with Europe.
With unemployment stuck at around 9.2 percent, Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and give tax breaks to employers who hire more workers.
“The income of folks at the top has gone up exponentially over the last couple of decades while the incomes of the middle class have flat lined over the last 15 years,” Obama said.
Republican presidential candidates, such as Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, are skeptical of Obama’s proposal because of the tax increase for the highest income earners. They say it would hurt job creation.
Economists are saying saving the U.S. economy could depend heavily on what European leaders decide in the next few days.
Before they can take decisive action, European leaders must reach agreement.
However, leaders from the most economically powerful countries – such as Germany – risk losing popular support if they make too many concessions to help out weaker neighbor nations, according to economists.
Meanwhile, as the euro loses value on international markets, American investments in Europe are weakening.
Their business losses eventually could mean fewer American jobs.
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U.S. reassess Drug War aid to Mexico
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The threat to the United States from Mexican drug cartels is increasing as they evolve into a wider variety of crimes, witnesses at a congressional hearing said Tuesday.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee held the hearing to consider new strategies against drug cartels as the three-year Merida Initiative expires this year.
The initiative is a treaty signed by the United States and Mexico to combat drug cartels. The U.S. government agreed to contribute $1.5 billion toward the effort.
“We need to re-address what it is we want to accomplish,” said Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mexico’s war against drug cartels started in December 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered troops to help police fight the gangs.
About 40,000 people have been killed in the drug war. The worst violence has been reported in Ciudad Juarez, just across a bridge from El Paso, Texas.
Calderon said the cartels threatened Mexico’s self-rule by bribing, intimidating or killing government officials and police.
Some of the same concerns were raised Tuesday during the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
Mack called the drug cartel violence “a well-funded criminal insurgency raging along our southern border, threatening the lives of U.S. citizens and harming the U.S. economy by undermining legal business.”
He proposes a comprehensive U.S. effort against the cartels that combines efforts of the Treasury Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and State Department.
He also wants to double the number of Border Patrol agents along the Mexican border.
Witnesses from among the academic institutions and public policy organizations said Mexico’s judicial system needs to be strengthened against gang influence.
“Their wealth gives them the power to corrupt public officials and potentially influence election outcomes,” Pamela K. Starr, director of the U.S.-Mexico Network said in her testimony.
The State Department has been working on a strategy that would shift more U.S. government aid to police in Mexico’s northern states, which are crisscrossed with drug smuggling routes.
William Brownfield, an assistant secretary of State who oversees illegal drug issues, has been meeting with federal, state and local law enforcement personnel in Mexico in recent days to discuss new counter-insurgency strategies.
Brownfield called the drug cartels “transnational organizations” that Mexico cannot stop by itself. He spoke during a press conference in Mexico City last week.
Until now, much of the U.S. government Merida Initiative money has been dedicated to equipping and training the Mexican military.
However, some U.S. diplomats say funding and military equipment is hard to trace to successful efforts against drug cartels. The equipment has included military helicopters and surveillance devices.
Aid to Mexico’s northern border police would be more effective in preventing drug and arms smuggling, Brownfield said.
“This is where most of the cartels have focused their activities,” Brownfield said.
A stepped-up pace of U.S. government assistance also is creating controversy in Mexico, where some politicians express concerns publicly that their sovereignty is threatened.
The complaints reached a crescendo this summer amid media reports about Operation Fast and Furious.
The more than year-long operation by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives involved allowing smugglers to take guns illegally into Mexico so they could be traced to drug lords.
However, Mexican police say the guns also were traced to at least 170 violent crimes in Mexico, including murders. Politicians on both sides of the border said the law enforcement operation was irresponsible.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns tried to address the Mexicans’ concerns about being squelched by their northern neighbor during a press conference last week in Mexico City.
“We do not engage in law enforcement activities,” Burns said. “What we do is to help, consistent with the wishes of the Mexican authorities… So we take a very practical approach, but we follow the lead of the Mexican authorities and try to provide the support that they need most and that contributes most to our common cause.”
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Bernanke plays diplomat on next Fed moves, cautions Congress
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – There was a recovery in the stock market with indicators closing on a slightly higher level after dipping earlier as Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke on Friday reiterated his views that the next round of efforts to goad the economy on track are now out of the purview of the Fed.
Addressing a select audience at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference Bernanke urged Congress and the Obama Administration to work on the next steps to keep the ongoing feeble recovery on track and not let the recession take over.
Bernanke criticized U.S. lawmakers not only for their failure to do needful to generate jobs but also for their political bickering over the debt limit in the recent times.
Mincing no words, the Fed Chairman cautioned the lawmakers, “The negotiations that took place over the summer disrupted financial markets and probably the economy as well, and similar events in the future could, over time, seriously jeopardize the willingness of investors around the world to hold U.S. financial assets or to make direct investments in job-creating U.S. businesses.”
“Although the issue of fiscal sustainability must urgently be addressed, fiscal policy makers should not, as a consequence, disregard the fragility of the current economic recovery,” Bernanke said.
“Acting now to put in place a credible plan for reducing future deficits over the longer term, while being attentive to the implications of fiscal choices for the recovery in the near term, can help serve both objectives,” suggested Bernanke.
On the range of possible measures the Fed can take, Bernanke said, “The Federal Reserve has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus.”
Referring to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting next month, the Fed Chair said, “We discussed the relative merits and costs of such tools at our August meeting. We will continue to consider those and other pertinent issues, including of course economic and financial developments, at our meeting in September.”
“The Committee will continue to assess the economic outlook in light of incoming information and is prepared to employ its tools as appropriate to promote a stronger economic recovery in a context of price stability,” hoped the Fed Chair.
Citing that the U.S. “economy is suffering today from an extraordinarily high level of long-term unemployment, with nearly half of the unemployed having been out of work for more than six months,” Bernanke said, “policies that promote a stronger recovery in the near term may serve longer-term objectives as well.”
For the short term, Bernanke suggested, “putting people back to work reduces the hardships inflicted by difficult economic times and helps ensure that our economy is producing at its full potential rather than leaving productive resources fallow.”
“In the longer term, minimizing the duration of unemployment supports a healthy economy by avoiding some of the erosion of skills and loss of attachment to the labor force,” the Fed Chair said.
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U.S. economy grew at tepid 1.9% during first quarter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The United States economy grew at a slow 1.9 percent pace during the first quarter of the year a slowdown in growth that Federal Reserve policy makers hope will only be a temporary.
In contrast, the economy grew at a more robust 3.1 percent rate in the previous quarter. Still the 1.9 percent figure was better than the 1.8 percent rise in gross domestic product predicted for the first quarter by government officials last month.
Real gross domestic product is the total output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the U.S.
“The increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), private inventory investment, exports, and nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by negative contributions from federal government spending and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased,” the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis said in a statement.
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Jobless claims stay above 400,000 mark for ninth consecutive week
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – New unemployment claims remain stubbornly high at 427,000 for the week ending June 4, which were 1,000 more than the previous week.
Economists generally agree that initial claims for unemployment compensation insurance must drop below the 400,000 mark weekly and stay there before there is a recovery in the jobs sector of the United State’s economy. But claims have been stuck above that mark for nine weeks now.
Although the nation officially came out of recession two years ago, so far the economic recovery has been limited to the financial services sector of the economy with the jobs and small business sectors still struggling.
The U.S. only created 54,000 jobs last month, which is well below the 200,000 jobs the economy needs to create monthly just for first time workers. In addition, competition for jobs is stiff. With only 3 million openings nationwide, there are at least 4.6 jobless Americans for every available job.
Moreover, the less volatile four-week moving average for first time jobless claims is still stuck above the 400,000 mark at 424,000, a small decrease of 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 426,750, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending May 21, the latest week for which such data is available, fell slightly to 7,601,344, down by 89,233 from the week before.
However, that does not necessarily mean those people found jobs. Jobless benefits limits can end before a person finds work. In addition, that is more likely to happen in the future as many states move to cut the number of weeks a jobless worker can collect unemployment compensation insurance payments.
 
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Treasury Yields Approach This Year’s Low on Europe Debt Concern
Treasury yields approached the lowest level this year on speculation Europe’s debt crisis is getting worse and the U.S. economy is weakening.
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Japan envoy thanks U.S. for postdisaster help in Congress+
Two groups of mostly male youths dressed in the colors of the former rivals in a bitter early-1990s war chanted slogans and yelled insults at each other near a lawn area where a giant television …
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Chaplains: Troops may fear sharing beliefs on gays
A group of 21 organizations that provide chaplains to the U.S. military is asking the Department of Defense or Congress to guarantee that troops will not be punished if they openly discuss their objections to homosexuality with their chaplains. Read comments
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