Amit Shah, former Gujarat home minister, gets BJP ticket

NEW DELHI: Former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah, accused in the Soharabuddin Sheikh and Tulsi Prajapati staged shootout cases, will contest in the upcoming state assembly elections.

Shah will contest from Naranpura in Ahmedabad.

His name features in the second list of candidates released by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the capital Wednesday.

Shah won last time from Sarkhej assembly constituency with a margin of over 2.50 lakh votes.

After delimitation, Sarkhej is now divided into three constituencies -- Vejalpur, Ghatlodia and Naranpura.

Shah is a close aide of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

In September, Shah had returned to Gujarat after a gap of two years, following the Supreme Court judgment allowing him to re-enter the state. The apex court rejected the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) plea to cancel the bail granted to Shah in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh staged shootout case.

Since his return to Ahmedabad, Shah had been keeping a low profile. He has stayed away from public functions, and does not interact with the media.

The CBI has, in its charge sheet, named Shah the prime accused in the Tulsi Prajapati staged shootout case.

Acting on a petition filed by Shah, the Supreme Court had stayed all proceedings in the Prajapati case.

Besides Shah, other high-profile names in the second list of BJP candidates for the Gujarat assembly polls are: Social Justice and Empowerment minister Fakirbhai Vaghela, from Vadgam (Banaskantha); Health & Family Welfare Minister Jaynarayan Vyas, from Sidhpur (Patan); Education Minister Ramanlal Vora, from Idar (Sabarkantha); and Anandiben Patel from Ghatlodiya (Ahmedabad).

The list has named candidates for 89 of 95 seats that will see polling in the second phase Dec 17.

Six candidates would be named later.

Among the BJP leaders attending the meeting which preceded the release of the list were BJP Parliamentary Party chairman L.K. Advani, Leader of Opposition (Lok Sabha) Sushma Swaraj, and Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha) Arun Jaitley, besides members of the Central Election Committee of the party.

The meeting was presided over by party president Nitin Gadkari.

The two-phase Gujarat assembly elections will be held Dec 13 and 17.

Counting of votes will take place Dec 20.

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CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.

Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns

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Susan Rice Made Allies, Enemies Before Benghazi













United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, on Capitol Hill this week answering questions about her role after the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, has become yet another player in the divide between the left and right, with her possible nomination as the next Secretary of State hanging in the balance.


But who was Susan Rice before she told ABC's "This Week" and other Sunday morning shows the attack was a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam film and not a premeditated act of terror? Four Americans died in the September attack.


Unlike many in government, Rice holds a rare claim to Washington, D.C.: she's a local. She hails from a prominent family with deep ties to the Democratic Party. She was born Nov. 17, 1964 to Emmett Rice, a deputy director at the Treasury Department who served as a member of Jimmy Carter's Federal Reserve board, and Lois Dickson Rice, a former program officer at the Ford Foundation who is now a higher education expert at the Brookings Institution.








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As a high school student at the all-girl National Cathedral School in Washington, Rice was known as an overachiever; valedictorian, star athlete and class president. After graduating high school in 1982, she went on to study history at Stanford, where she graduated as a Truman scholar and junior Phi Beta Kappa. Rice also attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.


The family has roots in Maine. In an interview with the Portland Press Herald in 2008, Lois Dickson Rice said that she held the same high expectations for her children as her mother had held for her. According to the paper, Ambassador Rice's drive to achieve spanned generations. Her maternal grandmother, an immigrant from Jamaica, was named Maine State Mother of the Year in 1950. Rice's father was only the second African-American man to be chosen for the Federal Reserve board.


Two years out of Stanford, Rice joined Massachusetts Democrat Michael Dukakis as a foreign policy aide during his 1988 run for president. After his defeat, Rice tried her hand in the private sector, where she went on to work as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company. After President Clinton's election in 1992, she joined Clinton's National Security Council, eventually joining her mentor, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.


A profile of the diplomat from Stanford paints the Rices and Albrights as old family friends.


"The Rice and Albright kids went to school together and shared meals at Hamburger Hamlet," Stanford Magazine reported in 2000.




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Egypt protests continue in crisis over Mursi powers

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of demonstrators were in Cairo's Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday to demand that President Mohamed Mursi rescind a decree they say gives him dictatorial powers, and two of Egypt's top courts stopped work in protest.


But in a move that one Muslim Brotherhood official said could help resolve the worst crisis of Mursi's five-month presidency, the assembly drawing up a new constitution said it would complete work on a final draft on Wednesday.


The official said the final draft could go to a popular referendum by mid-December. If approved it would cancel the constitutional declaration that extended Mursi's powers and sparked street protests that drew tens of thousands on Tuesday. Brotherhood and other Islamists have called for a rally backing the president on Saturday.


"We will start now and finish today, God willing," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the constituent assembly speaker, said at the start of a meeting to finalize drafting the constitution.


Three assembly members said a vote on the draft by the assembly was planned for Thursday.


Many liberals and other opponents of Mursi have walked out of the constituent assembly, which is dominated by Islamists, saying their voices are not being heard.


Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a popular referendum within 15 days, which could mean the plebiscite would be held by mid-December.


The move immediately drew scorn from leading Egyptian opposition figure Amr Moussa, a former Arab League chief.


"This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.


Adding to the tension, Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.


The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mursi's autocratic predecessor Hosni Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge. The decree also protected the constituent assembly from judicial oversight, fending off court cases that call for it to be dissolved.


DEPTH OF ANGER


"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed in Tahrir. He has not had a job for two years and is one of many in the square who are as angry over economic hardship as they are about Mursi's actions.


"We want the scrapping of the constitutional declaration and the constituent assembly, so a new one is created representing all the people and not just one section," he said.


Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.


In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.


"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.


Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.


Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.


The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length. The United States, a big donor to Egypt's military, has called for "peaceful democratic dialogue".


Two people have been killed in violence since the decree, while low-level clashes between protesters and police have gone on for days near Tahrir. Violence has flared in other cities.


Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.


That should limit it to issues such as declaring war, but experts said there was much room for interpretation. The judges themselves are divided, and the broader judiciary has yet to back the compromise. Some have gone on strike over the decree.


A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.


One presidential source said Mursi wanted to re-make the Supreme Constitutional Court after it declared the parliament void, which led to its dissolution by the then ruling military.


Both Islamists and their opponents broadly agree that the judiciary needs reform, but Mursi's rivals oppose his methods.


(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Will Waterman)


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Portuguese lawmakers clear biting 2013 austerity budget






LISBON: Bailed-out Portugal's lawmakers gave final approval Tuesday to a 2013 budget imposing an unprecedented austerity squeeze even as protesters massed outside.

The budget, aimed at saving 5.3 billion euros ($6.9 billion), passed easily with the support of the centre-right government, which has an absolute majority.

The government says the plan, which relies on higher taxes for 80 percent of the savings, is vital to Portugal's recovery.

"The state budget for 2013 is a determined step on the road to recovery," Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said. But "the risks and uncertainties surrounding the 2013 budget year are great."

Delivering a rare dose of good news, Gaspar said Portugal would enjoy easier bailout repayment conditions.

Portugal and Ireland had the right to the same conditions as Athens, which won lower interest rates and longer repayment terms in a deal struck in the early hours of the morning to avert a Greek bankruptcy, he said.

Portugal's new budget stipulates a broad rise in income tax to 14.5 percent for the most vulnerable and 48 percent for the most wealthy. It also reduces the number of tax brackets from eight to five, with the tax rate in each band raised by 3.5 percentage points.

Unemployment benefits are sliced by five percent and sickness payments by six percent.

"We have to finish with this policy before it finishes with us!" declared one banner unfurled at a rally outside parliament called by the main union, the General Federation of Portuguese Workers.

Protesters aimed their fire at the "troika" of creditors behind Portugal's 78 billion euro ($101 billion) bailout: the International Monetary Fund, European Union and European Central Bank.

"We say no to the troika and its policies!" said one banner carried by activists, while others declared: "It's robbery, it is the people who pay!" and "Salaries frozen, future mortgaged!"

The tight-fisted budget has sparked multiple street protests including one on November 14 that degenerated into clashes between baton-wielding police and stone-throwing demonstrators.

The main opposition Socialist Party has opposed the budget, saying the austerity policies are "exaggerated", even though it was in power when Lisbon sought the rescue in May 2011.

While recognising the enormous sacrifices by his compatriots, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho says austerity policies are the only path to economic recovery.

With its draconian budget, the government expects to trim the annual budget deficit to the equivalent of 4.5 percent of gross domestic product next year from a target of 5.0 percent in 2012.

The budget-trimming efforts come as the economy is expected to shrink three percent in 2012, with a jobless rate already nearing 16 percent.

Slumping in the polls, Passos Coelho said on the eve of the parliamentary vote that he has "no problem facing up to unpopularity".

"The government must know how to go against the current," the premier said, adding that he would rather "guarantee the future of Portugal than receive applause".

The Portuguese leader has won significant international support for the budget.

On a visit two weeks ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seen as a symbol of budgetary rigour, encouraged him along the path.

One week later, the troika of creditors unlocked a sixth instalment from the bailout, satisfied that Lisbon was abiding by their strict conditions.

Passos Coelho says he plans to save another four billion euros over two years through a "reform of the state" to be presented to the troika in February 2013.

-AFP/ac



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Two senior Zee journalists arrested on extortion charges

NEW DELHI: Two senior journalists of Zee news channel were arrested here today on charges of trying to extort Rs 100 crore from Congress MP Naveen Jindal's group for not doing news reports on coal scam linking his firm.

The arrests on charges of extortion came following the registration of a case about 45 days ago on a complaint filed by Jindal's company with Delhi Police's Crime Branch.

Sudhir Chaudhary, the head of Zee News, and Samir Ahluwalia, head of Zee Business, have been arrested, a senior police official said.

Jindal had last month released a CD in which purportedly showed footage in which the Zee journalists were trying to strike a deal with his company officials, telling them that their channel will not air negative stories of Jindal Group if the money is paid to them.

Chaudhary had rubbished the allegations as "fabrication" and described it as "pressure tactics" to prevent the channel from doing such stories.

"We have done a series of stories on coal scam based on official papers. This is a retaliation to our relentless campaign against corruption," he had said.

Jindal Power and Steel Ltd (JPSL) Chairman Naveen Jindal had earlier claimed that the Zee executives had demanded Rs 20 crore for four years and they secretly filmed the meetings.

They later raised the demand to Rs 100 crore for not broadcasting stories against the company in relation to allocation of coal blocks, he claimed.

JSPL is among the companies named in the CAG report as one of the beneficiaries of the controversial coal block allocations.

In a retaliatory move, Zee News had last month sent a Rs 150 crore defamation notice to the Congress MP, who too had filed a Rs 200 crore case against the media conglomerate claiming the TV channel had tried to extort money from his company.

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Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar

CHICAGO (AP) — They may be a big hit at kids' birthday parties, but inflatable bounce houses can be dangerous, with the number of injuries soaring in recent years, a nationwide study found.

Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.

The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.

The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses — from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.

"I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries," said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.

Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.

More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.

"There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk," he said.

Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.

The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.

Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.

A group that issues voluntary industry standards says bounce houses should be supervised by trained operators and recommends that bouncers be prohibited from doing flips and purposefully colliding with others, the study authors noted.

Bounce house injuries are similar to those linked with trampolines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against using trampolines at home. Policymakers should consider whether bounce houses warrant similar precautions, the authors said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

Trade group: http://www.naarso.com

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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GOP Senators More Troubled After Rice Meeting















Three Republican senators who met Tuesday with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice say they are more troubled now over her initial explanations about the deadly Sept. 11 raid in Libya.



Rice met behind closed doors Tuesday with Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte — three of her harshest critics.





Ayotte said Rice told them that her national television description that a spontaneous demonstration triggered the attack on the U.S. consulate was wrong. She had made the comments five days after the raid based on intelligence information.



The lawmakers said the Obama administration still must answer questions about the attack.



Obama is considering Rice as a successor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.



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Greece, markets satisfied by EU-IMF Greek debt deal

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Greek government and financial markets were cheered on Tuesday by an agreement between euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund to reduce Greece's debt, paving the way for the release of urgently needed aid loans.


The deal, clinched at the third attempt after weeks of wrangling, removes the biggest risk of a sovereign default in the euro zone for now, ensuring the near-bankrupt country will stay afloat at least until after a 2013 German general election.


"Tomorrow, a new day starts for all Greeks," Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told reporters at 3 a.m. in Athens after staying up to follow the tense Brussels negotiations.


After 12 hours of talks, international lenders agreed on a package of measures to reduce Greek debt by more than 40 billion euros, projected to cut it to 124 percent of gross domestic product by 2020.


In an additional new promise, ministers committed to taking further steps to lower Greece's debt to "significantly below 110 percent" in 2022.


That was a veiled acknowledgement that some write-off of loans may be necessary in 2016, the point when Greece is forecast to reach a primary budget surplus, although Germany and its northern allies continue to reject such a step publicly.


Analyst Alex White of JP Morgan called it "another moment of ‘creative ambiguity' to match the June (EU) Summit deal on legacy bank assets; i.e. a statement from which all sides can take a degree of comfort".


The euro strengthened, European shares climbed to near a three-week high and safe haven German bonds fell on Tuesday, after the agreement to reduce Greek debt and release loans to keep the economy afloat.


"The political will to reward the Greek austerity and reform measures has already been there for a while. Now, this political will has finally been supplemented by financial support," economist Carsten Brzeski of ING said.


PARLIAMENTARY APPROVAL


To reduce the debt pile, ministers agreed to cut the interest rate on official loans, extend the maturity of Greece's loans from the EFSF bailout fund by 15 years to 30 years, and grant a 10-year interest repayment deferral on those loans.


German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Athens had to come close to achieving a primary surplus, where state income covers its expenditure, excluding the huge debt repayments.


"When Greece has achieved, or is about to achieve, a primary surplus and fulfilled all of its conditions, we will, if need be, consider further measures for the reduction of the total debt," Schaeuble said.


Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said ministers would formally approve the release of a major aid installment needed to recapitalize Greece's teetering banks and enable the government to pay wages, pensions and suppliers on December 13 - after those national parliaments that need to approve the package do so.


The German and Dutch lower houses of parliament and the Grand Committee of the Finnish parliament have to endorse the deal. Losing no time, Schaeuble said he had asked German lawmakers to vote on the package this week.


Greece will receive 43.7 billion euros in four installments once it fulfils all conditions. The 34.4 billion euro December payment will comprise 23.8 billion for banks and 10.6 billion in budget assistance.


The IMF's share, less than a third of the total, will be paid out only once a buy-back of Greek debt has occurred in the coming weeks, but IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the Fund had no intention of pulling out of the program.


Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann welcomed the deal but said Greece still had a long way to go to get its finances and economy into shape. Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger told reporters the important thing had been keeping the IMF on board.


"It had threatened to go in a direction that the IMF would exit Greek financing. This was averted and this is decisive for us Europeans," he said.


The debt buy-back was the part of the package on which the least detail was disclosed, to try to avoid giving hedge funds an opportunity to push up prices. Officials have previously talked of a 10 billion euro program to buy debt back from private investors at about 35 cents in the euro.


The ministers promised to hand back 11 billion euros in profits accruing to their national central banks from European Central Bank purchases of discounted Greek government bonds in the secondary market.


BETTER FUTURE


The deal substantially reduces the risk of a Greek exit from the single currency area, unless political turmoil were to bring down Samaras's pro-bailout coalition and pass power to radical leftists or rightists.


The biggest opposition party, the hard left SYRIZA, which now leads Samaras's center-right New Democracy in opinion polls, dismissed the deal and said it fell short of what was needed to make Greece's debt affordable.


Greece, where the euro zone's debt crisis erupted in late 2009, is proportionately the currency area's most heavily indebted country, despite a big cut this year in the value of privately-held debt. Its economy has shrunk by nearly 25 percent in five years.


Negotiations had been stalled over how Greece's debt, forecast to peak at 190-200 percent of GDP in the coming two years, could be cut to a more bearable 120 percent by 2020.


The agreed figure fell slightly short of that goal, and the IMF insisted that euro zone ministers should make a firm commitment to further steps to reduce the debt if Athens faithfully implements its budget and reform program.


The main question remains whether Greek debt can become affordable without euro zone governments having to write off some of the loans they have made to Athens.


Germany and its northern European allies have hitherto rejected any idea of forgiving official loans to Athens, but European Union officials believe that line may soften after next September's German general election.


Schaeuble told reporters that it was legally impossible for Germany and other countries to forgive debt while simultaneously giving new loan guarantees. That did not explicitly preclude debt relief at a later stage, once Greece completes its adjustment program and no longer needs new loans.


But senior conservative German lawmaker Gerda Hasselfeldt said there was no legal possibility for a debt "haircut" for Greece in the future either.


At Germany's insistence, earmarked revenue and aid payments will go into a strengthened "segregated account" to ensure that Greece services its debts.


A source familiar with IMF thinking said a loan write-off once Greece has fulfilled its program would be the simplest way to make its debt viable, but other methods such as forgoing interest payments, or lending at below market rates and extending maturities could all help.


German central bank governor Jens Weidmann has suggested that Greece could "earn" a reduction in debt it owes to euro zone governments in a few years if it diligently implements all the agreed reforms. The European Commission backs that view.


The ministers agreed to reduce interest on already extended bilateral loans in stages from the current 150 basis points above financing costs to 50 bps.


(Additional reporting by Annika Breidhardt, Robin Emmott and John O'Donnell in Brussels, Andreas Rinke and Noah Barkin in Berlin, Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by David Stamp)


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Obama drafts in Geithner to crack budget impasse






WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has made Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lead White House negotiator in budget talks with Congress aimed at averting the fiscal cliff, a report said Monday.

The Wall Street Journal said Geithner was viewed on Capitol Hill as a straight-shooter who had a better chance of brokering a deal than Jacob Lew, Obama's former budget chief who has burnt his bridges with some Republicans.

If no deal is reached before the end of the year, a poison pill law of tax hikes and massive spending cuts, including slashes to the military, comes into effect with potentially catastrophic effects for the fragile US economy.

The report said Geithner, who is preparing to leave his post as treasury secretary early in Obama's second term, has spent months already preparing for the fiscal talks, which will begin this week in earnest in Washington.

Geithner will be joined by White House budget and tax experts, including Lew, now Obama's chief of staff, and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, the Wall Street Journal said.

They will try to hammer out an elusive compromise with congressional aides but final decisions will be made by political leaders such as Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner, the report said.

In recent days, several leading Republicans have indicated a willingness to accept a deal that includes more revenue from ending loopholes in the tax code in return for cuts in funding to Democrats' beloved welfare programs.

Geithner, 51, is not affiliated with any party and has spent his career in government finance and on the political sidelines.

He first joined the Treasury at age 27. When George W. Bush became president in 2001, he went to work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Monetary Fund.

At 42, he was tapped to be head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, considered the Fed's second-most influential post because the New York bank interacts directly with a powerful constituency that includes Wall Street.

Despite holding high office in the years leading up to the 2008 financial collapse, when regulatory authorities are accused of having been asleep at the wheel, he was tapped by Obama to lead the recovery.

Upon assuming office in early 2009, he was charged with overseeing two major bailout packages worth more than $1.5 trillion and aimed at shoring up the country's distressed banking sector.

The administration has said that the stimulus, while costly, averted another Great Depression, while conservative critics have branded it a costly expansion of government that has failed to revive the economy.

- AFP/fa



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