Finance & Business World

Kevin O

TORONTO

A Shanghai subway train crashed into another that was stopped underground Tuesday afternoon, injuring more than 210 people in the latest trouble for the rapidly expanded transportation system in China’s commercial center.

The crash occurred after Shanghai Shentong Metro Group blogged that line 10 was having delays due to equipment problems. Line 10 opened just last year as one of the city’s newest subways.

At least 212 people were hurt, three seriously, the metro operator said. It said none had life-threatening injuries, though some of the injured were carried away on stretchers.

One train rammed into the back of another that was stopped. Reports said problems with signaling equipment had prompted the line to switch to manual operations.

The trains were relatively crowded when they crashed between stations downtown in midafternoon. Photos posted online by passengers showed some of the injured covered in blood and lying on the floor of the train.

Firemen helped evacuate the approximately 500 passengers on the trains, taking them out through emergency exits and walking them through the subway tunnel.

The crash snarled downtown traffic as police blocked roads to clear the way for ambulances, and hundreds of gawkers gathered to watch as passengers were escorted from the subway.

Shanghai, a city of 23 million, has rapidly expanded its subways in recent years and some lines have seen problems with faulty signaling, windows shattering, doors not opening properly and poorly trained train operators.

Shanghai’s No. 10 line was among several opened last year that were built hastily ahead of the 2010 World Expo, which brought more than 72 million visitors to the eastern city.

Source

WASHINGTON

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has withdrawn his slate of directors for consumer products company Clorox’s board, ending a proxy fight.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Icahn said he continues to think the best way to maximize shareholder value is through a sale of the company. He also said that he has concluded that most shareholders don’t support the idea.

Icahn, known for shaking up struggling companies, has proposed to either sell the company or buy it himself, which Clorox has dismissed as not credible. In August, Icahn said he wanted to install himself and 10 other directors on the company’s board. Clorox makes salad dressing, beauty and cleaning products and other consumer products.

Clorox shares fell $2.60, or 3.8 percent, to $66.80 in aftermarket trading.

Source

Tropical Storm Hilary is quickly strengthening in the Pacific south of Mexico and could soon become a hurricane.

Hilary’s maximum sustained winds early Thursday are near 70 mph (110 kph). The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Hilary could become a hurricane later in the day and could become a major hurricane by Saturday.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for Mexico’s coast from Lagunas de Chacahua to Punta San Telmo. A tropical storm watch is in effect for west of Punta San Telmo to Manzanillo.

Hilary is centered about 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southeast of Punto Maldonado, Mexico, and is moving west-northwest near 9 mph (15 kph).

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Ophelia’s winds have increased to 65 mph (100 kph) but it’s expected to begin weakening.

Source

Greece’s finance minister has started new talks with international debt inspectors on reforms the debt-crippled country must implement to keep receiving rescue loans.

The finance ministry says the teleconference between Evangelos Venizelos and officials from the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank _ collectively known as the troika _ started late Tuesday.

Venizelos, who held a first call with the troika officials Monday, has to convince them that Greece’s delayed reform and cutback program is viable.

If so, the country will receive the next euro8 billion ($11 billion) installment of the bailout that has been keeping it solvent since May 2010. Otherwise, Greece’s cash reserves will run out around mid-October, forcing a chaotic bankruptcy.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) _ Greek authorities, in a bid to prevent a potentially disastrous default, will try to convince international creditors on Tuesday that their debt-ridden country will meet the strict budget targets required to keep getting rescue loans.

Markets are fairly hopeful that Greece will receive the next euro8 billion ($10.9 billion) installment of its bailout, without which the country would go bankrupt next month, plunging Europe’s banking system into turmoil.

The talks will be held by teleconference between Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and officials from the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, collectively known as the troika.

Though stocks were up on expectations some deal would be struck, most analysts think the country will have to restructure its debts at some point, especially if the economy remains mired in recession. Fitch Ratings said in a report Tuesday that it expected Greece to eventually default, but to do so while remaining in the eurozone.

Some experts believe the country will have to drop out of the 17-nation euro, a notion Venizelos dismissed.

“Greece’s participation in the eurozone and the euro is an irrevocable and fundamental national choice that the Greek population is making sacrifices to safeguard, in full knowledge of how priceless it is,” Venizelos told journalists, rejecting a Greek newspaper report that the government was considering a referendum on the issue.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has likewise had to quell fears of a euro break-up, a scenario elected officials in her own government speculated about last week, roiling financial markets.

Prime Minister George Papandreou plans to meet Merkel next week during a visit to Berlin, a German government official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting hasn’t yet been announced officially, said the two would talk on the sidelines of the Federation of German Industries’ annual meeting on Sept. 27.

Since May 2010, Greece has been dependent on a euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout from other eurozone countries and the IMF to continue servicing its debt and to pay salaries and pensions. Without the next installment, the country only has enough funds to see it through mid-October.

The funds had been expected in September, but the country’s creditors have said a decision on whether to disburse the funds will not be made until early October.

A first teleconference between Venizelos and the troika Monday night was “productive and substantive,” the Finance Ministry said.

Inspectors from the IMF, ECB and Commission suspended their quarterly review of the country’s progress earlier this month, amid talk of missed targets and delayed implementation of reforms.

The Socialist government has already taken a series of austerity measures, cutting public sector pay and pensions and hiking taxes. Unions have responded with strikes and demonstrations.

Hundreds of civil servants demonstrated peacefully in central Athens, while about 250 high school students marched in a separate protest against shortages in schoolbooks and other supplies at state-run schools. Public transport workers have called for a daylong strike Thursday, while air traffic controllers have declared a 24-hour strike Sunday and a four-hour work stoppage on Sept. 28.

Efforts so far have proved to be not enough to tackle the country’s severe debt crisis. In July, European countries agreed to extend a second bailout, worth euro109 billion, to Greece. However, the details of the second rescue package, which includes voluntary bond rollovers, have still to be worked out.

On Monday, the IMF representative in Greece, Bob Traa, said Greece needed to speed up its reforms in tax collection and reduce the size of the overmanned public sector.

Ahead of Tuesday’s teleconference, Venizelos was attending a parliamentary committee meeting, at which the director of Greece’s Statistical Authority has been summoned to testify after a member of the outgoing agency’s board claimed budget deficit figures in 2009 were miscalculated, inflating the annual figure. A judicial investigation has been launched into the claims.

“As a result of our actions in the past year, the agency has experienced a strong recovery in confidence regarding its international reputation,” Andreas Georgiou, director of the Greek Statistical Authority, said at the committee hearing.

The European Commission’s representative office in Athens issued a statement saying the EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat, had published the reviewed Greek 2009 deficit figures “without reservations” last November.

____

Geir Moulson in Berlin, David McHugh in Frankfurt and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed.

Source

Rawlings

Headquarters

Seeking to protect local industry, the Brazilian government is sharply raising taxes on imported cars and trucks under a decree published Friday in the country’s Federal Register.

The measure initially announced at a news conference Thursday increases the industrialized products tax by 30 percentage points on vehicles that fail to meet rules about local content.

The new rates range from 37 percent to 55 percent, depending on a variety of factors such as vehicle and engine types. This is on top of import duties and other importing costs.

The decree has exemptions for companies that meet six of 11 new rules about local content. The rules include having at least 65 percent of their vehicles’ parts made in Mercosur countries, investing significantly in research or doing most of their assembly work in Brazil.

The measure is meant to protect Brazil’s domestic industry, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Thursday.

“We are the fifth largest vehicle market in the world and the seventh largest producer, but we might lose our position if we don’t take measures,” Mantega said in Brasilia.

The duties take effect in two months.

Source

The Associated Press emphasized its efforts to strengthen state news reports and investigative and accountability journalism in its annual presentation to media executives Thursday.

AP leaders told the members of the Associated Press Media Editors that the news cooperative continues to beef up state news reports, despite staff reductions and budget pressures shared with the industry.

The news cooperative is continuing its “Broken Budgets” multimedia series launched this year. The joint reporting project with AP members expands statehouse coverage to explore cutbacks in state budgets. The series has examined dozens of aspects of state finances, from spending on roads and schools to the nuts-and-bolts of how states borrow and spend.

The AP has also changed staffing in some areas to expand early morning news.

“We have to take that breaking news and drive it faster than we ever had before,” said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor and a senior vice president for the AP.

The AP also told media executives that the company has expanded state photo reports and reaffirmed its commitment to investigative journalism, highlighting an award-winning “Aging Nukes” series that detailed problems at U.S. nuclear plants.

AP leaders said the company has never placed a higher priority on accountability journalism, putting a greater emphasis on seeking public records and fact-checking claims by political candidates and public officials. Across the company, AP staffers filed some 1,500 requests for public documents last year, said Kristin Gazlay, AP vice president and managing editor for financial news and global training.

Political editor Liz Sidoti said the AP is bulking up analysis pieces to check statements by politicians, at times assigning a dozen reporters to scrutinize facts at a single presidential debate fast cash advance loan. She told news executives to expect more analysis to guide political coverage, especially as politicians step up claims about the economy.

Sidoti said the cooperative considers its top assignment over the coming to year to cover “the economy intersecting with the presidential campaign.”

She predicted a lively year.

“We’re all going to have a very competitive presidential race to cover next year,” Sidoti said.

AP Director of Photography Santiago Lyon told the executives that increased cooperation has meant many more photos in the U.S.

Lyon said domestic photo transmissions were up 9 percent in the second quarter of this year. He also said AP is better sharing photo coverage plans with members to avoid overlap.

“We continue to make good progress toward increasing the quality, and the volume, of the state photo reports,” he said.

AP also presented a good-natured look at its famed AP Stylebook, created in 1953 and the definitive style guide for publishers in all formats. AP in the last year added a new guide on food and recipes to its 2011 Stylebook, and quizzed media executives on some of the year’s style changes.

Every hand in the room went up to identify the correct style on “email.” The editor of the AP Stylebook, David Minthorn, said it was the best-known style change of the year.

“It was the dropped hyphen heard by copy editors around the world,” he said.

Source