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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

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An official says remains of several victims of a jetliner crash on the slopes of an Indonesian volcano have been airlifted to the capital for identification.

Search teams who climbed the near-vertical volcano face have been struggling to retrieve the bodies of the 45 people who were aboard the Russian-made Sukhoi Superjet-100 that crashed during a demonstration flight for potential buyers.

Search and rescue agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso said a thick fog that had shrouded the slopes finally lifted Saturday, allowing helicopters to land.

Prakoso says the aircraft brought four body bags with remains to Jakarta.

There is still no sign of the black box recorder that might explain why the jetliner crashed about halfway into Wednesday’s 50-minute flight.

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

MOUNT SALAK, Indonesia (AP) _ Search teams who scaled a volcano’s steep slopes found at least 12 bodies Friday near the wreckage of a Russian-made jetliner that crashed in Indonesia during a demonstration flight for potential buyers, an official said.

All 45 aboard the Sukhoi Superjet-100 that crashed Wednesday are feared dead.

“Today we have discovered 12 victims, all dead,” Rear Marshal Daryatmo, head of the national search and rescue agency, told reporters Friday.

Many of the bodies found Friday had been torn apart in the crash, said Lt. Col. Oni Junianto of the Indonesian marines, whose search team found eight corpses before returning to base camp further down the mountain.

“We see many other victims … but the ravines and steep cliffs prevent us from reaching them,” Junianto said in a statement.

Local television showed what appeared to be the plane’s tail with the blue-and-white Sukhoi logo, part of a wing and bits of twisted metal scattered along the slope like confetti.

About 85 soldiers, police and volunteers used ropes to climb up to the wreckage through jungle on the near-vertical slopes of Mount Salak, search and rescue agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso said by telephone.

Thick fog and the mountain’s jagged slopes kept helicopters from landing at the crash site, so the bodies remained there along with the search teams.

The soldiers, police and volunteers fashioned a landing area by hacking down trees, but Prakoso said the helicopters were recalled to Jakarta late Friday because the fog limited visibility to only about 5 meters (15 feet).

The jetliner slammed into the dormant volcano at nearly 800 kph (480 mph) during drizzle. Russian and French investigators have joined the investigation into the cause.

The Superjet-100 is Russia’s first new model of passenger jet since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago and was intended to help resurrect its aerospace industry.

The ill-fated Superjet was carrying representatives from local airlines and journalists on what was supposed to be a 50-minute demonstration flight. Just 21 minutes after takeoff from a Jakarta airfield, the Russian pilot and co-pilot asked for permission to drop from 10,000 feet to 6,000 feet (3,000 meters to 1,800 meters). They gave no explanation, disappearing from the radar immediately afterward.

It was not clear why the crew asked to shift course, especially since they were so close to the 7,000-foot (2,200-meter) volcano, or whether they got an OK, officials have said.

Communication tapes will be reviewed as part of the investigation, but it’s unlikely they will be released to the public any time soon.

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A spokesman for special envoy Kofi Annan says satellite imagery and other credible reports show that despite its claims, Syria has failed to withdraw all of its heavy weapons from populated areas as required by a cease-fire deal.

Ahmad Fawzi also said Tuesday that Annan is aware that when the U.N. monitors enter conflict areas in Syria that “the guns are silent” and then “when they leave, the exchanges start again.”

He further noted there appear to be cases of Syrians being targeted by authorities after approaching U totally free credit score.N. observers monitoring the truce. Fawzi called the situation “totally unacceptable.”

The cease-fire is part of Annan’s peace plan, which aims to stop the violence in Syria, where more than 9,000 people are believed to have died during a government crackdown on a popular uprising.

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U.S. employers hired far fewer workers in March than in previous months, keeping the door open for the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary support for a still sluggish economy.

The report was seized upon by Republicans hoping to make the weak economy the centerpiece of their campaign for November’s presidential and congressional elections.

Even as the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent, job growth slowed to 120,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the smallest increase since October.

That was less than half the average monthly increase in the prior three months and way below the lowest estimate in a Reuters survey. Economists had expected an increase of 203,000 and the jobless rate to hold at 8.3 percent.

The numbers likely reflected the fading boost from unseasonably warm winter weather and brought the job market, which had been showing surprising strength since December, more in line with signs of a broader slowdown in the overall economy.

It also backed the caution expressed by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week about whether the labor market could sustain gains above the 200,000 mark when economic growth is tracking a sub-par rate. The data raises the chances of the U.S. central bank launching a third bond buying program or quantitative easing.

“The economy may not be growing as strongly as the data around the turn of the year, benefiting from favorable weather, suggested,” said Michelle Girard, senior economist at RBS in Stamford, Connecticut. “While QE3 may not be seen as the odds-on bet, nothing can be ruled out.”

The retail sector surprisingly shed jobs for the second straight month, pulling down job growth in the massive private service sector. Economists were puzzled by the drop given that retailers such as Macy’s and Target reported brisk business in March.

Manufacturing jobs picked up a little and workers saw an increase in their overtime hours, helped by carmakers trying to meet pent-up demand for motor vehicles. Factory jobs increased 37,000 in March and 31,000 in February.

That contributed to lifting hourly earnings by five cents last month, which should help to support spending.

Prices for U.S. Treasury debt rallied on the report, pushing yields to more than three week lows, as investors anticipated further bond purchases by the Fed. The dollar fell against a basket of currencies. The New York Stock Exchange is closed for the Good Friday holiday.

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US non-farm payrolls graphic: link.reuters.com/wej57s

Graphic on US unemployment: link.reuters.com/zej57s

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GIVE UP THE SEARCH FOR WORK

The cooling in hiring last month, if sustained, could hurt President Barack Obama’s chances of re-election in November payday loans.

White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said the data showed the U.S. economy is making progress, but still has a long way to go.

Mitt Romney, his likely Republican opponent, called the report “very troubling”.

“It is increasingly clear the Obama economy is not working and that after three years in office the President’s excuses have run out,” he said.

While the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since January 2009, that was mainly because some people gave up the search for work. The household survey - from which the jobless rate is derived and is separate to the measure of new jobs - showed a drop in employment for the first time since June.

The unemployment rate has fallen from 9.1 percent in August.

In one of only a few brighter parts of the report, a broad measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have stopped looking and those working only part time but who want more work, fell to a three-year low of 14.5 percent from 14.9 percent.

The economy is believed to have slowed in the first quarter to around a 2 percent annual rate from the 3 percent rate in the October-December period.

Despite the slowdown in job growth last month, several economists said it was not the start of a new trend and were hopeful the labor market would not see a repeat of the spring of 2010 and 2011 when job creation faltered.

“This is not the new run rate for payrolls, but it will feed fears of that will work to the advantage of the Fed because it will keep rates lower,” said Eric Green, chief economist at TD Securities in New York.

“This will fade because we have had this adjustment for the seasonal effects. What we do from here is we move back to 200,000 (jobs) in coming months.”

Last month, the services sector added only 90,000, a sharp step back from February’s 204,000 gain in payrolls. That was in stark contrast with a survey on the services sector, showing a relatively strong increase in employment.

Retail employment fell dropped 33,800 after falling 28,600 the prior month.

“It’s puzzling, I don’t think it will continue because the reports from retailers have generally been upbeat. I struggle to understand why these numbers would be so negative,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Construction hiring fell 7,000, the second straight monthly decline. Temporary help fell 7,500 after rising 54,900 in February. Government employment edged down 1,000 after rising 7,000 in February.

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House Republicans resurrected the specter of Medicare rationing Thursday in an election-year vote to repeal cost controls in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

In the GOP crosshairs is a board that has yet to be named but would be empowered to force cuts to drug companies, insurers and other service providers if Medicare spending balloons. A Republican plan announced this week, laying down a dividing line between the parties, also would limit Medicare cost increases, but it would rely on competition among private insurance plans.

GOP lawmakers are hoping their symbolic 223-181 vote on Thursday to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board will help persuade seniors that Republicans, not Democrats, are the best stewards of Medicare.

The bill is likely to hit a dead end in the Senate. House Republicans all but guaranteed that when they paired the board repeal with caps on medical malpractice awards, which most Democrats oppose. The White House has issued a veto threat.

If it all sounds like a debate among Washington insiders, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., says he will have no trouble explaining to constituents why he voted to repeal the cost-cutting board.

“Do you remember death panels?” said Kingston, referring to the debunked accusation by former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that Obama’s health care law would allow the government to withhold life-saving care from the elderly.

“It’s not necessarily a death panel, but it is a rationing panel and rationing does lead to scarcity for some,” he added. “Who’s going to get the needed treatment, an 85-year-old or the 40-year-old with children?”

The health care law explicitly bars the board from rationing care, shifting costs to Medicare recipients or cutting their benefits. But critics say squeezing service providers will stifle medical innovation, achieving a similar result.

Many House Democrats also oppose the board _ dubbed IPAB for its initials _ but for different reasons. They feel it diminishes the role of Congress. But Republicans made it difficult to attract Democratic votes for repeal by adding other politically charged provisions to their bill.

“Republicans don’t want to see IPAB repealed now because they want to run against it,” said Scott Gottlieb, a former senior FDA official in the George W. Bush administration. “I think there will be an effort to repeal it after the election.”

The House vote came a day before the second anniversary of the health care law, and just ahead of next week’s Supreme Court deliberations on its constitutionality. Politics aside, the vote highlighted major differences between the parties on Medicare, the giant health care program for nearly 50 million seniors and disabled people.

All sides agree that Medicare as currently structured will not be able to pay its bills in the long run. The main options to control costs are unpalatable: tax increases, benefit cuts and cost shifts to middle- and upper-income retirees.

Most Republicans and Democrats also agree now that there has to be a limit on future Medicare increases payday loans no teletrack. The question is how.

Republicans would convert Medicare into a system dominated by private health insurance plans closely regulated by the government. Future retirees would get a fixed payment to buy either private coverage or sign up for a new government plan modeled on traditional Medicare. The plan counts on competition among the plans to help keep costs in check, but the annual government payment would also be limited by tying it to economic growth.

That’s the basic approach embodied in the new budget released this week by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, and seconded by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Theoretically, such a system could help rein in Medicare cost increases, economists say. The question is whether it would be politically acceptable to seniors and future generations, with polls indicating that the public is resistant to major changes. Recognizing the sensitivity, Ryan’s plan would exempt anyone now 55 or older.

Obama and the Democrats would take a different approach to cost control, and that’s where the IPAB board comes in.

IPAB (pronounced EYE-pab) has the power to force payment cuts to service providers if costs rise beyond certain levels and Congress fails to substitute its own plan for savings. But the law explicitly forbids the board from rationing care, shifting costs to seniors, or cutting their benefits. The Democrats would put the burden on service providers, such as drug companies, insurers and eventually, hospitals.

Obama has yet to name anyone to the panel, whose 15 members would have to be confirmed by the Senate. Government economists are forecasting a period of manageable Medicare costs, meaning that IPAB’s services may not be needed until sometime around the end of the decade.

Democrats say they’d rather defend IPAB before older voters _ and attack the GOP’s Medicare overhaul.

“The rationing is in the Republican plan,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the budget committee. “What they do is allow insurance companies to ration people’s health care.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that both Obama’s health care law and the new Ryan plan could potentially create access-to-care problems for Medicare recipients. The CBO cautioned that those could turn out to be greater under the GOP approach, which would squeeze Medicare growth harder. Republicans say that won’t happen because competition among health plans will keep costs down by reducing waste.

The House bill is likely to hit a dead end in the Senate. The White House issued a veto threat against it earlier this week. House Republicans all but guaranteed that when they paired by IPAB repeal with caps on medical malpractice awards, which most Democrats oppose.

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Germany’s government says it is speeding up its plans to cut its borrowing as it works to balance its budget by 2016.

A senior official said Friday that the federal government will reduce its new borrowing between 2013 and 2016 to euro45.6 billion ($59.5 billion) from the previously planned euro73 billion.

A robust economy has helped increase Germany’s tax intake, allowing the country to run up less new debt. Germany plans to balance its budget in 2016, when it expects to borrow only euro1.1 billion.

Germany has pushed hard for the other 16 countries that use the euro as their currency to get their public finances in order as the continent recovers from the debt crisis.

The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because the plan hasn’t officially been released.

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By May, gas prices in the GTA could ratchet up by anywhere from 5 cents to 20 cents per litre.

Prices at the pump have already climbed by about 7 cents to 128.7 cents per litre in the last month. And while it is normal for gas prices to climb in the spring as motorists drive more and refineries close for maintenance, there are more factors at play this year.

How high can the prices get?

Jason Toews, co-founder of Gasbuddy.com sees prices reaching 150 cents to 155 cents per litre by May. Last year gas prices reached a high of 140.6 cents.

Petroleum analyst Robert McKnight says prices will reach between 143 cents to 147 cents a litre by April. That is a 12 to 15 per cent increase from the pump price you see today, he said.

Michael Ervin, vice-president of Calgary-based Kent Group, has a more conservative prediction of 4 cent to 7 cent per litre increase

Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said his nation and China will work together to help Europe solve its debt crisis through the International Monetary Fund.

Europe needs a bigger so-called firewall of added funding to contain the crisis, even as Greece shows some improvement in solving its financial woes, Azumi told reporters in Beijing yesterday after meeting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. Azumi, who met Chinese Finance Minister Xiu Xuren during his visit, also said he asked China to make its currency more flexible.

The Obama administration’s corporate tax reform plan will end “dozens and dozens” of tax breaks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday as he defended the White House’s election-year call for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Within days, the administration is set to unveil a blueprint for revamping the corporate tax system aimed at leveling the playing field for all companies, which pay wildly differing levels of taxes, while lowering the top corporate tax rate.

Companies are clamoring for a cut in the top 35 percent corporate tax rate but disagree about how to how eliminate special tax preferences that benefit selected industries.

Geithner spoke before the Senate Finance Committee a day after President Barack Obama unveiled a $3.8 trillion budget-and-tax proposal that called for aggressive government spending to boost the economy and higher taxes on the rich.

“We think they can handle it. We think they can afford it,” Geithner said.

The budget proposal is seen as a campaign document, with few elements expected to win approval this year in a divided U.S. Congress as elections approach in November.

Republicans criticized Obama’s budget, saying it chooses winners and losers and moves away from tax reform.

For example, Obama wants to end a manufacturing tax break for oil and gas companies, but expand it for high-tech companies. “Obviously not everyone is going to be playing by the same set of rules,” Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona said.

Geithner said it was a “fair question.”

He said the Obama plan would “wipe out a very substantial, dozens and dozens of special tax preferences,” in the corporate code, but keep a “very limited” number targeting incentives for “creating and building stuff in the United States.”

Senators from both parties said Obama needs to use the bully pulpit to push major changes to the tax code online pay day loans.

The last time major rewrite of the U.S. tax code came in 1986 under the leadership of Republican President Ronald Reagan.

“The key in 1986 was of course the presidential bully pulpit and that the executive branch every single time out talked about how you had to fit the pieces together,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said.

Obama said earlier he was “hopeful” of a deal on extending a 2 percentage point cut in the payroll tax paid by workers, which will expire at the end of the month without a deal between sparring lawmakers.

FISCAL CLIFF

The payroll tax extension is the first among many deadlines approaching in coming months that could hamper the fragile economic recovery.

At the end of the year, individual tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush are set to expire. In addition, $1.2 trillion in automatic budget cuts across all government programs are set to kick in as part of last summer’s deal to raise the debt ceiling.

“A perfect fiscal storm is waiting at the end of the year,” Senator Max Baucus, Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said.

Geithner agreed that the combination of the deficit reduction measures and higher taxes would hurt the economy.

But he said the administration is proposing to extend the bulk of the tax cuts so that only the wealthiest would be impacted. “The impact of that tax reform would be very, very modest,” he said.

Geithner rejected Republican suggestions that the administration should make drastic cuts to government spending even though the U.S. deficit has soared to $1.3 trillion and the federal debt has topped $15 trillion.

“That would damage economic growth,” Geithner said.

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