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news without borders
Obama’s economic booster
may cost up to RM2.8 trillion
WASHINGTON: US President-elect
Barack Obama’s economic stimulus
plan may cost between US$675 billion
(RM2.43 trillion) and US$775 billion
(RM2.8 trillion) and will favour long-term
infrastructure and job creation projects,
top Obama aides said.
With the United States facing gloomy
forecasts of up to 10% unemployment and
a deepening recession in 2009 – likely
“the bleakest economic outlook since
World War II” – Lawrence Summers said
creating three million new jobs was a
“key pillar” of Obama’s plan.
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod
told CBS television on Sunday that
US$675 billion and US$775 billion were
“not fixed” numbers.
“In this crisis, doing too little poses
a greater threat than doing too much,”
Summers, tapped to head the White
House National Economic Council, wrote
in an editorial in The Washington Post.
“Any sound economic strategy in the
current context must be directed at both
creating the jobs that Americans need
and doing the work that our economy
requires.”
Summers, who served as Treasury
secretary under former president Bill
Clinton, signaled that Obama would
adopt a different approach than President
George W. Bush.
“Some argue that instead of attempting
to both create jobs and invest in our long-
run growth, we should focus exclusively
on short-term policies that generate
consumer spending,” he said.
“But that approach led to some of the
challenges we face today – and it is that
approach that we must reject if we are
going to strengthen our middle class and
our economy over the long run.”
Obama’s incoming administration and
congressional leaders are “getting awful
close” to a general agreement on the huge
economic stimulus package the Obama
team hopes to implement soon after the
Jan 20 inauguration, vice president-elect
Joseph Biden said last week.
“I don’t think Americans can wait,”
Axelrod said.
“People are suffering, our economy
is sliding and we need to act. So our
message to Congress is to work on it with
all deliberate speed.”
Axelrod said the economic downturn
adds urgency to repealing Bush’s tax cuts
for wealthier Americans and will not
prevent the future Obama administration
from enacting its planned middle-class
tax cuts.
Bush’s tax cuts are “something that we
plainly can’t afford moving forward. And
whether it expires or whether we repeal
it a little bit early we’ll determine later,
but it’s going to go. It has to go.” he told
NBC.
He argued that eliminating the Bush
tax cuts did not mean Obama would
raise taxes. Obama’s economic stimulus
plan “will amount to a net tax cut for the
American people,” he said. “We feel it’s
important that middle-class people get
some relief now.”
In terms of job creation, “we’re
talking about investing in alternative
energy projects that will help us achieve
energy independence. We’re talking
about rebuilding the nation’s classrooms
to bring them into the 21st century,
and labs and libraries so our kids can
compete,” Axelrod added.
Around 80% of the three million new
jobs Obama aims to create will be “in the
private sector, including emerging sectors
such as environmental technology,”
Summers said, calling it a “bold goal.”
“Failure to create enough jobs in the
short term would put the prospect of
recovery at risk,” Summers added.
“Failure to start undertaking necessary
long-term investments would endanger
the foundation of our recovery and,
ultimately, our children’s prosperity.”
The Obama stimulus plan was
originally intended to safeguard 2.5
million jobs in the next couple of years.
But its scope was expanded to three
million jobs earlier this month as the US
economy sank deeper into recession.
Biden reaffirmed that Obama wants
the new Democratic-led Congress to
make the economic package its top
priority when it convenes in early
January, calling it “the most urgent order
of business for the new administration.”
– AFP
theSun
EARTHREPORT
Week Ending Dec 26
No white
Christmas
THE odds of a white Christmas
in countries that celebrate the
Christian holiday in the North-
ern Hemisphere have begun to
diminish within the last century
due to global warming,climate
experts said. Despite heavy
snow across North America and
parts of Europe this month, hav-
ing a winter wonderland during
late December in London and
Paris could be only a freak oc-
currence by 2100, according to
Friedrich-Wilhelm Gerstengar-
ber, climate researcher at the
Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research.
Climate change
now
SCIENTISTS gathering in
San Francisco were told
that the United States could
suffer the effects of abrupt
climate change within
decades – far sooner than
warnings issued just a year
ago. Using data not available
to the Inter governmental
Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), researchers from
the US Geological Survey,
Columbia University and
other institutions factored
in faster-than expected loss
of sea ice, rising sea levels
and a near-permanent
drought developing in the
American Southwest.
Bird flu returns
THE re-emergence of a lethal
strain of avian influenza in
Hongkong, Cambodia, Taiwan,
Bangladesh, India and Egypt this
month highlights the potential
threat the virus poses to hu-
| TUESDAY DECEMBER 30 2008
mans as the traditional winter
flu season gets under way
in the Northern Hemisphere,
health experts said. One man in
Cambodia reportedly became ill
after handling a dead chicken in
an area where the H5N1 strain
of the virus had been detected.
Hongkong announced the first
appearance of H5N1 in poultry
for more than five years. Indo-
nesia’s agriculture ministry says
it hopes to eradicate the virus in
that country by 2014.
Holiday cyclone
PARTS of the Western Aus-
tralia coast were under a cy-
clone warning as Christmas
approached due to heavy
rains and storm-force winds
produced by Cyclone Billy.
The storm was skirting the
coast from just southwest
of Darwin to the Kimberly
Coast for the second week,
and was expected to inten-
sify as it moved into the
eastern Indian Ocean.
Earthquakes
A strong tremor centered in
northern Italy damaged build-
ings around Parma.
Earth movements were also
felt in Kashmir, northeastern Ja-
pan, Trinidad and southern parts
of San Francisco Bay Area.
Congo gorilla
update
THE director of the Virunga
National Park in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo says the
park’s endangered mountain
gorilla population appears to be
unscathed despite the conflict
between rebel fighters and the
government.
“We are happy to report that
most of them seem to be doing
well,” park director Emmanuel
de Merode said. – Universal
Press Syndicate