Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday.
The move is a further sign of strains between Iran and Russia, which has indicated it could back new sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear work. For its part, Iran has voiced frustration over Moscow's failure to deliver a defense missile system.
Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said the idea to order the Russian pilots to leave the country gained momentum after a Russian-made aircraft caught fire as it landed in northeastern Iran in January, injuring more than 40 people.
The plane belonged to Iran's Taban airline but the pilot was Russian, Fars said. It did not say how many Russians currently worked as pilots for Iranian airlines.
"Upon an order from the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Road and Transport Ministry has set a two-month deadline, upon the expiry of which all Russian pilots will have to leave the country," Behbahani said.
"When our country itself possesses plenty of professional and specialist pilots, there is no need to bring in pilots from abroad," he told Fars.
Iran has suffered a string of crashes in the past few decades, many involving Russian-made aircraft.
In 2009 a Tupolev aircraft flying to Armenia caught fire in mid-air and crashed, killing all 168 people on board.
U.S. sanctions against Iran have prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West, forcing it to supplement its aging fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from Russia and other former Soviet states.
Behbahani said about 120 aircraft out of 193 planes in Iran's commercial fleet were currently active, with the rest grounded for one reason or another.
Russia, which has significant trade ties with Iran, is among six world powers trying to find a diplomatic solution to the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.
Moscow has indicated it could support new sanctions against Iran provided they are not too severe. Iran denies Western accusations that its nuclear work is aimed at developing bombs.
Iranian officials have voiced growing frustration at Russia's failure to supply the advanced S-300 missile defense system, which Israel and the United States do not want Tehran to have. Russia last month said it would not sell weapons if it leads to destabilization in any region.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
China says it will move cautiously on currency
China's central bank governor acknowledged Saturday that Beijing is using its controversial exchange-rate controls to cope with the global economic crisis and said it will be cautious about retreating from the policy.
Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan's comments come as Beijing faces rising pressure to ease controls that Washington and other trading partners say keep its yuan undervalued, swelling its trade surplus. President Barack Obama says he will press for an end to currency systems that he says depress export prices and hurt American companies.
At a news conference during the annual meeting of China's ceremonial legislature, Zhou said a "special foreign exchange mechanism" is part of Beijing's crisis response. China has held the yuan steady against the dollar since late 2008 in an apparent effort to help China's exporters compete abroad, though authorities have never openly confirmed that.
Obama vowed last month to "get much tougher" with China in trade disputes. Some American companies are pressing Congress to enact punitive tariffs on Chinese goods if Beijing fails to act. Critics say the yuan is undervalued by up to 40 percent.
"Under crisis conditions, we do not rule out the possibility of adopting special policies, including special foreign exchange mechanism. This is part of the package of policies to deal with the global financial crisis," Zhou said at a news conference.
He said that while such a policy would be "withdrawn sooner or later," the global outlook is still uncertain and the foundation of a recovery is not certain.
"If we say we withdraw from nonconventional policy and return to conventional economic policy, we must be very cautious and discreet in choosing the timing. This also includes the renminbi exchange rate policy," Zhou said, referring to the yuan by its other official name.
Zhou gave no indication when Beijing might allow the yuan to rise, repeating Premier Wen Jiabao's statement Friday that it would be kept basically stable.
The yuan's value was tied to the dollar for decades, but Beijing broke that link in 2005 and allowed the currency to rise by about 20 percent through late 2008. That rise was halted after the global crisis hit.
Appearing at the news conference with Zhou, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said exports might not recover to pre-crisis levels for two to three years due to "uncertain and unstable" global conditions.
"It could take two to three years to recover to the 2008 level," said Chen. "Proceeding from the high unemployment and low deposit rates in the epicenter of the financial tsunami, the world consumer market and real recovery of China's exports require time."
Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan's comments come as Beijing faces rising pressure to ease controls that Washington and other trading partners say keep its yuan undervalued, swelling its trade surplus. President Barack Obama says he will press for an end to currency systems that he says depress export prices and hurt American companies.
At a news conference during the annual meeting of China's ceremonial legislature, Zhou said a "special foreign exchange mechanism" is part of Beijing's crisis response. China has held the yuan steady against the dollar since late 2008 in an apparent effort to help China's exporters compete abroad, though authorities have never openly confirmed that.
Obama vowed last month to "get much tougher" with China in trade disputes. Some American companies are pressing Congress to enact punitive tariffs on Chinese goods if Beijing fails to act. Critics say the yuan is undervalued by up to 40 percent.
"Under crisis conditions, we do not rule out the possibility of adopting special policies, including special foreign exchange mechanism. This is part of the package of policies to deal with the global financial crisis," Zhou said at a news conference.
He said that while such a policy would be "withdrawn sooner or later," the global outlook is still uncertain and the foundation of a recovery is not certain.
"If we say we withdraw from nonconventional policy and return to conventional economic policy, we must be very cautious and discreet in choosing the timing. This also includes the renminbi exchange rate policy," Zhou said, referring to the yuan by its other official name.
Zhou gave no indication when Beijing might allow the yuan to rise, repeating Premier Wen Jiabao's statement Friday that it would be kept basically stable.
The yuan's value was tied to the dollar for decades, but Beijing broke that link in 2005 and allowed the currency to rise by about 20 percent through late 2008. That rise was halted after the global crisis hit.
Appearing at the news conference with Zhou, Commerce Minister Chen Deming said exports might not recover to pre-crisis levels for two to three years due to "uncertain and unstable" global conditions.
"It could take two to three years to recover to the 2008 level," said Chen. "Proceeding from the high unemployment and low deposit rates in the epicenter of the financial tsunami, the world consumer market and real recovery of China's exports require time."
Obama turns up the heat for health care overhaul
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is trying to persuade a weary public and wavering Democrats to get behind his frantic, late-stage push on health care, while Republicans dig in and demand starting from scratch after a year's worth of work.
"Now, despite all the progress and improvements we've made, Republicans in Congress insist that the only acceptable course on health care is to start over. But you know what? The insurance companies aren't starting over," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
"I just met with some of them on Thursday, and they couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums — by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois. If we do not act, they will continue to do this."
Republicans were not swayed.
"It's not too late: We can, and we must, stop this government takeover of health care," said Rep. Parker Griffith, a retired physician and a first-term congressman from Alabama who switched parties in December and delivered the GOP message.
The competing addresses underscored the urgency behind Obama's last-ditch push for immediate health care reform. Without a victory — and quickly — Democrats move into a fast-approaching election season without a major, tangible accomplishment that affects voters' pocketbooks. And with a chasm remaining between the two parties, Democrats considered passing the overhaul with votes just from their party.
That process would let the 59 Senate Democrats declare victory with 51 votes instead of a 60-vote supermajority. It also would allow Obama's team to get back to talking about the economy, which has shed more than 8 million jobs since the recession began.
Obama is pleading with Democrats to overcome divisions to seize a historic moment to remake the health care system during this election year. The White House wants to pass a health care overhaul and then campaign on it. Voters will pick candidates to serve 34 Senate seats; the entire House is up for re-election.
White House officials hope the immediate changes in the health overhaul would be enough to satisfy voters' expectations — and Democratic lawmakers who were hardly unified in support of the plan.
If Democrats pass the plan, voters would find greater consumer protections and a ban on discriminating against customers with previous ailments. Small businesses would receive a tax credit this year, insurance companies would no longer be able to drop patients' coverage if they become sick, and plans would be required to offer free preventive care to customers.
Griffith said leaders of the Democratic Party he left last year were missing the point.
"For them, health care reform has become less about the best reforms and more about what best fits their 'Washington knows best' mentality — less about helping patients and more about scoring political points," he said. "This is no idle observation. I've witnessed it firsthand."
"Now, despite all the progress and improvements we've made, Republicans in Congress insist that the only acceptable course on health care is to start over. But you know what? The insurance companies aren't starting over," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
"I just met with some of them on Thursday, and they couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums — by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois. If we do not act, they will continue to do this."
Republicans were not swayed.
"It's not too late: We can, and we must, stop this government takeover of health care," said Rep. Parker Griffith, a retired physician and a first-term congressman from Alabama who switched parties in December and delivered the GOP message.
The competing addresses underscored the urgency behind Obama's last-ditch push for immediate health care reform. Without a victory — and quickly — Democrats move into a fast-approaching election season without a major, tangible accomplishment that affects voters' pocketbooks. And with a chasm remaining between the two parties, Democrats considered passing the overhaul with votes just from their party.
That process would let the 59 Senate Democrats declare victory with 51 votes instead of a 60-vote supermajority. It also would allow Obama's team to get back to talking about the economy, which has shed more than 8 million jobs since the recession began.
Obama is pleading with Democrats to overcome divisions to seize a historic moment to remake the health care system during this election year. The White House wants to pass a health care overhaul and then campaign on it. Voters will pick candidates to serve 34 Senate seats; the entire House is up for re-election.
White House officials hope the immediate changes in the health overhaul would be enough to satisfy voters' expectations — and Democratic lawmakers who were hardly unified in support of the plan.
If Democrats pass the plan, voters would find greater consumer protections and a ban on discriminating against customers with previous ailments. Small businesses would receive a tax credit this year, insurance companies would no longer be able to drop patients' coverage if they become sick, and plans would be required to offer free preventive care to customers.
Griffith said leaders of the Democratic Party he left last year were missing the point.
"For them, health care reform has become less about the best reforms and more about what best fits their 'Washington knows best' mentality — less about helping patients and more about scoring political points," he said. "This is no idle observation. I've witnessed it firsthand."
National Online Hearing Aid Company Supports Federal Hearing Aid Tax Credit Bill
Washington, DC (Vocus/PRWEB ) March 6, 2010 -- If passed, a bill being considered by the House of Representatives and Senate could provide consumers with up to $1,000 in tax credits toward the purchase of new hearing aids. HearAid, an Internet-based hearing aid sales company, is supporting passage of the bill.
Digital Hearing Aid
Digital Hearing Aid
“We’re very excited about the possibility of this program. It’s estimated that 25 million people under the age of 65 suffer from some type of hearing loss, but a lot of them can’t afford to do anything about it. This program will help those suffering from hearing loss lead fuller, more productive lives,” said HearAid Chief Operating Manager Kirk Bradley.
Bradley also added that HearAid was created to offer quality digital hearing aid devices to customers at affordable prices by eliminating the middlemen. Its products come pre-programmed, allowing most customers to use them straight out of the box.
The bill, introduced in March 2009 by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., and later by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a credit against income tax for the purchase of hearing aids. If passed, the bill would apply to taxable years after Dec. 31, 2009.
Many health insurance plans, including Medicare, exclude coverage for hearing aid purchases, and 72 percent of all hearing aid purchases involve no third-party payment. “Hearing aids are costly, and we’ve found that financial constraints are often a barrier to purchase. This legislation would provide a measure of financial assistance for older adults and children suffering from hearing loss,” said McCarthy.
For more information on HearAid, visit the Web at www.hearaidstore.com.
About HearAid
The HearAid Company was created to make quality digital hearing devices, like the TV hearing aid, available and affordable to the millions of people who need them. By purchasing hearing aid components in large quantities and using sophisticated instant fit technology, we eliminate the hassle and expenses of hearing care professional middlemen and pass the savings along to our customers.
Digital Hearing Aid
Digital Hearing Aid
“We’re very excited about the possibility of this program. It’s estimated that 25 million people under the age of 65 suffer from some type of hearing loss, but a lot of them can’t afford to do anything about it. This program will help those suffering from hearing loss lead fuller, more productive lives,” said HearAid Chief Operating Manager Kirk Bradley.
Bradley also added that HearAid was created to offer quality digital hearing aid devices to customers at affordable prices by eliminating the middlemen. Its products come pre-programmed, allowing most customers to use them straight out of the box.
The bill, introduced in March 2009 by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., and later by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a credit against income tax for the purchase of hearing aids. If passed, the bill would apply to taxable years after Dec. 31, 2009.
Many health insurance plans, including Medicare, exclude coverage for hearing aid purchases, and 72 percent of all hearing aid purchases involve no third-party payment. “Hearing aids are costly, and we’ve found that financial constraints are often a barrier to purchase. This legislation would provide a measure of financial assistance for older adults and children suffering from hearing loss,” said McCarthy.
For more information on HearAid, visit the Web at www.hearaidstore.com.
About HearAid
The HearAid Company was created to make quality digital hearing devices, like the TV hearing aid, available and affordable to the millions of people who need them. By purchasing hearing aid components in large quantities and using sophisticated instant fit technology, we eliminate the hassle and expenses of hearing care professional middlemen and pass the savings along to our customers.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Unemployment rate unchanged at 9.7%; 36,000 jobs lost
WASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate held at 9.7% in February as employers shed fewer jobs than expected, evidence that the job market may be slowly healing.
The Labor Department said employers cut 36,000 jobs, below analysts' expectations of 50,000. Analysts expected the jobless rate to rise to 9.8%.
The severe snowstorms that hammered the East Coast last month may have affected job losses, but the department didn't quantify the impact.
Other data in the report signaled the storms didn't have as much effect as feared.
Economists estimated before the report that the storms could inflate job losses by 100,000 or more. That would mean the economy generated a net gain in jobs last month, excluding the effect of the snow, for only the second time since the recession began in December 2007.
The department revised its estimate of job losses for January from 20,000 to 26,000, but said job cuts were fewer in December than originally estimated — 109,000 rather than 150,000.
The unemployment rate, which hasn't risen since October, could be bottoming out. Still, 14.9 million Americans are unemployed, nearly double the total when the recession began, and the economy has shed 8.4 million jobs during that time.
The economy grew at a 5.9% rate in the October-December quarter last year, the fastest pace in six years. But most economists expect the pace of growth to slow to about 3% in the current quarter, which won't be fast enough to quickly bring down the jobless rate.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Obama approach at odds with past views
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is trying to achieve a health care overhaul the way he once said it couldn't, and shouldn't, be done.
He now wants congressional Democrats to move ahead without Republican support and pass the legislation with a bare majority in the Senate instead of the broader majority he favored as a presidential candidate.
To be sure, Obama has tried to get Republicans behind him. Having failed, he's reverting to a "50-plus-one" strategy that he called a losing proposition — because "you can't govern" with it — back when he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia complained Thursday that Obama had "done a 180" by resorting to the fast-track procedure, given his past views as a candidate.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that, insisting Obama was "talking about electoral strategy, not vote counting in the House and the Senate," in his October 2007 remarks. In fact, Obama was talking about both, and more.
Cantor made his remarks on the House floor, where he also defended his own party's use of special parliamentary tactics to pass laws with a simple majority. He was wrong, too, in stating that in most instances, Republicans had used the tactics to pass legislation that had bipartisan support.
A look at the claims Thursday and how they stack up to the facts:
THE CLAIM: Gibbs at first said Obama was only talking about how to get elected when he criticized the 50-plus-one strategy in an October 2007 interview with the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire. Pressed, Gibbs then said Obama meant "you're not going to get legislation through Congress if only 50 percent plus one in the country think it's a good idea. That's why if you look at poll after poll, people want health care reform and the debate on health care reform to continue."
THE FACTS: Obama wasn't talking about polls or public opinion — or only about electoral politics — in the interview.
"You've got to break out of what I call the — sort of — 50-plus-one pattern of presidential politics, which is you have nasty primaries where everybody's disheartened, then you divide the country 45 percent on one side 45 percent on the other and 10 percent in the middle," he began. "Battle it out and then maybe you eke out a victory of 50 plus one, and then you can't govern."
He went on to talk specifically about getting legislation through Congress: "You can't deliver on health care. We're not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-one strategy. We're not going to have a serious bold energy policy of the sort that I proposed yesterday unless you build a working majority."
Asked in the interview if his Democratic nomination rival Hillary Rodham Clinton would be a "50-plus-one president" and that's why he, as a consensus builder, would be better, he replied, "Yes."
___
THE CLAIM:
When House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., argued that Republicans had used the same fast-track process to enact major legislation along partisan lines when they were in charge of Congress, Cantor denied it. "There was, in the main, bipartisan support for what was being done through reconciliation in those instances," he said.
THE FACTS: Of the 10 occasions between 1995 and 2005 when Republicans were in the Senate majority and used reconciliation to pass bills, seven passed with deep partisan divisions.
In 2005, for example, Republicans used reconciliation to muscle through a deficit reduction bill that restricted Medicaid payments. It passed with 50 Republicans in favor, all Democrats against and Vice President Dick Cheney voting to break a tie — about as divisive as a Senate vote can get.
Vocus to Present at 31st Annual Raymond James Institutional Investor Conference
Lanham, MD (PRWEB) March 5, 2010 -- Vocus, Inc., (NASDAQ: VOCS) a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management, announced today that Steve Vintz, chief financial officer, will deliver a presentation on behalf of the company at the 31st Annual Raymond James Institutional Investor Conference on Wednesday, March 10, at 9:50 am ET at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes, in Orlando, FL.
A leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management. Follow us on Twitter: @Vocus
Interested parties will be able to listen to Vocus’ presentation by logging on through the Investor Relations section of Vocus’ website at http://onlinepressroom.net/vocus/ir/.
About Vocus
Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS) is a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management. Our web-based software suite helps organizations of all sizes to fundamentally change the way they communicate with both the media and the public, optimizing their public relations and increasing their ability to measure its impact. Our on-demand software addresses the critical functions of public relations including media relations, news distribution and news monitoring. We deliver our solutions over the Internet using a secure, scalable application and system architecture, which allows our customers to eliminate expensive up-front hardware and software costs and to quickly deploy and adopt our on-demand software. Vocus is used more than 4,400 organizations worldwide and is available in seven languages. Vocus is based in Lanham, MD with offices in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.vocus.com or call (800) 345-5572.
This release contains "forward-looking" statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These are statements that are predictive in nature, that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or that include words such as "may," "will," "expects," "projects," "anticipates," "estimates," "believes," "intends," "plans," "should," "seeks," and similar expressions. This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to, among other things, Vocus’ expectations and assumptions concerning future financial performance. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future results to differ materially from those projected or contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may be significantly impacted by certain risks and uncertainties described in Vocus' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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