Panetta and Petraeus for top security posts - New York Times Online

Left, Stephen Crowley / the New York Times. Luke Sharrett/The New York TimesLeon e. Panetta, left and General David Petraeus H...

WASHINGTON - President Obama is expected this week in the name of Leon e. Panetta, the Director of the CIA, as Secretary to the defence and the General David Petraeus h., top commander U.S. Afghanistan, Director of the C.I.A.administration officials said Wednesday.

Appointments, put in motion by the imminent retirement of the Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates are part of a significant rearrangement of the national security team Mr. Obama which will include several new assignments in the closest of his diplomatic circlemilitary and intelligence advisers.

Mr. Gates should resign this summer.

Changes at the top of the team of the national security of Mr. Obama long been expected.

Shortly after Mr. Gates leaves, the term expires for the Chairman of the joint staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who, as Defense Secretary, was appointed by President George w. Bush. And Secretary of State James b. Steinberg announced that he leaves for University work - remove a crucial player in the efforts of Mr. Obama to handle the rise of China.

But the role of Mr. Gates is the most critical. It is often alloyed with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton - who said that she intends to leave the administration when this mandate ends - including persuade them to Mr. Obama to start the military build-up in Afghanistan in 2009. Together, they have won many battles, but they clearly separate the month last on military intervention in Libya.

In the name Mr. Panetta, the Pentagon, Mr. Obama is to select an official of the already confirmed firm with close ties to the White House and the Capitol. By selecting General Petraeus, who at the beginning at least do not have a strong relationship with the White House of Obama, the President is maintaining a military leader of prestige which has a thorough knowledge of intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.

The President is also likely soon to propose the veteran diplomat Ryan c. Crocker as the next Ambassador of United States in Afghanistan. This approach would be, at least together during a period of time, Mr. Crocker, former Ambassador of the Iraq, with General Petraeus, with whom he worked closely in Iraq in the Bush administration.

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Beatification of John Paul II packs hotels in Rome - USA Today

Comment by Barbara Lollis, USA TODAY

Reports of Bloomberg hotels of Rome are in high demand this weekend as visitors descend on the Italian capital for the beatification of John Paul II, Pope born in Poland, who died five years ago.

Population of the city will go growing by about 1.1 million people across the world, said history. The ceremony will take place on Saturday, may 1.

Rooms, however, are always available and a special website has been in place for the pilgrims on last minute search for accomodation.

Comparison site hotel Trivago says that the current price for a one night hotel stay at Rome weekend is $370 - higher than the rate of all night $ 310 currently sought by the hotels in London, where people are brought together for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton vendrediRapports International Business Traveler.

The application of milling means that some hotel Rome attempt to flee with double their prices - and much more, says Bloomberg.

Police intervened, closing six hotels and the issuance of $438,000 to fines for practical and tourist scams, said the story.

A hotel was added eight beds of small rooms, Ansa news wire reported last week.

Despite the crowds, Rome will always be people from home that are underway for other reasons. On the website of the British of TripAdvisor, there is a set of forum discussion dedicated to finding ways to avoid the crowds in Rome on 1 May.

Readers: Have you never reserved a stay at the hotel in a city at a huge event that you were not attend? How it goes?Posted Apr 27 2011 2 H 24

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Manager takes over State and cuts, which do not a city

But, as of this month, they are literally powerless and hold no power to make decisions. PAS even on potholes.

The city is now led by Joseph l. Harris, accountant and auditor of kilometres later, one of a small group "managers of emergency" sent by the State as firefighters to extinguish the flames financial in the most troubled cities of Michigan.

In Benton Harbor, where records show, finance have had down in a morass of commingled funds, puzzling accounting and expenditures unchecked, Mr. Harris was given sweeping new powers under the legislation of the recent state that managers of emergency as he said was necessary to deal with extreme situations.

Critical say the new powers granted by the new Republican leaders of the State, are average of Michigan shrinking benefits for public workers and undermine the strength of unions, just as officials tried in Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Managers of emergency of appointed by the State of Michigan have the power to cancel collective agreements, giving the State, in the eyes of some, the opportunity to overwrite any local union treats for the repair of budget.

"The dictatorship, plain and simple," said Dennis Knowles, a Commissioner of the city who was sitting in a dark, especially empty Office City Hall the other day.

But Mr. Harris insisted that the policy and the future of collective bargaining had no impact on everything he does.

"I'm looking for what is good for Benton Harbor, nothing more, nothing less,", said Mr. Harris. "And until you can break the contracts, your hands are tied."

Only four entities in Michigan, including the Detroit public schools system, currently are deemed sufficient distress to require monitoring by managers of emergency. But some economists predict that these ranks increase, taking into account reductions in aid of State tax revenues and stagnant.

Now, managers fighting intensifies around the State. Last week, Detroit pension funds filed a lawsuit against the Governor Rick Snyder and others challenging the extent to which, according to the prosecution, gives managers who arrive with "tsar-like powers".

Others see new career opportunities: last week, 400 people participated in a training session for two days on emergency managers in a Radisson Hotel in Lansing. Some were local leaders to prevent their cities of requiring one such financial supervision, while others hope to become managers of emergency.

Around the nation, the States have long had a range of methods - appointed receivers monitoring tips - to the stage where the cities are at the edge near bankruptcy. A financial control Board has helped pull New York City at the precipice, in the 1970s. But the powers and functions of these bodies vary widely, as do the views on knowledge if they contribute to long term.

Few places with title of serious financial difficulties as Benton Harbor, a town of about 10,000 people next to Lake Michigan, where it is estimated that almost half of the population were living below the poverty line.

A financial study assigned by the State in 2009 found that the city had mismanaged the federal tax arrears. He inappropriately borrowed money to manage shortfalls in others, and its accounting was negligence.

And if last year, the administration of the predecessor of Mr Snyder, Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, sent to Mr. Harris, former Auditor General Detroit and its former Financial Director.

Mr. Harris began to pay debts, laid off workers and to consider a plan to merge the fire and police services in a single unit where firefighters could respond finally burglary calls and police officers could extinguish fires.

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A girl of Gaddafi, an overview within the Bunker

"To make them ready," she said, "because in times of war you never know when a rocket or a bomb could hit you, and this will be the end."

In a rare interview with her here charitable foundation, Mrs. Kadhafi, 36, a lawyer trained at the Libya who once worked on the team for the legal defence of Saddam Hussein, provided an overview in the fatalistic mindset of the family more and more isolated in the heart of the battle for the Libyathe bloodiest arena in democratic uprising that is sweeping across the region.

She dismissed the rebels as "terrorists" but suggested that some former Qathafi officials who are now on the Board of Directors the opposition still "stay in touch with us." She pleaded for dialogue and spoke of democratic reforms. But she dismissed the rebels as unfit for such negotiations because of their use of violence, discarded personal barbs Obama the President and the Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and at one point, appeared to denigrate the basic idea of electoral democracy.

After organizing the interview last week, spoke of Ms. Qathafi for more than an hour Sunday afternoon just hours before NATO intensified its air strikes with an attack that has disrupted the State television and another compound of the Libyan leader to Tripoli. Ms. Kadhafi, one of the many informal and sometimes rival Qathafi families power brokers who dominate the political and economic life of the Libya, said that the crisis had fired the family together "" as a hand"."

Ms. Qathafi said that she and her seven brothers "have a dialogue between the United States and the exchange of views" before anyone takes a major step in their common defence. She acknowledged that she had seen news reports that his brothers and sisters had proposed to relieve their father of power in a transition under the direction of his brother Seif el-Islam, but she declined to comment on the details.

Also conspicuously, she declined to answer when asked whether Abdel Fattah Younes, a top rebel military official page who was a Minister of the Interior for a long time, was among the leaders who had kept contact with Qathafi family.

"They tell us that they have their own families, girls, sounds, spouses and they fear for their, and this is why they have taken these positions," she said of these rebel leaders. "There is many members of the Council who have worked with my father for 42 years and was faithful to him." Do you think they would go just like that? ?

Instead of mistrust in anger and vows of retribution by his father and his brother Seif, Ms. Qathafi focused on the manner in which the West would have street chaos it predicts funnel a post-Qathafi Libya. When pressed repeatedly about how his family could stay in power, has said several times, "we have great hope in God."

Ms. Qathafi appeared in public, twice since the bombings began, before the cheers of the crowd to colonel compound, but she rarely speaks in public. In the interview, she wore tight jeans, Gucci shoes, and a light scarf which does not cover her blonde hair long. Sometimes she laughs at his fate, recalling how the Organization of the United Nations, after "begging" be an Envoy for peace in the past, has now returned to the International Criminal Court. His staff presented an illustrated biography titled "Princess of peace".

She said his experience as a volunteer on the defence of Saddam Hussein offered relevant parallel team.

She said "the opposition in Iraq said the West when you come to the Iraq they will welcome you with roses,". "Almost 10 years later they receive the Americans with bullets and believe, the situation in Libya will be much worse.

She taunted President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, saying that Mr. Obama had "achieved nothing for the moment" and that she asked a question to Ms. Clinton laughingly: "why did not leave the White House when you discovered on the cheating of your husband?".

Even if she objected to American leaders, she asked several times for talks. "The world must come together at a round table," she said, "under" the auspices of international organizations.

At the same time, she rejected any form of dialogue with the Libyan rebels who now control half East of the country; its commercial centre, Misurata; and the towns of West mountain of Zintan and Nalut, dismissing the "terrorists" who "are just struggle for the sake of fighting."

Under the informal leadership of his brother Seif, she said, the Libyan Government was about to unveiling of a constitution as a step towards democratic when reform "this tragedy which has passed and spoiled things.".

At the same time, she also turned in derision and perhaps misunderstood the ideas of basic checks and balances and public liability in an electoral democracy. "Let me say something on Western elections they say are a democratic system of decision,"she volunteered, referring to the handwritten notes she had prepared for the interview."." In an election where one candidate won with 50% of the vote and another lost with 48%, she asked, "do you call this democracy?" This voice? "What happened to 48 percent who said 'no'?"

She complained of the "treason" of the Arabs, which his father had supported the causes and the Western allies to which he gave of his weapons of mass destruction. She asked "Is this the reward we get?". "". This would lead all countries that have weapons of mass destruction to keep them or to do more, so they will not meet the same fate as the Libya. ?

Without Colonel Gaddafi, it predicts, illegal immigrants from Africa would pour into Europe, radical Islamists would establish a base on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Libyan tribes would turn their weapons on one another.

Citing Libyan intelligence unconfirmed reports, she said that the hungry rebels of weapons had actually sold weapons to Islamist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. "" When my father was here, see how secure Europe was and how safe Libya? "".She asked.

Ms. Qathafi initially denied reports of a few nights two months ago, when the demonstrators returned to the streets of Tripoli and almost every major city, taking down posters Qathafi and combustion of police stations. Then said that journalists had seen the evidence, it was argued that the destruction proved that they were not the civilian demonstrators but "saboteurs."

It also appears to reject the accounts of the witnesses of the forces of Colonel Gaddafi shooting of the demonstrators. "I am not sure that this happened," she said. "But say that this was the case: he has a limited scope."

As the State of mind of his father, she said with a laugh that he was not worried at all. "It is so high that the world knows him," she said. "It is quite certain that the Libyan people is faithful to him."

His family always hoped, she said, to return to its previous position, what she calls "a return to normal." But, she added, "of course we can accelerate that if NATO will stop bombing us."

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Economic scene: accounts Bernanke

Wednesday at 2: 15 pm, Ben Bernanke is going to do something that FED previous Presidents considered to be a very bad idea. It will hold a press conference.

Mr. Bernanke has spent much of his academic career, arguing that the Fed should be less opaque and, as President, he put his ideas into action. It is now time for those of us in the media to support our end of the market. In the spirit of democratic accountability, we must ask difficult questions - and we should not let him get away with hiding and half-answers that the members of Congress are too often fed Presidents in their appearances on Capitol Hill.

More than any other that the other is shouting for an answer only one question: why has Mr. Bernanke decided to accept the generalized unemployment for many years, even if he thinks he has the power to reduce it?

The Fed forecasts suggest that the unemployment rate fall below 5% for perhaps another five or six years. Mr. Bernanke believes that the Fed "retains considerable power" for faster unemployment, despite the fact that its benchmark interest rate is zero, as discussed previously. However, it has been reluctant to use this power.

It is difficult to be fair somewhere. Several other voting members of the Fed's monetary policy Committee - and some prominent members of Congress - oppose aggressive action, because they fear it will set off inflation. But these critics still worry about inflation. They were wrong again and again over the past two years. More important still, they are not enough power to prevent Mr. Bernanke to continue the policy that he considers is better.

If the decision by the Fed to allow unemployment high for an extended period is based on his shoulders.

As he explained several times, the Fed has alternatives. He could announce that he would retain his rate of reference zero for a few years, which would probably keep long-term rates. One could say that he was comfortable with higher inflation for a limited period, seen how low inflation since 2007 and how the high unemployment rate is. Above all, Mr. Bernanke could clear it considers the years of widespread unemployment unacceptable.

He does the did not, and it has yet to offer a satisfactory explanation.

Instead, he said that more aggressive action brings risks. And he does. Low interest rates are likely to trigger inflation, seduce millions of homes and businesses to borrow money and causing the economy to overheat. Rising inflation could, among other things, increase the rate of borrowing for the Government of the United States and the mounting deficit.

But keep in mind that only about each decision entails certain risks. Simply stating that a more aggressive action brings risks is not a good argument against this option.

Sometimes, as economists describe choices in terms of a concept called value expected. The expected decision value is the relative risk of each possible result multiplied by the benefit (or cost) of this result. If you are an investment that has a 90 percent of breaking even and a chance to 10 percent of win you $5,000, the expected value is $ 500.

Now extend this concept to the Fed's decision. The consequences of being too aggressive and creating an inflationary spiral are undoubtedly serious. But the odds appear still fairly low. Put the two together and you get a cost, which is not high enough to be dictating the policy of the Fed.

One of the best guides to future inflation is recent core inflation - that is, inflation, excluding food and energy prices, which bounce around a lot and often do translate not in big changes in other prices. Despite the rise in core inflation, it has even increased at an annual rate of only 2% in the last three months. Only a few other times in the last 40 years has been so low.

This should not be surprising. After all, the economy is felt as if he is about to overheat?

The cost expected the rate of unemployment, on the other hand, is stiff. On the one hand, the chances that unemployment will remain a problem are close to 100%. The debate is whether the country will be back to full employment in four years or ten years.

On the other hand, the consequences of high unemployment are also terrible. With fewer jobs, States and cities are tax revenues. Families lose their savings. The health of the people may deteriorate. For the long-term unemployed, the financial damage can be permanent. "If things go and they just sit at home or work very irregular," Mr. Bernanke himself said last year, "when the economy gets back to a more normal state, they will be able to find the good work."

Unemployment creates political problems, too. Historically, it has tended to make people less willing to help their fellow citizens, as Economist Benjamin Friedman wrote. It is difficult to imagine a grand political compromise - on the deficit, for example - in a country in anger.

Mr. Bernanke is an admirable public official in many respects. He was quietly heroic during the worst days of the financial crisis. In making the more open Fed, he took the rare step for a politician: voluntarily giving a portion of his power.

Nevertheless, his performance on the job last year was distorted. The Fed has badly overestimated the strength of the economy in 2010 and took too much time to correct his error. Despite his fundamental belief in letting the facts guide decisions, Mr. Bernanke has let himself be influenced mainly by a group of colleagues who see inflation always and everywhere in the world as a threat and unemployment as a mere nuisance.

The Wednesday Press Conference offers a chance to ask accounts. The country Fed - a scholar leader Ben Bernanke, formerly of Princeton - expect nothing less.

E-mail: leonhardt@nytimes.com. Twitter.com/DLeonhardt

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DealBook: & J to buy Synthes 21.3 billion.

Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday he had agreed to buy medical equipment manufacturer Synthes 21.3 billion in cash and in shares, in one of the largest transaction ever in the health care sector.

Johnson & Johnson is offer 159 Swiss francs ($ 181.30) a share of Synthes, an American Switzerland of the company which manufactures bone implants and surgical instruments and specializes in the treatment of trauma.

The bid is composed of 55.65 francs cash and Frank consisting of a value of common shares of Johnson & Johnson. It represents a premium of 22 percent in francs 130.60 that Synthes rated on 14 April, before the reports of the agreement first emerged.

"It's a pretty fair price," said Lisa, Clive Bedell, Sanford c. Bernstein analyst, in London. "For j. & it is much." Trauma is one of the few med-tech markets where they did not have a company among the three. ?

The two boards of directors were approved unanimously in the transaction and a group of shareholders led by Synthes founder and President, Hansj?rg Wyss, and other directors, are committed to vote their shares in support of the agreement, the companies said.

Mr. Wyss control 47% of Synthes, a game which will be a little more than 10 billion dollars when the transaction closes. In the Declaration of the companies, he was pleased to see his "professional life will continue as part of Johnson & Johnson.".

Its support for the agreement, combined with the size of its game, make it unlikely that the shareholders at a higher price would be able to block the bid.

Synthes will be merged with the unit of Johnson & Johnson DePuy companies to become the largest company of medical devices in the group, which specializes in orthopedics.

"Orthopaedics is a significant and growing $ 37 billion global market and represents a vector of growth for Johnson & Johnson," William c. Weldon, head of Johnson & Johnson, said in the statement.

This agreement, which will be Johnson & Johnson largest ever, should close in the first half of next year, pending the approval of regulatory agencies, in the United States and Europe and Synthes shareholders.

In the acquisition of Synthes, Johnson & Johnson will be combining the second and third companies for implants linked to the spine in the world, which could attract the attention of regulators and require a divestiture.

"Antitrust authorities watch this on a product by product line base line," said Ms. Clive. "It could happen that they let you this intact GB."

The agreement is set to have an "impact dilutive modestly" on the result by action Johnson & Johnson, the company said.

Johnson & Johnson hired Goldman Sachs as its financial advisor and Cravath, Swaine & Moore as a lawyer, while Synthes committed Credit Switzerland as Advisor and Shearman & Sterling as a lawyer.

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Libya United Nations investigators to probe violations of the rights - Reuters

By Guy Desmond

TRIPOLI. Wed, April 27, 2011 9 pm EDT

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - a team of investigators from the United Nations, the answers sought Wednesday to Libyan officials on allegations of forces loyal to Muammar al-Gaddafi had committed violations of human rights.

The three members of the inquiry commission has met with Libyan officials and said it would be an urgent need for access to prisons, hospitals and regions of the country where it suspects violations of rights are underway.

"We have a number of issues related to indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, victims among civilians, torture and the use of other issues and mercenaries," said Cherif Bassiouni, an Egyptian legal expert and member of the commission.

"The commission of inquiry is here to inform and to find, with the Libyan Government, what is its position in several types of violations that...". "(we) discovered during our investigation on the ground", he told journalists after talks with Libyan officials.

Asked what the United Nations team access should be given by the Libyan authorities, Bassiouni, said: "we know still." We said everything in writing and verbally stated and we intend to push for it. ?

The Organization of the United Nations, Western Governments and some Arab States accuse Libyan leader Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi ordered its security forces of killing hundreds of civilians who raised in protest against its rule in four decades.

Libyan officials deny killing civilians, saying that security forces were forced to act against armed bands and al-Qaeda sympathizers who, say, trying to take control of the oil exporting country.

Bassiouni said that he would also use the delegation to Tripoli to raise the issue of foreign journalists held in Libya.

Libyan authorities hold two journalists from U.S., a Spanish, a South African and a Canadian, according to the Committee based on the United States for the protection of journalists in. Officials say that they contain only journalists if they are illegally in the country.

"I... have them (the Libyan Government) gave a list of all the foreign journalists who are in detention,"Bassiouni said."".

"We requested the opportunity to visit them and to ask why they are not be released.". I hope that this initiative will impact on journalists. ?

The commission of inquiry was set up in February by the UN Human Rights Council and is due to present his report on the violations of the rights in Libya in June.

Bassiouni, said the commission has already carried out investigations on the ground in Libya is controlled by the rebels, as well as on the borders of the Libya and was also planning to travel to Tripoli.

(Written by Christian Lowe.) (Editing by Sophie hares)

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