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Stocks in the news Thursday

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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SLM Corp. (SLM) falls 3.36 to 5.03 after WSJ.com reports: “President Barack Obama proposed to eliminate private lenders from the student-loan market and esteem the federal government make all such loans directly. In his expenditure blueprint for fiscal 2010, Mr. Obama said the shift to the Department of Education’sitting so-called direct-lending program would save more than $4 billion a year in subsidies paid to private lenders and eliminate uncertainty by reason of students “because of hurly-burly in the monetary markets.”

AIG (AIG) and U.S. authorities are in advanced talks over a restructuring that would split AIG into at least 3 government-controlled units, according to FT. Under plan, the restraint would swap its 80% AIG holding for large stakes in 3 units - AIG’s Asian operations, its international living beings assurance business and the U.S. physical lines business. In return, authorities would relax terms, or smooth cancel a broad portion, of a $60 billion 5-year loan to AIG and convert $40 billion-worth of preferred stock into common. S&P maintains hold.

IBM (IBM) says in regulatory filing that results in January were consistent through its forecast for full-year 2009 EPS of $9.20. The company in like manner said January results signaled growth in services treaty signings in first quarter.

Safeway (SWY) posts $0.79, vs. $0.68, fourth fourth part EPS onward slightly higher same-store sales. Street was looking for $0.81. S&P reiterates hold.

Psychiatric Solutions (PSYS) posts $0.44 vs. $0.42 fourth quarter EPS from cont. ops on 7.8% higher same-facility revenue, 12% higher total revenue. Adjusts 2009 EPS from cont. ops to $2.24-$2.32, below Street view of $2.41, reflecting an increased level of caution regarding the in posse impact of the recessionary economic environment. S&P maintains strong buy.

General Motors (GM) posts $9.65 fourth fourth part loss, vs. $0.08 EPS (both adjusted), on 34% revenue lessen. Incl. special items (totaling $3.7B), co. posted $15.71 fourth quarter loss. Street was looking for a loss of $7.40. Cites dramatic caducity in global economic and market conditions during the year, declining consumer intrepidity and a 50-year low in per-capita auto sales in the U.S. GM also anticipates receiving a “going concern” opinion from its auditors in the 2008 10-K.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) reportedly is close to selling Bear Wagner Specialists LLC to Barclays Capital.

Sears Holdings (SHLD) posts better-than-expected $2.94 (excluding certain betokening items) fourth quarter EPS, vs. $3.17, on 8.3% grow less aggregate domestic same-store sales, 12% total revenue drop. Street was looking for $2.68.

Integrys Energy Group (TEG) posts $0.33, vs. $1.11, fourth quarter GAAP EPS on 12% let down revenue, a 20% least bit in energy prices, and higher operating expenses. Notes fourth allot EPS from continuing operations was $0.27, vs. $1.19. For 2009, sees $2.51-$2.66 GAAP EPS, $2.53-$2.68 EPS from continuing operations.

Fluor (FLR) posts $1.04, vs. $1.41, fourth quarter EPS as inclusion of year ago’s $0.68 benefit from latest settlement of IRS income excise audit for certain precursory years offset 29% revenue rise. Street was looking for EPS of $0.92.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/feb2009/pi20090226_694991.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

Analysts’ opinions on stocks in the news Thursday

From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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S&P MAINTAINS HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP (AIG; .55):

According to an unconfirmed report in the Financial Times, AIG and U.S. authorities are in discussions to execute a “controlled breakup” of AIG under which the government would swap its 79.9% equity stake in AIG for comprehensive stakes in AIG’s foreign life, Asian operations and U.S. personal lines units in exchange for relaxed lend terms. Under this overture, the remaining assets (presumably including the trading lines pursuit) would sojourn with the holding company. We keep our $0.50 target cost, which is our lowest available target price. -C. Seifert

S&P KEEPS SELL OPINION ON SHARES OF GENERAL MOTORS (GM; 2.52):

GM posts an adjusted waste per share of $9.65, vs. year-ago EPS of $0.08, worse than our $6.95 loss projection, despite sales in line. This quarter, in our view, just fills in the gap missing in the newly filed viability plan. It reinforces for us the notion that GM will need multi-billion dollar government assistance to continue as a going concern. We note GM’s negative shareholder’s equity widened to $86 billion at year-end. Given the industry and supply base troubles, GM could true considerably practice more than its projected adjusted automotive operating cash outlflow of $14 billion in 2009. -E. Levy-CFA

S&P REITERATES HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF SAFEWAY INC (SWY; 18.78):

SWY reports fourth quarter EPS of $0.79, vs. $0.68, $0.02 below our estimate. Identical-store sales rose 0.4%, below our 2.8% expectation. Results were aided by a lower tax rate, benefits from a share buyback program, and one additional week in the quarter, but-end were injury by narrower margins. We feel continued confine pressure for example the company reduces prices to stimulate demand in the weak housekeeping environment. As a conclusion, we reduce our 2009 EPS estimate by $0.06 to $2.34, the unbecoming end of SWY’s $2.34-$2.44 guidance, and lower our 12-month mark price $4 to $22, on comparative and p-e analyses. -J. Agnese

S&P REITERATES HOLD RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF JPMORGAN CHASE & CO (JPM; 23.56):

An unconfirmed Wall Street Journal story says JPM may exchange Bear Wagner Specialists, a NYSE market maker acquired in its takeover of Bear Stearns, to Barclays Capital (BCS; 5.93). JPM likely views the firm as a non-core operation, and we think it will not fetch a premium compensation. However, the divestiture could free up capital committed to the business. Separately, in an investor sunshine introduction, the company disclosed it direct reduce headcount by 12,000 in the manner that it integrates Washington Mutual operations, and says it expects to exist profitable in first quarter 2009. -S. Plesser, M.Albrecht

S&P LOWERS RECOMMENDATION ON SHARES OF WILLIAMS-SONOMA TO STRONG SELL FROM HOLD (WSM; 9.07):

We are threatening our January-quarter EPS estimate by $0.08 to $0.14, against us of results expected on 3/26, considering we now project a same-store sales decline of 28%. We expect comps to decline an additional 14% in fiscal year 2010 (January), and note that sales of domestic circle furnishings will lag a recovery in the housing market. While cost-cut efforts will help, we continue project momentous expense de-leverage. As a end, we are lowering our financial year 2009 operating EPS estimate to $0.16 from $0.25, and fiscal year 2010’session to a net loss of $0.16 from EPS of $0.09. We also cut our 12-month DCF-based target price by $3 to $7. -M. Souers

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/feb2009/pi20090226_432391.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

Major indexes were impotent to sustain Thursday’s early gains amongst investor concerns about Obama’s budget

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U.S. stocks closed lower Thursday, reversing earlier gains. Investors worried that President Obama’s parcel proposal would hurt profits in undisputed key industries. Health insurers and drug stocks skidded as Obama called for expanding healthcare coverage and cutting Medicare payments.

SLM Corp. (SLM) sank in continuance concerns the administration will close fees paid to banks that provide student loans.

Investors eyed another dismal round of U.S. economic data: Initial jobless claims rose 36,000 to 667,000, continuing claims rose 114,000 to record 5,112,000, January durable goods orders plunged 5.2%, and January new home sales fell 10.2% to a 309,000 unit annual pace.

On Thursday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average highly wrought lower by 88.81 points, or 1.22%, at 7,182.08. The broad S&P 500 pointer shed 12.08 points, or 1.58%, to 752.82. The tech-heavy Nasdaq complex index dropped 33.96 points, or 2.38%, to 1,391.47.

NYSE breadth was 17-14 negative, while Nasdaq breadth was 17-10 negative.

Treasuries, the dollar index and gold futures fell simultaneously with stocks, but oil futures rallied.

President Obama proposed a $3 trillion-plus budget and stressed the need for shared sacrifice as he vowed to slash federal spending by the agency of $2 trillion. He acknowledged that “we new wine add to our sin in the short fall into” to restore American business vitality. But at the same time, he uttered lowering the debt in the longer-term would be the only responsible approach to the country’s financial policies. Administration officials earlier told The Associated Press that the new blueprint predicts a whopping $1.75 trillion deficit in the now passing budget year.

White House economic adviser Paul Volcker said banks that are big enough to destabilize markets should be subjected to tighter regulatory oversight. Volcker suggests subjecting large banks to “particularly high” international standards with respect to security and soundness.

Volcker said the current crisis grew public of serious and unsustainable imbalances in the U.S. and world economy, and economic policy going forward must take “appropriate measures” to deal with that riddle. He reported risk management failed on Wall Street, and “lapses in financial regulation and supervision … permitted institutional weaknesses to fester.”

General Motors Corp. (GM) posted a fourth-quarter loss per share of $9.65, vs. $0.08 EPS one year earlier (both during the time that adjusted) attached a 34% revenue decline. Including appropriate items (totaling $3.7 billion), the automaker posted up a $15.71 fourth-quarter privation. Wall Street was looking for a loss of $7.40 per share. GM cited a dramatic degeneracy in global housekeeping and market conditions during the year, declining consumer confidence, and a 50-year lowing in per-capita auto sales in the U.S. GM also anticipates receiving a “going concern” esteem from its auditors in its 2008 Form 10-K.

Britain launched a scheme expected to insure more than 500 billion pounds ($712 billion) worthiness of banks’ toxic assets as it aims to spur lending and avert having to fully nationalize utmost degree lenders. Reuters reported British sell in small quantities banks with more than 25 billion pounds in preferable assets wish have till March 31 to join the Asset Protection Scheme which will run in quest of a minimum of five years and balance them against huge losses on their riskiest property. Royal Bank of Scotland, already 70% owned by the taxpayer, said it would state in language 325 billion pounds of its assets into the scheme as it also announced the biggest loss in UK corporate history — 24.1 billion pounds. The government moreover had to put in another 13 billion pounds into the bank. Lloyds Banking Group is expected to put in 200 billion pounds worth of risky assets into the scheme forward Friday.

“The object of this is to provide that certainty and that private that will maintain lending and that’s essential,” said finance minister Alistair Darling.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/feb2009/pi20090226_224307.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

The household crisis has pushed yields put on financial preferred shares to record highs. How to enjoy diversified dividends in exchange-traded funds

By Amy Feldman

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With talk of bank nationalizations in the air, financial stocks have been whipsawed, dragging their preferred stock counterparts with them. Amid the volatility, Donald Crumrine, chairman of Flaherty & Crumrine in Pasadena, Calif., which manages $2.3 billion in preferred portfolios, sees opportunity. The opening in yield between Treasuries and preferreds has widened to around nine percentage points, compared with its former crest of three points in 2000. That means investors are pricing in doom. "Valuations are historically cheap," Crumrine says. "The market is discounting default rates that significantly exceed those of the Great Depression."

The appeal of preferreds is that their dividends are higher than on common shares, and they generate paid first. But they trade more partiality bonds, so the bulk of their returns come from income, not capital appreciation. Today, because banks and other financial institutions are the biggest issuers of preferreds, investors affright that if banks are nationalized, their holdings could be wiped out. After total, preferred shareholders in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got squeezed when those companies were nationalized last year.

As fear spread recently, yields on some of Citigroup’session (C) preferreds rose to more than 26%, during the time that those of Wells Fargo (WFC) reached 14%. But many preferreds are being tarred by fraternity, some money managers say, as the market awaits clarity from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on what the government force carry into practice if a major bank were nationalized.

John Maloney, chief executive officer of New York-based M&R Capital Management, points to Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS)—now 70%-owned by the British government—rather than Fannie and Freddie as a model in opposition to to what extent the running water anxiety by preferreds might play out. Royal Bank of Scotland announced in recently deceased February that it would continue to make more preferred payments. While banks have been keen trite dividends, Maloney says, they are "likely to prolong to settle" their preferreds, citing the possibility of fiscal pestilence if they did not. Insurance companies are big holders of preferreds, he notes, and if they have to heed down holdings, the financial crisis could worsen. On the other hand, "even if Geithner comes out and clarifies everything and in that place’s a rally, these things are still going to have appalling yields," he says. "You can selectively buy at dramatically knocked-down prices."

The $400 billion preferred market isn’t limited to deeply distressed financial institutions, of course. Investors willing to take the risk, Maloney argues, might buy issues of smaller quantity troubled institutions, such of the same kind with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) or Wells Fargo. Issuers among the top holdings in Flaherty & Crumrine’sitting closed-end funds include Liberty Mutual Group, Banco Santander (STD), and Sovereign Bancorp—companies that aren’t at the center of nationalization concerns.

Most investors would do best to buy a diversified portfolio of preferreds. One strategy: Invest in an exchange-traded fund like similar to PowerShares Preferred Portfolio (PGX) ETF or PowerShares Financial Preferred Portfolio(PGF) ETF. Ed McRedmond, senior vice-president for portfolio strategies at Invesco PowerShares (IVZ), says fat yields are one reason for strong investor interest recently. Despite abysmal returns, the ETFs have drawn $222 million in net cash inflows this year.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_10/b4122000632067.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

Amid the fiscal crisis, tax advantages are but united benefit of exchange-traded funds. Their transparency, fluidity, and lower fees also seek reference of the case to investors

By David Bogoslaw

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Imagine having invested in the DWS Commodity Securities A Fund (SKNRX) in 2008. The mutual permanent means had an occurring once a year go of -45.9% and likewise distributed nearly two-thirds of its net asset value for the reason that capital gains, incurring a substantial censure bill despite investors on top of the losses they suffered. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only mutual fund to do so: More than three dozen funds with negative returns of at in the smallest degree 21% paid out over 30% of their gin asset cost as capital gains last year, according to Morningstar (MORN). Ouch and returning upon one’s track ouch.

Making capital gains even higher than common was the fact that most traditional mutual funds were forced to sell bequest holdings that had dramatically appreciated in value from the time of being purchased in order to fund redemptions as nervous investors fled the mart.

That may have prompted more people to switch to the mutual funds’ chief rival for the affections of diversification-minded retail investors, exchange-traded funds. Unlike mutual funds, ETFs contract cipher capital gains until an investor actually sells his shares. While turnover in one ETF’s holdings can be high, it is done through in-kind exchanges of one security for another more willingly than through selling and buying.

But since the deepening of the financial crisis last September, the tax advantages of ETFs are just the icing on the concrete.

The primary mind ETFs are besides general than ever is they give financial advisers the ability to better control their clients’ investing. portfolios. First, in that place’s the transparency of knowing exactly what’s in any ETF on any given day, which matches advisers’ need for real-time management of investments in order to minimize wealth destruction. In this regard, ETFs have a clear advantage over mutual funds, which are required to disclose their holdings only four times a year. Of course, there are plenty of traditional characteristic funds that are just as limpid as ETFs by uprightness of the ability to escort the contents of the underlying integral part on any chosen day, says Russ Kinnel, director of fund research at Morningstar.

ETFs’ inseparable liquidity is likewise more valuable than ever in view of the continuing high want of seriousness in stock and bond markets. Then there are the lower fees typically charged by ETF sponsors, which answer for a big difference in the current environment, where returns are mostly underwater.

The enormous volatility in equities last October and November prompted many financial advisers to increase their reliance on ETFs. "When returns are on the ground and markets arrive treacherous, one of the few things you can control is what you’re profitable from a fee perspective," says Anthony Rochte, senior managing manager at State Street Global Advisors (STT) in Boston.

The average annual cost for owning an ETF is about 0.25% of the portfolio’s value, while fees on mutual funds are often betwixt 1% and 2%. Once you tack on sales fees, or loads, and trading fees, which mutual fund managers aren’t required to disclose, investors’ returns on mutual funds can be much lower than they look for. The rational faculty ETF fees are let down is the funds are passively managed by tracking an index, while most mutual funds tend to be actively managed. Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments have built reputations, however, in continuance charging fees that emulate, admitting that not underprice, those of most ETFs.

Total assets under management in U.S. ETFs fell $74 billion, or 12%, to about $534 billion at the end of 2008, compared with a -37% return for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index in 2008, according to a January 2009 report by Tom Anderson, head of strategy and research at State Street.

And while investors withdrew in greater numbers than $170 billion from traditional U.S. mutual funds last year, they levy $176 billion into ETFs, says Noel Archard, head of work research and expanding for iShares, a business unit of Barclays Global Investors (BCS). "Investors were voting with their feet, essentially," he says.

Just as individual public securities took a throbbing in 2008, equity-based ETFs came under a lot of pressure, with international ETFs experiencing the biggest declines. Fixed-income, commodity-based, and inverse/leveraged ETFs had the largest increases in assets, according to Anderson’s report.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/feb2009/pi20090225_272106.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

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The thousands of contractors who work at Microsoft end third-party agencies are facing pay cuts beginning Monday, as Microsoft continues to look for ways to cut costs.

Microsoft and its contracting agencies agreed to a 10 percent divide in the bill vilify, impacting all temporary worker assignments. Several contract employees have said the reduction is being passed forward to them in the form of a pay cut. One person said some agencies are seeking to pass deeper stipend cuts onto their workers. Several contractors contacted The Seattle Times, asking for anonymity for fear that speaking out would hazard their jobs.

The 10 percent cut is for existing contracts. New contracts elect have a 15 percent reduction in the asperse.

The cuts are not a complete surprise, similar to Microsoft had been trimming its contract work force even before it announced layoffs of 1,400 full-time employees Jan. 22 — the first greater job reduction in company record. At that measure, the company also said it intended to cut spending on contractors by dint of. up to 15 percent.

Another contractor said the cuts impact so-called “a-dash” employees, also known since contingent staff. It’session not immediately unequivocal if “v-dash” employees, who are vendors, are facing uniform cuts.

Notification of some contract employees began Tuesday. Microsoft does not disclose in what state many contractors it employs. These workers staff reception desks, test software, furnish supplies specialized consulting services and adhere to other functions that keep the meeting of friends running through outside agencies. Sid Parakh, algebraist at McAdams Wright Ragen, has estimated the figure to be around 40,000.

Contractors were dismayed that the contract agencies could unilaterally change their pay rate. Others were concerned that they had made choices about benefits, based on a negotiated contract rate, but which may not be affordable now after the remuneration cuts. Others also said they were grateful to at minutest still have a job.

More specifics onward how Microsoft is trimming its contractor costs can be found in this internal e-mail to the contract agencies, obtained by TechFlash. Among other measures, the e-mail says some Microsoft business groups will try to reduce or eliminate overtime and total hours for temporary workers.

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/02/26/microsoft_temps_face_10_percent_pay_cut.html

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JERUSALEM

Israel, which controls most of what goes into and out of Gaza, has before-mentioned no repeatedly.

At first, Israeli officials reported they wanted to make sure the macaroni wasn’cheek by jowl destined for a Hamas charity. Then they declared macaroni was banned because they didn’t consider it an essential food.

On Wednesday, days after U.S. lawmakers raised questions around the macaroni ban, Israeli officials said they were preparing to give the pasta a green light.

For the international aid community, the spar is emblematic of the red tape and political maneuvering that obtain stymied efforts to rebuild Gaza.

“We’re at the end of our tie,” aforesaid David Holdridge, the head of Middle East emergency-relief efforts for Portland, Ore.-based Mercy Corps. “This is just droll. It’s absolutely absurd.”

The Israeli restrictions are expected to be a central egress in the coming days, when George Mitchell, President Obama’s new Middle East peculiar envoy, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrive for discussions about how to help Gaza without strengthening Hamas, its hard-line Islamist king.

“Aid should never be used as a political weapon,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Wednesday in Washington. “We’ll try to push to make acquisition into Gaza as many supplies viewed like potential.”

The macaroni standoff drew the attention of U.S. lawmakers who made a incomparable supplant last week to the Gaza Strip.

“Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?” Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., who joined Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison in visiting Gaza, reportedly asked after hearing about the give support to restrictions.

Along with scaramouch, Israel has prevented aid groups from sending to Gaza everything from paper and crayons to love-apple paste and lentils.

As international donors prepare to meet next week in Egypt to discuss a massive, coordinated global rebuilding initiative, Israel is making it clear it will block at all projects that could help Hamas.

Israeli objections are expected to prevent Gaza’s residents from reconstructing all the major government buildings that Israeli strikes destroyed, including the Palestinian Authority Gaza City parliament building, the presidential compound upon the Mediterranean sail along the coast and police stations.

“We want to make sure that reconstruction for the the many the crowd of Gaza is not reconstruction for the Hamas regime,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Ever after Hamas seized military control of Gaza in 2007

Israel’s latest soldiers campaign in Gaza, aimed primarily at forcing Hamas to end its rocket barrages upon the body southern Israel and its military buildup, caused an estimated $2 billion in damage.

Palestinian Authority officials estimated 4,000 homes were destroyed and 17,000 were damaged.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008787298_macaroni26.html?syndication=rss

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WASHINGTON

The CIA this week began sending the White House a classified daily briefing on the worldwide economic crisis, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday, underscoring growing concern that the global financial meltdown could topple governments or lead to sharp swerves in the foreign policies of hard-hit nations.

The common fame notwithstanding President Obama and other top officials, called the Economic Intelligence Brief, is an effort “to become strong that we aren’t surprised by the implications of the worldwide household crisis,” Panetta before-mentioned in his first meeting with reporters inasmuch as being sworn in Feb. 13.

“It’s beginning to have impacts not only in China and … countries from top to toe Europe” but also increasingly in Latin America, in what place there are fresh signs of economic instability, Panetta said. He specifically cited Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela.

The daily make known

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who oversees the CIA and other agencies, told Congress brace weeks ago the global critical situation is the greatest short-term security threat to the U.S.

One government

Already, Blair said, several European governments have been destabilized by economic distress, and “much of Eurasia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa lack sufficient cash reserves and access to international aid.”

The CIA report will incorporate resolution from other U.S. intelligence agencies. In some cases, elements of it may be incorporated into the President’s Daily Brief

A U.S. intelligence official declared “the primary audience of the take down is top-tier economic-policy race,” including senior officials at the Treasury Department as well as Obama’sitting economic advisers.

Panetta before-mentioned the CIA might beef up its cadre of economic analysts, but added, “We’ve got a moderately good company.”

The agency has long studied the economies of other countries

“Most people don’t effect that CIA analysis has always been multidisciplinary, with a strong economic component. Economic analysis is generally an realm of strength for the sake of the charge,” before-mentioned John McLaughlin, a former deputy director of central intelligence. “So this doesn’t surprise me. It’sitting a resource the government should draw on during the rife crisis.”

In speaking with reporters Wednesday, Panetta cited other international concerns, including rampant drug violence in Mexico and deteriorating conditions in Somalia, Yemen and other countries seen as possible havens for al-Qaida.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008787317_econglobal26.html?syndication=rss

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JALREZ VALLEY, Afghanistan

Supported by about 200 Afghan soldiers and their French army trainers, 200 soldiers of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., encountered no resistance.

U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan are scrambling to beat back the Taliban insurgency by bolstering U.S. forces, delivering long-promised humanitarian and renovation projects, girding for a surge in violence with the end of winter and preparing despite the country’s second democratic presidential election in August.

The reactions to the arrival of the U.S.-led validity Wednesday, however, ranged from skepticism to hostility. “Down To America” dabbed in whitewash greeted the U.S. column as it pushed into the ravine from the American base in Maydan Shahr, the capital of Wardak large extent.

Icy-eyed villagers stared as towering Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored trucks and other vehicles towing trailers, generators and guns, protected by two helicopter gunships and sum of two units A-10 “tank-buster” jets, plowed regions of the valley’s main track into knee-high furrows of dense mud. The convoy halted trade for hours and twice churned slowly through the main bazaar, filling the frizzled hibernate air with choking clouds of diesel fumes.

“We don’t want them”

“Everything was OK before they came in this place,” growled Mohammad Sharif similar to he sat in his dingy candies shop conspicuous at the American vehicles stopped outside. “We slip on’t want them to come here. We haven’t needed them for 1,000 years. This is our country.”

The out of tune comments by the agency of Sharif and others seemed to confirm assertions by the agency of U.S. officers that the valley, in various places 50 miles south of the capital, Kabul, is under firm Taliban control, and that the guerrillas have the advantage strong support among the district’session gentile Pashtuns, who constitute 30 percent of the Jalrez District’s impoverished people of about 66,000.

“This is where key leaders of the Taliban are located,” said Lt. Tyjuan Campbell, of Palmetto, Fla., of Apache Company, 2nd Battalion, 82nd Infantry Regiment, taken in the character of he stood outside the abandoned French-built agricultural center that he took on this account that his headquarters.

U.S. and French officers uttered Taliban explosives experts produce roadside bombs and self-homicide vests in the valley. The insurgents also use the area to infiltrate Kabul and launch attacks, stealing through the mountains on accurate tracks and goat paths.

The 3rd Brigade Combat Team plans to set up bases across the valley

The valley is framed by snow-covered peaks, more as high because 12,000 feet, that enclose a narrow plain of layer-cakelike dried-mud homes, contracted tracks, apple orchards, distinct brooks and pastures.

There’s no electricity; the inhabitants are desperately poor; the children are filthy, thinly clad and rheumy-eyed; and a U.S. military assessment rates the Afghan control’s authority in the Jalrez District “nonexistent.”

Arrival before dawn

The U.S. operation began before dawn Wednesday, with helicopters flying small U.S. and Afghan army units into positions on the sides of the valley near the main bazaar.

Aziz Ahmad, one of particular dozen drivers and passengers stalled by the convoy, at first expressed anger and resentment at the outsiders, complaining about the blockage and saying that villagers “are apprehensive that fighting will at that time start here. They are scared.”

But in a glimpse of promise for the U.S. troops, Ahmad said that many residents would reconsider their views grant that the Americans paved the track.

“If they pave the road, that is a foundation for Afghanistan,” he said. “Things will take the first step to change.”

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008787295_afghan26.html?syndication=rss

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The 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia exist disposed be a day trip away for Pacific Northwest residents. Yet some the vulgar can’t repress but feel they’re too far despite comfort.

Tickets

Here’s any antidote to your flagging Olympic spirit.

Turns deficient in there is a fringe benefit to being a few hours’ drive from the Games, a incidental that might come along once in a lifetime

Canada’s Olympic organizers pulled off a rare feat: They completed venues a hibernate seasonable, and several are open to the the community. So, while you might have to tend the Olympics on TV next year, you can play like one Olympian unswerving now.

Ever wonder just in what condition steep an Olympic downhill is? Find out by skiing the same runs at Whistler on which the world’s fastest skiers will race for the period of the Games. Curious about the more obscure events? Whistler Olympic Park offers “The Biathlon Experience,” where visitors this winter and spring can ski and shoot just like an Olympian. Pick up your seize at the rental counter.

At Cypress Mountain ski area in West Vancouver, the snowboard half-pipe is open. Improvements are needed succeeding the ‘pipe was criticized at the World Cup this month, but you can ride or ski it and judge for yourself.

Olympians already are saying the Whistler Sliding Centre track, home to bobsled, luge and skeleton, is the fastest in the nature. If you’re looking to try it yourself, you can, further not until after the Games. For now, you be possible to see the track, even deduce a guided tour.

Final venue completed

On Feb. 19, the 2010 Olympics’ final sporting venue was completed through the official opening of the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre, the site for curling.

There’s still work to do. A Feb. 15 World Cup snowboard race at Cypress was canceled at what time the parallel giant-slalom course was poorly prepared. At about the same epoch last year, blinding fog and rain forced other Olympic discriminative characteristic events

But Cypress appears to be the exception in in other respects right-on-schedule venue preparation.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2008787363_tryolympics26.html?syndication=rss