GM emerges from bankruptcy

DETROIT (AP) — The new General Motors arose on Friday as lawyers finished an all-night paperwork session transferring the automaker's good assets to a brand-new company controlled by the U.S. government.

The massive transfer of factories, money and intellectual property was completed about 6:30 a.m., according to a person briefed on the situation, clearing the way for a smaller and faster company better equipped to compete in the brutally tough global automotive market.

NEW BEGINNING: A smaller, leaner GM

The person, who asked to remain anonymous because the deal wasn't announced officially, said the signing meant the new GM had emerged from bankruptcy.

One bankruptcy expert called GM's 40-day case the fastest ever for a company of its size.
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GM's warp-speed emergence from bankruptcy is expected to be announced by CEO Fritz Henderson and new Chairman Edward Whitacre Jr. at a 9 a.m. news conference at the company's Detroit headquarters.

Henderson is expected to announce details of the plan to make new GM profitable again. The troubled automaker has lost more than $80 billion in the past four years.

Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, new GM is now cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans. Spurred on by the Obama administration's support, the bankruptcy process was two day's faster than crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC's 42-day timeframe.

China bans mosque prayers in Urumqi

URUMQI, CHINA: A Chinese official said that mosques in riot-hit Urumqi have been ordered to stay closed for Friday prayers in the wake of ethnic
Army outside mosque

The official who identified herself as a government worker but refused to give her name said on Friday that the decision to close mosques had been made for public safety and that "people should stay at home today and pray."

Separately, officials in Kashgar in southwestern Xinjiang have told visiting journalists that they and other foreigners had to leave the city.

The city's foreign affairs office says that although the city has had no unrest, the decision was made to ensure the safety of the visitors.

Uighur Muslims said they had been directed to pray at home, as armed forces saturated the streets of the northwest Xinjiang region's capital five days after clashes that authorities said left 156 people dead.

"The government said there would be no Friday prayers," said a Uighur man named Tursun outside the Hantagri mosque, one of the oldest in the capital, as about 100 policemen carrying machine guns and batons stood guard nearby.

"There's nothing we can do... the government is afraid that people will use religion to support the three forces."

The "three forces" is a Chinese government term referring to extremism, separatism and terrorism, forces it says are trying to split the remote Xinjiang region from the rest of the country.

Xinjiang's eight million Uighurs have long complained about religious, political and economic repression under Chinese rule, and this deep-set anger spilled out on Sunday in protests that quickly turned violent.

The Chinese government said 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 others were injured, as Uighur Muslims attacked people from China's dominant Han ethnic group.

But Uighur exiles have said security forces over-reacted to peaceful protests. They said up to 800 people may have died in the unrest, including the security crackdown.

The unrest continued early in the week as thousands of Han Chinese took to the streets wielding knives, poles, meat cleavers and other makeshift weapons vowing vengeance against the Uighurs.

AFP witnessed Han Chinese mobs assaulting two Uighurs in separate attacks, and Uighurs alleged many other beatings took place, but the extent of the violence throughout the week was unclear.

China poured in thousands of extra police and army troops on Tuesday, and the Urumqi government said the situation was under control the next day.

Many security forces remained in place on Friday, and the traditional Muslim day of prayer passed with many Uighurs and other Muslims such as from the Hui ethnic group unable to attend mosques.

"Go home to pray," said handwritten notices on the front gates of five shuttered mosques that AFP visited on Thursday.

The Liu Daowan mosque in a Uighur and Hui district of eastern Urumqi, which normally holds about 1,000 people, was also closed on Friday, according to an AFP reporter who went there.

The small Xida mosque that Hui normally attend was also shut.

"According to an order from higher up, out of concern for the safety of the people and during this special time, we ask all people to go home and pray there," a notice outside said.

"We don't want to give the criminal element a chance to ruin the situation. The government fears that the bad elements will try to use Islam to promote the three forces," said an assistant imam named Feng.

When asked if all mosques in Urumqi were closed on Friday, a spokesman for the Xinjiang regional government told AFP that "all religious activities should go on normally", without elaborating.

China's leaders vowed on Thursday to severely punish those responsible for this week's unrest, the nation's worst ethnic conflict for decades.

"The planners of the incident, the organisers, key members and the serious violent criminals must be severely punished," President Hu Jintao and the other eight members of the ruling Communist Party's elite Politburo said.

Local party leaders in Urumqi had on Wednesday warned that people involved in any killings would be sentenced to death, and earlier announced that more than 1,400 people had been arrested for their involvement in the unrest.

Girlfriend shot McNair while he slept

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Sahel Kazemi was determined to be with her boyfriend, former NFL star Steve McNair — even in death.


As he dozed on a sofa early Saturday, Kazemi shot him in the head, then twice in the chest, then again in the head.

Before shooting herself, the 20-year-old sat next to his body and "tried to stage it so she would fall in his lap," Police Chief Ronal Serpas said Wednesday at a news conference where police confirmed the deaths were a murder-suicide. She did, but her body slid to the floor and ended up at McNair's feet. The gun was found underneath her.

Serpas said police believe McNair was asleep when he was killed.

Interviews with friends revealed that Kazemi "was spinning out of control."

She was making payments on two cars, her rent was doubling and she suspected the married McNair was having a second affair with another young woman.

She told a friend on Friday that "My life is a ball of s--- and I should end it," Serpas said.

Police earlier had labeled McNair's death a homicide, but waited for further tests before concluding that she pulled the trigger of a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol in a condominium McNair rented with a friend.

McNair, 36, a quarterback for the Tennessee Titans most of his career, met Kazemi six months ago at a sports cafe where she was a waitress and his family often ate. She seemed happy and eager to build a life with him, but something went wrong.

"We do know that she was clearly sending a message during the last five to seven days of her life that things were going bad quickly," Serpas said, though there was no indication she told anyone she planned to harm McNair.

Serpas said detectives learned that Kazemi recently found out about another young woman she thought McNair was romantically involved with and had even followed that woman home, though she did not confront her.

Kazemi's family told reporters that the woman was so confident McNair was divorcing his wife of 12 years that she was preparing to sell her furniture and move in with him.

But Mike Mu, who has worked with McNair's charitable association for years, said earlier Wednesday that McNair's wife, Mechelle McNair, "didn't know who this girl is." No records of divorce proceedings have surfaced. The McNairs have four children.

Two days before the shooting, police stopped Kazemi driving a Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicle that McNair had given her for her birthday in May.

According to an arrest affidavit, Kazemi had bloodshot eyes and alcohol on her breath. She refused a breath test and told an officer "she was not drunk, she was high." She was charged with DUI. McNair was with her but not charged. He later made her bail.

Police are awaiting toxicology reports on both bodies.

The man McNair shared the condo with discovered them Saturday and called a friend, Robert Gaddy, who arrived and called 911. Serpas said the man didn't call 911 himself because he was in shock.

Gaddy said Wednesday that what he saw in the condo will haunt him for the rest of his life, but he was glad police made clear that his longtime friend did not suffer.

Serpas said that even though both Kazemi's name and McNair's were on the Cadillac's title, she was apparently responsible for making payments. She was also making payments on another car after she couldn't sell it.

Kazemi had no history of violence, but "on the last several days of her life it's obvious that she made some very poor decisions," Serpas said.

Mechelle McNair has not spoken publicly since the shooting. Bishop Joseph W. Walker III of Mount Zion Baptist Church, which the McNairs have attended since moving to Nashville in 1997, said Wednesday that she is doing as well as can be expected.

Europe showing signs of stability

Published July 10, 2009


(PARIS) Economic reports and forecasts released on Wednesday suggested that the decline in European economic activity had stabilised, at least for now.
Factory activity up: German industrial production surged in May by the most since August 1993, rising 3.7 per cent month-on-month, led by vehicle production

A report prepared by three leading European economic institutes said that while the region's prospects remained subdued, the contraction was expected to be less sharp in the coming months.

The three institutes - Ifo of Germany, Paris-based Insee and Isae of Italy - forecast that the gross domestic product (GDP) for the 16 countries using the euro would shrink 0.6 per cent in the second quarter and 0.4 per cent in both the third and fourth quarters.

'The fall of industrial production is likely to continue but at a progressively slowing pace: recent business surveys indicate slightly improving production growth expectations but the economic environment remains unsupportive,' the report said.

Private consumption is expected to keep falling through the year as the deterioration of the labour market continues to subdue spending, the group said, and corporate earning prospects 'are still depressed and credit conditions are likely to remain restrictive due to recession caused write-offs'.

In its latest report, Eurostat, the European Union's statistics agency, said that GDP in the 27-country union declined 2.4 per cent in the first quarter compared with the fourth and 4.7 per cent from the period a year earlier. For the countries that use the euro, GDP contracted 2.5 per cent on the quarter and 4.9 per cent from a year earlier.

The statistics showed particular weakness in emerging economies, with the GDP falling 11.2 per cent for the quarter in Latvia and Slovakia, 10.5 per cent in Lithuania and 2.3 per cent in Hungary.

Germany's GDP was down 3.8 per cent from the previous quarter and 6.9 per cent from the period a year earlier, the report said.

'We hope Q1 was the worst, and we hope to see a stabilisation over the next few months,' an economist at Investec Securities in London, David Page, said.

Other data showed that German industrial production surged in May by the most since August 1993.

Industrial output rose 3.7 per cent month-on-month in May, according to Germany's ministry of economics and technology. Economists had predicted an increase of 0.5 per cent. Output was still down 17.9 per cent from a year ago.

The gain came after production fell 2.6 per cent in April, revised from a 1.9 per cent decline, the agency said. May's rebound was led by vehicle production, up 24 per cent, helped by continued purchase incentives for consumers.

Machine tools, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and metals output rose, but construction and energy output declined, the report showed.

Wednesday's report follows a more forward-looking release on manufacturing orders, which showed an increase in both domestic and foreign manufacturing orders for May.

'A number of this magnitude can't be ignored,' Mr Page said, adding that the German production numbers should continue to improve and add to a broader recovery across the continent.

Sweden, meanwhile, said that industrial production declined in May, falling 2.7 per cent on April and 21.9 per cent on a year earlier. Industrial output in Sweden has not recorded a monthly gain since January 2008.

'On a more positive note, the very sharp falls in industrial output in Sweden have entailed a significant drawdown of inventories,' said Varun Bhabha, an analyst at Barclays Capital.

A survey from the Bank of France showed business confidence climbing in June amid signs that recovering exports were helping to ease the recession.

The Bank of France's business sentiment indicator climbed to 84, from 81 in May. In December, it touched a record low of 68. A services confidence indicator was also up at 78 in June, after 77 in May and 76 in April.

'The outlook for activity and demand in the short term appears to be improving slightly but remains unfavourable overall,' the central bank said. -- NYT