LyrArc Article Gist
This article in Spanish calls on president Santos and former president Uribe to bridge their differences and take the peace process forward in Colombia. This follows the "no" vote in the referendum on the agreement reached in peace talks with FARC. Only 38% of the voters voted in the referendum and the vote was 50.2% against and 49.8% in favor of the peace agreement.

LyrArc Article Gist
American Airlines share price ended at $1.98, down 33%, on Oct. 3, 2011. AMR averted bankruptcy protection in 2003. This is the lowest level for the share price since 2003. AMR suffers from higher labor costs than other large airlines that went through bankruptcy and realigned costs. AMR says its labor costs are $800 millon higher than its competitors. AMR says it has $4.2 billion in unrestricted cash as of Sept 30, 2011, a decline from the $5.1 billion on June 30, 2011. Debt obligations due for AMR are $2.5 billion for 2011, $1.8 for 2012 and $1 billion in 2013. AMR raised $726 million in aircraft- backed bonds to refinance part of $1.3 billion in debt obligations due in second half of 2011. AMR has ordered 460 new fuel efficient aircraft in a lease financing deal offered by Boeing that does not stress AMR's balance sheet. Fears that AMR is burning cash with its expected operating loss caused Moddy's to change its outlook for AMR to negative from stable. AMR had $17.1 billion in total debt on June 30, 2011....

LyrArc Article Gist
Ohio governor Kasich, New Jersey Governor Christie, and Florida governor Jeb Bush chipping away at Donald Trump's lead in New Hampshire after Trump's defeat in the Iowa caucuses. The three governors did poorly in Iowa getting less than 7% of the vote combined- Bush 2.8%, Kasich 1.9%, and Christie 1.8%. The more diverse industrial state of New Hampshire compared to agricultural and evangelical voter Iowa provides a different contest in New Hampshire.

LyrArc Article Gist
Enrique Pena Nieto, assumes office as the new president of Mexico in Nov. 2012. His focus is on implementing a 13 point agenda which includes crime prevention, better schooling and employment opportunties, new train lines, expanding internet access, and support for social programs for the poor. He said there were two Mexico's - one that was benefitting from the global economy and modernization, and the other which was falling behind and hurting Mexico's image abroad. Economist Videgaray, close advisor to Nieto, is now the new Finance Minister. Videgaray says there is a common misconception that the PRI which ruled Mexico for so long is back in power. But times have changed. The PRI of today is no longer the PRI of yesterday, and understands that it like any other party can be voted out of power if it does not provide good government, says Videgaray. The focus of the new government will be on efficiency and modernization. Doing this will require the cooperation of the opposition parties, as Nieto won only 38% of the vote in a three way election against Mota and Obrador. He does not control Congress and the PRI opposed the legislation of the Calderon government during its term in office....

LyrArc Article Gist
The U.S. experienced a net increase in jobs of 69,000 in May. The average for the March-May 2012 period is 96,000 jobs, which is down from the figure of 245,000 net jobs added in the previous three months December- February 2012. Increasing auto sales did not increase jobs by much- only 12,000. Job gains were in health care, transportation and warehousing, with cutbacks in construction and at the local government level.

LyrArc Article Gist
This report by NYT's Choe Sang Hun shows in a brief and lucid manner the charges against South Korea's president Park Geun-hye, as the National Assembly votes on a motion to impeach her.  Her close friend and advisor, Ms. Choo Soon-sil, is involved. Ms. Soon-sil is accused by prosecutors of seeking favors from corporations such as Hyundai, and using the help of the president or the administration to secure these favors. This includes contracts for companies and foundations run by Ms. Soon-sil. In the proceedings before the National Assembly business leaders of the nation's largest companies have confirmed that they could not say no because of requests coming from the administration and the presidential office. About $69 million of donations to the foundations were made. The conglomerate Lotte donated $6 million for a sports complex to be built so that Ms. Soon-sil's company Blue K could run it. Prosecutors say these companies feared retaliation or tax investigations if they did not comply with requests from the presidential office. Other charges are about national intelligence and this relates to orders from president Park to an aide to give 47 classified documents to Ms. Choi Soon-sil between 2013 and 2016. Choi had no security clearance and the documents showed who would be appointed to top government positions including national intelligence director. The opposition in the National Assembly says this violates her constitutional obligations. The constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press were violated say opposition leaders because a newspaper's president was fired for covering Ms. Choi's activities. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Some of the crude rhetoric at Donald Trump rallies, and use of coarse language, according to the NYT. Working class and older Americans show their anger at a system that appears to have left them behind with slogans, stickers, T-Shirts. The idea of the wall figures in much of this and shows that the wall has become not jut about Mexico but a metaphor that captures this anger, that reflects this anger. Another aspect of the 2016 campaign is that those most vulnerable and most in need of help have not sought the comfort of knowing about programs to improve middle class and working class wages, incomes, to build infrastructure, create jobs, stop companies from shifting jobs overseas, plans for improving accesss to health care and education, to ask for specifics and delivery. This is the supreme irony of the 2016 election campaign that not enough attention is going to what will be done for the middle and working class, and what specifics will be delivered, in what time frame- which is essential for restoring the condition of the American middle and working class to where it was in the 2 decades after the Second World War. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Seib points to the intangible assets Ryan brings to to the Romney presidential campaign, which fill in for areas in which Romney is weak. The working man touch to connect with working class voters, avid sportsman to connect with younger voters, a practising Catholic to reach out to Catholic voters given Romney's Mormon background, the energizing effect for conservative voters having someone who has fought hard for the conservative cause. Also important will be Ryan's friendly manner, down to earth talk, and ability to talk to voters of all opinions, to reach out to independent voters.

LyrArc Article Gist
June's employment numbers in the U.S. from the Labor Department show only 80,000 jobs were added. Job creation dropped in the second quarter to about 75,000 a month from the average of 226,000 in the first quarter 2012. Part of the reason for the higher figures in the first quarter was unseasonably warm weather during that period. Manufacturing added fewer jobs in June, down to 11,000. Healthcare added 13,000 jobs. Of 12.7 million people unemployed, the number of people unemployed for more than 6 months is 42% of the total or 5.4 million.

LyrArc Article Gist
Timothy Egan points to the huge gap between a T.R. in 1910 making the speech in Osawatomie, eastern Kansas, and Professor Obama making an election speech in 2011. T.R.'s was an election manifesto that brought up the issues of conservation, child labor, a plea for an income tax, call for worker protections, limits on corporate power and influence on the laws and direction of the country. The speech was made in 1910, after Taft had assumed the presidency with Roosevelt's backing, and would lead to T.R. running against Taft and Woodrow Wilson. Most of what T.R. advocated became part of the country's social and economic fabric, much of the work beginning with Theodore Roosevelt's two terms as president, and also pursued by Woodrow Wilson, the president elected in 1912. By contrast, in line with the timidity of today's politics, Obama's speech called for approving his nominee for consumer protection bureau chief, and continuance of tax cuts for the middle class. Egan calls it a curse of today's politics and national debate that no politician can set the course for revitalizing America the way T.R. did. Some of what T.R. said in Kansas that day is: "There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done." "The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted." Jackie Calmes covered the extensive ties of both candidates, Obama and McCain, to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in her report for the New York Times, on September 9, 2008- "For 08' Rivals a Skein of Ties to Loan Giants." Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, who with his reporters did some of the difficult reporting on Fannie and Freddie, wrote in one of his columns with a note of pessimism, that he wasn't sure that either of the presidential candidates were interested in what was happening. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Juan Montes of the WSJ describes the problems facing states in Mexico as the governors have accumulated power, debt has risen rapidly, and accountability of state officials is at a new low. Half of the states with elections in 2016 have doubled their debt in 6 years, according to government data. The federal audit office points to irregularities in $13 billion of federal funds transferred to states. Elections in states in 2016 shows public discontent with poor governance, corruption, and the lack of rule of law. This is leading to a close election in Veracruz with the PAN and PRD parties challenging the PRI in the state.

LyrArc Article Gist
A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...