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INTERNATIONAL EDITION
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012
109TH YEAR I ©2012 THE MIAMI HERALD
IMF predicts grim year ahead for global economy as the fund projected in the fall. In those cases and for the rest of the world, the IMF said growth was being crimped by the world’s major economic risk — the ongoing financial crisis in the eurozone. In a trio of reports released Tuesday morning, the IMF forecast a “mild recession” for the 17-nation eurozone this year and warns that the situation could easily worsen. In its “downside scenario,” the fund said that increasingly higher European government borrowing rates and worsening problems with the region’s banks would push the world into recession.
BY HOWARD SCHNEIDER
Washington Post Service
The world economy is slowing sharply, and the euro region is headed for recession this year, the International Monetary Fund predicted Tuesday in a bleak update of global conditions. Overall, the world economy is expected to expand 3.25 percent in 2012 — down from the 4 percent projected by the IMF in the fall. That figure includes 8.2 percent growth in China, still the world’s most quickly expanding economy, and 7 percent in India. U.S. growth is forecast at 1.8 percent, the same
“The current environment . . . provides fertile ground for self-perpetuating pessimism,” the fund wrote. The agency is pressing Europe to do more to resolve its financial problems, and Tuesday’s projections bolster its case. The forecast envisions sharp contractions in Italy and Spain, the two countries that are the main focus of efforts to stop the spread of a crisis that has already required international bailouts of three smaller nations. In Greece, which is suffering from such crippling debt that European leaders fear the nation could
default, a bailout deal remains hung up in negotiations. On Monday, eurozone leaders hit a standoff with Greek bondholders over interest rates, the Associated Press reported. Banks holding Greek debt have been asked to take a 50 percent loss and are calling for lower rates on those investments. European finance ministers, however, are insisting that Greece pay only 4 percent interest to its investors to help the nation avoid disaster. Europe’s debt crisis has caused growing concern among IMF officials that efforts to bring the continent back to economic stability are
too slow and insufficient. Also Monday, the agency’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, warned of a “1930s moment” for the world economy if Europe falls deeper into crisis, and she pressed Germany to contribute more money to rescue efforts. World markets dipped on fears over the Greek deal. Euro Stoxx fell 0.38 percent; the German DAX dropped 0.27 percent; and the FTSE was down 0.53 percent. Markets dropped slightly on Wall Street as well. The Dow Jones index was down 0.26 percent and the Standard &Poor’s was down 0.1 percent, while the Nasdaq rose 0.09 percent.
Romney’s tax returns show he earned $21.6M in 2010 BY NICHOLAS CONFESSORE AND DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI New York Times Service
and we feel very confident in our policy and in selling our policy,” said McFaul, a native of Bozeman, Mont., who spent much of his career in academia. He does not need to fret over his next diplomatic posting, he added, because there will not be one. “I ain’t going nowhere else,” he said, with a big smile. “This is it. I am not a career diplomat.
Mitt Romney’s campaign released hundreds of pages of tax documents on Tuesday morning, providing an inside glimpse into his sprawling investments, both in the United States and abroad, in an effort to dampen the attacks on his wealth that have become a central focus of the Republican presidential nominating battle. Romney and his wife, Ann, had an effective federal income tax rate in 2010 of 13.9 percent, paying about $3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million, the vast majority of it flowing from a myriad of stock holdings, mutual funds and other investments, including profits and investment income from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney retired from in 1999. That rate will rise to 15.4 percent for 2011, when the couple expects to report an adjusted gross income of about $20.9 million. Both rates are much lower than the rates paid by either U.S. President Barack Obama or Newt Gingrich, Romney’s Republican rival, who released his tax returns last week. Romney’s own tax proposals would cut his federal income taxes by about 40 percent — but Gingrich’s proposal, which would abolish capital gains taxes, would almost entirely eliminate them. The documents were posted on Romney’s website on Tuesday
• TURN TO RUSSIA, 6A
• TURN TO ROMNEY, 2A
DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul arrived in Moscow to find the city churning with conjecture and paranoia, as the Kremlin tries to portray a wave of anti-government protest as a project driven by the United States.
MAN ON A MISSION NEW U.S. ENVOY RUFFLES FEATHERS IN MOSCOW BY ELLEN BARRY
New York Times Service
MOSCOW — In the annals of U.S. diplomacy, few honeymoons have been shorter than the one granted to Michael McFaul, who arrived in Russia on Jan. 14 as the new U.S. ambassador. Toward the end of his second full day on the job, a commentator on state-controlled Channel 1 suggested during a prime-time newscast that McFaul was sent
to Moscow to foment revolution. A columnist for the newspaper Izvestia chimed in the next day, saying his appointment marked a return to the 18th century, when “an ambassador’s participation in intrigues and court conspiracies was ordinary business.” McFaul, 48, has arrived in a city churning with conjecture and paranoia, as the Kremlin tries to portray a wave of anti-government protest as a project driven
Turkey slams France over Armenian ‘genocide’ bill BY SELCAN HACAOGLU Associated Press
when the lower house of French Parliament approved the same bill. For some in France, the bill is part of a tradition of legislation in some European countries, born of the agonies of the Holocaust, that criminalizes the denial of genocide. Denying the Holocaust is already a punishable crime in France. Most historians contend that the 1915 killings of 1.5 million Armenians as the Ottoman Empire broke up was the 20th century’s first genocide, and several European countries recognize the massacres as such. Switzerland has convicted people of racism for denying the genocide. But Turkey says that there was no systematic campaign to kill Armenians and that many Turks also died during the chaotic disintegration of the empire. It also says that death toll is inflated.
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey warned the French president on Tuesday against signing a law that makes it a crime to deny that the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago constituted genocide, saying such a move would deal a heavy blow to the relations between the two countries. France’s Parliament approved the bill late Monday, risking more sanctions from Turkey and complicating an already delicate relationship with the rising power. Officials in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government insisted the vote didn’t directly target the Turkey. Turkey, which sees the allegations of genocide as a threat to its national honor, has already suspended military, economic and political ties with Paris, and briefly recalled its ambassador last month • TURN TO GENOCIDE, 2A
ROMANIA’S PREMIER CALLS FOR UNITY AMID PROTESTS, 3A
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by the United States. If the blast of venom that greeted McFaul was intended as a warning to maintain a low profile in his new role, he seems unlikely to comply. At the end of his first week, he was exuberant, saying his goal is to “destroy Cold War stereotypes,” especially “gross statements” about the United States’ intentions in Russia. “I know I’m just going to go in full force, I’ve got nothing to hide,
Changing times on Mexico City streets BY TRACY WILKINSON
Los Angeles Times Service
MEXICO CITY — They stand at the curb, waving a red rag like an urban matador. “Hay lugar, hay lugar!” they call to passing motorists. (“There’s space.”) And then: “Viene, viene.” Come, come, as they guide you into an impossibly tight parking spot, and finally charge you the equivalent of 3 or 4 cents for their service. They are the franeleros, the ubiquitous men, and sometimes women, who control parking on many Mexico City streets, blocking off spaces, even though most of those streets are public and gratis. They form an entire segment of the underclass, of Mexico’s enormous informal economy. And sometimes they are the only way you can park in the congested chaos that is motorized Mexico. But now, starting in one of the capital’s affluent neighborhoods, the franeleros are being challenged over who rules the streets.
IRANIAN OFFICIAL ACCUSES ROUSSEFF OF RUINING RELATIONSHIP, 4A
JANET SCHWARTZ/MCT
‘Franeleros’ help park cars in Mexico City. The enemy? Parking meters. The city government has embarked on a pilot program to install parquimetros, first along leafy but busy streets in the Polanco district, and then gradually expanding into super-rich Lo-
GREECE OPTIMISTIC AS DEBT NEGOTIATIONS DRAG ON, BUSINESS FRONT
mas de Chapultepec and hip La Condesa. For officials, the goal is ambitious: to impose order and transform car culture in this capital of • TURN TO MEXICO, 2A
DODGERS BIDDERS MULLING MERGER OF GROUPS, SPORTS FRONT
INDEX U.S. NEWS ....................5A WORLD NEWS............6A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ...6B
1/25/2012 5:37:46 AM
BY DEKE CASTLEMAN DEKE@ACCESSECUADOR.COM
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