Malaysia to send 100,000 Indonesian workers home

Nearly 100,000 Indonesian workers in Malaysia will be laid off and sent home by the end of the year as the economic downturn hits, a report said Wednesday.
Malaysia has already banned the hiring of new foreign workers in factories, stores and restaurants due to fears the economic crisis will lead to more job losses for locals.
Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia, Da'i Bachtiar, was quqoted by AFP as telling the New Straits Times that most of the lay-offs this year will be in the manufacturing sector.
He said that nearly 10,000 Indonesian workers in southern Johor state alone had already been sent home since the start of the year.

"We are expecting more workers to be laid off soon," Da'i told the daily.

The ambassador said there were nearly two million Indonesian workers in Malaysia, including 800,000 illegals, and that 300,000 were employed in the manufacturing sector.
Malaysia is preparing a second economic stimulus package, following a 2.0 billion dollar plan unveiled last November, to help companies and workers who have lost their jobs as a result of the global economic downturn.
Malaysia -- one of Asia's largest importers of labour -- last year hosted an estimated 2.2 million foreign workers, who are the mainstay of the plantation and manufacturing sectors.
However, the government has become concerned about the ramifications of having such a big migrant workforce and periodically tries to reduce it. (*)nabilputri antara news)
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EU hails climate deal as example for the world

EU hails climate deal as example for the world

BRUSSELS, Belgium – European nations on Friday dared the United States, Russia and China to follow their lead on global warming after agreeing on a plan to meet the so-called "20-20-20" targets: reducing greenhouse emissions by 20 percent and ensuring that 20 percent of energy comes from wind, sun and other renewable sources by 2020.
But activists said the plan was fatally weakened by a raft of concessions to eastern Europe and heavy industry at a time of worldwide economic crisis.
Stavros Dimas, the European environment commissioner, said the package put the 27-nation European Union on a path to a low-carbon economy.
"We are the only region in the world that is reducing emissions," Dimas said on the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference in Poznan, Poland, calling the bloc an example that others should follow.
Environmentalists said the concessions made the plan ineffective.
"The deal is a disaster, it's disgraceful," said Stephen Singer, a climate specialist for WWF International. "If the world follows the example of the EU, it is on a trajectory to disastrous climate change."
The plan increased the amount of emissions Europeans could offset by sponsoring green projects in developing countries. Armed with that opt-out, Singer said Europe's actual emissions reductions would be a mere 4 percent, not the 20 percent the EU claims.
The Brussels summit coincided with the end of a two-week, 190-nation U.N. conference in Poznan that worked on a global climate treaty to be adopted next year in Copenhagen, Denmark. The treaty would replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol, which required the EU and other industrial countries to cut carbon emissions by an average 5 percent by 2012.
The EU leaders held out an inducement to the Poznan negotiators: If a global climate deal can be reached in Copenhagen, the EU will go even further, cutting its greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020.
President George W. Bush has refused to accept mandatory restrictions on the U.S. economy intended to cut carbon emissions, both as outlined in the Kyoto accord and those now being considered. While the United States signed the Kyoto agreement, it was never ratified by the Senate and Bush essentially scrapped it. Since 1990 U.S. emissions have increased by 16.7 percent.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who was at the Poznan conference, said he expects the United States to have a climate policy in place within a year that will allow it to join the worldwide effort to combat global warming.
President-elect Barack Obama has called for Congress to establish greenhouse gas limits that would reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and cut them another 80 percent by 2050. He also pledged to invest $15 billion a year to develop clean energy projects that produce fewer greenhouse gases.
Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official, said the EU deal showed that "difficult roadblocks (to a global accord) can be overcome and resolved."
He said the EU deal was a "sign of developed countries' resolve and courage the world has been waiting for in Poznan. It shows the world that ambitious emission reduction goals by 2020 are in line with moving economic recovery in a green direction."
The EU leaders spent two days sorting out differences over sharing the burden of cutting greenhouse emissions by 20 percent and ensuring that 20 percent of energy comes from wind, sun and other renewables by 2020.
When it was over, they claimed global climate change leadership, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the summit chairman, declaring, "No other continent has given itself such binding rules as we have just adopted."
However, environmental groups called the EU deal a sellout.
Claude Turmes, a Luxembourg Green Party member of the European Parliament, said EU governments were "using the economic downturn as an excuse to water down climate policies."
The heart of the EU agreement is a system — starting in 2013 — of auctioning industrial emission permits that are now issued free of charge. Major polluters will eventually pay $66.1 billion a year for this permission to pollute. Governments will use that income for clean energy development.
But critics say loopholes allow some industries, especially in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, to get largely off the hook, with no incentive to embrace green technologies.
Turmes called the selling of pollution credits "ethically wrong. It implies a neocolonial approach to climate policy."
Jos Cozijnsen, a carbon-trading expert for the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund, calculated Europe would meet half its 20 percent goal by cutting emissions, and half by buying credits. "That's not bad," he said. "It's expensive to do everything domestically."
Elise Ford of the relief organization Oxfam complained that a proposal requiring some auction revenues to go to poor nations was swept from the table.
The cost of the plan had alarmed eastern European countries at a time of economic slowdown.
Desperate to get a deal, France backed several opt-outs to the strict reductions it wants industries to make. The opt-outs are aimed at heavy industries that might flee abroad to regions with looser environmental rules.
The European Parliament must vote on the climate change package next week. They can expect a pep talk from Sarkozy, who made the climate plan the central goal of his six-month run as EU president. France's tenure ends Dec. 31.
EU officials stressed Europe's pollution reduction targets could breathe new life into the U.N. climate talks. The EU plan also pushes eco-friendly cars, fewer power-draining buildings, greener consumer goods and energy deregulation.
"People will not follow Europe unless we set the example," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
EU governments agreed in principle to the emissions cuts last year, but spent months working it out. Friday's resulting plan came after diplomats worked through the night for a final compromise. It is highly detailed, with targets and timetables differing from country to country.
The leaders also agreed on a $258 billion European economic stimulus package to ease the effects of a recession.
In the past decade, the EU has largely stayed on track to meet pollution-cutting targets of the 1997 Kyoto agreement.
In November, the European Environment Agency said the 15 nations that belonged to the EU at the time are on target to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent in the 2008-12 period. Twelve nations have already surpassed or are set to meet the targets, while Denmark, Italy and Spain will not.
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.(mrprab/yahoo!)

Finger-pointing begins as Senate nixes auto vote

WASHINGTON – A Democratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit's Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers' fate to a lame-duck Republican president. Caught in the middle of a who-blinks-first standoff are legions of manufacturing firms and auto dealers — and millions of Americans' jobs — after Senate Democrats canceled a showdown vote that had been expected Thursday. President George W. Bush has "no appetite" to act on his own.
U.S. auto companies employ nearly a quarter-million workers, and more than 730,000 other people have jobs producing the materials and parts that go into cars. About 1 million on top of that work in dealerships nationwide. If just one of the auto giants were to go belly up, some estimates put U.S. job losses next year as high as 2.5 million.
"If GM is telling us the truth, they go into bankruptcy and you see a cascade like you have never seen," said Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, who was working on one rescue plan Wednesday. "If people want to go home and not do anything, I think that they're going to have that on their hands."
The automakers — hobbled by lackluster sales and choked credit — are burning through money at an alarming and accelerating rate: about $18 billion in the last quarter alone. General Motors Corp. has said it could collapse within weeks, and there are indications that Chrysler LLC might not be far behind. Ford Motor Co. has said it could get through the end of 2008, but it's unclear how much longer.
For now, however, with the federal emergency loan plan stalled in the Senate, lawmakers in both parties are engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken, positioning themselves to blame each other for the failure.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., scrapped plans Wednesday for a vote on a bill to carve $25 billion in new auto industry loans out of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund.
It's really up to Bush's team to act, he said.
"I don't believe we need the legislation," Reid said. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson can tap the financial industry bailout money to help auto companies, Reid said, but "he just doesn't want to do it."
Not our responsibility, countered the White House.
"If Congress leaves for a two-month vacation without having addressed this important issue ... then the Congress will bear responsibility for anything that happens in the next couple of months during their long vacation," said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.
She said there was "no appetite" in the administration for using the financial industry bailout money to help auto companies.
The White House and congressional Republicans instead called on Democrats to sign on to a GOP plan to divert a $25 billion loan program created by Congress in September — designed to help the companies develop more fuel-efficient vehicles — to meet the auto giants' immediate financial needs.
Voinovich and Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., along with Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, were at work on that measure Wednesday, trying to placate skeptical Democrats by including a guarantee that the fuel-efficiency loan fund would ultimately be replenished.
"It is the only proposal now being considered that has a chance of actually becoming law," said Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
If an acceptable deal emerges, Reid said it could be passed as part of a measure to extend jobless aid to unemployed workers whose benefits have run out. A vote on that bill is likely on Thursday. Negotiators were discussing a scaled-down aid package of $5 billion to $8 billion to help the automakers survive through year's end.
But there was little sign that Democratic leaders would go along.
"We have to face reality," Reid said.
They are vehemently opposed to letting the car companies tap the fuel-efficiency money — set aside to help switch to vehicles that burn less gasoline — for short-term cash-flow needs.
All of which leaves the Big Three bracing for a bleak winter without government help.
GM CEO Rick Wagoner told a House committee Wednesday that the downfall of his industry would ripple through communities around the nation. Pressed by lawmakers, Wagoner wouldn't say precisely when GM would run out of money without a government lifeline, but he disclosed that the company now was burning through $5 billion a month.
Still, with the $25 billion emergency package, "we think we have a good shot to make it through this," Wagoner said.
Many lawmakers in both parties are now openly discussing whether bankruptcy might be a better option for auto firms they regard as lumbering industrial dinosaurs that have done too little to adjust their products and work forces for the 21st century.
The carmakers argue that bankruptcy would devastate their companies, but proponents say it would give them a chance to reorganize and emerge stronger and more competitive.
It's unclear, though, whether Democrats controlling Congress are willing to risk being blamed for letting one of the Big Three — symbols of the nation's once-mighty manufacturing sector — go under.
Bailout-shy lawmakers got an earful from jittery constituents last month when the House let an early version of the Wall Street rescue fail, sending the Dow Jones industrials tumbling and erasing more than a trillion dollars in retirement savings and other investments. Congress took a deep breath and reconsidered, passing the plan a few days later.
Faced with a similar collapse in the auto industry, the Bush administration might yet decide to step in to help the auto companies, or the Federal Reserve could step in — though both have steadfastly refused to do so.
If not, lawmakers have left themselves a contingency plan: Come back to Washington in December for yet another postelection session where they might be able to strike the deal that now seems beyond reach.
Democratic leaders are planning to gather for an economic conference the week of Dec. 8, noted House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.
"That is available," Hoyer said this week. "The year has not ended."
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Associated Press writers Sam Hananel in Washington and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report

Holder is Obama's top choice for attorney general

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama's top choice for attorney general is Eric Holder, a former No. 2 Justice Department official in the Clinton administration and Obama campaign aide who would become the first African American to serve as the nation's chief lawyer.
The Obama transition team has gone so far as to ask senators whether they would confirm Holder, who reviewed Clinton's controversial pardon of fugitive Marc Rich just leaving office, an Obama official and people close to the matter said Tuesday.
But the Obama official said the decision has not been finalized, and transition spokesmen said no decision has been made.

Holder did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday. Asked Monday by The Associated Press whether he expected to be nominated, he responded in an e-mail: "Who knows?"
One person involved in the talks said the Obama team has received some assurances that, while the pardon would certainly come up during hearings, the nomination likely wouldn't be held up.
All spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the pardon "would be a factor to consider."
"I wouldn't want to articulate it among the top items but it's worthwhile to look at," he told reporters.

Asked if Holder would be a good choice for attorney general, Specter said it was too soon to say.
"I know something of Holder's work in the Clinton administration and that's about it," he said. "I'd have to take a much closer look at his record and talk to him and think about it."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had not been informed about Holder, his spokeswoman said.

On the last day of Clinton's term, Holder, then the deputy attorney general, was asked whether Clinton should pardon Rich, a wealthy commodities dealer who had spent years running from tax charges. Holder said he was "neutral, leaning toward favorable" on the pardon. Clinton later cited that as among the factors that persuaded him to issue the pardon.
Holder has publicly apologized for what he said was a snap decision that he should have paid more attention to. Had he taken more time to review the case, he would have advised against a pardon, he said.

Holder, 57, also a former judge and U.S. attorney in Washington, is widely respected in legal circles and among Justice Department career lawyers. He has been on Obama's short list to be attorney general since before the election, and already has had private conversations about how he would run the department.

One of his top priorities, according to a person familiar with his thinking, is to rebuild the department's reputation after its fiercely independent image was tarnished by charges of political meddling by the White House during the Bush administration.
For that reason, Holder has been reluctant to lobby for the attorney general's post for fear the Rich pardon would invite a bloody nomination process and further strain the department's credibility, this person said.

Holder has been one of Obama's most trusted advisers. He was a member of the team that helped select Sen. Joe Biden as Obama's running mate. The two have known each other only briefly, however, after meeting at a dinner party four years ago.
Holder has other deep ties to Obama's team. Holder's wife, an obstetrician, delivered incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's daughter.
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Associated Press writers David Espo, Nedra Pickler and Liz Sidoti contributed to this report.
(mrprab, yahoo! News)