Ireland aims to woo Europe with fiscal obedience

(Reuters) - Ireland's new government will stick to the budget targets laid down in an 85 billion euro EU/IMF rescue package as it seeks to win European partners round to giving it easier terms on the loans.
Ireland's prime minister in-waiting Enda Kenny is under huge pressure to persuade Europe's paymaster

Stocks hit oil slick but economy to trump

(Reuters) - Stocks will take their cues from the oil market this week as unrest rumbles through the Middle East. But so far equity investors are sanguine, believing the economic recovery wins the day.

Sentiment is driving large daily swings as traders vacillate between the fear that oil prices will hit consumers and derail the recovery, and the euphoria that the U.S. labor market is turning a corner.

Glencore seen choosing chairman as banks vie for IPO

(Reuters) - Glencore is reported to have lined up one-time BP (BP.L) executive Rodney Chase as chairman, ahead of a possible flotation that has banks scrambling to resolve client conflicts in the hope of picking up hefty fees.

Deutsche Boerse will have upper hand in NYSE merger - CEO

(Reuters) - Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) will have the upper hand in the planned mega-merger deal with NYSE Euronext (NYX.N), the exchange operators' chief executive told a paper, as fears of fading significance linger.

ECB's Gonzalez-Paramo: April rate hike possible

(Reuters) - An April rate increase is possible as the European Central Bank continues its mission to control inflation, ECB Executive Board member Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo said in an interview published on Sunday.

PG&E using Cow Palace to check documents

SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Saturday a concert venue was being used by employees searching through tens of thousands of boxes of paper records on its natural gas pipeline system.
After September's pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes, PG&E is facing a state Public Utilities Commission order to produce records on its pipelines by March 15.
The utility has been shipping pallets loaded with boxes of documents to the Cow Palace in Daly City, where PG&E employees are pouring through the paper records.

Bahraini Opposition Refuses Money and Jobs Offers

MANAMA, BAHRAIN— Opposition leaders in Bahrain said Sunday that they would not be mollified by offers of money and jobs, raising the prospect of a protracted standoff between protesters and the embattled government of this strategically important island nation.

Lawmakers weigh when to phase Wash. off coal

CENTRALIA, Wash. -- Environmental groups and some legislators want the state's single largest source of greenhouse gases to stop burning coal, and the owner of the Centralia plant says it will do so by 2025....

Lawmakers weigh when to phase Wash. off coal

CENTRALIA, Wash. -- Environmental groups and some legislators want the state's single largest source of greenhouse gases to stop burning coal, and the owner of the Centralia plant says it will do so by 2025....

The Pension Problem

One big reason public employees are under siege in Wisconsin and other states is because they now enjoy more secure retirement benefits than most private-sector workers. The question is whether the right way to close that gap is by reducing security for government employees or increasing it for everyone else.

Q&A: Jumbo mortgage loans explained

I heard that the rules for jumbo mortgage loans are kind of confusing. Is there one definition for “jumbo loan” or does it vary by situation?

Government-sponsored mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae determine what limits will create the Jumbo versus regular mortgage amounts each year.

San Bruno pipeline that exploded was skipped over in seismic repair work

The exact corner where the San Bruno gas pipeline blew a crater in the ground was singled out by PG&E nearly two decades ago as an area of “possible slope instability” because it skirted the powerful and active San Andreas fault so closely.

But despite identifying it as a hazardous site, Pacific Gas and Electric chose not to replace that section of pipe in the mid-1990s when they replaced almost all the pipe around it.

In fact, it replaced Pipeline 132 right up to San Bruno Avenue, less than a quarter-mile south of the rupture site, and then picked up the project again a quarter-mile north of the rupture site, at Plymouth Way. Left untouched was the half-mile section through Crestmoor, the very section destined to one day turn that neighborhood into a panorama of charcoal and ash.

21 airlines fined for fixing passenger, cargo fees

WASHINGTON -- When the airline industry took a nose dive a decade ago, executives at global carriers scrambled to find a quick fix to avoid financial ruin.
What they came up with, according to federal prosecutors, was a massive price-fixing scheme among airlines that artificially inflated passenger and cargo fuel surcharges between 2000 and 2006 to make up for lost profits.

Libya turmoil drives up oil prices

CRUDE oil prices raced higher at the weekend, with the New York contract closing at a fresh two-year peak as traders watched heavy fighting in Libya, particularly in the oil-important east.
New York's light sweet crude for April delivery closed at $US104.42 a barrel, a hefty $US2.51 gain.
The benchmark WTI contract has added about $US18, or more than 21 per cent, over the past two weeks. It hit an intraday peak in the latest trading at $US104.60, the highest level since September 29, 2008.

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Beijing Can't Have it Both Ways

China's government wants to fight inflation and redistribute income, giving households a bigger slice of the pie. Higher interest rates would achieve both. That's not, apparently, how Beijing sees it.
Parsing the language in Chinese government communiqués is never easy.  But Premier Wen Jiabao's work report, delivered to the National People's Congress on Saturday, certainly didn't suggest much higher interest rates were likely.

China won't repeat errors in 2015 emissions goals: NDRC

(Reuters) - China will not repeat the mistakes made last year as it strives to meet its "tough" new 2011-2015 emissions and energy saving targets, the head of the country's state planning agency said on Sunday.
Last year, China's industrial heartlands were hit hard by last-minute efforts to meet a mandatory 2006-2010 target to improve energy efficiency by 20 percent.

Tanker deal comes at crucial time

Production for Air Force 'will span decades' for both Boeing and its suppliers

It's the jet that just won't back down.
The Boeing Co.'s 767 has been down for the count on several occasions over the past decade.

Court defers ruling on Nobel laureate's dismissal

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — An official says Bangladesh's High Court has delayed its ruling on the legality of a government order dismissing Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as head of the microfinance bank he founded.
Attorney General Mahbub-e-Alam says the court is likely to rule Monday.
He says lawyers for Yunus made more arguments Sunday that his dismissal is illegal. The government is to respond Monday.

Drilling in forests could hurt tourism

Thanks to the conservation vision of men like Joseph Rothrock, of Mifflin County, in the late 1880s and one-time Penn State forester Maurice Goddard in the mid-1900s, Pennsylvania today has 20 state forests, 117 state parks and three conservation areas.

Hundreds of Oregon foreclosure sales stopped after judges' rulings

Sales of hundreds of foreclosed homes in Oregon have been halted or withdrawn in recent weeks after federal judges repeatedly questioned their legality, according to a number of real estate attorneys in the state.

Lenders have withdrawn more than 300 foreclosure sales since February in Deschutes County alone, one of the Oregon area's hardest hit by the housing collapse. About 130 of those notices were filed in the past week, attorneys say.

India successfully test-fires missile interceptor

BHUBANESWAR:  India on Sunday successfully tested a ballistic missile interceptor from a defence base in Orissa as part of its endeavour to create a shield against incoming enemy missiles, an official said.

The indigenous interceptor 'Ballistic Missile Defence System' was fired from Wheeler Island off the Orissa coast near Dhamra in Bhadrak district, about 170km from here at 9.37am.

It successfully destroyed an incoming ballistic missile - a variant of the Prithvi II - fired from the launch complex III of the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur on sea in Balasore district, about 70km away from Wheeler Island across the sea.

Laptops play catch up to the iPad, Xoom

Market researcher Gartner released a research note Thursday claiming that laptops are not meeting the demands of the social-networking era. So, will mobile PCs become more like the Xoom and the iPad, which are, in turn, larger versions of the smartphone? In a word, yes.