by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important or interesting, or both, Washington-related stories.
As the Santa Ana winds began to slow, firefighters began to gain control of some of the fires in the southern California with estimates of the insurance costs of the destruction place at over $ 1 billion.
Thousands since 2000 have moved into areas of California at the highest risk of wildfires, raising questions about development.
In an unprecedented move, the U.S. plans to introduce a package of unilateral financial sanctions against Iran’s military organizations as state-sponsors of terror, marking the first time the U.S. has so designated another nation’s military. Experts are raising their estimates of what the mortgage crisis will cost investors, saying it will be around $400 billion, but the total loss of real estate wealth is estimated at between $2 trillion to $4 trillion, less than the financial market collapse at the start of the decade which erased $7 trillion in wealth.
China said its economy, the world’s fastest growing, increased at an extremely robust 11.5 percent during the third quarter, a slight slowdown from the second quarter which may help the government better manage inflation.
The State Department who oversaw Blackwater USA’s security contract in Iraq resigned Wednesday as normally tight-mouthed current and former Blackwater security contractors in Baghdad suggested as unneccessary the use of force in September by some of the company’s employees, an incident which left the 17 Iraqis dead.
The Pentagon wants to control private security contractors in Iraq like Blackwater USA, a goal that may collide with the State Department which would have to relinquish oversight of the controversial companies.
A new federal law requiring that shipping containers bound for the U.S. be x-rayed to prevent their use by terrorists is likely to provide a boost to the companies that make the devices as well as the world’s most modern ports, which are largely in Asia.
The Kuwaiti firm which built the trouble-plagued new U.S. embassy in Baghdad has received new U.S. contracts More Top Picks Best Lap Desk