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US duo wins economics Nobel
Pak Taliban seeks Saudi mediation
Libya govt forces corner Gaddafi loyalists in Sirte
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Clashes leave 25 dead in Egypt
Poland’s PM Donald Tusk after the election results in Warsaw. — Reuters Earn more if you want your spouse in UK, Cameron tells immigrants
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US duo wins economics Nobel
Stockholm, October 10 "The methods that I have used and that Tom has developed are essential to finding our way out of this mess," Sims said over a satellite link to the announcement event in Stockholm. But he warned that the measurement tools he and Sargent had independently worked out in the 1970s to assess the impact of policy changes and of shocks to the economic system provided no quick or simple solutions to the global crisis. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which made the award, said the 10 million crown ($1.5 million) prize recognised their "empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy" and said their work laid the foundation for modern macroeconomic analysis. "One of the main tasks of macroeconomic research is to comprehend how both shocks and systematic policy shifts affect macroeconomic variables in the short and long run," the Academy said in a statement about the award. "Sargent's and Sims's awarded research contributions have been indispensable to this work." Sargent's work focused on systemic policy shifts, while Sims was more interested in shocks to the economy, such as surging oil prices, or a sharp drop in household consumption. Sargent, 68, who is professor of economics and business at New York University, developed a mathematical model in his work and described it in a series of articles in the 1970s. Sims, professor of economics and banking at Princeton, wrote an article in 1980 which introduced a new way of analysing data using a model called vector-autoregression. Torsten Persson of Stockholm University, who sits on the prize committee, said it was unclear that their work was of immediate remedial use, as ministers and central bankers try to balance efforts to promote a growth in output and employment with concerns about cutting state debts and rising inflation. "That's a big question," Persson said. "I'm not sure there's any immediate help. Crises like the one we're experiencing today, a global financial crisis - don't happen every year, not even every decade. — Reuters
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Peace Talks With Govt Islamabad, October 10 Mehsud, the deputy of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, further said that the group had not yet received any “direct” offer of talks from the government. At the All Parties Conference, the country’s top political and military leaders decided last month to initiate peace negotiations with the militant groups active in the country’s lawless tribal badlands, including the TTP. “Till now, we don’t have any direct peace offer. Our shura will sit down when we are approached,” he said. “That is how we operate. There is one centralised body to take important decisions,” he said without mentioning who are members of the council or who heads it. Mehsud said Pakistani Taliban wanted a “guarantee” that once any deal is struck with the government, it would be enforced. — PTI
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Libya govt forces corner Gaddafi loyalists in Sirte
Sirte, October 10 The protracted battle for Sirte, a showpiece Mediterranean coastal city largely loyal to Gaddafi, has raised concerns about many civilian casualties that could breed long-term hostility making it very hard for the National Transitional Council (NTC) to unite the vast North African state once the fighting is over. “Gaddafi’s forces are cornered in two neighbourhoods near the sea, an area of about 2-km square, but there is still resistance,” Abdul Salam Javallah, commander of NTC units from eastern Libya, told Reuters on the front line of their attack. “We are dealing with them now with light weapons because there are still families inside,” he said. Despite the claims of NTC commanders to be only using light weapons, government tanks moved into road intersections and pounded the positions of Gaddafi loyalists, while pick-up trucks mounted with heavy weapons as well as foot soldiers darted out of cover to fire wildly up ahead. At times, NTC units came under fire from their own side, a problem becoming more acute as the rag-tag groups of government volunteers attacking from the east and west are now closing in on one another.
— Reuters
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Clashes leave 25 dead in Egypt Cairo, October 10 The violence erupted after Coptic Christians protesting against an attack on a church in Aswan clashed with security forces, forcing authorities to declare curfew in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square area. Reports of protesters in the capital being crushed by military vehicles further heightened tensions, BBC said. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf held an emergency meeting of the cabinet today to contain the crisis as the military rulers ordered a swift probe into the unrest. “These events have taken us back several steps,” Sharaf warned in a televised address. He said the riots were a setback to the country’s already fraught transition to the civilian rule. He put the blame on foreign meddling for the troubles, claiming it was part of a “dirty conspiracy.” The unrest started yesterday outside the state TV building but soon spread to the Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the demonstrations that forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down in February. Copts comprise almost 10 per cent of the population in Egypt and is considered the largest Christian community in North Africa. —
PTI
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Polish PM seeks coalition partner after poll win
Warsaw, October 10 Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party is the first in the 22 years since the fall of communism in Poland to win a second consecutive term. That feat underlines the growing political stability in Poland, a central European nation of 38 million whose economy has flourished since it joined the European Union in 2004. As in the first term, Tusk will need a coalition partner to ensure a majority in the 460-member lower house, or Sejm. It was not immediately clear whether a continuation of the current coalition with the farm-based Polish People’s Party would provide a sufficient number of seats. Full official results are expected tomorrow, but a count by electoral authorities from 93.05% of constituencies gave a comfortable lead to Civic Platform.
— AP
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Earn more if you want your spouse in UK, Cameron tells immigrants London, October 10 But the move is likely to prove controversial with immigrant groups and could be open to challenge in the courts for discrimination against couples on low incomes. A government inquiry found that 70 per cent of UK-based sponsors had post-tax earnings of less than 20,000 pounds sterling a year. The current levels of earning are not enough to ensure that married immigrants will not become dependent on benefits, it has been stated. “We need to make sure - for their sake as well as ours - that those who come (to Britain)...have the resources they need to live here and make a contribution here - not just to scrape by, or worse, to subsist on benefit,” Cameron said. “When the income level of the sponsor is this low, there is an obvious risk that the migrants and their family will become a significant burden on the welfare system and the taxpayer,” he added. “So we have asked the Migration Advisory Committee to look at the case for increasing the minimum level for appropriate maintenance,” Cameron went on to state. “And we’re going to look at further measures to ensure financial independence: Discounting promises of support from family and friends, and whether a financial bond would be appropriate in some cases,” he said. New measures to cut back on “sham” marriages are also being announced. A case of a Pakistani national who applied for a spouse visa on the basis of his marriage to someone settled in the UK was cited. The man obtained indefinite leave to remain but then divorced his UK-based spouse and returned to Pakistan, remarried and then applied for entry clearance for his new spouse. “We simply cannot sit back and allow the system to be abused in this way,” he said. “So we will make migrants wait longer, to show they are in a genuine relationship before they can get settlement. And we’ll also impose stricter, clearer tests on the genuineness of a relationship, including the ability to speak the same language and to know each other’s circumstances,” he further stated. Cameron is also looking at new measures to crack down on forced marriage - including the possibility of making it a specific offence to force someone to marry. Forced marriage has been described as “little more than slavery”.“I am also asking the Home Secretary to consult on making forcing someone to marry an offence in its own right,” Cameron said. — The Independent
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Americans Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims shared the Nobel prize in economics today for work that helps governments and central banks weigh up responses to crises, though it offers no immediate answer to current global problems.
Cairo, October 10
