You are currently browsing the daily archive for September 16, 2008.
Originally published by Democracy Now!, September 16, 2008.
Stock Markets Plummet as Lehman Brothers & Merrill Lynch Collapse
Stock prices are continuing to fall sharply across the globe today following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, two of the world’s largest investment banks. On Monday, the Dow Jones index fell 504 points. It was the Dow’s sixth-largest point drop ever. The shakeup on Wall Street has seen the 158-year-old investment bank Lehman Brothers declare bankruptcy and the 94-year-old Merrill Lynch being bought by Bank of America in a $44 billion deal. Forbes magazine said the United States is now facing perhaps the worst financial crisis since the banking panic that former President Franklin Roosevelt faced in 1933.
Future Remains Uncertain for Washington Mutual and AIG
Fears are growing that the nation’s largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, and the nation’s largest insurance company, American International Group, could also go under. On Monday, Washington Mutual had its credit rating cut to junk by Standard and Poor’s. The bank’s stock value has dropped 94 percent over the past year. And the Wall Street Journal reports the Federal Reserve has asked Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to help make up to $75 billion in loans available to AIG. Stock in AIG plummeted 61 percent on Monday.
Originally published by the Christian Science Monitor, slightly edited.
Militants step up ‘oil war’ in Niger Delta
Attacks on foreign oil company facilities threaten to disrupt global oil supply.
By Jonathan Adamsfrom the September 17, 2008 edition
Militants in southern Nigeria have sharply stepped up attacks on foreign interests after declaring an “oil war” Sunday. The campaign, which the militants have dubbed “Hurricane Barbarossa,” entered its third day Tuesday with an attack on a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline after attacks on Shell and Chevron facilities in previous days.
The Nigerian government has tried to downplay the threat. But the violence looks set to further disturb oil supplies from Nigeria, the United States’ fifth-largest source of oil, at a time when global supplies are already being squeezed.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Tuesday that the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), said it had “blown up and destroyed” a Shell pipeline. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of Capitalism 
Recent Comments