Obama criticizes Wall Street
President vows to increase financial accountability
SAN FRANCISCO — President Barack Obama on Saturday blasted Wall Street for worsening the economy’s downturn and promised to make financial markets more transparent and accountable.
In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, the president applauded the House for passing sweeping financial reform legislation Friday and said the economy is recovering from the “irresponsibility” of Wall Street firms that “gambled on risky loans and complex financial products, seeking short-term profits and big bonuses.”
It was “risk management without the management,” Obama said. “Their actions, in the absence of strong oversight, intensified the cycle of bubble-and-bust and led to a financial crisis that threatened to bring down the entire economy.”
Obama also blamed an “era of easy credit” for some of the excesses. “Millions of Americans borrowed beyond their means, bought homes they couldn’t afford and assumed that housing prices would always rise and the day of reckoning would never come,” he said. “It was a disaster that could have been avoided if we’d had clearer rules of the road for Wall Street and actually enforced them,” the president said.
The House on Friday narrowly approved the most comprehensive financial industry regulations since the Great Depression, including new restrictions on the biggest banks and the Federal Reserve. The legislation also would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to oversee mortgage, credit card and other banking products.
Obama urged the Senate to act quickly on its own financial reform proposals to ensure that the “risky dealings that sparked the crisis would be fully disclosed and properly regulated.” And he criticized Republicans and financial industry lobbyists for blocking efforts to mandate tougher rules.
In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” program scheduled for broadcast on Sunday, Obama condemns bankers for taking government bailout money and now collecting handsome bonuses.
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,” Obama said, according to excerpts from the interview released Saturday.
In the GOP Saturday, U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee focused on climate change and the international summit.
Mexico’s patron saint celebrated
Dancers dressed as Aztec natives participate at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint, Saturday during an annual celebration in Mexico City.
WORLD
Iran says its ready to meet key U.N. demand
MANAMA, Bahrain — After weeks of conflicting responses, Iran abruptly said Saturday that it is ready to exchange uranium for nuclear fuel — the key demand of a U.N.-sponsored initiative to defuse global fears over its nuclear program.
The conditions laid out in comments from Iran’s foreign minister, however, are unlikely to satisfy the U.S. and its allies as they prepare to discuss new sanctions against Tehran at a meeting that could take place in the coming week.
Iran’s stockpile of uranium is at the heart of international concerns because it offers Iran a possible pathway to nuclear weapons production if it is enriched to higher levels. Tehran insists it only wants to use the material to produce fuel for power plants and for other peaceful purposes.
Under a U.N. plan proposed in October and being pushed by Washington and five other world powers, Iran would ship most of its uranium abroad. It would then be enriched to higher levels in Russia, turned into fuel rods in France and returned.
Libya faulted on rights
TRIPOLI, Libya — A leading human rights group said Saturday that Libyan dissidents continue to face arbitrary detention and unfair trials, despite a limited expansion of freedoms since the country began to shed its pariah status in 2003.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report on the country during a rare news conference inside Libya for an international rights group. In attendance were relatives of political detainees, and the event was covered by Libyan journalists, reflecting a growing tolerance of public discussion by the government.
The country’s rights record, however, remains poor despite Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s steps to bring it out of isolation, the rights group said.
NATION
Lesbian in the running in Houston mayoral runoff
HOUSTON — Early returns show a slim margin between the two candidates in the hotly contested Houston mayoral election Saturday, in which the city could elect its first openly gay mayor.
With just over 98 percent of early and absentee ballots counted, City Controller Annise Parker had 51 percent of the vote to former city attorney Gene Locke’s 49 percent, according to the Harris County election Web site. Ballots cast Saturday had yet to be counted.
The election battle leading up to Saturday’s balloting was marked by fierce campaigning and anti-gay rhetoric. Parker is a lesbian who has never made a secret or an issue of her sexual orientation.
Panel rules on Marine
SAN DIEGO — A military panel found that a Marine officer displayed substandard performance in his response to the deaths of 24 Iraqis but said he should maintain his rank.
The Board of Inquiry’s recommendation is a mixed result for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 43, who was accused of failing to investigate the November 2005 killings in the town of Haditha. He has since retired. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus must decide whether to accept the finding or order Chessani retired at a lesser rank.
Dillinger gun auctioned
DALLAS — An auction house says a wooden gun that John Dillinger’s relatives believe was hand-carved and used by the one-time “Public Enemy No. 1” to escape jail has sold for $19,120 at auction.
The artifact was one of 11 items put up for bid Saturday by Dillinger’s younger sister, Frances Helen Dillinger, at an Arms & Militaria auction at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas.
Heritage arms and militaria director Dennis Lowe says the notorious Depression-era bank robber supposedly used the item to bluff his way out of a Crown Point, Ind., jail on March 3, 1934.
A $14,340 winning bid was made for a dollar bill said to have been in Dillinger’s pocket when he was gunned down in an ambush by FBI agents outside a Chicago theater in June 1934.
THE NUMBER: 47
Police officers killed in the line of duty by gunfire in 2009, a particularly perilous year for officers involved in gun disputes. The number increased 24 percent from 2008, when 38 officers were killed. That was the lowest number of gunfire deaths since 1956, according to statistics compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
