| Business News |
Ford posts $8.7 billion loss on truck slump
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Ford Motor Co posted a $8.7
billion quarterly loss on Thursday as it wrote down the value
of truck and SUV operations and cautioned that it did not
expect to see a U.S. economic turnaround until 2010.
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Dow Chemical second-quarter profit hurt by costs
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Dow Chemical Co posted
second-quarter earnings that fell short of market expectations
as its price increases did not completely offset a sharp spike
in energy and raw material costs.
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Nokia patent deal with Qualcomm boosts both stocks
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world's top
cellphone maker, has ended three years of legal battles with
wireless chip developer Qualcomm and signed a patent
agreement that boosted both companies' shares.
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Wall Street extends drops after housing data
(Reuters)
 Reuters - Stock extended losses on Thursday
following a report that showed a steeper-than-expected drop in
existing-home sales in June, heightening concern about the
impact of the housing slump on economic growth.
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FCC has pact to approve Sirius-XM deal: source
(Reuters)
 Reuters - A majority of members of the Federal
Communications Commission have reached an agreement to
conditionally approve Sirius Satellite Radio Inc's
purchase of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc , a source
familiar with the agency review said on Thursday.
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New layoff filings jump as companies retrench
(AP)
 AP - The number of newly laid off people filing claims for unemployment benefits bolted past 400,000 last week as companies trimmed their work forces to cope with a slowing economy and fallout from a collapsed housing market.
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| Myanmar death toll soars - 18, May 2008 |
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Diplomats witnessed "huge" devastation in the Irrawaddy delta on Saturday and the toll of dead and missing from the cyclone rose above 133,000 people, making it one of the most damaging to hit Asia.
With about 2.5 million people clinging to survival in the delta, and the military government refusing to admit large-scale outside relief, disaster experts say the death toll from Cyclone Nargis which struck on May 2 could rise dramatically.
"It was useful to catch the magnitude of the devastation. It's huge," Bernard Delpuech, head of the European Commission Humanitarian Office in Yangon, said of the trip.
"For the recovery you can't expect it to be six months or a year. It will take longer," he told Reuters from Yangon, the former Rangoon.
Helicopters took some 60 to 70 diplomats split in three groups to different parts of the delta, where Nargis struck with 120 mph (190 kmh) winds and a 12-foot (3.5 meter) wall of water.
The itineraries were arranged by the Myanmar government, under fire for refusing to allow significant numbers of foreign aid workers and major international aid operations. The generals running the country say they have things in hand.
"The purpose was to show the situation was under control. Where we were they didn't hide anything but of course they selected the places we visited," Delpuech said.
In the last 50 years, only two Asian cyclones have exceeded Nargis in terms of human cost -- a 1970 storm that killed 500,000 people in neighboring Bangladesh, and another that killed 143,000 in 1991, also in Bangladesh.
(c) 2008 Reuters
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