Palangkaraya Post News

Wall Street joined world stock markets in a precipitous plunge Friday, with the Dow Jones industrials dropping more than 400 points in the opening minutes of trading. The growing belief that the world will suffer a punishing economic recession has investors furiously dumping stocks.

The massive decline was caused by increasingly grim news from overseas. In Japan, shares of Sony sank more than 14 percent after it slashed its earnings forecast for the fiscal year. In Germany, Daimler’s stock dropped 11.4 percent in morning trading after it reported lower third-quarter earnings and abandoned its 2008 profit and revenue guidance.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell a staggering 9.60 percent. In Europe, Germany’s benchmark DAX index was down 10.76 percent, France’s CAC40 dropped 10 percent while Britain’s FTSE 100 sank 8.67 percent after the government said its gross domestic product fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter, putting the country on the brink of recession.
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Southwest Airlines Co. has published its schedule and fares for early next year, a move that could spur rivals to lower their fares for the period, an airfare observer said Monday.

Many airlines takes reservations nearly a year in advance, but Southwest usually goes out only about six months.

Recently, the Dallas-based carrier issued its schedule and prices for Jan. 9 through March 6. The new schedule has forced other major airlines to roll back fares they had been charging to match Southwest’s lower prices on many routes, said Tom Parsons, chief executive of travel Web site Bestfares.com.

Parsons said the old rule of booking farther in advance to save money doesn’t always hold true. He said other airlines will probably charge higher fares for travel after March of next year.ap

The Federal Aviation Administration said a communication failure Tuesday at a facility that processes flight plans for the eastern half of the U.S. was causing flight delays around the U.S.

An FAA Web site that posts airport status information showed delays at some three dozen major airports coast-to-coast, advising passengers to “check your departure airport to see if your flight may be affected.”

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen in Atlanta said there are no safety issues and officials are still able to speak to pilots on planes on the ground and in the air.

She said she does not know how many flights are being affected.

Bergen said the problem that occurred Tuesday involves an FAA facility south of Atlanta that processes flight plans. She said there was a failure in a communication link that transmits the data to a similar facility in Salt Lake City.
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Passenger traffic on U.S. airlines will drop 5.7 percent this Labor Day holiday compared with last year, according to an airline industry group.

It will be the first year-over-year decline in Labor Day passengers since 2002, according to Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, which issued the report.

The group attributes the drop to airline capacity cuts, high energy prices and rising airfares.

About 16 million passengers will travel on U.S. airlines from Aug. 27 through Sept. 3, down from 17 million passengers during the same period last year, according to the group.

Domestic travel on U.S. airlines is expected to drop 6.5 percent while international travel on U.S. airlines is expected to increase 1 percent. Airlines trying to adjust to high fuel costs and economic uncertainty are dramatically cutting their flight schedules this fall, which contributes to a drop in passenger traffic. Read the rest of this entry →

Kids in restaurants can be a touchy topic. But it doesn’t have to be.

We come together here at Best of the Big A not to share stories of nice meals spoiled by unruly children — be it someone else’s, or even your own.

Instead, we want parents to share their expertise: Which restaurants in metro Atlanta are the best places to take kids?

Sure, there’s McDonalds and Pizza Hut and all. Those are no-brainers. Think broader. Are there restaurants with special children’s menus that are particularly tasty? Places where the waitrons go the extra mile? Restaurants with food that kids seem to love (hellooo, mac and cheese). How about something crazy, like taking them to a Korean barbecue joint?

We’re looking for nominations for real restaurants, and why they’re worthy.
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Heads of state, business and academic leaders as well as government dignataries are in Atlanta for the second annual Americas Competitiveness Forum today and tomorrow.

At the opening session, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez welcomed about 1,000 people who had come to Atlanta from “Canada to the Southern most tip of our hemisphere.”

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin told the group: “What is good for one of us is good for all of us.”

And then the conference took on an international flavor.

The panel of media professionals all spoke to the group in Spanish.

(The moderator, CNN Espanol anchor Alberto Padillo did open with a funny comment in English. “Sec. Gutierrez first tried to get Lou Dobbs, but he wasn’t available. For those of you who don’t know Lou Dobbs, I really don’t recommend him.” Dobbs often uses his pulpit on CNN to rail against illegal immigration). Read the rest of this entry →

Morning train commuters in Tokyo were joined on their way to work by an unusual companion Wednesday: a wild monkey. A security guard spotted the monkey near ticket gates in Shibuya Station, said Norihiru Masui, a spokesman for train operator Tokyu Corp.

The monkey climbed to a perch high atop a departure board, and around 30 policemen surrounded the area and attempted to snare it with a variety of nets, as commuters crowded around and snapped pictures with their cell phones.

The standoff ended when the monkey climbed down and dashed out of the station, with several policeman and local TV crews in tow. News reports said the monkey was last seen heading in the direction of nearby Yoyogi Park.

The animal appeared to be a Japanese monkey, which are native to the country, and was about 27 inches (70 centimeters) long from head to the tip of the tail. No one was injured and no trains were delayed in the incident. Read the rest of this entry →