Palangkaraya Post News

By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer

MUMBAI, India – Commandos ended a siege of the luxury Oberoi hotel on Friday while other forces rappelled from helicopters to storm a besieged Jewish center, two days after a chain of militant attacks across India’s financial center left at least 143 people dead and the city in panic.

While explosions and gunfire continued intermittently at the elegant Taj Mahal hotel Friday afternoon, officials said commandos had killed two gunmen inside the nearby Oberoi hotel and ended the attack there.

“The hotel is under our control,” J.K. Dutt, director general of India’s elite National Security Guard commando unit, told reporters, adding that 24 bodies had been found. Dozens of people — including a man clutching a baby — had been evacuated from Oberoi earlier Friday.
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By ROBERT TANNER, STEVE KARNOWSKI and FRANK BASS, Associated Press Writers

MINNEAPOLIS – A year after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in a generation brought calls for immediate repairs to other spans, two of every three of the busiest problem bridges in each state — carrying nearly 40 million vehicles a day — have had no work beyond regular maintenance.

An Associated Press review of repairs on each state’s 20 most-traveled bridges with structural deficiencies found just 12 percent have been fixed. In most states, the most common approach was to plan for repairs later rather than fix problems now.

The bridges reviewed by the AP — 1,020 in all — are not in imminent danger of collapse, state engineers and highway officials say. But the officials acknowledge the structures need improvement, many sooner rather than later. (more…)

Lebanon – Lebanon’s prime minister has formed a national unity Cabinet in which Hezbollah and its allies have veto power over government decisions.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora had been struggling to form a government since former army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman was elected president in May.

Saniora announced the Cabinet formation Friday in Beirut.

Hezbollah’s veto power was part of an Arab League-brokered deal to achieve compromise between the U.S. and Western-backed parliamentary majority and Hezbollah-led opposition.

By DAVID MCLAUGHLIN

Investors in a failed hedge fund run by Ritchie Capital Management LLC want to force the fund into bankruptcy and investigate possible mismanagement and fraud by Ritchie Capital.

The investors, themselves hedge funds, filed an involuntary Chapter 11 petition with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago, accusing Ritchie Capital of keeping them in the dark about the sale of the fund’s portfolio and use of the proceeds.

“[Ritchie Capital's] management activities have been conducted in complete secrecy,” they said in court papers. “The secrecy must now end.”

Once a Star (more…)