Economic Collapse

WASHINGTON -- The United States is preparing to commit U.S. taxpayer funds as part of a lending program of at least $30 billion to try to insulate Brazil, and with it the rest of Latin America, from the worst effects of the global financial turmoil, according to U.S. and foreign officials assembling the program.Details of the U.S. contribution, which is expected to total several billion dollars in direct aid or loan guarantees, have yet to be negotiated. But several congressional leaders have been alerted to the likelihood that the administration would have to act while Congress is in recess.

COSTA MESA, Calif. -At a town hall meeting yesterday during which people spoke of their lost jobs and their fears of economic problems to come, President Barack Obama painted his ambitious policy agenda as the antidote. Obama spoke to an audience of about 1,300 during his first stop on a two-day swing through California, aimed at mobilizing public support for his multitrillion-dollar budget. He wanted to visit a state coping with job losses and home foreclosures. And in a question-and-answer session, he quickly got a taste of how the sour economy has upended lives in Southern California.

FDR By Jean Edward Smith Random House / 859 pages / $35 At the conclusion of the conference at Casblanca, Morocco, in January 1943, Winston Churchill accompanied Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the airport. The prime minister watched as the president was helped up the runway. He then returned to his limousine and told the driver to depart before the plane took off. "It makes me far too nervous," he sighed. "If anything ever happened to that man, I couldn't stand it. He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I have ever known."

Taxes must be raised to meet our needs It is disheartening to see The Baltimore Sun give editorial space to a repetition of a tired old claim Republicans have been using for as long as I can remember ("Maryland's high taxes stifle economic growth," Opinion, Sept. 15). Yes, Democrats are often forced to raise taxes, but only after Republican tax cuts have eliminated or reduced vital services or put funding for critical needs in jeopardy. What many appear to be unwilling to recognize is that we are not taxed nearly enough.

MOSCOW -- No sooner had a Russian Cabinet finally been put together yesterday -- 33 days after the last one was dismissed at the start of the economic collapse -- than one of its most prominent members said he was quitting in disgust.Alexander Shokhin, deputy prime minister for economic affairs, had just finished talks with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund when he announced that he was walking out. He had received news that he had lost a drawn-out, behind-the-scenes struggle over who would be named finance minister.

MOSCOW -- A direct and confident President Boris N. Yeltsin called on Russians yesterday to reflect on just how wrong the pessimists have been about the last few years.Speaking on Russia's newest holiday -- the commemoration of the declaration of sovereignty within what was then the Soviet Union, in 1990 -- Mr. Yeltsin reminded his listeners how hopeless things seemed at the time, and how much they have changed since then.In 1990, he pointed out, people were even debating whether a transformation of Russia was possible.

College Park. -- When Ukrainians voted for independence from the dying Soviet Union three years ago, they told each other they could stand a diet of potatoes, or even potato skins, if it were the price of freedom.But the future was not necessarily grim. Western experts considered Ukraine a better bet for success than most of the Soviet successor states. The economy was, by Soviet standards, developed, and by exporting grain and metallurgical products, Ukraine was considered likely to be able to pay for its energy imports.

COSTA MESA, Calif. -At a town hall meeting yesterday during which people spoke of their lost jobs and their fears of economic problems to come, President Barack Obama painted his ambitious policy agenda as the antidote. Obama spoke to an audience of about 1,300 during his first stop on a two-day swing through California, aimed at mobilizing public support for his multitrillion-dollar budget. He wanted to visit a state coping with job losses and home foreclosures. And in a question-and-answer session, he quickly got a taste of how the sour economy has upended lives in Southern California.

Taxes must be raised to meet our needs It is disheartening to see The Baltimore Sun give editorial space to a repetition of a tired old claim Republicans have been using for as long as I can remember ("Maryland's high taxes stifle economic growth," Opinion, Sept. 15). Yes, Democrats are often forced to raise taxes, but only after Republican tax cuts have eliminated or reduced vital services or put funding for critical needs in jeopardy. What many appear to be unwilling to recognize is that we are not taxed nearly enough.

ODESSA, Ukraine -- If the potent forces of frustrated nationalism, economic distress and political division continue unchecked in Ukraine, what happened here April 10 could someday be remembered as the Fort Sumter of the Black Sea War.Late that day, Ukrainian airborne commandos stormed the small Russian-controlled navy base here, ousted Russian officers' families from their homes at gunpoint, ransacked their apartments and took control of the base....

FDR By Jean Edward Smith Random House / 859 pages / $35 At the conclusion of the conference at Casblanca, Morocco, in January 1943, Winston Churchill accompanied Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the airport. The prime minister watched as the president was helped up the runway. He then returned to his limousine and told the driver to depart before the plane took off. "It makes me far too nervous," he sighed. "If anything ever happened to that man, I couldn't stand it. He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I have ever known."

WASHINGTON -- North Korea's announcement yesterday that it had detonated a nuclear device in an underground test raised anew the prospect of a military clash on the Korean peninsula. But unlike past crises, U.S. officials now say that North Korea's military has deteriorated significantly as the isolated communist regime struggles with an economy in collapse and agricultural mismanagement that is slowly starving its people. Still, North Korea retains enough military capacity to be a tough target for any would-be invader, and its steep mountains and deep ravines have helped thwart previous incursions.

THE REMARKABLE aspect of Argentina's crisis is that it has not spread and has not panicked markets elsewhere. This reduces the likelihood of outside rescue by the United States and International Monetary Fund. Argentina is on its own. It is a social crisis that came when the middle classes, being wiped out, took to the streets with the poor. It is an economic crisis in that endemic deficits swamped all possibility of debt repayment. But it was politically triggered. The Justicialist Party, as the Peronists are called, came to congressional power in October and refused to cooperate with President Fernando de la Rua. Now the Peronist senate leader, Ramon Puerta, is caretaker president, and the congress must decide, possibly today, whether to hold a presidential election or let him serve out two years.

OTINIYA, Ukraine - In the awful days of the war, the Germans took Maria Kolybabjuk away, but they didn't kill her. They made her work. It was her neighbors who did the murder, just last winter. Yet a thread leads from one to the other, across the decades. Half a century after more than 7 million people were forced to leave their homes in Eastern and Central Europe and labor without pay in the factories and fields of the Third Reich, the Germans have begun making reparations to those still alive.

MOSCOW -- It's a perfect March day -- for walruses, anyway. The temperature is 25 degrees Fahrenheit, a brisk wind is blowing the falling snow, and the Moscow zoo's walruses are bellowing happily, frolicking in their outdoor tank like 300-pound puppies. Inside the new waterfowl pavilion, life is not so good. The elegant ibis, regal swans and Mandarin ducks sit quietly, watching as a rat gobbles up the feed in their trough. The rat is very fat. Another rat, also well-fed, scurries along a tree branch.

WASHINGTON -- The United States is preparing to commit U.S. taxpayer funds as part of a lending program of at least $30 billion to try to insulate Brazil, and with it the rest of Latin America, from the worst effects of the global financial turmoil, according to U.S. and foreign officials assembling the program.Details of the U.S. contribution, which is expected to total several billion dollars in direct aid or loan guarantees, have yet to be negotiated. But several congressional leaders have been alerted to the likelihood that the administration would have to act while Congress is in recess.

OTINIYA, Ukraine - In the awful days of the war, the Germans took Maria Kolybabjuk away, but they didn't kill her. They made her work. It was her neighbors who did the murder, just last winter. Yet a thread leads from one to the other, across the decades. Half a century after more than 7 million people were forced to leave their homes in Eastern and Central Europe and labor without pay in the factories and fields of the Third Reich, the Germans have begun making reparations to those still alive.

MOSCOW -- No sooner had a Russian Cabinet finally been put together yesterday -- 33 days after the last one was dismissed at the start of the economic collapse -- than one of its most prominent members said he was quitting in disgust.Alexander Shokhin, deputy prime minister for economic affairs, had just finished talks with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund when he announced that he was walking out. He had received news that he had lost a drawn-out, behind-the-scenes struggle over who would be named finance minister.