Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Economic growth was slightly better toward the end of 2010 than officials had previously estimated, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Friday.

In its third estimate of the nation’s gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2010, the BEA said the economy grew by 3.1 percent from the end of Q3 to the end of Q4.

GDP is a measure of the output of all goods and services produced by labor and property located in the nation.

BEA’s third estimate is based on more complete data than was available when the BEA issued its second estimate of 2.8 percent growth.

“The fourth-quarter acceleration in real GDP primarily reflected a sharp downturn in imports, an

acceleration in PCE, an upturn in residential fixed investment, and an acceleration in exports that were

partly offset by downturns in private inventory investment, in federal government spending, and in state

and local government spending, and a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment,” BEA officials said in a statement.

“Final sales of computers added 0.35 percentage point to the fourth-quarter change in real GDP

after adding 0.29 percentage point to the third-quarter change. Motor vehicle output subtracted 0.27

percentage point from the fourth-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.49 percentage point to the

third-quarter change,” the agency concluded.

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D.C., Washington, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Treasury announced Monday the freezing of $30 billion of Libyan assets in a bid to unseat Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi from his 42-year old hold on power.

Treasury acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said the $30-billion asset freeze under U.S. jurisdiction is the largest blocking under any sanctions program. The seizure was based on an executive order issued Friday by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The freeze order covers Gaddafi’s assets, that of his four children, the Libyan government and other Libyan institutions such as the Libyan Central Bank and the Libyan Investment Authority. Cohen said the order covers any bank organized under U.S. laws or any overseas branch operations of a U.S. bank.

Cohen added the Treasury is still studying if it would add individuals to the freeze order. With the U.S. action, combined with the sanctions taken by the European Union and the U.N. Security Council, the undersecretary said all of Qaddafi’s and Libyan assets worldwide could not be withdrawn.

Aside from freezing Gaddafi’s assets, the Pentagon repositioned its forces in the Libyan region as western nations mull using intervention to oust the dictator. Among the options that Washington is eying is to establish a no-fly zone in the troubled region, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said.

Observers said the repositioned U.S. forces could be used to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent the Libyan leader’s aircraft from attacking protestors. Among the military forces that Washington could tap are the USS Enterprise, currently in the Red Sea, and the USS Kearsarge, which has helicopters and 2,000 Marines aboard.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday dined with Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, talking economy, budget deficit, trade and regulatory reform according to the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

At lunch were House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and and Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the Republican side while President Obama was joined by the Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Bill Daley.

Gibbs cited the president as saying that the meeting was “very constructive” while Boehner after the meeting told journalists, “It was a very good lunch, and we were able to find enough common ground, I think, to assure the American people that we are willing to work on their behalf and willing to do it together.”

“We should have a broad discussion with the American people about the size and scope of the problem we face in getting our fiscal house in order,” Gibbs disclosed about the content of the meeting.

During his regular press briefing Gibbs said, “We have reached a point where we have to do something about what we take in and what we spend, and the great divergence between those two numbers.

Gibbs cautioned, “This process is not going to be an easy one,” adding, “On each side we’re going to have to give a little even on things that are greatly important to us.”

Another important area identified was education as Gibbs said the attendees, “agreed education continues to be one area where Democrats and Republicans can and should work together.”

There was support for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Panama and Colombia while the ongoing wars and the planned transitions in Iraq and Afghanistan were also discussed, said Gibbs.

On Monday, the White House is scheduled to release its budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year and Gibbs commented, “I think when you see the budget come out you’ll see very little that was spared in the tough decisions that were made.”

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Obama said Monday he believed Egypt was close to ending its civil strife as government negotiators agreed to concessions with opposition leaders.

Protesters are demanding the immediate resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who they accuse of corruption and human rights abuses.

“I think they’re making progress,” Obama told reporters after speaking to business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced Monday that government employees would get a 15 percent pay increase in an effort to win back popular support.

He also said he would set out new procedures within a month to hold free elections.

Suleiman’s made the promises on the same day media reports described startling increases in personal wealth for Mubarak’s top advisors after they joined his administration.

Several of them are being investigated by prosecutors on corruption charges.

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm estimated the personal fortune of Ahmed Ezz, Organization Secretary of Egypt’s ruling party at $3 billion. Before he joined Mubarak’s administration, prosecutors said Ezz had $300,000 in 1989.

Former Housing Minister Ahmed al-Maghraby’s fortune was estimated at $1.8 billion. Former Tourism Minister Zuhair Garrana had $2.2 billion and former Minister of Trade and Industry Rashid Mohamed Rashid has $2 billion in personal wealth, the newspaper reported.

Three Egyptian ministers have tried to leave the country in recent days but were denied permission to travel while they remain under investigation, Egyptian news reports said.

The average Egyptian earns $60 a week, according to Egyptian government statistics.

Obama reiterated his belief that it is time for Mubarak to leave office after 30 years as Egypt’s president.

“Egypt is not going to go back to what it was,” Obama said Sunday in an interview on the Fox television network. “The Egyptian people want freedom. They want free and fair elections; they want a representative government; they want a responsive government.”

Thousands of protesters continued Monday to occupy Cairo’s Tahrir Square, which has been the site of dozens of killings by police, the military and Mubarak’s supporters.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The U.S. Treasury Department was defending itself Friday against allegations in a news report that it granted permission for numerous corporations to do business with Iran and other blacklisted countries.

The State Department classifies some of the countries as state sponsors of terrorism.

Officially, the U.S. government participates in an embargo against countries on the list.

Unofficially, the Treasury Department allowed U.S. firms to close about 10,000 deals in the past decade to sell to the countries under an exception for humanitarian aid.

Products sold to the blacklisted countries under the loophole in the law include cigarettes, chewing gum, Louisiana hot sauce and body-building supplements, according to the report in The New York Times.

U.S. firms have exported about $1.7 billion in goods to Iran in the past decade, according to government figures.

The report is a result of a three-year investigation by the newspaper that included a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

A Treasury Department spokesman downplayed the importance of the deals.

Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey said in a statement that the exports were “trivial in the context of our Iran policy.”

“This effort is having its intended impact,” Levey said. “Iran’s leadership is worried about its isolation from the international financial system and the other effects of sanctions.”

A primary goal of the embargo is to force Iran and other countries to comply with international law on nuclear proliferation and arms exports.

Cuba, North Korea and Sudan also are on the list of sanctioned countries.

Nuclear non-proliferation treaties say the Iranians would be allowed to develop nuclear material only for electrical power generation and medical treatments. They also must allow international inspections.

So far, the Iranians have denied entry to international inspectors.

In addition, the U.S. government claims to have evidence the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons.

The Obama administration and several Western nations extended the embargo against Iran this year by banning more Iranian companies from doing business with U.S. firms.

American companies that have used the humanitarian exception to do business in Iran include Kraft Foods, Pepsi, Bank of America, Citigroup, American Pulp & Paper Corp. and Hercules USA Inc.

Congress approved the humanitarian exception in 2000 that exempts agricultural and medical supplies from the sanctions.

The New York Times reported that the Treasury Department, under pressure from industry lobbyists, interpreted the law more broadly than Congress intended.

In one case, an American company bid on a pipeline project with permission of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to help Iran sell natural gas to Europe.

The project does not appear to fall under the exception in the federal law for agricultural or medical supplies.

In another case, Iranian Olympic athletes train with sports rehabilitation equipment purchased from an American firm.

The Treasury Department decides each application for exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

In the some cases, politicians trying to protect their home state businesses appear to have influenced the Treasury Department, The New York Times reported.

One example was a medical waste disposal firm in Honolulu. In 2003, its owner ordered 200 graphite electrodes from a Chinese firm that was blacklisted for selling missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

The electrodes from China Precision Machinery Import Export Corp. were less expensive and easier to find than the ones sold in the United States, explained Samuel Liu, the medical waste plant’s owner.

The Treasury Department initially planned to deny the company’s application for an exception, according to The New York Times report.

While the electrodes were still on board a ship being sent to Hawaii, Liu made a $2,000 contribution to the office of Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.

Inouye then wrote a letter to the Office of Foreign Assets Control asking for an exception to the sanctions law for the medical waste plant.

Shortly afterward, the Treasury Department granted the exception.

A spokesman for Inouye said the campaign contribution was unrelated to Inouye’s intervention for the medical waste firm.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States on Thursday was shocked for the second time in ten months by the ground-based missile defense system after the interceptor on Wednesday failed to strike the target missile, the Missile Defense Agency said.

Asked to comment on the twin failures, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright told journalists at the Pentagon, “We don’t know today what the cause of the failure was yesterday.”

‘Until we understand it, I’m going to be conservative, at least in my recommendations about how many of those warheads are used, versus how many retained of the older configuration, to have a high confidence that anything that should become a threat to the United States can be handled,” noted Gen. Cartwright.

On the question if the U.S. is capable of countering any North Korean missile threat, Gen. Cartwright said, “We’d like to have this capability because it gives us some things that we didn’t have in the older version. But, no, I’m not worried, because I have the hedge.”

Gen. Cartwright said, “The question now is, make sure we understand: Was it two failures that were of the same ilk, or was it two very different failures? That takes us in different directions. We just don’t know those answers yet.”

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – A Maryland man on Friday found himself in the clutches of law after giving a tax collector thousands in cash to clean up his brother’s tax records according to the Justice Department and the FBI.

Haadis Ketema, 45, of Glenarden was sentenced to 12 months of probation and a $2,500 fine after pleading guilty on August 23, 2010, to a charge that he gave $4,000 to a District of Columbia tax collector in hopes of erasing a record pertaining to his brother’s tax liability, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

The sentencing came in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Ketema pleaded guilty to a charge, most commonly known as “supplementation of salary.”

The Honorable Magistrate Judge Alan Kay in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced Ketema after the information was submitted to the court by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri L. Schornstein,

The Justice Department communique noted that Ketema met on January 19, 2007 with a tax collector for the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.

“During the meeting at Union Station, Ketema gave the tax collector $4,000 in cash to change a computer record of the District of Columbia. The doctored record would show that a tax liability of a business then owned by Ketema’s brother was no longer outstanding,” said the statement.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – U.S. President Barack Obama was instrumental at the recently concluded 2-day Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. In which NATO was placed on a fresh-start with Russia that paved the way for renewed diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow.

Political pundits welcomed decisions adopted at the Summit saying they would change the way NATO does business, making the Alliance more effective, more efficient and more engaged with the wider world.

Contrasting U.S. previous statements, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen signed an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that involved a long-term partnership between the alliance and Afghanistan.

With this deal, NATO announced the alliance will stay as long as necessary to support Afghanistan until it was no longer a safe haven for terrorism.

In addition to that, the two agreed to let Afghan security forces increase their position in security operations across the country, starting early 2011 and be completed by 2014.

NATO with the aim of making global partners in a changed post-cold war scenario announced a new equation with Russia to build a true strategic partnership.

Addressing the earlier controversial issue with Russia about missile deployment in Europe, NATO leaders extended an offer to Moscow to cooperate with NATO as it reiterated its decision to develop the capability to defend European territory and populations against missile attack as a core element of collective defense.

To address new threats, the alliance agreed to enhance its cyber defense capabilities in the coming years.

Accepting that cyber attacks are becoming more frequent, more organized and more costly and have the potential to inflict damage on – businesses, economies and potentially also – transportation and supply networks and other critical infrastructure, the statement said, “They can reach a threshold that threatens national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security and stability.”

“Foreign militaries and intelligence services, organized criminals, terrorist and/or extremist groups can each be the source of such attacks,” the statement added.

With an aim to rope in support and cement cooperation with other regional and global groups, NATO leaders adopted a new strategic concept to guide its mission over the next ten years.

The new roadmap assured Euro-Atlantic security through a wide network of partner relationships with countries and organizations around the globe, such as the United Nations and the European Union, and kept the door open to consultation with any partner country on security issues of common concern.

The 28 NATO Allies were joined during the Summit by the 20 partners who are contributing forces to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, as well as representatives of the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union, and Afghan President Karzai.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Indian diaspora on the East coast was treated to a visual display of real estate investment opportunities at a gala dinner featuring finished and planned projects by New York based Ireo on Saturday in Vienna, Virginia.

“If you are interested in real estate space in India, be it for yourself – your family – or simply an investment, there is no better place to put your money then with Ireo,” Vijay Amritraj, international tennis legend and former United Nations Ambassador told AHN on the sidelines of the glittering show.

Answering, “Why should I mess (read: invest) in India – when I live here?” the core question of Indian Americans settled in the United States, Anjali Grover, of Ireo, told the select audience of rich and famous gathered at the “Bombay Tandoor Restaurant,” that the projects, some of which are completed, some are in the building stage while others are on the architects’ drawing tables, are all on par with the American standards in quality and safety.

Sitting in the United States, the investor can use easy means to invest and own or sell later with Ireo providing personalized services all the way, she added.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis said “it’s going to be another close call” if he will play at Tennessee Sunday after suffering a groin injury last month, according to reports.

Portis tore his groin on Oct. 3 against Philadelphia and said he pushed himself too much in hopes of playing against the Eagles Monday night.

“Last week, I came back, we came back from the bye, and [I] was like, eager to push and show, like, ‘Yeah I’m ready,’” Portis told The Washington Post Thursday. “We just have to see. It flared up. It swelled up. It took a couple days to calm down. This week, so far so good.”

But Portis knows all too well about being injured.

The 29-year-old missed five games and eight games last season after suffering from a concussion. In the process Portis realized he might have to prepare for retirement after this year.

“It’s rough, it’s tough,” Portis said. “But at the same time, you get the appreciation of football. You get the appreciation of being around your teammates, and you get the idea that this don’t last forever, so enjoy it and make the best and make some good business decisions and be prepared. If they ever call and it’s time to step away, be prepared to step away.”

Portis said he’s not getting rusty and he’s participating in drills when he can.

“I can’t do everything that I want to do,” he said. But … you’re talking about 10 days so far of…practicing and going through drills without really just exploding and participating. That’s what they want to see. They want to see all of that, so therefore when I step back on the field, I feel like it’s going to be good enough that they see the rust gone.”

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