Obama Enters 2012 Race on Good News About Jobs

June 6th, 2011 at 07:39am Under Economy Report

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Most of the news in Washington this week was about the budget talks to prevent a shutdown of many government services at midnight Friday. But this week, President Obama also announced his plans to seek re-election in November of next year.

In an e-mail to supporters, Mr. Obama said “the race may not reach full speed for a year or more.” But he said the work of building the campaign “must start today.”

Some of that work will depend on how many jobs are created in the months ahead. Mr. Obama welcomed last Friday’s report that the United States economy added two hundred sixteen thousand jobs in March. The unemployment rate dropped one-tenth of one percent for the second straight month.

The Labor Department says unemployment is now 8.8 percent, the lowest in two years. And some economists say this spring may be the start of better news to come. Consumer spending has increased eight months in a row.

Stephen Hess is a political scientist who studies the presidency at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

STEPHEN HESS: “The next election will, more than anything else, depend on employment in the United States.”

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis called attention to the fact that the economy has added jobs for twelve months in a row.

HILDA SOLIS: “We need to be reminded that we’ve added jobs — 1.5 million private sector jobs, and that, I think, it’s right where we need to be. But we need to continue to not lose sight of where we need to go to increase opportunities for people to get employed in new jobs.”

This week, President Obama filled a top job in his party. He chose Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida to head the Democratic National Committee. She replaces Tim Kaine who plans to run for the Senate from Virginia next year.

Among Republicans, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty recently formed a committee to explore a presidential campaign. Several other Republicans are also considering races for their party’s nomination.

The latest jobs report showed that thirteen and a half million Americans remained unemployed in March. Another concern is that oil prices remain over one hundred dollars a barrel. High energy prices could threaten the recovery from the recession.

This week, Portugal became the latest member of the European Union with heavy debts to request emergency loans. Opposition parties refused to accept budget cuts proposed by Prime Minister Jose Socrates two weeks ago.

Portugal’s borrowing costs rose sharply Wednesday as it sold almost one and a half billion dollars in short-term securities. Portugal may seek more than one hundred billion dollars in loans, joining Greece and Ireland in receiving aid.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report. I’m Doug Johnson.

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Contributing: Mil Arcega, Jim Malone, Carolyn Presutti and Mario Ritter

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Microsoft Says Google Blocks Competition in Europe Search Market

May 30th, 2011 at 08:50am Under Economy Report

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Microsoft has fought legal battles with officials in Europe and the United States over competition in the personal computer market. But now Microsoft is accusing Google of being anti-competitive. A complaint to the European Commission accuses Google of unfairly controlling the Internet search market in Europe.

Google is already talking to the commission about the issue and says it is happy to explain to anyone how its business works.

Google also faces other issues. Gmail users in China began reporting problems with Google’s e-mail service in late February. The problems came as news of the revolutions in the Arab world filled the Internet and there were online calls for protests in China.

Google said the government was interfering with its e-mail service.

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Last week, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu called the accusations unacceptable. But Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said the company stood by its earlier comments.

JESSICA POWELL: “This is a government blockage, carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail.”

Google is the world leader in Internet search. But in China, the biggest search engine is Baidu. And this week, China’s largest Internet media company, Sina, dropped Google’s search engine from its website. Sina says it is using its own technology.

An estimated four hundred fifty million Chinese are online — about half of all Internet users in Asia.

Last year, Google said a cyberattack from China had attempted to get information from the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Google also expressed concerns about censorship. So Google relocated its Chinese search engine from the mainland to Hong Kong.

The company is also facing new problems at home. A federal judge in New York has ruled against its plan to put millions of books online.

Google wants to create a digital library of all the world’s books. It reached a one hundred twenty-five million dollar deal in two thousand eight with groups representing writers and publishers. Google agreed to create a system to pay copyright holders when their works are used online.

But Judge Denny Chin rejected the proposed settlement. He said it gives Google monopoly control of the book search market. But he left open the possibility for a new plan.

On a similar issue, Baidu says it has removed almost three million documents from its library. Writers have complained that Baidu did not have permission for their works to appear on its document-sharing site.

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter and available online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.

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Contributing: Stephanie Ho

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