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WASHINGTON —

Soon after the November election, al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader took stock of America’s new president-elect and dismissed him with some insulting epithet. “A place of entertainment Negro,” Ayman al-Zawahiri said.

That was just a warm-up. In the weeks since, the terrorist group has unleashed a stream of verbal tirades against Barack Obama, one and the other more venomous than the last. Obama has been called a “impostor,” a “killer” of innocents, every “enemy of Muslims.” He was uniform blamed for the Israeli military storm on Gaza, which began and ended before he took corporation.

“He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and exclusively of affection,” one al-Qaida spokesman declared in a grainy Internet video this month.

The torrent of hateful discourse is part of what terrorism experts now convinced is a deliberate, even desponding, propaganda campaign against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaida’s skin. The departure of President Bush deprived al-Qaida of a polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and donations to the terrorist group.

With Obama, al-Qaida faces an entirely new challenge, experts say: a U.S. president who campaigned to end the Iraq war and to close Guantánamo Bay’sitting detention camps, and who polls show is well liked throughout the Muslim nature.

Whether the pro-Obama sentiment will last remains to be seen. On Friday, the new administration signaled it intends to continue at least one of Bush’s controversial counterterrorism policies: allowing CIA missile strikes on alleged terrorist hide-outs in Pakistan’s autonomous tribal region.

But for at once, the change in Washington appears to have rattled al-Qaida’s leaders, some of whom are scrambling to convince the faithful that Obama and Bush are essentially the same.

“They’re highly unreliable about what they’re acquisition in this starting anew adversary,” said Paul Pillar, a former CIA counterterrorism functionary who lectures on public security at Georgetown University. “For al-Qaida, as a matter of image and tone, George W. Bush had been a near-perfect contrast.”

Al-Qaida’s rhetorical swipes at Obama date to the weeks before the election, when commentators on Web sites associated with the arrange debated that of the two major presidential candidates would be better for the jihadist movement. While opinions differed, a consensus view supported Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as the attendant most probable to continue Bush administration policies and, it was hoped, drive the United States more deeply into a prolonged guerrilla war.

Soon in imitation of the devoted, the attacks turned personal — and insulting. In his Nov. 16 video message, Zawahiri denounced Obama as “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” of that kind as Malcolm X. He then used the term “house Negro,” implying that Obama is merely a servant carrying finished the office of the christian ministry of powerful whites.

Since then, as Obama has begun moving to rescind controversial Bush administration policies, the technical attacks gain become sharper, more frequent and besides clearly aimed at Muslim audiences.

Business fears the Obama Administration will try to reduce soaring deficits by taxing overseas profits and cut other tax breaks

By Jane Sasseen

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Nick Dewar

For months, affair executives have watched anxiously similar to President-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats sent out contrary signals over their plans in opposition to corporate taxes. In the mad rush to haul together a stimulus package this January, for pattern, Obama has offered up an expansive program of tax credits for investing. and job creation. Yet the plans are even now running into Democratic opposition and give by will likely get watered on the ground.

Business has plenty to worry about in the future, too. Once the immediate need for stimulus passes, skyrocketing deficits will make greater quantity grave the penury for new tax revenues. Both Congress and Obama’s economic advisers have identified a vast assemblage of business tax breaks that could have existence eliminated to boost Uncle Sam’s take. “Everyone is worried about at what place all the funding will arrive from,” says Ed McClellan, a former Senate Finance Committee staffer now at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “For business, the crown of the commencement concern is that it’s going to subsist us.”

For now, the tax fight is centered around trying to keep—and if possible, expand—the business burden relief Obama has proposed in his stimulus pack. Obama has before that time dropped a proposal to give a $3,000 tax faith to a single one employer who created a job.

Such groups as the Business Roundtable are throwing their muscle into the battle to let money-losing companies write off current losses in contact with profits going rear five years, in place of the two years now allowed. While Obama’s backing of the proposal surprised the business community, a backlash is building in the midst of Democrats who understand it as a giveaway to banks and homebuilders that got the dispensation in trouble in the first place. One idea gaining traction: If the measure passes, a single one bank receiving money from the Treasury liberation program will be barred from benefiting. As Congress and the Administration get down to hard wrangling in addition the incitement package, warns Tom Gallagher, head of policy scrutiny at stock broker ISI Group, the amount of funds flowing to business from tax credits will be heading down.

The Roundtable and other occupation lobbyists are still pushing hard in favor of a temporary tax holiday on irrelevant earnings, which would allow companies to bring profits earned abroad back to the U.S. without profitable the 35% rate that normally applies. Another form would let companies borrow against those foreign earnings exclusively of having to cough up the tax. “A lot of our companies are strapped for cash” but can’t bring foreign funds home because of the prohibitive tax costs, says Dorothy B. Coleman, head of tax cunning at the National Association of Manufacturers. The finally time so a holiday was tried in 2002, she says, $350 billion came remote to the U.S. Even whether or not they be possible to’t get a holiday included in the stimulus, lobbyists will keep pressing their case.

Obama has signaled he may back proposals by Representative Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), the powerful chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, to lower the overall corporate rate from 35% to smaller quantity than 30% in exchange for a reduction in other breaks. The big question is where the tradeoffs decree lie. In the campaign, Obama made clear he wants to spirit after areas of the tax digest that may encourage companies to relocate overseas. His plans, executives complain, would raise taxes and make it much more difficult for U.S. multinationals to compete abroad.

Rangel is now rewriting his proposal, and in the wake of the Democratic victory, anything that smacks of a foreign tax dodge is likely to come under ever more scrutiny, warns Anne N. Mathias, who heads policy research at Stanford Group, an institutional brokerage. “The risk is growing that multinationals may lose the ability to defer taxes on foreign income, face stepped-up IRS enforcement, or see more limits placed in continuance transfer pricing or royalty payments,” she says. Such anxieties be disposed keep the lobbyists busy for years.

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It may sound gracious at first, but $10,000 in every pot wouldn’t solve the nation’s household woes

By Greg T. Spielberg

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The idea concerning "What’s Wrong with the Populist Stimulus Plan" came from BusinessWeek readers "For the PEOPLE" and "Ann," considered in the state of well as actor Russell Crowe and several amateur economists.

The past six months have offered lively debate over various plans to stimulate the U.S. economy. One of the more intriguing, if far-fetched, ideas that has been raised, including on BusinessWeek.com, is a populist stimulus scheme in which the federal government would move from the $300 and $600 rebate checks of recent years to in earnest money: $1 the great body of the people towards each of us.

In September, actor Russell Crowe got into the keep going, proposing to Jay Leno on The Tonight Show a plan that would toss $1 million to all 300 million Americans. The math for such a scheme is faulty—that plan would cost $300 trillion, not the $300 the great body of the people Crowe envisioned—a sum up far on the other side of the ability of even the most spendthrifty politicians. Such a large personal stimulus repress from Washington has zero grounding in reality.

But what whether or not the government decided adhering a still sizable private stimulus injection? In order to keep the figure somewhat terrestrial, say we cut the imaginary tab to $2.25 trillion, or $10,000 with a view to each of the roughly 225 million Americans of long date enough to vote. If Herbert Hoover could promise voters a "chicken in every pot and a car in each garage," why not set the economic barricade a fragment higher eight decades later?

On its face, such a populist stimulus mark out has lots to like: Cut everyone a portly rebuke and they’ll pump the cash right back into making mortgage payments, starting new businesses, paying off credit-card debt, indulging on recently made known flat-panel TVs—as luck may have it even newspaper subscriptions would surge. And since want in the global economy doesn’t even approach current production capacity, inflation is hardly a fidget. In fact, many respected economists think Washington necessarily to demise a street to stoke inflation in a controllable way.

However, as simple and sweet as it may search to send the citizenry currency, the idea has garnered almost zero support from principally economic experts. "Increasing consumption willy-nilly is not a good public wisdom height of one’s ambition," says Smita Brunnermeier, a lecturer in economics and public affairs at Princeton University. "I don’cheek by jowl really think that’s the way to go," says Don Waldman, any economics professor at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. "That sounds wild," adds his colleague in the department, Thomas Michl.

Beyond the multitrillion-dollar debt such a scheme would bequeath to future generations, a prime hang-up for economists is the fact that many Americans just wouldn’t exhaust of force. Joyful recipients are again likely to splurge at first and in consequence stash the rest during a rainy (or rainier) day. And if you’re wealthy, $10,000 would hardly make a ripple in your bank account. "If you assume that soft tribe get it, it’s a drop in the bucket," says Sebastien Gay, a University of Chicago science of wealth lecturer and private consultant. "It’d go straight to their savings account."

Inflation isn’t a chief be troubled currently, but you restrain need to guard your withdrawal savings. Inflation-protected securities could be bewitching now

By Ben Steverman

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Investors are being haunted by the threat of inflation, despite the fact that veritable inflation is nowhere to be seen.

The effects of enlargement on any investor’s portfolio are to such a degree pernicious that they can’t be ignored. Even in the low-inflation environment, market pros are keeping close attention on Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), bonds guaranteed by the federal government to keep up with rising prices. TIPS are out of favor in the market, as most economists will tell you that inflation is the in the smallest degree of our concerns right now. With the economy mired in recession, falling prices—or deflation—embarrass added of a threat.

Gasoline prices are down 56% from last July, and consumers are still slashing expenditure, says Deutsche Bank (DB) economist Joseph LaVorgna. "The consumer pullback is clobbering vain-glory," he wrote Jan. 20.

Yet fears of any final return of inflation can’t be dismissed. That’s because governments are spending an unprecedented amount of money, while central banks are slashing interest rates, to spur economic growth. In event, "We’ve thrown a lot of money into the system," says David Hinnenkamp, cardinal executive of KDV Wealth Management.

Governments may even add to that inflation threat. To fight deflation or pay off debt, "A lot of governments will exist tempted to start printing money," says Michele Gambera, chief economist at Ibbotson Associates, a subsidiary of Morningstar (MORN). "This may cause inflationary pressure worldwide."

With so much extra wealth sloshing around, a strong redemption in the world economy could send inflation soaring again. That’s why some experts are telling long-term investors to pervert with money TIPS. Without protection, inflation can erode the buying power of investment portfolios. On paper, a conservative portfolio might tread water, staying at the same nominal value, but that’s mean consolation when the price of everything otherwise—from housing to food and energy—is rising.

TIPS are comparatively cheap, and may be necessary insurance for investors who can’t risk a overthrow of buying power. "For the person who will depart in less than 10 years or who has even now retired, it may make sense to allocate some to TIPS," Gambera says.

There is some prove the appeal of TIPS is returning slightly. Tony Crescenzi of Miller Tabak notes that 10-year TIPS were priced on Jan. 23 for the consumer price index to rise 0.72% over the next decade. That’s a small increase, but its the highest since Nov. 17 and 15 epochs the almost negligible inflation expectations of three months ago.

The point in dispute, though, is that provisions in the next not many years could construct TIPS very unattractive to investors. The value of TIPS is indexed to U.S. administration inflation data, so low inflation makes TIPS smaller quantity attractive compared to other assets. Also, while aggressive control spending and rate cuts are likely to preclude full-blown deflation, negative government price premises, if it occurs, would be bad news in favor of TIPS holders, who would see their bond yields shrink in response.

Marilyn Cohen, president of Envision Capital Management and writer of the Tax Advantaged Investor newsletter, says the inflation threat is "passage down the road." She doesn’privately expect inflation to return in either 2009 or 2010. She believes investors should keep away from TIPS for now, preferring safe short-term corporate bonds till signs of inflation actually appear without ceasing the horizon.

In other words, investors may be right to trouble about inflation, but that doesn’t mean it’session time to dive in and buy TIPS or other inflation hedges erect now. "The difficult party will be making a call on at the epoch that that happens," Hinnenkamp says.

Another self-conceit hedge traditionally favored by investors has been commodities like oil, gold, or other precious metals. But Gambera notes that in the past year these assets have had "very high volatility." Those wild swings make them smaller quantity trusty for conservative investors. TIPS, conducive to the mainspring that they are issued by the federal government, are more reassuring to investors trying to flee the market delirium.

The essential appeal of TIPS remains that they are a government-backed refuge of last go. If Cohen and others are right, TIPS may not make riches for some time. But they provide insurance to skittish investors during not sure times like these.

The chipmaker’s designs on the market for MIDs will place it at odds with makers of smartphones and mobile operating systems—such as Apple and Microsoft

By Aaron Ricadela

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Apple didn’t take kindred to disparaging remarks made publicly last fall by the agency of a pair of Intel (INTC) executives ready the iPhone and its chips, designed by ARM Holdings. The computer manufacturer was so incensed, in fact, that Chief Executive Steve Jobs called Intel’sitting Chief Executive Paul Otellini to complain, people familiar with the matter say.

The jabs stopped and Intel publicly backed off its comments. But the episode is a reminder of Intel’s larger ambitions for handheld computers and mobile phones, and how those plans could put it at loggerheads with some longtime partners. Intel, the universe’sitting largest chipmaker, is readying reinvigorated chips and a translation of the open-source Linux operating theory specially designed to run a new rank of "mobile Internet devices," or MIDs. Consumers could use the devices to play high-definition video, make Internet-powered phone calls, or download directions and topical business listings on the go. The effort could presage each attempt by Intel to tract its products in pocket-size smartphones, a category to which place Apple (AAPL) has sold 17.4 million units.

At the same time, as Intel tries to tap into the burgeoning market for smartphone and handheld chips, estimated by iSuppli to be worth $3 billion this year, its expressive Internet devices could also compete with the iPhone for buyers. Intel’s Linux effort also poses a threat to longtime collaborator Microsoft (MSFT), which is trying to land its Windows Mobile operating system in more handheld devices. Intel is stocking up on Linux faculty, partly to aid the handheld effort. "Intel is going to be entering solidly into Apple’s capacity," says Rob Enderle, president and principal algebraist at the Enderle Group. "It’s going to be active for an interesting next decade." Apple declined to comment.

The Linux software, called Moblin 2 and expected to have being in software developers’ hands by March, will run new easily transported computers Intel calls "MIDs," set to arrive around midyear, Intel told BusinessWeek. Companies including Lenovo (LNVGY), Hitachi, and BenQ already make MIDs using previous designs, and Intel plans to announce newly come partners in February at a mobile technology colloquy in Barcelona, Spain.

By providing a free version of Linux for mobile devices that run its chips, Intel is hoping to jump-start a new breed of handheld computers, a category it’sitting been largely shut out of. Most smartphones—including the iPhone and Palm’s (PALM) new Pre, which garnered accolades at its Jan. 8 unveiling in Las Vegas—bring chips designed by ARM and licensed by manufacturers including Qualcomm (QCOM), Samsung, and Texas Instruments (TXN). On Jan. 19, Qualcomm paid $65 the masses to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for technology and engineers to aggravate its smartphone chips’ multimedia capabilities. "Intel would like to promote the MID category at the expense of high-end smartphones," says Gordon Haff, one analyst at market researcher Illuminata.

The fight over which companies will supply the chips and software for smaller and more powerful handheld computers in the same state as MIDs comes as the PC recedes from the center of tech industry action. Worldwide PC sales are expected to small quantity more than 5% this year. Waning demand has laciniate Intel’s fourth-quarter avails by means of 90%, and whacked Microsoft’s second-quarter earnings as fully.

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JERUSALEM — Special legal teams will defend Israeli soldiers against possible war-crimes charges stemming from civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip, the prime minister said Sunday, promising the country would fully back those who fought in the three-week offensive.

The irritate reflected augmenting concerns by Israel that officers could be subject to international suit, despite the army’s claims that Hamas rebels caused the civilian casualties by means of staging attacks from residential areas.

“The state of Israel will fully back those who acted on its behalf,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared. “The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals.”

Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting, Olmert declared Israel’s justiciar minister would contribute a team of senior officials to coordinate the legal defense of anyone involved in the impertinent.

“That decision is not going to prevent total these organizations and countries to pursue their efforts through legal means,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said at talks with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels. “So there is no right plane if the decision was taken by the Israeli government.”

Malki is a member of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ powers that be, whose authority extends single to the West Bank after competitor Hamas violently took over Gaza in 2007.

Israel launched its 22-day offensive to try to halt Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel. The assault killed 1,285 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights counted. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed.

At talks Sunday in Cairo aimed at solidifying the truce, Hamas official Ayman Taha said the Islamic dispose offered a one-year armistice to Israel, including the reopening of border crossings to spare paramount supplies into Gaza. He said Israel offered an 18-month truce, which Hamas rejected. Israeli officials refused to annotate.

In addition to the civilian death toll, Israel has faced international criticism on account of its appliance of white phosphorous, and for shelling attacks that struck United Nations schools and installations that were serving as shelters.

Israeli officials have said they took great efforts to avoid civilian casualties, and accused Hamas of deliberately using mosques, schools and residential neighborhoods for cover.

Israeli leaders have faced similar concerns in the gone by. In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was sued in Belgium over his alleged role in a 1982 massacre in Lebanon’session Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. He was never convicted.

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KABUL, Afghanistan — It looked like an homely vicinage playground: six children tumbling off their skateboards to the tune of laughter. But not so long ago, honorable 20 yards not present, the body of a suicide car bomber was sprawled beside a glistening pool of blood.

Afghan youth have learned to heal almost instantly from such routine violence. One person determined to inject something normal into their lives is Oliver Percovich, 34, of Melbourne, Australia.

He plans to evident this country’s first skateboarding school — Skateistan — in the arise. He sees sports as a way to encourage students into after-school activities like English and computer classes, which are otherwise reserved for the elite.

“Teenagers are severe to dissociate from old mentalities, and I’m their servant,” Percovich said. “If they weren’t selfish, I would’ve left a long time ago.”

Nowadays, when he pulls his motorcycle into a residential courtyard here, a dozen youngsters pounce before it comes to a stop, yanking six chipped skateboards off the back. The children — most participating in a play for the first time — do not want to lonely place any duration.

Their skateboard park is a decrepit Soviet-style concrete fountain with deep fissures.

But Percovich has raised the money needed to build an 8,600-square-foot bubble to house the nonprofit Skateistan complex, and the Kabul Parks Authority has tentatively donated land. He is still abeyance for official permittance to begin the contrive. Since a spate of kidnappings and a car bombing in late November, he has reduced his diurnal sessions at the fountain to once or two times a week.

Among those who lo presumptuous to his visits is Maro, an elfin 9-year-old girl who was terrified of skateboarding at first.

“It gives me courage, and once I twitch skating, I completely consign to oblivion in various places my fears,” she said.

All the children spoke from one side an interpreter.

Maro’s glittery Mickey Mouse shirt indicated middle-class standing. She stood out from the street children in muddied clothes who shared the skate space. Because the sport is in the way that new and queer here, Percovich said, it may help mend the state’s deep conversable and ethnic divisions.

But for Hadisa, a 10-year-old girl from a conservative family, skateboarding has not been accepted. She said two older brothers beat her with wires for skating by poorer children in September. Several friends said they saw blood flowing from her leg.

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When Chad Weichinger and Sue Estrada bought a house a small in number century yards from the White River in Pacific 10 years past, they wondered if flood insurance was a dutiful idea.

But an insurance agent told them they didn’t need it, Estrada recalled. They weren’privately in the floodplain.

Two weeks ago, they lettered differently.

The White River surged from its banks, filling their South King County neighbors equal a bathtub. Half a foot of water covered their first floor, warping floorboards, soaking insulation and furnace ducts, turning drywall into mush, wrecking appliances and soaking his treasured comic collection.

“Now we’re finding out it would have been nice to have more flood insurance,” before-mentioned Weichinger, as he stood in his backyard, covered put a head on to toe in dirt from crawling below the house to pump thoroughly get water.

The recent soaking of Pacific, ready Highway 167 on the King and Pierce county line, revealed flaws in aging government flood maps that guide where development is allowed, where flooding is expected and who buys flood insurance.

Angry Pacific homeowners, facing thousands of dollars in uninsured repairs, are asking wherefore they weren’t warned they really lived in a flood zone. And King County officials are trying to shape public why even new maps still in the works didn’t accurately predict where flooding would happen.

The lack of insurance adds to a growing list of problems that have led to suffering and frustration in Pacific.

Poor communication meant the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers kept letting huge amounts of water out of Mud Mountain Dam even as it flooded the town downstream. Dam managers say deep-seated inaccuracies from a government water gauge near Pacific made it hard for them to know what the river was doing.

Problem by means of maps

The White River Estates, where Weichinger and Estrada dwell, shouldn’t have flooded earlier this month, according to maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

Those maps predict that in a big, rare flood — individual that would betide just once every 100 years — roughly half the small 81-house expansion would get hit. But the amount of water in the river on Jan. 9 was abundant less than the 100-year flood. It was even less than what FEMA expects every 10 years — a relatively routine occurrence. In other words, bagatelle unusual should have happened.

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MELBOURNE, Australia — Two sets down. A 6-foot-5 Tomas Berdych ripping forehand winners and powerful serves down at him, custody him on the defensive.

Roger Federer’s campaign to equal American Pete Sampras’ record 14 Grand Slam tourney singles titles was in grave hazard in the fourth round at the Australian Open.

It appeared as if Swiss superstar Federer was in trouble.

Not in his mind.

“I wasn’t thinking of losing, that’s for sure,” Federer said Sunday after reaching the quarterfinals through a 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 comeback conquest. “The finish line was still very far because of Tomas. I knew that. He pushed me to the set bounds to. You’ve got to hang in there, there’session none other solution.”

After breaking 23-year-old Berdych in the pivotal seventh sport of the third set, when the Czech player missed three open volleys and blew five game points, Federer took the momentum.

“In the end it becomes same mental, and I discern that this is where my biggest strengths always draw near into play,” Federer said. “That’s why I’m always going to favor myself in a fifth set.”

Federer divide his unforced errors from 13 and 11 in the first two sets to four and three in the next two. He finished with 61 winners to 58 for Berdych.

It was his fourth career comeback from couple sets down and third part in a major — the previous in 2001, more than two years preceding he won the first of his Grand Slam singles titles.

Best of whole, he uttered, it gave him confidence he could go all the way — if pushed — through anyone of the younger brigade.

“It’s good to have five-setters to see where you’re at,” said the 27-year-old Federer.

He next faces 20-year-old Juan Martin del Potro, seeded eighth from Argentina, who advanced 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 over No. 19 Marin Cilic of Croatia.

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SEATTLE —

Seattle police were investigating the stabbing of a Queen Anne woman Sunday and arrested her boyfriend.

Officers responded about 9:30 a.m. to an chamber where an aggressor had slashed the woman’s pharynx and stabbed her, police aforesaid.

Before officers arrived, the woman made it to a hallway outside the apartment, but the attacker got her back inside, police said.

Officers forced their scheme in and took the victim into the hallway. They then re-entered and arrested the boyfriend, 30, who was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of bear down upon.

The woman, 25, was treated by medics and taken to Harborview Medical Center, in what place she underwent surgery, police said.

The couple had been together about six months, police said. The woman was attacked which time she arrived at the apartment after work, police said.