U.S. Senate to work weekend
on emergency funding bill


The U.S. Senate is expected to work on an emergency funding bill this weekend to keep the government operating after its spending authority runs out Tuesday. The bill would still require approval from the Republican-led House of Representatives, which earlier this week agreed to fund the government only if none of the funds are used to implement President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. But even if lawmakers succeed in averting a costly shutdown, some say the U.S. economy already is paying the price.

It’s down to the wire again as Washington wrestles with another fiscal deadline. But even if lawmakers succeed in defusing the latest crisis, the uncertainty carries a hefty price tag.

One study suggests that since the last budget impasse in 2011 the market volatility, hiring delays and reduced consumer demand have shaved about $150 billion from the country’s gross domestic output.

Testifying in Congress this week, economist Mark Zandi said that’s equivalent to more than one million jobs. “If political uncertainty had not risen to the degree that it has, the unemployment rate today would still be high, uncomfortably high, but at 6.6 percent that would make a meaningful difference to our economy’s performance.” The current rate is 7.3 percent.

Washington’s political situation was evident this week when a freshman Republican senator, Ted Cruz, railed for 21 hours against the health care law to delay a procedural vote. As part of his speech, he read excerpts from a children's book.  
 
Fiscal reform advocate Robert Bixby said that’s not a winning formula for Republicans. "If their position is they would not increase the debt ceiling or indeed pass any appropriations bills unless Obamacare is repealed or defunded, that I think would be viewed by the public as an unreasonable demand and I think they would hold Republicans responsible.”

Likely to be even more contentious is the coming debate on the debt ceiling. Failure to raise the debt limit will mean the U.S. government could run out of money to pay its debts by Oct. 17, the consequences of which Zandi says “would be cataclysmic. It would mean higher mortgage rates, higher borrowing costs for businesses, lower stock prices, lower house prices, a full blown recession and there would be no reasonable policy response to it.”

But another leading economist says those claims are greatly exaggerated. Alan Meltzer says the budget debates are necessary and more likely to lead to a compromise.

“There will be consequences, but the consequences will depend upon how long the default goes on. It isn’t going to go on forever and it probably will arouse enough reaction from the public that will, if we don’t get the agreement before, we’ll get it after,” said Meltzer.

The domestic wrangling is a big worry for U.S. trading partners. Many countries, especially those in emerging markets are dependent on American consumer demand for their exports. Another political stalemate could erode the world's confidence in the U.S. economy, which had been showing modest but steady signs of recovery.

If a government shutdown occurs, many popular tourist spots would close.

At the National Zoo only essential zookeepers would be allowed in, to feed and take care of the animals.

The National Zoo is part of the world’s largest museum complex, the Smithsonian Institution, which is funded by the government.  Entry is free, but the Smithsonian relies on concessions for extra money, and they and the museums will be closed during a shutdown.  

Like the shutdown in the mid 1990s, work would continue on national security, air traffic control, food safety, in banking and prisons.  

But no visa or passport applications would be processed. There would be no new clinical research. The national parks would close, and millions of tourists would be shut out.

The nation is still recovering from budget cuts called sequestration, when half of all government employees were furloughed for up to six days.  


Somalis in Minnesota reject
effort to recruit by terrorists


Somali-Americans in Minnesota expressed anger and frustration Wednesday after unconfirmed reports that people from their local community may have been involved in the attack on a Kenyan shopping mall that killed at least 67 people. The ability of a Somalia-based Islamic militant group to recruit young Americans has been a long-standing concern.

Ka Joog, a Somali-American youth group, called a news conference in Minneapolis to condemn the al-Shabab terrorist group for its attack on Nairobi's Westgate Mall and the killing of innocent civilians.

Reports that some of the attackers were from Minnesota have not been confirmed. But since 2007, between 20 and 40 ethnic Somali-Americans have joined al-Shabab in Somalia, some of them dying there, according to U.S. authorities.

Ka Joog leader Mohammed Farah said the vast majority of Somalis in Minnesota and around the world do not support terrorism.

“Every community has their own bad apples in it. And so, but you know we got to make sure we don't torture the image of the great Somalis that reside across the globe,” he said.

Abdirizak Bihi, director of a Somali advocacy center in Minneapolis, said his nephew Burhan Hassan was recruited by al-Shabab in a local mosque in 2008.

“He was one of the young men that has been brainwashed, radicalized and then helped to leave the country to join al Shabaab,” Bihi explained, adding that the group targets vulnerable Somalis who feel marginalized in U.S. society. Bihi said after his nephew joined, his family alerted authorities to the danger al-Shabab posed.

“We shocked al-Shabab by standing up to them and organizing all other families and continued to make a case to the U.S. government and the international community that there is a big problem over there that followed us here,” Bihi said.

Since then, there have been successful efforts to engage young people to counter-terrorist recruitment in the area, he said. But it is too late for Bihi's nephew, who died in Somalia in 2009.


Google announces algorithm
that is supposed to be smarter


Google Inc. has overhauled its search algorithm, the foundation of the Internet's dominant search engine, to better cope with the longer, more complex queries it has been getting from Web users.
 
Amit Singhal, senior vice president of search, told reporters Thursday that the company launched its latest Hummingbird algorithm about a month ago and that it currently affects 90 percent of worldwide searches via Google.
 
Google is trying to keep pace with the evolution of Internet usage. As search queries get more complicated, traditional boolean or keyword-based systems begin deteriorating because of the need to match concepts and meanings in addition to words.
 
Hummingbird is the company's effort to match the meaning of queries with that of documents on the Internet, said Singhal from the Menlo Park garage where Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin conceived their now-ubiquitous search engine.
 
“Remember what it was like to search in 1998? You'd sit down and boot up your bulky computer, dial up on your squawky modem, type in some keywords, and get 10 blue links to Web sites that had those words,” Singhal wrote in a separate blogpost.
 
“The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the Web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket.”
 
Page and Brin set up shop in the garage of Susan Wojcicki, now a senior Google executive, in September 1998, around the time they incorporated their company. This week marks the 15th anniversary of their collaboration.


Some senators plan to draft
tighter controls of data fishing


Leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting amid the outcry over the government's collection of personal communications data, said Thursday they were working on legislation that would tighten oversight of federal electronic eavesdropping programs.
 
Among other things, the new measures would set tighter standards on which telephone and Internet records the National Security Agency can collect and limit the time that records can be held, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee's chairwoman, at a hearing on changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
 
Ms. Feinstein described several ways in which intelligence agencies would be required to demonstrate suspicion before obtaining any communications data.
 
The bill also would require that the appointment of the director of the National Security Agency would be subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, she said.
 
Support for changing the surveillance programs has been growing since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked information starting in June. Snowden’s leaks showed the government collects far more Internet and telephone data than was previously known.
 
James Clapper, director of national intelligence, General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, and James Cole, deputy attorney general, who testified at the hearing, said they were open to discussing some changes in the government surveillance programs.
 
In a joint statement, they said they would consider legislation providing for the appointment of an outside advocate for some important cases.
 
Several lawmakers have pressed for an advocate to represent the public in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that oversees the eavesdropping programs. President Barack Obama also said in August he supported the idea.
 
“We understand the concerns that have been raised about the lack of independent views in certain cases, such as cases involving bulk collection, that affect the privacy and civil liberties interests of the American people as a whole,” the intelligence officials said in their statement.
 
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the intelligence panel, said the committee intended to begin its markup debating the bill next week.
 
Many members of Congress, especially on the intelligence committee, which oversees the confidential programs, staunchly defend the surveillance as an essential defense against terrorist attacks.

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services

By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services