United States widely respected investor and financial wizard Warren Buffet said on Thursday unemployment in the US could reach 11% and a second stimulus package could be needed to pull the world’s largest economy out of recession.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in favour of an adequate protection to the media in Venezuela, as well as in other countries. The US top diplomat considered that the freedom of expression and freedom of the press are fundamental values for democracy.
A United States regulator is to hold hearings to decide whether it should clamp down on speculation in the energy market.
The level of people falling behind with consumer loans in the US hit a new high in the first three months of 2009, the American Bankers Association said. Rising unemployment was behind the missed payments, it suggested.
A large crowd was drawn to New York's Highline Ballroom for the VI Encuentro of Colombian Musicians. This annual music and dance gathering of Colombian musicians in New York, brought together a marathon of 20 of NYC’s most renowned Colombian bands, celebrating the diverse Colombian genres of cumbia, currulao, vallenato, joropo, bambuco, pasillo, and other diverse rhythms, all originally from Colombia.
United States bank regulators closed seven institutions this week including six banks in Illinois controlled by one family and a small bank in Dallas, bringing the total number of US bank failures to 52 so far this year. (This compares with 25 in 2008 and 3 in 2007).
The number of jobs lost in the US last month came in at 467,000, which was much more than had been expected. The jobless rate rose to 9.5% in June, from 9.4% in May, as the US economy continued to struggle.
United States vehicle sales dropped in June, but there were signs of stabilisation as Ford saw its smallest fall in a year. Ford, the only one of the so-called Big Three carmakers not to have gone bankrupt, had the smallest drop, with sales down 10.7% from a year earlier. General Motors said sales fell 33.6%, while Chrysler sales fell by 42%.
United States Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee is urging the US to extend trade benefits to Uruguay, bypassing Mercosur, a move he says would also increase pressure on Brazil to deepen commercial ties.
The state of Minnesota's Supreme Court declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of the disputed 2008 US Senate race thus giving the Democrats their 60th vote.