Heide notes

Obama sends US military advisers to Uganda

By Matt Spetalnick and Laura MacInnisWASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday he was sending about 100 U.S. military advisers to Uganda to support central African allies pursuing Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and other rebel commanders.Obama’s decision commits U.S. forces to help battle a Ugandan rebel group he once condemned as an “affront to human dignity” for chilling violence that has included hacking body parts off victims, abduction of young boys to fight and young girls to be used as sex slaves.”I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield,” Obama said a letter to Congress.But he asserted that U.S. forces “will only be providing information, advice and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense.”The terms of engagement may be aimed at reassuring war-weary Americans he has no plan to entangle U.S. forces directly in another conflict when they are already involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are playing a support role in a NATO-led air campaign in Libya.The LRA, which says it is a religious group, first emerged in northern Uganda in the 1990s and is believed to have killed, kidnapped and mutilated tens of thousands of people.CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITYKony has been indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”The LRA continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security,” Obama said.He said U.S. advisers were needed because “regional military efforts have thus far been unsuccessful in removing LRA leader Joseph Kony or his top commanders from the battlefield.”Obama said the initial team of U.S. advisers arrived in Uganda on Wednesday and that a total of around 100 personnel would be deployed for the mission.”Subject to the approval of each respective host nation, elements of these U.S. forces will deploy into Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” he said.LRA commanders have been operating in the wild and largely lawless border regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Sudan in recent years.Although now thought to number just a few hundred fighters, the LRA’s mobility and the difficulties of the terrain has made them difficult to tackle. Attempts to negotiate peace failed in 2008 after Kony refused to sign a deal to end the killing.Uganda and Congolese officials said earlier this year they thought Kony had returned to eastern DRC, complicating United Nations efforts to stabilize the region.

10/14/11

Job openings contract in August

Monthly job openings — unfilled, posted vacancies that employers plan to fill within 30 days — help describe demand for labor. The number has consistently hovered well below the 4.4 million openings registered in December 2007, before the 2007-2009 recession.Some 8 million Americans lost their jobs in the recession and only 1.4 million of those jobs have come back during the recovery.Hiring rose marginally in August, with businesses and government hires climbing to 4.01 million from 3.98 million a month earlier, too small a gain to bring down the U.S. unemployment rate.The rate at which workers were separated from jobs by layoffs or quits, a measure of labor turnover, was 3.1 percent in August.President Barack Obama has been counting on the economic recovery to help his re-election campaign, but an unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent and painfully slow jobs growth is putting his chances of winning a second term at risk.In a modest bright spot for workers, the Labor Department report on Wednesday showed the rate at which people quit their jobs, which can indicate workers’ confidence in their ability to find new jobs, rose to 51 percent in August from 50 percent in July.The rate of layoffs was 42 percent.The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey encompasses employment data from about 16,000 establishments across the country.

10/12/11

Chrysler, UAW reach tentative labor pact

The agreement follows agreements between the UAW and Chrysler’s Detroit rivals General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co.The GM contract was ratified by workers late last month and Ford workers are in the process of voting that ends October 18.In a press statement, UAW President Bob King said the pact will create 2,100 U.S. jobs and commit Chrysler to $4.5 billion investment in vehicle production.Further details of the agreement will be issued later on Wednesday by the UAW. The Chrysler contract was not expected by labor analysts to be as generous for workers as those at GM and Ford, due to the automaker’s relative poor financial position.Chrysler Group is managed and majority=owned by Italy’s Fiat SpA.

10/12/11