NPR 2008-11-24

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Federal regulators are reportedly conferring with executives from Citigroup about a possible rescue plan. The New York Times says under the proposal, if Citigroup's losses on shaky mortgage-related assets reach a certain level, the government would assume the excess losses in exchange for an ownership stake in the banking¹ giant. No comment yet from Citigroup.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it's up to the Big Three automakers to come up with a convincing case for the 25 billion dollars in federal loans that they are seeking. "To lose billions of dollars a year and make millions of dollars of a year, while you do that, it's hard to explain to the American people when we are asking them to put taxpayer² dollars into these companies.” Pelosi was on CBS's Face the Nation. The automakers have been given until next week to come up with a financial plan demanded by lawmakers, but the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee Richard Shelby says the companies need more than federal loans to survive. "We would like these companies to survive, but they are not gonna survive. There are basically failures now unless they have new management, new innovation, new products. " Shelby was on ABC's This Week.

Shots were fired in the former Soviet³ Republic of Georgia today at a motorcade carrying the Presidents of Georgia and Poland. According to those two leaders, no one was hurt in the incident which took place near the breakaway region of South Ossetia. NPR's Gregory Feifer reports.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili blamed Russian troops inside the pro-Moscow separatist province for firing at his motorcade. Speaking at a joint⁴ news conference following the incident, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said the shots were fired from 100 feet from the motorcade. Although details remain unclear, Georgian officials say the shots came from a Russian military checkpoint. Russian and South Ossetian officials have denied the accusations⁵. Georgia today marked the fifth anniversary of the Rose Revolution that brought Saakashvili to power. The president appealed for unity⁶ following Russian's invasion last summer, and denounced Russia's continued occupation of Georgian territory. Gregory Feifer, NPR News, Moscow.

President Bush and the 20 other leaders at the Asian-Pacific Economic Summit have wrapped up their sessions in Peru with a final declaration that had a more positive tone than a preliminary statement issued yesterday. The BBC's Dan Collyns has more on the story.

They're predicting that they will be able to overcome the economic crisis by 2010, which I think a lot of economists⁷ would say is particularly confident. And they were also resolved to reform global lending institutions like International Monetary⁸ Fund in the financial industry. And one concrete measure which has been taken is that the ministers of all these 21 economies and finance ministers have been directed to go to Geneva to try and conclude the Doha round of trade talks next month. The BBC's Dan Collyns in Lima. President Bush is en route back to the US. He is set to arrive in Washington within the hour. This is NPR News from Washington.

US Military says American troops have killed 17 insurgents⁹ during a raid in southern Afghanistan. The troops were airlifted in by helicopter. The area where the raid occurred is the center of the resurgent Taliban insurgency¹⁰. Thousands of people, mostly militants¹¹, have been killed there this year.

Some lawmakers in London are calling for an investigation¹² into yesterday's suspected US missile attack in Pakistan which killed the alleged¹³ mastermind of a plot to blow up transatlantic jetliners. Larry Miller¹⁴ has the story.

Rashid Rauf was on the run when he was killed in a US missile strike on a Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold in northwestern Pakistan. The British-born Rauf was believed to have helped organize a 2006 plot to bring down ten US and Canada-bound transatlantic flights using explosive liquids that were to be mixed on board. Some British lawmakers are now asking if Rauf's killing¹⁵ was lawful¹⁶. Conservative Patrick Mercer says it raises the question of how much cooperation British Intelligence provided in what he termed”was the execution of a British subject.” Labour's Andrew Dismore, is head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, which he says will investigate whether UK Security Services are providing Intelligence on British Nationals in Pakistan. For NPR News, I'm Larry Miller in London.

Gasoline prices plunged¹⁷ further over the past two weeks down nearly 33 cents a gallon. The average price nationally now for self-service regular is $1.97 a gallon. It's the first time gas prices have been below two dollars a gallon in more than three and a half years. Gas prices have now plummeted¹⁸ more than 2 dollars a gallon since their peak in July.