NPR 2008-09-07

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Craig Windham.

Federal regulators are reportedly said to take control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—at least temporarily—to shore up the mortgage finance firms, which have lost a total of about 14 billion dollars over the past year. Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee nearly half of all current mortgages in the United States. Burt Ely, a Virginia-based banking 1 and monitoring policy expert, says the plan raises a lot of questions. "It gonna be major issues and debates over who will suffer the losses in this takeover to the extent that there are losses. How much risk will a tax payer bear? Will the stockholders get wiped out? Will subordinate debtholders get wiped out? What will happen to the companies' longer term? " The Wall Street Journal reports the Treasury 2 Department will announce details of the plan early tomorrow afternoon.

Thousands of Boeing employees are walking picket 3 lines today after a federal mediator 4 failed to resolve a dispute between the aerospace 5 firm and the Machinists union. Analysts 6 say if the strike drags on, it could become costly 7 especially for the company. NPR's Jack 8 Speer reports.

The strike by 27,000 members of Boeing's Machinists Union comes at a difficult time. Not only is the airplane builder trying to fill orders for its much-delayed 787 Dreamliner, but it faces a large backlog 9 of orders for other aircraft. Michael Boyd is president of the Boyd Group, an aviation industry consulting firm. He says estimates of strike-related cost to Boeing may be on the low side. "If you're looking at a hundred million dollars a day, that's probably their production cost; but in terms of their opportunity cost of losing at the advantage with the 787, it's a whole lot more than a hundred a day. " Boeing says all sides worked to avoid a strike but in the end the differences between the parties were too great to close. No new talks are currently scheduled. Jack Speer, NPR News.

Tropical Storm Hanna has been rolling up the east coast today, drenching 10 the region with heavy rain and triggering flooding. NPR's Allison Keyes has the story.

In northern Virginia two people were rescued from a car caught in high water as Fairfax County evacuated 11 homes due to flooding and parts of Interstate 95 were shut down because of the storm. And in Florida officials like Monroe County Mayor Mario Di Gennaro are already anticipating trouble from Hurricane Ike. An official evacuation of the Florida Keys begins tomorrow. "We have our evacuation to start this morning for our tourists at 9 am, and tomorrow morning at 7 am is gonna be for people with special needs." Hurricane Ike is also expected to mean more rain in Haiti where more than 150 are reported dead after back-to-back storms. Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington.

Hurricane Ike has strengthened today. It's now a dangerous Category-4 storm with winds of 135 miles an hour. On its current course it could threaten the Gulf 12 Coast by late next week. People there are still dealing 13 with damage and power outages caused by Hurricane Gustav last week.

This is NPR News from Washington.

Pakistan has a new president. Asif Ali Zardari, the widower 14 of slain 15 former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, will succeed Pervez Musharraf, who stepped down in the face of impeachment 16 charges. Zardari is head of the main ruling party but he is seen as having limited public support. He was nicknamed Mr. Ten Percent for alleged 17 corruption 18 during Bhutto's two terms in office.

A pickup 19 truck packed with explosives blew up at a police security checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan today. At least 30 people were killed and dozens more were injured.

The European Union has decided 20 to send its own team of monitors into Georgia to oversee 21 the pullback of Russian troops. But first the EU's current President, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will go to Moscow to make sure the pullback will actually happen. Terry Schultz has the story.

French President Sarkozy negotiated the end of hostilities 22 between Russia and Georgia last month which mandated 23 as one of six points that the Russian soldiers occupying Georgian territory must leave immediately. Monday Sarkozy will go to Moscow to ask the Russian government personally why those soldiers haven't moved out. And French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shouldn't expect partnership 24 talks with the EU—currently suspended—to get back on track without some serious action on the peace plan. "Let's first respect his own signature. Six points, only two—let's say two and a half, perhaps three—has been implemented 25. What about the rest? " Formal approval along with particulars of the EU monitoring mission will be handled at the next ministerial September 15th. For NPR News, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is now in Morocco. She arrived there after visiting Algeria and Tunisia and after holding an historic meeting with Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi in Tripoli.