NPR 2010-12-31

New claims for unemployment benefits are down sharply. NPR's Paul Brown reports economists 2 see the drop as another good sign for the job market next year, but they warn a major recovery is still a long time off.

The Labor 3 Department's latest numbers, new jobless benefits claims, down by 34,000 last week. The weekly number is the lowest in two years, and a more stable four-week average is at a more than two-year low. Economist 1 Hugh Johnson predicts further improvement.

"We're gonna get growth in jobs in 2011. This jobless claims number is very consistent with that notion."

But Johnson and other economists foresee a slow road to significant recovery in the job market that the recession and a decades-long decline in manufacturing have left millions of positions short. Paul Brown, NPR News.

Another glimmering 4 hope for the weak housing market. The National Association of Realtors saw a 3.5 percent increase in the number of contracts would-be homeowners signed last month. Spokesman Walter Maloney says home sales are still low but are picking up.

"What we've seen on price gain were up four over the past five months, still five percent below a year ago, but we're moving in the right direction."

The increases came in the Northeastern and Western US; however, fewer contracts were signed last month in the Midwest and South.

And US stocks are still falling even after a strong round of economic data out today. At last check, the Dow was down 12 points at 11,573; NASDAQ off about two at 2,665.

In other news, Turkish state media says police have arrested ten people suspected of preparing attacks around the New Year's holiday. The Anatolian news agency said detainees are suspected of ties to al-Qaeda, as NPR's Peter Kenyon tells us from Istanbul.

Preliminary reports said the suspects were detained for questioning in raids in Istanbul and the city of Bursa earlier this week. Prosecutors 5 are expected to decide after questioning which suspects will face charges and whether further arrests are warranted. Few other details were available. Al-Qaeda has been linked to past attacks in Turkey, a key NATO ally that straddles Europe and the Middle East. Two years ago, three al-Qaeda-linked militants 6 were killed in an attack near the US consulate 7 in  Istanbul that also left three policemen dead. Five years earlier, suicide bomb attacks in Istanbul killed scores of people. The Turkish detentions 8 followed the arrests of four suspect terrorists in Denmark also accused of plotting attacks. One of those man, an Iraqi national, was released for a lack of evidence. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.

In Spain, four police officers were found guilty today of torturing bombing suspects linked to the separatist group ETA. The court sentenced one officer to four and a half years in jail. The other three each got up to two and a half years. The case stemmed from an attack in Madrid four years ago.

This is NPR News.

A Paris-based media advocacy group says 57 journalists were killed on the job worldwide this year. Eleanor Beardsley says that fewer reporters are being killed in war zones, but more are being targeted by criminals and traffickers.

Reporters Without Border says the death toll 9 is down 25 percent from 2009, when 76 journalists were killed in connection with their jobs, but the group's annual report says that organized crime and militias 10 have now become the biggest dangers for journalists. Pakistan was the deadliest country for reporters with 11 killed. Seven journalists were killed in Mexico; seven in Iraqi; and four in the Philippines. Reporters Without Border said 2010 also brought a sharp increase in abductions of journalists. A total of 51 reporters were kidnapped in 2010, up from 43 in 2009. Two French reporters have been held hostage in Afghanistan for the last year. Silent rituals were held across France on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of their kidnapping. From NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.

A Russian former oil tycoon 11, whose recent embezzlement 12 conviction touched off claims of political foul 13 play out of Washington, is getting 14 years behind bars. That's six years on top of the jail Mikhail Khodorkovsky is already serving for a previous conviction which he is in the final year of completing before he was convicted in a second trial. Khodorkovsky's political rival Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is widely seen as the driving force behind the second trial. This week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concerns that the conviction would raise new doubts about Russia's commitment to legal reform.