Financial Freedom. Best business news.

Bank of America’s homepage and online banking service were experiencing problems Friday, a day after the company said it would start charging a $5 monthly fee for customers who make debit card purchases.

A message on the bank’s homepage said that page was temporarily unavailable, despite earlier assurances from the bank that the site had been fully restored.

Some customers who tried to sign onto their accounts were greeted with the message that the site was “operating slower than usual” and that the bank was working to restore service.

A spokeswoman for the bank, Tara Burke, said the site had been fully restored for the majority of customers but that some were still experiencing “sporadic” issues.

She said the problems with the website were not the result of hacking but declined to say what was the cause.

Burke said customers who couldn’t sign onto their accounts still could bank via text message, at ATMs and at branches.

Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., is the largest U.S. bank by deposits. It offers customers a free eBanking account if they do all their banking online and at ATMs. Customers are charged an $8.95 monthly fee for the account if they also use branch locations.

Source

TORONTO

Missouri’s community colleges have received a federal grant to train unemployed workers for health care jobs.

Officials say MoHealthWINS, fueled by a $20 million federal grant, will educate 4,600 people through the state’s 12 community colleges and Linn State Technical College. The program was announced Monday by Gov. Jay Nixon, who said it would specifically target unemployed adults seeking new careers.

The funding is provided through a grant program offered by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Among the jobs that would be targeted are certified nursing aide, licensed practical nurse, phlebotomist, pharmacy technician and medical lab technician.

Nixon supported the grant proposal, saying it would offer the state another way to boost its percentage of residents with college degrees unsecured personal loans. Following a similar national goal, Nixon is hoping to push the percentage of state residents with a degree to 60 percent from 37 percent by 2020.

It is unclear how the money will be divided among the various schools.

In the grant proposal, St. Louis Community College said it would use the money to support career counselors and boot camps.

St. Charles Community College said it would train students to work as technicians in several areas, including radiological, medical lab and hearing aid specialization.

Source

Back-to-back bomb blasts ripped through one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam Sunday, killing at least 10 people in a community still reeling from a deadly bus hijacking earlier this month that left Iraq’s Shiites again feeling hunted.

Four explosions struck the city of Karbala over a five-minute period, government officials said, sending thick black smoke over the city. Two of the bombs targeted an Interior Ministry office that issues ID cards. Another struck near a house, shredding its walls and ceiling. And one explosion went off half a mile from an important gold-domed shrine.

“Once again, the terrorist enemies of both Iraq and humanity have committed a new crime against the innocent people of Karbala,” said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite.

He called the bombings a “heinous crime,” promised those behind them and the earlier attack on the bus would be punished and warned people not to be drawn back into sectarian revenge killings.

“We should stay united and cease statements or acts that would help the criminals in their efforts to ignite sedition.”

Ferocious bombing attacks by Sunni insurgent groups like al-Qaida in Iraq targeted the Shiite community whose leaders came to power after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The bloodshed pushed the nation to the edge of civil war.

Violence in Iraq has fallen dramatically since the bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, but militant attacks still appear aimed at re-igniting the nation’s volatile ethnic and religious divide.

The Sept. 12 bus attack targeted Shiite pilgrims from Karbala who were headed to a shrine in neighboring Syria.

The gunmen stopped the bus at a fake checkpoint in the western desert of Anbar province, heavily populated by Sunnis and once one of the heartlands of the insurgency.

The assailants pulled 22 men from the bus and shot them execution-style, leaving the women and children weeping beside a remote highway.

Prime Minister al-Maliki has been trying to tamp down tensions between officials in Karbala and Anbar since the highjacking. Four suspects are being held in the case, and al-Maliki’s military advisers say at least some foreigners were among the plotters.

Sunday’s bombings in Karbala were meant to raise tensions further, officials said.

“The aim of these explosions is to ignite the sectarian sedition after the killing of 22 Karbala residents in the Anbar desert two weeks ago,” said provincial councilman Hussein Shadhan al-Aboudi. “They also aim to destabilize the security situation in Karbala.”

Besides the 10 people killed, dozens were injured. Estimates ranged from 40 to as high as 90. The casualty figures were provided by three government officials: al-Aboudi, fellow councilman Mohammed al-Moussawi and parliamentarian Jawad Kadim al-Hassnawi.

Raed al-Assali, a government employee in the Karbala Investment Council, said he was sitting in his office doing paperwork when he heard the booms.

“I rushed to rooftop of our building and I saw thick smoke rising from the blast area,” al-Assali said. “Some people in panic were running in the nearby alleys in order to escape fire and danger.”

Al-Assali noted growing tensions and fear by Karbala residents that they are being targeted by Sunni insurgents.

“There’s a feeling here that some groups are trying to ignite sectarian sedition by targeting Karbala after the crisis with Anbar,” he said, referring to the slaying of the pilgrims.

Karbala, located 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Baghdad, is one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam because two early Muslim leaders, imams Abbas and Hussein, are buried there.

The bus attack alarmed Iraqi and U.S. security officials who are uneasily watching to see if stability will plummet while the American military continues withdrawing from the country. Under a 2008 security agreement, all U.S. troops are required to be out of Iraq by the end of the year.

But concerns about leaving behind partially trained Iraqi forces have spurred Washington and Baghdad to reconsider the deadline, although no agreement has yet been reached to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011.

Source

The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission is facing increased scrutiny from lawmakers as a former top SEC official says he was cleared to work on how victims of Bernard Madoff’s scheme should be compensated, even though he benefited financially from Madoff’s scheme.

The former SEC general counsel, David Becker, says in written testimony he was told by agency ethics officials he had no conflict of interest in helping craft the SEC policy.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro was criticized at a House hearing Thursday for allowing Becker to help set the policy even though he told her he had inherited a Madoff account from his mother business card design.

The SEC inspector general has investigated the matter and asked the Justice Department to determine whether Becker violated conflict-of-interest laws.

Source

London-based SABMiller’s $10.1 billion takeover of brewer Foster’s Group creates an opportunity for Australian beers to gain greater global acceptance, Foster’s chief executive John Pollaers said Thursday.

SABMiller said Wednesday that it had won the support of the Foster’s board for the takeover after increasing its offer.

The deal, subject to approval by shareholders and regulators, will make Australia’s biggest brewer part of the world’s second-largest beer maker by volume.

Pollaers said the takeover provides an opportunity to expand the international market for Foster’s beers. Its beers including VB, Cascade, Crown Lager and Carlton Draught are popular in Australia but little know outside the country.

“The opportunity is for those beers to travel the world more effectively now and the opportunity is for our people to have terrific international careers,” Pollaers told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

“We think this is a terrific offer for the company, having had a very close look at it over the last few months, and it compares very favorably to precedent and transactions of this type,” he said.

SABMiller’s brands include Grolsch, Peroni and Miller Lite, and it already has rights to the Foster’s brand in India and the U.S.

Foster’s, which owns seven of the top 10 beer brands in Australia, reported a loss of Australian dollars 89 million ($89 million) last year as beer sales fell by 6 percent.

Foster’s said in its annual report Wednesday that the decline in the Australian beer market was easing, and that the market should grow again once the current period of economic uncertainty ends.

Foster’s shares jumped nearly 8 percent to AU$5.27 in early afternoon trading on Thursday.

Source

OTTAWA

The Obama administration has decided to upgrade Taiwan’s existing fleet of F-16 fighter jets but not sell it the new planes it also wants, congressional staff said.

The administration gave a briefing on Capitol Hill on its decision Friday, but has yet to issue a formal notification of the intended deal. An announcement is expected by the end of this month.

Two congressional aides confirmed the decision to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to make it public.

The decision represents a compromise aimed at improving Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, while assuaging China’s concern over the arms sales. However, Beijing is still expected to react angrily. It regards the self-governing island as part of its territory.

There will also be criticism from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress who have strongly backed the sales of 66 F-16 C/D fighters that Taiwan wants, in addition to the upgrades of the 145 F-16 A/Bs that the U.S. sold it in the 1990s.

There were no immediate details on the package of upgrades the U.S. is providing for the A/Bs. But even if it includes sophisticated radar, avionics and missile systems, Taiwan’s air force will still lag far behind its Chinese counterpart, which is equipped with state-of-the-art jet fighters.

A Pentagon report issued last year painted a grim picture of Taiwan’s air defense capabilities, saying many of the island’s 400 combat aircraft would not be available to help withstand an attack from the mainland.

Wang Kao-cheng, a military expert at Taipei’s Tamkang University, said Taiwan’s air defenses could get some lift from the upgrade, but the island is still at a profound disadvantage with Beijing in the number of third-generation warplanes it has at its disposal.

“Taiwan has fallen behind in air superiority as of now, not to mention the fact that China is developing the fourth-generation stealth fighters, which could be very powerful,” Wang said. “The upgrade program will not fill the vacuum left over by the absence of the C/Ds.”

On Friday, Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, where the Lockheed Martin plant that would build the F-16s is located, said the decision would be a slap in the face to strong ally Taiwan.

Howard Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called it a “half-measure.” He said Taiwan needed more advanced fighter aircraft to defend itself against increasing Chinese military threat.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. While Taiwan’s relations with the mainland have greatly improved in the past three years and tensions across the Taiwan Strait are their lowest in six decades, China’s military buildup has carried on apace.

The United States is legally obligated to sell weapons to Taiwan for its self-defense. The last major arms sale announced in early 2010 prompted China to cut military ties with the U.S. for several months.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it had no immediate comment on the U.S. F-16 decision.

China’s Defense Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond immediately to faxes asking for comment, and calls to the Taiwan Affairs Office rang unanswered Monday.

The official China Daily newspaper had a front-page article Monday warning that an arms sale would “spark strong reaction.”

It quoted Tao Wenzhao, a senior researcher at Tsinghua University in Beijing, as saying “the (arms sale) hurts China’s core interests. And to keep on doing the wrong thing for 30 years just doesn’t make it right.”

China temporarily suspended military exchanges with the U.S. last year after the Obama administration notified Congress it was making $6.4 billion in weapons available to Taiwan, including missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, information distribution systems and two Osprey Class Mine Hunting Ships.

Source

Energy companies EdF SA, Eni SpA and Wintershall AG on Friday signed a shareholder deal with Russian gas exporting monopoly Gazprom to take 50 percent in a European gas pipeline project.

The agreement, signed by the companies’ chief executives, gives Italy’s Eni 20 percent in the project while France’s EdF and Germany’s Wintershall get 15 percent each.

The South Stream project is meant to transport Russian natural gas to Europe under the Black Sea. The pipeline, which is expected to start in 2015, would ship up to 63 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria and Italy in one leg and Croatia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey in a second.

The three were previously named as Gazprom’s partners but Friday’s deal is the first time they signed a legally binding agreement easy to get unsecured personal loans.

Eni’s chief executive Paolo Scaroni told Russian news agencies that South Stream partners would present an investment plan to potential creditors in the first half of 2012. Scaroni said the construction of the underwater section alone is likely to cost $10 billion.

South Stream is rivaling a EU-backed Nabucco pipeline that’s slated to ship gas from the Caspian region to Austria via southern Europe.

Source

Swiss banking giant UBS said Thursday that a rogue trader has caused it an estimated loss of $2 billion, stunning a beleaguered banking industry that has proven vulnerable to unauthorized trades. Police in London said they arrested a 31-year-old man in connection with the loss.

Switzerland’s Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a newspaper widely read in Swiss banking circles, reported the trader worked at UBS’s equities division in London. A spokesman for the bank, Yves Kaufmann, declined to confirm the report.

The Swiss banking regulator Finma said it was in contact with the bank about the incident.

“From the scale of this case you can be sure that it’s the biggest we’ve ever seen for a Swiss bank,” Finma spokesman Tobias Lux told The Associated Press.

Switzerland’s largest bank warned that it could report a loss for the entire third quarter as a result of the rogue trade, sending its shares plummeting.

The alleged rogue trading evoked memories of the 2008 debacle that befell Societe Generale, France’s second-largest bank, which stunned investors when it revealed that one of its staff had lost the bank euro4.9 billion ($6.7 billion) through a complex scheme of unauthorized trades.

The trader, Jerome Kerviel, was convicted in October 2010 on charges of forgery, breach of trust and unauthorized computer use for covering up bets worth nearly euro50 billion between late 2007 and early 2008.

UBS provided little specific information on the incident, saying it was still under investigation and no client money was involved. The unauthorized trades could cost UBS almost as much as the 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.28 billion) the bank said last month it hoped to save by cutting 3,500 jobs over two years.

It comes as UBS is struggling to restore its reputation after heavy subprime losses during the financial crisis that resulted in a government bailout, and an embarrassing U.S. tax evasion case that blew a hole in Switzerland’s storied tradition of banking secrecy.

By coincidence, the Swiss parliament was slated to debate the future of the country’s banking industry Thursday. Lawmakers are being asked to consider proposals to ensure that Switzerland’s two biggest banks _ UBS and Credit Suisse Group _ are brought under tighter control as they are considered “too big to fail.”

Shares in UBS AG plummeted almost 8 percent to 10.07 francs ($11.54) on the Zurich exchange by early afternoon.

In a terse statement shortly before markets opened Thursday, the bank informed investors that “UBS has discovered a loss due to unauthorized trading by a trader in its investment bank.”

“UBS’s current estimate of the loss on the trades is in the range of $2 billion,” it added. “It is possible that this could lead UBS to report a loss for the third quarter of 2011.”

In a letter sent to its employees, the bank said it regretted that the incident came at a difficult time.

“Although the news is regrettable, the fundamental strengths of the company won’t be affected by this,” the note said. “We ask that you continue concentrating on your customers. In these uncertain times they are counting on your support.”

It promised to keep employees briefed on developments in the case.

Peter Thorne, a London-based equities analyst at Helvea, said the loss was financially manageable for UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank. But he said it was a blow to the reputation of UBS and its management, and reinforced the case of slimming down the investment banking unit.

UBS chief executive Oswal Gruebel recently warned that the bank wouldn’t achieve its aim for a pretax profit of 15 billion francs a year by 2014. UBS earned some 2.8 billion francs during the first half of the year, with the investment bank contributing 1.2 billion before tax.

In the Societe Generale case, Kerviel was banned for life from working in the financial industry and ordered to pay back the vast amount he had caused his employer to lose.

Nick Leeson, a British trader working in Singapore for Barings Bank, made unauthorized futures trades that lost more than $1 billion and led to the venerable bank’s collapse in 1995. The infamous case prompted banks worldwide to tighten their internal checks.

Leeson was released from a Singapore jail in 1998 for good behavior after serving 3 1/2 years of a 6 1/2-year sentence. He claimed he did not make a cent from his disastrous trades but Barings’ liquidators sought the return of 100 million pounds on any of his earnings relating to Barings.

____

John Heilprin in Geneva and Bob Barr in London contributed to this report.

Source