Kevin Rudd gets an A-plus on economy from US Treasury

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has endorsed Kevin Rudd as being “A-plus” on issues relating to the global recession in Washington this morning.
“If we did what he advised we’d all be in a better place,” said Mr Geithner, who is driving the US response to the recession.
The unexpected endorsement came at a business forum in Washington organised by influential newspaper, The Wall Street Journal.

The Australian reports Mr Geithner appeared in a question-and-answer session and, as the audience was advised to sit tight for Mr Rudd’s looming appearance, he said: “Just let me add my voice on this. The Prime Minister is A-plus on these issues.”
Earlier, Mr Geithner told the audience of business people that they should not underestimate the “anger and frustration” among average Americans over how excessive risk-taking in the US finance sector had triggered the recession, which was now affecting the entire world.

As he explained his plans for public-private partnerships worth $1 trillion to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets, Mr Geithner said his country must reorganise its financial markets to to restore confidence in its “ability to act sensibly”.
Mr Geithner’s endorsement came after Mr Rudd enthusiastically welcomed the US Treasury plan.
The Prime Minister said this morning the Treasury plan, which triggered a massive surge on stock values on Wall Street, was the first step along the road to ending the global recession.
The plan, revealed in the US this morning, would see US taxpayers joining with the private sector to buy as much as $1 trillion worth of bad and doubtful debts which are sitting on the balance sheets of major banks.
Once the soured assets are removed from bank balance sheets, the banks will be free to resume lending, thereby kick-starting the stalled global economy.

By Matthew Franklin in Washington, USA

Read more on this story at The Australian

Sons’ Love for Missing Dad Plumbs the Ocean’s Depths

Longing can chart a better course than MapQuest. After more than 60 years, the Abele brothers have finally found their father.
Lt. Cmdr. Jim Abele commanded the USS Grunion, a submarine that disappeared off the coast of Alaska during World War II. Seven years ago his sons made a deal with their hearts, not their heads, and went looking for him.
It cost them a bundle. “If this were an official Navy project, I would guess that the taxpayers would be paying about 10 times what we’re paying,” John Abele chuckled.
“How much are you paying?” I asked.
“That’s a secret,” he laughed.
Searching by sonar
A secret like the mystery of what happened to their father’s sub. Military search planes never found where the Grunion sank, but the brothers from suburban Boston kept looking. In 2006 they began crisscrossing the Bering Sea, probing its depths with sonar.
In 2007, they found the sub a mile down, on the slope of an underwater volcano 12 miles north of Kiska, at the western tip of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Last fall the Navy confirmed that the Abele brothers had done what it could not — solve one of World War II’s biggest mysteries.

Homemade Robot Makes a Difference

TODAY’s Bob Dotson reports frin Shoreline, Washington, where scientists may have found a way to put the injured and elderly back on their feet with a homemade device.

Dimity knocks out world class surfers

It takes a titanic effort to knock out two of the world’s best surfers, but 17-year-old Dimity Stoyle was up to the task at Surfest in Newcastle on the weekend.

The Buderim boardrider is barely out of school, but showed pure class in defeating former world champion Sofia Mulanovich and former world No.4 Jessi Miley-Dyer on her way to a finals showdown in the open event.

Stoyle lost a tense final showdown by less than one-and-a-half points to local favourite Philippa Anderson on her home Merewether break on Sunday.

Stoyle said yesterday she was surprised to make it through her heats and had no idea how she was going to surf her first one-on-one final.

“In a couple of my heats I got paired with world tour surfers,” she said.

“I had no idea how I was going to beat them, I had no expectations.

“I had an advantage over them in the conditions.

“They were nice small waves so I was able to get good speed on them.”

The final was a spirited affair as Stoyle and Anderson both laid down supreme first waves, but Stoyle’s final ride in the dying seconds of the heat wasn’t enough to clinch the win.

Needing to top Anderson’s score of 15.10, Stoyle narrowly missed out, landing a total of 13.85 in the one-metre swells.

“It was a really good final, it was a new experience” Stoyle said.

“It was an awesome experience being out there with her one on one.

“It makes it a lot easier to get a good amount of waves.

“I needed an 8.6 on my final wave and I got a good one and made some good turns but I fell just short.”

The event was the Immanuel Lutheran College graduate’s first World Qualifying Series event and she is hoping there are many more to come.

“I just want to keep surfing the QS events and hopefully do really well,” Stoyle said.

The junior state champion has been surfing some of the biggest events on the circuit and made it through to the semi-finals of the Roxy Pro and the quarter-finals of the Billabong Pro Junior earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Maroochydore’s Mitch Coleborn progressed through his heat of the O’Neill Cold Water Classic in Tasmania yesterday.

Coleborn scored an 8.5 in powerful three-metre surf at the right-hand Bluff Reef break near Marrawah, Tasmania’s most western settlement, to knock out American Chad Compton.

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