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TRENTON, N.J. New Jersey health officials say they've identified five probable cases of swine flu in people who recently traveled to Mexico and California. The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services said Monday that all have mild forms of the flu and none has been hospitalized. The department says it's arranging for confirmatory testing at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Results are expected within two days. The patients include residents of several counties. Four of the five recently traveled to Mexico; the fifth had traveled to California. The cases were identified through preliminary tests conducted...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Three more New Zealanders recently returned from Mexico are suspected of having swine flu and Spain announced the first confirmed case of the deadly virus in Europe on Monday, as countries rushed to screen travelers for fevers. World Health Organization spokesman Peter Cordingley said the new virus was spreading quickly in Mexico and the southern United States, raising fears of a global pandemic. "These are early days. It's quite clear that there is a potential for this virus to become a pandemic and threaten globally," Cordingley, WHO's spokesman for the Western Pacific, told AP Television News....

Swine flu cases have been found in Canada. Federal Health officials will brief the media at 4pm this afternoon. The breifing will be broadcast LIVE on Newstalk 1010 CFRB. Nova Scotia's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Robert Strang has confirmed four mild cases of Swine Flu in that province. There are also reports of two cases confirmed cases in British Columbia. There is reportedly a travel link to Mexico with the infected people in Nova Scotia, but it's not clear if that's the case in British Columbia

<p>I'm a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. There is a severe emergency over the swine flu here.</p>

<p>WELLINGTON, New Zealand – New Zealand's health minister says 10 students who were recently in Mexico have tested positive for influenza. He said the cases are "likely" to be swine flu.</p> <p>Tony Ryall said there was "no guarantee" the students had swine flu, but that health officials were taking precautions.</p>

WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - A new and unusual strain of swine flu is likely widespread and impossible to contain at this point, experts agree. The H1N1 strain has killed at least 20 people and possibly 48 more in Mexico and has been confirmed in at least eight people in the United States, all of whom had mild illness.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that it was prepared with rapid containment measures including antivirals if needed to combat the swine flu outbreaks in Mexico and the United States. The Geneva-based agency has been stockpiling doses of Roche Holding's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection. The new virus, not previously detected in pigs or humans, has proved sensitive to the drug, the WHO said in a statement. The WHO and its regional office in Washington, D.C., are also sending experts to Mexico to help health...

HONG KONG — Reversing its role as the world’s fastest-growing buyer of United States Treasuries and other foreign bonds, the Chinese government actually sold bonds heavily in January and February before resuming purchases in March, according to data released during the weekend by China’s central bank. China’s foreign reserves grew in the first quarter of this year at the slowest pace in nearly eight years, edging up $7.7 billion, compared with a record increase of $153.9 billion in the same quarter last year. China has lent vast sums to the United States — roughly two-thirds of the central bank’s $1.95...

The US dollar will encounter one of its most market-moving pieces of data on Friday: non-farm payrolls (NFPs). Risk appetite has been fairly strong, which has put the “safe haven” asset under pressure, but if NFPs or the unemployment rate prove to be worse than expected, investor sentiment could take a turn for the worst and provide a boost for low-yielding currencies. 1. The ADP private payrolls gauge reported its 14th straight drop, falling a record 742,000 2. Initial jobless claims, continuing claims continue to hit the highest levels since recordkeeping began in 1967 3. Challenger Job Cuts surged for...

National debt hits record $11 trillion By: Manu Raju March 17, 2009 06:42 PM EST The eye-popping national debt surpassed $11 trillion Monday, the largest in U.S. history. The new Treasury Department figures on the national debt were released as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to project that the annual budget deficit will be higher than previously estimated by the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The debt, which refers to the cumulative amount of money the government owes, hit $10.9 trillion on Friday. The whopping number has major ramifications for President Barack Obama, who is trying...

WASHINGTON – The economy is fundamentally sound despite the temporary "mess" it's in, the White House said Sunday in the kind of upbeat assessment that Barack Obama had mocked as a presidential candidate. Obama's Democratic allies pleaded for patience with an administration hitting the two-month mark this week, while Republicans said the White House's plans ignore small business and the immediate need to fix what ails the economy. After weeks projecting a dismal outlook on the economy, administration officials — led by the president himself in recent days — swung their rhetoric toward optimism in what became Wall Street's best...

WASHINGTON — Is President Barack Obama trying to do too many things at the expense of focusing on Job One: the economy? While the world awaits a coherent plan to fix America's banks, the president also is urging a vast overhaul of health care, a plan to tax and thus limit tailpipe and smokestack emissions thought to cause global warming, the development of alternative energy systems, a dramatic shift of the nation's tax burden, ambitious new education initiatives and a rewrite of financial regulations. If that weren't enough in his first 50 days, he's also found time to create a...

BEIJING – China's premier didn't say it in so many words, but the implied warning to Washington was blunt: Don't devalue the dollar through reckless spending. Premier Wen Jiabao's message is unlikely to be misunderstood at the White House. It is counting on Beijing to help pay for its stimulus package by buying U.S. bonds. China already is Washington's biggest foreign creditor, with an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. government debt. A weaker dollar would erode the value of those assets. "Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried,"...

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's economy in the fourth quarter didn't shrink quite as much as initially estimated, but revised figures still marked the fastest pace of contraction in 35 years, the government said Thursday. Gross domestic product, or the total value of the nation's goods and services, fell at a 12.1 percent annual rate in the October-December quarter, slightly better than the Cabinet Office's preliminary reading of a 12.7 percent contraction. That's the steepest drop for Japan since the oil shock of 1974 and is double the pace of the decline in the U.S. On a quarterly basis, GDP dropped...

US Dollar Takes Bearish Turn Lower - US Retail Sales Could Impact Risk Trends on Thursday US dollar price action was primarily responsible for much of what happened throughout the forex markets on Wednesday, as the DXY index finally broke below critical trendline support, suggesting the currency is officially turning lower. There was little in the way of fundamental news for the US, but that will change on Thursday as the Commerce Department is forecasted to report that US retail sales fell negative for the seventh time during the past eight months in February, as deteriorating labor markets, tight credit...

53% Say It’s Likely the U.S. Will Enter a Depression Similar to 1930’s Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Email to a FriendAdvertisement Most Americans (53%) now think the United States is at least somewhat likely to enter a 1930’s-like depression within the next few years. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 39% think this outcome is unlikely. Nineteen percent (19%) say a Depression is Very Likely while 7% say it is not at all likely. The latest results are more pessimistic than those found in early January, when 44% said a 1930’s-like depression was likely in the next...

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The nation is on the "brink of a depression," but there's a "reasonable chance" that the $787 billion economic stimulus package will help ease the situation, Sen. Arlen Specter said Monday.Specter, R-Pa., said the nation's economic situation is more dire than the public has been told, but did not elaborate. "Our economic problems are enormously serious — more serious than is publicly disclosed. And I think we're on the brink of a depression," he told reporters at the state Capitol.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Saturday the U.S. central bank would use all of its tools to stabilize financial markets and pull the economy out of recession. "At the Federal Reserve, we will continue to forcefully deploy all the tools at our disposal as long as necessary to support the restoration of financial stability and the resumption of healthy economic growth," he said in remarks prepared for delivery at a naming ceremony in Dillon, South Carolina. A copy of his remarks was distributed in Washington.

Market Morning : March 4, 2009 : Playing the Next Leg Down [03-04-09 10:40 AM]

WASHINGTON — President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.