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B$ The Bell, Friday, February 13


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DJ Snow/China -2: Won't Comment On Dlr's Continuing Fall

 

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Treasury Secretary John Snow said Friday the U.S. would continue to push China to loosen its exchange rate peg, which fixes the value of China's currency in relation to the dollar.

 

"I want you to know, we're very much engaged on that issue and want to hold their feet to the fire on continuing to make forward progress there," Snow said, answering questions from the Senate Budget Committee.

 

Snow discussed his visit to China last year, when top U.S. and Chinese leaders discussed the issues and future strategy. He said Chinese officials are receptive to taking steps over time to make their policies more flexible.

 

"We have an agreement on that with them," Snow said. "They have acknowledged they need to move to a flexible exchange rate. They rightly point out they can't do it tomorrow because their financial structures are so rudimentary.

 

"But they are beginning to take steps. There's increasing talk about maybe moving to a partial float, or a currency basket," Snow said.

 

For a decade, China has fixed the value of its currency at a rate of roughly eight to the U.S. dollar, a policy that many economists say has kept the value of Chinese currency artificially low. But, amid pressure from the Bush administration, Chinese officials have hinted recently that they will tie their currency less rigidly to the dollar.

 

Later in the hearing, Snow declined to comment on the recent fall in the value of the dollar compared to other major currencies.

 

"I've made a habit of not trying to predict where the dollar is going, or getting into commentaries of relative values of currencies, for good reasons, as you know," Snow said.

 

 

-By Rebecca Christie and Joseph Rebello, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9249; [email protected]; [email protected]

 

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

 

02-13-04 1125ET- - 11 25 AM EST 02-13-04

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DJ UPDATE: US Kay: Abandon Hopes Of Finding Iraqi Weapons

 

WASHINGTON (AP)--Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay is advising President Bush to acknowledge he was wrong about hidden storehouses of weapons in Iraq and move ahead with overhauling the intelligence process.

 

In an Associated Press interview, Kay said the "serious burden of evidence" suggests Saddam Hussein did not have caches of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons at the beginning of the Iraqi war, but was seriously engaged in developing missiles.

 

"You are better off if you acknowledge error and say we have learned from it and move ahead," Kay said in a 90-minute session Thursday with AP editors and reporters.

 

"I'm afraid if you don't acknowledge error, and everybody knows why you are afraid to acknowledge error, your political opponents will seize on it, the press will seize on it, and no one will give you credit," Kay said.

 

Since resigning last month, Kay has said repeatedly that U.S. intelligence was wrong in claiming that Saddam had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and advanced nuclear weapons programs. Those programs were the main justification for the Iraq war.

 

U.N. and U.S. searches have failed to find the weapons, and Bush has appointed a bipartisan commission to conduct an investigation. Democrats in the meantime are accusing the administration of misleading the American public.

 

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, asked about the suggestion that Bush acknowledge error, said Kay "has said the regime was possibly more dangerous than we thought before the war. He has pointed out that, absolutely yes, he agrees that it was a gathering threat."

 

He pointed out that Bush has said he had expected to find weapons in Iraq.

 

Bush and other officials insist weapons still could be discovered. In an interview on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" program last weekend, Bush said, "They could be hidden, they could have been transported to another country." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has also said he believes weapons could still be uncovered.

...(Dow Jones Newswire)

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CHICAGO (CBS.MW) -- Shares of CKE Restaurants dropped Friday after the company said it will shutter 28 Hardee's restaurants and take as much as $50 million in charges.

 

Of the charges, as much as $34 million is related to a write-down of the La Salsa Mexican chain it purchased in 2002.

 

"In short, they suffer from problems the Hardee's Revolution cannot cure," he said referring to the chain's restructuring.

 

http://aolpf5.marketwatch.com/news/story.a...7D&siteid=aolpf

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