FACT CHECK: Obama's education claims missing facts

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says almost every chance he gets that Republicans would cut education spending by 20 percent if their party wins control of Congress in the Nov. 2 elections. He also says they would repeal a new college tuition tax credit.

But as Obama makes these assertions to draw contrasts between the parties and give voters a reason to keep Democrats in power on Capitol Hill, he's leaving out some important facts.

Take his claims about the Republican campaign plan, the Pledge to America.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — An occasional look at assertions by public officials and how well they adhere to the facts.

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Obama says Republicans would pay to keep a set of expiring tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans by cutting spending on education, an area where he's investing billions of dollars from kindergarten through college.

AP – FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the backyard of a home in

"And when you ask them, well, how would you pay for some of this stuff, they don't really have good answers," Obama said Sept. 28 in Albuquerque, N.M., shortly after Republicans released the plan. "But one way they would pay for it is to cut back our education spending by 20 percent and eliminate about 200,000 Head Start programs, and reduce student aid to go to college for about 8 million students."

He's argued the point almost daily since then, from discussions on the economy in voters' back yards to statements in the sunny White House Rose Garden.

But the GOP plan doesn't say that. A search of the document doesn't find the word "education" anywhere in its 48 pages.

The White House says the claim is based on an analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of the Republicans plan's proposal to return federal spending to 2008 levels. A White House spokeswoman says the administration also crunched the numbers.

The think tank says such a reversal would require immediate cuts of 21 percent, or $101 billion, in spending on programs unrelated to national security or veterans. The center chose education as an example and said a cut that size would trim more than $8 billion from K-12 funding, on top of cuts by state and local governments.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for the House Republican leadership, said the analysis is faulty. While the pledge calls for deep spending cuts, it doesn't specify where they should be made, he said.

At a campaign event Tuesday night in Washington, Obama said the tuition tax credit "could be repealed if Republicans take over. They've already proposed to cut education spending by 20 percent."

The American Opportunity Tax Credit, worth $2,500 a year, was included in the $814 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed into law last year. The tax credit is available for the 2009 and 2010 tax years, but is scheduled to expire at the end of this year because of how the law is written. Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to make the credit permanent.

So how does a law that is expiring in just over two months get repealed by a party that's not in power?

The White House says it would be repealed if Republicans make good on a promise to end the stimulus.

Liz Oxhorn, a spokeswoman for the stimulus program, said that if Republicans get their way they'd have to immediately freeze stimulus spending. Oxhorn said that if all stimulus spending were halted "today," there would be no money to pay the tax credit next year when students and families who are now spending on tuition and other college costs would claim the credit on their 2010 income tax returns.

But it's not that simple. Republicans don't have enough votes now to freeze the stimulus; if they did, they could have ended the program already.

To end the stimulus, Republicans first must win control of the House and Senate on Nov. 2, then wait until a new Congress convenes in January before taking steps to fulfill any of the Pledge of America promises.

French workers take to the streets as fuel blockade bites

PARIS (AFP) – French trade unions staged another massive day of protest Saturday to defend their right to retire at 60, as strikes in the key refining sector threatened to cut off fuel supplies.

Although government estimates of the turnout at the rallies suggested the movement might be losing steam, unions warned that strikes are spreading to more businesses and that a new nationwide protest would be held Tuesday.

Tension has been building since record demonstrations earlier this week with strikes in refineries cutting off fuel supplies to Paris airports and with high school students joining older workers to condemn pension reform moves.

AFP – People demonstrate in Paris as part of a national day of mass rallies against pension reform.

According to the interior ministry, 825,000 people took to the streets of towns and cities across the country on Saturday, the lowest official total since protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan began in September.

Unions estimated the turnout at "around three million", arguing that the numbers were around the same as a previous protest on a Saturday two weeks earlier, and labour leadersinsisted the campaign would go on.

"The movement is taking root and growing in terms of the number of companies hit by various forms of strike as in the number of employees taking part in the action," the powerful CGT union said in a statement.

Sarkozy's works and pensions minister, Eric Woerth, insisted however that there had been a "significant drop-off" in the number of people taking part from the 1.2 million the government said had marched on Tuesday.

"There were, nevertheless, still lot of protesters. That underlines the government's duty to explain this reform better," he said.

Labour wants to force Sarkozy into backing down on his plan to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, which is in the final days of its journey through a parliament in which the right wing leader enjoys a comfortable majority.

"We're prepared to demonstrate under the snow if it takes that long," Airbus worker Stephane Thibault, 37, told AFP at a demonstration in the southern city of Toulouse.

"We're mobilised, everyone seems motivated. With right-wing governments, we know you have to resist," he said.

OPEC maintains oil output quota

VIENNA (AFP) – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has agreed to keep its official oil production target at 24.84 million barrels a day, OPEC president Wilson Pastor-Morris of Ecuador said on Thursday.

"No change" to output, Pastor-Morris told reporters at the end of OPEC's ministerial meeting in Vienna.

Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi also confirmed the widely-expected decision, adding that it had been taken "because the market is good."

AFP/File – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has agreed to keep its official oil production target 

The oil market registered little reaction to the decision, with Brent North Sea crude for November delivery remaining close to 85 dollars a barrel in London trade after solid gains in recent days.

Ahead of the meeting, and mindful that a spike in prices could harm a slowing global economic recovery, OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia said it was happy for crude to stay around 70-80 dollars, where it has been for much of the past year.

OPEC has kept its official output target steady since the start of 2009 following hefty cuts aimed at boosting prices.

It meets periodically to set output with a view to supporting its members' revenues and oil sector investment.

Vietnam's major coffee exporter seeks domestic listing

HANOI - Thai Hoa Vietnam Group Co, one of Vietnam's largest coffee export companies, has sought license to list shares on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the exchange said on Wednesday.

The Hanoi-based joint stock company, which is capitalized at VND550 billion (US$28.2 million) and fully owned by domestic investors, has sought to list all of its 55 million shares, the exchange said in a statement.

Thai Hoa Vietnam is among the country's biggest coffee export companies, along with Vinacafe, Intimex and Simexco.

Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil and ranks the first in production of robusta beans. Its output from the 2010/2011 harvest is forecast to rise more than 2 percent to 19.77 million bags, a Reuters poll found on Tuesday.

One of Thai Hoa's affiliates, An Giang Coffee, listed on the Hanoi exchange in January 2009.
The Hanoi market's index closed up 0.48 percent at 120.39 points on Wednesday, having fallen 28.4 percent so far this year.

Windows Phone 7 London: a few first impressions

At the Windows Phone 7 launch event in London today, all four (or five, depending on how you count) UK networks had a presence, as did Samsung, HTC, and LG. All three companies will have handsets available on
 October 21st. Relative cellphone newcomer Dell will also have a handset available at launch.

Across the world, HTC announced five handsets: HD7, 7 Mozart, 7 Surround, 7 Trophy, and 7 Pro. The HD7, 7 Mozart, and 7 Trophy are launching in the UK on the 21st, and the 7 Pro should arrive early next year.
Company representatives said that the final phone, the 7 Surround, may or may not see a UK launch.

The HD7 will be exclusive to O2, the Mozart will be exclusive to Orange, and the Trophy will be exclusive to Vodafone. HTC gave no indications of which carriers would receive the Pro.

HTC's lineup

As is going to be a recurring theme with Windows Phone 7 handsets, the phones were more similar than they were different. The HD7 had a glorious 4.3" screen, and the Mozart had an 8 megapixel camera. Aside from that, there was little to significantly differentiate the models. All of them felt solid, though the two smaller phones felt uncannily light.

What HTC does do to differentiate is bundle applications. Each HTC handset is preloaded with a bunch of HTC-developed custom applications. There's HTC's now familiar weather software, a post-it note-taking program, audio and photo enhancing programs, and a stock ticker program. All can be pinned to the home screen, or accessed via HTC's hub application.

The HTC hub

Adding a kind of cine camera appearance using the Photo Enhancer

Apart from apps, another area that the hardware companies can differentiate is the camera application. Though the basic operation of the camera is standard across all the phones, companies can add their own effects and processing; for example, they can offer different metering modes, ISO ratings, or autofocus modes, and they can include special effects. HTC, for example, has a solarize feature.

HTC's phones all included Dolby Mobile and SRS Surround audio processing, which should in principle make them better for listening to music and watching videos than any of their competitors.

LG is launching its Optimus 7 exclusively with Vodafone. There was no word on whether the 7Q—the same phone but with a hardware keyboard—would launch, or if so, when it would launch.

By Peter Bright

What are air curtains?

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Oil falls below $81 as markets await jobs report

SINGAPORE – Oil prices slipped below $81 a barrel Friday in Asia as investors looked to a key monthly jobs report for clues about the strength of the U.S. economy.

Benchmark oil for November delivery was down 76 cents to $80.92 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost $1.56 to settle at $81.67 on Thursday.

AFP – The setting sun is reflected in London's Canary Wharf on September 4, 2009. OPEC is seeing evidence

Analysts estimate the U.S. economy likely added a net total of 75,000 private sector jobs in September, but that an equal number of temporary Census jobs were lost, leaving the unemployment rate slightly higher at 9.7 percent from 9.6 percent in August.

"There's much uncertainty in the market at the moment with everyone waiting to see what the jobs report says," Sander Capital Advisors said. "We could see a further pull back in the price of oil to close out the week."

In other Nymex trading in November contracts, heating oil rose 0.22 cent to $2.254 a gallon and gasoline was steady at $2.11 a gallon. Natural gas held at $3.614 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude fell $1.18 to $82.25 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

By ALEX KENNEDY