SpaceX Launches 1st Commercial Rocket Into Orbait

Brain Behind PayPal Sends Commercial Rocket Into Orbit in Effort to Make Space Launch Cheaper

Launch of the SpaceX Falcon 1 Flight 4 vehicle from Omelek Island, in the Kwajalein Atoll, 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii. Liftoff occurred on Sunday 28 September 2008, at 4:15 PM

(Business Wire/AP Photo)

An Internet entrepreneur's latest effort to make space launch more affordable paid off Sunday when his commercial rocket, carrying a dummy payload, was lofted into orbit from the South Pacific.

It was the fourth attempt by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to launch its two-stage Falcon 1 rocket into orbit.

"Fourth time's a charm," said Elon Musk, the multimillionaire who started up SpaceX after making his fortune as the co-founder of PayPal Inc., the electronic payment system.

The rocket carried a 364-pound dummy payload designed and built by SpaceX for the launch.

"This really means a lot," Musk told a crowd of whooping employees. "There's only a handful of countries on Earth that have done this. It's usually a country thing, not a company thing. We did it."

U.S. Navy Surrounds Hijacked Ship

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- U.S. warships and helicopters on Monday surrounded a hijacked cargo ship loaded with Sudan-bound tanks and other arms to keep the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands," an American Navy spokesman said.

Lt. Nathan Christensen, a deputy spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said the shipment of 33 Russian-designed tanks, rifles and ammunition on the Ukrainian-operated Faina was headed for Sudan -- not Kenya as previously claimed by Kenyan officials.

U.S. Navy

Pirates holding the Ukrainian-operated Faina resupply the ship while under observation by the U.S. Navy.

The U.S. fears the armaments onboard the Ukrainian vessel may end up with al Qaeda-linked Islamic insurgents who have been fighting the shaky U.N.-backed Somali transitional government since late 2006.

"We maintain a vigilant watch over the ship and we will remain on station while negotiations between the pirates and the shipping company are going on," Lt. Christensen said.

Pirates seized the Faina's Ukrainian, Russian and Latvian crew off Somalia's lawless coast on Thursday as it headed to Kenya and anchored the vessel off Somalia's coast near the central town of Hobyo. One crew member has died.

Lt. Christensen did not specify whether the arms were intended for the Khartoum-based Sudanese government, or southern Sudan, which was granted a degree of autonomy under a 2005 peace deal that also guaranteed the oil-rich region a referendum on full independence in 2011.

The U.N. has imposed an arms embargo on weapons headed to Sudan's Darfur conflict zone, but the ban does not cover other weapons sales to the Khartoum government or the southern Sudan's autonomous government.

Kenyan officials on Monday declined to discuss the destination of the weapons. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Valentyn Mandriyevsky said the ministry was not dealing in weapons trade and didn't know where the cargo was bound.

A spokesman for Ukraine's arms trader, Ukrspetexport, had no immediate comment.

Western intelligence reports a few days ago said the ultimate destination was Sudan and that Kenya was only the transshipment point, said one Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified material. He said the issue became confused after Kenyan leaders had publicly referred to the tanks as their own.

Christensen said an unspecified number of destroyers and cruisers have joined the San Diego-based USS destroyer Howard within a 10-mile radius of the Faina.

"The safety of the ship's crew and cargo is a paramount concern to us," Christensen said, adding additional warships and helicopters were deployed to prevent the weapons from falling "into the wrong hands."

There have been 24 reported attacks in Somalia this year, according to the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center. Last year, U.S. naval helicopters fired on pirate skiffs tied to a hijacked Japanese tanker carrying 30,000 tons of benzene after they feared that pirates might try to use it as a floating bomb in a middle eastern oil port.

Seizing ships has become an important source of income for pirates in Somalia, which is riven between rival clan-based warlords since they overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991.

Financial Crisis Hits More US, European Banks

The United States and several European countries are trying to prevent fallout from the global financial crisis from toppling more high-profile banks.

U.S. officials Monday helped arrange the takeover of one of the country's largest banks, saying its failure would have "serious, adverse effects" on the economy.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation says Wachovia Corporation has taken substantial losses on $312 billion in loans. Under the FDIC-brokered deal, U.S.-based Citigroup will take over Wachovia's accounts and absorb billions of dollars in debt.

" alt="People walk by a branch of Bradford & Bingley bank in Croydon, South London, 28 Sep 2008 " src="http://www.voanews.com/english/images/AP-Britain-Bradford-and-Bingley-bank-in-Croydon-eng-190-28sep08.jpg" border="0" vspace="2" width="190" height="190" hspace="2">

People walk by a branch of Bradford & Bingley bank in Croydon, South London, 28 Sep 2008

The British government says it will nationalize troubled British mortgage lender Bradford and Bingley, and assume $75 billion in home loans. The bank's savings division, which has $40 billion in customer accounts, will be sold to Spanish banking giant Santander.

On Sunday, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands injected more than $16 billion into banking and insurance giant Fortis, whose profits have tumbled in the past year.

Iceland's government says it is buying a 75 percent stake in the country's third-largest bank, Glitnir.

Authorities in Reykjavik say the move is aimed at ensuring market stability by easing the bank's liquidity problems.

The global banking crisis has largely been linked to lenders making bad home loans and then getting stuck with bad mortgages, shrinking available credit for customers and businesses.

House Rejects Bailout Package, 228-205; Stocks Plunge

WASHINGTON — In a moment of historic drama in the Capitol and on Wall Street, the House of Representatives voted on Monday to reject a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry. The vote came in stunning defiance of President Bush and Congressional leaders of both parties, who said the bailout was needed to prevent a widespread financial collapse.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked through the Capitol building on Monday.
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Conservatives Viewed Bailout Plan as Last Straw (September 27, 2008)
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Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said of the new plan, “If we don’t pass it, we shouldn’t be a Congress.”
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The vote against the measure was 228 to 205, with 133 Republicans joining 95 Democrats in opposition. The bill was backed by 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans.

Supporters vowed to try to bring the rescue package up for consideration again as soon as possible, perhaps late Wednesday or Thursday, but there were no definite plans to do so.

Stock markets plunged sharply as it appeared that the measure would go down to defeat, and kept slumping into the afternoon when that appearance became a reality. Worldwide financial markets had slumped even before the House vote; shares in Hong Kong closed down 4 percent and in Paris and London they were down 3 percent. By 3:15 p.m. Eastern time the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen more than 5 percent.House leaders pushing for the package kept the voting period open for some 40 minutes past the allotted time, trying to convert “no” votes by pointing to damage being done to the markets, but to no avail.

The bill amounted to a catastrophic political defeat for President Bush, who had put the full weight of the White House behind the measure and had lobbied wavering Republicans in intensely personal telephone calls on Monday morning before the vote. Both presidential candidates also supported the plan.

Supporters of the bill had argued that it was necessary to avoid a collapse of the economic system, a calamity that would drag down not just Wall Street investment houses but possibly the savings and portfolios of millions of Americans. Moreover, supporters argued, a lingering crisis in America could choke off business and consumer loans to a degree that could trigger bank failures in Europe and slow down the global economy.

Opponents said the bill was cobbled together in too much haste and might amount to throwing good money from taxpayers after bad investments from Wall Street gamblers.

Immediately after the vote, many House members appeared stunned. Some Republicans blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, for a pre-vote speech that disdained President Bush’s economic policies, and did so in too partisan a way in the opinion of the Speaker’s critics.

“Clearly, there was something lacking in the leadership here,” said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia.

Democrats, meanwhile, blamed the Republicans for not coming up with enough support for the measure on their side of the aisle.

Members of both parties, doing a quick political post-mortem, said those who voted “no” had encountered too much hostility for the bill among their constituents, and were worried that a vote in favor would be political suicide.

The Senate had been expected to vote later in the week if the bill had cleared the House on Monday. Senate vote-counters had predicted that there was enough support in the chamber for the measure to pass. But the stunning vote in the House, coupled with the Jewish holidays, made it difficult to predict when other votes might be held. Many House members who voted for the bill held their noses, figuratively speaking, as they did so. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, called the measure “a mud sandwich” at one point, but he said that there was too much at stake not to support it. He urged members to reflect on the damage that a defeat of the measure could mean “to your friends, your neighbors, your constituents” as they might watch their retirement savings “shrivel up to zero.”

And Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who as Democratic majority leader often clashes with Mr. Boehner, said that on this “day of consequence for America” he and Mr. Boehner “speak with one voice” in pleading for passage.

When it comes to America’s economy, Mr. Hoyer said, “none of us is an island.”

The House debate was heated and, occasionally, emotional up to the last minute, as illustrated by the remarks of two California lawmakers.

Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican, said he was “resolute” in his opposition to the measure because it would betray party principles and amount to “a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan’s coffin.”

But Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat, said the measure was vital to help financial institutions survive and keep people in their homes. “There’s plenty of blame to go around,” she said, and attaching blame should come later.

The House vote came after a weekend of tense negotiations produced a rescue plan that Congressional leaders said was greatly strengthened by new taxpayer safeguards. “If we defeat this bill today, it will be a very bad day for the financial sector of the economy,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the Financial Services Committee. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down almost 3.4 percent at midmorning, even before the midday plunge; by 3:15 p.m. it had fallen more than 8 percent.

Earlier Monday, President Bush urged Congress to act quickly. Calling the rescue bill “bold,” Mr. Bush praised lawmakers “from both sides of the aisle” for reaching agreement, and said it would “help keep the crisis in our financial system from spreading throughout our economy.”