Pension Fund Is About to Go the Way of Your 401(k)
Bush administration is helping to replace nest eggs with lumps of coal

At stake are the futures of millions of American families and billions of dollars they thought they earned. But unless they are attentive, they might not notice what's missing for a few years. By then the perpetrators would be lounging at their private yacht clubs and island resorts. Because you can bet that executives are licking their chops this holiday for the chance to inflate their own bonuses by trimming the "expense" of retirement payments for their workforce.

Business executives call their dodge the "cash-balance" pension. It works something like this: They get the cash, and we get the balance.
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Nestle claims £3.7m from famine-hit Ethiopia

The multinational coffee corporation, Nestle, is demanding a $6m (£3.7m) payment from the government of the world's poorest state, Ethiopia, as the country struggles to combat its worst famine for nearly 20 years.

The money is compensation for an Ethiopian business which the previous military government nationalised in 1975. It could feed a million people for a month, according to Oxfam.
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Millions of Mexican peasants face big changes on Jan. 1
Many fear unrest, devastation when U.S. agricultural import tariffs end

A decade of hemispheric economic upheaval finally turned Eugenio Guerrero's life upside down Saturday. That morning, he tried to auction off the pig farm that has supported his family and about 50 others for two generations.

From now on the 41-year-old will dedicate himself to selling paint.
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