Today's agenda: Cyberwar rising, GM bankruptcy outlook, German strikes
These are our coverage plans today. (As the stories are posted, we put in clickable links.):
In US news ...
• From Gordon Lubold at the Pentagon: Defense Secretary Gates, off to Singapore for a regional security summit, says US sees no "crisis" in Pyongyang's "very provocative" display of force this week.
• Also coming from Gordon: With a rising number of cyber attacks against US government and private networks (an 800 percent increase in 2007 over 2005, according to one estimate), President Obama is appointing a new "cyberczar," and the Pentagon is creating its own "cybercom" at Fort Meade, Md.
• Economics writer Mark Trumbull reports that the Chrysler bankruptcy – and in all likelihood the one soon to be facing General Motors – is upending decades of legal precedent concerning how to manage a belly-up firm, dispense assets, and resolve debtors' claims. Has the Obama administration, by virtue of its close involvement, politicized the process?
• Laurent Belsie has the morning's new GDP numbers for last quarter. The decline is less bad than expected.
• Dante Chinni looks at the state of newspapers in communities across the "Patchwork Nation."
In world news ...
• Isabelle de Pommereau in Frankfurt reports on German day-care workers on strike this week as the country's model labor union system shows signs of unraveling. Why is Germany starting to behave more like France?
• Later today, Robert Marquand in Paris will review the lessons of France's university strike.
• Liam Stack previews what Obama's choice of Cairo as a setting for a major address to the Arab world means for Egypt's reform movement and its efforts for democracy.
• A day after Obama's meeting with Abbas, Palestinian civil society activists and other experts convene in Ramallah to plot the way forward for the beleaguered Palestinian cause. Josh Mitnick is covering the story.
• Sara Miller Llana reports on a longrunning $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador concerning environmental damages. An audio slideshow by Melanie Stetson Freeman will accompany this story.
• Alexandra Marks is writing from L'Aquila, Italy – site of the upcoming G8 summit and, less than two months ago, a major earthquake. Life there remains a struggle.
