just the news

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- China loosened its fixed-exchange rate against the dollar for the first time in a decade, letting the yuan fluctuate versus a basket of currencies, the People's Bank of China said on its Web site.

One of the sources said that investigators found the TATP in the Leeds apartment rented by Magdy el-Nashar, an Egyptian biochemist detained for questioning Thursday in connection with the London attacks. (CNN)

CAIRO, Egypt - A well-liked Egyptian with an American college degree and no apparent interest in politics has been arrested as part of the investigation into the London bomb blasts. In Pakistan Friday, security forces investigating connections with the suicide bombings detained four suspects, a police office said. (MSNBC)

British-born Haroon Rashid Aswad was seized at a religious school with a suicide bomb belt, explosives and GBP 13,000 in cash. Security sources in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, claim he had up to 20 telephone conversations with London bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. One of these is believed to have been just hours before the blasts. (Matt Drudge)

July 15, 2005 — One of the bombers in last week's attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York. (ABC NEWS LONDON)

(CNSNews.com) - An American Muslim group under federal investigation is actually the U.S. division of a Pakistan-based faction with ties to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, according to notes from an official meeting that were posted on an obscure Middle Eastern website and obtained by Cybercast News Service

"I believed very strongly that it was important for the Committee to conclude publicly that many of the statements made by Ambassador Wilson were not only incorrect, but had no basis in fact." (Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts)

"The former Ambassador (Joe Wilson), either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading” (Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts)

Sen. John Kerry, who called for Karl Rove to be fired over allegations that he revealed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, outed a genuine undercover CIA agent just this past April - even after the agency asked that his identity be kept secret. Kerry blew the cover of CIA secret operative Fulton Armstrong during confirmation hearings for U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton (NEWSMAX)

If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu. (FT)

Hedge Funds have pried into nearly every nook of the investing world as they hunt for good returns. Recently, they have increased their focus on a sometimes tricky game: lending money to ailing, cash-strapped companies. (WSJ)

While employment keeps declining at American factories, they are cranking out more products than ever, and they are running closer to capacity than they have in half a decade. (WSJ)
"Contrary to the view out there that American manufacturing is dead or dying, [production] is growing at a pretty good clip," says Joseph Carson, director of global economic research with Alliance Capital Management LP in New York.

Two larger trends are at play in the increases. The first is continued productivity gains in the manufacturing sector, which means factories are producing more products with fewer workers. The other is a growing global economy, which allows U.S. producers to expand production even as upstart factories in places like China and Mexico build up market share. (WSJ)

July 20, 2005 -- Morgan Stanley's board is under attack by a pension fund looking to recover millions the company has paid to departing executives and a $1.58 billion court award the firm lost to mogul Ron Perelman.(NY POST)

July 21, 2005 -- THE Securities & Exchange Commission is investigating whether brokerage firms that did business with Fidelity Investments cheated by placing their own trades ahead of those of the big mutual fund company. On Wall Street this is called "front running." That simply means a brokerage firm, knowing that Fidelity is about to purchase or sell stock in a particular company, will execute its own orders first so as to guarantee itself a profit.(NY POST)

"I don't want to go outside the Green Zone in Baghdad," said the peripatetic stock picker. "Does that make me fearful, or smart? Sometimes fear keeps me from making bad decisions." (Jim Cramer, a former Goldman Sachs trader, hedge fund manager and current host of "Mad Money" on CNBC)

CHICAGO (AP) - The AFL-CIO succumbed to division Sunday, with its largest union deciding to bolt the 50-year-old federation and three others poised to do so in a dispute over how to reverse organized labor's long slide. The four unions, representing nearly one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, announced Sunday they would boycott the federation's convention that begins Monday. They are part of the Coalition to Win, a group of seven unions vowing to reform the labor movement - outside the AFL-CIO if necessary. ( RON FOURNIER)