Bank of America to reduce loans for homeowners

NEW YORK (AP) -- Bank of America is providing mortgage relief to about 200,000 homeowners.


Homeowners that qualify are those whose home values have fallen below what they owe on their mortgages. Bank of America will reduce the amount owed by the homeowners by as much as $100,000 in some cases.


The move will help the bank reduce the amount of penalties it owes to the government's Housing & Urban Development agency by $850 million.


The penalties were part of a broader $25 billion settlement announced Feb. 9 by federal and state attorneys general and the largest mortgage lenders in the country to resolve investigations into abusive home lending and fraudulent foreclosure practices.

US studies confirm Europe close on 'God particle'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More scientists are getting closer in the search for the "God particle" of physics that would help explain the fundamentals of the universe, but they haven't found it yet.


In the hunt for the Higgs boson, which is key to understanding why matter has mass, two teams of physicists using results from a now-closed American accelerator have come up with similar findings to those announced late last year by researchers at the more powerful Large Hadron Collider in Europe. While the scientists using the two accelerators have not found the elusive subatomic particle, they both have narrowed the area where it can be found, if it exists. And they know where it isn't.


Work done in the Tevatron collider at the Fermi National Lab near Chicago provides important independent confirmation of the getting-closer announcement last year by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, researchers said. The results from work by more than 800 scientists were to be announced in Italy on Wednesday.


"Globally the world is starting to see a consistent picture," said Fermi physicist Rob Roser, a spokesman for one team. "I don't think there's any place for the Higgs to hide. We'll know the answer one way or another by the end of 2012."


Roser said just because they have seen hints of the Higgs, it's not enough. "I'm not even willing to bet your house on it, let alone mine," he said Tuesday.

Hackers busted after 1 becomes FBI informant

NEW YORK (AP) -- Computer hackers are not expected to disappear after the first major U.S. law enforcement attack against members of a group that calls itself Anonymous.


The revelation that criminal charges were unsealed Tuesday against four people in Europe and two in the United States brought vows of retaliation. One defiant message posted to Twitter boasted: "Anonymous is a hydra, cut off one head and we grow two back."


Law enforcement authorities built their case in part with the help of a legendary hacker known as "Sabu." He was arrested last June and was revealed to be a self-taught, unemployed computer programmer with no college education. Authorities say he worked out of his lower Manhattan public housing unit. They say his work already has helped prevent more than 300 computer-based attacks.

China, Russia stand firm in backing Assad

Russia, China and Iran showed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday, days before an international meeting likely to pile more pressure on him to step down in the face of an increasingly bloody uprising.


Assad met a senior Russian politician in Damascus, who reiterated Moscow's support for his self-styled reform program and spoke out against any foreign intervention in the conflict, Russian and Syrian news agencies reported.


China accused western countries of stirring up civil war in Syria, and two Iranian warships docked at a Syrian naval base, underscoring rising international tensions over the near year-long crisis.

FAA chief resigns after DUI arrest

Babbitt was about halfway through a five-year term. Deputy FAA Administrator Michael Huerta will serve as acting administrator. Industry officials and lawmakers said they expect Huerta to continue in the post through next year since the White House probably will want to avoid a possible nomination fight before the presidential election.


In recent months, Huerta has been leading the FAA's troubled NextGen effort to transition from an air traffic control system based on World War II-era radar technology to one based on satellite technology. Huerta was managing director of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and held several senior transportation department posts during former President Bill Clinton's administration.


Babbitt, 65, was arrested Saturday night in Fairfax City, Va., by a patrolman who said the nation's top aviation official was driving on the wrong side of the road.


Babbitt said in a statement that he had submitted his resignation to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and it had been accepted.


"I am unwilling to let anything cast a shadow on the outstanding work done 24 hours a day, seven days a week by my colleagues at the FAA," Babbitt said. "They run the finest and safest aviation system in the world and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work alongside them."


LaHood thanked Babbitt for his service, saying that under his stewardship the nation's aviation system "became safer and stronger."


Babbitt "worked tirelessly to improve relations with the labor community and bolstered employee engagement among his 49,000 colleagues at the FAA. He led the FAA's efforts to improve pilot training and enhance safety for the traveling public, as well as those that work in aviation," LaHood said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, LaHood told reporters he was disappointed to learn of Babbitt's arrest from a news release issued by the Fairfax City police department on Monday.


It is the police department's policy to disclose the arrests of public officials. Babbitt, who lives in nearby Reston, Va., was the only occupant in the vehicle, police said. He cooperated and was released on his own recognizance, they said. They refused to disclose the results of Babbitt's blood alcohol test. The legal limit is .08.
LaHood has aggressively campaigned against drunken driving and is working with police agencies and safety advocates on an annual holiday crackdown on drinking and driving later this month. Safety advocates credit LaHood with doing more to raise the visibility of human factors in highway safety — including drunken driving, drivers distracted by cellphone use and parents who fail to buckle in their children — than any previous transportation secretary.


Babbitt's easy manner, commitment to safety and insider's knowledge of the airline industry generated respect in Congress, where he regularly testified on safety issues and in support of NextGen.


There was concern Tuesday that Babbitt's sudden departure could delay or jeopardize several important safety efforts under way at the FAA that are strongly opposed by the airline industry. One effort involves crafting the first new regulations in decades governing pilot work schedules in an effort to prevent fatigue.
The National Transportation Safety Board has identified pilot fatigue as one of the airline industry's most pressing safety problems. Industry opponents lobbied White House officials against the proposed regulations, saying they would cost too much or be too burdensome.


Babbitt was a former airline captain and internationally recognized expert in aviation and labor relations when Obama tapped him in 2009 to head the FAA. He was a pilot for now-defunct Eastern Airlines for 25 years and had served as president of the Air Line Pilots Association in the 1990s. As head of pilots association, he championed the "one level of safety" initiative implemented in 1995 to improve safety standards across the airline industry.

U.S. Officials: Gadhafi Is Still in the Country

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime appears to be nearing collapse, but the colonel himself has apparently gone underground.

U.S. officials say they believe he is still in Libya, but if they have any more precise fix on his whereabouts, they aren't sharing the details.

In a briefing Monday afternoon on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where President Barack Obama is vacationing with his family, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the "best information" indicated that the Libyan strongman was still in Libya, whereabouts unknown.

"That's the latest," Mr. Earnest said. "There's no evidence to indicate that he's left."

Dia Alhutmany, a spokesman for the rebel-aligned Libyan Mission to the United Nations in New York, said Col. Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, once seen as his possible successor, had been captured and was in rebel hands. It wasn't immediately possible to confirm cable reports that Seif el-Islam had turned up at a Tripoli hotel later Monday. He said another son, Mohammed, had been captured, but may have escaped rebel custody.

Mr. Alhutmany wasn't able to confirm reports of the capture of a third son, Saadi, and added that another son, Mutassim, may have escaped to the city of Sabha in the south.

Clashes were reported Monday around Col. Gadhafi's Tripoli compound. The colonel has held power for more than four decades, alternately defying and courting the West. He survived U.S. airstrikes in the 1980s after being linked to the bombing of a Berlin disco popular with American service members.

During the George W. Bush administration, he won renewed relations with the U.S. by agreeing to give up his quest for weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. disappointed by Iran's sentencing of U.S. hikers: Clinton

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that Washington was "deeply disappointed" by Iran's sentencing of two U.S. hikers for eight years in prison.

In a statement issued by the State Department, Clinton said the United States continued to call and work for the two Americans' "immediate release," saying it was time for them to return home and be united with their families.

"I joined President Obama and the people of the U.S. in expressing our unflagging support for Shane, Joshua, Sarah and their families during this difficult time," she added in the statement.

The two detained U.S. hikers, Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer, were sentenced to eight years in prison by Iran on Sunday on charges of illegal entry to the country and espionage.

Three U.S. nationals were arrested in Iran on July 31, 2009, for illegally entering Iran's western border and were later charged with espionage. The U.S. government considered the charges unfounded.

The female U.S. hiker Sarah Shourd, once jailed in Iran with the other two Americans, was released by Tehran's prosecutor in September 2010, on a bail of 500,000 U.S. dollars due to her health situation.

Amazon Launches Cloud Services For Government

AWS GovCloud will meet a host of strict regulatory requirements specific to government and include services such as Elastic Compute Cloud, Simple Storage Service, Elastic Block Store, and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud.


Amazon on Tuesday announced the release of cloud services aimed specifically at U.S. government users and contractors, joining a growing list of cloud service providers including Microsoft and Google that also have modified their cloud services to meet the unique needs of government.


According to Amazon, the new offering, Amazon Web Services GovCloud, will meet a host of strict regulatory requirements specific to government. It's designed to meet moderate security control levels under the Federal Information Security Management Act and to meet FIPS 140-2, a federal cryptography standard.


In addition, Amazon says that GovCloud supports processing and storage of export-controlled, often defense-related, data and applications governed by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), as it limits both logical and physical access to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The servers powering Amazon Web Services GovCloud will be physically located on the West Coast of the United States, giving customers further assurance that their data will stay in this country.


Clouds like Amazon's GovCloud that meet government requirements will likely increase government adoption. "As we move workloads into the cloud, we look forward to leveraging ITAR-compliant clouds such as the new AWS GovCloud for our compliance-dependent projects so we can continue to look to the cloud first for even more missions," NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory CTO Tomas Soderstrom said in a statement.

In cloud computing, WAN optimization is a necessity.
Discover how to address network limitations to successfully implement a cloud-based system.

Stocks turn downward because of fears about Europe

Investors fretted Tuesday because European leaders
made no immediate moves to strengthen the eurozone's finances.
Richard Drew - AP

NEW YORK Worries about Europe's economic and debt problems Tuesday sent stocks to their first loss in four days.

The major indexes bounced up and down in another volatile day. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 120 points in the first half-hour of trading after a report showed that Germany's economy stalled last quarter and dragged down growth for Europe.

The Dow pared most of its losses by noon but resumed its drop after the leaders of France and Germany tried to calm worries about Europe's debt problems by pushing for long-term political solutions. Investors were hoping for immediate financial measures such as the introduction of a single bond jointly backed by the eurozone's members. The Dow fell as many as 190 points in the early afternoon before again recovering.

At the close, the Dow was down 76.97, or 0.7 percent, to 11,405.93. It was the first time in seven trading days that the Dow rose or fell by less than 100 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 11.73, or 1 percent, to 1,192.76. The Nasdaq fell 31.75, or 1.2 percent, to 2,523.45.

"The real question the market is trying to answer is: Are we going to have another recession or not?" said John Burke, head of Burke Financial Strategies with $200 million in assets under management. "Today, the answer is maybe yes, because it doesn't look like Europe has figured out a solution to its debt."

Motorola acquisition a huge gamble for Google

WASHINGTON — Less than six months after taking over as chief executive, Google co-founder Larry Page has placed the Internet giant's most audacious wager yet.


The $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility dwarfs Google's previous purchases and thrusts a company that has made its fortune in Internet search and advertising into an entirely new arena -- hardware.


The Illinois-based Motorola Mobility makes mobile phones, tablet computers and TV set-top boxes -- areas where the Silicon Valley-based Google has no experience other than writing the software to power the devices.


Integrating an 80-year-old company with 19,000 employees and manufacturing plants around the world will pose a serious challenge and technology analysts are divided on whether Google can carry it off.


Whether it does or not, analysts are unanimous in saying that the bold move by the 38-year-old Page, who replaced Eric Schmidt as Google's chief executive in April, has changed the landscape of the booming mobile industry.


"The repercussions are huge," Gartner research director Michael Gartenberg told AFP. "It shows that it's so hard to look at this market beyond the short term because we've seen so many twists and changes.


"Palm went from irrelevant to being bought by Hewlett-Packard, Nokia was on the ropes and suddenly you have a new CEO and a very close relationship with Microsoft."


Gartenberg said the Motorola Mobility purchase gives Google the "opportunity to pursue their pure vision of Android," the mobile operating system it currently licenses to handset manufacturers around the world.

Obama on Iowa Stump Says Strong Recovery Will Begin With Small Businesses

President Barack Obama told an audience in rural Iowa that the U.S. economy will be “stronger than before” as he sought to regain the initiative on the economic debate that likely will dominate the 2012 campaign.


“I’m also convinced that comeback isn’t going to be driven by Washington,” Obama said at a forum on the rural economy at Northeast Community College in Peosta. “It is going to be driven by folks here in Iowa.”


On the second day of a Midwest bus tour in the state that helped propel his drive toward the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Obama used an updated version of some of the same themes that animated his earlier campaign.


Then, he cast himself as an outside agent of change running against Washington and relying on grassroots support. Now, Obama is calling on voters to join him in pressuring Congress, saying “politics of the short term” and “the refusal of a faction of Congress to put country ahead of party” are stalling measures to bolster growth.


“There’s nothing wrong with our country, although there is some problems with our politics,” Obama said yesterday. “I hope that I can count on you in the days ahead to lend your voice to this fight to strengthen our economy.”


In the days before the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Obama also sought to enlist Iowans, telling a crowd on Dec. 27, 2007 that “we can’t afford four more years of the same divisive food fight in Washington that’s about scoring political points instead of solving problems.”
Delivering on Promises


The question now is whether Obama can recapture his earlier support at a time when his ability to deliver on economic promises is limited by budget concerns and his policies are under attack by Republicans.

Virginia Tech issues lockdown after report of man with gun

The university, site of a 2007 rampage, swiftly issues alerts and cancels classes after teens on campus report seeing a man they thought might have a gun. No gunman is found, and no one is hurt.

 Virginia Tech, the site of a 2007 shooting rampage that left 33 people dead, faced a scare Thursday as authorities ordered a campus lockdown after three youths reported seeing a man carrying what they believed to be a gun concealed by a cloth.

Alerts were issued. Classes were canceled. Students were urged to stay indoors. And for more than five hours, police from several law enforcement agencies scoured the campus, even releasing a composite sketch as they searched for the reported gunman.

No such man was discovered. Still, campus and police officials were pleased with the first major test of the university's revamped security measures.

Oil-Spill Liability Still Divides Lawmakers

On the one-year anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, lawmakers are still debating whether to change a law that caps liabilities for oil and gas companies that cause spills at $75 million.

The inability of Congress to resolve this issue reveals a weakness in U.S. spill policies and exposes taxpayers to situations where they could be on the hook for spill-related expenses.

But Capitol Hill lawmakers are divided on the issue. Some Democrats, like Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey want to remove the cap altogether. Gulf Coast lawmakers, such as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.), are looking for more modest changes and say unlimited liability will squeeze small and midsize oil producers out of business.

Efforts to change the liability caps, established under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, became a top priority for Congress last year after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and released millions of barrel of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But lawmakers have since turned their attention to other issues and their ability to change the liability cap this year is uncertain.

"It essentially means that we have refused to learn the lessons of the nation's worst ecological disaster and we're leaving victims of oil disasters unprotected in future spills," said Regan Nelson, a senior oceans advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Current law requires oil and gas companies to pay for oil-spill cleanups, but it places a $75 million cap on liability for economic damages. These are the damages related to compensating oil-spill victims, such as restaurant or hotel owners whose businesses suffer as a result of a spill.

In the wake of the oil spill, BP PLC said it would voluntarily pay for economic damages beyond $75 million and set up a $20 billion fund for that purpose. The organization that oversees the fund, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, has so far approved about $4 billion in claims.

Sarah Palin Defends Donald Trump, Talks 2012 | Hannity

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: The names Trump and Palin have been the two most talked about people in politics in recent weeks. The duo pulled no punches in separate Tea Party speeches over the weekend, as they harshly criticized the President Barack Obama's handling of both foreign and domestic issues alike.

And in a moment I will be joined live by Governor Sarah Palin. But first, earlier today, Donald Trump appeared on "Good Morning America" and once again, raised questions about President Obama's birth certificate.

Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLI FROM "GOOD MORNING AMERICA")

DONALD TRUMP, ENTREPRENEUR: There's a real question about the birth certificate. There's a real question about the -- his own citizenship.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: There is -- there is no question. He's got a certificate of live birth that is recognized by the State Department.

TRUMP: George, George, I know exactly what you're getting at.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The facts!

TRUMP: But for some reason -- no, they're not the facts. He doesn't have a birth certificate or he hasn't provided. He's given a certificate of live birth. It's a much different instrument.

STEPHANOPOULOS: A certificate of live birth meets the standard in the State Department for anyone's citizenship.

TRUMP: George--

STEPHANOPOULOS: There were contemporaneous reports in two Hawaiian newspapers.

TRUMP: George, they have co-opted you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Given the --- no, those are the facts sir.

TRUMP: George, they've co-opted you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Who's they?

TRUMP: It's not- --obviously, Obama and his minions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, Mr. Trump also appeared on the "Today Show" this morning and had some kind words about my next guest. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM "TODAY")

TRUMP: I really respect her a lot. She's got a tremendous energy and a tremendous following. I think that she has been very unfairly treated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

New Terror-Alert System Unveiled

The Department of Homeland Security will officially scrap the much-derided color-coded terror-alert system next week and replace it with a tailored, specific alert system designed to give the public better information about "credible" terror threats facing the U.S.

The color-coded system, which debuted in March 2002, "has faded in utility, except for late-night comics," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a conference call Wednesday. She had pledged earlier this year to replace the old system, which came under fire shortly after its inception for its lack of precision and detailed information.

The new program, called the National Terrorism Advisory System, will go live April 26. Intelligence analysts from the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies will decide when to recommend a specific alert.

If she concurs, Ms. Napolitano will then make a public announcement, followed by detailed information on the Homeland Security website and alerts disseminated through social-media sites.

Classified bulletins to local law-enforcement agencies will continue under the new system.

The fundamental difference with the old color codes is the explicit recognition that the U.S. faces a constant threat of terrorist activity, "an elevated baseline," Ms. Napolitano said.

Cities near Texas wildfires watching closely

A growing wildfire racing through parched fields and woods west of Fort Worth isn't likely to make it far enough to threaten the heavily populated metropolitan area, a state forestry official said Tuesday.

The fire started Friday near Possum Kingdom Lake, 70 miles west of Fort Worth, and linked up with several smaller blazes. By Tuesday, it had burned nearly 150,000 acres, destroyed 30 homes and a church and forced hundreds of residents to flee the area, Texas Forest Service spokesman Marq Webb said.

Webb said crews would be able to use firefighting tactics to keep the blaze from Fort Worth, one of Texas' largest cities with nearly 750,000 residents.

"It's still a long way out there. God help us if it goes that far," Webb told The Associated Press. "Stranger things have happened, but we're not even thinking that at this point."

But the statewide drought, hot temperatures and gusting winds have made for ideal conditions that have allowed wildfires to ignite and spread quickly across much of the state. Wildfires have burned more than 1 million acres in Texas in the past week alone, including several massive blazes in West Texas that firefighters continued battling Tuesday.

Authorities ordered the 400 residents of Palo Pinto, about 50 miles west of Fort Worth, to leave the city on Tuesday evening because of the advancing flames, said Trooper Gary Rozzell of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The county's jail inmates also were evacuated.

But in other towns between the fire and Fort Worth, residents didn't seem worried that the blaze could reach them.

"We don't have the underbrush here, and there are many communities and other developed areas before the fire would get to Fort Worth or Dallas," said Jimmy Peters, who lives in Willow Park, about 30 miles west of Fort Worth.

Most U.S. adults get vitamin boost

More than half of U.S. adults age 20 and older take vitamins or other dietary supplements, a new government study shows.

The percentage who took at least one dietary supplement increased to 53 percent in 2006, up from 42 percent in 1994.

Multivitamins/multiminerals are the most common: Almost 40 percent of people reported taking them in 2006.

“The majority of dietary supplement users report using them every day over the past 30 days,” said Jaime Gahche, nutritional researcher with the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gannett News Service

Lady Gaga Feels Alexander Mcqueen's Presence

Lady GaGa has attributed her latest chart success to the late Alexander Mcqueen - the singer's convinced she's simply channelling the designer's feelings through song.

The Poker Face hitmaker developed a special bond with the Scottish fashion guru in the months leading up to his death and she believes McQueen's spirit guided her to write equality anthem Born This Way, which was released on 11 February - exactly one year after the tragic star's suicide.

She tells Harper's Bazaar magazine, "(McQueen) planned the whole thing. Right after he died, I wrote Born This Way. I think he's up in heaven with fashion strings in his hands, marionetting away, planning this whole thing."

ill the 'real' Paris Hilton stand up in 'The World According to Paris'?

Yes, you've seen Paris Hilton on "The Simple Life." You've watched her trying to choose "best friends" on other reality shows. And we've seen her in less-flattering situations -- being carted off to jail, lying about drug possession, making a spectacle of herself at parties. And then there are those news reports about her saying unflattering things about black men.

Paris would like you to wipe that from your mind. "The World According to Paris," the upcoming Oxygen series providing an all-access "voyueristic" look into the everyday life of the heiress, is "the real deal," according to Hilton.

"On 'The Simple Life," I played a character," Hilton said Friday during NBC/Universal's Summer Press Day. "This is not a competiton show. Now people will see my real world."

The series, which will premiere June 1, will feature Hilton as she moves through her professional and personal life. Her mother Kathy Hilton and her boyfriend Cy Waits figure prominently.

"This is the real Paris," said executive producer Arthur Smith. "People will be really, really surprised. Her fans will be blown away."

Judging from clips shown during the session, the show bears more than a little resemblance to "Keeping Up with The Kardashians" and other series featuring Kim Kardashian, who used to be a good friend of Hilton's.

Said Hilton, "This show is really personal," adding that there were some aspects she felt uncomfortable about showing but knew would make great television." She turns 30 on the show and shows different sides of herself. "I cook -- I'm a good cook."

Hilton was treated to overwhelmingly positive questions from reporters who praised her style and her personality.

Kathy Hilton said she also shows the impact she has on Paris' life.

"This was good therapy for me," she said with a smile.

G-20 nations reach agreement on imbalances

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world's major nations have put together a new monitoring process that they hope will halt the types of destabilizing economic imbalances that contributed to the worst global downturn since World War II.

Finance officials in the United States and other members of the Group of 20 major economies said the new program will closely follow key measurements of economic health such as government budget and trade deficits, personal savings levels and investment flows between nations.

The hope is that the monitoring process will highlight problems before they become so big that they pose a threat to global growth. But the deal announced Friday by the G-20 left many questions unanswered about just how effective the new procedures will be.

Global financial reform will continue on Saturday to be the focus of meetings of the policy-setting committees of the 187-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were representing the United States at the talks.

Geithner also had a round of one-on-one meetings scheduled Saturday with finance officials from Portugal and Greece, two nations facing serious debt troubles, and officials from the European Union and Germany who have been involved in the efforts to deal with Europe's debt problems.

Geithner was also scheduled to meet with Egyptian Finance Minister Samir Radwan for talks likely to focus on the types of financial support that Egypt needs during its governmental transition.

After the day-long G-20 talks ended, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told reporters Friday that the monitoring agreement was a significant achievement in efforts to restore confidence and prevent future financial crises.

"We have made huge progress in relation to the framework for growth," she said. "This is a major step in the right direction."

Lagarde said that all G-20 nations will take part in the monitoring process but in the beginning the focus would be on seven of the world's largest economies. She declined to name all of those countries but the group is expected to include the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and India.

Much about the monitoring process, however, is still to be determined including whether countries found to have dangerous imbalances will be identified publicly. China in the past has blocked public release of criticism it has received from the International Monetary Fund.

The initial monitoring effort will be reviewed at an October meeting of the G-20 finance officials who will report on how the process is working to G-20 leaders who are scheduled to meet in Cannes, France, in November. Since there is no enforcement mechanism, it was unclear what pressure can be brought to bear on countries found with dangerous imbalances.

However, officials sought to portray the agreement as a major step forward in addressing the types of problems that were uncovered by the financial crisis that erupted in the United States in the fall of 2008 and contributed to pushing the global economy into the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"The subprime crisis in the United States — that's exactly the kind of accident we want to avoid in the future," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters.

British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he expected Britain would be cited in the first report next fall for its sizable government deficit. Others suggested that the United States would also be cited for its government deficit, which is projected to hit $1.5 trillion this year. China could be cited for its trade surplus.

G-20 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh in September 2009 agreed to a goal of rebalancing global growth. But China in particular has resisted the rebalancing program, seeing it as a backdoor to bring greater pressure on Beijing to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar. Critics contend China is unfairly manipulating its currency for trade advantages.

Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told reporters a key remaining question will be "whether we make the monitoring mandatory and have sanctions."

In addition to global imbalances, the finance discussions have focused on ways to help poor nations deal with soaring food and energy costs and the dangers of rising inflationary pressures in China and other emerging economies.