Washington: President Barack Obama Wednesday presented a plan to revitalize the US real estate market that would allow millions of homeowners to refinance their mortgages and take advantage of the current historically low interest rates.

Due to the precipitous decline in housing prices in recent years, more than 10 million homeowners now owe the bank more money than their houses are worth, the president emphasized.

The housing crisis “struck right at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America: our homes”, Obama said at a community center in Falls Church, Virginia.

Many families have had to resort to getting help from public programmes to avoid losing their homes, but up to now those initiatives have been unable to handle the enormous scope of the problem.

The plan presented Wednesday seeks to benefit more than a third of the 10 million homeowners whose mortgages are underwater, the White House says.

“Responsible” owners who are current on the payment of their mortgages will be able to refinance them at lower interest rates, meaning that they can save an average of about $3,000 per year, the president said.

In addition to refinancing the mortgages, Obama’s new plan also includes more protection to avoid inappropriate evictions, the sale of foreclosed properties by government agencies so that private investors who pledge to rent them out can do so and greater indulgence for homeowners who lose their jobs.

Obama urged Congress to approve the plan, the cost of which is estimated to be between $5 billion and $10 billion.

Washington: Occupy protesters in Washington defied a police deadline and erected a “tent of dreams” around a statue as part of their protest against eviction.

The camps at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, a couple of blocks from either end of the White House, are the group’s most visible sites after the one in New York — where the Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate greed began in September — was cleared out in November.

Things began to heat up last week when National Park Service officials were called before Congress to explain why Occupy protesters have been allowed to illegally camp on park land. In response, the Park Service ordered protesters to cease camping by Monday.

On the day the US Park Police planned to enforce a no-camping rule, the mood was festive in McPherson Square. Some chanted Occupy slogans. Others milled around waiting for a noon deadline.

As the deadline neared, hundreds of people gathered around the statue of James McPherson, an American Civil War general. Then, protesters pulled a massive tarp over the statue symbolizing what they say is their right to camp here.

Last week, the police notified the two Occupy camps in Washington that they would enforce the camping ban. Protesters must clear out camping materials, but they may keep some structures as long as one side is open.

Police in Oakland, California made more than 400 arrests over the weekend when factions loosely affiliated with the Occupy movement clashed with police.

Stressing that the Occupy movement, which seeks better economic equality, is non-violent, protesters in Washington say they don’t want that to happen here.

Washington: As many as 10 people were killed and 18 injured overnight in pileups on a highway in the US state of Florida, due to fog and smoke from a brush fire, media reports said Sunday.

Ten people were killed in the crashes, which the Florida Highway Patrol said involved at least 12 passenger cars and about seven semi trucks, the CNN reported.

Most of the collisions were on Interstate 75, said Alachua County Sheriff’s Office Seargent Todd Kelly. Crashes also occurred on US Highway 441, the report added.

At least 18 other people were wounded in the series of crashes, which occurred around 3.40 a.m. on the interstate I-75 in south of Gainesville, northern Florida, Xinhua quoted reports as saying.

Some of the cars were still smoldering Sunday morning, as firefighters tried to douse the fires by spraying foam.

Some of the vehicles smashed into a tractor-trailer. All three lanes on both sides of the highway were closed Sunday morning.

The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) had been briefly closed the highway before the crashes because of a hazy fog and heavy smoke from a marsh fire in the Paynes Prairie area, south of Gainesville. It was reopened after the visibility improved.

Washington: The Pentagon has stepped up efforts to make a bomb capable of destroying Iran’s most heavily fortified underground facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

“The 30,000-pound (around 13,600 kg) ‘bunker-buster’ bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programmes,” the daily said quoting unnamed US officials briefed on the plan.

Initial tests, however, indicated that the bomb — as currently configured — would not be capable of destroying some of Iran’s facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them, RIA Novosti said.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said more development work would be done and that he expected the bomb to be ready to take on the deepest bunkers soon.

“We’re still trying to develop them,” Panetta was quoted as saying.

Unnamed US officials said they would ensure the weapon would be more effective against the deepest bunkers, including Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant facility.

Fordow is buried in a mountain complex in Iran surrounded by anti-aircraft weapons, which makes it a very difficult target for air strikes.

In early January, Fereidoon Abbasi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said Fordow was safe from any kinds of threat by the enemies.

Tehran says it began the project in 2007, but the UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), believes design work started in 2006.

The existence of the facility only came to light after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009.

Washington: Virtually launching his re-election campaign, President Barack Obama hit out at “outsourcing” as he called keeping alive the American dream “the defining issue of our time” and pledged to fight obstruction by opposition Republicans.

While he did not name India in his third annual State of the Union address to a joint sitting of Congress Tuesday, Obama announced creation of a trade enforcement unit to investigate “unfair trade practices in countries like China”.

“No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits,” Obama said as he defended a long list of his trademark policies — tax increases on the wealthy, Wall Street reform, health care reform and government stimulus spending.

“Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last – an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values,” he said.

He called for lowering corporate taxes and providing incentives for US manufacturers to bring overseas jobs back to America, while ending tax breaks for businesses that continue to outsource.

At the same time, Obama said, every multinational company should pay a basic minimum tax while giving American manufacturers a tax cut.

“It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America,” Obama said, adding a line that he repeated throughout the speech in a challenge to Congress. “Send me these tax reforms, and I’ll sign them right away.”

With unemployment still above 8 percent amid a sluggish economic recovery, Obama framed the challenges facing the country as a choice between opportunity for some or giving everyone a chance to prosper.

“The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive,” the president said. “No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important.”

He also challenged Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform, a major election-year issue for the important Hispanic-American vote. Short of a major overhaul, he called for legislation like the DREAM Act that provides children of illegal immigrants who go to college or serve in the military a path to possible citizenship.

In the official Republican response, conservative Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said that “it’s not fair and it’s not true for the president to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles”.

“No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favour with some Americans by castigating others,” Daniels said.

New York: In a first-of-its-kind at the global arena, a fashion show only for mothers will take place at the New York Fashion Week this year.

The "Fashionable Mom Show" would feature styles targeting busy mothers and will be modelled specially by moms, according to the Daily Mail online.

The show will give women inspiration to wear outfits that can be easily transformed to take a mom from homes to workplaces to evenings out.

Partly the brainchild of Melissa Gerstein and Denise Albert — also known as "The Moms", stars of WNBS show, "Moms & the City and a Dad Named David" — the fashion show would be an attempt to cater to the needs of America's 84 million moms.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, director of fashion at the Lincoln Center in New York, said that while fashion and motherhood were "inextricably connected", navigating a balance between the two was never easy.

Supermodels Miranda Kerr, Alessandra Ambrosio and Adriana Lima are all mothers, as are Kate Moss and Gisele Bundchen.

Jerusalem: Israel and US have dropped plans for a large-scale joint exercise initially scheduled in May, Xinhua reported Sunday citing Israel's Army Radio.

Thousands of US troops were due to be deployed in Israel for the largest joint manoeuvres in the allies' history, dubbed "Austere Challenge 12," during which they were to test their air defences against ballistic missiles.

The Israel Air Force planned to test its gamut of counter-missile and rocket systems, including Iron Dome, Arrow, Magic Wand and the US-made Patriot. The US was to bring along THAAD, a system for intercepting high-altitude missiles, as well as other hi-tech weapons platforms.

Army Radio quoted Israeli defence sources as saying that the main consideration behind the cancellation was the fear that the drill would potentially "create unnecessary headlines" at a time of increased tensions over recent Iranian threats to block the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic shipping channel linking the Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

Earlier Sunday, however, Israel Radio reported that the manoeuvre has only been delayed after Israeli defence officials last month cited budgetary constraints during the meetings with their US counterparts, and that both sides agreed to reschedule the drill for the last quarter of 2012.

While an official statement has not yet been issued, an Israeli defence ministry spokesman said that discussions on the matter are still going on and no final decision has been made.

"The possibility that the drill will be cancelled is not connected in any way to budgetary issues. Whether or not it will be held depends on the level of sensitivity and the amount of resources it will require," Army Radio quoted a defence official as saying.

Meanwhile, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is due to arrive in Israel later this week for meetings with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and other top defense and intelligence officials.

Observers said the visit aims to both coordinate strategy over Tehran's nuclear programme and to assess Israel's intentions regarding a potential military strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities in the near future.

New York: US stocks closed lower Friday as JP Morgan Chase reported worse-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, while downgrades of several European countries spurred new concerns over the region's debt crisis.

Investors had expected rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade some European countries' credit ratings Friday as it had put 15 countries on Creditwatch Negative in early December, Xinhua reported.

The finance minister of France had confirmed before the market close that the country's triple-A would be cut by one notch. S&P later announced to cut the country's credit rating by one notch from AAA to AA+.

Other European countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal are also on the list of possible downgrades.

The large scale credit rating downgrades worried investors as risk-aversion appetite weighed on the market.

Meanwhile, the fourth quarter earnings of JP Morgan Chase missed the market's expectations as both its revenue and profit dropped significantly. The bank's poor quarterly performance dragged the banking sectors and pressured the market.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 48.96 points, or 0.39 percent, to 12,422.06. The Standard & Poor's 500 was down 6.41 points, or 0.49 percent, to 1,289.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 14.03 points, or 0.51 percent, to 2,710.67.

London: Singer Beyonce Knowles has designed a T-shirt to raise money for US President Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

The 30-year-old, who gave birth to daughter Blue Ivy Jan 7, is one of 22 people to get involved in the Runway to Win campaign by creating a garment, reports contactmusic.com.

Beyonce's mother Tina Knowles, who manages the star's House of Dereon clothing line, says that the designs are embellished with many slogans and phrases associated with the president, including 'Yes we can'.

Other people lending their support to the initiative include Russell Simmons, Tory Burch, Vera Wang, Diane von Fursternberg and P. Diddy.

Beyonce's t-shirt cost $45 and the garments officially go on sale online Feb 7.

Washington: US President Barack Obama Wednesday urged US companies to invest in America and bring jobs home, calling insourcing jobs a smart strategy.

"We have heard from several experts and business leaders today, we are at a unique moment in our recent history where factors like rising American productivity and increasing competitive costs at home mean the economic case to invest in America and bring jobs back home is strong and getting stronger," Obama said.

He was speaking after attending a business leaders' forum at the White House, Xinhua reported.

"These companies are choosing to invest in the one country with the most productive workers, best universities, and most creative and innovative entrepreneurs in the world: the United States of America.

"That is exactly the kind of commitment to country we need – especially now, at this make-or-break moment for the middle class," he said.

"We've got to do more. In the next few weeks, I will put forward new tax proposals that reward companies that choose to bring jobs home and invest in America, and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas," Obama noted.

According to the latest report from the Labor Department, the US unemployment rate edged down to 8.5 percent in December, the lowest level since February 2009.

The economy has added private sector jobs for 22 months in a row. In 2011 alone, nearly two million private sector jobs were created, more than in any year since 2005.

"The economy is moving in the right direction. We are creating jobs on a consistent basis," Obama commented on the December job figures last Friday, stressing that efforts would not stop "until every American who wants to find a good job can find one".

"We need faster economic growth to address the more than eight million jobs lost from the recession and put more Americans back to work," the White House said in a report released in conjunction with the forum.

The report pointed out that over recent months, outside analysts have examined the increasing relative attractiveness of the US as a location for manufacturing.

"We must seize this moment right now. It can make all the difference for the strength of our economy," Obama said stressing that he would do everything in his power to help companies to bring jobs back to the country.