By Kevin Drawbaugh and Glenn Somerville

Wall Street faces curbs on risk taking and the prospect of lower profits under sweeping U.S. proposals to prevent a repeat of the credit crisis.

The Obama administration’s plan to rewrite financial rules, announced on Thursday, would create a single regulator to monitor any firm whose failure could threaten the financial system, while also tightening rules for big hedge funds and private equity firms.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress “comprehensive reform” was needed to prevent a repeat of the current credit crisis, the most virulent since the 1930s. “Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.” Read the rest of this entry »

More political corruption…

BEIJING: The corruption trial of Taiwan’s former president, Chen Shui-bian, opened in a heavily guarded Taipei courtroom on Thursday, hours after Mr. Chen blasted the proceedings as a “tool for political suppression and persecution” by his successor. Read the rest of this entry »