Money world

The dollar has jumped against the yen after Japanese monetary authorities intervened in the currency market to weaken the yen, whose recent appreciation has hurt the country’s vital exporters.

Monday’s action, confirmed by Finance Minister Jun Azumi, came after the Japanese currency had surged to a post-World War II high of 75.32 yen against the dollar earlier Monday bad credit unsecured personal loans.

By 11:45 a.m., Tokyo time, the dollar has risen sharply to 79.19 yen.

The strong yen erodes overseas earnings for Japanese exporters.

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A quiet day on Wall Street ended Friday with major stock indexes little changed after a big rally the day before.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 23 points, or 0.2 percent, to finish at 12,231.11. Stock indexes jumped more than 3 percent Thursday after European leaders unveiled a plan to expand their regional bailout fund and take other steps to contain the debt crisis in Greece.

Optimism ebbed on Friday as analysts raised questions about the plan, which left out many key details about how the fund would work. European markets mostly fell, and the euro declined against the dollar.

The S&P 500 rose less than a point to 1,285.09. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.48, or 0.1 percent, to 2,737.15.

“It’s a kind of sobering-up after a day of partying,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist with Oppenheimer Funds in New York. “We got back to what’s more of a square position, closer to where we want to be, and now we’re going to take a couple of deep breaths and reassess what this really means.”

There are still plenty of obstacles to overcome before the crisis is resolved. One troubling sign: Borrowing costs for Italy and Spain increased, signaling that traders remain worried about their finances.

The Dow is up 12.1 percent this month, the S&P 13.6 percent. Both indexes are on pace to have their best month since January 1987.

In less than four weeks, the Dow has risen 14.8 percent from its 2011 low, reached on Oct. 3. The S&P has gained 17 percent in that time. However, the Dow remains 4.5 percent below this year’s high, reached on April 29. The S&P is 5.8 percent below its high.

Whirlpool Corp. slumped 14 percent, the most in the S&P index, after the appliance maker said it would cut 5,000 jobs, citing weak demand and higher costs for materials fast payday loan. Another household name, Newell Rubbermaid Inc., soared 11 percent after its adjusted earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations. The maker of tubs and markers maintained its outlook for the year.

Cablevision Systems Corp. fell 12.5 percent after reporting that its third-quarter net income dropped sharply and it lost cable TV subscribers.

Thursday’s stock rally led to a sell-off in Treasurys, which traders hold to protect their money when other investments are falling. Demand for Treasurys increased sharply Friday, pushing the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 2.33 percent from 2.39 percent late Thursday.

Markets have been roiled for months by fears about the impact of Europe’s debt crisis. Greece couldn’t afford to repay its lenders, and banks holding Greek bonds faced billions in losses. A disorganized default by Greece threatened to spook lenders to other countries with heavy debt loads such as Spain and Italy. Traders feared that a wave of defaults by countries would cause financial panic and mire the global economy.

Some analysts expect traders to refocus on U.S. economic news next week after months spent watching Europe. The government releases its jobs report for October next Friday. A news conference by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke might offer clues about the Fed’s economic outlook. Key reports on manufacturing and business sentiment are due out as well.

Declining stocks narrowly outnumbered rising ones on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was slightly below average at 4.4 billion shares.

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An agreement to contain the European debt crisis electrified the stock market Thursday, driving the Dow Jones Industrial average up nearly 340 points and putting the Standard & Poor’s 500 index on track for its best month since 1974.

Investors were relieved after European leaders crafted a deal to slash Greece’s debt load and prevent the crisis there from engulfing larger countries like Italy. The package is aimed at preventing another financial disaster like the one that happened in September 2008 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

But some analysts cautioned that Europe’s problems remained unsolved.

“The market keeps on thinking that it’s put Europe’s problems to bed, but it’s like putting a three-year old to bed: You might put it there but it won’t stay there,” said David Kelly, chief market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds.

Kelly said Europe’s debt problems will remain an issue until the economies of struggling nations like Greece and Portugal grow again.

Commodities and Treasury yields soared as investors took on more risk. The euro rose sharply against the dollar.

Stronger U.S. economic growth and corporate earnings also contributed to the surge. The government reported that the American economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate from July through September on stronger consumer spending and business investment. That was nearly double the 1.3 percent growth in the previous quarter.

Banks agreed to take 50 percent losses on the Greek bonds they hold. Europe will also strengthen a financial rescue fund to protect the region’s banks and other struggling European countries such as Italy and Portugal.

“This seems to set aside the worries that there would be a massive contagion over there that would have brought everything down with it,” said Mark Lamkin, head of Lamkin Wealth Management.

The Dow Jones industrial average soared 339.51 points, or 2.9 percent, to 12,208.55. That was its largest jump since Aug. 11, when it rose 423.

All 30 stocks in the Dow rose, led by Bank of America Corp. with a 9.6 percent gain. It was the first time the Dow closed above 12,000 since Aug. 1.

Even with Thursday’s gains, the Dow remains 4.7 percent below the high for the year it reached April 29. The Dow has fallen every month since then due to a combination of a slowdown in the U.S. economy, a worldwide parts shortage after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and concerns about the European debt crisis. The Dow is now at approximately the same level it traded at on July 28.

Stocks fell for much of August in the wake of a last-minute deal to prevent the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt.

But anticipations of a solution to Europe’s debt problems and signs that the U.S. economy is not in another recession have lifted stocks higher throughout October.

The Dow is up 11.9 percent for the month so far. With only two full days of trading left in the month, the Dow could have its biggest monthly gain since January 1987.

The S&P 500 rose 42.59, or 3.7 percent, to 1,284.59. Those gains turned the S&P positive for the year for the first time since Aug. 3, just before the U payday loans.S. government’s debt was downgraded. The index is up 13.5 percent for the month, its best performance since a 16.3 percent gain in October 1974.

The Nasdaq composite leaped up 87.96, or 3.3 percent, to 2,738.63.

Small-company stocks rose more than the broader market. That’s a sign investors were more comfortable holding assets perceived as being risky but also more likely to appreciate in a strong economy. The Russell 2000 index jumped 5.3 percent.

Raw materials producers, banks and stocks in other industries that depend on a strong economy for profit growth led the way. Copper jumped 5.8 percent to $3.69 a pound and crude oil jumped 4.2 percent to $93.96 a barrel.

The euro rose sharply, to $1.42, as confidence in Europe’s financial system grew. The euro was worth $1.39 late Wednesday and had been as low as $1.32 on Oct. 3. European stock indexes also soared. France’s CAC-40 rose 6.3 percent and Germany’s DAX jumped 6.1 percent.

Investors sold U.S. Treasury notes and bonds, an indication they were moving away from safer investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves in the opposite direction of its price, rose to 2.39 percent from 2.21 percent late Wednesday.

European leaders still have to finalize the details of their latest plan. French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke with Chinese President Hu Jintao amid hopes that countries with lots of cash like China can contribute to the European rescue.

Past attempts to contain Europe’s two-year debt crisis have proved insufficient. Greece has been surviving on rescue loans since May 2010. In July, creditors agreed to take some losses on their Greek bonds, but that wasn’t enough to fix the problem.

Worries about Europe’s debt crisis and a weak U.S. economy dragged the S&P 500 down 19.4 percent between April 29 and Oct. 3. That put it on the cusp of what’s called a bear market, which is a 20 percent decline.

Since then, there have been a number of more encouraging signs on the U.S. economy. Despite the jitters over Europe, many large American companies have been reporting strong profit growth in the third quarter.

Dow Chemical rose 8.2 percent after its profit last quarter rose 59 percent on strong sales growth from Latin America. Occidental Petroleum Corp. jumped 9.7 percent after reporting a 50 percent surge in income.

Citrix Systems Inc. rose 17.3 percent. The technology company’s revenue rose 20 percent last quarter, and it forecast growth of up to 13 percent for 2012. Akamai Technologies Inc., whose products help speed the delivery of online content, jumped 15.4 percent after the company reported earnings that beat analysts’ expectations.

Avon Products Inc. fell 18 percent, the most in the S&P 500, after the company said the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating its contacts with financial analysts and Avon’s own probe into bribery in China and other countries.

Nine stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was heavy at 6.5 billion shares.

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From Europe to the Bank of Canada to Bay Street, investors can expect a week of announcements and forecasts that could provide a clearer picture of where the economy is headed.

Bank of Canada: On Tuesday, the central bank will give its latest decision on interest rates. Governor Mark Carney is expected to leave rates unchanged for the ninth consecutive time. But the statement that accompanies the decision will be closely scrutinized for discussion of where the world economy is headed, as well as inflation in Canada.

What

ZOO NEWS: Susan Gallagher, the longtime voice and face of Ameren, is the new director of public relations for the St. Louis Zoo.

Gallagher, who was at Ameren for just over 20 years, retired as director of corporate communications. In that capacity she oversaw advertising, internal and external communications and media relations. Until 2009, Gallagher’s voice was the one you would hear on the radio telling you where Ameren was experiencing outages and what the outlook was for repair times.

Although her official retirement date is Oct. 31, Gallagher started work at the Zoo on Oct. 17. She describes the new job as a post-retirement position, and said she doesn’t want people thinking she’s making the same kind of salary she made at Ameren, because she’s not.

“This is a government job, and I understand that,” Gallagher added with a laugh. “It’s more of a mission for me. I’ve loved the Zoo since I was 10 years old. When I was a little girl in Arkansas my family would come up to St. Louis and we’d visit the Zoo. I have home movies of me at the Zoo. I’ve always loved it.”

Gallagher is replacing Janet Powell, who retired Sept. 30 after 38 years at the Zoo. Powell was the Zoo’s first public relations professional. Powell, of Kirkwood, plans to spend some time in retirement doing volunteer work in the soup kitchen at Centenary United Methodist Church in downtown St. Louis.

Gallagher is married to St. Louis Post-Dispatch business reporter Jim Gallagher. They have two grown daughters.

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Rupert Murdoch jousted with disgruntled shareholders Friday as the 80-year-old chairman and CEO of News Corp. defended his handling of a phone hacking scandal in Britain and deflected any notion that he plans to step down soon.

More than 100 protesters gathered outside the 20th Century Fox studio lot where News Corp. held its annual shareholders meeting. Inside, with his sons Lachlan and James seated before him in the front row, Murdoch parried allegations that he had poor oversight of the company, sometimes cutting off speakers to jab in an insult or dispute a fact.

Votes from the shareholders were still being counted in the afternoon but the company said a proposal from the Christian Brothers Investment Services to force the company’s chairman to be an independent director had failed. Few had held out any hope they could overcome Murdoch’s control of 40 percent of voting shares through a family trust, or the 7 percent stake Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had almost certainly cast in support of him.

“It was pretty perfunctory,” said Rev. Seamus Finn, who attended on behalf of the organization. “It was a nice meeting, but it didn’t offer much in terms of how they’re going to put this behind them.”

Questions and comments from shareholders focused on the phone-hacking scandal, which caused the company this summer to shutter the tabloid News of the World and drop its $12 billion bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting. Britons and other people worldwide were outraged to learn that a private investigator hired by the paper had hacked into the cellphone voicemail of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, potentially impeding a police investigation and giving false hope to her family. Dowler was later found to be murdered.

The phone hacking scandal has forced the resignation of two of London’s top police officers, ousted top executives such as Dow Jones & Co. CEO Les Hinton, and claimed the job of Prime Minister David Cameron’s former spin doctor, Andy Coulson, an ex-News of the World editor. The company said in London on Friday that it had agreed to pay 2 million pounds ($3.2 million) to her family and 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to charities the family will choose.

Friday marked the first time Murdoch faced shareholders with small stakes in the company since the scandal broke in July.

Outside the studio lot, some demonstrators carried anti-Murdoch signs, including one that stated “Fire the Murdoch Mafia.” Another read, “Rich media equals poor democracy.” Some of the demonstrators were from an organization that has been staging rallies recently to demand good jobs.

Tom Watson, a member of Parliament with Britain’s Labour Party, flew to Los Angeles to make a new allegation about covert surveillance techniques by company employees.

Watson asked Murdoch if he was aware that a person who had left prison was hired by News Corp.’s British newspaper unit and hacked into the computer of a former army intelligence officer. He later said the incident happened around 2005 and that evidence of the computer hacking is with London’s Metropolitan Police. He said it could lead to the discovery of further victims of computer hacking. Watson said he has made the allegation before but it hasn’t been widely reported.

Watson represented nearly 1,700 non-voting shares for labor group AFL-CIO and got up twice and spoke for a few minutes during the 90-minute meeting. He is been a key driver of a 2 1/2-year probe into phone hacking and alleged police bribery at the company’s British newspaper unit.

Murdoch said he wasn’t aware of the allegation, and board director Viet Dinh said the company would look into it.

“I promise you absolutely that we will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this and put it right,” Murdoch said.

Watson evoked private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on the phones of royal staff. He warned that this investigation could mean more problems ahead for the company.

“News Corp. is potentially facing a Mulcaire 2,” Watson said. “You haven’t told any of your investors about what is to come.”

Several shareholders took issue with a chart Murdoch put up showing the stock’s upbeat performance compared with most media peers since the beginning of the year and since the beginning of July. They said its performance over 10 years or more lagged its peers. Murdoch said the chart was to address criticism that the company had been hurt by the hacking scandal.

Edward Mason, secretary of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which advises the Church of England’s investments, began speaking about News Corp.’s shareholder returns when Murdoch butted in, saying “Your investments haven’t been that great, but go on.”

Stephen Mayne, a journalist and shareholder activist who once worked for News Corp.’s Australian newspapers, protested when Murdoch tried to bring the meeting to a close.

“Never before have you attempted to shut it down quite like this,” Mayne said.

Murdoch retorted: “You had a lady friend who shut you down in the past.”

Murdoch then got a laugh when he claimed he was being as open and fair as possible in letting critics air their concerns. “We even had Mr. Watson on Fox television this morning,” he said. “It’s called fair and balanced.”

Despite the circus-like atmosphere, several large shareholder groups quietly registered their concerns, including Todd Mattley, investment officer for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has some $225 billion in assets.

Mattley said CalPERS voted its 1.4 million voting shares in favor of the Christian Brothers’ proposal demanding an independent chairman. Although he said he knew the vote was “symbolic” he said later, “This is something we’ve said is a governance best practice.”

The company also came under renewed fire for its dual-class share system, which allows the Murdochs to control the company despite owning voting shares that account for less than 15 percent of the company’s total $44 billion market value.

Dinh said the last time the company voted on the dual-share structure was in 2007, when it passed with 77 percent of the votes.

News Corp.’s non-voting shares are down about 5 percent from when the scandal broke in early July, although they have been buoyed recently by a $5 billion share buyback plan that is about a third complete. On Friday, News Corp.’s stock rose 35 cents, or 2.1 percent, to close at $17.20.

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services had recommended voting out all existing board members, including Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan. Two other firms, Glass Lewis and Egan-Jones, recommend voting against the sons, among others.

Although the vote count hadn’t yet been tallied, the company said all of its director nominees had been elected.

Jay Eisenhofer, co-lead attorney in a shareholder lawsuit against News Corp. on charges of mishandling the affair, said on a conference call with Watson on Thursday that if even 20 percent of votes are cast against the re-election of Murdoch and his two sons, it would be a victory. That’s because that would be nearly half the 53 percent of votes unaffiliated with the family, he said.

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SAN FRANCISCO — A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a skeptic all his life — giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple “corrupt” and delaying cancer surgery in favour of cleansings and herbal medicine.

“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, to be published Monday, also says Jobs came up with the company’s name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.

The Associated Press purchased a copy of the book Thursday.

The book delves into Jobs’ decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumour — a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.

Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He also was influenced by a doctor who ran a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproven approaches, the book says, before finally having surgery in July 2004.

Isaacson, quoting Jobs, writes in the book: “‘I really didn’t want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,’ he told me years later with a hint of regret.”

Jobs died Oct. 5, at age 56, after a battle with cancer.

The book also provides insight into the unravelling of Jobs’ relationship with Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009. Schmidt had quit Apple’s board as Google and Apple went head-to-head in smartphones, Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android software.

Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to “grand theft.”

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, California, cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.

“I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.” The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.

The book is clearly designed to evoke the Apple style. Its cover features the title and author’s name starkly printed in black and grey type against a white background, along with a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and forefinger to his chin.

The biography, for which Jobs granted more than three dozen interviews, is also a look into the thoughts of a man who was famously secret, guarding details of his life as he did Apple’s products, and generating plenty of psychoanalysis from a distance.

Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO on Aug. 24, six weeks before he died.

Doctors said Thursday that it was not clear whether the delayed treatment made a difference in Jobs’ chances for survival.

“People live with these cancers for far longer than nine months before they’re even diagnosed,” so it’s not known how quickly one can prove fatal, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic cancer expert at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, said people often are in denial after a cancer diagnosis, and some take a long time to accept recommended treatments.

“We’ve had many patients who have had bad outcomes when they have delayed treatment. Nine months is certainly a significant period of time to delay,” he said.

Fortune magazine reported in 2008 that Jobs tried alternative treatments because he was suspicious of mainstream medicine.

The book says Jobs gave up Christianity at age 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine paydayloans. He asked whether his Sunday school pastor knew what would happen to them.

Jobs never went back to church, though he did study Zen Buddhism later.

Jobs calls the crop of executives brought in to run Apple after his ouster in 1985 “corrupt people” with “corrupt values” who cared only about making money. Jobs himself is described as caring far more about product than profit.

He told Isaacson they cared only about making money “for themselves mainly, and also for Apple — rather than making great products.”

Jobs returned to the company in 1997. After that, he introduced the candy-coloured iMac computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and turned Apple into the most valuable company in America by market value for a time.

The book says that, while some Apple board members were happy that Hewlett-Packard gave up trying to compete with Apple’s iPad, Jobs did not think it was cause for celebration.

“Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands,” Jobs told Isaacson. “But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed.”

“I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple,” he added.

Advance sales of the book have topped bestseller lists. Much of the biography adds to what was already known, or speculated, about Jobs. While Isaacson is not the first to tell Jobs’ story, he had unprecedented access. Their last interview was weeks before Jobs died.

Jobs reveals in the book that he didn’t want to go to college, and the only school he applied to was Reed, a costly private college in Portland, Oregon. Once accepted, his parents tried to talk him out of attending Reed, but he told them he wouldn’t go to college if they didn’t let him go there. Jobs wound up attending but dropped out after less than a year and never went back.

Jobs told Isaacson that he tried various diets, including one of fruits and vegetables. On the naming of Apple, he said he was “on one of my fruitarian diets.” He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded “fun, spirited and not intimidating.”

Jobs’ eye for simple, clean design was evident early. The case of the Apple II computer had originally included a Plexiglas cover, metal straps and a roll-top door. Jobs, though, wanted something elegant that would make Apple stand out.

He told Isaacson he was struck by Cuisinart food processors while browsing at a department store and decided he wanted a case made of moulded plastic.

He called Jonathan Ive, Apple’s design chief, his “spiritual partner” at Apple. He told Isaacson that Ive had “more operation power” at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself — that there’s no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do. That, says Jobs, is “the way I set it up.”

Jobs was never a typical CEO. Apple’s first president, Mike Scott, was hired mainly to manage Jobs, then 22. One of his first projects, according to the book, was getting Jobs to bathe more often. It didn’t work.

Jobs’ dabbling in LSD and other aspects of 1960s counterculture has been well documented. In the book, Jobs says LSD “reinforced my sense of what was important — creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”

He also revealed that the Beatles were one of his favourite bands, and one of his wishes was to get the band on iTunes, Apple’s revolutionary online music store, before he died. The Beatles’ music went on sale on iTunes in late 2010.

The book was originally called “iSteve” and scheduled to come out in March. The release date was moved up to November, then, after Jobs’ death, to Monday. It is published by Simon & Schuster and will sell for $35.

Isaacson will appear Sunday on “60 Minutes.” CBS News, which airs the program, released excerpts of the book Thursday.

Ortutay reported from New York. AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson in New York and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee also contributed to this report.

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Workers at Chrysler’s largest United Auto Workers local have voted in favor of a new four-year contract, a sign that the deal will be approved when voting ends next week.

If Chrysler’s 26,000 union workers ratify their contract, they will join workers at Ford and General Motors in approving deals that give up annual pay raises for most workers but replace them with profit sharing and signing bonuses. The deals also promise at least 13,000 new union jobs at all three companies.

Wednesday’s announcement of the vote by union workers at three Chrysler facilities in Indiana comes on the same day that the United Auto Workers said union members had approved a new contract at Ford Motor Co., with 63 percent of those casting ballots in favor. General Motors Co. workers ratified their deal last month.

The contracts set the wages and benefits for 112,000 auto workers nationwide, and also influence the pay at auto plants owned by foreign companies, auto parts supply companies and other industries.

United Auto Workers Local 685, which represents about 3,500 workers at three Chrysler transmission factories in Kokomo, Ind., approved the contract in voting on Tuesday, said Jerry Price, vice president of the local.

He said that 58 percent of production workers voted in favor of the contract, while skilled trades workers such as electricians and pipe fitters split 50-50. Since most of the local’s 3,500 members are production workers, Price said the vote is a good sign that the contract will be ratified by the time voting ends next week.

He conceded that the contract isn’t the best of the Detroit Three automakers and said those who opposed it were unhappy that GM and Ford workers got better signing bonuses.

“Chrysler’s still not financially as good as Ford or General Motors,” Price said. “We live to fight another day.”

The Kokomo local was among the first in the company to count ballots. Voting is expected to end next Tuesday.

The Chrysler deal includes a $3,500 signing bonus and profit-sharing, but it’s not as rich as the contracts at Ford and GM. Ford’s signing bonus, for instance, is $6,000, while GM’s is $5,000. Chrysler Group LLC has yet to make a full-year profit since it emerged from bankruptcy protection in 2009, while GM and Ford have each made billions.

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, who also runs Italy’s Fiat SpA, said Wednesday in Turin, Italy, that he is confident the deal will be approved by the UAW even though it doesn’t give workers as much as the company’s Detroit competitors.

“I think the UAW and ourselves hammered out the best possible deal that we could. We know the limitations,” Marchionne told reporters.

If the deal is rejected, it would go to an arbitrator, who would hold a hearing and decide what the workers will get. Workers at Chrysler cannot strike over wages under the terms of the company’s 2009 government bailout.

Chrysler hasn’t made an annual profit since 2005. The company earned $116 million in the first quarter, its first quarterly net profit in five years. But it lost $370 million in the second quarter, mostly because of charges for refinancing debt.

Chrysler expects to earn $200 million to $500 million this year, excluding the debt charges. But the profit is tiny compared with its Detroit rivals. Ford reported a profit of $6.6 billion last year, while GM earned $4.7 billion.

The Chrysler deal promises up to 2,100 new jobs and investment of $4.5 billion in U.S. factories.

At Ford, workers overcame early opposition and overwhelmingly approved their contract in voting that lasted two weeks.

More than 22,000 workers, or 63 percent of those who cast ballots, voted in favor of the pact, while almost 13,000, or 37 percent, opposed it, the union said in a statement Wednesday.

Ford promised $4.8 billion in new investments in its U.S. plants and 5,750 new jobs. Both sides reached agreement on Oct. 4, but like the other two companies, workers had to ratify it with a majority vote.

Most workers won’t get annual raises, but they will get profit-sharing checks, inflation adjustment payments and other bonuses worth at least $16,700 through 2015. The deal at GM was similar.

The vote ends the threat of a strike at Ford, the only company where the union could stage a walkout. Strikes over wages also were banned at GM as part of its government bailout. Ford borrowed billions from private sources and didn’t take government money.

UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, the union’s top Ford negotiator, said in a statement that workers at Ford were frustrated with the economy, a lack of pay increases and what he called “outrageous” executive pay packages, yet they still approved the pact. Eighty-five percent of the union’s 41,000 members at Ford voted, he said.

“As the nation’s economy remains stalled and uncertain and its employment rate stagnates, we were able to win an agreement with Ford that will bring auto manufacturing jobs back to the United States from China, Mexico and Japan,” union President Bob King said.

The company said the deal means it will add shifts at four U.S. factories: Michigan Assembly in Wayne, Mich., near Detroit, where the Focus compact is made; the Chicago Assembly Plant, where Ford makes the Taurus sedan and Explorer SUV; Louisville Assembly in Kentucky, where Ford will make the new Escape small SUV; and the Auto Alliance plant in Flat Rock, Mich., which will get additional production of the Fusion midsize car.

The company also will move production of medium-duty trucks from a joint venture with Navistar International Corp. in General Escobedo, Mexico, to an assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, near Cleveland. That plant now makes E-Series large van.

The fate of the Ford contract was in doubt early when workers in Wayne, Mich., and Chicago voted to reject it. The deal was losing by a narrow margin until Friday, but several factories voted overwhelmingly in favor to tip it toward passage.

“Our agreement is fair to our employees and it improves our competitiveness in the U.S.,” Mark Fields, Ford’s president of The Americas, said in a statement.

Despite the signing bonuses and profit-sharing, analysts expect a minimal impact to Ford’s labor costs, in part because most of the new workers will be hired at lower wage rates than the company’s longtime workers. Brian Johnson, an auto analyst with Barclays Capital, estimates the contract will add around $70 million to Ford’s costs each year. If large numbers of older workers leave under buyout and early retirement offers, Ford will spend less, he said.

Johnson said Ford could see immediate benefits from the union approval with a ratings upgrade, which would help lower its borrowing costs.

Shares of Ford rose 6 cents to $11.84 in afternoon trading Wednesday.

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The speaker of Britain’s House of Commons says a pie attack on media mogul Rupert Murdoch at a parliamentary committee hearing could lead to permanent security changes.

An activist launched a shaving foam pie at Murdoch, 80, inside the Houses of Parliament in July as Murdoch testified about Britain’s tabloid phone hacking scandal.

Speaker John Bercow said Monday the incident had exposed inadequate security arrangements.

Visitors in the future may face new restrictions during high profile events, including restrictions on the type of items they can bring into Parliament my credit score. Bercow said officials will also consider creating a new post of director of security.

Jonathan May-Bowles pleaded guilty to assaulting Murdoch and was sentenced to six weeks in jail.

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Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff wasted little time firing her top aide in May when the country’s biggest newspaper reported that he had received $4 million in unexplained income.

Rousseff didn’t stop with her chief of staff. In quick succession, she let go of three other ministers publicly accused of everything from receiving kickbacks to charging the government for staying at a love motel. Meanwhile, public outrage had turned into regular street protests.

Those unprecedented actions in the halls of power match what Brazilians say is a new mood spreading across South America’s biggest country: People are making it clear in the streets and elsewhere that long-tolerated sins such as bribery, graft and other acts of corruption are no longer tolerable.

Brazilians have long accepted such malfeasance as the necessary cost of doing business, be it in commerce or public service. Every year, the country loses up to $47.4 billion to undeclared tax revenue, vanished public money and other casualties of widespread corruption, according to an August survey by the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo.

For most of Brazil’s history, people have felt powerless to change things. Two decades of military dictatorship starting in 1964 and years of hyperinflation left citizens feeling disconnected from their representatives and from the spending of their tax money.

Now a new middle class is rising on the strength of the country’s commodities-driven economy. They’re starting to pay taxes and want to know where that money’s going, said economist Marcos Fernandes, with the Brazilian think tank the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

Many Brazilians also sense that their continent-sized country is ready to realize its potential as a world economic power, and that the old way of doing business, based on personal connections and under-the-table agreements, is holding the country back, Fernandes said. Brazil’s economy grew by 7.5 percent last year.

“This new lower-middle class, middle-middle class is going to step up pressure for better public services,” he said. “Internationally we’ve seen that the growth of these classes changes politics. They’re not moved by ideology so much. They want transportation, education. They want public services.”

Public anger has also been fueled by regular reports from the Federal Comptroller General, an accounting body that monitors the use of taxpayer money.

On top of that, Brazilian news media is intensely covering the issue, and people are accessing information like never before, Fernandes said.

That’s resulted in growing numbers of people taking to the streets to voice their new expectations. Half a dozen cities saw anti-corruption marches on a single September day, and marches hit 18 cities Wednesday.

“I’ve been indignant about corruption for a long time, but now it’s intolerable,” said environmental engineer Mateus Mendonca, 28, during a September protest in downtown Rio de Janeiro. “The lack of respect politicians have for the people is explicit.”

Such mass actions to demand government accountability have never happened on the current scale, said Gil Castello Branco, founder of the nonprofit watchdog group Contas Abertas, which advocates for transparency in government.

“We’re beginning to understand that we are the state, that elected officials are there to represent us,” Castello Branco said. “We are the bosses, and they are the ones who owe us explanations. Brazilians haven’t been aware of that until now.”

The problem has long run deep, touching ministers and small town mayors alike.

Ordinary Brazilians encounter it in the police officer who stops a driver for a ticket but agrees to let the offense go in exchange for beer money. In business, corruption appears in the owner of a private construction firm that pays off an official on the side to secure a lucrative job and evade the public bidding process.

Brazilians often circumvent rules and use bribes and connections to get by and run businesses within a hugely inefficient bureaucracy.

According to the World Bank, Brazil ranks 127th out of 183 economies in ease of doing business. Starting a business, for example, takes an average of 120 days and requires 15 different procedures.

The good government group Transparency International found that Brazil ranked 69th out of 178 countries last year in perceived corruption, putting it ahead of most of its Latin American peers but behind developed countries.

But the eschewing of rules for personal gain can have the most serious consequences.

A blast ripped through downtown Rio on Thursday, killing three people and injuring more than a dozen.

Investigators say the explosion was likely caused by a leak in a restaurant’s illegal gas hookup. The establishment didn’t have a fire department safety permit allowing it to use cooking gas, according to the city’s fire chief. And the gas company serving Rio hadn’t provided service to that address since 1961. Yet rescue workers extracted from the charred building six industrial-sized gas cylinders, each with a 99-pound (45-kilogram) capacity. Every government since the restoration of democracy in 1985 has been hit by corruption scandals, including one that prompted President Fernando Collor de Mello’s resignation in 1992.

Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, rose to power from the factory floor and took office amid great hope that his tenure would break the cycle of sleaze. Yet in 2005, his government was rocked by one of the biggest corruption schemes the country had seen: a vast network of monthly payouts through which Silva’s Workers Party bought legislative support. He denied knowledge of wrongdoing, but his party was scarred.

This year, Rousseff, who had been Silva’s chief of staff, brought to the presidency other veterans of Silva’s administration, including his finance minister, Antonio Palocci.

Palocci had resigned in disgrace in 2006 after he was seen frequenting a house where politicians received bribes and held all-night sex parties. As president, Rousseff named him her chief of staff.

Despite that pick, Brazilians took note when Rousseff ousted Palocci and dozens of others accused of misconduct. Her approval rating soared to 71 percent in September, thanks largely to the perception that she was taking on entrenched corruption, according to the Ibope polling institute.

Rousseff’s approach prompted an erosion in legislative support among allied parties, but Castello Branco said the push for clean government was under way.

“She awakened a sense among Brazilians that maybe the cleaning could happen not just in one room, but in the whole house,” he said.

A wide range of groups joined in the movement, from the Federation of Industry of the State of Rio de Janeiro to the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops. A group of lawmakers dedicated to the cause in Congress dusted off 21 bills that target corruption, some having been stuck in the process for more than 15 years.

“It’s our job to take the ball from these popular movements and kick it into the goal,” said Rep. Francisco Praciano of Amazonas state, coordinator of the 50-member anti-corruption caucus. “For this to work, it needs to have several fronts.”

Castello Branco said such actions should only be a start in changing Brazil for good: Society must remain engaged for the anti-corruption movement to produce real results.

“There is no police, no federal accounting investigation, that will fight corruption with the intensity that it deserves if the public is not behind them,” he said. “We have to start thinking of the next steps. This can’t be just words.”

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