Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Standard & Poor’s said on Thursday that it may downgrade the U.S.’s AAA credit rating. The ratings agency says that Washington has a 50% chance of a credit rating cut.

The S&P warning came a day after another ratings agency, Moody’s Investors Service, made a similar warning because of the growing possibility that the U.S. may default on its debt due to lack of agreement by political leaders over raising the country’s credit limit.

S&P hinted that it may lower by one or more notches into the AA category in the next three months the U.S. debt rating if the agency comes to a conclusion that Congress and President Barack Obama could not agree on a credible solution to the problem in the near future.

The U.S. has enjoyed the AAA rating since 1917.

Washington has an August 2 deadline to raise the government debt limit from the current $14.3 trillion, but both sides appear not willing to compromise on their respective positions on how to cut the nation’s debt through reducing spending and increasing taxes.

S&P said that if the situation continues, Washington would be forced to drastically cut spending to avoid a default. This, in turn, would create a negative impact on the American economic, which has yet to recover from the global financial crisis in 2008.

The agency said the effect of a U.S. default on consumer sentiment, market confidence, and economic growth will be long lasting. Because of these red flags, Obama told lawmakers on Thursday an agreement on a debt deal must be reached within the next 24 to 36 hours.

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Athens, Greece (AHN) – Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s reduced Greece’s credit ratings to CCC from B on Monday. The three-notch cut made Greece the world’s least credit worthy nation.

S&P explained that it had to cut Athens’ rating because of the chances that the country would likely default on its debts at least once by 2013.

Greece lamented the S&P action, claiming that the ratings agency ignored the Greek government’s efforts to secure funding. The ratings downgrade may affect the government’s efforts to convince the Greek opposition to accept another round of austerity measures in a bid to meet the European Union and International Monetary Fund’s condition for the $159-billion (EUR 110-billion) bailout package.

With this development, S&P said it was unlikely that the EU would require a restructuring of Greece’s debt, but would likely treat it as a default due to its less favorable terms for lenders.

European banks which hold maturing Greek debt bonds are negotiating a deal in which they would purchase new Greek bonds. The Greek Ministry of Finance, which lamented S&P’s downgrade, pointed out that some banks, such as Credit Agricole, favored extending the country’s debt. Extension of the debt would be vital to the release of a second bailout for the nation and grant it more time to sort out its debts.

EU leaders are slated to tackle a new deal for Greece in a summit on June 23.

Meanwhile, Germany proposed that private sector bondholders accept some losses on their Greek bonds as a condition for a wider rescue package for Greece.

The S&P downgrade came less than two weeks after another ratings agency, Moody’s Investor Services, cut Greece’s rating three notches lower to Caa1 and hinted of more downgrades in the future.

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Jigjiga, Ethiopia (AHN) – The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) on Thursday claimed that their fighters had rescued recently abducted staff working for the United Nations food agency after a fierce battle with Ethiopian military forces.

In an interview with a local radio station, Hussein Mohammed Nur, ONLF’s head of information, said the rebels launched the attack after receiving information that two World Food Program workers were in Ethiopian custody in the district of Dabashe, which lies in the Dhagahtur region in the Somali region under Ethiopian protectorate.

Nur said the staff members had been missing since May 13. He described them as being “good in health and in a peaceful location.”

He charged that Ethiopian forces have kidnapped the workers because “they witnessed the troops committing mass killing against Somali nomadic and pastoralists following battle with us. The Ethiopians also killed WFP driver because they feared to tell mass killing against innocent civilians.”

Last week, the food agency said a driver working for WFP was gunned down and another staff member injured by unknown gunmen in the Somali region in eastern Ethiopia. It went on to say that also two other employees were missing.

WFP said it provides food assistance to 4.5 million people in Ethiopia, including refugees and school children, in highly food insecure areas.

This is the second deadly attack on a WFP humanitarian worker in less than a month to take place in the region.

However, the president of a Somali region under an Ethiopian protectorate, Abdi Mohmoud Omar, last week charged an Ethiopian rebel group with attacking and killing a driver and kidnapping others working for the U.N. food agency.

Omar said the ONLF rebel group is trying to block international relief agencies from reaching the Ogaden region to help drought-affected people.

He called for the international community to arrest ONLF officials abroad, accusing them of financing the armed guerillas.

Ethiopia has not confirmed or denied accusations by the rebels.

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Negative economic impacts from events that accompanied the 25 January revolution caused the increase, said Abu Bakr al-Gendi, director of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, at a news conference Wednesday.

The total of unemployed Egyptians increased from 799,000 to more than 2.1 million in the same period – an increase of 24.2 percent, Gendi said. Compared with the first quarter of 2010, the number increased by 21.6 percent.

Translated from the Arabic Edition

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Benghazi, Libya (AHN) – An award-winning photographer and co-director of an Oscar-nominated documentary on the war in Afghanistan was killed in Libya on Wednesday while covering the battle in Misurata.

Tim Hetherington, whose film “Restrepo” won last year’s Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival, was killed in an explosion that also wounded three other foreign photojournalists shooting the fighting, according to doctors and colleagues.

Hetherington, Chris Hondros of Getty Images, Michael Brown of the Corbis agency, Briton Guy Martin of the Panos photo agency and their militiaman companion were retreating from the frontlines on foot when a mortar struck them.

Hondros and Martin were critically wounded and were being treated at a triage center on Wednesday. But photographer André Liohn, who is in Libya, confirmed on his Facebook account that Hetherington was killed and Hondros later succumbed to his injuries.

Brown suffered shrapnel wounds but he is out of danger, according to doctors.

Rebel-held Misurata has been under siege for weeks by troops and pro-Moammar Gadhafi militia.

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Seoul, South Korea (AHN) – United Nations atomic watchdog IAEA Chief Yukiya Amano has again called on North Korea to let its inspectors visit nuclear facilities.

“I believe that last year’s reports about the construction of a new uranium enrichment facility and a light water reactor in North Korea underlines how important it is that the agency should be present in the country,” Amano told the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IAEA chief stressed on agency’s essential role in verifying the North’s nuclear program and called on Pyongyang to fully implement the UNSC and IAEA’s resolutions. Amano’s comments came in the wake of a claim by an American scientist that he had seen a new uranium enrichment plant outside Pyongyang.

The claim sparked international concerns that Pyongyang, which already carried out two nuclear weapons tests, is capable of producing highly-enriched weapons-grade uranium. The IAEA failed to verify the claims as North Korea restricted their inspectors’ entry into the country since 2009. “North Korea’s nuclear program remains a matter of serious concern for the North-East Asia region and beyond,” Amano said on Monday.

In a separate development, Seoul has accused Pyongyang of jamming communications signals across the border with the aim to disrupt navigational devices using the Global Positioning System during the ongoing joint military exercises between the U.S and South Korea.

According to Korea Communications Commission, North Korea managed to cause minor inconvenience late last week, while weaker signals are ongoing. “Intermittent GPS disruptions are still continuing, although signals are weak,” the commission said in a statement.

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