So those have been my key questions and those remain my key questions. More on that, later in the program. The State Department today announced it was temporarily closing 40 embassies in Africa as a precaution against terrorism. In the United States, security was increased at airports, but experts say not to the highest levels. Neil Livingstone is a former airline owner and currently CEO of GlobalOptions, a crisis management consultancy based in Washington.
Security is designed to essentially make that process slower, more cumbersome and so on.
So we have tradeoffs in both areas. Chase Manhattan shares rose nearly 10 percent today, following word from the country's third largest bank that profits in its coming quarter will beat expectations. This bucked the trend in a financial services industry still recovering from the lousy late summer and early autumn. And that's the top of our news for Thursday, December 17th. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 85 points, just under a percent.