Kodak plans to cut 20 percent of work force

Kodak plans to cut20 percent of work force
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Photography giant Eastman Kodak Co. announced plans today to cut 12,000 to 15,000 jobs -- about 20 percent of its global work force -- during the next three years.
The company said the cuts reflect reductions in global manufacturing, selected traditional businesses, and corporate staff as it continues to focus on digital photography.
Kodak said it would take charges of $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion through 2006, including up to $900 million in severance costs.
Kodak President Antonio Perez said the cuts are "absolutely required for Kodak to succeed in traditional markets as well as the digital markets to which our businesses are rapidly shifting."
Kodak announced last week it will stop selling reloadable 35mm film cameras in North America and Western Europe this year.
Kansas woman sentencedin adopted son's death
OLATHE, Kan. -- A woman was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for killing her 9-year-old adopted son by wrapping him in duct tape as punishment for stealing cookies.
The boy was left overnight with only his nose uncovered and suffocated on his own vomit at the family's home in Overland Park, west of Kansas City.
Christy Edgar, her husband, Neil, and six other people were charged with abusing the couple's three adopted children and another boy who knew the family. Those involved included the couple's baby sitter and members of God's Creation Outreach Ministry, a storefront church in Kansas City where the Edgars served as pastors.
The woman "was the ringleader of a group that tortured little kids and killed one of them," prosecutor Paul Morrison said.
Moments before she was about to go on trial in August, Christy Edgar unexpectedly pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the December 2002 death, along with two counts of abusing other children in the family.
Marcos money seized
MANILA, Philippines -- A Philippine tribunal today ordered the immediate transfer to the government of $683 million in illegally accumulated funds from Swiss bank accounts of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
The Sandiganbayan court ruling enforces last week's Supreme Court decision ordering the transfer of the money from an escrow account to the nation's treasury.
The Philippines National Bank has until early next week to make the transfer, Sheriff Ed Urieta told The Associated Press.
The Supreme Court ruled in November that Marcos illegally accumulated the money -- originally totaling $356 million when discovered in 1986 -- during his 20-year rule. The amount grew with interest.
Year of the Monkey
BEIJING -- The Year of the Monkey arrived today, casting an eerie holiday calm over China's capital as hundreds of millions of people hunkered down in their hometowns and hoped for promised prosperity -- and a season free of two fearsome diseases the government is racing to contain.
Authorities announced stepped-up holiday efforts against SARS and bird flu, tightening checks on air, bus and train passengers and enforcing a crackdown at border posts with Vietnam to prevent suspicious fowl from entering.
"The country," said the official Xinhua News Agency, "is mobilized."
The torch-passing from sheep to monkey under the Chinese astrological calendar was seen as an auspicious event, not only in traditional culture but in modern financial practicality. It coincides with an announcement that the economy grew 9.1 percent last year, and a hopeful tone prevailed.
"The golden monkey presents us with fortune; our sacred provinces welcome spring," said the Beijing Youth Daily, one of the few of the capital city's dozens of newspapers that published abbreviated editions on the Lunar New Year's first morning.
Execution of young felons
LONDON -- A human rights group called on the United States to halt executions of felons who carried out their crimes when they were still minors.
Amnesty International said Wednesday the United States is one of the few countries in the world that still allows the death penalty for such offenders.
In its latest count of such cases, Amnesty said there have been 34 executions since 1990 of people who committed a death penalty offense while they were under 18 years old: 19 in the United States and the remaining 15 in China, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Congo.
Of those seven, all but Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, have either changed their laws over the last decade to ban the execution of such offenders or are considering legislation that would, the London-based group said.
Associated Press