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Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who has lost most of his authority to an emergency manager appointed by the state, said on Tuesday that he will not seek reelection, and accused Michigan, the media and political pundits of unfairly denigrating the city. A former professional basketball player and steel company executive, Bing swept into office in 2009 with pledges to fix the city's ballooning deficit and restore neighborhoods decimated by crime, fires and residential flight.   Detroit's long slide continued under his watch and the state of Michigan in March stepped in to appoint a bankruptcy lawyer, Kevyn Orr, to take over management of its finances. Orr on Monday said Detroit is clearly insolvent and could face a possible bankruptcy if talks with labor unions and creditors do not make substantial progress on easing the city's cash crunch by the end of June. A bankruptcy filing by Detroit would be the largest municipal filing in U.S. history. Bing, a Democrat, did not expla

As Alabama's Jefferson County readies a workout proposal for its landmark $4.2 billion bankruptcy, officials on Tuesday announced an agreement with creditors JPMorgan Chase and Bayerische Landesbank covering $105 million of defaulted debt.   The deal, one of a series the county has reached since filing the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy in late 2011, covers the county's 2001b general obligation warrants and was expected to be approved on Thursday by the Jefferson County Commission. The Jefferson County case is seen as a testing ground for how bondholders fare when a local issuer breaks under excessive financial pressure. The bankruptcy is the result of debts taken on in a costly overhaul of the county's sewer system. The agreement announced on Tuesday saves the county $2 million in fees and interest payments and shifts its variable rate payments on the bonds issued for infrastructure projects to a 4.9 percent fixed interest rate, officials said. The deal will end

Many California cities will remain fiscally challenged over the next few years due to limits on raising revenues and demands for pensions and other spending, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday. The agency said it downgraded the ratings on 27 cities' obligations and upgraded the general obligation ratings of two cities - San Francisco and Los Angeles - after reviewing all of the 95 California cities it assesses. The review was inspired by the bankruptcy filings of Stockton and San Bernardino, California, to understand the risk of future bankruptcy filings and the cities' current budget conditions, Moody's said.   California stunned the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market last year with three bankruptcy filings. Mammoth Lakes also filed for creditor protections under Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy law. In general, lease-backed and unsecured bonds are at greatest risk, Moody's said, noting that all three bankrupt cities defaulted on some of the obligations

China -based solar panel maker Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd, whose main unit is in insolvency proceedings, said it reached an agreement with some lenders to further defer its obligations on a $541 million loan. _0"> Suntech defaulted on the principal payment on the 3 percent convertible notes on March 15. The company earlier that month reached a deal with 60 percent of the note holders to defer payments until May 15.   Under the agreement disclosed on Wednesday, the signing bondholders have agreed not to exercise their rights until June 28.

Authorities in Myanmar struggled on Wednesday to evacuate tens of thousands of people, most of them Rohingya Muslims, before a cyclone reaches camps in low-lying regions that have been their home since ethnic and religious unrest last year. Cyclone Mahasen has already killed at least seven people and displaced 3,881 in Sri Lanka, its Disaster Management Center said on Tuesday.   The storm is moving north over the Bay of Bengal and is expected to reach land on Thursday, hitting north of Chittagong in Bangladesh. The Myanmar government had planned to move 38,000 internally displaced people, most of them Rohingya Muslims, by Tuesday but many have refused to relocate from camps in Rakhine State in the west of the country, afraid of the authorities' intentions. At least 192 people were killed in June and October last year in violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya, who are denied citizenship by the government in Myanmar and considered by many Buddhists to be immigr

A ruling by Kuwait's top court next month could end a period of relative political stability, jeopardizing government plans to push ahead with long-delayed economic projects. One of the world's richest countries per capita, Kuwait has struggled for years to get big infrastructure projects off the ground because of bureaucratic red tape and political turmoil. A parliamentary election in December was the fifth in six years.   The election seemed to be a turning point, however, since an opposition boycott of the poll meant members of parliament seen as more willing to cooperate with the government were elected. This stirred investor hopes that the state would ramp up spending under a 30 billion dinar ($105 billion) development plan, which aims to draw private and foreign investment and diversify the oil-reliant economy. That optimism, which has helped to fuel a more than 30 percent rise in the stock market since the start of this year, could come to an end on June 16. The

Some 100 legislators are demanding a ban on two top independent candidates including ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from Iran's June presidential election in what may be a further move to thwart any brewing challenge to the clerical supreme leader. The petition by parliamentarians to Iran's Guardian Council emerged three days after the electoral watchdog said outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may face charges for accompanying former aide Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, the other high-profile independent, to register on Saturday for the vote.   That warning raised speculation that the council would bar Mashaie. The parliamentarians - conservative hardliners loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - appeared to follow up by urging the watchdog to disqualify both independents. After mass protests that followed the 2009 election, Khamenei may have counted on the June 14 vote to install a loyal conservative as president but the surprise candidacies of Rafsanjani an