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We want gift cards and like to give them, but for some reason we don’t always use them and wind up wasting billions of dollars.

A recent poll by Consumer Reports, for instance, found that one-quarter of people who received a card as a holiday gift last year still haven’t used it, and more than half of those had two or more unredeemed cards.

We have lots of excuses. We forgot about the card or lost it. The store didn’t have any merchandise we wanted. Or the retailer isn’t nearby, or we don’t like the store.

This has spawned an online secondary market where gift card exchange sites, such as PlasticJungle.com, Cardpool.com, MonsterGiftCard.com and GiftCardRescue.com, help consumers buy and sell unwanted retail gift cards at a discount. Sellers can get around 70 percent to 90 percent of the value of their cards. The more popular the retailer, the higher the price.

“It at least gives consumers the option to get something for an unused gift card,” said Tod Marks, senior editor at Consumer Reports. “It’s like life support for unwanted gift cards.”

Of course, one way to avoid unwanted or forgotten cards is by giving cash or checks instead. It’s unlikely that someone will fail to spend money that’s in their wallet or deposited in the bank. Another benefit: Shoppers tend to spend more at a store than the amount on the gift card. Not so with cash.

But card experts and consumer advocates cringe at my suggestion of cash, saying bills are “gauche.” At least a gift card to a favorite retailer, they say, makes it seem as if you gave some thought to what the recipient would want.

And besides, some say, people want gift cards. They are the No. 1 requested gift this season and are at the top of most shopping lists, according to the National Retail Federation.

Gift card sales are expected to reach a record $100 billion this year, up nearly 10 percent from the year before, according to TowerGroup, a research and advisory firm. About $2 billion of that, though, will be lost through fees and expired, stolen or misplaced cards.

The losses were much worse before federal protections kicked in last year that, among other things, prevent cards from expiring within the first five years.

Still, $2 billion is a lot of money to leave on the table. And if we don’t use it, somebody else will.

Some retailers recognize unredeemed cards as income after a long period of inactivity. Starbucks Corp., for example, reported $46.9 million in income from unredeemed cards for the year ended in October.

And more than a dozen states now recover funds on unredeemed cards, similar to other unclaimed property, said Brian Riley, senior research director at TowerGroup.

So if you are going to give a gift card, make sure it’s from a retailer that the recipient patronizes. Or if you’re not sure, consider a general-purpose gift card that can be used at any store, although you’ll pay a fee to buy the card. American Express, for instance, offers such cards for a $3.95 fee.

And if you’re stuck after the holidays with cards you don’t want, here’s some advice for getting rid of them:

DON’T SPEND, INVEST • The most innovative use of unwanted gift cards this season goes to GoalMine, which caters to small investors by helping them set goals and begin investing for as little as $25.

Between Dec. 19 and the end of January, GoalMine is accepting unwanted gift cards with values of $25 and up that will be sold at PlasticJungle.com, a card exchange site. Consumers decide whether to deposit the proceeds in an FDIC-insured savings account or in a stock or bond mutual fund.

As a further incentive, GoalMine promises to redeem the first card for 150 percent of its value. The card can’t be worth more than $50.

GoalMine’s general manager, Rimmy Malhorta, said the company figured there were a lot of unredeemed cards that could be put to good use. “Wouldn’t it be great instead of letting Starbucks have that money or iTunes or whoever,” he said, “you could make that money for you and put it toward your kid’s college education, your family home or a rainy day fund?”

GIFT CARD EXCHANGES • These middleman websites for consumers wanting to buy, sell or swap cards have been growing. PlasticJungle, one of the major players, bought and sold cards worth about $18 million last year, three times the amount of the year before, said Chief Executive Bruce Bower. “We are having similar growth right now,” he added.

Sites deal in gift cards from hundreds of national retailers, so you likely won’t be able to sell a gift card from a local shop. Cards usually must have a value of $20 or $25 still on them.

Sellers send their cards to the exchange, which verifies the value. They can get as much as 92 percent of the value of the card, but that’s for the hottest retailers.

Buyers can pick up cards at a discount of up to 35 percent, although the saving is much less on popular cards.

Some sites offer a money-back guarantee if a card’s value turns out to be less than promised. That’s a big advantage over trying to sell a card on your own through Craigslist.

If you’re going to buy or sell on one of the exchange sites, check out more than one. CardHub.com has a gift card exchange feature that aggregates card deals from various sites.

Consumer Reports’ Marks, who researched gift card exchanges earlier this year, says no single site gave the best deal every time.

“The sites often had a different idea of the worth of the same card,” he added. The gap between the best and worst offers for a popular Whole Foods card, Marks said, was 22 percent.

Before buying or selling, read the terms, which also can vary among the sites. And buyers should make sure the site guarantees the cards it sells.

Also, buyers should beware of cards with a value that’s an odd number — say, $63.45 — which could signal that the card was given to a customer as a refund on a purchase, said TowerGroup’s Riley. Refund cards, he said, don’t have the same legal protections as gift cards.

If in doubt, he said, ask the site whether the card is from a refund.

Many of the gift card complaints to Maryland’s attorney general deal with the merchant going out of business. When that happens, card owners generally stand in line with all the other creditors and may get little or nothing. Try to avoid this by buying cards from healthy retailers.

You also can set up an account with ScripSmart.com, which sends out email alerts if a retailer appears headed for bankruptcy. ScripSmart also offers a “nag me” alert to remind you to use your gift card.

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TORONTO

Jon Corzine is expected Tuesday to once again distance himself from an estimated $1.2 billion in customer money that vanished when MF Global collapsed this fall.

This time, Corzine will have company.

Bradley Abelow, MF Global’s president and chief operating officer, and Henri Steenkamp, the chief financial officer, are also scheduled to testify to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

All three say they don’t know where the money is, according to prepared remarks and Corzine’s previous testimony to a House panel last week. Nor do they take responsibility for authorizing the movement of money out of customer accoun.

Depending on the circumstances, transferring money from customers’ accounts could violate securities laws and, in some cases, could amount to a crime. Federal authorities have begun criminal investigations. And regulators are looking into whether the firm broke securities rules.

MF Global collapsed into the eighth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Oct. 31 after a disastrous bet on European debt. Corzine stepped down as CEO on Nov. 4.

Corzine told the House Agriculture Committee last week that he didn’t know what happened to the money. He said he didn’t become aware of the shortfall until Oct. 30, one day before the firm filed for bankruptcy protection.

In his prepared testimony, Steenkamp says he had no direct involvement in the transfer of funds.

“Direct involvement with operational matters such as bank accounts or fund transfers has never been part of my duties,” Steenkamp says.

Abelow says he cannot explain what happened to the money without having access to MF Global documents, which a trustee now controls.

“At this time … I do not know the answers to those questions,” he says in his prepared testimony.

Anthony Sabino, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, said Steenkamp and Abelow “are in a riskier position” than Corzine because they were responsible for day-to-day operations of MF Global.

Tuesday’s hearing will include an added element of drama because Corzine, a former Democratic senator from New Jersey, will be pressed by some senators he served with from 2000 through 2005 payday loans.

The Senate panel is one of three congressional committees to have issued subpoenas to compel Corzine’s testimony on the issue. It marked the first time a former senator has been subpoenaed by his former peers in more than 100 years, according to the Senate historian’s office.

Many lawmakers have heard from farmers, ranchers and small business owners in their states who are missing money that was deposited with the firm. Agricultural businesses use brokerage firms like MF Global to help reduce their risks in an industry vulnerable to swings in oil, corn and other commodity prices.

Corzine, who also was New Jersey governor from 2006 until early 2010, told lawmakers last week that he never intended to authorize the transfer of funds from customer accounts. If any subordinates moved clients’ money in the belief that Corzine had authorized it, “it was a misunderstanding,” he said.

Along with Corzine, Steenkamp and Abelow have been sued in class-action complaints on behalf of MF Global shareholders. The lawsuits accuse the executives of making false and misleading statements about MF Global’s financial strength and cash balances.

MF Global didn’t list the European debt on its balance sheet for all to see. Instead, those holdings were shifted to the company’s “off-balance sheet,” deep in its financial statements. Some separate filings with regulators excluded the European debt entirely.

A lawyer for the trustee overseeing the liquidation of MF Global’s brokerage operations said in court Friday that the trustee’s staff has discovered some “suspicious” trades in MF Global customer accounts that were made in the last days before the firm failed. The lawyer didn’t provide details.

Corzine said last week that customers’ losses weigh heavily on him.

“I think about this every day,” he said. “I could not be more regretful, more distressed that we are ruining people’s lives.”

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U.S. battery maker Johnson Controls is at odds with Shanghai’s environmental regulator over tests the company says show it was not responsible for severe lead poisoning cases in children discovered earlier this year.

The Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based company said Wednesday that an investigation by the China Electric Equipment Industry Association found its battery factory in Shanghai’s eastern suburbs was not the cause of elevated blood-lead levels among children in a nearby community. Instead, it pinned blame on a recycling facility in the area.

Shanghai Environment Bureau official Ju Chunfang, who participated in testing the Johnson Control plant, questioned the investigation, saying it was not independent. Ju said the bureau began another investigation of its own last week.

Johnson Controls denied Ju’s contention that the company had agreed it was the largest source of lead emissions in the area.

Local officials insisted the plant, which is much larger than other battery factories in the area, had to be the cause of the poisoning cases. In an interview, Ju cited several instances of occasionally high emissions readings and prevailing wind patterns as the reason for that allegation.

Xia Qing, the scientist who led the probe cited by Johnson Controls, said it was commissioned by the Electric Equipment Industry Association and was not paid for by the battery maker.

The tests showed abnormally high lead levels at a waste recycling facility near the community whose children were poisoned, with lead levels three times the current national standard and 10 times a pending stricter national standard. Zinc levels were 15 times national standards.

“I have three conclusions. First, trust the Chinese environmental protection laws. Second, the lead poisonings were not caused by Johnson Controls. And third, pay more attention to the recycling stations and companies,” said Xia, an engineer with the China Research Academy of Environmental Science.

Soaring use of cars and electric scooters is driving strong demand for lead acid batteries, and their production and recycling are a key source of lead contamination.

China shut down hundreds of battery factories last spring after a slew of lead poisoning cases. Many have remained shut.

The lead contamination drew attention after families living in Kanghua New Village, a small block of apartment buildings erected to house farm families moved to make way for an industrial zone, said checks showed many of their children had abnormally high blood lead levels no fax payday loan.

The Johnson Controls factory suspended production in September after it reached its annual quota for lead use. The plant has sought permission to expand production, but local environmental officials say such requests will not be approved due to concerns over lead emissions.

Johnson Controls says it intends to resume production in January at the factory, which has an annual capacity of 2.5 million batteries.

“We’ve called our employees back. We’re pretty excited,” said Alex Molinaroli, president of Johnson Controls Power Solutions.

“The results corroborate our own data and prove that emissions from our battery plant could not be the cause of elevated blood-lead levels found in the community,” he said.

Johnson Controls, a major supplier to the automotive industry, had insisted all along that its plant’s emission controls would have prevented any significant contamination.

Production at a second, smaller battery plant in the area had also been stopped.

Kanghua is located just north of the zone and close to chemical, battery and electronics equipment factories.

Johnson Controls earlier said its factory has lead emissions at about one-seventh the Chinese national standard. Employees are regularly tested to ensure their blood lead levels remain low enough.

Some experts say that over time they expect use of lead-acid batteries to be phased out in favor of less toxic and more efficient charging methods, such as lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells.

But such changes could take decades.

Despite its difficulties over the Shanghai plant, the company is expanding in China, with annual capacity due to rise to 10.5 million batteries next year with the addition of a new plant in Changqing. A third plant, under construction, will have a capacity of 6 million batteries, and the company is considering locations for a fourth plant.

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Researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report.

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The Internal Revenue Service is under pressure to better police more than $100 billion of refundable tax credits it issues annually after a government watchdog questioned billions of dollars in payments.

Congress passed in October legislation authorizing a five-fold increase, to $500, in the penalty for paid tax preparers who don’t verify the eligibility of applicants for the earned income credit, by far the largest refundable tax credit.

Tax filers collected refunds of at least $55.1 billion in 2009 from the earned income tax credit, and the IRS estimated that more than $11 billion of that total was issued improperly, sometimes by mistake and sometimes as a result of fraud.

“The IRS is really stepping up enforcement,” Cindy Hockenberry, research supervisor for the National Association of Tax Professionals, said. The initial focus has been on the earned-income credit, but “they’re going to be branching out into other areas,” she said.

The association, based in Appleton, Wis., represents more than 21,000 tax preparers, accountants, attorneys and enrolled agents who work independently or for companies such as H & R Block Inc.

The IRS plans to give earned-income tax credit claims extra scrutiny during the 2012 tax filing season.

Oversight of refundable credits has become a political issue, with Republicans in particular demanding that the IRS do more to weed out ineligible recipients.

“We must balance the mandate to get refunds to those eligible as quickly as possible with ensuring that the money goes only to individuals who are eligible to receive it,” IRS deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, Steve Miller, told a House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing in May.

The earned income tax credit, passed by Congress in 1975 to offset the burden of Social Security taxes for the poor, has been expanded several times with bipartisan support, as an incentive to work.

However, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George criticized the IRS’s administration of the EITC and faulted the agency for potential improper payments involving two other refundable credit programs, one for higher education and the other for families with children payday loans.

George’s reports indicate that more than $18 billion of $101 billion for the three programs may have been improperly awarded.

Unlike a regular tax credit that offsets some or all of a tax liability, a refundable credit can include a cash payment in excess of the tax owed. As a result, refundable credits offer an incentive to defraud the government, George told the House Ways and Means subcommittee in May.

Legislation is pending to narrow eligibility for a refundable child tax credit. In a report in September, George’s investigators found that in 2009 about $4.2 billion, or 15 percent of $28.3 billion in additional child tax credits, had gone to people not authorized to work in the U.S.

The IRS declined George’s recommendation to seek more documentation of eligibility. In a statement at the time, the IRS said that the law authorizing the tax credit didn’t explicitly limit recipients to holders of a specific type of identification such as a Social Security number.

The IRS also took issue with George’s findings on the American Opportunity education tax credit, which helps low- and middle-income people pay for college. The credit, part of the 2009 stimulus law, was extended through December 2012 by legislation that also extended the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush.

In a report last month, George said 2.1 million taxpayers in 2009 received $3.2 billion in American Opportunity and other education credits that may have been wrongly awarded. That’s about 17 percent of the $18.7 billion of such credits distributed by the IRS.

The IRS disputed the findings, with spokesman Terry Lemons saying they were based on “a flawed and superficial analysis.”

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Firing tear gas and rubber bullets, Egyptian riot police on Sunday clashed for a second day with thousands of rock-throwing protesters demanding that the ruling military quickly announce a date to hand over power to an elected government.

The police battled an estimated 5,000 protesters in and around central Cairo’s Tahrir Square, birthplace of the 18-day uprising that toppled authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak in February. Tear gas filled the air as protesters, many chanting “freedom, freedom,” pelted the police with rocks.

Sunday’s clashes, which come a day after two people were killed and hundreds wounded in similar violence in the capital and other cities, are stoking tensions eight days before the start of the country’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections. Public anger has risen over the slow pace of reforms and apparent attempts by Egypt’s ruling generals to retain power over a future civilian government.

“We have a single demand: The marshal must step down and be replaced by a civilian council,” said protester Ahmed Hani, referring Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s military ruler and Mubarak’s longtime defense minister.

“The violence yesterday showed us that Mubarak is still in power,” said Hani, who was wounded in the forehead by a rubber bullet. He spoke over chants of “freedom, freedom” by hundreds of protesters around him.

Rocks, shattered glass and trash covered most of the ground in and around Tahrir early Sunday, while a cloud of white smoke caused by the use of dozens of tear gas shells hung in the air. Several hundred protesters were camping out on the lawn of the square’s traffic island, and protesters manning barricades into the square checked the IDs of anyone entering the plaza.

The windows of the main campus of the American University in Cairo, which overlooks the square, were shattered and stores were shuttered. “The marshal is Mubarak’s dog,” said one of a fresh crop of graffiti in the square.

Yahya el-Sawi, a 21-year-old university student, said he was enraged by the sight of riot police beating up protesters already hurt in an earlier attack by the security forces. “I did not support the sit-in at the beginning, but when I saw this brutality I had to come back to be with my brothers,” he said.

Many of the protesters had red eyes and coughed incessantly. Some wore surgical masks to fend off against the tear gas. A few fainted, overwhelmed by the gas.

Sunday’s clashes, which were mostly on a road leading from Tahrir to the Interior Ministry, appeared likely to grow.

Protesters were using social networking sites on the Internet to call on Egyptians to join them, and there were reports of several demonstrations headed to the square, including one from Cairo University guaranteed approval cash advance loans.

The military, which took over from Mubarak, has repeatedly pledged to hand over power to an elected government but it has yet to set a specific date. According to one timetable floated by the military, the handover will take place after presidential elections are held late next year or early in 2013. The protesters say this is too late and accuse the military of dragging its feet. They want a handover to take place immediately after the end of parliamentary elections in March.

On Saturday, police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and beat protesters with batons, clearing the square at one point and pushing the fighting into surrounding side streets of downtown Cairo.

A 23-year-old protester died from a gunshot, said Health Ministry official Mohammed el-Sherbeni. At least 676 people were injured, he said. Another protester was killed in Alexandria, where clashes also took place, said a security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.

After nightfall, protesters swarmed back into Tahrir in the thousands, and running battles with the police in the streets took place throughout the night. Acrid smoke of tires set ablaze mixed with the stinging white smoke of tear gas.

The government urged protesters to clear the square.

A member of the military council, Maj. Gen. Mohsen el-Fangari, said protesters’ calls for change ahead of the election were a threat to the state.

“What is the point of being in Tahrir?” he asked, speaking by phone to a private TV channel. “What is the point of this strike, of the million marches? Aren’t there legal channels to pursue demands in a way that won’t impact Egypt … internationally?”

“The aim of what is going on is to shake the backbone of the state, which is the armed forces.”

In a warning, he said, “If security is not applied, we will implement the rule of law. Anyone who does wrong will pay for it.”

Saturday’s confrontation was one of the few since the uprising to involve the police, which have largely stayed in the background while the military took charge of security. There was no military presence in and around the square on Saturday or on Sunday. The black-clad police were a hated symbol of Mubarak’s regime.

Some of the wounded had blood streaming down their faces and many had to be carried out of the square by fellow protesters to waiting ambulances. Human rights activists accused police of using excessive force.

Police arrested 18 people, state TV reported, describing the protesters as rioters.

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Congressional bargainers have agreed to increase the size of mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration in a compromise being hailed by the housing industry but criticized by conservatives.

Under the deal by House and Senate negotiators, the FHA would be able to insure mortgages worth up to $729,750 in the most expensive regions of the U.S. for the next two years. The ceiling had been raised to that level during the financial crisis, but by law it dipped down to $625,500 on Oct. 1.

However, in a bow to conservatives, the bargainers would not increase the current $625,500 limit on mortgages that can be backed in expensive communities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled mortgage giants, and by the Veterans Affairs Department.

Realtors and home builders had lobbied hard to raise the loan limits for all four entities, arguing that the last thing the country’s stubbornly weak housing market needs is stricter limits on government-backed mortgages. They were backed by members of Congress of both parties from areas where housing costs are high, like Southern California and New York.

“We’d have liked broader language, but the FHA is still an important part of the puzzle,” Jamie Gregory, a lobbyist with the National Association of Realtors, said Tuesday.

Conservatives and a majority of House Republicans oppose the increase, saying the government should reduce its involvement in subsidizing housing in hopes that the private market would step up.

In a written statement, the president of the conservative Club for Growth called increasing FHA’s loan limits “beyond ridiculous” and said his group would note how lawmakers vote on the issue when they rate members of Congress seeking re-election. He said raising the limits does the opposite of reducing the federal role in housing markets _ something that many conservatives and the Obama administration say they want to strengthen the private market and protect federal taxpayers payday advance.

It has so far cost the government about $170 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, which nearly collapsed in 2008 because of risky loans in their portfolios.

The size of loans that federal agencies can back is based on a formula that includes a region’s median housing cost. More than a fifth of the country’s roughly 3,100 counties would be affected by the higher FHA loan limits.

FHA insurance is often used by buyers who put down small down payments. The agency has insured more than 40 million homes since it was established in 1934, and last year three quarters of those it insured were first-time buyers.

“It’s good news for the more than 600 counties that faced loan limit decline,” said Robert Dietz, an economist for the National Association of Home Builders. “FHA is important for first-time home buyers, so that will help support housing demand.”

The provision was included in a bill financing the departments of Housing and Urban Affairs, Commerce, Justice, Transportation and several other agencies for the rest of the government’s fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. It would also keep all other federal agencies functioning through Dec. 16 as lawmakers continue working on permanent spending bills.

The Democratic-run Senate had voted to increase the loan limits in its housing bill, but the version approved by the Republican-led House left the ceilings alone.

The House and Senate are expected to approve the overall compromise legislation later this week.

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A lawyer for protesters camped outside London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral said Wednesday that authorities have offered to let the tent city stay until next year, as the leader of the world’s Anglicans backed a so-called Robin Hood tax on financial transactions to alleviate the global economic crisis.

The loosely organized demonstration against capitalist excess, inspired by New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement, has wrong-footed both city and church officials since it began last month, defying pleas to leave and the threat of legal action.

Authorities have suspended legal bids to remove the tents. On Wednesday John Cooper, a lawyer for the protesters, said that local government had offered the protesters a deal “to stay on site until the new year,” then leave on an agreed date.

“My client is considering this offer,” he said on Twitter. Cooper confirmed the offer in an email to The Associated Press.

A spokesman for the local authority, the City of London Corporation, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

While police and bailiffs have removed protest camps in some cities around the world, the London demonstrators have endured, in part due to their location in front of one of the city’s most famous buildings. Their proximity to Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old icon has embroiled the church in a conflict between bank-bashing protesters and the finance industry.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams entered the debate Wednesday, saying “it was time we tried to be more specific” in finding answers to the vague demands represented by the protests.

“The protest at St. Paul’s was seen by an unexpectedly large number of people as the expression of a widespread and deep exasperation with the financial establishment that shows no sign at all of diminishing,” he wrote in a commentary published in the Financial Times.

“There is still a powerful sense around _ fair or not _ of a whole society paying for the errors and irresponsibility of bankers; of messages not getting through; of impatience with a return to ‘business as usual’ represented by still soaring bonuses and little visible change in banking practices.”

The transaction tax _ often called a “Tobin tax” _ was proposed in the 1970s by the late James Tobin, an American economist and Nobel Prize winner. Williams said a low tax rate _ 0.05 percent on each transaction _ could raise more than $400 billion globally each year.

The European Commission supports the tax, estimating that it could raise euro30 billion ($41 billion) a year, but the British government has firmly opposed it, preferring a direct tax on bank assets.

Williams called for a “robust” public debate “to probe how far the government’s preferred option will guarantee the domestic and international development goals central to the ‘Robin Hood ‘ proposals.”

Williams wrote approvingly of three proposals offered last week by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace: separation of high-risk investment banking from retail banking; recapitalizing banks with public funds; and a tax on financial transactions.

“If religious leaders and commentators in the U.K. and elsewhere could agree on these three proposals, not as a fixed agenda but as a common ground on which to start serious discussion, the struggles and questionings alike of protesters and clergy at St. Paul’s will not have been wasted,” Williams wrote.

The British Bankers Association opposes a transaction tax, arguing that unless it was applied worldwide it would harm the financial industry in higher-tax countries.

The archbishop’s call for a transaction tax drew a lukewarm response from the bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who is now leading St. Paul’s response to the hundreds of protesters occupying tents outside the cathedral.

“Well, he (Williams) is an intellectual of European standing and I’ll certainly read what he says with great attention,” Chartres said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

“He has studied the subject in some detail and, like any other citizen, it’s a totally legitimate thing to do.”

The Anglican church was caught by surprise when demonstrators against corporate greed and banking excess pitched tents outside St. Paul’s on Oct. 15. They had hoped to protest in front of the London Stock Exchange, but were evicted from the private property and moved on to the nearby cathedral.

Since then cathedral officials have appeared uncertain how to respond. They at first welcomed protesters before asking them to leave; closed the building on health and safety grounds then reopened it a week later; and announced legal action to remove the tent city before suspending it and promising dialogue.

The cathedral’s dean and a senior priest have both resigned over the mishandled crisis.

The Corporation of London, the local authority for the cathedral and surrounding area, also has suspended plans to evict the protesters, and the campers say they are prepared for a long stay.

Stuart Fraser, the corporation’s policy chairman, said officials were meeting protesters for the first time Wednesday, “and we will take things day by day.”

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Singapore Airlines is hoping travelers will “Scoot” to its new long-haul budget carrier as one of the world’s leading airline brands seeks to muscle in on Asia’s burgeoning no-frills market.

Scoot, as the new carrier is known, will begin service by June 2012 with four Boeing 777-200 jets flying by the end of that year, chief executive Campbell Wilson told reporters Tuesday.

Scoot plans to initially focus on destinations that are five to 10 hours from its base at Singapore’s Changi International Airport and fly to four or more cities in Australia and China.

“This new market segment is growing fast,” Wilson said. “We aim to bring new business to the SIA group.”

Singapore Airlines, which is also known as SIA, has long relied on its top-rated in-flight service _ epitomized by the iconic Singapore Girl cabin crew _ to lead the long-haul first and business class market, especially in popular Asia to Europe routes.

However, Gulf carriers such as Emirates and Etihad and Asian rivals such as Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Australia’s Qantas have eaten away at SIA’s market share in recent years, pushing the Singaporeans to eye the growing low-cost market.

Scoot will face two main competitors in the region’s long-haul budget market _ Air Asia X, owned by Malaysia’s AirAsia, and JetStar, a unit of Qantas. Analysts expect Scoot will likely seek to provide more frills at a slightly higher price that its rivals.

“This new airline is a poor man’s excuse to fly SIA,” said Shukor Yusof, an aviation analyst with Standard and Poor’s in Singapore. “It will be like luxury budget. When you’re flying 12 to 13 hours, you need to throw in some of the facilities people are used to on intercontinental flights.”

Wilson said Scoot will offer two classes of cabin, with economy tickets up to 40 percent less than full-service carriers. Customers will be able to choose seats, meals and baggage options, he said.

“We’ll offer many other options so people can customize their experience,” Wilson said.

The airline plans to eventually buy several Boeing 777-200ER planes, which can travel up to 13 hours, allowing Scoot to fly to Europe and Africa, he said. Scoot also plans next year to hire about 52 pilots, 250 flight attendants and 40 ground staff with what Wilson called “Scootitude.”

Scoot is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, which invested 283 million Singapore dollars ($227 million) to start the long-haul carrier. SIA already owns SilkAir, which targets popular Asian holiday destinations, and has a one-third stake in Tiger Airways, a short-haul budget carrier.

Growing demand for budget flights has been a bright spot for the airline industry this year as slowing global economic growth and higher fuel costs hurt earnings. The International Air Transport Association forecasts global airline profits will drop to $6.9 billion this year and $4.9 billion in 2012 from $15.8 billion last year.

Asian airline stocks have also taken a hit, with most carriers, including Singapore Airlines, down at least 20 percent this year. Only AirAsia has bucked the trend, jumping 50 percent so far in 2011.

Some analysts expect travel demand in Asia to improve next year. Airline analyst Mark Webb at HSBC forecasts Asian passenger numbers will rise 7 percent this year and 9 percent next year. He upgraded his rating on Singapore Airlines shares to “neutral” from “underweight” last month.

Scoot hopes to ride the low-cost wave that has made budget flights about 25 percent of Changi’s traffic this year from almost nothing a decade ago. The best earners among Asian airlines this year have been short-haul budget carriers Indonesia’s Lion Air, AirAsia and Cebu Air in the Philippines, S&P’s Yusof said.

“Budget airlines are not a fad. They’re here to stay,” Yusof said. “The market certainly has shifted from legacy carriers to discount carriers.”

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Forecasters say Tropical Storm Rina has formed in the Caribbean Sea off the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua and it could become a hurricane by the end of the week.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday night that the storm’s center was located about 115 miles (185 kilometers) northeast of Cabo Gracias on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua.

It had maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (64 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) quick payday loans.

A tropical storm watch was in effect on the coast of Honduras from Punta Castilla eastward to the Nicaraguan border.

Forecasters expect Rina to gain strength in the next 48 hours and said it could become a hurricane by the end of the week.

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