Republican leaders are no less firm that the cuts will come into force in three weeks unless Democrats agree to equivalent spending cuts elsewhere in the budget, without tax increases.
Some analysts expressed concern at the price Petrobras had agreed to pay, equivalent to about $4 for each barrel of proven reserves; the current market value of Petrobras itself is only about $3 a barrel, according to Emerson Leite, an energy analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in São Paulo.
The company said then that two major shareholders had agreed to forfeit an equivalent number of shares of their own to avoid losses for other holders.
American investors, for example, have long been prevented from selling shares short unless they have agreed to borrow an equivalent amount of stock.
The LSE has agreed to put £300,000 – equivalent to the cash it has received from the Gaddafi foundation to set up the research programme – into a scholarship for north African students.
The airline agreed to contribute the equivalent of 11percentt of each pilot's pay, a footnote at the time to headlines about the impressive raises of more than 20percentt depending on a pilot's service.
And Beringer Blass Wine Estates, an American winery owned by the Foster's Group of Australia, has agreed to pay the equivalent of $14.4 million for Matua Valley Wines Ltd. in a buyout to be completed in June.
Arrow Energy's board agreed to the bid, equivalent to $3.2 billion, after Shell and PetroChina raised their initial offer 4.45 dollars per share, made earlier this month, by 6 percent to 4.70 dollars.
Two weeks ago, it agreed to trade the equivalent of $1.1 billion Estonian kroons for Swedish kronor — essentially a large leap of faith since Sweden was swapping its own currency for one under immense pressure.
"The $500 fine I agreed to pay, the equivalent of a speeding ticket, is simply what those misdemeanors require, and in no way reflects the toll that this ordeal has exacted on me," he wrote.
