Nov. 12 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama is barring lobbyists from participating in the transition that will help install his administration. He will still leave room on his team for the rich and powerful.

Top fundraisers and other well-connected supporters will serve in an advisory capacity before the Democrat takes office on Jan. 20.

Five of the 12 members of Obama's transition advisory board raised at least $50,000 for his presidential campaign, and eight contributed the maximum individual donation of $4,600. Other transition team members include a partner in a lobbying firm and two executives of financial companies whose employees were among his biggest donors.

``If an Obama administration is going to sell influence, these are the ones who have bought it,'' said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a Washington-based advocacy group that favors stronger campaign-finance and lobbying laws.

Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter defended the advisory board, saying it ``was selected based on the skill and experience of each member, and they are providing critical advice to ensure a smooth transition process.''

Transition co-Chairman John Podesta yesterday released rules banning registered lobbyists from raising money for the transition or working for the new administration in areas on which they represented clients.

The new rules also prohibit members of the transition team who become lobbyists from trying to influence the administration on any issues that they worked on. Podesta called them ``the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.''

Bundlers Exempt

The rules, however, won't prevent campaign fundraisers known as bundlers from serving.

Valerie Jarrett, a transition co-chairwoman, raised between $100,000 and $200,000 for Obama, according to his campaign Web site. Two advisory board members, Julius Genachowski, managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, a Washington firm that invests in online companies, and Donald Gips, a vice president of Broomfield, Colorado-based Level 3 Communications Inc., each raised at least $500,000 for Obama.

A third, Michael Froman, brought in between $200,000 and $500,000 for the campaign. Froman is a managing director at New York-based Citigroup Inc. The financial institution's employees and their families contributed $581,216, Obama's seventh-biggest source of campaign cash, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

Campaign co-chairman William Daley, a vice chairman at New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., also sits on the advisory board. JPMorgan employees and their families were Obama's sixth-biggest source of donations, giving $581,460.

Registered to Lobby

Another board member, Mark Gitenstein, was registered to lobby through June, House records show. Gitenstein is a partner in the lawyer-lobbying firm of Mayer Brown LLP, whose clients include Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford Motor Co., which is pushing for government help, and New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co., which sold itself to Bank of America Corp. in September.

Obama may be learning quickly that what sounds good on the campaign trail may not always be best for governing, said Costas Panagopoulos, director of Fordham University's Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy in New York.

``They want to find the most qualified people; some will have been donors,'' Panagopoulos said. ``It was probably shortsighted to make promises that such individuals would not be included in his administration.''

Plenty of Jobs

The president-elect will have plenty of opportunities to fill jobs before he takes office. Podesta said he expects the transition to have a $12 million budget and employ about 450 people. With less than half that amount coming from federal appropriations, Obama's transition team will raise money privately, he said. As in the campaign, Obama won't accept money from registered lobbyists and political action committees, Podesta said.

Obama raised a record $650 million for his presidential campaign as he became the first major party nominee to shun federal funds for the general election.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

"The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said.

"In the United States there is already a funding crisis, and they will have to sell a lot more bonds next year to fund the bailout packages that have already been signed off," Hennecke told CNBC.

In order to solve or stem the economic slowdown, Hennecke suggested the US would have to radically reduce spending across all sectors and recall all its troops from around the world.

As for a stimulus package, there is not much of an industry left to stimulate back into life, Hennecke said.

_{By Zahra Hosseinian}

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said it test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missile on Wednesday and that the Islamic Republic was ready to defend itself against any attacker.

Iran's latest missile test followed persistent speculation in recent months of possible U.S. or Israeli strikes against its nuclear facilities, which the West suspects form part of a covert atomic weapons program, a charge Tehran denies.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, like outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, has not ruled out military action although he has criticized the Bush administration for not pursuing more diplomacy and engagement with Tehran.

Washington said the test highlighted the need for a missile defense system it plans to base in Poland and the Czech Republic to counter threats from what it calls "rogue states."

Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said the Iranian-made surface-to-surface Sejil missile had "extremely high capabilities" and was only intended for defensive purposes.

He said it had a range of close to 2,000 km (1,200 miles), almost as far as another Iranian missile, Shahab 3. That would enable it to reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

"This missile test is in the framework of Iran's deterrent doctrine," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

"It will only land on the heads of those enemies ... who want to make an aggression and invade the Islamic Republic," said Najjar, who did not mention any country by name.

Iran's English-language Press TV said the Sejil missile had two stages and was of a type that used combined solid fuel.

A missile was shown soaring from a platform in desert-like terrain, leaving a long vapor trail.

"Honor"

It came a day after media said the Revolutionary Guards had test-fired another missile called Samen near the Iraqi border.

"They do it all the time. It's Iranian machismo," said Tim Ripley, an analyst at Jane's Defence Weekly.

Two stages could increase a missile's range, he said, noting that Iran had in the past borrowed technology from North Korea although he said he could not say if that was true this time.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to build atomic bombs, while Iran says it only aims to generate electricity.

Iran has said it would respond to any attack by targeting U.S. interests and America's ally Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for world oil supplies.

The United States is planning to install a defensive shield in central Europe against missiles it says could be fired by states such as Iran.

"We've consistently pointed out that Iran's missile program is a concern and this testing is another reminder of the importance of establishing a missile defense site in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend the U.S. and Europe against a threat that is developing in Iran," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

Moscow on Wednesday rejected U.S. proposals intended to allay its concerns about the system.

Senior officials from the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany were due to meet in Paris on Thursday to discuss their next steps in their nuclear showdown with Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, told a provincial rally Iran would defeat its enemies.

"The Iranian nation defends its honor and whichever power that wants to stand against the movement of the Iranian nation, the Iranian nation will crush it under its foot and slap it on the mouth," he said in a speech broadcast live on television.

Last week, Iran's military said U.S. helicopters had been seen flying close to Iran's border and that it would respond to any violation, a message analysts said seemed directed at Obama more than American troops in Iraq.

It followed a cross-border raid in October by U.S. forces into Syria, a move that was condemned by Damascus and Tehran.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington and Edmund Blair; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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There have been layoffs at Current Media, the cable network co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

A statement from Current put the number of layoffs at about 60 positions, with 30 more to be refilled, the company said in a statement. That's less of a hard hit than the 20 percent cuts that a source close to Current hinted to CNET News on Tuesday. The statement read: "Approximately 60 positions have been eliminated in the company's three U.S. offices, and approximately 30 new positions created," the statement read. "Many of those whose positions were eliminated have been placed in the new positions. Current will have approximately 410 employees (after these staffing adjustments)."

The source also said additional layoffs would be coming in January, which a Current representative denied.

Current had announced less than a day ago that it had partnered with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to bring its network to Canada. Current's plans for an initial public offering are on hold, employees have told CNET News. The company filed for an IPO in January.

Approached outside the company's San Francisco headquarters, one laid-off Current employee said that she hadn't seen it coming.

"Not only was this uncalled for, but there was continuous deliberation during the last two or three months," the former employee said. "Every meeting we've had with the VP of our department has been a lot of 'Don't worry, your positions are secure.' And that has been repeated for the last two to three months."

Changes in programming format are on the way too. Current's focus on indie and amateur producers was a bold experiment, one that left some critics scratching their heads when the channel debuted in 2005.

"As part of the impending transition at Current TV, one source says the company is going to drop its shorter (user-generated content) videos in favor of the more traditional 30-minute programs that have long dominated television programming across all channels," David Weir, an analyst at CNET News sister site BNET, reported on Monday night.

The statement from Current hinted at this change as well. "These changes result from the development of a new, innovative programming strategy built around eight cross-platform channels, including news, comedy, music, and technology, slated to premiere in the first quarter of 2009," the statement detailed. "Current's new programming strategy expands upon its pioneering use of viewer-created content to include additional opportunities for participation, creating a far more viewer-influenced network, and further unifies the company's online and TV platforms by having each Web channel paired with a companion TV show."

Current, which consists of the Current TV network and Current.com, had just gone through a high-profile marketing effort in conjunction with the 2008 presidential election, for which it partnered with trendy social-media brands Digg and Twitter.

Company representatives told CNET News last week that it had been a big success, and Gore himself later gave a speech at the Web 2.0 Summit in which he touched upon how he hopes Current will solve some of the problems plaguing the television news industry.

At least one Current employee, associate producer Andrew Schneider, has Twittered his departure. The company "just laid me off with a ton of my colleagues," Schneider wrote.

Schneider's LinekdIn profile says that he worked in VC2, the "Viewer Created" or user-generated content division of Current. A source told CNET News that the VC2 division was hit particularly hard by the layoffs.

The company statement said the layoffs were a preventative measure: "These changes enable Current Media to reduce its cost structure, thereby assuring that it will be comfortably profitable in 2009, regardless (of) the depth and length of the recession."