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A failure. An embarrassment. A joke.

In the bruising world of Ontario politics, opponents would sometimes hang those harsh criticisms on Mike Harris.

But the former premier is facing some of the same brickbats from shareholders such as the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, proxy groups like Glass Lewis & Co. and advocates of corporate governance over his performance leading the board at auto parts powerhouse Magna International.

Underlining their disdain, proxy advisers say Magna shareholders should snub Harris and other directors when their re-election comes up for a vote at the annual meeting next Wednesday. They have little regard for his expertise and the practical skills he acquired in governing the country’s biggest province for almost seven years.

The region’s beleaguered job market received a dose of good news Wednesday: March was its strongest month in two years. Still, there is lots of room to strengthen.

Metro St. Louis added 13,100 jobs in March, its biggest one-month gain in more than two decades of records, according to new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate dipped to 8.8 percent, its lowest point since January 2009.

The numbers, which are adjusted to reflect seasonal hiring trends, echo national figures put out earlier this month. And they are the latest sign that the recovery

U.S. antitrust regulators cleared the way Tuesday for Southwest’s purchase of AirTran Airways, saying the combination of two big discount airlines isn’t likely to hurt competition.

The Justice Department said the airlines overlap on some nonstop routes, but it decided not to challenge the deal because competitors can get airport gates and landing slots on those routes.

Southwest, based in Dallas, plans to close the $1.4 billion purchase on Monday. The deal will immediately increase Southwest’s size by one-fourth, although it will temporarily operate AirTran as a separate airline.

Southwest will gain AirTran’s hub in Atlanta, which Southwest currently doesn’t serve, and pick up AirTran’s service to Mexico and the Caribbean.

Some consumer advocates worry that mergers are reducing the number of U.S. airlines and making it easier for the remaining ones to boost fares. In the past three years, Delta bought Northwest, United combined with Continental, and Southwest made its play for AirTran.

The Justice Department had imposed some conditions on earlier deals _ for example, pressuring United and Continental to give Southwest gates at Newark, N payday loan.J. It didn’t do that in Southwest’s case. Instead, it said the presence of low-cost carriers such as Southwest and AirTran on routes served only by so-called legacy airlines has been shown to produce lower fares.

The Justice Department’s approval was widely expected after Southwest announced last week that it planned to close the AirTran purchase on May 2.

Southwest Airlines Co. flies to more than 70 U.S. cities and had revenue of $12.1 billion last year. It carries more U.S. passengers than any other airline, although United Continental, Delta and American are larger when including international traffic.

AirTran Holdings Inc., based in Orlando, Fla., had 2010 revenue of $2.6 billion and serves nearly as many cities as Southwest, although some are smaller.

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Some 25,000 Japanese troops are fanning out on the wreckage-strewn northeastern coast Monday in a massive search for thousands of bodies still missing from last month’s earthquake and tsunami.

Backed by dozens of boats and aircraft, the soldiers are scouring the region for remains swept to sea or buried under masses of rubble.

The operation is the third intensive military search for bodies since the disaster that killed up to 26,000 people low fee cash advance. Some 12,000 remain missing and are believed dead. Monday’s search is an all-out effort to recover any remains for their families.

The soldiers are combing through the rubble and navy boats and divers are searching the waters up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) off the coast.

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A shareholder proposal that would have required Ameren Corp. to provide detailed information about coal waste management got broad support at the company’s annual meeting Thursday but ultimately fell short.

The proposal by the Midwest Coalition for Responsible Investment got 46 percent of the votes cast

Patriot Coal Corp. says it started 2011 with a money-losing first quarter.

Patriot said Thursday it lost $15.3 million, or 17 cents per share, from January through March. Patriot earned $4.26 million, or 5 cents per share, in the same period of 2010.

Revenue rose to $577 million, compared with $467.25 million in the same period of 2010.

Operating costs rose to $516 million, compared with $433.5 million in the first-quarter 2010. Patriot says accounting for underpriced coal contracts cost it $18.6 million in the quarter.

Interest expenses more than doubled to $22.9 million, from $9 million a year earlier.

Creve Coeur-based Patriot operates coal mines in West Virginia and Kentucky.

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South African inflation accelerated to a nine-month high of 4.1 percent in March as food and fuel prices climbed, adding to pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates from a 30-year low.

The inflation rate rose from 3.7 percent in February, the Pretoria-based statistics office said on its website today. The median estimate of 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for the rate to increase to 4 percent. Prices advanced 1.2 percent in the month.

The Reserve Bank, which left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5.5 percent in March, is monitoring to determine whether rising food and fuel prices are pushing up costs more broadly in the economy, Deputy Governor Daniel Mminele said on April 16. While the bank expects inflation to remain inside its 3 percent to 6 percent target range until the end of 2012, there are “significant upside risks” to the outlook, he said.

“Higher food and fuel prices are likely to be the dominant inflationary theme over the next few months,” said Carmen Altenkirch, an economist at Nedbank Group Ltd. in Johannesburg. “The upside to our interest-rate forecast has increased over the past month. The Reserve Bank may opt to react pre-emptively, hiking rates in the second half of the year.”

The rand was at 6.7805 against the dollar as of 11:16 a.m. in Johannesburg from 6.7883 before the data was released. The yield on the R157 government bond, due 2015, was unchanged at 7.66 percent.

Gasoline Prices

The government boosted gasoline prices by 5.7 percent this month and 4.8 percent in March. White corn, a staple food in South Africa, has surged 31 percent on the South Africa Futures Exchange in the past six months.

The Reserve Bank cut its key rate three times last year to spur growth in Africa’s biggest economy, which the bank expects to expand 3.7 percent this year.

Consumers are starting to benefit from lower interest rates, with retail sales probably increasing an annual 7.1 percent in February from 6.4 percent in the previous month, according to the median estimate of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The statistics office is due to publish the data at 1 p.m. local time today.

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Homebuilders are more pessimistic about the housing market this month, a dismal sign at the start of the spring-buying season.

The National Association of Home Builders says its index of industry sentiment for April fell slightly to 16. It had risen modestly in March, to 17, after four straight months at 16. Any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the market. The index hasn’t been above that level since April 2006.

Last year was the worst in more than a decade for sales of previously owned homes and the worst for new-home sales in nearly a half-century.

Fewer homes mean fewer jobs. Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the builders’ trade group.

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Russia, the world’s biggest energy exporter, expects the price of oil shipments to the global market to start decreasing next year as governments begin to withdraw stimulus measures, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said.

Urals, the nation’s major export oil blend, will stay above $90 a barrel for 12 months to 18 months, Kudrin told a press briefing in Washington, D.C., yesterday. The price will probably fall to $60 a barrel in the next two years and stay at that level for about six months, he said, reiterating a forecast he made a year ago.

“With oil prices above $110 a barrel we are already in the zone of a slowing global economy,” Kudrin told reporters. “We expect oil prices to begin to decrease next year because excessive liquidity will be withdrawn from the international markets.”

Urals, Russia’s benchmark export blend, climbed above $100 a barrel in February as unrest in north Africa and the Middle East disrupted some oil flows. The International Monetary Fund cut its 2011 growth forecasts for the U.S. and Japan on April 11, citing “key downside risks” tied to surging oil prices.

Russia’s budget deficit is expected to be between 1 percent and 1.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2011, Kudrin said. Inflation will be at “about 7 percent” in Russia in 2011, Kudrin also said.

The country will use windfall revenue from energy sales to replace about 280 billion rubles ($10 billion) of planned spending from its Reserve Fund, Kudrin said.

Windfall Revenue

The government will use part of the windfall oil revenue to avoid some of the planned borrowing, Kudrin said. It will borrow mostly on the domestic market and won’t approve any decisions on the foreign market for now, he said.

“If we are able to borrow on the domestic market without rates going significantly higher, we will be borrowing,’’ Kudrin said. “If not, we can use between $200 million and $400 million, not more than that, to replace what we had planned to borrow domestically.’’

Kudrin said he will resign as chairman of the board of ZAO Alrosa, the world’s biggest diamond miner by output, and as a chairman of VTB Group, Russia’s second-largest bank.

Medvedev Order

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on April 2 instructed eight senior government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who is chairman of the largest Russian oil company OAO Rosneft, to quit their jobs at state-owned companies by July 1. Independent directors should replace them to improve transparency, the president said.

Russia won’t extend a tax break on oil shipments from the Vankor field for OAO Rosneft, the country’s biggest oil producer, Kudrin said. The company has been allowed to pay a reduced fee on exports of oil from the Vankor field. The measure expires in May and won’t be prolonged, he said.

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ST. LOUIS