Fed chief heading toward second term

WASHINGTON: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who led the biggest expansion of the central bank's power in its 95-year history to battle the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, was nominated to a second term yesterday by President Barack Obama.

Bernanke "has led the Fed through one of the worst financial crises that this nation and the world have ever faced", Obama said in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, with Bernanke at his side.

"As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I'm sure Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for preventing another," Obama said. "But because of his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity, that's exactly what he has helped to achieve."