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السبت، 25 أكتوبر 2014
Medical worker quarantined in New Jersey under new Ebola safeguards
By Ellen WulfhorstNEW YORK Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:13am EDT
1 of 18. A man pushes a rack near the building where Dr. Craig Spencer lives while a cleaning crew from 'Bio Recovery Corporation' works inside the apartment in New York October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Eduardo MunozNEW YORK (Reuters) - A medical worker quarantined in New Jersey on her return from treating Ebola victims in West Africa was being evaluated in a hospital isolation ward on Saturday after new contagion-control safeguards were imposed for America's biggest urban center.She was the first to be quarantined under a policy imposed on Friday by the states of New York and New Jersey requiring all health workers coming from Ebola-stricken West African countries to be automatically confined for monitoring during the 21-day incubation period of the virus.The worker, who has not been publicly identified, showed no symptoms when she arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday but developed a fever after being admitted to University Hospital in Newark, the state health department said.Fever can be an early sign of the disease, which is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person who is exhibiting symptoms. No other details about her background or condition were given, but a department statement said she was "in isolation and being evaluated".New York and New Jersey officials acted to begin mandatory isolation of medical personnel arriving from Ebola zones after Craig Spencer, a doctor who treated patients in Guinea for a month, came back to New York City infected.The new measures apply to two airports serving the greater New York City metropolitan area - John F. Kennedy International in New York and Newark Liberty in New Jersey. They are among five airports through which the federal government has recently ordered all U.S.-bound travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea funneled for special Ebola screening.The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed at least 4,800 people since March, mostly in those three West African nations, and perhaps as many as 15,000, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Only four Ebola patients have been diagnosed so far in the United States: Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, two nurses who treated him there; and Spencer, the first New York City case.President Barack Obama has so far resisted calls by some politicians to institute a U.S. ban on travel to and from West Africa.
But expanding mandatory quarantines to healthcare workers arriving through all five designated U.S. airports is an option under consideration by the administration, Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters.
NEW YORK CITY CASE PROMPTS TOUGHER ACTIONThe two-state quarantine policy was instituted a day after Spencer, a physician for the humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), tested positive for Ebola and was admitted to a special isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.City health officials have said Spencer, 33, did not begin to show symptoms until Thursday morning, the day of his hospitalization, and was thus not contagious before then.
However, public fears about transmission of the disease were stoked by the disclosure that he had ridden subways, taken a taxi and visited a bowling alley in the days before he fell ill.Three people who had close contact with Spencer since his return to New York, including his fiancée, were quarantined as well, but they were reported still healthy on Friday. Medical detectives, meanwhile, tried to retrace Spencer's steps in the city in search of others who might have been exposed.After first seeking to allay concerns that Spencer put others at risk by venturing out in public before becoming sick, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Friday that common sense demanded a more cautious approach.He was joined by Governor Chris Christie of neighboring New Jersey, marking a bipartisan teaming of two prominent political figures to take steps going beyond national restrictions being imposed by the Obama administration.Cuomo is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party led by Obama, and Christie, a Republican, is widely discussed as a potential 2016 contender for the White House.In Washington, Obama also sought to reassure a worried public with an Oval Office hug of Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who was declared Ebola-free on Friday after catching the virus from Duncan.
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the CDC also confirmed that the second nurse, Amber Vinson, no longer had detectable levels of virus but did not set a date for her to leave that facility.
Spencer's case brought to nine the total number of people treated for Ebola in U.S. hospitals since August. Just two, Pham and Vinson, contracted the virus in the United States.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined to discuss the possibility of a nationwide quarantine policy but said "these kinds of policy decisions are going to be driven by science" and the advice of medical experts.A senior administration official said it was important for the United States to take "coordinated" action on the issue, noting federal officials had met as recently as Friday morning, but have not yet made a decision.
The prospect of expanding quarantines also raised questions about balancing the needs for safeguarding public health with protecting civil liberties, legal experts said."It's a severe restriction that the use of which should be very much guarded, that people should have a right to an attorney and some type of due process," said attorney Joel Kupferman, executive director of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project. "When they quarantine someone, they should make sure that they are not treated as a criminal."
(Additional reporting by Sebastien Malo, Barbara Goldberg, Robert Gibbons, Natasja Sheriff, Jonathan Allen and Laila Kearney in New York, Roberta Rampton and David Morgan in Washington; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Kurds reject Erdogan report of deal with Syrian rebels to aid besieged Kobani
By Humeyra Pamuk and Sylvia WestallISTANBUL/BEIRUT Fri Oct 24, 2014 4:52pm EDT
1 of 5. Smoke rises over the Syrian town of Kobani after an airstrike, as seen from the Mursitpinar crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Kai PfaffenbachISTANBUL/BEIRUT (Reuters) - A senior Syrian Kurdish official on Friday rejected a report from Turkey's president that Syrian Kurds had agreed to let Free Syrian Army fighters enter the border town of Kobani to help them push back besieging Islamic State insurgents.The Free Syrian Army is a term used to describe dozens of armed groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad but with little or no central command. They have been widely outgunned by Islamist insurgents such as Islamic State.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is a leading opponent of Assad and has allowed his more secular, Western-backed opponents such as FSA fighters to use Turkey as a base and sanctuary.Erdogan said on Friday said 1,300 FSA fighters would enter Kobani after the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) agreed on their passage, but his comments were swiftly denied by Saleh Moslem, co-chair of the PYD."We have already established a connection with FSA but no such agreement has been reached yet as Mr. Erdogan has mentioned," Moslem told Reuters by telephone from Brussels.Turkey's unwillingness to send its powerful army across the Syrian border to break the siege of Kobani has angered Kurds, and seems rooted in a concern not to strengthen Kurds who seek autonomy in adjoining regions of Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
Ankara's stance has also upset Western allies, as Islamic State's capture of wide swathes of Syria and Iraq has caused international shock and U.S.-led air strikes began in August to try to halt and eventually reverse the jihadist advance.
Erdogan told a news conference on a visit to Estonia that Ankara was working on details of the route of passage for the FSA fighters, indicating they would access Kobani via Turkey.But Moslem said talks between FSA commander Abdul Jabbar al-Oqaidi and the armed wing of the Kurdish PYD were continuing about the possible role of FSA rebels. "There are already groups with links to the FSA in Kobani helping us," he said.The FSA, however, is little more than an acronym used to describe dozens of tenuously affiliated rebel groups who complain of a lack of arms and resources leaving them unable to effectively confront Assad and better-armed Islamist rebels.Moslem said the FSA would be more helpful if it opened a second front against Islamic State elsewhere in Syria. "Politically we have no objections to FSA....But in my opinion, if they really would like to help, then their forces should open another front, such as from Tel Abyad or Jarablus," he said.He was referring to two nearby Syrian border towns captured by Islamic State as part of its lightning military campaign in which it has beheaded or crucified prisoners, massacred non-Sunni Muslim civilians in its path and declared a mediaeval-style caliphate spanning eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq.FSA commander Al-Oqaidi, speaking to Reuters in Suruc, a Turkish border town across from Kobani, said there had been an agreement to begin establishing a united defense force and initially 1,350 FSA fighters were to go to Kobani for help."These fighters will come in two or three days," he said."The fighters will come from the northern Syrian countryside. These fighters are not coming from the fighting fronts against the Assad regime. These are reserve fighters."U.S. officials said on Thursday that Kobani, nestled in a valley overlooked by Turkish territory, seemed in less danger of falling to Islamic State after coalition air strikes and limited arms drops, but the threat remained.Turkey has been loath to join the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State but, after mounting pressure from its Western allies, Erdogan said on Wednesday that some Kurdish peshmerga fighters from Iraq would be allowed to transit Turkey to Kobani.CREDIBILITY TEST
Although Turkish and U.S. officials acknowledge Kobani itself is not especially strategically important, the fate of the town has become a credibility test of the international coalition's response to Islamic State.Over the weekend, U.S. warplanes air-dropped small arms to Kobani's defenders, against the wishes of Turkish authorities who have described them as terrorists because of their links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long separatist insurgency in Turkey.The PYD's Moslem said he was disappointed with Turkey's response so far. "When I conducted my meetings in Turkey, I was hoping the help would come in 24 hours. It's been more than a month and we're still waiting," he said.In a separate interview published in a pan-Arab newspaper, Moslem said that the battle for Kobani would turn into a war of attrition unless Kurds obtained arms that can repel tanks and armored vehicles.He told Asharq al-Awsat that Kurds had recently received information that Islamic State wanted to fire chemical weapons into Kobani using mortars, after having surrounded it with around 40 tanks."If we were to receive qualitative (stronger) weapons, we would be able to hit the tanks and armored vehicles that they use - we may be able to bring a qualitative change in the battle," Moslem said.The FSA's al-Oqaidi echoed Moslem's call for better weapons, saying that FSA fighters had only light arms. "Our main problem is not numbers of the fighters but the quality of weapons...The fighters in Kobani need good quality weapons too."
Elsewhere in Syria's civil war, government forces retook a town on the highway linking Hama and Aleppo cities in the west of the country after months of battles with insurgents, Damascus state television and a monitoring group said.The recapture of Morek, 30 km (19 miles) north of Hama, is part of Assad's campaign to shore up control of territory in the west stretching north from Damascus while U.S.-led forces bomb Islamist militants in the north and east.(Additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva in Suruc, Turkey, Ece Toksabay and Jonny Hogg in Istanbul, Tom Perry in Beirut; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Ford's lower profit beats estimates; sales down on F-150 launch
By Bernie Woodall and Ben Klayman
DETROIT Fri Oct 24, 2014 5:15pm EDT
A man walks past a new Ford car at the Jacob Javits Convention Center during the New York International Auto Show in New York April 16, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri
DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co on Friday reported a 34 percent drop in third-quarter profit, and revenue fell due to the cost of introducing the F-150 pickup truck.
Ford, which affirmed its full-year profit outlook, said earnings suffered from lower wholesale vehicle volumes and recall costs, as well as supplier parts shortages. While a strong performance in North America helped push earnings above Wall Street estimates, analysts and investors were not impressed.
"No compelling new reason to either buy or sell the stock," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a research note. "On the substance of the results and outlook itself, we don’t believe consensus forecasts need to change materially."
Shares of Ford were off 3.3 percent at $13.93 in morning trading.
The launch of the aluminum-bodied F-150 is on track, and Ford has completed about half of 23 global introductions planned this year, it said. The pickup is a key profit driver for the No. 2 U.S. automaker.
A 3 percent drop in third-quarter revenue to $34.9 billion is largely linked to the planned shutdown of the F-150 plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford also said wholesale volumes fell by 3 percent, partly due to the parts shortages.
Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks did not identify the suppliers or the vehicles affected but said there were four different problems across several North American plants that had been resolved. He said Ford would not recoup all of the lost production in the fourth quarter.
Excluding one-time items, Ford reported earnings of 24 cents per share, which beat estimates of 19 cents from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Shanks attributed that beat to North American operating results and lower tax rates.
Ford's profit margin of 7.1 percent in North America lagged the 9.5 percent that crosstown rival General Motors Co reported on Thursday. Excluding recall costs, Ford's margin would have been 10.2 percent.
The last time GM's North American margin was higher than Ford's was the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Barclays.
Higher vehicle prices added nearly $600 million to Ford’s earnings, almost half of that derived from North America.
Ford last month warned that its pretax profit this year would be $6 billion, down from a previous forecast of $7 billion to $8 billion, and that recall costs in North America would be $1 billion. About $630 million of those costs came in the third quarter.
Net income fell to $835 million, or 21 cents per share, from $1.27 billion, or 31 cents per share, a year earlier.
Ford continued to lose money in Europe and in South America while being profitable in Asia as well as North America.
The loss in Europe widened to $439 million from $182 million a year earlier, mainly due to weakness in Russia.
Ford continued its gains in China, where it reached 4.7 percent market share, its highest yet.
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
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Hacker sentenced to 21 months in U.S. prison for $15 million scheme
By Joseph Ax
NEW YORK Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:52pm EDT
A magnifying glass is held in front of a computer screen in this picture illustration taken in Berlin May 21, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Massachusetts man was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Friday for his role in a cybercrime scheme that hacked accounts at banks, brokerage firms and government agencies in an attempt to steal more than $15 million, U.S. prosecutors said.
Robert Dubuc, 41, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to commit access device fraud and identity theft in federal court in New Jersey in April. U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan in Trenton imposed the sentence on Friday.
A co-defendant, Oleg Pidtergerya, pleaded guilty to the same charges and is scheduled for sentencing in December.
Prosecutors said the two men were members of an international cybercrime ring led by Oleksiy Sharapka and Leonid Yanovitsky of Kiev, Ukraine, who have also been indicted but remain at large.
The group hacked into accounts in 2012 and 2013 at global banks and other institutions, including Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, the U.S. Department of Defense, PayPal and others, and diverted funds into accounts and debit cards they controlled, prosecutors said.
The group then used “cash out” crews to tap the stolen funds by withdrawing cash from ATMS and making fraudulent purchases, according to prosecutors. Dubuc operated a crew out of Massachusetts, while Pidtergerya led a crew in New York, the government said.
Eight individuals have been charged in the case.
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Deutsche Bank braces for $1.3 billion in U.S., UK Libor fines: sources
FRANKFURT Fri Oct 24, 2014 1:10pm EDT
A man walks past Deutsche Bank offices in London December 5, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Luke MacGregor
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) is bracing to pay almost 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for Libor-related fines as it nears a deal with U.S. and UK authorities to settle allegations it attempted to manipulate the benchmark interest rate, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The bank has already paid 6.1 billion euros in the past two and a half years as it attempts to clear a backlog of litigation and investigations, of which the Libor settlement is considered to be the most important.
"People are doing everything to get this issue off of the table by the end of the year," said one of the sources, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
A spokesman for the United States Department of Justice declined to comment.
The bank has never publicly revealed how much it has put aside for specific legal risks like the Libor case.
Deutsche Bank already settled with European antitrust regulators over Libor and its euro equivalent Euribor last year, agreeing to pay 725 million euros.
(1 US dollar = 0.7888 euro)
(Reporting by Kathrin Jones and Arno Schuetze, Editing by Thomas Atkins and Edward Taylor)
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U.S. says Palestinian-American killed by Israeli forces
RAMALLAH West Bank Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:22pm EDT
1 of 3. Israeli police detain a Palestinian youth following clashes after Friday prayers in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Wadi al-Joz October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly
RAMALLAH West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian-American youth during clashes on Friday, the U.S. State Department said, calling for a quick and transparent investigation.
Orwah Hammad, 14, was shot in the head in the village of Silwad, north of the Palestinian seat of government in Ramallah.
An Israeli army spokesman told Reuters Israeli forces "managed to prevent an attack when they encountered a Palestinian man hurling a molotov cocktail at them on the main road next to Silwad. They opened fire and they confirmed a hit."
The military said it would investigate the shooting, which occurred amid other clashes in Arab areas in and around Jerusalem in which several people were lightly injured.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called for a "speedy and transparent investigation."
"The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a U.S. citizen minor who was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces during clashes in Silwad on October 24," Psaki said.
She added that U.S. officials would remain "closely engaged with the local authorities, who have the lead on this investigation."
Tensions have flared as the Jewish Sukkot holiday has brought increased visits by Jews accompanied by Israeli police to the Jerusalem holy site known to them as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary, with its al-Aqsa mosque complex.
Palestinians fear the visits, along with the moving-in of dozens of Israeli settlers to homes in a crowded Arab district in the shadow of the holy compound, aim to deepen Israel's claim to the city as its eternal and indivisible capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in a 1967 war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally, for the capital of a future state.
On Wednesday, a Jewish baby girl was killed and eight people were hurt when a Palestinian man slammed his car into pedestrians at a Jerusalem light railway stop on Wednesday, in what police described as a deliberate attack. The driver was shot dead.
Her death followed the running-over and killing of Palestinian girl Enas Shawkat, 5, by an Israeli motorist driving in the West Bank in a village just north of Silwad. Her death enraged Palestinians but Israeli investigators determined it was an accident and the driver was not arrested.
Palestinians want to establish statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in a 1967 war. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but has since expanded settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Mutual acrimony has risen since the July-August war between Israel and Hamas militants that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians - mostly civilians - and over 70 Israelis, almost all of them soldiers.
U.S.-mediated peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in April.
(Reporting By Ali Sawafta; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Tom Brown)
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Canada vows tougher laws as citizens worry in face of attacks
By Randall Palmer, Richard Valdmanis and Leah Schnurr
OTTAWA Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:03pm EDT
1 of 11. Sentries return to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during a ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Blair Gable
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada vowed on Friday to toughen laws against terrorism in ways that critics say may curtail civil liberties as a country that prides itself on its openness mourned the second soldier this week killed by homegrown radicals.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined a crowd at the National War Memorial in Ottawa to mark the death of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was shot by a troubled and drug-addicted convert to Islam on Wednesday while on ceremonial guard at the memorial in the center of the country's capital.
Behind the somber scenes, Harper and his Conservative colleagues scrambled to beef up anti-terrorism legislation that was already in the works before the attacks. An opinion poll showed a majority of Canadians lacked confidence in their security services' ability to deter homegrown threats.
Investigators said there was no apparent link between the two attackers - one killed a soldier in Quebec and the other killed Cirillo in Ottawa, before they themselves were shot dead - but Canadians worried about the parallels between them.
Police said both were Canadian citizens who had been radicalized, a term the government uses to refer to Canadians who become supporters of militant groups such Islamic State.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government would act swiftly to toughen security laws and would go beyond the terms of a bill to strengthen the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spy agency that was already being drafted before this week's incidents.
"We're looking ... to see if there is a way in fact to improve or build on those elements of the Criminal Code that allow for pre-emptive action, specifically in the area of terrorism," MacKay told reporters in Brampton, Ontario.
A government source said legislation to be introduced next week on the spy agency would be largely unchanged from the bill that was being prepared before Wednesday's Ottawa attack. The government will put forward more measures later, the source said, and they will include wider powers to address security threats in the wake of the attacks.
JOURNEY HOME
The body of Cirillo began the journey to his hometown on Friday, in a last ride along the nation's "Highway of Heroes." Thousands lined portions of the 500-kilometer (300-mile) route and flocked to overpasses, hanging flags as a sign of respect.
Police believe that the Ottawa gunman, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, acted alone and independently of Martin Rouleau, 25, who on Monday drove over two soldiers in Quebec, killing one of them, Patrice Vincent, a 53-year-old warrant officer.
The back-to-back attacks on uniformed soldiers on Canadian soil has sparked a national debate over the power to counter threats while holding on to some civil liberties.
"I don't believe that when it comes to enforcement that we should just turn a blank checkbook over to our security services," said Norman Boxall, an Ottawa lawyer, who predicted the new CSIS measures would be challenged in court.
In Istanbul, packets of an unidentified yellow powder were sent to five western consulates on Friday, including the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Belgium, officials said. It was not immediately clear what the powder was and results of tests on them were due on Monday. Sixteen people were hospitalized as a precaution.
FRAGILE SITUATION
An opinion poll by the Angus Reid Institute found that some 55 percent of Canadians were not confident in the ability of police to thwart attacks by homegrown radicals.
Some 66 percent of the 1,491 people polled online Oct. 21-23 said they would prefer authorities to focus on securing the nation's borders and dealing with homegrown threats, rather than prioritizing foreign military intervention or foreign aid.
The poll had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
Fears of a backlash against Muslims also grew as a mosque in Cold Lake, Alberta, was vandalized. Windows were smashed and someone wrote "go home" and "Canada" on the building in red paint. The town is home to the military base from which Canada sent six fighter jets to take part in air strikes against Islamic State militants.
"This shows how fragile the situation can be if it is not properly managed," Imam Syed Soharwardy, founder of Muslims Against Violence, said of the Cold Lake vandalism.
Soharwardy led a memorial service for the dead soldiers in a
packed makeshift prayer hall in Calgary, where he urged the Muslim community to report any harassment to police.
"We cannot take abuse because of one or two people who committed these crimes. We condemn them more than anybody."
Canada's left-leaning opposition New Democrats have already begun to raise concerns about the loss of civil liberties that may come hand-in-hand with tougher police powers.
Muslim groups in particular urged against too much power being given to security and intelligence forces.
"I think those amendments have to be balanced," said Aasim Rashid, director of religion for the B.C. Muslim Association. "We should not go overboard on this, to the point where we're just targeting and apprehending individuals that we don't need to."
(Additional reporting by Nia Williams in Calgary, David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Euan Rocha in Brampton, Ontario; Writing by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Howard Goller and Peter Galloway)
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Exclusive: Ford to overhaul Lincoln brand, this time with big bucks
By Paul Lienert and Bernie Woodall
DETROIT Fri Oct 24, 2014 5:16pm EDT
The company logo is seen on the bonnet of a Ford car during the media day ahead of the 84th Geneva Motor Show at the Palexpo Arena in Geneva March 5, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann/Files
DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co's (F.N) new chief executive, Mark Fields, is giving the automaker's long-moribund Lincoln brand what his predecessor Alan Mulally never could: a little love and a lot of cash.
Lincoln, a storied Detroit brand which Ford has owned since 1922, has been in a swoon for the past two decades, leaving dealers and customers wondering if Ford management had left the brand for dead.
Now, with the renewed backing of Executive Chairman Bill Ford and the company's board, Fields has committed the automaker to a multiyear, multibillion-dollar overhaul of Lincoln that includes a significant investment in a new premium vehicle platform that will underpin several future Lincoln vehicles, four sources told Reuters.
Ford could spend $5 billion or more over the next five years to revive Lincoln, revamp its product portfolio and reposition it as a true competitor to such global luxury leaders as Daimler AG's (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz and BMW AG (BMWG.DE), the sources said. Details of the new platform and the size and scope of the investment have not previously been reported.
"It's really important for us to have a relevant and vibrant luxury brand," Fields told Reuters on Friday. "You need to make the investment and build this brand over time."
He declined to discuss details about Ford's spending and product plans.
Fields said Ford is looking at the Lincoln rebuilding effort "in terms of generations of products," an effort that will stretch well into the next decade.
Ford executives said last month that the immediate goal of the latest Lincoln turnaround effort is to triple the brand's global sales to 300,000 vehicles by 2020.
Several industry analysts have challenged that mark as overly optimistic, as have some former Ford executives who spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity.
A longer-range target is to restore Lincoln's luster as a premium automotive marque in the United States and build it into a formidable competitor in China, where Ford is just now launching the brand years after most of its global luxury rivals entered the China market. On Friday, Ford delivered its first Lincoln in China, an MKZ sedan.
The springboard for the Lincoln revival plan is a new family of vehicles that will be built on a highly flexible premium platform that can be configured for front-, rear- and all-wheel-drive vehicles, according to industry sources familiar with Ford's plans.
That is a critical element that has been lacking in several previous, under-financed attempts to resuscitate the brand. Versions of the platform will be used by both the Lincoln and Ford brands, the sources said.
Former CEO Mulally, who stepped down in July, declined to make more than a nominal investment in Lincoln - and even considered selling or closing the brand, according to two sources.
But his successor, Fields, has directed his management team to try to reverse a long-term U.S. sales skid that has seen Lincoln sink from the No. 1 spot in 1998 to eighth place among luxury brands, with about half the sales of General Motors Co's (GM.N) Cadillac and one-quarter the sales of segment leader Mercedes. Last year, Lincoln sales were 81,694, less than half of the 187,121 cars it sold in 1998.
FLEXIBLE DESIGN
The revival effort is backed by the first significant investment in Lincoln in years, one that will see every product redesigned or replaced over the next five years.
Ford already has spent about $2 billion on Lincoln in the past two years, according to one source, about half of that to prepare for the brand's introduction this week in China and half to update and expand its product stable to tide Lincoln over until the new family of vehicles is ready toward the end of the decade.
Ford has said in some years it spent only $500 million or less on Lincoln. In September, the automaker told investors it plans to spend more than $2.5 billion through 2019 on Lincoln product development, facilities and tooling.
But that figure does not include spending on engineering, advertising and other sales-related expenses for Lincoln, Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks told Reuters on Friday.
Much of the new investment is earmarked for development and tooling of the new premium platform, known internally as D6, sources said. The development is being overseen by new Lincoln President Kumar Galhotra, an engineer.
The flexible architecture of the D6 will provide the mechanical base for a wide variety of sedans and crossovers starting in 2019, all designed to give Lincoln more differentiation from its Ford-branded siblings, as well as a stronger foundation on which to build more competitive luxury models to pit against the sector leaders.
Before the first of the new D6-based models arrive, Lincoln will update most of its existing products, starting with a redesigned MKX midsize crossover in spring 2015 and a replacement for the MKS large sedan in spring 2016, sources said. The latter model will include a long-wheelbase version with more room inside for Chinese customers, Galhotra said.
The Navigator fullsize utility vehicle is slated for an extensive overhaul in autumn 2017, according to sources, when it will share a version of the new Ford F-150 chassis and will get aluminum body panels.
A redesign of the compact MKC crossover is tentatively scheduled in autumn 2018, the sources said.
The first of the all-new D6 models, due in 2019, are a midsize sedan that could replace the MKZ and a large seven-passenger crossover that could replace the MKT, sources said. Both new models are expected to be offered in front- and all-wheel-drive versions.
(Editing by Eric Effron and Matthew Lewis)
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Two U.S. states to quarantine health workers returning from Ebola zones
By Ellen Wulfhorst and David Morgan
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:01pm EDT
1 of 16. Cleaning crews with 'Bio Recovery Corporation' prepare to work at the building where Dr. Craig Spencer lives in New York October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York and New Jersey will automatically quarantine medical workers returning from Ebola-hit West African countries and the U.S. government is considering the same step after a doctor who treated patients in Guinea came back infected, officials said on Friday.
The steps announced by the two states, which go beyond the current restrictions being imposed by President Barack Obama's administration on travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, came as medical detectives tried to retrace the steps in New York City of Dr. Craig Spencer, who tested positive for Ebola on Thursday.
The new policy applies to medical workers returning from the region through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. In the first instance of the new move, a female healthcare worker who had treated patients in West Africa and arrived at the Newark, New Jersey, airport was ordered into quarantine.
"Voluntary quarantine is almost an oxymoron," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. "We've seen what happens. ... You ride a subway. You ride a bus. You could infect hundreds and hundreds of people."
Cuomo, who appeared at a news conference with the governor of neighboring New Jersey, Chris Christie, had earlier in the day sought to reassure New Yorkers that Ebola's threat was limited the day after Spencer tested positive for the virus.
In Washington, Obama also sought to reassure a worried public with an Oval Office hug of Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who was declared Ebola-free on Friday after catching the virus from a Liberian patient who died.
As concerns over the possible spread of Ebola eased, U.S. stocks closed out their best week since January 2013. [.N]
But Republican lawmakers, many of whom for weeks have called for a tougher response to Ebola, continued their criticism of the administration at a congressional hearing.
Cuomo said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had agreed that individual states have the right to exceed federal requirements.
A federal quarantine of healthcare workers returning to the United States from the three West African countries was one of a number of options being discussed by administration officials, Tom Skinner, a CDC spokesman, told Reuters.
Spencer, 33, who spent a month with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, was the fourth person diagnosed with the virus in the United States and the first in its largest city.
Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York's health commissioner, said Spencer was awake and talking to family and friends by cellphone and was listed in stable condition in Bellevue Hospital's isolation unit. Meanwhile, workers in biohazard gear began cleansing Spencer's apartment in upper Manhattan.
The virus is not airborne but is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person who is showing symptoms.
The Obama administration has implemented a series of steps aimed at preventing the further spread of Ebola in the United States but has stopped short of a travel ban on people from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea called for by some politicians.
The United States is funneling travelers from those countries through five airports conducting special screening for signs of infection and is requiring them to report to health authorities for the 21-day Ebola virus incubation period. The airports include a New York City airport and a New Jersey airport that serve the metropolitan area.
"We want to strike the right balance of doing what is best to protect the public’s health while not impeding whatsoever our ability to combat the epidemic in West Africa. Our risk here will not be zero until we stop the epidemic there," Skinner said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined to discuss the possibility of a nationwide quarantine policy but said "these kinds of policy decisions are going to be driven by science" and the advice of medical experts.
NURSE RELEASED
Pham, one of two nurses from a Dallas hospital infected with Ebola after treating the first patient diagnosed with the disease in the United States, walked out smiling and unassisted from the Bethesda, Maryland, hospital where she was treated.
Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the CDC also confirmed that the other nurse, Amber Vinson, no longer had detectable levels of virus but did not set a date for her to leave that facility.
Pham, who was transferred to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, from the Dallas hospital on Oct. 16, thanked her doctors at a news briefing.
Looking fit in a dark blazer and a turquoise blouse, Pham said that even though she no longer is infected, "I know that it may be a while before I have my strength back." She said she looked forward to seeing her family and her dog.
Photos of the Oval Office meeting showed Obama hugging Pham. Reporters and television cameras were not allowed in for the meeting.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he could not pinpoint any one factor that contributed to Pham’s speedy recovery. He said it could be any of a number of factors, including the fact that “she's young and very healthy” and was able to get intensive care very quickly.
Spencer finished his work in Guinea on Oct. 12 and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Oct. 17. Six days later, he was quarantined at Bellevue Hospital with Ebola. The three previous cases diagnosed in the United States were in Dallas.
Three people who had close contact with Spencer were quarantined for observation. The doctor's fiancée was among them and was isolated at the same hospital, and all three were still healthy, officials said.
The worst Ebola outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976 has killed at least 4,877 people and perhaps as many as 15,000, predominantly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Spencer's case brought to nine the total number of people treated for Ebola in U.S. hospitals since August. Just two, the nurses who treated Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, contracted the virus in the United States. Duncan died on Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where Pham and Vinson were infected.
Obama's response to Ebola ran into fresh criticism from Republicans during the congressional hearing.
Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, who chairs the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, blasted the "bumbling" administration response, saying it had been characterized by missteps and ill-considered procedures to protect U.S. healthcare workers at home and troops in West Africa.
Local officials told New Yorkers they were safe even though Spencer had ridden subways, taken a cab and visited a bowling alley in Brooklyn between his return from Guinea and the onset of symptoms. Authorities on Friday declared the bowling alley safe.
(Additional reporting by Edward McAllister, Sebastien Malo, Frank McGurty, Barbara Goldberg, Luc Cohen, Robert Gibbons, Natasja Sheriff, Frank McGurty, Jonathan Allen, Ellen Wulfhorst and Laila Kearney in New York, and Bill Trott, Steve Holland, David Morgan and Toni Clarke in Washington; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumkaer)
View the original article here
'We won't pay,' furious Cameron tells EU over surprise bill
By Alastair Macdonald
BRUSSELS Fri Oct 24, 2014 3:59pm EDT
1 of 2. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron gestures during a news conference after an EU summit in Brussels October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Christian Hartmann
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - In a vivid display of fury at European Union technocrats, British Prime Minister David Cameron refused to pay a surprise 2.1-billion-euro bill on Friday as EU leaders ordered an urgent review of the calculations used.
Eurosceptics at home branded the EU a "thirsty vampire" for seeking an additional, immediate sum worth a seventh of London's annual payment following a major statistical review of national incomes. Cameron demanded action from fellow leaders at a summit, calling the sudden bill "completely unacceptable".
He found some sympathy. Cameron told reporters Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi lambasted "bureaucrats without a heart", who made it harder to fend off the attacks of Eurosceptics.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which like France is to get a refund in the same exercise, offered understanding for the peremptory way such a hefty demand was made - though she said Cameron did not tell his fellow leaders he would not pay at all.
"He just had concerns about the short deadline," she said.
But in a show of anger in front of television cameras that some found at odds with a more collegial atmosphere in the summit room, Cameron said: "It's an appalling way to behave.
"I'm not paying that bill on Dec. 1. If people think I am, they've got another thing coming. It is not going to happen."
EU ministers will hold an emergency meeting on the issue next month. Cameron said he wanted to understand the technical calculations and was also ready to mount a legal challenge.
EU officials insisted the revision, which also saw Italy, the Netherlands and even crisis-hit Greece asked to pay much more for the share of EU costs, was part of an annual statistical exercise handled by civil servants, not politicians.
CALCULATIONS QUESTIONED
Jose Manuel Barroso, outgoing president of the European Commission, defended his staff, telling a news conference the system was designed by national governments that provided the income data on which payments were calculated.
He said the EU executive would explain the calculation to ministers but there was no question of changing what countries had themselves determined were their gross national incomes.
Cameron noted that annual revisions to the payments had never been so great. EU officials called it an effect of a once-in-a-generation review of how national incomes are calculated, which found Britain was richer than it had previously declared.
Officials at EU statistics office Eurostat said that was a result mainly of taking more account of money flowing in 2002-09 to non-profit organizations ranging from churches and universities to trade unions, charities and sports clubs.
However, governments have little awareness of how other states may be amending their income calculations until the data is put together by Eurostat in the final weeks, leaving the size of any budget adjustment open to potential surprises.
The apparent lack of awareness of the political sensitivity of such big adjustments this year overshadowed a day of summitry intended to review efforts to revive economic growth. The leaders also came up with 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of cash commitments to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
After an EU deal to curb climate change overnight, the anger on Friday at Brussels' officials may dampen the final week of the present Commission led by Barroso. He will make way for incoming President Jean-Claude Juncker on Nov. 1 after 10 years in charge of the European Union's executive branch.
"POLITICAL" APPROACH
Juncker has pledged a "very political" rather than technocratic approach to try to regain the trust of the half-billion people in the EU, many of whom are turning to anti-EU parties like the UK Independence Party.
But, Cameron warned, the latest row made it harder for him to make the case to British voters that they should stay in the 28-nation bloc.
Cameron has demanded reforms and plans a referendum on EU membership if he manages to secure re-election next May.
His Eurosceptic opponents, gaining ground fast on his Conservative Party, accused the premier of misleading voters.
"David Cameron once claimed that he had reduced the EU budget, but the UK contribution went up and now, quite incredibly, our contribution goes up a second time. It's just outrageous," said UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
"The EU is like a thirsty vampire feasting on UK taxpayers' blood. We need to protect the innocent victims who are us."
Even Cameron's pro-European Liberal Democrat coalition partners, led by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, said it was unacceptable to change membership fees "at the drop of a hat".
Several fellow EU leaders urged Britain to respect long-standing EU rules and not blow an accounting exercise out of proportion. Finland's prime minister said Cameron should not make "mountains out of molehills".
Alexander Stubb said, however: "I think it's very important that we don't start treating the EU as some sort of a simplified accounting exercise." He noted that Britain gets a rebate on its EU bill every year, unlike Finland.
After that rebate, worth 5.9 billion euros this year, Britain was due to pay 14.7 billion euros into the EU's 140 billion-euro annual budget. Germany is by far the biggest net contributor, followed by France and Italy.
RISING EUROSCEPTICS
Merkel offered more sympathy: "I too was astonished," she said. "No one cast doubt on the calculation, but it's not so simple to pay 2 billion euros within a few weeks."
The request for additional funding came at an awkward time for Cameron, with a general election due in May with UKIP cutting into his Conservatives' share of the vote.
The Eurosceptic party looks likely to win a second seat in parliament on Nov. 20, when a lawmaker who resigned from the Conservatives is standing for UKIP in a by-election in southern England. The budget row is a gift to UKIP for that ballot.
Anti-EU right-wingers in Cameron's own party also sought to exploit the issue ahead of a referendum on EU membership that he has promised for 2017 if the Conservatives win next year's national election.
John Redwood, a leading anti-EU Conservative lawmaker, said: "He should first of all decline to pay. He should make it very clear that the UK doesn’t accept retrospective taxation."
(1 US dollar = 0.7891 euro)
(Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Paul Taylor in Brussels and Andrew Osborn, Sarah Young and Michael Holden in London; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
View the original article here
BRUSSELS Fri Oct 24, 2014 3:59pm EDT
1 of 2. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron gestures during a news conference after an EU summit in Brussels October 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Christian Hartmann
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - In a vivid display of fury at European Union technocrats, British Prime Minister David Cameron refused to pay a surprise 2.1-billion-euro bill on Friday as EU leaders ordered an urgent review of the calculations used.
Eurosceptics at home branded the EU a "thirsty vampire" for seeking an additional, immediate sum worth a seventh of London's annual payment following a major statistical review of national incomes. Cameron demanded action from fellow leaders at a summit, calling the sudden bill "completely unacceptable".
He found some sympathy. Cameron told reporters Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi lambasted "bureaucrats without a heart", who made it harder to fend off the attacks of Eurosceptics.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which like France is to get a refund in the same exercise, offered understanding for the peremptory way such a hefty demand was made - though she said Cameron did not tell his fellow leaders he would not pay at all.
"He just had concerns about the short deadline," she said.
But in a show of anger in front of television cameras that some found at odds with a more collegial atmosphere in the summit room, Cameron said: "It's an appalling way to behave.
"I'm not paying that bill on Dec. 1. If people think I am, they've got another thing coming. It is not going to happen."
EU ministers will hold an emergency meeting on the issue next month. Cameron said he wanted to understand the technical calculations and was also ready to mount a legal challenge.
EU officials insisted the revision, which also saw Italy, the Netherlands and even crisis-hit Greece asked to pay much more for the share of EU costs, was part of an annual statistical exercise handled by civil servants, not politicians.
CALCULATIONS QUESTIONED
Jose Manuel Barroso, outgoing president of the European Commission, defended his staff, telling a news conference the system was designed by national governments that provided the income data on which payments were calculated.
He said the EU executive would explain the calculation to ministers but there was no question of changing what countries had themselves determined were their gross national incomes.
Cameron noted that annual revisions to the payments had never been so great. EU officials called it an effect of a once-in-a-generation review of how national incomes are calculated, which found Britain was richer than it had previously declared.
Officials at EU statistics office Eurostat said that was a result mainly of taking more account of money flowing in 2002-09 to non-profit organizations ranging from churches and universities to trade unions, charities and sports clubs.
However, governments have little awareness of how other states may be amending their income calculations until the data is put together by Eurostat in the final weeks, leaving the size of any budget adjustment open to potential surprises.
The apparent lack of awareness of the political sensitivity of such big adjustments this year overshadowed a day of summitry intended to review efforts to revive economic growth. The leaders also came up with 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of cash commitments to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
After an EU deal to curb climate change overnight, the anger on Friday at Brussels' officials may dampen the final week of the present Commission led by Barroso. He will make way for incoming President Jean-Claude Juncker on Nov. 1 after 10 years in charge of the European Union's executive branch.
"POLITICAL" APPROACH
Juncker has pledged a "very political" rather than technocratic approach to try to regain the trust of the half-billion people in the EU, many of whom are turning to anti-EU parties like the UK Independence Party.
But, Cameron warned, the latest row made it harder for him to make the case to British voters that they should stay in the 28-nation bloc.
Cameron has demanded reforms and plans a referendum on EU membership if he manages to secure re-election next May.
His Eurosceptic opponents, gaining ground fast on his Conservative Party, accused the premier of misleading voters.
"David Cameron once claimed that he had reduced the EU budget, but the UK contribution went up and now, quite incredibly, our contribution goes up a second time. It's just outrageous," said UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
"The EU is like a thirsty vampire feasting on UK taxpayers' blood. We need to protect the innocent victims who are us."
Even Cameron's pro-European Liberal Democrat coalition partners, led by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, said it was unacceptable to change membership fees "at the drop of a hat".
Several fellow EU leaders urged Britain to respect long-standing EU rules and not blow an accounting exercise out of proportion. Finland's prime minister said Cameron should not make "mountains out of molehills".
Alexander Stubb said, however: "I think it's very important that we don't start treating the EU as some sort of a simplified accounting exercise." He noted that Britain gets a rebate on its EU bill every year, unlike Finland.
After that rebate, worth 5.9 billion euros this year, Britain was due to pay 14.7 billion euros into the EU's 140 billion-euro annual budget. Germany is by far the biggest net contributor, followed by France and Italy.
RISING EUROSCEPTICS
Merkel offered more sympathy: "I too was astonished," she said. "No one cast doubt on the calculation, but it's not so simple to pay 2 billion euros within a few weeks."
The request for additional funding came at an awkward time for Cameron, with a general election due in May with UKIP cutting into his Conservatives' share of the vote.
The Eurosceptic party looks likely to win a second seat in parliament on Nov. 20, when a lawmaker who resigned from the Conservatives is standing for UKIP in a by-election in southern England. The budget row is a gift to UKIP for that ballot.
Anti-EU right-wingers in Cameron's own party also sought to exploit the issue ahead of a referendum on EU membership that he has promised for 2017 if the Conservatives win next year's national election.
John Redwood, a leading anti-EU Conservative lawmaker, said: "He should first of all decline to pay. He should make it very clear that the UK doesn’t accept retrospective taxation."
(1 US dollar = 0.7891 euro)
(Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Paul Taylor in Brussels and Andrew Osborn, Sarah Young and Michael Holden in London; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
View the original article here
NYC police say hatchet attack by Islam convert was terrorism
By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK Fri Oct 24, 2014 6:22pm EDT
1 of 2. A man holding a hatchet is seen in a still image from surveillance video provided by the New York Police Department October 23, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/NYPD/handout via Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The hatchet-wielding man who wounded two New York City police officers, one of them critically, was a self-radicalized convert to Islam who is believed to have acted alone in what law enforcement officials on Friday called a terrorist attack.
The suspect, Zale Thompson, who was shot dead by two other officers on Thursday afternoon on a street in the borough of Queens, had made anti-Western postings on social media and visited websites associated with several radical Islamic groups, police said at a news conference.
A search of computers seized from the home of Thompson's father in Queens, where the 32-year-old man lived, showed he also spent time reading online about beheadings, a recent intrusion at the White House and attacks in Canada.
"This was a terrorist attack," Commissioner William Bratton said.
Investigators were trying to determine whether Thompson, a black man who converted to Islam two years ago, had any connection to an area mosque. Police said the social media postings of the man described as an unemployed recluse were "anti-government, anti-Western, anti-white."
Still under investigation was the extent of planning involved in the attack, which appeared to be unprovoked and somewhat spontaneous, Bratton said.
"The fact that he was walking around with a hatchet in the backpack makes it clear this individual had some sense of preparation," Bratton said.
The attack on Thursday, which took place in a shopping district, unfolded in a matter of seconds, police said. A group of four police officers were posing for a freelance photographer when Thompson charged them, swinging the hatchet. One officer was struck in the arm and another in the head before the other two officers opened fire, killing Thompson.
A 29-year-old female bystander was struck in the lower back by a stray bullet and critically wounded.
Kenneth Healey, the 25-year-old officer hit in the head, remains in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital, Bratton said.
The officer struck in the arm, Joseph Meeker, 24, was treated at the hospital and released, he added.
Thompson, who was involuntarily discharged from the Navy in 2003 for undisclosed reasons, lived with his father at a home in Queens, but had stayed at his mother's residence the night before the incident, Bratton said.
Police detectives are still conducting interviews to piece together the details Thompson's past and what may have led him to become violent, the commissioner said.
Police already have some information about him, however. Thompson was arrested in southern California six times between 2002 and 2003, likely for domestic disputes, New York Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.
At age 16, in 1998, Thompson was the victim of an assault, he said.
(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg and Frank McGurty; Editing by Sandra Maler)
View the original article here
25 European banks set to fail health checks: sources
By John O'Donnell and Andreas Framke
FRANKFURT Fri Oct 24, 2014 3:27pm EDT
An illuminated euro sign is seen in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the late evening in Frankfurt January 8, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Kai PfaffenbachFRANKFURT (Reuters) - A group of 25 banks have failed European health checks, while up to 10 of those continue to have a capital shortfall, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday, providing a snapshot of the health of the region's lenders.
The health checks, led by the European Central Bank, found that banks in countries including Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia and Portugal had fallen short of a minimum capital benchmark at the end of last year and that up to 10 remained in difficulty now, the sources said.
Banks in Spain and France had fared, by and large, better than expected.
The result, which has yet to be finalised by the ECB's governing council on Sunday, provides the most complete picture yet of the robustness of the euro zone's top 130 lenders.
Those banks with shortfalls will now have two weeks to submit a plan to bolster their capital to the European Central Bank (ECB), which will decide whether or not it gets the green light.
A spokesman for the ECB said the test results had not yet been finalised, describing reports in the meantime as speculative.
"The results will not be final until they are considered by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank on Sunday 26 October, after which they will be published," he said.
European banking shares dipped briefly on Friday after Bloomberg News reported that 25 banks within the euro zone would fail the ECB "stress test".
Portugal's finance minister Maria Luis Albuquerque said on Friday that the Lisbon government was confident that the country's three largest banks had fared well in the stress tests.
The Austrian finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling, said only Volksbanken AG OTWp.VI was "stress burdened" and the test revealed no surprises, according to the Austria Press Agency. Volksbanken had already said it would wind itself down.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) passed the ECB-led stress test by a wide margin with a core equity ratio of 8.8 percent compared to a minimum requirement of 5.5 percent, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.
Juergen Fitschen, co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank and president of the BdB association of German private-sector banks, said the results probably gave his country's banks a clean bill of health.
Shares in the Italian banks considered most at risk of failing the euro zone health checks, including bailed out lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), were sharply higher on Friday as investors counted on them doing better than expected.
"Investors are betting that one of the most problematic banks in the euro zone could pass the stress tests with fewer problems than previously thought," said Vincenzo Longo, strategist at broker house IG.
(Reporting By John O'Donnell, Jan Strupczewski in Brussels and Andreas Framke in Frankfurt; Editing by Paul Carrel and Elaine Hardcastle)
الجمعة، 24 أكتوبر 2014
بالصور والأسماء .. ننشر تفاصيل فضيحة رفع الأثقال في كازاخستان
يبحث اتحاد رفع الاثقال برئاسة محمود محجوب عن مخرج للفضيحة التي تعرض لها المنتخب الوطني في كازاخستان حيث قرر فتح تحقيق في الواقعة ومعرفة المتسبب فيها .
كان المنتخب المصري قد تعرض لمهزلة أثناء توجههم الى كازاخستان للدخول في معسكر مغلق قبل انطلاق بطولة العالم المؤهلة لدورة الألعاب الأوليمبية بالبرازيل 2016 حيث رفضت سلطات الدولة المضيفة دخول لاعبي مصر لعدم حصول البعثة على تأشيرات الدخول وقامت السلطات باحتجاز البعثة المصرية لأكثر من ست ساعات لتقرر بعدها ترحيلها الى القاهرة عبر رحلة ترانزيت في مطار استانبول لتعود البعثة الى القاهرة في الخامسة من مساء الأربعاء .
اتحاد الاثقال من جانبه أكد وصول خطاب من وزارة الخارجية في باكستان عبر اتحاد بلادهم وهو كفيل بدخول البعثة بالحصول على تأشيرات من مطار الدولة المضيفة لكن فات على الاتحاد المصري ومديره التنفيذي وادارييه ان قانون كازاخستان يقر أن أي دولة لها تمثيل دبلوماسي معها يتحتم عليها الحصول على تأشيرة الدخول عبر سفارتها بهذه الدولة مما يعنى انه كان من الضروري حصول البعثة المصرية على تأشيرات الدخول من سفارة كازاخستان بالقاهرة .
وإذا كنا نحمل اتحاد الاثقال مسئولية الفضيحة فوزارة الخارجية المصرية تتحمل جزءًا من المسئولية خاصة بعد اتصال البعثة المصرية أثناء تواجدها بمطار كازاخستان بالسفارة المصرية هناك وفشلت السفارة في حل الأزمة في الوقت الذي تتدخل فيه سفارات دول أخرى بقوة لحل أي أزمة تقابل بعثاتها الرياضية لكن سفارات مصر بالخارج تتجاهل البعثات الرياضية باستثناء كرة القدم التي تحظى باهتمام حتى يظهر مسئولو السفارات في الاعلام .
جدير بالذكر أن بعثة مصر تضم اللاعبين أحمد سعد ومحمد إيهاب وماجد عماد وإبراهيم رمضان وطارق يحيى ورجب عبدالحي وأحمد عبدالعزيز ومحمد إحسان.
واللاعبات بسمة عماد واسراء السيد وسارة سمير وسمر حبشي وشيماء خلف وحليمة عبد العظيم ومعهم خالد قرني مدير فني ومحمد عثمان واسماعيل السنوسي مدربان وثروت البنداري إدارى سيدات وعلاء حسن إداري رجال.
كان المنتخب المصري قد تعرض لمهزلة أثناء توجههم الى كازاخستان للدخول في معسكر مغلق قبل انطلاق بطولة العالم المؤهلة لدورة الألعاب الأوليمبية بالبرازيل 2016 حيث رفضت سلطات الدولة المضيفة دخول لاعبي مصر لعدم حصول البعثة على تأشيرات الدخول وقامت السلطات باحتجاز البعثة المصرية لأكثر من ست ساعات لتقرر بعدها ترحيلها الى القاهرة عبر رحلة ترانزيت في مطار استانبول لتعود البعثة الى القاهرة في الخامسة من مساء الأربعاء .
اتحاد الاثقال من جانبه أكد وصول خطاب من وزارة الخارجية في باكستان عبر اتحاد بلادهم وهو كفيل بدخول البعثة بالحصول على تأشيرات من مطار الدولة المضيفة لكن فات على الاتحاد المصري ومديره التنفيذي وادارييه ان قانون كازاخستان يقر أن أي دولة لها تمثيل دبلوماسي معها يتحتم عليها الحصول على تأشيرة الدخول عبر سفارتها بهذه الدولة مما يعنى انه كان من الضروري حصول البعثة المصرية على تأشيرات الدخول من سفارة كازاخستان بالقاهرة .
وإذا كنا نحمل اتحاد الاثقال مسئولية الفضيحة فوزارة الخارجية المصرية تتحمل جزءًا من المسئولية خاصة بعد اتصال البعثة المصرية أثناء تواجدها بمطار كازاخستان بالسفارة المصرية هناك وفشلت السفارة في حل الأزمة في الوقت الذي تتدخل فيه سفارات دول أخرى بقوة لحل أي أزمة تقابل بعثاتها الرياضية لكن سفارات مصر بالخارج تتجاهل البعثات الرياضية باستثناء كرة القدم التي تحظى باهتمام حتى يظهر مسئولو السفارات في الاعلام .
جدير بالذكر أن بعثة مصر تضم اللاعبين أحمد سعد ومحمد إيهاب وماجد عماد وإبراهيم رمضان وطارق يحيى ورجب عبدالحي وأحمد عبدالعزيز ومحمد إحسان.
واللاعبات بسمة عماد واسراء السيد وسارة سمير وسمر حبشي وشيماء خلف وحليمة عبد العظيم ومعهم خالد قرني مدير فني ومحمد عثمان واسماعيل السنوسي مدربان وثروت البنداري إدارى سيدات وعلاء حسن إداري رجال.
الثلاثاء، 14 أكتوبر 2014
8 Very Useful Blogs you should follow if you want to learn Spanish
Language learning is not an easy task to do and requires a lot of effort, hard work, passion and resources. If you have a lot of passion but haven’t got good resources, then the effort is in vain.
Therefore we have selected a very useful list of what we think are the current Top Blogs for learning Spanish. Pin the following sites to your favourites because, if you are really interested in improving your Spanish, you will be using them very often.
My Spanish Adventure is a blog written by adventurous Will Peach, who left his 9-5 London lifestyle to learn Spanish to fluency and figure out what to see in Spain while living on the cheap. In the blog you can find tips about learning Spanish as well s post about Spanish culture, food, lifestyle, etc.
One of the best Spanish blogs on tumblr. La Dragonaria, as she calls herself, is a clever and enthusiastic Spanish language lover. In her blog she posts tons of really informative content about the Spanish language, its heritage, rules and tips with wonderful and detailed explanations. A really useful resource if you are interested in knowing the depths of the Spanish language!
Speaking Latino focuses on the Spanish spoken in South America, so you if you are interested in learning “Latino Spanish”, this is the blog to follow. The site is full of resources about the language and specially about how slangis used in the different Spanish speaking countries. If you want to learn how to use cojones! check Speaking Latino right now!
Notes in Spanish is a website offering audio lessons but they also have a lively blog where you can find information about Spanish and Spain. The website is made by a couple (English guy and Spanish girl) and they make the lessons in a casual way with a funny touch and friendly conversations.
Spanish Boone is another great Spanish tumblr blog. Many people ignore the quantity and quality of information and help they can find on social sites as tumblr. Boone, the average hombre, as he describes himself curates a great blog where you can find vocabulary, in-depth explanations, all grammar points and topics, Spanish learning resources, and basically anything that might involve the language. And he absolutely loves helping people! So, don’t be shy and visit him and ask if you need.
In How to Learn Spanish, Andrew will show you how to learn Spanish using his method “The Telenovela method”, using books, comics, videos, music, etc. This language geek knows what he is talking about and refuses to learn any language using the traditional method of memorizing hundreds of words and proposes a different approach.
This blog contains hundreds of posts on vocabulary, movies, street language, tip, tricks and more. The blog is written by Amit who is “obsessed with languages in more ways than one and who didn’t know any, other than English, until he turned 23.”
8. And last but not least, Spanish at About.com, a really great resource who many might ignore, but that it’s full of useful information on grammar, pronunciation, history and culture. Curated by Gerald Erichsen a professional and expert in the Spanish language.
We recommend using these resources to get an insight into the Spanish culture, vocabulary, improve your listening skills and grammar. It’s possible to learn Spanish on your own following blogs, reading books and doing language exchange for example, but we highly advise you to try to get help from a professional tutor as well. An experienced tutor can help you improve the areas where you are weaker as well as encourage you through the process of learning a new language.
You can check our native and professional Spanish tutors, we offer a free 30 min trial lesson, so why not try and see how it goes?
We hope you enjoyed the list! Do you know any other useful blogs that would like to recommend? We would love to hear!
Facing new oil glut, Saudis avoid past mistakes to halt price slide
By Rania El Gamal
DUBAI Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:09am EDT
1 of 2. A view of the Khurais oilfield, about 160 km (99 miles) from Riyadh, June 23, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Ali Jarekji
DUBAI (Reuters) - Still haunted by its failed attempt to prevent a steep drop in oil prices by slashing production by almost three quarters in the 1980s, the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is determined not to make the same mistake again.
The oil glut of the 1980s, the early days of the modern crude market and a distant memory for most traders, has resurfaced recently in conversations with Saudi officials and veteran analysts who see it as the defining moment behind the kingdom's new strategy to protect medium-term market share.
While the latest 25-percent slide in oil prices to below $90 a barrel is so far modest compared with the 1980s slump that took crude from $35 to below $10, many observers see similarities in a global market that is on the brink of a pivotal turn from an era of scarcity to one of abundance.
Three decades ago, the spike in prices caused by the 1973 Arab oil embargo and Iran's 1979 revolution sapped global oil demand, while the discovery of oil in the North Sea spurred a new influx of non-OPEC crude.
With world markets awash in oil, Saudi Arabia embarked on a strategy of defending prices, which at the time were largely set by exporters rather than the nascent futures market. The kingdom slashed its own output from more than 10 million barrels per day in 1980 to less than 2.5 million bpd in 1985.
Other producers failed to follow suit, however, both within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and among new petroleum powers such as Britain and Norway. Prices fell into a years-long slump, leading to 16 years of Saudi budget deficits that left the country deeply in debt.
Finally, in late 1985, Riyadh shifted gears, revving up output and cutting prices in a move that triggered a final slump in markets but ultimately paved the way for a gradual recovery.
"The big mistake was that they continued to cut production to try to prop the prices and the price fell anyway," said analyst Yasser Elguindi of Medley Global Advisors.
Instead they should have fought for market share, allowing "higher cost producers to shut in as the price fell - which is what they are doing now.”
Last week, Saudi officials briefed oil market participants in New York on the kingdom's shift in policy, making clear for the first time that Saudi is prepared to tolerate a period of lower prices - perhaps as low as $80 a barrel - in order to retain market share, Reuters reported on Monday.
Saudi Arabia is not trying to push oil prices down, an oil source said, but is prepared to let the market find its floor and tolerate lower prices until others in OPEC commit to action. It has already cut selling prices to retain Asian customers.
Saudi Arabia "may be saying 'Don't expect us to somehow shoulder the responsibility for managing the whole oil market'," said Sadad al-Husseini, a former top executive at state-run Saudi Aramco.
Brent crude oil LCOc1 traded below $88 a barrel on Tuesday, its lowest in almost four years, as traders realize that Saudi Arabia is in no hurry to curb the emerging oil glut. [O/R]
1980s GHOSTS
The grim circumstances of the 1980s dominated the formative years of King Abdullah's rule, when as de facto regent during the long illness of his predecessor King Fahd, he embarked on painful economic reforms that paved the way for years of growth.
Then in the late 1990s, as prices weakened during the Asian debt crisis, the Saudis declined to cut production.
"Instead, when Venezuela suggested it might produce at a maximum rate, the Kingdom indicated it would do the same," said Philip K. Verleger, president of consultancy PKVerleger LLC and a former adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
The result was prices fell back to 1986 levels and only recovered after the Saudis changed tack and along with other OPEC and non-OPEC members cut output.
Fast forward to 2014, Riyadh now wants to preempt a price collapse without sacrificing production levels or market share.
In the 1980s, it was a drop in U.S. and European consumption coupled with the rise of the North Sea; now it is fears of easing demand from Asia and the unexpected growth of U.S. shale oil.
The net effect is the same: An oil market potentially facing years worth of oversupply, a scenario the Saudis and OPEC have not been forced to grapple with since the early 2000s, before the rise of China triggered a decade-long price boom.
Fellow Gulf Arab ally and OPEC exporter Kuwait has already said that OPEC is unlikely to cut oil production in an effort to prop up prices because such a move would not necessarily be effective. Venezuela became the first member to call for an emergency meeting to defend $100 oil.
OPEC DISUNITY
Another similarity: OPEC disunity.
During the 1980s, Riyadh learned the hard way that it could not count on fellow OPEC producers, many of whom continued to pump at higher rates than their agreed-upon quotas, leaving Saudi Arabia to bear the brunt of output cuts.
Much of the disharmony was on public display. Iran and Iraq were engaged in an eight-year all-out war. Accusations by Iraq that Kuwait had been pumping above its OPEC quota led ultimately to the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.
It was not until late 1985 that the issue came to a head. The kingdom and OPEC finally agreed to reclaim market share, driving prices down to $10 a barrel but reestablishing themselves in the market. It took 16 years for prices to fully recover.
"They decided they had enough – they were the swing producer and they increased production and drove prices down dramatically," said Dr. Gary Ross, chief executive of PIRA Energy Group, who has followed oil markets since the 1970s.
This time around, Riyadh appears to be taking that stance from the start, with a focus on preserving the medium-term revenue of its 266 billion barrels of crude oil reserves rather than chase falling prices and sacrifice their market.
"From an economics point of view, it’s much better to let prices go way down," says Verleger. The emerging price war is "a war of necessity."
(Writing by Rania El Gamal, additional reporting by Jonathan Leff in New York; editing by Angus McDowall and Jason Neely)
View the original article here
DUBAI Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:09am EDT
1 of 2. A view of the Khurais oilfield, about 160 km (99 miles) from Riyadh, June 23, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Ali Jarekji
DUBAI (Reuters) - Still haunted by its failed attempt to prevent a steep drop in oil prices by slashing production by almost three quarters in the 1980s, the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is determined not to make the same mistake again.
The oil glut of the 1980s, the early days of the modern crude market and a distant memory for most traders, has resurfaced recently in conversations with Saudi officials and veteran analysts who see it as the defining moment behind the kingdom's new strategy to protect medium-term market share.
While the latest 25-percent slide in oil prices to below $90 a barrel is so far modest compared with the 1980s slump that took crude from $35 to below $10, many observers see similarities in a global market that is on the brink of a pivotal turn from an era of scarcity to one of abundance.
Three decades ago, the spike in prices caused by the 1973 Arab oil embargo and Iran's 1979 revolution sapped global oil demand, while the discovery of oil in the North Sea spurred a new influx of non-OPEC crude.
With world markets awash in oil, Saudi Arabia embarked on a strategy of defending prices, which at the time were largely set by exporters rather than the nascent futures market. The kingdom slashed its own output from more than 10 million barrels per day in 1980 to less than 2.5 million bpd in 1985.
Other producers failed to follow suit, however, both within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and among new petroleum powers such as Britain and Norway. Prices fell into a years-long slump, leading to 16 years of Saudi budget deficits that left the country deeply in debt.
Finally, in late 1985, Riyadh shifted gears, revving up output and cutting prices in a move that triggered a final slump in markets but ultimately paved the way for a gradual recovery.
"The big mistake was that they continued to cut production to try to prop the prices and the price fell anyway," said analyst Yasser Elguindi of Medley Global Advisors.
Instead they should have fought for market share, allowing "higher cost producers to shut in as the price fell - which is what they are doing now.”
Last week, Saudi officials briefed oil market participants in New York on the kingdom's shift in policy, making clear for the first time that Saudi is prepared to tolerate a period of lower prices - perhaps as low as $80 a barrel - in order to retain market share, Reuters reported on Monday.
Saudi Arabia is not trying to push oil prices down, an oil source said, but is prepared to let the market find its floor and tolerate lower prices until others in OPEC commit to action. It has already cut selling prices to retain Asian customers.
Saudi Arabia "may be saying 'Don't expect us to somehow shoulder the responsibility for managing the whole oil market'," said Sadad al-Husseini, a former top executive at state-run Saudi Aramco.
Brent crude oil LCOc1 traded below $88 a barrel on Tuesday, its lowest in almost four years, as traders realize that Saudi Arabia is in no hurry to curb the emerging oil glut. [O/R]
1980s GHOSTS
The grim circumstances of the 1980s dominated the formative years of King Abdullah's rule, when as de facto regent during the long illness of his predecessor King Fahd, he embarked on painful economic reforms that paved the way for years of growth.
Then in the late 1990s, as prices weakened during the Asian debt crisis, the Saudis declined to cut production.
"Instead, when Venezuela suggested it might produce at a maximum rate, the Kingdom indicated it would do the same," said Philip K. Verleger, president of consultancy PKVerleger LLC and a former adviser to U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
The result was prices fell back to 1986 levels and only recovered after the Saudis changed tack and along with other OPEC and non-OPEC members cut output.
Fast forward to 2014, Riyadh now wants to preempt a price collapse without sacrificing production levels or market share.
In the 1980s, it was a drop in U.S. and European consumption coupled with the rise of the North Sea; now it is fears of easing demand from Asia and the unexpected growth of U.S. shale oil.
The net effect is the same: An oil market potentially facing years worth of oversupply, a scenario the Saudis and OPEC have not been forced to grapple with since the early 2000s, before the rise of China triggered a decade-long price boom.
Fellow Gulf Arab ally and OPEC exporter Kuwait has already said that OPEC is unlikely to cut oil production in an effort to prop up prices because such a move would not necessarily be effective. Venezuela became the first member to call for an emergency meeting to defend $100 oil.
OPEC DISUNITY
Another similarity: OPEC disunity.
During the 1980s, Riyadh learned the hard way that it could not count on fellow OPEC producers, many of whom continued to pump at higher rates than their agreed-upon quotas, leaving Saudi Arabia to bear the brunt of output cuts.
Much of the disharmony was on public display. Iran and Iraq were engaged in an eight-year all-out war. Accusations by Iraq that Kuwait had been pumping above its OPEC quota led ultimately to the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.
It was not until late 1985 that the issue came to a head. The kingdom and OPEC finally agreed to reclaim market share, driving prices down to $10 a barrel but reestablishing themselves in the market. It took 16 years for prices to fully recover.
"They decided they had enough – they were the swing producer and they increased production and drove prices down dramatically," said Dr. Gary Ross, chief executive of PIRA Energy Group, who has followed oil markets since the 1970s.
This time around, Riyadh appears to be taking that stance from the start, with a focus on preserving the medium-term revenue of its 266 billion barrels of crude oil reserves rather than chase falling prices and sacrifice their market.
"From an economics point of view, it’s much better to let prices go way down," says Verleger. The emerging price war is "a war of necessity."
(Writing by Rania El Gamal, additional reporting by Jonathan Leff in New York; editing by Angus McDowall and Jason Neely)
View the original article here
Growth fears weigh on major shares, dollar up after big slide
By Nigel Stephenson
LONDON Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:38am EDT
A woman holding a parasol stands as passers-by walk past an electronic board showing Japan's Nikkei average, outside a brokerage in Tokyo September 25, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai
LONDON (Reuters) - Deepening concern over the health of the global economy dragged shares in Europe and Japan lower on Tuesday, while the dollar rebounded from big declines the previous day.
With figures showing a slump in demand growth, oil prices fell. Brent crude dropped to below $88 a barrel.
Low-risk government bonds were in demand. U.S. 30-year Treasury yields fell below 3 percent for the first time since early 2013. A slide in German investor sentiment - the latest blow to the euro zone's economic engine - drove yields on the country's 10-year debt DE10YT=TWEB to a record low.
UK gilt yields GB10YT=RR also dropped after inflation slowed more than expected, leading some investors to add to bets the Bank of England will not raise interest rates until well into 2015.
European shares fell for the seventh session in 10. The FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 was down 0.9 percent. British luxury brand Burberry (BRBY.L) fell 4.4 percent after warning of worsening conditions in some of its markets.
Smaller rival Mulberry (MUL.L) tumbled 17 percent after warning full-year pre-tax profit would be significantly below expectations.
Tokyo's Nikkei share average .N225 fell 2.4 percent, hitting lows last seen in mid-August, as traders got back to their desks following a holiday on Monday, though other Asian shares fared better. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.3 percent.
Wall Street looked set to open higher, with stock index futures SPc1 signaling modest gains.
Investors have cut exposure to riskier assets on worries about the U.S. Federal Reserve's ending its bond-buying stimulus later this month, mounting risks of recession in the euro zone and a floundering Japanese economy.
Instead, they turned to low-risk government bonds, the Japanese yen and gold.
"There remains a palpable concern amongst investors that the worst may still be to come. The market is aware that tapering is due to end later this month and they are also aware that that means the next move for the Federal Reserve is to hike interest rates," said Angus Campbell, senior analyst at FxPro in London.
"At a time when global growth is fast becoming a worry, the combination of the two does not sit well with investors."
DOLLAR RISES
The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of others .DXY, rebounded after falling as much as 1 percent on Monday, its largest one-day drop in a year.
The dollar was up 0.8 percent against the euro, which lost further ground after the ZEW index of German investor morale fell below zero for the first time in nearly two years. The euro last traded at $1.2650.
The yen was all but steady at 106.85 to the dollar JPY=. Sterling GBP= fell as far as $1.5947, an 11-month low.
The divergence in monetary policies in the United States on the one hand and the euro zone, where many expect the European Central Bank to launch an asset-purchase program known as quantitative easing (QE), and Japan on the other helped push the dollar to a two-year high versus the euro and a six-year peak against the yen at the start of October.
U.S. 30-year bonds last yielded 2.94 percent, compared with 3.009 percent at Friday's close. The market was shut on Monday.
German 10-year yields fell as low as 0.847 percent in the wake of the ZEW data.
"Economic concerns are so much in focus now that the risk-off sentiment is more dominant currently than the QE effect," DZ Bank strategist Daniel Lenz said.
Brent crude futures last traded at $87.79 a barrel, down 1.2 percent, having hit a four-year low of $87.74 on Monday.
The International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for oil demand growth in 2015 and said prices may drop further.
Kuwait has said OPEC is unlikely to cut production to support prices, while Saudi Arabia has privately told oil market participants it could be comfortable with $80 per barrel.
Gold retreated from four-week highs as the German data pressured the euro against the dollar. It last traded at $1,233.15 an ounce.
(Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo, Richard Leong in New York and Patrick Graham and Jamie McGeever in London Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
View the original article here
LONDON Tue Oct 14, 2014 9:38am EDT
A woman holding a parasol stands as passers-by walk past an electronic board showing Japan's Nikkei average, outside a brokerage in Tokyo September 25, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Toru Hanai
LONDON (Reuters) - Deepening concern over the health of the global economy dragged shares in Europe and Japan lower on Tuesday, while the dollar rebounded from big declines the previous day.
With figures showing a slump in demand growth, oil prices fell. Brent crude dropped to below $88 a barrel.
Low-risk government bonds were in demand. U.S. 30-year Treasury yields fell below 3 percent for the first time since early 2013. A slide in German investor sentiment - the latest blow to the euro zone's economic engine - drove yields on the country's 10-year debt DE10YT=TWEB to a record low.
UK gilt yields GB10YT=RR also dropped after inflation slowed more than expected, leading some investors to add to bets the Bank of England will not raise interest rates until well into 2015.
European shares fell for the seventh session in 10. The FTSEurofirst 300 index .FTEU3 was down 0.9 percent. British luxury brand Burberry (BRBY.L) fell 4.4 percent after warning of worsening conditions in some of its markets.
Smaller rival Mulberry (MUL.L) tumbled 17 percent after warning full-year pre-tax profit would be significantly below expectations.
Tokyo's Nikkei share average .N225 fell 2.4 percent, hitting lows last seen in mid-August, as traders got back to their desks following a holiday on Monday, though other Asian shares fared better. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.3 percent.
Wall Street looked set to open higher, with stock index futures SPc1 signaling modest gains.
Investors have cut exposure to riskier assets on worries about the U.S. Federal Reserve's ending its bond-buying stimulus later this month, mounting risks of recession in the euro zone and a floundering Japanese economy.
Instead, they turned to low-risk government bonds, the Japanese yen and gold.
"There remains a palpable concern amongst investors that the worst may still be to come. The market is aware that tapering is due to end later this month and they are also aware that that means the next move for the Federal Reserve is to hike interest rates," said Angus Campbell, senior analyst at FxPro in London.
"At a time when global growth is fast becoming a worry, the combination of the two does not sit well with investors."
DOLLAR RISES
The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of others .DXY, rebounded after falling as much as 1 percent on Monday, its largest one-day drop in a year.
The dollar was up 0.8 percent against the euro, which lost further ground after the ZEW index of German investor morale fell below zero for the first time in nearly two years. The euro last traded at $1.2650.
The yen was all but steady at 106.85 to the dollar JPY=. Sterling GBP= fell as far as $1.5947, an 11-month low.
The divergence in monetary policies in the United States on the one hand and the euro zone, where many expect the European Central Bank to launch an asset-purchase program known as quantitative easing (QE), and Japan on the other helped push the dollar to a two-year high versus the euro and a six-year peak against the yen at the start of October.
U.S. 30-year bonds last yielded 2.94 percent, compared with 3.009 percent at Friday's close. The market was shut on Monday.
German 10-year yields fell as low as 0.847 percent in the wake of the ZEW data.
"Economic concerns are so much in focus now that the risk-off sentiment is more dominant currently than the QE effect," DZ Bank strategist Daniel Lenz said.
Brent crude futures last traded at $87.79 a barrel, down 1.2 percent, having hit a four-year low of $87.74 on Monday.
The International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for oil demand growth in 2015 and said prices may drop further.
Kuwait has said OPEC is unlikely to cut production to support prices, while Saudi Arabia has privately told oil market participants it could be comfortable with $80 per barrel.
Gold retreated from four-week highs as the German data pressured the euro against the dollar. It last traded at $1,233.15 an ounce.
(Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo, Richard Leong in New York and Patrick Graham and Jamie McGeever in London Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
View the original article here
Iliad shares leap after failure to win U.S. mobile prize
By Leila Abboud and Gwénaëlle Barzic
PARIS Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:40am EDT
The logo of French low-cost telecoms provider Iliad is pictured during the company 2013 annual results presentation in Paris March 10, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Jacky Naegelen
PARIS (Reuters) - Relieved investors sent shares in French low-cost telecom operator Iliad up 11 percent on Tuesday after it abandoned an effort to buy the fourth-largest U.S. carrier T-Mobile.
Backed by billionaire founder Xavier Niel, Iliad made an initial bid worth $15 billion and then raised it further, but was rebuffed by T-Mobile US' parent company, Deutsche Telekom. Sources told Reuters Deutsche Telekom was unconvinced by the price and by Niel's ability to run the business better than its own managers could.
The aborted U.S. foray is seen favorably by Iliad investors because many would prefer Niel focus on organic growth at home and pursue mobile consolidation by reviving talks with struggling number three mobile player Bouygues.
Bouygues shares rallied 3.9 percent at 0859 GMT (4.59 a.m. EDT). Shares of market leader Orange also rose 1.4 percent since it would benefit along with rivals from a consolidation that could calm tough price competition.
"Now that Iliad has abandoned the U.S. deal, we think it likely that French consolidation hopes will return," wrote Berenberg analysts in a note.
"On our estimates, and in our very conservative M&A scenario, if Iliad pays 8 billion euros to acquire Bouygues Telecom, the deal would remain accretive to its shareholders – without taking into account the possible upside from market repair."
Analysts at banks Kepler, Natixis, RBC and UBC upgraded ratings on Iliad. The volume of Iliad shares changing hands was at 75 percent of the daily average in the past three months.
Iliad's arrival on the mobile scene in January 2012 sparked a price war that has increased the pressure to consolidate. Mobile prices fell 27 percent last year and 11 percent in 2012, according to the telecoms regulator.
Beyond deal hopes, Iliad does face some headwinds in France. Rivals offer faster 4G mobile broadband speeds, and price erosion is hitting its broadband business, said Stephane Beyazian, an analyst at Raymond James.
Bouygues has undercut Iliad's broadband prices with a stripped down 19.99 euro per month TV, fixed phone and Internet offer, and has been gaining clients as a result. Iliad's share of broadband customer additions last quarter was about 21 percent, its lowest point since late 2011, according to the analyst.
Iliad is also racing to build out its mobile network to meet a regulatory requirement to cover 75 percent of the French population by Jan. 12, 2015. It now pays Orange to carry much of its customers traffic.
Nevertheless Beyazian said these risks are priced in at Iliad's current share levels.
Harder to quantify is whether investors will begin to apply a discount to Iliad shares to reflect the risk that founder Niel, who owns 55.35 percent of the company, will turn to other large deals in foreign markets.
"We apply a relatively small discount of 10 percent reflecting only a mild level of worry on our side," wrote Exane BNP Paribas in a note on Friday, adding that abandoning the T-Mobile deal would show financial discipline on Iliad's part.
"Iliad would not be in a hurry to find another acquisition, since [it expects] a number of years of good growth in France."
In a statement on Monday, Iliad said only that it would pursue "its profitable growth policy... in the interest of its subscribers, employees and shareholders."
(Additional reporting by Alexandre Bokenbaum-Granier; Editing by Andrew Callus)
View the original article here
PARIS Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:40am EDT
The logo of French low-cost telecoms provider Iliad is pictured during the company 2013 annual results presentation in Paris March 10, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Jacky Naegelen
PARIS (Reuters) - Relieved investors sent shares in French low-cost telecom operator Iliad up 11 percent on Tuesday after it abandoned an effort to buy the fourth-largest U.S. carrier T-Mobile.
Backed by billionaire founder Xavier Niel, Iliad made an initial bid worth $15 billion and then raised it further, but was rebuffed by T-Mobile US' parent company, Deutsche Telekom. Sources told Reuters Deutsche Telekom was unconvinced by the price and by Niel's ability to run the business better than its own managers could.
The aborted U.S. foray is seen favorably by Iliad investors because many would prefer Niel focus on organic growth at home and pursue mobile consolidation by reviving talks with struggling number three mobile player Bouygues.
Bouygues shares rallied 3.9 percent at 0859 GMT (4.59 a.m. EDT). Shares of market leader Orange also rose 1.4 percent since it would benefit along with rivals from a consolidation that could calm tough price competition.
"Now that Iliad has abandoned the U.S. deal, we think it likely that French consolidation hopes will return," wrote Berenberg analysts in a note.
"On our estimates, and in our very conservative M&A scenario, if Iliad pays 8 billion euros to acquire Bouygues Telecom, the deal would remain accretive to its shareholders – without taking into account the possible upside from market repair."
Analysts at banks Kepler, Natixis, RBC and UBC upgraded ratings on Iliad. The volume of Iliad shares changing hands was at 75 percent of the daily average in the past three months.
Iliad's arrival on the mobile scene in January 2012 sparked a price war that has increased the pressure to consolidate. Mobile prices fell 27 percent last year and 11 percent in 2012, according to the telecoms regulator.
Beyond deal hopes, Iliad does face some headwinds in France. Rivals offer faster 4G mobile broadband speeds, and price erosion is hitting its broadband business, said Stephane Beyazian, an analyst at Raymond James.
Bouygues has undercut Iliad's broadband prices with a stripped down 19.99 euro per month TV, fixed phone and Internet offer, and has been gaining clients as a result. Iliad's share of broadband customer additions last quarter was about 21 percent, its lowest point since late 2011, according to the analyst.
Iliad is also racing to build out its mobile network to meet a regulatory requirement to cover 75 percent of the French population by Jan. 12, 2015. It now pays Orange to carry much of its customers traffic.
Nevertheless Beyazian said these risks are priced in at Iliad's current share levels.
Harder to quantify is whether investors will begin to apply a discount to Iliad shares to reflect the risk that founder Niel, who owns 55.35 percent of the company, will turn to other large deals in foreign markets.
"We apply a relatively small discount of 10 percent reflecting only a mild level of worry on our side," wrote Exane BNP Paribas in a note on Friday, adding that abandoning the T-Mobile deal would show financial discipline on Iliad's part.
"Iliad would not be in a hurry to find another acquisition, since [it expects] a number of years of good growth in France."
In a statement on Monday, Iliad said only that it would pursue "its profitable growth policy... in the interest of its subscribers, employees and shareholders."
(Additional reporting by Alexandre Bokenbaum-Granier; Editing by Andrew Callus)
View the original article here
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