Factory, spending data support strong growth tone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A measure of factory activity in the U.S. Midwest rose to a 22-1/2 year high in January on strong orders and employment prospects, bolstering hopes the economy would stay on a solid growth path this year.

A second report on Monday showed consumer spending ended 2010 on a firmer footing, a trend that economists expected to continue as the labor market recovery gains traction.

The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago business barometer rose to 68.8 in January, the highest level since July 1988, from 66.8 in December. Economists had expected the index, which gives a first look at the manufacturing sector, to slip to 65.0. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the regional economy. The index was this month lifted by jump in measures for new orders and employment.

"The factory sector news is an important positive omen for the broader economy, because increased production will yield significant income generation, which in turn will fuel stronger household consumption," said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York. In a separate report, the Commerce Department said spending increased 0.7 percent in December, advancing for a sixth straight month, after rising by 0.3 percent in November.

Economists had expected spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, to increase 0.5 percent last month.

The spending figures were included in the government's fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) report released on Friday, which showed the economy grew at a 3.2 percent pace on the back of robust consumer spending.

Spending in the fourth quarter grew at a brisk 4.4 percent pace, the fastest in more than four years. While economists see spending remaining strong this year, they expect the pace of growth to be less brisk than in the last three months of 2010.

"While we doubt that the pace seen in the fourth quarter will persist in 2011, further labor market recovery and a gradual rebound in labor income should underpin solid and sustained consumption growth," said Peter Newland, an economist at Barclays Capital in New York.

Spending in December came as incomes increased 0.4 percent and savings dropped to their lowest level since March. Incomes grew 0.4 percent in November and the increase last month was in line with economists' expectations. Savings fell to $614.1 billion from $634.4 billion in November. The report also showed the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of consumer inflation -- the personal consumption expenditures price index, excluding food and energy -- was unchanged in December after edging up 0.1 percent in November. In the 12 months through December, the core PCE index rose 0.7 percent, the smallest increase since records began in 1959, after increasing 0.8 percent in November.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani and Ann Saphir in Chicago; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Wall Street gains as earnings, M&A offset Egypt concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose on Monday as solid earnings, merger activity and better-than-expected economic data renewed some of the risk appetite that evaporated last week on uncertainties over stability in the Middle East.

Wall Street posted its biggest one-day loss in nearly six months on Friday as anti-government rioting in Egypt sparked a flight to less risky assets. The uprising continued on Monday, but investors seemed to have calmed down.

"I think it would take more than protests in Egypt to take this market down. The earnings continue to come in better than expected, but I am looking for a correction," said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 33.15 points, or 0.28 percent, at 11,856.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 6.95 points, or 0.54 percent, at 1,283.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 7.17 points, or 0.27 percent, at 2,694.06.

Stocks held gains even after technology bellwether Intel Corp fell 1 percent to $21.24 after cutting its first-quarter revenue forecast by $300 million due to costs for correcting a design flaw in one of its chips.

"It doesn't have any impact for the balance of the sector. This is a very Intel specific thing," said Nicholas Aberle, semi-conductor analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott in San Francisco. "It's a negative for Intel because it has to clean up the mess, but there is no competition for Intel for this type of chip."

The M&A activity, typically a sign of confidence in the market, included Alpha Natural Resources, which fell 7.5 percent to $53.51 after it agreed to a $7.1 billion deal to buy Massey Energy Co, which would create the second largest U.S. coal miner by market value.

Massey shares jumped 10 percent to $62.94.

The merger and earnings action offset the fears of political unrest spreading to oil-producing Middle Eastern countries.

In other M&A action, CNOOC Ltd will pay $1.3 billion in its second shale deal with America's Chesapeake Energy Corp, the latest move by China's top offshore oil producer in its aggressive drive for overseas acquisitions.

Chesapeake advanced 5.7 percent to $28.91.

Exxon Mobil Corp gained 1.1 percent to $79.85 after the world's largest publicly traded oil company reported a higher-than-expected 53 percent increase in quarterly profit.

The Commerce Department said U.S. consumer spending rose in December for a sixth straight month, while a separate report showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest grew more than expected in January.

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong, Ryan Vlastelica, Editing by Leslie Adler)

Hearst to Buy Lagardere’s Magazine Unit for $889 Million

Lagardère, the French media conglomerate, said on Monday that it had agreed to sell its international magazine business, including titles like Car and Driver and non-French editions of Elle, to the American publishing company Hearst for 651 million euros.

The deal, worth about $889 million, came after a month of exclusive negotiations. Lagardère has been seeking to streamline its sprawling international operations and focus more on the domestic media business, following shareholder pressure to improve its performance.

Arnaud Lagardère, the chief executive and the son of the company founder, Jean-Luc Lagardère, said in a conference call that the international magazine unit lacked the scale to compete effectively in the United States and other markets, a problem that became more acute during the recent downturn in advertising.

The businesses that are being sold include 102 publications in 15 countries or territories, with 774 million euros in revenue last year. Lagardère will retain the French edition of Elle, as well as the trademark, and will collect royalties from the international versions of that magazine. The company said it would continue to “guarantee the consistency” of the Elle brand in the areas affected by the sale: the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Britain, China, Japan, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Mexico, Taiwan, Canada and Germany.

Lagardère, which also owns the Hachette publishing house and Paris Match magazine, has been moving to shed assets that the company no longer considers strategic. Mr. Lagardère, who also wants to sell a 20 percent stake in the French pay-television channel Canal Plus, has been building up the company’s presence in businesses like sports management.

Analysts also expect Lagardère to try to sell a 7.5 percent stake in EADS, the parent of the airplane manufacturer Airbus.

mary harvey

 i did not invite you to continue talking about your personal business. There are more things that are of paramount importance to our community, We want to deal with this and move on.”

Harvey appeared to agree with this saying that she has been silent lately as she was thinking what this scandal would do to their families and the community, adding that “keeping quiet hasn’t served me physically. It hasn’t served our son. I have suffered physically because of it. I’m not in good health right now.”



Mary Harvey, comedian Steve Harvey’s wife has appeared this morning on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, where the radio host said he wanted to help find them a solution in this scandal they have started. Joyner said: How did this start? Steve Harvey filed a suit against Mary in Texas, accusing her of turning Oprah against him, making him miss the opportunity of having his own show on the Oprah Winfrey Network. Mary then made a series of videos for Youtube accusing Steve of cheating on her and leaving her broke.

Mary said to Joyner that her intentions were to expose Harvey as he really is, clearly NOT a relationship expert. “I think the apology should be given to the women who have been deceived into buying the books and who have perceived him as being a pillar of the community,” she said.

She also talked about how this affects the development of her son: “My other concern is for my son who is in [Steve’s] house and is looking to his father as a role model. What he’s learning is that it’s not good to support your wife.”

Joyner finally said that he would try to arrange a meeting between the two to overcome this problem once and forever. He ended the interview saying “Steve and I are friends – we might be friends after this, I don’t know.”

groundhog day 2011

Punxsutawney, Pa., will have its annual day in the sun (or clouds) on Wednesday.

But while the Pennsylvania town's forecasting groundhog may be the most famous weather-predicting animal, he's sure not the only one.

We at Surge Desk certainly want to know when winter will wrap up, so we've decided to get the best possible idea of what the future holds by looking at the many upstarts who would love to share Punxsutawney Phil's fame -- and maybe knock him down a peg or two.

Buckeye Chuck
Ohio has depended on this fellow as its official weather-forecasting groundhog since 1979.

Staten Island Chuck
Staten Island Chuck, whose full name is the regal Charles G. Hogg, lives at the Staten Island Zoo. He has one very powerful enemy: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom the groundhog bit during the 2009 Groundhog Day ceremony.

sag award winners

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The 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards paved the way for what could become a big night at the upcoming Academy Awards for The King's Speech. First the Colin Firth-lead drama beat out Black Swan and The Social Network for Best Picture. Then Firth won the Best Actor award which included a strong field of competitors such as Jeff Bridges in True Grit. With these wins following identical wins at the Golden Globes, The King's Speech should be considered the favorite to walk away with Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
In the lead actress category, Natalie Portman unsurprisingly won for her performance in Black Swan. The Supporting Actor and Actress nods went both came from The Fighter with Christian Bale and Melissa Leo coming out on top.
On the TV side, Claire Danes won Best Actress in a TV Movie for her memorable performance in Temple Grandin while Al Pacino won the guys side for You Don't Know Jack.
The Comedy Series Ensemble award went to ABC's Modern Family. It's cast did not figure into the Best Actress and Actor awards, however. Those went to Betty White for Hot in Cleveland and Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock.
HBO scored a big win with the freshman show Boardwalk Empire which beat out Mad Men and Dexter for Best Drama Series. Boardwalk Empire also produced the Best Actor in a Drama with Steve Buscemi, while Julianna Margulies won Best Actress for The Good Wife.

US set to fly thousands of Americans from Egypt

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department is set to evacuate U.S. citizens from Egypt on chartered planes, but is relying largely on friends and families in the U.S. to relay that information to stranded Americans.
The charters were flying out of Cairo and Assistant Secretary of State Janice Jacobs said the U.S. was looking at Athens, Greece; Istanbul, Turkey; and Nicosia, Cyprus, as destinations.
The U.S. Embassy in Cyprus said the first flights were expected to arrive there early Monday.
Jacobs told reporters Sunday that she expects it will take several flights over the coming days to handle the number of Americans who want to leave Egypt, where rioters are threatening to overturn the ruling regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Jacobs acknowledged that Internet interruptions in Egypt are making it difficult for Americans there to get information about the evacuations. But she said they have been able to get information from people in the United States who do have access to State Department and embassy websites.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed for an orderly transition to lasting democracy in Egypt even as escalating violence threatened Mideast stability. She refused to speculate on Mubarak's future and his teetering government, but said U.S. officials "obviously want to see people who are truly committed to democracy, not to imposing any ideology on Egyptians."
She warned Sunday against a takeover resembling the one in Iran, with a "small group that doesn't represent the full diversity of Egyptian society" seizing control and imposing its ideological beliefs.
The U.S. wants to see "real democracy" emerge in Egypt, Clinton said, "not a democracy for six months or a year and then evolving into essentially a military dictatorship or a so-called democracy that then leads to what we saw in Iran."
Clinton. who was interviewed on five Sunday morning news shows, made clear there are no discussions at this time about cutting off aid to Egypt, which receives about $1.5 billion in annual foreign assistance from the U.S. to help modernize its armed forces and strengthen regional security and stability. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said Friday that military and civilian aid was under review.
Jacobs said the U.S. will have enough flights to take out all American citizens and dependents who want to leave. And the U.S. may also send charter planes to other cities in Egypt, such as Luxor, if there are a number of Americans stranded there. She said Americans with tickets on commercial airlines should first contact those carriers about getting out.
Americans taking the charter will be billed for the cost of the flight and will need to make their own travel arrangements home after arriving in Europe.
According to the State Department there are about 52,000 Americans registered with the embassy in Cairo. Officials noted, however, that many people don't register -- or deregister when they leave -- and some Americans may not want to leave.
Americans looking for information on the flights should monitor the State Department and embassy websites or send an e-mail to egyptemergencyusc(at)state.gov. They can also call toll-free, 1-888-407-4747, from within the U.S. and Canada. From outside the U.S. and Canada people can call 1-202-501-4444.

Unrest in Egypt Unsettles Global Markets

NEW YORK — For investors, it is what is known as an exogenous event — a sudden political or economic jolt that cannot be predicted or modeled but sends shockwaves rippling through global markets.

Investors have largely shrugged off several of these unexpected developments recently, including the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, but the situation in Egypt has the potential to cause more widespread uncertainty, especially if oil and other commodities keep surging or the unrest spreads to more countries in the Middle East.

While Egypt’s banks and stock market were closed because of the protests there, other Middle Eastern markets declined in trading Sunday, with shares falling by 4.3 percent in Dubai, 3.7 percent in Abu Dhabi and 2.9 percent in Qatar. The markets rebounded slightly in early Monday trading.

By Monday afternoon, Asian markets were also trending lower, with the Nikkei 225 index in Japan falling 1.2 percent, while the Kospi in Seoul slid 1.8 percent and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 0.7 percent.

Even though the Asian-Pacific region has little direct exposure to Egypt, the unrest there helped damp investors’ risk appetite, which was already low before the Lunar New Year holiday later this week, analysts at DBS in Singapore wrote in a note.

Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average nearly surpassed the closely watched 12,000 level, but fell 166 points in late trading Friday as the protests in Egypt intensified and oil prices jumped 3.7 percent to $89.34.

With the United States economy seeming to gain a foothold only recently — government data released Friday showed the economy grew by 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 — a sustained increase in oil prices could choke growth, analysts said. It could also undermine the more general optimism that lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by 1.5 percent in January, after a 12.8 percent jump in 2010.

“A one-dollar, one-day increase in a barrel of oil takes $12 million out of the U.S. economy,” said Jason S. Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington research group. “If tensions in the Mideast cause oil prices to rise by $5 for even just three months, over $5 billion dollars will leave the U.S. economy. Obviously, this is not a strategy for creating new jobs.”

In early electronic trading on the Nymex oil futures market Monday afternoon in Asia, prices edged higher to $89.45 a barrel.

Until now, the stock market in the United States has defied several outside threats, including the rising risk of food inflation, interest rate increases in China, and sovereign debt troubles in Europe, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist of Standard & Poor’s Equity Research.

“But as is usually the case, a boxer never gets knocked out by a punch he’s looking for,” he said. “This could be what triggers the decline. Geopolitical events are very, very hard to model.”

Egypt is not an oil exporter, nor is its stock market a regional heavyweight. As the home of the Suez Canal and the nearby Sumed pipeline, however, it is one of a handful of spots classified as World Oil Transit Chokepoints by the Energy Department, and events there can have an outsize impact on global energy prices.

The 141-year-old canal is just 1,000 feet wide at its narrowest, and it cannot handle supertankers, forcing shippers to rely on the pipeline or smaller vessels to move the crude.

Roughly 2.9 millions barrels of oil a day, 2.6 percent of global production, passed through the canal and the pipeline in 2009, the Energy Department said.

As a percentage of world oil demand, that may not sound like much, said William H. Brown III, a former Wall Street energy analyst who consults for hedge funds and financial institutions.

“But prices are determined at the margin and that’s a lot of oil in markets these days,” said Mr. Brown, who estimates global spare production capacity at 2.5 million barrels, the bulk of it in Saudi Arabia.

While prices are set globally, the immediate impact of any interruption would be felt primarily in Europe, which relies heavily on jet fuel, heating oil and other distillates refined in the Middle East and shipped via the canal and pipeline. Israel is also a major importer of Egyptian natural gas under a pact that dates to the 1978 Camp David accords.

Any widening of the unrest beyond Egypt, meanwhile, could lead to a broader fallout for Asia and the rest of the world.

“Asian countries’ exports to Egypt account for less than 1 percent of total exports,” analysts at Nomura wrote in a research note. “The key risk to Asia — most notably to India — is if social unrest and economic disruptions in Tunisia and Egypt spread. The direct negative impact on Asian growth would be through weaker exports, but indirect effects through higher commodity prices on the terms of trade, inflation and growth should not be underestimated.”

Egypt is a major player in the global grain market, importing more wheat than any other country. Some analysts have speculated that Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries might increase grain purchases to placate angry consumers, which could eventually push wheat prices higher.

Given the confrontations with authorities in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities, many analysts expect oil prices, and global markets, to remain volatile in the coming days, even as the opposition in Egypt rallies around Mohamed ElBaradei.

“I would expect regional markets to remain very unsettled because we don’t look any closer to a political resolution than we did on Friday,” said Ann Wyman, head of emerging markets research in Europe for Nomura. “Instability in the Middle East makes global markets uncomfortable. We’ve entered a new and unpredictable phase of transitioning governments in the Middle East.” Still, a few investors are looking for opportunities in the Middle East and Egypt itself despite the declines there and the expected instability. Egyptian stocks are inexpensive compared with shares in other markets, said David Marcus, chief investment officer of Evermore Global Advisors. “This is one of the oldest economies on earth.”

“We have to start doing our homework,” he added, noting that another troubled Mediterranean bourse, in Athens, has rallied sharply this year, after Greece’s near-default in 2010. “Egypt is pulling down the region because people panic and don’t ask questions. That makes us much more interested.”

Modern Family Star: "Stupid" Feud With Glee Now "Totally Fine"

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Modern Family beat out Glee tonight for best comedy at the SAG Awards and it seems like those two casts are always going head to head for the prize. So are they all friendly?

Certainly Ed O'Neill's maybe misconstrued comments towards Jane Lynch saying Sofia Vergara should have won the Emmy didn't help matters. "Oh my God," Modern Family's Sarah Hyland tells us about the Ed-Jane incident… READ: Jane Reacts to Ed's Comment "That was totally blown out of proportion! They took words out of his mouth. I promise he didn't say it that way."

Continued the always gorg Sarah:

"They just put bits and pieces together it was so stupid."

Ed and Sarah are tight off set, so we're not surprised she's sticking up for him.

As for how O'Neil and Lynch are?

"They are totally fine. Everything's fine.

"Ed was just, like I wish Sofia won because she's funny too. Who doesn't wish that someone from your cast wins over someone else? Who doesn't wish that? But everyone deserves the award they are getting." www.cobrorapido.com And putting the matter to rest, Hyland even says she adores Glee.

"Jane Lynch is the funniest person ever. You just always want to support your cast."

Ariel Winter, who plays Hyland's sister on the show said it's strictly a friendly competition between casts. "We'd love to win, but you know I have so many friends on Glee. They're so amazing, they have a great show. If they win I will be equally happy." But, as we know Modern Family beat out Glee (yay!).

"We all talk to each other, like congrats guys or hope you win or something like that."

Fashion Police: Tina Fey Rocks the SAG Awards!

 

Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

So 30 Rock star Tina Fey didn't take home a SAG Award tonight, she was def a winner on the red carpet!

The funnylady, who usually plays it safe in black and blue, threw caution to the wind and busted out in stunning red lace. In this Oscar de la Renta gown, elegant side 'do and pretty makeup, this is the most glamorous Tina has ever looked. Kudos, babe!

And she's not the only one who brought the glitz and glam to the red carpet.

From Natalie Portman and Nicole Kidman to Lea Michele and January Jones,

Alpha buys US coal mining rival Massey for $8.5bn

  Massey's problems began when it was involved in one of the deadliest mining accidents for decades Alpha Natural Resources is buying Massey Energy in an $8.5bn (£5.3bn) deal that will create America's second largest coal miner.

The move is further consolidation of an industry that is booming due to demand from energy-thirsty Asian economies. www.dominicanflash.com Alpha will pay cash and shares worth $7.1bn, and take on Massey's debts to create a business with 110 mines and coal reserves of 5 billion tons.
Alpha chief executive Kevin Crutchfield said the deal creates a global player.
Alpha is a key supplier of metallurgical coal used to fuel steel mills in countries such as China and India.
Mr Crutchfield said: "In terms of the next decade, the world is going to remain structurally under-supplied in high-quality metallurgical coal.
"There's just not going to be any massive new supply coming on," he said.
Massey put itself up for sale in November after posting wider losses due to an explosion that killed 29 miners in West Virginia in April - the deadliest US coal mining disaster in 40 years.
Mr Crutchfield said Alpha had done in-depth due diligence on Massey and he was "comfortable with the exposed risk" from any regulatory and legal fall-out.
The coal sector is seeing intense merger and acquisition activity. Walter Energy has bought Canadian rival Western Coal, while UK-based businessman Nat Rothschild is paying $3bn for miners in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Rio Tinto has offered $3.9bn for Africa-focused Riversdale Mining.

India's $12bn Posco steel plant gets conditional approval

India's demand for steel is growing along with the economy India's environment ministry has given conditional approval to South Korean company Posco's plan to build a steel plant in the eastern state of Orissa.

The ministry has also cleared the plant's captive port and power plant if certain conditions are met.
The $12bn plant is India's largest foreign investment project.
Last year, a government panel said that environmental clearances for the plant be scrapped. Critics say the project will exhaust iron deposits in 20 years.
India earlier rejected plans by mining giant Vedanta to extract bauxite in Orissa saying it would damage the local environment.
Monday's approval spells out 28 "extra conditions" for the steel plant and 32 conditions for the port.
They include the company spending a share of profits on corporate social responsibility, ensuring green cover at the plant site, and restrictions on construction of the port in sensitive coastal areas.
"Projects such as that of Posco have considerable economic, technological and strategic significance for the country," the environment ministry said in a statement.
"At the same time, laws on environment and forests must be implemented seriously."
Flaws

The proposed plant has been opposed by many groups

Earlier, the environment ministry set up a panel to investigate if Posco's project had been complying with the country's green law, including rehabilitating and resettling local people displaced by it.
Three of the panel's four members had recommended that environmental clearances for the project be cancelled, saying there were flaws in the manner in which it was being implemented.
The project was conceived in 2005 and is India's single biggest foreign investment.
Based in the port city of Paradip, it is expected to create nearly 50,000 jobs.
But it has been opposed by many groups who argue that Posco will exhaust Orissa's iron ore resources in two decades while creating lasting environmental damage.

Honda profits fall as strong yen hits exports

Honda has raised its full-year profit forecast 

Japanese auto manufacturer Honda has reported a 40% drop in third-quarter profits after overseas sales were hit by the strong yen.

Honda generated net profits of 81.1bn yen ($989m; £623m), down from 134.6bn yen the year before.
The firm also blamed poor sales in Japan, which have been hit by the end of government incentives to encourage more people to buy green cars.
However, Honda raised its full-year net profit forecast to 530bn yen.
The carmaker believes that a recovery in the US car market should boost sales.
Honda also said the growing sales in emerging markets during the third quarter helped it to offset the loss of revenue from more mature markets.

Eurozone inflation rate increases to 2.4%

  The increase could put pressure on the ECB to raise interest rates

The eurozone's inflation rate rose to 2.4% in January, which was higher than analysts had expected and up from December's figure of 2.2%.

The increase takes inflation further away from the European Central Bank's target of just below 2%.
The data may increase pressure on the ECB ahead of a meeting this week when it is due to review interest rates.
However, some analysts expect the bank to leave rates unchanged in expectation of cooling inflation later this year.
"While January's increase to 2.4% was at the top end of expectations, the ECB is very aware that consumer price inflation is being pushed up primarily by higher energy, commodity and food prices and the bank seems prepared to look through this for now," said Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight.

Converging on Little Egypt, With Anger and Hope

They came from every corner of Astoria, Queens: Egyptian taxi drivers, Tunisian shopkeepers and Lebanese doctors, all seeking news and commiseration through the thick and fragrant haze of hookah smoke at the Layali El Helmeya Café on Steinway Street, otherwise known as Little Egypt.  But the moment President Hosni Mubarak appeared on the cafe’s television set on Friday, announcing that he was offering to replace his government ministers but refusing to cede power, their reaction was blunt and unified. “Leave! Leave! Leave! You have no shame!” they chanted.

As tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo on Sunday for the sixth day of open revolt, here in Astoria, the heart of New York City’s Egyptian community, people reacted with hope tinged with visceral anger for an Egyptian president who they said had suppressed freedom for too long and an American president whom they accused of abetting him. www.wdalaw.com In nearly every cafe, Middle Eastern restaurant and grocery store in Little Egypt, a frenetic neighborhood that would not look out of place in Cairo, onlookers were glued to Al Jazeera over the weekend. Bearded young men fingered prayer beads and attended Friday prayers at the Al Iman Mosque, where prayers were offered for the protesters. Many despaired that they had been unable to reach their families since Mr. Mubarak shut down Egypt’s Internet and wireless service last week, in an effort to silence his opponents.

Ahmed Diaa, 29, who came to New York to study Middle Eastern politics, said he was flying back to Cairo on Sunday to join the protests. “For the first time, we feel like Egypt can have a democratic future because people are willing to put their lives on the line,” said Mr. Diaa, a former student activist who recalled being jailed and beaten by the authorities. “The police are firing on the people, but the people are not going home.”

The Egyptian community has deep roots in Astoria, stretching back to the 1960s, when residents say the first Egyptians began to arrive to escape the repressiveness of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime, and in search of a better life.

Ali El Sayed, 60, a boisterous philosopher-chef from Alexandria and the owner of Kabab Café on Steinway Street, is known by some as the unofficial Egyptian mayor of the neighborhood, having opened the first Egyptian establishment here in 1987.

Mr. El Sayed recalled how Steinway Street, named for the famous German family that opened a piano factory in Astoria in the 1870s, had transformed over the past two decades into a mini-Arabia. When Mr. El Sayed first opened his restaurant, the neighborhood, between 28th Avenue and Astoria Boulevard, was still dominated by Greeks and Italians, he said. In the 1990s, however, Lebanese immigrants, Egyptians and Tunisians set up dozens of cafes, which have long played a central role in Arab culture, in which alcohol is prohibited.

Today, there are at least 10 mosques in Astoria, several Arabic newspapers and a flourishing cultural scene that is attracting young hipsters from Manhattan. The 2006-2008 American Community Survey found that roughly 14,000 Egyptians were living in New York City, though community leaders say the actual number is higher since some are undocumented.

For some of the Egyptian-Americans of Astoria, who have long prided themselves on their assimilation into American life, the events in Egypt have tapped into divided loyalties. Many expressed support for “Barack Hussein Obama,” revered by many in the Arab world for his outreach to Muslims. But they also chastised him for what they described as his tepid rebuke of Mr. Mubarak and for American hypocrisy in the Middle East in general.

Mr. El Sayed was emphatic that he identified with both the protesters on the streets of Cairo and the man in the White House. “The U.S. has always supported tyrants, look at the shah, look at Saudi Arabia, we even supported bin Laden. So in Egypt we are now playing the same game by supporting Mubarak,” Mr. El Sayed said as he prepared his mother’s recipe for baba ghanouj, a dish of mashed eggplant. “But I would give my life for this country. We Egyptians here are American, and proud of it.”

But others said their patience with Washington was being tested. “Why doesn’t Mubarak appoint Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to his new Cabinet since they are the ones who are saving him?” asked Hani Abdulhamid, 30, a filmmaker originally from Aswan, in southern Egypt. “They say he isn’t a dictator because he works for them.”

The Obama administration has cautiously backpedaled from its previously more open support for Mr. Mubarak, America’s staunchest ally in the Arab world. The White House has cautioned Mr. Mubarak against any violence directed at the protesters and has said it would review $1.5 billion in American aid. But many Egyptian-Americans who came here to escape the repression of the Mubarak regime called on Mr. Obama to take a stronger stand.

For all the vitriol and anger, the overwhelming feeling in Astoria was one of optimism as several dozen protesters — a student draped in Egyptian flags, an Egyptian short-order cook, a Syrian woman with Gucci bags — congregated outside the Al Iman Mosque on Steinway Street on Friday to show solidarity with what they labeled, perhaps hopefully, a revolution sweeping across the Arab world.

Tanya Keilami, 25, a Palestinian studying anthropology at Columbia University, said the events in Egypt were stirring Arabs across the Middle East and had even emboldened Palestinians in New York. “This isn’t just a movement for Egypt, but for the whole Arab world,” she said, adding: “The regimes are afraid. We haven’t seen anything like this in our lifetimes.”

Back at the hookah cafe, a few lone voices whispered that they supported Mr. Mubarak, fearful that the country was tipping into civil war. But Muhammad Soliman, an engineer from Alexandria, was not one of them and had one last piece of advice for President Obama to avoid alienating Egyptians.

“Mr. Obama needs to ask himself if he wants to have 80 million people as friends instead of one friend,” he said.

Casino king Ho's family feud takes another twist

HONG KONG (AP) -- Lawyers for Stanley Ho released three videos of him Monday they say show he wants to continue with a lawsuit against family members accused of seizing the tycoon's $1.6 billion stake in his Macau casino empire.
It's yet another twist in a family feud that erupted last week over who will control Ho's interests in the world's most biggest gambling market.
Ho, who was hospitalized for seven months after reportedly undergoing brain surgery in August 2009, has 16 surviving children by four women he calls his "wives." The unfolding drama highlights a power struggle between different branches of the family for control of his lucrative gambling business.
The video clips show the 89-year-old billionaire answering questions from his lawyer, Gordon Oldham, about the dispute which became public when Hong Kong-listed casino operator Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, or SJM, said nearly all of Ho's shares were being transferred to the families of his second and third wives.
In one video dated Jan. 25, Ho tells Oldham that he was forced to sign some documents for the transfer and calls it "something like robbery."
"We still go ahead," Ho says when Oldham asks him what to do if the two families don't reply.
Ho is currently hospitalized for what Oldham said was a routine procedure involving a tube in his throat that allows him to breathe. Oldham said he plans to see Ho later Monday evening.
Ho also denies that the transfer of ownership of a holding company named Lanceford -- which indirectly owns the stake in SJM and represents the bulk of his assets -- to families of his second and third wives was part of succession plans put in place in December.
"We must get back Lanceford," Ho says.
Ho tells Oldham he wants to divide his estate equally among the four families.
The families of the second and third wives said late Sunday that Ho had dropped his lawsuit. They released a letter written in Chinese purportedly signed by Ho in which he said that he is dropping the "unnecessary steps of legal procedures" that were taken because of a recent lack of understanding and communication.
On Jan. 26, Ho appeared on television with his third wife and one of their daughters to say he was dropping the suit and firing Oldham.
But Ho tells Oldham in a video dated the same day that he was pressured into reading the statement. Oldham also asks if Ho wants him to file the suit.
"That's what I want," Ho says. He also confirms he wants Oldham to represent him.
In another video dated Jan. 30, Ho reaffirms his wishes to continue with the lawsuit. All three were filmed in the living room of his home in an upscale Hong Kong neighborhood, with nurses, bodyguards and family members present. Ho's fourth wife, Angela Leong, can be heard off-camera in the final video asking him questions.

7-Eleven Experiments With Eco-Friendly Stores

KYOTO — At the 7-Eleven across from the Shusse Inari shrine here, the glare of fluorescent light bulbs that is synonymous with convenience stores has been replaced by the soft glow of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, that consume half the energy and last much longer.
The store, which opened a year ago here in the birthplace of the Kyoto Protocol, is the prototype of the latest eco-friendly 7-Eleven, one of 100 that will be open in Japan by the end of February.

An ambitious green project calls for the company to build 100 more such stores in the country this year and to convert another 100 existing outlets into “eco-konbinis” — the Japanese term for convenience store — powered by solar energy and equipped with electric-vehicle chargers. The plan is to continue that pattern in the years ahead.

At that rate, it would take more than half a century to turn the 12,000 7-Elevens in Japan green, but the company says that as the costs of outfitting a store come down, the number of conversions is expected to go up.

And refitting a mere 100 stores as eco-konbinis will cut carbon emissions significantly — the equivalent of taking about 600 cars off the road, according to Ken Zweibel, director of the Institute for Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University in Washington.

Kozo Maeoka, the 7-Eleven regional field operation manager who is overseeing the program in Japan, said the ultimate goal was “100 percent of our stores.”

Along with the photovoltaic panels on its roof that generate as much as a third of the store’s electricity, the 185-square-meter, or 2,000-square-foot, eco-konbini in Kyoto also has a light-reflecting floor and sensors that automatically adjust the lighting.

The store’s green credentials are colorfully displayed outside in computer-generated images, complete with animated descriptions.

The main obstacle to more 7-Elevens like it is the expense: An eco-konbini costs as much as 30 percent more to build than a traditional 7-Eleven. For stores operating as franchises, that burden falls mostly on the owners, typically small businesses. For the store in Kyoto, government subsidies defrayed less than 10 percent of the cost.

But Hiroshige Ozasa, the franchisee, said that when he was negotiating the opening of a new Kyoto branch a little more than a year ago and 7-Eleven told him it wanted to use the city as a base for the eco-konbini rollout, he was not dissuaded.

“Nowadays, people in Japan are really concerned about the environment,” Mr. Ozasa said, “so I felt proud to have my store chosen to be the first one in Kyoto.”

In fact, 7-Eleven, owned by Seven & I Holdings in Japan, has been adding eco-friendly features to its stores since 2008. Its first prototype for an eco-konbini had only energy-saving lights. The third, which opened in August 2009, introduced solar panels and LEDs. The difference at the Kyoto store, the fourth model, is that it is the first outlet to combine all of those efforts plus the electric-vehicle charger.

Mr. Maeoka said the efforts were, in part, a response to a call by Yukio Hatoyama, the former prime minister, for lower greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Hatoyama made a speech to the United Nations in September 2009, at the beginning of his tenure, in which he pledged to cut Japanese emissions 25 percent by 2020.

“We decided to fulfill our social responsibilities,” Mr. Maeoka said.

7-Eleven Taiwan recently introduced a prototype similar to the one in Japan, although efforts among the 5,000 stores there are much more scattered. While the company is reticent to talk about its international plans, citing competition concerns, several stores in Taiwan have introduced energy-saving measures, although franchise owners decide for themselves how and to what extent they want to go green.

Stores in Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong are also testing LEDs, and last year, 7-Eleven U.S.A. opened its first green store in DeLand, Florida.

Throughout the United States, by contrast, big retailers like Wal-Mart, Whole Foods Market and Kohl’s have been turning to solar power in ever greater numbers. Last year, Kohl’s announced that it had 100 department stores getting more than 50 percent of their electricity from solar power. The chain, which runs nearly 1,100 U.S. stores, topped the list of big-box retailers using alternative energy there, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Similarly, large retailers in Europe, like Casino and Castorama of France, Delhaize of Belgium and Tesco of Britain, have all been wading into solar energy.

But Japanese retailers have been slower on the uptake, mainly because big-box outlets like those in the United States and Europe are less common. 7-Eleven’s two biggest competitors in Japan, Lawson and Family Mart, have tested solar-powered stores, but their reception has been much cooler.

Family Mart actually led the solar charge, opening its first shop using solar energy in 1997, but 14 years later, the company still has only two solar-powered eco-konbini and no plans to introduce more. A Lawson spokesman, Yuuki Takemoto, said the chain had rolled out 10 solar-powered stores last year. But the company, which operates 9,500 stores in Japan, does not have any plans beyond that.

Apart from its solar component, perhaps the most pioneering aspect of 7-Eleven’s eco-konbinis is the introduction of electric-vehicle chargers. In Japan, as in many countries, use of electric cars is low — in part, executives say, because of the lack of infrastructure to charge them. “It’s an important start,” Steve Gitlin, vice president of marketing strategy at AeroVironment, a California-based manufacturer of charging products for electric vehicles, said of 7-Eleven’s efforts. “It’s going to be helpful in getting people comfortable with the idea of using electric vehicles.”

And what of people’s comfort level inside the new stores? Saving the planet aside, some are put off by the muted lighting in the Kyoto 7-Eleven. “It’s a little too dark,” said Mikihiko Tsuji, a 46-year-old native of the city. Others, like Naoko Okada, 27, who lives nearby, are more supportive.

“I’ve been hearing the word ‘eco’ on TV a lot, and I think it’s great 7-Eleven cares about that,” she said. “They should do it in all their stores.”

Sony Reveals New Hand-Held Device and PlayStation Games for Phones

TOKYO — Sony will start selling a new hand-held game device by the end of the year and will offer its PlayStation games on a range of portable devices, including smartphones, the company said on Thursday.

Sony, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company, is fighting to hold its ground in a market being transformed by longtime rivals, like Nintendo, and those beyond the traditional game world, like Apple, whose iPhone has fast become the most popular device for casual, downloadable games.

Sony’s new device, code-named NGP for Next Generation Portable, comes packed with new-generation technology: with a touch pad on the front and rear — a first for a game device — a 5-inch LED screen, two sets of button controls, motion sensors, cameras on the front and back and 3G network access. The console will also use a new proprietary memory card designed to thwart piracy. By the end of the year, Sony will also make some PlayStation games available on certified portable devices, including smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, the company’s game chief, Kazuo Hirai, announced Thursday in Tokyo.

A new software platform, PlayStation Suite, will essentially act like Apple’s App store, allowing users of various devices to download PlayStation games, Mr. Hirai said. Sony also hopes to attract independent developers to make games for the platform, he said.

“It is Sony’s first cross-platform endeavor,” said Mr. Hirai, who is president of Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony’s game arm. “The possibilities to produce new kinds of entertainment are endless.”

But Sony did not display its own PlayStation phone, despite rumors and photos of mockups that have circulated on the Internet in recent months. It also did not disclose details like prices or specific release dates for the phone.

When they go on sale, the NGP and the PlayStation phones will face stiff competition.

In February, Nintendo plans to introduce in Japan the 3DS, the next model in its popular DS line of portable game players.

Since they were introduced in 2004, DS devices have outsold Sony’s PlayStation Portable models by more than two to one: 135 million units compared with 62 million units as of September. The 3DS, which can display 3-D graphics without glasses, is in a “category of one,” Nintendo’s chief executive for the United States, Reggie Fils-Aime, said last week. It will go on sale in the United States in March.

But Nintendo and Sony are up against perhaps even bigger rivals: low-cost, casual games downloaded onto iPhones, iPod Touches and Android devices, a market that has grown rapidly.

Mr. Hirai said that the NGP had been created for players still interested in deeper, more sophisticated play, while a PlayStation phone would be for the new, growing ranks of casual players.

“Times have changed, from an era where you had to carry around a dedicated gaming device like the PlayStation Portable to play games on the go,” Mr. Hirai said. “Now you can enjoy casual games on cellphones, smartphones, tablet PCs and many other multifunctional portable devices, and these casual gamers are growing rapidly in number. Sony cannot ignore this growing market.

“On the other hand, I feel it is Sony’s mission to pursue and expand the market for the kind of gaming that PlayStation has long built up — the kind of ultimate portable gaming device that brings you more engaging games.”

Price will be a major factor in whether the game console will take off, analysts say. It is all too often the Achilles’ heel for Sony products, crammed with the latest technology but at a hefty price to match.

Mr. Hirai said Sony was well aware of the importance of pricing the console competitively.

“We made sure that as we were designing the hardware, we were always cognizant of the cost involved,” he said. “That’s something that we spent a lot of time on, to make sure we don’t go off the deep end.”

In a sense, Sony also realized early that some consumers would move toward multi-purpose devices from dedicated game gadgets. When Sony introduced the first PlayStation Portable in 2004, it described it as an all-in-one portable entertainment platform that would become “the Walkman of the 21st century.”

“As it turned out, the next Walkman was the iPod,” said Nick Gibson, a game analyst at Games Investor Consulting, a research company based in London. “But I think Sony has now learned what works, and what doesn’t.”

Losses at Afghan Bank Could Be $900 Million

KABUL, Afghanistan — Fraud and mismanagement at Afghanistan’s largest bank have resulted in potential losses of as much as $900 million — three times previous estimates — heightening concerns that the bank could collapse and trigger a broad financial panic in Afghanistan, according to American, European and Afghan officials. cThe extent of these losses make it clear that keeping the bank afloat — something the government has said it is determined to do — would require large infusions of cash from an already strained budget.

Banking specialists, businessmen and government officials now fear that word of Kabul Bank’s troubles could prompt a run on solvent banks, destroying the country’s nascent banking system and shaking the confidence of Western donors already questioning the level of their commitment to Afghanistan.

The scandal has severe political and security implications. Investigators and Afghan businessmen believe that much of the money has gone into the pockets of a small group of privileged and politically connected Afghans, preventing earlier scrutiny of the bank’s dealings.

The spotlight on how political and economic interests in Afghanistan are intertwined threatens to further undermine President Hamid Karzai’s government. The bank is also the prime conduit for paying Afghan security forces, leaving the American military, which pays the majority of the salaries, looking for new banks to process the $1.5 billion payroll.

As Afghan regulators struggle to find out where the money went, many officials and international monitors concede that the missing millions may never be recovered, raising questions of how the losses could be replaced to keep the bank from failing.

Afghan officials and businessmen have said the money was invested in a real estate bubble that has since burst in Dubai, as well as in dubious projects and donations to politicians in Afghanistan. Millions of dollars have yet to be traced, and some of the money seems to have gone to front companies or individuals and then disappeared.

The Afghan Central Bank and American officials are conducting their own parallel investigations, but the problems are so serious that the International Monetary Fund has not yet renewed an assistance program to Afghanistan that expired in September, threatening an essential pillar of support to a government reliant on international largess as it battles a nine-year insurgency.

Many donor countries may have to delay aid to Afghanistan because of their own requirements that money go only to countries with I.M.F. programs in good standing, Western diplomats said.

Several officials described the bank as “too big to fail,” referring to its role in paying the salaries of hundreds of thousands of government employees.

While Afghan and American officials depict a crisis far worse than has been made public, State Department cables released by WikiLeaks show that Afghan and Western regulators were aware of many of the problems, but were most focused on the problem of terrorist financing, rather than the fraud scheme that was the main problem at Kabul Bank.

A stream of complaints about the bank’s practices — many of them the problems that now threaten the bank’s survival — are dutifully recorded in the cables, but diplomats, at least in 2009 and early 2010, seemed not to have realized the profound effect they could have on the financial system as a whole.

Although other banks here have had questionable loan practices, so far it is only Kabul Bank — where what amounts to an enormous fraud scheme was conducted over a period of years — whose troubles are sending tremors through the Afghan business community and worrying Western donors.

Deloitte, a top United States accounting firm that had staffers in the Central Bank under a United States government contract over the last several years, either did not know or did not mention to American authorities that it had any inkling of serious irregularities at Kabul Bank. Deloitte was not responsible for auditing the bank’s books; a spokesman for Deloitte did not respond to requests for comment.

In an interview this weekend, Mahmoud Karzai, President Karzai’s brother and a prominent investor in the Kabul Bank, said that the new president of Kabul Bank, Masood Musa Ghazi, told him in the last several days that there were approximately $800 million in loans still outstanding. These are potentially unrecoverable. Mr. Karzai said Mr. Ghazi told him that of that $800 million, the bank’s new management has negotiated agreements for the repayment of about $300 million, but little has been repaid.

Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia’s Contributor List

In 10 short years, Wikipedia has accomplished some remarkable goals. More than 3.5 million articles in English? Done. More than 250 languages? Sure.  But another number has proved to be an intractable obstacle for the online encyclopedia: surveys suggest that less than 15 percent of its hundreds of thousands of contributors are women.

About a year ago, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, collaborated on a study of Wikipedia’s contributor base and discovered that it was barely 13 percent women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s, according to the study by a joint center of the United Nations University and Maastricht University. Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation, has set a goal to raise the share of female contributors to 25 percent by 2015, but she is running up against the traditions of the computer world and an obsessive fact-loving realm that is dominated by men and, some say, uncomfortable for women.

Her effort is not diversity for diversity’s sake, she says. “This is about wanting to ensure that the encyclopedia is as good as it could be,” Ms. Gardner said in an interview on Thursday. “The difference between Wikipedia and other editorially created products is that Wikipedians are not professionals, they are only asked to bring what they know.”

“Everyone brings their crumb of information to the table,” she said. “If they are not at the table, we don’t benefit from their crumb.”

With so many subjects represented — most everything has an article on Wikipedia — the gender disparity often shows up in terms of emphasis. A topic generally restricted to teenage girls, like friendship bracelets, can seem short at four paragraphs when compared with lengthy articles on something boys might favor, like, toy soldiers or baseball cards, whose voluminous entry includes a detailed chronological history of the subject.

Even the most famous fashion designers — Manolo Blahnik or Jimmy Choo — get but a handful of paragraphs. And consider the disparity between two popular series on HBO: The entry on “Sex and the City” includes only a brief summary of every episode, sometimes two or three sentences; the one on “The Sopranos” includes lengthy, detailed articles on each episode.

Is a category with five Mexican feminist writers impressive, or embarrassing when compared with the 45 articles on characters in “The Simpsons”?

The notion that a collaborative, written project open to all is so skewed to men may be surprising. After all, there is no male-dominated executive team favoring men over women, as there can be in the corporate world; Wikipedia is not a software project, but more a writing experiment — an “exquisite corpse,” or game where each player adds to a larger work.

But because of its early contributors Wikipedia shares many characteristics with the hard-driving hacker crowd, says Joseph Reagle, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. This includes an ideology that resists any efforts to impose rules or even goals like diversity, as well as a culture that may discourage women.

“It is ironic,” he said, “because I like these things — freedom, openness, egalitarian ideas — but I think to some extent they are compounding and hiding problems you might find in the real world.”

Adopting openness means being “open to very difficult, high-conflict people, even misogynists,” he said, “so you have to have a huge argument about whether there is the problem.” Mr. Reagle is also the author of “Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia.”

Ms. Gardner, citing an example that resonates with her personally, pointed to the Wikipedia entry for one of her favorite authors, Pat Barker, which was a mere three paragraphs when she came across it. Ms. Barker is an acclaimed writer of psychologically nuanced novels, many set during World War I. She is 67 and lives in England.

By contrast, Niko Bellic had an article about five times as long as Ms. Barker’s at the time. It’s a question of demographics: Mr. Bellic is a character in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV; he is 30 and a former soldier.

The public is increasingly going to Wikipedia as a research source: According to a recent Pew survey, the percentage of all American adults who use the site to look for information increased to 42 percent in May 2010, from 25 percent in February 2007. This translates to 53 percent of adults who regularly use the Internet. Jane Margolis, co-author of a book on sexism in computer science, “Unlocking the Clubhouse,” argues that Wikipedia is experiencing the same problems of the offline world, where women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. “In almost every space, who are the authorities, the politicians, writers for op-ed pages?” said Ms. Margolis, a senior researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.

According to the OpEd Project, an organization based in New York that monitors the gender breakdown of contributors to “public thought-leadership forums,” a participation rate of roughly 85-to-15 percent, men to women, is common — whether members of Congress, or writers on The New York Times and Washington Post Op-Ed pages.

It would seem to be an irony that Wikipedia, where the amateur contributor is celebrated, is experiencing the same problem as forums that require expertise. But Catherine Orenstein, the founder and director of the OpEd Project, said many women lacked the confidence to put forth their views. “When you are a minority voice, you begin to doubt your own competencies,” she said.

She said her group had persuaded women to express themselves by urging them to shift the focus “away from oneself — ‘do I know enough, am I bragging?’ — and turn the focus outward, thinking about the value of your knowledge.”

Ms. Margolis said she was an advocate of recruiting women as a group to fields or forums where they are under-represented. That way, a solitary woman does not face the burden alone.

Ms. Gardner said that for now she was trying to use subtle persuasion and outreach through her foundation to welcome all newcomers to Wikipedia, rather than advocate for women-specific remedies like recruitment or quotas. “Gender is a huge hot-button issue for lots of people who feel strongly about it,” she said. “I am not interested in triggering those strong feelings.”

Kat Walsh, a policy analyst and longtime Wikipedia contributor who was elected to the Wikimedia board, agreed that indirect initiatives would cause less unease in the Wikipedia community than more overt efforts. But she acknowledged the hurdles: “The big problem is that the current Wikipedia community is what came about by letting things develop naturally — trying to influence it in another direction is no longer the easiest path, and requires conscious effort to change.”

Sometimes, conscious effort works. After seeing the short entry on Ms. Barker, Ms. Gardner added a substantial amount of background. During the same time, Niko Bellic’s page has grown by only a few sentences.

Egypt debt rating downgraded by Moody's

 

The protests in Egypt have been going on for the past week

Ratings agency Moody's has cut its debt rating for Egypt, and changed its outlook from stable to negative.

Moody's said the cut was "prompted by the recent significant rise in political event risk and concern that the policy response could undermine Egypt's already weak public finances".
It has downgraded the country's debt rating one notch from Ba1 to Ba2.
Thousands of Egyptian protesters have taken to the streets, calling for President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Hillary Clinton: Haiti aid will not be suspended

Hillary Clinton wants Haiti to heed the recommendations issued by the OAS

Related stories 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told reporters the US would not be suspending aid to Haiti.

She rejected suggestions that the US would cut off aid to pressure Haiti into accepting the recommendations made by the Organisation of American States (OAS) to settle the electoral crisis.
Mrs Clinton was speaking after meeting the three leading candidates and the outgoing President Rene Preval.
Final results of the first round of the election are expected on Wednesday.
Mrs Clinton stressed she wanted to see the recommendations made by the OAS enacted.
"We want to see the voices and votes of the Haitian people acknowledged and recognised," she said shortly after landing at Port-au-Prince airport.
Electoral crisis
The OAS has called for the government-backed candidate, Jude Celestin, to pull out of the race after monitors accused his supporters of rigging the first round of the election in his favour.
His party has withdrawn its backing, but Mr Celestin has refused to confirm that he is pulling out.
Asked if the Obama Administration was considering an embargo or a suspension of aid, Mrs Clinton answered that they were "not talking about any of that".
"We have a deep commitment to the Haitian people," she added.
Last month, US Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who oversees foreign aid for Haiti, called for a halt to funds until the crisis was resolved.
At the time, Mrs Clinton said that Haitian officials should heed Senator Leahy's warning and ensure a fair outcome to the election.
Preliminary results of the first round put former first lady Mirlande Manigat in first place and Jude Celestin in second, edging out the third-placed candidate, Michel Martelly.
Mr Martelly's supporters said the poll had been rigged in Mr Celestin's favour, an allegation which was later backed up by international monitors.
Under pressure from the United Nations, the OAS and the US, Mr Celestin's party withdrew its backing, but Mr Celestin has not yet confirmed whether he will bow out.
On Friday, the electoral commission said it would announce the results of the disputed first round on Wednesday, and set the date for the second and final round for 20 March 2011.

Egypt protesters vow to step up pressure

 Tens of thousands of people have gathered in central Cairo for a seventh day of protest, calling for a general strike. Police have been ordered back to the streets, to positions they abandoned on Friday, but it is not clear whether they are returning to central Cairo.
The demonstrators are also planning a huge march to take place on Tuesday.
Protesters want President Hosni Mubarak to step down after 30 years in power, but he has promised political reform.
The president has ordered his new Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq to push through democratic reforms and create new jobs.
Correspondents say all the signs continue to suggest that the only change the protesters will settle for is Mr Mubarak's removal from office.
Meanwhile Moodys Investor Services downgraded Egypt's bond rating and changed its outlook from stable to negative, following a similar move by Fitch Ratings last week. Both cited the political crisis.
'Protest of millions' But there were signs of disagreement within the opposition, with the largest group, the Muslim Brotherhood, appearing to go back on its endorsement of leading figure Mohamed ElBaradei as a negotiator with Mr Mubarak.

Protesters in Tahrir Square say they will stay there until President Mubarak leaves

As demonstrations enter their seventh day, correspondents say there are at least 50,000 people on Tahrir Square in the centre of the city.
Elsewhere the streets are busy and things appear to be returning to normal, says the BBC's Tim Wilcox in Cairo.
There are plans for a "protest of the millions" march on Tuesday.
On Sunday, most of the crowd in Cairo's Tahrir (Liberation) Square were unfazed by low-flying air force jets and a helicopter.
"Change is coming," promised Mr ElBaradei when he addressed the crowds.

Wyre Davies BBC News, Cairo

---

The octogenarian leader is coming under increasing international pressure to allow a smooth transition, diplomatic speak for asking him to resign and give way for democratic reforms.
Mr Mubarak's regime shows no sign of movement yet.
Indeed by ordering tanks into Cairo's main square and sending fighter jets to fly low over the protesters, he may be flexing his considerable military might, sending out a clear warning to his critics.
But the demonstrators still feel they have the upper hand, and the numbers to overthrow Mr Mubarak's deeply unpopular government.

Mr ElBaradei has been mandated by opposition groups to negotiate with the regime.

But a spokesman for the largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, appeared to reject this position.
"The people have not appointed Mohamed ElBaradei to become a spokesman of them," Mohamed Morsy told the BBC.
"The Muslim Brotherhood is much stronger than Mohamed ElBaradei as a person. And we do not agree on he himself to become representing [sic] this movement, the movement is represented by itself, and it will come up with a committee... to make delegations with any government."
Thousands rallied in Alexandria and there were also sizeable demonstrations in Mansoura, Damanhour and Suez.
Police were noticeable by their absence so the protests were not marked by the sort of clashes which have left at least 100 people dead since rallies began on Tuesday.
But with continued reports of looting, the Interior Minister Habib al-Adly announced on Sunday that police would be back on the streets to restore order.
Economic impact The unrest is having an impact on the Egyptian economy, beyond the closure of shops and businesses and the call for a general strike.

• Most populous Arab nation, with 84.5 million inhabitants
• Authoritarian rule for 30 years under President Hosni Mubarak
• Protests against corruption, lack of democracy, inflation, unemployment
• Triggered by overthrow of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia 

On Monday, New Zealand joined a growing list of countries warning their nationals not to travel to Egypt if they can avoid it and the US, Japan and China are among states preparing to evacuate their citizens.

Tourism is a vital sector in the Egyptian economy, accounting for about 5 to 6% of GDP.
Meanwhile, Japanese car maker Nissan has announced that it is halting production at its Egypt plant for a week, and it has urged non-Egyptian employees to leave the country.
Global markets are also likely to react. The Nikkei fell in early trading in Tokyo as the Egyptian unrest prompted investors to shun riskier assets.
'Orderly transition' International pressure is growing for some kind of resolution.

A slogan on a Cairo wall shows some humor amid the violence

In the strongest language yet, both US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about the need for an "orderly transition" to a democratic future for Egypt.
The White House says Mr Obama made a number of calls about the situation over the weekend to foreign leaders including Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The protests in Egypt are top of the agenda of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
China, meanwhile, has called for a return to order.
"Egypt is a friend of China's, and we hope social stability and order will return to Egypt as soon as possible," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
The unrest in Egypt follows the uprising in Tunisia which ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali two weeks ago after 23 years in power.

Is Whitney Houston Pregnant?

 

Is Whitney Houston Pregnant?

Is Whitney Houston Pregnant? That’s the big question on a lot of peoples minds today. Is Whitney Houston pregnant, or is that just a little bit of extra weight surfacing again? There have been numerous reports hitting the net over the last few days, with many speculating that Houston may indeed be pregnant. It would seem to be that a few images of her over the last few weeks appear to show a baby bump poking out from underneath her clothes. however, that is not the first time this has been said over the last year.
It has to be said of course, that there are no confirmed reports of her being pregnant yet, so it is all pure speculation. Personally, I do not think she is pregnant.
Some blogs have said that she is gaining weight because of steroid injections for a respiratory infection that she suffered, while other news sources have revealed that she is simply eating too much. However, I think a lot of that has come from the middle of last year when a rumor of her being pregnant was going round the net.
I guess we will all just have to wait and see if any official statement is made to confirm any pregnancy. Although, somehow or other, I doubt that is going to happen. Just a little bit of extra weight if you ask me. What do you think? If you have an opinion, be sure to let us know by leaving a comment.

kim kardashian silver paint

kim kardashian w magazine

Kim Kardashian Silver Paint 'Art' Photos, Soon to Be Another Regret? 

Kim Kardashian appeared on the cover of "W" magazine nude back in November, 2010. Inside the magazine Kardashian was covered in silver paint. The photos are once again a top Google trend because they were featured on "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" on E.
According to a post at Babble, Kardashian showed off her butt and boobs in the "Art Issue" of W magazine. Interestingly enough, Kim had just recently been upset about Playboy photo's that were released from 2007.  She expressed regret for having done the Playboy photos.  Will Kim Kardashian Silver Paint photos soon be an additional regret for the 30-year-old socialite?
While the photos do appear rather risque, there have been photos depicting much more graphic content in the name of art. If she were really so bothered about having nude photos of her floating around -- why allow more to be taken, even if they are within the context of "art."
Thoughts?

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Places Blame on American Households

American households got blasted by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission because they borrowed too much and saved too little. American households had created an environment of taking on too much risk by over-extending themselves. They did this by placing record debt on themselves and by overstating their income on mortgage applications.

"When the housing and mortgage markets cratered, the lack of transparency, the extraordinary debt loads, the short-term loans, and the risky assets all came home to roost. What resulted was panic," the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded. "We had reaped what we had sown."

High-risk loans were taking place with people all over the country; everyone had a stake in ensuring that the steady flow of mortgages would continue; and when they stopped, the markets simply collapsed. American households thought that they would just take on no interest loans. Then, after a few years, when their houses increased in value, they would be able to borrow from their home or refinance to an even lower interest rate. Financial institutions can be blamed some because they did indeed act in a manner that can be termed reckless.

As the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission says, "Compensation systems--designed in an environment of cheap money, intense competition, and light regulation--too often rewarded the quick deal, the short-term gain--without proper consideration of long-term consequences."

We have been taught since the earliest years in school that the American Dream is homeownership, that the path to that is difficult, yet rewarding because it shows a status of what we have achieved. We have believed that the more money we have, the more we can spend it. In some small way, buying things and having things is not only the American way, but the American right.

Home owners are at fault for the money they borrowed to buy homes they couldn't afford, they are at fault for their spending and believing for every second of the day that the value of their house would just keep going up. The homeowner never believed for a moment that the party would end, never thought for a moment that when the money dried up and the bills came due what they would do. Everything that seemed like the American dream was wrong. Cheap money only made people spend even more money they didn't have, and the high prices of homes were just a mad disease that needed to be cured through a total and complete collapse. ww.wdalaw.com
The American household has been put at the center of the recession through television, articles and even our own personal experiences. We have seen homes foreclosed on, we have met the people who have lost everything. We have seen what the recession with the housing collapse has done to the country as a whole through high unemployment, state budget shortfalls and lost hope in our government. The American household pursuit of home ownership ended in disaster, and while rebuilding a better tomorrow for some might take a little longer, it remains to be seen if the lessons we learned from the recession will remain much longer.

Zuckerberg 'friends' actor in Facebook movie

 

AFP/Getty Images/File – Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a special event announcing a new Facebook email

 WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Oscar-nominated movie "The Social Network" paints an unflattering portrait of Mark Zuckerberg but the Facebook founder apparently doesn't hold a grudge.

Zuckerberg, 26, came face-to-face during a guest appearance on the popular NBC comedy show "Saturday Night Live" with Jesse Eisenberg, who received a "Best Actor" nomination for his portrayal of the Facebook creator.

Eisenberg was delivering the opening monologue for "Saturday Night Live" when he was joined on stage by a member of the cast, Andy Samberg, who also portrays Zuckerberg in skits on the show.

As the two exchanged tips on their acting techniques, the real Zuckerberg was seen offstage with the show's producer begging to be allowed to go on. "Why can't I go in there?" he said. "I'm the real Mark Zuckerberg."

"That guy's like my evil twin," he said. "Those guys are such nerds." When Zuckerberg finally made it on stage, Samberg beat a hasty retreat declaring the encounter "awkberg."

Eisenberg asked Zuckerberg what he thought of the movie.

Firth, Portman, Bening lead SAG Awards lineup

LOS ANGELES – Colin Firth and Christian Bale are expected to take home Screen Actors Guild Awards prizes in a ceremony that looks to be a prelude for acting honors at the Academy Awards.

Out of the 20 guild nominees at Sunday night's awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, 17 also earned Oscar nominations, with Firth considered the almost certain best-actor winner at both shows for "The King's Speech" and Bale the likely supporting-actor recipient for "The Fighter."

Best-actress and supporting-actress honors are more competitive. Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" and Annette Bening for "The Kids Are All Right" are in a tight race for lead actress, while "The Fighter" co-stars Melissa Leo and Amy Adams both are strong contenders for supporting actress, along with 14-year-old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld for "True Grit."

Other lead-acting nominees for both the guild honors and the Feb. 27 Oscars include last year's winner Jeff Bridges for "True Grit"; Nicole Kidman for "Rabbit Hole"; James Franco for "127 Hours"; Jesse Eisenberg for "The Social Network"; and Jennifer Lawrence for "Winter's Bone." Nominated for overall cast performance at the guild awards are "Black Swan," "The Fighter," "The Kids Are All Right," "The King's Speech" and "The Social Network." All five were among the 10 best-picture nominees at the Oscars, where "The Social Network" and "The King's Speech" are considered the front-runners for Hollywood's biggest prize.

Last year's individual winners at the guild awards — Bridges for "Crazy Heart," Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side," Mo'nique for "Precious" and Christoph Waltz for "Inglourious Basterds" — all went on to win at the Oscars. But the cast prize, considered the guild's equivalent of a best-picture honor, has a spotty record at predicting the top Oscar winner.

The recipient of the guild's cast award has gone on to claim best-picture at the Oscars only seven of 15 years since SAG added that prize. Last year's guild cast recipient, "Inglourious Basterds," lost out to "The Hurt Locker" in the Oscar best-picture race.

South Sudan votes 99 percent to separate from north

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) – South Sudan almost unanimously voted to declare independence from the north in a referendum, officials said on Sunday, sparking mass celebrations in the southern capital Juba.

Thousands cheered, danced and ululated after officials announced the first official preliminary results which overall showed a 98.83 percent majority for separation, according to the vote's website.

"This is what we voted for, so that people can be free in their own country ... I say congratulations a million times," south Sudan President Salva Kiir told the crowd.

The vote was promised in a 2005 peace deal which ended decades of north-south conflict, Africa's longest civil war, which cost an estimated 2 million lives.

Kiir, the head of the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), praised his former foe, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for agreeing to the 2005 accord.

"Omar al-Bashir took the bold decision to bring peace. Bashir is a champion and we must stand with him," said Kiir, speaking in a mixture of English and the local Arabic dialect.

"The project has not finished ... We cannot declare independence today," he added.

According to the terms of the accord, south Sudan will be able to declare independence on July 9, pending any legal challenges to the results.

UNRESOLVED ISSUES

Northern and southern leaders still have to agree on their shared border, how they will split oil revenues after secession and the ownership of the disputed Abyei region.

"I am so happy. Imagine having schools, no fear, no war. Imagine feeling like any other people in their own country," student Santino Anei, 19, told Reuters.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the peaceful vote but told an African Union summit in Addis Ababa he was still concerned about the unresolved issues.

Washington's Sudan envoy Scott Gration told Reuters at the summit the "tough part" of the peace deal was still to come.

"These issues, whether it be borders or citizenship or oil revenues, cannot be solved unless there is an effort (by north and south) to work together in a partnership," he said.

Secession campaigners described the vote as a chance to end years of perceived northern exploitation. Bashir, who campaigned for unity, later announced he would accept a separation vote.

Chan Reek Madut, the deputy head of the referendum commission, told the crowd 99.57 percent of voters in the 10 states of south Sudan voted for independence. Commission spokesman George Makuer said the 98.83 percent figure published on the website included votes from southerners in north Sudan and eight other countries.

Makuer said the final figure was still subject to a final tally and last minute legal challenges. "But it will not change, maybe by a few decimal points." Overall, the website showed almost 3.8 million votes for separation and 44,888 votes for continued unity. Final results are due out in early February.

(Additional reporting by Richard Lough and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Andrew Heavens; editing by Michael Roddy)

Egypt military steps up presence in chaotic Cairo

CAIRO – Egypt's most prominent reform advocate called on Sunday for President Hosni Mubarak to resign after the powerful military stepped up its presence across the anarchic capital, closing roads with tanks and sending F-16 fighter jets streaking over downtown.

The army's show of force appeared aimed at quelling looting, armed robbery and arson that broke out alongside pro-democracy protests and have turned the cultural heart of the Arab world into a tableau of once-unimaginable scenes of chaos.

The military made no attempt to disperse some 5,000 protesters gathered at Tahrir Square, a plaza in the heart of downtown that protesters have occupied since Friday afternoon. They have violated the curfew to call for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak's regime, which they blame for poverty, unemployment, widespread corruption and police brutality.

Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei appeared in the square around 7 p.m.

"You are the owners of this revolution. You are the future," he told the cheering crowd. "Our essential demand is the departure of the regime and the beginning of a new Egypt in which each Egyptian lives in virtue, freedom and dignity."

One of the senior leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to establish an Islamist state in the Arab world's most populous nation, told The Associated Press he was heading to Tahrir, or Liberation, Square to meet with other opposition leaders.

"You can call this a revolution, you can call this an uprising," Essam el-Erian said.

On the first day of trading across the Mideast after a weekend of protests and violence, nervous investors drove stocks down sharply. Crowds of foreigners filled Cairo International Airport, desperate and unable to leave because dozens of flights were canceled and delayed.

Gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt before dawn, helping to free hundreds of Muslim militants and thousands of other inmates. Young men with guns and large sticks smashed cars and robbed people in Cairo.

The official death toll from five days of growing crisis stood at 97, with thousands injured, but reports from witnesses across the country indicated that the actual toll was far higher.

The lawlessness, uncertainty, and indications of an attempted exodus from Cairo were gravely damaging Egypt's economy, particularly tourism, which accounts for as much as 11 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Banks were closed on orders from Egypt's Central Bank, and the country's stock market was shut on what is normally the first day of the trading week.

An unprecedented Internet cutoff remained in place for a third day after the country's four primary Internet providers stopped moving data in and out of the country early Friday in an apparent move by authorities to disrupt the organization of demonstrations. Egyptian mobile-phone networks were back up but with text-messaging widely disrupted.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo told its citizens in Egypt to consider leaving the country as soon as possible, and said it had authorized the voluntary departure of dependents and non-emergency employees, a display of Washington's escalating concern about the stability of its closest Arab ally.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed for an orderly transition to lasting democracy in Egypt, saying the U.S. expects that the protests will lead to free and fair elections.

"I want the Egyptian people to have a chance to chart a new future," she said. "It's not a question of who retains power ... It's how are we going to respond to the legitimate needs and grievances expressed by the Egyptian people."

Israel's prime minister told his Cabinet that he was "anxiously following" the crisis, saying in his first public comments on the situation that Israel's three-decade-old peace agreement with Egypt must be preserved.

Widespread looting and attacks erupted after police virtually disappeared on Friday evening, creating a security vacuum only partially filled by the presence of army troops backed by tanks at key sites around this city of 18 million people.

The military has been generally welcomed by demonstrators across Cairo, unlike the widely despised police, and the army sent hundreds more troops and armored vehicles onto the streets starting Sunday morning.

In the afternoon, truckloads of hundreds of police poured back into Cairo neighborhoods and took up positions on the streets.

Interior Minister Habib al-Adly told police commanders said he was ordering security forces to return to the streets in Cairo and elsewhere to work in tandem with army troops to restore order.

"It is necessary that the police role is quickly restored and that there should be cooperation in the field with the armed forces ... to defend the presence and future of the nation," he said.

In some spots, cops were jeered by residents who chanted anti-police slogans and demanded that they only be allowed to deploy jointly with the military.

In one part of Tahrir Square, soldiers working with civilian protester volunteers were even checking IDs and bags of people arriving at the square, saying they were searching for weapons and making sure plainclothes police did not enter the square.

"The army is protecting us, they won't let police infiltrators sneak in!" one volunteer shouted.

Then, minutes before the start of a 4 p.m. curfew, at least two jets roared over the Nile and toward Tahrir Square in the heart of Cairo, where thousands of protesters have gathered each day to demand the end of the administration.

The jets made several passes over the square, dropping lower every time and setting off alarms in parked cars.

Some protesters clapped and waved to them while others jeered. Lines of army tanks jammed a road leading into Tahrir, and a military helicopter hovered overhead.

"This is terrorism, they are trying to scare the people with the planes and the tanks. They are trying to make people afraid and leave the square," said Gamal Ahmed, a 40-year-old air-conditioning technician.

By evening the presence of overtly pious Muslims in the square was conspicuous, suggesting a significant Muslim Brotherhood representation. Hundreds performed the sunset prayers. Veiled women prayed separately.

ElBaradei, the former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog left after his brief appearance, and some demonstrators dismissed him as an expatriate long removed from the country's problems.

"Many people feel he loves prizes and traveling abroad," said Muhammad Munir, 27. "He's not really one of the people."

About two hours later the government announced that it was moving the start of the curfew from 4 p.m. to 3 p.m. The widely ignored ban on movement outdoors still ends at 8 a.m.

Mubarak, 82, perpetuated the overriding role of military men in Egyptian politics on Saturday by naming his intelligence chief, former army general Omar Suleiman, to the new role of vice president. Ahmed Shafiq, the outgoing civil aviation minister and Mubarak fellow former air force officer, was named prime minister.

State TV Sunday showed images of Mubarak during what it said was a visit to the country's military command center. The president looked somber and fatigued in his first public appearance since he addressed the nation late Friday to promise reform and annouce the dismissal of his Cabinet.

The brief footage appeared designed to project an image of normalcy.

But Egyptian security officials said that overnight armed men fired at guards in gun battles that lasted hours at the four prisons including one northwest of Cairo that held hundreds of militants. The prisoners escaped after starting fires and clashing with guards.

Those who fled included 34 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose lawyer, Abdel-Monaem Abdel-Maqsoud, told The Associated Press they were among scores rounded up by authorities ahead of large anti-government demonstrations on Friday. The escapees included at least seven senior members of the group.

The security officials said several inmates were killed and wounded, but gave no specific figures. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information with the media.

The officials told The Associated Press that army troops were hunting for the escaped prisoners, in some cases with the help of the police. State television also showed footage of what it said was dozens of prisoners recaptured by the army troops, squatting on dirt while soldiers kept watch over them.

In the southern city of Assiut, officials said riot police stormed the city's main prison to quell a prison riot, using tear gas and batons against inmates. An Associated Press reporter saw army tanks were deployed outside the prison, on bridges straddling the Nile and at the police headquarters.

Thousands of Alexandrians met to pray in downtown Alexandria, a Mediterranean port city that is a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood. After prayers, the crowd marched towards the city's old mosque to pray for the souls of those who died in the protests.

The pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera said that Egyptian authorities ordered the closure of its Cairo news hub overseeing coverage of the country's massive street protests, denouncing the move as an attempt to "stifle and repress" open reporting.

The Qatar-based network has given nearly round-the-clock coverage to the unprecedented uprising against Mubarak and had faced criticism by some government supporters and other Arab leaders as a forum to inspire more unrest.