Market fears over Italy, Greece ease further (AP)

LONDON ? The prospect of new governments in Greece and Italy helped support market sentiment Friday, at the end of a hugely-volatile week when investors fretted over the future of the euro currency and the outlook for the global economy.

With Greece having appointed Lucas Papademos as the prime minister of a coalition government, and Italy expected to appoint a new government headed by respected economist Mario Monti, both countries have won some breathing space to get their economies into shape.

"Equity markets are seemingly looking a little more kindly on Europe as we head into the weekend break with news of Berlusconi's accelerated departure, combined with progress from Greece over the formation of a coalition government, helping cheer stocks on a global basis," said Peter Stanhope, institutional trader at IG Index.

In Europe, Germany's DAX was up 0.9 percent at 5,922 while the CAC-40 in France rose 0.7 percent to 3,086. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 0.5 percent higher at 5,472.

Wall Street was heading for a perky opening. though trading volumes are expected to be light on Veteran's Day, when government effectively shuts down for the day. Dow futures were up 0.5 percent at 11,908 while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 futures rose 0.6 percent to 1,245.

The calm tone was also evident in the performance of the euro, which was 0.3 percent higher at $1.3644, as well as the performance of Italian government bonds. The spike up in Italy's key borrowing rate to well over 7 percent on Wednesday stoked fears that the eurozone's economy was heading for a Greek-style economic crisis. Only this time, the repurcussions would be far worse as Italy's debt mountain of euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) appears to big for Europe's current bailout facility to handle.

However, expectations that Monti will lead a post-Berlusconi government has helped calm those jitters, and Italy's ten-year bond yield was now down below the 7 percent threshold that eventually forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts. It fell another 0.17 percentage point Friday at 6.62 percent.

Italy is under intense pressure to prove it has a strategy to deal with its debts, which stand at 120 percent of economic output ? it has to rollover a little more than euro300 billion of its debts next year alone. But economic growth is weak and the government failed to enact reforms to revive it over the past decade.

With the eurozone and global economies at risk in the event of an Italian default, European governments are pushing Italy to clear up questions over its political leadership quickly.

The Senate is expected to vote later Friday on the budget bill following its passage in the Senate budget committee Thursday evening. The lower Chamber of Deputies could take up the legislation as early as Saturday.

Berlusconi has promised he would resign thereafter, and Italy's president held two hours of talks Thursday night with Monti ? a strong indication he intends to ask him to try to form a government once Berlusconi steps down. Monti is currently meeting with the Senate president, another sign that the transition process is being ironed out.

Meanwhile in Athens, new Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was preparing to name his cabinet Friday, a day after being appointed to head an interim coalition government that will push through a new European debt deal and secure continued bailout funding to prevent a catastrophic default.

Former European Central Bank vice president Papademos held talks with the country's main political parties late into Thursday night to determine who would staff his cabinet, ahead of the formal swearing in early Friday afternoon.

His appointment capped two weeks of a political crisis that threatened to derail an EU plan to get a grip on the Greek debt crisis and raised questions about the country's continued presence in the eurozone.

Papademos must now implement the terms of Greece's latest debt deal ? a euro130 billion ($177 billion) agreement reached on Oct. 27. It includes provisions for private bondholders to forgive 50 percent, or some euro100 billion, of their Greek debt holdings.

He must also secure the next euro8 billion installment of the country's initial euro110 billion eurozone and International Monetary Fund bailout, without which Greece will default in a matter of weeks.

European officials have said they will withhold the funds until Greece passes the new debt deal, and they have also asked for written guarantees from the heads of the country's two main parties, its central bank governor, and the new premier and finance minister.

Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.2 percent to 8,514.47, a day after the index fell to a five-week closing low of 8,500.80. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.9 percent to 19,137.17 and mainland China's Shanghai Composite Index rose marginally to 2,481.08.

Oil prices tracked equities higher ? benchmark oil was up 32 cents at $98.10 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

bears bears lions terrelle pryor aaron hernandez aaron hernandez san francisco 49ers

Russian scientists try to save Mars moon probe

The Zenit-2SB rocket with Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-Soil) craft blasts off from its launch pad at the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, early Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011. The daring Russian mission to fly an unmanned probe to Phobos, a moon of Mars, and fly samples of its soil back to Earth was derailed right after its launch by equipment failure.(AP Photo/Oleg Urusov, Pool)

The Zenit-2SB rocket with Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-Soil) craft blasts off from its launch pad at the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, early Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011. The daring Russian mission to fly an unmanned probe to Phobos, a moon of Mars, and fly samples of its soil back to Earth was derailed right after its launch by equipment failure.(AP Photo/Oleg Urusov, Pool)

MOSCOW ? Russian scientists were racing against the clock Wednesday to find a way to fire the engines of an unmanned probe destined to collect soil samples from a moon of Mars, after equipment failure shortly after launch left it stuck in Earth orbit.

The Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-Soil) craft was successfully launched by a Zenit-2 booster rocket at 12:16 a.m. Moscow time Wednesday (2016 GMT Tuesday) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It separated from the booster about 11 minutes later and was to fire its engines twice to set out on its path to the Red Planet, but it never did.

Russia's Federal Space Agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said neither of the two engine burns worked, probably due to the failure of the craft's orientation system. He said in televised remarks that space engineers have three days to reset the craft's computer program to make it work before its batteries die.

James Oberg, a NASA veteran who now works as a space consultant, said that it's still possible to regain control over the probe.

"With several days of battery power, and with the probe's orbit slowly twisting out of the optimal alignment with the desired path towards Mars, the race is on to regain control, diagnose the potential computer code flaws, and send up emergency rocket engine control commands," Oberg said in an email to The Associated Press. "Depending on the actual root of the failure, this is not an impossible challenge."

He warned, however, that the effort to restore control over the probe is hampered by a limited earth-to-space communications network that forced Russian flight controllers to ask the general public in South America to help locate the craft. Amateur astronomers were the first to spot the trouble when they detected that the craft was stuck in Earth orbit.

The mishap is the latest in a series of recent launch failures that have raised concerns about the condition of Russia's space industries. The Russian space agency said it will establish its own quality inspection teams at rocket factories to tighten oversight over production quality.

The $170 million Phobos-Grunt would have been Russia's first interplanetary mission since Soviet times. A previous 1996 robotic mission to Mars also ended in failure when the probe crashed shortly after the launch due to an engine failure.

The Phobos-Grunt originally was set to blast off in October 2009, but its launch was postponed because the craft wasn't ready.

The 13.2-metric ton (29,040-pound) craft is the heaviest interplanetary probe ever, with fuel accounting for most of its weight. It was manufactured by the Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin that has specialized in interplanetary vehicles since the dawn of the space era.

The company designed the craft for the failed 1996 launch. Earlier, two of its probes sent to Phobos in 1988 also failed. One was lost a few months after the launch due to an operator's mistake, and contact was lost with its twin when it was orbiting Mars.

If space experts manage to fix the craft, it will reach Mars orbit in September 2012 and the landing on Phobos will happen in February. The return vehicle is expected to carry up to 200 grams (7 ounces) of soil from Phobos back to Earth in August 2014.

The challenges for the Phobos-Grunt were daunting, making it arguably the most challenging unmanned interplanetary mission ever. It would require a long series of precision maneuvering for the probe to reach the potato-shaped moon, land on its surface, scrape it for samples and fly back.

Scientists hoped that studies of the Phobos soil could help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system. Some believe that the crater-dented moon is an asteroid captured by Mars' gravity, while others think it's a piece of debris resulting from Mars' collision with another celestial object.

NPO Lavochkin's chief Viktor Khartov described the current mission as essential to maintain the nation's technological expertise in robotic missions to other planets.

"This is practically the last chance for the people who participated in the previous project to share their experience with the next generation, to preserve the continuity," Khartov said before the launch, according to the Interfax news agency.

China has contributed to the mission by adding a mini-satellite that is to be released when the craft enters an orbit around Mars on its way to Phobos. The 115-kilogram (250-pound) satellite, Yinghuo-1, will become the first Chinese spacecraft to explore Mars, studying the planet during two years in orbit.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2011-11-09-EU-Russia-Mars-Moon-Mission/id-d9f59a74d0c340df9c01c45745b80686

neutrinos neutrinos autumnal equinox rob bell jaycee dugard meg whitman f8

A life full of passion that led to two Nobel prizes

For youtube videos, paste embed code directly in the text box

-

Members do not need to provide an address

-

Rate Article

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Total votes: 0 Select Comment Validation Method
Member
Name/URL (Guest)
FaceBook (Guest) Member Commenting:


Authenticate with Facebook before submitting

Add Comment

OR


Add Comment

Make your LabSpaces comments count. Start earning LabSpaces points by becoming a member! Learn more. Please verify that you are human:
Register for LabSpaces
Add Comment Make your LabSpaces comments count. Start earning LabSpaces points by becoming a member! Learn more.

Please authenticate before trying to post a comment.

If you would like to remain anonymous, please enter a new name and link below


Add Comment

Friends

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115136/A_life_full_of_passion_that_led_to_two_Nobel_prizes

tyler clementi beebe michelle malkin goodrich death penalty gary busey the x factor

Venezuela vows all-out hunt for Nationals' Ramos (AP)

CARACAS, Venezuela ? The government sent top investigators Thursday to hunt for Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, whose abduction has shaken Venezuela's elite athletes and focused attention on the nation's sharp rise in kidnappings for ransom.

The 24-year-old player, who had returned to Venezuela after his rookie season, was just outside the front door at his home Wednesday night when an SUV approached, armed men got out "and they took him away," said Ramos' agent, Gustavo Marcano.

It was the first known kidnapping of a Major League Baseball player in Venezuela, though the relatives of some ballplayers have previously been held captive for ransom.

Police found the kidnappers' vehicle abandoned in the nearby town of Bejuma on Thursday morning, Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said. He said anti-kidnapping units led by "the best investigators we have" were dispatched to the area in central Carabobo state.

He vowed to rescue Ramos and capture his abductors.

"We're taking on this investigation with everything we've got," El Aissami said.

Major League Baseball and the Nationals said the leagues' Department of Investigations was working with authorities.

"Our foremost concern is with Wilson Ramos and his family and our thoughts are with them at this time," the team and the MLB said in a joint statement, adding there would be no further comment.

Ramos was outside with his father and two brothers in their working-class neighborhood of Santa Ines on the outskirts of Valencia when the SUV pulled up with four men inside, three of whom got out and seized the player, Marcano said.

"The abductors haven't made contact with the family or with anyone," said Domingo Alvarez, vice president of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. "We're worried."

Ramos is a key young player for the Nationals. As a rookie in 2011, he hit .267 with 15 home runs and 52 RBIs in 113 games. He also threw out 19 of 67 runners attempting to steal a base, a 28 percent success rate that ranked third among qualifying catchers in the National League.

Washington acquired Ramos from the Minnesota Twins in a trade for All-Star relief pitcher Matt Capps in July 2010.

He is one of dozens of Venezuelans in professional baseball, and security while at home has increasingly become a concern for the players and their families as a rising wave of kidnappings has hit the wealthy as well as the middle class.

Venezuelan police said 618 kidnappings were reported in 2009, and the numbers have grown rapidly in recent years. In 1998, when President Hugo Chavez was elected, just 52 kidnappings were reported. Security experts say the real number of kidnappings today is much higher because many cases aren't reported to authorities.

The wealthy have taken steps to protect themselves. Sales of armored cars have soared in the past several years. Bodyguards typically shadow major leaguers when they return to their homeland to play in the winter league.

"Every major league player has his own security, but we don't know if he had his security there at that time," Alvarez said.

Former Boston Red Sox slugger Tony Armas, who lives in Venezuela, said young players have been taking additional security measures due to the risk of kidnappings.

"But many of them are careless sometimes. No one seriously thinks that this can happen to us, and much less in a country like ours where people love baseball," Armas said in a telephone interview.

"Most of us came from humble families. We still have relatives who live in poor areas; we frequent those places and unfortunately the criminals are getting more soulless all the time," he said.

In November 2009, the 56-year-old mother of Victor Zambrano, who retired after a seven-year Major League career, was rescued in a commando-style operation three days after she was kidnapped. The former pitcher's cousin, Richard Mendez Zambrano, had been kidnapped a few days earlier, and was later killed.

In June 2009, Colorado Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba's 11-year-old son and brother-in-law were kidnapped and released a day later.

The mother of former player Ugueth Urbina, who was a two-time All-Star pitcher, spent more than five months in captivity until she was rescued in early 2005.

Venezuela has one of Latin America's highest murder rates, and violent crime has worsened in recent years. As ransom kidnapping has soared, the government passed a revised law in 2009 that stiffened prison sentences for kidnapping and also allows authorities to freeze the banks accounts of victims' families to prevent them from paying ransom.

Ramos had been training and planned to start playing with his Venezuelan team next week. Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Melvin Mora, also a Venezuelan, proposed that the Venezuelan league ought to call off its games "until he appears."

But league president Jose Grasso said that won't happen. "Turning out the stadium lights isn't a solution," Grasso said, calling Ramos' abduction "an isolated event."

____

AP Sports Writers Howard Fendrich in Washington and Ron Blum in New York contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS that Santa Ines is technically a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Valencia rather than a separate town.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbn_venezuela_ramos_abducted

bcs standings bcs standings chili recipe chili recipe grimm jello shots tashard choice

Police Who Detained Councilman Jumaane Williams To Be Disciplined

The New York Police Department has disciplined three officers who may have racially profiled, then detained a member of city council and another city official, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), and Kirsten John Foy, both of whom are black, said they had police permission to walk on a blocked-off sidewalk this summer while on their way to a post-West Indian Day parade event at the Brooklyn Museum.

Police officers, apparently unaware that the two were city officials, confronted Williams and Foy. An argument ensued until cops eventually threw Foy, an aide to public advocate Bill de Blasio, to the ground and then handcuffed him. Williams was handcuffed while standing up (you can see the whole incident here). After 30 minutes, and once their identities were confirmed, the two men were released.

At a press conference the following day, Williams and Foy said their treatment by police officers was systemic of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program, which they say unfairly targets black and latinos.

And two months later, an internal affairs investigation by the NYPD has determined the officers were at fault.

From The Journal:

"The letter did not identify the officers or disclose their punishment. But Civil Liberties Union officials said the group was informed that the officer who forced Foy to the ground was found to have used excessive force. He was given what is known in the NYPD as a Command Discipline, or CD, which involves a loss of up to 10 days? vacation time and permanent notation of the punishment on his file. The officer?s supervisor will also receive a CD for failing to provide proper supervision. The officer?s supervisor, a captain, will forfeit fewer vacation days than the first officer, NYCLU officials said.

According to the Civil Liberties Union, a third officer involved in the incident will receive ?verbal instructions? telling him that he erred in failing to tell the other officers that he had permitted Williams and Foy to enter the blocked-off area. All three officers will also have to undergo training sessions."

At least one NYPD official disagrees with the ruling. Deputy Inspector Roy T. Richter, the president of the Captain?s Endowment Association, tells The New York Times, "?This is about an elected official who was in a rush and decided to use his position to get through a police barricade," adding, ?It is wrong that all these officers will now face discipline to appease some political purpose. Again, they were only doing their job.?

In August, a federal judge greenlighted lawsuit against the NYPD saying the stop-and-frisk program failed to reduce crime in an unbiased manner and promoted racial profiling.

'; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/10/police-who-detained-counc_n_1087580.html

dan uggla john wayne gacy top chef just desserts jamarcus russell sister wives st louis weather kryptos

Stroll Down Memory Lane With These Vintage PC Ads

addetailsI don't usually link to huge collections of images focused on one theme unless I'm sending examples of potential frost maiden outfits to my LARP clan. However, this is too good to pass up: this is a set of 30 vintage PC ads featuring some of the iconic images of my childhood, the equivalent of faded old Playboy page (it was an interview with Norman Mailer) you tore out and hid in a copy of Hoyle's Rules Of Games and suddenly rediscovered years later while you're at home cleaning out your old closet (true story). It produces, in short, an admixture of frisson and nostalgia that geeks love.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/yrz193UMIdQ/

the island mcdonalds beating dreamcatcher georgia tech big east expansion big east expansion michigan football

Spotify now available for download on Windows Phone

Good news, Windows Phone wielders -- Spotify is now available for your streaming pleasure. The app popped up this morning as a free download on the Windows Phone Marketplace, though you'll need a subscription if you're looking to get premium treatment. Grab it now at the source link below, or check out our initial impressions from yesterday's hands-on.

Spotify now available for download on Windows Phone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPoweruser  |  sourceWindows Phone Marketplace  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/3AgFCUoP1Eg/

enlightened enlightened stand and deliver sean hannity when does ios 5 come out when does ios 5 come out christopher columbus

UK court: Catholic Church liable for priest wrongs (AP)

LONDON ? A British court has ruled that Roman Catholic priests are equivalent to employees, a decision that could pave the way for victims of sexual abuse to win damages from the church.

Tuesday's ruling involved a 47-year-old woman who says she was sexually assaulted by the Rev. Wilfred Baldwin when she was living in a Catholic children's home in Portsmouth, in southern England. The woman, whose identity is protected by a court order, is pursuing a claim for damages against the church. Baldwin died in 2006.

The church argued that Baldwin was not an employee, an argument rejected by Justice Alistair MacDuff.

The Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust, the defendant in the case, was given permission to appeal the ruling.

The judge noted that Baldwin was appointed by and on behalf of the diocese to do their work.

"He had immense power handed to him by the defendants," the judge wrote in the ruling. "It was they who appointed him to the position of trust which (if the allegations be proved) he so abused."

The woman's case is being tried in December, when another judge will have to make a further decision about the church's liability, MacDuff said.

"I only have to decide whether the nature of the relationship is one to which vicarious liability may ? I emphasize 'may' ? attach," he wrote.

Vicarious liability is a legal doctrine that holds employers responsible for the actions of employees in some circumstances.

Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel, who represents the woman, said the issue for the trial judge would be whether the priest was acting in circumstances "closely connected" with his work as a priest.

Edward Faulks, a lawyer for the church, said the issue was a point of law and that the church was not seeking to shirk its responsibility in cases of sexual abuse.

Anne Lawrence, of the group Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, said she hoped that the ruling would lead to the settlement of "many hundreds of cases currently pending in courts."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111108/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_church_liability

richard simmons war of 1812 war of 1812 jeffrey eugenides jeffrey eugenides volcker rule matthew stafford

Miss Venezuela, Ivian Sarcos, Is Miss World 2011 (Photos & Video)

Ivian Sarcos, Miss Venezuela, wins Miss World 2011 title! The gorgeous brunette was crowned the winner yesterday at Earls Court in London. She beat out the other six finalists from England, South Korea, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Scotland and the Philippines. During the competition, she said: “I believe that the next Miss World should be a woman of responsibility and reason, committed to the organization, whose purpose is to help people in need. Beauty with heart.” What do we know about the newly crowned Miss World 2011? Ivian Sarcos is a 21-year-old Venezuelan beauty who has 12 siblings, but was orphaned at the age of eight. She spent five years at a convent, with aspirations of becoming a nun, but ended up receiving a human resources degree and now works for a broadcasting company. I’m guessing she no longer works there, as her new position will take her all over the world for the next year in support of Miss World’s ‘Beauty With A Purpose’ initiative. According to the Miss World website, trekking, mountaineering and volleyball are listed as her hobbies. She said of her win: ‘Winning means everything to me and I hope to take advantage of being a [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/EniZSngXTB0/

carl sagan gloria estefan ahava ahava kelly cutrone kelly cutrone florida marlins