10/16/14 ~ CROSS RIVER UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Thursday, 16 October 2014

TOP NEWS Milan summit offers Putin and Poroshenko time to talk

By Andreas Rinke and Crispian Balmer

MILAN (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko are looking to patch up a faltering ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and resolve a dispute over natural gas supplies when they meet in Milan on Friday.

The pair are expected to talk one-on-one on the sidelines of a Europe-Asia summit, and hold broader discussions with EU leaders alarmed at the potential for their dispute to trigger wider international unrest.

The West has imposed sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea earlier this year and its support of pro-Russian separatists fighting in the east of Ukraine, reviving memories of the Cold War hostilities of the 20th century.

European leaders arriving in Milan on Thursday appeared to put the blame on Moscow for dozens of deaths in constant violations of a ceasefire agreed by Putin and Poroshenko last month in Minsk.

"It is obviously above all Russia's task to make clear that the Minsk plan is adhered to," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters. "Unfortunately, there are still a lot of shortcomings but it will be important to look for a dialogue here."

Europe fears Russia's decision to cut gas supplies to Ukraine because of unpaid bills could threaten disruptions in the gas flow to the rest of the continent this winter and is working hard to broker a deal.

Russia is Europe's biggest gas supplier, meeting around a third of demand, and the European Union gets about half of the Russian gas it uses via Ukraine.

The stand-off over pricing is the third in a decade between Moscow and Kiev, though this time tensions are higher because of the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

"HOPEFUL"

Kiev and its Western backers accuse Moscow of aiding a pro-Russian separatist revolt in eastern Ukraine by providing troops and arms. Russia denies the charges but says it has a right to defend the interests of the region's Russian-speaking majority.

Launching the Milan diplomacy, Merkel saw Poroshenko on Thursday evening. "The meeting went very well and we have seen a great demonstration of support for Ukraine," the Ukrainian president told reporters afterwards.

Putin warned on Thursday that Russia will reduce gas supplies to Europe if Ukraine steals from the transit pipeline to cover its own needs, although he added that he was "hopeful" it would not come to that.

"I can reassure you that there will be no crisis that could be blamed on Russian participants in energy cooperation," Putin told reporters during a visit to Serbia. But, he said, "there are big transit risks."

Germany is Europe's biggest buyer of Russian gas, paying Russian exporter Gazprom around $15 billion a year. EU members such as Bulgaria and Slovakia are almost entirely reliant on Russian gas imported via Ukraine.

Vygaudas Usackas, the EU's ambassador to Russia, said earlier this week there were "positive signs" that a deal might be within reach.

"It seems like we are entering a more promising and positive chapter of the whole puzzle about the crisis in and around Ukraine," he told Reuters.

However, it was not clear how much progress might be made in finding a lasting answer to the eastern Ukraine conflict.

More than 3,600 people have died in the area since fighting broke out in mid-April when armed separatists declared they were setting up their own state.

Although Putin announced this week that Russian troops near the border with Ukraine would be pulled back, Western officials want to see clear evidence that Moscow is acting on this.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will host Friday's meeting, which will also be attended by Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron as well as Herman Van Rompuy, the chairman of European Union leaders, and EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and James Mackenzie in Milan, Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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TOP NEWS Data shows U.S. economy's pulse is still strong

14:44 No comments

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell to a 14-year low last week and industrial output rose sharply in September, positive signals that helped ease fears over the economic outlook.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 23,000 to 264,000, the lowest level since 2000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

A separate report from the Federal Reserve showed production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities advanced a larger-than-expected 1.0 percent last month, the biggest gain since November 2012.

The data offered evidence the economy remained on solid ground, with the labor market gaining steam. Investors in recent days have come to the view that slowing growth overseas will weigh on the U.S. economy and force the Fed to delay a hike in interest rates, with weak retail sales data on Wednesday helping to fuel a global sell-off in stock markets.

The jobless claims report, however, reinforced expectations that slack in the labor market was being reduced and, combined with comments from a top Fed official, put a brake on the selling on Wall Street.

"Have we achieved full employment? Not yet. Are we getting closer? Absolutely," said Stephen Stanley, an economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index (.SPX) closed up marginally, while the blue chip Dow Jones industrials (.DJI) slipped a bit further. Yields on U.S. government bonds US10YT=RR moved higher.

Some of last week's drop in claims may have been related to the Columbus Day holiday, economists at RBS told clients.

The government, however, said there were no unusual factors in the report, and a four-week moving average of claims, which irons out weekly volatility, also fell to its lowest since 2000.

OASIS OF PROSPERITY?

A Reuters poll published on Thursday showed economists still clinging to the view that the Fed would raise benchmark borrowing costs from near zero in the second quarter of next year despite mounting signs of weakness overseas.

The poll, however, was largely completed before the latest stock market sell-off, which has been accompanied by a big shift in investor expectations for the path of U.S. monetary policy. Interest rate futures now point to a rate hike in October 2015.

St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said in a television interview with Bloomberg that the U.S. central bank might want to keep its bond-buying stimulus program running for longer than anticipated to combat the risk of a drop in already low inflation, comments that eased investors' nerves.

But with the U.S. economy motoring ahead, many analysts said they expected Bullard's advice to fall by the wayside.

Economists still expect third-quarter growth to come in at around a 3 percent annual rate, a view buttressed by the pickup in industrial output.

The Fed pinned part of the gain on unusual weather that boosted air-conditioning use but there was also a broad-based increase in factory output, which grew a solid 0.5 percent.

A third report from the Fed's Philadelphia branch showed slowing growth in factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region.

(Reporting by Jason Lange and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Paul Simao and James Dalgleish)

TOP NEWS Iran, U.S. say some headway made in 'difficult' nuclear talks

14:43 No comments

By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran and the United States said they made some progress in high-level nuclear talks but much work remained to clinch a breakthrough deal by a late-November deadline.

Both sides said they still aimed to meet the self-imposed Nov. 24 date, despite doubts among many experts that they can reach a full agreement to end a decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear program with just a few weeks remaining.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left Vienna early on Thursday after six hours of talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton the previous day, but his officials remained to continue the talks through Thursday.

"It was very difficult, serious and intensive ... but instead of focusing on problems, we discussed solutions as well," Zarif told Iranian media on Thursday, sources who were present told Reuters. "There was progress in all the fields."

The U.S. side also said progress was made.

Zarif said he would next meet Kerry and Ashton in three to four weeks' time though not in Vienna, Iranian state television reported. Ashton coordinates talks with Iran on behalf of the six other countries involved, including the United States.

Ashton and Zarif met on Thursday with senior officials from the six - the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain - before the Iranian foreign minister left Vienna.

The talks are in a "critical phase", Ashton's spokesman said.

"We are trying hard to make progress and remain fully engaged to achieve a comprehensive solution" by the deadline, Michael Mann said in a statement, adding that experts would meet in coming days to continue technical work.

Relations with the West have thawed since Hassan Rouhani was elected president last year seeking to end Iran's international isolation, and the talks are aimed at easing concerns about Tehran's atomic activities in exchange for lifting sanctions.

But Western officials say there are still gaps in the positions, especially over the future scope of Iran's production of enriched uranium, which can have civilian and military uses.

NUCLEAR "PATHWAYS"

One of Iran's chief negotiators, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, last week raised the possibility the talks could be extended, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the deadline was not "sacred".

But Zarif said none of the parties believed in extending the talks, IRIB said. A senior U.S. official said an extension was not discussed, adding: "You never say never, but today we are focused on Nov. 24 and Nov. 24 only."

Western governments want Iran to cut its uranium enrichment capacity so that it would take a long time to purify enough uranium for an atomic weapon. Tehran, which says all its nuclear work is for peaceful ends, has rejected demands to significantly reduce the number of enrichment centrifuges below the 19,000 it has now installed, of which roughly half are operating.

The U.S. official said gaps in negotiating positions must be narrowed in a way that "ensures that all of the pathways for fissile material for a nuclear weapon are shut down."

Russia's chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said three key areas - uranium enrichment, the future of Iran's Arak research reactor and how to lift sanctions – had not yet been resolved, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Vienna and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

TOP NEWS Obama open to appointing Ebola 'czar,' opposes travel ban

14:42 No comments

By Steve Holland and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said he was considering appointing an Ebola "czar" to coordinate the fight against the virus in the United States, but he remained opposed to a ban on travel from West Africa.

Obama's administration is facing sharp criticism from lawmakers over its efforts to contain the disease at home. Obama authorized calling up military reservists for the U.S. fight against Ebola in West Africa on Thursday.

U.S. concerns have intensified after two Texas nurses who cared for a dying Liberian patient contracted the virus that has killed nearly 4,500 people. Spain is also grappling with the spread of the disease, with four new patients with suspected Ebola symptoms admitted to hospitals.

The disease continues to spread in West Africa where the outbreak began in March, and reached the last remaining district in Sierra Leone that had not been affected by Ebola.

U.S. lawmakers held a congressional hearing about the administration's handling of the Ebola outbreak in the United States. Some have called for a czar and a ban on travel from West Africa.

"It may be appropriate for me to appoint an additional person" to oversee efforts to contain Ebola, Obama told reporters after meeting aides involved in the fight against the disease.

Obama said experts have told him "a flat-out travel ban is not the way to go" because current screening measures at airports are working.

He said he had no philosophical objection to a travel ban but that some travelers might attempt to enter the United States by avoiding screening measures, which could lead to more Ebola cases, not fewer.

Jamaica announced an immediate travel ban on Thursday. South America's Guyana said it has denied entry to citizens from four Ebola-hit West African nations during the past five weeks.

U.S. Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta told reporters separately that the government was assessing whether to issue a travel ban "on a day-to-day basis."

SCHOOLS CLOSE IN TEXAS, OHIO

Amber Vinson, one of the nurses who treated the Ebola patient at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas and contracted the virus, traveled to Ohio over the weekend on a Frontier Airlines flight while running a slight fever.

Dr. Christopher Braden, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Vinson may have been ill as early as Friday, when she boarded the flight from Dallas to Cleveland. Vinson returned to Texas on Monday.

Braden told a news conference in Akron, Ohio, that the CDC may include people who were aboard the flight in its investigation of possible contacts.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC director, has said it is unlikely passengers who flew with Vinson were infected because the nurse had not vomited or bled on the flight, but he said she should not have boarded the plane.

Concerns about Ebola exposure prompted several schools in Ohio and Texas to close because people with ties to the schools may have shared the flight with Vinson.

An air ambulance transported Vinson to Atlanta's Emory University Hospital on Wednesday for treatment. The first nurse to contract Ebola, Nina Pham, 26, was flown to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to be treated in an isolation unit.

A YouTube video made by Pham's physician, Dr. Gary Weinstein, before her discharge showed her in a bed at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and with Weinstein in protective gear.

In the video, Pham wiped away tears and said, "Come to Maryland, everybody!" and "I love you guys." She requested that the video be shared by the hospital.

But more than a week after Duncan died, the hospital acknowledged it had made mistakes in diagnosing Duncan and in giving the public accurate information.

Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer and senior vice president of Texas Health Resources, which owns Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, said the hospital was "deeply sorry".

He said there had been no Ebola training for staff before Duncan was admitted.

The hospital defended its treatment of Duncan, saying in a statement that it had followed CDC guidelines. Criticisms that had surfaced in the media about its Ebola treatment "are often out-of-context and sensationalized. Others are completely inaccurate," it said.

HALT URGED FOR WEST AFRICA FLIGHTS

In the congressional hearing, lawmakers focused on Frieden, with several Republicans saying flights from West Africa should be stopped.

"We need to look at all the options available to keep our families safe and move quickly and responsibly to make any necessary changes at airports," Democratic Representative Bruce Braley of Iowa told the hearing.

The virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person showing symptoms of Ebola. Ebola is not airborne.

Frieden argued, as he has before, that closing U.S. borders would not work and would leave the country less able to track people with Ebola entering. Moreover, cutting flights to Africa would hit the U.S. ability to stop the virus at its source, he said.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Will Dunham, Mohammad Zargham, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and David Alexander in Washington and Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Jonathan Oatis, Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)

TOP NEWS Hong Kong police clear protesters, barricades at key site

14:41 No comments

By Clare Baldwin and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hundreds of Hong Kong police staged their biggest and boldest raid yet on a pro-democracy protest camp before dawn on Friday, charging down student-led activists who have held a key intersection in one of the main protest zones for more than three weeks.

The operation in the gritty and congested Mong Kok district - across the harbor from the heart of the civil disobedience movement near government headquarters - came while many protesters were asleep on the asphalt in dozens of tents or beneath giant, blue-striped tarpaulin sheets.

The raid was a gamble for the 28,000-strong police force in the Chinese-controlled city who have come under criticism for mounting aggressive clearance operations using tear gas, baton charges and a violent beating of a handcuffed protester by seven policemen on Wednesday.

Storming into the intersection with helmets, plastic riot shields and batons at the ready from four directions, the deployment of 800 officers caught the protesters by surprise. Many retreated without resisting.

"The Hong Kong government's despicable clearance here will cause another wave of citizen protests," said radio talk show host and activist Wong Yeung-tat, who donned protective goggles over his white-rimmed glasses and sported a boxer's sparring pad on his arm as a makeshift shield.

The police sweep of the protest camp in Mong Kok had been expected for several days. It further reduces the number of protest sites that have paralyzed parts of the Asian financial hub since September 28, but could reignite retaliation.

"We have urged protesters to maintain a kind of floating protest strategy to guard the streets," said Wong, flanked by protesters who stared down advancing lines of uniformed police.

Police gave a short warning on loud hailers before moving in although no direct force was used, witnesses said.

The protesters, led by a restive younger generation of students, have been demanding China's Communist Party rulers live up to constitutional promises to grant full democracy to the former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

In August, Beijing offered Hong Kong people the chance to vote for their own leader in 2017, but said only two to three candidates could run after getting majority backing from a 1200-person "nominating committee" stacked with Beijing loyalists.

The protesters decry this as "fake" Chinese-style democracy and demand Beijing allow open nominations for a fairer poll.

The raid came less than 24 hours after Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying tried to buy time by resurrecting talks next week with the student leaders.

"I am so furious. The government said it would talk to the students about these issues, then it came and cleared our base," said Cony Cheung, a beauty products saleswoman clad in a yellow construction hard hat and an industrial-strength face mask.

Barry Smith, one of several senior British police chiefs - a legacy of the pre-1997 Royal Hong Kong Police - commanding the operation, described it as "fairly peaceful". About 800 officers were involved, he added, and no arrests were made. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

"They've been occupying this whole area now for almost three weeks, so we decided it's time to give the public the right of way, to get the roads back and get access to pedestrians," said Smith as he paced about the area, directing front-line officers.

LITTLE WARNING

Yellow dump trucks with pneumatic backhoes and claws later cleared away debris including smashed wooden pallets, garbage cans, fences, ripped tents and metal barricades, while the scattered belongings of protesters were loaded on to trucks.

Elderly cleaners ripped down democracy posters and notes coating walls, windows and street signs, using cleaning fluid and razors to scrape away stickers stuck to the windows of an HSBC bank branch.

Some remaining protesters tried to salvage some of the hand-drawn protest artwork that have mushroomed across protest zones.

"These drawings represent the voice of the people. We must try to preserve them and I hope in future they establish a democracy museum to keep these voices at this historic moment," one said.

Some protesters used trolleys to cart water, sleeping mats and medical supplies to a nearby park, but later moved supplies back with police saying they'd allow protesters to continue to occupy a section of the heavily trafficked Nathan Road, which leads south down to the harbor, with the world-famous view of Hong Kong Island opposite.

"The occupation here hasn't finished yet," said Simon Siu, a protest logistics coordinator. "People will come back."

A steady trickle of protesters returned to the bare site.

The raid came just days after violent scuffles between police and protesters who attempted to blockade a major road near government headquarters on Hong Kong Island.

Police had also used sledgehammers and chainsaws to tear down concrete, metal and bamboo barricades to reopen a major road feeding the Central business district.

Despite the clearances, perhaps 1,000 protesters remained camped on Hong Kong Island in a sea of tents and umbrellas on an eight-lane highway beneath glass and steel skyscrapers.

Leung has said there is "zero chance" Beijing will give in to protesters' demands, a view shared by many observers and Hong Kong citizens. He has also resolutely refused to step down.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam canceled planned talks with student leaders last Thursday, saying it was impossible to have constructive dialogue, and it was hard to see how that could change with the two sides poles apart.

At the peak of the protests, 100,000 had been on the streets, presenting Beijing with one of its biggest political challenges since it crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in and around Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital in 1989.

Those numbers have dwindled significantly.

China rules Hong Kong under a "one country, two systems" formula that gives the city wide-ranging autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, with "universal suffrage" stated as the eventual aim.

It is concerned calls for democracy in Hong Kong, and in the neighboring former Portuguese colony of Macau, could spread to the mainland, threatening the party's grip on power.

(Additional reporting by Bobby Yip; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree and James Pomfret; Editing by Nick Macfie)

TOP NEWS Al Qaeda and Houthis clash in central Yemen: residents

14:28 No comments

By Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed in fighting between Houthi tribesmen and militants linked to al Qaeda in central Yemen on Thursday, witnesses said, part of a growing struggle over territory and influence between the two enemy sides.

The Shi'ite Muslim Houthis established themselves as Yemen's new powerbrokers last month, capturing Sanaa on Sept. 21 to little resistance from residents or from the weak administration of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Their ascendance has angered al Qaeda, which views Shi'ites as heretics and Houthis as pawns of Iran. Last week, the Yemeni group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed a suicide bombing on a Houthi gathering that killed at least 47 people.

Houthi fighters have been making advances outside of Sanaa in recent days, taking over cities and towns with the apparent agreement of the authorities there, but clashing with some al Qaeda linked militants in central Yemen.

On Thursday, witnesses said a convoy of Houthi fighters trying to reach the town of Radda in al-Bayda province, 130 km south east of Sanaa, was blocked by fighters from Ansar al-Sharia, the local arm of AQAP.

"There are heavy clashes going on there, with various weapons, including RPGs," one resident said. He estimated that at least 10 Houthi fighters were killed.

The fighting comes after clashes between Houthis and Ansar al Sharia in Radda on Tuesday in which at least 12 people were killed.

Another convoy of several cars carrying Houthis was later seen on the outskirts of Taiz, a city 50 km south of Ibb.

Al Qaeda said in a statement issued on Thursday that its fighters had on the previous day stormed the town Odein, near Ibb, killing three soldiers and holding it for nine hours to prevent the Houthis from taking over.

In the most recent advances outside Sanaa, Houthis took control on Thursday of the small Red Sea port of Medi and al-Dawaymeh island, both near the border with Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this week they took over the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, the second largest port in the Arabian peninsula nation after Aden, with the apparent agreement of the police, according to local officials.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari,; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

TOP NEWS Brazil's Neves closing campaign cash gap thanks to banks and ethanol

14:27 No comments

By Brad Haynes

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A late injection of campaign cash is helping business-friendly opposition candidate Aecio Neves push Brazil's presidential runoff against incumbent Dilma Rousseff down to the wire, eroding her huge fundraising advantage.

Many of the banks, builders and ethanol companies that led contributions to Neves doubled down on the centrist senator last month as his sudden polling surge ahead of a first-round vote turned him from an also-ran into a real contender.

Total fundraising for Neves nearly doubled in September to about 140 million reais ($58 million), according to his campaign treasurer Jose Gregori, a former justice minister.

"We saw contributions accelerating from many of the same donors," Gregori said in a telephone interview. "Financial institutions, service providers and builders ... they didn't wait until the second round of the election to give again."

The fresh cash has helped fund a flurry of campaigning by Neves, raising the former state governor's national profile as polls show him in a dead heat with the leftist Rousseff ahead of the runoff election on Oct. 26.

Neves has already won over many investors and business leaders with promises to restore fiscal discipline, clamp down on inflation and revive struggling state-run companies in order to pull Brazil's economy out of recession.

Still, it will be tough to overcome the fundraising lead that Rousseff built in the early months of the race, helped by her incumbent advantage and an initial lead in the polls.

Policies offering tax breaks and cheap loans to select sectors of the economy have also built up a hard core of support for the president in some industries.

Rousseff and the national committees of her Workers' Party had raised more than 185 million reais by early September, according to the most recent campaign finance data published by Brazil's electoral authority.

A Workers' Party spokeswoman declined to comment on fundraising since early September and turned down a request to interview the treasurer of Rousseff's campaign.

Neves and his Brazilian Social Democracy Party had raised about 71 million reais by the start of September. At the time, he was polling around 15 percent support and looked bound for a first-round exit, behind environmentalist icon Marina Silva.

Many of Neves' biggest backers had also supported Silva when polls showed her with the best chance of beating Rousseff. As Silva faded in late September under a barrage of attack ads, however, voters and campaign donors looking for a new president quickly consolidated behind Neves.

EAGER FOR CHANGE

An analysis of campaign finance data shows Neves has done best with fundraising in industries unhappy over what they perceive as Rousseff's heavy-handed policies.

Ethanol producers, for example, have protested for years that they cannot compete against gasoline at the pump because Rousseff's government has kept down official fuel prices and scrapped a traditional gas tax to control inflation.

While Neves collected just one quarter of contributions to the major presidential candidates in the most recent public fundraising data, he was matching Rousseff dollar-for-dollar in the ethanol industry.

Brazil's biggest sugar and ethanol trader, Copersucar, donated 1 million reais to the Neves campaign and nothing to Rousseff. Representatives for Copersucar and most of the other companies mentioned in this story did not respond to questions about their contributions.

A Neves victory would also end years of tense, often hostile, relations between the government and private-sector banks.

Rousseff has accused private banks of charging exorbitant interest rates and she champions aggressive lending by public banks in segments she considers under-served by private lenders.

One of the president's recent campaign ads warned against an independent central bank by showing a dark room of bankers scheming while food disappeared from a family's dinner table.

Neves has found generous support in the finance industry, including contributions of 700,000 reais and 550,000 reais from Banco BMG and insurance company Porto Seguro SA (PSSA3.SA), which have not donated to Rousseff.

'CORPORATE WELFARE'

The president has had far more luck with the companies that benefited from a surge of new lending from state development bank BNDES over the past 12 years of Workers' Party rule.

Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, pushed BNDES to lend heavily to so-called national champions such as brewer AmBev SA (ABEV3.SA) and meat packer JBS SA (JBSS3.SA), which used the subsidized loans to engineer a spree of mergers at home and overseas.

Neves and his proposed finance minister, former central bank president Arminio Fraga, have questioned the current role of the BNDES, promising more transparency and the end of what they call "corporate welfare."

Grupo JBS has given at least 25 million reais to Rousseff's campaign, some five times its contributions to Neves, according to the latest public data. Ambev and its subsidiaries gave over 8 million reais to Rousseff, more than twice what they offered to the Neves campaign.

Even as Neves trailed Rousseff in fundraising among Brazil's biggest corporations, he has garnered more than twice as much in contributions from individual donors, due in part to his ample support among wealthier Brazilians.

For example, Eugenio Pacelli Mattar and Jose Salim Mattar Junior, who founded car rental agency Localiza SA (RENT3.SA), each donated 1 million reais to Neves' party in August. The brothers are prominent businessmen from the state of Minas Gerais, where Neves served two terms as governor.

The largest private donation to Rousseff's campaign was 500,000 reais from Erai Maggi Scheffer, one of Brazil's biggest soy farmers, whose billionaire cousin, Senator Blairo Borges Maggi, is part of the president's coalition in Congress.

For both candidates, the largest source of contributions by far is the construction industry. Big builders and engineering companies, which profit from government-sponsored infrastructure projects, account for about half of donations to each campaign.

Major construction groups, like donors in most industries, steered about two of every three dollars to the incumbent.

By the start of September, builder Andrade Gutierrez had given nearly 17 million reais to Rousseff and about 12 million reais to Neves. OAS, the industry's biggest donor, went even further, giving over 30 million reais to the president, more than five times its contribution to the challenger.

But Neves' recent surge in polls may have some companies hedging their bets.

In separate statements, representatives for Ambev and Andrade Gutierrez said the companies aimed to support democratic debate by donating to multiple parties based upon the political support behind each one.

(Editing by Todd Benson and Kieran Murray)

TOP NEWS Apple's new iPads sport modest upgrades but short on 'wow'

14:25 No comments

By Christina Farr

CUPERTINO Calif. (Reuters) - Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) faster, slimmer iPads come with modest improvements, such as a fingerprint sensor, but some analysts say it offers few other features to wow consumers ahead of a holiday shopping season expected to be swamped by mobile devices.

At a launch event on Thursday, Chief Executive Tim Cook called Apple's new line-up, which includes a new iMac computer with a "5K retina" or high-end display, the company's best ever. But analysts say Apple may struggle to arouse the same passion for its tablets as in past years among consumers faced with an abundance of hand-held, touch-screen devices.

"I've got to be honest and say, the only impressive thing was the 5K retina display on the iMac," said Gartner analyst Van Baker, who attended the show at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. "The other things we saw (included) just iterative improvements on the iPad."

Marketing chief Phil Schiller called the larger tablet the world's slimmest and described several new features such as an anti-reflective screen. He also confirmed the inclusion of the "Touch ID" sensor, already available on the latest iPhones.

Pre-orders start Friday for the larger iPad Air 2, priced at $499 and up, with shipping beginning next week. The smaller iPad mini 3 will be about $100 cheaper.

The new iMac, which sports the new "Yosemite" operating system, will go for $2,499.

Tablet sales are set to rise only 11 percent this year, according to tech research firm Gartner, compared to 55 percent last year, even as smartphone sales continue to soar and personal computer sales are waning.

DEFINING MOMENT

Tablet sales for Apple, which defined the category with the iPad just four years ago, have fallen for two straight quarters. Investors remain focused on the iPhone, Apple's main revenue generator, but a prolonged downturn in iPad sales would threaten about 15 percent of the company's revenue.

The new iPads will go up against recently introduced tablets from Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Google Inc (GOOG.O) in coming months. Shares of Apple slid 1 percent to $96.57 shortly before the close.

Apple also said it will launch its new electronic payments service on Monday, after the iPhone maker signed up another 500 banks to support a feature that competes with eBay Inc's (EBAY.O) PayPal and other online systems.

Cook said developers were beginning to design apps for its upcoming Watch.

Apple last month introduced the Watch, its first new device since the iPad in 2010. The company's entry into the rapidly expanding wearable computing arena will be available only from 2015, but Cook said software development kits for the device will be available from November.

Missing on Thursday was a larger, 12-inch-plus iPad, the subject of industry speculation ahead of Apple's event.

"It is disappointing, particularly to enterprise buyers, that there wasn't a 12.9 inch iPad model," said Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder. "To return iPad to high growth, form factor innovation will be required. We'll have to wait until 2015 to see if Apple addresses this issue."

(Reporting by Christina Farr; Writing by Edwin Chan; Editing by James Dalgleish and Richard Chang)

TOP NEWS Ramped up air strikes stall Islamic State advance on Syrian town

14:24 No comments

By Humeyra Pamuk

MURSITPINAR Turkey (Reuters) - Two days of heavy air strikes by U.S. warplanes have slowed an advance by Islamic State militants against Kurdish forces defending the Syrian border town of Kobani.

Last week Turkish and U.S. officials said Islamic State were on the verge of taking Kobani from its heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders, after seizing strategic points deep inside the town.

The tempo of coalition air strikes has increased dramatically, with U.S. fighter and bomber planes carrying out 14 raids against Islamic State targets near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, the U.S. military's Central Command said.

The strikes had seen the militants' advance slow, but "the security situation on the ground in Kobani remains tenuous," the U.S. statement added.

The four-week Islamic State assault has been seen as a test of U.S. President Barack Obama's air strike strategy, and Kurdish leaders say the town cannot survive without arms and ammunition reaching the defenders, something neighbouring Turkey has so far refused to allow.

Islamic State has been keen to take the town to consolidate its position in northern Syria after seizing large amounts of territory in that country and in Iraq. A defeat in Kobani would be a major setback for the Islamists and a boost for Obama.

Heavy and light weapons fire were audible from across the border in Turkey on Thursday afternoon, with one stray mortar hitting Turkish soil close to abandoned tents, a Reuters correspondent said.

Turkish security forces moved civilians and media away from hills overlooking Kobani as the fighting raged.

Six air strikes hit eastern Kobani and there was fierce fighting between Kurdish and Islamist fighters overnight on Wednesday, but neither side made significant gains, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Kurdish fighters later managed to seize a street in Kobani that had been held by militants, the Observatory said.

A journalist in Kobani said air strikes had allowed Kurdish forces to go on the offensive for the first time since Islamic State launched their assault four weeks ago.

"We walked past some (YPG) positions in the east yesterday that were held by IS only two days ago," Abdulrahman Gok told Reuters by telephone.

"Officials here say the air strikes are sufficient but ground action is needed to wipe out IS. YPG is perfectly capable of doing that but more weapons are needed."

Islamic State's Kobani offensive is one of several it has conducted after a series of lightning advances since June, which have sent shockwaves through the region and sparked alarm in western capitals.

U.S. officials have ruled out sending troops to tackle the group, but Kurdish forces have been identified as viable partners for the coalition, and Kurds in Iraq have received western arms shipments to bolster their cause. No weapons or ammunition have reached Kobani however, fighters there say.

Kurdish forces killed at least 20 Islamic State fighters on Wednesday west of Ras al-Ayn, another Syrian city on the border to the east of Kobani, the Observatory reported.

At least two YPG fighters were also killed during the clashes, in which Kurdish fighters seized Kalashnikovs, machine guns and other weaponry, The Observatory said.

SAFE ZONE

Turkey has refused to bow to pressure to aid Kobani, either by ordering in Turkish tanks and troops that line the border, or permitting weapons and ammunition to reach the town.

Ankara is reluctant to be sucked into the morass of the Syrian conflict without clear guarantees from western allies that more will be done to help repatriate 1.6 million people who have fled across the border from Syria.

Officials are also wary of arming Kobani's Kurdish defenders, who have strong links with the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has staged a decades long insurgency against the Turkish government in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Turkish officials are increasingly frustrated with criticism of their actions towards Kobani, saying they have carried the humanitarian burden from the fighting, which saw 200,000 people cross the border from the Kobani area.

They also say air strikes fail to offer a comprehensive strategy against Islamic State, which has flourished in the power vacuum created by Syria's war. Ankara blames Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for this, and wants him toppled from power, something western allies currently refuse to countenance.

Speaking on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Kurdish fighters who had fled into Turkey had been invited to return to Kobani to defend it, but had declined.

He also spelled out details for the "secure zones" that Turkey wants to be set up in Syria close to its border, so that refugees can begin to return.

Zones should be created near the city of Aleppo, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting of recent months. Others would be set up near the Turkish border in Idlib province, Hassaka, Jarablous and Kobani, Davutoglu said.

To boost legitimacy, the U.N. should enforce the zones, Davutoglu said, but failing that, the international coalition could provide the air cover needed.

"Turkey could provide all the help necessary if such protection zones are created. But when such protection zones do not exist, to ask Turkey to intervene on its own is to ask Turkey to shoulder this risk on its own."

Turkish officials are optimistic they can convince coalition partners to meet some of their demands, at which point Ankara would play a more active role, although it is unclear how long negotiations might take.

U.S. officials say creating safe zones is not a priority and NATO said last week it was not discussing such a move.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday reiterated Damascus' opposition to "buffer zones" - the phrase used by some Turkish officials - warning they would be a gross violation of international law, the Syrian state agency Sana reported.

"(The Syrian people) won't allow anyone to interfere in their affairs, and are bent on defending their sovereignty," the Foreign Ministry statement said.

(Additional reporting Seda Sezer and Dasha Afansieva in Istanbul and Oliver Holmes and Sylvia Westall in Beirut; Writing by Jonny Hogg; Editing by Giles Elgood)

TOP NEWS Goldman's focus on bond trading pays off as profit soars

14:23 No comments

By Lauren Tara LaCapra and Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) reported a 50 percent jump in quarterly profit as last month's pickup in bond market activity helped to boost trading revenue, showing that banks sticking with the notoriously volatile business can reap big rewards.

Goldman's fixed-income, currency and commodities (FICC) business, which once contributed about 40 percent of its revenue, has been on a declining trend since 2009 as new rules discourage banks from trading on their own account.

Several big banks have already scaled back their trading operations or quit the business altogether amid doubts about whether the industry will ever truly rebound.

But that has left Goldman and a few other banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), to pick up clients and take advantage of periods of market volatility such as that seen in September.

Goldman's revenue from bond-trading soared 74 percent to $2.17 billion in the third quarter as strong U.S. economic data, stimulus measures by the European Central Bank, and the surprise exit of trading superstar Bill Gross from giant bond-trading firm Pimco jolted what had been a listless market.

"It is a positive indication that the long drought on the trading floor may be nearing an end," said Chris Kotowski, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co.

Goldman's FICC business - its biggest - contributed about 26 percent of overall revenue in the quarter, and its growth far outstripped gains made by JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc (C.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N). Goldman's closest rival, Morgan Stanley (MS.N), reports on Friday.

Goldman's shares were down 2 percent at $173.63. Stocks have been sliding in recent days on worries about the health of the global economy, and bank shares have been hit hard.

The earnings handily beat market estimates. But some analysts questioned the quality of the beat, saying much of it was attributable to Goldman's investing and lending business, which bets the bank's own money, and that the performance was unlikely to be sustainable because of tougher regulations.

Revenue from the business rose 15 percent to $1.69 billion.

NO. 1 EQUITY UNDERWRITER

Goldman, also one of the biggest beneficiaries of the resurgence in equity capital markets this year, said revenue from equity underwriting rose 54 percent to $426 million.

The bank ranked No. 1 for both equity underwriting and advisory services in the first nine months of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters data, helped by its work on big deals including the $25 billion IPO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N).

Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein cited improving economic conditions for the bank's performance, but acknowledged that "conditions and sentiment can shift quickly."

Net income attributable to common shareholders rose to $2.14 billion, or $4.57 per share, from $1.43 billion, or $2.88 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected earnings of $3.21 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Total net revenue rose 25 percent to $8.39 billion.

Overall investment banking revenue, which includes M&A, and debt and stock underwriting, rose 26 percent to $1.46 billion.

Compensation expenses rose 18 percent, but fell as a proportion of revenue. Operating expenses increased 12 percent.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal and Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Ted Kerr)

TOP NEWS U.S. nurse with Ebola moving hospitals; officials grilled

12:37 No comments

By Terry Wade

DALLAS (Reuters) - The U.S. National Institutes of Health said it would take over the care of the first Texas nurse diagnosed with Ebola, as lawmakers blasted the government's response to the virus at home.

Nina Pham, the first nurse diagnosed with Ebola after treating a man who died of the disease, will be transferred late Thursday from Dallas to an isolation unit at the U.S. National Institutes of Health outside Washington for treatment, NIH's Dr. Anthony Fauci told lawmakers at a congressional hearing on the government's handling of the virus in the United States.

"We will be supplying her with state-of-the-art care in our high-level containment facilities," said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH.

He announced the decision to move Pham, whose condition was said to be stable, as lawmakers grilled federal officials about their response to the outbreak of Ebola on U.S. soil and flaws in efforts to check its spread within the country.

Pham was part of a team of healthcare workers who had tended to Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. Duncan died on Oct. 8.

Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer and senior vice president of Texas Health Resources, said at the hearing that mistakes were made in diagnosing Duncan and in giving inaccurate information to the public, and that he was "deeply sorry."

He said there had been no Ebola training for staff before the first patient was admitted. Texas Health operates hospitals and health facilities in North Texas including the facility where Duncan was treated.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, is the top doctor overseeing the U.S. response to Ebola and has faced pointed criticism and calls for his resignation over lapses in containing the virus on U.S. soil.

He stressed in his testimony before the congressional oversight panel that there was a lot of fear about the disease, which has killed nearly 4,500 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea this year.

"As the director of CDC, one of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen, it could become a threat to our health system and the healthcare we give for a long time to come," Frieden said.

The spread of Ebola to Pham and Amber Vinson - another Dallas nurse who had cared for Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital - and revelations that Vinson had subsequently traveled on an airplane while running a slight fever, prompted Frieden to backtrack on earlier statements about his confidence in the ability of American health officials to contain the disease.

"It would be an understatement to say that the response to the first U.S.-based patient with Ebola has been mismanaged, causing risk to scores of additional people," said Representative Diana DeGette, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce congressional subcommittee holding Thursday's hearing.

At least two lawmakers have called for Frieden's resignation. Others, including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, urged travel restrictions on the countries hardest hit by Ebola. The disease appeared in the United States last month.

Vinson was transferred to Emory University Hospital for treatment on Wednesday night.

In Ohio, where Vinson had visited family members, two schools in the Cleveland suburb of Solon were closed on Thursday because an employee may have traveled on the same plane as Vinson, though on a different flight.

The Ohio health department said the CDC was sending staff to help coordinate efforts to contain the spread of Ebola.

Frontier Airlines said it had placed six crew members on paid leave for 21 days "out of an abundance of caution." Florida Governor Rick Scott asked the CDC to expand the reach of its contacts to people who flew on the same plane after nurse Amber Vinson's flight. The plane made a stop in Fort Lauderdale after Dallas.

Back in Texas, the Belton school district in central Texas said three schools were closed on Thursday because two students were on the same flight as the nurse.

Frieden has said it was unlikely passengers who flew with Vinson were infected because the nurse had not vomited or bled on the flight, but he said she should not have boarded the plane.

The virus, which also causes fever and diarrhea, is spread through direct contact with body fluids from an infected person.

A federal official said Wednesday Vinson had told the CDC her temperature was 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit (37.5 Celsius), but "was not told not to fly" because that was below the CDC's temperature threshold of 100.4 F (38 C).

One nurse who helped treat Pham came forward on Thursday to say the Dallas hospital was unprepared for the emergency and lacked proper protective gear.

Nurses were not briefed or prepared for Ebola, Briana Aguirre told NBC's "Today" show, and no special precautions were taken when Duncan was admitted to the hospital.

"It was a total chaotic scene," she said.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina; Writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jonathan Oatis)

TOP NEWS Data show U.S. economy's pulse is still strong

12:34 No comments

By Jason Lange

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 23,000 to 264,000, the lowest level since 2000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

Weak retail sales data on Wednesday shook investor confidence and helped fuel a global sell-off in stock markets that continued on Thursday. U.S. stock markets were trading sharply lower.

The jobless claims report nonetheless reinforced expectations that slack in the labor market was being reduced.

"Have we achieved full employment? Not yet. Are we getting closer? Absolutely," said Stephen Stanley, an economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities.

It's possible some of last week's drop in claims was related to America's Columbus Day holiday, which may have affected how the Labor Department adjusts the data for seasonal swings, economists at RBS said in a note to clients.

The government, however, said there were no unusual factors in the report, while the four-week moving average of claims, which irons out week-to-week volatility, also fell to its lowest level since 2000.

OASIS OF PROSPERITY?

The poll, however, was largely complete before the latest stock market sell-off, which has been accompanied by a big shift in investor expectations for the path of U.S. monetary policy. Interest rates futures are now pointing to a rate hike in October 2015.

St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said in a television interview with Bloomberg that the U.S. central bank might want to keep its bond-buying program running for longer than anticipated given a drop in inflation expectations.

For now, at least, the U.S. economy is motoring ahead, with economists still expecting third-quarter growth to come in at around a 3 percent annual rate, a view buttressed by the pickup in industrial output.

The Fed pinned part of the gain to unusual weather that boosted air conditioning use, but there was also a broad-based increase in factory output, which grew a solid 0.5 percent.

A third report from the Fed's Philadelphia branch showed slowing growth in factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region.

(Reporting by Jason Lange and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Paul Simao)

TOP NEWS Work on 'taming' firms wins Frenchman economics Nobel

12:34 No comments

By Simon Johnson and Johanna Decorse

STOCKHOLM/TOULOUSE France (Reuters) - French economist Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize for economics for work that has shed light on how governments can "tame" the big businesses that dominate once-public monopolies like railways, highways and telecommunications.

"This year's prize in economic sciences is about taming powerful firms," Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a news conference after awarding the 8 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize.

The academy said Tirole has clarified policies about regulating industries with a few powerful firms, especially after a wave of privatizations had set governments a conundrum over how to encourage private investments in sectors like healthcare and railways while reining in profits.

"My one merit is to have been with the right people at the right time," the 61-year-old, who is unknown to most French, told Reuters in his office at the Toulouse School of Economics in southwest France, where he is a professor.

It was the second Nobel Prize for a French national this year after author Patrick Modiano won the literature award - a fact not lost on Prime Minister Manuel Valls, trying to deflect attacks from France's EU partners over its battered public finances.

"After Patrick Modiano, another Frenchman in the firmament: congratulations to Jean Tirole! One in the eye for the French-bashers!" Valls tweeted on his official account.

Tirole himself was cautious on the economic prospects of his country, where unemployment is stuck at around 10 percent and whose leaders last month broke the latest in a series of promises to bring public lending to within EU limits.

"We need to modernize our country, leaving our children a legacy other than unemployment and public debt that they will have to pay off," he said.

The European Commission's antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia hailed Tirole's work on mergers and other deals with potential repercussions for market competition, adding in a statement: "We owe Jean Tirole so much."

GOOD YEAR FOR FRENCH ECONOMISTS

Tirole has worked for decades on the effects of credit bubbles and said the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis was above all the result of insufficient regulatory institutions.

"I think banking is a very hard thing to regulate and we economists and academics have to do more work on this," Tirole earlier told a news conference in Stockholm by telephone.

In a 2012 French media interview, he said it was "shocking" how U.S. authorities had supported investment banks which, because they did not have small depositors, were not subject to full regulation.

Tirole's research showed market regulations should be adapted to the conditions of specific industries rather than general principles that would apply to every industry, the academy said.

"He has been the dominant figure in industrial organization. It was not a question of whether but when he would be awarded the prize," said Oxford University economics professor Paul Klemperer. "It has given us understanding of how to think about regulating firms, that there is not one size fits all."

The economics prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968. It was not part of the original group of awards set out in 1895 will of Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

Economists from the United States have dominated the prize with only a few winners coming from other parts of the world since 1994.

While economists are rarely household names, previous winners include well-known figures such as Paul Krugman, Milton Friedman, Friedrich August von Hayek and Joseph Stiglitz.

This year another French economist, Thomas Piketty also produced an international best-seller with his book on inequality, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century".

(Additional reporting by Mia Shanley, Anna Ringstrom and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Mark John in Paris, Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Angus MacSwan)

EDUCATION: NYSC Mobilization Time Table For 2014 Batch C

11:25 No comments

1 Registration of Foreign/Local Trained Nigerian Graduates.20th August - 12th October, 2014

2 Submission of Senate Approved List.22nd - 27th September, 2014

3 Briefing of Final year students/Prospective Corps Members in all CPIs.29th September - 3rd October, 2014

4 Uploading of Senate Approved List by ICT13th - 14th October, 2014

5 Notification to Prospective Corps Members and CPIs on the status of their Senate Approved List15th - 16th October, 2014

6 Printing of Call-Up Letters by Prospective Corps Members.28th - 30th October, 2014

7 2014 Batch 'C' Orientation Course.4th - 25th November, 2014

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

WORD OF WISDOM: Keep your fire

11:05 No comments

KEEP YOUR FIRE

"For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can\'t see-such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him." Colossians 1:16 NLT

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Thoughts for Today

As Christians, our ultimate ministry is to worship and adore God. Down through the centuries, this has been "the heart of our call."

In a culture where results are praised and achievement is prized, we must once again discover that man's chief end cannot be measured by worldly standards. But how do we keep worship as our highest priority?

Most of us are busier than we might want. Distractions abound. Career. Family. Church commitments. Countless demands on our time. Disturbing news reports from around the world-daily. Amid all these distractions, how do we keep the passion for God's presence from waning?

This week we will look at several ways to help you keep your fire for worship.

Consider this ...

Worship reflects the image of God in us. God created us in his image. We have the ability to love, to thank, to adore. We were designed to worship.

We came from the womb prewired for worship. We are internally equipped for connectivity with God.

In worship, we discover the mystery of our own being . . .

Prayer

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Father, I know I have been distracted by many things. My focus on you has been scattered at best. Please forgive me. Help me to regain the passion of worship. In Jesus' name . . .

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Living Free Every Day is a ministry of livingfree.org

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THE WORD: MISSING PIECES

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MISSING PIECES

Read: Romans 12:4-5

"Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ\'s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other." ( Romans 12:4-5 ) NLT

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Thoughts for Today

Your hobby is assembling puzzle pieces, pasting them, and putting the assembled puzzle on the wall for display. One day while you are diligently working on your 1000-piece puzzle, Dennis the Menace gets hold of one of the puzzle pieces and flushes it down the toilet. You are infuriated by this, and when you tell him of your annoyance, he flippantly says, "I don't know what the big deal is. It's only one piece! You've got 999 other pieces to work with. Why aren't you satisfied with that?"

That one missing piece is important, of course, because without all the pieces to the puzzle, the picture is incomplete. This ruins the beauty of putting the puzzle on display.

Consider this ...

Like the puzzle, the body of Christ consists of many parts which together make a complete picture. God has equipped each believer with the particular gifts needed to do what God has called him or her to do. When that person is missing, an important part of God's plan is missing. The picture is incomplete.

God has a perfect plan for his body of believers. Like the pieces of a puzzle, each one has a specific place, a specific task to do. When every piece is in its God-ordained place, the picture is perfect. But when a piece--even one--is missing, the body is incomplete. This week we will consider some reasons pieces of the puzzle may be missing and how to do our part to keep the body functioning as God intends.

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Father, thank you for equipping each member of Christ's body, the church, to do what you have called him or her to do. Help me to be sensitive to your leading to do my part. And help me encourage others in fulfilling what you have called them to do. In Jesus' name ...

...

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BUSINESS NEWS: Alibaba affiliate Alipay rebranded Ant in new financial services push

05:48 No comments

By Gerry Shih

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Thursday it has changed the name of its Alipay financial services affiliate to Ant Financial Services Group as it steps up its push into the financial services industry.

Alibaba has been aggressively offering new financial services around Alipay, including a money market fund for consumers, a mobile payment app and even a new private bank that was approved by the Chinese government in September.

Due to Alibaba's dominant market position in e-commerce, Alipay has emerged as the online payment processing leader in China. It clears 80 million transactions per day, including 45 million transactions through its Alipay Wallet mobile app, the company said on Thursday.

The rebranding of the Alipay unit, whose legal name is Zhejiang Ant Small and Micro Financial Services Group Co, is part of a strategy by Alibaba and its affiliated companies to accelerate development of financial business. The name 'Ant' was chosen to symbolize the potential strength of a number of smaller brands working together, executives said.

At a day-long presentation in Beijing, Ant Financial executives outlined a vision of turning its mobile payment app into a full-fledged, data-driven commercial platform. They have their sights set on a service where businesses can deliver personally tailored smartphone ads and promotions based on Alipay data gleaned from an individual consumer's shopping habits.

"China has never been lacking banks; it has 200 of them," said Ant Financial Chief Executive Lucy Peng. "But we have an opportunity to use Internet methods, Internet technology, Internet thinking to disrupt traditional finance."

UNIQUE POSITION

Alibaba controversially spun out Alipay in 2011, but its executives including executive chairman Jack Ma maintain control of the payment processor, considered by some analysts as one of the most valuable assets in the Alibaba universe due to its unique position in Chinese commerce.

The new Ant Financial umbrella will oversee six financial services entities that are affiliated with Alibaba, but were not part of the company that listed on the New York Stock Exchange last month in Alibaba's $25 billion initial public offering.

The six entities include: Alipay; Alipay Wallet; Yu'e Bao, a money market fund with 570 billion yuan ($93 billion) under management; Zhao Cai Bao, a third-party financial services platform; micro-loan provider Ant Micro; and MYBank, a private bank.

MYBank received approval from Chinese banking authorities in September, part of a pilot program launched earlier this year and the first tentative step by the country to open its closely guarded banking sector to private investors.

Alibaba stated in its IPO prospectus that given regulator approval, the Alipay affiliate could issue 33 percent of its shares to Alibaba in the future. Ant Financial executives on Thursday confirmed the terms, but said there were no new changes to the plans.

In response to a question, Peng said there are no current plans for Ant Financial to hold an initial public offering of its own.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

BUSINESS NEWS: Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project

05:47 No comments

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Tom McGuire, who heads the project, said he and a small team had been working on fusion energy at Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works for about four years, but were now going public to find potential partners in industry and government for their work.

Initial work demonstrated the feasibility of building a 100-megawatt reactor measuring seven feet by 10 feet, which could fit on the back of a large truck, and is about 10 times smaller than current reactors, McGuire told reporters.

In a statement, the company, the Pentagon's largest supplier, said it would build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year, and build a prototype in five years.

In recent years, Lockheed has gotten increasingly involved in a variety of alternate energy projects, including several ocean energy projects, as it looks to offset a decline in U.S. and European military spending.

Lockheed's work on fusion energy could help in developing new power sources amid increasing global conflicts over energy, and as projections show there will be a 40 percent to 50 percent increase in energy use over the next generation, McGuire said.

If it proves feasible, Lockheed's work would mark a key breakthrough in a field that scientists have long eyed as promising, but which has not yet yielded viable power systems. The effort seeks to harness the energy released during nuclear fusion, when atoms combine into more stable forms.

"We can make a big difference on the energy front," McGuire said, noting Lockheed's 60 years of research on nuclear fusion as a potential energy source that is safer and more efficient than current reactors based on nuclear fission.

Lockheed sees the project as part of a comprehensive approach to solving global energy and climate change problems.

Compact nuclear fusion would produce far less waste than coal-powered plants since it would use deuterium-tritium fuel, which can generate nearly 10 million times more energy than the same amount of fossil fuels, the company said.

Ultra-dense deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, is found in the earth's oceans, and tritium is made from natural lithium deposits.

It said future reactors could use a different fuel and eliminate radioactive waste completely.

McGuire said the company had several patents pending for the work and was looking for partners in academia, industry and among government laboratories to advance the work.

Lockheed said it had shown it could complete a design, build and test it in as little as a year, which should produce an operational reactor in 10 years, McGuire said. A small reactor could power a U.S. Navy warship, and eliminate the need for other fuel sources that pose logistical challenges.

U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fission reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle.

"What makes our project really interesting and feasible is that timeline as a potential solution," McGuire said.

Lockheed shares fell 0.6 percent to $175.02 amid a broad market selloff.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

BUSINESS NEWS: Delta Air Lines profit slumps on higher expenses

05:46 No comments

(Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc's (DAL.N) quarterly profit slumped 74 percent as higher operating expenses did not allow the U.S. airline to take advantage of strong business and leisure travel.

Total operating expenses jumped 16 percent to $10.34 billion in the third quarter ended Sept. 30.

Delta's shares were down 2 percent at $31.75 before the bell.

The Atlanta-based airline also booked a $134 million loss on extinguishment of debt and set aside $222 million as income tax provision.

Operating revenue increased 6.6 percent to $11.18 billion and traffic increased 3.7 percent.

Net income dropped to $357 million, or 42 cents per share, from $1.37 billion, or $1.59 per share, a year earlier.

Excluding certain one-time items, Delta earned $1.20 per share.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das and Feroze Jamal)

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CROSS RIVER UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

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Thursday, 16 October 2014

TOP NEWS Milan summit offers Putin and Poroshenko time to talk

TOP NEWS Data shows U.S. economy's pulse is still strong

TOP NEWS Iran, U.S. say some headway made in 'difficult' nuclear talks

TOP NEWS Obama open to appointing Ebola 'czar,' opposes travel ban

TOP NEWS Hong Kong police clear protesters, barricades at key site

TOP NEWS Al Qaeda and Houthis clash in central Yemen: residents

TOP NEWS Brazil's Neves closing campaign cash gap thanks to banks and ethanol

TOP NEWS Apple's new iPads sport modest upgrades but short on 'wow'

TOP NEWS Ramped up air strikes stall Islamic State advance on Syrian town

TOP NEWS Goldman's focus on bond trading pays off as profit soars

TOP NEWS U.S. nurse with Ebola moving hospitals; officials grilled

TOP NEWS Data show U.S. economy's pulse is still strong

TOP NEWS Work on 'taming' firms wins Frenchman economics Nobel

EDUCATION: NYSC Mobilization Time Table For 2014 Batch C

WORD OF WISDOM: Keep your fire

THE WORD: MISSING PIECES

BUSINESS NEWS: Alibaba affiliate Alipay rebranded Ant in new financial services push

BUSINESS NEWS: Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project

BUSINESS NEWS: Delta Air Lines profit slumps on higher expenses

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Thursday, 16 October 2014

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