* Rate futures rise, but gains are modest * 2010 Fed hike to 0.5 pct now less than certain * Dovish Bernanke, weak data underpin loose-money views By Burton Frierson NEW YORK, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Investors reduced bets on aU.S. rate hike this year as Federal Reserve Chairman BenBernanke reiterated on Wednesday the central bank"s loose-moneypolicy and new home sales hit a record low. For weeks, traders have been slowly pushing back the datethey expect the Fed to raise its federal funds rate to 0.5percent from the current record low of 0.00 to 0.25 percent. They finally crossed the Rubicon during Bernanke"stestimony before a congressional committee, moving rate futuresup to the point that the prospects of a 0.5 percent funds rateby December is seen as a less-than-fully-certain prospect. However, the move came with little drama and amid a verymodest futures rally as Bernanke broke no new ground with hismessage to Congress that a weak job market and tame inflationwarrant low interest rates for "an extended period." SIGN OF THE DOVE Indeed, a weak round of housing and mortgage data may havecarried more weight on the day, but if anything, it appeared tojustify Bernanke"s economic concerns and low-rates bias. Fordetails see [ID:nN24373288] and [ID:nN23153536] "There was nothing in that testimony that we haven"t heardor been given a very, very significant "heads up" about in thelast couple of weeks," said David Ader, head of government bondstrategy at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut. "Perhaps the new home sales data may have had more of asupportive element, but on the margin, I would say thatBernanke was indeed more dovish than we might otherwise haveseen." The testimony came less than a week after the Fed shockedinvestors with a surprise rise in its emergency lending rate tobanks, though it has spent the intervening days trying toconvince markets this was not the start of a monetarytightening campaign. Bernanke"s testimony sounded very much in line with thateffort. Interest rate futures <0#FF:> rose across the board, withthe December contract FFZ0 gaining as far as 99.52. Data showed sales of newly built U.S. single-family homesunexpectedly fell to a record low in January, while mortgagedemand for purchases hit a 13-year low last week, fanning fearsof renewed housing market weakness. Housing was at the epicenter of the financial and economiccollapse that pushed the United States into the worst recessionin five decades. Though the economy returned to growth late last year, therecovery has yet to take firm root. With unemployment near 10 percent, it is difficult toimagine what might drive economic growth from here, though itis not likely to be housing. "Home prices continue the deterioration," said MartyMitchell, head of government bond trading at Stifel Nicolaus inBaltimore. "Obviously it is a sector of the economy that is going tocontinue to be a drag. Those who are hopeful for a recovery oran improvement in home prices, I think, are going to be sorelydisappointed as we move through the year." (Reporting by Burton Frierson; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Currencies BondsSaturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
President Sarkozy promises to anathema the deceive in France
France is to ban the full Muslim veil to protect the dignity of women, President Sarkozy announced yesterday.
His decision followed months of wavering by politicians of Left and Right and ended a long silence by Mr Sarkozy on what do do about the niqab, burqa and other full face-covering garments.
"The full veil is contrary to the dignity of women," the President said. "The response is to ban it. The Government will table a draft law prohibiting it."
He gave no details but his announcement means that he has come down on the side of members of Parliament in his own camp and the opposition who advocate a full ban on the full veil on French territory.
Related LinksFrance goes from burkas to burgers in Muslim rowFrench set to ban niqab on public transportFrance prepares to ban full Muslim veilAn all-party parliamentary committee recommended lesser measures last month that would require women to expose their faces on public transport and on state-owned premises such as post offices, universities and hospitals.
Until recently Mr Sarkozy had merely said that the full veil symbolised the oppression of women and that it "has no place in France".
Mr Sarkozy was speaking in an address to the nation to take stock of the results of regional elections in which his Union for a Popular Movement was beaten heavily. The triumph of the Socialist-led opposition was seen as a direct rebuke to the President over the style and substance of his leadership.
Speaking from the Elyse Palace, Mr Sarkozy said that he had heard the message of distress that voters had sent him. He accepted that the French were frustrated and worried about the failure to revive the economy faster but he insisted that he would continue to pursue his ambitious programme of reforms.
"I understand your impatience. I owe you a response. But nothing would be worse than to change tack on everything by giving in to the agitation of an electoral period," he said.
Mr Sarkozy promised not to ride roughshod over public opinion when raising the retirement age this year. He also promised to defend French industry and told farmers that he would prefer to trigger a crisis in the European Union than accept cuts in the Common Agriculture Policy.
The Opposition accused Mr Sarkozy of turning a deaf ear to discontent by ploughing on with unpopular reforms. They also charged him with pandering to right-wing voters who had deserted him for the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
"This was a speech aimed at re-establishing himself with the electorate on the Right rather than re-establishing the international competitiveness of France," Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, a senior Socialist MP, said.
The President acknowledged that his administration had failed to curb violent crime and promised a renewed effort on that issue.
His announcement on the Muslim veil will be well received since a strong majority of the French favour a ban, according to opinion polls.
Some leading politicians in Mr Sarkozy"s camp and in the opposition are opposed, on the grounds that such a measure would stigmatise France"s six million Muslims. France is also likely to cause anger in the Muslim world with a ban that would go far beyond the existing prohibition of headscarves in state schools.
Mr Sarkozy gave no indication as to how an outright ban would be imposed and policed.
Opinion polls this week have shown that a strong majority do not want Mr Sarkozy to be re-elected in 2012.
A poll for Paris Match showed that 60 per cent of the country wanted the Opposition to win power in the next presidential and legislative elections.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Desert gives up entrance of lost sphinxes
Matthew Campbell & , : {} A HIDDEN consternation of the really old universe is to be denounced in Egypt after mine of the initial widen of a two-mile entrance lined with hundreds of forged sphinxes.
Built some-more than 3,000 years ago, the supposed Avenue of Sphinxes related dual hulk temples and was used once a year for a eremite procession. It was progressively buried by sediment and built over after descending out of have use of in the 5th century AD.
Now it is being unclosed and the initial piece is approaching to open inside of weeks. Visitors will have the possibility to wander underneath the despotic gawk of the sphinxes imaginary creatures with the physique of a lion and head of a human or ram.
The residue of the buried avenue, 75 yards far-reaching and flanked creatively by an estimated 1,350 sphinxes, will be non-stop in the subsequent couple of years.
Related LinksPrehistoric artefacts returned to EgyptPromise of Arabia in Taba HeightsIt is the longest processional entrance in the world, pronounced Jihane Zaki, a supervision Egyptologist. Its restoration, he said, would lapse grace and excellence to Luxor, in what was once the really old city of Thebes.
Controversy has surrounded the project, not slightest given of the speed of the mine in that bulldozers have cut a 100-yard ditch by a little of the densely populated districts of Luxor.
Foreign archeologists contend chronological buildings have been demolished to have approach for a remunerative new attraction.
The total thing is a disgrace, pronounced an American archeologist, who declined to be declared given of fears of reprisals from Egyptian officials. The work is being finished in a big pour out to get the place ready for tourism. Several really special buildings have been broken on purpose. Theyre murdering the essence of the place.
The brawl has drawn in Unesco, that has shortcoming for universe birthright sites such as the Luxor and Karnak temples at each finish of the avenue. It indicted Egypt of bulldozing potentially poignant hull in a pour out to get the pursuit done. It is improbable that such an huge area of the entrance was entirely excavated and available in such a short duration of time, Unesco has complained. Heavy machine was patently used, as tricked by the levelling of the dirt and the outlines on a little of the mill blocks.
Controversy has additionally flared over a rehousing programme for internal people whose homes were in the trail of the bulldozers. About 800 family groups have been forcibly relocated given the restoration of the entrance began 3 years ago.
Others have defied the eviction orders, angry of low levels of compensation. They contend the supervision is perplexing to vigour them out of their homes by slicing off physical phenomenon and water.
Egyptian officials contend half the altogether cost of the project, about 3.75m, has been earmarked to compensate those who do not instruct to be relocated to new homes outward the city.
They repudiate demolishing any critical chronological remains. Several really old buildings, together with chapels and a Roman booze factory, have been saved. Archeologists additionally detected a cartouche, or inscription stamped with hieroglyphics, temperament the name of Cleopatra, suggesting that the legendary Ptolemaic black had once the avenue.
Restoration of the entrance and the sphinxes will compensate abounding dividends to the city on the Nile that already draws crowds. The work is piece of an desirous revolution of Luxor that involves branch it, in the difference of Samir Farag, the governor, in to a vital notable relic with traveller villages.
There has even been speak of a traveller monorail in place by 2030 and critics have pounded what they impute to as a pharaonic play ground that could hurt the ambience at the temples of Luxor and Karnak.
After the pyramids at Giza, the temples, remarkable for their mill columns with embellished hieroglyphs, are between the tip attractions in Egypt and have featured in drive-in theatre such as Death on the Nile. Amenhotep III, who ruled about 3,400 years ago, built the entrance to bond the temples. Sphinxes were forged on possibly side of the highway subsequent to chapels stocked with offerings for the gods. Workers have so far found 650 of the sphinxes.
•A 3,000-year-old wooden sarcophagus stolen from Egypt 125 years ago has been returned from the US. It was confiscated at Miami airfield in a conveyance from Spain in 2008.
hair wigAdvertising surge sparks new goal for bum ITV
James Ashton & , : {} THE design is mending at ITV, that will inform this week that promotion income is on lane to jump by 18% in April.
The bounce-back at the broadcaster of shows such as Married Single Other will warn a little shareholders, who have a murky long-term perspective of the groups prospects.
It comes after an estimated 8% climb in promotion in the initial entertain of the year opposite all the channels and 6% at the flagship hire ITV1 as banks and carmakers begin promotion again. The total are flattered by the companys diseased opening last year. They will glass container with authority Archie Normans downbeat comment of the hurdles confronting the group, such as building improved online income streams and heightening the prolongation unit.
Despite the promotion renaissance, Norman is approaching to contend that increase some-more than halved to 75m last year after promotion forsaken 10% over the twelve months.
Related LinksSTV sues ITV for lost viewersITV investors subject value of 16m CrozierInvestors think that John Cresswell, the behaving arch executive, has knocked about his 155m cost-saving target. Talks to obstruct gain from SDN, ITVs Freeview slots owner, to the groups grant account to revoke the 655m necessity are continuing.
The formula of a vital review, that is being carried out by LEK, the consultancy, will not be denounced until Adam Crozier, the new arch executive, has joined. He is approaching to arrive by May at the broadcaster. Royal Mail, his stream employer, has called in headhunters from Egon Zehnder to find a successor.
hair wigMonday, July 26, 2010
Joe Biden attempts to deliver Middle East assent talks World headlines
Joe Biden says reaching an agreement with the Palestinians is "profundly" in Israel"s interests. Photograph: AP
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, currently attempted to deliver the Middle East assent talks after the Palestinians voiced they were pulling out of a new turn of surreptitious negotiations before to they had begun.
The Palestinian move was in criticism opposite Israel"s preference to set up hundreds of new homes in a Jewish allotment in East Jerusalem.
The withdrawal from negotiations, voiced in Cairo by Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, represents a vital reversal to months of tact by the US administration department department department before to Biden"s revisit to the region.
The US vice-president pronounced an agreement would be "profoundly" in Israel"s interests and appealed to the Israeli supervision to have a critical try to reach assent with the Palestinians.
"The majority critical thing is for these talks to go forward, and go brazen promptly, and go brazen in great faith," he pronounced in a debate at Tel Aviv University.
"We can"t delay, given when swell is postponed, extremists feat the differences."
After strongly condemning the Israeli allotment enlargement progressing in the week, Biden used today"s debate to regard the country, observant the US had "no improved friend".
But he stressed the need to finish the dispute to revive to the Palestinians "the elemental grace and egoism that their stream difficulty denies them".
Yesterday, Moussa pronounced he had been told by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, that even the low-key routine of "proximity talks" could not proceed unless Israel stopped expanding the settlements.
"The Palestinian side is not ready to come to terms underneath the benefaction circumstances," Moussa said.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders have not hold approach negotiations given Israel"s fight in Gaza last year.
On Monday, the White House won agreement from the dual sides to proceed the surreptitious talks, anticipating they would lead to face-to-face meetings.
The Palestinians had insisted there would be no approach talks unless Israel halted all allotment expansion, in line with the final of the US administration department department department and the "road map", that stays the horizon of assent talks.
But the Israeli budding minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, heading a rightwing bloc government, offering usually a proxy and prejudiced quell to new building.
Then on Tuesday – hours after Biden met Israeli leaders – the Israeli interior method voiced capitulation for 1,600 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish allotment in East Jerusalem.
All settlements on assigned land are bootleg underneath general law.
Israel"s antithesis Kadima celebration pronounced it programmed a no-confidence opinion in the budding apportion in council for "destroying" the Biden visit.
Yesterday, Biden emerged from talks with Abbas in Ramallah, on the assigned West Bank, and steady his criticisms of the timing and piece of Israel"s announcement.
"It is obligatory on both parties to set up an ambience of await for negotiations and not to mystify them," he said.
"The preference by the Israeli supervision to allege formulation for new housing units in East Jerusalem undermines that really trust, the certitude that we need right right away in sequence to proceed ... essential negotiations."
The Palestinian budding minister, Salam Fayyad, pronounced the Palestinians appreciated "the clever matter of condemnation" by the US administration.
Eli Yishai, the Israeli interior minister, apologised for the timing of the announcement, revelation it had caused Biden "real embarrassment".
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Women try to stop babies being taken in to caring by journey to Spain
A profound British lady has fled to Spain with her relatives to forestall her unborn baby being taken in to caring by amicable services, notwithstanding an suggest by the childs grandparents to encourage her.
Megan Coote, 21, is one of dual British women who have transient to Spain after threats by Suffolk amicable services to remove their babies. The infants were innate last week dual days detached and are right away neighbours.
Their cases simulate what John Hemming, a Lib Dem MP and management of Justice for Families, believes is a flourishing phenomenon. It is transparent that zero is being finished to sort the family courts out and so some-more people are meditative of simply emigrating, he said.
The second British woman, Carissa Smith, 32, arrived in Spain over Yuletide with her husband, Jim, �300, 3 cats and their baby on the way. Mr Smith reckons he has oral to dozens of couples who have done a identical decision. Theres so most people who wish to go behind but are frightened, he said. It is a hideous approach to live. Nobody wants to leave their country, family and friends, but you have to. Their name has been altered for authorised reasons.
Related LinksFugitives usually wish to keep family groups togetherFamily justice reforms face antithesisThe bieing born of the Smiths son brings behind unpleasant memories of the daughter they no longer see. Carissa had a psychologists diagnosis of factitious illness, that used to be well known as Münchausens set of symptoms by proxy, in 2008. The same clergyman after altered the diagnosis to vain celebrity disorder, but their daughter was already in care. Although experts pronounced there was no evident risk to the child, amicable services pronounced she could face romantic abuse in future. When Carissa became profound again, the Smiths motionless to move abroad.
Tim Yeo, the couples MP, referred to in Parliament that Suffolk amicable workers acted in the Smith box in a demeanour infrequently tantamount to kid kidnapping. That the Coote family fled the same management rather bears out the speculation I had that the dialect intervenes not with the target of assisting couples turn great relatives but of separating exposed couples from their baby, Mr Yeo told The Times.
In the box of Ms Coote, who has amiable guidance difficulties, her relatives offering to encourage their grandchild. When she became pregnant, her midwife went to amicable services with concerns about her romantic maturity. A mental criticism referred to that she would not be able of seeking after the baby. Her relatives disagreed, but volunteered as guardians. The baby was due but amicable services told them that the routine would take twelve weeks and could not guarantee that the baby would not be put brazen for embracing a cause beforehand.
When Jim Smith learnt that the Cootes were relocating away, he rang to suggest them space in his new house.
Suffolk amicable services would not criticism on particular cases. However, Simon White, executive of Children and Young Peoples Services, said: Childrens services work tough to await relatives and family groups so that young kids can sojourn in their own families. No decisions can be done prior to assessments that establish either the kid in subject can be sufficient cared for by the healthy relatives or inside of the lengthened family.
Some advise that young kids who have been remarkable by amicable services as at risk might face serve dangers abroad. Barbara Hopkin, of the Association of Lawyers for Children, was concerned in a box in that a mom fled to Spain, fearing that her unborn kid would be removed. The baby died, smothered when her inebriated beloved rolled on it. Other countries are most less interventionist and the complement is in all most better, Ms Hopkin said.
But Mr Yeo believed that some-more await for family groups at home was necessary. Its a tragedy that amatory couples should have to rush Britain to feel protected to move up their own baby. Its a distressing incident for any family and rather a critical complaint of the approach the complement of await is operating.
The Cootes feel that they have been let down by amicable services. I occupy people. I compensate my taxes. I reside by the law, Mr Coote said. I didnt think that my nation was going to flog me in the teeth. He is right away battling to find a approach to reunite his family in the United Kingdom where he still runs a commercial operation and his son is in school.
For the Smiths, Spain is home. But their plan to applaud their babys lapse from sanatorium yesterday was injured by a revisit from Spanish authorities. They had been alerted by Suffolk amicable services. They are being unequivocally good but weve got a week end of be concerned ahead, pronounced Mr Smith.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Craig Kieswetter creates 143 on entrance as England better Bangladesh XI Sport
Craig Kieswetter on his approach to scoring 143 opposite a Bangladesh Cricket Board XI. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images
Craig Kieswetter"s fast climb to inflection showed no pointer of reducing after he strike 143 on his initial England coming opposite a Bangladesh Cricket Board XI in Fatullah, as England accomplished a 112-run victory. In an considerable all-round arrangement England accomplished their 50 overs with a sum of 370 for seven. Vice-captain Paul Collingwood additionally helped himself to a quickfire century, reached in usually 66 balls, whilst spinner Graeme Swann tender with the round as he picked up 4 for 44 as the home side sealed on 258 for nine.
The BCB XI did not assistance themselves in the field, with at slightest 7 longed for catches and dual botched stumpings.
Kieswetter"s innings benefitted from a little great fortune, as he twice offering up held and bowled opportunities early on, was forsaken down the belligerent on 80 and survived dual some-more scares after flitting 3 figures. But notwithstanding that, his heartless attack down the belligerent will have held the courtesy of group executive Andy Flower, as he picked up 6 sixes and fourteen fours in twenty-three balls.
Vice-captain Collingwood looked in great touch, attack 6 sixes in a untroubled 109 that assigned usually 74 deliveries.
Captain Alastair Cook additionally tender on his lapse to the side, going at improved than a run a round and operative the spinners prior to being trapped lbw for 56 by Alauddin Babu. That brought Kevin Pietersen to the double but he became Babu"s second lbw plant in as most balls from a rarely controversial decision.
Luke Wright benefited from 3 drops on his approach to 25, prior to Tapash Baisya recovered from a bad begin to take 3 wickets, together with Collingwood and Matt Prior (eight) in dual balls.
But it was Kieswetter, who usually competent for his adopted nation last week and was drafted on to this debate at the last notation after impressing for the Lions, who stole the show.
Five of his sixes were strike behind over the bowler"s head, with dual over long-off clearing the ropes by twenty yards.