TSX boosted by conciliatory U.S. budget comments

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s benchmark stock index jumped on Friday, led by financial and resource-related shares, as investors cheered conciliatory statements from U.S. politicians after they held talks on avoiding the “fiscal cliff” that threatens to drive the U.S. economy into recession.

The index had fallen in morning trade, weighed down by signs of global economic weakness, but swung higher after U.S. legislators vowed to find common ground to help the world’s largest economy avoid what could be debilitating tax hikes and spending cuts.

“We’ve definitely seen a swing up today on more promising talk from the Democrats,” said Youssef Zohny, portfolio manager at Stenner Investment Partners, a unit of Richardson GMP.

“We’ve seen a fairly sharp selloff in the last week or so and you’re definitely starting to see a few bargain hunters come in today. As well, oil’s up today so that’s helping lift some of the commodity sector,” Zohny said.

Oil rose as a fire on a Gulf of Mexico platform and the escalating conflict between Israel and Palestinians stoked supply concerns.

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.GSPTSE> closed up 66.34 points, or 0.56 percent, at 11,877.72, with broad gains across nine of its 10 main sectors. It nevertheless notched a 2.6 percent drop for the week, its sharpest weekly fall since May.

“It shows you how low our expectations are right now that you can get that kind of a rally just by coming up to a microphone and saying ‘hey, we all understand each other’,” said Mike Newton, portfolio manager at Macquarie Private Wealth, referring to the comments from congressional Democrats and Republicans.

“What could be exciting about it is, imagine the rally that will occur when they come out with something very concrete,” he said.

STRONG RALLY POTENTIAL

Rick Hutcheon, president and chief operating officer at RKH Investments, said valuations have become so cheap that it would take little for the index to bounce higher in coming weeks.

“If there is any glimmer of good news the market has a very strong rally potential,” he said, speaking before the U.S. legislators made their comments.

Royal Bank of Canada led the index’s rise, adding 1 percent to C$ 55.62, while pipeline operator TransCanada Corp jumped 1.7 percent to C$ 45.05 as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urged President Barack Obama to allow the company to proceed with the Keystone XL project.

Those companies played the biggest role of any two stocks in leading the market higher.

Miner Barrick Gold Corp gained 1.5 percent to C$ 33.77, while BCE Inc also moved 1.5 percent higher, to C$ 41.99 after confirmation that it is continuing to work with acquisition target Astral Media Inc to get a deal past regulators. Astral rose 5 percent to C$ 44.

Fertilizer company Potash Corp was the most heavily weighted decliner, dropping 0.8 percent to C$ 37.37, while Niko Resources Ltd skidded to a 52-week low, closing down 9.3 percent at C$ 8.44 after the oil company announced stock and convertible debt offerings.

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson; and Peter Galloway)

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Israel moves on reservists after rockets target cities

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli ministers were on Friday asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day.

The rocket attacks were a challenge to Israel‘s Gaza offensive and came just hours after Egypt‘s prime minister, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited the enclave and said Cairo was prepared to mediate.

Israel’s armed forces announced that a highway leading to the Gaza Strip and two roads bordering the enclave would be off-limits to civilian traffic until further notice.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area on Friday, and the military said it had already called 16,000 reservists to active duty.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior cabinet ministers in Tel Aviv after the rockets struck to decide on widening the Gaza campaign.

Political sources said ministers were asked to approve the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, in what could be preparation for a possible ground operation.

No decision was immediately announced and some commentators speculated in the Israeli media the move could be psychological warfare against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. A quota of 30,000 reservists had been set earlier.

Israel began bombing Gaza on Wednesday with an attack that killed the Hamas military chief. It says its campaign is in response to Hamas missiles fired on its territory. Hamas stepped up rocket attacks in response.

Israeli police said a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the Jerusalem area, outside the city, on Friday.

It was the first Palestinian rocket since 1970 to reach the vicinity of the holy city, which Israel claims as its capital, and was likely to spur an escalation in its three-day old air war against militants in Gaza.

Rockets nearly hit Tel Aviv on Thursday for the first time since Saddam Hussein’s Iraq fired them during the 1991 Gulf War. An air raid siren rang out on Friday when the commercial centre was targeted again. Motorists crouched next to cars, many with their hands protecting their heads, while pedestrians scurried for cover in building stairwells.

The Jerusalem and Tel Aviv strikes have so far caused no casualties or damage, but could be political poison for Netanyahu, a conservative favored to win re-election in January on the strength of his ability to guarantee security.

“The Israel Defence Forces will continue to hit Hamas hard and are prepared to broaden the action inside Gaza,” Netanyahu said before the rocket attacks on the two cities.

Asked about Israel massing forces for a possible Gaza invasion, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The Israelis should be aware of the grave results of such a raid and they should bring their body bags.”

Officials in Gaza said 28 Palestinians had been killed in the enclave since Israel began the air offensive with the declared aim of stemming surges of rocket strikes that have disrupted life in southern Israeli towns.

The Palestinian dead include 12 militants and 16 civilians, among them eight children and a pregnant woman. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday. A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas’s commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

SOLIDARITY VISIT

A solidarity visit to Gaza by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, whose Islamist government is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, had appeared to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy.

Kandil said: “Egypt will spare no effort … to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce.”

But a three-hour truce that Israel declared for the duration of Kandil’s visit never took hold. Israel said 66 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip hit its territory on Friday and a further 99 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Israel denied Palestinian assertions that its aircraft struck while Kandil was in the enclave.

Israel Radio’s military affairs correspondent said the army’s Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East already ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to leap across borders.

It is the biggest test yet for Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, a veteran Islamist politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after last year’s protests ousted military autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, seen in the West as the cornerstone of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Mursi has vocally denounced the Israeli military action while promoting Egypt as a mediator, a mission that his prime minister’s visit was intended to further.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt’s mediators told Reuters Kandil’s visit “was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve”.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

Tunisia’s foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday “to provide all political support for Gaza” the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas’s supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an “observer state” rather than a mere “entity” at the United Nations later this month.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Pittsburgh airport to offer free ‘cell phone’ lot

IMPERIAL, Pa. (AP) — Pittsburgh International Airport is offering free parking for folks who want to sit in their cars and wait for arriving passengers to call on cell phones to say they’ve arrived.

Allegheny County Airport Authority officials are hoping the plan will prevent motorists from congesting the curb near the airport’s terminal or the access roads around it by driving around in circles waiting for cell phone calls from arrivals.

Drivers can now park free for an hour in the extended term lot farthest from the terminal, and pay only $ 1 for a second hour of parking. After two hours, the spots will cost $ 8.

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Drug charges dropped against Jon Bon Jovi’s daughter

(Reuters) – Drug charges against the daughter of rock star Jon Bon Jovi were dropped on Thursday, a day after she suffered a suspected heroin overdose, officials in New York said.

Oneida County District Attorney Scott D. McNamara said in a statement that Stephanie Bongiovi could not be charged because New York law prohibits the prosecution of people who had overdosed and were in possession of small amounts of drugs.

Bongiovi, 19, was found unresponsive in a dormitory room at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, early on Wednesday and was later booked on misdemeanor charges of possession of a controlled substance (heroin), marijuana possession and criminal use of drug paraphernalia, which were found in the room.

A message left with the singer’s representative was not immediately returned.

Heroin and marijuana charges against fellow student Ian S. Grant, 21, in connection with Bongiovi’s case were also dropped as a witness or victim to a drug or alcohol overdose cannot be prosecuted in New York.

Bongiovi is the oldest of four children of Bon Jovi and wife Dorothea Hurley.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Andre Grenon)

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Rare Gene Mutation Affecting Immunity Linked to Alzheimer’s

Scientists working on two unrelated studies have reported a link between Alzheimer’s disease and a rare gene that affects a person’s immune system. They add credibility to recent thinking about the role of the immune system in the development of this form of dementia.

According to Medical News Today, research teams from University College London (UCL) and the Iceland-based company deCode Genetics concluded that a rare mutation in the gene known as TREM2 increases the risk of getting Alzheimer’s. This gene helps signal the immune system to mount responses to inflammation.

The Alzheimer’s Association says this disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. Of the top 10 causes, it’s the only one that can’t be prevented, cured, or slowed. One in every eight U.S. seniors lives with the disorder.

There are two forms of the disease. Early-onset Alzheimer’s affects people younger than 60. The late-onset form is far more common, according to PubMed Health.

Scientists from 44 institutions participated in the UCL-led study, which followed 25,000 individuals. They found a set of rare mutations that appeared more frequently in 1,092 Alzheimer’s patients than in the 1,107 healthy control-group subjects. The most common mutation was one called R47H, which the researchers learned significantly increases the chance of developing the illness.

The study led by deCode also noted a strong link between the R47H mutation and the disease. The researchers also discovered that older individuals who had the mutation but not Alzheimer’s had poorer cognitive function than normal. They identified nearly 41 million markers in individuals from the United States, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands.

Earlier studies suggested that TREM2 is important in clearing cell debris and amyloid protein, a substance linked to Alzheimer’s brain plaques. The gene also helps control the body’s response to inflammation.

The results of these studies suggest that a TREM2 mutation raises the risk for developing Alzheimer’s between three- and four-fold. However, the researchers acknowledge the need for additional studies to clearly establish R47H as the culprit.

Like many individuals with a parent who suffered from Alzheimer’s, my husband has for years worried that each of his own memory lapses signaled the illness. His situation has been complicated by other conditions that cause short-term memory loss.

High-tech methods of studying genes like TREM2 bring with them a dilemma for individuals like him with a family history of certain illnesses. At the extreme, they face a quandary like that of individuals who had a parent with Huntington’s disease.

In the case of Alzheimer’s, knowing that not everyone with a mutation will develop the disease, should the offspring seek genetic testing? While the linking of a rare gene mutation to Alzheimer’s is a step forward, considerably more research is needed before at-risk individuals like my husband feel enthusiastic about the discovery.

Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.

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Gold prices fall on growing economic uncertainty

The price of gold fell Thursday on growing worries about global economic growth with pending U.S. budget issues and Europe’s recession.

Gold for December delivery dropped $ 16.30 Thursday to finish at $ 1,713.80 per ounce.

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders are scheduled to meet Friday to discuss the budget. Obama and Republican congressional leaders are at odds over the best way to resolve budget disagreements before tax hikes and spending cuts take effect Jan. 1. Many economists believe that without a compromise, the U.S. could wind up back in a recession.

Meanwhile, European Union statistics showed that the 17 countries that use the euro are in recession for the first time in three years as the region struggles with a three-year-old debt crisis. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

Gold has a reputation as a relatively safe asset to hold during economic turmoil but investors are “in a quandary and conserving cash,” George Gero, vice president at RBC Global Futures, wrote in an email.

In other metals trading, December silver fell 20.6 cents to end at $ 32.674 per ounce, December copper rose 0.9 cent to $ 3.4625 per pound, January platinum dropped $ 18.30 to $ 1,573.30 per ounce and December palladium fell $ 10.35 to $ 631.20 per ounce.

The economic uncertainty also pressured energy products. Benchmark oil dropped 87 cents to end at $ 85.45 per barrel, heating oil fell 1.47 cents to $ 2.9735 per gallon, gasoline futures rose 1.72 cents to $ 2.6962 per gallon and natural gas fell 5.7 cents to $ 3.703 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In agricultural contracts, orange juice futures rose 3.1 percent as traders bought contracts to get in position for the winter months, said Jack Scoville, vice president Price Futures Group. Florida crops are in good shape and the freeze season won’t begin for several weeks. Frozen orange juice concentrate for January delivery rose 3.45 cents to end at $ 1.1625 per pound.

December wheat fell 3.25 cents to end at $ 8.455 per bushel, December corn fell 4.5 cents to $ 7.2125 per bushel and January soybeans fell 17 cents to end at $ 14.02 per bushel.

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France urges Mali to step up talks with rebels

PARIS (AP) — France‘s president called Thursday for stepped-up talks between Mali’s government and any leaders from its breakaway north “who reject terrorism,” even as African nations geared up for a possible military operation against Islamic extremists there.

President Francois Hollande‘s comments suggested a growing openness to dialogue with the extremists, but he remained committed to supporting the military planning effort.

Northern Mali fell to Islamic extremists in April, after coup leaders toppled the government in Bamako, Mali‘s capital. Fearing that northern Mali could become the latest hotbed of terrorism, France has been a driving force in international efforts to bolster Mali’s army to drive the Islamists from power.

Hollande spoke with interim Mali President Dioncounda Traore by phone on Thursday, partly to detail European efforts to help strengthen Mali’s army.

In recent days, representatives from the most moderate of three al-Qaida-linked groups that control northern Mali have been meeting with Burkina Faso‘s president, appointed as a mediator.

“France reiterates its wish that political dialogue will intensify between Malian authorities and representatives of northern populations who reject terrorism,” Hollande’s office said in a statement. “The acceleration of this dialogue must accompany the progress in African military-planning efforts.”

Earlier this week, the African Union approved a plan that calls for 3,300 African troops to be deployed in order to win back Mali’s north. European countries including France and Germany have expressed a willingness to provide military trainers and logistics support, but have stopped short of committing combat troops.

France, like many European countries, fears that the arid, northern Sahel region of Mali could become a breeding ground for terrorism, where al-Qaida and its allies could plot hostage-takings and attacks in Europe or beyond.

France has millions of people whose families hail from former French colonies in north and west Africa. Authorities have long been concerned that French-born militants could travel abroad for terrorism training and return home later to possibly carry out attacks.

French authorities are already investigating two French citizens who were arrested in Mali and neighboring Niger and are suspected of seeking to join up with the al-Qaida-linked extremists, a judicial official told The Associated Press.

Ibrahim Ouattara, a 24-year-old native of the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers who has dual French and Malian nationality, was arrested inside Mali this month and remains in custody there, the official said.

Separately, a 27-year-old Frenchman was arrested in August in Niger and has since been handed over to authorities in France, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss terrorism cases publicly.

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Sina’s profit beats on Weibo; co forecasts weak 4th-quarter revenue

(Reuters) – Chinese internet company Sina Corp eked out a profit in the third quarter that beat analysts’ estimates as strong advertising sales on its microblogging platform offset weaker website advertising but it forecast current-quarter revenue below expectations.

Shares of the company fell 6 percent to $ 49.72 in extended trading. They closed at $ 53.10 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

Sina expects adjusted net revenue to range between $ 132 million and $ 136 million in the fourth quarter, with advertising revenues forecast to increase between 6 percent and 8 percent from a year earlier.

Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $ 151.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sina, which makes most of its revenue from online advertising both on its website and through its microblogging platform, Weibo, is facing stiff headwinds this year as firms slash advertising budgets due to a worsening economic outlook.

Analysts said the spat between Japan and China over a few uninhabited islands in the East China Sea may have affected Sina’s website advertising sales as Japanese automakers cut back on advertising in China.

Net profit was $ 9.9 million for the September quarter, compared to a loss of $ 336.3 million a year earlier. The profit beat analysts’ expectations of $ 7.5 million.

Sina’s advertising revenue rose 19 percent to $ 120.6 million in the third quarter, while non-advertising revenue rose 9 percent to $ 31.8 million. Overall net revenue was $ 152.4 million, up from $ 130.3 million, a year earlier.

The company started monetizing Weibo by offering special services to business accounts and selling VIP memberships to regular users earlier this year.

Weibo contributed about 10 percent to total advertising revenue in the second quarter and had 368 million registered accounts.

(Reporting By Melanie Lee in Shanghai & Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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NBC names new top producer for ‘Today’

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is staying in-house in its effort to turn around the “Today” show.

The network on Wednesday appointed a 23-year veteran of the morning news show as its new executive producer. Don Nash began working for “Today” as a production assistant in NBC’s Burbank office in 1989 and will now run the four-hour broadcast.

Nash was most recently senior broadcast producer in the show’s control room. He replaces Jim Bell, who shifted to NBC Sports to run its Olympics broadcasts.

After nearly two decades of dominance, “Today” has slipped behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” in the ratings.

NBC also added another layer of management for the show, appointing Alexandra Wallace as the network’s executive in charge of the program.

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Obama: Wealthy must pay more tax

14 November 2012 Last updated at 16:14 ET

President Obama said his approach was that ”the wealthiest Americans pay a little bit more”

US President Obama has reiterated his call for high earners in the US to pay more in taxes, in his first news conference since winning re-election.

He called for quick legislation to rule out tax rises on the first $ 250,000 (£158,000) of income, but refused to extend cuts for the wealthiest 2%.

“We should not hold the middle class hostage while we debate tax cuts for the wealthy,” Mr Obama said.

The US faces an end-of-year “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax rises.

The fiscal cliff would see the George W Bush-era tax cuts expire in combination with automatic, across-the-board reductions to military and domestic spending.

Loophole offer

Some $ 607bn (£380bn) of savings and tax rises are planned, including reductions in the defence budget, the end of an employee tax holiday, changes to Medicare allowances and higher personal taxes.

The lower paid are set to lose some child and income credits, but Mr Obama has made fewer references to other portions of the stimulus deal set to expire beyond the tax cuts.

Continue reading the main story

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The best credit rating that can be given to a borrower’s debts, indicating that the risk of borrowing defaulting is minuscule.

The fiscal cliff is due to take effect because Congress failed to reach a deal on deficit reduction after a stand-off over the US debt ceiling in mid-2011.

Congressional Republicans have said since last week’s US elections that they are open to raising revenue through tax reform and closure of loopholes, but oppose tax rises on the wealthy.

Glenn Hubbard, an economic adviser to Republican Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid, writing in the Financial Times, called on fellow Republicans to accept the need for the rich to pay more tax, albeit through closing loopholes such as tax deductions.

Other Republicans favour ending the right of Americans to deduct mortgage interest payments from their taxable income – something analysts say is likely to hurt the middle classes far more than top earners.

During his news conference on Wednesday, Mr Obama was dismissive of a loophole-only reform, telling reporters that “the math tends not to work” in helping to cut the deficit.

“It really is arithmetic, not calculus,” he said.

The president has long opposed extending the Bush-era tax cuts for earnings above $ 250,000 a year, but gave into Republican demands in 2010 when the cuts were last up for renewal.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama said that would not happen this time.

“A modest tax increase on the wealthy is not going to break their backs,” he said. “They’ll still be wealthy.”

But the president said he was confident that the White House and Congress could reach a deal before 1 January to avoid the “fiscal cliff”, as the US economy could not afford it coming to pass.

He suggested the immediate extension of all the expiring tax cuts except the top rate, followed by a more comprehensive reform of the tax code as well as some of the US’ largest benefits programmes, including Social Security in 2013.

In doing so, he distanced himself from some in his own party who want the combined tax rises and cuts to happen, in order to give Mr Obama a better negotiating position.

‘Great distance’

On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned against extending all of the tax breaks that are due to expire in January as a way of giving Washington more time to broker a deal on the deficit.

Mr Geithner claimed doing this would create more uncertainty in the financial markets.

House Speaker John Boehner has scheduled a response to Mr Obama on Wednesday, as the White House planned to meet with congressional leaders on Friday, when both sides are expected to designate aides in search of a compromise.

Mr Obama met on Tuesday with allies from labour and liberal groups, and also invited a group of chief executives to the White House.

Earlier, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said that “many Republicans believe now is the time to sit down and talk more revenue”, saying up to 20 Republican senators are willing to work towards accommodation.

But Sen Durbin said “there is a great distance” between Republicans in the House and Senate.

“Basically it comes down to the question of whether Speaker Boehner is willing to look for a bipartisan solution.”

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