After the arrival in neighboring Niger of dozens of Libyan vehicles, including some which may be carrying gold and cash, the United States said the convoy included aides to Gaddafi and urged authorities in Niger to hold any war crimes suspects.

Niger has denied Gaddafi is in the poor, landlocked former French colony. But a French military source has told Reuters that he and his son Saif al-Islam may have planned to rendezvous with the convoy in the Sahara, possibly via Algeria, before heading for Burkina Faso, which in the past had offered refuge.

Hisham Buhagiar, who coordinates efforts by Libya’s interim government to find the ousted strongman, said he had evidence he may have been near the southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km (200 miles) north of the border with Niger, three days ago.

“The last tracks, he was in the Ghwat area. People saw the cars going in that direction,” Buhagiar said in an interview late on Tuesday. “We have it from many sources that he’s trying to go further south, toward Chad or Niger.”

Burkina President Blaise Compaore denied discussing giving Gaddafi sanctuary. “We have no information regarding the presence of Libyans on our soil since these events, and we have had no contacts with anyone in Libya about a request for political asylum,” he told reporters in the capital Ouagadougou.

Compaore has ruled for 24 years after taking power, like Gaddafi, in a military coup. And like other African states, Burkina benefited from oil-funded Libyan aid under Gaddafi.

Niger has also tried to distance itself. Officials have confirmed that Gaddafi’s security chief Mansour Dhao had been let in but insisted it was a humanitarian gesture. Its interior minister denied on Tuesday a report from Niger and French military sources that 200-250 Libyan army vehicles had arrived via Algeria on Monday near the northern town of Agadez.

WANTED MEN

As with all efforts so far to find Gaddafi, two full weeks after his Tripoli headquarters were overrun by the motley collection of rebel groups who rose up in February, the trail is hazy, in a region where people are few and far between.

Buhagiar also said: “He’s out of Bani Walid, I think.”

He was referring to the besieged tribal bastion, 150 km (100 miles) south of Tripoli, where fighters of the National Transitional Council (NTC) have been trying to negotiate the surrender of a hard core of Gaddafi loyalists.

NTC commanders said last week they thought Gaddafi, 69, was there planning a counter-strike with Saif al-Islam, his heir apparent, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi. But it appears the senior figures are not there now, officials say.

All three are wanted by the International Criminal Court at The Hague for war crimes committed during the revolt — though Libyans say they want to try them first, including for atrocities over the four decades before this year’s uprising.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he was unsure whether, as U.S. officials have said, Gaddafi was still in Libya: “I think he’s been taking a lot of steps to make sure that in the end he could try to get out if he had to, but as to where, when, and how that’ll take place, we just don’t know.”

Gaddafi’s fugitive spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, insisted in a call to Reuters on Tuesday that he had not left. “He is in Libya. He is safe, he is very healthy, in high morale.”

TOWN BESIEGED

NTC commanders have said this week they believe Ibrahim may be in Bani Walid, where a tense standoff continued. Outside the town on Wednesday, residents leaving through a sun-scorched NTC checkpoint set up around the nearby settlement of Wishtata painted an increasingly desperate picture inside Bani Walid.

“People are terrorized. There is no one in the streets,” said Salah Ali, 39. “But many still support Gaddafi because they were paid by the regime, because many have committed crimes and are afraid of arrest.”

Inside Bani Walid, tucked away in a valley in barren hills south of the capital, residents said Gaddafi-era green flags still wave above houses and a portrait of the “Brother Leader” in military uniform towers above its central square.

Shooting in the air and shouting insults from the back of their pick-up trucks, groups of Gaddafi loyalists regularly speed through its streets, residents said. They often shout “Allah, Muammar, Libya, nothing else!” — the principal slogan of the old regime, especially during this year’s civil war.

“I went to see my family there yesterday,” said Imad Mohammed Ali, a 21-year-old supporter of the new leadership. “There is no electricity, no cooking gas, no communications. There isn’t enough food. People are using coal to make fire. There is no medicine. There are no people in the streets.”

Aid agencies have also raised concerns about conditions for civilians in the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace and another redoubt of tribal leaders still loyal to him. Libya’s southern desert is also not under the control of the NTC.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas, Christian Lowe and Alex Dziadosz in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Ras Lanuf, Maria Golovnina near Bani Walid, Barry Malone, Sylvia Westall and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Nathalie Prevost in Niamey, Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Agadez, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou and Richard Valdmanis and Mark John in Dakar; Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Mark Heinrich)

New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Vietnam of imprisoning hundreds of thousands of drug addicts over the past decade without due process and forcing them to work long hours for little pay.

It also alleged that the U.S. and Australian governments, the United Nations, the World Bank and other international donors may “indirectly facilitate human rights abuses” by providing drug dependency or HIV treatment and prevention services to addicts inside some of the centers.

About 309,000 drug users nationwide passed through the centers from 2000 to 2010, with the number of facilities more than doubling — from 56 to 123_ and the maximum length of detention rising from one to four years, the report said, citing government figures.

The report called drug treatment at the centers “ineffective and abusive,” claiming donor support for health services inside such facilities allows Vietnam to “maximize profits” by detaining drug addicts for longer periods and forcing them to do manual labor.

“People who are dependent on drugs in Vietnam need access to community-based, voluntary treatment,” Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said in a statement. “Instead, the government is locking them up, private companies are exploiting their labor and international donors are turning a blind eye to the torture and abuses they face.”

Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga called the report “groundless,” saying compulsory drug rehabilitation in Vietnam is “humane, effective and beneficial for drug users, community and society.”

Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centers comply with Vietnamese law and are “in line” with drug-treatment principles set by the U.S., the U.N. and the World Health Organization, Nga added.

Officials from the U.S., Australia and the United Nations declined to comment.

The U.S. last year provided $7.7 million to the country for methadone treatment and community-based drug intervention, according to the US Embassy website. Injecting drug users are a driving force behind HIV infections across Vietnam.

The World Bank funded an HIV/AIDS prevention program in 20 drug rehabilitation centers across Vietnam that ended last year.

“We have not received any reports of human rights violations in the drug rehabilitation clinics supported by the project,” said Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Vietnam’s country director. “If we had, we would have conducted a supervision mission to ensure bank policies were met and concerns fully examined.”

Detainees inside the Vietnamese drug centers report beatings and spells of solitary confinement, and some who attempted escape say they were captured and shocked with an electric baton as punishment, according to the 126-page report that interviewed 34 former detainees in 2010 who were held at 14 centers in and around southern Ho Chi Minh City.

It also charged Vietnam with forcing prisoners to sew clothing, lay bricks or husk cashews for between $5 and $20 per month, a violation of domestic labor law, which guarantees a minimum monthly wage of about $40.

Instead of providing health services inside the centers, donors should focus on releasing detainees back into their communities, the report said, citing government reports that place the relapse rate for drug users treated inside the centers at 80 percent or higher.

China and other Southeast Asian countries have also come under fire from rights groups in recent years for alleged human rights violations inside similar drug rehabilitation facilities.

Several large escapes from Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centers have been reported in recent years.

The centers, which began opening after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, are one facet of Vietnam’s ongoing campaign against drug abuse, prostitution and other so-called “social evils.”

Most detainees are young male heroin users, the Human Rights Watch report said, citing government data. Some are rounded up by police while others are sent to the centers by family members.

Vietnam says there are 138,000 drug addicts in the country and 30 percent them are HIV positive, down from 60 percent in 2006.

With the national unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent, the economy was likely to dominate Wednesday’s debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Republicans competing for the chance to challenge President Barack Obama next fall were taking the stage one day before the incumbent Democrat rolls out a jobs-creation plan.

It’s the first of three Republican presidential debates scheduled over the next three weeks.

The events promise to shape the GOP presidential race heading into this winter’s series of nominating primaries and caucuses. National and state polls show Perry, the Texas governor, and Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, competing for the lead. Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman who was running strong in polls earlier this summer, is trailing, along with no less than a half dozen other lesser-known Republicans.

This would be the first debate appearance for Perry, who has been in the race just a few weeks.

But his attendance was in question. Aides said Tuesday that he plans to debate. But Perry, who was in Texas dealing with one of the most destructive wildfire outbreaks in the state’s history, left open the possibility that he may skip the debate. Asked whether he would have time to prepare even if he does attend, Perry said, “We’ll deal with that when it comes up.”

Should Perry attend as expected, he will face a bright spotlight in part because he doesn’t have extensive debate experience and is competing in his first national campaign. He’s a natural politician, but aides privately acknowledge that Perry doesn’t count debating among his strongest skills. In 10 years as governor, Perry has debated other candidates just four times — and last year, he didn’t debate his general election opponent at all.

Perry entered the race and immediately jolted the GOP electorate with a shot of energy. But he found himself in hot water for controversial remarks, including suggesting there are “gaps” in the theory of evolution, questioning whether humans play a role in climate change and referring to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. The debate will test whether he can withstand on-camera questioning or barbs from his competitors over those issues.

Romney, who led the field before Perry became a candidate, has turned in two strong debate performances largely by staying above the fray while his rivals sparred onstage.

This time, he may not have that luxury.

Romney is expected to come face to face with Perry just as the former Massachusetts governor has been stepping up his efforts to contrast himself with his chief rival. Romney has been emphasizing his private-sector business experience and suggesting it’s superior to Perry’s, who has held elected office since 1985. Romney also has started drawing distinctions with Perry on immigration: Romney opposed legislation to allow illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition breaks, while Texas universities allow illegal immigrants to receive those discounts.

Romney was debating a day after unveiling a major economic plan that he is using to sell himself as the candidate with the most business knowhow.

For Bachmann, the debate comes as she’s looking to regain traction she lost when Perry entered the race. Both candidates attract support from tea party activists, and the two are competing for the larger share of their votes.

Perhaps foreshadowing debate skirmishing, a group called Keep Conservatives United — unaffiliated with Bachmann’s campaign but seemingly working to help her candidacy — ran a TV ad in South Carolina this week that questioned Perry’s record on government spending, a key issue with those voters.

Bachmann has a lot on the line.

Since she won a key test vote in Iowa on Aug. 13, Bachmann has faced questions about the true strength of her campaign. Her campaign manager and deputy manager have left her staff. And she’s fallen in early state and national polls.

Among others also planning to be on stage were Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has called his rivals extreme, as well as ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Georgia businessman Herman Cain. All have struggled for attention.

Another candidate, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, has made waves in recent weeks, coming in a close second in the Iowa straw poll.

In recent days, Paul increasingly has gone after Perry, putting out a TV ad suggesting that Perry wants to unravel Reagan’s legacy. It drew a rebuke from Perry’s campaign, which said in a statement, “Like President Reagan, Gov. Perry has cut taxes and freed employers from government regulations that kill jobs.”

All that is fitting given the debate’s location.

Wednesday will be the third time the hilltop library — a shrine to all things Reagan — will provide the backdrop for a Republican presidential debate. Former first lady Nancy Reagan will welcome the candidates.

It’s a dramatic setting. The candidates speak within sight of Reagan’s jet, Air Force One, and the 40th president is buried on the grounds. The candidates hope to be seen as heirs to the Reagan legacy, while inevitably being measured against it.

It’s often said Republicans are in search of the next Reagan — a charismatic conservative with cross-party appeal — and at the library his presence is inescapable.

NBC News and Politico are sponsoring the debate, which will be moderated by NBC News anchor Brian Williams and Politico editor-in-chief John Harris.

Stars such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, Glenn Close, Robert De Niro and Viggo Mortensen are on the guest list for the 11-day festival that opens Thursday with an unusually heavy emphasis on music and documentaries.

Pitt is on hand for the premiere of “Moneyball,” a film he has been trying to bring to the screen for years as both star and producer. Directed by Bennett Miller (“Capote”), “Moneyball” casts Pitt as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who rebuilt his team on a shoestring budget applying a fresh statistical approach to find under-appreciated players.

“Baseball had relied on a form of statistics that just hadn’t been questioned, and this discovery that had been around for 30 years but had been dismissed showed that there’s much more to it,” Pitt said. “There’s a lot of talented people out there who aren’t being used.”

Pitt’s “Ocean’s Eleven” pal Clooney stars in two Toronto films, the family drama “The Descendants” from director Alexander Payne (“Sideways”) and his own latest directing effort, the political saga “The Ides of March,” in which he plays a presidential candidate opposite Ryan Gosling as an ambitious press secretary.

Weisz has three films playing Toronto: the 1950s drama “The Deep Blue Sea”; the sexual thriller “360,” co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Jude Law; and the British spy tale “Page Eight,” the festival’s closing-night premiere that co-stars Bill Nighy and Ralph Fiennes.

Fiennes has a second film at Toronto, too. He directed and stars with Vanessa Redgrave and Gerard Butler in the Shakespeare adaptation “Coriolanus.” Redgrave also has another Shakespeare film at the festival, playing Queen Elizabeth I in “Anonymous,” which stars Rhys Ifans as an aristocrat some scholars believe is the actual author of the Bard’s work.

Other highlights among the 260 feature films playing Toronto: Williams and Seth Rogen in actress Sarah Polley’s latest directing effort, the marital tale “Take This Waltz’; Close in the cross-dressing story “Albert Nobbs,” about a 19th century Irishwoman who disguises herself as a male butler; De Niro, Jason Statham and Clive Owen in the action thriller “Killer Elite”; and Mortensen, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender in the Sigmund Freud-Carl Jung drama “A Dangerous Method.”

Polley, who grew up in Toronto and still lives there, said that unlike industry-dominated festivals such as Cannes and Venice, Toronto draws regular film fans that give filmmakers a sense of how their work might play in the real world.

“The audiences are so enthusiastic,” Polley said. “It’s a great launching pad for a film. You get your optimum audience here. If a film’s not loved by audiences here, it’s probably not going to be loved by an audience anywhere, so it’s a great first shot.”

The 36th Toronto festival is putting music on a pedestal, as well, with documentaries about Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Pearl Jam and U2, the Irish rockers who are the subject of Thursday’s opening-night gala.

In “From the Sky Down,” director Davis Guggenheim (the Oscar-winning Al Gore documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”) traces the genesis of U2′s 1991 album “Achtung Baby” and follows singer Bono and his band mates today as they prepare for a live performance of those songs.

The festival typically starts with a Canadian film, but “we were looking at a number of ideas of just opening up what’s possible in terms of opening night,” said Cameron Bailey, co-director of the Toronto fest, which also premiered Guggenheim’s 2008 film “It Might Get Loud,” featuring U2 guitarist The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White.

“The fact that it’s Davis Guggenheim is as important as the fact that it’s U2. Our audiences like his films and like his filmmaking. I like how he’s able to get under the skin of these very prominent figures, whether it’s the guitarists in `It Might Get Loud’ or Al Gore or with this one on U2.”

Also on a musical note: Jonathan Demme directs “Neil Young Journeys,” his third concert film featuring the rocker, this time in a solo show at Toronto’s Massey Hall at the end of his tour to promote the album “Le Noise.”

Cameron Crowe combines his two occupations, filmmaker and rock journalist, to direct “Pearl Jam Twenty,” a portrait of the Seattle-area music stars built on rare archival material and candid new interviews with Eddie Vedder and his band mates.

McCartney is at the heart of “The Love We Make,” Albert Maysles’ chronicle of the former Beatle’s preparations for a memorial concert after the Sept. 11 attacks. The film screens at Toronto on Friday, the night before its TV premiere on Showtime and two days before the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11.

The attacks left stars, filmmakers, studio executives and fans stranded in Toronto 10 years ago. The festival briefly shut down before resuming with a subdued air.

To mark the 10-year anniversary, all festival screenings on Sept. 11 will be preceded by a four-minute film featuring directors and other industry professionals looking back on that day and its aftermath.

“From the Sky Down” marks the first time the festival has opened with a documentary, and the nonfiction department also offers one of the festival’s most potentially divisive films with “Sarah Palin — You Betcha!”

Director Nick Broomfield (“Biggie and Tupac,” “Kurt and Courtney”) spent 10 weeks during winter in Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, where he interviewed her parents, friends, church members and others who have known the former governor and Republican vice presidential candidate.

“The idea was to go with a pretty open mind, not with a lot of preconceptions,” Broomfield said. “It’s almost like we made a diary of what we found rather than going out to nail her.”

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed into a riverbank on the Volga River immediately after leaving an airport near the western city of Yaroslavl, 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Moscow. It was sunny at the time.

The plane was carrying the Lokomotiv ice hockey team from Yaroslavl to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where the team was to play Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the season for the Kontinental Hockey League. The ministry said the plane had 45 people on board, including 37 passengers and eight crew.

Officials said Russian player Alexander Galimov survived the crash along with a crewmember.

A Czech embassy official said Czech players Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek and Jan Marek were among those killed, and Latvian officials confirmed the death of Latvian defenseman Karlis Skrastins.

“This is the darkest day in the history of our sport. This is not only a Russian tragedy, the Lokomotiv roster included players and coaches from 10 nations,” said Rene Fasel, president of the international Ice Hockey Federation. “This is a terrible tragedy for the global ice hockey community.”

In recent years, Russia and the other former Soviet republics have had some of the world’s worst air traffic safety records. Experts blame the poor safety record on the age of the aircraft, weak government controls, poor pilot training and a cost-cutting mentality.

The plane that crashed was built in 1993 and belonged to a small Moscow-based Yak Service company.

Swarms of police and rescue crews rushed to Tunoshna, a picturesque village with a blue-domed church on the banks of the Volga River. One of the plane’s engines could be seen poking out of the river and a flotilla of boats combed the water for bodies. Russian rescue workers struggled to heft the bodies of large, strong athletes in stretchers up the muddy, steep riverbank.

One resident, Irina Pryakhova, saw the plane going down, then heard a loud bang and saw a plume of smoke.

“It was wobbling in flight, it was clear that something was wrong,” she said. “I saw them pulling bodies to the shore, some still in their seats with seatbelts on.”

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin immediately sent the nation’s transport minister to the site, 10 miles (15 kilometers) east of Yaroslavl. President Dmitry Medvedev also planned to tour the crash site.

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is a leading force in Russian hockey and came third in the KHL last year. The team’s coach is Canadian Brad McCrimmon, who took over in May. He was most recently an assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings, and played for years in the NHL for Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Hartford and Phoenix.

The Russian team also featured several top European players and former NHL stars, including Slovakian forward and national team captain Pavol Demitra, who played in the NHL for the St. Louis Blues and Vancouver Canucks.

Other top names on the team include Russian defenseman Ruslan Salei and Swedish goalie Stefan Liv.

The KHL is an international club league that pits together teams from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Slovakia. Lokomotiv was a three-time Russian League champion in 1997, 2002-2003. It took bronze last season.

A cup match between hockey teams Salavat Yulaev and Atlant in the central Russian city of Ufa was called off midway after news of the crash was announced by Kontinental Hockey League head Alexander Medvedev. Russian television broadcast images of an empty arena in Ufa as grief-stricken fans abandoned the stadium.

“We will do our best to ensure that hockey in Yaroslavl does not die, and that it continues to live for the people that were on that plane,” said Russian Ice Hockey Federation President Vladislav Tretyak.

Medvedev has announced plans to take aging Soviet-built planes out of service starting next year. The short- and medium-range Yak-42 has been in service since 1980 and about 100 are still being used by Russian carriers.

In June, another Russian passenger jet crashed in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk, killing 47 people. The crash of that Tu-134 plane has been blamed on pilot error.

In other plane crashes involving sports teams, 75 Marshall University football players, coaches, fans and airplane crew died in a plane crash in Kentucky on Nov. 17, 1970, on the way home from a game. Twenty-six of the dead were players

Thirty members of the Uruguayan rugby club Old Christians were killed in a crash in the Andes in 1972.

The entire 18-member U.S. figure skating team died in a crash on their way to the 1961 world championships in Brussels.

In 1949, the Torino soccer team lost 18 players near Turin, Italy, while the Munich air crash of 1958 cost eight Manchester United players their lives.

___

Vladimir Isachenkov and Peter Leonard in Moscow, Steve Wilson in London and Graham Dunbar in Geneva ontributed to this report.

The SP and Nasdaq both topped 2 percent, and all ten SP sector indexes were higher in a broad rally.

European stocks bounced back from a two-year low after the German court rejected lawsuits aimed at blocking the country from joining in to aid Greece and other nations.

But the court said the government must get approval from a parliamentary committee, which could further slow a response. The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares closed up 3 percent. .

“While a resolution to the issues in Europe is not immediate, this shows that they seem to be on the path of making some progress,” said Howard Ward, chief investment officer at GAMCO Growth in Rye, New York. “That’s a huge positive.”

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) advanced 186.45 points, or 1.67 percent, at 11,325.75. The Standard Poor’s 500 Index (.SPX) was up 24.11 points, or 2.07 percent, at 1,189.35. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) jumped 52.81 points, or 2.13 percent, at 2,526.64.

Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) shares gained 4.3 percent to $13.47 after its chairman, Roy Bostock, abruptly fired Chief Executive Carol Bartz on Tuesday, ending a tumultuous tenure marked by stagnation and a rift with Chinese partner Alibaba.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) rose 5.6 percent to $7.39 and was the top percent gainer on the Dow after the heads of its consumer banking and global wealth and investment management units left in a management shake-up. The Dow component has lost almost half of its market value this year.

“The financials have been pounded mercilessly, and we’re starting to get a real bid under their valuation,” said Ward, who helps oversee $36.1 billion in assets under management.

The CBOE Volatility index (.VIX) fell 7.6 percent after spiking 9 percent on Tuesday. The index usually moves inversely to the SP 500.

Darden Restaurants Inc (DRI.N) was the biggest loser on the SP, falling 3.4 percent to $44.59 a day after the operator of the Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains warned that Hurricane Irene hurt first-quarter earnings.

Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) climbed 8 percent to $14.23 a day after the chipmaker forecast 2013 sales that topped expectations.

About 87 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange were in positive territory, while 83 percent of the Nasdaq rose. About 2.89 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq — lower than last year’s average, as of midday.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

]]> http://queenzine.com/wall-street-up-2-percent-as-europe-concerns-ease-reuters.htm/feed 0 http://queenzine.com/yahoo-fires-bartz-as-ceo-names-cfo-to-fill-void-ap.htm http://queenzine.com/yahoo-fires-bartz-as-ceo-names-cfo-to-fill-void-ap.htm#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:30:05 +0000 Admin http://queenzine.com/yahoo-fires-bartz-as-ceo-names-cfo-to-fill-void-ap.htm SAN FRANCISCO – Yahoo Inc. fired Carol Bartz as CEO Tuesday after more than 2 1/2 years of financial lethargy that had convinced investors that she couldn’t steer the Internet company to a long-promised turnaround.

To fill the void, Yahoo’s board named Tim Morse, its chief financial officer, as interim CEO. Bartz lured Morse away from computer chip maker Altera Corp. two years ago to help her cuts costs. Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., said it is looking for a permanent replacement.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, also a target of shareholder frustration, informed Bartz about the move over the phone, according to an e-mail the outgoing CEO sent from her iPad that was obtained by the All Things D technology blog. The blog first reported Bartz’s ouster.

A Yahoo spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.

Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter called the handling of Bartz’s departure “unseemly” and interpreted it as a sign of even more drama to come at Yahoo.

In a research note late Tuesday, Schachter predicted there will be a wide range of conjecture about Yahoo’s future, with the most likely speculation centering on Yahoo as a takeover target during a vulnerable time.

Alternatively, Yahoo could make a bold move itself by trying to buy the online video site Hulu.com, which is already talking to suitors, or trying to sell its 43 percent stake in the Alibaba Group, one of China’s most prized Internet companies. Bartz’s tense relationship with Alibaba CEO Jack Ma had fed investor dissatisfaction about her leadership.

In a Tuesday statement, Yahoo said it is undergoing a “comprehensive strategic review” in its latest effort to give investors a reason to buy its stock but didn’t offer details.

Bartz, 63, led an austerity campaign helped boost Yahoo’s earnings, but the company didn’t increase its revenue even as the Internet ad market grew at a rapid clip.

The financial funk, along with recent setbacks in Yahoo’s online search partnership with Microsoft Corp. and the Alibaba investment, proved to be Bartz’s downfall. Her ouster comes with 16 months left on a four-year contract that she signed in January 2009.

That contract entitles her to severance payments that could be two to three times her annual salary and bonus, along with stock incentives she received during her tenure. Bartz received a $2.2 million bonus to supplement her $1 million salary last year.

Yahoo has now replaced three CEOs in a little over four years. During that time, Yahoo has lost ground in the Internet ad race to online search leader Google Inc. and Facebook even though its website remains among the world’s most popular.

Known for her no-nonsense leadership and sometimes gruff language, Bartz arrived at Yahoo as a respected Silicon Valley executive who had won praise for turning around business software maker Autodesk Inc. But she had no previous experience in Internet advertising, the main way Yahoo makes money.

That hole in her resume immediately raised questions whether she was qualified for the job, and those doubts only escalated as Yahoo’s revenue continued to sag.

At first, Bartz blamed bad timing; she started the job during some of the bleakest months of the Great Recession. Later, she would say that she inherited such as mess from her two predecessors, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and former movie studio boss Terry Semel, and that it would take time to get Yahoo back on the right track.

At one point, she even compared her challenge to those that faced Steve Jobs when he returned to Apple Inc. as CEO in 1997.

Unlike Jobs, Bartz never was able to articulate a strategy to win over investors.

“She focused on plugging holes in the ship instead of turning it around,” said Gartner Inc. analyst Ray Valdes.

The disappointing performance was reflected in Yahoo’s stock price, which closed Tuesday at $12.91. That’s 81 cents, or 7 percent, higher than where Yahoo shares stood when Bartz was hired as CEO. During the same period, Google’s stock price has risen by more than $200, or 66 percent, and the technology-driven Nasdaq composite index has climbed by 60 percent. A group of investors led by Goldman Sachs Group concluded privately held Facebook is worth $50 billion in an appraisal done earlier this year. That’s triple Yahoo’s current market value.

Bartz never hit any of the price targets that the board set for her when she was hired. That means none of the 5 million stock options that she received upon signing her contract had vested by the time she was ushered out the door.

Investors seemed happy to see Bartz go. Yahoo shares gained 81 cents, or more than 6 percent, in extended trading late Tuesday.

Although Bartz’s exit as CEO came suddenly, her departure isn’t a shock. The pressure to replace her grew earlier this year after Bartz acknowledged Yahoo’s search partnership with Microsoft wasn’t producing as much revenue as the companies anticipated.

Then, in May, Yahoo stunned investors by disclosing that Alibaba had spun off an online payment service in a move that threatened to diminish the value of Yahoo’s investment in the Chinese company.

Alipay in July agreed to a complex settlement that could eventually be worth more than $1 billion to Yahoo, but there were too many uncertainties in the deal to placate shareholders.

Bostock had steadfastly stood behind Bartz whenever she was attacked by investors or analysts. In a Tuesday statement, Bostock thanked Bartz for “her service to Yahoo during a critical time of transition in the company’s history” without providing an explanation for why the board decided to replace her.

BGC partners analyst Colin Gillis said Yahoo’s board “has got to look in the mirror here.”

“Swapping the CEO without swapping the (board) chair doesn’t solve your problem,” he said. “The person that hired Carol to begin with deserves to share the culpability.”

To help Morse, Yahoo set up an “executive leadership council” that includes some of the executives that Bartz recruited, including the company’s products guru Blake Irving and the head of its North American operations, Ross Levinsohn. While he worked for News Corp., Levinsohn helped put together the Hulu video site and is seen as a possible CEO candidate.

Analysts also have speculated that David Kenny, an Internet veteran who joined Yahoo’s board in April, might be a candidate for Yahoo’s CEO job. Kenny is currently president of Internet networking services provider Akamai Technologies Inc.

With its stock sagging and its management in limbo, Yahoo could be more vulnerable to a takeover attempt by a private equity group or another opportunistic bidder attracted to what remains one of the Internet’s best-known brands. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, in 2008 only to be rebuffed.

___

AP Technology Writers Rachel Metz in San Francisco and Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

Japan’s Nikkei average climbed 2 percent while European stocks were up 2.5 percent in early trade, bouncing off 2-year closing lows hit in the previous session, although the rally was seen as a short-term technical bounce.

European equities increased their gains after Germany’s Constitutional Court rejected a series of lawsuits aimed at blocking Germany’s participation in bailout packages for Greece and other euro zone countries. The country’s highest court said, however, that the German government must seek the approval of parliament’s budget committee before granting such aid, a requirement which could further slow down Europe’s response to the debt crisis.

Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) will be in the spotlight after Chairman Roy Bostock fired CEO Carol Bartz over the phone on Tuesday, ending a tumultuous tenure marked by stagnation and a rift with Chinese partner Alibaba. Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse will step in as interim CEO, and the company will search for a permanent leader to spearhead a battle in online advertising and content with rivals Google Inc (GOOG.O) and Facebook.

Shares of Yahoo traded in Frankfurt (YHOO.F) were up 11 percent.

Chevron Corp (CVX.N) has made a deepwater discovery in the Gulf of Mexico at the Moccasin prospect, the site of the first exploratory well permit after the end of last year’s deepwater moratorium. Shares in BP (BP.L), Chevron’s partner in the project, gained 3.2 percent.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), which has lost almost half of its market value this year, announced a broad reorganization on Tuesday that includes the departure of two senior executives.

President Barack Obama, facing waning confidence among Americans in his economic stewardship, plans some $300 billion in tax cuts and government spending as part of a job-creating package, U.S. media reported on Tuesday. The price tag of the proposed package, to be announced by Obama in a nationally televised speech to Congress on Thursday, would be offset by other cuts that the president would outline, CNN reported, citing Democratic sources.

U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips (COP.N) moved to repair its frayed relations with Chinese regulators on Wednesday, apologizing for an oil spill in northern China’s Bohai Bay and saying it will establish a fund to cover the clean-up costs.

U.S. stocks fell for a third day on Tuesday as Europe struggled to convince markets it can tackle its debt crisis, but shares trimmed their losses in the wake of better-than-expected ISM non-manufacturing PMI data.

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) ended down 0.9 percent, the Standard Poor’s 500 Index (.SPX) fell 0.7 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) lost 0.3 percent.

(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

]]> http://queenzine.com/stock-index-futures-rise-reuters.htm/feed 0 http://queenzine.com/balzan-prizes-awarded-to-4-academics-ap.htm http://queenzine.com/balzan-prizes-awarded-to-4-academics-ap.htm#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:29:36 +0000 Admin http://queenzine.com/balzan-prizes-awarded-to-4-academics-ap.htm MILAN – An Anglo-American expert on the evolution of the universe and an Irish-born historian of the rise of Christianity and the cult of the saints are two of the four winners of this year’s Balzan Prizes.

Astronomer Joseph Silk and historian Peter Brown joined Polish philosopher Bronislaw Baczko and Russell Lande of the United States in winning the 750,000 Swiss franc (euro670,000; $950,000) prize, which seeks to highlight new or emerging areas of research and to sustain overlooked fields of study.

Silk, of Johns Hopkins University, was credited with pioneering work on the early evolution of the universe. The Balzan judges lauded Princeton University-based Brown for his influential studies on the cult of saints, the body and sexuality and the rise of Christianity.

Baczko, who is based at the University of Geneva, was cited for his contributions to the consequences of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution. And judges hailed Lande, based at the Imperial College in London, for his work on theoretical population biology.

The Balzan foundation, based in Milan and Zurich, was established by the family of Italian journalist Eugenio Balzan, who fled his homeland to Switzerland in the 1930s to oppose Fascist pressure on the media.

The winners announced Monday must dedicate half of their prize money to continuing research work, preferably involving young scholars.

Each year, the prizes are awarded in different subjects. Next year they will be awarded in jurisprudence, musicology, solid earth sciences and epigenetics.

]]> http://queenzine.com/balzan-prizes-awarded-to-4-academics-ap.htm/feed 0 http://queenzine.com/wall-street-down-on-europe-bear-market-fears-grow-reuters.htm http://queenzine.com/wall-street-down-on-europe-bear-market-fears-grow-reuters.htm#comments Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:29:27 +0000 Admin http://queenzine.com/wall-street-down-on-europe-bear-market-fears-grow-reuters.htm NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street fell for a third day on Tuesday on fears Europe still has failed to tackle its debt crisis, prompting worries the market is headed to new lows for the year.

Investors channeled cash into less risky assets as doubts resurfaced over the political will of Italy and Greece to push through tough budget measures and as Germany hardened its stand against providing more aid. The worries over the European debt crisis renewed fears that the global economy could fall into recession.

The SP 500 is now down 14.5 percent from its highest point in 2011, reached at the end of April. Though investors have periodically taken heart from signs that Europe has carved out a plan to deal with its festering crisis, confidence has been repeatedly walloped every time there is a development showing that the problems have not been solved.

“We have got a shot at trading the SP under 1,100 again,” said Nick Kalivas, an equity index analyst at MF Global in Chicago. “I don’t sense that people are really going to defend the market until something like that occurs.”

A similar pattern of fractured confidence exists in bank stocks. Major U.S. banks were among the biggest decliners on Tuesday, with the KBW Bank index off nearly 2 percent. Late on Friday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency sued 17 large U.S. banks over subprime mortgage-backed bonds, compounding fears about the health of the sector.

JPMorgan and Bank of America, both subjects of the suit, fell more than 3 percent on Tuesday.

The CBOE Volatility Index, or Vix, a measure of expected market turbulence, posted its biggest gain in nearly two weeks, climbing 9.4 percent to 37.08.

“Right now there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut. “There is a decent chance that we are in a bear market.”

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 100.96 points, or 0.90 percent, to 11,139.30. The Standard Poor’s 500 Index fell 8.73 points, or 0.74 percent, to 1,165.24. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 6.50 points, or 0.26 percent, to 2,473.83.

Traders are monitoring lows set by major global indexes during the selloff in the first half of August. So far, only Germany’s DAX, down nearly 25 percent this year, and Japan’s Nikkei have fallen below those levels.

The SP 500 hit a 2011 low of 1,101 on August 9.

European shares extended losses on Tuesday, after falling more than 4 percent on Monday, hitting their lowest close in more than two years on worries the euro zone debt crisis was deteriorating. The PHLX Europe sector index slumped 3.5 percent. U.S.-listed shares of Credit Suisse fell 12.9 percent to $23.84.

Gold stocks got a lift as the price of gold jumped to a record high above $1,920 after Switzerland pegged its currency to the euro in an effort to prevent its rapid appreciation in an extended spat of safe-haven buying. The precious metal then retreated 2 percent from that level as investors took profits.

The Arca Gold Bugs index, which measures the performance of 16 U.S.-listed gold miners, rose 0.6 percent. Eldorado Gold Corp was the biggest percentage gainer, up 2.4 percent to $21.36.

The Financial Times reported several big U.S. banks, in talks with state officials on settling claims of improper mortgage practices, were offered a deal to limit legal liability in return for a multibillion-dollar payment.

Several brokerages including Nomura cut their price targets on big lenders.

Bank of America Corp lost 3.6 percent to $6.99 and JPMorgan Chase Co fell 3.4 percent to $33.44.

Among gainers, Sunoco Inc rose 5.3 percent to $38.03 after the energy company said it plans to exit its refining business and focus on its logistics operations.

Packaging company Temple-Inland Inc jumped 25 percent to $30.85 after International Paper Co agreed to buy it for $32 per share. International Paper rose 8.9 percent to $27.77.

Trading volume was lower than usual at 7.9 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Decliners beat advancers by nearly than three-to-one on the New York Stock Exchange. On Nasdaq, decliners beat advancers by about two-to-one.

(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Leslie Adler)