Asian shares edge down, yen eases as BoJ meeting eyed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares edged lower on Monday, taking a breather after hitting multimonth highs, while the yen touched a new low ahead of the outcome of the Bank of Japan policy meeting this week amid expectations for bold monetary easing measures.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was down 0.1 percent after closing at a 17-1/2-month high on Friday.

Australian shares <.axjo> inched up 0.1 percent while South Korean shares <.ks11> slipped 0.6 percent after opening nearly flat.

The focus in Japan was on the BoJ's policy meeting, with Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> sliding 1.1 percent after opening up 0.3 percent. The Nikkei surged 2.9 percent for its biggest daily gain in 22 months on Friday after the yen resumed its weakening track, posting a 10th straight week of gains, its longest since 1987. <.t/>

Early on Monday, the dollar touched a fresh 2-1/2-year high of 90.25 yen, and the euro rose to a high of 120.27 yen, near its peak since May 2011 of 120.73 hit on Friday.

The Bank of Japan starts its two-day policy meeting on Monday under growing political pressure to pursue bolder measures to beat deflation, with speculation ranging from an open-ended commitment to buy assets until a 2 percent inflation target is achieved to simply boosting its asset buying schemes.

Friday's data showed while currency speculators slightly cut their bets against the yen in the week to Jan 15, they remained overwhelmingly negative on the currency.

"We expect the door for further easing will likely be left open irrespective of the outcome of BoJ policy meeting, either explicitly by the BoJ or implicitly through government's plan to nominate doves to replace the governor and deputy governors," Barclays Capital said in a note to clients.

The steady showing in Asia equities followed a rise in global equities late last week when positive U.S. and Chinese data and signs Washington may avert a fiscal crisis lifted sentiment.

Republicans said the House will consider a bill to raise the U.S. debt ceiling enough to allow the country to pay its bills for another three months. The strategy would buy time for the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget plan that shrinks the federal deficit.

"Another sharp decline in market uncertainty with respect to the US fiscal negotiations provided support to risky assets at the end of last week," said Barclays Capital in a separate research note.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended Friday at five-year highs on a solid start to the quarterly earnings season. U.S. markets are closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

RISK APPETITE RETURNING

EPFR Global said on Friday EPFR Global-tracked Emerging Markets Bond Funds hit a 50-week high in the second week of January as investors saw some value in the riskier fixed income asset classes. Its Emerging Markets Equity Funds outdid Developed Markets Equity Funds for the sixth time in the past seven weeks, with diversified Global Emerging Markets Equity Funds and funds linked to China favored.

Last year, when several Asian stock markets rallied, many bigger hedge funds failed to beat benchmark returns but nimbler, small to medium-sized funds fared better.

Oil prices rose on Friday on supply disruption fears reinforced by the Islamist militant attack and hostage-taking at a gas plant in Algeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

U.S. crude futures eased 0.2 percent to $95.36 a barrel early on Monday.

(Additional reporting by Ian Chua in Sydney; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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Djokovic plays another Australian Open marathon

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The opponent was different, the match three rounds earlier. Still, the result gave Novak Djokovic a familiar feeling, and another chance to rip off his shirt in celebration.

Djokovic needed just over 5 hours to beat Stanislas Wawrinka 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 12-10 in a fourth-round match Sunday night at the Australian Open, on the same court where he needed 5:53 to beat Rafael Nadal in last year's final.

"I just had flashback of 2012," Djokovic said. "It was maybe 45 minutes less this match than the one 12 months ago, but still it was still as exciting. I tried to enjoy the moment and couldn't ask for more. What a match point ... unbelievable."

He wasn't exaggerating about the match point. On his third attempt to end it, his backhand cross-court shot zipped past the valiant Wawrinka, who, Djokovic conceded, had outplayed him for most of the night.

"He came up with great tactics today," Djokovic said. "He didn't give me a lot of the same rhythm that I could get into the match. He was the one being in charge. I was passive. "

The win was Djokovic's 18th in a row at Melbourne Park after winning the last two Australian titles and advanced the Serbian star to the quarterfinals of his 15th consecutive major tournament.

Wawrinka, who had been receiving treatment to his upper leg muscles from late in the fourth set, said he would take more positives than negatives out of the match. He led 5-2 in the second set after outplaying Djokovic in the first.

"For sure, I think the best match I have ever played," Wawrinka said. "I fought like a dog like always. At 4-4 in the final set, I thought I might have won the match, but he was just better."

Djokovic will next play No. 5 Tomas Berdych, who needed five match points in the tiebreaker before beating South Africa's Kevin Anderson 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (13).

Fourth-seeded David Ferrer won 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 over No. 16 Kei Nishikori of Japan to set up a quarterfinal against fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro, who was leading 6-2, 5-1 when No. 8 Janko Tipsaveric retired from their fourth-round match.

The Djokovic-Wawrinka match overshadowed Maria Sharapova's accomplishment earlier in the day.

Sharapova advanced to the quarterfinals with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Kirsten Flipkens in another impressive display — last year's French Open champion has lost just five games through four rounds, breaking the Australian Open mark of eight held previously by eventual champions Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

"A couple that I've won, I felt like I was playing great from the beginning and I was able to carry that through the whole tournament," said Sharapova, who won titles in 2004 at Wimbledon, 2006 at the U.S. Open and 2008 in Australia before completing her career Grand Slam with a victory at last year's French Open.

She can't remember ever winning so few games through four rounds of a tournament, but realizes this means nothing if she doesn't make it to the latter stages.

"Well, I'm certainly happy to be playing this well but ... it only gets tougher from here," said Sharapova, who is playing her first tournament of 2013 after withdrawing from a warm-up event at Brisbane because of an injured right collarbone.

She next plays fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova, who beat fifth-seeded Angelique Kerber 7-5, 6-4. Sharapova defeated Makarova in the quarterfinals here last year on her way to the final, which she lost in straight sets to Victoria Azarenka.

Li Na, who reached the final here in 2011 and won the French Open later that year, saved a set point in the tiebreaker before beating Julia Goerges 7-6 (6), 6-1. She'll play No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat No. 13 Ana Ivanovic 6-2, 6-4 for her 13th consecutive win. Radwanska won the Auckland and Sydney titles before coming to Melbourne.

On Monday, Roger Federer plays Milos Raonic, and U.S. Open champion Andy Murray faces Gilles Simon. Azarenka, Serena Williams and fellow American Sloane Stephens also have their fourth-round matches.

Thy will have a tough time matching the spectacle of Sunday's late-night encounter.

Djokovic had beaten Wawrinka — the perennial No. 2 among Swiss tennis players to 17-time major winner Roger Federer — in their 10 previous matches. He hadn't lost a head-to-head since 2006 and had won 11 straight sets between them.

Wawrinka stunned the top-ranked Djokovic with three service breaks in the first set and had that 5-2 lead in the second before the 25-year-old Serb rallied by winning six consecutive games. But just as Djokovic seemed to be taking control, Wawrinka launched his own comeback to win a long tiebreaker and force a fifth set.

Djokovic got to serve first in the fifth, giving him a psychological edge as long as he held his serve.

Wawrinka had game point in the 22nd game but let Djokovic get on a roll. He saved his first match point with a service winner, then saved another two minutes later.

At 1:40 a.m. local time, Wawrinka was whacking his head with the racket and biting the ball after giving Djokovic another match point.

Moments later, he was slumped on the court, exhausted. Djokovic raised both arms, walked to the net and embraced his beaten rival, then pulled of his shirt and flexed.

"Give him credit, he made me run all over the court," Djokovic said. "He never gave me the same ball. He was aggressive from both sides. I didn't know what was coming next."

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Giant Mars Crater Shows Evidence of Ancient Lake

New photos of a huge crater on Mars suggest water may lurk in crevices under the planet’s surface, hinting that life might have once lived there, and raising the possibility that it may live there still, researchers say.

Future research looking into the chances of life on Mars could shed light on the origins of life on Earth, scientists added.

The discovery came from a study of images by NASA’s powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that revealed new evidence of a wet underground environment on the Red Planet. The images focused on the giant McLaughlin Crater, which is about 57 miles (92 kilometers) wide and so deep that underground water appears to have flowed into the crater at some point in the distant past.

Today, the crater is bone-dry but harbors clay minerals and other evidence that liquid water filled the area in the ancient past.

“Taken together, the observations in McLaughlin Crater provide the best evidence for carbonate forming within a lake environment instead of being washed into a crater from outside,” study lead author Joseph Michalski, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., and London’s Natural History Museum, said in a statement. [Search for Water on Mars (Photos)]

A wet Mars underground

Space agencies have deployed many missions to Mars over the decades to explore how habitable its surface may have been or is today. However, the Martian surface has been extremely cold, arid and chemically hostile to life as we know it for most of the history of Mars.

Instead of scanning the surface of Mars for life, scientists have suggested the most viable habitat for ancient simple life may have been in Martian water hidden underground.

On Earth, microbes up to 3 miles (5 km) or more underground make up perhaps half of all of the planet’s living matter. Most of these organisms represent some of the most primitive kinds of microbes known, hinting that life may actually have started underground, or at least survived there during a series of devastating cosmic impacts known as the Late Heavy Bombardment that Earth and the rest of the inner solar system endured about 4.1 billion to 3.8 billion years ago.

Since Mars has less gravity — a surface gravity of a little more than one-third Earth’s — its crust is less dense and more porous than that of our planet, which means that more water can leak underground, researchers said. Wherever there is liquid water on Earth, there is virtually always life, and microbes underground on Mars could be sustained by energy sources and chemical reactions similar to those that support deep-dwelling organisms on Earth.

“The deep crust has always been the most habitable place on Mars, and would be a wise place to search for evidence for organic processes in the future,” Michalski told SPACE.com. [Search for Life on Mars: A Timeline (Gallery)]

Subterranean Mars

While researchers currently have no way to drill deep underground on the Red Planet, they can nevertheless spot hints of what subterranean Mars is like by analyzing deep rocks exhumed by erosion, asteroid impacts or materials generated by underground fluids that have welled up to the surface.

Such upwelling would first occur in deep basins like McLaughlin Crater — as the lowest points on the surface, they would be where underground water reserves would most likely get exposed.

Scientists focused on McLaughlin Crater because it is one of the deepest craters on Mars. McLaughlin is about 1.3 miles (2.2 km) deep and is located in Mars’ northern hemisphere.

The mineral composition of the floor of McLaughlin Crater suggests there was a lake made of upwelled groundwater there. Channels seen on the crater’s eastern wall about 1,650 feet (500 meters) above its floor also hint at the former presence of a lake surface.

Michalski was actually originally trying to disprove the idea that groundwater breached the surface in many locations on Mars.

“Lo and behold, there was strong evidence for that process in this crater,” he said. “Science is special because we are allowed to change our minds.”

An ancient groundwater lake

The researchers estimate that a lake existed at McLaughlin Crater for an unknown duration between 3.7 billion and 4 billion years ago. “That makes the deposits as old as or older than the oldest rocks known to exist on Earth,” Michalski said.

Mounds seen on the crater floor may have come from landslides or subsequent meteor impacts. These are important because they may have rapidly buried crater floor sediments.

“That is really cool because rapid burial is the scenario that is most advantageous for preservation of organic material, if any was present at that time,” Michalski said.

Since life on Earth may have begun underground, learning more about any underground life that might have lived — or may still live — on Mars could shed light on the origins of life on Earth, researchers said.

“We should give serious consideration to exploring rocks representing subsurface environments in future missions,” Michalski said. “That doesn’t mean drilling, but instead exploring rocks formed from upwelling groundwater, or rocks naturally exhumed from the subsurface by meteor impact.”

Michalski noted that some people may ask, “‘Why do I hear about the detection of water or possibility of life on Mars all the time?’ The answer is because Mars is habitable in more ways than we ever realized for many years, and we are finding water in many forms and environments on Mars — many more than we predicted for a long time.”

The ingredients for life the researchers describe, “including energy sources, would have been more available early in Mars’ history, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to picture a scenario in which the subsurface is habitable today,” Michalski said. He cautioned, however, “that is much different from saying that life is there today.”

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 20 in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Why Hollande must 'reset presidency'

John Gaffney says Francois Hollande, seen here at the Elysee Palace on January 11, 2013, needs to rethink his presidency.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• French President Francois Hollande and the country's Socialists are in a strong position


• Despite this, Hollande has made little progress since his election, says John Gaffney


• Gaffney: Hollande "like a stunned bunny in the headlights" of economic reality


• President must act now, and act decisively, to make France admired again, says Gaffney

Editor's note: John Gaffney is professor of politics and co-director of the Aston Centre for Europe, at the UK's Aston University.

(CNN) -- France is the fifth richest country in the world. It is the world's sixth largest exporter. It has the second largest diplomatic network in the world, after the US. It is a member of the UN Security Council. It is the most visited country in the world, welcoming 82 million visitors last year. It is a major nuclear power. It is the true founder of the European Union. And it is in a terrible mess.

Socialist Francois Hollande was elected president almost a year ago, ousting the deeply unpopular "Mr Bling," President Nicolas Sarkozy.

John Gaffney is professor of politics at Aston University in the UK.

France's Socialist left have never been so strong politically: They control the presidency, the government, both houses of parliament, the regions, and all the big towns and cities. And in his first eight months in office, Hollande has done virtually nothing. He is like a stunned bunny in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle called "Harsh Economic Reality."

Hollande has three fundamental problems. The first is that he doesn't have a plan. Tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs each week, and it is going to get worse and worse.

France faces a huge public spending crisis - in health, pensions, and now welfare, and a government debt of 90% of GDP. Not one single adequate measure has been put forward, nor even proposed in his eight months in office.

The second problem is that he lacks the political will to break the log-jams in French society: Making industry more competitive, reducing government spending. He cannot do these things because one of the constituencies he needs to take on -- the huge public sector -- is made up of the people who voted him into power.

He could take on the equally irresponsible banks -- they didn't vote for him -- but he risks sending the economy into a tailspin if he does.

And not only does he need to address the structural issues in France's economy and society, but he made the mistake of telling everyone he could solve the country's problems painlessly, or by taxing the super-rich, and he is not managing to do that either, so he is just taxing everyone else.

Now he faces the worst situation possible because no one believes a word he says. He delivered a robust New Year's message last week, watched by millions; yet 75% don't believe he can deliver on its promise.

In fact, the New Year's Eve wishes everyone in France did believe were the Churchillian tones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her message was essentially the opposite of Hollande's bizarre optimism, which seems to involve little more than following the "Keep Calm and Carry On" mantra. But waiting for the upturn will find France unprepared and in a worse predicament than Spain or Italy, who are now busily restructuring their economies.

The third and fundamental problem Hollande has is that he does not understand the nature of the office he holds, the French Presidency of the Republic. If he did, he might find a way forward. In his New Year message he likened himself to a ship's captain. But he has to be one, not just say he is one. The office of French President is a highly complex mixture of the political and the symbolic. But it is fundamentally about leadership; that is leading not following, and taking the French with him.

Hollande urgently needs to reset his Presidency - and there are a few clear rules to do so:

He needs to take on the banks where necessary, take on the benefits system, the impediments to innovation and to setting up new businesses, take on the appalling situation of France's forgotten inner city misery; his need not be a hard-nosed liberal agenda.

No government in French history is in a better position to make France a more equal society while making it and its economy more efficient. He should focus on young people trying to set up their own business. Focus on small businesses generally. Drag France away from its drive to over regulate everything and throttle innovation. Tax the super-rich if necessary, as long as it contributes to the overall solution he is aiming for.

He also needs to get into step with Merkel and lead Europe with Germany, not pretend he is the spokesperson for the irresponsible spenders.

But above all, he should use the presidency in a more imaginative way: Begin an ongoing and exciting conversation with the French. No other office in the world, not even the presidency of the US, offers such scope for an intimacy between leader and population.

He should boldly use the referendum to build up and direct the conversation towards change and innovation. If the vested interests won't move, bring in the people. Use the referendum like de Gaulle did between 1958 and 1962, as a major political weapon to break the deadlocks in French political society.

In Europe and the wider world he has to make France admired again, as it once was. Inside France, he has to forget about not upsetting anyone. In fact, he should have a plan that upsets just about everybody. The French would love him for it.

So far it remains to be seen what impact his first major foreign policy challenge -- in Mali -- will have. As French forces, with the backing of the international community, go into the West African country to take on Islamist rebels, the coming weeks will tell us whether fate just gave to him the best or the worst opportunity to show the French, and the rest of the world, what he is made of.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Gaffney.

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With Wrigley renovation plan released, ball is in mayor's court

The Ricketts family at the annual Cubs Convention.

The Cubs put on a full-court press Saturday, revealing their renovation plans at the team’s convention with a slideshow and presentations from representatives of the marketing, baseball and business departments.

Now the ball is in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s court. The Cubs have spoken to Emanuel’s representatives, and business President Crane Kenney said he believes he’ll be amenable to the new proposal.

“The mayor has been terrific in our conversations about understanding what’s at stake here,” Kenney said. “He appreciates as much as anyone, given we were in his (congressional) district, how important Wrigley Field is. He wants to protect the taxpayers. We understand that.”

Here’s a rundown of some renovation-related issues:

Cubs clubhouse: Kenney said the home clubhouse would be the top priority in the first season of the rebuild. General manager Jed Hoyer compared it to a Double-A clubhouse the first time he visited. “It was eye-opening, to say the least,” he said. Why do the Cubs players need a cushier clubhouse? “We’re paying them a lot of money to preserve their bodies,” Hoyer said. “We’re expecting them to go out and entertain us every single night over the course of the summer. This is the way we should treat them — as first-class athletes.”

Batting tunnels: The Cubs will have batting cages underneath the park for the first time. Unfortunately for the Cubs, an artist’s rendering of the cages had home plate facing the wrong way.

Signage: The Cubs did not say where they would like to place signs, but the outfield is the most lucrative spot in terms of revenue. Purists might complain that more ad signage mars the vista, though the real complaints could come from rooftop owners whose views might be blocked by a large sign, like the Toyota sign in left field.

Patio areas: After creating a premium-priced patio section in the right-field bleachers last year, the Cubs plan to create a similar patio in left field, left of the foul pole.

Triangle area: The plans for a so-called “Triangle building” on the parking lot west of the ballpark was scrapped for an open-air area that can be used for a farmer’s market, ice rink, movie-watching and other activities. Mike Lufrano, executive vice president/community affairs, said “on game days, fans like me with small children, wanted more interactive spaces.” The previous option, which included parking there for 400 vehicles, also was scrubbed.

LED boards: The Cubs will remove the LED board that has been under the center-field scoreboard since 1983. They hope to add one above the wall in left field. Alex Sugarman, vice president of strategy and development, said surveys of season tickets holders showed 80 percent of fans liked the LED board installed last year in right field because of the game-day information and stats.

Jumbotron: The Cubs are considering a mini-Jumbotron. “We found 60 percent would actually be in favor of a video board as long as it didn’t interfere with the historic scoreboard,” Sugarman said. The location would be important, since it probably would block the view of one of the rooftops, unless the Cubs can get an agreement to put one on a rooftop.

Seats: With 50 million pounds of concrete and steel removed and replaced, and new seats installed, will they be properly angled down the lines to watch the game without craning one’s neck? Kenney said the re-pouring of concrete will give them an opportunity to “adjust some of the seat levels and angles toward the field.” The Cubs also will install new handrails.

Posts: One thing that won’t change is the posts that obstruct some fans’ views in the grandstand. Vice president of ballpark operations Carl Rice said “to keep the historic charm and the overhang of the upper deck being so close to the lower deck, we really need to keep all of those columns in place.”

Visitors clubhouse: The visitors clubhouse at Wrigley is the smallest in baseball and regarded by players as the worst. Some feel that’s a competitive advantage for the Cubs. Will the renovations change anything? Kenney said visitors will get new batting tunnels, but “they won’t get the other things.”

Exits: Congestion caused by the lack of entrances/exits should be relieved with a new gate on the west side of Wrigley Field. Currently the only entrance points are in the left- and right-field corners and at the corner of Clark Street and Addison Street.

Restaurants: Vice president of ticket sales Colin Faulkner said the team will introduce a club-level lounge under the press box, where the current patio overlooking Clark and Addison exists. They also plan to open a restaurant in the old administrative offices behind home plate, an area that has been empty for a year, and another behind first base.

Hotel: The hotel planned on the property housing a McDonald’s on Clark Street will be about 175 rooms, Tom Ricketts said. “Nothing overwhelming,” he said. Obviously it’ll be an in-season destination for tourists, but the Cubs also believe it will be good for the neighborhood in the offseason.

Special events: Lufrano said the neighbors “overwhelmingly” want more special events, like the concerts, the Northwestern-Illinois football game and the Winter Classic hockey game. “We want to continue to bring world-class entertainment events to Lakeview, and want to do it in a way that’s sensitive to our community,” Lufrano said.

Elevators: Rice said the Cubs will add six new elevators, in left and right field and behind home plate “to allow fans to be able to move up and down to the upper deck with ease.” Currently there is only one little-used elevator, in left field.

Bathrooms: The Cubs will increase bathroom capacity by 42 percent, they said, including more in the upper deck. “I never thought we’d have focus groups about troughs in the men’s restrooms,” Kenney cracked. He did not say whether the troughs would be replaced, saying fans were “evenly divided” on the issue.

psullivan@tribune.com

Twitter @PWSullivan

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Algeria toll rises as attack claimed for al Qaeda

ALGIERS, Algeria (Reuters) - The death toll has risen to at least 48 hostages killed during a four-day siege at a gas plant deep in the Sahara as a veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the attack.

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is expected to give details at a Monday news conference about one of the worst international hostage crises in decades, which left American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian and Romanian workers dead or missing.

A security source said on Sunday Algerian troops had found the bodies of 25 hostages, raising the number of militants and their captives killed to at least 80. He said six militants were captured alive and troops were still searching for others.

One-eyed veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility on Sunday for the attack on behalf of al Qaeda.

"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. He said about 40 attackers participated in the raid, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.

The fighters swooped out of the desert and seized the base on Wednesday, capturing a plant that produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports, as well as a nearby residential barracks.

They demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali that had begun five days earlier. However, U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid could have been organized quickly enough to have been conceived as a direct response to the French military intervention.

The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian army opened fire saying fighters were trying to escape with their prisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucks in a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.

Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners escaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven from the residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in the industrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.

The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with its Western allies, some of whom have complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken. Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the Algerian military action.

"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. "They had to deal with terrorists."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a televised statement: "Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack.

"We should recognize all that the Algerians have done to work with us and to help and coordinate with us. I'd like to thank them for that. We should also recognize that the Algerians too have seen lives lost among their soldiers."

Algeria had given a preliminary death toll of 55 people killed - 23 hostages and 32 militants - on Saturday and said it would rise as more bodies were found.

The security source said that toll did not include the bodies of 25 hostages found on Sunday, which meant the total number of captives killed - foreign and local - was at least 48. The search was not over, and more could yet be found, he said.

Among foreigners confirmed dead by their home countries were three Britons, one American and two Romanians. The missing include at least 10 Japanese, five Norwegians, three other Britons, and a British resident. The security source said at least one Frenchman was also among the dead.

LAST WORDS?

Alan Wright, now safe at home in Scotland, said he had escaped with a group of Algerian and foreign workers after hiding for a day and a night. While hiding inside the compound, he managed to call his wife at home with their two daughters.

"She asked if I wanted to speak to Imogen and Esme, and I couldn't because I thought, I don't want my last ever words to be in a crackly satellite phone, telling a lie, saying you're OK when you're far from OK," he recalled to Sky News.

Despite the incident, Algeria is determined to press on with its energy industry. Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi visited the site and said physical damage was minor, state news service APS reported. The plant would start back up in two days, he said.

The Islamists' assault has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world and exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.

Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from the start of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to crush Islamist rebels in northern Mali.

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris and Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Sophie Hares and Myra MacDonald)

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Armstrong's enemies find vindication, sadness

First shunned, then vilified by Lance Armstrong, Mike Anderson had to move to the other side of the world to get his life back.

Now running a bike shop outside of Wellington, New Zealand, Armstrong's former assistant watched news reports about his former boss confessing to performance-enhancing drug use with only mild interest. If Anderson never hears Armstrong's voice again, it would be too soon.

"He gave me the firm, hard push and a shove," Anderson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "Made my life very, very unpleasant. It was an embarrassment for me and my family to be portrayed as liars, to be called a disgruntled employee, implying there was some impropriety on my part. It just hurt. It was completely uncalled for."

Anderson is among the dozens, maybe hundreds, of former teammates, opponents and associates to receive the Armstrong treatment, presumably for not going along with the party line — that the now-disgraced, seven-time Tour de France cyclist didn't need to cheat to win.

The penalties for failing to play along were punitive, often humiliating, and now that Armstrong has admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he's a doper, a liar and a bully, many of those who saw their lives changed, sometime ruined, are going through a gamut of emotions.

Some feel vindicated, others remain vengeful. Some are sad, while many others are simply wrung out.

"He's damaged a lot of people's lives," said Betsy Andreu, whose husband, Frankie, was culled from Armstrong's team for not agreeing to dope. "He has damaged the sport of cycling. Frankie was fired for not getting on the program. I never thought this day would come but it's so incredibly sad."

Before his interview with Winfrey aired, Armstrong reached out to the Andreus to apologize but the planned reconciliation did not work. In fact, Armstrong's interview only made things worse, when he refused to confirm what the Andreus testified to under oath — that they had heard the cyclist admit to doping while meeting with doctors treating him for cancer at an Indiana hospital in 1996.

Regardless of whether Armstrong says more about that, there's no denying that life for the Andreus changed when they refused to go along.

"Frankie's career was definitely cut short. His career was ruined early," Betsy Andreu said. "You have riders out there whose careers never happened" because of Armstrong.

And some whose careers were cut short.

Filippo Simeoni was a talented, young rider who dared admit to doping and told authorities he received his instructions from physician Michele Ferrari, who also advised Armstrong during his career. After that 2002 testimony, Armstrong branded Simeoni a liar. He went so far as to humiliate Simeoni at the 2004 Tour de France, when he chased down the Italian rider during a breakaway and more or less ordered him to fall back in line. Later in the race, and with a TV camera in his face, Armstrong put his finger to his lips in a "silence" gesture. After the stage, he said he was simply protecting the interests of the peloton.

Simeoni received a different message.

"When a rider like me brushed up against a cyclist of his caliber, his fame and his worth — when I clashed with the boss — all doors were closed to me," Simeoni said. "I was humiliated, offended, and marginalized for the rest of my career. Only I know what that feels like. It's difficult to explain."

Anderson certainly can.

In a story he wrote for Outside Magazine last August, Anderson detailed a business relationship with Armstrong that began in 2002 with an email from Armstrong promising he would finance Anderson's bike shop when their work together was done. Anderson, a bike mechanic working in Armstrong's hometown of Austin, Texas, essentially became the cyclist's personal assistant, his responsibilities growing as the years passed. One of his tasks was making advance trips to Armstrong's apartment in Spain to prepare it for his arrival.

Anderson says the relationship began to sour after he came upon a box in Armstrong's bathroom labeled "Androstenedione," the banned substance most famously linked to Mark McGwire. The box, Anderson wrote, was mysteriously gone the next time he entered the apartment.

Time passed. Anderson bore witness to more and more things that didn't feel right. Armstrong, sensing his employee's discomfort, became more and more distant. Finally, Anderson wrote, Armstrong severed ties, asking Anderson to sign a nondisclosure agreement "that would have made me liable for a large sum of money if I even mentioned ever having worked for Armstrong."

Anderson's refusal to do that led to lawyers and lawsuits — with Armstrong accusing Anderson of extortion and Anderson accusing Armstrong of wrongful dismissal, breach of contract, and defamation. The cases were eventually settled for undisclosed terms.

But Anderson took his share of hits along the way.

"Austin was not a comfortable place for me after that," he said. "It had been my home for some years. I had enjoyed a very good reputation. I couldn't get a job in the bicycle business, certainly not one that was a fair placement for my skill and experience."

He ended up in New Zealand, where his wife's brother has roots, and is doing fine, now.

"I got a fair shake from some local investors who believe in me and we've been at it for four years," Anderson said. "The kids are clothed and fed and I don't really have any complaints."

Stories such as these — about the havoc Armstrong unleashed on people's lives — come from seemingly every corner: bike mechanics, multimillionaire businessmen, trainers, masseuses, wives, cyclists both at the front and back of the peloton.

Tyler Hamilton was among Armstrong's key teammates during his first three Tour de France victories. His tell-all interview on "60 Minutes" in 2011, combined with his testimony and a book he wrote last year, played a key part in the unraveling of the Armstrong myth.

Hamilton watched Armstrong's confession with little emotion but with a modicum of hope.

"It's been a sad story for a lot of people," Hamilton said. "But I think we'll look back on this period and, hopefully not too far down the road, we can say it was, in the end, a good thing for the sport of cycling."

___

AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.

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Latest Inaugural Forecast: Bit Warmer Than in 2009

Consider it the first fact check of a Barack Obama campaign pledge for his second term: Will he, or Mother Nature, deliver on promised warmer Inauguration Day weather?

It’s shaping up as a close call.

In September, while campaigning in Colorado, Obama was talking to a potential voter who mentioned he had been one of the hundreds of thousands of people outdoors at Obama‘s bone-chilling first inaugural in 2009, when the noontime temperature was 28 degrees. Obama promised: “This one is going to be warmer.”

Scientifically, the president doesn’t have control of day-to-day weather. While his policies can lessen or worsen future projected global warming on a large scale, they cannot do anything about Washington‘s daily temperature on Jan. 21.

Still, it’s a promise that for a long time looked close to a sure thing. The history of local weather was on Obama’s side.

On average, the normal high is 43 degrees and the normal low is 28, but that’s just around dawn. There have been 19 traditional January inaugurations and only two were colder. Ronald Reagan‘s second in 1985 was a frigid 7 with subzero wind chills and John F. Kennedy‘s in 1961 was a snow-covered 22. Jimmy Carter’s 1977 inauguration also was 28.

Then there was the general warming trend Washington had been stuck in. The last time the nation’s capital stayed below freezing all day was Jan. 22, 2011. The city has gone a record 700-plus days since it had 2 inches or more of snow.

An Arctic cold front looks to be racing toward the mid-Atlantic, so it will be cooler than normal on Monday, but probably not cooler than 2009, said Nikole Listemaa, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Sterling, Va., that oversees forecasts for the capital area.

Look for highs around 40 degrees with noon temperatures in the mid- to upper 30s, Listemaa said Saturday. That would keep Obama’s pledge.

There’s also a 30 percent chance of light snow showers for Monday. But the Arctic cold front won’t arrive until Monday night into Tuesday, Listemaa added.

Extreme cold on Inauguration Day, folklore says, can be a killer.

In 1841, newly elected president William Henry Harrison stood outside without a coat or hat as he spoke for an hour and 40 minutes. He caught a cold that day and it became pneumonia and he died one month after being sworn in.

Twelve years later, outgoing first lady Abigail Fillmore got sick from sitting outside on a cold wet platform as Franklin Pierce was inaugurated and she died of pneumonia at the end of the month. Doctors now know that pneumonia is caused by germs, but prolonged exposure to extreme cold weather may hurt the airways and make someone more susceptible to getting sick.

There’s one thing Washington‘s history shows. Bad weather generally creates bad traffic jams.

Kennedy found that out in his 1961 inauguration when 8 inches of snow fell overnight and crippled the city for what at that time was Washington‘s worst traffic jam. Thousands of cars were abandoned in the snow.

———

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

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Why Africa backs French in Mali

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• French intervention in Mali could be turning point in relationship with Africa, writes Lansana Gberie


• France's meddling to bolster puppet regimes in the past has outraged Africans, he argues


• He says few in Africa would label the French action in Mali as 'neo-colonial mission creep'


• Lansana: 'Africa's weakness has been exposed by the might of a foreign power'

Editor's note: Dr. Lansana Gberie is a specialist on African peace and security issues. He is the author of "A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone." He is from Sierra Leone and lives in New York.

(CNN) -- Operation Serval, France's swift military intervention to roll back advances made by Jihadist elements who had hijacked a separatist movement in northern Mali, could be a turning point in the ex-colonialist's relationship with Africa.

It is not, after all, every day that you hear a senior official of the African Union (AU) refer to a former European colonial power in Africa as "a brotherly nation," as Ambroise Niyonsaba, the African Union's special representative in Ivory Coast, described France on 14 January, while hailing the European nation's military strikes in Mali.

France's persistent meddling to bolster puppet regimes or unseat inconvenient ones was often the cause of much outrage among African leaders and intellectuals. But by robustly taking on the Islamist forces that for many months now have imposed a regime of terror in northern Mali, France is doing exactly what African governments would like to have done.

Lansana Gberie

This is because the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Ansar Dine and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are a far greater threat to many African states than they ever would be to France or Europe.

See also: What's behind Mali instability?

Moreover, the main underlying issues that led to this situation -- the separatist rebellion by Mali's Tuareg, under the banner of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), who seized the northern half of the country and declared it independent of Mali shortly after a most ill-timed military coup on 22 March 2012 -- is anathema to the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Successful separatism by an ethnic minority, it is believed, would only encourage the emergence of more separatist movements in a continent where many of the countries were cobbled together from disparate groups by Europeans not so long ago.

But the foreign Islamists who had been allies to the Tuaregs at the start of their rebellion had effectively sidelined the MNLA by July last year, and have since been exercising tomcatting powers over the peasants in the area, to whom the puritanical brand of Islam being promoted by the Islamists is alien.

ECOWAS, which is dominated by Nigeria -- formerly France's chief hegemonic foe in West Africa -- in August last year submitted a note verbale with a "strategic concept" to the U.N. Security Council, detailing plans for an intervention force to defeat the Islamists in Mali and reunify the country.

ECOWAS wanted the U.N. to bankroll the operation, which would include the deployment a 3,245-strong force -- to which Nigeria (694), Togo (581), Niger (541) and Senegal (350) would be the biggest contributors -- at a cost of $410 million a year. The note stated that the objective of the Islamists in northern Mali was to "create a safe haven" in that country from which to coordinate "continental terrorist networks, including AQIM, MUJAO, Boko Haram [in Nigeria] and Al-Shabaab [in Somalia]."

Despite compelling evidence of the threat the Islamists pose to international peace and security, the U.N. has not been able to agree on funding what essentially would be a military offensive. U.N. Security Council resolution 2085, passed on 20 December last year, only agreed to a voluntary contribution and the setting up of a trust fund, and requested the secretary-general "develop and refine options within 30 days" in this regard. The deadline should be 20 January.

See also: Six reasons events in Mali matter

It is partly because of this U.N. inaction that few in Africa would label the French action in Mali as another neo-colonial mission creep.

If the Islamists had been allowed to capture the very strategic town of Sevaré, as they seemed intent on doing, they would have captured the only airstrip in Mali (apart from the airport in Bamako) capable of handling heavy cargo planes, and they would have been poised to attack the more populated south of the country.

Africa's weakness has, once again, been exposed by the might of a foreign power.
Lansana Gberie

Those Africans who would be critical of the French are probably stunned to embarrassment: Africa's weakness has, once again, been exposed by the might of a foreign power.

Watch video: French troops welcomed in Mali

Africans, however, can perhaps take consolation in the fact that the current situation in Mali was partially created by the NATO action in Libya in 2010, which France spearheaded. A large number of the well-armed Islamists and Tuareg separatists had fought in the forces of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and then left to join the MNLA in northern Mali after Gadhafi fell.

They brought with them advanced weapons, including shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles from Libya; and two new Jihadist terrorist groups active in northern Mali right now, Ansar Dine and MUJAO, were formed out of these forces.

Many African states had an ambivalent attitude towards Gadhafi, but few rejoiced when he was ousted and killed in the most squalid condition.

A number of African countries, Nigeria included, have started to deploy troops in Mali alongside the French, and ECOWAS has stated the objective as the complete liberation of the north from the Islamists.

The Islamists are clearly not a pushover; though they number between 2,000 and 3,000 they are battle-hardened and fanatically driven, and will likely hold on for some time to come.

The question now is: what happens after, as is almost certain, France begins to wind down its forces, leaving the African troops in Mali?

Nigeria, which almost single-handedly funded previous ECOWAS interventions (in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, costing billions of dollars and hundreds of Nigerian troops), has been reluctant to fund such expensive missions since it became democratic.

See also: Nigerians waiting for 'African Spring'

Its civilian regimes have to be more accountable to their citizens than the military regimes of the 1990s, and Nigeria has pressing domestic challenges. Foreign military intervention is no longer popular in the country, though the links between the northern Mali Islamists and the destructive Boko Haram could be used as a strategic justification for intervention in Mali.

The funding issue, however, will become more and more urgent in the coming weeks and months, and the U.N. must find a sustainable solution beyond a call for voluntary contributions by member states.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Lansana Gberie.

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