Jumaat, 12 Julai 2013

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Posted: 12 Jul 2013 04:34 PM PDT

NEW YORK: US stocks edged higher to new highs on Friday after strong banking earnings helped offset a profit warning from UPS and fresh trouble for Boeing's Dreamliner aircraft.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.38 (0.02 per cent) to 15,464.30, nudging above Thursday's record.

The S&P 500 also rose to a new record, adding 5.17 (0.31 per cent) at 1,680.19, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 21.78 (0.61 per cent) to 3,600.08.

Earnings from JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo beat expectations by a wide margin.

Wells Fargo shares jumped 1.8 per cent after reporting a jump in net second quarter earnings to US$5.5 billion compared with US$4.6 billion a year earlier, helped by 3.5 per cent growth in loans. Bank executives said its size and varied income streams insulates it from some of the negative effects of higher interest rates.

JPMorgan ended the day down 0.3 per cent after trading in positive territory much of the day. The bank reported a 31 per cent gain in profits but warned higher interest rates could crimp profits from mortgage banking.

Other banks also gained, including Bank of America (up 2.0 per cent) and Morgan Stanley (up 2.3 per cent).

But the Dow was weighted down by Boeing after a parked Ethiopian Airlines 787 Dreamliner plane caught fire at London's Heathrow airport, raising new fears for the trouble-plagued aircraft after it was grounded earlier this year for battery issues.

Boeing closed 4.7 per cent lower after dropping as much as 7.4 per cent earlier in the day.

UPS closed 5.8 per cent lower, while rival FedEx shed 2.0 per cent, after UPS slashed its second-quarter forecast, citing weak US industrial activity and air freight overcapacity.

Dell slipped 0.2 per cent after Carl Icahn and his allies boosted their offer, a rival to the go-private takeover proposed by a consortium led by founder Michael Dell.

Alexion Pharmaceuticals soared 12.6 per cent following reports that Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding is seeking financing for a potential takeover of the company.

Another pharmaceutical company, Regeneron, jumped 7.3 per cent following a ratings upgrade. Lazard gave the company a "buy" rating, predicting potential growth across numerous business lines. -- AFP

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

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Zimmerman lawyer says Martin was lying in wait to attack - Reuters

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 09:29 AM PDT

Defense counsel Mark O'Mara holds up a chart during closing arguments in George Zimmerman's trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Florida July 12, 2013. REUTERS/Joe Burbank/Pool

By Daniel Trotta and Barbara Liston

SANFORD, Florida | Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:28pm EDT

(Reuters) - Trayvon Martin spent four long minutes preparing to attack George Zimmerman before landing the first punch in a fight that ended in the teenager's death, Zimmerman's defense lawyer said in closing arguments of the murder trial on Friday.

Lead defense lawyer Mark O'Mara attempted in his closing argument to the six-member jury to shift the blame to Martin, the unarmed, black 17-year-old who Zimmerman shot dead last year. The case has captivated and divided much of the U.S. public, raising questions about race and guns in America.

O'Mara said there was "factual and undeniable evidence" that Zimmerman should be found not guilty.

Zimmerman, 29, says he shot Martin in self-defense after he was attacked. Prosecutors contend Zimmerman was a "wannabe cop" who, after calling police on the night of February 26, 2012 and telling them he believed Martin was acting suspiciously in the neighborhood that had seen break-ins, tracked down the teenager.

Martin was a guest in the home of his father's fiancée, who lived inside the gated community, and was returning from a nearby convenience store with a snack, ready to watch the NBA All-Star game.

Florida state prosecutors have accused Zimmerman of second-degree murder, a charge that could lead to a sentence of life in prison. To convict Zimmerman of that crime, the all-female jury must find he acted with ill will, spite or hatred.

The hateful person that rainy night was the 17-year-old Martin, not Zimmerman, O'Mara told the jury.

"Somebody decided they were angry. Ticked off. Ill will, spite or hatred," O'Mara said. "It wasn't some cop wannabe."

He added, "The person who decided this was going to continue, was going to become a violent event, was the guy who didn't go home when he had a chance to. It was the guy who decided to lie in wait."

The jury can also opt for manslaughter, which has a lesser burden of culpable negligence. That carries a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

Since he took the case last year, O'Mara has sought to be sensitive to Martin's grieving parents, who have attended the whole trial, but on Friday he seized the opportunity to blame Martin with initiating the confrontation.

Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, walked out of the courtroom, followed by two of her lawyers, when O'Mara started discussing her son's dead body.

Earlier, O'Mara warned jurors against filling in holes in the prosecutors' case, cautioning against making presumptions and assumptions.

Yet he invited them to form their own conclusions about Martin, particularly in the four-minute gap that O'Mara said passed between Zimmerman losing sight of Martin and when Martin attacked.

He dramatized that length of time by pausing for four minutes, leaving the courtroom silent.

"Four minutes. You get to figure out what Trayvon Martin was doing," O'Mara told the jury. "Four minutes to do what? To run home. To walk home."

Instead, O'Mara said, he attacked Zimmerman.

O'Mara also narrated an animated video re-enactment of the fight from the defense perspective. It showed Martin walking up to Zimmerman and punching him in the face, then jumped ahead to scenes showing Martin on top of Zimmerman, when Zimmerman says he was being beaten and feared for his life.

The animation, which O'Mara admitted was "somewhat made up," did not show the fatal gunshot.

Prosecutors will have a chance for a final rebuttal argument. Jurors will then start deliberations.

When police initially declined to arrest Zimmerman, it provoked street demonstration throughout the United States as critics blamed Zimmerman for pulling out his Kel Tec 9mm pistol, which was fully loaded with hollow-point bullets.

Backers of liberal gun laws have rallied behind Zimmerman and helped fund his defense, seeing him as a persecuted hero whose need for self-defense demonstrated the importance of the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Gray in Miami; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Bernadette Baum and Leslie Gevirtz)

Snowden has 'no regrets,' seeks asylum in Russia - USA TODAY

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 09:40 AM PDT

MOSCOW -- Edward Snowden said Friday that he has no regrets over leaking details about U.S. electronic spying networks and is seeking temporary asylum in Russia until he can reach one of the Latin American countries that has offered to take him in.

"That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets," he told a group of human rights activists and other public officials at a meeting at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, where he has taken refuge since June 23.

The 30-year-old former defense contractor, who fled first to Hong Kong then Russia, said he did what he believes was right to go public with information on the National Security Agency's surveillance and data-gathering networks in an effort to "correct this wrongdoing."

"I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell U.S. secrets," he said in a statement released through WikiLeaks. "I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice."

Snowden, whose U.S. passport has been revoked, said he has formally accepted an offer of asylum from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as well as all others which have expressed support "and all others that may be offered in the future."

The meeting included Vyacheslav Nikonov, chairman of the Russian state Duma, Sergei Nikitin, head of Amnesty International Russia, Vladimir Lukin, Russia's presidential human rights ombudsman, attorney Genri Reznik, and Tanya Lokshina, of Human Rights Watch.

READ: Full statement by Edward Snowden

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Russian news agencies after Snowden's announcement Friday that Russia had not received a new bid for asylum from Snowden and that Putin would continue to insist that Snowden stop leaking information.

Nikonov told Rossiya 24 that he asked him about Putin's previously stated conditions, and that Snowden told him he had. "He does not want to harm U.S. interests because he is a law-abiding citizen and a patriot," the Russian lawmaker said..

Snowden, in his remarks at the meeting, said governments in Western Europe and North American are acting outside the law by preventing him from traveling and called on the rights activists to intervene with Putin on his behalf.

He also indicated that his world had turned upside down since he went public in May in leaking information that published in The Washington Post and The Guardian.

"A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort," Snowden said. "I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone's communications at any time. That is the power to change people's fates."

Snowden said the U.S. government and intelligence agencies have tried to make an example of him as "a warning to all others who might speak out as I have."

"I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression," he said.

He also invoked the principles declared at the Nuremberg trial of Nazis in 1945 that "individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

Snowden complained that he had been placed on a no-fly list and that countries had been threatened if they offered him support. Snowden also said the U.S. had taken "the unprecedented step" of ordering its military allies to ground a Latin American president's plane in search of a political refuge.

He was referring to a decision by some European countries to deny airspace to the plane of the Bolivian president who was flying home last week from Russia. The plane eventually landed in Austria, where it was searched in an apparent belief that Snowden was on board.

"This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights," Snowden said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, issued a statement Thursday asserting that the former defense contractor "has serious claims for asylum and has a legitimate right to seek asylum irrespective of the human rights record of the country that he ultimately ends up in."

The statement charges that the USA has interfered with Snowden's right to seek asylum by revoking his passport and appears to have prevented him from receiving fair and impartial consideration of his application in many of the countries to which he has applied.

Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU human rights program, and Chandra Bhatnaqar, senior attorney for the program, also warn that by infringing on Snowden's right to asylum, "U.S. actions also create the risk of providing cover for other countries to crack down on whistle-blowers and deny asylum to individuals who have exposed illegal activity or human rights violations.

"That's a very dangerous precedent to set," the statement says.

Contributing: Stanglin reported from McLean,Va., The Associated Press

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Jumaat, 12 Julai 2013