Selasa, 20 Ogos 2013

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US stocks higher on earnings news

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 04:33 PM PDT

NEW YORK: US stocks on Tuesday closed mostly higher following some solid retail earnings reports.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 7.75 points (0.05 percent) to 15,002.99. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 6.29 points (0.38 percent) at 1,652.35, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 24.50 points (0.68 percent) to 3,613.59.

All three indices had fallen over the prior four sessions. But analysts cited strong earnings reports Tuesday from Home Depot, Best Buy and others as giving the market "a reason to rally," as Brent Schutte of BMO Private Bank put it.

Additionally, stocks got help from bond yields, which retreated from recent peaks.

Dow component Home Depot opened higher, but fell 1.2 percent after earnings gained 17.2 percent and the company raised its full-year forecast on the strength of the housing recovery.

However, the company's upgraded full-year earnings forecast of US$3.60 per share still lags analyst expectations by four cents.

Netflix jumped 5.2 percent after announcing a contract to exclusively stream the Weinstein Company's first-run films starting in 2016.

Best Buy shot up 13.2 percent after earnings of 32 cents per share exceeded analyst expectations by 20 cents.

Credit Suisse said the report was evidence Best Buy "is moving in the right direction and that management's ambitious plans are beginning to translate into better results."

Troubled department store operator JC Penney rose 6.0 percent despite reporting a loss of US$586 million compared with last year's loss of US$147 million on lower-than-expected revenues. On the positive side, the company saw sequential sales improvement through the quarter and expects to see a continued rise in the second half of the year.

Bookseller Barnes & Noble sank 16.3 percent after reporting an US$87 million loss for the quarter on lower-than-expected revenues. Comparable store sales declined 9.1 percent. It said chairman Leonard Riggio had suspended a plan to acquire the company's retail business.

Popular garment chain Urban Outfitters rose 8.2 percent after profits exceeded expectations by three cents at 51 cents per share. -- AFP

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College baseball player Chris Lane killed by 'bored' teens in Oklahoma - Toronto Sun

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 08:26 AM PDT

Chris Lane
Chris Lane headshot. (ECUTigers.com)

Police allege the life of a 22-year-old collegiate athlete was taken Friday by three teenagers who "just wanted to see somebody die."

While jogging down a rural Oklahoma road, Chris Lane, a catcher on East Central University's men's baseball team, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Police allege a trio of teens, aged 15, 16, and 17, are responsible.

Lane was shot in the back and left to die on the side of the Duncan, Okla., road.

"They were bored and just wanted to see somebody die," Duncan police chief Danny Ford told ABC News.

It appears Lane, who police say was visiting his girlfriend at the time, did not know the accused. He died shortly after arriving at a local hospital.

The teens have been charged with first-degree murder.

Police say there were no witnesses to the murder, but nearby residents heard a gunshot and saw a black car speeding down the street.

Thanks to video surveillance footage from local businesses, police were able to support the residents' claim that a black vehicle was transporting the supposed killers. Footage showed the vehicle pull behind a hotel for about 10 minutes following the shooting, and then driving away.

Approximately three hours later, police received a call reporting the presence of "three juveniles at a house with guns and wanting to kill somebody."

The three teens were found shortly thereafter.

Interviews with police, Ford said, revealed the 16-year-old pulled the trigger, while the 17-year-old drove the vehicle.

East Central's website lists Lane's hometown as Melbourne, Australia. He was studying finance at the Ada, Okla., school after transferring from nearby Redlands Junior College.

"He was an athlete going for a jog like he would do five or six days a week," Ford said of Lane and the shocking murder. "It's wrong and we just try and deal with it the best we can."

Egypt's crackdown weakens, but does not crush resilient Muslim Brotherhood - Jerusalem Post

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 08:20 AM PDT

A supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood at Giza Square, south of Cairo, August 19, 2013. Photo: REUTERS

Until Monday night, Farid Ismail was one of the few Muslim Brotherhood leaders who still answered his phone, even when many of his associates had been arrested or gone underground.

By Tuesday morning Ismail was nowhere to be found after the authorities seized the group's chief, Mohamed Badie, overnight.

The army seems determined to decapitate the Middle East's oldest and arguably most resilient Islamist movement, to prevent it from preparing a political comeback after President Mohamed Morsi, one of its senior leaders, was ousted on July 3.

Badie's arrest means the Brotherhood's most experienced and respected leaders are now behind bars. Others such as Ismail, if he remains free, must now be focused on staying out of jail.

The military's strategy appears clear: remove the top of a pyramid-shaped organization in hopes that the rest will crumble.

Brotherhood members take their orders from the 120-member consultative Shura Council and 18-member Guidance Office, which send directives down via several layers of deputies.

The army's disruption tactics have already paid dividends.

The Brotherhood, which for six weeks managed to keep large protest camps going in Cairo to demand Morsi's reinstatement, is now struggling to get people onto the streets. The authorities, meanwhile, have tightened their grip with dusk-to-dawn curfews.

"To some extent they have succeeded. Turnout in the street is low," said Khalil Anani, an expert on Islamic movements. "For the short term the Brotherhood has received a major blow."

The army-backed administration has indicated it will show no mercy, taking a much tougher line than most past Egyptian governments. The Brotherhood saw its leaders and members locked up over decades, but it never faced such a wave of bloodshed.

DEMONIZING THE BROTHERHOOD

Security forces killed hundreds of people, forcibly evicting Islamist protesters from the sit-ins on Aug. 14. More died two days later during a Brotherhood "Day of Rage".

A spokesman for a pro-Brotherhood alliance said the total death toll among Morsi supporters was about 1,400, considerably higher than an official figure of about 900 dead in the past week, including around 100 soldiers and police.

The army has worked overtime to cast the Brotherhood as a terrorist group, a narrative that suggests the crackdown won't end any time soon. Humiliation seems to be part of the strategy.

Footage shown on local media within hours of Badie's arrest showed the bearded leader sitting grim-faced on a sofa in a grey robe, hands folded, while a man with a rifle stands by.

The general calling the shots, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has taken a more aggressive line against the Brotherhood than Egypt's previous military-backed rulers. He has won wide public support for what he calls a campaign against terrorism.

But it is not clear whether Sisi's heavy-handed campaign can succeed in the long term.

The Brotherhood has long experience of pressure. Its leaders have endured hardship in jail and bouts of persecution under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his successors.

In veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak's era, the then-banned Brotherhood also felt a great deal of heat from the state.

The movement's Freedom and Justice Party newspaper reported that Mahmoud Ezzat, a former deputy to Badie, had been named temporary leader, suggesting that a contingency plan had already been prepared in case the top man was rounded up.

Ezzat, a Brotherhood member since his childhood, is viewed as one of the most influential people in the organization.

Sitting in a Cairo coffee shop, Nidal Sakr, a Brotherhood political strategist, glanced at a news program about Badie.

"This is nothing new. We have seen it all before," he said, estimating that the authorities had arrested more than 3,000 middle- and lower-ranking Brotherhood leaders across Egypt.

CHARITY INFRASTRUCTURE

Sakr predicted that the Brotherhood would survive the latest blow, and make it back to politics within two or three years, because it would adjust, as it always has.

One key to its survival, he said, may be its vast and highly organized social welfare networks that made it popular in Egypt.

If those institutions remain intact, the Brotherhood may be able to weather state harassment in the long term.

"The organization is based on social relationships with families, neighbors, schools, hospitals, institutions and orphanages," said Sakr.

"If you want to approach the Brotherhood you have to approach society," he said. "In the organizational sense it can be halted. But you cannot take it out of society."

The Brotherhood will surely bank on its tightly-knit structures to survive the onslaught from security forces. Regaining public confidence is another challenge altogether.

Morsi's year in office convinced many Egyptians that the group was mostly interested in monopolizing power. His failure to fix the fragile economy also eroded the movement's appeal.

"People now don't accept speeches from Muslim Brotherhood leaders who are not in prison. Not one of them can walk the streets safely," said former Brotherhood official Kamal Helbawy.

The army is trying to capitalize on the public mood, and while security measures may keep the Brotherhood on the defensive, the strategy may ultimately backfire.

Without calls for restraint coming from senior leaders like Badie, a younger Brotherhood generation may be tempted to seek revenge as the army and security forces keep pushing.

"There is a fierce debate on whether they should resort to force," said Anani, adding that Islamist groups allied with the Brotherhood may also turn violent against the state.

"Say there are one million Islamists and 10 percent of them have guns. You are talking about 100,000 weapons."

Kredit: www.nst.com.my
 

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