[unable to retrieve full-text content]The ringgit gained against the US dollar in early trade today on fresh demand for emerging currencies, including the local unit, dealers said. At 9.05am, the ringgit was quoted at 3.1830/1860 to the dollar, against 3.1975/1995 at 5pm yesterday. A dealer said there was renewed concerns over the euro after European Central Bank officials made clear, any policy on fiscal tightening, remained a very distant prospect. The local currency was higher against the Singapore dollar at 2.5093/5132 from 2.5144/5165 on Wednesday, and strengthened against the yen to 3.2576/2623 from 3.2761/2795 previously. The ringgit appreciated against the British pound to 4.8789/8848 from 4.9126/9173 yesterday, and rose against the euro to 4.1452/1501 from 4.1711/1741 yesterday.-- Bernama
[unable to retrieve full-text content]China-based shoe maker, Maxwell International Holdings Bhd plans to spend RMB800 million (RM416 million) in the next three to five years for business expansion and diversification. Maxwell now has a cashpile of RM315 million and the capital expenditure will be mainly funded through internally generated fund. Of the total expenses, RMB500 million will be utilised to build a new shoe manufacturing factory at Henan province in China. Its chief executive director, Xie Zhen An said the first phase of construction will cost them RMB100 million and the shoe factory is expected to completed by middle of next year. "By end of next year, the factory shall commence operation," he told reporters after the company annual general meeting yesterday. Upon the completion of Henan factory, production capacity is expected to increase from the current 8 million pairs, to 28 million pairs of shoes, if it runs at full speed. The company produced 13 million pairs of shoes last year, half of it were outsourced. The rest of the expenditure will be spent on its fashion retailing business at Xiamen, China. Maxwell plans to set up a new boutique outlet and venture into e-commerce fashion business. "Other than shoe manufacturing, we are also into fashion, retailing and kids wear business. I believe this business model will work well and we will have a promising prospect," he said. On financial performance, the company expects a slight drop this year, dragged down by global economic slowdown and decrease in consumer spending. "This is very normal, business has good and bad times. Now the market is down slightly, but we think next year should be better," he noted. Maxwell's first quarter net profit slipped 13 per cent to RM9.2 million, compared with RM10.6 million in the corresponding period last year. Maxwell, which was listed on main market Bursa Malaysia in January 2011, is one of the nine China counters listed in Malaysia. Investors sentiment towards China stocks was dampened after Singapore's S-Chips scandal surfaced and Malaysia-listed HB Global's external auditor questioned about the company's financial status. The stock closed at 30.5 sen yesterday, a 70 per cent deep discount to its current net asset per share of 99 sen, and way below initial public offering price of 54 sen. Asked if Maxwell would privatise the company, its chief financial officer, Tan Swee Song said they are not considering this option at the moment, although some investment banks and fund managers had approached them. "We want to retain the public-listing company status to attract more new customers. And we are still new in the market, it takes time for investors to change their mindset. "However, in the long run, the company will not rule out the option if there is a good offer," he said.
WSJ's Jess Bravin discusses the Supreme Court's ruling on the the Defense of Marriage Act, which states that the federal government must recognize gay marriages in states where they are legal.
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court delivered the history-making ruling sought by gay-marriage supporters, striking down a 1996 federal law that denied benefits to same-sex couples.
The court was more cautious in a second case involving California's ban on gay marriage, Proposition 8, saying it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. But the result was likely again to benefit same-sex couples because it meant that a federal district court's ruling striking down Proposition 8 stands, clearing the way for gay marriage to resume in the nation's most-populous state.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 5-4 majority opinion nullifying the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and described the federal law as an assault on fundamental human rights.
Follow the latest reactions and real-time video, read the highlights from the Supreme Court decisions and get analysis from @WSJ reporters in Washington, California and beyond.
WSJ reporters were on the scene at the U.S. Supreme Court as crowds gathered to hear the Justices' decision to overturn the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. Video by Rebecca Ballhaus and Andrew Aylward.
He said "no legitimate purpose" could justify the effect of the law, which he said was "to disparage and to injure those whom the state, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity."
The opinion capped Justice Kennedy's record as the high court's greatest champion of gay rights, coming after his 2003 ruling striking down state sodomy laws. It means that federal tax and other benefits accorded to married couples will now be extended to gay couples who are legally married in their state.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who read parts of his dissent from the bench, said the court shouldn't have ruled on the Defense of Marriage Act at all, and he also said the court was wrong on the merits.
In his bench statement, Justice Scalia heaped scorn on the majority for what he said was "self-aggrandizement" in their opinion. His written opinion described the ruling as "a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment in favor of same-sex marriage is."
Justice Scalia said the court should have deferred to Congress's wishes. "We might have covered ourselves with honor today, by promising all sides of this debate that it was theirs to settle," he wrote. "We might have let the people decide. But that the majority will not do."
Gay-marriage supporters were jubilant.
"Today we can go back to California and say to our own children, all four of our boys, 'Your family is just as good as everybody else's family,' " said Kristin Perry, who brought the California case seeking to get married in the state to her same-sex partner.
Defense of Marriage Ruling
Proposition 8 Ruling
President Barack Obama, who said last year for the first time that he personally supported the right to gay marriage, applauded the court's ruling, which upheld the legal view his administration had taken before the court.
The federal law "treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people," Mr. Obama said in a statement released by the White House. He said the Supreme Court has "righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it."
The president said he has told his administration to ensure federal benefits received by married couples are extended to same-sex couples "swiftly and smoothly."
Opponents of gay marriage said they would continue to fight the practice.
"Despite the Supreme Court's decision, the debate over marriage has only just begun. The court's decision does not silence the voices of Americans," said Austin R. Nimocks, of the Alliance Defending Freedom.
ProtectMarriage.com, the group that defended Proposition 8 at the Supreme Court and put it on the California ballot, said it would keep fighting in the courts to enforce the gay-marriage ban "until such time as there is a binding statewide order that renders Prop 8 unenforceable."
The sides in California debated whether the district-court ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker, which found a fundamental constitutional right to gay marriage, applied only in certain parts of the state or statewide.
San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera said he believed the ruling meant that marriage rights for same-sex couples would be "fully restored throughout California." Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, said on Twitter Wednesday that he instructed California's Department of Public Health to advise counties to issue marriage licenses to gay couples as soon as the federal appeals court stay is lifted.
In the Defense of Marriage Act case, Justice Kennedy was joined by the four members of the court's liberal wing—Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan--while Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Justice Kennedy said the Defense of Marriage Act "violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government."
Associated Press
Casey Oakes, 26, of Monroe, N.J., left, Dan Choyce, 21, of Sicklerville, N.J., center left, Zach Wulderk, 19, of Hammonton, N.J., and his brother Dylan Wulderk, 22, right, wait for a ruling on same sex marriage at the Supreme Court in Washington on Wednesday.
The court's four dissenters offered three different written dissents, by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia and Justice Alito.
Chief Justice Roberts said the ruling still leaves the path open for states to "continue to utilize the traditional definition of marriage." He said Congress might have had good reasons to enact the law, adding, "I would not tar the political branches with the brush of bigotry."
The ruling on Proposition 8 was also 5-4, with Chief Justice Roberts writing the majority opinion. Chief Justice Roberts said Proposition 8's backers didn't have legal standing to challenge the law.
The case wasn't decided on the usual ideological lines, as Chief Justice Roberts was joined by Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan. Justice Kennedy dissented, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito and Sotomayor.
Both opinions on Proposition 8 focused on the court's jurisdiction to hear the case. The state of California declined to defend the proposition in court, forcing its proponents to take up the legal fight.
"We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here," Chef Justice Roberts said.
Justice Kennedy's dissent didn't debate the merits of the state initiative, but he said he believed the Supreme Court did have jurisdiction to hear the case. He said proponents of a ballot initiative ought to be able to defend it in court when the state doesn't.
The rulings came amid quickly shifting public opinion on gay rights and gay marriage.
This past April, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found 53% of respondents favored same-sex marriage with 42% opposed. Ten years earlier, only 32% were in favor and 51% were opposed.
When Proposition 8 passed in 2008 with 52% of the vote, only two other states permitted gay marriage. Today, 12 states plus the District of Columbia do so.
Moreover, many elected officials and public figures who had previously been noncommittal have thrown their support behind gay marriage. Former President Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act, now says the measure is a mistake.
—Geoffrey A. Fowler, Tamara Audi, Laura Saunders, Evan Perez and Jared A. Favole contributed to this article.
AUSTIN, Tex. — A Fort Worth Democrat, Senator Wendy Davis, 50, stood in her running shoes on the green carpeted floor of the Senate chamber and spoke about a bill with some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country from 11:18 a.m. until about 10 p.m. She abided for most of that time by filibuster rules that prohibited her from leaning on her desk, sitting on her chair or straying off topic.
Her feat of stamina and conviction — designed by Democrats to block passage of a bill supported by some of the state's top Republicans — made her an instant celebrity across the country, a hero to some, a villain to others. Republicans monitored virtually her every move and word, waiting to catch her violating the rules, and at one point objecting when a fellow Democrat tried to help put a back-brace around Ms. Davis, who at that point had been standing for about seven hours straight.
Ms. Davis gained thousands of Twitter followers in a matter of hours. Close-up pictures of her pink sneakers zoomed across computer and television screens. Hundreds of men, women and children waited for hours in line at the Capitol to sit in an upstairs gallery and watch her in action, standing in lines that snaked around the rotunda and down staircases.
"I'm tired, but really happy," Ms. Davis told reporters in the Senate chamber at 3:20 a.m. Wednesday as she finally made her way out of the building. "I'm pleased to know that a spotlight is shining on Texas, a spotlight is shining on the failure of our current leadership." Hours after claiming that they successfully passed the bill, Republican lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and said a disputed late-night vote on the bill did not follow legislative procedures, rendering the vote moot and giving Democrats a bitterly fought if probably short-lived victory.
The reversal capped a remarkable day in the Texas Legislature here. As Ms. Davis staged her filibuster marathon, abortion rights activists succeeded in disrupting Republican senators, and the fate of the bill, which Gov. Rick Perry had made a priority, devolved into a legislative mess so thick that even senators who had voted on the bill could not say for certain whether they had indeed voted on the bill.
The State Senate's vote came right at a midnight Tuesday deadline, amid widespread confusion and the noise of a chanting crowd of the bill's opponents in an upstairs gallery. Senate Democrats said the vote took place past the deadline at 12:02 a.m. or 12:03 a.m., while Republicans disputed those claims, saying the vote was legitimate.
But at 3 a.m., Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the Senate and a Republican supporter of the bill, told lawmakers and reporters that although the bill passed on a 19-to-10 vote, the bill could not be signed in the presence of the Senate and was therefore dead, blaming "an unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics" as the primary cause.
"With all the ruckus and noise going on," Mr. Dewhurst said, he could not complete administrative duties to make the vote official and sign the bill. Senate Democrats and women's right's advocates said the real reason the vote could not be made official was a time stamp on official documents that showed the bill passed after midnight. The Legislature's official Web site first posted that the Senate's vote occurred on Wednesday, after the midnight deadline, but the date was later changed to Tuesday for unknown reasons.
The reversal served as an embarrassing episode for Mr. Dewhurst and Republican senators on a divisive bill that was closely watched around the nation by anti-abortion activists and supporters of abortion rights.
"The G.O.P. Senate leadership comes out of this whole process looking somewhat disingenuous, deceptive and disorganized," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.
The bill sought to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers and mandate that a doctor who performs abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Supporters of the bill, including Mr. Perry and other top Republicans, said the measures would protect women's health and hold clinics to safe standards, but women's right's advocates said the legislation amounted to an unconstitutional, politically motivated effort to shut legal abortion clinics. The bill's opponents said it will likely cause all but five of the 42 abortion clinics in the state to close, because the building renovations and equipment upgrades necessary to meet the surgical-center standards would be too costly.
Republicans, who control the State Senate and House, will likely have a second chance at the bill. The governor, who called the special session and put the bill on the agenda, may now call a second special session and once again tell lawmakers to consider the bill, known as Senate Bill 5. Political analysts said the bill would likely pass if a second special session was called.
The bill sought to make Texas the 12th state to bar most abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization and later — a step that has been blocked in three states so far as unconstitutional. The more pressing concern for clinic managers and advocates for women's rights was the requirement that all 42 abortion clinics in the state be licensed as ambulatory surgery centers.
Five clinics performing late-term abortions already meet that standard. But for most of the remaining 37, the new restriction would require costly renovations or relocation to meet architectural and equipment requirements. The five clinics are in large cities — Austin, San Antonio and Dallas each have one, and Houston has two. The burden on those five clinics to provide women's health services will be extreme, and women in rural areas and small towns far from those cities will be underserved, advocates for abortion rights said.
Two clinics in McAllen and Harlingen in South Texas — the only abortion providers in the area — would close if the bill had passed, they said, forcing women seeking abortions to travel a few miles across the border into Mexico rather than drive four hours to San Antonio, both for surgical procedures and abortion-inducing drugs.
"We know that it would shut down dozens of clinics in the state of Texas, a state of 26 million people, and there will be women who cannot reach a health care provider to get reproductive health care for hundreds of miles," said Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and a daughter of Ann W. Richards, the former Texas governor. "This is the thing that's frightening. Women will do whatever they have to do to take care of themselves."
Ms. Davis, herself, has known long odds, and, for Democrats, was the perfect symbol in a fight over women's rights of what a woman can do. She was a teenager when her first daughter was born but managed to pull herself from a trailer park to Harvard Law School to a hard-fought seat in the Texas Senate, a rare liberal representing conservative Tarrant County.
"She's carrying every woman in the state of Texas, if you will, on her shoulders," Ms. Richards said. "If there's anybody who can do it, it's her. She's a marathoner. She's not a sprinter."
Ms. Davis is something of a filibuster star among Texas Democrats. At the end of the legislative term in 2011, she forced Mr. Perry to call a special session after her filibuster ran the clock out on a budget bill that included cuts in public education. But at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, 11 hours after she first stood up, Mr. Dewhurst sustained a violation against her for straying off the topic. It was her third violation. As the senators debated the next steps, Ms. Davis remained standing, because it was uncertain whether the filibuster had officially ended.
Democrats accused Mr. Dewhurst of going back on his earlier statements that he would bring the end of the filibuster to a vote if Ms. Davis had three violations. As the clock neared midnight and the crowd erupted, several Democratic senators said they believed they were voting on a procedural matter when the vote for the abortion bill was taken. "I don't mind losing fair and square, but this has been a total sham and mockery of the rules," said State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, a San Antonio Democrat.
Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president of Whole Woman's Health, which operates abortion and women's health clinics in Texas and two other states, said the bill would force her to shut down the group's five clinics in Texas. The group also owns a sixth Texas facility in San Antonio that complies with ambulatory surgical requirements, but Ms. Hagstrom Miller said it had operated at an annual loss of $400,000 since opening two years ago."
Ms. Hagstrom Miller said opening clinics that met the new requirements would be financially untenable. "I believe in providing really compassionate, medically acceptable care, but why would I do it in Texas? I will surely look elsewhere," she said.
Another of the group's clinics is the one in McAllen, close to the Mexican border. It was quiet outside the McAllen clinic on Tuesday afternoon, but the area is heavily Catholic, and there is strong opposition to abortion. Signs protesting the clinic are posted on the building next door.
Already a large number of women cross the border to obtain abortion-inducing drugs in Mexico, Ms. Hagstrom Miller said, and she expects the number to rise if the clinic closes.
"We've already seen women taking matters into their own hands," she said, because of an existing state requirement of a 24-hour waiting period for abortions, which forces women to go to the clinic twice. Many women seeking abortions, she said, are already mothers and do not have the time or money to travel long distances for the procedure.
"I've seen women who asked their partners to punch them in the stomach repeatedly," Ms. Hagstrom Miller said, adding that she believed the law and widespread closings of clinics would force more women to try "self-induced abortions."
Manny Fernandez reported from Austin, and Erik Eckholm from New York. Laura Tillman contributed reporting from McAllen, Tex.
Share prices on Bursa Malaysia opened higher today on a technical rebound after a streak of losses in the last five
successive days, dealers said.
At 9.00am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.04 points better at 1,729.69 but, 12 minutes later, it came off 1.88 points to 1,726.76.
A dealer said the benchmark FBM KLCI could recoup parts of its cumulative loss of 45.4-points or 2.6 per cent suffered over the past five days, as it makes its way towards the immediate support-turned-resistance line of 1,750 ahead.
He added that local and regional bourses might track an overnight rise on Wall Street as leading US bellwethers rose between 0.7 per cent and 0.9 per cent at the closing bell on hopes that the country's economic recovery remained on track.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 1.94 points to 16,322.650, the Industrial Index increased 2.34 points to 2,919.29 and the Plantation Index jumped 25.19 points to 8,256.62.
The FBM Emas Index added 5.51 points to 11,971.13, the FBMT100 Index was 2.319 points higher at 11,753.27, the FBM Mid 70 Index chalked up 65.04 points to 13,689.90 and the FBM Ace Index edged-up 15.48 points to 4,634.82.
Gainers led losers 194 to 41 while 112 counters were unchanged, 1,245 untraded and 48 others were suspended.
Volume stood at 74.28 million shares worth RM83.76 million.
Among actives, Asia Media and Cybertowers added half-a-sen each to 15.5 sen and 18 sen, respectively, and TA Enterprise earned 3.5 sen to 60.5 sen.
Luster Industries lost half-a-sen to 16 sen while Tiger Synergy was unchanged at 21.5 sen.
As for heavyweights, CIMB declined seven sen to RM7.98, Sime Darby and Axiata lost three sen each to RM9.40 and RM6.58, respectively, and Petronas Chemicals dropped two sen to RM6.52.
The ringgit open higher against the US dollar as appetite for riskier assets, including the local currency, emerged, dealers said.
At 9.02am, the currency was quoted 3.1770/1815 against 3.1820/1850 at 5pm yesterday.
A dealer said the greenback had started to recover after the latest batch of US economic data supported the Federal Reserve's recovery view and lifted US Treasury yields.
The local currency was, however, lower against the Singapore dollar at 2.5047/5093 from 2.5043/5095 on Tuesday but strengthened against the yen to 3.2382/2444 from 3.2767/2811 previously.
The ringgit appreciated against the British pound to 4.8983/9065 from 4.9111/9173 yesterday and rose against the euro to 4.1565/1636 from 4.1773/1819 on Tuesday.-- Bernama
The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act, weakening a tool the federal government has used for nearly five decades to block discriminatory voting laws.
In a five-to-four ruling, the court ruled that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. That section of the landmark 1965 law provides the formula for determining which states must have any changes to their voting laws pre-approved by the Justice Department's civil rights division or the D.C. federal court. Nine states are required to get pre-clearance, as are certain jurisdictions in seven other states.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that Section 4 is unconstitutional because the standards by which states are judged are "based on decades-old data and eradicated practices."
"Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically," Roberts wrote. "The tests and devices that blocked ballot access have been forbidden nationwide for over 40 years. Yet the Act has not eased [Section 5's] restrictions or narrowed the scope of [Section 4's] coverage formula along the way. Instead those extraordinary and unprecedented features have been reauthorized as if nothing has changed, and they have grown even stronger."
The court could have made a much broader ruling by striking down Section 5, which dictates that those states must get pre-clearance. However, the court decided that the Justice Department still has a role in overseeing voting laws -- if Congress is willing to rewrite Section 4.
Nevertheless, civil rights advocates called the ruling a huge blow to democracy.
"The Supreme Court has failed minority voters today," Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said Tuesday outside of the court.
The ruling underscores the Supreme Court's lawmaking powers, challenging Congress' overwhelmingly bipartisan decision in 2006 to renew the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years. Ifill pointed out that the court renewed the law after holding 52 hearings over nine months and amassing 15,000 pages of evidence of the state of civil rights across the nation.
It's now up to Congress to change the coverage rules so that Section 5 -- the section requiring pre-clearance of voting laws in certain states -- can continue to be enforced.
"The ball has been thrown not only in Congress' court, but in our court," Ifill said, calling on the public to mobilize behind an update to the law.
Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, he expressed optimism the Voting Rights Act could be fully restored with adjustments in the legislative branch.
"We are very confident that members of both houses of Congress who helped lead the effort in 2006, many of whom are still there, will respond to those challenges," he said on the steps of the court.
While Section 5 may be effectively nullified, now that Section 4 has been struck down, the court's ruling will certainly renew discussion of what tools the federal government should have at its disposal to ensure voting rights. President Obama noted earlier this year that Section 5 is "not the only tool" available to fight discriminatory voting laws, and he has attempted to start a new dialogue on the issue by forming a bipartisan commission to draft a plan for reforming national voting laws.
MOSCOW/NAANTIL, Finland | Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:22pm EDT
(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin confirmed on Tuesday a former U.S. spy agency contractor sought by the United States was in the transit area of a Moscow airport but ruled out handing him over to Washington, dismissing U.S. criticisms as "ravings and rubbish".
His refusal to hand back Edward Snowden risked deepening a rift with the United States that has also sucked in China and threatens relations between countries that may be essential in settling global conflicts including the Syrian war.
China rejected U.S. criticism for letting Snowden flee the Chinese colony of Hong Kong as "baseless".
In his first public comments on Snowden since the fugitive flew in on Sunday, Putin said the 30-year-old American was in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, not having gone through passport control, was free to leave and should do so as soon as he could.
Snowden has applied for asylum in Ecuador but Quito has said it is still considering the application and the United States is trying to persuade the governments of countries where he might head to hand him over.
"He has not crossed the state's border, and therefore does not need a visa. And any accusations against Russia (of aiding him) are ravings and rubbish," Putin told a news conference during a visit to Finland.
Making clear Moscow saw no gain in extraditing Snowden, he said: "It's like giving a baby pig a haircut: there's a lot of squealing, but there's little wool."
"We can hand over foreign citizens to countries with which we have an appropriate international agreement on the extradition of criminals. We don't have such an agreement with the United States ... Thank God, Mr. Snowden committed no crimes on the territory of the Russian Federation."
His words appeared a direct rebuff to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking only hours earlier.
"It is accurate there is not an extradition treaty between Russia and the United states, but there are standards of behavior between sovereign nations," he said, in Jeddah.
The U.S. State Department said diplomats and Justice Department officials were talking to Russia, suggesting they sought a deal to secure his return to face espionage charges.
Snowden, charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, left Hong Kong for Moscow on Sunday and the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group said he was headed for Ecuador.
Journalists camped out at the airport have not spotted him inside, or leaving, the transit area. He has not registered at a hotel in the transit zone, hotel sources say.
A receptionist at the Capsule Hotel "Air Express", a complex of 47 basic rooms furnished predominantly with grey carpets and grey walls, said Snowden had turned up on Sunday, looked at the price list and then left.
U.S. officials admonished Beijing and Moscow on Monday for allowing Snowden to escape their clutches but the United States' partners on the U.N. Security Council, already at odds with Washington over the conflict in Syria, hit back indignantly.
"The United States' criticism of China's central government is baseless. China absolutely cannot accept it," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in Beijing, also dismissing U.S. criticism of Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, for letting Snowden leave.
FSB INTEREST?
There has been speculation in the Russian media that Snowden may be talking to the FSB security service, a successor of the Soviet-era KGB, and could be involved in a prisoner swap.
Putin said Russian security agencies "never worked with... Snowden and are not working with him today".
Fallout from a protracted wrangle over Snowden could be far-reaching, as Russia, the United States and China hold veto powers at the U.N. Security Council and their broad agreement could be vital to any settlement in Syria.
International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Tuesday he was pessimistic an international conference on Syria could take place in July as hoped and urged Russia and the United States to help contain a conflict which has killed almost 100,000 people.
The Sheremetyevo airport transit area is Russian sovereign territory, but Russia says that in staying there Snowden has not formally entered the country. Going through passport control might implicate Putin in helping a fugitive.
"The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it would be for us and for himself," Putin said.
Snowden is travelling on a refugee document of passage provided by Ecuador, WikiLeaks said.
U.S. officials said intelligence agencies were concerned they did not know how much sensitive material Snowden had and that he may have taken more documents than initially estimated which could get into the hands of foreign intelligence.
(Additional reporting Gabriela Baczynska and Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Alexandra Valencia in Quito, Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Katya Golubkova in Havana, Writing by Elizabeth Piper and Timothy Heritage, editing by Ralph Boulton)
The ringgit rebounded against the US dollar, in early trade today, on fresh buying interest, dealers said.
At 9.10am, the currency was quoted 3.2055/2085 against 3.2180/2210 yesterday.
A dealer said the greenback had retreated from a near three-week peak on renewed concerns after Federal Reserve officials released a comment saying the Fed's exit strategy was still way out in the future.
The local currency was lower against the Singapore dollar at 2.5149/5188 from 2.5141/5168 on Monday but strengthened against the yen to 3.2704/2748 from 3.2797/2844 previously.
The ringgit depreciated against the British pound to 4.9504/9564 from 4.9454/9510 yesterday but was stronger against the euro at 4.2062/2108 from 4.2175/2224 on Monday.-- Bernama
Bursa Malaysia opened lower this morning as investors took cue from the overnight losses on Wall Street amid weak global
sentiment, dealers said.
At 9.03am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 13.03 points lower at 1,725.16 after opening 10.46 points easier at 1,727.73.
The composite index was dragged down by losses mostly seen in finance counters and key heavyweights like Maybank, CIMB, Petronas Chemicals and UMW.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said the selling momentum was set to continue today.
"Key US equity bellwethers slid between 0.9 per cent and 1.2 per cent at the closing bell on persistent concerns over premature quantitative easing withdrawal by the Federal Reserve and weakening economic fundamentals in China.
"The bearish external backdrop will likely pile additional selling pressure on Malaysian equities ahead," it said in a note.
The benchmark FBM KLCI, after slipping below the 1,750 points level, remains vulnerable to further downside risk, possibly pulling back deeper towards the major support line of 1,720 points, the research firm added.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index erased 131.93 points to 16,372.99, the Industrial Index decreased 19.62 points to 2,894.76 and the Plantation Index trimmed 4.7 points to 8,155.69.
The FBM Emas Index fell 90.81 points to 11,941.43, the FBMT100 Index lost 91.49 points to 11,724.16, the FBM Mid 70 Index trimmed 118.05 points to 13,580.85 and the FBM Ace Index erased 5.09 points to 4,644.35.
Market breadth was negative as losers thumped gainers 156 to 48, with 90 counters unchanged, 1,298 untraded and 22 others were suspended.
Volume amounted at 40.792 million shares worth RM55.387 million.
Among actives, Flonic Hi-Tech inched up half-a-sen to 8.5 sen, Cybertowers added one sen to 18 sen and TDM gained three sen to 78.5 sen.
As for heavyweights, Maybank lost 12 sen to RM10.02, CIMB erased eight sen to RM8.05, both Sime Darby and Petronas Chemicals were seven sen lower at RM9.33 and RM6.51, respectively, while Axiata Group slipped three sen to RM6.57.-- Bernama
(Reuters) - Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden's whereabouts were a mystery on Monday as Russia resisted White House pressure to send him back to the United States or stop him continuing on his journey to escape U.S. prosecution.
Snowden, whose exposure of secret U.S. government surveillance raised questions about intrusions into private lives, was allowed to leave Hong Kong on Sunday despite Washington asking the Chinese territory to arrest him on espionage charges.
Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks which is assisting Snowden, said the 30-year-old had fled to Moscow en route to Ecuador and was in good health in a "safe place" but did not say where he was now.
There are no direct flights to Ecuador from Moscow and reports that he would fly there via Cuba were put in doubt when witnesses could not see him on the plane, despite tight security before take-off. A WikiLeaks spokesman muddied the waters by saying an approach had also been made to Iceland for asylum.
Ecuador, which is already sheltering Assange at its London embassy, said it was considering Snowden's request for asylum and that human rights were its main concern.
"He didn't take the flight (to Havana)," a source at Russia's national airline Aeroflot told Reuters.
As speculation grew about where he would go next, Washington was stung by Russian defiance.
Snowden's flight to Russia, which like China challenges U.S. dominance of global diplomacy, is an embarrassment to President Barack Obama who has tried to "reset" ties with Moscow and build a partnership with Beijing.
The White House said it expected the Russian government to send Snowden back to the United States and lodged "strong objections" to Hong Kong and China for letting him go.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during a visit to India that it would be "deeply troubling" if Moscow defied the United States over Snowden, and said the fugitive "places himself above the law, having betrayed his country".
But the Russian government ignored the appeal and President Vladimir Putin's press secretary denied any knowledge of Snowden's movements.
Asked if Snowden had spoken to the Russian authorities, Peskov said: "Overall, we have no information about him."
He declined comment on the expulsion request but other Russian officials said Moscow had no obligation to cooperate with Washington, after it passed legislation to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of violating human rights.
The Russian news agency Interfax quoted an unnamed source as saying Moscow could not arrest or deport Snowden because he had not entered Russian territory - suggesting he had remained in the transit area at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.
U.S. HYPOCRISY
"Why should the United States expect restraint and understanding from Russia?" said Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of parliament.
Putin has missed few chances to champion public figures who challenge Western governments and to portray Washington as an overzealous global policeman. But Russian leaders have not paraded Snowden before cameras or trumpeted his arrival.
Since leaving Hong Kong, where he feared arrest and extradition, Snowden has been searching for a country that can guarantee his security.
Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patino, said during a trip to Vietnam that Quito would take into account a U.S. request about Snowden and is in "respectful" contact with Russia about him. He gave no details of the U.S. request.
"We will consider the position of the U.S. government and we will take a decision in due course in line with the (Ecuadorean) constitution, the laws, international politics and sovereignty," Patino told a news conference in Hanoi.
A source at Aeroflot said on Sunday Snowden was booked on the flight due to depart for Havana on Monday at 2:05 p.m. (1005 GMT). But a correspondent aboard could not see him and the seat he was supposed to occupy, 17A, was taken by another passenger.
It was not immediately clear whether the plane had a crew section where Snowden might have been concealed.
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said Putin had probably known about and approved Snowden's flight to Russia, and saw "the hand of Beijing" in Hong Kong's decision to let Snowden leave.
But taking the higher ground after being accused of hacking computers abroad, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed "grave concern" over Snowden's allegations that the United States had hacked computers in China. It said it had taken up the issue with Washington.
CHILL
Some Russians have praised Snowden's revelations. Others fear a new chill in relations with the United States.
"We are a pretty stubborn country and so is the United States. Both are mighty countries, so I would say this has a good potential to turn into a big fuss in bilateral relations," said Ina Sosna, manager of a Moscow cleaning company.
"I guess it would be best if they just let him move on from Russia to avoid any more controversy over him being here."
WikiLeaks said Snowden was supplied with a refugee document of passage by Ecuador and that a British legal researcher working for the anti-secrecy group had accompanied him.
Ecuador, like Cuba and Venezuela, is a member of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials. The Quito government has been sheltering Assange at its London embassy for the past year.
Snowden, who had worked at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, had been hiding in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to news media.
He has been charged with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Martin Petty in Hanoi, Sui-Lee Weein in Beijing,; Andrew Cawthorne, Mario Naranjo and Daniel Wallis in Caracas, Alexandra Valencia in Quito and Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Elizabeth Piper, Editing by Mark Heinrich and Anna Willard)
The Supreme Court avoided a sweeping ruling on affirmative action in a closely watched case involving the University of Texas, sending the case back to a lower court for a new review. Jess Bravin and Ashby Jones discuss the ruling. Photo: Getty Images.
The Supreme Court avoided a sweeping ruling on affirmative action in a closely watched case involving the University of Texas, sending the case back to a lower court for a new review.
The court's ruling on Fisher v. University of Texas was 7-1, with the majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, and Justice Elena Kagan, who was solicitor general when the Obama administration weighed in on the case, recused herself from the decision.
Justice Kennedy said the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals made legal errors when it upheld the university program. The lower court should have scrutinized the university program more strictly, Justice Kennedy said.
The justices were ruling on the case of Abigail Fisher, who alleged the university rejected her because she is white.
Read the Ruling
See the full text of the ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas.
The University of Texas's use of diversity in the admissions process will face a new test in the 5th Circuit Court. Ashby Joes and Jess Bravin discuss. AP Photo.
Justice Kennedy said the Supreme Court wants the lower court to hear the case again "so that the admissions process can be considered and judged under a correct analysis."
UT gives automatic entry to any Texas student who graduates in roughly the top 10% of his or her high-school class. That program was designed to maintain ethnic and racial diversity after a 1996 federal-appeals-court ruling restricted affirmative action in Texas and nearby states.
But after 2003, when the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reinstate affirmative action, UT quickly supplemented its top-10% plan with an additional admissions pathway that allowed consideration of race and other factors beyond grades and test scores. UT said that pathway was designed for middle- or upper-class children of African-American and Hispanic professionals who attend more competitive schools.
While the top-10% plan vastly expanded the number of Texas high schools sending graduates to the state's flagship campus, UT administrators frowned at having to accept applicants from less competitive high schools, whose top students often had lower test scores and poorer academic preparation than middle-tier students from leading suburban high schools that traditionally served as the university's principal feeders.
The university said the presence of better-off minority students could help dispel stereotypes that could be perpetuated by the presence of those admitted through the top-10% program.
That stance drew harsh questioning from the Supreme Court's conservative wing at arguments last October.
"I thought that the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds, but you make a very different argument that I don't think I've ever seen before," said Justice Samuel Alito.
When UT's lawyer, Gregory Garre, attempted to explain the admissions formula as a "holistic" review of individual attributes, Justice Kennedy heard something else.
"So what you're saying is that what counts is race above all," said Justice Kennedy, considered a swing vote on affirmative action. "You want underprivileged of a certain race and privileged of a certain race. So that's race."
Other state universities, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that using a race-blind top-10% plan could actually increase racial diversity on campus, but at the unacceptable price of admitting less-qualified applicants who would lower the institution's national ranking.
Ms. Fisher, the white student who sued UT, was recruited by lawyer Edward Blum, an activist opposed to affirmative action and other race-conscious government policies. Her suit alleged that the admissions formula violated her 14th Amendment right to "equal protection of the laws."
A federal district court and the Fifth Circuit disagreed, finding that the UT system met the standards established by the Supreme Court's 2003 decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, which suggested that race-conscious admissions practices might be justifiable for another quarter-century.
Since 2003, the Supreme Court's composition shifted to the right on matters of race, when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, author of the Grutter decision, retired and was succeeded by Justice Alito, who has shown far greater skepticism toward race-conscious polices.
Associated Press
People waited outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Monday.
At the arguments last year, liberal justices seemed frustrated that so recent a ruling was being reconsidered.
"Grutter said it would be good law for at least 25 years, and I know that time flies, but I think only nine of those years have passed," said Justice Stephen Breyer. "Why overrule a case into which so much thought and effort went and so many people across the country have depended on?"
Although Ms. Fisher's lawyers contended that the UT policy violated even the 2003 Grutter precedent, all sides saw the case as intended to end affirmative action outright.
The Obama administration backed UT, arguing that affirmative action was important for several official objectives, particularly in the military. The Pentagon said ethnic and racial diversity of the enlisted force was necessary to foster morale and retain discipline in the ranks.
For most of its history, the University of Texas, like Texas itself, was segregated by law. A 1950 Supreme Court ruling forced UT to admit an African-American to its law school, paving the way for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision holding segregated schools unconstitutional. Even so, UT didn't agree to accept black undergraduates until 1956, and it continued to operate whites-only dormitories into the 1960s.
After she was rejected by UT's flagship Austin campus, Ms. Fisher had the option of attending another UT campus and transferring after one year to Austin if she performed adequately. She chose instead to attend Louisiana State University, across the state line in Baton Rouge. She has since graduated and moved to Austin.
MOSCOW A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs has landed in Moscow after fleeing Hong Kong.
Reporter Kevin O'Flynn told host Bob Schieffer on CBS' "Face the Nation" that Edward Snowden landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport at around 9:15 a.m. ET. While his current whereabouts are unknown, most reports indicate he will not stay in Moscow, but will instead continue to another destination on Monday.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was unaware of Snowden's whereabouts or travel plans. Diplomats from at least two South American nations mentioned as possible final destinations for Snowden - Ecuador and Venezuela - were seen at the Moscow airport, although it's unclear whether they had any contact with Snowden.
Both Russia's state ITAR-Tass news agency and Reuters have cited an unnamed Aeroflot airline official as saying Snowden will continue along to Cuba on Monday, and possibly travel from their to Venezuela. Snowden said in recent interviews that Iceland was also a destination he preferred. Ecuador has also been mentioned as a possible destination.
WikiLeaks, the organization that has released reams of classified material online from the U.S. government and others, claims to have aided Snowden in his flight. They released a statement saying he was bound for a "democratic nation via a safe route for the purpose of asylum."
An Aeroflot agent told Russia's Interfax news service that Snowden is traveling with one other person with the surname Harrison, but the agent declined to release the traveler's full name.
U.K. journalist Sarah Harrison is a known close adviser to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, prompting speculation that she was with Snowden during his flight from Hong Kong. WikiLeaks tweeted out her profile Sunday morning, as well as another tweet asking followers to read about her "before the smears arrive."
Early Sunday morning, Hong Kong officials said Snowden had been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with their laws.
Snowden had been in hiding in Hong Kong for several weeks since he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs.
Interpol said there is no public Red Notice -- an international alert that an individual is wanted for arrest by an Interpol member country -- at the moment for Snowden.
A U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson, Nanda Chitre, told CBS News they had been informed Snowden had left Hong Kong.
"We will continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel," Chindre said.
The White House itself has not commented yet on Snowden's departure, which came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."
It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
Russian officials have given no indication that they have any interest in detaining Snowden or any grounds to do so. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia would be willing to consider granting asylum if Snowden were to make such a request.
Russia and the United States have no extradition treaty that would oblige Russia to hand over a U.S. citizen at Washington's request.
WikiLeaks said it was providing legal help to Snowden at his request and that he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from the group. Its founder, Julian Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that his organization is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.
The Cuban government had no comment on Snowden's movements or reports he might use Havana as a transit point.
Michael Ratner, Assange's lawyer, said he didn't know Snowden's final destination, but said his options were not numerous.
"You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."
Ratner said a country's extradition treaty with the U.S. is "not going to be relevant" because the country he ends up going to will likely be one willing to give him a political exemption.
An air show in southwestern Ohio reopened with a moment of silence Sunday, a day after a pilot and wing walker died in a horrifying, fiery crash in front of thousands of spectators.
The Vectren Air Show near Dayton, which closed right after Saturday's crash, resumed Sunday in honor of pilot Charlie Schwenker and veteran stuntwoman Jane Wicker, both of Virginia.
"As a pilot, you accept the fact that accidents do happen — it's an accepted risk we take," said John King, president of the Flying Circus Airshow, which employed Wicker.
"They were both dedicated to flying and the act. They were true, ultimate professionals," King said. "I don't know of anyone who could have done any better than what they were doing."
Wicker and Schwenker were killed when their plane crashed in front of spectators who screamed in shock as the aircraft became engulfed in flames. No one else was hurt.
Video of the crash showed their plane gliding through the sky before abruptly rolled over, crashing and exploding into flames. Wicker, performing at the Dayton show for the first time, had been sitting atop the 450 HP Stearmans.
The decision to resume the show a day after the crash was an emotional one supported by Wicker's ex-husband, said air show general manager Brenda Kerfoot.
"He said, 'This is what Jane and Charlie would have wanted,'" Kerfoot said. "'They want you to have a safe show and go out there and do what you do best.'"
Wicker, 44, who lived in Bristow, Va., was a mother of two boys and engaged to be married, Kerfoot said. Schwenker, 64, of Oakton, Va., was married.
The cause of the crash is unclear and the conclusion of an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board likely will take months. Investigators picked through the debris of the crash site Saturday.
Wicker's website says she responded to a classified ad from the Flying Circus Airshow in Bealeton, Va., in 1990, for a wing-walking position, thinking it would be fun. She was a contract employee who worked as a Federal Aviation Administration budget analyst, the FAA said.
In one post on Wicker's site, the stuntwoman explains what she loved most about her job.
"There is nothing that feels more exhilarating or freer to me than the wind and sky rushing by me as the earth rolls around my head," the post says. "I'm alive up there. To soar like a bird and touch the sky puts me in a place where I feel I totally belong. It's the only thing I've done that I've never questioned, never hesitated about and always felt was my destiny."
She also answered a question she said she got frequently: What about the risk?
"I feel safer on the wing of my airplane than I do driving to the airport," she wrote. "Why? Because I'm in control of those risks and not at the mercy of those other drivers."
A program for the air show touted Wicker as a performer of "heart-stopping" feats who did moves that "no other wing walker is brave enough to try."
"Wing riding is not for this damsel; her wing walking style is the real thing," the program said. "With no safety line and no parachute, Jane amazes the crowd by climbing, walking, and hanging all over her beautiful ... aircraft.
"Spectators are sure to gasp as this daredevil demonstrates in true form the unbelievable art of wing walking," it says.
On the video of the crash, an announcer narrates as Wicker's plane glides through the air.
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