Sunday, August 11, 2013

Before data French fin min declares recession over

PARIS (AP) ? France's finance minister says the economy is out of recession, part of a campaign by the French government to convince the public that a turnaround is underway.

France's gross domestic product shrank by 0.2 percent for the past two quarters ? the technical definition for a recession ? and data for the second quarter of the year won't be published until Aug. 14. But Pierre Moscovici told Corse Matin newspaper in an interview published Saturday that the recession is over, without revealing the second-quarter figures.

Still, he tamped down expectations for growth for the full year, saying that he expected GDP for 2013 to be somewhere between -0.1 percent a 0.1 percent. Previously, the government had predicted the economy would grow 0.1 percent.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/data-french-fin-min-declares-recession-over-122420028.html

Yunel Escobar Eye Black Cruel Summer

Friday, August 9, 2013

Issue for the week of August 24th, 2013

  • Talking while driving poses dangers that people seem unable to see. (p. 20)

  • Scientists revive search for new rubber sources. (p. 26)

  • Two large studies reach opposing conclusions about why males stay with females. (p. 5)

  • Material ejected in gamma-ray bursts may be a main source of the heavy elements. (p. 8)

  • Probe captures planet from 1.4 billion kilometers away. (p. 8)

  • Galaxy's maw begins to tear apart and change the velocity of an approaching object. (p. 9)

  • Clover-shaped clumps of charged particles extend billions of kilometers in our wake. (p. 9)

  • Technique transports nonmagnetic particles such as cells, water droplets and coffee grounds. (p. 10)

  • Light?s twistiness allows researchers to measure rotating object?s speed. (p. 10)

  • Changes in day length linked to workings of Earth's core. (p. 11)

  • Data show that female birds are not so riveted by their suitors? magnificence (p. 12)

  • Fossils found in Utah reveal geographic segregation of horned species. (p. 12)

  • Dig supports prolonged development of domesticated crops at ancient sites across the Fertile Crescent. (p. 13)

  • Girl, who was sacrificed, may have been sedated by alcohol, coca leaves. (p. 13)

  • The rapid improvement in symptoms of diabetes, seen in patients before weight loss begins, may be due to changes in part of the intestine. (p. 14)

  • Slumber waxes and wanes along with lunar rhythm, researchers find with people sleeping in windowless lab. (p. 15)

  • Though human cells spontaneously group into rudimentary organs, some scientists say work is very preliminary. (p. 16)

  • Transplanted cells can function in rodents' eyes. (p. 16)

  • Buckling of appendage drives tiny two-point turn. (p. 17)

  • The scientists who made the H5N1 strain transmissible between ferrets intend to do the same with H7N9. (p. 17)

  • Researchers alter rodents' recollections by exciting just a few neurons. (p. 18)

  • Sleep loss changes brain activity and food preferences. (p. 18)

  • Review by Erin Wayman (p. 30)

  • Review by Meghan Rosen (p. 30)

  • Excerpt from the August 17, 1963, issue of Science News Letter (p. 4)

  • (p. 31)

  • The Science Life (p. 32)

  • Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/issue/id/352312/title/Issue_for_the_week_of_August_24th_2013

    Paula Broadwell Photos Veterans Day 2012 Nate Silver Obama Acceptance Speech 2012 dow jones ariel winter Paige Butcher

    Commerzbank profits sag on loan losses

    (AP) ? Germany's Commerzbank saw its second-quarter profit slide as it continued to take losses on bad real estate and shipping loans ? but the company's shares jumped after it said was making progress with its strategy of getting rid of costly non-core assets.

    It said Thursday that it made a net profit of 43 million euros ($57 million) during the quarter, down 84 percent on the 270 million euros it made in the same period a year earlier.

    The quarterly profit performance fell short of the consensus of analysts' expectations of 48 million euros as compiled by financial information provider FactSet.

    The bank, Germany's No. 2 lender after Deutsche Bank, took losses of 537 million euros for loans that won't be fully repaid in the second quarter, up from 404 million euros in the year-ago quarter. Earnings were also squeezed by extremely low current interest rates. Net interest income fell to 1.63 billion from 1.78 billion a year ago.

    The company said the figures included losses on its commercial real estate loan portfolio in Britain and 110 million euros in bad loans to build ships. The bank is exiting its commercial real estate and ship businesses and is winding them down in a non-core asset division. It also cited "single cases" of bad loans from its bank serving small and medium sized businesses in Germany.

    Chief financial officer Stephan Engels told analysts in a conference that the bank had "an exposure" to the bankruptcy of the U.S. city of Detroit, which is in court protection from creditors after saying it cannot pay all its debts including the municipal bonds sold to investors.

    He declined to put a figure on the bank's potential losses other than to say it had been adequately provisioned and that the final loss figure was a subject of negotiations in the U.S. bankruptcy case.

    Overall though, Commerzbank has made progress in reducing its exposure to badly performing assets. In July, for example, it sold 5 billion euro commercial real estate loans in Britain to a consortium comprising U.S. bank Wells Fargo and private equity investor Lone Star Funds.

    The company said then that the transaction would result in deductions to earnings of 134 million euros in the second quarter and 45 million in the third. The deal meant Commerzbank no longer has the risk of further losses on the loans.

    CFO Engels said on a conference call with analysts that the bank was making "great progress" in winding down its non-core assets, including shipping and real estate, and said they would be reduced to 125 billion euros by year end and below 90 billion by 2016, instead of 93 billion as previously predicted.

    The bank's share price jumped 11.1 percent to 7.36 euros. The shares are still down more than 50 percent on the year.

    Analyst Christian Hamann at Hamburger Sparkasse said that the results including the progress working off non-core assets were "relatively good" given that "expectations were quite low." Still, he cautioned that the share rise was "overdone" given the bank's troubles.

    Commerzbank is still working through the difficulties that led to it being bailed out by the German government in 2009. It is 17 percent owned by the German government, down from 25 percent after the bank carried out a capital increase in May.

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-08-08-EU-Germany-Earns-Commerzbank/id-e143c34de0fe41d8acb08c8e32e33d72

    apple store down

    Thursday, August 8, 2013

    Harassment Ruling On Facebook Post Is Upheld by Court

    Posting a sexually insulting comment on the Facebook social media network constitutes the crime of harassment, the Pennsylvania Superior Court has ruled in upholding a teenage woman's criminal conviction.

    Judge Christine L. Donohue, writing for the unanimous panel of Judge John T. Bender and Senior Judge Eugene B. Strassburger III last week, said that defendant Lindsey Marie Cox committed the crime of harassment when she posted a comment on her Facebook page that the victim "has herpes. Ew, that's gross. She should stop spreading her legs like her mother."

    Several of Cox's Facebook friends liked her post, according to the opinion.

    Cox was 18 at the time, and the teenager who Cox made the comment about was 15 at the time and had just started her first day of 10th grade, according to the opinion.

    A person commits the crime of harassment if, with the intent to harass, annoy, or alarm, they communicate "'to or about such other person any lewd, lascivious, threatening or obscene words, language, drawings or caricatures,'" according to the opinion.

    "Contrary to Cox's view and in light of the totality of the evidence, her misuse of the Internet and social media was criminal," Donohue said. "The evidence of record establishes that Cox posted a statement indicating that victim suffered from a sexually transmitted disease on an online forum, and that this statement was viewed by multiple people.

    "We conclude that this is sufficient to support a finding that Cox communicated lewd sentiments about victim to other people, and an inference that in doing so it was her intent to harass, annoy or alarm victim."

    Elizabeth Judd of the Lebanon County Public Defender's Office said that her office would appeal the decision.

    While Judd said she doesn't condone her client's behavior, she said that posting was only up for an hour and that she does not believe that her client's action rises to the level of the crime of harassment.

    The criminal charge was "overboard in this particular case," Judd said.

    Subscribe to The Legal Intelligencer

    You must be signed in to comment on an article

    Source: http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/PubArticleDBR.jsp?id=1202614262964&rss=rss_dbr

    spartacus