China Says Army Is Not Behind Attacks in Report







SHANGHAI — A day after a United States security company accused a People’s Liberation Army unit in Shanghai of engaging in cyberwarfare against American corporations, organizations and government agencies, China’s defense ministry issued a strong denial and insisted that the report was flawed.




At a news conference in Beijing Wednesday, the ministry suggested the allegations were destructive and challenged the study, which was produced by Mandiant, an American computer security company. The report identified P.L.A. Unit 61398 in Shanghai as one of the most aggressive computer hacking operations in the world.


Geng Yansheng, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of National Defense, said that China had been the victim of cyberattacks that have originated in the United States, and that Mandiant mischaracterized China’s activities.


“Chinese military forces have never supported any hacking activities,” Mr. Geng said at the briefing. “The claim by the Mandiant company that the Chinese military engages in Internet espionage has no foundation in fact.”


On Tuesday, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, made similar remarks, arguing that cyberattacks are difficult to trace because they are “often carried out internationally and are typically done so anonymously.”


The New York Times reported on Tuesday that a growing body of digital forensic evidence pointed to the involvement of the P.L.A. Shanghai unit and that American  intelligence officials had also been tracking the unit’s activities.


On its Web site, Mandiant released a lengthy report on Tuesday detailing some of its evidence, including Internet protocol addresses and even the identities of several Chinese individuals it believes were behind some of the attacks. Mandiant said it monitored the hackers as they logged onto social networking sites or through e-mail accounts.


Attempts to contact two of the individuals through telephone numbers and instant message services were unsuccessful. In one case, one of the individuals — whose online profile says he is 28 years old and a graduate of a university that specializes in computer science — declined to answer questions.


Several military analysts said they had also traced some major cyberattacks back to the People’s Liberation Army. and its Shanghai Unit 61398, which is known to be engaged in network security.


Still, many security experts concede that it is difficult if not possible to know for certain where attacks originate because hackers often take control of computers in various locations.


Chinese officials have insisted in recent years that China is one of the biggest targets of cyberattacks.


“Statistics show that Chinese military terminals connected to the Internet have been subjected to large numbers of attacks from abroad, and I.P. addresses indicate that a considerable number of these attacks are from the United States, but we have never used this as a reason to accuse the United States,” the defense ministry said Wednesday. “Every country should handle the problem of cybersecurity in a professional and responsible manner.”


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Sony set to make pre-emptive strike on Microsoft with PS4






TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp is expected to showcase a new PlayStation console on Wednesday in a pre-emptive strike against Microsoft Corp’s bid to make its Xbox the world’s leading hub for household entertainment.


The rare PlayStation event in New York comes amid industry speculation that Microsoft is set to unveil the successor to its Xbox 360, which beats the seven-year-old PlayStation 3′s online network with features such as voice commands on interactive gaming and superior connectivity to smartphones and tablets.






“Their focus is on establishing a beachhead for the next generation of consoles, and that’s what February 20 is all about,” said P.J. McNealy, CEO and founder of Digital World Research. “The reality is they have been playing catch-up.”


Pushing ahead of Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo Co Ltd’s new Wii U could help Sony revive an electronics business hurt by a dearth of hit gadgets, a collapse in TV sales and the convergence of consumer interest around tablets and smartphones built by rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.


Tablets and smartphones already account for around 10 percent of the $ 80 billion gaming market. Those mobile devices, analysts predict, will within a few years be as powerful as the current slew of game-only consoles.


After six years, Sony PlayStation sales are just shy of Xbox’s 67 million installed base and well behind the 100-million selling Wii, analysts said.


A lackluster launch in November of the Wii successor, the Wii U, gives Sony a chance to focus on toppling Microsoft as all three battle the encroachment of casual gaming on tablets and smartphones. Nintendo cut its sales target to 4 million machines from 5.5 million for the year ending March 31.


STREAMING


Microsoft’s answer to the casual gaming threat has been software that gives users extra content and allows them to surf the Internet from their mobile devices. The Xbox already streams Netflix and ESPN and links to tablets and smartphones using Windows or Apple’s iOS and Google Inc’s Android. Sony’s PS3 online network has lagged.


“For Sony, they have to come out and make this PlayStation event the definitive statement of why gamers need to adopt the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation Orbis or whatever they end up calling it,” said Greg Miller, PlayStation executive editor at video game site IGN.com.


Sony’s purchase in July of U.S. cloud-based gaming company Gaikai for $ 380 million hints that the Japanese company will pursue a similar streaming strategy to Microsoft. Sony, industry watchers say, may also offer an expanded range of free games to counter the threat from casual gaming.


Sony, which under its CEO Kazuo Hirai is focusing on gaming, mobile devices and cameras, needs a hit product. But by betting on a PS3 successor, Hirai, whose most profitable business is life insurance, risks deepening consumer electronic losses as he will have to sell consoles at below the manufacturing cost to gain market traction.


That choice is made harder because the other two pillars of Hirai’s new Sony – cameras and mobile – are losing money.


Sony expects to post a $ 1.4 billion operating profit in the current fiscal year. Yet, much of that rebound is gains from offloading real estate, including $ 1.1 billion for its New York headquarters.


The PlayStation event in New York starts at 2300 GMT (1800 EST).


($ 1 = 93.5200 Japanese yen)


(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Ryan Woo)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Oscar Pistorius's House Had Testosterone & Needles, Say Police






Breaking News








02/20/2013 at 08:35 AM EST







Oscar Pistorius


Herman Verwey/City Press/Gallo Images/Getty


As a bail hearing continued Wednesday in the murder case of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, new details have emerged as prosecutors outline their charges that he is guilty of shooting his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp.

Police testified that they discovered testosterone and needles inside the "Blade Runner" Olympian's home, The New York Times reports.

But his defense lawyers said the Olympian took no banned performance-enhancing drugs, describing the substances found as herbal. The athletes, according to the International Paralympic Committee, tested drug-free as late as last September.

Pistorius, 26, has claimed the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.

Prosecution lawyers, questioning a police witness, said shots fired through the bathroom door that night countered Pistorius's claims that he was not wearing his prosthetic legs when he thought he heard an intruder inside his house and fired with a 9 mm handgun through the door.

Steenkamp, 30, was struck three times, in the head, arm and hip. She was buried on Tuesday amid an outpouring of national support and emotional family tributes.

A police detective testified Wednesday that Pistorius had accidentally fired a weapon at a restaurant in January and urged a friend to take responsibility for the shooting, The Times reports. The detective also testified that Pistorius threatened violence over a woman in another altercation.

Pistorius had claimed to investigators that his house was dark at the time he thought an intruder was inside but a witness who testified for the prosecution Wednesday said a light was switched on when the first shots were fired.

That witness said a gunshot rang out, then a woman's screams were heard, the more shots continued. Pistorius's lawyer, however, said that witness, a neighbor, lived 600 yards away.

The emotional Pistorius continued to proclaim his innocence. "I fail to understand how I could be charged with murder, let alone premeditated," Pistorius told the court in an affidavit read by his defense counsel Barry Roux. "I had no intention to kill my girlfriend."

The prosecution, however, was resolute, that this was not an accident but a premeditated act of violence. If convicted, Pistorius would receive life in prison.

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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year


CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.


"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.


In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.


The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.


It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.


Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.


They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.


Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.


Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.


The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.


The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.


Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.


"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.


Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.


Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.


One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.


___


Stobbe reported from Atlanta.


___


Online:


JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org


CDC: http://www.cdc.gov


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com


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Stock futures rise on deals, extend seven-week rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures advanced on Tuesday, indicating the S&P 500 will build on its seven-week winning streak on optimism about M&A activity and before data on the housing market.


The S&P 500 <.spx> has risen for seven straight weeks, its longest streak since January 2011, and is up 6.6 percent for the year.


The strong start to the year was fueled by legislators in Washington temporarily averting a series of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes as well as better-than-expected earnings and economic data. The Federal Reserve's stimulus policy has also been a major factor.


But further gains for the benchmark S&P index have been a struggle as investors look for new catalysts to lift the index, which hovers near five-year highs.


The compromise by lawmakers on across-the-board spending cuts, known as sequestration, only postponed until March 1 a resolution to the congressional budget fight.


The uptick in merger and acquisition activity, a sign of optimism about the outlook on Wall Street, has resulted in more than $158 billion in deals announced so far in 2013.


"The firm market tone continues, fueled by a lack of negative surprises as well as an increase in M&A activity, adding confidence to market valuations," said Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at Lek Securities in New York.


"The market has been able to shrug off minor negatives as it looks ahead to a potential bigger hurdle in the sequestration -until then, the situation looks stable."


Office Depot Inc surged 26.1 percent to $5.79 in premarket trading after a person familiar with the matter said the No. 2 U.S. office supply retailer is in advanced talks to merge with smaller rival OfficeMax Inc and a deal could come as early as this week. OfficeMax shares jumped 13.7 percent to $12.22 before the opening bell.


Economic data on tap includes the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index on housing sales for February at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey expect a reading of 48 compared with 47 in January.


Improving housing data has been cited by analysts as one of the key factors in the stock market rally.


S&P 500 futures rose 3.1 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 22 points and Nasdaq 100 futures added 5.75 points.


Computer maker Dell reports fourth-quarter results, expected to show earnings per share fall to $0.39 from $0.51 one year earlier. Analysts will have their first chance to question management on a buyout deal struck earlier this month by Chief Executive Michael Dell, private equity firm Silver Lake and Microsoft .


According to the Thomson Reuters data through Friday, of the 388 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 69.8 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


European shares rose on Tuesday, lifted by gains at food group Danone and fresh signs of a German economic recovery, although broader market sentiment remained cautious ahead of Italian elections this weekend. <.eu/>


Philippine and Australian shares scaled new heights, but other Asian shares were mixed, with worries about an inconclusive outcome in Italy's election and U.S. budget talks.


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kenneth Barry)



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India Ink: A Conversation With: Journalist and Author Rahul Pandita

Rahul Pandita, an associate editor with the Open magazine in Delhi, is a journalist and author who belongs to the Kashmiri Pandit community, Hindus who had to flee the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s during a separatist insurgency by the Muslim majority.

In his memoir, “Our Moon has Blood Clots,” which was released last month, Mr. Pandita chronicles the loss and suffering of his own family to narrate the plight of the estimated 350,000 Kashmiri Hindus who were uprooted from their homes during the conflict.

Mr. Pandita spoke to India Ink recently about why his book was important in the Kashmir discourse and about some of the difficulties he faced in the writing process.

Why did you decide to write this book?

Writing this book has been part of the reason that I became a journalist and pursued literature in college. Otherwise, like most people in the Kashmiri community, I too would have studied engineering, which was important for us [Kashmiri Pandits] then, to regain some of what we had lost in the Kashmir Valley in 1992 after the mass exodus. I really wanted to tell this story.

There is a palpable sense of pain, loss and anger in your writing. How difficult was it for you to write this memoir?

This story has been an extremely difficult story to write. I think I started writing it very seriously from 2000 onwards, when I was a reporter with a television channel.

So I would write chapters and then give up completely because I just couldn’t write it. Then I began again in mid-2000s and again gave up because I wasn’t sure what form it would take. What I also found very unfortunate was how our story was relegated to the margins. And I was not sure if it should come out as a memoir. Many close friends suggested that I should write this as a fictional account—the truth but laced in fiction, because that would be more acceptable to the overall discourse of this country.

At one point, I was very seriously contemplating writing it in the form of a novel. But I think over the last few years I have become very conscious of my identity as a Kashmiri Pandit, and what has happened to us in Kashmir. The anger of the early 1990s and the hardships that we faced in exile have come back all of a sudden in the last few years.

What happened in the last few years that led to this seething anger that you are talking about?

I have just become conscious of the fact that nobody is interested in our story. It is so easy to align it with the right-wing narrative. This liberal discourse I feel is run by these 50, 100 people who contain anything coming from Kashmiri Pandit point of view. They say it’s a B.J.P.-R.S.S. [Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] narrative.

The bigger betrayal for us was denying us our truth, that the night of January 1990 “did not happen.” When some of the excerpts of the book were published in The Hindu and my own magazine, people started writing open letters to me, saying it never happened. For God’s sake, don’t insult the memory of 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits who have suffered it in every nook and corner of the Kashmir Valley! It is being made as if talking about Kashmiri Pandit pain will diminish the Kashmiri Muslim pain, which is not the case. I believe that both these pains have the right to coexist, but as a Kashmiri writer I am not ready to compromise on my truth, no matter how inconvenient it is.

Which portions would you say were the most difficult to chronicle?

The most difficult passages to write were of course the brutal murder of my own brother, my mother’s illness, which we are still struggling with, and it’s only because of the hardships of the exile in the initial years.

I think I also hate when I go to Jammu. I love it at one point because all of my relatives are there, and it’s like a mini Kashmir now in many ways. But when I go there, those images of the suffering of  1990, ’91, ’92, ’93 come back to me, when we had to face the ignominy of doorless toilets that I mention in my book and the way we were treated in Jammu in those one-room dwellings. All that was very difficult to write.

When I return to my book, I realize that I cannot read it any longer. Those emotions come back to me — every single incident, every single passage I write comes back to me.

What was your gut reaction when you visited your house in Kashmir for the first time since the exodus?

Till 2007 I never returned to my home in the Srinagar suburb of Chanapora. I went because I wanted to capture those memories. My mother is so unwell, and my parents have never returned to Kashmir after 1990. I have gone to Kashmir since ’98 as a journalist. I wanted to click some pictures and show it to them.

Throughout the book, I have used the word “home” for my home in Kashmir. I haven’t done it consciously; it just happened to me. I now stay in a Delhi suburb and own an apartment, but that feeling never comes back. It’s a house for me. I take care of it as anyone would do, but that feeling of uprootedness is there.

When I go to Kashmir, there is an acute sense of loss — traveling through the same roads, meeting people and a strong sense of realization that you don’t belong here any longer. Your roots are here, but you don’t own anything here. Your house is no longer your house — that’s very painful.

I think it’s going to be a very difficult journey for me when I return to Kashmir now. Because now I will look at Kashmir through the prism of my book, the memories I evoke in the book.

It is very important for the Kashmiri Pandit community not to lose sight of what happened to us in January 1990. It’s like a festering wound, and I will personally make sure that I keep festering this wound. Otherwise, you are completely lost. Then you become a refugee who has compromised, who has surrendered to destiny. My book begins and ends on a defiant note.

How is this book about Kashmir different from the ones written before?

It’s the first honest account.

Honest in what sense?

The previous books have done this balancing act. I am talking about books written in English–there are a couple of good books written in Hindi, especially “Dardpur,” by Kshama Kaul, which is very powerful.

The tendency of balancing out things — “let’s not make anyone unhappy, not talk about their pain” — is a very valid thing. But then you are compromising on your own story.

Right from the beginning there was this bitterness between the two communities [Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims], which would flare up once in a while in the form of 1986 Anantnag riots or they [Muslims] would break the window pane of our house if India won a cricket match against Pakistan. Those portions are ignored, and those are really the signals. And one needs to talk about it.

This balancing act that some of us have gotten into is because we go back to Kashmir and we have friends from the other end. I have so many Kashmiri Muslim friends. I don’t see why my truth should make them unhappy.

How has it been received in the Kashmir Valley?

It was expected to ruffle a few feathers. Only a minuscule population in Kashmir is willing to own up to what happened to Kashmiri Pandits in 1989-90.

One reason I wrote this book and the way I wrote it was to tell the world that, it is not only the Islamist Muslim with a gun in his hand who is responsible for the brutalization of Kashmiri Pandits. Not all ordinary Kashmiri Muslims took part in this ethnic cleansing, but a substantial number of them did. Otherwise, how would have so many people come out of the mosques on one night in January 1990 and raised frightening slogans against Kashmiri Pandits? And it wasn’t just that one day. All of us know how so many of us were killed.

The dominant reaction was expected. But I am also hopeful. I am in touch with a few Kashmiri youngsters who are validating my story because they know what has happened. Some of them are very vocal on social media networks.

If you had not been a journalist, would you have written this book differently?

The advantage of being a journalist is that you know your story well. You know how to present it well. Writing is about the structure, something you learn while you are at it.

I have written this book with a strict journalistic rigor. Memory is very slippery at times, so I have validated and re-validated everything that came from my memory. I have tallied and re-tallied everything from newspaper archives and official documents from that time.

If I was not a journalist or a writer, I don’t think the book would have been so raw.

(The interview has been condensed and lightly edited.)

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Kate Looks Great at First Official Outing Since Babymoon









UPDATED
02/19/2013 at 08:45 AM EST

Originally published 02/19/2013 at 08:25 AM EST



Making her first official public appearance since her Caribbean babymoon, a tanned and healthy-looking Duchess of Cambridge showed off her blooming baby bump Tuesday morning during a visit to a residential treatment center run by one of her patronages, Action on Addiction.

Just back from a winter break in Mustique, Kate, 31, chose a gray MaxMara Studio dress paired with pearl drop earrings.

"She looked really relaxed and rested after her break. She could have worn a coat, but she looked happy to show off her bump," says Judy Wade, the royals writer for the Observer.

"It's nice to be back," Kate said as she greeted Action on Addiction's chief executive, Nick Barton. "It's a lovely day for it."

Kate also acknowledged how she felt about having a baby as she chatted with those at the center.

Said Lisa, 34, a mother of three: "I asked her if she was nervous about having a child, and she said it would unnatural if she wasn't. It's just human, isn't it?"

Another woman, Natalie, 28, is carrying a baby due in late July, and said after speaking to Kate, "She was saying she had been feeling unwell but was feeling better now."

Next month, the Palace is set to make an announcement on another group of charities and interests that Kate will support.

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women


CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.


The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.


"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.


Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.


After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.


"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."


Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.


That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.


The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.


"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."


___


Online:


Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com


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Euro, dollar up after G20, stocks ease on growth concern

LONDON (Reuters) - The yen resumed falling on Monday after Japan signaled it would push ahead with expansionist monetary policies having escaped criticism from the world's 20 biggest economies at the weekend.


European shares and industrial metals dropped on lingering worries about the economic outlook, especially for the euro zone. The risk of an inconclusive outcome in Italian elections at the weekend also added to investor concerns.


However, activity was curtailed by the closure of markets in the United States for the Presidents' Day holiday.


The yen, which has dropped 20 percent against the dollar since mid-November, fell further after financial leaders from the G20 promised not to devalue their currencies to boost exports and avoided singling out Japan for any direct criticism.


"Future yen direction will continue to be driven by domestic monetary policy from the Bank of Japan and improving international investor confidence, which are both driving the yen weaker," said Lee Hardman, currency analyst at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.


Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe seized the opportunity to keep pressure on the central bank to loosen policy, telling the Japanese parliament that buying foreign bonds could be among options the Bank of Japan could adopt.


The result was the dollar rising 0.5 percent to 93.98 yen, near a 33-month peak of 94.47 yen set a week ago. The euro rose 0.2 percent to 125.32 yen, roughly midway between Friday's two-week low of 122.90 and a 34-month high of 127.71 yen hit earlier this month.


Strategists said that while the yen was likely to stay weak, its decline could lose momentum as investors wait for more clarity on who will be taking the helm at the Bank of Japan when the current governor steps down on March 19.


"The big unknown is who will get appointed as the new BoJ governor, so it is difficult to put on massive positions beforehand," said Saeed Amen, currency strategist at Nomura.


Abe is poised to nominate the new governor in the coming days. Sources have told Reuters that former financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto, considered likely to be less radical than other candidates, was leading the field.


Elsewhere in the currency market, sterling hit a seven-month low against the dollar, after a key policymaker made comments about the need for further weakness and recent poor data which has kept alive worries of another British recession.


Sterling fell 0.15 percent to $1.5492 having earlier touched $1.5438, its lowest since July 13.


DATA LOOMS


A big week for data on the outlook for the world's economy weighed on other riskier asset markets following the recent dire fourth-quarter growth numbers for the euro zone and Japan, along with Friday's soft U.S. manufacturing figures.


In European markets, attention is focused on the euro area Purchasing Managers' Indexes for February and German sentiment indices due later in the week. These could affect hopes for a recovery this year.


Analysts expect Thursday's euro area flash PMI indices, which offer pointers to economic activity around six months out, to show growth stabilizing across the recession-hit region, leaving hopes for a recovery in the second half of 2013 intact.


Concerns over an inconclusive outcome in the Italian elections on Sunday and Monday have added to the weaker sentiment as a fragmented parliament could hamper a future government's efforts to reform the struggling economy.


The worries about the outlook for Italy were encouraging investors back into safe-haven German government bonds on Monday, with 10-year Bund yields easing 3.6 basis points to be around 1.63 percent.


"Political uncertainty will keep Bunds well bid this week," ING rate strategist Alessandro Giansanti said, adding that only better than expected economic data could create selling pressure on German debt in the near term.


Italian 10-year yields were 7 basis points higher on the day at 4.44 percent.


EARNINGS HIT


European equity markets were taking their lead from corporate earnings reports which have been reflecting the sluggish economic conditions across the region.


Danish brewer Carlsberg , which generates just over 60 percent of its sales in western Europe, became the latest to report a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit, sending its shares to their lowest level in almost a month.


The 6.8-percent drop for shares in the world's fourth biggest brewery helped send the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares down 0.3 percent at midday. Germany's DAX <.gdaxi>, France's CAC-40 <.fchi> and UK FTSE-100 <.ftse> ranged between 0.1 percent up and 0.3 percent lower.


Earlier, the effect of the G20 statement and the comments from Abe indicating a renewed drive to stimulate the Japanese economy lifted the Nikkei stock index <.n225> by 2.1 percent, near to its highest level since September 2008.


MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was flat as markets extended a two-week period of consolidation that has followed the big run-up in January, when demand was buoyed by the efforts of central banks to stimulate the world economy.


Data from EPFR Global, a U.S.-based firm that tracks the flows and allocations of funds globally, shows investors pulled $3.62 billion from U.S. stock funds in the latest week, the most in 10 weeks after taking a neutral stance the prior week.


But demand for emerging market equities remained strong, with investors putting $1.81 billion in new cash into stock funds, the fund-tracking firm said.


CHINA RETURN


In the commodity markets, traders played catch-up after a week-long holiday last week in China, the world's second biggest consumer of many raw materials, which had kept activity subdued, with worries about the economic outlook weighing on sentiment.


Copper, for which China is the world's largest consumer, dipped to a near three-week low of $8,127.50 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) on the London futures market. Benchmark tin and nickel also touched three-week lows.


Bargain hunters helped gold rise from a six-month low to be up 0.2 percent to $1,611.87 an ounce with jewelers in China returning to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday.


Crude oil markets were mostly steady after some weak U.S. industrial production data on Friday [ID:nL1N0BF44A] was seen dampening demand, while tensions in the Middle East lent some support.


"We continue to see a mixed picture out of the United States. Industry output was lower than expected but that shouldn't affect the general upward direction," Olivier Jakob, analyst at Geneva-based Petromatrix, said.


Brent crude was flat at $117.66 a barrel after posting its first weekly loss since the first half of January. U.S. crude slipped 19 cents to $95.67.U.S. crude.


(Additional reporting by Marius Zaharia and Ron Bousso. Editing by Philippa Fletcher)



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IHT Rendezvous: Holding Obama's Feet to the Climate-Change Fire

At first glance, it was hard to tell whether they had come to bury Obama or to praise him.

Thousands of activists from hundreds of environmental, social justice and community groups marched on Washington yesterday in the biggest climate rally ever held in the U.S. capital. Activists both called on President Obama to make good on his climate change policy promises and protested the Keystone XL pipeline project.

“For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in large numbers are finally demanding they get to work,” Bill McKibben, head of 350.org, one of the environmental groups organizing the event, told the crowd.

The “Forward on Climate” rally comes less than a week after President Obama urged American leaders to “act before it is too late,” on climate change during his State of the Union address.

The demonstration’s timing — early in the administration’s second term — was important. While many say Mr. Obama achieved important green goals in his first term (Rendezvous wrote about tougher fuel efficiency standards for cars), critics say he did not achieve enough in the fight to address climate change. Many blame an uncooperative Congress and the always-looming re-election campaign. (The words “climate change” were not uttered during any of the three presidential debates between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney.

The secretaries of the interior and energy — portfolios where green leadership is seen as important — are being replaced. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, announced her resignation late last year.

Despite the President’s recent emphatic address to the nation, critics point out that his speech was short on details. And for many of the organizers of yesterday’s rally, the fact that the President did not mention the controversial Keystone XL pipeline — a pipeline that is to bring crude oil from Canada to Texas refineries — was a warning sign.

At the rally on the National Mall, activists from the ‘Backbone Campaign’ carried a 70-foot model of a spine, with an anti-Keystone XL pipeline message painted on the side, imploring the President to stand strong against the project.

As my colleagues John M. Broder, Clifford Krauss and Ian Austen reported, the Keystone XL pipeline issue is particularly thorny for Mr. Obama because the project is so detested by environmentalists, but supported by so many other players, including the government of Canada, one of the United States’ most important trading partners.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed an energy bill that would allow Congress, rather than the White House, to issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The President had put plans for the pipeline on hold temporarily.

On the same day in the Senate, several senators co-sponsored legislation for a carbon tax program that would finance clean-energy projects, in a move largely seen as symbolic because of the legislation’s scant chance of passing either house of Congress.

Partially due to recent extreme weather events, the issue of climate change is once more at the forefront of American politics. A survey carried out by the League of Conservation voters found that 65 percent of American voters were in favor of “the President taking significant steps to address climate change now.”

“Twenty years from now on President’s Day, people will want to know what the President did in the face of rising sea levels, record droughts and furious storms brought on by climate disruption,” said Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club, an environmental organization that helped organized Sunday’s rally.

A man dressed as the grim reaper held a sign that read: “the only steady job on a dying planet will be mine.”

While no official attendance numbers were recorded, participating organizations estimated that more than 35,000 people attended. On its Facebook page, 350.org claimed that 50,000 protesters took part in the event.

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