Boiko Borisov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Submits Resignation





Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of Bulgaria submitted his government’s resignation on Wednesday after a tumultuous week of public anger over rising electricity prices, corruption and worsening living standards that ignited mass protests nationwide and led to bloody clashes with the police on Tuesday night.




“The people gave us power, and today we are returning it,” Mr. Borisov said on Wednesday morning in Parliament, according to local news reports.


The speaker of Parliament, Tsetska Tsacheva, said the resignation of the prime minister and his cabinet would not be effective until Parliament put it to a vote on Thursday. Since Mr. Borisov controls Parliament, acceptance would seem sure.


The protests — the biggest in at least 15 years — were triggered by electricity price increases and corruption scandals, including one over the nominee to head the state electricity regulatory commission, which sets rates. She was accused of selling cigarettes illegally online and her nomination was later withdrawn.


Tempers were inflamed further when Bulgaria’s finance minister Simeon Djankov, the architect of painful fiscal probity, stepped down on Monday. Rather than allaying anger, analysts said the resignation was greeted by the public as an admission that the government’s economic policies, had not worked.


Tens of thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets across the country to protest. Some yelled “Mafia!” Others burned their utility bills.


While the country’s fiscal prudence has helped it to avoid having to seek an international bailout like Hungary or Romania, analysts said that rising unemployment and weak growth, coupled with wage and pension freezes and tax increases, had mobilized the country’s increasingly disgruntled middle class, who felt themselves squeezed during the financial crisis.


Opposition political parties had been trying to exploit public anger over the government’s austerity measures as general elections planned for July approached. Elections are now expected in April or May, and analysts said the opposition Socialist party was expected to benefit from the turmoil.


Daniel Smilov, program director at the Center for Liberal Strategies, a political research organization, in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, said that Bulgarians were disillusioned that the overthrow of Communism in 1989 and the country’s subsequent democratization had not delivered the expected prosperity.


Bulgaria has struggled to shed a reputation for lawlessness and corruption. It remains poor, with an average monthly wage of just $480, the lowest in the European Union.


“What we are seeing is the result of a general distrust in government and the political system,” Mr. Smilov said, noting than protests had engulfed wealthy as well as poorer regions of the country. “These are not the bottom layers of society, but people in the middle strata who been hit hardest by the financial crisis. They fear they are losing their status, and they might become poor very fast.”


Trying to appease the protesters, the prime minister said on Tuesday that the license of the Czech utility CEZ, which provides power to many residential customers in Bulgaria, would be withdrawn. Mr. Borisov cited beatings of protesters Tuesday by the police as one reason.


“Every drop of blood for us is a stain,” he said. “I can’t look at a Parliament surrounded by barricades, that’s not our goal, neither our approach, if we have to protect ourselves from the people.”


Mr. Smilov said that after the Parliament accepted the government’s resignation, President Rosen Plevneliev would then appoint a caretaker government. Mr. Borisov said his party would not participate in an interim government.


Mr. Borisov’s resignation could signal the political demise of one of the country’s most colorful political figures. A former karate instructor, bodyguard, fireman and mayor of Sofia with a shaved head and a talk-tough approach, Mr. Borisov was once viewed as being so invincible that Bulgarians called him “Batman.”


As the owner of a private security company, he provided security services for Todor Zhivkov, the former Communist leader of Bulgaria. Mr. Borisov was then the personal bodyguard for Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the child czar who returned to be elected prime minister in 2001.


Mr. Borisov rose to oversee the police at the Interior Ministry, before being elected mayor of Sofia and then becoming prime minister in 2009.


“Mr. Borisov is a typical populist leader who came to power promising to take revenge against the transition on behalf of the poor,” says Andrei Raichev, a political analyst at Gallup International in Sofia. “Now the people realize that they were lied to.”


Mr. Raichev said that no one could predict how the public will react to the resignation. “We could even reach the absurd situation that the protests continue against no one,” he said. “Which means that they are against everyone.”


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article and an accompanying photo caption misspelled the given name of Bulgaria’s prime minister. He is Boiko Borisov, not Boyko.



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Twitter begins integrating advertising software






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc said on Wednesday it is opening up its platform to third-party advertising management software, taking another step to establish its ad-based business model ahead of an initial public offering.


The ads application programming interface, or API, would allow advertisers to connect their existing ad management software to their Twitter account to automate ads on the micro-messaging platform.






Twitter said that it would begin by integrating with ad software by Adobe Systems Inc, Salesforce Inc, Hootsuite, SHIFT and TBG Global.


“With the Ads API, marketers now have more tools in their arsenal to help them deliver the right message, to the right audience, on the desktop and on mobile devices — all at scale,” Twitter product manager April Underwood wrote in a blog post.


Under pressure to show growing revenues, Twitter in recent years has ramped up its ad-serving capabilities while building a sales staff to woo corporate marketers. The firm said last year it would allow marketers to target Twitter users based on a profile of their perceived interests and by location.


Twitter makes money every time a user clicks or retweets a “promoted” message paid for by an advertiser. The new API would allow great automation for advertisers, who previously had to manually write every promoted tweet.


In 2013, Twitter’s ad revenues are expected to grow nearly 90 percent to $ 545 million, according to eMarketer which noted that Facebook Inc experienced similarly rapid growth after opening its API to advertisers in 2011.


(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Bernard Orr)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Amy Poehler Is the Latest Star to Get Bangs - Who Should Be Next?




Style News Now





02/20/2013 at 01:30 PM ET



BangsLandov, AKM-GSI, BEImages, Wireimage


We’ve filled out our Oscar ballots and predicted the gowns, now the PEOPLE StyleWatch team is ready to talk hair.


Bold bangs are sizzling hot in Hollywood right now: Amy Poehler’s just the latest star to step out with fringe, which is why we’re hoping for a big bang debut at the Oscars. Now we just have to decide who will follow in the footsteps of Michelle Obama, LeAnn Rimes and Poehler, all who have gotten sassy chops in the last month. Here are our front runners:


Amanda Seyfried: The actress has had these long, layered golden locks since her Mean Girls days, so we’re ready for her to spice it up a bit. Seyfried, call your stylist and request some side-swept bangs. They’re flattering, flirty and not-too-frightening for a first-timer … and let’s be honest, you wouldn’t mind stealing some of that Les Mis spotlight from Anne Hathaway come Sunday night.



Jessica Chastain: Chastain already gives us major mane envy, which is why the star is a prime candidate for a blunt bangs cut à la Jessica Biel. Just think how chic she’d look if she wore her tresses straight with serious statement stunners — and since she’s been sporting dramatic hairstyles throughout awards season, we bet she’d dare to try something similar at the Oscars.


Bradley Cooper: Given that he’s one of the sexiest men alive, we’re not telling him to change much, but a little cleanup to his already face-framing locks could do wonders for Cooper‘s floppy hairdo.


Who do you think should try bangs at the Oscars? Vote below and sound off in the comments!






–Jennifer Cress


PHOTOS: SEE MORE STAR HAIRSTYLES!


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UK patient dies from SARS-like coronavirus


LONDON (AP) — A patient being treated for a mysterious SARS-like virus has died, a British hospital said Tuesday.


Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, said the coronavirus victim was also being treated for "a long-term, complex unrelated health problem" and already had a compromised immune system.


A total of 12 people worldwide have been diagnosed with the disease, six of whom have died.


The virus was first identified last year in the Middle East. Most of those infected had traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan, but the person who just died is believed to have caught it from a relative in Britain, where there have been four confirmed cases.


The new coronavirus is part of a family of viruses that cause ailments including the common cold and SARS. In 2003, a global outbreak of SARS killed about 800 people worldwide.


Health experts still aren't sure exactly how humans are being infected. The new coronavirus is most closely related to a bat virus and scientists are considering whether bats or other animals like goats or camels are a possible source of infection.


Britain's Health Protection Agency has said while it appears the virus can spread from person to person, "the risk of infection in contacts in most circumstances is still considered to be low."


Officials at the World Health Organization said the new virus has probably already spread between humans in some instances. In Saudi Arabia last year, four members of the same family fell ill and two died. And in a cluster of about a dozen people in Jordan, the virus may have spread at a hospital's intensive care unit.


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M&A deals lift shares, suggest value in market

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as this year's ongoing surge of merger activity suggested investors were still finding value in the market even as indexes hover near five-year highs.


Office Depot Inc surged 12.4 percent to $5.15 after a person familiar with the matter said the No. 2 U.S. office supply retailer was in advanced talks to merge with smaller rival OfficeMax Inc , which jumped 22 percent.


News of the potential move came just days after Berkshire Hathaway and a partner agreed to acquire H.J. Heinz Co for $23 billion, and a revised $20 billion takeover of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo by Anheuser-Busch InBev .


Deal activity has helped equities resist a pullback as investors use dips in stocks as buying opportunities. The S&P is up about 7 percent so far in 2013 and has climbed for the past seven weeks in its longest weekly winning streak since January 2011, though most of the weekly gains have been slim.


"Deals are good for the market," said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago. "The fact that they're being done is a positive."


More than $158 billion in deals has been announced so far in 2013, more than double the activity in the same period last year and accounting for 57 percent of global deal volumes, according to Thomson Reuters Deals Intelligence.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 54.19 points, or 0.39 percent, to 14,035.95. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 9.66 points, or 0.64 percent, to 1,529.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 13.53 points, or 0.42 percent, to 3,205.56.


Other stocks in the office supplies sector also rose. Larger rival Staples Inc shot up 12.9 percent to $14.61 as the best performer on the S&P 500.


"Equity investors have to be encouraged by M&A since, if the number crunchers are offering large premiums, that shows how much value is still in the market," said Mike Gibbs, co-head of the equity advisory group at Raymond James in Memphis, Tennessee.


On the downside, health insurance stocks tumbled, led by a 6.4 percent drop in Humana Inc to $72.99 after the company said the government's proposed 2014 payment rates for Medicare Advantage participants were lower than expected and would hurt its profit outlook.


UnitedHealth Group lost 1.9 percent to $56.25. The Morgan Stanley healthcare payor index <.hmo> dropped 1.6 percent.


Wall Street's strong start to the year for was fueled by better-than-expected corporate earnings, as well as a compromise by legislators in Washington that temporarily averted automatic spending cuts and tax hikes that are predicted to damage the economy.


The compromise on across-the-board spending cuts postponed the matter until March 1, at which point the cuts take effect. Ahead of the debate over the cuts, known as sequestration, further gains for stocks may be difficult to come by.


"If there's no major contention with sequestration, it looks like stocks are prepared to handle it, but until then we'll probably stay in a consolidation period marked by sideways trading with a slow rate of ascent," said Gibbs.


Economic data showed the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index unexpectedly edged down to 46 in February from 47 in the prior month as builders faced higher material costs.


According to the Thomson Reuters data through Monday morning, of the 391 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.1 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 have risen 5.6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


Express Scripts rose 1.7 percent to $56.49 after the pharmacy benefits manager posted fourth-quarter earnings.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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Maoists Block Deal to Break Nepal’s Long Political Deadlock





NEW DELHI — Nepal’s major political parties failed on Tuesday to complete an expected agreement to settle a years-long political standoff, after Maoists insisted that the accord include amnesty for past crimes.




The amnesty issue derailed a tentative deal reached on Monday to appoint as interim prime minister the chief justice of the country’s supreme court, Khil Raj Regmi, to lead the country until elections in June. Now it appears that the wrangling will continue indefinitely, worsening the paralysis of the country’s civic functions.


Nepal has been trying to establish a working representative democracy since 2008, when a constituent assembly was elected to replace the former monarchy. But the assembly has been unable to draw up a constitution or settle on when or how to hold further elections. Maoists, who fought a long civil war against the monarchy, now control the most important government posts, but the ethnic, caste, religious, ideological and regional differences that permeate Nepalese society have made even the most basic political agreements impossible.


Meanwhile, the country’s judiciary has been arresting former Maoist fighters from the bitter civil war, which cost at least 13,000 lives, prompting the Maoist party to call for amnesty and for a less punitive reconciliation process, such as a parliamentary committee that the party could influence.


“Amnesty is still under consideration,” said Devendra Poudel, adviser to the present Maoist prime minister, Baburam Bhattarai. “Instead of addressing one or two issues separately, why not deal with them all in the same package?”


But the country’s other political parties and civil-society organizations have insisted on a process in which war criminals are jailed.


“The Maoists are very much afraid of the regular judiciary of this country,” said Rajendra Dahal, a spokesman for President Ram Baran Yadav, a leader of the centrist Nepalese Congress party. “But until there is an agreement, they will control the government,” he said of the Maoists. “So they benefit from the standoff.”


Mr. Dahal said that the president had welcomed the tentative deal to put the chief justice in charge temporarily. “The president’s single mission is to have elections,” he said early Tuesday. “Any way the parties get some consensus in the goal of having elections, the president will support.”


By late Tuesday evening, however, the optimism surrounding the tentative agreement had faded.


Kanak Mani Dixit, a civil rights activist and commentator, said he was worried that the Maoists supported the deal in hopes of discrediting the Supreme Court, which he said is the last civic institution in Nepal with any credibility.


“The Maoists agreed because they have already destroyed every other important institution of the state,” Mr. Dixit said.


Mr. Regmi was expected to be appointed to a three-month term as prime minister, following which he would return to the court. If Mr. Regmi had been unable to oversee elections in that time, a new agreement would have had to be reached.


The Maoist leader, Mr. Bhattarai, rejected all previous proposals to replace him, and other political parties have refused to allow elections while Mr. Bhattarai and his allies hold the crucial levers of government, saying that his oversight would make the elections unfair.


In the meantime, basic civil functions in Nepal have begun to fail one after another, and the country’s economy, never robust, has stalled. As a result, Nepalese have been emigrating to neighboring countries in large numbers, to the exasperation particularly of India, where many of the migrants settle.


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6 Things Not to Expect from Sony’s PlayStation Event






Would it be fair to call Sony‘s Manhattan-based Feb. 20 shindig “P-day”? We might as well, what with that PlayStation logo headlining Sony’s “Meeting 2013″ event teaser site — a site that’s now sporting a mini-history of most of the hardware that falls under the renowned moniker’s umbrella.


My memories of the first PlayStation’s earliest days are mixed. Maybe that’s because I was playing the thing months in advance. The guy I worked for — the store manager of a Babbages — paid a shedload of cash for a Japanese import model. He liked to drop it in the store display window, then run the Ridge Racer start screen demo to see how many passerby would stop to gawk, or ask what the heck it was. Remember when video games still had that power over us?






(MORE: The Great Hotmail-to-Outlook.com Transition Begins)


Don’t worry, this isn’t my PlayStation retrospective, which, like yours, could probably fill a book three people want to read. Let’s talk instead about Sony’s ballyhooed Wednesday evening event, 6:00pm ET, where we’re expecting to see the company’s next-gen game system. TIME Tech editor Doug Aamoth is kindly attending in my stead and should have all the details straightaway, and you’ll be able to watch things unfold live courtesy the event site.


I’ve already scribbled down a few lessons I hope Sony’s learned since the PS3′s debut in November 2006, so here’s another list — this one of things I’m not expecting from the event. Like…


…something that isn’t the next PlayStation. We don’t know what we don’t know, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, but the way this typically works is, a company announces it’s holding a major media event, the press speculates irresponsibly, and if that speculation morphs into certainty (as it has in this case), the company typically follows up with some sort of off-the-record denial to recalibrate expectations. Sony’s done nothing to quiet the rumor mill here. In fact you could say it’s poured rocket fuel on the rumormongering with its PlayStation retrospective videos, all but guaranteeing that what we’ll see tomorrow night is the next PlayStation. That said, whether Sony dubs it a “PlayStation 4,” something awful like “PlayStation Orbis,” or just goes with something catchall like “PlayStation,” Apple iPad-style, is anyone’s guess.


…a look at the new console and nothing else. Hardware, schmard-ware, we want software that’s interesting, not just pretty. I don’t expect Sony to go into elaborate detail about the next PlayStation’s backend systems, but I’m predicting (okay, really more hoping) that we’ll see event time given to whatever nifty new ecosystem this thing’s going to live in, including some of its hypothetical features, like game streaming (recall that Sony picked up streaming company Gaikai for about $ 380 million last summer and may be planning to tap that technology in lieu of, say, hardware-based backward compatibility). I know, I’m not a huge fan of game streaming either, but I’d rather hear about stuff like that than how many polygons this thing can shove around.


…much about motion-control. Motion-control’s spotlight moment may have passed, but it’s still pretty young technology. Microsoft‘s seemingly cool but too often clumsy Kinect did well enough off the block (driven, I suspect, mostly by hype), but sales slowed to a crawl by mid-2012. Sony’s more precise PlayStation Move — better received overall by critics — started even slower and never quite caught on. (Sony blames this on a lack of compelling software; I concur.) That said, I’m betting Sony’s going to redouble its motion control efforts, angling the experience more toward casual players, but that we won’t see much (or anything) about this at the event. That’d be fine by me, and shouldn’t be interpreted as the company jumping ship.


…much, if any, talk about pricing. The PlayStation 3 was, by all accounts, way too expensive at launch: $ 500 to $ 600, plus $ 60 a pop for games, plus whatever else you had to buy to get started, say an HDMI cable, which back then could go for upwards of $ 50. Whether you blame Sony for not taking a bigger margin hit (by selling for $ 300 to $ 400 at launch) or simply the hardware design team for overbuilding (some estimates put Sony’s PS3 manufacturing costs at $ 800 per system), the sequel to the bestselling game console in history (Sony’s own PS2) launched with negative momentum and, though it eventually made up for some of that lost time with price cuts, still lags behind the Xbox 360 in worldwide sales today. Early reports are that Sony’s next PlayStation could debut for $ 400, but given how much time there is between now and a probable fall launch timeframe — a timeframe during which manufacturing costs could change — don’t expect Sony to throw out specific numbers.


…a quiet, respectable, Apple-style briefing. This is Sony we’re talking about after all. Like Microsoft, the company doesn’t seem to know how to stage a presser that doesn’t feel like a garish Lady Gaga, WWF, Cirque de Soleil mashup. Speaking of, hopefully the company won’t be as pretentious as Microsoft was with its E3 2010 Project Natal (Kinect) launch, forcing everyone to don creepy cult-like ponchos and watch Cirque performers pull off crazy-cool gymnastics that had nothing to do with the actual technology…sort of like suggesting Taylor Swift is going to come play your house if you buy her new album.


…actual hands-on time. I’m thinking this event is meant to be a tease, a chance to highlight a handful of key system features while showing a few graphics-angled sizzle reels and maybe trotting out a few developers to demo stuff. My guess is Sony’s going to keep its powder dry for E3 2013, where, having hyped the merciful you-know-what out of this thing for months, it’ll pull the curtain all the way back and let us scribble to our heart’s content about what it’s like to actually use the thing. Expect to walk away with more questions than answers when the curtain drops, in other words.


What else might we see? In the “wishful thinking” column you could put a Sony designed and branded PlayStation phone (unlikely), a Sony designed and branded PlayStation tablet (surely not), a PlayStation Vita price cut (probable: Sony just dropped the Japan model’s price) as well as news about new Vita games (or updates on previously announced ones) and maybe even a swan song PlayStation 3 price cut. The irony of Sony announcing a reasonably priced next-gen system while dropping the cost of its original wallet-burner would be sweet indeed.


MORE: From Innovation to Marketing: Understanding Technology Cycles


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Maggie Simpson's The Longest Daycare Is Nominated for an Oscar









02/19/2013 at 02:30 PM EST



Maggie Simpson may not be much of a talker on her FOX cartoon, but this year she plans on making a statement on the red carpet.

The youngest member of The Simpsons clan stars in the Oscar-nominated animated short film The Longest Daycare and the eternal infant is looking for fans to help choose her dress for her big night out Sunday. Scroll through all of her proposed looks in our carousel of images above.

PEOPLE has a sneak peek at Simpson's three potential red carpet looks: a sparkly, red, backless stunner; a purple, tiered, strapless gown; and a leg-barring black number reminiscent of Angelina Jolie's 2012 Oscars dress. All can be paired with complementary pacifiers, of course.

Fans will be able to vote starting Tuesday for their favorite look. The short can be viewed below:

The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on Sunday, Feb. 24, on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior


SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.


The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.


"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.


The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.


The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.


Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.


At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.


By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.


"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.


The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.


Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.


Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.


"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.


Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.


During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.


Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.


"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.


____


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


___


Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship


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Yen resumes fall after G20, U.S. holiday thins trade

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.


Industrial metals also dipped and European shares were soft on lingering worries about the economic outlook, especially for the euro zone. While the risk of an inconclusive outcome in Italy's forthcoming election 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.


The dollar rose 0.5 percent to 93.95 yen, near a 33-month peak of 94.47 yen set a week ago. The euro added 0.3 percent to 125.40 yen, to be 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 the yen was likely to stay weak, though its decline could lose momentum until it becomes clear who will be taking the helm at the Bank of Japan when the current governor steps down on March 19.


"The yen probably will weaken a little further in anticipation of more aggressive easing under a new leadership team at the Bank of Japan," said Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics.


Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to nominate the new governor in the next few days. Sources have told Reuters that former financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto, considered likely to be less radical than other candidates, was leading the field.


Meanwhile the euro dipped slightly against the dollar when European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said the currency's recent gains made any rise in inflation less likely and added that he had yet to see any improvement in the euro zone economy.


Speaking before the European Parliament, Draghi said the euro's exchange rate was not a policy target but was important for growth and stability, adding that appreciation of the euro "is a risk".


The comments left the euro down 0.2 percent at $1.3334.


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 0.25 percent to $1.5476 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 which 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 intact hopes for a recovery in the second half of 2013.


Concerns over an inconclusive outcome in the Italian election 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 3.5 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 4 basis points higher on the day at 4.41 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 5.8-percent drop for shares in the world's fourth biggest brewery helped send the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares down 0.2 percent. Germany's DAX <.gdaxi>, France's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Britain's FTSE-100 <.ftse> ranged between 0.4 percent up and 0.15 percent lower.


Earlier, the G20 statement and subsequent comment from Prime Minster 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 at $8,125.25 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) on the London futures market. Benchmark tin and nickel also touched three-week lows.


Gold managed to edge away from six-month lows as jewelers in China returned to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday but a lack of demand from U.S. markets saw the precious metal slip back to be down 0.1 percent to $1,607.06 an ounce.


Crude oil markets were mostly steady after the 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 down 20 cents at $117.46 a barrel after posting its first weekly loss since the first half of January. U.S. crude slipped 24 cents to $95.62.


(Additional reporting by Marius Zaharia and Ron Bousso; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)



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