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FLASH: ANOTHER MASSACRE HAPPENING AT VIRGINIA TECH–POLICE OFFICER SHOT

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BREAKING: Va. Tech: Police officer has been shot; potential 2nd victim reported at parking lot -ldh

Virginia Tech says gunshots have been reported on campus, and authorities are seeking a suspect.

The campus-wide alert at 12:36 p.m. said: “Gun shots reported- Coliseum Parking lot. Stay Inside. Secure doors. Emergency personnel responding. Call 911 for help.”

The suspect is described as white male wearing gray sweat pants, gray hat with neon green brim, maroon hoodie and backpack.

A message left with the university wasn’t immediately returned. Campus police referred all questions to the university.

A student gunman killed 32 students and faculty and then shot himself on the campus in 2007.

SOURCE: AP

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FLASH: Stocks Fall on European Jitters

Cautious commentary from the head of the European Central Bank set a dour tone on Wall Street even after data on the U.S. labor market topped expectations.

Today’s Markets

As of 10:13 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 64 points, or 0.53%, to 12,132, the S&P 500 slumped 10.2 points, or 0.81%, to 1,251 and the Nasdaq Composite slid 16.9 points, or 0.64%, to 2,632.

Hopes that the ECB might enact a massive bond-buying program to ease yields on sovereign debt were dashed to some extent on Thursday. ECB head Mario Draghi said government bond purchases are limited to enacting monetary policy and that the European Union treaty technically restricts broader purchasing. He also said making such purchases by lending to the International Monetary Fund, a concept that has been widely discussed among analysts, would be legally challenging.

However, Draghi came short of explicitly making a ruling either way.

Financial shares, particularly investment banks like Morgan Stanley (MS: 16.34, -1.00, -5.77%), were hit the hardest on the back of the EU jitters. Basic material and energy shares were also down sharply as a result of strong selling in precious-metal and energy futures.

European blue chips fell 0.66% while the euro slid 0.66% to $1.3321.

In light of the growing economic headwinds created by the debt crisis, the ECB also said that it plans on taking on non-standard measures to buoy the economy. That move was initially seen as a positive, but then was quickly overshadowed by Draghi’s comments.

The central bank also sliced its main refinancing rate by a quarter percentage point to 1%. The rate move was largely anticipated, but markets were less sure if the ECB would take other actions.

European Union leaders are set to begin descending on Brussels on Thursday for a summit that is being billed by many analysts as crucial in staving off a collapse of the euro, a once unthinkable scenario.

The backdrop for the meeting is gloomy: Italian debt yields are less than half a percentage point away from the painful 7% level and in a sign of how real the worries are, the Wall Street Journal reported last night that several European central banks are making contingency plans in case they have to revert to their pre-euro currency. French President Nicholas Sarkozy also said on Thursday that time is running out against the single currency, and that there will be no second chances if a deal isn’t reached, according to a report by Reuters.

Traders are hoping for decisive action from European leaders to solve the debt debacle that is now in its second year, and has spread from periphery economies into the core of the European Union.  One concept that has been discussed, according to media reports, is forcing closer fiscal ties between eurozone states in a bid to convince the ECB to launch a bond-buying program.

On the U.S. front, the weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department topped expectations on Thursday morning.  New claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to 381,000 from an upwardly revised 404,000 the week prior.  Economists had expected a smaller drop to 395,000 from an initial reading of 402,000.

Energy markets were to the downside.  The benchmark crude oil contract traded in New York fell $1.53, or 1.5%, to $98.97 a barrel.  Wholesale RBOB gasoline fell 1.1% to $2.56 a gallon.

In metals, gold dropped $25.10, or 1.4%, to $1,721 a troy ounce. Silver was off 57 cents, or 1.7%, to $31.99 a troy ounce. U.S. government bond prices fell, pushing yields higher.  The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields 2.065% from 2.040%.

Foreign Markets 

European blue chips fell 1.3%, the English FTSE 100 slid 0.33% to 5,528 and the German DAX sold off 1.3% to 6,918.

In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 dropped 0.66% to 8,665 and the Chinese Hang Seng slipped 0.69% to 19,108.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/12/08/stocks-fall-on-european-jitters/#ixzz1fxh5y4dO

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FLASH: Apple Loses iPad Trademark Case in China

SOURCE: http://trade.cc/ois

Apple could face disruption to its iPad sales in China after a court rejected its claim to own the iPad trademark in the country and a rival sought to halt sales of the tablet device in two Chinese cities.

The developments are the latest in a long-running dispute between Apple and Proview Technology (Shenzhen), a struggling Taiwanese-owned company that registered trademarks for the name IPAD in many countries long before Apple conceived its smash hit tablet computer.
Normally, Apple is on the receiving end of intellectual property rights infringements in China, with counterfeits extending even to copies of its flagship stores. The US company has nonetheless reported soaring sales over the past three quarters, following a push started last year under which it has so far built four Apple stores in Beijing and Shanghai and 1,000 resellers across the country.

“Apple is such a Goliath and has a good image, so people wouldn’t imagine that Apple could possibly infringe on our intellectual property rights,” said Xiao Caiyuan, a lawyer for Proview at Guangdong Guanghe law firm. “People always think it’s small companies infringing upon large companies’ IPR.”

“We hope that this decision will make our negotiations with Apple a bit easier,” said Li Su, a representative of Proview.

Proview, a flatscreen contract manufacturer, made an unsuccessful attempt to sell a tablet computer in 2000, and registered trademarks for the IPAD name in the EU, China, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam between 2000 and 2004, according to trademark databases.

In 2006, Proview Electronics (Taiwan) agreed to sell Apple the “global trademark” for the IPAD name for £35,000, according to Proview, but the two companies have subsequently disagreed about whether that deal included China.

Apple applied to have ownership of the two relevant Chinese trademarks transferred to its name before it began selling the iPad in China early last year. The Chinese trademark office rejected the application because the trademarks are owned by Proview Technology (Shenzhen), another affiliate of Proview International, the group’s Hong Kong-listed holding company, and not the Taiwan unit.

Apple then sued Proview Technology (Shenzhen), asking the court to declare the US company the rightful owner of the IPAD trademarks in China. The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court rejected that request earlier this week in a ruling that Apple can appeal.

At the same time, Proview Technology (Shenzhen) has sued Apple resellers in the southern Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Huizhou, seeking an immediate block on sales of iPads. The Shenzhen Futian District Court is due to start hearing one case on December 30, and the Huizhou Intermediate People’s Court has scheduled a hearing in the other for January 7.

“We are starting with these two cities, and if we are successful in getting iPad sales stopped, we will consider going after Apple resellers elsewhere in China,” said Xie Xianghui, a lawyer with Grandall, another Chinese law firm working for Proview. Apple declined to comment.

The China trademark lawsuit comes at a time when Apple is engaged in a number of patent battles globally against Samsung Electronics and HTC, two other smartphone makers. Those cases, which span markets including the US, Germany and Australia, have so far mostly been decided in favour of Apple.

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Blagojevich gets 14 years

CHICAGO (AP) — Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois governor whose three-year battle against criminal charges became a spectacle, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday, a stiff penalty for the man convicted of trying to sell President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to raise campaign cash or land a high-paying job.

Judge James Zagel gave Blagojevich some credit for taking responsibility for his actions — which the former governor did in an address to the court earlier in the day — but said that didn’t mitigate his crimes. Zagel also said Blagojevich did some good things for people as governor, but was more concerned about using his powers for himself.

“When it is the governor who goes bad, the fabric of Illinois is torn and disfigured and not easily repaired,” Zagel said.

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EU Considering A Double Barrel Bazooka To Fight the Sovereign Debt Crisis

FT is reporting that the EU is considering a second fund to combat the sovereign debt crisis. Essentially another fund in addition to EFSF. This fund will help the crippled barrel, EFSF, with an additional $500 million.

Apparently the EFSF was o.nly going to be a temporary fund. It is now going to stay and an additional fund will be created to compliment it…..

From BI 

CNBC’s Take

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FLASH: RUN ON THE GREEK BANKS

Anxious Greeks Emptying Their Bank Accounts

Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the central bank of Greece, is a man of statistics, and they speak a clear language. “In September and October, savings and time deposits fell by a further 13 to 14 billion euros. In the first 10 days of November the decline continued on a large scale,” he recently told the economic affairs committee of the Greek parliament.

 

With disarming honesty, the central banker explained to the lawmakers why the Greek economy isn’t managing to recover from a recession that has gone on for three years now: “Our banking system lacks the scope to finance growth.”

 

He means that the outflow of funds from Greek bank accounts has been accelerating rapidly. At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion — by the end of 2011, they had fallen by €49 billion. Since then, the decline has been gaining momentum. Savings fell by a further €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October — the biggest monthly outflow of funds since the start of the debt crisis in late 2009.

The raid on bank accounts stems from deep uncertainty in Greek households which culminated in early November during the political turmoil that followed the announcement by then-Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou of a referendum on the second Greek bailout package.

Papandreou withdrew the plan and stepped down following an outcry among other European leaders against the referendum, and a new government was formed on Nov. 11 under former central banker Loukas Papademos. That appears to have slowed the drop in bank savings, at least for the time being.

Bank Withdrawals Worsening Crisis

Nevertheless, the Greeks today only have €170 billion in savings — almost 30 percent less than at the start of 2010.

The hemorrhaging of bank savings has had a disastrous impact on the economy. Many companies have had to tap into their reserves during the recession because banks have become more reluctant to lend. More Greek families are now living off their savings because they have lost their jobs or have had their salaries or pensions cut.

In August, unemployment reached 18.4 percent. Many Greeks now hoard their savings in their homes because they are worried the banking system may collapse.

Those who can are trying to shift their funds abroad. The Greek central bank estimates that around a fifth of the deposits withdrawn have been moved out of the country. “There is a lot of uncertainty,” says Panagiotis Nikoloudis, president of the National Agency for Combating Money Laundering.

The banks are exploiting that insecurity. “They are asking their customers whether they wouldn’t rather invest their money in Liechtenstein, Switzerland or Germany.”

Nikoloudis has detected a further trend. At first, it was just a few people trying to withdraw large sums of money. Now it’s large numbers of people moving small sums. Ypatia K., a 55-year-old bank worker from Athens, can confirm that. “The customers, especially small savers, have recently been withdrawing sums of €3,000, €4,000 or €5,000. That was panic,” she said.

Marina S., a 74-year-old widow from Athens, said she has to be extra careful with money these days. “I have no choice but to withdraw money from my savings,” she said.

Bad Loans

The shrinking Greek bank deposits compare with bank loans totalling €253 million. Analysts say the share of bad loans could rise to 20 percent next year, or €50 billion, as a result of the recession. This in turn will worsen the already pressing liquidity problems faced by Greek banks.

Nikos B., a doctor in the Greek military, has had enough of the never-ending crisis his country is going through. While the 31-year-old has a secure job, repeated salary cuts have made it increasingly hard for him to make ends meet.

He needs most of his money to make loan repayments for a small car. “How can I clear my account? There’s hardly anything in it,” he says. He started learning German two months ago and wants to leave Greece. “As soon as possible!”

Nikos pauses and looks down. He quietly utters words that must be painful for a proud Greek. “It would be best to change nationality.”

SOURCE 

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FLASH: $SAP to Buy SuccessFactors $SFSF for $3.4 Billion

SAP of Germany announced plans on Saturday to buy SuccessFactors, a Web-based enterprise software company, for $40 a share, or $3.4 billion.

The all-cash transaction, which is expected to close early next year, offers SuccessFactors’ shareholders a 52 percent premium above Friday’s closing price.

“The cloud is a core of SAP’s future growth, and the combination of SuccessFactors’ leadership team and technology with SAP will create a cloud powerhouse,” Bill McDermott, the co-chief executive of SAP, said in a statement on Saturday.

Deal activity is heating up in the enterprise software industry, as giants like SAP hunt for smaller companies that provide services through the so-called cloud. In late October, for instance, rival Oracle, agreed to purchase RightNow Technologies, a maker of customer service software, for $1.43 billion. It was Oracle’s largest acquisition, since the takeover of Sun Microsystems last year.

SuccessFactors, a provider of employee management software, helps companies assess the performance of their employees, manage recruitment and fulfill other human resource needs. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company, which reported revenue of $91.2 million in the third quarter, has more than 3,500 customers spread across nearly 170 countries.

SOURCE 

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ROGER AILES STRIKES AGAIN: Hot Blonde Melissa Francis Ditches CNBC for Fox Business

TVNewser has learned Melissa Francis is leaving CNBC and joining Fox Business Network.

Francis was a co-anchor of daytime programs “Power Lunch” and, before that, “The Call.” The Harvard grad has been on TV since she was one year old, staring in a Johnson & Johnson commercial. She would later play the role of Cassandra Cooper Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie.”

CNBC spokesman Brian Steel confirms the departure telling TVNewser, “We thank Melissa for her years of hard work and wish her well.”

SOURCE 

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REALITY TV: Trump to Moderate Republican Debate

It’s officially a reality television Republican primary now.

Donald Trump is pairing up with Newsmax, the conservative magazine and news Web site, to moderate a presidential debate in Des Moines on Dec. 27.

“Our readers and the grass roots really love Trump,” said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media. “They may not agree with
him on everything, but they don’t see him as owned by the Washington establishment, the media establishment.”

Mr. Trump’s role in the debate, which will be broadcast on the cable network Ion Television, is sure to be one of the more memorable moments in a primary season that has already delivered its fair share of circus-like spectacle.

Mr. Trump’s own flirtation with running for president this year seems almost quaint (whose birth certificate was he all worked up about?) compared with more recent distractions – like allegations of adultery and sexual harassment, gaffes that seemed scripted from a late-night comedy show, and a six-figure line of credit at Tiffany & Co.

But despite being derided by liberals – President Obama likened Mr. Trump to a “carnival barker” for his repeated assertions that the president was actually foreign-born – the real estate mogul is seriously influential in manyRepublican Party circles. And that sway seems especially deep with the party’s conservative base, which will be a decisive factor in the early primaries that are likely to determine the nominee. The debate, which unlike many recent ones will not be limited to a specific topic like national security or the economy, is set to happen just a week before the Iowa caucuses.

Newsmax sent candidates the invitation on Friday afternoon. It began, “We are pleased to cordially invite you to “The Newsmax Ion Television 2012 Presidential Debate,” moderated by a truly great American, Mr. Donald J. Trump.” Spokesmen for several candidates did not immediately respond to questions from The New York Times about whether they would accept.

Though presidential candidates may initially balk at the idea of appearing in a debate where Mr. Trump – with his bombast and The Hair – is the one posing the questions, they may ultimately see it as an invitation they can’t refuse. In fact many of the candidates have already met with him, some more publicly than others. Representative Michele Bachmann has sat down with Mr. Trump several times this year. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas had dinner with him at Jean Georges, the posh Manhattan restaurant. And Mitt Romney paid a visit but carefully avoided being photographed.

And Newsmax is a powerful player itself. It has a broad reach into the conservative base, with monthly Web traffic second only to Fox News among sites with conservative-leaning audiences.

Mr. Trump has been a popular attraction at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering in Washington. He was such a successful presence in the eyes of Fox News executives that they added a special weekly segment to their morning show “Fox and Friends” for him called “Mondays With Trump.”

Whether his professed presidential ambitions are genuine or merely a publicity stunt seems not to matter in terms of the news media attention Mr. Trump can command. His highly publicized flirtation with running this year coincided with a Trump-branded product that stood to benefit from all the attention – a new season of his highly rated NBC show “Celebrity Apprentice.”

The arc of his noncampaign was similar in 1987 and 1999 – when Mr. Trump also said that he was considering running for president, episodes that are often forgotten.

His book ”Trump: The Art of the Deal” was published in November 1987 and reached The New York Times best-seller list by December. But by the time theRepublican National Convention rolled around in August 1988, he had opted out.

”Everybody wants me to do it,” he declared then. ”But I have no interest in doing it.”

And in late 1999, just before his book ”The America We Deserve” went on sale, he began courting support as a candidate on the Reform Party ticket. He even toured the country with his girlfriend, Melania Knauss, now his wife. The outcome? You guessed it.

SOURCE 

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Postal Worker Went Postal Inside Post Office

he man accused of firing shots inside the main post office in Alabama’s capital city was a postal employee who was carrying two guns when he reported for his shift.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Clark Morris, said Friday the man showed up for work and began firing shots in the mail processing room about 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Montgomery.

No one was injured. Police took the man into custody within 10 minutes of getting a 911 call from the post office. Federal and local officials said it’s unclear what the suspect’s motive may have been.

Officials originally said he had three guns, but later changed it to two.

He is being held in jail in Montgomery pending charges.

SOURCE 

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VP Joe Biden Fuels Rumors He Will Run in 2016

SOURCE

Vice President Biden, currently visiting Iraq, said the Obama administration has fulfilled its campaign promise to end the war in that nation. He also refused to rule out a possible presidential bid in 2016.

Biden, who is meeting with Iraqi officials ahead of the deadline for the drawdown of American forces and will participate in ceremonies to honor U.S. and Iraqi troops, said Iraq’s government and military are ready to defend themselves. Biden will also visit Turkey and Greece before returning to Washington.

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FLASH: ASIAN MARKETS LOVE LONGS LONG TIME

Asian shares joined in a global rally Thursday, soaring early as investors welcomed central banks’ coordinated moves to ease dollar credit costs in Europe, as well as monetary easing in China.

Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average JP:NIK +2.21%  climbed 2.4%, while South Korea’s KospiKR:0100 +3.77%  climbed 3.4% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index AU:XJO +2.48%  jumped 2.4%.

U.S. and European stocks ended Wednesday with strong gains, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA +4.24%  rising by the largest margin since 2009. Read more on U.S. stock market action.

The Dow notched its largest gain since March 2009, as central banks announced a plan to make dollar funding cheaper for European banks.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and the central banks of the euro area, Canada, the U.K., Japan and Switzerland announced Wednesday that they had agreed to reduce the cost of offering dollar financing through swap arrangements.

“As Europe dithered, monetary policy makers acted, even if their ‘actions’ have more symbolism than significance,” said strategists at RBC.

“Markets breathed a huge sigh of relief,” they said.

As the risks to global funding markets diminished, banks moved higher, with Westpac Banking Corp. AU:WBC +2.67%   WEBNF +7.65%  up 2.4%, and National Australia Bank Ltd.AU:NAB +2.61%   NAUBF +4.59%  up 2.1%.

In Japan, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. JP:8306 +3.35%   MTU +3.60%  jumped 4%, and Nomura Holdings Inc. JP:8604 +3.23%   NMR -0.89%  climbed 4.8%.

Meanwhile, commodity futures surged in New York after the People’s Bank of China cut its reserve requirement ratio for large banks by 50 basis points, to 21%, effective Dec. 5.

Commodity-linked stocks climbed sharply, with Rio Tinto Ltd. AU:RIO +4.53%   RIO +0.58% up 4.7%, BHP Billiton Ltd. AU:BHP +4.12%   BHP -1.56%  climbing 4.2% and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. AU:FMG +5.51%   FSUMY +3.80%  jumping 4.1% in Australia.

Steel makers surged in Japan, with JFE Holdings Inc. JP:5411 +6.05%  [ JFEEF +4.41% , up 6.1%, and Nippon Steel Corp. JP:5401 +4.92%   NISTF +6.12% adding 4.9%.

China’s move marked the first time the central bank had cut the reserve ratio for such lenders since December 2008, and followed a modest easing for small rural lenders last month.

“The move will ease constraints on bank lending — the level of excess reserves had dropped very low. Specifically, the cut has the same impact on banks’ ability to lend as the injection of $63 billion of base money,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist, at Capital Economics.

Hong Kong-based economists at Nomura said that the fact the central bank eased policy wasn’t surprising, but added that the timing was unexpected, with Nomura having expected such a cut in January.

“The need for coordinated policy action with other central banks may have triggered the reserve requirement ratio cut. We believe the fact that the [required reserve ratio] cut occurred [Wednesday], together with actions from other major central banks, did not happen by chance,” they said.

Adding to the positive tone for Asian markets, data out from the U.S. continued its recent strong run, with a private-sector employment report showing a rise of 206,000 jobs in November, the biggest jump since last December last year.  See report on private-sector employment data.

SOURCE 

 

 

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