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Archive for July 7th, 2010|Daily archive page

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Vietnam burning up, literally, at 48 Celsius

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 8:13 am

Forest fires raged in Vietnam as temperatures skyrocketed to 48 Celsius degrees in several northern and central provinces July 6, the national weather bureau said.

Mountain town residents take shelter from the sun and heat in a cave during a lunch break in Thanh Hoa Province (Photo: Thanh Nien)

At several areas in Hanoi and the provinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh, the mercury rose above 45-47 degrees, or even to 48 degrees during the hottest hours of the day from 1pm to 3pm.


The year’s second major heat wave has wrapped central and northern areas in a hot blanket of 39-40 degree temperatures.


The scorching weather is forecast to peak at 49 degrees July 7-8, the National Hydro Meteorological Forecasting Center said.


The heat wave will last until July 11 and will begin easing that night, forecasters said.


In related news, as of 6pm, forest fires blazing in Nghe An Province’s Anh Son District had yet to be put under control.


The fires began on the previous night in Hoi Son and Phuc Son Communes. Firefighters have had difficulty reaching the fires, located deep in bamboo forests were tough terrain made movement difficult, and strong, arid winds spread the flames quickly.


Earlier, about 10 hectares of pine forest burned down in Quynh Luu District July 3-5.


In the first six month of the year alone, Nghe An Province has experienced 12 forest fires that have charred 83.5 hectares of land.


Two forest fires also burned nine hectares of forest in Binh Dinh Province and Danang City on July 6.


The fires have been blamed on a combination of drought and scorching temperatures.

Source: SGGP

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Local blood-sucking assassin bugs don’t transmit disease: Doctor

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 8:13 am

The head of the Central Institute for Malaria – Parasitology – Entomology has said blood-sucking assassin bugs have been in Vietnam for years and are not of the same species of insect known to transmit Chagas disease in the Americas.

A blood-sucking assassin bug sent to the Central Institute for Malaria – Parasitology – Entomology from Hanoi


In response to public concerns about the recent appearance of the bugs, and reports of several bite victims, Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung said only a few people in Hanoi and other localities are bitten by the blood-suckers each year and there have been no reports that the insects in Vietnam transmit the disease.
 
But he admitted that the only local research to have been carried out on the bugs was for agricultural purposes.
 
Mr. Hung said the blood-sucking assassin bugs collected by his institution and the Institute for Ecology and Biological Resources were specified as Triatoma rubrofassiata.
 
Triatoma rubrofassiata are not like the Triatoma dimidiate (which is found in central America) and Triatoma infestans (found in South America), both of which can transmit Chagas disease, he said.
 
Researches has showed that Triatoma rubrofassiata bugs in Vietnam don’t cause the disease, and only leave bites that are painful or uncomfortable for a short period of time.
 
A woman in Da Nang City and two family members suffered bites from the insects over the last two months.  The woman felt tired and sleepy, and her face swelled. Sensing a connection to the bug bites, the woman captured several of them and sent them to the Institute for Ecology and Biological Resources.
 
At the same time, a man in Hanoi reported bites by a strange kind of bug and symptoms similar to the woman in Da Nang. 

Source: SGGP

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Obama hopes for direct Mideast peace talks by September

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:14 am

 US President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hoped for direct Middle East peace talks to start before the end of September, as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports of a rift.


The two leaders sat close together in the Oval Office and staged a prolonged handshake for the cameras, seeking to put to rest a tense, behind closed-doors White House encounter in March.


“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu wants peace. I think he’s willing to take risks for peace,” Obama said, and strongly disputed a question which suggested the bond between Israel and the United States had frayed.


“The fact of the matter is, is that I’ve trusted Prime Minister Netanyahu since I met him before I was elected president and have said so both publicly and privately.”


The talks went ahead amid intense interest on a partial Israeli freeze on settlement building which is due to expire at the end of September.

US President Barack Obama (R) addresses the press alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during meetings in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC

Obama finessed the issue by saying he hoped progress towards direct negotiations from indirect US-brokered proximity talks between Israelis and Palestinians would render that deadline irrelevant.


“My hope is that once direct talks have begun, well before the moratorium has expired, that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success,” he said.


Netanyahu says he is ready to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at any time, but the Palestinians have yet to commit to direct talks, accusing Israel of undermining the atmosphere with continuing settlement activity.


He said he and Obama had discussed “concrete” steps that could be taken now.


“When I say ‘the next few weeks,’ that’s what I mean. The president means that too.”


The challenge now will be to get the Palestinians to accept the time frame that Obama has in mind. The initial reaction from the Palestinians hinted at the difficulty of an ambitious timeline.


Abbas “insists on the necessity of progress in indirect negotiations on core issues (borders, security) before going to direct negotiations,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP by telephone.


The Israeli leader is under extreme pressure from his right-wing coalition not to cave in to any US pressure to extend the moratorium, announced in November after Obama pushed for concessions to the Palestinians.


Obama’s comments may be a sign he has concluded that Netanyahu’s tricky political position will prevent an extension.


Netanyahu warned that the prime threat facing Israel was Iran’s nuclear program, and praised new US sanctions against Tehran as having “teeth” while calling for “much tougher” action from other nations.


And he said suggestions that Israel and the United States were drifting apart were not just “premature” but “flat wrong.”


Obama also reassured Netanyahu that his administration had made “no change” to its policy regarding Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal, amid concern among Israelis over his campaign for a nuclear free world.


Obama and Netanyahu appeared friendly towards one another, but their stern expressions at times reflected the grave nature of their talks. Both sides however seemed to want to put their spat into the past.

Netanyahu said it was “about time” that Obama visited Israel. “I’m ready,” Obama said, without mentioning a date.

In March, Netanyahu was denied even a photo-op with Obama as a row raged over settlement expansion. This time, reporters were invited to watch the US leader see the premier to his limousine and give him a wave goodbye.

Cementing the friendly tone, US First Lady Michelle Obama invited Netanyahu’s wife Sara for afternoon tea.

Obama and Netanyahu were meeting for the first time since Israel’s raid on an aid flotilla headed for Gaza in May, which killed nine Turks, and triggered a regional diplomatic crisis.

Israel on Monday gave the go-ahead for the international community to import construction materials into Gaza for projects under international supervision.

Obama commended Netanyahu for the move.

“We’ve seen real progress on the ground. I think it’s been acknowledged that it has moved more quickly and more effectively than many people anticipated.”

Both sides appeared to have decided to keep any disputes behind closed doors.

“There are going to be times where, you know, he and I are having robust discussions about what kind of choices need to be made,” Obama said.

“But the underlying approach never changes, and that is, the United States is committed to Israel’s security.”

Source: SGGP

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Sarkozy caught up in L’Oreal heiress cash scandal

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:14 am

Allegations of illegal donations from France’s richest woman plunged Nicolas Sarkozy into the biggest crisis of his presidency Tuesday, despite protests he is the victim of a smear campaign.


The French government reacted angrily to reports police had interviewed a witness over claims his presidential campaign received an illegal contribution of 150,000 euros in cash from L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.


Sarkozy faces mounting pressure to address the allegations directly and calls for a clear-out of tainted ministers, including embattled Labour Minister Eric Woerth, who is at the centre of the scandal.


“I would love it so much if the country could excite itself over the big problems … rather than to get wrapped up in the first horror, a slander with only one goal, to smear with no basis in reality,” Sarkozy said.


French President Nicolas Sarkozy gives a press conference during his visit at the Brie-Comte-Robert hospital, some 30 km east of Paris.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon was more direct.


“This is slander, this is a systematic destabilisation campaign,” Fillon told a news conference at the European parliament in Strasbourg.


“We will not be intimidated by these methods and I want to say that those who are involved in this manhunt, or slanderous accusations, should ask themselves if they still have a conscience,” he said.


In Paris, a parliamentary debate turned ugly when Budget Minister Francois Baroin accused the opposition of doing the work of the far right in pursuing the scandal, prompting a walk-out by Socialist deputies.


Sarkozy’s approval ratings are at their lowest levels since his 2007 election and he faces an uphill battle to get reforms back on track before seeking reelection in 2012.


On Tuesday, an opinion poll by the Ifop agency found 69 percent of French voters would like to see an immediate cabinet reshuffle.


Already at the weekend two junior ministers were forced to step down over reports that they had spent public money on private jet rentals and cigars.


The new claim is that Woerth, treasurer of the ruling UMP as well as a key minister, received 150,000 euros (188,000 dollars) in cash from Bettencourt. Donations to politicians and their parties are strictly limited in France.


The investigative website Mediapart interviewed a former Bettencourt accountant, identified as Claire T., who alleged the heiress often gave cash to right-wing politicians.


The accountant’s lawyer, Antoine Gillot, confirmed to AFP that his client had told police about the alleged payments.


According to Mediapart, the accountant also alleges that Sarkozy personally received envelopes of cash after dinners at Bettencourt’s mansion when he was mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly.


Woerth denied any wrongdoing and said he would not resign: “My party has not received a single illegal euro. That’s enough! I have been treasurer for eight years. No one can say I did anything wrong.”


Last week, Sarkozy defended Woerth after it was revealed that his wife worked for a firm managing Bettencourt’s 17-billion-euro personal fortune.


But, with the head of state now personally implicated, key right-wing allies, including the UMP leader in parliament, Jean-Francois Cope, called on the president to “speak to the French people” about the scandal.

Presidential aides confirmed he was considering making a televised address.

Benoit Hamon, spokesman for the opposition Socialists, called for a reshuffle and said that the allegations meant Woerth no longer had the “legitimacy” to be the government’s architect of pension reform.

Claire T. alleged that Woerth received the cash donation in March 2007, ahead of Sarkozy’s election in May.

Woerth has served as Sarkozy’s budget minister charged with fighting tax evasion by personalities like Bettencourt, before serving as labour minister.

Mediapart quoted Claire T. as saying she had been asked for 150,000 euros by Bettencourt’s financial adviser Patrice de Maistre, who told her he would give it “discreetly” to Woerth at a dinner.

The accountant, who worked for Bettencourt for 12 years until 2008, said she believed Sarkozy had also received envelopes in person while he was mayor between 1983 and 2002.

“Everyone in the house knew that Sarkozy went to see the Bettencourts to collect money,” Mediapart quoted her as saying.

The scandal implicating the heiress started with secret tapes recorded by the 87-year-old billionaire’s butler and leaked to media last month.

Woerth’s name came up in the conversations, in which she and Maistre — who denies all the allegations — allegedly plotted to evade taxes.

He added Tuesday that he would not resign.

“Every day I hear torrents of insults… I have nothing to reproach myself for,” he told the TF1 television channel.

Source: SGGP

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US urges China to free geologist ‘immediately’

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:13 am

The United States is stepping up pressure on China to free a US geologist given an eight-year sentence on state secrets charges, dismissing Beijing’s insistence that the case was an internal affair.


Xue Feng, a Chinese-born US citizen working for a private firm, has been detained since November 2007 over the sale of a database on China’s oil industry. He was handed an eight-year term this week despite US appeals.


“We remain extremely concerned about his rights to due process under Chinese law,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Tuesday.


“We call on China to grant Dr. Xue humanitarian release and immediately deport him back to the United States,” he said.

File photo shows military police standing guard at the entrance to the Number 1 Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing.

President Barack Obama’s administration has sought to cooperate with a rising China on a range of international issues and has been roundly accused by activists of downplaying human rights concerns.


But Xue is an American citizen and, according to diplomats, Obama has personally raised his case with Chinese President Hu Jintao. US consular officials have visited Xue close to 30 times since his detention.


US Ambassador Jon Huntsman attended Xue’s sentencing in Beijing on Monday and expressed dismay over the punishment.


Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang defended the handling of the case, saying: “This case was handled by China’s judiciary, which judged it strictly in accordance with the law.”


“This is an internal affair of China; China’s judicial sovereignty brooks no foreign interference,” he said.


Asked about China’s reaction, Toner, the State Department spokesman, replied: “The protection of US citizens overseas is our highest priority.”


The United States has “consistently and will continue to raise his case at the highest levels,” he said.


At the time of his arrest, Xue was working for the US energy and engineering consulting firm IHS Inc.


Both Xue and IHS have stated that they believed that the database was a commercially available product. After Xue purchased the database, it was subsequently classified as a state secret, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a rights group.


The rights group said that Xue, in his meetings with US consular officials, showed scars on his arms which he said were cigarette burns inflicted by his interrogators.


Ed Mattix, a spokesman for IHS, said that the Colorado-based company was “sad” to hear of the sentence against Xue.


“IHS is extremely disappointed at the news and is very sympathetic to the situation,” he said.


He declined further comment, saying the case may be appealed.


Xue’s arrest and drawn-out trial has cast a spotlight on the pitfalls of doing business in China, especially for those born in China who have been educated abroad and taken on a foreign nationality.

Australian national Stern Hu, an executive with the mining giant Rio Tinto, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March on bribery and trade secrets charges, in a case that raised hackles in Canberra.

US officials have also appealed for the safety of a number of Chinese citizens who have been jailed or gone missing after activism.

In an editorial Tuesday, The Washington Post urged the United States to do more to support Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer.

Gao, who has taken up some of China’s most sensitive cases such as underground Christians and the Falungong spiritual movement, has gone missing twice since last year. His family has escaped to the United States.

The newspaper recalled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks at the start of her term that human rights would not interfere with US cooperation with China.

“President Obama has just invited Chinese President Hu Jintao for a state visit. He must allow human rights — and Mr. Gao — to interfere,” the editorial said.

Source: SGGP

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Oil comes ashore in Texas as BP dismisses money fears

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:13 am

Clean-up efforts in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill extended to Texas and Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, as BP dismissed reports of deeper financial woes.


Officials said crews collected tar balls and waste from Lake Pontchartrain, the vast estuary near New Orleans, as rough weather continued to hamper the containment and skimming effort near the spill site in the Gulf.


US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said the huge spill was now threatening all the states along the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas and that rough seas since the passage of Hurricane Alex had hurt the effort.

Oil is cleaned off of a gull at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Buras, Louisiana, on July 5.

The first Atlantic hurricane of the year passed through the Gulf of Mexico last week without too much alarm for the oil containment efforts, but Allen said two nearby storm systems were being closely watched.


“We’re watching very, very closely the swells and waves that might be generated by this current storm system,” he said.


“Sometime in the seven to 10 days we’ll look for a window of opportunity to put the containment cap on at the same time we will go on and continue with the drilling of the relief well.”


A BP spokeswoman in London denied the firm was planning to sell new stock to a strategic investor to raise money, amid reports the British government is working on a crisis plan if the company is sunk by the disaster.


“We are not issuing any new equity,” she said. “We welcome new shareholders to come onto the shareholder register and we welcome existing shareholders who want to take a bigger amount of shares.”


The Times newspaper in London reported that officials at the Department of Business and the Treasury were already considering contingencies for BP’s potential collapse.


“It is not clear how bad this will get, but the government needs to be prepared for any eventuality,” an anonymous source said to be familiar with the talks was quoted as saying.


BP has forked out some 3.12 billion dollars in spill-related costs and has promised to pay another 20 billion dollars into an escrow fund to compensate Americans affected by the spill.


The BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22, two days after an explosion that killed 11 workers, unleashing the worst environmental disaster in US history.


Sunday, tar balls from the spill arrived on beaches in Texas, more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) away, though it was unclear how the crude got there.


Tests showed they did come from the BP Deepwater Horizon well but scientists and officials were working to determine if they arrived in Texas by currents or via ships operating in the vicinity of the well head.


The tar balls in Lake Pontchartrain were also being tested.


Some 792 kilometers (492 miles) of Gulf Coast shoreline has been oiled, and fishing ground closures and tourist cancellations threaten financial ruin for residents who have reacted angrily to BP’s failure to cap the spill.


Up to 60,000 barrels of oil a day is believed to be leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, far outpacing the collection efforts of a system that is capturing around 25,000 barrels a day.


Officials hope to more than double that capacity to some 53,000 barrels a day by hooking up a third containment vessel, the Helix Producer, to the system that captures and siphons away the crude.

“There is a partial hookup right now and they can sustain that unless they have really severe sea states,” said Allen, the US official coordinating the spill response.

“We won’t know for several hours whether they’re able to do it. It currently is a work in progress.”

Officials were also testing a mega-tanker, A Whale, which could boost efforts to skim spilled crude from the sea surface.

The ship is believed to be able to suck up to 500,000 barrels (21 million gallons) of oily water a day through its “jaws,” a series of vents on the side of the ship.

By comparison, more than 500 smaller vessels in 10 weeks have only managed to collect some 31.3 million gallons of oil-water mix between them and high waves forced most of the boats to halt operations on Tuesday.

It will likely be mid-August at the earliest before the ruptured well is permanently capped by injecting mud and cement with the aid of relief wells.

The high end of the oil leak estimates means it has now surpassed the 1979 Ixtoc blowout, which took nine months to cap and dumped an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140,000 million gallons) into the Gulf of Mexico.

It is topped only by the deliberate release of six to eight million barrels of crude by Iraqi troops who destroyed tankers and oil terminals and set wells ablaze in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.

Source: SGGP

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Prosecutors to appeal Russian spy case bail ruling

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:13 am

In this undated file photo, Peruvian-born journalist Vicky Pelaez, one of the defendants in the Russian spy case, is seen on assignment in Lima,

The government said Tuesday it planned to appeal a decision to release one of the defendants in the Russian spy case on bail.


The announcement came from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, four days after bail was set for a U.S. citizen charged in the case.


A magistrate judge in Manhattan had said the woman, Peruvian-born Vicky Pelaez, could be released on $250,000 bail with electronic monitoring and home detention. The judge said when he set bail that she could not be released before this week because it would take time to set up the bail requirements.


An appeal means that a bail hearing will occur before a federal judge, who will decide whether to uphold the findings of the magistrate judge.


Defense attorney John M. Rodriguez said Tuesday that he received a copy of a letter prosecutors had sent the court saying they were appealing. He said he expected his client to remain jailed pending the outcome of a hearing Wednesday afternoon.


Pelaez is among 11 defendants charged with being part of a spy ring that prosecutors say for the past ast decade has engaged in secret global travel with false passports, secret code words, fake names, invisible ink and encrypted radio.


The government has opposed the release on bail of any of the defendants, saying they would flee if they had the opportunity. Defendant Christopher Metsos disappeared on the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus soon after a judge there freed him on $32,500 bail. He had been charged by U.S. authorities with supplying funds to the other members of the alleged ring.


Pelaez, a prominent Spanish-language journalist, is the wife of a defendant identified in court documents as Juan Lazaro. Prosecutors say he has admitted that his wife passed letters to the Russian intelligence service on his behalf.


They say he also has admitted that the name Juan Lazaro is fake, that he wasn’t born in Uruguay and that he is not a citizen of Peru, as he had long claimed.


Prosecutors say he also admits his home in Yonkers, N.Y., has been paid for by Russian intelligence.

Source: SGGP

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Queen Elizabeth II calls for world peace at UN

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:12 am

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II pleaded for world peace in her first visit in five decades to the UN headquarters during a whirlwind tour of a sweltering New York.


After addressing the world body she went to Ground Zero, where she laid a wreath in tribute to the nearly 3,000 people killed when Islamist hijackers slammed two airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.


At the UN General Assembly, Elizabeth II noted she’d last visited there 53 years earlier, when the United Nations was in its infancy.


Praising the “remarkable” achievements of the UN since then, she said that “the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.”

Queen Elizabeth II addresses the United Nations General Assembly July 6, 2010 in New York City.

New challenges of “terrorism” and “climate change” were adding to the huge tests facing the world body, she said.


“When people in 53 years from now look back on us, they will doubtless view many of our practices as old-fashioned. But it is my hope that, when judged by future generations, our willingness to take a lead… will stand the test of time.”


The 84-year-old monarch, who was last in the Big Apple in 1976 and at the UN in 1957, wore a two piece white ensemble with blue and beige print and a matching silk hat as she arrived with husband Prince Philip for the one-day visit, which followed a nine-day stay in Canada.


She was at the UN as queen of 16 states and head of the British Commonwealth.


From there she went to Ground Zero where she was met by an honor guard and local officials including Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Following the ceremony she met with relatives of victims.


Paula Berry, who lost her husband on 9/11, told NY1 television the queen “was conveying a message to us.”


Berry said she’d repeatedly told her young children that 9/11 had been “a world event and this really reinforces that message.”


After opening Manhattan’s British Memorial Garden, dedicated to the 67 British victims of 9/11, Elizabeth II was flying home.


New York is accustomed to celebrities and heads of state, but the queen’s visit provided welcome distraction from a record heatwave.


The National Weather Service measured 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.45 Celsius) in Central Park in mid-Manhattan, easily breaking the 101 degrees record set for July 6 back in 1999. Heat warnings were posted throughout the region.


The Daily News tabloid published tips on etiquette, instructing readers not to bow if they meet the queen, since they are not subjects, but neither to try offering her a New York-style “fistbump or high-five.”


Readers were also advised to steer clear in conversation from mentions of Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew who was caught attempting to sell access to her ex-husband in a media sting in May, then admitting that she was suffering from money and drink problems.


“Chat instead about dogs and horses; the queen likes them,” the News suggested.


Commuter freesheet AM New York, meanwhile, warned the monarch might not like New York’s fierce temperatures. “God Save the Queen (and us!)” the front page joked. “Her Majesty visits Baked Apple.”

The royal couple’s Canada trip took them to a horse race, a visit to the factory making BlackBerry smart phones and Canada Day celebrations.

There was drama on Monday when a power outage plunged Toronto into chaos just ahead of a state dinner. Thousands of people were stranded in office buildings or stuck on roads snarled by the sudden absence of traffic lights.

The British head of state’s tour comes at a time when Buckingham Palace is feeling some of the same budget crunch pressuring the rest of the country.

Britain’s finance minister George Osborne announced a shake-up in royal funding in June.

He also said that the 7.9 million pounds (9.5 million euros, 11.6 million dollars) royal operating budget will remain frozen, as it has been for the last 20 years, despite media reports that royal officials are requesting an increase.

Source: SGGP

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Dow industrials climb 57 to break seven-day slide

In Uncategorized on July 7, 2010 at 4:12 am

The Dow Jones industrial average broke a seven-day slide Tuesday after traders sifted through the market for beaten-down stocks.


The Dow rose 57 points, or 0.6 percent, after dropping 7.3 percent in just the past two weeks and reaching its lowest level since October. Traders were looking to pick up stocks while they’re still cheap, but the buying was selective and there were more losing stocks than gainers on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow rose as much as 172 points in morning trading but also fell into the red by mid-afternoon.


“There are pockets of opportunity out there. There are some areas with good valuations,” said Aaron Reynolds, senior portfolio analyst at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.


High-tech and oil service companies were among the market leaders. But retailers slumped amid downbeat comments from analysts and ahead of reports later in the week on June sales. Investors are concerned that a weakening of the economic recovery will keep cautious consumers out of stores. Macy’s Inc. fell 2.5 percent, while Home Depot Inc. lost 1.5 percent.

In this file photo taken March 9, 2010, people walk on Wall Street, in New York

The unevenness to the day’s moves signaled that traders remain on edge about the economy.


Brian Dolan, chief currency strategist at Forex.com in Bedminster, N.J., said a rise in Treasury prices made it clear that worries remain. Treasurys have been rallying during the past month as investors worried about where the economy is heading looked for a safe place for their money.


“We’ve obviously ratcheted down the outlook and now it’s a question of how much further,” Dolan said, referring to the economy. “From here I would expect to see further weakness.”


The day’s economic news didn’t offer investors much incentive to buy. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said growth in services businesses slowed last month. Its services index fell to 53.8 from 55.4 in May. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters forecast a reading 55.0. Anything above 50 indicates growth.


The Dow rose 57.14, or 0.6 percent, to 9,743.62. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 5.48, or 0.5 percent, to 1,028.06, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.09, or 0.1 percent, to 2,093.88.


The market’s advance came after stocks dropped Friday on a report found that employers didn’t ramp up hiring as much as economists had forecast. It was the second straight month hiring by private employers missed expectations. U.S. markets were closed Monday for Independence Day.


Meanwhile, bond prices rose. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 2.94 percent from 2.98 percent late Friday.


Crude oil fell 16 cents to settle at $71.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


Oil service companies rose after a Barclays Capital analyst upgraded ratings for the industry. Halliburton Inc. rose 72 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $26.46.


Some of the tech stocks that were pounded in recent weeks had a natural bounce back. Microsoft Inc. rose 55 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $23.82. Intel Corp. rose 28 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $19.48.


Macy’s fell 44 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $17.41, while Home Depot fell 42 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $27.34.


The number of stocks that fell narrowly outpaced those that rose on the NYSE, where consolidated volume came to 4.7 billion shares, compared with 4 billion Friday.


The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 8.94, or 1.5 percent, to 590.03.


Overseas markets rose after investors found stock prices more attractive and Australia’s central bank issued an upbeat forecast for the country’s economy. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 2.9 percent, Germany’s DAX index gained 2.2 percent, and France’s CAC-40 jumped 2.7 percent. Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.8 percent.

Source: SGGP