Ramadan 2012: First Day Of Muslim Holy Month Around The World [PHOTOS]

Photo: REUTERS

Ramadan 2012

Friday marked the first day of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, who are expected to fast and practice abstinence from dawn until sunset. View the slideshow to see photos from start of Ramadan around the world.

Photo: REUTERS

EMC raises offer for Data Domain to $33.50

EMC Corp boosted its bid to buy specialty storage maker Data Domain Inc by more than 10 percent to $33.50 per share, raising the stakes in a bidding war with rival NetApp Inc. .

The news sent Data Domain shares rose 2.7 percent to $34.10 in premarket trade, suggesting that investors expect the two companies to bid up the price even higher.

Both suitors also said that they had won U.S. antitrust approval to pursue their purchases of Data Domain, whose sales are growing far faster then either EMC or NetApp.

Investors had closely watched that process because if regulators had delayed either bid, the other would have had a clear advantage with shareholders eager to quickly close a sale.

Data Domain's board said that NetApp's $30-per-share cash-and-stock offer was superior to an all-cash offer from EMC, citing a breakup fee and other deal protections in EMC's proposal. But the higher offer will force directors to reconsider their decision.

EMC Chief Joseph Tucci sweetened his proposal further by removing the break-up fee and other deal protections in the revised offer that he presented in a letter to Data Domain Chairman Aneel Bhusri on Monday.

A spokesman for NetApp declined comment on the revised EMC bid.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Derek Caney)

Photo: REUTERS

Spain Police Arrest Three Alleged Anonymous Hackers

Three members suspected to be a part of the Anonymous hacking group were arrested in Almeira, Barcelona and Valencia in Spain on Friday morning, according to a report.

Police accused the three men of temporarily blocking access to some Sony websites, Reuters reported. The men were not responsible for the recent Sony PlayStation Network attacks, according to the report.

All three men were released without bail, pending formal charges, a police spokeswoman not identified per department policy told the New York Times.

One of the men had a computer server in his apartment in Gijon. Police said the computer was used for attacks against government sites in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand, according to the New York Times.

Police said the investigation began in October 2010 after a complaint by the Spanish Ministry of Culture when its website suffered a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, according to CNN.

These are the first arrests of alleged members of Anonymous in Spain, according to the report.

Anonymous has also publicly taken responsibility for attacks against PayPal, Visa and others because those institutions acted to block donations to whistleblower-site WikiLeaks.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: REUTERS

EU's Barroso Says Not Ready For Single Currency Representation, China Launches Yuan Trade Settlement

RTTNews - Monday, President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso reportedly said the European Union is not ready to have a single currency representation at international financial institutions.

Referring to EU member states, he told reporters in Brussels, Are they ready for a single representation of the European Union? Honestly I don't think so.

Elsewhere on Monday, China started a trial scheme for yuan trade settlement. The scheme will allow companies to settle their deals in yuan in selected areas, initially in Hong Kong and Macau outside of mainland China, and to Shanghai and Guandong province.

However, the scheme would be extended between parts of eastern China and the Asean group of countries.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

Photo: REUTERS

ISE FX Japanese Yen* ST: under pressure.

Update on supports and resistances.

Resistance3 : 104
Resistance2 : 102.5
Resistance1 : 99.65
Last Price : 94.76
Pivot Point: 99.65
Support1 : 93.6
Support2 : 91.6
Support3 : 87.5

Pivot: 99.65

Our preference: Short positions below 99.65 with targets @ 93.6 & 91.6 in extension.

Alternative scenario: Above 99.65 look for further upside with 102.5 & 104 as targets.

Comment: the pair has struck against its bearish channel upper boundary and should reach its next support as the RSI is turning down.

104
102.5
99.65
94.76 (last)
93.6
91.6
87.5



*USD/JPY Index: the ISE Exchange measures the strength and weakness of the US DOLLAR versus the JAPANESE YEN. For details go to www.ise.com

Photo: Reuters

East African Terrorist Killed In Somalia: Reports

The man who allegedly masterminded the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 has reportedly been killed in Somalia.

Security officials in Mogadishu said that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and another man were shot to death by members of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) on Wednesday at a roadblock in the capitol city.

Our forces fired on two men who refused to stop at a roadblock. They tried to defend themselves when they were surrounded by our men, TFG commander Abdikarim Yusuf told Agence France Presse.

We took their ID documents, one of which was a foreign passport.”

Somali officials also told AFP that Abdullah was carrying $40,000 in cash as well as a South African passport bearing the name “Daniel Robinson.”

The passport indicated that Abdullah departed South Africa on March 19, 2011 for Tanzania, where he received a visa.

Halima Aden, a senior Somali national security officer, told Reuters: After thorough investigation, we confirmed it was him, and then we buried his corpse.”

Kenya's Police Commissioner, Matthew Iteere, told reporters:
We have been told that there were two terrorists who were killed in Somalia on Wednesday. They were identified as Fazul Mohammed and Ali Dere. That is what we have been told by our counterparts.”

However, according to other reports, members of the Somali National Security Agency collected the corpses and handed them over to US officials for identification.

Abdullah has been on the run since the 1998 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania killed 220 people and wounded about 5,000. The U.S. government placed a $5-million reward for his capture.

He is believed to have joined the al-Qaeda terrorist organization in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.

At some point he also became a commander of Al-Shabaab, an East African Islamist group engaged in an insurgency against the Somali government.

He was also blamed for engineering a bomb attack on a Kenyan beach resort in 2002, which killed 13 people; as well as an attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet.

According to Long War Journal, two other senior al-Qaeda officials wanted for the 1998 attacks have already been killed. In September 2009, US Special Operations Forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in Mogadishu. In early 2007, Abu Tahla al Sudani died during fighting with Ethiopian forces.

In 2007, Abdullah himself survived a US air missile strike in the southern Somali coastal village of Hayo, near the town of Ras Kamboni.

Photo:

US honor flag to fly aboard space shuttle Atlantis on its final mission

 

The U.S. Honor Flag which toured the country and the world in memory of those who have lost their lives serving as police officers, firefighters and military personnel will now pay tribute to astronauts who have died in the space shuttle program 1981-2011 as it flies aboard space shuttle Atlantis's final mission.

Begun as a tribute following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists' attacks, the flag serves as a traveling memorial to heroes who lost their lives while serving their communities and country. During a May 26 ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, the flag began its journey to space as James K. Loftus, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, presented it to Bob Cabana, director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The flag honors all the first responders, military and now astronauts who've paid the ultimate price in service to our country. I think it's a real privilege to take it aboard Atlantis and bring it home safe, said Cabana following the ceremony.

With the visitor complex's Astronaut Memorial Mirror as a backdrop, a 100-member honor guard and bagpipe procession accompanied the flag, which Cabana handed over to veteran astronaut Jerry Ross in preparation for its flight aboard Atlantis. The event was followed by a moment of silence at the memorial, which bears the names of astronauts who have died in the exploration of space.

The flag's tour is sponsored by the non-profit Honor Network, but began with one man and his flag, Chris Heisler. Shortly after the Sept. 11attacks, an American flag from the Texas House of Representatives was given to Heisler, who decided to take the flag to Ground Zero at the World Trade Center site. Along the way, he helped organize one of the longest police motorcades in the history of the United States. His flag flew over Ground Zero for two weeks, and the U.S. Honor Flag was born.

When we took the flag to Ground Zero, we had officers from all over the country, and firefighters. Since then, the flag has been to more than 1,000 different events and has truly become a piece of American history and a national treasure that is safeguarded and protected, says Heisler, But we had no anticipation that the flag would go from there to NASA, aboard the space shuttle and to the International Space Station.

When this flag comes back from space and goes to the next funeral for the next family, he explains, it's the little boys and girls whose mother or father made the ultimate sacrifice who will see that flag there memorializing their parent and they'll know that all that history of all these heroes is embedded with their father or mother, so that history continues.

The launch of space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-135 mission to the International Space Station will bring to a close the Space Shuttle Program.

Photo:

ISE FX British Pound* ST: rebound expected.

Update on supports and resistances.

Resistance3 : 66.95
Resistance2 : 65.5
Resistance1 : 63.1
Last Price : 61.82
Pivot Point: 60
Support1 : 60
Support2 : 57
Support3 : 55

Pivot: 60

Our preference: Long positions above 60 with targets @ 63.1 & 65.5 in extension.

Alternative scenario: Below 60 look for further downside with 57 & 55 as targets.

Comment: the pair is rebounding on its strong support and is breaking above its declining trend line.

66.95
65.5
63.1
61.82 (last)
60
57
55



*USD/GBP Index: the ISE Exchange measures the strength and weakness of the US DOLLAR versus the BRITISH POUND. For details go to www.ise.com

Photo:

Dollar Stability Choppy & Temporary

Sterling leads the list of currencies losing against the dollar and yen amid widespread expectations the Bank of England will exercise its quantitative easing expansion option by purchasing an additional 25 bln in assets without seeking govt approval. Concerted selling in emerging market bourses further elevates the risk-aversion lustre of USD and JPY. Oils $10 decline from last weeks $73.30 highs is partly provoked by the discovery of inappropriate trades being behind the buying. Reduced risk appetite & latest forecasts reports of falling global oil demand are further enforcing the positive correlation between equities and oil, thereby, weighing on commodity currencies. Chief among them is the CAD and NOK, with USDCAD firmly in its 4-week up-trend, targeting 1.1770, followed by 1.1810. USDNOK faces more substantial obstacles at 6.7.

But any dollar advances could intensify in the event that a deleveraging ensues on the commodities front as well as in commodities currencies (via renewed cenbank dovishness and currency jawboning). We cautioned 4-weeks ago that eroding risk aversion was key for any recovery in the greenback. In charting medium term for the risk appetite, the dollar and its most popular government bond, the chart below shows the 2-year progression of the interaction between US crude and US10-year yields. The latest upleg for both yields and oil is expected to sustain a retreat amid a lack of follow-through in recent data improvement as well as the pullback in equities. We could see oil to reach as low as $51-52 before end of summer, while 10-year yields could test the 3.15-20% territory before a gradual consolidation and renewed rebound emerges in Q4. Concerns with escalating Treasury borrowing will remain, but these will be temporarily outweighed by falling equities and weak data, which (temporarily) will play to the favour of bond prices at the expense of yields.

We stick with our bearish stance on USDJPY, reiterating the call for a break of 94.90 and onto 93.80. The lose-lose scenario for the pair has been especially highlighted by the yens broad strength during risk aversion and the dollars vulnerability at each bout of neutral-positive risk positioning. EURJPY faces relatively higher level of support at 133 yen, backed by 132, while GBPJPY clears the way for a break towards 150.20.

Euro fares more robustly amid the ECB's reluctance to expand its credit easing operations and its renewed calls for commercial banks to pass on lower rates. Any break below $1.3730s requires further escalation in risk aversion and greater sell-off in oil prices. Euros relative strength has propped EURGBP past the 0.8630 resistance, calling for 0.88 as the next focal point. GBPUSD is now vulnerable to the $1.5940, below which emerges support at $1.5770.

Vocal reminders by Chinese officials are expected to broaden (ranging from bureaucrats, central bankers and academics), which will limit any concerted dollar buying. Such remarks go beyond just political posturing. China has started the building blocks of boosting its currency via improving its invoice currency status, after which it will move towards garnering world liquidity for its currency and eventually liberalizing capital flows. China may not have the economic bargaining power to pullout of US treasuries, but it is increasingly accumulating short-term term maturities--already a vocal sign of aversion to the currency. Just as some Washington insiders shrugged my warnings from 3 years ago about Japan reducing its holdings of US treasuries, these are now well below those of China's. The same voices are now stating that China has nowhere to go. Let's pay attention to maturities and not just quantity.