Global shares buoyed by Alcoa earnings, dollar gains on yen

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares staged a modest recovery from two days of losses on Wednesday after aluminum giant Alcoa opened the U.S. earnings season with an optimistic outlook for world demand.

However, with European and British central banks due to hold policy meetings on Thursday, the same day Spain will test demand for its debt and China releases its latest trade data, investors were in a cautious mood.

Alcoa, the largest aluminum producer in the United States, rose 1.3 percent in after-hours trade after it reported a fourth-quarter profit in line with Wall Street expectations and revenues that beat forecasts.

The results lifted Asian stock markets and pushed Europe's FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> up around 0.2 percent in early trade, leaving the MSCI world equity index <.miwd00000pus> up 0.1 percent. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were flat to 0.2 percent higher.

U.S. stock futures were up 0.15 percent, suggesting a firmer start on Wall Street. <.l><.eu><.n/>

Corporate profits are expected to be higher than the third quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.

"Expectations are quite low going into the earnings season as we saw a lot of downward guidance in the past few months. There is potential for an upside surprise to come through," said Robert Parkes, equity strategist at HSBC Securities.

SOVEREIGN DEBT TEST

In European fixed income markets German Bund prices dipped slightly as investors prepared for the government's auction of 5 billion euros' worth of new five-year bonds following successful debt sales in Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland on Tuesday.

Investors were also looking ahead to Spanish and Italian bond auctions on Thursday for the new year's first test of market appetite for peripheral euro zone debt.

The Spanish auction could also provide clues on the timing of a much anticipated request by Madrid for fresh financial aid from the ECB. [ID:nL5E9C46KK]

The dollar meanwhile climbed against the yen, moving back towards a 2-1/2 year high hit last week, on expectations of a much bolder monetary easing from the Bank of Japan at its next meeting later this month.

The U.S. currency was up 0.7 percent at 87.61 yen, above a near one-week low of 86.82 hit earlier in Tokyo.

"No one is going to want to be short yen going into the BOJ meeting," said Derek Halpenny, European head of FX research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

Sources familiar with the BOJ's thinking told Reuters the central bank was likely to adopt a 2 percent inflation target at the meeting, double its current goal, and issue a statement with the government pledging to pursue bold monetary easing steps.

The BOJ will also consider easing monetary policy again this month, probably through a further increase in its 101 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion) asset buying and lending programme, the sources said.

The euro held steady against the dollar at $1.3080, with most analysts forecasting the European Central Bank will keep interest rates on hold on Thursday, though some believe rates will be cut later this year.

CHINA DEMAND EYED

Brent crude oil slipped around 0.3 percent to below $112 per barrel as the market awaited the latest trade data from China, the world's biggest energy consumer, due on Thursday.

"What we're seeing in the oil markets is the cautious sentiment playing up ahead of some key economic events this week," said Ker Chung Yang, senior investment analyst at Phillips Futures in Singapore.

However, iron ore jumped to its highest since October 2011, stretching a rally that has lifted prices by more than a third since December as China replenished stockpiles and as supply in the spot market remained limited.

Iron ore, a raw material used to make steel, has now risen 83 percent since falling to below $87 in September.

(Additional reporting by Nia Williams and Atul Prakash; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Judgment day for Bonds, Clemens, Sosa at Hall

NEW YORK (AP) — Judgment day has arrived for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa to find out their Hall of Fame fates.

With the cloud of steroids shrouding many candidacies, baseball writers may fail for the only the second time in more than four decades to elect anyone to the Hall.

About 600 people are eligible to vote in the BBWAA election, all members of the organization for 10 consecutive years at any point. Results were to be announced at 2 p.m. EST Wednesday, with the focus on first-time eligibles that include Bonds, baseball's only seven-time Most Valuable Player, and Clemens, the only seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

Since 1965, the only years the writers didn't elect a candidate were when Yogi Berra topped the 1971 vote by appearing on 67 percent of the ballots cast and when Phil Niekro headed the 1996 ballot at 68 percent. Both were chosen the following years when they achieved the 75 percent necessary for election.

"It really would be a shame, especially since the other people going in this year are not among the living, which will make for a rather strange ceremony," said the San Francisco Chronicle's Susan Slusser, president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Three inductees were chosen last month by the 16-member panel considering individuals from the era before integration in 1946: Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O'Day and barehanded catcher Deacon White. They will be enshrined during a ceremony at Cooperstown on July 28.

Also on the ballot for the first time are Sosa and Mike Piazza, power hitters whose statistics have been questioned because of the Steroids Era, and Craig Biggio, 20th on the career list with 3,060 hits — all for the Houston Astros. Curt Schilling, 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in postseason play, is another ballot rookie.

The Hall was prepared to hold a news conference Thursday with any electees. Or to not have one.

Biggio wasn't sure whether the controversy over this year's ballot would keep all candidates out.

"All I know is that for this organization I did everything they ever asked me to do and I'm proud about it, so hopefully, the writers feel strongly, they liked what they saw, and we'll see what happens," Biggio said on Nov. 28, the day the ballot was announced.

Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall's chairman, said last year she was not troubled by voters weighing how to evaluate players in the era of performance-enhancing drugs.

"I think the museum is very comfortable with the decisions that the baseball writers make," she said. "And so it's not a bad debate by any means."

Bonds has denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice for giving an evasive answer in 2003 to a grand jury investigating PEDs. Clemens was acquitted of perjury charges stemming from congressional testimony during which he denied using PEDs.

Sosa, who finished with 609 home runs, was among those who tested positive in MLB's 2003 anonymous survey, The New York Times reported in 2009. He told a congressional committee in 2005 that he never took illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

The BBWAA election rules say "voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

"Steroid or HGH use is cheating, plain and simple," ESPN.com's Wallace Matthews wrote. "And by definition, cheaters lack integrity, sportsmanship and character. Strike one, strike two, strike three."

Several holdovers from last year remain on the 37-player ballot, with top candidates including Jack Morris (67 percent), Jeff Bagwell (56 percent), Lee Smith (51 percent) and Tim Raines (49 percent).

When The Associated Press surveyed 112 eligible voters in late November, Bonds received 45 percent support among voters who expressed an opinion, Clemens 43 percent and Sosa 18 percent. The Baseball Think Factory website compiled votes by writers who made their opinions public and with 159 ballots had everyone falling short. Biggio was at 69 percent, followed by Morris (63), Bagwell (61), Raines (61), Piazza (60), Bonds (43) and Clemens (43).

Morris finished second last year when Barry Larkin was elected and is in his 14th and next-to-last year of eligibility. He could become the player with the highest-percentage of the vote who is not in the Hall, a mark currently held by Gil Hodges at 63 percent in 1983.

Several players who fell just short in the BBWAA balloting later were elected by either the Veterans Committee or Old-Timers' Committee: Nellie Fox (74.7 percent on the 1985 BBWAA ballot), Jim Bunning (74.2 percent in 1988), Orlando Cepeda (73.6 percent in 1994) and Frank Chance (72.5 percent in 1945).

Ace of three World Series winners, Morris finished with 254 victories and was the winningest pitcher of the 1980s. His 3.90 ERA, however, is higher than that of any Hall of Famer. Morris will be joined on next year's ballot by Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, both 300-game winners.

If no one is elected this year, there could be a logjam in 2014. Voters may select up to 10 players.

The only certainty is the Hall is pleased with the writers' process.

"While the BBWAA does the actual voting, it only does so at the request of the Hall of Fame," said the Los Angeles Times' Bill Shaikin, the organization's past president. "If the Hall of Fame is troubled, certainly the Hall could make alternate arrangements."

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Mock Mars Flight Reveals Big Sleep Concerns for Astronauts

A mock Mars mission that locked six volunteers inside a simulated spaceship for more than 500 days seriously disrupted the crew’s sleep patterns and waking behavior. The disruptions could have led to atrophy of muscle and bone had the crew been on an actual spacecraft, scientists say.

These new findings, based on a study of an unprecedented 520-day Mars simulation, could help reveal ways to keep astronauts healthy and working in sync on any future deep-space missions, researchers added.

The Mars500 mission locked six multi-national volunteers on a mock spaceship bound for Mars in Moscow. The $ 15-million experiment mimicked a mission to Mars to help researchers better understand and perhaps ease the psychological and physiological stresses such a long space journey would impose on astronauts. The crew “returned” to Earth in 2011.

“No spaceflight or simulation of a spaceflight has gone much beyond a year,” said study author David Dinges, chief of the division of sleep and chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “Russian cosmonaut Valery Polyakov set a record of 438 days in space aboard the space station Mir in 1995, but that’s still nothing close to how long a trip to Mars and back would take, which might last at least two to three years.” [Mock Mars Mission’s Day-Night Tests (Video)]

Resting up on a mock trip to Mars

To learn more about what each crew member experienced, Dinges and his colleagues had each volunteer wear wrist devices that recorded movement and surrounding light intensity to deduce activity levels, sleeping and waking dynamics, and the amount of light exposure the volunteers received.

The wrist devices recorded data every minute of the Mars500 crew’s 17-month stay, resulting in nearly 4.4 million minutes of data. The researchers also had the crew take computerized vigilance and reaction-time tests twice weekly, and quizzed the volunteers about their workloads, tiredness, and sleep quantity and quality.

The scientists found that the crew unconsciously and progressively decreased overall movement during the mission, entering what the researchers called “behavioral torpor.”

On average, sleep time increased by more than 8 percent, for about 35 minutes more sleep per day, per crew member by the end of the mission.  In addition, activity while awake declined about 7 percent over time, on average, equivalent to nearly 70 fewer minutes of active waking behavior per day, per crew member by the end of the mission. [Mars500: Photos from Russia's Mock Mars Mission]

“The reason this matters is because, in the microgravity found in space, which we didn’t simulate, if you’re not active, you can suffer loss of bone and muscle, and decondition your cardiovascular muscle very severely, making it difficult to complete missions,” Dinges told SPACE.com. “This shows we’ve got to find ways to keep crew physiologically active.”

Sleep not the only factor

The increased sleep in itself was not a bad thing. The more sleep the crew got, the better they scored on the vigilance tests, as one might expect, said lead study author Mathias Basner, a sleep researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

However, four of the six crew members experienced some disturbances in their normal sleep behavior that occurred early in the mission and persisted throughout. Some experienced less sleep or poorer quality sleep, with resulting problems in performance.

Others’ patterns of sleeping and waking, their circadian rhythms, grew greatly out of sync with the other volunteers. These problems, similar to disturbances in sleeping and waking seen in polar expeditions, “are potentially dangerous for mission success,” Basner said.

The strong differences seen among different crew members “highlights the need to identify markers of differential vulnerability, so that we will be able to select the right crew, train them optimally and provide them with individualized countermeasures during long-duration spaceflight,” Basner told SPACE.com.

Future research may tinker with the color, intensity and timing of lighting, which is the most potent way to influence circadian cycles, Dinges said. For instance, the fluorescent lights used in the habitat give off less blue light than does natural light from the sky. Experimenting with the timing of dining and exercise might also help crew maintain their circadian rhythms.

“We have to take the cues of Earth with us when we go to Mars,” Dinges said.

In addition, “monotony, especially during periods transitioning to and from Mars, needs to be avoided, to keep crew members active while awake,” Basner said.

“As long as the International Space Station is available as a test bed, we should use it to investigate how humans react to prolonged periods of confinement and isolation in microgravity,” Basner added. The National Space Biomedical Research Institute plans to work with NASA and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Bio-Medical Problems to study one American astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut for a one-year period on the station, he noted.

The scientists detailed their findings online Jan. 7 in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook & Google+. 

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Case of Wall Street greed gone too far

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was one of the executives whose stock award was accelerated to beat higher tax rate.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Goldman Sachs granted $65 million in stock to execs before new tax rates began


• Susan Antilla says the firm's CEO had endorsed higher rates, called for entitlement cuts


• She says Goldman benefits from the implicit promise that U.S. will bail it out


• Antilla: It was unseemly for Goldman to rush the payments to shield execs from new rates

Editor's note: Susan Antilla is a columnist at Bloomberg View and a contributor to TheStreet.com. She has written about finance for more than 30 years. She is author of "Tales From the Boom-Boom Room: The Landmark Legal Battles That Exposed Wall Street's Shocking Culture of Sexual Harassment." Follow her on Twitter @antillaview.

(CNN) -- Nobody likes to pay taxes, so can you blame the good folks at Goldman Sachs & Co. for doing what they could to avoid the higher rates that kicked in on January 1?

While the rest of us were donning our party clothes on New Year's Eve, the legal worker bees at Goldman were pushing the send button on 10 regulatory filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By the time the ball dropped in Times Square, regulators had been notified that $65 million in Goldman stock had been granted a month early, helping a cluster of powerful multimillionaire executives trim their tax tab.

Among the 10 who shared that $65 million, Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn and Chief Financial Officer David Viniar wound up with $8.4 million apiece in Goldman stock.

Susan Antilla

Blankfein's compensation in 2011 was $16.2 million. Cohn and Viniar that year made $15.8 million. Even Gordon Gekko would be impressed to see that bosses making that much money were able to catch a tax break for a couple hundred thousand.

The 10 executives who skirted 2013's higher rates were not the only Goldmanites who benefited from the "accelerated" vesting. Michael DuVally, a Goldman spokesman, acknowledged there was "a group larger than" the 10 but declined to say how many. DuVally would not comment on who made the decision to grant the shares early.

The shrewd Goldman move is hardly unique among rich business executives or even 99 percenters of more modest means. It was no secret that higher taxes were coming this year, and taxpayers of all shapes and sizes did what they could to ensure that "tax events" would occur in 2012.

Even environmental activist and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore tried, albeit without success, to unload his Current TV to Al Jazeera before the new year dawned.

What makes the Goldman move distasteful is that it wasn't even two months ago that CEO Blankfein was mouthing off in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he endorsed tax increases "especially for the wealthiest" -- along with a plug to cut entitlements to all you freeloaders out there.

If you're pushing the position that the rich should pay more to help fix the deficit, it doesn't quite follow to employ a tax dodge, says Dennis Kelleher, president of the Washington-based public interest group Better Markets Inc.

"Goldman's quickie year-end tax shenanigans deprived the government of what it otherwise would get," he says. "So they either cause the debt to go up, or cause others to pay more by the taxes they are avoiding."

DuVally, the Goldman spokesman, declined to comment when I asked whether it was inconsistent for Goldman to make a move for its executives to avoid taxes after Blankfein endorsed increases for the wealthy.

I've got to hand it to Goldman. The firm is a master of the "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" brand of politics and public relations. One minute, Goldman is cranking out press releases about its devotion to women entrepreneurs in its philanthropic "10,000 women" program. The next, it is announcing its annual list of new partners that includes a paltry 10 women but 60 men.

Goldman was a victim on the defensive when Greg Smith, a former employee, wrote a New York Times op-ed on March 14, blasting the firm for having "morally bankrupt people" who needed to be weeded out. You could almost feel sorry for poor Goldman, which shipped out a memo reminding employees that their estimable employer had been named one of the best places to work in the United Kingdom only weeks before the London-based Smith's "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs" essay.

By the time Smith published a book seven months later, the firm had turned ruthless revenge-seeker, even sharing parts of Smith's self-evaluations with the media. A "best place to work?" Really? Careful what you say in the press -- and in your HR file -- if you get your paycheck from a Goldman-style operation.

The brouhaha over Smith's op-ed and book stirred up debate of the "What did you expect of an investment bank operating in capitalistic society?" type.

Fair enough. Banks are not in the philanthropy business -- even if they spend as much time as Goldman does talking about its good deeds and famous "business principles." ("Our clients always come first" is famously No. 1 on the list.)

At Goldman and other "too big to fail" banks, though, employees walk through the doors each morning knowing that the rest of us will be forced to bail them out again should another crisis ensue. We taxpayers provide the insurance policy that they enjoy without ever sending us premiums. In October of 2008, Goldman got $10 billion in taxpayer money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which it ultimately paid back.

Blankfein, like other bank CEOs, would later make the case that Goldman wasn't "relying on" that government help.

But leaf through the tomes of some of the regulators who lived through the crisis, and you start to wonder whether our tax-dodging heroes might be out of jobs today if the public hadn't fronted a bailout.

From "Bull by the Horns," by former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair: Goldman and Morgan Stanley were "teetering on the edge" in the fall of 2008.

From "Bailout: An Inside Account of how Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street," by Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general to oversee the Troubled Assets Relief Program: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke "confided that he believed that Goldman Sachs would have been the next to go" after Morgan Stanley.

We need to change the conversation here.

Goldman and its too-big-to-fail brethren are banks that accepted welfare and are in debt to U.S. taxpayers for averting disaster. This hasn't been about hard-nosed capitalism since those first TARP wire transfers made their way into Goldman Sachs' coffers.

As for the bank's recent tax-reduction maneuver, it's another reminder that Goldman's management is either clueless about how bad it looks or doesn't care. Sometimes bad PR is a just a cost of doing business.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Susan Antilla.

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1 dead, 1 wounded in front of Old Town convenience store

One man was shot to death and another seriously wounded in the Old Town neighborhood this evening, among at least four people shot since this afternoon in the city, authorities said.

A man, age 31, was shot and a man, age 20, was shot in the back in an attack about 6:15 p.m. in the 1300 block of North Sedgwick Street.

The 31-year-old was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was declared dead, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien, citing preliminary information. He was at least the second shooting victim to die today in Chicago.

The other victim was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in serious-to-critical condition, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Chief Joe Roccasalva.

The shooting took place in front of a convenience store, police said.

Neighbors said one man was shot inside the store, the other outside. They reported hearing as many as 10 gunshots and later saw one man being taken away in a neck brace, the other being revived by paramedics.

Family members said the man who was killed grew up in the neighborhood and in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex nearby, and recently had a child. Before heading to the hospital, family members huddled in the street near the shop, crying.

The convenience store is a typical neighborhood shop, selling basic food and household items as well as cell phones. Uniformed officers and detectives were inside with store employees this evening as other officers canvassed the area.

Neighbors said they are angered by what they say seems to be an increase in crime in the area.

“You can’t even go to the store without getting shot and killed,” said Chante Morris, 30, who lives nearby.

Another shooting wounded a 21-year-old man about 90 minutes after the homicide. A 21-year-old was shot in the 600 block of East 51st Street about 7 p.m., Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said. He was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital in fair condition with wounds to his right forearm and hip, Gaines said.

Earlier, two people were shot and seriously wounded, apparently in the parking lot of a small strip mall on the Southwest Side this afternoon, authorities said.

The shooting took place just after 4 p.m. near 65th Street and Western Avenue, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien. Photos from the scene showed police checking the pavement of a strip mall on the southwest corner of 65th and Western for shell casings following the shooting.

Two men were wounded in the shooting and both were in serious condition, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Chief Joe Roccasalva. One was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for treatment, the other to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, he said.

On the scene, a 20-year-old man was shot in the leg was considered in serious condition, and the other man, age 19, shot in the leg, was considered in good condition, O'Brien said. The older of the two was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County and the younger to Advocate Christ Medical Center.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Exhausted Egyptians count cost of political turmoil

ZAGAZIG, Egypt (Reuters) - These days, craftsmen, shopkeepers and other inhabitants of the Egyptian Delta town of Zagazig are often too busy making ends meet to ponder why life seems to be getting harder every day.

But when, exhausted, they finally come home and sit down to their evening meal, conversations inevitably turn to growing hardship and the frightening prospect of cuts in food subsidies as the economy slides further into crisis.

With their patience already stretched after years of upheaval, Egyptians - from the capital Cairo to smaller towns like Zagazig - appear to be nearing the point where discontent could explode into a new wave of unrest.

"There is no security. There is nothing," said Soheir Abdel Moneim, a retired school teacher, as she hurried through an open-air market in Zagazig in search of vegetables she could afford.

"The pound is falling. Everything is more expensive. Is there anything that has not become more expensive?" she asked with a shrug, as traders on bicycles loaded with their wares dodged through the chaos of the market.

Nearby, a torn poster of President Mohamed Mursi beams from the wall of a crumbling brick house, with the words "Liars! Liars!" scrawled over his face.

The mood of growing nervousness is bad news for Mursi, who faces a parliamentary election in coming months, and a new round of political feuding that could pitch Egypt back into civil strife.

Egypt's economy, once strong and popular among investors, has been in tatters since the revolt of 2011 that ousted Hosni Mubarak and shook the country to its foundations.

Disagreements over a new national constitution late last year triggered violent protests, dealing another blow to the economy and eroding trust in Mursi's government.

A country where cuts in food subsidies have caused riots in the past now faces the risk of further upheaval as Mursi prepares to impose austerity measures in order to obtain a desperately needed $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

In Zagazig, people worry about the future.

Farouk Sarhan, the 74-year-old manager of a shop selling women's clothes, said sales were already down by almost 50 percent from just a few weeks ago.

"No one is selling or buying. I had more activity last year," he said, stubbing out a cigarette with a deep sigh in his tiny store lined with mannequins of veiled women.

"Customers are not buying as much as before because of the economic situation."

The price of fresh food often goes up in winter but shoppers in the Zagazig market said recent increases had been steep, with tomatoes and cauliflower about 50 percent dearer than at the start of the year.

WHAT NEXT?

Egypt has been on the ropes since investors and tourists fled after the revolt, when people rose up to demand their freedom and also an end to economic policies they said simply lined the pockets of the rich.

On the economic front, the picture remains grim, although Qatar's decision to lend Egypt another $2 billion has offered some respite.

Foreign reserves are dwindling and the pound has been hitting new lows daily. Food and raw materials from abroad have become more expensive, hurting businesses and families in a desert nation which relies on imports to feed itself.

As in other parts of Egypt, people in Zagazig see complex economic trends in terms of the daily hardships they must endure, and it is Mursi's government and his Muslim Brotherhood allies who get the blame.

"Mursi doesn't feel our grievances," said Emad, a man in his late 30s who sells traditional Egyptian clothes by the side of a dusty street. He said he had been forced to raise prices to cover rising costs, upsetting his customers.

Pointing to one of the black embroidered gowns, Emad said: "We used to sell this for 35 pounds ($5.40). Now it's 45 pounds. We didn't raise the prices. Traders did.

"Very few people are buying. I used to sell 50 pieces a day, and now I sell 15 or 20. Today I still haven't sold anything."

Reliable opinion polls are unavailable in Egypt and it is hard to gauge how widespread people's views are. But in Zagazig, most of those interviewed by Reuters echoed Emad's feelings.

Economists worry that continued turmoil could prompt people and businesses to convert their savings into dollars en masse - a risky process known as dollarisation which has caused trouble in many emerging market crises before.

But in Zagazig, people laughed at the idea, saying only the rich could afford to buy foreign currency. "Dollars?" asked Nabil, a local trader, as others burst into laughter. "Give me some dollars! Of course we don't have any!"

SUPPORT FOR MURSI

But some were prepared to give Mursi a chance.

In the nearby village of al-Adwa, where the future president grew up in the family of a local farmer, brick walls and fences were plastered with posters of Mursi.

A crowd of farmers standing by the side of a dirt track cutting through the village shook their fists and shouted "Mursi! Mursi!" when asked about their political views.

But even in Adwa, where Mursi appeared to enjoy rock-solid support, locals said sudden increase in taxes or abrupt cuts to fuel or food subsidies would cost him dearly.

"If that happens that would be the worst thing. What am I going to do as a farmer?" said Said Youssef, his hands black from working the land. "Where are we going to get the money?"

Another man, Aly Saber, 65, said fertilizer prices had gone up by 50 Egyptian pounds in the past year alone, making his business less profitable.

"Things are tough here in the rural areas," he said as others nodded in agreement. "Everything is becoming more expensive."

Mohamed Gamal, the 42-year-old owner of a tiny shop selling kitchen appliances, said business was so bad that he would sometimes go for days without a single customer.

"I import goods all the time. Prices have gone up by 10-40 percent since the revolution. It's gone up even more in recent weeks," said Gamal, who, Like Mursi, grew up in Adwa.

He said his neighbors were suspicious about why he had to keep raising his prices.

"People just don't believe me," he said, hunched over his desk, cigarette smoke swirling above stacks of unsold trays, cups and ironing boards. "They are not convinced why things are getting more expensive. I buy them, and they stack up."

($1 = 6.4809 Egyptian pounds)

(Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Stock index futures signal lower Wall Street open

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a slightly lower Wall Street open on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 down 0.1 to 0.3 percent.

Alcoa and Monsanto are two of the first large companies to report quarterly results as the earnings season begins. Wall Street expects both the companies to show improved profit from a year ago.

ICSC/Goldman Sachs release chain store sales for the week ended January 5 at 1245 GMT. In the previous week, sales rose 0.6 percent.

Samsung Electronics said it likely earned a quarterly profit of $8.3 billion as it sold close to 500 handsets a minute and as demand picked up for the flat screens it makes for mobile devices, including those for rival Apple Inc products.

Redbook releases its Retail Sales Index of department and chain store sales for January at 1355 GMT. In the previous month, sales rose 0.1 percent.

Sears Holdings Corp said late on Monday Chief Executive Louis D'Ambrosio will step down for family health reasons after the U.S. retailer reported a 1.8 percent decline in quarter-to-date sales at stores open at least a year.

National Federation of Independent Business releases small business optimism index for December at 1230 GMT. In the previous month, the index read 87.5.

The FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> index of top European shares turned flat in morning session on Tuesday after opening lower, with gains in telecom stocks offsetting declines in financial and mining shares.

U.S. stocks lost ground on Monday, as investors drew back from recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high, in anticipation of sluggish growth in corporate profits.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 50.92 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,384.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.58 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,461.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 2.84 points, or 0.09 percent, to 3,098.81.

(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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'Bama bashes Notre Dame 42-14 in BCS title game

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Barely taking time to celebrate their latest national championship, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide are ready to get back to work.

That's how they make it look so easy.

In what must be an increasingly frustrating scene for the rest of college football, another season ended with Saban and his players frolicking in the middle of a confetti-strewn field. Eddie Lacy ran all over Notre Dame, AJ McCarron turned in another dazzling performance through the air, and the Tide defense shut down the Fighting Irish until it was no longer in doubt.

The result was a 42-14 blowout in the BCS title game Monday night, not only making Alabama a back-to-back champion, but a full-fledged dynasty with three crowns in four years.

This one was especially satisfying to Saban.

"People talk about how the most difficult thing is to win your first championship," he said. "Really, the most difficult one to win is the next one, because there's always a feeling of entitlement."

Rest assured, that feeling won't last long in Tuscaloosa.

While Saban insisted he was "happy as hell" and "has never been prouder of a group of young men," it was hard to tell. He was already talking about reporting to the office Wednesday morning and getting started on next season.

"One of these days, when I'm sitting on the side of the hill watching the stream go by, I'll probably figure it out even more," Saban said. "But what about next year's team? You've got to think about that, too."

So, in short order, he'll be talking with underclassmen about entering the NFL draft, making sure everyone goes back to class on schedule, and getting started on that next depth chart.

"The Process," as he calls it, never stops.

"We're going to enjoy it for 24 hours or so," Saban said.

No. 2 Alabama quieted the top-ranked Irish on the very first drive — so much for waking up the echoes — and could've started the celebration at halftime, heading to the locker room with a commanding 28-0 lead.

The Tide (13-1) pushed it out to 35-0 midway through the third quarter on the third of McCarron's four touchdown passes, a 34-yarder to Amari Cooper with a defender nowhere in sight.

At that point, Alabama was on a 69-0 blitz in national title games, having scored the last 13 points in its 2010 triumph over Texas and blanked LSU 21-0 for last year's BCS crown.

When Everett Golson finally scored for Notre Dame (12-1) with about 4 minutes remaining in the third, it snapped a scoreless stretch of nearly two full games — 108 minutes and 7 seconds — by the Tide.

"It was just a complete game by the offense, defense and special teams," said Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley, the defensive MVP with eight tackles, one of them behind the line.

Despite the dazzling numbers by McCarron — 20 of 28 for 264 yards — he was denied a second straight offensive MVP award in the title game. That went to Lacy, who finished with 140 yards rushing on 20 carries and scored two TDs. Not a bad finish for the junior, who surely helped his status in the NFL draft should he decide to turn pro.

Lacy also was MVP of the Southeastern Conference championship game, rushing for a career-best 181 yards in the thrilling victory over Georgia that gave Alabama a chance to repeat as champion.

The Tide will have some big holes to fill, no matter who decides to leave school early, with offensive tackle D.J. Fluker and cornerback Dee Milliner also pondering their draft prospects. There's not a lot of seniors on the roster, but All-America linemen Barrett Jones and Chance Warmack and safety Robert Lester are among those who definitely won't be back.

But Alabama had some huge holes to fill a year ago, too, with five players drafted in the first 35 picks.

That worked out just fine.

The Crimson Tide wrapped up its ninth Associated Press national title, breaking a tie with Notre Dame for the most by any school and gaining a measure of redemption for a bitter loss to the Irish almost four decades ago: the epic 1973 Sugar Bowl in which Ara Parseghian's team edged Bear Bryant's powerhouse 24-23.

"The process is ongoing," said Saban, tightlipped as ever and showing little emotion after the fourth BCS national title of his coaching career. "We have a 24-hour rule around here. We enjoy everything for 24 hours."

Notre Dame went from unranked in the preseason to the top spot in the rankings by the end of the regular season, winning two games in overtime and three other times by seven points or less.

But the long wait for a championship — the Irish haven't finished No. 1 since 1988 — will have to wait at least one more year.

"They just did what Alabama does," moaned Manti Te'o, Notre Dame's star linebacker and Heisman Trophy finalist, trying to digest an embarrassing loss in his final college game.

Golson will be back.

He completed his first season as the starter by going 21 of 36 for 270 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. But the young quarterback got no help from the running game, which was held to 32 yards — 170 below its season average.

"We've got to get physically stronger, continue close the gap there," said Brian Kelly, the Irish's third-year coach. "Just overall, we need to see what it looks like. Our guys clearly know what it looks like now — a championship football team. That's back-to-back national champions. That's what it looks like. That's what you measure yourself against there. It's pretty clear across the board what we have to do."

Kelly vowed this was only beginning, insisting the bar has been raised in South Bend no matter what the outcome.

"We made incredible strides to get to this point," he said. "Now it's pretty clear what we've got to do to get over the top."

Alabama is already there but still longing for more, not content even after the second-biggest rout of the BCS era that began in 1999. The only title game that was more of a blowout was USC's 55-19 victory over Oklahoma in the 2005 Orange Bowl, a title that was later vacated because of NCAA violations.

You could almost hear television sets around the country flipping to other channels as Alabama poured it on, a hugely anticipated matchup between two of the nation's most storied programs reduced to a laugher when the Tide scored on its first three possessions.

"We're going for it next year again," said offensive tackle Cyrus Kouandijo, only a sophomore and already the owner of two rings. "And again. And again. And again. I love to win. That's why I came here."

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

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Astronaut Backs Notre Dame in BCS Championship

When it comes to college football, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford is Irish through and through. Ford will be rooting for Notre Dame all the way from space during the BCS Championship game against Alabama tonight (Jan. 7).

Ford is currently living on the International Space Station, where he commands a six-man team, but tonight his heart will be with Notre Dame —his alma mater —when the team faces off with Alabama’s Crimson Tide in Miami.

“The team’s played great,” Ford said in a recent interview with Notre Dame officials on NASA TV. “Obviously the defense is very special, and the offense is just really clicking. I’m looking forward to a great game on the seventh of January.”

Ford has been living on the space station since October, when he blasted off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. He took charge of the space station’s Expedition 34 crew a month later and will return to Earth in March. He is a native of Montpelier, Ind., and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force.

Ford said he tried to keep up with Notre Dame’s games while on his current spaceflight, but he admitted the timing of the games is a challenge. The space station runs on Greenwich Mean Time, so many of the football games last well into the wee hours of the morning for Ford. [Tour the Space Station (Video)]

For tonight’s championship game, though, Ford said he asked Mission Control for some post-game recovery time. That way, he can watch most of the game live during the overnight hours.

Astronauts can watch live television via a satellite communications system, Ford said.

“It’s normally used for science data, but on weekends, if it’s free, they’ll let us get a little bit of TV,” Ford added. “I’ve been able to follow the team and see a lot of the games.”

The astronaut even has his favorite Notre Dame garb on the space station to support the team. During his interview, he pulled off his Expedition 34 sweatshirt to reveal a “Play Like a Champion Today” t-shirt just for the team. He also has a sign that reads “Explore Like a Champion Today” mounted over one of the space station’s hatches, much like the iconic sign Notre Dame players touch on the way to the field at their home stadium.

But before Ford ever signed up for NASA’s astronaut corps, he was a student at Notre Dame. He studied aerospace engineering and graduated with a bachelors of science degree in 1982. He even learned Russian along the way, something that happened to come in useful recently.

“I took a Russian class at Notre Dame,” Ford said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would fly someday in a Russian spacecraft with two cosmonauts, speaking only Russian.”

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Why Al Jazeera deal doesn't seem right

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Al Gore sold Current to al Jazeera and could net an estimated $70 million


• Howard Kurtz: Gore's Current network failed to gain an identity or viewers


• He says it's odd that the former vice president is selling to an oil-rich potentate


• Kurtz: Al Jazeera may have a tough time getting traction with U.S. viewers

Editor's note: Howard Kurtz is the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and is Newsweek's Washington bureau chief. He is also a contributor to the website Daily Download.

(CNN) -- So Al Gore starts a liberal cable network, which turns into a complete and utter flop, then sells it to a Middle East potentate in a deal that will bring him an estimated $70 million.

Is America a great country or what?

There is something highly unusual -- OK, just plain weird -- about a former vice president of the United States doing this deal with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Howard Kurtz

Al Jazeera, owned by said emir's government, is trying to buy its way into the American television market by purchasing Current TV for a half billion dollars. The only thing stranger would be if Gore had sold Current to Glenn Beck -- oh wait, Beck did try to buy it and was told no way within 15 minutes.

So the sale was in part about ideology, which opens the door to examining why Gore believes Al Jazeera gives "voice to those who are not typically heard" and speaks "truth to power."

Bill O'Reilly, on Fox News, calls the network "anti-American." Fox pundit Dick Morris says Gore has sold to a fount of "anti-Israel propaganda." Such labels are rooted in the network's role during the height of the war on terror, when it aired smuggled videos of Osama bin Laden and was denounced by Bush administration officials.

Watch: How Lance Armstrong lied to me about doping

But Al Jazeera English, the spinoff channel launched in 2006, doesn't have the same reputation. In fact, no less a figure than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised it as "real news," and the channel has won journalism awards for its reporting on the Arab Spring and other global events.

To be sure, the main Al Jazeera network gives a platform to such figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He's the Muslim cleric in Egypt who, The Washington Post gas reported, frequently appears on air to castigate Jews and America and has praised suicide bombings. But when I went to the home page of Al Jazeera English the other day, there was video of David Frost, the acclaimed British journalist who now works for the main network, interviewing Israeli President Shimon Peres.

That's not to say Al Jazeera America, the working name for the new channel, won't have its own biases. Al Jazeera English is sometimes determined to paint the U.S. in a negative light.

During a report on President Barack Obama signing a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which entails a legitimate controversy over civil liberties, the reporter said flatly that the law "violate(s) U.S. constitutional rights in the name of national security."

Watch: Can Al Jazeera make it in the American market?

Dave Marash, the ABC News veteran who once worked for Al Jazeera English, told me the network has a "post-colonial" view of America and its stories can be infused with that attitude.

And there are real questions about how independent these channels are from the Qatar government that helps bankroll them. The director-general of Al Jazeera, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, is a member of the country's royal family and has no background in journalism.

Such details add to the odd spectacle of the ex-veep, who would have been running Mideast policy had he won a few more votes in Florida, selling -- and some say selling out -- to the emir. Not to mention that the crusader against climate change is taking petrodollars from an empire built on oil, the bete noire of environmentalists.

Watch: Hey Fox, Hillary Clinton was sick after all

But what is Al Jazeera buying? The network is going to have a tough time cracking the American market.

Its earlier reputation makes the company highly controversial, and other cable carriers might follow the lead of Time Warner Cable (which is no longer owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner) in refusing to carry it. These carriers agreed to air Current TV, after all, and contracts generally require them to approve a major change in programming.

Global politics aside, it may just be bad business. There's a reason Al Jazeera English, which will supply 40% of the content to the new channel, has barely gotten a foothold in the United States. Most Americans aren't lusting for a steady diet of international news.

Watch: Did Nancy Pelosi go too far in photoshopping picture of congresswomen?

There's no denying that Gore, a onetime newspaper reporter who had testy relations with the press during his 2000 campaign, presided over a lousy cable channel. No one quite knew what Current was during the years when it aired mostly low-rent entertainment fare and was famous mainly for North Korea taking two of its correspondents, including Lisa Ling's sister Laura, into custody.

Then Gore tried to relaunch it as a talking head channel to the left of MSNBC, hiring Keith Olbermann -- a relationship that ended with his firing and mutual lawsuits -- along with the likes of Eliot Spitzer and Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan governor. Gore himself offered commentary during major political events.

It was the utter failure of that incarnation of Current that prompted Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt to put the thing up for sale.

Some detractors have slammed Gore for hypocrisy because, while he has advocated higher taxes on the rich, he tried to get the Al Jazeera deal done by December 31 to avoid the Obama tax hike. (The sale didn't close until January 2.) I don't see a problem trying to legally take advantage of changes in the tax code, no matter what your political stance.

Nor do I want to prejudge Al Jazeera America. The marketplace will decide its fate.

But there is something unsettling about Gore making off with such a big payday from a government-subsidized channel after making such bad television. Nice work if you can get it.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz.

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