UAE a populace of prostitutes; or everyone has their price in case you missed my point.

Human Rights Watch urges Sorbonne University to break its silence about the trial of a lecturer at its Abu Dhabi branch, facing trial for insulting UAE leaders through his calls for democratic reform.


Nasser bin Ghaith published an article this year criticising what he called Gulf states’ attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their populations with generous government spending programmes.

Cecile Laborde, spokeswoman for the Sorbonne University in Paris, was not immediately available to comment.


Bin Ghaith is now one of five UAE nationals on trial for incitement and insulting the leadership of the UAE, a Gulf state that has been virtually untouched by protests that have swept through the Arab world this year.

The UAE is a close US ally in the Middle East and the world’s number three oil exporter.

“Despite mounting pressure from international rights groups and students at Paris Sorbonne University to speak up, Sorbonne has not only refused to criticize the UAE authorities but has also attempted to distance itself from bin Ghaith,” the New York-based rights group said in a statement late on Thursday.

Viva La Revolucion!!! or The Day the People Woke UP to being $%@!! = Stike Back Forcefully

Dozens of people have been arrested in New York as thousands of anti-corporate greed protesters marched to the city's famous Times Square at the culmination of a day of global demonstrations inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street" movement.


Police, some on horseback, packed 71 protesters in vans after they marched, while thousands of demonstrators mixed with tourists converged on the major commercial intersection, divided by police barriers.



The clashes took place at the corner of 46th Street and Seventh Avenue amid a heavy police presence after day-long marches that began in the Financial District.

Earlier, around 2,000 protesters marched through New York's financial district on Saturday afternoon, before moving on to Time Square.

The demonstrators in lower Manhattan banged drums and chanted "We got sold out, banks got bailed out," "All day, all week, occupy Wall Street," and "Hey hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go."

Protests were also held elsewhere in the United States and Canada, notably in Washington DC, the US capital.

Violence in Rome

Violence broke out in Rome as tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in European cities in protest against capitalism and austerity measures.

Black smoke billowed into the air in the centre of the city as a small group of violent protesters broke away from the main demonstration. They smashed shop windows, set vehicles on fire and assaulted two news crews. Others burned Italian and EU flags.

"On October 15, people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares ... to initiate the global change we want," proclaimed the website United for #GlobalChange.

Assange addresses protesters

Meanwhile, in Berlin, around 4,000 people marched through the streets, with banners that urged the end of capitalism. Some marchers scuffled with police as they tried to get near the country's parliamentary buildings.

In Frankfurt, continental Europe's financial capital, about 5,000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank.

Outside London's iconic St Paul's cathedral, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke to about 500 demonstrators.

"The banking system in London is the recipient of corrupt money," he said, adding that WikiLeaks would launch a campaign against financial institutions in the coming months.

Scuffles broke out in the UK capital between police and protesters, who raised banners saying "Strike  back!"; "No cuts!" and "Goldman Sachs is the work of the devil!"

In Paris, the French capital, about 1,000 protesters rallied in front of city hall, coinciding with a G-20 finance chief's meeting.

In the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, hundreds walked through the streets carrying pictures of Che Guevara and old communist flags that read "Death to capitalism, freedom to the people."

Another 500 people gathered to hear speakers denounce capitalism at a peaceful rally in downtown Stockholm, holding up red flags and banners that read "We are the 99 per cent" and "We refuse to pay for capitalism's crisis."

In Spain, where groups that have become known as the Indignant Movement have been holding "occupation" protest camps in cities and towns since May, marchers converged on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza on Saturday night.

Tens of thousands of Portuguese, angry at their government's handling of the economic crisis, also took to the streets of Lisbon. Other protests were staged in Geneva, Amsterdam, Athens, Brussels, Geneva and Zurich.

Authors sign online petition

A group of 100 prominent authors, including Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, signed an online petition declaring their support for "Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world."

Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, saw the day's first demonstration, when at least 1,000 people gathered at City Square.

In Sydney, about 2,000 protesters including representatives of Aboriginal groups, communists and trade unionists, protested in the city's central business district.

Demonstrations of various sizes took place in Asia, namely in Japan's Tokyo, the Philippines' Manila, Taiwan's Taipei, South Korea's Seoul and China's Hong Kong.

Despite heavy rains in Seoul, the South Korean capital, members of more than 30 civic groups congregated in the city's financial district.

In Manila, about 100 members of Bayan, an alliance of various left-wing groups in the Philippines, marched to the US embassy, waving banners that read: "Down with US imperialism" and "Philippines not for sale", broadcaster APTN reported.

In Hong Kong, more than 200 people gathered at Exchange Square Podium in the city’s central shopping and business district.

We are the World = remember that...

Protests against widening income disparity took place across western Europe and Asia today as the Occupy Wall Street movement spread around the globe. Rome’s demonstration turned violent, contrasting with events elsewhere.

More than 500 marchers wielding clubs attacked police, two banks and a supermarket in Rome, Sky TG24 reported. Authorities responded with tear gas and water cannon. In London, police barred protesters from entering Paternoster Square, home to the London Stock Exchange. In Frankfurt, 5,000 marchers gathered by the European Central Bank headquarters, firing soap bubbles from toy pistols with plans to camp out, said ZDF German television.


In the shadow of London’s St. Paul’s cathedral, protesters waved banners with slogans that read “No bulls, no bears, just pigs” and “Bankers are the Real Looters.”


“The financial system benefits a handful of banks at the expense of everyday people, the taxpayers,” said Spyro Van Leemnen, a 27-year old public relations agent and a core member of the London demonstrators. “The same people who are responsible for the recession are getting away with massive bonuses. This is fundamentally unfair and undemocratic.”


The Occupy Wall Street rallies started last month in New York’s financial district, where people have been staying in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park to protest inequality and advocate higher taxes for the wealthy. The Occupy London Stock Exchange protest drew about 4,000 people, according to its organizers. Police didn’t provide a number.

Civil Rights American Style....

Fourteen protesters in lower Manhattan were arrested following a decision earlier today to postpone the closing of Zuccotti Park, the site of demonstrations against the financial industry, police said.



Protesters arrested included those who stood or sat down in the street, Paul Browne, a spokesman for the New York City Police Department, said in an e-mail. Others taken into custody included individuals who allegedly overturned trash baskets or hurled bottles, Browne said. At least one demonstrator was detained after he allegedly knocked over a police scooter.


The arrests took place in the vicinity of Broadway and Exchange Place. They came after a decision earlier today to keep Zuccotti Park, near Liberty Street and Broadway, open rather than close it for cleaning.


The postponement averted a confrontation there between Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, who had gathered in greater numbers overnight, and police who threatened to remove tents and sleeping bags.


As protesters filed out of the park and marched on lower Manhattan streets, more than 30 police cruisers and 50 officers gathered near the federal courthouse at the eastern end of the Brooklyn Bridge.


An Oct. 1 march onto the bridge by protesters resulted in hundreds of arrests. Protesters arrested in the march sued New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly for allegedly violating their constitutional rights.

Civil Rights Lawsuit

Five of the protesters, seeking to represent about 700 people arrested, filed a civil rights complaint Oct. 4 in Manhattan federal court, claiming police officers lured them onto the bridge’s roadway to trap and arrest them.


The National Lawyers Guild, a nonprofit bar association, is representing at least 30 arrested protesters who have appeared in court already and is seeking to represent the more than 800 other demonstrators who have been charged since the protests began Sept. 17, said Martin R. Stolar, a member of the guild.

The guild is representing four people arrested on Oct. 12, including James Lafferty, 73, executive director of the guild’s Los Angeles chapter, and his 63-year old wife, who were charged with obstructing governmental administration, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, Stolar said.

The USA rich have divided the American people... Occupy Wall Street should unite with the Tea Party movement decide a common platform = Victory!

People are mad.


There aren't enough high-paying jobs. Health care and education costs continue to rise. Home prices have dropped to 2003 levels and aren't moving. The stock market, which recently dropped to levels first seen in 1998, is increasingly manipulated by Wall Street insiders and their trading algorithms. Wages are stagnant. Washington is dysfunctional.

And yet corporations are booking record profits of $1.5 trillion a year as the superrich just get richer.

Americans are fed up. Both ends of the political spectrum have birthed activist groups and taken to the streets. On the right, the Tea Party is worried about government overreach and bailouts. On the left, the newer Occupy Wall Street movement rails against corporate greed and growing income inequality.

No Jobs Bill, No Ideas = Republican Party = Merry Xmas my fellow Christians!!!

It was all predicted, but the unanimous decision by Senate Republicans on Tuesday to filibuster and thus kill President Obama’s jobs bill was still a breathtaking act of economic vandalism. There are 14 million people out of work, wages are falling, poverty is rising, and a second recession may be blowing in, but not a single Republican would even allow debate on a sound plan to cut middle-class taxes and increase public-works spending.

The bill the Republicans shot down is not a panacea, but independent economists say it would have a significant and swift effect on the current stagnation. Macroeconomic Advisers, whose forecasts are often used by the Federal Reserve, said it could raise economic growth by 1.25 percentage points and create 1.3 million jobs in 2012. Moody’s Analytics estimated new growth at 2 percentage points and 1.9 million jobs. Those economists say that Republican ideas for increasing growth would have no measurable effects in the next year.

There is class warfare in the USA dummy ....the rich are $#*&% the poor and middle class into extinction

About 25 percent of millionaires in the U.S. pay federal taxes at lower effective rates than a significant portion of middle-income taxpayers, according to a legislative analysis.


Preferential treatment of investment income and the reduced impact of payroll taxes on high earners lets about 94,500 millionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than 10.4 million “moderate-income taxpayers,” representing about 10 percent of those making less than $100,000 a year, according to the report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service dated Oct. 7.

The findings put the U.S. tax system in conflict with the so-called Buffett Rule, which says households making more than $1 million annually shouldn’t pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle class families, says the report, which analyzed 2006 Internal Revenue Service data.

The Buffett principle was proposed by President Barack Obama in September after billionaire Warren Buffett, the 81- year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it was wrong that he paid taxes at a lower rate than 20 other people who worked in his office.

Obama has said the Buffett Rule should be a guiding principle of efforts to reform the U.S. tax code.

There's something happening here.....

Tahrir Square in Cairo, Green Square in Tripoli, Syntagma Square in Athens and now Zuccotti Park in New York -- popular anger against entrenching power elites is spreading around the world.



Many have been intrigued by the Occupy Wall Street movement against financial inequality that started in a New York park and expanded across America from Tampa, Florida, to Portland, Oregon, and from Los Angeles to Chicago.


Hundreds of activists gathered a month ago in the Manhattan park two blocks from Wall Street to vent their anger at what they see as the excesses of New York financiers, whom they blame for the economic crisis that has struck countless ordinary Americans and reverberated across the global economy.


In the U.S. movement, Arab nations see echoes of this year's Arab Spring uprisings. Spaniards and Italians see parallels with Indignados (indignant) activists, while voices in Tehran and Beijing with their own anti-American agendas have even said this could portend the meltdown of the United States.


Inspired by the momentum of the U.S. movement, which started small but is now part of U.S. political debate, activists in London will gather to protest outside the London Stock Exchange on October 15 on the same day that Spanish groups will mass on Madrid's Puerta del Sol square in solidarity.


"American people are more and more following the path chosen by people in the Arab world," Iran's student news agency ISNA quoted senior Revolutionary Guards officer Masoud Jazayeri as saying. "America's domineering government will face uprisings similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt."


Chinese newspapers splashed news about Occupy Wall Street with editorials blaming the U.S. political system and denouncing the Western media for playing down the protests.

"The future of America stands at a crossroads. Presuming that effective measures to relieve the social mood and reconstruct justice cannot be found, it is not impossible that the Occupy Wall Street movement might be the final straw under which America collapses," said a commentary in the Global Times.


"This movement has uncovered a scar on American society, an iceberg of accumulated social conflicts has risen to the surface," said the commentary in the tabloid, which is owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily.

Coal Fired Power Plants = Death .... new warning on the side of each plant like packs of cigarettes

U.S. coal-fired power plants pump more than 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. The Martin Lake Power Plant in Tatum, Texas, spews 2,660 pounds per annum all on its own (it burns lignite, a particularly mercury-heavy form of coal). Compared with the vast amounts of mercury churning out of Asia, the U.S. contribution is fairly small—about 3 percent of the global total. Roughly a third of our emissions settles within our borders, poisoning lakes and waterways. The rest cycles through the atmosphere, with much of it eventually winding up in the world's oceans.



Inorganic mercury isn't easily assimilated into the human body, and if the mercury emitted by power plants stayed in that form, it probably wouldn't have made Gelfond and many others sick. But when inorganic mercury creeps into aquatic sediments and marshes (as well as mid-depths of oceans), bacteria convert it into methylmercury, an organic form that not only is easily assimilated but also accumulates in living tissue as it moves up the food chain: The bigger and older the fish, the more mercury in its meat. It takes only a tiny amount to do serious damage: One-seventieth of a teaspoon can pollute a 20-acre lake to the point where its fish are unsafe to eat. Thousands of tons a year settle in the world's oceans, where they bioaccumulate in carnivorous fish. Forty percent of human mercury exposure comes from a single source—Pacific tuna.


"Ninety-five to 100 percent of the methylmercury that we acquire in our bodies comes from the consumption of seafood," explains Stony Brook University professor Nicholas Fisher, director of the Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research, which oversees the (newly endowed) Gelfond Fund for Mercury Research and Education. (Seafood, in this case, includes fish from lakes and rivers.) When EPA researchers tested predatory and bottom-dwelling fish at 500 U.S. lakes and reservoirs in 2009, they found mercury in each and every one; close to half of the fish had levels so high they were unsafe to eat. Another 2009 study, by the U.S. Geological Survey, found mercury-contaminated fish in each of the 291 streams and rivers tested. Mercury pollution causes U.S. waters to be closed to fishing more often than does any other source of contamination.


In March, after more than 20 years of delay, the EPA proposed a new federal air pollution standard for power plant emissions of mercury and other toxics. The new rule, which was vigorously opposed by the coal industry, will require power plants to use "maximum achievable control technology" to filter mercury from their smokestacks by 2014. The result of a 2008 lawsuit by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, the rule is expected to cost industry more than $10 billion to implement.


That may sound like a lot—unless you compare it with the cost of doing nothing. Dr. Leonardo Trasande, an associate professor of preventative medicine and pediatrics at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, did exactly that, in a study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in 2006. He calculated that between 316,000 and 647,000 American babies are born each year with mercury levels high enough to cause measurable brain damage. Because every drop in IQ results in a loss of economic productivity, he estimated that the mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants costs the nation $1.3 billion each year. As he explained in a Senate briefing in 2005, "those costs will recur year after year, with each new birth cohort, so long as mercury emissions are not controlled. By contrast, the cost of installing stack filters is a one-time expense."


One researcher extrapolated from existing data that there are up to 184,000 people in the United States with blood mercury levels above 58 mcg/L, a level at which they would likely show adverse symptoms.


The symptoms of mercury toxicity are fairly well established. They include lack of balance and coordination, trouble concentrating, loss of fine motor skills, tremors, muscle weakness, memory problems, slurred speech, an awkward gait, hearing loss, hair loss, insomnia, tingling in the limbs, and loss of peripheral vision. Long-term exposure may also increase the risk of cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases and reduce the concentration and mobility of sperm.


What's unclear is how much mercury it takes to make you sick. Nearly everyone feels fine when the level of mercury in their blood is below 5.8 mcg/L, which the EPA says is safe for pregnant women. And most—although not all—exhibit symptoms at 100 mcg/L. But some people show symptoms with levels as low as 7 mcg/L, and others feel right as rain despite being above 100 mcg/L.


Physicians speculate that susceptibility to mercury could be genetic, or the result of diet or stress. It also seems that people can have mercury-related impairments without realizing it. In an Italian study from 2003 comparing 22 men who frequently ate tuna with 22 who didn't, the tuna eaters (who had a mean level of 41.5 mcg/L) fared significantly worse on cognitive tests, despite having no outward symptoms of poisoning.


One thing that isn't in question, though, is that developing fetuses are particularly sensitive to the toxic effects of methylmercury. Two out of three large-scale studies have found that children born with it in their system have trouble with coordination, concentration, language, and memory—and continue to have the same deficits many years later.


Nancy Lanphear is a behavioral developmental pediatrician who works at a clinic in Vancouver for children with disabilities like autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Several years ago, a mother came into her clinic with a four-and-a-half-year-old girl who had cerebral palsy as well as speech and motor delays. But what attracted Lanphear's attention was that the child was drooling.


"I'm looking at this four-year-old and saying, 'This is mercury,'" Lanphear recalls, hypersalivation being a classic sign of mercury poisoning. The child's chart showed that a heavy metals screening at age two had found high mercury levels in both mother and child, as well as in the child's grandfather. The mother recalled being encouraged by her physician to eat fish during her pregnancy; she ate tuna or other seafood two to four times a week, sure that she was helping her baby's development.


"She knows that she's not to blame, that it was inadvertent, but there's still some grief there," Lanphear says of the mother. "It's not something that's going away, even though the child's mercury levels are now normal. The damage was done to the developing brain." Lanphear uses the story to remind obstetricians and pediatricians to be on the lookout for mercury poisoning in their patients.

The EPA estimates that at least 8 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age have blood mercury levels above 5.8 mcg/L. If you zero in on communities that regularly eat fish, the prevalence is much higher. In the Northeast, one out of every five women has a mercury level exceeding the EPA threshold. In New York City, it's one out of every four, and close to half of the city's Asian population have elevated mercury levels, as do two-thirds of the city's foreign-born Chinese.

High-mercury pockets also exist on the West Coast. Between 2000 and 2001, San Francisco physician Jane Hightower tested 116 patients who said they frequently ate fish. She found elevated mercury levels among 89 percent of them, with half above 10 mcg/L. Many of these patients had reported nonspecific symptoms like headaches, nausea, depression, and trouble concentrating, and had been searching for an explanation for months or years.


Since that first survey, Hightower has treated hundreds of mercury-exposed people from all walks of life. Among her patients was then-five-year-old Sophie Chabon, the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, whose books include the best-seller Bad Mother. Sophie had been an early talker and walker, but then she seemed to hit a wall, suddenly unable to sound out words she used to know how to read and even forgetting how to tie her shoes. A blood test turned up mercury levels of 13 mcg/L. The culprit: twice-weekly tuna sandwiches.


As Sophie cut tuna out of her diet, her mercury levels dropped, and her stalled development surged ahead again. Now in high school, she has a passion for history, film, and French and shows no sign of any lasting effects from the mercury exposure. Still, Waldman fumes when she thinks about what might have happened if they hadn't caught the problem so early. "I blame our country for not [caring] about what we're spewing into the atmosphere," she says. "This is about coal, pure and simple. You wouldn't go and break your child's bones one by one, but we tolerate this kind of poison that's ruining their minds. It's insane."


While Hightower's wealthy patients tend to eat sushi and expensive tuna, swordfish, and halibut, poor Americans eat canned light tuna—often subsidized by the federal Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program—and fish they hook themselves in local rivers, lakes, or bays. Immigrants are particularly likely to fish for food, often without understanding the risks of eating their catch. The average Latino angler, for instance, consumes twice as much mercury daily as the EPA considers safe, while a 2010 study of subsistence fishing in California found that some anglers were getting 10 times that dose. The same study found that anglers with children had a higher mercury intake than those without, probably because families with more mouths to feed rely more on food that can be caught rather than bought.


The boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey, is a 2.5-mile strip of salt air and stimulation, with arcades and carnival rides, pirate-themed mini golf and fried clams. It was here that a young woman named Jaime Bowen stood in front of a microphone in June and nervously contemplated the crowd. A 31-year-old home-healthcare worker with two children, Bowen had gone to a Sierra Club-sponsored hair-testing event with an environmentally minded friend a month before, more as a lark than out of any real concern for her health. "It was kind of a joke going to get my hair clipped," she says. "Then, to get the results—it was a reality check."


Of the 36 people at the event who were willing to share their results, 8 had elevated mercury levels. Bowen was one of them. Hers was 1.37 ppm—too low to cause health problems, but higher than the EPA considers safe for women of childbearing age. (Hair mercury levels are evaluated differently than blood mercury levels, but a hair level of 1.2 ppm is roughly equivalent to a blood level of 5.8 mcg/L.) Now she was concerned about her two children, who, after all, ate what she ate. "You hear, 'Don't break that thermometer.' You never hear about the fish," she says. "I made my kids tuna fish sandwiches the other day, and now I feel horrible. Tuna fish—it's just one of those things you wouldn't think to be scared of."


And so Bowen stood at the podium, gripping the paper that held her prepared remarks. She talked about fish and her fears about her children's safety, and about coal. To her surprise, she looked up to see that people up and down the boardwalk had stopped to listen. "I did want them to know," she says. "I'm just a regular person—I'm not doing anything different than those people."


Behind her, the ocean sparkled, sending salty breezes drifting over the boardwalk. A seagull circled, white and gray, its bright eyes scanning the scene below: the crowded boardwalk, a fish-filled sea, and, tucked in a bay just a little to the northwest, the lighthouse-shaped smokestack of the BL England generating station, producing 450 megawatts of electricity, powered by West Virginia coal.

Power to the People...... = 2012!!!

Democrats are rallying around the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, seeking to channel the movement’s energy into votes in the 2012 elections by sharpening contrasts with Republicans who criticize the protests.



“If you’re concerned about Wall Street and our financial system, the president is standing on the side of consumers and the middle class,” senior White House adviser David Plouffe said when asked about the demonstrations during an interview today on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And a lot of these Republicans are basically saying, ‘You know what? Let’s go back to the same policies that led to the Great Recession in the first place.’”


The protests, which began in New York City’s financial district and have spread across the country, are likely to be raised in tonight’s Republican presidential debate, sponsored by Bloomberg News and The Washington Post at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dartmouth students and faculty plan a rally in support for the protesters this afternoon, before the 8 p.m. forum.


Facing declining approval ratings amid a slow U.S. economic recovery and unemployment hovering around 9 percent, Democrats are eager to attract disenchanted voters who identify with the protesters. Republicans successfully tapped the energy of the anti-tax Tea Party supporters last year to win back control of the House of Representatives and expand their numbers in the Senate.

Rent a supertanker or a fun nite at the Burj Al-Arab = cost about the same day rate...

Owners of supertankers, losing money for a sixth consecutive quarter, will probably idle the most ships in more than two decades as they contend with a glut that drove charter rates to the lowest in at least 14 years.

The combination of too many ships and slowing demand growth for oil means that about 6 percent of the fleet will be anchored in a year from almost none now, according to the median in a Bloomberg survey of eight brokers and analysts. That may not be enough to end the slump. Forward freight agreements, traded by brokers and used to bet on transport costs, anticipate rates no higher than $13,819 a day through 2013.


Frontline Ltd., the biggest operator of the vessels, says it needs $29,800 to break even. The Hamilton, Bermuda-based company will report its biggest annual loss in 12 years in 2011, analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg show. While owners can cut operating costs to as little as $2,000 a day from $12,000 by anchoring ships, it also means no income, said Andreas Sohmen- Pao, chief executive officer of the oil and gas shipping unit of BW Group Ltd., which is idling three vessels.

“When it’s this bad, eventually it wears people down a bit and some do get out of the market,” said Martin Stopford, the London-based managing director of Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world’s biggest shipbroker. “To lay the ship up, you would eventually have to totally lose confidence in the market improving for some time.”

Off to the races!!!

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures gained and commodities climbed a fourth day after German and French leaders pledged to devise a plan to stem Europe’s debt crisis in three weeks and as the U.S. showed signs of sustaining its economic recovery.



Europe’s 17-nation currency advanced 0.6 percent against both the dollar and yen as of 12:26 p.m. in Hong Kong. S&P 500 futures added 1 percent, while the MSCI Asia Pacific excluding Japan Index swung between gains and losses, following a three- day, 7.9 percent jump that was the most since 2009. S&P’s GSCI Index of raw materials advanced 0.4 percent, paced by oil, wheat and silver. Bond default risk declined.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will deliver a plan to recapitalize European banks and address the Greek debt crisis by the Nov. 3 Group of 20 summit. Belgium will buy part of failing Dexia SA and provide security for depositors. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Macroeconomic Advisers LLC raised their U.S. growth forecasts in the third quarter, after an Oct. 7 report showing a 103,000 rise in payrolls capped a string of stronger-than-projected data.


“The market was met with some above-expectations data, as well as some warm and fuzzy talk out of the EU about the banking sector, so ultimately the rally will likely continue” for the next few weeks, Nick Maroutsos, who oversees the equivalent of about $4 billion at Sydney-based Kapstream Capital, said in a Bloomberg Television interview