U.K. Retail Sales Surge on Rebound From Cold Weather

U.K. retail sales rose almost four times as much as economists forecast in January as consumer spending rebounded after the coldest December in a century.

Sales gained 1.9 percent from the previous month, when they fell a revised 1.4 percent as snow and freezing temperatures kept Britons from shopping, the Office for National Statisticssaid today in London. The gain was the biggest since February 2010 and exceeded the 0.5 percent median forecast of 22 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. From a year earlier, sales increased 5.3 percent.

While the data add to evidence that the economy’s 0.5 percent contraction in the fourth quarter may have been a temporary setback to the recovery, retailers may face pressure this year. Inflation has accelerated to double the Bank of England’s target and tax increases may crimp spending power.

“It’s a big rebound,” said Howard Archer, an economist at IHS Global Insight in London. “It’s good news, but with rising inflation and low wage growth squeezing incomes and high unemployment and speculation of a rise in interest rates, I have serious concerns about consumer spending this year.”

The pound rose as much as 0.3 percent against the dollar after the data were published. It traded at $1.6213 as of 9:37 a.m. in London. Government bonds declined, with the yield on the 10-year gilt rising 2 basis points to 3.78 percent.

Tax and Snow

Sales at “non-specialized stores,” which includes department stores, jumped 5.7 percent in January from December and were up 10.7 percent on the year, the statistics office said. Clothing and shoe sales rose 3.4 percent on the month. Sales at food stores rose 0.3 percent on the month and fell 2.3 percent from a year earlier.

The statistics office said the government’s increase in value-added tax and the freezing weather affected demand in December and January and it estimates sales growth of 0.5 percent over the two months.

The food-store price deflator, a measure of annual price changes, rose to 5.2 percent in January from 5 percent in December. The deflator for all retail sales was 2.7 percent.

Consumer-price inflation accelerated to 4 percent in January, data this week showed. The rate may rise further as retailers pass on the government’s sales-tax increase, which took effect last month.

Excluding fuel, sales increase 1.6 percent in January from December and were up 5.3 percent on the year. Sports Direct International Plc, the U.K.’s No. 1 sporting-goods retailer, said yesterday that retail sales for the 13 weeks to Jan. 23 rose 14 percent and the company’s underlying performance has been “strong” since the end of last month.

‘Too Optimistic’

Internet sales accounted for 10 percent of all retail sales, compared with 7.6 percent a year earlier. Average weekly internet sales in January amounted to 523 million pounds ($847 million), the statistics office said.

The Bank of England said in its Inflation Report this week that consumer-price growth will accelerate this year before easing to its 2 percent target by the middle of 2012. Policy makerAndrew Sentance said yesterday that the projection is “too optimistic” and the central bank should raise its benchmark interest rate to tame price pressures.

Kingfisher Plc, Europe’s largest home-improvement retailer, said yesterday it expects a “particularly tricky” first half, with only a “slightly better second half” as the value-added tax increase and public-sector job cuts discourage spending.

Underlining the fragility of the U.K. labor market, jobless claims unexpectedly rose in January, while unemployment based on International Labor Organization methods rose by 44,000 in the fourth quarter to 2.49 million. Nationwide’s index of consumer sentiment dropped 7 points to 47 in January, almost erasing the 8-point gain in December, the lender said on Feb. 16.

PM: 'Multiculturalism has failed'

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5 February 2011 Last updated at 19:19 GMTHelp

David Cameron says multiculturalism in Britain has failed, during a speech to a security conference in Munich.

He said the UK needed a stronger sense of national identity to prevent people turning to extremism.

Meanwhile in the UK, rallies by the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) groups have taken place in Luton town centre.

Laura Kuenssberg reports.

Bush cancels Swiss visit over arrest fears

WASHINGTON: Former US President George W Bush has reportedly cancelled a visit to Switzerland amid concerns that he could be arrested for allegedly authorising the torture of prisoners.

The former American leader was due to speak at a charity gala, making the keynote speech at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner in the city of Geneva on February 12, the 'Sky News' reported online.

Human rights groups in the country, however, have been calling for the Swiss government to arrest Bush over allegations he had ordered the torture of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.

Court officials have said criminal complaints against Bush have been lodged in Geneva, but Swiss officials said that he would enjoy diplomatic immunity as a former head of state, the report said.

In his memoirs and television interviews, Bush has admitted to ordering use of waterboarding, which simulated drowning, as an interrogation technique.

Waterboarding is considered a form of torture which is a crime under international law, and human rights experts say absolute prohibition is very clear. Some left-wing groups had also called for a protest on the day of his visit.

Even Keren Hayesod's organisers said they felt the atmosphere had become too threatening.

"We didn't want to put people and property in Geneva at risk. The gala is maintained but George Bush will not take part. The criminal complaints did not weigh in the decision," the group's lawyer Robert Equey was quoted as saying
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Fiat sees 4 mgt centres, Turin remains key-papers

* Chairman sees mgt in Turin, Detroit, Brazil, Asia-paper

* CEO explains no decisions taken on organisation-minister

MILAN, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Italian car maker Fiat SpA (FIA.MI) sees four management centres, with the Italian city of Turin, its historical base, retaining a central role, several newspapers said on Sunday citing Fiat statements to politicians.

The clarifications by Fiat chiefs to government and regional politicians followed Friday's comment by Fiat's chief executive its headquarters could move to the United States after a merger with its affiliate Chrysler in two to three years. [ID:nN04207716]

"(Sergio) Marchionne (Fiat CEO) has explained the sense of the plans which refer exclusively to future possible company arrangements and which have not been decided," Italy's Welfare Minister Maurizio Sacconi said on Saturday.

No change is planned to the location of management and planning activities of the company in Turin, Sacconi said in his statement issued after he spoke to Marchionne.

Fiat Chairman John Elkann phoned Turin Mayor Sergio Chiamparino, la Repubblica said on Sunday. On Saturday, Chiamparino told the same newspaper a move of Fiat headquarters to the United States would be "unacceptable".

"Elkann has explained Fiat's strategy foresees the integration with Chrysler and that there will be more management centres where there is a strong market presence," the Turin mayor said in the newspaper on Sunday.

There will "one at Turin, one at Detroit for the United States, one in Brazil, and if possible, one in Asia" he said in the daily citing Elkann. (Writing by Nigel Tutt; Editing by David Holmes)

Two dead as Tunisian police fires on protesters

(Reuters) - At least two people were killed and 17 others wounded in northern Tunisia on Saturday when police opened fire to quell a protest after a senior police officer slapped a woman in the face, official and media sources said.

The head of police in the city of El Kef was arrested after the shooting, an Interior Ministry source said.

Four policemen had been arrested earlier on Saturday on suspicion of links to the death on Friday of two civilians while in police custody in Sidi Bouzid, the epicenter of a popular revolt that ousted last month President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and reverberated across the Arab world.

Public confidence in the police has been at a low since the revolt, with many Tunisians blaming police officers for killing protesters and associating them with the ousted president.

A rally by hundreds of protesters in front of the police station in El Kef, north of the capital Tunis, degenerated when they tried to occupy its premises, the ministry source said.

"About 1,000 people gathered in a protest in front of El Kef's police station to demand the dismissal of the head of the police in the city for power abuse while exercising his duties," the source told Reuters.

Witnesses told state-run television that the protest started after the police chief slapped a woman in the face.

Protesters later pelted the police station with stones and threw fire bombs at the force guarding the building. Footage on state-run television showed a police van on fire.

"The police fired to prevent the protesters from breaking into the station," the ministry source said.

Four policemen were earlier arrested in Sidi Bouzid on suspicion they were linked to the death on Friday of two civilians after a police station they were locked in caught fire, a ministry spokesman said.

A young unemployed man from Sidi Bouzid, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire in December to protest at his mistreatment by a police force member. He later died. His act started the anti-government protests which toppled Ben Ali.

Hackers Gained Access to Nasdaq Systems, but Not Trades

Computer hackers have breached the systems of the company that runs the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York but did not penetrate the part of the system that handles trades, Nasdaq said Saturday.

The exchange’s operating company, Nasdaq OMX, said in a statement that it had discovered suspicious files on its United States servers, and that it immediately began conducting an investigation in conjunction with outside firms and federal law enforcement agencies.

Government and law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation said it was being handled by the F.B.I.’s cybercrimes branch along with the Justice Department. These officials also said it appeared that the trading platform was not breached.

An attack on banks and other pillars the financial system has long been a top fear of government officials because of the potential for harm to the economy.

Nasdaq is one of the country’s largest stock exchanges, and many of the nation’s most important companies use it to list their shares for trading. If there were evidence that hackers could breach the inner trading systems, it could cause jitters among the companies listed on the exchange and the traders and investors who buy and sell millions of shares each day.

But Nasdaq and market experts said there was an important distinction between the parts of the system that are connected to the Web, and thus more vulnerable, and the architecture for the trading platform, which Nasdaq says operates independently.

The company said it had determined that a Web-based application on its servers called Directors Desk, on which corporations can store and share information, might have been affected. Nasdaq said the suspicious files “were immediately removed and at this point there is no evidence that any Directors Desk customer information was accessed or acquired by hackers.”

“At no point was any of Nasdaq OMX’s operated or serviced trading platforms compromised,” the company said.

The company’s Web site says Directors Desk has 5,000 users.

A spokesman for the company said it discovered the suspicious files late last year.

The fact that investigators discovered suspicious files suggests that the breach involved the installation of malicious software, or malware, said Ed Stroz, a former FBI agent who is co-president of Stroz Friedberg, a firm that investigates cyberattacks.

In attacks on companies, Mr. Stroz said, hackers often plant malware that acts as a back door, which allows them to deliver other malicious programs to do other tasks, which could include copying sensitive data and delivering it to the intruder.

Malware could have been installed any number of ways, including with an attack through the Web interface of Directors Desk or by infiltrating an executive’s computer by tricking him into opening an attachment or clicking on a link to a malicious Web page in an e-mail.

Nasdaq now handles about 19 percent of stock trading in the United States, compared with 27 percent by the larger New York Stock Exchange and its electronic trading arm.

In a statement, the New York Stock Exchange said: “We take any potential threat seriously and we continue working at the highest levels of security and integrity.” The N.Y.S.E. would not say whether there had been any attempts to breach its systems or whether it had been contacted by federal investigators.

News of the breach was originally reported in The Wall Street Journal.

Nasdaq said it had refrained from notifying its customers of the breach at the request of the Justice Department, “in order to facilitate the continuing investigation,” but that when the Journal article appeared it consulted with authorities and decided to send out notice.

The Journal article said the investigation showed some evidence pointing toward Russia. One government official said investigators were specifically looking into that possibility, although the official said, “I don’t know what the basis for the belief is.”

The stock exchanges and the trading that takes place on them have become increasingly computerized, potentially making them more vulnerable to manipulation or attack. Like Nasdaq, the N.Y.S.E. has also adopted more electronic trading. And in the last five years or so, other electronic exchanges like Direct Edge and BATS Exchange have arisen, intent on prying trading away from the two bigger markets. Direct Edge and BATS each handle about 10 percent of the market.

A spokesman for the BATS Exchange said it had never had any hacking issue of this kind.

A spokesman for Direct Edge, Rafi Reguer, said it was continually monitoring its systems but was not aware of any serious attempt to penetrate its computers.

Reporting was contributed by Charlie Savage, Joseph Goldstein, Riva Richmond and William K. Rashbaum
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Cancer on the Rise in Developing Countries: Report

FRIDAY, Feb. 4 (HealthDay News) -- To mark World Cancer Day, the American Cancer Society issued a new report Friday warning that changing lifestyles linked to economic growth in developing countries are driving up the global incidence of several cancers.

In fact, the majority of the world's new cancer cases and deaths (7.1 million and 4.8 million, respectively) are now occurring in economically developing countries, the authors of the report noted. And this, they say, reflects the growing adoption of unhealthy behaviors -- such as smoking, sedentary lifestyles and poor diets -- that typically accompany economic development.

The report, "Global Cancer Facts & Figures," highlights lung, breast and colorectal cancers as being particularly vulnerable to this dynamic.

Along those lines, about one-third of all cancer deaths that occurred worldwide in 2008 (equal to roughly 7,300 deaths per day) might have been avoided by focusing on preventable risk factors such as smoking, drinking, infection patterns and dietary habits, American Cancer Society chief medical officer Dr. Otis W. Brawley suggested in an editorial accompanying the report.

"The worldwide application of existing cancer control knowledge according to the capacity and economic development of countries or regions could lead to the prevention of even more cancer deaths in the next two to three decades," he stated in a news release from the society.

"In order to achieve this, however, national and international public health agencies, governments, donors, and the private sectors must play major roles in the development and implementation of national or regional cancer control programs worldwide," he added.

The full American Cancer Society analysis is slated to be published, along with Brawley's editorial, in the Feb. 4 edition of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

The authors of the report noted that as stark as global disease figures already were in 2008 (12.7 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths), those numbers are expected to almost double by 2030 as the world's population both grows and ages.

In economically developed nations, as of 2008, prostate, lung and colorectal cancers are the most prevalent among men, while breast, colorectal and lung cancers are the most common among women.

By contrast, in developing countries, the biggest risk for men appears to be lung, stomach and liver cancers, with breast, cervical and lung cancers the primary cancer threats for women.

The authors also noted that while just 10 percent of all cancers in the economically developed world are a function of infection, that figure rises to one-quarter of all cancers in the economically developing world.