Stock futures point to higher open By LAUREN VILLAGRAN, AP Business Writer

Stock futures point to higher open By LAUREN VILLAGRAN, AP Business Writer
22 minutes ago



NEW YORK - U.S. stocks looked to rebound when trading begins Monday as more central banks overseas added cash to their banking systems, helping investors set aside concerns about credit tightness.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Bank of Japan put $5 billion into the markets Monday, while the European Central Bank added $65.3 billion, after providing more than $200 billion last week. The moves, following similar injections by the U.S. Federal Reserve last week, placated Wall Street for now and allowed it to look ahead to a week of fresh economic data.

Investors seemed pleased with the Commerce Department's report that retail sales edged up 0.3 percent in July, slightly ahead of market expectations. Wall Street has been closely monitoring consumer spending, as it accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity.

After enduring sharp swings to the downside last week, the Dow Jones industrials and other major indexes ultimately finished the week with a gain. Stocks pointed to an extension of those gains at the opening of trading Monday, as Dow futures rose sharply in premarket activity; however, as last week's trading showed, the market could swing from gains to losses through the course of the day.

Dow futures expiring in September rose 123, or 0.90 percent, to 13,360, while Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 17.30, or 1.19 percent, to 1,468.30. Nasdaq 100 index futures advanced 23.00, or 1.19 percent, to 1,952.00.

Investors were in a better humor Monday, despite the great deal of uncertainty in the market over the extent of problems in the subprime mortgage sector. Defaults among subprime mortgage holders — people with poor credit — began the chain of events that led to the turmoil on Wall Street and other stock markets the past few weeks.

Those defaults recently led to the collapse of two Bear Stearns funds with risky mortgage-backed investments and last week prompted French bank BNP Paribas to freeze three funds with exposure to the U.S. subprime mortgage market.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday that its funds using quantitative strategies, or mathematical modeling, "are currently under pressure" after global markets sold off on worries about debt and credit. The investment bank said it and certain large investors have committed to a $3 billion equity investment in its Global Equity Opportunities fund, which "has suffered significantly." The fund had a net asset value of about $3.6 billion before the equity investment.

The Fed indicated Monday that it "stands ready" to supply more liquidity to the market. The federal funds rate traded at the central bank's target 5.25 percent; last week, a fed funds rate of about 6 percent triggered cash injections last week.

On Monday, struggling subprime lender Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. said it has sued Lone Star Fund V LP and two affiliates to get the private equity firm to follow through with an agreed-to takeover. Lone Star said Friday in a regulatory filing that Accredited no longer met the conditions of its $400 million acquisition offer. Without a deal, Accredited has cautioned that it may face bankruptcy.

Overseas Monday, Japan's Nikkei stock average gained 0.21 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 jumped 2.47 percent, Germany's DAX index added 1.45 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 2.08 percent.

The dollar was mixed against other major world currencies. Gold futures fluctuated, while crude oil futures rose in premarket activity.

Bond prices fell as the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.81 percent from 4.80 percent late Friday.

In economic news, the Commerce Department on Monday reports retail sales for July and business inventories for June. Investors will also monitor two key barometers of inflation — the Labor Department's Producer Price Index on Tuesday and Consumer Price Index on Wednesday. Because the Fed has made it clear as recently as last week that its primary concern is fighting inflation, Wall Street could react poorly if the PPI or CPI comes in higher than expected.

In its first quarterly report as a public company, private equity firm Blackstone Group LP posted second-quarter revenue of $975.3 billion, below analysts' consensus of $1.06 billion. The company's much-anticipated initial public offering in June raised about $4 billion, but the stock has fallen short of expectations.

Noriega to appear before his trial judge By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer

Noriega to appear before his trial judge By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer
1 minute ago



MIAMI - Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega wants U.S. officials to send him back to his home country when he finishes his drug trafficking and racketeering sentence next month, but American prosecutors are pushing for him to be extradited to France to face another trial.

ADVERTISEMENT

Noriega is set to appear Monday before Senior U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler, the same jurist who presided over his original trial. Hoeveler will decide whether the U.S. extradition attempt is valid, although it is unclear when he will rule. A magistrate judge will separately decide whether Noriega should actually be sent to France.

Noriega, 72, is set to be released on Sept. 9 after 15 years in prison in Miami. He wants to fly immediately to Panama to fight a conviction in the slayings of two political opponents, his lawyers have said.

But French authorities want him extradited to their country, where Noriega was convicted in absentia in 1999 on money-laundering charges. He was accused of using drug profits in part to buy luxurious apartments in Paris.

His attorneys argue that Hoeveler declared Noriega a prisoner of war, a designation that they say requires he be sent home to Panama under the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. says the Geneva Conventions cannot be used to block his extradition.

U.S. forces captured Noriega after a 1989 military invasion ordered by then-President George H.W. Bush in part because of the Panamanian's links to drug traffickers. It later emerged that Noriega had been on the CIA payroll for years, assisting U.S. interests throughout Latin America, including acting as liaison to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

In 1992, Noriega was tried and convicted in the U.S. of accepting bribes to allow shipments of U.S.-bound cocaine through Panama. His 30-year sentence has been reduced for good behavior.

Panamanians, meanwhile, are split on whether Noriega should be imprisoned in their country. A poll conducted in July before the U.S. announced plans to try to extradite him to France found 47 percent of Panamanians want him imprisoned their country and 44 percent want him sent to a third country. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Iraq's al-Maliki plans crisis conference By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

Iraq's al-Maliki plans crisis conference By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 13 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - Sunni politicians maintained a hard line Monday after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki invited key Sunni and Kurdish allies to a crisis conference in a desperate bid to reach a compromise among Iraq's divided factions.

ADVERTISEMENT

With the political process stalled, the U.S. military pressed ahead with its efforts to crackdown on the violence, launching a new offensive against extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide.

Operation Phantom Strike would build on the successes during recent offensives in Baghdad and surrounding areas, the military said.

The statement singled out Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq and said the Shiite extremists were being backed by Iran. The military has stepped up its rhetoric recently against Tehran, which is accused of supplying militias with arms and training to attack U.S. forces. Iran denies the allegations.

"Coalition forces and Iraqi security forces continue to achieve successes and pursue security throughout many areas of Iraq," the U.S. second-in-command Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno said. "My intent is to continue to pressure AQI and other extremist elements throughout Iraq to reduce their capabilities."

Iraqi judicial authorities also said the third trial against former officials with Saddam Hussein's ousted regime would begin on Aug. 21. Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and 14 other defendants will face charges in the brutal crushing of a Shiite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.

Al-Maliki called for the meeting during a news conference Sunday and said he hoped it could take place in the next two days as he faces growing impatience with his government's perceived Shiite bias and failure to achieve reconciliation or to stop the sectarian violence threatening to tear the country apart.

It was a limited invite, including President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a moderate Sunni, Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite, and Massoud Barzani, the leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Abdul-Mahdi's office said he and Barzani would attend. Al-Hashemi's office said it planned to give its answer later Monday.

The prime minister also threatened to isolate the political blocs who have boycotted his Cabinet, suggesting they could be replaced by local Sunni tribal leaders who have recently formed alliances and joined U.S.-led efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq.

"We hope to end this crisis and that the ministers will return," al-Maliki said. "But if that doesn't happen, we will go to our brothers who are offering their help and we will choose ministers from among them."

But Iraq's minority Sunnis expressed growing anger over their perceptions of al-Maliki as a deeply biased sectarian leader with links to Iran and his failure to bring all sides together after taking office in May 2006 and promising a national unity government.

"It is one year and 4 months now that he has been in office and he is still leading a one-man rule and a sectarian policy," said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a senior member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab political party. "The country is on the verge of collapse."

"Is he going to give a cure after all this destruction? He has proved that he is a sectarian leader and a failure, the country is under the control of criminal gangs with the complete absence of an authority or government."

His sharp words came a day after Iraq's most senior Sunni politician, Adnan al-Dulaimi, issued a desperate appeal for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shiite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran.

Al-Dulaimi said "Persians" and "Safawis," Sunni terms for Iranian Shiites, were on the brink of total control in Baghdad and soon would threaten Sunni Arab regimes which predominate in the Mideast.

"It is a war that has started in Baghdad and they will not stop there but will expand it to all Arab lands," al-Dulaimi wrote in an impassioned e-mail Sunday to The Associated Press.

Sunni Arab regimes throughout the Middle East fear the growing influence of Iran's Shiite theocracy with radical groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Syrian regime. Raising the specter of Iranian power reaching the Arab doorstep, unlikely in the near term, betrayed al-Dulaimi's desperation.

But his fears of a Shiite takeover of Baghdad were not as farfetched. Mahdi Army militiamen have cleansed entire neighborhoods of Sunni residents and seized Sunni mosques. Day by day, hundreds have been killed and thousands have fled their homes, seeking safety in the shrinking number of majority Sunni districts.

The fighters, nominally loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, are believed to operate as death squads blamed for much of the country's sectarian slaughter.

Sunni extremists, many with al-Qaida links, are responsible too, mainly through massive bombings, often carried out by suicide attackers.

The 75-year-old al-Dulaimi heads the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament. The coalition of parties pulled its six Cabinet ministers from al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government Aug. 1.

Five days later, government ministers loyal to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, launched a boycott of Cabinet meetings. That left the government without any Sunni Arab members, except the politically unaffiliated defense minister.

___

Associated Press Writer Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.

China toy boss kills self after recall By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer

China toy boss kills self after recall By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 19 minutes ago



BEIJING - The head of a Chinese toy manufacturing company at the center of a huge U.S. recall has committed suicide, a state-run newspaper said Monday.

ADVERTISEMENT

Zhang Shuhong, who co-owned Lee Der Industrial Co. Ltd., killed himself at a warehouse over the weekend, days after China announced it had temporarily banned exports by the company, the Southern Metropolis Daily said.

Lee Der made 967,000 toys recalled earlier this month by Mattel Inc. because they were made with paint found to have excessive amounts of lead. The plastic preschool toys, sold under the Fisher-Price brand in the U.S., included the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters.

It was among the largest recalls in recent months involving Chinese products, which have come under fire for globally for containing potentially dangerous high levels of chemicals and toxins.

The Southern Metropolis Daily said that a supplier, Zhang's best friend, sold Lee Der fake paint which was used in the toys.

"The boss and the company were harmed by the paint supplier, the closest friend of our boss," a manager surnamed Liu was quoted as saying.

Liu said Zhang hung himself on Saturday, according to the report. It is common for disgraced officials to commit suicide in China.

"When I got there around 5 p.m., police had already sealed off the area," Liu said.

A company official who answered the telephone at the Lee Der factory in the southern city of Foshan on Monday said he had not heard of the news. A man at Lee Der's main office in Hong Kong said the company was not accepting interviews and hung up.

According to a search on a registry of Hong Kong companies, Zhang — whose name is spelled Cheung Shu-hung in official documents — is a co-owner of Lee Der. The other owner, Chiu Kwei-tsun, did not return telephone messages left for him.

The recall by El Segundo, California-based Mattel came just two months after RC2 Corp., a New York company, recalled 1.5 million Chinese-made wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line because of lead paint.

The maker, Hansheng Wood Products Factory, was also included in the export ban announced Thursday by the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, one of China's quality watchdogs.

The administration also ordered both companies to evaluate and change their business practices.

Lead poisoning can cause vomiting, anemia and learning difficulties. In extreme cases, it can cause severe neurological damage and death.

The quality watchdog also said police were investigating two companies' use of "fake plastic pigment" but did not give any details. Such pigments are a type of industrial latex usually used to increase surface gloss and smoothness.

Telephones rang unanswered at the public security bureau in Foshan and at Dongxing New Energy Company, which is the paint supplier.

In its report, the Southern Metropolis Daily said Zhang, who was in his 50s, treated his 5,000-odd employees well and always paid them on time.

The morning of his suicide, he greeted workers and chatted with some of them, the newspaper said.

Chinese companies often have long supply chains, making it difficult to trace the exact origin of components, chemicals and food additives.

On Sunday, a Chinese court sentenced a reporter to a year in jail for faking a television story about cardboard-filled meat buns in a case that has drawn even more attention to China's poor food safety record.

Zi Beijia, 28, pleaded guilty to charges of infringing on the reputation of a commodity during his trial at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He was sentenced to a year in jail and a fine of $132, it said.

Zi's story, reportedly shot with a hidden camera, appeared to show a makeshift kitchen where people made steamed buns stuffed with shredded cardboard softened with caustic soda plus a little bit of fatty pork.

Zi paid four migrant workers from China's northern Shaanxi province to prepare the buns according to his instructions, Xinhua said. The buns were then fed to dogs, it said.

The story was first broadcast on Beijing Television's Life Channel, where Zi was a freelance reporter, on July 8 and then again on China Central Television. It was also widely seen on YouTube.com.

___

Associated Press Writer Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this story.

Taliban free 2 South Korean women By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

Taliban free 2 South Korean women By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago



GHAZNI, Afghanistan - Two women among 23 South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban in mid-July were freed Monday on a rural Afghan roadside, the first significant breakthrough in a hostage drama now more than three weeks old.

ADVERTISEMENT


The two women, who broke into tears after seeing the international Red Cross officials there to take custody of them, got out of a dark gray Toyota Corolla driven by an Afghan elder and into one of two waiting Red Cross SUVs. The women said nothing to reporters alerted to the handoff location by a Taliban spokesman.

The women, who the Taliban have said are ill, were among church group volunteers kidnapped by militants on July 19.

The release is the first breakthrough in the hostage drama, which took a downturn in late July when two male captives were executed by gunfire.

The two women were brought to the arranged meeting point on the side of a road in rural Ghazni province by an Afghan named Haji Zahir, who also got into the Red Cross vehicle with the freed hostages.

The Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said on Sunday that the two women would be released in part because they were sick and because face-to-face negotiations that began on Friday were going well.

Two Taliban leaders and four South Korean officials met Friday and Saturday to discuss the fate of the hostages. Taliban leaders have demanded that 21 militant prisoners be released in exchange for the Koreans' lives; the government has said it will not release any prisoners.

The local governor has suggested in the past that the hostage standoff could be solved with a ransom payment.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AP) — Two South Korean women among 23 hostages kidnapped by Taliban militants in mid-July were handed over to officials from the international Red Cross on Monday.

The two women wept as they got out of a gray Toyota Corolla driven by an Afghan elder and into two waiting Red Cross SUVs.

The women, who the Taliban have said are ill, were part of a South Korean church group kidnapped by militants on July 19. Two of the hostages were killed.