Asia stocks rise on positive start to US earnings

BANGKOK (AP) — A positive start to U.S. corporate earnings season helped boost Asian stock markets Thursday.
Major regional benchmarks rose on the heels of a handful of better-than-expected results that also lifted Wall Street.
Consumer products maker Helen of Troy, whose brands include Dr. Scholl's and Vidal Sassoon, reported a 15 percent profit increase. Electronic payments processor Global Payments said its fiscal second-quarter earnings rose nearly 15 percent, beating Wall Street expectations.
After markets closed Tuesday, Alcoa Inc. predicted rising demand for its aluminum this year and topped revenue expectations for the fourth quarter. Earlier in the day, agricultural products giant Monsanto said its profit tripled and raised its guidance for 2013.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 0.9 percent to 10,677.74. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1 percent to 23,439.46. South Korea's Kospi added 0.7 percent to 2,005.39 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.4 percent to 4,725.80.
The European Central Bank will meet later Thursday to set monetary policy for the 17 countries that use the euro. It is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at the record low of 0.75 percent even though the eurozone economy as a whole is back in recession. Investors are also awaiting the release in the U.S. of weekly jobless claims.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent to close at 13,390.51 on Wednesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 0.3 percent to 1,461.02. The Nasdaq composite index rose 0.5 percent to 3,105.81.
Benchmark crude oil contract for February delivery was up 33 cents to $93.44 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 5 cents to close at $93.10 per barrel on the Nymex on Wednesday.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3047 from $1.3053 while the dollar rose to 88.05 yen from 87.75 yen.

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Golf-Goosen returns after "totally disintegrated" disc

Jan 8 (Reuters) - Twice U.S. Open winner Retief Goosen will play his first tournament for nearly five months at this week's Volvo Golf Champions in South Africa after having surgery on a "totally disintegrated" disc in his back.
The 43-year-old South African, who rated his health as "about five out of 10" at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August in his penultimate event before an extensive break to repair his back, is itching to play tournament golf again.
"I'm very excited about the New Year," said Goosen who is making his comeback about six weeks ahead of schedule. "Obviously the last three years have been pretty bad.
"Last year I tried a bit of everything... injections, loads of physio, anything you could think of but nothing really helped. In the end we had no choice but to have the operation," he told the European Tour website (www.europeantour.com).
"It's been great. It's been almost five months now. I've been off painkillers and that cleans the system out a little bit. I started hitting balls, or half shots, about three weeks ago and I felt pretty good."
Goosen, who has 14 European Tour wins to his name but has not triumphed on the circuit since 2007, said he entered this week's event in Durban just before the deadline.
The 2001 and 2004 U.S. Open winner lost to compatriot Branden Grace in a playoff, which also featured Ernie Els, at the same event last year and said 2013 could be his season such is the unpredictability of golf.

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Goosen returns after "totally disintegrated" disc

Twice U.S. Open winner Retief Goosen will play his first tournament for nearly five months at this week's Volvo Golf Champions in South Africa after having surgery on a "totally disintegrated" disc in his back.
The 43-year-old South African, who rated his health as "about five out of 10" at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August in his penultimate event before an extensive break to repair his back, is itching to play tournament golf again.
"I'm very excited about the New Year," said Goosen who is making his comeback about six weeks ahead of schedule. "Obviously the last three years have been pretty bad.
"Last year I tried a bit of everything... injections, loads of physio, anything you could think of but nothing really helped. In the end we had no choice but to have the operation," he told the European Tour website (www.europeantour.com).
"It's been great. It's been almost five months now. I've been off painkillers and that cleans the system out a little bit. I started hitting balls, or half shots, about three weeks ago and I felt pretty good."
Goosen, who has 14 European Tour wins to his name but has not triumphed on the circuit since 2007, said he entered this week's event in Durban just before the deadline.
The 2001 and 2004 U.S. Open winner lost to compatriot Branden Grace in a playoff, which also featured Ernie Els, at the same event last year and said 2013 could be his season such is the unpredictability of golf.
"Hopefully the back will stay as good as it feels now. I just need to really work on my swing a little bit and find a bit of game. I'm not really sitting here expecting to win but you never know in this game.

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Jets fire offensive coordinator Tony Sparano

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Tony Sparano has been fired as the New York Jets' offensive coordinator after one season in which the offense ranked among the league's worst.
Sparano was hired last March to replace Brian Schottenheimer and take over an offense that struggled mightily. Instead, the former Miami Dolphins head coach wasn't able to jumpstart the running game or figure out a way to use Tim Tebow consistently as the Jets finished 30th in the NFL in total offense.
Sparano was expected to use Tebow as a major part of the Jets' wildcat-style offense, but the popular backup quarterback was mostly a non-factor — failing to get into the end zone during his first and likely only season in New York.
The contract of quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh also was not renewed.

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Asian shares slip, Basel ruling supports banks

 Asian stocks drifted down on Monday as investors booked profits from a New Year rally that had pushed markets to multi-month highs, although financial stocks gained after global regulators decided to relax draft plans for tough new bank liquidity rules.
Commodity prices mostly held steady, supported by data showing the U.S. economy continuing on a path of slow but steady recovery that propelled Wall Street stocks to a five-year high.
Financial bookmakers called Europe's main share indexes to open flat or slightly lower, while S&P 500 index futures traded in Asia eased 0.2 percent, pointing to a weaker start in New York.
"It just seems like markets are entering a consolidation phase after recent gains and with most markets trading at fresh 12-month highs," said Stan Shamu, market strategist at financial spreadbetting firm IG in Melbourne.
The dollar fell against the yen, coming off a two-and-a-half year peak it had logged against the Japanese currency as investors adjusted to the possibility of more monetary stimulus in 2013 from the Bank of Japan and less from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan, which had reached its highest level since August 2011 on Thursday, eased 0.1 percent, while Tokyo's Nikkei share average retreated after touching a 23-month high in early trade to close down 0.8 percent.
CASH BUFFERS
The MSCI benchmark's financial sector sub-index firmed after the Basel Committee of banking supervisors agreed on Sunday to give banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers so they can use some of their reserves to help struggling economies.
HSBC Holdings Hong Kong shares rose 1 percent, while Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd gained 0.6 percent.
Shares in Japanese exporters were supported by the trend of a weakening yen, which traded around 87.85 to the dollar, up 0.3 percent on the day, after the U.S. currency rose as far as 88.40 yen, its highest in nearly two-and-a-half years, on Friday.
The dollar posted a gain of around 2.7 percent against the yen last week, its biggest weekly rise in more than a year. Its gains had accelerated after minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting showed some policymakers had considered ending the Fed's bond-buying programme as early as this year.
By contrast, many investors are now betting that Japan's new government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will push to weaken the yen and drive through aggressive fiscal stimulus, and pressure the Bank of Japan to do the same on the monetary side.
Although the dollar may pull back against the yen given the speed of its rise over the past month, its uptrend seems likely to remain intact, said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan for UBS in Tokyo.
"My sense is that the market could still head much higher," Maeba said. "I think 90 yen might be reached pretty soon."
The dollar firmed against the euro, which traded around $1.3035.
The U.S. stock benchmark S&P 500 index closed at its highest level since December 2007 on Friday after data showed a steady pace of jobs growth and brisk expansion of the services sector in the world's biggest economy.
That offered support to growth-sensitive commodities, with copper little changed just below $8,100 a tonne, while Brent crude oil eased a little to around $111.20.
Spot gold firmed 0.3 percent to around $1,660 an ounce.

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Burundi coffee earnings fall 63 pct in December

 Burundi's earnings from coffee exports fell 63 percent in December from the previous month due to lower volumes sold, the country's industry regulator said on Monday.
"Low quantities of coffee were exported in December as most buyers in western countries were off for the holidays," said regulator ARFIC in its monthly report.
Earnings dropped to $2.1 million from $5.7 million in November, as the amount of coffee sold tumbled to 896,547 kg from 1,671,638 kg in the previous month.
ARFIC expects the central African nation to earn a total of$61.4 million from coffee exports during the 2012/2013 (April-March) crop year, slightly up from $61.2 million earned in the 2011/2012 season.
Projected high output from the world's top producers like Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia could lower coffee prices in global markets, ARFIC said.
Coffee is the country's top hard currency earner and the sector employs some 800,000 smallholder farmers in a population of eight million.

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Maruti shares hit four-year high; earnings seen improving

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Maruti Suzuki shares rose to a four-year high on Monday on hopes earnings would improve due to rising sales for passenger vehicles, while margins were also seen increasing due to the depreciation in the Japanese yen.
CLSA's upgrade of Maruti Suzuki Ltd to 'buy' from 'sell' also helped boost the stock, traders said.
At 2:31 p.m., Maruti shares were up 3 percent to 1,591.5 rupees after earlier touching their highest since December 15, 2009.

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UK police charge Nepalese man with torture

LONDON (AP) — British police said Friday they have charged a serving colonel in the Nepalese army with two counts of torture allegedly committed during the Himalayan nation's civil war. The case has touched off a diplomatic spat, with the Nepalese government summoning the U.K. ambassador in Kathmandu to protest.
Kumar Lama, 46, was arrested Thursday at a residential address in the English town of St. Leonards-on-Sea, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of London. Lama was charged Friday with intentionally "inflicting severe pain or suffering" on two separate individuals as a public official — or person acting in official capacity.
Britain's Metropolitan Police said the charges relate to one incident that allegedly occurred between April 15 and May 1, 2005 and another that allegedly occurred between April 15 and Oct. 31, 2005 at the Gorusinghe Army Barracks in Nepal. Lama is due to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Saturday, police added.
British authorities claim "universal jurisdiction" over serious offenses such as war crimes, torture, and hostage-taking, meaning such crimes can be prosecuted in Britain regardless of where they occurred.
Scotland Yard has said that the arrest did not take place at the request of Nepalese authorities. Britain's Press Association reported that Nepalese officials said Lama is serving as a military observer under the United Nations Mission in southern Sudan and was on vacation in London.
Britain's Foreign Office confirmed that Nepal's government summoned the U.K. ambassador in Kathmandu because it was upset over the arrest, but declined to comment further.
Thousands died and thousands more were injured or tortured during Nepal's civil war, a decade-long conflict that ended in 2006.

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UK police charge Nepali colonel accused of torture

LONDON/KATHMANDU (Reuters) - British police charged a Nepali army colonel on Friday with two counts of torture during the Himalayan nation's decade-long civil war, despite the Nepali government's demanding his immediate release.
Nepal summoned the British ambassador earlier on Friday to express its "strong objection" to Kumar Lama's detention.
Rights groups accuse both the security forces and former Maoist rebels of committing abuses including torture during the conflict that killed more than 16,000 people.
The Maoists ended the conflict in 2006 under a peace deal with the government, won elections four years ago and are now heading a coalition ruling the young Himalayan republic.
London's Metropolitan Police said it had arrested Lama, 46, in the southern town of St. Leonards-on-Sea and charged him with committing acts of torture in 2005.
Media reports said he was detained while on vacation from a U.N. mission in Sudan.
The police statement accused Lama of intentionally inflicting "severe pain or suffering" on Janak Bahadur Raut between April 15 and May 1, 2005, and on Karam Hussain between April 15 and October 31, 2005.
Lama is due to appear in court in London on Saturday.
"We express strong objection to this mistake and urge that it be corrected ... and Lama be released," Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha told reporters in Kathmandu after the colonel's arrest.
Human Rights Watch said the arrest sent a warning to those accused of serious crimes that they cannot hide from the law.
"The UK's move to arrest a Nepali army officer for torture during Nepal's brutal civil war is an important step in enforcing the U.N. Convention against Torture," Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

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Northern Irish fighting rages on as rioters branded a disgrace

BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Irish police came under attack by pro-British loyalists on Friday as the province's first minister branded rioters a disgrace and said they were playing into the hands of rival militant nationalists.
Rioting began a month ago after a vote by mostly nationalist pro-Irish councillors to end the century-old tradition of flying the British flag from Belfast City Hall every day unleashed the most sustained period of violence in the city for years.
On Friday, police came under attack in the east of the city by masked mobs hurling petrol bombs, rocks and fireworks. Police said one of its officers was injured and that it deployed water cannon to control the crowd of some 400 protesters.
More than 40 police officers were injured in the initial wave of fighting, which stopped over Christmas, only to resume on Thursday when a further 10 police officers were hurt as the community divisions were exposed once more.
At least 3,600 people were killed during Northern Ireland's darkest period as Catholic nationalists seeking union with Ireland fought British security forces and mainly Protestant loyalists determined to remain part of the United Kingdom.
First Minister Peter Robinson, leader of the pre-eminent Protestant group - the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - called the decision to take down the flag "ill-considered and provocative" but said the attacks must end.
"The violence visited on (police) is a disgrace, criminally wrong and cannot be justified," said Robinson, whose party shares power with deputy first minister and ex-Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander Martin McGuinness' Sinn Fein Party
"Those responsible are doing a grave disservice to the cause they claim to espouse and are playing into the hands of those dissident groups who would seek to exploit every opportunity to further their terror aims."
Anti-British Catholic dissident groups, responsible for the killing of three police officers and two soldiers since 2009, have so far not reacted violently to the flag protests, limiting the threat to Northern Ireland's 15-year-old peace.
Another demonstration calling for the reinstation of the Union Flag will be held outside City Hall on Saturday afternoon while some loyalists have pledged to hold a protest in Dublin the following Saturday.

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