Miners, deal news catch investors' attention on an otherwise quiet day on Wall Street
Corporate deal stories and technology stocks were bright spots on Wall Street Monday on a day when the indexes ended relatively flat.
BlackBerry jumped after the struggling smartphone maker said it would consider a sale. Dole Foods rose after its CEO said he would take the company private and Steinway Musical Instruments gained after receiving a new buyout offer.
Apple, another smartphone maker, was also in the news. The tech giant's stock rose after the blog AllThingsD said the company would release the latest version of its iPhone on Sept. 10. The stock's rise helped make technology stocks the leading gainers in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
Still, those gains weren't enough to push the broad-market index up for the day.
The S&P fell 1.95 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 1,689.47. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 5.83 points, or less than 0.1 percent, at 15,419.68.
Stocks had opened lower after logging their biggest weekly loss in almost two months. By late morning the losses had been pared, and the S&P and Dow remained marginally lower throughout the day.
Apple rose $12.91, or 2.8 percent, to $467.30. The company makes up 7.9 percent of the Nasdaq composite and its advance pushed the index up 9.84 points, or 0.3 percent, to 3,669.95.
Newmont Mining was the biggest gainer in the Standard & Poor's 500 index after the prices of gold and silver advanced. Gold rose for a fourth day on reports of increased demand from China. Silver gained the most in three weeks.
Stocks have been treading water this month as companies finished reporting earnings for the second quarter and investors considered when the Federal Reserve will start to ease back on its economic stimulus. The U.S. central bank is buying $85 billion a month to keep long-term interest rates low. Many analysts expect that it will start reducing those purchases as soon as next month.
The tepid August follows big gains for stocks for July, when the S&P 500 rose 5 percent, its best month since January.
Stocks climbed last month after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reassured investors that the Fed would only ease back on its stimulus once the economy is strong enough to handle it. The Fed's stimulus has been a major factor driving a bull market for stocks that has lasted more than four years.
Any pullback in stocks now is presenting investors with a buying opportunity, said Doug Cote, chief market strategist with ING U.S. Investment Management.
"There will be some near-term volatility, but it's a buying opportunity and a chance to get fully invested in the market," Cote said.
The S&P 500 is up 0.2 percent this month. For the year, it's up 18.5 percent.
Investors will get further clues about the strength of the economy this week when the U.S. Commerce Department publishes its July retail sales figures Tuesday. There will also be data on the housing market, industrial production and the Philadelphia Fed's survey of manufacturing on Thursday.
The market's reaction to the reports may be muted as many market participants are likely to be on vacation this week, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds.
"When everybody is at the beach, it takes a louder bang to get the BlackBerries to start humming," Kelly said.
Sluggish economic growth figures from Japan, the world's third-largest economy, disappointed investors and weighed on the stock market in early trading.
The 2.6 percent annualized second-quarter growth rate recorded in Japan was below the 3.8 percent rate recorded in the first quarter and the 3.6 percent predicted by analysts. Japan's main stock index, the Nikkei, fell 0.7 percent on the news.
In commodities trading, the price of gold rose $22, or 1.7 percent, to $1,334.20 an ounce. Silver gained 93.2 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $21.34 an ounce.
Among mining stocks, Newmont Mining advanced $1.39, or 4.7 percent, to $30.90.
The price of oil fell 14 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $106.11 a barrel.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.62 percent from 2.58 percent Friday. The dollar rose against the euro and the Japanese yen.
In deal news, BlackBerry gained $1.02, or 10.5 percent, to $10.78. Steinway climbed $3.36, or 9.3 percent, to $39.59 after an investment firm topped an earlier offer from Kohlberg & Co. Dole rose 68 cents, or 5.3 percent, to $13.49, after the company's CEO said he would take the company private in a deal that values it at $2.1 billion.
BP sues US govt over decision to bar company from new contracts after 2010 Gulf oil spill
BP is suing the U.S. government over a decision to bar the oil giant from getting new federal contracts to supply fuel and other services after the company pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other criminal charges related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The Houston Chronicle reports BP filed the lawsuit Monday in Houston federal court.
BP says it is seeking an injunction that would lift an order by the Environmental Protection Agency that suspends the company from such contracts.
The newspaper reports an EPA spokesman declined to comment on BP's court action, referring questions to the Justice Department, which also declined to comment.
The well blowout that caused the spill killed 11 workers and led to millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf.
Cayman Islands Government to stop Dart 50% tax
The new Cayman Islands PPM government says it is standing firm over its objection to the former UDP government’s decision to allow the Dart group to take half of the tax it collects in all its hotels and tourism accommodation over the next decade as part of the ForCayman Investment Alliance. Kurt Tibbetts the Progressive’s former leader of government business and veteran politician, who has returned to the planning ministry said that government is currently in talks with the islands’ largest developer to try and reshape the agreements signed before they current government came to office and the tax rebate was unfair to existing hoteliers and had created a sense of expectation with new ones.
Although the a reversal of the West Bay Road closure appears now to be impossible Tibbetts said he was trying to put the negotiations to bed and improve on other areas. Speaking at the PPM’s national council meeting on Saturday night, the planning minister warned however that the things which were done before the election could not be undone.
Nevertheless, the cabinet’s most experienced minister said that there were several other things that were not yet etched in stone and it was important that government did what it could to prevent the country being the loser in the deal signed in December 2011.
Tibbetts said as the developer has now completed the Esterley Tibbetts highway extension the group was anxious for it to open but Tibbetts said it would not be Gazetted until the parties had reached agreement on all of the elements.
“We don’t want to deal with things piecemeal and we need agreement on everything,” he said as he promised to reveal everything in detail once the talks were finished. ”Some things can't be undone,” he added as he pointed to earlier agreements. But with the recent stalemates on the verbal agreements Tibbetts said government was trying to restructure the deal so Cayman would be better off from the deal.
He pointed to the proposed tax rebate for Dart of some 50% of the accommodation tax for ten years which he said was not only unfair to other hoteliers it didn’t end there as he said, “Every developer who comes to us wants this now,” Tibbetts revealed. He said that this was a matter that government had insisted must be changed and he hoped to have some agreement by next week which would be public as they had nothing to hide. In addition, Tibbetts promised that government would monitor closely local employment and that Dart was aware the CIG would be watching the work permits.
“I don't want anything from them personally I only want what is best for my country,” the minister told the meeting, to loud applause. “We will defend our wicket to ensure the country doesn't get bowled out.”
Updating the public and party faithful on other matters in his ministry, Tibbetts said there were other potential developments in the pipeline. He said the government has met with several entities that are looking to do business in Cayman many he said who had revealed they were waiting for the outcome of the election as they had been uncomfortable with how things had been going.
He announced a planned $15m renovation of the Marriott hotel which has been bought by a group of investors that also involves Caymanians and that approaches had been made for a five star Conrad-Hilton in Beach Bay and a golf resort in Frank Sound and a $360million development which has a 15 year long plan. Along with the Dart hotel plans, a hotel at the Shetty hospital site in East End and other potential plans. Tibbetts said government was interested in sustainable developments which would be well timed.
The planning minister said he could not say that all of these projects would happen but there was interest again and government would be ensuring that due diligence would be done as it wanted to see the “right type of development: and he promised it would not “giveaway the shop.’
Tibbetts said government would make sure Caymanians benefited from any development with employment for local people as a priority. He also said he would be looking out to make sure the country does not bite off more than it can chew. “We are not going to make any decisions that look good today and that will do harm down the line,” he said, as he promised to talk with the public about all major project or development plans.
Talking more broadly about the government that he was now a part he said it was “early days” but he was excited by the commitment from everyone in all areas of the new government.
“We will see good results we just need a little bit of patience,” he added. “We may not have been as accessible as people would have liked but it’s been rough,” he said as he explained the new government had a lot to grapple with when it took office and it was intent on making the right decisions. He said it would not be much longer before people would see the country moving forward fairly steadily.
Peru's security forces kill three Shining Path rebels
Three Shining Path rebels, including a top leader, have been killed by the security forces in Peru, according to the interior minister.
Wilfredo Pedraza said the guerrillas were shot dead in the country's south.
Among those killed is Alejandro Borda Casafranca, better known as Comrade Alipio, accused of being the number two in the Maoist rebel movement.
The Shining Path was largely defeated in the 1990s, but remnants continue to be active in parts of Peru.
The clash happened overnight near Huanta in the Ayacucho region, where most of Peru's coca is grown.
The security forces say the Maoist group has allied itself with drug traffickers and now finances itself by growing and smuggling coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.
Much of the illegal drug is produced in the Ene-Apurimac valley in southern Peru - known as VRAE - a stronghold of the Shining Path.
President Ollanta Humala has made bringing peace to the VRAE one of his top priorities since coming to office in July 2011.
One of the original leaders of the Shining Path, Comrade Artemio, was sentenced to life in prison in June.
Inspired by Maoism, the rebels tried to lead a "People's War" to overthrow what they called "bourgeois democracy" and establish a communist state.
They posed a serious threat to the Peruvian state in the 1980s but their numbers have since dwindled, most of their leaders have been captured and their territory has been reduced to small areas in the VRAE.
Fire at Venezuela's Puerto La Cruz oil refinery 'over'
The vice-president of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, Asdrubal Chavez, has said the blaze at one of the country's largest oil refineries has been extinguished.
Officials say lightning sparked the fire at a storage tank of the Puerto La Cruz refinery, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and leading to the evacuation of the surrounding area.
The authorities say no one was injured.
An explosion at the country's largest refinery killed 55 people last year.
The Puerto La Cruz refinery can produce nearly 200,000 barrels of oil a day.
Production has not been affected by Sunday's blaze, Mr Chavez said.
Soon after a storage tank was reportedly hit by lightning at 15:15 local time (19:45GMT), authorities ordered the evacuation of residents within 1km (half a mile) of the plant on the Caribbean coast as a precaution.
Large thunderstorms are currently drenching the country, says the BBC's Irene Caselli, in Caracas.
Many residents were seen abandoning the area and posted pictures of black smoke billowing from the refinery on social media websites.
After teams on the ground fought the fire for more than two hours, President Nicolas Maduro wrote on Twitter that the fire had been "controlled".
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.
A year ago, an explosion at the country's largest refinery killed 55 people and halted production.
The Puerto La Cruz refinery is one of six PDVSA facilities operating in Venezuela.
Colombia peace talks with Farc in Cuba make progress
The Colombian government and the country's main rebel group, the Farc, have hailed progress after the end of the 12th round of peace talks in Cuba.
The government's chief negotiator, ex-vice president Humberto de Calle, said they had never got this far before.
In a joint statement, the two sides say they are "building agreement" on the rebels' participation in politics, despite a tense week in Colombia.
The five-decade-old conflict has claimed more than 600,000 lives.
Meanwhile, President Juan Manuel Santos praised the army for killing the regional Farc leader, Jesus Antonio Plata Rios, known as Zeplin, on Friday.
"Thanks to the joint work of the air force and the army, the head of Farc's western front, Zeplin, has been neutralised," he wrote on Twitter.
Mr Plata Rios led the rebels in western Colombia and was also in charge of gathering support for the rebels in the region, authorities say.
The joint statement issued by the Colombian government and the left-wing rebels in Cuba says concrete proposals have been presented and discussed by both parties.
They started building an agreement to "secure rights and guarantees for the exercise of the political opposition", it says.
Political participation is the second bloc of issues being negotiated at the talks aimed at ending more than 50 years of armed conflict.
"Never before has anyone come this far," Mr de la Calle told reporters at the end of the latest round of negotiations.
Land reform was the first item agreed on the six-point agenda of the talks, in May, after more than six months of negotiations.
Mr de la Calle's optimistic words on Saturday came after a tense week in Colombia, with strong words coming from the government.
Farc leaders criticised Mr Santos remarks on Friday, saying that rebel leaders would be tracked down and killed by government forces.
In an interview earlier in the week, the Army commander, General Sergio Mantilla, said Colombia's largest rebel group was "in agony".
But the left-wing group said they were not "demoralised" and blamed the government for pre-emptying the talks.
Despite the slow pace of negotiations, the Colombian government has insisted a peace accord can be agreed before the end of the year.
The Farc warned of the dangers of rushing into a settlement.
"It is possible [to reach an agreement by November]. But to achieve peace, you need time. A bad peace deal is worse than war," he said in an interview with Colombian network RCN.
More than 600,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, most of them civilians.
There is huge pressure in Colombia for justice for those who have perpetrated acts of violence from both sides of the conflict.
The government has promised to bring to justice those responsible.
The rebels say most of the victims were poor peasants and other civilians targeted by the army and right-wing paramilitaries for their alleged support to the rebels.
Mexico drugs lord Caro Quintero's release angers US
The US has reacted angrily to the early release by a Mexico court of a drugs lord who served 28 years in prison for the kidnap and murder of a US agent.
The court cut short Rafael Caro Quintero's 40-year sentence for the 1985 killing of US Drug Enforcement agent Enrique Camarena.
It ruled that Caro Quintero, now 60, should have been tried in a state rather than a federal court.
The Drug Enforcement Agency said the move was "deeply troubling".
The murder strained US-Mexico ties and changed the war on drugs trafficking.
Caro Quintero is still listed as one of the DEA's five top international fugitives, and the US authorities believe he has been controlling drugs money from behind bars.
"DEA will vigorously continue its efforts to ensure Caro Quintero faces charges in the United States for the crimes he committed," said the agency in a statement.
Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam echoed those concerns, saying his office was analysing whether there were any charges pending against Caro Quintero.
One of three founding members of the Guadalajara Cartel, Caro Quintero had been arrested in Costa Rica amid a massive manhunt for cartel leaders.
The group was thought to be responsible for transporting the majority of the cocaine consumed in the US in the 1980s, the BBC's Will Grant reports from Mexico City.
Caro Quintero could have faced other charges or possible extradition to the US, but walked free early on Friday before media were notified.
The court did not clear Caro Quintero of Camarena's death, a move that would caused significant scandal in US law enforcement circles where the murdered operative is heralded as a hero, adds our correspondent.
Many analysts believe the Camarena killing represented a key turning point in the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico.
It broke up the Guadalajara Cartel into splinter groups, which formed the basis of today's powerful drug gangs.
Source-BBC
Kerry hopeful on Mid-East talks despite settlement move
The US has urged the Palestinians "not to react adversely" to Israel's approval of 1,200 new settlement homes only days before peace talks resume.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday's move was "to some degree expected", but stressed that Washington considered settlements "illegitimate".
This "underscores the importance of getting to the table quickly", he told reporters during a visit to Colombia.
Palestinian negotiators have accused Israel of trying to sabotage the talks.
An Israeli government spokesman rejected the criticism, saying every peace initiative so far had proposed that the settlements affected become Israeli territory.
Hours later, the Israeli authorities published the details of the 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners who will be freed on Tuesday.
The delay allows time for last-minute legal challenges by the families of their victims, who have been protesting against the decision.
During a visit to Colombia on Monday, Mr Kerry was asked about the implications of the Israel's decision to issue tenders for building 793 housing units in East Jerusalem and 394 elsewhere in the West Bank.
He said the announcement was "to some degree expected", but that he did not expect it would derail the negotiations, which resume in Jerusalem on Wednesday two weeks after a preparatory round in Washington.
Mr Kerry also stated that the US "views all of the settlements as illegitimate" and had "communicated that policy very clearly to Israel".
"I think that what this underscores, actually, is the importance of getting to the table and getting to the table quickly and resolving the questions with respect to settlements, which are best resolved by solving the problems of security and borders," he said.
"With the negotiation of major issues, these kind of hot-point issues... are eliminated as the kind of flashpoints that they may be viewed today."
Mr Kerry added that he had spoken with Israel's chief negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is recovering from hernia surgery.
About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
44 People Shot Dead in Nigerian Mosque
Officials in Nigeria say gunmen have killed at least 44 people in an attack on a mosque in the north of the country.
The officials said men dressed in army fatigues opened fire at the mosque outside Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's Borno state, in an attack Sunday morning. News of the killings was first reported Monday.
Local media reports said the gunmen were suspected to Islamist militants - but there was no official identification of the attackers. The Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for many previous attacks in northern Nigeria, including some on mosques whose clerics have spoken out against religious extremism.
Local officials also say there was another attack during the weekend in the nearby town of Ngom, in which 12 people were killed.
A new video emerged Monday by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. In it, he claims responsibility for several recent attacks, including in the towns of Bama, Malam Fatori and Gamboru.
Boko Haram has been blamed for thousands of deaths in bombing and shooting attacks since 2009. It is fighting to impose a strict form of Islamic law in Nigeria's majority-Muslim north and its name in the Hausa language means "Western education is sinful."
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan sent thousands of additional troops to Borno and two neighboring states in May after a surge of attacks by Boko Haram.
Rights groups have criticized the military for a heavy-handed response they say has led to hundreds more casualties.
Bombs Kill 22 Iraqis Near Baghdad
Two bombs near Baghdad killed at least 22 people Monday in another day of violence in Iraq.
A suicide bomber killed 16 in a crowded cafe in the town of Balad, north of the capital. Another bomb blew up near a sports field in Muqdadiyah, also north of Baghdad, killing at least six. Children are believed to be among the victims.
No one has claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks. But the al-Qaida affiliated group - the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - said it was behind a series of blasts last week during Eid, the end of Ramadan celebration. About 70 people were killed.
The group says the attacks were to avenge the arrests of Muslim extremists and threatened more violence.
Tension between Iraq's Sunni minority and the Shi'ite-led government have led to a surge in terrorism and violence this year, leaving more than 3,000 people dead.
Sunnis say the government is marginalizing them and ignoring their needs and demands.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.