Wall Street set for higher open after jobs report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street was set for a higher open on Friday after a key U.S. jobs report showed the pace of hiring by employers had eased sightly in December but gave signals of some momentum in the labor market's recovery since the 2007-09 recession.
Though the data showed lackluster economic growth was unable to make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.
Concerns about the endurance of the Fed's stimulus program prompted investors to pull back from the market Thursday after a two-day rally.
"When it comes to Fed policy, this report should keep policy steady. There was talk of a scaling back of (Quantitative Easing) yesterday, but this number is a snapshot and is basically where it was when the Fed decided to do more QE last month," said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital markets in New York.
According to the Labor Department, payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, as expected and slightly below the level for November. Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to health care.
Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, released Thursday, showed Fed officials were increasingly worried about the risks of asset purchases on financial markets, though they looked set to continue with the open-ended stimulus program for now.
Some policymakers thought asset buying should be slowed or stopped before the end of 2013 while others highlighted the need for further stimulus. The Fed's policy of easy credit has helped push the S&P 500 to a 13.4 percent gain in 2012. Ending that policy would remove an incentive for investors to purchase riskier assets like stocks.
S&P 500 futures added 3.4 points and were slightly higher than fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 15 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures added 4.25 points.
Pharmaceuticals maker Eli Lilly and Co. said on Friday it expects 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share excluding items from $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012.
Walgreen is set to report December same-store sales, a day after several major U.S. retailers beat expectations of modest sales increases in December as shoppers wrapped up holiday buying.
Mosaic Co reported that its quarterly operating profit fell 30 percent as international distributors delayed buying potash and phosphate to avert the price risk associated with the fertilizer producer's negotiations with China and India.
Japan's Nikkei share average climbed nearly 3 percent to a 22-month high on its first trading day of 2013 on Friday, as a deal in Washington to avert fiscal disaster buoyed investor risk appetite and the weaker yen lifted exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp . Japan's markets were closed Thursday for a holiday.

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Stocks inch higher following jobs report

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are mostly edging higher on Wall Street in early trading after the U.S. government reported that hiring held up last month.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 11 points to 13,403 shortly after the opening bell Friday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose two to 1,461 and the Nasdaq fell a point to 3,099.
The Labor Department said U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs in December. It also said hiring was stronger in November than first thought. The unemployment rate held steady at 7.8 percent.
Accuray plunged 23 percent to $5.21 after the radiation oncology equipment company reported weak sales and said it would cut 13 percent of its staff.
Yoga apparel maker Lululemon dropped 5 percent to $71.10 after Credit Suisse predicted slowing momentum and downgraded its stock.

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Sensex edges up to two-year high on oil, earnings

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The BSE Sensex edged higher on Friday to touch two-year high, posting its strongest weekly performance since the end of November, as oil companies such as ONGC rose on hopes a proposed change in the government's pricing formula would boost gas prices.
Software services exporters such as Tata Consultancy Services also rose on expectations upcoming October-December earnings results would beat expectations and that the sector would guide for an improved outlook in 2013.
Infosys will kick off earnings on January 11, at a time when results are gaining particular relevance given some analysts worry about potential complacency after strong gains in 2012 have continued into the new year.
India VIX <.nifvix>, also considered by some investors as a fear gauge, is just 2.5 percent away from its all-time lowest close.
"We have already seen advance tax numbers, so in the near term one has to see how the earnings season pans out," Kaushik Dani, fund manager at Peerless Mutual Fund, said.
"One has to remain stock specific on how the numbers shape up for the quarter," Dani said.
The benchmark BSE index rose 0.1 percent, or 19.30 points, to end at 19,784.08, marking a fourth consecutive session of gains.
The index rose 1.74 percent for the week, its strongest weekly performance since the end of November.
The broader NSE index rose 0.11 percent, or 6.65 points, to end at 6,016.15, closing above the psychologically important 6,000 level for a second day. It rose 1.8 percent for the week.
Shares in upstream oil and gas companies rallied on hopes that the pricing formula recommended by a government-appointed panel that looked into oil and gas exploration contracts would be approved by the government.
The proposed changes would sharply raise the prices of domestic natural gas, analysts said.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation shares gained 1.8 percent, while Oil India rose 2 percent.
Reliance Industries Ltd rose 0.13 percent, gaining less than its peers after the market regulator rejected its request to settle a long-pending dispute over the 2007 sale of stock futures in a unit.
State-owned oil companies gained on expectations India could soon announce a potential gradual hike in diesel prices, after a government official last month was quoted in local media saying a proposal was being considered.
Among refiners, Indian Oil Corp rose 3.5 percent, Hindustan Petroleum Corp gained 5.3 percent and Bharat Petroleum Corp ended 2.12 percent higher.
Expectations of better-than-expected quarterly earnings lifted technology stocks.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd rose 1.45 percent, while Wipro Ltd ended up 1.5 percent higher.
Infosys, which kicks off earnings on Friday, rose 0.5 percent. The company denied a newspaper report it was planning to fire up to 5,000 poorly performing workers was "wrong", although it encourages "chronic underperformers" to leave as part of its routine staff management.
IFCI shares gained 11.4 percent after the government restructured the board of the project finance provider according to a stock filing, sparking hopes of a turnaround in operations.
However, Tata Steel ended 1.9 percent lower while Jindal Steel and Power fell 1.8 percent on profit taking, after gaining on the back of a rise in international metal prices after the end of the US "fiscal cliff" issue.

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Israeli undercover raid sets off violent protests

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli undercover troops broke into a West Bank apartment building in a failed arrest raid Thursday, igniting a violent protest and signaling that Israeli-Palestinian security coordination may be in trouble, officials said.
Thursday's raid targeted a suspected Islamic militant and marked the second time this week an army operation sparked clashes. Palestinians accused Israel of taking provocative actions in retaliation for their successful bid in November to win U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in 1967.
Israel's military denied it was walking away from coordination with the security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose self-rule government administers just over one-third of the West Bank, where more than 90 percent of the Palestinians live.
Palestinian officials said Thursday's operation began when undercover troops, followed by uniformed soldiers in more than a dozen jeeps, broke into an apartment building on the outskirts of the West Bank town of Jenin. The apparent target, an activist in the militant Islamic Jihad group, was not in the area.
The Israeli military said several hundred Palestinians began throwing stones, and that some in the crowd hurled firebombs and rolled burning tires toward the soldiers. Troops fired warning shots, and also used tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel pellets to quell the protest, the military said.
Talal Dweikat, the Palestinian governor of the Jenin district, put the number of stone throwers at several dozen. He said a Palestinian was shot in the leg and an elderly woman was bitten by an army dog. The military confirmed a woman was bitten and taken for medical treatment.
In recent years, the West Bank has been relatively calm, in part because of Israeli-Palestinian coordination in tracking Islamic militants. The coordination came in response to the 2007 takeover of Gaza by the Islamic militant Hamas, Abbas' main political rival.
Trying to prevent a similar takeover in the West Bank, Abbas began cracking down on Hamas and found his interests aligned with Israel's. Abbas has long argued that violence is counterproductive, since Palestinians are bound to lose any armed confrontation with Israel. Hamas believes Israel will make concessions only in response to force.
Security coordination with Israel is unpopular in the West Bank, especially at a time when peace talks are frozen and Palestinian independence appears unlikely anytime soon. U.N. recognition gave the Palestinians a diplomatic boost but changed little on the ground.
Palestinian officials alleged Thursday that the recent Israeli raids are part of Israel's retaliation for the statehood bid. Israel strongly opposed the U.N. recognition, saying it was an attempt to bypass negotiations.
A Palestinian security official said Abbas has ordered his security forces to avoid any confrontations with Israeli troops. Abbas is concerned about an unwanted escalation he believes will not serve Palestinian interests, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations with reporters.
Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, said Israeli troops have increasingly entered Palestinian-run areas without coordination since November. "There has been an escalation in Israeli raids into our territories since the U.N. bid," he said.
Earlier this week, another undercover raid targeting suspected Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank prompted clashes that left 10 Palestinians wounded.
Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said Israel has not abandoned security coordination with the Palestinians. "As far as we are concerned, the coordination has not changed," she said. "Our activities are in relation to threats (by militants), and nothing else.

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Israeli library unveils ancient Afghan manuscripts

JERUSALEM (AP) — A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago.
On Thursday Israel's National Library unveiled the cache of recently purchased documents that run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records.
Researchers say the "Afghan Genizah" marks the greatest such archive found since the "Cairo Genizah" was discovered in an Egyptian synagogue more than 100 years ago, a vast depository of medieval manuscripts considered to be among the most valuable collections of historical documents ever found.
Genizah, a Hebrew term that loosely translates as "storage," refers to a storeroom adjacent to a synagogue or Jewish cemetery where Hebrew-language books and papers are kept. Under Jewish law, it is forbidden to throw away writings containing the formal names of God, so they are either buried or stashed away.
The Afghan collection gives an unprecedented look into the lives of Jews in ancient Persia in the 11th century. The paper manuscripts, preserved over the centuries by the dry, shady conditions of the caves, include writings in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judea-Arabic and the unique Judeo-Persian language from that era, which was written in Hebrew letters.
"It was the Yiddish of Persian Jews," said Haggai Ben-Shammai, the library's academic director.
Holding the documents, protected by a laminated sheath, Ben-Shammai said they included mentions of distinctly Jewish names and evidence of their commercial activities along the "Silk road" connecting Europe and the East. The obscure Judeo-Persian language, along with carbon dating technology, helped verify the authenticity of the collection, he said.
"We've had many historical sources on Jewish settlements in that area," he said. "This is the first time that we have a large collection of manuscripts that represents the culture of the Jews that lived there. Until today we had nothing of this."
The documents are believed to have come from caves in the northeast region of modern-day Afghanistan, once at the outer reaches of the Persian empire. In recent years, the same caves have served as hideouts for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
It remains unclear how the ancient manuscripts emerged. Ben-Shammai said the library was contacted by various antiquities dealers who got their hands on them.
Last month, the library purchased 29 out of hundreds of the documents believed to be floating around the world, after long negotiations with antiquities dealers. The library refused to say how much it paid for the collection, adding that it hoped to purchase more in the future and didn't want to drive up prices. The documents arrived in Israel last week.
Comparisons with the other find are inevitable.
The Cairo Genizah was discovered in the late 1800s in Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue, built in the ninth century. It included thousands of documents Jews stored there for more than 1,000 years.
Ben-Shammai said it was too early to compare the two, and it would take a long time to sift through the findings from Afghanistan. He said they were already significant since no other Hebrew writings had even been found so far from the Holy Land.
He said the Jewish community in the region at the time lived largely like others in the Muslim world, as a "tolerated minority" that was treated better than under Christian rule. Afghanistan's Jewish community numbered as many as 40,000 in the late 19th century, after Persian Jews fled forced conversion.
By the mid-20th century, only about 5,000 remained, and most emigrated after Israel's creation in 1948. A lone Jewish man remains in Afghanistan, while 25,000 Jews live in neighboring Iran — Israel's bitter enemy.
The library promises the finds will be digitized and uploaded to its website for all to see.
Aviad Stollman, curator of the library's Judaica collection, said much more would be gleaned after intense research on the papers, but already it tells a story of a previously little known community.
"First we can verify that they actually existed — that is the most important point," he said. "And of course their interests. They were not interested only in commerce and liturgy; they were interested also in the Talmud and the Bible," he said.
"They were Jews living a thousand years ago in this place. I think that is the most exciting part."

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Brotherhood official urges Egypt's Jews to return

CAIRO (AP) — A leading Muslim Brotherhood member and adviser to Islamist President Mohammed Morsi created a stir in Egypt when he called on Egyptian Jews in Israel to return home because Egypt is now a democracy and because the Jewish state won't survive.
Essam el-Erian's remarks in a TV appearance put the Brotherhood, which holds power in Egypt, on the spot as opponents — and some allies — jumped on the comments to denounce the group. Morsi's office this week disassociated the president from the comments, saying they were el-Erian's personal opinion.
The criticism ran an unusual gamut of Egyptians' attitudes toward Jews, Israel and the Brotherhood itself.
Some denounced the Brotherhood for trying to put up a veneer of tolerance by inviting Jews to return while Egypt's other religious minorities, particularly Christians, are increasingly worried about persecution under the new Islamist rulers and an Islamist-slanted constitution.
Others saw the comments as a sort of outreach to Zionists, considered the enemy, and as a new example of how the Brotherhood has had a hard time melding its longtime anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish rhetoric with its new responsibilities since coming to power. Under Morsi — who hails from the Brotherhood — the government has continued cooperation with Israel, upheld the two countries' peace deal and Morsi last month helped mediate a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
Some warned that el-Erian was opening the door for Egyptian Jews to demand compensation for property taken from them or left behind in Egypt and could even undermine the Palestinians' right to return to homes in Israel. Still others were simply outraged that a Brotherhood official would invite back Jews, and one hardline Islamist politician threatened any Jews who come back.
And there were a few voices calling for Egypt to sincerely look at past treatment of its Jewish community — including why they left or were expelled — and whether they should have the right to return.
Speaking on private ONTV, historian Khaled Fahmy suggested taking el-Erian's comments at face value. "I am taking the call seriously. I would like to see it in part as respectable, as addressing morals and high principles." He said Egyptians should talk about the past "harm to Egyptian Jews" and consider them as still having Egyptian nationality.
"I wish this was put to a public discussion," he said.
Egypt's once thriving Jewish community largely left Egypt more than 60 years ago amid the hostilities between Egypt and Israel. Estimates say about 65,000 Jews left Egypt since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, most of them to Europe and the West, with a small portion settling in Israel. Their departure was fueled by rising nationalist sentiment during the Arab-Israeli wars, harassment and some direct expulsions by then-President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, and attacks on Jewish properties, some of them blamed on the Brotherhood, which renounced violence in the 1970s.
Now only a handful of Jews, mostly elderly, remain in Egypt, along with a number of heavily guarded synagogues, open only to Jews.
El-Erian, who is also deputy of the Brotherhood's political party, made his comments last week on a late night talk show on the private station Dream TV.
"I wish our Jews return to our country, so they can make room for the Palestinians to return, and Jews return to their homeland in light of the democracy" evolving in Egypt, he said. "I call on them now. Egypt is more deserving of you."
"Why stay in a racist entity, an occupation, and be tainted with war crimes that will be punished, all occupation leaders will be punished," he said. He added in separate comments that the Zionist "project" will end.
The comments didn't make much of an impact in Israel, and there was no official comment about them and little discussion of them in the press. In contrast, they raised widespread ridicule and debate in Egypt on TV shows, newspapers and social websites.
Belal Fadl, a popular Egyptian columnist and satirical writer, said the comments were hypocritical given other Brotherhood officials' statements accusing Egypt's Christians of threatening Morsi's legitimacy as president, fueling anger against the minority community.
"How can we believe the tolerance of el-Erian amid all the sectarian statements by leaders of the groups and other sheiks that all seek to chase away Egypt's Christians in the footsteps of the Jews," Fadl wrote in the daily al-Shorouk Thursday.
Youssef el-Husseini, a prominent TV presenter known for his liberal views and harsh criticism of Morsi and the Brotherhood, said el-Erian was showing a fake tolerance for Jews to impress Israel and the United States — setting aside the anti-Israel parts of his statement. El-Husseini said that if a liberal made the comments he would be branded a traitor and would be accused of inviting Zionists back to Egypt.
"Is el-Erian flirting with the Zionist state to say we are fine and you are friends," el-Husseini said on a Sunday morning talk show. "Or is he flirting with Obama" because of U.S. aid to Egypt. "Is the group taking their political garb bit by bit?"
On Tuesday, Morsi's spokesman said the presidency is not responsible for comments made by el-Erian. "These are his personal opinion," Yasser Ali, the presidential spokesman said.
Mohammed Salmawy, the head of Egypt's Writers Union, called el-Erian's comments "delirium."
"What is this superficial understanding of matters that borders naiveté?" he wrote, saying the problem of Palestinian refugees is not one of "making room" for their return.
"What the Jews who were living in Egypt want is not to return, particularly in the current circumstances. What they want is compensation for their properties" they left behind.
He said el-Erian was recognizing a right of return for Israeli Jews of Arab origin, which he said would allow for a quid-pro-quo forcing Palestinians refugees to drop their demand to return to homes in Israel so that Jews drop demands to return to Arab nations.
"It seems the way to deny the Palestinians the right of return or compensation is to exchange that right for ... the right of the return of Jewish refugees to Arab countries," he wrote Thursday.
The leading member of a former Islamic militant group, Gamaa Islamiya, which is now a political party allied to the Brotherhood, simply said Jews were not welcome back.
Quoted in the Rose el-Youssef newspaper, Tarek el-Zumor said his group will not tolerate their return "except over our dead bodies or after they change their religion and become Muslims.

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Activists: At least 9 killed by Damascus car bomb

BEIRUT (AP) — A car bomb blew up late Thursday in a Damascus gas station, killing at least nine people, a Syrian activist group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll in the blast in the capital's Masakin Barzeh neighborhood is expected to rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.
Syria's state news service also reported the blast but did not give a number of dead or wounded. It said the bomb targeted cars that were lined up to get gas and blamed the attack on "terrorists," the government's shorthand for rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad.
The pro-regime Ikhbariyeh TV station said some 30 civilians were killed or wounded in the blast.
Despite gains in other parts of Syria by rebels seeking to topple Assad, he has largely kept his grip on the capital.
But Damascus has been targeted by a number of large bombings, many of which appear to target government buildings. Some have been claimed by the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday's blast.
Masakin Barzeh is a middle-class neighborhood northeast of downtown that is home to many government employees.
The U.N. says more than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the start of the uprising in March 2011. The conflict has since evolved into a civil war.

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