Japan: Arbejdsløshed uændret 4,3 pct. i juli

Arbejdsløsheden i Japan var i juli på 4,3 pct., hvilket var som ventet og i øvrige på niveau med samme måned sidste år. Det skriver Bloomberg News. 

Et andet nøgletal viste en stigning i husholdningernes forbrug på 1,7 pct. fra samme måned sidste år. Analytikerne havde til sammenligning ventet en stigning på 1,2 pct. 

Endvidere viste forbrugerpriserne i Tokyo sig at være faldet 0,7 pct. på årsbasis i august. Det var ligeledes som ventet af analytikerne, ifølge Bloomberg. 

Barbie and Ken Say ‘I Do’ to Wedding Photo Clichés

Facebook has made weddings a social experience. Not social like chatting with Aunt Mildred over chicken Kiev at the reception buffet — social like web social.

From the courtship to the engagement to the honeymoon, social networks ensure all your online friends witness your nuptials. If you have a Facebook page, you have likely seen a fair number of wedding photographs and chances are that many of those shots shared common poses and themes.

SEE ALSO: Memes, Pixar and the Most Adorable Wedding Ever [VIDEO]

Wedding photographer Beatrice de Guigne noticed the similarities and decided to showcase some of the most popular pictures by reenacting them with Barbie and Ken.

The relationship between the plasticly perfect pair might have hit a rough patch in recent years, but they still look great together.

Facebook’s Ambition Collides With Harsh Market

Inside Facebook’s headquarters, a red-and-white poster affixed to a wall asks bluntly: “What Could Go Wrong?”
 Below, in black ink, someone has scrawled in tiny letters: “Everything.”

The poster, one of several displayed across this sprawling campus, is part of the company’s risk-taking start-up culture, as is the fact that management has

not pulled down the defaced copy. But as the company loses its luster on Wall Street, this exchange on the wall points to the improbable turn that Facebook’

s fairy tale has taken.

Once hailed as the most valuable technology company to hit Wall Street, Facebook is now worth just over half what it was three months ago, with shares

closing at $20.01 Monday. Wall Street analysts are openly wondering whether its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has the business skills to deliver on his

promises.

Facebook’s troubles began in earnest with an exceptionally ambitious initial public offering. Even the grown-ups that Mr. Zuckerberg, 28, chose to run the

business side of the company — Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operations officer, and David Ebersman, the chief financial officer — seem not to have been

skilled enough to stave off that disaster. Nor were the bankers who handled the deal, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

“The company is suffering from a classic disease — it went public at too high a value,” said Dan Alpert, a partner with Westwood Capital, an investment

bank that did not participate in the Facebook offering.

The challenge for Facebook executives, Mr. Alpert said, is to persuade the market that it is not a fad and that its managers have a blueprint for making

money.

In what passes for good news for Facebook these days, Morningstar, the investment research firm, said shares were almost cheap enough to consider buying, but

warned that the price had not yet hit bottom.

That twist of fate, in many ways, reflects the tension between two moneymaking cultures in America: Silicon Valley and Wall Street. They are as symbiotic as

they are dismissive of each other. They are equally focused on making money, but their approaches are different.

Wall Street wants to see swift growth in revenue, given Facebook’s still high valuation of around $50 billion. Facebook executives counsel patience. They

say they are building tools that will forever change the world — but have yet to reveal any details about how they plan to quickly increase profits.

The important thing for Facebook is “to stay focused on the fact that we’re the same company now as we were before,” Mr. Ebersman said in its maiden

earnings call in late July. Immediately after, the stock plummeted.

Since then, Mr. Ebersman has met with bankers on both coasts and reiterated that message.

“They think everything is going to be fine, and that everyone needs to understand Facebook better,” said one analyst who heard him speak.

The company is trying to show investors that it is aggressively expanding the business, investing in expensive engineers and data centers. Certainly the

public offering has stuffed the coffers with plenty of cash.

Facebook also wants it to be known that not everyone is running away from the stock. Reed Hastings, a Facebook director and the chief executive of Netflix,

recently bought $1 million in shares. But that was a drop in the bucket compared with the $9 billion in shares sold by insiders at the peak public offering

price. Since then, another director and an original investor, Peter Thiel, sold more than 20 million shares, according to a filing with the Securities and

Exchange Commission.

Facebook executives are taking pains to show that they continue to dream big.

Doug Purdy, the director of developer products, painted Facebook’s future with great enthusiasm on Friday, when shares nearly touched the half-price

milestone. One day soon, he said, the Facebook newsfeed on your mobile phone would deliver to you everything you want to know: what news to digest, what

movies to watch, where to eat and honeymoon, what kind of crib to buy for your first born. It would all be based on what you and your Facebook friends liked.

Facebook’s algorithms would be refined so that it would all be sent to you — “pushed,” in Mr. Purdy’s words. You wouldn’t have to search for it.

What he didn’t have to say was that in this future world, you wouldn’t need Google. How would Facebook profit exactly?

“There is a tremendous amount of value in here because we’re providing the user experience value,” he said. “That means users come back to Facebook. They

come back again and again and again. That allows us to show advertising.”

Mr. Purdy, tall and effusive, drew his dreams on a white board. It featured rectangles, representing mobile phones, which is exactly where Facebook faces its

most urgent challenge.

“We are focused on building the right products,” he said. “At the end of the day, user experience, user desire, user engagement is the highest priority

for us. Without that there is no money.”

There’s another poster on campus: “Our mobile future,” it reads. The company says it has oriented everything it does to make Facebook more attractive —

and lucrative — on mobile devices. It promises to roll out new features in the coming weeks.

Analysts have pointed out that Facebook has been slow to figure out ways to make money from mobile devices; half of its users log in on phones and tablets.

Given its exceptionally high valuation in its initial offering, the company is under intense pressure to show that its advertising model can deliver the

lucre that Wall Street expects.

Some of the scrutiny has been on Mr. Zuckerberg’s leadership. The very qualities that created the fairy tale aura around him, including his youth and

ambition, are what even his admirers are questioning.

“I don’t think he’s doing a bad job of running the company, if that means setting the company’s direction or driving product strategy,” said one person

who invested in the company when it was still private and who declined to be named to avoid hurting his relationship with Mr. Zuckerberg. “He’s doing a

very bad job of managing Wall Street.”

It doesn’t help that Wall Street and Silicon Valley speak in somewhat different languages.

“To Wall Street, 28-year-old C.E.O. hackers are aliens,” said Sam Hamadeh, a West Coast transplant to New York who runs PrivCo, a research firm that

specializes in private companies. “Sometimes that persona can help. When things go sour, they really look at you extremely skeptically.”

In the technology business, few companies can keep the fairy tale alive forever. Facebook’s campus was previously occupied by a once-rising technology star,

Sun Microsystems. (It has since been absorbed by Oracle.)

Facebook has kept some of the original doors. They are meant to be a reminder to the staff.
Nick Wingfield contributed reporting from San Francisco.

Wade says LeBron James made Olympics seem ‘effortless’

All LeBron James has done so far this year is win the NBA’s MVP award for the third time, an NBA Finals MVP trophy to go along with that one, his elusive

first championship and a second Olympic gold medal.

Dwyane Wade thinks his Miami Heat teammate is just getting started.

With the start of Heat training camp now just six weeks away, Wade said on Friday that he expects James to be even better this coming season now that the

will-he-ever-win-a-championship question has been forever put to rest.

“That monkey is off his back and now he’s just playing basketball,” Wade said while taking a break from his annual fantasy camp, where fans pay up to

$12,500 to get a four-day luxury taste of NBA life. “I think we’ll see a better LeBron James — scary to say, three-time MVP — than we’ve seen. And it’s

because all he has to do is play basketball now. He doesn’t have to worry about what he hasn’t done. It’ll always be something, but he’s got the biggest

one off his back.”

Wade was a James fan instead of a James teammate this summer, when the U.S. men’s basketball team won its second straight Olympic gold. Wade could not play

while recovering from knee surgery but was in London for part of the Olympic tournament, and he said James made playing at a high level — such as a triple-

double against Australia in the quarterfinal round — seem “effortless.”

It’s been that way for a while, too.

Going back to Miami’s win-or-go-home Game 6 in Boston of the Eastern Conference finals, James has played in 20 games with the Heat and for USA Basketball.

In those, his teams are 19-1, with the lone loss being Game 1 of the NBA Finals against Oklahoma City.

Four straight wins to close that title series, then five straight exhibition victories with the U.S. team, then an 8-0 Olympic record — 17 straight wins in

all.

“He’s on an amazing run,” Wade said. “When you’re on these kind of runs, you enjoy it. You keep going because you don’t know when it’s going to stop.

I think he’s just enjoying it right now. He’s doing all this stuff without thinking about it. He’s breaking records. He’s in the history books. He’s not

thinking about it; he’s just doing it. He’s at a gear that I’ve seen myself at before when it just feels easy. He’s just a gear above everyone.”

Soon, Wade hopes to be back at his usual gear.

He’s starting to hit the peak of his offseason schedule. Wade hosts his annual “Wade’s World” weekend for kids in Chicago next week, then begins his book

tour in New York on Sept. 4. Wade spent much of the past year writing a book about his experience as a father and the custody fight for his two sons.

And as he said in London, Wade reiterated on Friday his recovery from knee surgery is going according to plan, and that he intends to be back on the court to

begin workouts in a couple of weeks.

That means he won’t be scrimmaging the fantasy campers this weekend — though instead of dunking on them, as he did last summer, he will take them on in a

3-point contest instead. It’s far from the strongest part of his game, but he’s not too worried.

“I’ll have some fun, be able to interact with them, make sure they’re able (to) say that they lost to me again,” Wade said. “I won’t show up and leave.

I’m here. They’ll see me here all day; they know I’m a part of it. They know I’ll run out on the court when they do something great and know I’ll say

something when they don’t.”

Campers get to stay in an upscale hotel, receive plenty of new basketball gear, and even get coached by, among others, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and Indiana

’s Tom Crean — who coached Wade at Marquette. Miami coach Jim Larranaga and South Carolina’s Frank Martin, a Miami native, are also on the coaching

lineup.

“I wish I could play,” Wade said.

Instead, he’ll be a fan this weekend, just like he was for James in London.

“I’m one of LeBron’s biggest fans,” Wade said. “I couldn’t be teammates with him if I wasn’t a fan of his game. I’m one of his biggest supporters,

one of his best friends. It’s good to see him succeed like this, especially because I know the stuff he’s dealt with. It’s in the rear-view mirror now and

he’s going to move forward.”

Syria Violence Spills Into Lebanon: Abductions After Assad Strike on Azaz

In a video posted Tuesday on YouTube, three armed men, their faces concealed behind scarves, stand behind a captive in a white-walled room. They are identified as fighters from the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel force in the uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, broadcasting from Damascus. Identity cards are held to the camera that name the captive: Hassan Salim al-Mokdad, a man from a powerful family in Lebanon. His captors accuse him of being a sniper from Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group based in Lebanon and a close ally of Assad’s minority Alawite regime.
The video has since become a flashpoint in a murky chain of events that has heightened long-standing concerns that the Syrian conflict will spill out across its borders—and that new groups from outside the country could be drawn into the mayhem.
On Wednesday, more than 20 Syrians were taken hostage inside Lebanon, where refugees, along with opposition fighters and activists, have been flocking as Syria’s conflict rages. In an interview with Lebanese television, members of the Mokdad family said they had abducted Syrians “affiliated with the Free Syrian Army” and would release them only in exchange “for our son Hassan al-Mokdad.” according to Now Lebanon.

They also said the Mokdad family had a military wing and threatened to kidnap citizens from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, three governments that have been dedicated backers of the opposition to Assad. That threat may have already been realized. Citing a diplomat in Beirut, Reuters reported Wednesday that a Turkish national was among the hostages.

The Mokdad family said they had no plans to involve themselves in Syria’s conflict and wanted only the release of their kin. The potential ramifications from the standoff, though, seem to have shaken some in the FSA who worry that an already complicated war effort could now become even more so. Louay al-Mokdad, an FSA spokesman who is not related to the Lebanese captive, said Wednesday had been a “terrible day.” The FSA, he added, was scrambling to find Hassan al-Mokdad and release him. “We don’t know who took him,” he said. “We don’t know anything.”

Syria’s Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam and counts Hezbollah and the Shiite regime in Iran as its chief regional allies. The rebels opposing Assad, meanwhile, hail in large part from Syria’s Sunni majority. Mokdad expressed doubt that the FSA was responsible for the kidnapping in the first place, painting it instead as a plot by the regime to stir up sectarian tensions and destabilize its neighbor, which has its own Sunni-Shiite concerns. “Assad wants to bring Lebanon to civil war. He’s trying everything right now,” Mokdad said.

Conflict in Lebanon could distract international attention from the one in Syria, and it could tie up time and resources now devoted to the push against Assad, notes Imad Bazzi, an independent Lebanese activist. “Any mess in Lebanon decreases the pressure on the regime inside Syria,”  he said.

He added that Lebanese people are “worried sick” about the potential of spillover conflict from Syria. “They can’t handle a war at the moment, first because it is not their war, and second because they can’t handle it economically.”
But worrisome signs are mounting. In a surprising move on Wednesday, the Assad regime turned its artillery and fighter jets on the Aleppo suburb of Azaz, where rebels have been holding 11 Shiite Lebanese pilgrims who were kidnapped in May. Though Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, has been the focus of intense fighting in recent weeks, Azaz has not, leading to accusations that more attempts to sow discord in Lebanon are afoot. “Why is Assad sending his jets to Azaz?” Mokdad said. “The only reason he has is to pour oil on the fire in Lebanon.”

After television networks in Lebanon reported that some of the pilgrims had been killed in Wednesday’s strikes, according to The New York Times, their families began kidnapping Syrians as well. Three were shown on Lebanese television, and two said they’d been involved in helping the Syrian opposition.

Bazzi, the Lebanese activist, said some Syrian activists who have been based in the country have already fled. “They do not feel safe in Beirut anymore,” he said.

Bain Capital Crushed Pilots' Effort To Create Union At Key Airlines

The successful launch of Bain Capital, a private equity firm founded by current GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his associates in 1984, was

propelled in part by a move to squash the formation of a union at one of the first companies in which it invested, according to the Financial Times.
The episode began in 1984, long before Bain became a multi-billion dollar firm. Romney and his business partners were working to buy Key Airlines, a small

and somewhat troubled charter carrier that had a number of valuable assets, and turn it into a profitable investment. According to a report by the Financial

Times (paywall), Romney and his colleagues orchestrated a $5 million leveraged buyout of the airline. The Times reports that Key rebounded slightly under

Bain's management, but began to struggle again in 1985, a year that brought particular turmoil to the company when its pilots attempted to form a union.

Bain, which would end up selling Key for $18 million in 1986, had plans turn the company for a profit, and was presumably not eager to navigate through the

additional burden of labor agreements in making a deal. According to Roger Foley, a federal judge who would later rule on a subsequent case brought by two

pilots, what followed was an effort by Key's management “to stamp out any cockpit crew members’ union before it could come into being.”
The Financial Times runs down the particulars in a second report (paywall):

    According to the court ruling, Key held coercive meetings with pilots; said management would leave and the company lose contracts; and told pilots that

salaries, bonuses and benefits could be frozen. Federal labour law forbids an airline “to interfere in any way with the organisation of its employees”.

    Two union organisers -- Olen Rae Goodwin and Lawrence Schlang, a former naval aviator -- were instructed to sign resignation letters, according to a

separate report by the National Mediation Board, which oversees union elections in the sector. The report described the company’s excuse for this dismissal

as “little more than pretext”. When a union election was finally held only two pilots voted “yes”.

Foley's ruling, which found that Key's management violated labor laws in their effort to squash the union's creation, wasn't passed down until 1992.
When asked by the Times for comment on the matter, the Romney campaign responded with a link to its website regarding labor unions and criticism of President

Barack Obama.

“President Obama continues to put the interests of labour bosses ahead of the interests of Americans looking for work. By contrast, Governor Romney has

grown companies and created jobs, in the private sector and as governor of Massachusetts, and will get America working again,” Michele Davis, a Romney

spokeswoman, told the Times.

The details of Bain's synthesis have created controversy for the Romney campaign in the past. Earlier this month, The Huffington Post reported that the firm

was started in part with investment money from Salvadoran families who had ties to the nation's notorious death squads.

The Los Angeles Times has reported on Bain's extensive foreign funding. Romney told the National Review that Bain entities set up shop in the Cayman Islands

so that foreign investors could avoid U.S. taxes.

Did ‘Solar Storms’ Cause India’s Massive Blackout?

No, we’re not wearing tinfoil hats over here at India Ink — so-called “solar storms,” or magnetic eruptions on the sun’s surface, have been known to

take down electricity grids before, most notably in Quebec in 1989.

And, as it turns out, this year is a year of heightened solar activity.

“The ferocity and pace of the Sun’s flares and magnetic eruptions rise and fall on an 11-year cycle, and the Sun has only recently emerged from its slumber

and started generating new solar flares,” Kenneth Chang wrote in The New York Times in March.

In fact, Mike Hapgood, a space weather scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Britain, penned an article in April that warned we should “prepare

for the coming space weather storm.” These storms, more precisely called “coronal mass ejections,” send charged particles into space that could hit the

Earth, he told The Los Angeles Times in May, creating electromagnetic disturbances. “Think of it like a hurricane — is it headed toward us or not headed

toward us? If we’re lucky, it misses us,” he said.

“A big geomagnetic storm can essentially put extra electric currents into the grid,” Mr. Hapgood added. “If it gets bad enough, you can have a complete

failure of the power grid.”

And just this past weekend, “a medium-size solar flare erupted from the sun,” MSNBC reported, “hurling a cloud of plasma and charged particles toward

Earth on a cosmic path that is expected to deliver a glancing blow to our planet on Tuesday.”

So, are India’s power ministers (both previous and current) and its electricity-guzzling northern states off the hook? We thought we’d call the Indian

Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore to get an expert opinion.

Solar storms “have been of some concern” recently, acknowledged K. E. Rangarajan, a physicist who specializes in the Sun and magnetic fields at the

institute.

But, Professor Rangarajan said, there’s no evidence to suggest Monday and Tuesday’s massive power outages were caused by such an event.

Generally, he explained, these storms affect countries in higher latitudes than India, like Canada and the Netherlands, the most. In the last few days, none

of these countries have reported grid problems, he said. “Since it has not been reported in any other part of the world,” solar activity may have no

relation to India’s power outages, he said.

Still, Professor  Rangarajan added kindly, “It’s always good to ask questions.”

Egypt's president has powers that rival Mubarak's

Egypt's Islamist president has given himself the right to legislate and control over the drafting of a new constitution. He has installed at the top of the

powerful military a defense minister likely to be beholden to him.
Under Mohammed Morsi's authority, officials have moved to silence influential critics in the media. And though a civilian, he declared himself in charge of

military operations against militants in the Sinai peninsula.

Over the weekend, Morsi ordered the retirement of the defense minister and chief of staff and reclaimed key powers the military seized from him days before

he took office on June 30. With that, Egypt's first freely elected president amassed in his own hands powers that rival those of his ousted authoritarian

predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

If left unchecked, there are fears Morsi and his fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, could turn the clock back on the country's tumultuous shift to

democratic rule and pursue their goal of someday turning the most populous Arab nation into an Islamic state.

The Brotherhood already won both parliamentary and presidential elections after the uprising last year that forced Mubarak out. The question now is whether

there is any institution in the country that can check the power of Morsi and the Brotherhood and stop them from taking over the nation's institutions and

consolidating their grip.

"Are we looking at a president determined to dismantle the machine of tyranny … or one who is retooling the machine of tyranny to serve his interests,

removing the military's hold on the state so he can lay the foundations for the authority of the Brotherhood?" prominent rights activist and best-selling

novelist Alaa al-Aswani wrote in an article published Tuesday in an independent daily.

"He must correct these mistakes and assure us through actions that he is a president of all Egyptians," wrote the secular al-Aswani before warning that

Egyptians will never allow Morsi to turn Egypt into a "Brotherhood state."

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, the country's top reform leader, issued a similar warning on Monday. After Morsi stripped the military of

legislative authority, and in the absence of parliament, he cautioned that the president holds "imperial powers."

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which ruled Egypt for 17 months after Mubarak's ouster, dissolved parliament after a court ruled that a

quarter of its members were illegally elected and claimed legislative authority for itself. It stripped the presidency of many of its key powers before it

handed the office to Morsi.

The defense minister ordered to retire was the head of SCAF and the outgoing chief of staff was his No. 2.

SCAF issued constitutional amendments just before Morsi took over that gave the military control over the national budget and the process of drafting a new

constitution. The generals also put themselves in charge of all defense and foreign policy, including the appointment of the defense minister.

But Morsi reclaimed those powers on Sunday, so far uncontested by the military.

During his campaign and the early days of his presidency, Morsi touted himself as "the president of the revolution" and spoke tirelessly of democracy. He

pledged inclusiveness, tolerance and promised guaranteed freedoms under his rule — promises he has done little so far to fulfill.

Supporters of the 60-year-old, U.S.-educated engineer say he simply restored his rightful powers that the military grabbed from him.

"It is too early to say whether Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood are bent on dominating the state, but there are legitimate concerns given that Morsi now

holds executive and legislative authority as well as having an avenue for intervening in constitution writing," said Jeff Martini of the Rand Corporation.

Morsi's consolidation of his authority comes at a time when his likely opponents are too weak or distracted to challenge him.

The pro-democracy youth groups behind the uprising are in disarray. They lost much of the popular appeal they once had among the millions who answered their

call to come out and protest during the uprising. Squabbling and demoralized, they may do little more than denounce Morsi just as they did when the military

grabbed the president's power in June.

Morsi has counted on the support of the pro-democracy movement in his power struggle with the military. But many of the activists view the Brotherhood as

politically opportunistic and obsessed with power, suspecting Morsi is driven by those same ambitions.

"Courageous presidential decrees have foiled the counter-revolution plots," Brotherhood stalwart Essam el-Erian wrote on his Twitter account of Morsi's

latest stand against the military. "The president performed his sovereign duty and realized the demands of the revolution. Every revolutionary must support

the president to prevent any attempt against the revolution."

The military is not in a much stronger position to challenge Morsi right now.

For decades the nation's most powerful institution, the military has seen its reputation tainted by the events of the 17 months when it was running the

country. Troops clashed with protesters — sometimes shot them dead or ran them over. The military was vilified for its human rights abuses, dragged into

chaotic, post-Mubarak politics and ridiculed in the media.

Morsi's bold order to retire the top brass further hurt the military's image, shattering its aura of invincibility.

Still far from being a spent force or a paper tiger, the military is now led by a defense minister who owes his job to Morsi. He is expected to fight to keep

the military's traditional say in key security and foreign policy issues, but he is not expected to challenge Morsi's authority anytime soon.

Morsi succeeded Mubarak, whose 29-year rule saw Egypt evolve into a state where a confluence of powers — the presidency, the hated police and a coterie of

wealthy, corrupt businessmen — held the nation by a stranglehold. Mubarak ruled unchallenged, his ruling party dominated, assured of sweeping every election

even before the first ballot was cast. With the support of the police and the presidential establishment, he controlled every state institution.

Emergency laws were in force for all 29 years and dissent was tolerated, but only if it fell short of a concrete action to elicit real change.

Now Morsi is in effect both the executive and legislative branches combined. And his backers are showing some tell-tale signs of wielding power unchecked.

Last week, Brotherhood members of parliament's upper house named 50 new editors of state-owned publications, many of them known to be sympathetic to the

group. The move tightened the Brotherhood's stranglehold on the media after one of its members took over the Information Ministry in a newly appointed

Cabinet backed by the group and led by a devout Muslim.

Morsi and the Brotherhood remained silent when a mob of supporters attacked a media complex in a Cairo suburb, smashing offices and cars to punish critics of

the president. Supporters also intimidate and sometimes scuffle with protesters outside the presidential palace.

And though he is a civilian, the president declared himself to be running military operations against radical Muslims in Sinai after suspected militants

killed 16 Egyptian soldiers on the border with Israel on Aug. 5.

Morsi, according to insiders, is expected to press ahead with efforts to expand the Brotherhood's control.

He plans to soon replace many of Egypt's 27 provincial governors with Brotherhood members or sympathizers of the group and purge the judiciary of judges

known to be opposed to its policies, according to the insiders familiar with deliberations in Morsi's inner circle. They spoke on condition of anonymity

because they feared retribution.

"We are now rid of a state run by the military. What is left for us to do is to rid ourselves from the state of the Brotherhood," wrote columnist Mohammed

Amin in the independent Al-Masry Al-Youm daily.

The Brotherhood will be emboldened by Morsi's standing up to the military as it prepares for new parliamentary elections expected before the end of the year

and may press even harder to give the new constitution an Islamist tint over the opposition of liberals.

"There will be a firestorm if he interferes in the drafting of the document, but that he has the right to do that amounts to coercive influence on the

process," said Michael W. Hanna of New York's Century Foundation.

Maureen Dowd: It is difficult, if not impossible, to outsource your likability ratings

Isn't it amazing? Two introverts facing off in the brightest spotlight of all for president.

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are at their most appealing when they are with their families.

Unfortunately, we don't often get that vantage point. And beyond those circles of trust, both men can seem as if they are sealed in their own spaceships.

The big difference, the one that will probably decide this presidential race, is this: Barack Obama is able to convey an impression of likability to voters.

Given how private he is, an enigma even to some who are close to him, it's an incredible performance.

That likability slips through your hands at closer range. The president survived a "raised by wolves" upbringing, as Michelle has called it. He retained the

monastic skills that sustained him through the solitude of his years in New York. His "winning smile," as Jonathan Alter wrote in "The Promise," "obscured a

layer of self-protective ice." His staffers respect him, but he doesn't inspire the kind of adoration that the Bush presidents got. And the pillow-plumping

romance with the press is over.

Yet voters see something genuine, and that is why Obama seems to be surviving the stalled economy and his own chuckleheaded remark: "If you've got a business

-- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
A recent USA Today/Gallup poll showed Romney with higher marks on fixing the deficit, jobs, taxes and the economy.
But Obama soared on personal traits -- maintaining a 30-point advantage in likability, and better numbers on honesty, trust and empathy.

Romney advisers attributed his free fall in the polls to brass-knuckle Obama ads and summer doldrums rather than Mitt dullness. Maybe voters think Romney is

already so sheathed in secret bubbles -- Bain, Mormonism, his stint as governor of a liberal state -- that electing him to the biggest bubble of all, the

White House, would not be a good idea.

Some say Romney waited too long to put up his biographical ads and give personal interviews, letting himself be defined and slimed by the Obama ads.

"The Obama camp can raise a 'Mission Accomplished' banner on their summer project," said Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff.

"With Romney's help, they have defined Romney as a man with total disregard for the struggles of the middle class."

When Obama does rough ads, it allays the fear that he's the sort who can get rolled by the banks, by the generals, by the Republicans in the House. When

Romney does rough ads, it reinforces the fear that he's unfeeling and a bit of a bully marketed by political mercenaries.

With only two weeks to go before the convention, the question burns: Will Mitt's new mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, make his run more personable?

You can bolster your relatability with your No. 2 pick, at least with certain demographics, as Obama did with Joe Biden. But Americans like to like their

president. "You can't outsource likability," Emanuel says. "You can't have an offshore account for it in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands."

Romney's all-business/all-family rigidity makes him seem inaccessible. And his tax legerdemain has made him seem shady. As Marc Wolpow, a former Romney

employee at Bain Capital, said in a Boston Globe story about Mitt's 1988 deal with Michael Milken while the junk bond king was under federal investigation:

"Mitt, I think, spent his life balanced between fear and greed. He knew that he had to make a lot of money to launch his political career. It's very hard to

make a lot of money without taking some kind of reputational risk along the way."

In The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Karl Rove urged Mitt to reveal his character in his convention speech by talking openly about "his father's modest

upbringing, his wife's illness and his wealth."

Obama lost the thread of his narrative of hope and change, and Romney never developed one, even on his supposed specialty, the economy.

After another record-setting rout at PGA, McIlroy may be ready to assume the throne

Maybe, just maybe, Rory McIlroy is finally ready for the throne.

There isn't another major championship in sight for the next eight months, so there is plenty of time to debate, but the Age of McIlroy may have finally

begun. Sorry, Tiger, but you knew this day coming.

McIlroy, 23, of Northern Ireland is the winner of the 94th PGA Championship here at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island. He won in a rout, beating runner-up

David Lynn by a whopping eight shots in a victory reminiscent of his first major championship, an eight-shot win at the 2011 U.S. Open.

Golf has been waiting for a new king ever since Tiger Woods assumed the throne with a Masters win for the ages in 1997. The rush to judgment began last year

when McIlroy romped past the U.S. Open field at Congressional Country Club, where the course was soft and slow and not much tougher than a regular PGA Tour

stop. Still, McIlroy torched Tiger Woods's U.S. Open scoring record of 12 under par by shooting 16 under. Sixteen!

(Related Photos: Rory McIlroy's Career In Pictures)


His ascent seemed certain when he won the Honda Classic this March, holding off His Majesty Tiger Woods, who threw a Sunday 62 at Rory with no effect.

But the anointment was premature. McIlroy stumbled under the glare of the 24/7 modern media machine that followed him and his tennis star girlfriend,

Caroline Wozniacki, across the globe. He missed the cut at the BMW PGA Championship, the European tour's flagship event, where he was some 21 shots off the

lead. He missed four out of five cuts at one point, including the Players Championship and the U.S. Open.

"I've taken my eye off the ball," he admitted.

At the British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, where he tied for 60th, he beaned a young spectator. When he learned the fan was camping out for the week,

McIlroy found a hotel room (an amazing feat) and put him up for the duration of the tournament.

Winning or not, the kid has heart.

But his game returned at the Ocean Course. He finished off a 67 in the storm-delayed third round on Sunday morning, then shot three under par on the first

nine of the final round. He simply outdistanced his pursuers, which didn't make for the most exciting victory, but it was a convincing one. Quite a contrast

to Adam Scott's British Open meltdown, which led to a victory for Ernie Els.

(Related Photos: Sunday at the 2012 PGA)


McIlroy is now ahead of the major pace of Woods. McIlroy turned 23 three months ago; Woods won his second major, the 1999 PGA at Medinah, when he was 23

years, 7 months old.

Ahead of Tiger's pace, behind Tiger's pace -- it doesn't really matter. Tiger's run, which led to 14 majors, was so remarkable that it's amazing to even be

on a similar trajectory. This is the dawn of a great opportunity for McIlroy, and he will fuel our golf conversations until we return to Augusta National

next April.

As for Tiger, all you really needed to know was the scene at the par-5 second hole in Sunday's final round. He reached the green in two and had a lengthy

eagle putt. His roll looked promising, but as his ball went past the hole, Woods fell to his knees as if begging it to go in.

That's what Woods was reduced to on Sunday, begging. He took himself out of the tournament with a terrible front nine in the third round, which was stopped

by storms Saturday evening, and then failed to make a move on his back nine on Sunday morning.

In the final round Sunday afternoon, Woods needed to make something happen early, especially since McIlroy broke out of the gate with two birdies in the

first three holes. But Woods couldn't get it done.

The most animated Woods got all day was on the third hole, where he missed the green long and made a less-than-stellar pitch to 12 feet. He left himself a

curvy, swinging putt and poured it in. That elicited his trademarked air punch, which was telling. Have you ever seen Tiger Woods celebrate like that for a

par on the third hole of the final round? Yes, he wanted this one.

Other than another birdie at the par-5 seventh, Woods didn't make anything happen. In fact, he had to scramble for several par saves. A great one came at the

10th, where he drove into the gallery, near some temporary fencing, and played a shot off the matted, bare ground used as a cart path. That shot reached the

greenside bunker, and he got up and down to keep his faint hopes alive. The problem was, Woods had started the final round five shots behind McIlroy. His

two-under 34 on the front was good, but not good enough to catch McIlroy, who posted 33.

The air went out of Woods when he chopped up the par-5 11th. He played his third shot out of a dune left of the fairway and popped it up, barely getting onto

the grass. From there, he made an indifferent pitch to 20 feet and missed the putt. Making bogey on a par 5 when he needed birdie was a death knell, and he

knew it.

The real challengers of the day were Ian Poulter and Carl Pettersson. Poulter, the brash Englishman who is a former World Match Play champion, birdied the

first five holes in the final round to race into second place. He added a sixth birdie at the par-5 seventh, then bogeyed the eighth from a greenside bunker,

before getting two more birdies at the 11th and 12th.

Poulter's swing isn't the most reliable, but the man can putt, and his putter was sizzling early in the day. He made four bogeys in his last six holes,

however, and finished four under, tied for third.

Pettersson, a transplanted Swede who played college golf at North Carolina State and looks like your beer-drinking buddy from the bowling league, sparked the

controversy of the day. He drove into a slope inside a hazard on the opening hole and played it out. He made an apparent par, then birdied the third hole.

Coming off the fourth tee, he was approached by rules official David Price, who informed him of a two-shot penalty because replays showed Pettersson's club

hitting a dry leaf on his backswing in the hazard. That's moving a loose impediment, a penalty. Pettersson was understandably not happy, but he did the smart

thing -- he got even. He birdied the fourth, fifth and seventh holes to join Poulter in what turned out to be a futile race to catch Rory.

All McIlroy wanted this week, he'd said earlier, was a chance to get in contention and feel the familiar buzz that comes with challenging for a major. He got

that, and more. He may be golf's new dominant player -- we'll see -- but we do know that he is halfway to the career grand slam already.

We know one other thing: he's got a long way to go. The major championship leaderboard reads Tiger 14, Rory 2.

Still, he's off to a beautiful start.

Mitt Romney makes appeal to middle class in Iowa

In October 2002, campaigning for governorship of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney said he would “preserve and protect” a woman’s right to choose. He now

describes himself as opposing abortion.

Top Romney Flip Flops: #2. Gay Rights:

In a 1994 letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, who advocate gay rights, Romney said he was in favor of “gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and

honestly” in the military. He now says it would be a mistake to interfere with the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy.”

Top Romney Flip Flops: #4. Campaign Finance:

In 1994, Romney advocated a spending limit on congressional elections and abolition of political action committees. In 2002, he supported public financing of

campaigns from a 10 percent tax on private fund-raising. In 2008, he attacked the McCain-Feingold law limiting campaign contributions as an attack on free

speech.

"Corporations are people my friend"

Top Romney Flip Flops: #3. Gun Control:

Campaigning for the Senate in 1994, Romney said he favored strong gun laws and did not “line up with the NRA.” He signed up for “lifetime membership” of

the NRA in August 2006 while pondering a presidential run, praising the group for “doing good things” and “supporting the right to bear arms.”

Top Romney Flip Flops: #5. Immigration:

In a November 2005 interview with the Boston Globe, he described immigration reform proposal advanced by McCain as “reasonable.” He now denounces it as an

“amnesty plan.” In December 2006, he signed agreement authorizing state troopers to round up illegal immigrants.

Lol...and those hardly touch the current cycle.

Four years of hope gone in an instant as injury strikes the stars of track and field

Never does the four-year Olympic cycle seem more brutal than when injury prevents an athlete from being the best he or she can be.

Chinese 110metres hurdler Liu Xiang and Britons Goldie Sayers and Andrew Pozzi will know just how cruel that is after an emotional morning in the Olympic

Stadium on Tuesday.

In 2008, Liu, then the defending Olympic champion, carried the hopes of a nation into the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing.

But he didn’t even make it to the first hurdle, limping off after a false start with acute pain in his right achilles tendon.

Four years on, the former world record-holder attacked those 42-inch barriers with a different leading leg, but the result was the same. The 29-year-old was

even wearing the same number - 1356 - as he clattered into the first hurdle.

His fellow competitors were waiting for him as he hopped to the finish line, trying to protect the tendon that had ruptured once again, and kissed the final

barrier in lane four.

‘It was horrible to see him limp off like that so I had to go to help him,’ said Britain’s Andy Turner, who won Liu’s heat in 13.42sec. ‘I regard him as

the best hurdler in history and I have so much respect for him.’

Britain’s Lawrence Clarke will join Turner in the semi-finals on Wednesday night but Pozzi, the British champion indoors and out, did not even make it to

the second hurdle of his heat, having suffered a torn hamstring last month.
‘I came out of the blocks and it went again,’ said the 20-year-old. ‘I’ve really struggled but I didn’t want to walk away. My whole season has been

based on this.’

Sayers, too, saw her attempt to qualify for the javelin final thwarted by injury. The 30-year-old tore ligaments in her right elbow, her throwing arm, after

breaking her own British record on July 14 and said she couldn’t feel her hand after suffering a further injury in the warm-up.

She registered three no-throws then broke down during a BBC interview.

‘I’m sure people are criticising me for competing, but I had to give it a go,’ she said. ‘I had to compete in a home Olympics but my body just let me

down. I’ll put this right. Hopefully I can do the country proud in Rio.’

HCA Falls Most in 8 Months on Scrutiny of Cardiac Uses

HCA Holdings Inc. (HCA) (HCA), the biggest U.S. hospital operator, declined the most in two months after saying its cardiology practices had come under

scrutiny from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami.

HCA fell 4 percent to $25.55 at the close of New York trading, for its biggest one-day drop since June 1. The U.S. Attorney in July asked HCA for information

about the “medical necessity” of interventional cardiology procedures at its hospitals, the Nashville, Tennessee-based company said today in a regulatory

filing (HCA).

Chief Executive Officer Richard M. Bracken said today on a conference call for analysts that the New York Times was preparing a story that may focus on HCA’

s medical practices and treatment of uninsured patients. The twin disclosures spurred concern about risks for a company whose biggest shareholder (HCA), Bain

Capital LLC, was once led by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“My concern is that it gets political legs,” said Sheryl Skolnick, a CRT Capital Group LLC analyst in Stamford, Connecticut, in a telephone interview. “I

think we have to look at it seriously.”

The U.S. request to HCA is part of a heightened federal push against alleged health-care fraud. The Israel-based generic-drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals

Industries Ltd. said Aug. 3 that it received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with a Latin America bribery probe. London

-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc pleaded guilty July 5 to illegally promoting two drugs in a $3 billion deal with the Justice Department, the largest settlement

ever in a case involving health-care fraud.
160 Hospitals

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) (JNJ), the world’s biggest health-care company by sales, said in an Aug. 2 filing that it received two requests from the department

in the second quarter. The government asked for information on the marketing of Doribax, an antibiotic, and the Relieva Stratus MicroFlow Spacer, a medical

device used to treat sinus conditions, New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J said.

HCA owns 160 hospitals and 110 surgery centers. As of April 1, Boston-based Bain held 20 percent of HCA’s outstanding shares, worth about $2.2 billion. The

hospital company was taken public last year by an investment group led by Bain and New York-based KKR & Co. (KKR) (KKR) in an initial offering that raised

$3.79 billion. Through the end of last week, HCA had gained 21 percent in New York trading this year.
2006 Buyout

Romney was a co-founder of Bain and CEO starting in 1984. He has said he gave up management control in February 1999, when he took charge of preparations for

the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The private-equity firm and fellow investors took HCA private in 2006 in a $33 billion leveraged buyout.

Alex Stanton, a Bain spokesman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

While HCA declined to answer questions about the legal probe or the article, “Most people assume it’s going to be a negative view,” said Frank Morgan, an

RBC Capital Markets analyst in Brentwood, Tennessee, in a phone interview.

Interventional cardiology includes procedures such as the implantation of metal stents or balloons to open clogged arteries as well as tests for heart

disorders. Procedures to treat cardiac illness and strokes are among the biggest revenue sources for HCA, as they are at most hospitals, Skolnick said.
’Medical Necessity’

HCA’s regulatory filing said the Justice Department “requested information on reviews assessing the medical necessity of interventional cardiology services

provided at any company facility (other than peer reviews),” HCA said. An early look found information on such reviews at about 10 hospitals, mostly in

Florida, the company said in the filing (HCA).

“At this time, we cannot predict what effect, if any, the request or any resulting claims, including any potential claims under the federal False Claims

Act, other statutes, regulations or laws, could have on the company,” HCA said.

Alicia Valle, special counsel to Wilfredo Ferrer, the U.S. attorney in Miami, didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

In an unsigned statement on its website, HCA said the New York Times coverage may focus on the number of cardiac procedures its hospitals conduct and how

physicians make decisions regarding them.

“These physician-driven decisions have been and are the subject of much debate within the cardiology community,” HCA said. “Accordingly, there is

variation across the country, between regions, within regions, and even within the same medical staff or medical group regarding this issue.”
Declining Rates

The rate of some of the procedures has declined at HCA hospitals over the past decade, according to the statement.

The newspaper also provided the company with examples where it asserts “individual patients may have had adverse outcomes from the care they received at

HCA-affiliated facilities,” according to the statement.

The company said there were about 20 million visits to its facilities last year and “we deeply regret any adverse occurrences to even one of our patients.

HCA-affiliated physicians and employees strive to provide the highest quality care and minimize adverse outcomes.”

The company said on the call and on its website it would decline to answer questions about the article or the subjects it addresses.

Second-quarter net income (HCA) increased 71 percent to $391 million, or 85 cents a share, from $229 million, or 43 cents, a year earlier, the company said

today. Revenue rose 12 percent to $8.11 billion, boosted by the company’s $1.45 billion buyout last year of a partner’s stake in the Denver-based HealthOne

hospital system.

Same-facility inpatient admissions rose 2.5 percent from a year earlier, the company said. Equivalent admissions, which also include outpatient visits,

gained 3.9 percent.

Mitt Romney: U.S. economy needs ‘something dramatic’

What the American economy needs to recover, says presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is “something dramatic.” What he’s not saying is

what exactly that something is.

Mr. Romney’s remarks follow the release of the latest unemployment report Friday. The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, but the unemployment report

ticked up to 8.3 percent.

It’s not another federal stimulus package or new government programs, Mr. Romney says. Nor would it be helpful for the Federal Reserve to commit to another

“massive” program of buying government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to drive long-term interest rates even lower.
“I can absolutely make the case that now is the time for something dramatic and it is not the time to grow government,” Mr. Romney said on Sunday in an

interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s the time to create the incentives and the opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses big and small to

hire more people and that’s going to happen. You’re going to see that happen in this country but not under this president.

Democrats continue to call on the former Massachusetts governor to release more years of personal tax returns. On Friday, Mr. Romney said again that he would

not release more than two years of returns. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid recently released an anonymous claim that the former Massachusetts governor

did not pay taxes for ten years.

Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus called Mr. Reid a “dirty liar,” for making the claims and Mr. Romney has told the Senate leader to “put up or

shut up.”

“Governor Romney can resolve this in 10 seconds. They can release the tax returns,” said top Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod on “Fox News Sunday.”

” They gave 23 years of tax returns to John McCain, they’ve given one year of tax returns to the American people. It was Governor Romney’s father who

pioneered the release of tax returns when he ran for president.”

“Why don’t they just put this to rest? What is it that he is hiding?” he asked.

In the interview on CNN, Mr. Romney promoted his economic agenda, which he says could create 12 million jobs in his first term.

“That’s what happens in a normal process,” he said. “When you come out of the kind of recession we’ve had you should see this kind of job creation.”

“Good things happen when you have a private sector that’s thriving,” he added.

The presumptive Republican nominee has said that he opposes Mr. Obama’s tax plan to extend only the Bush-era tax cuts for Americans who earn less than

250,000. Mr. Romney supports extending tax cuts for everyone.

“I also hope people understand when they talk about raising taxes on the wealthy – as the president does – he is also talking about the same tax rate that

applies to small business,” the Michigan native said. “The great majority of small businesses pay taxes at the individual rate so as he raises these taxes

‘on the wealthy’ he is raising taxes on small business.”

While campaigning in Indiana on Saturday, Mr. Romney attacked the president for what he called “an extraordinary series of policy failures.”

Taxes again dog Romney on his return to U.S. campaign

GOLDEN, Colo. (Reuters) - Questions about his personal taxes again dogged Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Thursday, his first day back on

the U.S. campaign trail after a rocky trip abroad.

Romney promised to create 12 million jobs and ease the economic plight of middle-class Americans on a visit to swing-state Colorado, but he had to fend off

an accusation by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he may not have paid taxes for a decade-long period.

"The word's out that he hasn't paid any taxes for 10 years," Reid said on the floor of the Senate. "Let him prove he has paid taxes because he hasn't," the

Democrat said.

Coming after perhaps the worst week of Romney's candidacy on a foreign trip highlighted by gaffes, the allegations were firmly denied by the former private

equity executive.

"It's time for Harry to put up or shut up. Harry's going to have to describe who it is he spoke with because of course that is totally and completely wrong.

It's untrue, dishonest, and inaccurate. It's wrong," Romney said on Sean Hannity's radio show.

Romney released tax records in January that showed he paid millions of dollars in taxes in 2010 and expected to pay $6.2 million in taxes for that year and

2011 combined.

But he has refused to release any more tax documents, prompting Democrats to accuse the former Massachusetts governor of having something to hide and

possibly gaming the system.

He could not escape the tax issue at his first event back on U.S. soil after an ill-fated foreign trip to Britain, Israel and Poland.

A plane hired by the liberal group MoveOn flew overhead with a banner that read: "Welcome back, Mitt. Now release those returns" before he spoke in Golden,

Colorado.

Eager to talk again about President Barack Obama's record on jobs, Romney unveiled a "Presidential Accountability Scorecard," which highlighted the White

House's failure to solve high unemployment and cut the budget deficit.

He noted unfulfilled promises that Obama made in 2008 when he accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency in Denver.

"All the measures he laid out are all measures that have gone the wrong direction," Romney said. On Friday, government figures will likely show the U.S.

unemployment rate remains above 8 percent.

Romney said he would create 12 million jobs in his first four years as president. "It's going be good to be middle class in America again," he said in Aspen.

'JOKE' TAX POLICY REPORT

The two men are running close in most opinion polls for the November 6 election, but a Pew Research Center survey on Thursday showed a wide gap between them,

with Obama leading by 51 percent to 41 percent.

The poll was taken mostly before Romney's foreign tour last week when he upset Britain and Arabs with separate remarks about the Olympic Games and the

Palestinian economy.

Romney's campaign criticized a report this week from the centrist Tax Policy Center that calculated his proposal to slash income taxes by 20 percent across

the board would boost income for the wealthiest taxpayers while reducing it for the middle class.

"That report you referenced is a joke," senior Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters on a conference call. He questioned the authorship and methodology

of the report, even though the Romney campaign has cited numbers from the Tax Policy Center in the past.

In Orlando, Florida, Obama told a campaign rally that Republicans' efforts to keep former President George W. Bush's tax cuts for all Americans, including

the richest, would only lead to a wider deficit.

"They have tried to sell us this trickle-down, tax-cut, fairy dust before. And guess what, it didn't work then. It will not work now," Obama said. "We do not

need more tax cuts for folks who have done very, very well. We need more tax cuts for working Americans," he said.