Banks Lift European Stocks After Stress-Test Results

European stock markets opened higher Monday, with banks leading gainers as market participants react with relief to Friday's release of European bank stress tests.

The U.K. FTSE 100 index opened 0.7% higher, Germany's DAX advanced 0.6% to 6200.55 and France's CAC-40 index gained 0.6% to 3629.16.

Among banks, Royal Bank of Scotland Group shares were up 2%, Lloyds gained 1.5% and BNP Paribas rose 2.5%.

However, these gains could be limited amid a degree of skepticism over the rigor of the tests. The tests, conducted on 91 banks in the region by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, found that only seven, relatively small banks would have to raise new capital to weather a potential economic downturn.

Away from the stress tests, positive sentiment remains in the market as the data flow improved markedly on Friday in both Germany and the U.K. "A continuation of economic recovery makes the banking sector recovery process less demanding and reduces the prospects of an adverse shock impacting the sector," said Rabobank.

Elsewhere on the corporate front, BP shares rose 2.8% in London following reports over the weekend that the board of the company is negotiating the departure of its embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, as it looks to move beyond the Gulf of Mexico disaster that has undercut his three-year effort to remake the company.

BP said that no final decision has been made regarding the potential changes to management and the charge for the costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. A Board meeting will be held on Monday evening ahead of the announcement of the second quarter results on July 27.

Looking ahead, there is little in the way of euro-zone economic data due for release during the session, so the market will focus on U.S. new home sales data at 2 p.m. GMT.

On Wall Street Friday, stocks jumped as investors moved past the results of European bank stress tests to focus on some better-than-expected earnings as well as a dividend boost from General Electric.

The gains pushed the Standard & Poor's 500 to close above the psychologically important 1100 level for the first time this month. They also helped the Nasdaq Composite erase its losses for the year. The S&P 500 index added 0.8% to 1102.66, while The Nasdaq Composite gained 1% to 2269.47.

The strength on Wall Street helped Asian stock markets move mostly higher Monday. Nonetheless, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average was up 0.9%, while South Korea's Kospi Composite was up 0.4%. China's Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.5%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index climbed 0.2%.

In foreign-exchange markets, the euro rose to a seven-week high against the yen in Asia Monday as hedge funds in the region bought the common currency, feeling relieved that results of stress tests of European banks didn't bring any big surprises.

The euro was at 113.12 yen, having climbed to a high of 113.49 yen in morning trade in Tokyo. The common currency had not been that high since marking 114.16 yen on June 3. The euro stood at $1.2940, from $1.2918 in late New York trade on Friday.

Among other assets, spot gold was at $1193.05 per troy ounce, up around $4 from late New York trade Friday, while the front month Nymex September crude oil futures contract was up 19 cents at $79.17 per barrel.

In the core European bond market, the September bund futures contract traded lower as the market digested results of Friday bank stress tests. While the tests have been generally perceived as not being that severe, with only seven banks failing, risky assets have pushed higher and in turn dragged on safe haven bunds. The September contract traded 0.31 lower at 128.02.

Bank Stress Tests Aren't `Rigorous Enough,' Oppenheimer's Bernstein Says

Stress tests on European banks were not strict enough and regulators should have taken a broader look, according to Steve Bernstein, chief executive officer of Oppenheimer Investment Asia Ltd.

“The test isn’t rigorous enough. As time goes on, there must be other banks that need to raise more capital,” Bernstein said in an interview in Hong Kong. “The fact that they only look at one part of the portfolio isn’t enough. The test should have looked at the banks’ investment portfolio as well.”

European Union stress tests found that seven banks need to raise 3.5 billion euros ($4.5 billion) of capital. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG, Agricultural Bank of Greece SA and five Spanish savings banks didn’t have adequate reserves to maintain a Tier 1 capital ratio of at least 6 percent in the event of a recession and sovereign-debt crisis, lenders and regulators said on July 23.

“I’d have expected more,” said Bernstein. “Only seven banks in Europe have to raise capital. That’s fewer than I expected.”

Citigroup Inc. wrote in a report dated July 23 that equity and debt markets will rate European banks using harsher stress scenarios than the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, which ran the assessments of 91 lenders.

“Funding, equity and debt markets will tier banks based on banks’ perceived solvency position under a market-realistic stress scenario,” Citigroup analysts including Stefan Nedialkov wrote in the report. The test could be “harsher than the CEBS test and include stressing the banking book,” they said.

Budget Deficits

European governments are using their first coordinated stress tests to reassure investors about the health of financial institutions after the debt crisis pummeled the bonds of Greece, Spain and Portugal.

Rising budget deficits in Europe raised concerns the global economic recovery may falter, contributing to a slump in global stock markets. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index has fallen 5.9 percent from this year’s high on April 15, while the U.S.’s Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has tumbled 9 percent and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index has lost 8.6 percent.

Asian stocks rose today in the first trading session after the stress test results were released. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.5 percent to a one-month high.

Alonso Wins German GP, But Storm Clouds Gather Over Ferrari and F1

As the dust settles and the crowds clear from the Hockenheim circuit the reverberations from the latest scandal to hit rumble on.

Today we witnessed a sport which, as usual, managed to throw up a surprise or two, this is what F1 is built and prides itself on. However, F1 is also sadly built on team orders which reared its ugly head today in, as always, controversial fashion.

The first major surprise of the weekend was to see both Ferraris back on form and at the sharp end of the grid ahead of both the ever threatening Red Bull's and the heavily updated McLarens. Ferraris surprising pace was not the only shock, McLarens distinct lack of speed was also a shock to many, especially with the new rear end and 'blown diffuser' package they bought to Germany this weekend.

Friday saw dark clouds hang over the circuit, and despite the sun eventually breaking through, it very much set the tone for what was to come. Friday was the first time we saw a surprise with Adrian Sutil taking first place in a session heavily affected by rain. Despite a few scary moments for Massa he achieved P2 in Practice 1, confirming that Ferrari had a very good pace this weekend. Practice 2 was a little dryer and this time both of the prancing horses set a gauntlet down to Red Bull by sandwiching Sebastian Vettel as Alonso took first place and Massa third.

Saturday opened with Free Practice 3 and we saw the first real dry session and again both Ferraris and Red Bulls locked out positions 1 to 4 with 0.7 separating Vettel in first from Massa in 4th.

Again in qualifying the battle resumed with Alonso taking the fastest times of both Q1 and Q2, but in Q3 the one lap pace of the Red Bull prevailed again and took pole with only 0.002 separating Vettel from second places Alonso, who both comfortably out qualified their respective team mates by over half a second.

Come race day again we clear sky’s above leaving all the eyes to be on track in which Mark Webber described on the grid, 'Could be one of the most interesting races of the year' after Bridgestone bought two very contrasting tyre compounds.

The race got underway and Pole man Vettel made a poor get away and he was soon swamped by Alonso, and most importantly Massa.

Massa jumped from third on the grid to first at turn 1 and Alonso had effectively held position by diving up the inside of Vettel at the same turn. Massa and Alonso streaked away and in the midfield Schumacher had made an impressive start from 11th to 8th by turn 2.

Massa and Alonso continued to pull away at the front dragging Vettel, in third, with them. Vettel and Red Bull a cunning and brave plan to pit early and surprise everyone, but most importantly release him into clear air. Both Ferraris reacted within a lap and Alonso pitted before race leader Massa to cover off Vettel. A lap later in came the leader and he rejoined back into first place ahead of Alonso once more on the harder compound rubber.

Massa regained the lead when Button pitted, however on the laps immediately after his stop Massa struggled and repeated locked brakes and was out of shape into corners. It has been a well known fact all season that Massa has struggle on the harder tyre.

The traffic was against Massa and he often caught it in awkward situations which at one stage let Fernando has an opportunity to pass at Massa into the hairpin and the following corner, however Alonso blew his chance by taking the inside for turn 7 meaning he had to back off and that left him too far down for 8 and not able to get that near to Massa again.

However after a couple of laps Masse seemed to get his car to work and actually pulled a gap to Alonso with race engineer Rob Smedley telling his driver he could win this race with his current pace.

However, this was not to be.

Alonso was gradually catching Massa, albeit by a small margin each lap, and inevitable the message came to Massa. 'Fernando-Is-Faster-Than-You, do you understand' came the message from Smedley to Massa over the radio. I think we all understood what was meant and sure enough over a lap later Massa cruised out of the hairpin to the delight of the Spaniard who casually took up first place.

Cried of foul rang wide across the internet, in the grandstands and among the media, most notably from golfer Ian Poulter who posted on his twitter, ‘That's nonsense if I was asked to bogey the last to let a Cobra team mate pass. I would tell them to forth and multiply. Make birdie instead’.

It's hard to say if what happened robbed us a great fight to the end, as there is no saying that Alonso would have made a move. But what we can say is today we were robbed of a rightful result. For me, it’s very much irrelevant that Alonso was faster. If in front of Alonso was a Red Bull or a McLaren he would have to find away past that car, else face being second.

We all understand why Ferrari has done it. We all understand that Massa had to do it but what we seemingly can't get to grips with is why it has to happen. One thing we must not do is look back on how sweet of a win this would have been for Massa and the F1 world a year on from the accident. We must deal in facts and leave feelings aside, after all if Ferrari broke a rule today, that is the most important thing.

Of course it is nothing new in the sport. As Martin Brundel and David Coulthard rightly point out in the excellent F1 Forum on BBC, the sport is built on this, it happens regularly. So why has this one incident caused so much out cry?

All the interviews after the race tell their own story. The 'I didn't know what happened' interviews by Alonso, bringing back vivid memories of Singapore 09 when he was being grilled on the result of Singapore 2008, and the very shady interviews from the top heads of Ferrari spoke volumes. But the most telling of all came from Felipe Massa, who once again was in the heart of every Formula One fan world wide.

When asked by BBC Radio 5 Lives David Croft in the post-race top 3 interview his string of questions, both his body language and his expressions spoke louder than his very striking words did. The nervous laughter when answering the question 'What happened?' was very compelling and matched his answer of, 'I don't really need to tell you do I?’. Seemingly though, and much more interesting, was how his answers had changed by the time Lee Mackenzie interviewed him for the BBC. Coulthard remarked on how professionally he answered the questions, however everyone could see and hear the hurt and anger voice and body language in the second interview, no matter how professional his words of 'It was my decision' were.

For all the analysis after the race, I felt that Coulthard's comments that 'it's part of the sport' were quite irrelevant. I think the uproar wasn't just about today it was the frustration of why it has to happen.

Since the end of the race I have spent my time ranting on various forums and I have been researching and asking sources about it and I have come to many conclusions.

Firstly, I don't believe today is about people thinking this hasn't happened before. Today is very much the straw that broke the camels back. We witnessed all the radio communications and saw with our very own eyes what happened and it does leave a very sour taste in the mouth. But I didn't hear an out cry like this in 2007 when Massa again let his team mate through 'for the team' and for 'the championship'. Again in 2008 I heard barely a whisper when Raikkonen returned the favour in Brazil.

So does that mean that to the degree we understand a decisions, make it any more fair? In 2007 and 2008 we understand why they did what they did. It worked in 07 and nearly worked in 08 so were they wrong to do what they did? Is it really much different from today as they effectively rigged a result for 'the good of the team and the championship'?

Secondly, today we have witnessed the business that is Formula One and not the sport. From hearing Stefano Domenicali say after the race that the result was effectively pre-mediated shows this race was settled in the board room and not on track. We heard Luca Colajanni stumble and stutter through a tough interview with the BBC, which hardly convincing results.

In both the interviews I was very much struck by the way they answered the questions. Sometimes they categorically denied that they had asked Massa to move over, however in other answers, especially Stefano’s 'We decided before the race what's best for the team' answer surely shows that it was pre-empted or even executed?

My final conclusion is a very unfortunate one.

Today we have seen that our sport isn't as 'fair' and as 'clean' as we are often fooled to think it is. Formula One is riddled with business decisions, clauses in contracts and people pulling the wool over ours, the fans, eyes.

Mad Men Season 4, Ep. 1

Ah, falling man credits, I have missed you, you with your reference to Saul Bass and -- I insist -- 9/11.

Cut to a too-tight close-up of Don Draper's face, and a disembodied voice asking the winky question, "Who is Don Draper?"

It's a reporter from Ad Age doing an interview at a table for two. Draper recoils just a bit at the question with an "Excuse me?" and then asks "What do men say when you ask that?" (Biblical echo, Jesus to Peter: "Who do men say that I am?)

It's clear that Draper is not giving a great interview. How could he, when he has as little idea who Don Draper is as we do?

Roger Sterling and Pete Campbell break up the non-interview. (Missed you, Roger! Not so much, Pete!) The reporter is revealed to have a wooden leg, prompting Roger to launch into another of his weird family tales, this one about a peglegged uncle. (Missed you, tales of weird Sterlings!)

The trio saunters over to the Sheraton, where they are part of a cattle call pitching the family-friendly Portland swimwear maker Jantzen. The Jantzen guys (including the adorable Paul Bartholomew, late of UT) are in awe of Draper, who has apparently achieved rock-star status (not that such status existed, exactly, in late 1964) off a cinematic TV ad for Glo-coat floor polish. It doesn't go great. Don clearly thinks this "family company" is a bunch of stiffs unwilling to own up to the salaciousness of their itsy-bitsy product, and he's impatient with being a small-fish agency in a big-fish world.

They go back to the new offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce at the Time-Life building -- the background music sounds very Route 66 -- which look attractive and modern (and a giant step up from the suite at the Pierre) but are too small for Bert Cooper's taste. He's embarrassed by the cramped space (which doesn't look cramped) and the lack of a conference table. It's all on one floor, but there's a ruse that they also have a second floor. Pete perpetuates the ruse; Bert won't.

OK, now we're easing into The Subplot Involving Peggy, Pete and a Ham. Except for Peggy's new bubble-cut hair, I have no interest in the Ham Subplot. Here's what you need to know about it: Peggy, Pete and her new, cute stooge Joey hatch a stunt involving two Rude Mechanicals -- without telling Don -- to get the Sugarberry Ham people to spend more money. It backfires, but the ham people increase their budget anyway. Takeaways: Peggy and Pete are still a little hapless. Don is still a bully. Peggy still adores him. Can we be done with the ham now? Cuz it's stupid. Thanks.

Don's Lawyer of Exposition explains to him that, now that he and Betty are divorced, he's a fool for letting her stay in the Ossining house. She was supposed to be out Oct. 1, and now it's November.

Roger, for his part, fixes Don up with one of new wife Jane's friends, Bethany (Anna Camp). Chicken Kiev, anyone?

Back at Don's new, depressing apartment, he watches his iconic Glo-Coat ad, featuring a little boy in a cowboy outfit. It's OK, but it sure doesn't scream 1964 to me.

Next we see Don getting ready for his date and then actually out with Betty the Lesser Bethany. Yuck. I'm not happy with this. Her simpy dialogue! "I want to lift a shadow off this evening ... I'm breaking a lot of my rules." Ugh. That must have been what Betty sounded like at that age. Isn't this a little Hey, Nineteen, Mr. Draper? In other words: Run, Don, run! Instead, he likes her, and tries -- and is thwarted -- following her into the Barbizon. No good will come of Betty the Lesser Bethany, I predict.

In the office, Harry and Joan have a brief, inconsequential scene. Missed you both, especially you, delicious Joan.

Roger and Lane are upset at how bad Don's Ad Age interview looks in print. Roger berates Don over it -- "Who knows who you are!" he wails. One fallout of the disaster is that SCDP will lose the jai alai account, leaving, as Lane glumly notes, Lucky Strike as 71 percent of their billing. When Don protests, he's told "Turning creative success into business is your work. And you failed." Big owie, Don!

Ready for the worst Thanksgiving since Squanto? That would be at Betty's new daddy Henry Francis's mom Pauline's house. Betty is all batty-eyed at Henry, seated at table with her, Sally, Bobby and extended family. The imperious Pauline sees that Sally isn't eating, and Sally fesses up to not liking the food. At this point Betty crams some sweet potato into Sally's mouth, Sally spits it out, and the audience gasps in horror. Sally is dragged pinchily from the table. Glad to see your parenting skills are intact, Betty!

Back in Greenwich Village, Don celebrates the holiday by bringing in a prostitute -- a very Joan-like prostitute! Really, Don?? In bed, he tells her -- they're apparently a repeat transaction -- she knows what he wants. So she slaps his face. And again, harder. Oh, Don! This is a side of you we didn't expect.

Back in Ossining hell, Betty (in the prettiest pink nightie ever) is in bed with new daddy Henry when she hears Sally on the hall phone. She goes to the hall and grabs the phone, threatening Sally if she tattles to her dad.

Back in bed, Henry suggests that when Don has the older kids the next day, they ditch Baby Gene with poor Carla and drive to the Griswold Inn in Essex, Conn. (Been there, Betty! You'll love it!)

Next day, Don acts like a decent parent and returns the kids to Ossining at the appointed hour of 9. No Betty and Henry. So he sits at night with no lights on, watching TV.

Betty and Henry totter in, three sheets to the wind. Don tells her she has to get out of the house soon. When Henry insists it's temporary, Don zings him. "Believe me, everyone thinks this is temporary," he says. Good on you, Don! After Don leaves, Henry tells Betty he's right, but she has no intention of leaving.

Back at Pauline's Henry's mom scolds him for marrying Betty (they're married!). The kids are terrified of Betty, she notes. "She a silly woman," she says.

At the office, Don pitches Jantzen with a peekaboo ad of a woman in the bottom half of a two-piece :"So well-built, we can't show you the second floor." (Get it? No second floor, just like SCDP!) The Jantzens hate it. Don petulantly throws them out.

To repair all the damage, Don takes an interview with the Wall Street Journal. This time he gets it right. Cut to the credit music: Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens.

Cultural notes:

1. The first football game Don watches is Princeton vs. Cornell. Old Nassau had a perfect season that year with Pete Gogolak as kicker. Pete and his older brother Charlie, who went to Cornell, virtually introduced soccer-style kicking to college and pro football.

2. The John! Marcia! game Peggy and Joey play dates from a 1951 Stan Freberg routine. Why they're doing a 13-year-old act is beyond me.

3. Peggy has a photo of John Kennedy on the wall of her apartment.

4. Bethany makes reference to the June, 1964 killing of Goodwin, Schwerner and Cheney in Mississippi.

5. Sally and Bobby watch Sky King on TV, a '50s show that was in reruns at the time.

6. What's missing? Well the Beatles, for one. It's impossible to imagine a week in the life of people in 1964 with no mention of the Beatles, who pervaded the culture. Also, the kids might want to watch the new TV show Bewitched, in which a witch married another Mad Man.

7. Note the lyrics to Tobacco Road.

8. One possible mistake: Roger tells Don that icky Bethany was on the gymnastics team at Mount Holyoke. I'll bet you a fin that there was not a gymnastics team (perhaps a gymnastics class, yes) at Mount Holyoke in the early '60s.

9. Where have you seen Anna Camp (Bethany) before? As Sarah Newlin, the evil twin of Victoria Osteen, on last season's True Blood.

10. Where have you seen Paul Bartholomew (Bob from Jantzen) before? In this great commercial:

Love Parade 2010: Stampede kills 19 people

Love Parade 2010: The festival has proved to be more of a tragedy than a celebration, with 19 people trampled to death in a mass stampede.

The festival took place in the Ruhr region German city of Duisburg. It has started in 1989 in Berlin, but had to move due to clashes with the authorities.

In a mass stampede that took place near the festival location, 19 people passed away (the number has increased by 4, compared to yesterday’s estimations) and 324 have been injured.

The victims were trampled in an underpass connecting a railway supplies yard to the area of the festival.

Rescue teams had to try to pass through thousands of people, many of them intoxicated, but friendly. These people had no idea of the size of the tragedy. Ambulances had to make their way through the crowd, which increased their response time.

A Living Ghost of the Khmer Rouge

It is a simple caption: “Comrade Duch confesses to mass murder.”

For Nic Dunlop, who took the photograph in Cambodia in 1999, it was the culmination of years of obsession.

The man pictured, Kaing Guek Eav — more commonly known as Comrade Duch — was a senior official of the Khmer Rouge regime, during which 1.7 million people were killed outright or died as a result of torture, disease, overwork and starvation. Duch was responsible for the deaths of at least 14,000 people at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. In the more than 30 years since the killings, he is the first senior member of the Khmer Rouge to be tried, facing a life sentence on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, in addition to homicide and torture.

A verdict in the case, before a United Nations-backed tribunal, is expected Monday.

All of it is the result of a chance encounter that allowed Mr. Dunlop to capture the confession on film.

Mr. Dunlop chronicled his story, and Duch’s, in the 2005 book, “The Lost Executioner: A Journey to the Heart of the Killing Fields,” which was translated into Cambodian and sold there in manuscript format. Mr. Dunlop, 40, lives in Bangkok and is represented by Panos Pictures.

Mr. Dunlop was born in Ireland. He was only 10 years old when the Khmer Rouge were driven from power. But as a teenager, he said, he was drawn to the tragedy of Cambodia. He was looking for context, and an answer to the question: Where do people like Comrade Duch come from?

Toward the end of the 1990s, Mr. Dunlop visited Cambodia a number of times. He began to carry a photograph of Duch in his pocket. While traveling with a mine-clearance team on a photo assignment in western Cambodia, he happened to encounter a small man who looked very familiar. Though he introduced himself as Hang Pin, Mr. Dunlop had few doubts about who it was.

Their first conversation, he said, was banal. Mr. Dunlop asked where he was from and what he had done for a living. “Of course, I didn’t ask him his real name then and there,” Mr. Dunlop said.

A few weeks later, Mr. Dunlop returned to the village of Samlaut with Nate Thayer, the last Western journalist to have interviewed Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge. They arranged an interview with Duch, during which it appeared to dawn on Duch that they knew exactly who he was. That elicited what Mr. Dunlop calls “an extraordinary confession” in which Duch named names, traced the chain of command and expressed what seemed to be genuine remorse.

After the story of their meeting appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Duch surrendered to authorities. But Mr. Dunlop’s reporting was not over. He sought to expand on Duch’s story. “It isn’t a cardboard cutout figure — a monster — at the end, but actually a wizened old man who appears to be contrite.”

Photography is a key theme in “The Lost Executioner.” Every person who was killed at the Tuol Sleng prison (code named S-21) had been photographed. “Photography was an integral part of identifying enemies and reducing them in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge,” Mr. Dunlop says in the book. Once prisoners were captured in the frame, they could never be anything but guilty in the eyes of their captor. It was “a kind of trial by camera.”

The images are displayed on the walls of the prison, which is now the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide.

“It’s so profoundly upsetting to stand in an empty room surrounded by thousands of pairs of eyes,” Mr. Dunlop said. “You know that all of those people who are looking at you are dead and may have died in that very room.”

In the book, Mr. Dunlop also reflects on how easy it is to lose sight of the humanity of the people one is photographing. He describes the process of editing pictures he had taken of a mortally wounded Cambodian soldier. “I realized that I had viewed him at the time as a series of aesthetic and technical calculations and judgments: the correct exposure that I wanted, the angle, the depth of field,” Mr. Dunlop writes. “Like the prisoners of S-21, people had become mere objects in my viewfinder.”

Therein, Mr. Dunlop said, was an important — and visceral — lesson.

“We should be careful about shutting off a greater understanding, which is vital,” he said. “I think it’s morally irresponsible and intellectually lazy if we simply brand people like this as monsters.”

Vann Nath holds his mug shot, taken when he was a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge. He was one of only seven people who survived incarceration in Tuol Sleng.

Torrential rains shut down Milwaukee airport

Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport re-opened to airline traffic on Friday afternoon after being forced to shut down Thursday evening due to torrential rains. Close to eight inches of rain was reported in just two hours last night, creating havoc with traffic in the Milwaukee area and forcing dozens of flights to be canceled or diverted elsewhere. All flights into and out of the airport were grounded on Thursday evening and Friday morning. The airport is a major hub for both Midwest/Frontier Airlines who recently merged, as well as AirTran Airways. Flights between Milwaukee and the Twin Cities, including those operated by Delta Air Lines, AirTran and Midwest Airlines, were among those canceled.

One runway at MKE became operational about 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon and work crews were attempting to clear flood waters and the resulting debris from the other runway so that it too can be utilized. Weather forecasters are calling for another evening of very heavy rains tonight with the possibility of up to five more inches of rain.

Many travelers were stranded at the airport terminal overnight Thursday, and again on Friday morning they were frustrated to learn that the airport wasn’t yet operational. A severe thunderstorm and flood is in effect for southeastern Wisconsin tonight and into Saturday, with the showers and thunderstorms not expected to be completely done with before perhaps 6 p.m. on Saturday evening.

A check of the Mitchell Airport website on Friday afternoon showed some flights operating on-time, a large number with delays of one to three hours, and still maybe one-in-ten cancelled.

Obama Deception Censorship Update – Alex Jones had released his official statement at Infowars.com regarding the alleged censorship of his movies, “Obama Deception” and “Fall of the Republic.”
Yesterday we have reported about the giant leap in the viewership of the movie Obama Deception where it hit beyond the six million mark. Earlier today we received reports that Obama Deception was censored. The admin of the YouTube Channel, ChangeDaChannel already released his official reaction.
We manage to get a new link on the Obama Deception censored video (accessible here) and although I personally believe that this is more of a far-fetched theory and beyond reality we still invite people to make their own judgement.
Apparently it was not only the movie that was censored but Alex Jone’s Facebook pages had also been removed, as well as websites which exhibited the Tea Party flag and logo. Whether this was really done by Facebook over that fact or for some other issue they still have to make their comment on the allegations.
Here is the official statement of Alex Jones over Obama Deception censored video and also the censorship of Fall of the Republic.
Where these true or just fabricated? Did they delete the video and accounts themselves to create more popularity and stir interest? Share us what you think.
To receive updates from WWNN.co.uk directly to your e-mail, you can subscribe to us for free by entering your e-mail address here and confirming your subscription by clicking the link that will be sent to your e-mail address.

Post-Mortem: No Hair Shirt for Steve Jobs

By now, most people know what happens when your fingers come in contact with the lower left-hand corner of the iPhone 4 — are you there? — but it took the touch of an old-line, nontech tester of technology to get Apple to admit as much.

When Steve Jobs took the stage on Friday to defend the iPhone 4 against criticism that it had reception problems, he made his feelings about the press abundantly, peevishly clear.

“This has been blown so out of proportion that it’s incredible. It’s fun to have a story, but it’s not fun to be on the other side,” he told reporters.

Even as he apologized and acknowledged that there was indeed a problem, he was joined by Scott Forstall, a senior vice president at Apple, who attacked an article in The New York Times that blamed an interaction with the phone’s software as “patently false,” and then Mr. Jobs went on to call a Bloomberg article that suggested the company knew about the problem last year a “total crock.”

In general, he suggested that media organizations were just making blood sport of a company that had sold three million handsets in just three weeks: “I guess it’s just human nature, when you see someone get successful you just want to tear it down.”

Anybody who expected Steve Jobs to wear a hair shirt when he took the stage was bound to be disappointed. That the company responded at all is a testament to the power of at least one part of the press. When he got to the heart of what the company was going to do about the controversy, he cited Consumer Reports saying, “The bumper solves the signal strength problem” and its suggested remedy of free cases for all. “O.K., let’s give everybody a case,” Mr. Jobs said.

The iPhone’s antenna problems might have remained a dust-up between Apple fanboys and skeptical bloggers except that Consumer Reports — that stolid, old-media tester of everything from flooring to steam mops for the last 74 years — came out with a report detailing the issue and concluding that “due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.”

How did Consumer Reports make Apple blink? In large measure, the article in Consumer Reports was devastating precisely because the magazine (and its Web site) are not part of the hot-headed digital press. Although Gizmodo and other techie blogs had reached the same conclusions earlier, Consumer Reports made a noise that was heard beyond the Valley because it has a widely respected protocol of testing and old-world credibility. Mr. Jobs acknowledged as much, saying: “We were stunned and upset and embarrassed by the Consumer Reports stuff, and the reason we didn’t say more is because we didn’t know enough.”

The organization — Consumer Reports is owned by the non-profit Consumers Union — sells its subscribers dutiful research rather than pithy discourse, and it often goes unnoticed unless you are in the market for a new car or toaster. This time, its tests became an inflection point. (One that many tech reporters say Consumer Reports promoted endlessly, but who can blame them?)

“In my five years here, we have never done anything that has gone so viral, so fast,” said Kevin McKean, editorial director of Consumer Reports. “That is not something that we made up or manufactured. It’s by no means a critical issue like some of the product safety conclusions we have reached over the years — no one has ever died from a dropped cellphone call — but it was obviously an issue that affected millions of consumers.”

It was a big week for Consumer Reports and a reminder that media that is unsupported by advertising can often have an impact that more traditional publishing, or even the most tech-savvy, enterprises don’t. With 3.9 million subscribers to its magazine and 3.3 million paid subscribers to its Web site, Consumer Reports has a combined paid circulation of 7.2 million, up 33 percent since 2004.

To begin with, Apple fought back. Some references to the Consumer Reports findings were stripped out of the support forums at Apple. But there was no way to get the milk back in the bottle: a pattern of stubborn denial that had survived countless stories in the tech press, a class-action lawsuit and a wave of customer complaints gave way to a direct address of the issue, from Mr. Jobs, live on stage no less.

Mr. Jobs may have come around to admitting the problem, but in the presentation on Friday, he also took the time to show videos of other devices from rival companies that he said had similar problems. He implied that Apple was being singled out and that reporters were taking special joy in knocking down the most successful cellphone launch in history.

“Haven’t we earned credibility for the press to give us the benefit of the doubt?” he suggested, somewhat plaintively.

So was Apple cornered by an overzealous press, drooling at the prospect of laying Apple low? Hardly. Consumer Reports had already put the iPhone 4 at the top of the recent rankings of smartphones.

Vintage Steve Jobs Tackles iPhone 4 Issues and the Critics

A surprisingly defiant Apple CEO resets reality for its most popular product, the iPhone 4. 

Friday's Apple press conference was vintage Steve Jobs. He was sharp, analytical, tough, and, seemingly, unafraid to tell the collected media: The emperor has no clothes.
In the days and hours leading up to the event, pundits—and even betting sites—were placing odds on all sorts of possibilities. The most outrageous theory was that Apple would recall all 3 million iPhone 4s that it had just sold. (A close second in the ridiculous department was the idea that Apple would offer a rebate.) Even before polling readers, I knew this was an impossibility. You don't recall a product that poses no potential harm to customers. No, annoyance doesn't really count as harm.

Many people expected the Apple CEO to fall on his sword and apologize for everything—from, allegedly, ignoring the warnings of his engineers to being far too confident about the "magical" nature of his products.

Initially, as Jobs spoke and talked through the iPhone 4 antenna issues, I worried he was being too flip. He called it "AntennaGate" and seemed to be telling us things we all already knew. Then I realized that he was simply acknowledging the facts of mobile antennas and making something of an admission. Yes, Apple knew people could attenuate the external antenna if the phone was held a certain way, but it did not see this as a significant problem, nor did the company find this significantly different from what you'd find with other mobile phones.

The true highlight of Apple's press conference, however, was Steve Jobs' dismantling of current iPhone 4 perceptions, which revealed the reality of the situation. And this is an area where the Apple CEO and I are in total agreement. Let's step back a moment first.

As the iPhone 4 situation unfolded (I, too, was able to recreate the bar-killing "death grip"), I wondered if this was a bigger issue than I originally thought. I went back and reread Mobile Managing Editor Sascha Segan's Apple iPhone 4 review. Segan said "It's not the best phone-calling phone" and "the iPhone 3GS actually connected slightly more calls successfully than the iPhone 4 did—about one in ten additional calls went through. The iPhone 4 gave a truer picture of signal strength than the 3GS did, though; its "bar" meter is quicker to respond to changes in RF than the 3GS is."

Despite this, PCMag awarded the iPhone 4 an Editors' Choice award as the best smartphone on the AT&T network. In my experience, it makes and hold calls fine and is certainly no worse or better than my BlackBerry Bold, which is also on the 3G network. If all you want to do is make phone calls, then, yes, the iPhone 4 could frustrate you. However, if that's all you want to do, why are you buying an iPhone and paying all that extra money for a data plan? It's time we acknowledge that we buy phones like the Apple iPhone 4 for so much more than just calls (e-mail, text, photos, video, social networking, gaming).

No tsunami threat from Alaska quake

An earthquake this morning off of Alaska’s Aleutian islands poses no tsunami threat to Hawaii, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said today.

The quake hit about six miles below the Fox islands, part of the Aleutian chain, at 9:48 a.m. Hawaii time.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center measured the magnitude of the earthquake at 6.2, said Dailin Wang, an oceanographer at the center.

But preliminary reports from the U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at 5.8 magnitude, Wang said.

Young fans lift 'Inception' to No. 1

Director Christopher Nolan's thriller with Leonardo DiCaprio brings in an estimated $60.4 million over the weekend, pushing 'Despicable Me' to No. 2.




Nicolas Cage, left, and Jay Baruchel in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." (Robert Zuckerman / Disney Enterprises)

Young adults powered summer's riskiest movie to the top of the box office chart this weekend, while families failed to turn out for what is looking like summer's biggest flop.

Despite a divide in reactions along age lines, director Christopher Nolan's thriller "Inception" opened to a strong $60.4 million, according to an estimate from distributor Warner Bros.

Walt Disney Studios' new version of the classic tale "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," meanwhile, sold a weak $17.4-million worth of tickets this weekend and $24.5 million since it debuted Wednesday. That's the worst opening for any big-budget film this summer.

Get entertainment news, buzz and commentary delivered to your inbox with our daily Entertainment newsletter. Sign up »

It came in third at the box office behind "Despicable Me," which drew much of the family audience "Sorcerer's" was after. Universal Pictures' animated comedy declined 42% from its strong opening to $32.7 million, indicating that word-of-mouth was relatively strong.

While "Inception," which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an agent who invades targets' dreams, is not a mega-hit out of the gate, it got off to a very good start. That's particularly true considering it's one of the few high-profile movies this summer that's not a sequel or based on a book or video game.

Younger audiences seemed to love the movie's plot, praised by some critics as complex and criticized by others as confusing, as well as its novel visual tricks, but older adults were more mixed. Moviegoers under 25 gave "Inception" an average grade of A, according to market research firm CinemaScore; those over 25 gave it a B and the over-50 crowd gave it a B-.

The highest-ever opening for a film not based on source material was $77 million for "Avatar" last winter. "Inception" failed to reach that stratsophere, it seems, because of its narrow appeal. With a PG-13 rating it couldn't get children, while adults over 35 simply didn't turn out in large numbers, representing only 27% of the audience.

"Our core showed up, and they loved it," Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros., said of the young crowds. "I totally understand that those in the older age groups got lost in it, and so that group is polarized."

But while the movie's appeal was narrow, it was also deep. Fellman said he's confident that the enthusiasm of younger fans will translate into strong word-of-mouth and repeat viewings.

"The key here is to have a passionate group of people who gave it such strong recommendations," he said.

Warner and Legendary Pictures, which together spent $160 million to produce "Inception," will need it to play well for several weeks to make good on their sizable investment, which also includes more than $100 million in worldwide marketing costs.

"Inception" has virtually no chance of approaching the $1 billion worldwide gross of Nolan's last movie, "The Dark Knight," which the studio cited regularly in advertisements for the new picture. But if "Inception" plays well in the coming weeks it could aproach $200 million domestically and rake in that much or more overseas, becoming a solid hit.

"Inception" got off to a solid start in its first major foreign market, opening to $8.6 million in Great Britain.

Disney, which spent $150 million to make "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," knew the film's advertising was not generating much interest among audiences and made several moves to counteract that weakness, including pushing up the opening from Friday to Wednesday to create pre-weekend buzz and offering 2-for-1 tickets online. But audiences just didn't take to the picture, despite the pedigree of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub, who worked together on the hit "National Treasure" films.

"Obviously, we're disappointed for our filmmakers," said Disney distribution President Chuck Viane. "Nobody wanted a result like this."

Unless "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a huge success overseas, it's destined to be a major money loser for Disney. In its first major foreign opening, the film started with a good but not great $4.8 million in Russia.

"Apprentice" was greenlighted by Disney's prior executive regime under former Chairman Dick Cook and production President Oren Aviv. However, it was the first advertising campaign overseen by the studio's new marketing President M.T. Carney, a movie-business outsider hired in April.

ben.fritz@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times