Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Obama, Karzai accelerate end of U.S. combat role in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed on Friday to speed up the handover of combat operations in Afghanistan to Afghan forces, raising the prospect of an accelerated U.S. withdrawal from the country and underscoring Obama's determination to wind down a long, unpopular war.

Signaling a narrowing of differences, Karzai appeared to give ground in talks at the White House on U.S. demands for immunity from prosecution for any American troops who stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, a concession that could allow Obama to keep at least a small residual force there.

Both leaders also threw their support behind tentative Afghan reconciliation efforts with Taliban insurgents, endorsing the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar in hopes of bringing insurgents to inter-Afghan talks.

Outwardly, at least, the meeting appeared to be something of a success for both men, who need to show their vastly different publics they are making progress in their goals for Afghanistan. There were no signs of the friction that has frequently marked Obama's relations with Karzai.

Karzai's visit came amid stepped-up deliberations in Washington over the size and scope of the U.S. military role in Afghanistan once the NATO-led combat mission concludes at the end of 2014.

"By the end of next year, 2014, the transition will be complete," Obama said at a news conference with Karzai standing at his side. "Afghans will have full responsibility for their security, and this war will come to a responsible end."

The Obama administration has been considering a residual force of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops - far fewer than some U.S. commanders propose - to conduct counterterrorism operations and to train and assist Afghan forces.

A top Obama aide said this week that the administration does not rule out a complete withdrawal after 2014, a move that some experts say would be disastrous for the weak Afghan central government and its fledgling security apparatus.

Obama on Friday left open the possibility of that so-called "zero option" when he several times used the word "if" to suggest that a post-2014 U.S. presence was far from guaranteed.

Insisting that Afghan forces were "stepping up" faster than expected, Obama said Afghan troops would take over the lead in combat missions across the country this spring, rather than waiting until the summer as originally planned. NATO troops will then assume a "support role," he said.

"It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty," Obama said.

Obama said final decisions on this year's troop cuts and the post-2014 U.S. military role were still months away, but his comments suggested he favors a stepped-up withdrawal timetable.

There are some 66,000 U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan. Washington's NATO allies have been steadily reducing their troop numbers as well despite doubts about the ability of Afghan forces to shoulder full responsibility for security.

'WAR OF NECESSITY'

Karzai voiced satisfaction over Obama's agreement to turn over control of detention centers to Afghan authorities, a source of dispute between their countries, although the White House released no details of the accord on that subject.

Obama once called Afghanistan a "war of necessity." But he is heading into a second term looking for an orderly way out of the conflict, which was sparked by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by an al Qaeda network harbored by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

He faces the challenge of pressing ahead with his re-election pledge to continue winding down the war while preparing the Afghan government to prevent a slide into chaos and a Taliban resurgence once most NATO forces are gone.

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, Obama's nominee to become defense secretary, is likely to favor a sizable troop reduction.

Karzai, meanwhile, is eager to show he is working to ensure Afghans regain full control of their territory after a foreign military presence of more than 11 years.

Asked whether the cost of the war in lives and money was worth it, Obama said: "We achieved our central goal ... or have come very close to achieving our central goal, which is to de-capacitate al Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can't attack us again."

He added: "Have we achieved everything that some might have imagined us achieving in the best of scenarios? Probably not. This is a human enterprise, and you fall short of the ideal."

Obama made clear that unless the Afghan government agrees to legal immunity for U.S. troops, he would withdraw them all after 2014 - as happened in Iraq at the end of 2011.

Karzai, who criticized NATO over civilian deaths, said that with Obama's agreement to transfer detention centers and the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghan villages, "I can go to the Afghan people and argue for immunity" in a bilateral security pact being negotiated.

Addressing students at Georgetown University later in the day, the Afghan leader predicted with certainty that the United States would keep a limited number of troops in Afghanistan after 2014, in part to battle al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"One of the reasons the United States will continue a limited presence in Afghanistan after 2014 in certain facilities in Afghanistan is because we have decided together to continue to fight against al Qaeda," Karzai said. "So there will be no respite in that."

Many of Obama's Republican opponents have criticized him for setting a withdrawal timetable and accuse him of undercutting the U.S. mission by reducing troop numbers too quickly.

Karzai and his U.S. partners have not always seen eye to eye, even though the American military has been crucial to preventing insurgent attempts to oust him.

In October, Karzai accused Washington of playing a double game by fighting the war in Afghan villages instead of going after insurgents who cross the border from neighboring Pakistan.

In Friday's news conference, Karzai did not back down from his previous comments that foreigners were responsible for some of the official corruption critics say is rampant in Afghanistan. But he acknowledged: "There is corruption in the Afghan government that we are fighting against."

Adding to tensions has been a rash of deadly "insider" attacks by Afghan soldiers and police against NATO-led troops training or working with them. U.S. forces have also been involved in a series of incidents that enraged Afghans, including burning Korans, which touched off days of rioting.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Mark Felsenthal, Jeff Mason, Phil Stewart, Tabassum Zakaria, David Alexander; Editing by Warren Strobel and Will Dunham)

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The Worst ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Player Ever

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:  

RELATED: Movie and Television Characters Need a Lesson in Talking Trash

If we’re ever on Wheel of Fortune we would hope that we were on with the worst players. In part, because deep down, we know we’d be pretty bad at it—all that pressure, all that Sajak, and Vanna staring at you with her vacant eyes… it’s just too much, really. But even we know Johnny Cash never made a song called “I Have the Wine.” 

RELATED: Proof Ceiling Cat Exists; 295 Movies Bring You ‘Baby Got Back’

RELATED: Behold the Power of ‘Gangnam Style’

Movies? We can explain:

RELATED: The Robot That Performs Gangnam Style Better Than You

RELATED: Catching Kangaroos Seems Pretty Easy; ‘The Dark Knight’ Goes Pee-wee

Oh, broadcast journalists, you may never know the pain of an embarrassing typo, but we don’t envy you. Not even one bit:

And, finally, this video makes us think of the time we were first introduced to after-work drinks. Which is where we will now be going. Enjoy!

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Taylor Swift, Marie Osmond Draw Love, Laughs from Readers This Week

By Andrea Billups

01/12/2013 at 08:30 AM EST

Taylor Swift and Rachael, Gabriel and Marie Osmond

Steve Granitz/Wireimage; Courtesy R&C

What's on the minds of PEOPLE readers this week? We love receiving your feedback, and as always, you weighed in with plenty of reaction!

From Marie Osmond's happy news to pregnant Kim Kardashian's real estate moves to Taylor Swift's love life, check out the stories with the top reactions on the site this week, and keep clicking on the emoticons at the bottom of every story to tell us what you think! 

As she sings about her love life and its mishaps, readers laughed out loud at yet another public break-up for Swift, 23 – this time with One Direction's Harry Styles, 18. The high-profile couple, who connected in November and then were seen cuddling and kissing from New York to the Caribbean to the ski slopes, reportedly called it quits after a Virgin Island trip went sour.

But it wasn't all LOLs for Swift this week. Emerging from her break-up with Styles, she made a bold statement on the People's Choice Awards red carpet. Decked out in a white Ralph Lauren Collection gown, with a plunging bodice, smoky eyes and sensual Christian Louboutin heels, Swift turned heads and signaled that she was not a victim of heartbreak.

For Marie Osmond, Christmas Day brought a huge present brimming with love. Her daughter Rachael, 23, a costume designer, married fashion designer Gabriel Krueger, 22, in a cabin in Park City, Utah, prompting a joyous Osmond to tell PEOPLE that she'd "never seen Rachael look happier." Readers shared in this Osmond story of love and family.

If reader's weren't shocked enough by their surprise baby news, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West continued to draw their ire with news that they purchased an extravagant $11 million Bel Air, Calif., mansion. As Kardashian, 32, negotiates her drawn-out divorce from basketball star Kris Humphries, 27, she and West, 35, continue to globe-trot along as they prepare to play house in a 9,000-square-foot Italian-style villa that a source says offers them privacy.

The international fashion world was rocked and readers were saddened by news last week that Vittorio Missoni, 58, the commercial and marketing director of the Missoni fashion house, went missing while on holiday in Venezuela. As the search continues for Missoni's missing twin-engine plane, which went off radar and never arrived at its destination, his family said they remained hopeful that somehow, he and his wife and another couple they were vacationing with, would be found alive.

Check back next week for another must-read roundup, and see what readers are reacting to every day here.

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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.

"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."

The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.

"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."

Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.

Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.

At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.

Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.

And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.

So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.

"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."

Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.

Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.

"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.

Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.

Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.

"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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Shi'ite leader challenges Pakistan army chief over attacks

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - In a rare challenge, a Shi'ite leader publicly criticized powerful Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani over security in the country on Friday after bombings aimed at the minority sect killed 114 people.

"I ask the army chief: What have you done with these extra three years you got (in office). What did you give us except more death," Maulana Amin Shaheedi, who heads a national council of Shi'ite organizations, told a news conference.

The criticism of Kayani, arguably the most powerful man in Pakistan, highlighted Shi'ite frustrations with the state's failure to contain hard-line Sunni militant groups who have vowed to wipe out the sect.

Most of Thursday's deaths were caused by twin attacks aimed Shi'ites in the southwestern city of Quetta, near the Afghan border, where members of the minority have long accused the state of turning a blind eye to Sunni militant death squads.

Shi'ite leaders were so outraged at the latest bloodshed that they called for the military to take control of Quetta to shield them and said they would not allow the 82 victims of twin bomb attacks to be buried until their demands were met.

The burials had been scheduled to take place after Friday prayers but the bodies would remain in place until Shi'ites had received promises of protection.

Shaheedi said scores of bodies were still lying on a road. "They will not be buried until the army comes into Quetta," he said.

Violence against Pakistani Shi'ite Muslims is rising and some communities are living in a state of siege, a human rights group said on Friday.

"Last year was the bloodiest year for Shias in living memory," said Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch. "More than 400 were killed and if yesterday's attack is any indication, it's just going to get worse."

A suicide bomber first targeted a snooker club in Quetta. A car bomb blew up nearby 10 minutes later after police and rescuers had arrived.

In all, 82 people were killed and 121 wounded. Nine police and 20 rescue workers were among the dead.

"It was like doomsday. Bodies were lying everywhere," said police officer Mir Zubair Mehmood.

The banned Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility for the attack in a predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood where the residents are ethnic Hazaras, Shi'ites who first migrated from Afghanistan in the nineteenth century.

While U.S. intelligence agencies have focused on al Qaeda and the Taliban, Pakistani intelligence officials say LeJ is emerging as a graver threat to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed, strategic U.S. ally.

It has stepped up attacks against Shi'ites across the country but has zeroed in on members of the sect who live in resource-rich Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is capital.

The paramilitary Frontier Corps is largely responsible for security in Baluchistan province but Shi'ites say it is unable or unwilling to protect them from the LeJ.

"STATE OF SIEGE"

The LeJ wants to impose a Sunni theocracy by stoking Sunni-Shi'ite violence. It bombs religious processions and shoots civilians in the type of attacks that pushed countries like Iraq close to civil war.

The latest attacks sparked an outpouring of grief, rage and fear among Shi'ites, many of whom have concluded that the state has left them at the mercy of the LeJ and other extremist groups who believe they are non-Muslims.

"The LeJ operates under one front or the other, and its activists go around openly shouting, 'infidel, infidel, Shi'ite infidel' and 'death to Shi'ites' in the streets of Quetta and outside our mosques," said Syed Dawwod Agha, a top official with the Baluchistan Shi'ite Conference.

"We have become a community of grave diggers. We are so used to death now that we always have shrouds ready."

The roughly 500,000-strong Hazara people in Quetta, who speak a Persian dialect, have distinct features and are an easy target, said Dayan of Human Rights Watch.

"They live in a state of siege. Stepping out of the ghetto means risking death," said Dayan. "Everyone has failed them - the security services, the government, the judiciary."

Earlier on Thursday, a separate bomb killed 11 people in Quetta's main market.

The United Baloch Army claimed responsibility for that blast. The group is one of several fighting for independence for Baluchistan, an arid, impoverished region with substantial gas, copper and gold reserves.

Baluchistan constitutes just less than half of Pakistan's territory and is home to about 8 million of the country's population of 180 million.

In a separate attack on Thursday, in Mingora, the largest city in the Swat valley in the northwest, at least 21 people were killed when an explosion targeted a public gathering of residents who had come to listen to a religious leader.

No one claimed responsibility for that bombing. Swat has been under army rule since a military offensive expelled Pakistani Taliban militants in 2009.

The LeJ has had historically close ties to elements in the security forces, who see the group as an ally in any potential war with neighboring India. Security forces deny any such links.

In a measure of the outrage, several Pakistani social media users posted Facebook comments urging the U.S. to expand its covert programme of drone warfare beyond Taliban strongholds on the Afghan border to target LeJ leaders in Baluchistan.

Among the dead in Quetta was Khudi Ali, a young activist who often wore a t-shirt with fake bloodstains during protests against the rising violence against Shi'ites.

Ali's Twitter profile said: "I am born to fight for human rights and peace."

(Reporting by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Skype founder browses globe for next tech earner

LONDON (Reuters) – Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of internet phone service Skype, believes the next hot tech business will just as likely spring from Istanbul or Sao Paolo as from Silicon Valley or the coolest districts of London.

And he is prepared to fly around the world to find it.

“Talent can pop up anywhere in the world, it’s not just one city block,” the Swedish entrepreneur and venture capitalist said at the headquarters of his Atomico fund, based on upmarket New Bond Street in central London.

Zennstrom, who retains faint traces of a Swedish accent despite his years of globetrotting, is looking for start-ups ready to shift up a gear into new markets and has the experience, gained from growing Skype into a service used by millions around the world, to help them.

Skype was sold to eBay Inc in 2005 for roughly $ 3 billion, before being bought back by a consortium including Zennstrom in 2009 and then two years later sold on to Microsoft Corp for $ 8.5 billion, leaving him a multi-millionaire.

“If you have a product that works it’s important to scale (up) the business as quickly as possible,” said Zennstrom, named by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of its 100 most influential people. “As entrepreneurs, usually you may not have that experience; how does Asia work? Europe? Latin America?”

Atomico, founded by Zennstrom in 2006, has invested in companies in northern Europe including Finland-based Rovio, developer of Angry Birds, and Hailo, a London-based startup that has developed an app that connects passengers with taxi drivers and has raised $ 20 million so far.

It also led a $ 105 million funding round for U.S. online retailer Fab in July.

FUTURE PORTFOLIO

The investment fund, whose London office reception is decked out with simple designer furniture and modern art pieces, has opened offices in Turkey and Brazil, emerging markets with growing middle classes eager to shop online and buy internet services.

Zennstrom wants to make these markets a large part of Atomico’s portfolio in future.

The firm in 2011 backed Brazilian online retailers such as car parts supplier Connect Parts and announced a $ 16 million investment in a Russian online travel agency in October.

Atomico is not necessarily looking for the latest gizmo or internet trend, but savvy businesses with talented leaders who can take advantage of growth in nascent sectors such as e-commerce.

And Zennstrom, softly spoken and wearing an open-necked shirt and dark jacket, believes emerging market growth is fuelling a new breed of optimism and ambition.

“It’s a much more of an entrepreneurial spirit (in Turkey and Brazil) compared to southern European where it’s a depressed mindset,” he said.

Zennstrom earned his stripes in the tech world after helping launch file-sharing service Kazaa more than a decade ago, which failed as a business but paved the way for Skype.

He said getting investment today was far easier than when he was starting Skype. It took him a year to secure funding, whereas today the most talented entrepreneurs with the best ideas could take their pick of investors.

There is also increasing recognition that entrepreneurs might want to realize some of the value of their creations, something he said was lacking when Skype became successful.

“There was really no IPO market and it was not really accepted for founders to sell some of their shares to get some money off the table,” he said, adding that before Skype was sold to eBay, he could not even secure a mortgage on an apartment.

“I think we made the right decision for the time in terms of selling (Skype),” he said. “Today as an entrepreneur you have more options.”

(Editing by David Holmes)

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Kate's Official Portrait Unveiled

By Simon Perry

01/11/2013 at 08:40 AM EST

From left: artist Paul Emsley, the Duchess and Duke of Cambridge

REX USA

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had an art outing early Friday – for the unveiling of her official portrait.

And they were not alone. Kate's parents and siblings also made the breakfast trip to the National Portrait Gallery – the Duchess's first official outing since she handed out awards at a sports honors evening in December.

Her reaction to her portrait? "I thought it was brilliant," Kate, who showed no sign of a baby bump in her burgundy Whistles dress, said at the reception.

She also thanked artist Paul Emsley, a Glasgow-born, South African-raised painter, while William pronounced the canvas – which happens to be located in the same gallery as a rendering of a naked David Beckham (it will soon be moved elsewhere) – "absolutely beautiful"

Kate sat for Emsley in two sittings last May and June, both at his studio in Bradford-upon-Avon, southwest England, and at Kensington Palace. Working from photographs he took, he spent 3½ months to create the painting.

Official portrait of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, by artist Paul Emsley

Sang Tan / AP

He says Kate wanted "to convey her natural self as opposed to her official self. I was always aware of the fact that we would use the hair very much as a kind of a frame for the face, and not too much jewelry apart from the earring, to try to create something of her natural warmth, her natural serenity without too much busyness in the portrait."

He told PEOPLE, "If you are working with someone who has whose face is just a lovely face, it's harder to find something in the portrait that gives it some sort of gravitas. In this case I've tried to do that with the smile and the dimples and the shadows around the face."

Director of the National Portrait Gallery Sandy Nairne, called the painting "very direct, simple. Modern contemporary portrait." As for the subject, "She was really positive about it," and, as he told PEOPLE, "She seemed very well, terrific."

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.

Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.

While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.

Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.

"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.

David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.

Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.

"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.

Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.

"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.

The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.

One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.

All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.

The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.

In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.

But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.

Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.

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AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

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Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

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