Protests over chemical factory resume in China

NINGBO, China (AP) — Protests resumed Sunday in an eastern Chinese city where thousands of residents had clashed with police a day earlier while demonstrating against the proposed expansion of a petrochemical factory over pollution fears.

Several hundred citizens of Ningbo, which is in Zhejiang province, set off from a city square and headed for the offices of the municipal government on Sunday morning. Hundreds were stopped at the gate of the offices by a circle of uniformed police. They shouted for the release of people they believed had been detained by police a day earlier, for the protection of Ningbo and for the city's mayor to come out.

"We can only depend on ourselves now, we can't count on the government to think about us," said one protester, a 40-year-old woman surnamed Jing.

On Saturday, residents reported that protests involved thousands of people and turned violent after authorities used tear gas and arrested participants. Authorities said "a few" people disrupted public order by staging sit-ins, unfurling banners, distributing fliers and obstructing roads. Authorities said that the proposed project was under evaluation and that the public was being given opportunities to offer its input.

There have been a series of protests in China this year over fears of health risks from industrial projects, as members of the rising middle class become more outspoken against environmentally risky projects in their areas.

A week earlier, hundreds protested for several days in a small town on China's Hainan island over a coal-fired power plant.

Such protests are exactly what the Chinese leadership does not want ahead of next month's once-a-decade transition of power, with stability being paramount.

The demonstrations are a reminder to the incoming generation of leaders that they face a public increasingly unwilling to accept the environmental and health hazards as an inevitable consequence of breakneck, unbridled economic growth.

A 30-year-old woman surnamed Wang said officers took her to a police station Saturday and made her sign a guarantee that she would not participate in any more protests, but she came back Sunday anyway.

"They won't even let us sing the national anthem," Wang said. "They kept asking me who the leader of the protests was and I said that this is all voluntary. We have no leader."

Marchers included the elderly and children, as well as some pet poodles. People held up smartphones and tablet computers recording the protest and tried to send information to others through mobile Internet connections.

In a sign that censors were at work, the name "Zhenhai" — the city district where the factory is located — was blocked on China's popular microblogging site Sina Weibo and searches for "chemical expansion project" were greeted with the line that "Some search results are not shown according to regulations." Those that were visible included postings from media sites that said authorities were holding meetings to hear public opinion.

Some protesters wore face masks and shouted slogans including "Protect Ningbo" and "Return my health" while pumping their fists in the air. Cars were forced to stop as a long stretch of people marched along roads.

"We have to do this for our future and our family's future," said protester Jing as she pointed to the smoggy air. "The sky was so clear when I was a child. Look at it now."

Another protester, Yu Yibing, said he wanted the factory to be closed, not expanded, and his 7-year-old son to grow up in a clean environment.

"As the common people, we need to live in a green environment. This is a reasonable request," said Yu, 38. "But the government only puts out some statement and refuses to see us and also suppresses us. I don't know how else we can express our views."

The Zhenhai district government, which comes under the Ningbo government, said Ningbo's Communist Party chief, Wang Huizhong, and mayor, Liu Qi, had held discussions with local residents Saturday night.

A statement posted on the district government's website Sunday said that the opinions and advice of the people who attended "are very helpful" to the party committee and municipal government's decision-making and that the expansion project was "at an early stage."

"We will further solicit opinions and respond to people's concerns and actively respond to people's reasonable requests and demands," the statement said.

The Zhenhai government earlier said it would organize public hearings attended by residents and experts to assess the environmental impact of the project.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the planned project is designed to produce 15 million tons of refined oil and 1.2 million tons of ethylene per year and belongs to Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Company, which has invested 55.87 billion yuan ($8.9 billion).

Calls to Zhenhai police and the propaganda department of Ningbo police rang unanswered Sunday.

___

Associated Press writer Louise Watt and researcher Henry Hou contributed to this report from Beijing.

Read More..

Star Silicon Valley analyst felled by Facebook IPO fallout

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The firing of Citigroup stock analyst Mark Mahaney on Friday in the regulatory fallout from Facebook Inc's initial public offering was greeted with shock and dismay in Silicon Valley, where Mahaney was a well-known and well-liked figure.

"Pretty shocked," was the reaction of Jacob Funds Chief Executive Ryan Jacob, who described Mahaney as one of the most respected financial analysts covering the Internet industry.

"I'd put him at the top. If not at the top, then near the top," said Jacob. "He really knew what to look for."

In addition to firing Mahaney, Citigroup paid a $2 million fine to Massachusetts regulators to settle charges that the bank improperly disclosed research on Facebook ahead of its $16 billion IPO in May.

The settlement agreement said Mahaney failed to supervise a junior analyst who improperly shared Facebook research with the TechCrunch news website. (Settlement agreement: http://r.reuters.com/pyj63t)

The settlement agreement also outlined an incident in which Mahaney failed to get approval before responding to a journalist's questions about Google Inc -- and told a Citigroup compliance staffer that the conversation had not occurred -- even after being warned about unauthorized conversations with the media.

Mahaney declined to comment.

Mahaney got his start in the late 1990s, during the first dot-com boom where he worked at Morgan Stanley for Mary Meeker, one of the star analysts of the time. He went on to work at hedge fund Galleon Group before moving to Citigroup in 2005. Unlike most of his New York-based peers in the analyst world, Mahaney worked in San Francisco's financial district, close to the companies and personalities at the heart of the tech industry.

Earlier this month, Mahaney was named the top Internet analyst for the fifth straight year by Institutional Investor. The review cited fans of Mahaney who praised a "systematic" investment approach that allows him to avoid the "waffling" often evidenced by other analysts.

Mahaney's Buy rating on IAC/InteractiveCorp in April 2011, when the stock traded at $33.32, allowed investors to lock in a 51 percent gain before he downgraded the stock to a Hold at $50.31 a few months later, according to Institutional Investor.

But it wasn't only his stock picks that put him in good stead. He earned kudos for simply being a nice guy.

"He's a kind and thoughtful person and that's evident in the way he deals with people," said Jason Jones of Internet investment firm HighStep Capital. "He's very well liked on Wall Street because of that."

A CAUTIOUS VIEW ON FACEBOOK

Mahaney was only indirectly involved in the incident involving the Facebook research, according to the settlement agreement by Massachusetts regulators released on Friday. But the actions of the junior analyst who worked for him provide an unusual glimpse into the type of behind-the-scenes information trading that regulators are attempting to rein in.

While the Massachusetts regulators did not identify any of the individuals by name, Reuters has learned that the incident involved TechCrunch reporters Josh Constine and Kim-Mai Cutler as well as Citi junior analyst Eric Jacobs.

Jacobs, Constine and Cutler all did not respond to requests for comments.

In early May, shortly before Facebook's IPO, Jacobs sent an email to Cutler and Constine. Constine attended Stanford University at the same time as Jacobs.

Constine, who studied social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for his 2009 Master's degree in cybersociology at Stanford, had a close friendship with Jacobs, according to the settlement agreement.

"I am ramping up coverage on FB and thought you guys might like to see how the street is thinking about it (and our estimates)," Jacobs wrote in the email. The email included an "outline" that Jacobs said would eventually become the firm's 30-40 page initiation report on Facebook.

He also included a "Facebook One Pager" document, which contained confidential, non-public information that Citigroup obtained in order to help begin covering Facebook after the IPO.

Asked by Constine if the information could be published and attributed to an anonymous source, Jacobs responded that "my boss would eat me alive," the agreement said.

A spokeswoman for AOL Inc, which owns TechCrunch, declined to answer questions on the matter, saying only that "We are looking into the matter and have no comment at this time."

Ironically, Mahaney was one of a small group of analysts at the many banks underwriting Facebook's IPO who had cautious views of the richly valued offering. Mahaney initiated coverage of the company with a neutral rating.

Analysts at the top three underwriters on Facebook's IPO - Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan - started the stock with overweight or buy recommendations.

Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Facebook had pre-briefed analysts for its underwriters ahead of its IPO, advising them to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.

Facebook, whose stock was priced at $38 a share in the IPO, closed Friday's regular session at $21.94 and has traded as low as $17.55.

"There were tens of billions of dollars in losses based on hyping the name, a lack of skeptical information and misunderstanding the company," said Max Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at research firm GreenCrest Capital.

"It's highly unfortunate and darkly ironic that one of the signature regulatory actions from this IPO so far involves punishing analysts for disseminating cautious information about Facebook," he added.

(Editing by Jonathan Weber, Mary Milliken and Lisa Shumaker)

Read More..

Kim Kardashian makes a splash at NYC bash

NEW YORK (AP) — Kim Kardashian isn't worried about the behemoth storm expected to pummel the eastern U.S. with rain and wind this week.

Dressed as a blond mermaid for her Halloween party Saturday night in New York, the star joked that her boyfriend, Kanye West — wearing a nautical-looking outfit — could "sail" her to safety if need be.

West didn't talk to press covering the event but smiled and took photos of Kardashian on his phone.

It's the second year Kardashian has hosted the Midori Green Halloween party. She has an endorsement deal with the liquor company.

The reality star said it took two months to plan her costume, inspired by the 1984 film "Splash," and two hours to get ready.

____

Online:

http://www.kimkardashian.com/

?___

Follow Nicole Evatt on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NicoleEvatt

Read More..

FDA: Pharmacy tied to outbreak knew of bacteria

WASHINGTON (AP) — Staffers at a pharmacy linked to the deadly meningitis outbreak documented dozens of cases of mold and bacteria growing in rooms that were supposed to be sterile, according to federal health inspectors.

In a preliminary report on conditions at the pharmacy, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday that even when the contamination at New England Compounding Center exceeded the company's own safety levels, there is no evidence that staffers investigated or corrected the problem. The FDA uncovered some four dozen reports of potential contamination in company records, stretching back to January this year.

The report comes from an FDA inspection of the Framingham, Mass.-based company earlier this month after steroid injections made by the company were tied to an outbreak of fungal meningitis. FDA officials confirmed last week that the black fungus found in the company's vials was the same fungus that has sickened 338 people across the U.S., causing 25 deaths.

The New England Compounding Center's lawyer said Friday the pharmacy "will review this report and will continue our cooperation with the FDA."

Compounding pharmacies like NECC traditionally fill special orders placed by doctors for individual patients, turning out a small number of customized formulas each week. They have traditionally been overseen by state pharmacy boards, though the FDA occasionally steps in when major problems arise. Some pharmacies have grown into much larger businesses in the last 20 years, supplying bulk orders of medicines to hospitals that need a steady supply of drugs on hand.

The FDA report provides new details about NECC's conditions, which were first reported by state officials earlier this week. The drug at the center of the investigation is made without preservative, so it's very important that it be made under highly sterile conditions. Compounding pharmacies prepare their medications in clean rooms, which are supposed to be temperature-controlled and air-filtered to maintain sterility.

But FDA inspectors noted that workers at the pharmacy turned off the clean room's air conditioning every night. FDA regulators said that could interfere with the conditions needed to prevent bacterial growth.

Inspectors also say they found a host of potential contaminants in or around the pharmacy's clean rooms, including green and yellow residues, water droplets and standing water from a leaking boiler.

Additionally, inspectors found "greenish yellow discoloration" inside an autoclave, a piece of equipment used to sterilize vials and stoppers. In another supposedly sterile room inspectors found a "dark, hair-like discoloration" along the wall. Elsewhere FDA staff said that dust from a nearby recycling facility appeared to be drifting into the pharmacy's rooftop air-conditioning system.

The FDA on Friday declined to characterize the severity of the problems at NECC, or to speculate on how they may have led to contamination of the products made by the pharmacy. FDA emphasized that the report is based on "initial observations" and that the agency's investigation is ongoing.

The agency also provided new details about the pharmacy's handling of the steroids it recalled last month. The company recalled three lots of steroids made since May that totaled 17,676 single-dose vials of medicine — roughly equivalent to 20 gallons. The shots are mainly used to treat back pain.

According to the agency's report, the pharmacy began shipping vials from the August lot to customers on Aug. 17. That was nearly two weeks before the pharmacy received test results from an outside laboratory confirming the sterility of the drug. When FDA scientists went back and tested the same lot this month, they found contamination in 50 vials.

Outside experts said the report paints a picture of a dysfunctional operation.

"The entire pharmacy was an incubator of bacteria and fungus," said Sarah Sellers, a former FDA officer who left the agency in 2008 after unsuccessfully pushing it to increase regulation of compounding pharmacies. She now consults for drug manufacturers. "The pharmacy knew this through monitoring results, and chose to do nothing."

Read More..

Threat of superstorm launches mass evacuations in coastal areas

SHIP BOTTOM, N.J. (AP) — Forget distinctions like tropical storm or hurricane. Don't get fixated on a particular track. Wherever it hits, the rare behemoth storm inexorably gathering in the eastern U.S. will afflict a third of the country with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow, say officials who warned millions in coastal areas to get out of the way.

"We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people," said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As Hurricane Sandy barreled north from the Caribbean — where it left nearly five dozen dead — to meet two other powerful winter storms, experts said it didn't matter how strong the storm was when it hit land: The rare hybrid storm that follows will cause havoc over 800 miles from the East Coast to the Great Lakes.

"This is not a coastal threat alone," said Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "This is a very large area."

President Barack Obama was monitoring the storm and working with state and locals governments to make sure they get the resources needed to prepare, administration officials said.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency Saturday as hundreds of coastal residents started moving inland and the state was set to close its casinos. New York's governor was considering shutting down the subways to avoid flooding and half a dozen states warned residents to prepare for several days of lost power.

Sandy weakened briefly to a tropical storm early Saturday but was soon back up to Category 1 strength, packing 75 mph winds about 305 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., as of 11 p.m. Forecasters said the storm was spreading tropical storm conditions across the coastline of North Carolina, and they were expected to move up the mid-Atlantic coastline late Sunday. Experts said the storm was most likely to hit the southern New Jersey coastline by late Monday or early Tuesday.

Governors from North Carolina, where heavy rain was expected Sunday, to Connecticut declared states of emergency. Delaware ordered mandatory evacuations for coastal communities by 8 p.m. Sunday.

Christie, who was widely criticized for not interrupting a family vacation in Florida while a snowstorm pummeled the state in 2010, broke off campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in North Carolina on Friday to return home.

"I can be as cynical as anyone," the pugnacious chief executive said in a bit of understatement Saturday. "But when the storm comes, if it's as bad as they're predicting, you're going to wish you weren't as cynical as you otherwise might have been."

The storm forced the presidential campaign to juggle schedules. Romney scrapped plans to campaign Sunday in the swing state of Virginia and switched his schedule for the day to Ohio. First lady Michelle Obama canceled an appearance in New Hampshire for Tuesday, and Obama moved a planned Monday departure for Florida to Sunday night to beat the storm. He canceled appearances in Northern Virginia on Monday and Colorado on Tuesday.

In Ship Bottom, just north of Atlantic City, Alice and Giovanni Stockton-Rossini spent Saturday packing clothing in the backyard of their home, a few hundred yards from the ocean on Long Beach Island. Their neighborhood was under a voluntary evacuation order, but they didn't need to be forced.

"It's really frightening," Alice Stockton-Rossi said. "But you know how many times they tell you, 'This is it, it's really coming and it's really the big one' and then it turns out not to be? I'm afraid people will tune it out because of all the false alarms before ... (but) this one might be the one."

A few blocks away, Russ Linke was taking no chances. He and his wife secured the patio furniture, packed the bicycles into the pickup truck, and headed off the island.

What makes the storm so dangerous and unusual is that it is coming at the tail end of hurricane season and the beginning of winter storm season, "so it's kind of taking something from both," said Jeff Masters, director of the private service Weather Underground.

Masters said the storm could be bigger than the worst East Coast storm on record — the 1938 New England hurricane known as the Long Island Express, which killed nearly 800 people. "Part hurricane, part nor'easter — all trouble," he said. Experts said to expect high winds over 800 miles and up to 2 feet of snow as far inland as West Virginia.

And the storm was so big, and the convergence of the three storms so rare, that "we just can't pinpoint who is going to get the worst of it," said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Officials are particularly worried about the possibility of subway flooding in New York City, said Uccellini.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to prepare to shut the city's subways, buses and suburban trains by Sunday, but delayed making a final decision. The city shut the subways down before last year's Hurricane Irene, and a Columbia University study predicted that an Irene surge just 1 foot higher would have paralyzed lower Manhattan.

Up and down the Eastern Seaboard and far inland, officials urged residents and businesses to prepare in big ways and little.

On Saturday evening, Amtrak began canceling train service to parts of the East Coast, including between Washington, D.C., and New York. Airlines started moving planes out of East Coast airports to avoid damage and adding flights out of New York and Washington on Sunday in preparation for flight cancellations on Monday.

The Virginia National Guard was authorized to call up to 500 troops to active duty for debris removal and road-clearing, while homeowners stacked sandbags at their front doors in coastal towns. At a Home Depot in Virginia Beach, employee Dave Jusino said the store was swamped with customers.

"We have organized chaos, is what I call it," Jusino said. "We organize a group of 10 associates, give them certain responsibilities and we just separate the lines, organize four customers at a time, load up their cars and get them out the door and then take the next customers."

Utility officials warned rains could saturate the ground, causing trees to topple into power lines, and told residents to prepare for several days at home without power. "We're facing a very real possibility of widespread, prolonged power outages," said Ruth Miller, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

Warren Ellis, who was on an annual fishing pilgrimage on North Carolina's Outer Banks, didn't act fast enough to get home. Ellis' 73-year-old father managed to get off uninhabited Portsmouth Island near Cape Hatteras by ferry Friday. But the son and his camper got stranded when high winds and surf forced the ferry service to suspend operations Saturday.

"We might not get off here until Tuesday or Wednesday, which doesn't hurt my feelings that much," said Ellis, 44, of Amissville, Va. "Because the fishing's going to be really good after this storm."

Last year, Hurricane Irene poked a new inlet through the island, cutting the only road off Hatteras Island for about 4,000.

In Connecticut, the Naval Submarine Base in Groton prepared to install flood gates and pile up sandbags to protect against flooding while its five submarines remain in port through the storm.

Lobsterman Greg Griffen in Maine wasn't taking any chances; he moved 100 of his traps to deep water, where they are less vulnerable to shifting and damage in a storm.

"Some of my competitors have been pulling their traps and taking them right home," said Griffen. The dire forecast "sort of encouraged them to pull the plug on the season."

In Muncy Valley in northern Pennsylvania, Rich Fry learned his lesson from last year, when Tropical Storm Lee inundated his Katie's Country Store.

In between helping customers picking up necessities Saturday, Fry was moving materials above the flood line. Fry said he was still trying to recover from the losses of last year's storm, when he estimates he lost $35,000 in merchandise.

"It will take a lot of years to cover that," he said.

Christie's emergency declaration will force the shutdown of Atlantic City's 12 casinos for only the fourth time in the 34-year history of legalized gambling here. The approach of Hurricane Irene shut down the casinos for three days last August.

Atlantic City officials said they would begin evacuating the gambling hub's 30,000 residents at noon Sunday, busing them to mainland shelters and schools.

Tom Foley, Atlantic City's emergency management director, recalled the March 1962 storm when the ocean and the bay met in the center of the city.

"This is predicted to get that bad," he said.

Eighty-five-year-old former sailor Ray Leonard said if he had loved ones living in the projected landfall area, he would tell them to leave. Leonard knows to heed the warnings.

He and two crewmates in his 32-foot sailboat, Satori, rode out 1991's infamous "perfect storm," made famous by the Sebastian Junger bestseller of the same name, before being plucked from the Atlantic off Martha's Vineyard, Mass., by a Coast Guard helicopter.

"Don't be rash," Leonard said in a telephone interview Saturday from his home in Fort Myers, Fla. "Because if this does hit, you're going to lose all those little things you've spent the last 20 years feeling good about."

___

Breed reported from Raleigh, N.C. Contributing to this report were AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington; Emery Dalesio in Kill Devil Hills, N.C.; Karen Matthews in New York; Glenn Adams in Augusta, Maine; Randall Chase in Lewes, Del.; Rodrique Ngowi in Boston; Ron Todt in Philadelphia and Nancy Benac in Washington.

Read More..