Most major European and Asian equity markets rose, bolstered by a 1.7 percent jump in the Dow Jones industrial average Tuesday. Markets in China and Taiwan were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Investors were cheered by signs the U.S. economy may be improving. On Tuesday. Kraft Foods Inc. and apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch reported earnings that beat expectations, while drugmaker Merck & Co. said profits jumped. UK banking giant Barclays also reported soaring profits.

Traders will be eyeing reports on housing starts, jobless claims and inflation later this week for more evidence the U.S. economy is rebounding strongly from last year’s recession.

Markets also got a boost from news European officials are working with Greece to control its debt crisis. European Union leaders on Tuesday gave Greece one month to prove it can cut its fiscal deficit.

Concerns about rising debt burdens in Greece, Portugal and Spain have undermined investor confidence during the last few weeks.

As trading got underway in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.7 percent, Germany’s DAX index gained 0.9 percent, and France’s CAC-40 added 1.2 percent.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average jumped 272.58 points, or 2.7 percent, at 10,306.83 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 265.32, or 1.3 percent, to 20,534.01.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 26.38, or 1.7 percent, to 1,627.43 while Singapore added 1.3 percent and India 1.3 percent. Australia’s benchmark advanced 2.1 percent.

In the U.S. on Tuesday, the Dow rose 169.67, or 1.7 percent, to 10,268.81. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 19.36, or 1.8 percent, to 1,094.87, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 30.66, or 1.4 percent, to 2,214.19.

Oil prices extended gains above $77 a barrel in Asia amid expectations a growing U.S. economy will fuel increased crude demand.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was up 52 cents at $77.53 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $2.88 to settle at $77.01 on Tuesday.

In currencies, the dollar rose to 90.54 yen from 90.14 yen. The euro fell to $1.3752 from $1.3764. By Alex Kennedy, Philadelphia Daily News

These happen to be the worst years as far as the poverty situation in the country is concerned, data reveals.

The Federal Bureau of Statistics data updated for the Centre for Poverty Reduction and Social Policy Development (CPRSPD), Planning and Development Division, shared with The News indicates an upswing in the headcount poverty ratio for 2008-09.

The steep increase in the prices of petroleum products, electricity and natural gas as well as food items (especially flour, sugar and meat) began in 2007, while the situation worsened in 2008 with global increase in POL and commodity prices.

The financial meltdown followed as industry could not cope with the rising energy prices triggered sharp slowdown in growth and high inflation.

This situation impacted Pakistan’s economy generally and the poor households particularly, as the report indicates.

The government is yet to make this report public after its preparation is formalized and the relevant officials in high places approve its launch.

The News obtained salient figures from this report revealing that the increase in food and energy prices since late 2007 compelled the government to launch a household income and expenditure survey for assessment of poverty increase and vulnerability of the countryside and city-slum majority.

Survey to make such assessment got delayed for inexplicable reasons but the reports based on a 5-year old assessment got regularly updated for the federal cabinet’s appraisal.

The updated Planning Commission’s Interim Report based on 2004-05 poverty head count number of 23.9 percent put the increase in poverty at around 6 percent for the year 2008-09. The newly updated figures say this ratio must go as high as 29.9 percent.

The World Bank’s Task Force on Food Security had put the ratio at 29.2 percent in 2004-05, 33.8 percent in 2007-08 and 36.1 percent in 2008-09. Such estimates placed 62 million people of the country Below the Poverty Line (BPL) in 2008-09.

The new assessments say at least 20 million people might have joined the previous headcount on BPL population.

The poverty increase situation thus stood as follows: 22.3 percent of the population in 2005-06 to between 30-35 percent in 2008-09; now this population is beyond 40 percent.

The data is explained in a manner that the increase in BPL population in the rural areas is more tragic as people lost their small holdings to inflation and overall expenditure per family unit increased by more than 20 percent in the past 3 years.

Though the increase of inflation-hit population in the urban areas remained more pronounced, the net impact was far lower than in the rural areas.

More than 50 percent of the urban workforce underwent decrease in actual wages viz a viz inflation.

The high food prices undermined the government efforts for poverty reduction as food price hike severely eroded poor households’ purchasing power.

This situation indicates a serious risk of massive school dropouts at primary levels while fresh enrolments would also be on the decline.

The poorest households are compelled to spend more than 78 percent of incomes on food and other most essential expenditure, while health and education are tragically compromised areas. By Ikram Hoti, The News International

The gunmen arrived in a convoy of up to seven 4x4s, according to local reports. While some gunmen closed off surrounding streets, others burst into the party and started shooting to kill.

There were conflicting reports as to whether the victims were celebrating victory in a local American Football championship, or had gathered to watch a boxing match. It was unclear last night as to why they were targeted, but it was immediately assumed the attack was by one of the drug trafficking gangs struggling for supremacy in the city.

“The men were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around,” a neighbour said.

Army spokesman Enrique Torres said the dead were from 15 to 20 years old, and an additional 17 party-goers were wounded, some critically. “They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside,” he said.

Witnesses of the slaughter told the Associated Press they thought those behind the attack were acting on false information.

“It must have been a huge mistake,” said Martha Lujan, who lives nearby.

Ciudad Juárez is just across the US border from El Paso in Texas, and is the bloodiest front in the turf wars raging around Mexico, which intensified following a government offensive launched three years ago. More than 16,000 have died since in related violence. Last year, more than 2,000 people were killed in Juárez, about a third of the national total.

The city has also had Mexico’s heaviest military presence, with 10,000 soldiers patrolling the streets for most of last year. Last month the government announced it was reducing the number of soldiers present and increasing the number of federal police officers in the city. The killing has continued regardless.

Most victims in Juárez die in ones or twos, often small-time dealers associated with one gang and killed by a rival gang. But the ­arbitrariness of much of the ­violence has been underlined by a growing number of deaths with no apparent link to the ­underworld. There have also been periodic massacres, such as two attacks on drug rehabilitation clinics in September last year which left 28 dead.

Another witness to yesterday’s massacre, who only gave his first name, Hector, because he feared retaliation, said he was just outside when the gunfire broke out. He said the party was an innocuous gathering of friends targeted in error. “I think there was some confusion,” he said. “We’re seeking justice.”

The ongoing drug feuds in Juárez are said to be caused by the Sinaloa cartel trying to out-muscle the Juárez cartel at one of the most important points for smuggling drugs into the US. In the 1990s, the Juárez cartel was the most powerful trafficker, but in recent years its influence has waned. The Sinaloa cartel is led by Mexico’s most infamous trafficker of the moment, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

In other drug violence elsewhere yesterday, 20 gunmen attacked a police station in the Pacific port city of Lázaro Cárdenas with grenades and assault rifles, killing a police officer and a mother and her son who were in the building to pay a fine.

Further north, in the city of Navolato, the bodies of three women and two men were found in their vehicle, which was riddled with bulletholes. By Jo Tuckman. The Guardian

The rise, compared to a year earlier, breaks a 13-month decline in trade as a result of the global downturn.

Xinhua said total exports for 2009 were $1.2tn (£749bn), but total foreign trade over the year was down 13.9%.

Correspondents say the figures will lead to new demands from China’s competitors that it revalue the yuan.

Last year saw a continuing decrease in China’s trade as the global economic downturn led to a fall in demand for its products.

But in the last few weeks of the year, there was a far greater rise than forecasters had expected, with foreign exports reaching $130.7bn, up 17.7% on the previous December.

China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) said exports overall in the year were $1.2tn, down 16% from in 2008, while imports were 11.2% down from a year earlier at $1.01tn.

The politically sensitive total trade surplus was down 34.2% to $196.1bn.

The figures suggests China will surpass Germany’s export total for the whole of 2009, although this will not be confirmed until Germany’s full-year data is published in February.

Yuan demand

A spokesman for GAC said the increase was “an important turning point” for the country.

“It is safe to say now that Chinese exporters have come right through the period of weakness,” Xinhua quoted statistician Huang Guohua as saying.

The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Shanghai says many of China’s producers are low-cost manufacturers who assemble equipment such as i-Pods using foreign components.

The latest figures are being seen as an indication that those manufacturers have proved resilient in the downturn and are benefitting as their customers restock, says our correspondent.

But the figures are likely to lead to renewed complaints from China’s trading competitors that its currency is undervalued, he added.

Led by the US, they say it is unfair that China has been able to make its good cheaper by keeping the yuan weak, but Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has said China “will not yield” to foreign demands that it revalue the currency.

Beijing has long said that it will not allow the yuan to trade freely until its domestic economy was strong enough to pick up any resulting decline in exports.

The slowing decline in Chinese trade has also been taken as a sign that the country’s stimulus package is working.

Beijing raised tax rebates on exports several times in 2009, increased tax refunds and improved export credit insurance. BBC News

Medvedev said the new missiles would be developed in full accordance with arms agreements made with the United States. “Of course, we will develop new systems, including delivery systems, that is, missiles,” Medvedev said in an end-of-year interview with state-controlled television channels.

“This process will be continued, and our nuclear shield will always be efficient and sufficient to protect our national interests,” Medvedev said.

The Kremlin chief said Russia and the United States were close to a new deal on reducing vast Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons, adding that he had “trustworthy relations” with US President Barack Obama. Zeenews

The US military “could have captured or killed Osama bin Laden in 2001 if it had launched a concerted attack on his hideout in Afghanistan,” according to a damning Congressional report that comes on the eve of unveiling of a new Af-Pak policy by the Barack Obama Administration.

The 49-page report “Tora Bora Revisited: How we failed to get Bin Laden and Why it Matters Today”, prepared by the staff of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and released today, points finger at then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his top military commander Tommy Franks for turning down requests for reinforcements to pursue Laden.

Laden, trapped in the rugged mountainous area in eastern Afghanistan, expected to die and had even written a will, said the report, commissioned by Committee Chairman John Kerry.

“On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today,” the report said.

“Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan,” it said. The Times Of India

He urged Ahmadinejad to “continue contacts with interested countries for a just and balanced solution on the nuclear issue in Iran”.

In his weekly radio address earlier, Lula said engaging Iran instead of isolating it was the way to push for peace and stability in the Middle East.

“It doesn’t help isolating Iran,” he said. “It’s important that someone sits down with Iran, talks with Iran and tries to establish some balance so that the Middle East can return to a certain sense of normalcy.”

Lula, who honed his negotiating skills as a union leader, says a new tactic is needed with the Iranians.

“I told President [Barack] Obama, I told President [Nicolas] Sarkozy, I told [German] Chancellor Angela Merkel that we will not get good things out of Iran if we corner them. You need to create space to talk,” he said last month.

During his radio show, Lula also proposed a football game in March pitting Brazil’s famed national team against a team comprising Israelis and Palestinians.

Security council ‘failure’

Ahmadinejad, for his part, supported Brazil’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Brazil is to take one of the 10 non-permanent seats – those without the power of veto – in 2010 and 2011.

“We support a reformed UN Security Council and for Brazil to have a permanent seat,” Ahmadinejad said.

He said the council “has failed over the past 60 years because of the veto power of a small number of countries, a source of insecurity for several countries in the world”.

The first visit by Ahmadinejad to Brazil provides Lula an opportunity to boost the international political clout of South America’s largest nation, analysts said.

But Brazilian opposition politicians criticised it, citing concern over Iran’s nuclear programme as its human rights record, as well as Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust.

Demonstrations against the visit were staged in Brasilia and other major cities across the country.

Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor, said: “He [Lula] has faced criticism not only from the Republicans in Washington but also in Brazil itself.

“They [critics] believe he has gone too far; that he’s isolating Brazil by going to the side of countries that are considered by some to be, as we know, on the axis of evil.”

Lula defended the visit, saying any progress on the nuclear standoff with Iran and on the stalled Middle East peace process required dialogue with all parties involved.

Ahmadinejad’s trip follows visits in the past two weeks by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Shimon Peres, his Israeli counterpart, who called on Lula to use Brazil’s influence to help curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran’s nuclear programme, which it says is intended for civilian use, has drawn criticism from Western countries which suspect Tehran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

World powers have urged Iran to reconsider its rejection of a UN-drafted deal aimed at a peaceful resolution to its contested nuclear programme.

The deal would have seen Tehran shipping its low-grade enriched uranium to Russia and France where it could be processed to be used as fuel in Iran’s medical-purpose reactor.

Instead, Iran wants a direct swap of low-enriched uranium for processed nuclear fuel, taking place on Iranian soil.

Ahmadinejad’s visit comes as the military back home engages in large-scale war games centred on protecting Iran’s nuclear facilities from attack. The Iranian leader is set to visit allies in Bolivia and Venezuela next to shore up more South American support. Al Jazeera

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mighani also suggested Iran could itself produce an advanced missile defense system which Russia has so far failed to deliver to the Islamic Republic and which Washington and Israel do not want Tehran to have.

Iran believes Russia’s delay in supplying high-grade S-300 missiles was due to pressure by Israel, not technical problems as cited by Moscow, Mighani said.

“We are hopeful the Russians will ignore the pressure of the Zionist lobby,” Fars news agency quoted him as saying on Saturday. Iran refers to Israel as the “Zionist regime.” The military maneuvers will last for five days and involve both the elite Revolutionary Guards and the regular armed forces against a hypothetical enemy, Iranian media reported.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the row over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran, which says its nuclear program is solely to generate electricity, has threatened to hit back at Israel and US if it is attacked. “This week’s air defense maneuvers will be held with the intention of protecting the country’s nuclear facilities,” Mighani said, Fars reported. State television said the defense drills would “ensure better protection” for these facilities. Arab News

It came complete with a dismissive sound bite – comparing Iran’s foes to a mosquito – a bit of boasting about Iran’s prestige and a touch of self-analysis. Iran’s president said Sunday that Tehran doesn’t trust the West to keep its promises.

Added together, it helps explain Iran’s zigzag reactions last week to a UN-drafted nuclear pact, and why Iran is in no hurry to cut a deal.

For days, Iran had hinted that it would back the essential element of the UN offer – to send about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile out of the country – but wanted some changes to the formula.

Those changes turned out to be more like a full counter proposal.

The response Thursday – as described by diplomats – essentially seeks to keep the uranium in Iran. That could be an ultimate deal breaker, because the West wants to pare down Iran’s store of low-enriched uranium to a point where it cannot make a nuclear warhead – at least temporarily.

But no one is ready to call it quits yet. Washington and its allies are hoping Iran softens its position. On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters in Malaysia that bargaining was still possible.

Asked if Tehran has rejected the deal, Mottaki said: “No.”

This may be welcome news in Western capitals. Yet many will see it as suspiciously like another stalling tactic.

Iran’s negotiations with the West have been a master class in slo-mo diplomacy. Since uranium enrichment was restarted three years ago, Iran has been able to draw out a showdown by offering just enough to the West when the heat became uncomfortable.

“Iran believes time is on their side for now,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

That is because there’s little in the UN plan that Iran likes and no serious domestic pressure for unpopular compromises. Standing firm, meanwhile, brings some immediate dividends.

Ahmadinejad and his hard-line allies can claim the high ground as defenders of Iran’s national dignity and strides in nuclear technology. It’s particularly tempting for Ahmadinejad, a rare opportunity to cross the political no man’s land after June’s disputed elections. Even his harshest opponents take pride in Iran’s nuclear accomplishments.

Ahmadinejad played this to full effect Sunday. In a posting on a government Web site, he was quoted as describing the nuclear negotiations as a match between Goliath Iran and an annoying insect.

“While enemies have used all their capacities … the Iranian nation is standing powerfully and (Iran’s foes) are like a mosquito,” he said.

He further scolded the West for what he called a history of broken promises. Iran, he said, “looks at the talks with no trust.”

The trust gap comes with a long back story. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran says it made a deal with France for a 10 percent stake in a nuclear plant and was expected to receive 50 tons of UF-6 gas, which can be turned into enriched uranium. But Iran claims it never received even a gram.

To Iranian leaders, that’s just another example of perceived Western bullying, which also include sanctions and a lack of pressure on Israel to open itself to international nuclear scrutiny.

Israel is widely considered to have nuclear arms, but has never publicly disclosed details – and has left open the option of military action to block Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In the current context, Iranian authorities also raise worries about Iran’s self-sufficiency or of being at the mercy of the West for reactor fuel. Those are powerful themes inside Iran – making it unlikely that Iranian leaders would stoke such anxieties and then agree to the UN package.

Iran insists its nuclear program is only for research and energy production and has reportedly floated a counterproposal: to enrich uranium to reactor-ready strength at home with monitoring by the UN’s nuclear watchdog group.

But Western leaders are not biting on Iran’s Plan B.

On Friday, the European Union expressed “grave concern” about Iran’s nuclear program and “persistent failure to meet its international obligations.” In Washington, the reaction has been more muted, but President Barack Obama does not favour open-ended talks.

Congress also could give the White House new sanctions leverage, this time to penalize foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. That is perhaps Iran’s most vulnerable point. Right now, it must already import about 40 percent of its gasoline and other fuel products.

But there’s no sign of panic from Tehran. The country has ridden out US and international sanctions for years and can look to its economic ties with China and Russia as major buffers.

For the moment, it appears Iran instead is banking on the gravitas of the groundbreaking talks that opened new channels with the United States.

The West may be reluctant to step away from a level of outreach that would be hard to recapture. Yet there is certainly an expiration date on Washington’s patience.

“The president’s time is not unlimited,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday. Indian Express

If that plan fails, however, Medvedev said other options remain on the table. While he did not cite those options, the Russian leader has said further sanctions against Iran were possible if it did not open its nuclear program to inspections to prove it was not trying to build a bomb.

Obama and Medvedev, meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation Council, said Iran was one of the topics they discussed.

“Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran appears to have been unable to say yes to what everyone acknowledges is a creative and constructive approach,” Obama said. “We are now running out of time with respect to that approach.”

Russia and the U.S. are among six nations leading an effort to ensure Iran does not use what it maintains is a civilian nuclear program to develop an atomic bomb. But Moscow also has close ties with Iran and is helping build its first nuclear power plant, forcing Russia into a delicate balancing act.

Fears about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program were heightened in September with the disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. U.N. inspectors visited the site last month, as the United States continued quiet preparations for the possibility of stiffening U.N. sanctions or those the United States has applied on its own.

Iran agreed to the inspections during a landmark meeting with the U.S. and other world powers at the beginning of October in Geneva, where the idea of Tehran shipping uranium to Russia for further enrichment was first raised.

Under the plan, Iran would send 2,420 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia in one batch by the end of the year in order to receive the nuclear fuel it needs for a research reactor that makes medical isotopes.

The United States supports such peaceful or beneficial uses of nuclear technology in Iran but has long suspected that part of the Iranian nuclear development program is aimed at covert production of a weapon.

The isotopes arrangement is a way to buy time and build confidence on both sides. By Western estimates, the plan would take put amounts of the low-enriched uranium Iran has stockpiled out of reach for conversion into the highly enriched fuel needed for nuclear weapons.

The arrangement is not a guarantee that Iran could not develop a bomb if it chose to, but is thought to delay the likelihood of that breakthrough. The deal would be the most tangible payoff for Obama’s program of careful outreach to Iran this year, a diplomatic overture dimmer by political violence and alleged vote-rigging in Iran’s elections last June.

Iran’s diffuse political power structure has been in disarray since the election and the unprecedented street protests that followed. Squeezed by dissent inside the country and by international pressure over the nuclear program from outside, Iran has given conflicting signals.

Iranian politicians have rejected the proposed deal but the government says it is still considering it.

“The recent actions of this country (U.S.), presenting unimportant and irrational proposals in the nuclear issue which they have called just and fair, all indicate that the alleged change was nothing but a deceitful symbol aimed at deceiving naive politicians,” Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Sunday in Iran.

Obama said he and Medvedev agree that the U.S. and Russia will continue to urge Iran “to take the path that leads them to meeting its international obligations.”

Obama added, “We can’t count on that, and we will begin to discuss and prepare for these other pathways.”

Medvedev said the U.S. and Russia are not satisfied with the pace of the effort and reiterated Obama’s point about reaching an end to it.

“In this case, our goal is clear: It is transparent, up-to-date, peaceful program – not a program that would raise questions or concerns from the international community. We’re prepared to work further and I hope that our joint work will yield in positive results,” he said. “In case we fail, the other options remain on the table in order to move the process in a different direction.”

Mike McFaul, an official with the White House National Security Council, told reporters at a briefing in Singapore that a timetable for sanctions against Iran was not discussed.

The administration prefers international sanctions if Iran balks but also quietly supports legislation in Congress that would give Obama a broad new array of authority to target Iran’s energy sector by penalizing foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. The regime is heavily dependent on gasoline, kerosene and propane imports.

The legislation would also allow the administration to go after insurance and reinsurance concerns that cover oil tankers and their cargo. The U.S. could also target companies that provide Iran with covert technology used to crack down on protesters and democracy advocates as it did during demonstrations last summer after a disputed national election. Asbury Park Press