US stocks rise on China trade data

US stocks have opened with modest gains after last week's slump, lifted by encouraging China trade data that signalled renewed momentum in the economy and solid earnings from a key US homebuilder.

In the first five minutes of trade on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 13.82 points, or 0.11 per cent, at 12,829.21.

The broad-market S&P 500 advanced 3.26 points, or 0.24 per cent, to 1,383.11.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite rose 12.94 points, or 0.45 per cent, to 2,917.81.

"The support for stocks comes as China reported stronger than expected exports and US homebuilder DR Horton Inc posted better-than-expected earnings," Charles Schwab & Co analyst said.

China's export growth accelerated in October for the second straight month, the government said on Saturday, adding to evidence the world's second-largest economy is bouncing back from a slowdown.

There were no major economic data scheduled for release and the bond market was closed in observance of Veterans Day.

On Friday, US stocks eked out small gains, capping a week of solid losses amid fears about the nation's looming "fiscal cliff", automatic spending cuts and expiring tax breaks that will come at year-end unless avoided.

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Emirates' first-half profit up 104%

DUBAI'S Emirates airline says it posted a 104 per cent surge in net profits in the first six months of the current financial year thanks to rising passenger numbers.

"In the first half of the 2012-13 fiscal year, Emirates net profit is 1.7 billion dirhams ($A448 million), up 104 per cent from 836 million dirhams," the carrier said in a statement.

The announcement came hours after an engine problem forced an Emirates A380 superjumbo to turn back to Sydney shortly after taking off.

The government-owned airline said it had carried 18.7 million passengers since April 1, up 15.4 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Its volume of cargo was up by more than 16 per cent, the airline said, pointing out that it was a "significant growth against the market trend".

Emirates posted revenues of 35.42 billion dirhams, up 17.3 per cent from the corresponding period last year.

The group as a whole, which includes Dnata travel services, generated revenues amounting to 38.245 billion dirhams, with net profits hitting 2.1 billion dirhams.

"The Emirates Group half-year performance is the result of hard work and our drive to stay on course and continue to grow despite the precarious marketplace," said chairman and chief executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum.

"We have continued to invest in the infrastructure of both Emirates and Dnata and it continues to pay off."

Meanwhile, the pilot of the Dubai-bound Emirates plane carrying 380 passengers decided to turn back shortly after take-off on Sunday night due to an engine problem as passengers reported a bright orange flash and loud bang.

An Emirates spokesman told AFP the decision was a "precaution" and "there were no flames or smoke".

Emirates is the largest single customer of Airbus' A380 and Boeing's 777 widebody aircraft.

Considered the world's fastest growing carrier, it has a fleet of 183 aircraft serving 126 destinations in 74 countries.

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China to reveal new leaders on Thursday

CHINA'S Communist Party will on Thursday unveil the new set of top leaders who will take over the reins of the country for the next decade, one day after their week-long congress ends, the party says.

The widely expected timing was confirmed by staff organising press coverage of the Communist Party congress under way in Beijing, which is held every five years to shuffle the top leadership of the party.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, who has been in power 10 years, is widely expected to hand over the reins of the ruling party to his vice-president, Xi Jinping, a tradition that takes place a day after the close of the congress.

The leadership - arrived at via back-room political horse-trading among party factions - is revealed to the nation by marching out in a line before cameras at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Party staff told AFP the new Politburo Standing Committee - the top-level body now consisting of nine members that rules China - would "meet the press" on Thursday. The party had thus far not officially confirmed the timing.

Xi is widely expected to march out in first position on the committee, indicating he is the new party leader, and will then formally be named the country's president next March by the rubber-stamp parliament.

Xi's fellow Standing Committee member, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, is also strongly expected to move up in the committee's pecking order and be put on track to be named premier in March, replacing incumbent Wen Jiabao.

They would take over at a challenging time when China's powerhouse economy is suffering a rare slowdown and amid growing demands for change from the country's vocal netizens.

If things go according to tradition, Xi and Li would be expected to be in office for 10 years. However, the Standing Committee is typically tweaked each five years with a shuffling of lower-ranking members.

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Italian prosecutor charges S&P, Fitch

AN Italian prosecutor has filed charges of market manipulation against Standard & Poor's and Fitch ratings agencies over downgrades of Italy's credit rating that helped fuel the euro debt crisis.

Following a two-year investigation, prosecutor Michele Ruggiero requested charges against seven people at two of the world's top three ratings agencies.

Five of the accused worked at S&P's, while the other two worked at Fitch at the time.

The agencies "intentionally provided financial markets with biased and distorted information", the prosecutor's office said in a statement on Monday.

It is a landmark case since rating agencies came under concentrated attack, particularly from governments as the eurozone crises intensified.

Those charged are accused of setting out to "destabilise Italy's image, prestige and credit confidence on the financial markets, alter the value of Italian bonds by depreciating them (and) weaken the euro", the statement said.

Among those charged are Deven Sharma, the head of S&P's from 2007 to 2011, and the operational director for Fitch, David Riley.

The charges have to be confirmed by a judge for any trial to go ahead - a process that could take months under the Italian judicial system.

The ratings agencies have co-operated with the inquiry but insist their economic evaluations were independent and based on objective factors.

"These claims are entirely baseless and without any merit as our role is to publish independent opinions about creditworthiness according to our public and transparent methodologies," S&P's said in a statement.

"We will continue to perform our role without fear or favour," it said.

The probe began in 2010 after an Italian consumer group lodged a complaint over a sovereign downgrade by Moody's, the other top world rating agency, which has since been cleared by investigators and is no longer part of the case.

Investigators have since focused on more recent rating actions, particularly last year, when market turmoil pushed Italy to the brink of bankruptcy.

The case is being seen as one of the first of its kind on sovereign ratings.

Standard & Poor's earlier this month lost a landmark case in Australia in the first trial of its kind over top-flight ratings given to financial products that collapsed in the build-up to the 2008 global economic crisis.

Dozens of cases have been brought around the world against rating agencies - which were widely criticised for overly optimistic assessments of financial products that turned out to be toxic - but few trials have gone ahead.

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Russian growth slows to 2.9%

RUSSIA'S growth slowed to 2.9 per cent in the third quarter this year, the statistics office says, in a sign its economic activity is being hit by the global economic crisis.

The Russian economy, hugely reliant on oil and gas exports, enjoyed relatively buoyant growth of 4.9 per cent and four per cent respectively in the first two quarters this year.

Growth in the third quarter last year was five per cent. The figure of 2.9 per cent growth for the third quarter 2012 from the same period last year is a preliminary assessment that may be revised later.

The assessment "indicates that the pace of economic activity has moderated," said Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow, in a note to clients.

"The slowdown was driven, on the demand side, by softening consumer spending and, on the supply side, by weaker manufacturing activity and a poor agricultural harvest."

He forecast that the economy will endure a "soft patch" until the first quarter of next year due to the poor global economic environment but then see brisker growth from the second quarter.

Julia Tsepliaeva of BNP Paribas said in a note to clients that although the high oil price was favourable for Russia, its economic slowdown is likely to continue.

"In the long run, Russia's ability to maintain economic growth rates of 3-5 per cent will depend on its willingness to promote structural reforms and suppress corruption," she said.

Russia, which is able to run a relatively stable budget, has so far avoided the economic troubles that have befallen the euro zone and is chiefly concerned that the woes of a key trading partner will impact its economy.

"The government is clearly intent on pursuing a stable domestic policy, using budget spending to keep the economy growing at approximately 3.5 per cent annually," said economists at state-owned Sberbank who forecast 3.8 per cent growth for 2012.

Yet many commentators are worried that the failure of President Vladimir Putin to embrace wholehearted reform and wean the economy off its petrodollar dependence could consign Russia to years of mediocre growth in the future.

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Oil demand to surge with US top producer

THE global thirst for oil will grow in the next two decades driven by demand from emerging nations and the rise of the United States as the world's top producer, the International Energy Agency says.

Oil demand will increase by 14 per cent between now and 2035 to reach 99.7 million barrels a day, the OECD-linked energy watchdog said in its annual assessment of the energy markets of tomorrow.

This was 700,000 bpd more than the IEA forecast a year ago and signals that the world is still figuring out how to put the global energy system on a more sustainable path, the IEA said.

Oil prices will rise, too, it said, reaching $US125 barrels by 2035 ($US215 in nominal terms), from about $US107 this year, instead of the $US120 forecast earlier.

"Growth in oil consumption in emerging economies, particularly for transport in China, India and the Middle East, more than outweighs reduced demand in the OECD, pushing oil use steadily higher...," the IEA said.

Transportation "is responsible for almost 40 per cent of the increase in global oil demand", the agency said, with oil use for trucks - mainly diesel - increasing much faster than that for passenger vehicles.

In its new scenario, the IEA believes the US will become the world's top oil producer by 2020, overtaking Saudi Arabia until the mid 2020's.

"The recent rebound in US oil and gas production ... is spurring economic activity ... and steadily changing the role of North America in global energy trade," the agency said.

Up until 2035, "the United States, which now imports around 20 per cent of its total energy needs, becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms - a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy-importing countries."

The US energy market is going through radical upheaval sparked by the development of new technologies, especially the extraction of shale gas through a controversial process called "fracking" that has been limited or banned in other countries.

On the supply side, the IEA sees a decade long decline in the dominance of OPEC on the back of unconventional production from non-cartel countries.

Non-OPEC oil supply should reach 53 million bpd after 2015 (from 49 mbpd in 2011) in a supply rise that should end in 2025, when OPEC production will again dominate.

"Output from OPEC countries rises, particularly after 2020, bringing the OPEC share in global production from its current 42 per cent up towards 50 per cent by 2035," the IEA said.

The key to OPEC output over the coming decades is Iraq, the IEA said, which could make the "largest contribution by far to global oil supply growth".

The IEA believes that if political stability is achieved, Iraq will become "a key supplier to fast-growing Asian markets, mainly China, and the second-largest global exporter by the 2030s, overtaking Russia".

"Without this supply growth from Iraq, oil markets would be set for difficult times, characterised by prices that are almost $US15 higher" than the level tabled in the outlook.

Natural gas demand worldwide will grow in any scenario, though the outlook varies by region, the IEA said.

In the US, the emergence of shale gas will bring on a fall in coal demand, the IEA said, while in Europe, where gas prices are on the rise, coal-based energy is increasing, the IEA said.

Renewable energies should grow, becoming a source of about one third of world electricity by 2035, but the IEA revised lower its outlook for nuclear energy following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

The trend for coal demand over the next decades is uncertain, the IEA said, largely dependent on policy measures towards reducing carbon emissions and the development of carbon capture storage technology.

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Parents plea for release of US journalist

THE parents of US journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing in Syria for three months, say they have not heard from him since he disappeared as they appealed for his release.

Speaking to the media in Beirut, Mark and Debra Tice said they had not been contacted by any party holding the 31-year-old, a contributor to The Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers, among other publications.

"We know that we're not the only family that's suffering. Austin's silence gave us some understanding about the anxieties and uncertainty that so many families in this part of world face," his father said.

"We ask whoever is holding Austin to treat him well and keep him safe and return him to us as soon as possible."

The couple said they believe Austin was reporting from the Damascus suburb of Daraya, which had come under fierce regime shelling, when he went missing on August 13.

The eldest of their seven children, he had been in frequent communication with them via Facebook and other social media after he covertly crossed into Syria from Turkey in May, a common practice due to severe media restrictions imposed by the Damascus regime.

A video of Austin which surfaced on September 26 had not yielded any clues about his whereabouts or the suspected kidnappers, they said.

"We really have no idea who is holding our son," said Mark Tice.

"We have been in touch directly and indirectly with people in the Syrian government. They indicated that they don't know where Austin is."

US officials believe Tice is being held by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which is fighting an armed rebellion triggered by a bloody crackdown on democracy protests that broke out in March 2011.

Asked if Washington was investigating, Debra Tice said they had been given "appropriate and amazing support".

"Our search for our son and our decision to come to this area was driven by the fact that we want to expand our effort and put ourselves in a position of being available for contact," the mother said.

"Someone knows where our son is and we are beseeching that person to reach out to us," she said.

Ten journalists have been killed since the Syria uprising erupted, including five foreigners, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Before becoming a war correspondent in January, Tice served as a captain in the US Marines and was deployed on combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.

His parents said the Syrian conflict would remain part of their lives even after their son's release.

"Sometimes I feel that maybe I have a Middle Eastern heart," Debra Tice said. "I think that my admiration for the culture and my love for the people and my enjoyment for the food is going to be a lifelong affinity."

"It's impossible for an experience like this not to stay with you," her husband said.

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