Libyans bury Gadhafi in unmarked grave

FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011 file photo, a man reacts while viewing the bodies of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, background, his ex-defense minister Abu Bakr Younis and his son, Muatassim Gadhafi, foreground, in a commercial freezer at a shopping center in Misrata, Libya. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's all-powerful leader for four decades, spent his final weeks shuttling from hideout to hideout in his hometown of Sirte, alternating between rage and melancholy as his regime crumbled around him, said a Gadhafi confidant now in custody. Gadhafi, his son Muatassim and an entourage of two dozen die-hard loyalists were largely cut off from the world while on the run, living in abandoned homes without TV, phones or electricity, said Mansour Dao, a member of the Gadhafi clan and chief bodyguard. (AP Photo/David Sperry)

FILE - In this Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011 file photo, a man reacts while viewing the bodies of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, background, his ex-defense minister Abu Bakr Younis and his son, Muatassim Gadhafi, foreground, in a commercial freezer at a shopping center in Misrata, Libya. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's all-powerful leader for four decades, spent his final weeks shuttling from hideout to hideout in his hometown of Sirte, alternating between rage and melancholy as his regime crumbled around him, said a Gadhafi confidant now in custody. Gadhafi, his son Muatassim and an entourage of two dozen die-hard loyalists were largely cut off from the world while on the run, living in abandoned homes without TV, phones or electricity, said Mansour Dao, a member of the Gadhafi clan and chief bodyguard. (AP Photo/David Sperry)

In this image made from amateur video provided by the Libya Youth Movement and filmed on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, an injured Moammar Gadhafi is surrounded by Libyan fighters in Sirte, Libya. There are international calls, led by the U.S. and Britain, for an investigation of whether Libyan fighters killed a wounded Gadhafi after pulling him out of a drainage pipe in his hometown of Sirte last week. Gadhafi's body has been on display for public viewing in Misrata since Friday. Libya's former ruler was laid out on a mattress in a refrigerated produce locker in a shopping mall in Misrata, and long lines of people have formed to get a glance at the deposed dictator. In declaring Libya's declaration Sunday, interim leader Abdul-Jalil did not mention the circumstances of Gadhafi's death, but urged his people to eschew hatred. (AP Photo/Libya Youth Movement via APTN)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011 file photo, rebel fighters trample on a head of Moammar Gadhafi inside the main compound in Bab al-Aziziya in Tripoli, Libya. Misrata's fighters emerged from weeks of punishing street fighting during the bloody siege of their hometown battle-hardened and instilled with a searing hatred for Moammar Gadhafi. In the end, they extracted their revenge, putting the dictator's body and that of his son on display as a trophy. For Misratans, it was a fitting end to the civil war, and a clear signal that they are a force to be reckoned with in post-Gadhafi Libya. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)

(AP) ? Moammar Gadhafi was buried early Tuesday morning in an unmarked grave in a modest Islamic ceremony, closing the book on his nearly 42-year rule of Libya and the eight-month civil war to oust him.

A Gadhafi nephew read a prayer for the dead before Gadhafi's body ? along with those of his son Muatassim and former defense minister Abu Bakr Younis ? were handed over for burial, said Ibrahim Beitalmal, a spokesman for the military council in the port city of Misrata.

The bodies had been kept in cold storage in Misrata for four days before being taken under cover of darkness to the burial site, which Beitalmal said was "not far" from the city. As part of the ceremony, the bodies were washed in line with Islamic tradition. A Muslim cleric, a nephew of Gadhafi and sons of Abu Bakr then recited prayers before handing the bodies over for burial, which took place at 5 a.m.

Libya's new leaders have said they would not reveal the location of the grave, fearing it could be vandalized or turned into a shrine for the former dictator's die-hard supporters.

Gadhafi was captured alive on Thursday as he tried to flee his hometown of Sirte, where he had been hiding since revolutionary forces swept into the capital, Tripoli, two months earlier.

He died later that day in unclear circumstances, and Libyan leaders have promised an investigation in response to international pressure to look into Gadhafi's death. Video has emerged showing Gadhafi being beaten and abused by a mob after his capture, and researchers for the New York-based Human Rights Watch have said there are strong indications he was killed in custody.

Human rights activists have warned that the new Libya could get off on the wrong foot if vigilante justice is condoned. However, many Libyans appeared relieved that Gadhafi is dead, saying a long trial for the former dictator would have been disruptive and made it harder on the country to get a fresh start. Earlier this week, interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil formally declared an end to the civil war, starting the clock on what is to be a two-year transition to democracy.

The bodies of Gadhafi, Muatassim and Younis had been kept in a refrigerated produce locker in a warehouse area of Misrata for the past four days. Hundreds lined up every day to view the corpses, some coming from hundreds of miles away. Visitors donned surgical masks, and at times guards arranged separate lines for men and women.

Misrata suffered immensely during the war. It was besieged for nearly two month this spring by Gadhafi forces, who shelled the city indiscriminately before being pushed out in fierce street fighting. Gadhafi was captured by fighters from Misrata, who brought him back to the city as a trophy.

International organizations asking to see the burial site would be given access, Beitalmal said.

Over the weekend, Libya's chief pathologist, Dr. Othman el-Zentani, performed autopsies on the three bodies and also took DNA samples to confirm their identities. El-Zentani has said Gadhafi died from a shot to the head, and said the full report would be released later this week, after he presents his findings to the attorney general.

Gadhafi and Muatassim had been wounded before capture, but an investigation is to determine whether they were subsequently executed. Government officials have suggested Gadhafi was killed in crossfire.

Tirana Hassan, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, said she spoke Monday to a 30-year-old Sirte resident who had traveled in the convoy that tried to smuggle Gadhafi out of Sirte.

Hassan quoted the woman as saying that Gadhafi did not sustain serious injuries during the NATO strike on the convoy.

The woman said the former Libyan leader and members of his entourage left their vehicle after the attack and took cover for about three hours in an abandoned building. Gadhafi then left the hideout with a small group on foot, and they were captured a short while later, Hassan quoted the woman as saying.

The woman, who had volunteered at a field clinic in Sirte treating wounded Gadhafi loyalists, was released by the revolutionary forces and has returned to Sirte, Hassan said.

The Libyan uprising that began in mid-February and quickly turned into civil war has decimated the Gadhafi family.

His wife, Safiya, fled to Algeria with their daughter and one son, while another son fled to Niger. At least other three sons ? Muatassim, Seif al-Arab and Khamis ? have been killed. Another son, former heir apparent Seif al-Islam, remains at large.

A high-ranking Tuareg official in Niger said Tuesday that Seif al-Islam, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, is headed for Niger with the help of ethnic Tuaregs, a tribe that was among Gadhafi's strongest supporters.

Also Tuesday, Bani, a revolutionary spokesman, said an explosion rocked a fuel depot near Sirte a day earlier and that there were casualties. Bani said the blast is being treated as an accident, but that an investigation has been opened.

Hassan, the Human Rights Watch researcher, said that while in Sirte on Monday, said she saw 11 people with severe burns arrive at the city's Ibn Sina hospital. Nurses said the injuries were from the blast.

___

Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report from Cairo.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-25-ML-Libya/id-19944b0eecc340e19266d5b6bb5a9217

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Testimony resumes in Michael Jackson doctor trial

--> AAA??Oct. 24, 2011?12:25 PM ET
Testimony resumes in Michael Jackson doctor trial
ANTHONY McCARTNEYANTHONY McCARTNEY, AP Entertainment Writer?THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES?

Dr. Conrad Murray sits in a courtroom during his involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

Dr. Conrad Murray sits in a courtroom during his involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

In this Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011, photo, J. Michael Flanagan, a defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray, looks on during Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. Attorneys for the doctor charged in Michael Jackson?s death are expected to begin their case on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, after they finish grilling a key prosecution expert. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

Anesthesiology expert Dr. Steven Shafer holds an intravenous line as he is cross examined by Ed Chernoff, a defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray, background right, during Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

Ed Chernoff, left, a defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray, holds up an intravenous line as he cross examines anesthesiology expert Dr. Steven Shafer, background right, during Dr. Conrad Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles, Friday, Oct. 21, 2011. Murray has pleaded not guilty and faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical license if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool)

(AP) ? An expert in the powerful anesthetic blamed for Michael Jackson's death has resumed testifying in the involuntary manslaughter trial of the singer's personal physician.

Dr. Steven Shafer is being cross-examined by Dr. Conrad Murray's lead defense attorney, Ed Chernoff. Shafer's testimony is expected to conclude Monday and the defense will begin its case.

Chernoff questioned Shafer about models detailing the effects of the anesthetic propofol that show that the risk of a patient's breathing stopping comes in the first few minutes after the drug is administered. Shafer agreed, but said it was hard to know exactly how propofol affected Jackson because he had other sedatives in his system and because he had been receiving propofol on a nightly basis for more than two months.

Murray has pleaded not guilty.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-10-24-Michael%20Jackson-Doctor/id-6b976f31df0848a58f5c16a1248526af

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Affleck and Damon to re-team for Whitey Bulger biopic (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are returning to their Boston roots to make a movie about New England's most notorious mobster, TheWrap has confirmed.

"We're doing a Whitey Bulger movie," Damon told GQ.com.

Affleck will direct and Damon will star as Bulger in the Warner Bros. movie. Terence Winter ("The Sopranos," "Boardwalk Empire") is writing.

Bulger is a compelling character for Affleck, who has a deft touch in movies about his hometown. His 2007 "Gone Baby Gone" beautifully captured Boston's gritty side, and his 2010 film "The Town" nailed South Boston.

Of course, Affleck and Damon became famous with their 1997 Oscar winner "Good Will Hunting," about two friends from South Boston.

For years, James "Whitey" Bulger was the boss of the Winter Hill Gang in Boston. At the same time, he was an FBI informant.

Bulger, whose brother is a former president of the Massachusetts Senate, served time in federal prison on California's Alcatraz Island, was a brutal and well-known figure in Boston. He fled New England in 1994 and spent some 16 years in hiding in Santa Monica. The gangster was arrested outside his apartment house this past June.

Of course, with several other competing projects about the gangster in development, Damon and Affleck better hurry.

"There are a couple of competing (Bulger) movies, and I don't think it's been announced yet that we're doing it," Damon told GQ. "But the sooner it's announced the better, just because everyone else will back off, hopefully. I'm really excited about it."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111024/film_nm/us_mattdamon_benaffleck

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Piers Morgan Tonight: Hilary Duff on Her Weight Gain

Hilary Duff is about to add something else to her resume, that?s right, she?s becoming a vegan. Kidding! She?s about to be a mother, duh! She sat down with Piers Morgan this weekend to discuss the new role of motherhood and whether or not she wants spotlight for her newborn. Here?s what she had to [...]

Source: http://www.celebritymound.com/piers-morgan-tonight-hilary-duff-on-her-weight-gain/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=piers-morgan-tonight-hilary-duff-on-her-weight-gain

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Forest Service wants to keep using fire retardant (AP)

The U.S. Forest Service has backed off claims about the effectiveness of the huge red plumes of fire retardant that big airplanes drop on wildfires, but the agency does not expect to cut back on using it.

Acting under a court order, the agency Friday posted on its website the final environmental impact statement laying out how it plans to use fire retardant without harming threatened and endangered fish, wildlife and plants on national forests and grasslands covering 193 million acres in 44 states.

The Forest Service chief must sign the statement before it goes into effect, and the court timetable gives him until the end of December.

Forest Service analyst Glen Stein said that after it was pointed out the agency has no hard data showing fire retardant is effective, his team "softened" earlier claims about its effectiveness. But officials know from experience that it works and plan to keep using it, while taking steps not to harm endangered species.

The new plan slightly increases the amount of land designated as off-limits to retardant drops to protect the environment. It only allows drops in those buffer zones to protect human life and eliminates past exemptions to protect property.

"This is going to be more about where we may or may not use it," Stein said. "It's not really about quantity of use."

"We have a word for that: faith-based firefighting," said Andy Stahl, director of Forest Service employees for Environmental Ethics. The watchdog group prompted the analysis through federal lawsuits dating back to 2003 challenging the use of chemical fire retardant, primarily because it kills fish when it lands in streams and lakes.

Stahl said it was immoral to ask pilots to risk their lives dropping retardant from big planes if there was no scientific evidence it was effective.

"It's also bad for the environment, gets into creeks and critical habitat, kills fish and threatened and endangered species. Third, it is expensive," he said.

The agency reports that fire retardant is only used on 5 percent of the wildfires that start each year, costing $24 million to $36 million a year of the nearly $1 billion spent annually fighting wildfires. There were 36,000 retardant drops from 2000 through 2010, using more than 90 million gallons of the substance.

Stein said a study in the 1980s tried to quantify how effective fire retardant was when used to attack small fires, keep fires from growing, and protecting homes, but researchers determined there were too many variables to consider to make any conclusions.

Since 2000, about 30 percent of the national forest land base has been designated as buffer zones to protect rivers and lakes. New buffer zones to protect endangered plants and animals on land, such as butterflies, add less than 1 percent.

The Forest Service has just finished new maps for all national forests laying out the buffer zones so firefighters can see whether an area is open to retardant drops before calling for them.

In 2008, the analysis said, 11 accidental drops were made in excluded zones, and one under an exemption. There were 22 accidental drops and two under exemptions in 2009, and there were 16 accidental drops and 51 under exemptions last year.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111021/ap_on_re_us/us_forest_fires_retardant

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US-North Korea talks gear up in Geneva (AP)

GENEVA ? U.S. diplomats arrived in Geneva on Sunday for talks with North Korean officials about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, the second direct encounter between the two sides in less than three months.

U.S. officials say the "exploratory" meeting is aimed at keeping North Korea engaged in discussions, but remain a step short of formal negotiations.

North Korea's delegation, headed by First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, arrived in Geneva on Saturday after flying to China and Russia. The U.S. delegation is headed by the U.S. top envoy on Pyongyang, Stephen Bosworth, and Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Sunday, reporters staked out a downtown hotel overlooking Lake Geneva where delegations from both countries ? still formally at war ? are staying, either by plan or coincidence.

As U.S. diplomats left the hotel for dinner at a nearby brasserie, they were mobbed by Japanese and South Korean reporters eager to know if the two sides had already met. They had not.

Formal talks were scheduled to take place at the United States' U.N. mission in Geneva on Monday and North Korea's U.N. mission on Tuesday.

The U.S. wants North Korea to adhere to a 2005 agreement it later reneged on requiring verifiable denuclearization in exchange for better relations with its Asian neighbors. The talks could also touch upon long-standing issues such as food aid to the chronically impoverished North, reuniting separated families on the Korean peninsula, and recovering the remains of troops missing in action.

North Korea last week repeated calls for the immediate resumption of six-nation disarmament-for-aid talks, something Washington has said will only occur when Pyongyang freezes its nuclear programs, allows access to U.N. inspectors, halts further nuclear and missile tests, and promises not to attack South Korea again.

Pyongyang conducted its second-ever nuclear test in 2009 and in late 2010 disclosed a uranium enrichment program that could give it another means of generating fissile material for nuclear bombs. Last year, it also was blamed for two military attacks on South Korea that heightened tensions on the peninsula.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/nkorea/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111023/ap_on_re_eu/eu_koreas_nuclear

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Smoking, tobacco ads banned at Euro 2012 stadiums

Associated Press Sports

updated 10:09 a.m. ET Oct. 20, 2011

NYON, Switzerland (AP) -UEFA has imposed a ban on smoking and tobacco advertising at next year's European Championship.

UEFA says the ban will apply in and around all eight host stadiums in Poland and Ukraine.

UEFA President Michel Platini says the ban is about "respecting the health of our spectators."

Host cities will also be urged to extend the policy to "ensure smoke-free public transport, restaurants and fan zones."

UEFA worked with the World Health Organization and European Union to introduce the policy.

The 16-nation tournament will be played from June 8-July 1.

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Barcelona set a club record by extending its unbeaten streak at the start of the season to 13 games with a 2-0 victory over the Czech Republic's Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League, and Fernando Torres scored twice for Chelsea in a 5-0 rout of Genk on Wednesday night.

Rights bidding

Broadcasters ESPN, Fox and NBC are bidding for the rights to show the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the United States.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44971103/ns/sports-soccer/

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An Infant Star System With "Thousands of Oceans'" Worth of Water

Astrophysicists have detected the first signs of cold water vapor in the outer reaches of a baby star system. The discovery, announced today in Science, not only fills a gap in the convoluted question of how planets form, but also hints where the water that covers Earth-like planets is stored until the rocky bodies can receive and hold onto it as oceans.

The short version of how scientists believe the Earth formed goes like this: Roughly 4.5 billion years ago, the solar system was a spinning disk of gas and dust that looked something like a record, and one groove in that record collapsed into a molten orb that became our planet. About 700 million years later, when Earth was crusty and dried-out, comets, asteroids and other watery space wanderers bombarded the world. In just tens or hundreds of thousands of years, these impacts deposited our life-giving water.

The question is where all that water came from. For decades, astrophysicists have suspected that the water in these small icy bodies originated in the center of the freezing-cold outer zone of planet-forming disks. Yet the water?s temperature?just above absolute zero?made it virtually impossible to detect, preventing scientists from confirming their suspicion.

But now a team of researchers has seen the signs. Using the Herschel Space Observatory, scientists have spied faint signature of water on the surface of an expansive and chilly region of a planet-forming disk spinning around the star TW Hydrae. The extremely faint finding is probably the tip of a colossal celestial iceberg, as a store of water amounting to thousands of Earth oceans probably hides in the center of the disk.

"We now have a glimpse at a very early stage in planetary systems we had only hypothesized to exist," says space scientist Diane Wooden of NASA Ames Research Center, who was not involved in the study. "This has been an extremely difficult signature to find."

The Search for Ice


TW Hydrae, located 175 light-years away from Earth, is between 5 million and 10 million years old. Compared with the 4.5-billion-year-old sun of ours, it?s practically an infant. The star is so young and so close to Earth that scientists look to it for a picture of what our own solar system looked like in its early years. Most captivating of all is TW Hydrae?s spinning disk of gas, dust, water and other planet-building materials; it stretches 200 astronomical units (AU) from the star (one AU is the sun-to-Earth distance). By comparison, the dwarf planet Pluto at its farthest orbital distance is only 49 AU from the sun.

But it?s not easy to find ice, even around a well-studied star. Water is easier to find when it?s hot, because water vapor emits strong signals that instruments called spectrometers can detect. TW Hydrae is hot enough to thaw the ice in the part of its planet-forming disk that?s within three to five AU, so astronomers can see that easily. However, beyond TW Hydrae?s three to five AU border, called the snow line, the signal fades because water freezes. Scientists who?d looked at the TW Hydrae system before couldn?t detect that distant ice, and estimate how much of it might be around to form comets later in the star system?s life.

In May 2009, astronomers got a new tool when the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Herschel Space Observatory, an orbiting telescope designed to pick up the faintest signals from the coldest objects in space. The team behind this study, led by astrophysicist Michiel Hogerheijde of Leiden University in the Netherlands, pointed Herschel at TW Hydrae and opened the shutter for 18 hours.

"Before Herschel, this was simply not feasible. You have to get outside Earth?s atmosphere to see the water, so you go to space," Hogerheijde says. "The other space telescopes were not sensitive enough."

Although TW Hydrae?s disk is extremely cold beyond 100 AU (just 20 degrees above absolute zero), a weak influx of ultraviolet and X-ray light both from TW Hydrae and nearby stars can form fleeting water vapor molecules. When a molecule of water ice absorbs one of these wavelengths? photons, the molecule?s two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms split into one hydrogen and one oxygen-hydrogen molecule. They quickly recombine, but Herschel can see the faint infrared radiation they emit (if it stares long enough, that is).

"It?s like when you put an aluminum ball in the microwave. The microwave beam liberates electrons from the aluminum, which we see as sparks," Hogerheijde says.

To the team?s surprise, the cold water vapor signal was three to five times weaker than expected. Yet by comparing the result to a laboratory benchmark, they estimated the icy grains deep inside the disk harbor as much water as 6500 Earth oceans.

Just Like Earth?


Wooden says the finding fills in a crucial missing piece of the puzzle of where the water in the solar system hid until Earth was ready to receive it in the form of comets and asteroids. It also supports planet-formation theories that suggest rocky planets like ours develop close to their parent star. Because water couldn?t have survived on the young Earth, there had to be a way for it to come here later (and a reservoir in the outer solar system to provide it.)

"We can be more certain there really was a reservoir of icy bodies and comet material far away from the sun that supplied water to the inner Solar System," Wooden says.

The next question for Hogerheijde and his team is whether TW Hydrae is a typical watery example or an oddity. So he hopes to do similar stare-downs at three other nearby planet-forming disks to see how much water they hold.

"If these systems have the signal strength we think they do, correcting for distance, we should be able to make good detections," Hogerheijde says.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/deep/an-infant-star-system-with-thousands-of-oceans-worth-of-water-6520418?src=rss

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Philip Morris Int'l 3Q net up on higher prices (AP)

RICHMOND, Va. ? Cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. said Thursday that its third-quarter net income grew nearly 31 percent as it sold more cigarettes, particularly in Asia, and raised prices.

The seller of Marlboro and other cigarette brands overseas also lifted the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast by 5 cents. It now expects profit of $4.75 to $4.80. Analysts had expected earnings of $4.75 for 2011.

The company's July-September quarter topped analyst expectations, and shares rose $2.16, or 3.3 percent, to close at $68.19 Thursday.

Philip Morris International earned $2.38 billion, or $1.35 per share, up from $1.82 billion, or 99 cents per share, a year ago. Adjusted for one-time costs, the company earned $1.37 per share.

Excluding excise taxes, revenue grew about 26 percent to $8.4 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of $1.24 per share on revenue of $7.54 billion.

Philip Morris International said the number of cigarettes it shipped grew 4.5 percent to 239.5 billion cigarettes. Total Marlboro shipments rose 4 percent to 78.9 billion cigarettes.

Shipments to Asia rose nearly 13 percent, and revenue for the region jumped 53 percent. Chief Financial Officer Hermann Waldemer said in a conference call with investors that the Asian market is the "growth engine" of Philip Morris International. Growth in Asia is helping offset declining smokers in Western Europe and in Latin America and Canada.

The company bought Philippines company Fortune Tobacco Co. in February 2010, bolstering its Asian business.

Japan's earthquake and tsunami this March has also buffeted Philip Morris International's Asian sales. Supply disruptions stemming from the disaster at Japan Tobacco Inc., the world's No. 3 tobacco maker, has helped Philip Morris International increase market share in Japan. Shipments soared 47 percent in the third quarter.

The company also increased prices in Japan.

CFO Waldemer said that the company was able to keep its Japanese retail market share at 30 percent in September and early October, even after competitors' products were back on the market. Before the earthquake, Philip Morris International's share in Japan was about 26 percent.

"Japan has been an example of us seizing a business opportunity that presented itself in an optimal manner," Waldemer said.

Shipments also grew about 5 percent in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but fell 3.5 percent in the European Union and dropped about 1 percent in the Latin America and Canada region because of declines in Mexico.

Philip Morris International said its market share increased or remained stable in several key regions.

Smokers face tax hikes, bans, health concerns and social stigma worldwide, but the effect on cigarette demand generally is less stark outside the United States. Philip Morris International has compensated for volume declines in Western Europe and other important markets by raising prices and cutting costs. The company said it plans to exceed its targeted $250 million in cost cuts in 2011.

The weaker U.S. dollar also helped earnings. Philip Morris International sells all its goods overseas. Converting revenue in stronger foreign currencies back into the dollar gives a boost.

The company also said it spent $1.4 billion to buy back 21.2 million shares of stock in the quarter. That can lift earnings per share.

Philip Morris International, with offices in New York and in Lausanne, Switzerland, is the world's second-biggest cigarette company after the state-controlled China National Tobacco Corp.

Altria Group Inc. in Richmond, Va., the owner of Philip Morris USA, spun off Philip Morris International in 2008. Altria is the largest U.S. cigarette seller.

___

Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111020/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_philip_morris_int_l

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