HP, which is the world’s largest personal computer maker, saw profit fall 32% to $11bn (£731m).

The share price rise came on the back of a higher forecast for full-year profits by the company.

HP’s troubles have prompted it to undertake a cost-cutting drive involving thousands of job losses.

The company is in the process of cutting the headcount by 27,000 by May 2014.

HP has struggled to increase sales of its PCs as customers continue to switch to smartphones and tablet computers, particularly those produced by Samsung and Apple.

HP’s chief financial officer said that the firm’s better-than-expected results in the enterprise services business and printing unit had been positive and had helped improve profit margins.

Old regime

Last month the company announced a boardroom shake-up that included its chairman Raymond Lane stepping down.

Mr Lane was re-elected by only 58.8% of shareholder votes at the company’s annual meeting.

He was the most prominent casualty of the acquisition of British software company Autonomy, much of the value of which has now been written off.

HP paid $11bn (£7.2bn) for the company and critics said not enough due diligence was done before the firm was bought.

Those allegations are currently being looked into by the US Department of Justice, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office and the UK accounting regulator.

*Article via BBC*

The money is to be used for health, education, cross-border trade and hydroelectricity projects, it said.

The announcement comes as World Bank head Jim Yong Kim and UN chief Ban Ki-moon start a tour of the region.

One person was killed when a mortar landed in Goma, a UN spokesman said.

Government and M23 rebel forces have been involved in heavy fighting near Goma since Monday, killing 19 people.

The clashes are the first since the M23 pulled out of the city last year under diplomatic pressure.

The UN says it will speed up efforts to deploy a 3,000-strong intervention force to eastern DR Congo to end the latest conflict.

‘Shells and rockets’

Some 800,000 people have fled their homes since the M23 launched its rebellion last May.

Who are the M23 rebels?

• Named after the 23 March 2009 peace accord which they accuse the government of violating
• This deal saw them join the army before they took up arms once more in April 2012
• Also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army
• Mostly from minority Tutsi ethnic group
• Deny being backed by Rwanda and Uganda
• The UN and US imposed a travel ban and asset freeze in December 2012 on the group’s leader, Sultani Makenga
• Hit by heavy infighting in February 2013
• Top commander Bosco Ntaganda surrendered to International Criminal Court in March 2013

The World Bank aid package is to support a peace deal signed in February between DR Congo and its neighbours, some of whom are accused of backing the rebels.

“This funding will help revitalize economic development, create jobs, and improve the lives of people who have suffered for far too long,” Mr Kim in a statement.

The largest tranche of the aid – $340m – will go towards an 80-megawatt hydroelectric project in Rusumo Falls, providing electricity to Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Despite its vast mineral wealth, decades of conflict and mismanagement mean most Congolese remain stuck in poverty.

The mortar fell in the Goma neighbourhood of Ndosho, killing one person and injuring four, said UN peacekeeping mission spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai, Associated Press news agency reports.

He said he did not know who fired the mortar.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch researcher Ida Sawyer told Reuters news agency that a two-year-old girl died and three members of her family, including a boy and girl, were wounded.

The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Goma says government and rebel forces have clashed in Mutaho, 10km (6 miles) east of the city for a third day.

Shells and rockets have been fired, he says.

Four government soldiers and 15 rebels were killed in the clashes on Monday, government spokesperson Lambert Mende told the BBC.

Mr Ban is due to visit Goma on Thursday.

The renewed fighting showed the need to speed up the deployment of the intervention brigade so that it would be “fully responsible as soon as possible”, Mr Ban said.

The UN approved the creation of the force – made up of troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi – in March to “neutralise” rebels in DR Congo.

The troops will have the most robust mandate ever given to UN peacekeepers to end conflict, officials say.

Mr Ban and Mr Kim are also due to visit Rwanda and Uganda.

Last year, a UN report accused the two countries of backing the M23, an allegation they denied.

On Monday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame told the BBC that UN troops had “in some cases” made the situation in DR Congo worse.

He said any military effort to bring peace to DR Congo needed to be “properly co-ordinated” with political efforts.

*Article via BBC*

It took off at 04:47 local time (12:47 BST) from Phoenix, Arizona on Wednesday, bound for Dallas, Texas.

The craft will also stop over in St Louis and Washington DC before heading to New York in early July.

It has the same wingspan as an Airbus A340 but at a weight of just 1.6 tonnes, its backers hope to show off the capabilities of renewable energy.

By comparison, a fully laden A340 weighs about 370 tonnes.

The Solar Impulse HB-SIA

• Wingspan – 63m (208ft)
• Weight – 1,600kg (3,500lb)
• Covered with 11,628 solar cells
• Carries 400kg (900lb) of lithium-ion batteries
• Maximum cruising altitude of 8,500m (28,000ft)

The Across America bid is the first cross-continental flight of a solar-powered plane.

It is the last showpiece with the prototype aircraft before the Solar Impulse co-founders and pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, attempt a trans-oceanic flight and an eventual around-the-world flight in 2015.

Solar Impulse already holds records for the first night flight of a solar-powered craft in 2010, the first international flight in 2011, and first inter-continental flight in 2012.

The plane’s wing and stabiliser are covered with nearly 12,000 solar cells, which drive its four propellers and charge the plane’s 400kg of lithium-ion batteries for night-time flying.

The plane completed its first leg, between San Francisco and Phoenix in early May, in a flight lasting 18 hours.

The two Swiss pilots will alternate on different legs of the journey; Wednesday’s flight, due to last about 18 hours, is being piloted by Andre Borschberg.

The Across America bid coincides with the pair’s Clean Generation Initiative, an effort to encourage policy-makers and businesses to develop and adopt sustainable energy technologies.

 *Article via BBC*

The Met Police said a murder inquiry was being led by its Counter Terrorism Command. Prime Minister David Cameron said the UK would “never buckle” in the face of terror attacks.

Footage has emerged showing a man wielding a bloodied meat cleaver and making political statements.

Police confirmed two men had been arrested in connection with the murder.

There are unconfirmed reports that the dead man was a soldier.

Both French President Francois Hollande and MP Nick Raynsford said the dead man had been a soldier at Woolwich barracks.

The footage shown on the ITV website shows a man, speaking to the camera, saying: “We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

He added: “I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”

The incident took place before many witnesses

In developments since the attack, in John Wilson Street, the A205, at 14:20 BST:

• Both shot men were taken to hospital, one by air ambulance
• One of the men is in a serious condition, the other is also being treated for injuries
• Downing Street said Mr Cameron, who had been planning to stay in Paris overnight after meeting the French president, would be returning to the UK later on Wednesday
• At a meeting of the government’s emergency response committee, Cobra, it was decided to tighten security at Woolwich and other barracks in London
• In a joint press conference, Mr Hollande said he wanted to express his solidarity with the UK after the “murder of a British soldier”, but Mr Cameron did not confirm the victim had been a serviceman
• The Ministry of Defence said it was urgently looking into reports the incident had involved a soldier
• Another Cobra meeting will be held on Thursday morning, chaired by Mr Cameron

Home Secretary Theresa May said she had been briefed by the director general of Security Service MI5, Andrew Parker, and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe on the “sickening and barbaric” attack.

Mr Cameron said Britain had faced “these sort of attacks”, adding: “We will never buckle in the face of them.

“People across Britain, people in every community, I believe, will utterly condemn this attack.”

He expressed sympathy for the victim and his family, saying: “It is the most appalling crime. We are obviously seeking, and the police are urgently seeking, the full facts about this case.”

One witness, identified only as James, said two men had attacked another man, aged about 20, who was wearing a T-shirt of military charity Help for Heroes.

“These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there,” he told LBC radio.

He said after the “horrendous” attack, the two men, who were also in their 20s, stood around, waving knives and a gun, and asked people to take pictures of them “as if they wanted to be on TV or something”.

Analysis Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent

The case for this being a jihadist attack, following the ideology of al-Qaeda, is compelling – even if the police won’t yet say so officially.

If it is, then it would be the first such incident leading to a death of someone other than the perpetrator since the 2005 London suicide bombings.

So the first task for ministers and officials is to assess the threat to the public – are other attacks planned?

The official terrorism threat level is currently “substantial”, which means an attack is “a strong possibility”.

If officials raise the level to “severe”, that would mean they fear another attack is highly likely.

If the victim is indeed a soldier, then that will be no surprise to security chiefs.

Jihadists believe they are at war with the military because of its role in the Afghanistan conflict and elsewhere.

The UK has previously uncovered three plots linked to possible terror attacks on the armed forces, including a cell in 2007 which planned to kidnap and behead a soldier in an Iraq-style hostage video.

“They were oblivious to anything, they were more worried about having their photo taken, running up and down the road,” he said.

Witness Graham Wilders told the BBC he had arrived on the scene to find a car crashed into a wall and a man on the ground.

“Two people were lying over him and I thought they were trying to resuscitate him,” he said.

But Mr Wilders said he had driven on to park his car, and when he had returned another witness had told him the two men had been stabbing the man on the ground.

Thomas, another witness who contacted the BBC, said: “I got there minutes after it happened because you could hear gunshots from Woolwich High Street.

“Basically two men carried out an axe attack on a young army cadet walking along the street, by the looks of things the police responded and then shot them in front of the public, at the same time I couldn’t really tell if the cadet was fatally or not hurt as police were crowded around him.”

According to senior Whitehall sources the people carrying out the attack were heard to say: “Allahu Akbar [God is Great]“, BBC political editor Nick Robinson reported.

On Twitter, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson described the attack as a “sickening deluded and unforgivable act of violence”.

Buckingham Palace says the Queen is concerned at the news of the attack and is being kept informed.

Help for Heroes said the charity was “appalled to hear that a man, believed to be a serving soldier, has been brutally murdered in Woolwich today”.

The Muslim Council of Britain said in a statement: “This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family.”

School lock-down

Mr Raynsford, the Woolwich and Greenwich MP, said he had spoken to local police and understood a number of weapons had been seized at the scene including a gun, knives, and a machete.

Metropolitan Police Commander Simon Letchford said two alleged attackers had been shot by officers.

He said: “Police were called to reports of an assault… where one man was being assaulted by two other men. A number of weapons were reportedly being used in the attack, and this included reports of a firearm.

“Officers including local Greenwich officers arrived at the scene, and shortly after firearms officers arrived on the scene.

Joe Tallant, eyewitness: “They wanted to get caught”

“On their arrival at the scene they found a man, who was later pronounced dead.

“Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police. They have both been taken to separate London hospitals. They are receiving treatment for their injuries.

“I can understand that this incident will cause community concerns and I would like to reiterate that we are investigating the circumstances.”

Meanwhile, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) confirmed it had been informed.

David Dixon, a local head teacher, told the BBC News Channel he walked out of the school gates and saw a body lying in the road a short distance away.

He then heard gunshots and instructed staff to lock all the gates of his school.

An air ambulance landed in the playground and the children were sent home.

 *Article via BBC*

Glenn Lewis said he would propose an ordinance requiring a reinforced shelter to be built in every new home.

Volunteers are now engaged in a recovery mission – delivering supplies and helping people find accommodation.

The White House says that President Barack Obama will travel to Moore on Sunday.

The Oklahoma medical examiner’s office said 23 of the 24 victims had now been identified and that 10 of them were children.

Officials are still searching for six adults who have not yet been accounted for.

Between 12,000 and 13,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said.

Disaster centres

Mr. Lewis said he would propose the shelter ordinance in the next few days and was confident it would pass the six-member city council.

“The houses are broken (and the cars, and the school, and the street signs), but the people are not”

Says Jonny Dymond, Washington correspondent

The law would require a storm shelter or safe room in all single- and multi-family homes and could be in place in a few months.

“We’ll try to get it passed as soon as I can,” Mr Lewis told CNN.

An underground safe room can cost several thousand dollars.

The BBC’s Jonny Dymond, in Oklahoma City, says there was no announcement from Mr Lewis on the use or construction of safe rooms in schools.

More than 100 schools in Oklahoma had been provided with state-funded safe rooms. But Plaza Towers Elementary – where seven of the children killed in the tornado died – and one other school hit by the storm, Briarwood Elementary, did not have them.

The tornado ripped the roof off Plaza Towers Elementary and knocked down walls as students and teachers cowered in hallways and bathrooms.

US media reaction

“One day at a time” is the headline in the Oklahoman online, over a banner aerial picture of the rubble of devastated homes. When Moore gets hit “we kick back” it quotes defiant residents as saying as they pick up the pieces.

Oklahoma City’s Journal Record shows Governor Mary Fallin flying in a helicopter over the devastation in Moore to illustrate its report that the state legislature proposed providing $45m (£30m) from the Rainy Day Fund for relief efforts.

Local news channel KFOR-TV reports the heart-rending story of a single father who searched all night for his daughter only to find she had been killed at Plaza Towers Elementary School.

Further afield, the New York Times carries a front-page picture gallery showing residents reacting to the destruction. It goes on to describe the minutes before the tornado struck in Plaza Towers – a teacher huddling pupils into the shelter of a bathroom as the sirens wailed.

In an opinion piece, USA Today suggests that, while forecasts and sirens undoubtedly saved many lives, more reinforced shelters should be built.

The tornado, which the National Weather Service (NWS) listed as an EF-5 – the most powerful type on the Fujita scale – destroyed entire blocks of Moore, an Oklahoma City suburb of 56,000 people. The twister packed winds of at least 200mph (320km/h).

Mr Lewis said he did not expect the death toll of 24 to rise.

Some 237 people were known to have been injured.

On Wednesday, the Oklahoma medical examiner’s office said that all the children who died had now been identified – they ranged in age from four months to nine years.

Medical examiner’s spokesman Amy Elliott said officials were still trying to contact the relatives of eight of the victims.

Hundreds of volunteer workers and federal officials have fanned out across the suburb to deliver food and other supplies to residents whose homes had been swept away.

Disaster centres have been set up and help given to people to assess what they have lost and what their immediate needs are.

Jerry Lojka, a spokesman for the Oklahoma emergency services, told Reuters news agency on Wednesday that search-and-rescue dog teams would continue their work “to be sure nothing is overlooked”, but he added: “There’s going to be more of a transition to recovery.”

Craig Fugate, of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), told MSNBC: “Right now it’s about getting people a place to stay that have lost their homes. So we’re going to start going neighbourhood to neighbourhood and talking to people and seeing what they’re going to need.”

Mayor Mick Cornett: “The numbers of this event are becoming even more staggering”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has travelled to Moore to monitor the assistance being provided to first responders.

At a press conference she urged people in need to register with Fema so that they could get assistance. Ms Napolitano said Fema would be in Moore long after the television cameras had left.

Residents are to be allowed back to what remains of their homes from 15:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

One resident, Curtis Carver, was waiting for the go-ahead to return.

He told Agence France-Presse: “It was my home, my kids’ home. Now it’s gone. There’s nothing left. It’s a pile of sticks.”

Tornado’s cost

The NWS said the twister’s path was 17 miles (27km) long and 1.3 miles wide and it battered Moore for about 45 minutes on Monday afternoon.

Jacob Lyles recorded his rescue of two children from the rubble of Plaza Towers Elementary school in Moore

Residents were given 16 minutes’ warning before the tornado touched down – officials said such advisories were usually issued eight to 10 minutes ahead of a twister.

Oklahoma insurance assessors have put the estimate of the damage caused at more than $2bn (£1.31bn).

Insurance department spokeswoman Calley Herth told the Associated Press this was based on initial visual evidence of the damage zone.

President Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma and ordered federal authorities to join in the search efforts.

“The people of Moore should know that their country will remain on the ground there for them, beside them as long as it takes for their homes and schools to rebuild,” Mr Obama said from the White House.

*Article via BBC*

Lawmakers voted to approve a $79m credit for the country’s ministry of commerce, which will also be used to buy toothpaste and soap.

The products are currently in short supply in Venezuelan shops.

The oil-rich nation relies on imports, but currency controls have restricted its ability to pay for foreign goods.

President Nicolas Maduro, who won a narrow majority in April’s presidential elections, maintains that the country’s periodic shortages of basic goods are the result of a conspiracy by the opposition and rich sectors of society.

Mr. Maduro has vowed to uphold the legacy of his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, whose “21st-Century socialism” involved sweeping nationalisation and extensive social programmes.

But analysts say that the government’s attempts to impose state control on the economy have created huge imbalances that have led to the shortages.

“Price controls, for example, act as a disincentive to local producers, forcing them to cut output,” says the survey organisation Consensus Economics.

“The resulting scarcity forces up inflation, defeating the entire purpose of price controls in the first place.”

Venezuela’s inflation is the highest in Latin America and is currently running at about 25%.

The currency, the bolivar, has been devalued repeatedly in recent years, most recently by 32% in February.

 *Article via BBC*

The shooting took place early on Wednesday as law enforcement personnel interviewed 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, according to officials.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said in a statement an FBI agent shot Todashev because of an “imminent threat”.

The FBI agent was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

US media reported that Todashev had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Boston bombings suspect killed in a shootout with police days after last month’s deadly marathon blasts.

Todashev was a mixed-martial arts fighters who, like Tsarnaev, had links to the Russian republic of Chechnya, according to reports.

Ibragim Todashev was arrested this month after a row over a parking spot

FBI spokesman Dave Couvertier said in a statement: “The agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties.

“The suspect is deceased. We do not have any further details at this time.”

A friend of the dead man, Khusen Taramov, told Florida News 13 that the FBI had begun questioning and following Todashev soon after the Boston bombings.

Mr Taramov was quoted as saying: “One day they started questioning us, next day after the bombing, not the bombing, after they found out the bombers were Chechnyans, and they started following us, watching us.”

He told the news station that the FBI had pressured Todashev into cancelling a plane ticket to Chechnya that he bought before the Boston bombings.

The Associated Press news agency meanwhile reports that Todashev was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of assault, after a dispute over a parking spot at an Orlando shopping centre.

Todashev put a man in hospital with facial injuries during the fracas, according to a report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

The Boston Marathon blasts killed three people and injured 264 others on 15 April.

Tsarnaev’s brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is being held in a prison hospital after being shot before capture. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

*Article via BBC*

“We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like.”—Jean Cocteau, French director and poet

It is a reality—a harsh reality—that in today’s business world there are a lot of idiots making a lot of money. This can be frustrating for small-business owners to witness—why should someone who is less dedicated, not as smart and not as passionate about what they do, make more money?

Here are four reasons why people not as smart as you are making more money than you, and what you can do about it.

1. The Rich Get Richer

Financial success is not always the result of hard work and skill alone; sometimes it’s simply inherited. There is a statistical correlation between a person’s income as an adult and his or her parent’s income.

Smart Action: Don’t begrudge someone else’s good fortune. After all, you do need investors, don’t you?

2. Good Genes

It has been said that good looks play a large role in financial success. Daniel Hamermesh from Yale University concludes in his Beauty in the Labor Market study that “beautiful people will make $230,000 more in their lifetimes than average-looking people.” Other studies report that taller people tend to be more financially successful as well.

Smart Action: You might not have any control over your genes, but you do have control over how you project your image to others. Stand up tall, speak clearly and confidently, and show the world a self-assured you. You’ll see how quickly and positively people respond. Not feeling very confident? Try the “fake it until you make it!” approach.

3. No More Mr. Nice Guy

A study suggests that men who are “below average on agreeableness earn roughly 18 percent more than men who are considered nice.” For women, the advantage is 5 percent. It seems that men who are rude are more successful negotiators and therefore earn more financial rewards.

Smart Action: The most successful negotiators aren’t rude at all. They find a way to satisfy what is most important to both sides.

4. Brown Nosing

People who suck up to their vendors and customers, taking them out to lavish restaurants and sending them expensive gifts, may win the business, but have trouble sustaining it. (Those expensive gifts are usually meant to mask a shortcoming in their business.) Brown-nosers are also the first to tell their clients what they want to hear, even if it’s not in the client’s best interest.

Smart Action: Anyone can buy a customer or vendor for a short period of time. But winning loyal clients and customers always comes down to offering exceptional service and products, and being the best at what you do.

5. Plain-Old Dumb Luck

Chance is the wild card in business success. Was Bill Gates fortunate that IBM did not want to own the source code for the new DOS operating system his small company developed for him? Did Jeff Bezos get lucky to start during a time when investors were pouring billions of dollars into the Internet? Frans Johansson, author of The Click Moment, writes that “unfortunately in business, you can be on top one day and then just a few years later, you’re at the bottom of the list because the rules of the game changed.”

Smart Action: In business, luck has no prejudice. It’s there for the taking by smart, stupid and lazy people. However, hard work generates more opportunities for small-business owner to get lucky.

*Article via Open Forum*