Chevron's Q2 profit falls 26 per cent

CHEVRON'S quarterly profit is huge - $US5.37 billion ($A6.04 billion) - but it's down 26 per cent from last year on lower oil prices and maintenance work at some refineries.

The results follow similar profit declines at Exxon Mobil and Shell, and they lag behind Wall Street expectations as well.

Chevron Corp said on Friday that it earned $US2.77 per share in the second quarter, down from $US3.66 per share. Year-ago net income was $US7.21 billion.

Analysts were expecting earnings of $US2.97 per share. Revenue was down 8 per cent but still came in higher than expected at $US57.37 billion.

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NSW premier honours top melanoma expert

INTERNATIONALLY recognised melanoma expert Professor John Thompson has been named NSW's top cancer researcher of the year.

Prof Thomson received the Premier's Award at a Cancer Institute NSW function hosted by Barry O'Farrell on Friday.

"Melanoma is Australia's national cancer challenge," said Mr O'Farrell, praising Prof Thompson's work at the Melanoma Institute Australia and the University of Sydney.

He said Prof Thomson and his team were making important advances in the prevention, detection and treatment of melanoma.

It was a big night for the Melanoma Institute. Apart from Prof Thomson's award, honours also went to Dr Georgina Long and Dr Pascale Guiterra.

A team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) won the inaugural Big Data, Big Impact grant program.

The team comprised of Dr Jason Wong, Dr Luke Hesson, Associate Professor John Pimanda and Dr Joe Thurbon will be funded to work on a project called Exploring the Dark Matter of Cancer Genomes.

Explaining the new award, Professor David Currow, CEO of the Cancer Institute NSW, said: "Cancer research has entered a new era - and NSW is at the forefront.

"Gone are the days when researchers toiled in isolated labs with limited samples."

He said there was much data available but "the challenge is unlocking it".

Another UNSW winner was Professor Neville Hacker, who won the Professor Rob Sutherland Make a Difference Award for his pioneering work in the field of gynaecological oncology.

His centre at the Royal Hospital for Women has become a model for similar centres throughout Australia.

Other awards went to Dimitri Conomos, outstanding research scholar; Goldie Yuan Lam Lui, Pfizer oncology scholarship; TROG Cancer Research, innovation in cancer clinical trials; Anthony Gill and Roderick Clifton-Bligh, excellence in translational cancer research; and Dr Orazio Vittorio, the kids' cancer project.

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US stocks fall after soft jobs report

US stocks have fallen in opening trade with a soft employment report showing weaker than expected jobs growth in July.

After 10 minutes of Friday trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 59.21 (0.38 per cent) at 15,568.81.

The broad-market S&P 500 had shed 4.79 (0.28 per cent) at 1,702.08, pulling back from Thursday's record closing high.

And the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite had dropped 9.05 (0.25 per cent) to 3,666.69.

The Labor Department says the United States added 162,000 jobs in July, well below the 175,000 expected on average by analysts.

The unemployment rate fell to 7.4 per cent from 7.6 per cent in June.

"The downside of the disappointing employment report is that it shows growth isn't as strong as participants wanted to believe yesterday," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

"The upside for the stock market is that creates an opening for the Fed to maintain its asset purchase program at the current pace past September."

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US jobless rate falls to 7.4% in July

THE US unemployment rate fell to a better-than-expected 7.4 per cent in July but jobs growth slowed sharply, official data shows.

The Labor Department said on Friday the US added 162,000 jobs last month, well below the 175,000 expected on average by analysts.

But the decline in the jobless rate from 7.6 per cent in June was twice as big as the estimated one-tenth point drop.

At 7.4 per cent, the jobless rate is the lowest since December 2008, when it was 7.3 per cent.

That is markedly better than in July 2012, when the jobless rate stood at 8.2 per cent.

The improvement in the unemployment rate increased the chances the Federal Reserve will begin to taper its bond-buying program in September, analysts said.

"The Fed is on track to hit its 7.2 to 7.3 per cent Q4 unemployment rate target, and that probably matters more to FOMC members - especially the hawks and near-hawks - than the tiny slowing in payroll growth," said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

"We expect a robust August employment report, and think September tapering is a 70/30 bet."

Jobs growth for the prior two months was revised downward by a combined 26,000.

The June figure was revised to 188,000 jobs from 195,000, and the May reading was revised to 176,000 from 195,000.

Over the prior 12 months, jobs growth averaged 189,000 per month.

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Threat closes US embassies in Muslim world

THE United States will close its embassies and consulates throughout the Muslim world this weekend after receiving an unspecified threat.

The threat is linked to al-Qaeda and focused on the Middle East and Central Asia, chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce said on Friday.

State Department officials say the closures - planned for Sunday - are about acting out of an "abundance of caution".

Spokeswoman Marie Harf cited information indicating a threat to US facilities overseas and said some diplomatic facilities may stay closed for longer than Sunday.

Sunday is a workday in the Muslim world. American diplomatic missions in Europe, Latin America and many other places are closed on Sunday.

Royce said he supported the State Department decision to "protect our personnel on the ground".

The State Department issued a major warning last year informing American diplomatic facilities across the Muslim world about potential violence connected to the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over an anti-Islam video made by an American resident.

In Benghazi, Libya, the US ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.

The administration no longer says that attack was related to the demonstrations.

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Lebanon army launches rockets search

LEBANON'S army has launched a search operation, hours after two rockets fired from an unknown location exploded outside its presidential palace.

The attack has come amid high tensions fanned by the conflict in neighbouring Syria, now in its third year.

"After the explosions ... in the area of Yarzeh (in Baabda east of Beirut), the army has launched a search operation in the area," army officials said on Friday.

The military said the explosions were caused by "two 107 mm rockets" and that it is "carrying out a search operation in the areas from which they might have been launched".

An AFP photographer at the scene said one of the two rockets struck about 100 metres from the presidential palace in Baabda, a high-security area also home to several embassies.

President Michel Sleiman appealed for calm.

"However many rocket messages are sent to us, no one can change the foundations of our patriotism or our belief in freedom and truth," Sleiman said in a statement.

"Our belief in national unity will push away from our country the impact of what is happening around us in the region," the president added, in a reference to Syria.

Although Lebanon is officially neutral in Syria's war, the small Mediterranean country is split over the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

The powerful Shi'ite movement Hezbollah has openly sent fighters to battle alongside the Syrian regime against rebels trying to overthrow Assad.

But many Sunnis back the Sunni-led Syrian opposition.

In June, a Grad rocket fired from north of Beirut exploded near the city, and the army found a second rocket at the launch site.

A month earlier, two rockets hit Hezbollah's heartland in Beirut shortly after the group's leader made a speech defending the movement's involvement in Syria.

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CBD office vacancies spike to 10 per cent

THE number of empty offices in Australia is rising as the white collar sector fails to fill them.

Vacancies rose from 8.4 per cent in January to 10.1 per cent in July, according to a Property Council report.

Property Council CEO Peter Verwer said the decline in white collar jobs growth to a third of pre-GFC levels had severely blunted demand.

He said the dwindling demand for office space reflects Australia's lacklustre economic fundamentals and a lack of "mojo" in the business sector.

While all CBD markets experienced negative demand, Brisbane recorded the biggest hike, with unused office rates up from 9.3 per cent to 12.8 per cent.

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US economy grows at 1.7 per cent in Q2

THE US economy grew from April through June at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.7 per cent, as businesses spent more and the federal government cut less.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that growth improved from a sluggish 1.1 per cent rate in the January-March quarter, which was revised from an initial 1.8 per cent rate.

The pickup in growth was surprising as most economists predicted a far weaker second quarter. And it suggests the economy could accelerate later this year as businesses step up spending and the drag from steep government cuts fade.

Businesses increased their spending 4.6 per cent in the second quarter after cutting by the same amount in the previous quarter. And spending on home construction grew 13.4 per cent, in line with the previous quarter.

At the same time, the federal government cut spending only 1.5 per cent after an 8.4 per cent plunge in the first quarter. And state and local governments increased spending for the first time in a year.

Consumers increased their spending more slowly in the second quarter. And a surge in imports reduced growth by the most in three years.

Economists are hopeful that growth could improve to around 2.5 per cent in the third and fourth quarters.

There were signs in the report that companies expect demand to pick up. Businesses added to their stockpiles in the second quarter, which is typically a sign they foresee greater sales. And the big rise in imports reflects solid consumer and business spending.

The government also released comprehensive revisions that updated the nation's gross domestic product, or GDP, over the past several decades. Those figures showed that the economy grew at a stronger 2.8 per cent in 2012, up from an earlier estimate of 2.2 per cent. Last year's first quarter was revised much higher, while the economy barely expanded in the fourth quarter.

GDP is the broadest measure of the nation's output of goods and services, including everything from manicures to industrial machinery.

Other recent data have been encouraging and suggest that growth will continue to improve.

Home construction, sales and prices have been growing since early last year. Americans purchased newly built homes in June at the fastest pace in five years. That's raised builder confidence to a seven-year high, which should lead to increases in construction and more jobs.

Overall hiring has accelerated this year. Employers have added an average of 202,000 jobs a month from January through June. That's up from 180,000 in the previous six months.

And car sales topped 7.8 million in the first six months of 2013, the best first-half total since 2007. Analysts expect sales will stay strong for the rest of the year.

There are threats to the better outlook. Unemployment is still high at 7.6 per cent, limiting consumer spending. And budget fights in Washington could lead to a government shutdown this fall, potentially disrupting the economy.

Federal Reserve officials have forecast better growth in the second half of the year. And Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has said that the central bank could begin to scale back its bond purchases later this year if the economy strengthens. But Fed officials typically put greater weight on employment and inflation data than the GDP figures.

The Fed concludes a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, at which point it could clarify its interest-rate policies.

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US economic growth stronger in 2012

THE government says the US economy grew at a much faster pace last year than previously estimated. The revised growth figures signal a more sustainable economic recovery and help explain why job growth has accelerated this year.

The economy expanded at a 2.8 per cent annual rate in 2012, up from a previous estimate of 2.2 per cent. Consumers and businesses spent more and governments cut back on their spending less.

The updated growth figures reported on Wednesday by the Commerce Department are part of comprehensive revisions going back several decades.

The upgrade to 2012 growth helps resolve a disparity that has puzzled economists. Hiring picked up late last year and has remained solid this year. The economy has created more than 200,000 jobs a month on average since last fall.

Yet the government had said that economic growth was tepid last year. Faster growth typically drives more hiring. The previously reported growth figures had economists worried that employers would eventually have to slow hiring.

But growth is now closer in line with the job gains, a sign that the more robust hiring may endure.

The revisions are part of comprehensive changes, made roughly every five years, to the nation's gross domestic product. GDP is the broadest measure of the output of goods and services and includes everything from restaurant meals to television production to steel manufacturing. The revisions alter the data all the way back to 1929, though the largest changes were made to the past five years.

Still, the economy's broad trends are roughly the same as before. The government now says the economy shrank 4.3 per cent during the recession, which lasted from December 2007 through June 2009. That's better than the previous estimate of a 4.7 per cent decline. But it still remains the deepest downturn since the Great Depression.

And the recovery is still subpar. The economy expanded 8.2 per cent from June 2009 through the end of last year, up from 7.6 per cent, but still the weakest recovery since World War II.

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Facebook above IPO price

SOCIAL networking giant Facebook has breached its 2012 IPO price of $US38 a share for the first time since the company's May 2012 initial public offering.

Facebook got as high as $US38.31 on Wednesday shortly after the market opened, before retreating. Shares recently traded at $US37.72, up 10 cents or 0.3 per cent.

The company's IPO was priced at $US38 a share. Facebook has only closed above $US38 one time: its first day on the markets.

Facebook has been on an upward tear since releasing earnings a week ago that showed a big jump in mobile advertising revenue. Shares have rallied more than 40 per cent since the earnings release.

Facebook shares plummeted after the highly anticipated IPO last year and languished, primarily due to doubts about the California-based company's ability to make money from members using mobile devices to get online.

But the most recent earnings report showed that some 41 per cent of its ad revenues came from mobile, compared with 30 per cent in the prior quarter and virtually nothing a year ago.

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Dell committee rejects voting change

A DELL board committee has rejected a voting rule change Michael Dell attached to an increased buyout offer for the struggling PC maker he founded.

A group led by Michael Dell and the investment firm Silver Lake Partners last week raised its bid to buy out Dell Inc's other shareholders by a dime, to $US13.75 per share.

As part of that offer, the group said the bid's fate must be decided only by the shareholders who choose to vote either for or against the plan.

Under existing rules, shareholders who don't vote count as "no" votes.

A special committee of company board members said in a short letter, dated Tuesday, to Chairman and CEO Michael Dell that it wouldn't accept the new proposal.

But the company did say it would establish a new date for a vote on the offer of $US13.75 per share under the existing rule for voting.

"A new record date would enable the many shareholders who bought their shares after June 3, 2013 to vote on the transaction while giving all shareholders more time to reflect on where their best interests lie in light of the improved offer," the letter stated.

Otherwise, the committee said it was ready to proceed on Friday with a vote on the $US13.65 offer. That vote has already been delayed a couple times.

Dell shares dropped 2.6 per cent, or 33 cents, to $US12.53 on Wednesday morning, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose.

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Spainish princess makes move to Geneva

SPAIN'S Princess Cristina plans to move to Switzerland without her husband, who is under investigation in a corruption case, Spanish media are reporting.

The 48-year-old princess, the middle child of King Juan Carlos' three offspring, is to work in Geneva for the charitable foundation belonging to La Caixa bank that has employed her in her home city, Barcelona.

Cristina's husband, the former Olympic handball player Inaki Urdangarin, and his former business partner Diego Torres have been named official suspects in a corruption case.

They are suspected of embezzling millions of euros in public funds through a charity.

Cristina, who co-owned one of Urdangarin's companies, is herself under investigation for tax fraud.

The princess is to move to Switzerland with the couple's four children while Urdangarin stays in Spain to follow the judicial inquiry, the sources were quoted as saying.

Unconfirmed reports claimed the couple has grown apart during the two-year investigation, which has dealt a heavy blow to the Spanish monarchy.

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Young prisoners at high death risk: study

A MELBOURNE academic is calling for more support for young people released from jail with research showing they face a significantly increased risk of death.

Young women released from prison have a risk of death 20 times the rate of the wider community, according to the research.

For young men, the rate is six times the norm.

All people who leave prison are four times more likely to die than the general population, the study found.

University of Melbourne associate professor Stuart Kinner and Dr Kate van Dooren from the University of Queensland studied about 42,000 records of people released from Queensland prisons between 1994 and 2007.

They followed them for up to 14 years and identified deaths on the National Death Index.

"Release from prison is associated with a large increase in risk of death, and this increase is greatest for young people," assoc prof Kinner said.

Among the young people who died, nearly all were from preventable drug-related causes or suicide, he said.

"These tragic and preventable deaths clearly show that we can do a lot more to support this transitional process," prof Kinner said.

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Aussie scientists create prawn super food

AUSTRALIAN scientists have created a sustainable super food for prawns which makes them grow at least 30 per cent faster.

CSIRO researchers have been trying to grow marine microbes as alternative food for farmed prawns for at least a decade.

Farmed prawns are usually fed pellets, which are highly unsustainable to make because their key ingredient is fish caught in the wild.

Dr Nigel Preston says his team found a way to grow marine microbes in controlled environments, which mimic conditions of mangroves and estuaries.

The microbes are then harvested and turned into a food additive called Novacq.

"We have developed a game-changing technology that will allow the industry to grow in a far more sustainable way," he told AAP.

"It's better for consumers, the environment and prawn farmers."

Not only is it more sustainable, it's also much more nutritious for prawns.

Dr Preston says Novacq speeds up their metabolism, so they absorb the feed quicker.

"We've done trials with wild prawns that have access to their natural food and to these foods and we find that, again, we get a spectacular 30 to 40 per cent boost in growth rates," he said.

Dr Preston said the technology used to grow the microbes would work in multiple environments and he predicted many different countries around the world would make use of it.

"The conditions you need to cultivate these organisms on a mass scale are quite low-tech and quite cost effective," he said.

"Think of the marine equivalent of a wheat field, we've done that."

Novacq is set to be unveiled at the 2013 Ridley AquaFeed Australian Prawn and Barramundi Farmers Conference in Queensland on Wednesday.

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BCA tells MPs to look beyond news cycle

AUSTRALIA'S top bosses are demanding parliamentarians look beyond the news cycle and focus on the long term national interest.

With a federal election to be announced soon, the Business Council of Australia (BCA) has released an action plan for a stronger economy.

BCA president Tony Shepherd says the plan offers a comprehensive and cohesive reform agenda for the longer term, rather than ad hoc announcements that do nothing to prepare Australia for the future.

"Australia has done well for 20 years because of wise decisions taken in the past," Mr Shepherd said in a statement on Wednesday.

"But we are now at a crossroads and are facing tough decisions to avoid slipping back in the world on tax, workplace relations, skills, education, health, infrastructure and regulation."

The Economic Action Plan for Enduring Prosperity from the BCA - which represents the nation's top 100 CEOs - sets out an agenda for the next 10 years in nine policy areas, including the need to get the budget back under control.

Mr Shepherd said if spending by Australian governments continued at its current pace the budget shortfall at both Commonwealth and state levels would be five per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, or around $75 billion in today's dollars.

"To cover this the GST rate would need to go to 25 per cent or the Commonwealth would need to cease all payments for education, defence and hospitals, which is clearly unsustainable and unacceptable," Mr Shepherd said.

Adopting BCA's plan could maintain real growth in GDP of 2.75 per cent per year and achieve annual growth in labour productivity of at least 1.6 per cent, while doubling average per capita income by around 2050, he said.

"We can be the greatest country in the world, but we need to face up to our challenges, make the tough decisions, and stay the course on the reforms that are required to set us up for the future," Mr Shepherd said.

"The longer we wait to take action, the harder it will be, and the more difficult the choices will be, to shore up our standard of living over the long term."

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Santander profit leaps for Q2

SPANISH bank Santander, the biggest in the eurozone by market value, says its second-quarter net profit rose eightfold as provisions against loan losses fell sharply.

Net profit climbed to 1.05 billion euros ($A1.52 billion) from 123 million euros a year ago, when it booked 1.3 billion euros of one-time charges for Spanish real estate, the bank said in a statement.

During the first half of 2013 the bank posted a net profit of 2.25 billion euros, a 29-per cent increase over the same time last year and practically the same as the result for all of last year of 2.29 billion euros.

"Profits rose after more than two years of high levels of write-offs and reinforcement of capital. We are preparing for a new period of profit growth," Santander chairman Emilio Botin said in the statement.

Spanish banks booked billions of euros of provisions against losses on soured real estate deals last year,which caused their profits to plunge.

Santander wrote off nearly 19 billion euros for dodgy loans and property assets in Spain last year causing its net profit to drop by nearly 60 per cent.

Bad loans as a proportion of total lending rose to 5.18 per cent at the end of the second quarter from 4.76 per cent at the end of the first quarter.

Net interest income - excess revenue from interest earned on assets compared with payments to depositors - fell 12 per cent to 6.72 billion euros from a year earlier.

Profit from Santander's Brazilian unit fell to 420 million euros from 498 million euros a year ago

Profit from Brazil, Santander's biggest-earning unit, fell to 420 million euros during the second quarter from 498 million euros a year ago.

Earnings from Spain declined to 86 million euros from 201 million euros a year ago while its net profit in Britain rose to 263 million euros from 246 million euros.

Spain accounts for 8.0 per cent of the bank's profit while Britain accounts for 13 per cent.

A property market collapse in 2008 left Spain's banks awash with bad loans and destroyed millions of jobs.

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UBS reports firm profits for Q2

SWISS bank UBS has reported strong results for the second quarter in its drive to refocus activities and turn the page on the financial crisis.

The bank, which is slimming down after turmoil during the crisis, reported pre-tax operating profit of 775 million Swiss francs ($A910.39 million).

This was 21.0 per cent less than the outcome in the first quarter, but it showed a big switch from a loss of 130 million francs for the second quarter of last year.

Last week, the bank had already signalled its results, reporting a net profit for the second quarter of 690 million francs, marking an increase of 62.5 per cent from the figure in the same period of last year.

Those figures were announced when the bank said it was settling a dispute in the United States over subprime instruments by paying a fine of $US885 million.

On Tuesday, it said that operating profit in the second quarter rose by 15.0 per cent on a 12-month comparison to 7.3 billion francs.

The activities of managing private wealth turned in a pre-tax operating profit of 557 million Swiss francs from a profit of 502 million francs last time, and from 664 million francs in the first quarter of this year.

It explained the figure had fallen between the first and second quarters because it had had to pay 104 million francs under a tax agreement between Switzerland and Britain.

Excluding this charge, the pre-tax outcome had risen, it said.

Wealth management activities in the Americas, presented separately, raised pre-tax operating profit by four per cent from the first-quarter figure to 243 million francs.

Managing director Sergio Ermotti said in a statement that he was highly satisfied with the results for the quarter.

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Signal-jumping focus of Swiss train probe

GRANGES-PRES-MARNAND, Switzerland, July 30 AFP - Swiss investigators have pointed to signal-jumping as the likely cause of a head-on train collision in the west of the country that killed a driver and injured 26 other people.

"The investigation focuses on the likelihood that the train travelling from Payerne failed to respect a signal," Jean-Christophe Sauterel, police spokesman for Switzerland's Vaud region, told reporters.

Monday's crash between two local trains occurred just outside the station in Granges-pres-Mornand, a village between the Geneva and Neuchatel lakes in Switzerland's French-speaking region.

One train had been travelling from the town of Payerne to the lakeside city of Lausanne, 38km to the south, while the other one, a faster regional service, was travelling north from Lausanne.

The driver of the northbound train, a 24-year-old French citizen who lived in the region, was killed in the collision. His body was pulled from the wreckage early Tuesday after a frantic rescue operation.

Daniel Antonez, a resident of nearby Moudon, said he had heard the impact.

"It's one I often take. I'm sure I know some people who were on the train," he said.

Flanked by cornfields, the two mangled trains were still on the track on Tuesday, both engines locked into each other and lifted slightly off the ground as workers used beams to prepare to remove them.

Forty-six people were believed to have been travelling on the two trains. Police did not rule out the possibility of finding another victim in the wreckage.

"Two adults and a child are still in hospital out of the 23 recorded injured, but their lives are not in danger," said Jocelyn Corniche, the emergency services' chief physician.

The relatively slow speed of the southbound train, 40km/h, appeared to be one explanation why more people had not died. The speed of the northbound train has yet to be confirmed.

Accident investigators were still trying to understand why the southbound train, operating a slower service between a string of communities, failed to wait for the passage of the faster northbound service, which does not stop at Granges-pres-Marnand.

Sauterel stressed that the issue of criminal responsiblity for the crash was not under discussion for the moment.

Swiss federal railway company CFF offered its condolences to the dead driver's family.

"The management and employees of the CFF are shocked by the death of their colleague," the company said in a statement.

Rescuers had worked into the night under arc lamps, using special equipment to cut through the wreckage and reach the missing driver. They retrieved his body but it was not clear whether he had died on impact.

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