Bangladesh building-collapse toll tops 600

A boy waits in front of a pickup truck that is transporting the body of a victim from the rubble of the garment factory collapse, Sunday, May 5, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A boy waits in front of a pickup truck that is transporting the body of a victim from the rubble of the garment factory collapse, Sunday, May 5, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A woman grieves for her late relative after his body was pulled from the rubble in the collapsed garment factory building and brought to the morgue, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, May 4, 2013. In the aftermath of a building collapse that killed more than 530 people, Bangladesh's garment manufacturers may face a choice of reform or perish. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A woman covers her nose to block out the smell of bodies as she leaves the morgue which is temporarily housing bodies pulled out of the rubble from the garment factory collapse, Sunday, May 5, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll.(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A women sits in a truck while transporting her brother's body home, Sunday May 5, 2013 in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh. The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

A woman is waiting for her relative's dead body to arrive at the make-shift morgue. Sunday May 5, 2013 in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh.The death toll from the collapse of a shoddily built garment-factory building in Bangladesh continued its horrifying climb, reaching 580 on Sunday with little sign of what the final number will be. The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? More than 600 bodies have been recovered from the garment-factory building that collapsed well over a week ago, police said Sunday as the grim recovery work continued in one of the worst industrial accidents ever.

Police said Sunday night that the death toll had reached 622. Well over 200 bodies have been recovered since Wednesday, when authorities said only 149 people had been listed as missing. The stench of decomposing bodies remains amid the broken concrete of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, and it is anyone's guess how many victims remain to be recovered.

The April 24 disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. It surpassed long-ago garment-industry disasters such as New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in 1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that same year that killed 112.

An architect whose firm designed the building said Sunday that it had not been designed to handle heavy industrial equipment, let alone the three floors that were later illegally added. The equipment used by the five garment factories that occupied Rana Plaza included huge generators that were turned on shortly before the building crumbled.

Masood Reza, an architect with Vastukalpa Consultants, said the building was designed in 2004 as a shopping mall and not for any industrial purpose.

"We designed the building to have three stories for shops and another two for offices. I don't know how the additional floors were added and how factories were allowed on the top floors," Reza said.

"Don't ask me anything else. This is now a sensitive issue," Reza said before hanging up.

Government officials say substandard building materials, combined with the vibration of the heavy machines used by the factories, led to the collapse.

The building developed cracks a day before the collapse and the owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, called engineer Abdur Razzak Khan to inspect it. Khan appeared on television that night and said he told Rana the building should be evacuated.

Police also issued an evacuation order, but witnesses say that hours before the collapse, Rana told people that the building was safe and garment factory managers told their workers to go inside.

Rana has been arrested is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work, crimes punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more serious crimes will be added.

Khan was arrested as well. Police said he worked as a consultant to Rana when the three illegal floors were added.

The government promised to make the garment industry safer after the November garment factory fire that killed 112 people, saying it would inspect factories for safety and pull the licenses of those that failed. That plan has yet to be implemented.

Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry supplies retailers around the world and accounts for about 80 percent of the impoverished country's exports. The collapse has raised strong doubts about retailers' claims that they could ensure worker safety through self-regulation.

Bangladesh is popular as a source of clothing largely because of its cheap labor. The minimum wage for a garment worker is $38 a month, after being nearly doubled this year following violent protests by workers. According to the World Bank, the per capita income in Bangladesh was about $64 a month in 2011.

The European Union has said it could restrict Bangladesh's access to its crucial market if it fails to ensure that basic labor standards are enforced.

"We are going to make it very clear to the Bangladeshi government that they have to take immediate action with a precise timeline," EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht told Sky News. Otherwise, he said, the EU will conduct an investigation that could lead to trade restrictions.

"Not because we want to hurt Bangladesh, but because what is happening is simply not acceptable," he said. "From a humane point of view, we cannot afford that and we have to do something about it."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-05-Bangladesh-Building%20Collapse/id-285eb91c201e4c148efd244568fce275

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Gabriel Gomez's Game, Border Wars: Stories You'll Care About Next Week (ABC News)

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UK Private Schools Scrambling To Asia - Business Insider

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

CRICKET, boarding-house names reminiscent of Harry Potter's Hogwarts and ancient and peculiar customs are among the hallmarks of Britain's leading private schools.

Now they can be found in Singapore and Kazakhstan. As the domestic market softens, some of the most famous names in British education are building far-flung outposts.

Harrow led the way in 1998 by setting up a school in Bangkok, where its straw boaters greatly amused the locals. It now has schools in Beijing and Hong Kong too. Sherborne, a private school in Dorset, has opened a branch in Qatar.

From next year Wellington, a boarding school in Berkshire, will compete for Shanghai's pupils with Dulwich, a south London day school, which already has a franchise there.

At home, private schools are criticised for perpetuating privilege. Overseas, that may be precisely the appeal. ISC, a research company, estimates that some 6,300 "English-style" schools were operating overseas by 2012, up from 2,600 a decade earlier (that category includes many commercial and stand-alone outfits, some of which have been around for decades). The market grows by 6% a year.

Overseas expansion creates an extra revenue stream for private schools--handy at a time of domestic austerity and falling admissions. Schools also tout their foreign branches to British parents, who increasingly want their offspring to learn about fast-growing bits of the world and, particularly, to pick up some Chinese (though in practice some offshoots of British private schools in China are so rigidly Anglophone that pupils are told off for speaking the language).

The first international schools were set up in the 19th century in countries like Japan, Turkey and Switzerland, for the families of diplomats and business travellers. British private schools were set up in India with a rather different purpose: to educate the local elite to be British gentlemen. The new rash of British schools abroad combines something of both objectives. They are designed to appeal to a mixture of globetrotting parents and ambitious locals with an eye to a university education in Europe or America for their children. Pupils tend to sit the international GCSE, which some consider tougher than the standard British test, and often the International Baccalaureate.

Tiger trouble

The schools also offer a respite from traditional Asian rote learning and promote a more questioning outlook. Still, local aspirations die hard. One teacher in Hong Kong says it can be tough to persuade pupils to go home at night: some even try to sleep under their desks. In schools with a mixture of locals and foreigners, the Chinese pupils tend to dominate orchestras and maths competitions.

So far demand has been so strong that the main strategic question for private schools is how quickly to expand. Dulwich is the nippiest, with schools in China, Korea and one opening in 2014 in Singapore. It also runs sponsored A-level programmes for Chinese students in Zhuhai in Guangdong province and at the elite Suzhou High School in Jiangsu province.

The latter arrangement solves an irksome problem for educational expeditionaries. In theory, Chinese pupils are supposed to be schooled in the domestic system. Yet the rich and ingenious have found ways around this. Some parents seek passports from countries such as a few Balkan states and Cyprus, which offer them to big investors, so that their children can attend foreign-sponsored schools.

The new schools sometimes look spookily like the ancient English ones to which they are linked. And they strive for a close fit with the native institution. They hold speech days and house competitions, sing Latin songs and occasionally exchange teachers. But in many cases this masks an arm's-length business relationship. "Legally it's a franchise partnership and what we are selling is the name," explains Christopher Parsons of Dulwich College.

Most of the new breed of schools are run by local management companies. Some are even considering franchising entire regions to education providers, including American chains. At that point the link to the playing fields of England becomes rather tenuous. But Simon Lucas of EC Harris, a consultancy, advocates even looser ties. "A lot of schools are jostling for position in the upper quartile," he says. Creating partnerships with ambitious local schools, rather than franchises, would allow English-style schools to appeal to parents who cannot afford high fees for the best-known names.

Trade-offs with the host culture can be tricky. Dulwich, despite a strong Christian tradition, accepts that it cannot teach religion in its Chinese schools. But the King's School in Canterbury recently pulled out of a partnership there, concluding that the constraint was inappropriate given its association with the cathedral, the historic seat of the Church of England. It is trying instead to form a partnership with a chain of Indian schools. Bureaucratic hassles have generally made India less attractive than other Asian countries.

Other traps abound. Dulwich ran a boarding school in Phuket, but had to withdraw from the deal in 2005 after a local Thai investor sought more control. Mr Lucas warns that too many schools are lax about ensuring their contractual arrangements will remain secure if political moods or power hierarchies change. He thinks the most promising new markets are in South America, notably Chile and Mexico. As the market for secondary education becomes crowded, some chains like Knightsbridge Schools International are specialising in primary schools instead. It is heading for destinations like Turkey and Montenegro. Haileybury school has set up in Almaty, in Kazakhstan.

The Dubai-based GEMS school chain, meanwhile, has cheekily reversed the trend. The outfit, run by Sunny Varkey, an Indian entrepreneur, is busy setting up new schools in Switzerland and Uganda. It is also opening a clutch of private schools in England, at cheaper prices than the established competition.

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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-private-schools-scrambling-to-asia-2013-5

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ADOLESCENT CARE: Help Me Help My Teenager

Are you having troubles with your teenagers? Do you really understand their feelings? Are you really right every time you scold them? Why teenagers turn to rebellion with their parents? Why do they engage themselves in drugs and alcohol? How can you help them? There is so much to say when it comes to Teen angst. I will help you understand your teenager today. I will discuss a few points that will help you.

Every generation of teenagers shows different behaviour due to changes in environment and also, due to technological advancement. The world influences teenagers in many ways. Technology, media, drugs, alcohol, religion and peers are some reasons that affect the growth, personality and character of a teen.

Most parents nowadays are having a hard time in understanding their teens. They tend to compare the teens during their times which is a 360 degree twist with our time and parents should avoid this. Teenagers hate to hear this. 'When I was your age' It causes and instant shutdown in communication.

Let's first talk about why a teenager becomes a headache to a parent.

Normally, a problem of a teen involves physical and emotional. When we talk about physical problem, this includes weight, height, and everything physical that can build insecurities with respect to others. For example, obesity; this lowers the self esteem of a teen which leads to depression. A little problem develops drastically and can be a reason why a teen becomes a problem to their parents.

• Negligence and favouritism. This is one of the main reasons of rebellion that a parent doesn't seem to see. A parent should learn and practice how to divide their time and be fair to every child. A child (whether a teen or not) just wants your undivided attention to know they are valued.
• Trauma. Studies show teens that experience bullying during their childhood have a higher risk of alienation and becoming emotionally unstable even in small problems. A parent should be be present and aware of what's happening in school and in the community. Often I see the 'school will handle it' attitude. Sadly, this is not the case.

• Peers. They are one of the most influential people around your teen. At the teenage age, they don't seem to communicate and trust their secrets to their parents, and so, they often tell their friends who in their own innocence give them the wrong idea on how to approach a problem. It is so true that "birds with the same feathers flock together." It is your duty as a parent to set the social construct for your child to ensure that the peers they have around them are ones approved by you.
• Community. Naturally, if you are living in a place where there are many negative influences, the likelihood of your teen finding peers in that environment and engaging in negative behaviour is at an all time high.

As you can see, it involves the parents, peers, and their childhood experiences. We should now focus on these three subjects and give solution to help your teen. First, you should know when your teen needs you. You should not just be present during their happy days, make sure that you are also there in their darkest hour. Here are some few tips on how to make your teen responsible.

• Make sure communication is open between you and your teen. It is always good to hear their stories and joyful experiences. But if they are unusually silent, don't hesitate to ask them. Sometimes, teens prefer to be asked about it. This will show your concern and care to them. In case they don't talk to you, just give them time and space. They will eventually tell you. One of the easiest places to talk is during meal time or on a long drive.
• Listen. For parents, be more approachable. If your children did make a mistake, don't scold and shout at them. If they develop a fear on telling you the truth, they will hide everything in the future from you.
• Build happy moments and experiences together. You have to build a love bank with your teen so when it comes time to have a stern chat you have all this love to fall back on. If the love bank is low your stern chat will fall on hostile ground.
• Appreciate every single good deed he/she does. It doesn't matter if it's big or small stuff.
• Time. Parents should give time to their family. Your presence is enough for a teen to conclude that you are always there to support and listen to them.
• Spirituality. When you teach your children to look inside themselves they will grow and become closer to their spiritual guidance whether it be God, Meditation or just a renewed sense of self understanding.
• As early as possible, teach your children the value of family so that they will not long for love and care from other people who are out to take advantage of them.
• And lastly, shower them with love, care, and support.

As a parent myself, the biggest thing I have learnt is to Never be shocked by what your children ask or tell you. A shocking response excites a child because they see you react. Remain balanced and aware and Act - Don't react.

I hope this gives you a little idea on how to handle your teen. I know I have only tackled a few and you have more problems and solutions to talk about. Feel free to share by commenting below and I will help you.

If you want to stop living in the shadows of others and shine your unique talents with confidence and start living again, you need to read Tell Me How To Be Happy.

Source: http://barbaridadesdetotis.blogspot.com/2013/05/help-me-help-my-teenager.html

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Solar plane leaves Calif. on cross-country trip

AAA??May. 3, 2013?3:09 PM ET
Solar plane leaves Calif. on cross-country trip
By HAVEN DALEYBy HAVEN DALEY, Associated Press??

The Solar Impulse plane takes off on a multi-city trip across the United States from Moffett Field NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2013. Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced solar-powered plane, will stop for seven to 10 days at major airports in each city, so the pilots can display and discuss the aircraft with reporters, students, engineers and aviation fans. It plans to reach New York's Kennedy Airport in early July ? without using a drop of fuel, its creators said. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

The Solar Impulse plane takes off on a multi-city trip across the United States from Moffett Field NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2013. Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced solar-powered plane, will stop for seven to 10 days at major airports in each city, so the pilots can display and discuss the aircraft with reporters, students, engineers and aviation fans. It plans to reach New York's Kennedy Airport in early July ? without using a drop of fuel, its creators said. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

The Solar Impulse pilot Bertrand Piccard, left, enters the cockpit before taking off to embark on a multi-city trip across the United States from Moffett Field NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2013. Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced solar-powered plane, will stop for seven to 10 days at major airports in each city, so the pilots can display and discuss the aircraft with reporters, students, engineers and aviation fans. It plans to reach New York's Kennedy Airport in early July ? without using a drop of fuel, its creators said. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

Bertrand Piccard, pilot of the Solar Impulse plane, speaks to reporters before taking off on a multi-city trip across the United States from Moffett Field NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2013. Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced solar-powered plane, will stop for seven to 10 days at major airports in each city, so the pilots can display and discuss the aircraft with reporters, students, engineers and aviation fans. It plans to reach New York's Kennedy Airport in early July ? without using a drop of fuel, its creators said. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

The Solar Impulse plane sits on the tarmac early in the morning before takes off on a multi-city trip across the United States from Moffett Field NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2013. Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced solar-powered plane, will stop for seven to 10 days at major airports in each city, so the pilots can display and discuss the aircraft with reporters, students, engineers and aviation fans. It plans to reach New York's Kennedy Airport in early July ? without using a drop of fuel, its creators said. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

Pilots Bertrand Piccard, right, and Andr? Borschberg, left shake hands before the Solar Impulse plane takes off to embark on a multi-city trip across the United States from Moffett Field NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2013. Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced solar-powered plane, will stop for seven to 10 days at major airports in each city, so the pilots can display and discuss the aircraft with reporters, students, engineers and aviation fans. It plans to reach New York's Kennedy Airport in early July ? without using a drop of fuel, its creators said. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) ? A solar-powered airplane left Northern California on Friday for the first leg of a planned cross-country trip that its co-pilot described as a "milestone" in aviation history.

The Solar Impulse ? considered the world's most-advanced sun-powered plane ? left Moffett Field in Mountain View just after dawn. Its creators said the trip is the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across America.

It plans to land at Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas, Lambert-St. Louis airport, Dulles airport in the Washington area and New York's John F. Kennedy airport. Each flight leg will take about 19 to 25 hours, with 10-day stops in each city.

"All the big pioneers of the 20th century have tried to fly coast to coast across America," said co-pilot and one of the plane's founders, Bertrand Piccard. "So now today we're trying to do this, but on solar power with no fuel with the first airplane that is able to fly day and night just on solar power."

The plane is powered by about 12,000 photovoltaic cells that cover massive wings and charge its batteries.

The delicate, single-seat Solar Impulse flies around 40 mph and can't go through clouds. It weighs about as much as a car, making it vulnerable to bad weather.

Its creators said solar planes will never replace fuel-powered commercial flights. But the goal is to showcase the potential of solar power.

"What we look for is to have a new milestone in this very exciting history of aviation that can attract interest of the people, of the political world, of the media and show that with renewable energies and clean technology for energy efficiency, we can achieve impossible things," Piccard said.

The plane has previously impressed audiences in Europe. It is expected to reach Phoenix around 1 a.m. Saturday.

___

Online:

http://www.solarimpulse.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-05-03-US-Solar-Plane/id-91a7af2cad9d48a6b23cfdae490a617b

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Study uncovers mechanism for how grapes reduce heart failure associated with hypertension

Study uncovers mechanism for how grapes reduce heart failure associated with hypertension

Friday, May 3, 2013

A study appearing in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry? demonstrates that grapes are able to reduce heart failure associated with chronic high blood pressure (hypertension) by increasing the activity of several genes responsible for antioxidant defense in the heart tissue. Grapes are a known natural source of antioxidants and other polyphenols, which researchers believe to be responsible for the beneficial effects observed with grape consumption. This study, funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and conducted at the University of Michigan Health System, uncovered a novel way that grapes exert beneficial effects in the heart: influencing gene activities and metabolic pathways that improve the levels of glutathione, the most abundant cellular antioxidant in the heart.

An estimated 1 billion people worldwide have hypertension, which increases the risk of heart failure by 2 to 3-fold. Heart failure resulting from chronic hypertension can result in an enlarged heart muscle that becomes thick and rigid (fibrosis), and unable to fill with blood properly (diastolic dysfunction) or pump blood effectively. Oxidative stress is strongly correlated with heart failure, and deficiency of glutathione is regularly observed in both human and animal models of heart failure. Antioxidant-rich diets, containing lots of fruits and vegetables, consistently correlate with reduced hypertension.

In this study, conducted at the University of Michigan Health System, hypertensive, heart failure-prone rats were fed a grape-enriched diet for 18 weeks. The results reproduced earlier findings that grape consumption reduced the occurrence of heart muscle enlargement and fibrosis, and improved the diastolic function of the heart. Furthermore, the mechanism of action was uncovered: grape intake "turned on" antioxidant defense pathways, increasing the activity of related genes that boost production of glutathione.

"Our earlier studies showed that grapes could protect against the downward spiral of hypertensive heart failure, but just how that was accomplished ? the mechanism ? was not yet known," said lead investigator E. Mitchell Seymour, Ph.D. "The insights gained from our NIH study, including the ability of grapes to influence several genetic pathways related to antioxidant defense, provide further evidence that grapes work on multiple levels to deliver their beneficial effects."

Seymour noted that the next phase of the NIH study, which will continue into 2014, will allow his team to further define the mechanisms of grape action, and also look at the impact of whole grape intake compared to individual grape phytonutrients on hypertension-associated heart failure.

"Our hypothesis is that whole grapes will be superior to any individual grape component, in each of the areas being investigated," said Dr. Seymour. "The whole fruit contains hundreds of individual components, which we suspect likely work together to provide a synergistic beneficial effect."

The insights gained from this research will further the knowledge on grapes and heart health, but will also provide translational information on the value of dietary (whole foods) and dietary supplement approaches for prevention of heart disease stemming from chronic hypertension.

"The NIH grant is allowing the team at the University of Michigan Medical System to expand its work in this important area and further highlight the multi-faceted role of grapes in supporting heart health," said Kathleen Nave, president of the California Table Grape Commission. "This work will also provide key insights into the role of whole fruit versus individual components of a fruit, using grapes as the benchmark."

###

? Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnutbio.2013.01.008.

University of Michigan Health System: http://www.med.umich.edu

Thanks to University of Michigan Health System for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128115/Study_uncovers_mechanism_for_how_grapes_reduce_heart_failure_associated_with_hypertension

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Strong US jobs report triggers stock market rally

LONDON (AP) -- Stock markets rallied on Friday, with both the Dow and S&P hitting new highs, after an unexpectedly strong U.S. jobs report indicated the world's largest economy is not slowing down, as some had feared.

The Labor Department said a net 165,000 jobs were created in April, above the market expectations for 140,000. The previous two months' weak figures, meanwhile, were revised up. That helped bring the unemployment rate down to 7.5 percent, the lowest in four years.

Paul Ashworth, the chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics, said the report "will go a long way towards soothing fears of another spring slowdown."

On Wall Street, the Dow was up 1.1 percent to 14,991.93, having earlier traded above the 15,000 mark for the first time. The broader S&P 500 was 1.2 percent higher at 1,616.89, also just off record highs.

In Europe, Germany's DAX rose 2 percent to 8,122.29, its highest ever closing price. Britain's FTSE 100 closed 0.9 percent higher at 6,521.46 while France's CAC-40 ended 1.4 percent higher at 3,912.95.

The U.S. jobs report helped offset news that the European Union had downgraded its economic forecasts. In its spring update, the EU said it expected the 17-country eurozone's economy to shrink 0.4 percent this year, 0.1 percentage points worse than its February prediction.

It expects markedly weaker growth in Germany, the region's biggest economy, and a contraction in France, the second-largest. The fact that the economic slowdown is affecting the larger economies could push the ECB to cut interest rates again, or provide some new measures of support to credit markets in coming months.

Earlier, in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.1 percent to close at 22,689.96. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.4 percent to 1,965.71 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was nearly unchanged at 5,129.50.

Mainland Chinese stocks posted sharp gains, but that was likely due to bargain-hunting after a sharp fall the day before. The Shanghai Composite Index jumped 1.4 percent to 2,205.5 while the Shenzhen Composite Index gained 2 percent to 936.58.

Markets in Japan were closed for a public holiday.

In commodity markets, the benchmark oil contract for June delivery was up $1.80 to $95.79 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $2.96, or 3.3 percent, on Thursday, the biggest one-day gain for crude since November.

In currencies, the euro rose 0.3 percent to $1.3110, recovering somewhat from sharp losses the day before, when the European Central Bank on Thursday cut interest rates. The dollar rose 1.2 percent against the Japanese yen, to 99.12 yen.

___

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/strong-us-jobs-report-triggers-151926789.html

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