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The recent auction of a Martian meteorite — for a record-grabbing $5.3 million at Sotheby’s New York — has sparked questions over its provenance and renewed debate over who gets to claim rocks fallen from the heavens.The hefty 54-pound (25-kilogram) stone is the largest Martian meteorite ever discovered on Earth, according to its Sotheby’s listing, and was found in November 2023 in the vast Saharan desert in Niger.The government of Niger has announced that it will open an investigation following the auction, saying it appears to “have all the characteristics of illicit international trafficking.”On Friday, the government suspended exports of precious stones and meteorites until further notice.Sotheby’s has rejected the accusations, insisting that the meteorite was “was exported from Niger and transported in line with all relevant international procedure.”In light of the controversy, however, a review of the case is underway, a Sotheby’s spokesperson told AFP.”The stone journeyed 140 million miles through space, and hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere before crashing in the Sahara Desert,” the Sotheby’s listing said.Following its discovery, the jagged, ochre-colored stone was then sold to an international dealer, briefly exhibited in Italy, and eventually ended up in the auction catalog in New York.For American paleontologist Paul Sereno, who has worked closely with Niger’s authorities for years, all signs suggest that the stone left the country “illicitly.””Everybody’s anonymous — from the person who found it, the dealers, the guy who bought it, everybody’s anonymous,” he told AFP, making no secret of his frustration.”If they had put on baseball gloves and caught the meteorite as was hurtling towards Earth before it landed in any country, they could claim it… but I’m sorry, it landed there. It belongs to Niger,” he said.- ‘We should respect it’ -Laws governing the ownership of meteorites vary based on their point of impact.In the United States, for example, if a rock falls on private land, the property owners have ownership rights.In Niger, however, a law governs “national cultural patrimony,” which includes rare mineralogical specimens, according to Matthieu Gounelle, a professor at France’s National History Museum, and his father Max Gounelle, a French university professor.Both are specialists in regulations governing the collection and sale of meteorites.”In our opinion, there is no doubt that meteorites should be included among the rare mineralogical specimens” protected by Nigerien law, they told AFP.Beyond the legal battle and the possible involvement of a trafficking network, the sale of the meteorite also raises science ethics questions.The rock, named NWA 16788, has unique scientific research value. Much larger than other Martian meteorites that have been recorded to date, it offers a unique insight into the geological history of the Red Planet.Like other Martian meteorites, it is believed to have been ejected into space when an asteroid slammed into Mars.”This is nature’s heritage. In many ways, it’s world heritage, and it’s telling us things about the cosmos. We should respect it,” Sereno said.”It’s not something to my mind that should be auctioned up to potentially disappear into someone’s mantle.”burs-cha/des/jgc

The White House is to play host to a mixed martial arts bout on July 4 next year, the day the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, UFC boss Dana White said Tuesday.President Donald Trump has been a regular guest at the often-bloody contests, where fighters punch, kick and grapple with their opponent in a no-holds-barred battle to submission or knockout.Bringing the brutal combat sport to the center of US political power will mark a historic first.”It is definitely going to happen,” White, a high-profile supporter of the US president, told CBS television.”I talked to him last night — ‘him’ being the president — and I’m flying out there at the end of this month, and I’m going to sit down and walk him through all the plans and the renderings, and we’re going to start deciding what he wants and doesn’t want.”Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest and most successful organization in the burgeoning world of MMA, a blend of martial arts disciplines like jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, boxing and wrestling.Bouts take place in an eight-sided ring — dubbed “The Octagon” — bounded by a chainlink fence.With few exceptions — like eye-gouging — male and female fighters are allowed to employ almost any technique to attack their opponent.Fights often end with a prone fighter being pummeled in the face as they lie on the bloodied floor, before the referee steps in to stop the action.The shaven-headed White, who has regularly spoken warmly of Trump as both a friend and a political leader, said the president’s daughter would be involved in organizing the Independence Day spectacle at the White House.”When (Trump) called me and asked me to do it, he said: ‘I want Ivanka in the middle of this,'” White told CBS, whose parent company Paramount has just signed a $7.7 billion streaming deal with UFC.White took over the UFC in 2001 when it was a small, loss-making organization, shepherding it into one of the fastest-growing sports promotion companies in the world.The sport’s popularity with young men — a key demographic in the 2024 US election — and Trump’s long association with the UFC, have made the president a regular fixture at some of its more high-profile events, where he is greeted like a rock star.Its brutal nature and high injury rate mean the sport is controversial, with doctors decrying the potential for brain damage amongst fighters who are repeatedly hit in the head, though it has gained increasing mainstream acceptance in recent years.

Perplexity AI offered Google on Tuesday $34.5 billion for its popular Chrome web browser, which the internet giant could potentially be forced to sell as part of antitrust proceedings.The whopping sum proposed in a letter of intent by Perplexity is nearly double the value of the startup, which was reportedly $18 billion in a recent funding round.”This proposal is designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator focused on continuity, openness, and consumer protection,” Perplexity chief executive Aravind Srinivas said in the letter, a copy of which was seen by AFP.Google is awaiting US District Court Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling on what “remedies” to impose, following a landmark decision last year that said the tech titan maintained an illegal monopoly in online search.US government attorneys have called for Google to divest itself of the Chrome browser, contending that artificial intelligence is poised to ramp up the tech giant’s dominance as the go-to window into the internet.Google has urged Mehta to reject the divestment, and his decision is expected by the end of the month.Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Perplexity’s offer vastly undervalues Chrome and “should not be taken seriously,” Baird Equity Research analysts said in a note to investors.Given that Perplexity already has a browser that competes with Chrome, the San Francisco-based startup could be trying to spark others to bid or “influence the pending decision” in the antitrust case, Baird analysts theorized.”Either way, we believe Perplexity would view an independent Chrome — or one no longer affiliated with Google — as an advantage as it attempts to take browser share,” Baird analysts told investors.Google contends that the United States has gone way beyond the scope of the suit by recommending a spinoff of Chrome, and holding open the option to force a sale of its Android mobile operating system.”Forcing the sale of Chrome or banning default agreements wouldn’t foster competition,” said Cato Institute senior fellow in technology policy Jennifer Huddleston.”It would hobble innovation, hurt smaller players, and leave users with worse products.”Google attorney John Schmidtlein noted in court that more than 80 percent of Chrome users are outside the United States, meaning divestiture would have global ramifications.”Any divested Chrome would be a shadow of the current Chrome,” he contended.”And once we are in that world, I don’t see how you can say anybody is better off.”The potential of Chrome being weakened or spun off comes as rivals such as Microsoft, ChatGPT and Perplexity put generative artificial intelligence (AI) to work fetching information from the internet in response to user queries.Google is among the tech companies investing heavily to be a leader in AI, and is weaving the technology into search and other online offerings.

Dozens of activists and locals protested on Tuesday against a visit by US Vice President JD Vance to an idyllic rural region of southwest England, where he is on holiday with family.Around 60 people gathered for the demonstration in the town of Charlbury in the Cotswolds region, carrying signs including “Go Home”, “Not Welcome Party” and “Sod Off”.UK police and US security detail dotted the usually quiet roads leading to the nearby hamlet where Vance was staying, blocking some roads and footpaths in the countryside region popular with tourists.”The people of the Cotswolds are out here today telling JD Vance that he is not welcome here,” Jake Atkinson from the Stop Trump Coalition told AFP at the gathering.Co-organiser Atkinson cited US President Donald Trump’s policies including on immigration and the war in Gaza for the local anger. He said the anti-Trump coalition would also turn out against the US president, who is due in the UK for a state visit in September.Earlier in the day, a black van bearing a meme image of Vance edited to look bald and bloated drove past the quaint cottages and winding streets of the town.”We wanted to extend the same welcome that he extended to (Volodymyr) Zelensky from the White House,” said 75-year-old Charlbury resident Lou Johnson, referring to the cold reception Vance gave the Ukrainian leader during a press conference in Washington in February. Vance kicked off his British holiday last week by meeting UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who hosted the American politician in his country retreat in Chevening in Kent, southeast of London.Reports have also said Vance will later visit Scotland, where Trump spent five days at his golf resorts last month.- Heightened security -Residents said they were surprised by the heavy security around Dean, the village where Vance was staying.”If somebody’s just in the Cotswolds on holiday, you wouldn’t imagine they’d need a 20-car motorcade and all the roads to the entire village,” said Phil Ball, 53, a local resident and cameraman.”It’s been disruptive and quite a surprise.”Victoria Dawson, an artist from nearby Witney, said locals were protesting “against somebody who we think is immoral… somebody who is doing terrific damage around the world along with Trump”. “Because JD Vance is here, suddenly roads are closed everywhere, there are police everywhere,” she added. “It’s not what we expect or accept.”Lou Johnson also complained that heightened security had been “invading everywhere” in the rural area he has called home for 50 years.”People think it’s just a gentle little village but every now and then we do stand up for what we believe in,” said Johnson.

A US judge ordered Tuesday that migrants being held at a Manhattan federal facility where individuals are often arrested after attending court hearings to fight deportation be kept in humane conditions.Images have emerged showing unsanitary and cramped conditions in a holding room in New York City’s 26 Federal Plaza, where migrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are detained.Manhattan Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a temporary restraining order directing that no detainee be kept in less than 50 square feet (4.6 square meters) of space, without clean bedding and hygiene products, or be deprived of private attorney-client calls.ICE “shall not retaliate in any manner against Plaintiff (including in his or her immigration proceedings…) for complaining about any alleged violation of this temporary restraining order,” Kaplan ordered.Hundreds of migrants have passed through the facility as immigration officers have stepped up their arrests of those going through the immigration court in a downtown skyscraper.Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to deport large numbers of migrants, has encouraged authorities to be more aggressive as he seeks to hit his widely reported target of one million deportations annually. Since Trump’s return to the White House, Homeland Security agents have adopted the tactic — criticized by rights groups — of waiting outside immigration courts nationwide and arresting migrants as they leave at the end of asylum hearings.Armed agents with badges from different federal agencies loiter outside court hearings in the tower block in central New York, holding paperwork with photographs of migrants to be targeted, AFP has seen.In the complaint filed Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Foundation sued the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of Sergio Mercado and other unnamed detainees.The filing alleged that “immigrants (are) being detained in crowded rooms at a federal building in the heart of Manhattan without beds, sufficient food, hygiene products, access to showers, or the ability to communicate confidentially with attorneys.” “They bring this action to challenge these unlawful conditions of confinement and ban on attorney access,” said the class action suit.Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said “today’s order sends a clear message: ICE cannot hold people in abusive conditions and deny them their Constitutional rights to due process and legal representation.””We’ll continue to fight to ensure that peoples’ rights are upheld at 26 Federal Plaza and beyond.”The judge set a deadline of August 18 for the government to respond to the claims in the complaint ahead of a ruling on a preliminary injunction.

Global stocks mostly rose on Tuesday, with Wall Street indices ending at fresh records as US inflation data showed a still-subdued impact from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.That, combined with Trump extending by 90 days a trade truce with China, cheered investors.New York jumped after the US consumer price index (CPI) reading for July showed annualized inflation at 2.7 percent, unchanged from a month earlier.Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished at fresh records.European markets were likewise boosted by the US inflation numbers, with all but Frankfurt rising.While the headline CPI figure was lower than expected, underlying price increases indicated that Trump’s tariffs were nevertheless starting to ripple through the US economy.Core inflation, which strips out volatile costs such as food and energy, accelerated in July to the fastest pace in six months.”Inflation from tariffs is beginning to feed into the core figure but not yet at the stage that is a major concern for markets,” said Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, a wealth management firm.The dollar slipped against major currencies.Investors calculated that the CPI data was not enough to sway the US Federal Reserve away from an expected interest rate cut next month.The US central bank, which has an inflation target of two percent, also has to weigh other recent data, including signs in the labor market of slower economic growth.Trump has relentlessly pressured Jerome Powell to ease monetary policy, reiterating his call for the Fed Chairman to cut rates immediately in a sneering post on his Truth Social platform.Trump said he may allow “a major lawsuit” against Powell for his oversight of renovations of Federal Reserve buildings.Katy Stoves, investment manager at Mattioli Woods, warned however: “This gentle cooling of the economy will certainly not justify a cut of interest rates to one percent as President Donald Trump is calling for.”Oil prices were lower, after OPEC’s latest growth projections maintained estimates for 2025. The oil cartel raised its demand forecast for 2026, signalling it expected stronger global activity next year.Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would put off reimposing sky-high levies on China to November, to give more time for talks, buoyed market sentiment.Stock markets in Asia rose on the news, with Tokyo hitting a record.Investors are also awaiting a summit between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday, with the US president playing down the possibility of a breakthrough in ending the war in Ukraine.In corporate news, China’s real estate giant Evergrande Group said on Tuesday it will delist from Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the wake of its 2021 default. The company is emblematic of a years-long crisis in China’s property market.Intel rose 5.5 percent after CEO Lip-Bu Tan met with Trump, who praised the executive after previously calling for him to step down.- Key figures at around 2050 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 1.1 percent at 44,458.61 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 1.1 percent at 6,445.76 (close)New York – Nasdaq: UP 1.4 percent at 21,681.90 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 9,147.81 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.7 percent at 7,753.42 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.2 percent at 24,024.78 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 2.2 percent at 42,718.17 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.3 percent at 24,969.68 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.5 percent at 3,665.92 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1677 from $1.1615 on MondayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3501 from $1.3432 Dollar/yen: DOWN at 147.77 yen from 148.15 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 86.45 pence from 86.48 penceBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.8 percent at $66.12 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.2 percent at $63.17 per barrel

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had scored a “personal victory” by getting invited to talks with Donald Trump on US soil, and that the meeting further delayed sanctions on Moscow.Zelensky also ruled out withdrawing troops from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as part of a peace deal, after Trump suggested he and Putin might negotiate a land swap to end the war.The summit, set to take place in Alaska on Friday, will be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since 2021 and comes as Trump seeks to broker an end to Russia’s nearly three-and-a-half year war in Ukraine.Zelensky, who is not scheduled to take part, has expressed concern that Russia will put forward hard-line demands and that Trump will hammer out a deal that will demand Ukraine cede swathes of territory.”We will not withdraw from the Donbas… if we withdraw from the Donbas today — our fortifications, our terrain, the heights we control — we will clearly open a bridgehead for the Russians to prepare an offensive,” Zelensky told reporters.The Donbas encompasses the eastern Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk, both of which Russia claims as its own and has sought to control since its invasion began in 2022.Zelensky said Friday’s summit would effectively postpone new US sanctions on Russia — sanctions that Trump had promised to impose if Putin refused to halt his war.”First, he will meet on US territory, which I consider his personal victory. Second, he is coming out of isolation because he is meeting on US territory. Third, with this meeting, he has somehow postponed sanctions,” Zelensky said.Zelensky also said he had received a “signal” from US envoy Steve Witkoff that Russia might agree to a ceasefire, without elaborating.”This was the first signal from them,” Zelensky said.To prepare for the summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a call with US counterpart Marco Rubio, who told a US radio show earlier that Trump did not regard the meeting as a “concession” to Russia.The White House, meanwhile, confirmed that the meeting came about after Putin requested it.Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the aim was “for the president is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war”.- ‘No equipment’ -On the battlefield, Zelensky warned Russia had made sharp advances near the coal mining town of Dobropillia and was planning new ground assaults on at least three different areas of the front line.”Russian units have advanced 10 kilometres (six miles) deep in several spots. They all have no equipment, only weapons in their hands. Some have already been found, some destroyed, some taken prisoner. We will find the rest and destroy them in the near future,” Zelensky said.A map published by Ukrainian battlefield monitor DeepState, which has close ties with Ukraine’s military, showed Russia had made a double-pronged advance around 10 kilometres (six miles) deep in a narrow section of the front line near Dobropillia.Dobropillia, home to around 30,000 people before the war, has come under regular Russian drone attacks.The advance also threatens the largely destroyed town of Kostiantynivka, one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.Russian forces have been accelerating their advances for months, pressing their advantage against overstretched Ukrainian troops.The Ukrainian army said Tuesday it was engaged in “difficult” battles with Russian forces in the east, but denied Russia had a foothold near Dobropillia.”The situation is difficult and dynamic,” it said in a statement.- ‘New offensive’ -The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, said Russia was sending small sabotage groups forwards.It said it was “premature” to call the Russian advances around Dobropillia “an operational-level breakthrough”.A Ukrainian military group that oversees parts of the front in the Donetsk region also said Russia was probing Ukrainian lines with small sabotage groups, describing battles as “complex, unpleasant and dynamic”.Trump has described his summit with Putin on Friday as a chance to check the Russian leader’s ideas for ending the war.European leaders have meanwhile sought to ensure respect for Kyiv’s interests.Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has made costly but incremental gains across the front in recent months and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions while still fighting to control them.Ukrainian police meanwhile said that Russian attacks in the past hours had killed three people and wounded 12 others, including a child.

The United States offered a $5 million reward on Tuesday for the arrest of Haitian gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier for allegedly violating US sanctions.Cherizier, 48, and another man, Bazile Richardson, have been indicted on charges of conspiring to transfer funds from the United States to fund gang activities in Haiti, the Justice Department said.”There’s a good reason that there’s a $5 million reward for information leading to Cherizier’s arrest,” US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said at a press conference.”He’s a gang leader responsible for heinous human rights abuses, including violence against American citizens in Haiti.”Cherizier has been under US Treasury Department sanctions since 2020 and UN sanctions since 2022.The former policeman heads an alliance of gangs in Haiti dubbed the “G9 Family,” whose members are accused of murder, robbery, extortion, rape, targeted assassinations, drug trafficking and kidnappings.The alliance participated in an organized assault last year that ultimately led to the resignation of prime minister Ariel Henry, who was replaced by a frail transitional council.The Justice Department said that Cherizier and Richardson, a naturalized US citizen who was arrested in Texas last month, raised funds from members of the Haitian diaspora in the United States and had the money transferred to intermediaries in the Caribbean nation.Cherizier allegedly used the funds to pay salaries to members of his gang and purchase firearms.Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with swaths of the country and the vast majority of the capital Port-au-Prince under the control of armed gangs.Despite the deployment of a Kenyan-led multinational force to back up Haiti’s police, violence has continued to soar.At least 3,141 people have been killed in the first half of this year, according to figures released last month by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.”Cherizier and (Richardson) sought to raise funds in the United States to bankroll Cherizier’s violent criminal enterprise, which is driving a security crisis in Haiti,” Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg said.”The National Security Division does not tolerate criminal gang fundraising in the United States, and will continue to pursue those who enable Haiti’s violence and instability.”

South Korean cryptocurrency specialist Do Kwon pleaded guilty to fraud charges in front of a New York judge on Tuesday following his firm’s multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy, court filings showed.Do Kwon, who founded Terraform and nurtured two cryptocurrencies central to the bankruptcy, had faced nine counts in a superseding indictment filed by prosecutors in January 2025 to which he initially pleaded not guilty.The fallen mogul changed his plea in a hearing before Southern District of New York judge Paul Engelmayer, and will be sentenced on December 11, the docket showed.He was extradited last year from Montenegro to the United States for his role in a fraud linked to his company’s failure, which wiped out about $40 billion of investors’ money and shook global crypto markets.The crypto tycoon was arrested in March 2023 at the airport in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, while preparing to board a flight to Dubai, in possession of a fake Costa Rican passport.Before his arrest in the tiny Balkan nation, he had been on the run for months, fleeing South Korea and later Singapore, when his company went bankrupt in 2022.Do Kwon’s Terraform Labs created a cryptocurrency called TerraUSD that was marketed as a “stablecoin”, a token that is pegged to stable assets such as the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations.Do Kwon successfully marketed them as the next big thing in crypto, attracting billions in investments and global hype.Media reports in South Korea described him as a “genius”.But despite billions in investments, TerraUSD and its sister token Luna went into a death spiral in May 2022.Experts said Kwon had set up a glorified pyramid scheme, in which many investors lost their life savings.He left South Korea before the crash and spent months on the run.Cryptocurrencies have come under increasing scrutiny from regulators after a string of controversies in recent years, including the high-profile collapses of exchanges.

Stock markets rose on Tuesday as US inflation data showed a still-subdued impact from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.That, combined with Trump extending by 90 days a trade truce with China, cheered investors.New York jumped after the US consumer price index (CPI) reading for July showed annualised inflation at 2.7 percent, unchanged from a month earlier.European markets were likewise boosted by the US inflation numbers, with all but Frankfurt rising.While the headline CPI figure was lower than expected, underlying price increases indicated that Trump’s tariffs were nevertheless starting to ripple through the US economy.Core inflation, which strips out volatile costs such as food and energy, accelerated in July to the fastest pace in six months.”Inflation from tariffs is beginning to feed into the core figure but not yet at the stage that is a major concern for markets,” said Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, a wealth management firm.The dollar slipped against major currencies.Investors calculated that the CPI data was not enough to sway the US Federal Reserve away from an expected interest rate cut next month.The US central bank, which has an inflation target of two percent, also has to weigh other recent data, including signs in the labour market of slower economic growth.Trump has been pressuring Fed chief Jerome Powell to cut rates, and on Monday he renewed his attack.The US leader accused Powell of causing “incalculable” damage by keeping interest rates steady. Trump said he may allow “a major lawsuit” against Powell for his oversight of renovations of Federal Reserve buildings.Katy Stoves, investment manager at Mattioli Woods, warned however: “This gentle cooling of the economy will certainly not justify a cut of interest rates to one percent as President Donald Trump is calling for.”Oil prices were lower, after OPEC’s latest growth projections maintained estimates for 2025. The oil cartel raised its demand forecast for 2026, signalling it expected stronger global activity next year.Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would put off reimposing sky-high levies on China to November, to give more time for talks, buoyed market sentiment.Stock markets in Asia rose on the news, with Tokyo hitting a record.Investors are also awaiting a summit between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday, with the US president playing down the possibility of a breakthrough in ending the war in Ukraine.In corporate news, China’s real estate giant Evergrande Group said on Tuesday it will delist from Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the wake of its 2021 default. The company is emblematic of a years-long crisis in China’s property market.- Key figures at around 1530 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 1.0 percent at 44,412.68 pointsNew York – S&P 500: UP 0.7 percent at 6,420.90New York – Nasdaq: UP 0.8 percent at 21,556.82London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 9,149.28 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.8 percent at 7,757.59 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.1 percent at 24,050.12 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 2.2 percent at 42,718.17 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.3 percent at 24,968.68 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.5 percent at 3,665.92 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1680 from $1.1617 on MondayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3507 from $1.3435 Dollar/yen: DOWN at 147.88 yen from 148.12 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 86.44 pence from 86.47 penceBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.1 percent at $66.57 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.3 percent at $63.75 per barrel