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RIM unveils BBX platform for BlackBerry, PlayBook

"We're giving developers the tools they need to build richer applications, and we're providing direction on how to best develop their smartphone and tablet apps as the BlackBerry and QNX platforms converge into our next generation BBX platform," RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said in a speech opening the four-day event.

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GLOBAL MARKETS-Asia shares edge lower on caution over global growth

* US Treasury prices up on stock decline* S&P cuts Spain ratingBy Chikako MogiTOKYO, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Asian shares inched down on Friday, tracking New York and European shares lower as weak Chinese trade data raised concerns about the global economy, while the euro eased after another sovereign debt ratings downgrade.MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1 percent while the Nikkei average opened down 0.5 percent after hitting a four-week high on Thursday.Slower demand in the world's second-largest oil consumer China weighed on oil prices, with Brent crude easing a touch to $111.08 a barrel and U.S. November crude slipping 0.1 percent to $84.12 a barrel.World stocks as measured by MSCI eased 0.2 percent on Thursday after six days of gains, while U.S. shares fell from three-week highs on weak China trade data which underscored worries about the strength of global economy and the impact from the European debt crisis.European financial turmoil reduced demand for securities underwriting and acquisition advice, hitting earnings of JPMorgan Chase & Co. , the second largest U.S. lender the first major bank to post third quarter results.Shares of JPMorgan slid 4.8 percent, with an index of U.S. bank shares falling 2.9 percent and an European lenders' index losing 3.7 percent.Europe is showing signs of accelerating efforts to shore up the euro zone banking sector and limit the damage from the region's spreading sovereign debt crisis, but the cost it would have to pay could pose risks to the single currency and growth.The European Central Bank said on Thursday that forcing private bondholders to accept losses on euro zone sovereign debt could damage the reputation of the euro, hurt the bloc's banks and encourage volatility on foreign exchange markets.The ECB's warnings were directed at the broader concept of forcing investors to take losses on euro zone bonds, and not specifically referring to the current debate on increasing previously agreed plans for a 21 percent writedown for banks holding Greek debt.But ECB policymakers said the euro zone could fall back into recession, noting in its monthly bulletin released on Thursday that downside risks relate especially to financial market turmoil.Downgrades of sovereign ratings continued, with the latest from ratings agency Standard and Poor's which on Friday cut the long-term credit rating of Spain by one notch.Sovereign debt woes have put European government bond yields under pressure, with the ECB having to step into the secondary market to buy after an Italian debt auction on Thursday to cap rising yields.In Asian credit markets, which have reflected the strain of waning confidence in the financial system, spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment grade index widened again by about 8 points early on Friday, after narrowing sharply the day before by about 17 points.The euro edged lower in early Asian trade on Friday after the downgrade on Spain's ratings, but it still remained on track for the biggest weekly rally since January.As investors sought relative safety, prices of U.S. Treasury debt rose, with the benchmark 10-year note up 9/32 to yield 2.1798 percent late in New York on Thursday.

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GLOBAL MARKETS-Asia shares edge lower on caution over global growth

* US Treasury prices up on stock decline* S&P cuts Spain ratingBy Chikako MogiTOKYO, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Asian shares inched down on Friday, tracking New York and European shares lower as weak Chinese trade data raised concerns about the global economy, while the euro eased after another sovereign debt ratings downgrade.MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1 percent while the Nikkei average opened down 0.5 percent after hitting a four-week high on Thursday.Slower demand in the world's second-largest oil consumer China weighed on oil prices, with Brent crude easing a touch to $111.08 a barrel and U.S. November crude slipping 0.1 percent to $84.12 a barrel.World stocks as measured by MSCI eased 0.2 percent on Thursday after six days of gains, while U.S. shares fell from three-week highs on weak China trade data which underscored worries about the strength of global economy and the impact from the European debt crisis.European financial turmoil reduced demand for securities underwriting and acquisition advice, hitting earnings of JPMorgan Chase & Co. , the second largest U.S. lender the first major bank to post third quarter results.Shares of JPMorgan slid 4.8 percent, with an index of U.S. bank shares falling 2.9 percent and an European lenders' index losing 3.7 percent.Europe is showing signs of accelerating efforts to shore up the euro zone banking sector and limit the damage from the region's spreading sovereign debt crisis, but the cost it would have to pay could pose risks to the single currency and growth.The European Central Bank said on Thursday that forcing private bondholders to accept losses on euro zone sovereign debt could damage the reputation of the euro, hurt the bloc's banks and encourage volatility on foreign exchange markets.The ECB's warnings were directed at the broader concept of forcing investors to take losses on euro zone bonds, and not specifically referring to the current debate on increasing previously agreed plans for a 21 percent writedown for banks holding Greek debt.But ECB policymakers said the euro zone could fall back into recession, noting in its monthly bulletin released on Thursday that downside risks relate especially to financial market turmoil.Downgrades of sovereign ratings continued, with the latest from ratings agency Standard and Poor's which on Friday cut the long-term credit rating of Spain by one notch.Sovereign debt woes have put European government bond yields under pressure, with the ECB having to step into the secondary market to buy after an Italian debt auction on Thursday to cap rising yields.In Asian credit markets, which have reflected the strain of waning confidence in the financial system, spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment grade index widened again by about 8 points early on Friday, after narrowing sharply the day before by about 17 points.The euro edged lower in early Asian trade on Friday after the downgrade on Spain's ratings, but it still remained on track for the biggest weekly rally since January.As investors sought relative safety, prices of U.S. Treasury debt rose, with the benchmark 10-year note up 9/32 to yield 2.1798 percent late in New York on Thursday.

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CreditNotice: S&P To Assess Impact Of Spain Downgrade On GREs

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services believes that this could have a negative impact on the creditworthiness of the following Spain-based entities that we rate:-- Autonomous Community of Madrid (AA/Negative/A-1+)-- Autonomous Community of Aragon (AA/Negative/--)-- City of Barcelona (AA/Negative/--)-- ICO (Instituto de Credito Oficial) (AA/Negative/A-1+)-- Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) (AA/Negative/A-1+)-- Corporacion de Reservas Estrategicas de Productos Petroliferos (AA/Negative/A-1+)-- Fondo de Reestructuracion Ordenada Bancaria (FROB) (AA)-- Fondo de Amortizacion del Deficit Electrico (AA)We expect to publish a more detailed analysis of any impact on the credit rating on these issuers as soon as permitted to do so under applicable EU law. The delay in our communication is to meet the requirements of EU credit rating agency regulation.

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WRAPUP 1-BlackBerry co-CEOs seek to control the damage

* Says full service back, but cause still unknownBy Alastair SharpTORONTO, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Research In Motion has fixed the root cause of a global disruption of BlackBerry services and is still working to clear a backlog of delayed messages, its co-CEOs said on Thursday, hoping to control the damage to RIM four days after the outage began.The chief executives - Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie - apologized for the system-wide failure that left millions of BlackBerry users without email, instant messaging and browsing and said the company would work to regain their customers trust."Our inability to quickly fix this has been frustrating," Lazaridis said, sounding contrite. "We are taking immediate and aggressive steps to minimize risk of this happening again."Asked about whether RIM would pay compensation to carriers or enterprises that pay a monthly fee for its gold-standard messaging services, Balsillie suggested the company would consider that question in the coming days."Our focus has been 100 percent on getting the systems up and running. ... That's been our focus throughout the night and we have SLAs (service level agreements) with customers and that's something we're going to focus on now."A number of network providers around the world have already said they would compensate their customers over the lost service.The outage - and RIM's sluggish communications with its customers - have fanned rising dissatisfaction with Lazaridis and Balsillie, who made an unusual joint appearance on the conference call.Even before the latest outage, critics have called for a shake-up at RIM, saying the top managers have let the company fall too far behind Apple and other rivals in a rapidly changing market.The session was only the second call that RIM has held since the crisis began on Monday.Earlier on Thursday the company posted a video clip of Lazaridis apologizing for the incident. He repeated that message in his opening remarks at Thursday's conference call.Public relations specialists have wondered why it took the company so long, saying its response to the crisis has been slow and poorly communicated."I think a statement of empathy that wouldn't cost anybody anything could have been made within hours," said Allan Bonner, a leading public relations crisis management consultant in Toronto."They're doing crisis response the way they're designing their software these days -- it's outdated, slow and not being well-received by their customers," said Gene Grabowski, senior vice president at Levick Strategic Communications.FULL SERVICE RESTORED, RIM SAYSThe Waterloo, Ontario-based company said it had restored full service, even as it acknowledged that the backlog caused by the outage was still working its way through system.It said it determined that the outage - the most extensive in the company's history - was caused by a malfunctioning switch at a data center in Slough, England, and the subsequent failure of a backup to operate properly.That triggered a massive reservoir of data that jammed up other data centers, spreading the disruption to most regions.Lazaridis said it would take some time to pinpoint why the switch and back-up both failed, setting off the crisis.

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UPDATE 1-Polymetal Q3 revenue jumps 59 pct

Revenue surged to $374 million from $235 million.Gold output rose 6 percent to 124,000 ounces and silver production jumped 41 percent from the year-earlier quarter to 5.3 million ounces."Production growth momentum is building and we expect to carry it into the fourth quarter and 2012," said chief executive Vitaly Nesis.The miner is seeking a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange that it hopes will catapult it into the FTSE 100 index this year.Polymetal plans to transfer its Russian shares and London-listed global depositary receipts (GDRs) into a new holding company. It then proposes to raise about $500 million, mainly to buy out minority shareholders, that will lift its free float above 50 percent and enable it to meet a FTSE 100 requirement.

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Banks face 39 pct loss on Greek debt under plan -IIF

"If people properly and correctly -- and consistent with market practice in the past -- evaluate the deal, they should use current discount rates. If they do that it implies the NPV (net present value) discount is 39 percent."The private sector deal agreed on July 21 was based on an assumed discount rate of 9 percent over the next 30 years, based on an expectation that Greece's risk profile would improve. But Greek debt prices have fallen since the plan was announced and yields have risen to about 15 percent.The proposed offer has not yet been finalised.

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Indian shares provisionally end up 2.6 pct

The 50-share NSE index provisionally rose 2.59 percent to 5,103.2 points.

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Pope Benedict condemns ‘Ndrangheta organised crime in south Italy visit

(Friends and relatives attend the funeral of Francesco Fortugno, vice president of Calabria's regional government, in the southern Italian town of Locri October 19, 2005. Italy's interior minister said on Monday the 'Ndrangheta mafia group was responsible for the assassination/Stringer)