The Pakistani chief prosecutor investigating former military dictator Pervez Musharraf over the assassination in 2007 of Benazir Bhutto was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the capital Islamabad early today.

The car carrying Chaudhry Zulfiqar was attacked as he headed to an anti-terrorism court in the nearby city of Rawalpindi for a hearing related to the Bhutto case, according to police. “His guard said that someone from the rear fired on the car,” Irshad Ali, the officer in charge of the police station nearest the incident, said by phone.

Zulfiqar was leading the probe into Musharraf, who is accused of failing to provide adequate security before the killing of Bhutto. He was also directing the investigation into the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai by Pakistani gunmen, Geo television reported, without saying where it got the information.

A spokesman for the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Wasim Khawaja, confirmed the killing, adding that a female passerby hit by Zulifqar’s car had also died. The prosecutor’s driver was injured during the firing, he said.

Musharraf has been under house arrest since April 19 after a court revoked a bail agreement on charges relating to his declaration of emergency rule in 2007, which was subsequently ruled illegal. He has since been kept at his residence on the outskirts of Islamabad, which has been declared a sub-jail.

To contact the reporters on this story: Augustine Anthony in Rawalpindi at Aanthony9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net

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• Dollar Likely to Find Greater Drive in NFPs than FOMC
• Euro Slammed by ECB Rate Cut, Threats for More
• Japanese Yen: BoJ Governor Confirms Stimulus Cap, Sees No Asset Bubble
• Swiss Franc Extends Longest Rally Versus Euro Since May 2011
• Canadian Dollar: What Will the New BoC Governor Bring for the Loonie?
• Oil Posts Biggest Rally in 6 Months After Supply-Glut Plunge
• Gold Tempers Wednesday’s Bearish Break as ECB Nibbles at Stimulus

Dollar Likely to Find Greater Drive in NFPs than FOMC

The dollar advanced against all of its primary counterparts this past session – a move that contradicted the prevailing risk trend for the session and notably spared the greenback from critical support. This could prove a fortuitous move for the currency considering the heavy event risk through the final trading day of the week. Given the typical sway the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFPs) have over general sentiment trends and its history as a volatility fan, it would have been particularly easy to force the dollar into the next leg of a structural bear wave. Yet, with the Dow Jones FXCM Dollar Index (ticker = USDollar) up appreciably from 10,400, EURUSD nearly 200 pips below 1.3250 and USDJPY avoiding the 96.50; there is comfortable breathing room should the upcoming event risk ‘disappoint’.

Looking for the source of the dollar’s strength through this past session, the economic docket provided modest support to the benchmark. Initial jobless claims dropped sharply to the lowest levels in over five years for the week ending April 27, while the March trade balance report printed a substantially smaller-than-expected $ 38.8 billion deficit (versus $ 42.3 billion expected). Weightier in terms of headline clout, the trade shortfall was the second smallest in three years – a feat considering the USDollar has appreciated 5 percent since the beginning of the year and thereby makes US goods more expensive. Yet, the inordinate drop in imports (the biggest since February 2009) mars the reading as it suggests domestic consumption struggled.

While the weekly unemployment benefit claims are individually low on the market-moving totem, they plug into a deeper fundamental current: tomorrow’s labor data. There are few indicators more recognizable – and volatility-inducing for that familiarity – than the US labor numbers. The NFPs change alone is likely to generate immediate market swells simply through a kneejerk reaction to ‘front run the market’. However, the real impact comes through the stimulus implications in the Fed’s pursuit of a more temperate unemployment rate. The central bank has set an explicit target for its current regime of loose policy in a 6.5 percent jobless rate. In March, that figure was 7.6 percent. It is important to recognize that the express benchmark is level at which the FOMC will start discussing rate hikes. A full halt on QE3 purchases will likely come well before that milestone and a tapering of the $ 85 billion in monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, even sooner. After the write-off rate decision Wednesday, a downtick in unemployment can revive speculation on the deceleration of stimulus. This has direct implications for a smaller increase in the money supply, but far more remarkable would be the possible blow this could deliver to risk trends.

Euro Slammed by ECB Rate Cut, Threats for More

The European Central Bank (ECB) met economists’ expectations for a 25 basis point benchmark rate cut, but they would also go further in their effort to provide support to the region’s strained economy and financial system. Alone, lowering the key lending rate to 0.50 percent does little to further improve the Eurozone’s health as there are clear issues with transmitting the benefits of previous policy moves to periphery economies (like Greece, Cyprus, Spain, etc) much less individuals and smaller businesses. Therefore, had the central bank simple taken this step, the euro may not have dropped. Yet, tumble it did with EURUSD moving back to 1.3050 and EURGBP bouncing at 0.8400. To further show commitment, ECB President Draghi also lowered the marginal lending rate 50 bps to 1.00 percent, noted that the growth outlook was tipped to the ‘downside’ and they would remain open to negative rates on deposits. This is certainly substantial, but it is largely a balance sheet neutral move (doesn’t engage the stimulus war) and supports risk. We may have see the extent of the specific ECB reaction move.

Japanese Yen: BoJ Governor Confirms Stimulus Cap, Sees No Asset Bubble

Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda was on the wires Thursday to reaffirm his confidence in the stimulus plan the central bank adopted and ensure the lip service is paid to pacify the G7 by saying the effort is not aimed at manipulating the currency. What is interesting from the various remarks was his suggestion that they would eventually hold after April’s aggressive move. The bulk of the USDJPY and other yen crosses’ moves came well before the central bank actually adopted stimulus regime. We will so find out how important constant escalation was to sustaining the move.

Swiss Franc Extends Longest Rally Versus Euro Since May 2011While the Swiss franc dropped against most of its global counterparts this past session – thanks to the fundamental sympathy to the Euro – the EURCHF actually slid for a sixth session. That is the longest bearish slide for the pair since May of 2011. However, we haven’t seen any serious momentum develop alongside the consistency. Euro-area crises are the franc’s true appeal, and so we wait.

Canadian Dollar: What Will the New BoC Governor Bring for the Loonie?

A replacement was named for Governor of the Bank of Canada when standing head Mark Carney leaves for London in July. Given the USDCAD’s modest jump after Stephen Poloz was named the designate, the market is leery of its inflation-fighting credentials. Few remarks were given by Poloz, but a plan that depends on exports – which he voiced – should also be questioned.

Oil Posts Biggest Rally in 6 Months After Supply-Glut Plunge

Following the third biggest decline in US oil prices this year, the commodity remarkably rallied 3.3 percent for the biggest surge in six months. This incredible reversal was supported by a general sense of risk trend, but the lack of confirmation from the rest of the energy complex draws concerns about follow through. Also of note, futures volume showed relatively little conviction in the move.

Gold Tempers Wednesday’s Bearish Break as ECB Nibbles at Stimulus

The policy decisions this week have done what they can to ensure there isn’t too much pain for the gold. Then again, they haven’t really helped upgrade the fiat alternative’s appeal to the next level and above $ 1,500. After the Fed abstained from a downgrade of its currency devaluing QE3 program, the ECB delivered new measures of support. However, the moves taken by the European authority doesn’t serious expose the currency and thereby leverage the appetite for an alternative. Meanwhile, ETF holdings of gold have dropped for 23 straight days.

**For a full list of upcoming event risk and past releases, go to www.dailyfx.com/calendar

ECONOMIC DATA

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE LEVELS

To see updated SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE LEVELS for the Majors, visit Technical Analysis Portal

To see updated PIVOT POINT LEVELS for the Majors and Crosses, visit our Pivot Point Table

CLASSIC SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE

INTRA-DAY PROBABILITY BANDS 18:00 GMT

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— Written by: John Kicklighter, Chief Strategist for DailyFX.com

To contact John, email jkicklighter@dailyfx.com. Follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/JohnKicklighter

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DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.
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The federal government has eliminated the two cheapest options to deliver Australia’s 12 new submarines, a project likely to be the biggest in Australia’s history.

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Ron Conway, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny meet new startup founders practically every day as investors at renowned angel funding firm SV Angel. So when they came backstage at this week’s Disrupt NYC event after their on-stage talk with Michael Arrington, I asked them to talk about the most inspiring up-and-coming founders they’ve met with lately — people who may be flying a little more under the radar than the Jack Dorseys of the tech scene at the moment, but could very well be the next big thing.

What’s fantastic is that each partner had a favorite, and they all named names — so it was pretty interesting to hear. Conway pointed to Georg Petschnigg of FiftyThree, the startup behind hot iPad app Paper; Pokorny named Arjun Sethi of MessageMe; and Lee said he has been very impressed by the co-founders of Science Exchange, Dan Knox, Ryan Abbott, and Elizabeth Iorns.

And that wasn’t all we discussed. We also talked about why the firm is optimistic that the tech industry’s brightest times are still ahead, the New York companies that SV Angel has been talking to during their current trip out east, how Conway’s increasingly active work in the political realm influences his interactions on the business side, and more. Check it all out in the video embedded above.

SV Angel is the micro VC firm located in Silicon Valley and founded by angel investors, Ron Conway and David Lee. SV Angel provides capital investments to early stage companies focused on the Internet, e-commerce, and information technology markets. SV Angel is a venture fund which has raised investment from external investors or limited partners in industry parlance. In April 2010, the fund announced its size of $ 20 million. Per the firm, SV Angel initially expected to raise a…

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As Army soldier Charles Bledsoe was being loaded onto a Jeep with a gunshot wound to the abdomen nearly 70 years ago, he heard someone say, “Give him his last rites.”

“I looked around to see who that was getting the last rites,” Bledsoe recalled. “I went, ‘The hell.’ It was me.”

Bledsoe recovered, but the April 19, 1945, wound was never recorded on his discharge papers so he hadn’t received a Purple Heart. The oversight was corrected Wednesday, as U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., presented the 88-year-old World War II veteran with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star during a ceremony at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Sioux Falls.

“Thank you, senator, for getting it right,” said Bledsoe, who moved to Sioux Falls after the war. “It’s the first time it’s ever been right.”

Bledsoe, an Indiana native, hadn’t really pushed for the medal until about a year ago when he tried to become a member of the Sioux Falls chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. He was told he couldn’t join the organization because he didn’t have a Purple Heart, awarded to members of the U.S. armed forces wounded in battle.

“He heard about our chapter and he wanted to join, but (the battle wound) wasn’t on his discharge papers,” said Mark Williamson, commander of the group’s Sioux Falls chapter.

So Williamson began researching records and working with Sen. Johnson’s office to get Bledsoe his honors.

“Most of us have only read about or seen movies depicting the D-Day invasion, the Battle of the Hedgerows and the Battle of the Bulge,” Johnson said. “Charles experienced them all firsthand.”

The Purple Heart was created in 1782 as the Badge of Military Merit by George Washington, but was ignored for nearly 150 years until it was reintroduced in 1932 on the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth.

The nearly 2-inch-long medal features a gold bust of Washington on a purple background with a gold border, suspended from a white and purple ribbon. The inscription on back reads: “For military merit.”

The Bronze Star, a 1½-inch-wide star engraved with “heroic or meritorious achievement,” hangs from a red ribbon with a vertical blue and white stripe down the center.

Bledsoe, who joined the Army immediately after graduating high school and served in Company F of the 273rd Infantry Regiment, said he now has a lot of military medals.

“Senator Johnson let me ask you a question, what am I going to do with all the medals?” he asked.

“You’ll keep them,” Johnson replied. “And when the time comes, as it will for all of us, we can hand down the medals to our kids and grandkids.”

———

Follow Dirk Lammers on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ddlammers .

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By David Filipov, Globe Staff

The two Kazakh students arrested Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation are not accused of being part of the plot to set off the bombs, but questions have arisen about the novelty license plate on the front of the BMW they drove, which bore the words “Terrorista #1.”

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev come off as fun-loving teens who did not realize what they were getting into when they allegedly disposed of a backpack and laptop belonging to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused of planting the bombs that killed three and injured more than 260. The three knew each other because they went to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth together.

The government of Kazakhstan emphasized today that the young men were not charged with any involvement in the bombings themselves. “We would like to emphasize that our citizens did not receive charges of involvement in the organization of Boston marathon bombings. They were charged with destroying evidence,” the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement posted on its website.

But the men’s arrests have forced both of their fathers to answer questions about the plate on the black BMW they drove around in.

“Terrorista #1 doesn’t mean Osama bin Laden, doesn’t mean ‘terrorist.’ In their slang it’s means ‘happy-go-lucky, a leader of the pack, that sort of thing’ and not that they’re going to blow someone up,” Azamat’s father, Amir Ismagulov, said in a recent interview with a Kazakh television station. “They drove around in that car for four months and no one arrested them.”

Ismagulov is a member of the city council in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, a city on the Caspian Sea that is also known as the oil capital of the oil-rich Central Asian country. He is also a leader of the regional business council. Ismagulov was interviewed after the two young Kazakhs were taken into custody on immigration violations but before they were charged Wednesday in the Marathon bombing probe. Kazakh news agencies are reporting that Ismagulov has now left for the United States without commenting on the arrest of his son.

The father said in an interview with a Kazakh television station that Azamat almost never goes to a mosque and only in Kazakhstan.

He said that Azamat had called him when he and Dias were detained just after the bombing.

“They only got involved with Dzhokhar because he went to school with him,” Ismagulov said.

Azamat “told me, ‘We had no idea, papa, that he was the kind of guy who would hurt anyone.”

“He said, ‘We’re in shock.’”

Both fathers have said that Spanish friends bought the two young men the license plate after they bought a black BMW.

In an interview with the Kazakh site Tengri News on April 23, Murat Kadyrbayev, Dias’s father, said, “This joke led to trouble. But it was just a gag of their Spanish friends, just a gift.”

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev are facing charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice. They were arrested along with Robel Phillipos, 19, of Cambridge, who faces a charge of making false statements to law enforcement officials in a terrorism investigation. Phillipos was also friends with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

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Los Angeles, CA – A copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit was filed against Warner Bros. and 5th Cell Media, the creators of the Scribblenauts videogame, by attorneys for Charles Schmidt – creator of the Keyboard Cat meme – and Christopher Orlando Torres – creator of Nyan Cat meme.

Keyboard Cat is a video of Schmidt’s cat, Fatso, wearing a shirt and playing an electronic keyboard with its pause. The meme, which is a communication of ideas or information, has gone viral, receiving over thirty million YouTube hits. Schmidt has registered the video’s copyright with the US Copyright and has two pending trademark application for the term “Keyboard Cat”, click to see the first trademark application and the second trademark application. Keyboard Cat’s stardom has led to numerous appearances in commercials, including a feature role in a national Starburst candy television commercial.

Nyan Cat is a cartoon character with a cat’s face with a Pop Tarts body, basically a pink frosting sprinkled horizontal breakfast bar with glitter and a rainbow flowing therefrom. The GIF animation has also gone viral and it was the fifth most-watched video on YouTube in 2011, winning the 2012 Webbys’ “Meme of the Year” award. Torres also registered the copyright in the animated GIF with the US Copyright Office. Torres has also filed a trademark application to register the “Nyan Cat” word mark with the US Patent & Trademark Office.

Plaintiffs accuse Warner Bros and 5th Cell of including, without any licenses or authorizations, the Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat characters in their original Scribblenauts videogame released in 2009, the 2010 Super Scribblenauts, 2011 Scribblenauts Remix, and the 2012 Scribblenauts Unlimited. Defendants are accused of shamelessly using identifying “Nyan Cat” and “Keyboard Cat” by name to promote and market their games. Plaintiffs claim that Warner Bros and 5th Cell’s trademark infringement was willful and intentional and are requesting an award of treble damages and requesting the case be deemed exception under 15 U.S.C. § 1117(a), thereby entitling Plaintiffs to an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees.

Plaintiffs, however, mistakenly demand statutory damages and an enhancement of damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504, and mistakenly believe that they are entitled to attorneys’ fees and costs of suit under 17 U.S.C. § 505. Defendants are accused of infringing both copyrights in their initial 2009 release of the video games and neither copyright was registered until 2010. Thus, neither Plaintiff is entitled to statutory damages or attorney’s fees, a prerequisite of which – per 17 U.S.C. § 412 – is either registration before commencement of any infringement or within three months after the first publication of the copyrighted work. Further, both the Keyboard Cat video and the Nyan Cat video were published over five years before the application to register the copyrights were filed, thus they are not entitled to a presumption of validity afforded by 17 U.S.C. § 410(c).

A copy of the complaint is available here.

The case is Schmidt, et al. v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., CV13-02824 JFW (C.D. Cal. CV13-02824).

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1 of 7. A European lobster (Hommarus gammarus) is pictured in a breeding station at the Alfred-Wegener institute (AWI) on the German island of Heligoland, about 46 kilometres away from the German coastline, April 30, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer

BERLIN (Reuters) – New wind farms off Germany’s North Sea coast will provide an ideal habitat that could help restore the lobster population near Heligoland after British bombing during and after World War II drove them away.

Biologists at the Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research are breeding 3,000 lobsters to be released next year into the Borkum Riffgat offshore wind farm near the island 70 km off the German-Dutch coast.

The 1.5 square km island had a thriving fishing industry before it became a Nazi fortress in the war, pounded by Allied bombs, and then later used for target practice. It is now a tourist resort.

Billions of euros of investment in wind turbines as part of Germany’s ambitious transition to renewable energy has given the scheme impetus. Lobsters, whose local population is 90 percent smaller than it was 70 years ago, need a firm seabed to thrive.

“The new wind parks mean lobsters may settle in a new habitat, because the stony foundations offer a favorable environment,” project leader Heinz-Dieter Franke said.

The 700,000 euro ($ 923,500) scheme is funded by compensation paid to the state of Lower Saxony by utility EWE for any potential ecological damage caused by the construction of its wind park. The money will fund breeding, reintroduction and monitoring of the lobsters for roughly two years.

“With Germany’s shift to renewables, we could have 5,000 wind farms by 2030, so if it works, this kind of project could have a huge effect on the lobster population,” Franke said.

He estimated that wind farms could help increase the lobster population to as many as 300,000 lobsters in the area around Heligoland in the long run from 50,000 to 100,000 now.

EXPLOSIONS

Scandinavian and Mediterranean lobster stocks have collapsed in the past few decades from a combination of environmental factors.

But some scientists cite British explosives as one reason for the decimation of the lobster population around Heligoland.

In one of the biggest bombing runs on Heligoland during the war, the Allied air force destroyed almost every building on the island, raining down 7,000 bombs in a two-hour raid on April 18, 1945.

For five years after the war, Britain used Heligoland for target practice, and in 1947 it set off some 7,000 metric tons worth of explosives to blow up U-boat pens in one of the biggest non-nuclear detonations on record.

Britain released the crater-scarred island for resettlement in 1952, but scientists say that was too late for the lobsters.

The toxins from the bombs may have hurt the crustaceans’ sense of smell, which is essential in finding a sexual partner and so damaged their ability to reproduce, Franke said.

Lobster expert Dominic Boothroyd, general manager of Britain’s National Lobster Hatchery, said the idea of using the hard foundations of a wind park made sense and that projects to reintroduce young lobsters had taken place in Britain and Norway, though not on wind farms.

“(From these projects), we know the animals survive and that they contribute to fishery and reproduce. We have also got a lot of interesting biological information,” Boothroyd said.

($ 1 = 0.7580 euros)

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; editing by Gareth Jones and Jane Baird)

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THE Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) will pay tribute to all the journalists who were killed for their unwavering commitment in southern Africa and the rest of the world, by celebrating the 20th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day tomorrow.

World Press Freedom Day is a celebration of the hard work and commitment by journalists in sharing life-changing news that allow people to better understand their societies.

Commemorative celebrations in nine countries in southern Africa are planned for this day and Misa Namibia will be celebrate World Press Freedom Day with a call for freedom of access to information.

Misa Namibia national director Natasha Tibinyane said the day will begin with a breakfast for journalists, editors, government officials, representatives from the diplomatic community, civil society representatives and the nation at large.

They have invited the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Joel Kapaanda as guest speaker.

Misa Namibia is also part of the Action Namibia Coalition campaigned for the passing legislation of an access to information law by the Namibian government.

Misa will also release its annual state of media freedom publication called ‘So This Is Democracy’.

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