Greek motorcycle rally starts off week of protests

ATHENS, Greece — Sirens blaring, striking municipal police officers brought traffic to a standstill across central Athens on Monday as part of mounting protests against new government cuts.

The officers parked their motorcycles and patrol cars outside parliament, government buildings and the offices of the governing center-right New Democracy party and its Socialist coalition partner. The noisy start-and-stop protest lasted more than five hours.

It launched a week of planned demonstrations against the latest round of austerity measures that will impose staff cuts on teachers and local government. Municipal authorities across Greece — including the Athens municipal police, who are generally tasked with checking parking violations and checking street vendors — have suspended services for three days, while unions have called a general strike for Tuesday.

The strike is set to disrupt flights, national rail travel and public hospitals.

Greece's international creditors demanded the job cuts before approving new bailout loan installments worth 6.8 billion euros ($8.9 billion) from a massive rescue fund worth 240 billion euros ($312 billion). The latest batch of loans will be paid out between July and October.

Public sector workers, while slapped with repeated salary and benefit cuts, have been spared firings until this year.

The measures are to be voted on by parliament this week — the first major political test for Conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras since a left-wing party abandoned his coalition government last month, leaving it with a reduced majority.

Samaras' 13-month-old coalition has promised to fire 15,000 public sector employees by the end of 2014 and transfer another 12,500 to new positions this year, most following an eight-month suspension on reduced pay.

He is facing renewed opposition from the left-wing Syriza party, which has made a campaign promise to re-hire dismissed public servants and at the weekend voted to overhaul its party structure to prepare for potential early elections.

Government officials met with protesting mayors Monday and insisted there was room for changes in the new austerity bill to be voted late Wednesday, but they ruled out backing the major amendments demanded by local government.

"We are not opposed to reform ... What we do oppose is abolishing entire institutions like the municipal police and personnel to guard state schools," said Costas Askounis, leader of the protesting Central Union of Municipalities.

Greece has been kept out of bankruptcy since it started receiving rescue loans in 2010 from other euro countries at the International Monetary Fund, but austerity measures demanded in return have caused a dramatic increase in poverty and unemployment.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, considered an architect of bailout austerity measures in the eurozone, is due to visit Athens on Thursday.

Shares on the Athens Stock Exchange fell 0.5 percent on Monday, while markets elsewhere in Europe rose slightly.

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Markets shored up by China's 7.5 percent growth

LONDON — Relief over China's economic growth rate shored up stock markets Monday despite weaker than anticipated U.S. retail sales figures.

China, the world's second-largest economy grew 7.5 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter. Though the figure is down on the previous quarter's 7.7 percent, there had been fears it might fall below 7 percent. A sharp drop would hurt companies around the world that have become increasingly reliant on breakneck Chinese growth to boost earnings.

"Despite the fact that the China growth figure represents an extension of the overall slowing trajectory, being the ninth slowdown in the past ten quarters, equity markets seemed broadly relieved," said Brenda Kelly, market strategist at IG.

Following a 1 percent rise in the Shanghai Composite Index to 2,059.39, European stock markets posted solid gains. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed up 0.6 percent at 6,586.11, while Germany's DAX rose 0.3 percent to 8,234.81. The CAC-40 in France ended 0.1 percent higher at 3,878.58.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.1 percent at 15,479, while the broader S&P 500 was steady at 1,680.

Wall Street was not as strong as futures markets had been predicting. That was due to news that U.S. retail sales only grew 0.4 percent in June from the month before. That was half the rate expected and may mean downward revisions to U.S. second quarter growth forecasts. Retail sales account for around 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

"After today's report, there is a very real possibility that Q2 GDP will be less than 1 percent for the second time in the last three quarters," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG.

Though the figures suggest the U.S. economy is not growing as quickly as anticipated, they may mean the U.S. Federal Reserve starts reducing its monetary stimulus later. For weeks the Fed's monetary stance has been the main driver in markets. The Dow and the S&P 500 struck all-time highs last week partly on an indication from the Fed that the monetary stimulus may be in place for longer than previously expected. At the moment, the Fed is buying around $85 billion of assets in the markets, and that's helped prop up stocks for months.

Some comfort came from forecast-busting earnings from Citigroup. The bank made $1.25 per share during the second quarter, beating the $1.18 per share predicted by analysts polled by FactSet.

It's a busy week on the U.S. corporate reporting front. Other reports expected this week include Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, Google and Microsoft. General Electric caps off the week Friday.

The dollar has faltered in recent days as expectations of a tightening in the Fed's policies have eased. It clawed back some ground Monday, with the euro 0.2 percent lower at $1.3037. The dollar was 0.7 percent higher at 100.06 yen.

Earlier in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.1 percent to 21,303.31 and Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.1 percent to 4,981.10. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.3 percent 1,875.16. Japan's financial markets were closed for a public holiday.

Oil prices gave up some recent gains. Benchmark crude for August delivery was down 97 cents at $104.98 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained $1.04 to $105.95 in New York on Friday, driven higher by continuing tensions in Egypt and a sharp drop in U.S. crude stockpiles.

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Italy's Eni lowers targets at Iraq oil field

BAGHDAD — The Italian oil company Eni says it has agreed to lower production targets at a major oil field in Iraq's south while extending the length of the contract by five years.

Foreign oil companies have helped turn around Iraq's dilapidated oil industry in recent years, but export bottlenecks have forced Iraqi officials to rethink the pace of oil field development.

Eni says the deal signed Monday in Baghdad sets a new target at the Zubair field of 850,000 barrels of oil per day through 2035.

The 20-year deal it signed with Iraq in 2010 originally called for 1.2 million barrels of daily production.

Eni is the main contractor developing the 4.1 billion barrel Zubair field as part of a consortium that includes Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and South Korea's KOGAS.

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Hungary aims to close IMF office, repay loan early

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary said Monday it was considering paying back its bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund early as well as closing the organization's office in Budapest.

National Bank of Hungary President Gyorgy Matolcsy said in a letter addressed to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde that, while they appreciated "the valuable support" the Washington-based group gave the country, the stand-by credit program "is almost complete." As such, Matolcsy said, it was no longer necessary for the IMF to keep an office in Hungary.

The IMF said that since the current IMF representative in Hungary was due to leave soon anyway, it would comply with Hungary's request.

"As Ms. Iryna Ivaschenko's posting as Resident Representative in Hungary was due to end in late August and the IMF's presence in member countries is at the invitation of country authorities, the IMF will not seek to replace her," the IMF said in a statement. "The IMF looks forward to continued cooperation with Hungary in the context of regular bilateral consultations as with other member countries."

Hungary still has $2.125 billion to pay the IMF from its original credit line of $25.5 billion. The last installment is due in early 2014, close to the country's national elections.

The country was given the credit line from the IMF and other creditors in 2008, during a Socialist-led government, after markets shunned its bond bond auctions — making it difficult for Hungary to repay its loans — while its currency and stock market plunged. But Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government chose not to renew the deal in 2010 to avoid closer IMF scrutiny of its economic policies.

In late 2011, however, Matolcsy, then the economy minister, said Hungary would again seek a "precautionary" deal with the IMF at a time when the forint, the Hungarian currency, had weakened sharply, bond sales were unsuccessful and the country's debt rating was about to be downgraded to below investment grade — or junk — by the main ratings agencies.

But the new IMF loan never materialized and Hungary's announcement — and the months of negotiations with the Fund that followed — were considered by analysts as part of a delaying tactic to gain time until the international financial situation stabilized and the country's bonds again became attractive to investors.

In February, Hungary sold $3.25 billion in foreign-currency bonds to investors, returning to the international debt market for the first time in nearly two years.

In his letter to Lagarde, Matolcsy outlined some of the successes achieved by the government, including of cutting of the state budget deficit to below 3 percent of its gross domestic product, as a result of "bold fiscal consolidation measures" and structural reforms.

Some of the "bold" measures have included the nationalization of some $14 billion in assets previously managed by private pension funds, windfall taxes on banks and other companies, taxes on all financial transactions and telephone calls, a flat income tax rate of 16 percent, forcing gas and electricity companies to cut utility prices for households and, at 27 percent, the EU's highest VAT rate.

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Tips to boost brain health and lower dementia risk

You may be able to help keep your brain in shape, not just the rest of your body. A large study in France suggests that delaying retirement and working until later in life may help prevent dementia.

Some other things the Alzheimer's Association suggests for healthy aging:

—Stay active. Many studies show exercise reduces dementia risk.

—Stay connected — join a club, travel, volunteer. Social ties boost brain health.

—Eat right. High cholesterol may contribute to stroke and brain cell damage, while dark vegetables and fruits may help protect brain cells.

—Do mentally challenging activities such as word puzzles and other things that stimulate thinking skills.

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Online:

Alzheimer's Association: http://tinyurl.com/qawh87

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Real Madrid tops Forbes' most valuable teams list

NEW YORK — Real Madrid tops Forbes' list of 50 most valuable sports teams, with Manchester United and Barcelona holding the next two spots.

Forbes says Real Madrid is worth $3.3 billion. The Spanish power moved up a spot from No. 2 last year.

Man United, which was No. 1 last year, is worth $3.17 million. Barcelona, Real Madrid's fierce rival and Spanish League champions last season, is worth $2.6 billion.

The New York Yankees are fourth with a value of $2.3 billion and the Dallas Cowboys are fifth at $2.1 billion.

Thirty of the 32 NFL teams made the list (http://onforb.es/15HuUAm ) , along with seven baseball teams and seven soccer teams.

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HP names 3 new board members amid turnaround push

NEW YORK — Hewlett-Packard Co. has named three new members to its board, including former executives from McDonald's and Microsoft, as it forges ahead with its turnaround push.

The company said Monday that it appointed former McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner; Raymond Ozzie, former chief software architect at Microsoft Corp.; and Robert Bennett, former president and CEO of Liberty Media Corp.

The appointments, which are effective immediately, boost the number of directors to 12, up from nine.

HP has been struggling amid declining PC sales, with people spending their money on smartphones and tablet computers instead. Like many other PC manufacturers, HP was slow to respond to the shift and then stumbled trying to catch up with Apple Inc. and other manufacturers, such as Samsung Electronics Co., that make devices running Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

The new appointments come three months after HP announced that Chairman Ray Lane was stepping down and two other board members were leaving in a shake-up spurred by disgruntled stockholders stung by the company's downfall. The two who left had been the longest serving members on the board and were targeted by shareholders primarily because their roles on the board had given them oversight over HP's acquisition strategy. Most of the company's major deals in recent years have gone badly, saddling HP with losses of more than $17 billion since 2010.

Lane remains on the board as a regular member. Ralph Whitworth, a shareholder activist on the board, was named interim chairman in April. HP said Monday that it was still seeking a permanent chairman as well as additional directors in the coming months.

On the latest appointments, CEO Meg Whitman said in a statement that "it's a huge benefit to be able to get advice from a board made up of such experienced business and technology leaders. For their part, Dob, Ray and Jim have just about seen it all during their careers."

Whitman has portrayed HP's turnaround as a multi-year effort. She has been overhauling the company's product line and pushing into more profitable niches in business software, data analysis and storage and technology consulting. HP also is in the process of eliminating nearly 30,000 jobs and shedding other expenses.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company says Skinner is joining the audit, human resources and compensation and nominating and governance committees. Ozzie will join the technology and finance and investment committees and Bennett will join the finance and investment and audit committees.

HP shares rose 9 cents to $26.28 in midday trading Monday.

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Key moments in Hewlett-Packard's recent history

Hewlett-Packard Co. named three new members to its board Monday as it continues its turnaround efforts. HP has been struggling amid declining PC sales, with people spending their money on smartphones and tablet computers instead. Here's a timeline of some key events in HP's history since it acquired the PC business.

— Sept. 3, 2001: HP announces it is buying fellow computer maker Compaq Computer in a deal that would create a formidable rival to IBM.

— May 3, 2002: HP and Compaq combine businesses following a contentious road to the acquisition, which was opposed by former director Walter Hewlett, the son of HP co-founder William Hewlett. The final acquisition price was $19 billion. HP adds the letter Q to its ticker symbol to create "HPQ."

— Feb. 9, 2005: CEO Carly Fiorina steps down amid upheaval about the company's performance following her contested decision to buy Compaq.

— March 29, 2005: Mark Hurd named as new CEO. Starts job in April.

— May 1: IBM sells its personal computer division to Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group for $1.75 billion. IBM now focuses on consulting and software, outsourcing much of its manufacturing.

— July 19: HP announces plans to cut 14,500 jobs, Hurd's first big act as CEO.

— Sept. 22, 2006: HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn is forced from the board over a disastrous investigation into boardroom leaks to the media that included spying on reporters' and directors' phone records.

— Aug. 26, 2008: HP buys Electronic Data Systems, which sells technology services, for $13 billion. A month later, HP announces plans to cut 24,600 jobs as part of integrating the businesses.

— Nov. 11, 2009: HP agrees to buy networking software and equipment maker 3Com Corp. in a $2.7 billion deal.

— April 28, 2010: HP agrees to buy struggling smartphone maker Palm Inc. for nearly $1 billion in cash. It says Palm's webOS operating system will help boost its participation in the mobile market.

— Aug. 6: Hurd resigns as CEO after investigation into a sexual harassment claim finds expense reports that were allegedly falsified to conceal a relationship with an HP marketing contractor.

— Sept. 30: HP names Leo Apotheker CEO. Apotheker was the chief of German business software maker SAP AG, which did not renew his contract after financial performance faltered. HP names Ray Lane, another CEO candidate, as non-executive chairman. Lane is a partner at Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers, a renowned venture capital firm.

— Jan. 20, 2011: HP shakes up board, replacing four of its members.

— May 3: Leaked memo from Apotheker shows the CEO warning of "another tough quarter" for the company, sending HP's shares sharply lower. The memo says management needs to "watch every penny and minimize all hiring."

— Aug. 18: HP announces it will discontinue its tablet computer and smartphone products and may sell or spin off its PC division.

— Sept. 22: HP fires Apotheker after just 11 months and replaces him with billionaire businesswoman and political aspirant Meg Whitman, who accelerates an internal review on the fate of the PC division. Lane becomes the board's executive chairman.

— Oct. 27: HP says it will keep the PC division after all, saying that keeping it is right for the company, its customers, shareholders and business partners.

— Dec. 9: HP says that instead of selling its webOS mobile system or killing it off, it's making it available as open-source software that anyone can use and modify freely. HP says it still plans to develop and support webOS. In offering it to the open-source community, the company is hoping more mobile apps will be developed under webOS.

— Feb. 22, 2012: Whitman urges investors to be patient and talks of a "multiyear journey" for a turnaround. She says she has a good sense of what the company needs to do, but it will take time to fix HP's internal operations and make investments to grow in areas such as security services, information management and Internet-based systems known as cloud computing.

— March 21: HP says it will combine its PC and printers businesses. The move will save an unspecified amount of money as the company expects improved productivity and efficiency and streamlined customer support and supply chain.

— April 11: Estimates from research groups Gartner and IDC suggest that HP has regained much of the PC business it had lost during the period of indecision.

— May 23: HP says it plans to eliminate 27,000 jobs, the largest payroll purge in its 73-year history. The reductions will affect about 8 percent of its nearly 350,000 employees by the time the overhaul is completed in October 2014. HP hopes to avoid many layoffs by offering early retirement packages. The company expects to save as much as $3.5 billion annually from the job cuts and other austerity measures.

— May 30: Bill Veghte is promoted to chief operating officer, just four months after he was tasked with shaping HP's strategy. He will keep those duties, while HP named an outsider to replace him as head of HP's software division.

— Aug. 8: HP says it will take a massive charge against its earnings for the quarter through July, leading to a record loss of nearly $9 billion. The charge is the result of a writedown of the value of its services business, reflecting that the company overpaid for EDS in 2008. The services business provides information technology and outsourcing services to corporations. It has seen flat revenue for the last two years, and its operating profit has declined.

— Aug. 22: HP reports the largest quarterly loss in its history as it accounted for the EDS business.

— Sept. 10: HP says it plans to cut about 2,000 more jobs than it had previously announced, bringing the total to 29,000 jobs by October 2014.

— Oct. 3: HP says it expects earnings to fall by more than 10 percent in 2013. Whitman says she inherited a bloated company that hasn't been innovating quickly enough in any of its divisions, which span from personal computers and printers to software and data storage. The headaches are so severe that Whitman believes HP's revenue growth might not accelerate again until 2015.

— Nov. 20: HP says it's the victim of a multi-billion dollar fraud at the hands of Autonomy. HP says executives at Autonomy "willfully" boosted the company's figures through various accounting tricks. HP is taking an $8.8 billion charge to align Autonomy's purchase price with what HP now says is its real value. HP says more than $5 billion of that charge is due to false accounting. Lynch says HP's allegations are false.

— Feb. 25, 2013: HP says it is selling its webOS software to South Korean electronics company LG Electronics, securing a new home for a technological orphan. The deal rids HP of the centerpiece of its ill-fated, $1.8 billion purchase of Palm Inc. three years earlier.

— March 20: HP barely rebuffs a shareholder rebellion aimed at ousting the two longest-serving directors from its board as punishment for a series of botched acquisition and other pratfalls. John Hammergren and G. Kennedy Thompson both were re-elected by unusually narrow margins. Lane, the board chairman, was backed by just 59 percent of the vote.

— April 4: HP says Lane is stepping down as chairman, two weeks after a near ousting by shareholders. Hammergren and Thompson are also leaving. Board member Ralph V. Whitworth becomes interim chairman. Lane will stay on HP's board.

— May 22: Even as HP's revenue has declined at the fastest rate yet in a nearly two-year slump, the company delivers fiscal second-quarter earnings that top the estimates of both its own management and the analysts who influence investor perceptions. HP provides Wall Street with another encouraging sign by predicting its earnings for the current quarter will top analyst projections. It also raises its earnings forecast for the full year, another sign that management is confident that HP's profits won't fall as dramatically as many investors feared while the PC market crumbles.

— June 18: Todd Bradley, the head of Hewlett-Packard Co.'s printing and personal computer business, is appointed to a new position in charge of the company's strategy with a focus on China. Whitman says his tasks will include identifying small companies and startups that "could partner with HP to spur growth."

— July 15: HP names three new members to its board: former McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner; Raymond Ozzie, former chief software architect at Microsoft Corp.; and Robert Bennett, former president and CEO of Liberty Media Corp. The appointments boost the number of directors to 12, up from nine. HP says it continues to search for a permanent board chairman.

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Survey: Patient access to doctors mixed in Mass.

BOSTON — About half of the state's primary care practices are closed to new patients and wait times to see a primary care physician remain long, according to the results of an annual survey released Monday by the Massachusetts Medical Society.

According to the survey of 1,137 doctor's offices, 51 percent of family physicians and 45 percent of internists are accepting new patients. Family physicians and internists are the two most common types of general practitioners.

The results are similar to last year's survey that found 50 percent of family doctors and 51 percent of internists open to new patients in Massachusetts.

The average wait time for a non-emergency appointment with a primary care doctor in the latest survey is 39 days for family physicians, an improvement from 45 days last year. But the wait time to see an internist was 50 days, up from 44 days a year ago.

The figures varied widely by region. The shortest average wait time for family medicine was 16 days in Suffolk County, and the longest was 106 days for Franklin County in western Massachusetts. For internal medicine, the shortest average wait was 26 days in Worcester County, the longest 128 days in Bristol County.

"While we've achieved success in securing insurance coverage for nearly all of our residents, coverage doesn't guarantee access to care," said Dr. Ronald Dunlap, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, referring to the state's first-in-the-nation universal health insurance law.

"The concern is that limited and delayed access can lead to undesirable results, as people will seek more costly care at emergency rooms, delay care too long, or not seek care at all," he said.

Access to care was better for children, with 70 percent of pediatric practices accepting new patients, the survey found, though that was down 2 percent from last year. The average wait time for a non-emergency visit to a pediatrician was 25 days.

Average wait times for specialty care, including cardiology, gastroenterology, were about the same or somewhat lower than a year ago. One exception was for orthopedics, which saw an increase from 16 days in 2012 to 22 days this year.

The survey also found that it was much easier to find a specialist than a primary care doctor. For example, 85 percent of cardiologists and 84 percent of obstetricians-gynecologists were accepting new patients.

Dunlap said the state's medical community continued to have a strong record of accepting the government insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid.

Ninety percent of family physicians accept Medicare and 70 percent accept MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, according to the survey. Among internists, 85 percent accept Medicare and 66 percent take MassHealth patients. The medical society noted that acceptance rates for MassHealth increased in general among primary care physicians over last year's survey.

Medicare acceptance rates among the major specialties were all above 90 percent and above 80 percent for MassHealth.

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Judge says Pixar and Lucasfilm settled suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A court document says Lucasfilm and Pixar have settled a lawsuit that claims they and other giant companies conspired to keep wages down by agreeing not to poach each other's workers.

In a Sunday filing, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh says lawyers representing the workers had notified her about the settlement with Lucasfilm and Pixar. Terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.

The San Jose lawsuit still continues against Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc.

It contends they schemed to cheat employees by artificially suppressing the demand for their services. A status report on efforts to settle the case is supposed to be filed by Friday.

Emails seeking comment from Lucasfilm Ltd. and Pixar weren't immediately returned Monday. The Walt Disney Co. owns both companies.

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Information from: San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com

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