Wall Street Week Ahead: Attention turns to financial earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After over a month of watching Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue, Wall Street can get back to what it knows best: Wall Street.

The first full week of earnings season is dominated by the financial sector - big investment banks and commercial banks - just as retail investors, free from the "fiscal cliff" worries, have started to get back into the markets.

Equities have risen in the new year, rallying after the initial resolution of the fiscal cliff in Washington on January 2. The S&P 500 on Friday closed its second straight week of gains, leaving it just fractionally off a five-year closing high hit on Thursday.

An array of financial companies - including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase - will report on Wednesday. Bank of America and Citigroup will join on Thursday.

"The banks have a read on the economy, on the health of consumers, on the health of demand," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

"What we're looking for is demand. Demand from small business owners, from consumers."

EARNINGS AND ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS

Investors were greeted with a slightly better-than-anticipated first week of earnings, but expectations were low and just a few companies reported results.

Fourth quarter earnings and revenues for S&P 500 companies are both expected to have grown by 1.9 percent in the past quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Few large corporations have reported, with Wells Fargo the first bank out of the gate on Friday, posting a record profit. The bank, however, made fewer mortgage loans than in the third quarter and its shares were down 0.8 percent for the day.

The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, is up about 30 percent from a low hit in June, rising in six of the last eight months, including January.

Investors will continue to watch earnings on Friday, as General Electric will round out the week after Intel's report on Thursday.

HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL DATA ON TAP

Next week will also feature the release of a wide range of economic data.

Tuesday will see the release of retail sales numbers and the Empire State manufacturing index, followed by CPI data on Wednesday.

Investors and analysts will also focus on the housing starts numbers and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve factory activity index on Thursday. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers are due on Friday.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment officer at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said he expected to see housing numbers continue to climb.

"They won't be that surprising if they're good, they'll be rather eye-catching if they're not good," he said. "The underlying drive of the markets, I think, is economic data. That's been the catalyst."

POLITICAL ANXIETY

Worries about the protracted fiscal cliff negotiations drove the markets in the weeks before the ultimate January 2 resolution, but fear of the debt ceiling fight has yet to command investors' attention to the same extent.

The agreement was likely part of the reason for a rebound in flows to stocks. U.S.-based stock mutual funds gained $7.53 billion after the cliff resolution in the week ending January 9, the most in a week since May 2001, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper.

Markets are unlikely to move on debt ceiling news unless prominent lawmakers signal that they are taking a surprising position in the debate.

The deal in Washington to avert the cliff set up another debt battle, which will play out in coming months alongside spending debates. But this alarm has been sounded before.

"The market will turn the corner on it when the debate heats up," Prudential Financial's Krosby said.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> a gauge of traders' anxiety, is off more than 25 percent so far this month and it recently hit its lowest since June 2007, before the recession began.

"The market doesn't react to the same news twice. It will have to be more brutal than the fiscal cliff," Krosby said. "The market has been conditioned that, at the end, they come up with an agreement."

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; editing by Rodrigo Campos)

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French Soldier Killed in Somalia Commando Raid

PARIS — As French forces continued air and ground operations in support of the government of Mali, French special forces failed early Saturday in a hostage rescue mission in southern Somalia.

At least one French commando died in the raid along with some 17 of the Al Shabab militiamen who were holding the hostage, whose fate is unclear, France’s defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said.

Mr. Le Drian insisted that the rescue mission, on the eastern edge of the continent, far from Mali, was unconnected to French military action against Islamist radicals who were threatening to seize more of Mali, but Islamist groups holding up to eight French hostages in northern Africa have threatened to kill them if the French intervene militarily on the continent.

The Somalia operation was carried out by the DGSE intelligence agency to rescue one of its own, an agent using the name Denis Allex, who had been taken hostage on July 14, 2009, from a Mogadishu hotel. He was working as a security consultant to the transitional government in Somalia, the French said.

The rescue operation, using helicopters, was a significant one that met “very strong resistance,” Mr. Le Drian said in a news conference. The fate of Mr. Allex is not clear. Mr. Le Drian said, speaking carefully, that “everything leads us to think that unfortunately Denis Allex was killed by his captors,” but it was clear that the French did not recover Mr. Allex or his body.

Mr. Le Drian said that Mr. Allex was in the location raided, and that 17 Al Shabab fighters had been killed in the operation.

In a statement later Saturday, the Al Shabab movement said that Mr. Allex was still alive and was being held in a different place, and that they were holding an injured French soldier. It was not possible to confirm the statement. The militant group “will give its final verdict regarding the fate of Dennis Allex within two days,” the group said in a statement in English linked to a post on its Twitter account on Saturday.

The movement also said that the raid was carried out at about 2 a.m. by five French helicopters in the southern Somali town of Bula-Marer and lasted about 45 minutes. “Instead of rescuing them, such ill-advised operations only further imperil the lives of the hostages,” the statement said. French military officials would not confirm those details or the name of the town.

Mr. Le Drian said that a French commando had been wounded and later died and that a French soldier was missing; the French Defense Ministry had earlier issued a statement saying that two French soldiers had died. Mr. Le Drian also said that the rescue operation had been planned for some time and had been delayed by weather.

The Defense Ministry statement justified the raid, saying: "Faced with the intransigence of the terrorists, who refused to negotiate for three and half years and who were holding Denis Allex in inhumane conditions, an operation was planned and carried out.” The statement also said that Mr. Allex was killed by his captors, but Mr. Le Drian was careful not to repeat that claim.

Mr. Le Drian also announced the death in the Mali fighting of a French helicopter pilot, Lt. Damien Boiteux. French airstrikes overnight drove back Islamic rebels from a key village, Konna, Mr. Le Drian said, and destroyed a militant command center, while attacking at least three different targets.

The rebels, who are said to have ties to various radical groups including offshoots of Al Qaeda, seized the largely desert region of northern Mali and have set up their own rule there in the last nine months. Their move toward the south prompted a call for French help on Thursday from the Mali government and the French military response on Friday, after France had repeatedly said that it would not get involved militarily except to aid African forces.

But the French tone changed quickly, and its intervention by air and ground troops found broad support in Africa and Western nations. "The threat is the establishment of a terrorist state within range of Europe and of France," Mr. Le Drian said.

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Britney & Jason's Love Story in 6 Sweet Shots

From a snuggle in the surf to a surprise engagement, see the former couple's most romantic moments

Credit: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage

Updated: Friday Jan 11, 2013 | 07:00 AM EST
By: Cara Lynn Shultz

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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.

"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."

The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.

"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."

Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.

Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.

At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.

Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.

And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.

So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.

"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."

Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.

Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.

"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.

Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.

Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.

"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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India Ink: Railway Fare Hike Announced

The Indian government said Wednesday that it would raise all railway passenger fares, which would be the first across-the-board increase in nine years, as it grapples with a growing fiscal deficit and weak finances.

Rail passengers will have to pay 10 to 25 percent more, depending on fare class, under the government’s plan, which is expected take effect Jan. 21. Pawan Kumar Bansal, the railways minister, said the higher fares will generate 66 billion rupees ($1.2 billion) in one year for the strained railway system. “Facilities and safety measures will improve with an increase in fares,” he told reporters.

The move comes as part of a series of fiscal changes initiated in September, including an increase in fuel prices and an opening of the retail sector to foreign investment. In October, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram announced a fiscal road map designed to cap the national deficit for this financial year at 5.3 percent of the gross domestic product.

The fare increase was welcomed by analysts. “This announcement signals the willingness of New Delhi to take politically unpopular decisions to put the economy in order,” said Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Financial Services. “Even if these measures are not particularly populist, the government is now ready to bite the bullet for improving the fiscal situation.”

However, the government’s plan has already been greeted with some resistance from the opposition parties. “The near 20 percent hike in fares has dealt a big blow to the common man, who is already reeling under high inflation,” said the spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Ravi Shankar Prasad, according to the Press Trust of India.

Increasing the railway passenger fares has always been a politically sensitive issue, with critics saying that the move that will harm the poorest of the poor, who will not be able to afford higher prices.

Although fares for freight and higher-class travel have seen increases, a lack of political support has kept railways ministers from successfully pushing up passenger fares across the board since 2004. In fact, as Vikas Bajaj of The New York Times noted, adjusted for inflation, railway ticket prices have fallen about 48 percent in the past nine years.

In March 2012, the former railways minister Dinesh Trivedi proposed raising fares, citing a required improvement in safety and modernization of the railways. He was almost immediately dismissed from his position by the West Bengal chief minister and his boss, Mamata Banerjee, who said the fare increase was unacceptable.

Speaking with India Ink shortly after his dismissal, Mr. Trivedi said, “There is too much politics in rail and a trend to discourage any kind of modernization and it is a sad story. If the railway is not robust, the economy of India will not grow.”

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HP Cloud Ushers in 2013 and GA Compute Service with Reduced Pricing

HP Cloud Services is continuously working to increase efficiency in our datacenters, so we can pass these efforts along to our customers via enhanced enterprise-class service and/or lower prices.  As a result, HP Cloud Services is starting the New Year by permanently lowering the prices on Linux instances of HP Cloud Compute by 12.5% and Object Storage by as much as 25%. 

Furthermore, to celebrate our Compute service’s move to General Availability (GA), we are offering a time-limited 40% discount on all Windows and Linux instances until March 31st, 2013.  We’re doing this to make it even easier for new and existing customers to try our new GA service and perform their initial integration work. You can read more about our differentiated, industry-leading SLA at “Under the Hood of HP Cloud Services SLAs” and about what we’re doing behind the scenes to actually deliver on and surpass our SLAs at “How HP Cloud Services Became Enterprise Class.” 

It’s worth noting that we also recently moved HP Cloud Block Storage to public beta and added several major new features, including bootable persistent volumes and enhancements in volume backup to object storage, as detailed here.  HP Cloud Block Storage is being discounted by 50% while in public beta, so now is the perfect time to give it a test drive if you haven’t already!

You can sign up now to start exploring our enterprise-class cloud.  For ongoing news about our new services, pricing and special offers, follow us on Twitter @hpcloud, subscribe to this blog, and follow our Facebook page.

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What's Got Tom Colicchio & Gail Simmons Spinning Out of Control?

Caught in the Act

01/11/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Tom Colicchi & Gail Simmons

Larry Busacca/Getty

From Top Chef to top cyclist!

Top Chef judges chef Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons kicked off 2013 on a healthy note by they visiting SoulCycle's Tribeca location on Wednesday.

"While Gail was upfront wearing a SoulCycle t-shirt, Tom was in the back wearing black shorts, an Under Armour tank and a do-rag," an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

The co-judges are no strangers to the cycling craze, the source adds. "They both spin on a regular basis" and "spin together regularly when they're filming Top Chef".

After powering through the last song of the class – Beyoncé's "Halo" – Colicchio stopped to chat with Food & Wine magazine publisher Christina Grdovic.

Here's to hoping for a Quickfire Competition on a bike!

– Lesley Messer

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Flu season strikes early and, in some places, hard

NEW YORK (AP) — From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.

Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.

While flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30 of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.

Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.

"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say. It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people sicker and really lay them low.

David Smythe of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even get up," he said.

Also, the flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.

"There may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most people don't undergo lab tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the flu.

Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.

"I'd say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The 17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166 visitors.

The early onslaught has resulted in a spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with flu symptoms from maternity wards.

One hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

On Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by people with flu-like symptoms.

All the flu activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line with what's been seen in other years.

The vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.

In New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years. She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just couldn't function," she said.

But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.

Europe is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has seen a surge in cases of norovirus.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC. That's an estimate — the agency does not keep a running tally of adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so far.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

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Stock futures flat ahead of Wells Fargo earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures were little changed on Friday, a day after the S&P 500 hit a five-year high and ahead of earnings from Wells Fargo, the first big bank to report this season.

The Japanese government approved a massive $117 billion of spending to revive the economy in the biggest stimulus since the financial crisis, a move that boosted optimism about the global outlook.

Basic materials shares could be hurt after China's annual consumer inflation rate picked up to a seven-month high, narrowing the scope for the central bank to boost the economy by easing monetary policy.

S&P 500 futures dipped 1 point and were slightly below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 7 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 1 point.

American Express said it would cut about 5,400 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its workforce, as it restructures its business and pays legal bills.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner jet suffered a cracked cockpit window and an oil leak on separate flights in Japan on Friday - the latest in a series of incidents to test confidence in the new aircraft. Shares fell 1.4 percent to $76 in premarket trading.

Best Buy shares fell 1.7 percent to $12.00 in premarket trading after it reported flat holiday sales at established U.S. stores.

The U.S. Commerce Department releases November international trade figures at 8:30 a.m. ET (1330 GMT). Economists in a Reuters poll expect a trade deficit of $41.3 billion in November against a gap of $42.24 billion in October.

At the same time, the Labor Department releases import-export prices for December. Economists forecast a 0.1 percent rise in imports and an unchanged reading for exports.

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser speaks on the economic outlook before the New Jersey Economic Leadership Forum at 9:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT).

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Top Kurdish Militant Is Among Three Slain in Paris

Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Members of the Kurdish community in France protested on Thursday near the institute in Paris where three Kurdish women were found killed.

PARIS — Three Kurdish women, including a founding member of a leading militant group fighting for autonomy in Turkey, were shot to death at a Kurdish institute in central Paris, police officials said on Thursday, potentially jeopardize fragile efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the decades-old conflict.

News reports identified one of the women as Sakine Cansiz, a founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by the initials P.K.K. Another was identified as Fidan Dogan, the head of the institute and a representative of the Kurdistan National Committee. The third woman was Leyla Soylemez, a youthful Kurdish activist.

The women’s bodies were discovered shortly before 2 a.m. on Thursday, according to Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, and the antiterror department of the prosecutor’s office will oversee the investigation.

“No hypothesis can be excluded at this stage" about the motive for the killing, she said, declining to confirm the identities of the victims.

Earlier, a police official said the circumstances of the killings “could lead to the conclusion that this was an execution but inquiries will determine the precise nature of this drama.” Visiting the institute on Thursday, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls called the killings “intolerable” and said they were “without doubt an execution.”

Berivan Akyol, an employee at the Kurdish Institute of Paris, located in the 10th district of the city near the Gare du Nord railroad station, was quoted as saying the killings — which opened a new chapter in the often murky annals of Kurdish exile life — were “politically motivated.”

While Kurdish militants blamed Turkey, Turkish officials said the women could have been killed because of feuding within the P.K.K. Huseyin Celik, the deputy chairman of the ruling party in Turkey, said the shootings seemed to be part of “an internal feud,” but offered no evidence to support the claim, The Associated Press reported.

Police officials said a murder investigation had been opened. The bodies and three shell casings were found in a room at the institute. The women were all said to hold Turkish passports.

The P.K.K. has been fighting a bitter guerrilla war against the Turkish authorities for almost three decades to reinforce demands for greater autonomy. The conflict has claimed some 40,000 lives. But, recently, Turkish officials have acknowledged that the authorities in Ankara have negotiated a tentative peace plan with the imprisoned P.K.K. leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union have labeled the P.K.K. a terrorist organization, but sympathy for the group and its goals remains widespread in many towns in Turkey’s rugged southeast.

Restive Kurdish minorities span a broad region embracing areas of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and parts of the former Soviet Union. Regional turmoil in recent years has emboldened Kurdish separatists inspired by the example of Iraqi Kurds who control an autonomous zone. Turkey also fears that the civil war in neighboring Syria could strengthen the separatist yearnings of Kurds there, feeding Kurdish activism in Turkey.

The killings, which apparently took place Wednesday, inspired hundreds of Kurdish exiles to gather outside the institute onb Thursday, chanting “We are all P.K.K.” and accusing Turkey of assassinating the three women, abetted by the French president, François Hollande.

The bodies were first discovered in the early hours of Thursday by Kurdish exiles who had become concerned about the whereabouts of the women.

  The victims had been alone in the building on Wednesday and could not be reached by telephone in the late afternoon, according to Leon Edart, who manages the center. Mr. Edart, speaking to French reporters, suggested the victims may have opened the door to their killer or killers.

An organization called the Federation of Kurdish Associations in France, representing many of the estimated 150,000 Kurdish exiles in the country, said in a statement that the women might have been killed on Wednesday afternoon with weapons equipped with silencers.

Scott Sayare reported from Paris, Alan Cowell from London and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.

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