European Space Agency scientists think that there was and could even still be life on Mars and want a new European mission to the red planet to take samples, a conference heard in Noordwijk, The Netherlands heard on Friday, February 25, 2005.

MOSCOW | Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:37pm EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Europe and Russia signed a deal on Thursday for a joint Mars mission which will bore beneath the Red Planet's surface for soil samples they hope will solve the mystery of whether there is life beyond Earth.

Europe's space agency had hoped to work with NASA on the two-spacecraft ExoMars mission but turned to the Russians after the U.S. agency pulled out due to budget shortfalls.

The announcement comes amid heightened excitement over the search for life on the planet in our solar system most like Earth after scientists said analysis from NASA's own mission rover, Curiosity, showed Mars had the right ingredients for life.

European scientists say the two-stage mission, with the two craft to be launched in 2016 and 2018, will pave the way for what NASA has described as the "Holy Grail" of Mars exploration: a separate mission to return dirt samples from the Red Planet.

"Curiosity learnt us a little bit, ExoMars will bring us a step further, but bringing back those samples to Earth you can do 10 to 100 times more analysis," Rolf de Groot, head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Robotic Exploration Coordination Office, told Reuters.

"That is a goal of everybody who works on Mars exploration."

The Europe-Russia mission hopes to take scientists beyond NASA's finding that the surface of Earth's neighboring planet had the right mix of elements to sustain life, by drilling 2 meters (6 feet) below its radiation-hit surface for samples.

"NASA is also drilling, but two centimeters deep," de Groot said, referring to the ongoing Curiosity mission. "It's a completely different story."

"ExoMars, by drilling 2 meters into the ground, might hope to identify really the big molecules because that would be a direct indication of the presence of life or that life once existed on Mars."

He said the ESA's Mars rover would also be equipped with a much more advanced laboratory than Curiosity has, so would be able to carry out more detailed analysis.

RUSSIAN ROCKETS

Russian Space Agency Roskosmos will provide the rockets to launch the ExoMars - short for Exobiology on Mars - mission and will also design the descent module and surface platform.

Europe turned to Russia after NASA left the $1.3 billion project in February 2012, citing a budget crunch. The ESA and Roskosmos agreed to cooperate last April, but talks to work out the details dragged on for nearly a year.

"This event was a long time in the making and took a great deal of collaboration," Roskosmos head Vladimir Popovkin said after signing the deal with ESA Director Jean-Jacques Dordain in Paris.

Russia's involvement in the ambitious mission could boost the status of its once-pioneering space agency after a litany of costly and embarrassing failures.

The delays in agreeing the mission hinged on the extent of Russia's participation, according to Russian space experts who said Moscow had seemed to reach its goal of full partnership.

"The agreement implies that Russian scientists and engineers will become full-fledged participants in all the international scientific and technical groups," Roskosmos said in a statement.

What was to be Russia's first deep space mission in more than two decades - the Phobos-Grunt mission to scoop up soil samples from Mars - was among five botched launches that damaged Moscow's reputation as a reliable launch partner.

European governments have so far committed 850 million euros to the mission. The funding cap has been set at 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) but delays and changes to the scientific aspects of the project are expected to drive up the price tag.

Even though NASA pulled out, it will still provide radio communications equipment, an important organics experiment and engineering and mission support.

The United States also plans to follow up its Curiosity rover with an identical probe, to launch in 2020. It has not yet decided if it will cache samples for a future return to Earth.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2011 ranked a Mars sample return mission as its top priority in planetary science for the next decade. The long-term goal of the U.S. human space program is to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s.

(Additional reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Pravin Char)

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1 of 3. Police block the traffic at M1-M7 highway outside of Budapest March 15, 2013, as heavy snow hits Hungary.

BUDAPEST | Fri Mar 15, 2013 2:43pm EDT

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary deployed tanks to reach thousands of motorists trapped in heavy snow on Friday in a sudden cold snap and high winds which also struck parts of the Balkans, Slovakia and Poland and have left at least four people dead.

Snow stranded people in cars, buses and trains through the night and conspired with strong winds to cut off dozens of towns and villages in Hungary. The situation was critical on the M1 motorway linking Budapest and Vienna where hundreds of cars and trucks got stranded in the snow, most of them for over 20 hours.

By 1730 GMT disaster units had rescued most people stranded in the snow, putting up 12,000 in temporary shelters until the weather improved, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told a news conference.

He said 155 people were still out on the roads waiting for help, including one transplant patient in an ambulance whose life was in danger.

"The situation is particularly difficult and serious on the M1 motorway near the town of Babolna where there is a wall of snow, spanning 12 km (7 miles) with some gaps, and due to the strong winds even the deployment of helicopters is difficult," Orban said on his return from an EU meeting in Brussels.

A Reuters photographer travelling with a rescue convoy said high winds had caused snowdrifts on the motorway up to a meter (3 feet) high, with some cars totally buried.

Two people were killed in an accident on another Hungarian motorway on Thursday when dozens of cars collided. Tens of thousands of people were without power in the northeast of the country.

Government spokesman Andras Giro-Szasz got stranded in snow on a road overnight until a rescuer pulled his car out at 4.a.m, he told local Inforadio.

Many people took to Facebook to appeal for help.

NO ELECTRICITY

The government said it had sent out tanks and other military vehicles with caterpillar tracks to reach otherwise inaccessible areas and to pull vehicles out of snow drifts.

The weekend's premier league and second tier football fixtures were cancelled, with night-time temperatures expected to hit -5 to -15 degrees Celsius (23 to 5 Fahrenheit).

After a relatively mild winter for much of the region, almost 200,000 people in Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia were left shivering without electricity on Friday. Heavy rain hit parts of Serbia and Bosnia.

In Bulgaria, one woman was killed when scaffolding collapsed in high winds in the central town of Gabrovo, and a school was evacuated in the southern town of Krichim when wind tore off the roof.

To the south, in Kosovo, a 10-year-old girl drowned when a river burst its banks in heavy rain in the northern town of Skenderaj. Dozens of homes were flooded in the west of the country, a Reuters reporter said.

"The situation is alarming," Klina municipality spokeswoman Samije Gjergjaj told Reuters. She said some 300 people were stranded by 3-metre high floodwater.

"There's just one small boat evacuating these people," said Gjergjaj. "We're waiting for the state emergency services to help out."

Heavy snow also paralyzed parts of southeastern Poland, where police banned heavy lorries from entering the city of Rzeszow for fear they would get stuck.

In eastern Slovakia, snow stranded about 40 lorries on a highway in the High Tatras region. The army deployed hundreds of soldiers to help out and authorities appealed to people to avoid venturing out by car.

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina, Chris Borowski in Warsaw, Sam Cage in Sofia, Martin Santa in Bratislava, Daria Sito-Sucic and Maja Zuvela in Sarajevo; Writing by Matt Robinson in Belgrade; Editing by Pravin Char)

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The General Motors logo is seen outside its headquarters at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan in this file photograph taken August 25, 2009.

DETROIT | Thu Feb 14, 2013 3:49pm EST

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) reported a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, citing wider losses in Europe and lower vehicle prices plus higher costs in its core North American market.

The largest U.S. automaker also made an accounting change in the quarter, intended to signal confidence that it will continue to be profitable in coming years. The move resulted in a $26 billion charge for the quarter, however.

Shares of GM, which did not change its 2013 profit outlook, initially bounced between positive and negative territory and were off 3.4 percent at $27.69 in late trading.

"An entrenched GM investor may see no need to sell, while a prospective investor may see no need to rush in," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a research note.

GM went public in the autumn of 2010, after its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring and $50 billion U.S.-taxpayer bailout.

Several analysts said GM's $699 million operating loss in Europe in the quarter was wider than they had expected.

Conditions in the region will be challenging for another few years, said Edward Jones analyst Christian Mayes, who has a "hold" rating on GM's stock. "They're moving in the right direction, but it's difficult over there to move fast because it's so challenging to shut down plants."

GM posted a profit of 48 cents per share before one-time items, 3 cents shy of the analysts' average estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Operating losses in Europe last year more than doubled to $1.8 billion, reflecting rapid deteriorating vehicle demand and weak economic conditions there. It was the 13th straight year of losses in Europe.

"Europe was a little lighter, although I don't think people are going to really punish the stock for a few pennies' miss in Europe, just because we're probably at or near the bottom of that cycle," said Jefferies analyst Peter Nesvold, who rates GM shares at "hold."

Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann said GM still expects industry sales in Europe to decline in 2013 and is "not betting on" a pickup later in the year, but Chief Executive Dan Akerson reiterated the company's goal of breaking even in the region by mid-decade.

"It's not like we're just hoping for the best," he said about Europe on a conference call. "We have certain levers that we can pull.

"We're going to be smart about how we cut costs. It isn't just 'close plants.' We're trying to play offense."

Akerson pointed to the new Opel Mokka SUV and Adam minicar in Europe, where GM has said it will introduce 23 new vehicles between 2012 and 2016.

Barclays analyst Brian Johnson said in a research note that "investors should take some comfort," as GM Europe will show a $600 million drop in depreciation and amortization expenses due to a writedown of assets. As a result, he now expects GM Europe's loss this year to be closer to a range of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion, instead of the $1.4 billion he previously anticipated.

LOWER PRICING AT HOME

During the fourth quarter, costs rose by $400 million in North America, GM's most profitable region. But combined vehicle pricing fell by $300 million there as the company offered incentives to cut through its inventory of trucks on dealer lots ahead of its introduction of redesigned versions this year.

It was the first drop in North American pricing for GM since the first quarter of 2011.

Jefferies' Nesvold said the weaker Japanese yen and the deteriorating European market would probably lead to more competitive pricing in North America.

That would continue the trend seen in the fourth quarter, when GM lost one percentage point of U.S. market share despite raising its incentives slightly, according to research firm TrueCar.com.

GM's revenue in the fourth quarter rose 3 percent to $39.3 billion, above the $39.15 billion analysts had expected.

Net income at the Detroit company almost doubled to $892 million, or 54 cents a share, from $472 million, or 28 cents a share, a year earlier.

Operating profit fell 6.8 percent to almost $1.4 billion in North America, but jumped almost 27 percent to $473 million at the international operations unit, which is dominated by China, where GM is a market leader. South America swung to a $99 million profit from a year-earlier loss of $225 million.

The quarterly results included a $34.9 billion reversal of a valuation allowance on U.S. and Canadian deferred tax assets. The move, which rival Ford Motor Co (F.N) made in late 2011, reflects confidence in GM's ability to generate taxable income in those markets.

GM took a non-cash goodwill asset impairment charge of $26.2 billion related to the valuation allowance, wrote down $5.2 billion worth of assets in Europe, and took a charge of $2.2 billion for its action last summer to cut its U.S. salaried pension obligation.

The company also wrote down $220 million, or about half, of its investment in French alliance partner PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA). GM, which paid $423 million for its 7 percent stake in Peugeot, warned last August that it might take such an action due to the deepening fiscal crisis in Europe.

Ammann said on Thursday that GM had no plans to put more cash into Peugeot, with which Akerson said the company has a good relationship.

GM did not change its 2013 outlook from last month, when it forecast its operating profit to rise modestly.

For the first quarter, Ammann said GM expects to take a $200 million charge for the devaluation of the Venezuelan currency. He also said the company has no plans to contribute to its U.S. pension plans this year.

Akerson also said the company would probably not fill its vacant global marketing chief position. Instead, it will have global heads for each brand.

GM would like to boost the number of plants in North America operating on three shifts to increase output and reduce structural costs, a strategy it is following globally, said Chuck Stevens, CFO for the region. Eight of GM's 19 plants there currently operate a third shift.

GM also is targeting a full-size pickup truck market share in the United States of 36 percent to 38 percent this year, Stevens said. That would be up from 36 percent last year.

Ammann told reporters in a later conference call that GM had completed the repurchase of a 1 percent stake in its joint venture with its top Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp (600104.SS). He said the Chinese government approved the purchase last year.

The deal restored GM's stake in Shanghai GM to 50 percent. However, SAIC retains a 51 percent share in the sales side of the business. In the run-up to its 2009 bankruptcy filing, GM sold the 1 percent share to SAIC for $85 million.

For all of 2012, GM earned $4.9 billion, down from a record $7.6 billion in 2011 due to higher tax rates and weakness in Europe. The results in 2011 included $1.2 billion in gains from asset sales, while 2012 had $500 million in unfavorable items.

(Reporting By Ben Klayman and Deepa Seetharaman; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, John Wallace, Maureen Bavdek and Nick Zieminski)

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The logo of ArcelorMittal company is seen at the entrance of its headquarters in Luxembourg in this picture taken on November 20, 2012.

BRUSSELS | Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:09am EST

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - ArcelorMittal (ISPA.AS), the world's biggest steelmaker, is to write down the value of its European business by $4.3 billion, underscoring gloom about prospects for the region's recession-hit manufacturers.

The group, formed in 2006 when India-born Lakshmi Mittal's steel business bought European peer Arcelor for $33 billion, said on Friday demand had fallen about 8 percent in Europe this year and there was no sign of a quick recovery.

As a result, it will write down the goodwill - the value of intangible assets such as brands rather than physical assets such as machinery - of its European operations by 87 percent.

"It is negative, but it should not really be a big surprise that the book value of its European business was too high," said a London-based analyst who asked not to be named.

ArcelorMittal shares were down 2.7 percent at 12.85 euros at 8 a.m. ET, one of the biggest falls by a European blue-chip stock .FTEU3 and reversing gains made earlier this week.

Credit agency Fitch cut ArcelorMittal's long-term issuer default rating to BB+, just below investment grade, due to the challenging outlook for Western European steel markets in 2013.

The $500-billion-a-year steel industry, a gauge of the global economy, has slowed sharply this year as a moderation in China's economic growth has compounded weak demand from austerity-ravaged Europe.

The World Steel Association in October forecast steel demand would rise 2.1 percent in 2012, down from 6.2 percent in 2011. It had forecast 3.6 percent growth in April.

Last month, Moody's cut the company's senior unsecured notes to Ba1 from Baa3, joining Standard & Poor's in rating ArcelorMittal one notch below investment grade.

Other steelmakers are hurting too. Earlier this month, Germany group ThyssenKrupp (TKAG.DE) posted a full-year net loss of 4.7 billion euros ($6.2 billion).

WEAK POINT

Europe is a particular weak point, as austerity drives aimed at tackling a sovereign debt crisis have cut demand for cars and construction - steel's largest markets. Euro zone manufacturing has contracted for 17 straight months.

ArcelorMittal, which makes about 6-7 percent of the world's steel, said demand in Europe had fallen 29 percent since 2007 when the financial crisis started.

It highlighted better trends in the United States where, it said, demand was up 8 percent this year and is now 10 percent lower than in 2007.

ArcelorMittal, whose output is more than double that of its nearest rival, has already announced the closure of blast furnaces in Belgium and France, with other operations temporarily idled due to overcapacity.

The write-down represents over a third of ArcelorMittal's overall goodwill of $12.5 billion as of end-2012. The group, around 40-percent owned by the Mittal family, took on $6.6 billion goodwill when it bought Arcelor.

It said the write-down would be a non-cash charge in fourth-quarter results and would not affect net debt or core profit.

Before the write-down, analysts had, on average, forecast the group would make $529.5 million net profit this year, and $7.1 billion core profit, according to StarMine.

(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Mark Potter and Dan Lalor)

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1 of 10. International Monetary Fund's Economic Counsellor and Director of Research Department Olivier Blanchard (2nd R), Deputy Director Jorg Decressin (2nd L), Division Chief Thomas Heibling (R) and Senior Press Officer Gita Bhatt hold a news briefing on the World Economic Outlook (WEO), at the Tokyo International Forum in Tokyo October 9, 2012. The IMF said the global economic slowdown is worsening as it cut its growth forecasts for the second time since April and warned U.S. and European policymakers that failure to fix their economic ills would prolong the slump.

TOKYO | Tue Oct 9, 2012 9:02am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - The IMF said the global economic slowdown is worsening as it cut its growth forecasts for the second time since April and warned U.S. and European policymakers that failure to fix their economic ills would prolong the slump.

Global growth in advanced economies is too weak to bring down unemployment and what little momentum exists is coming primarily from central banks, the International Monetary Fund said in its World Economic Outlook, released ahead of its twice-yearly meeting, which will be held in Tokyo later this week.

"A key issue is whether the global economy is just hitting another bout of turbulence in what was always expected to be a slow and bumpy recovery or whether the current slowdown has a more lasting component," it said.

"The answer depends on whether European and U.S. policymakers deal proactively with their major short-term economic challenges."

Ahead of the Tokyo meeting, policymakers have flagged the U.S. "fiscal cliff" -- government spending cuts and tax raises due to take affect early in 2013 -- and resolving the euro area's debt crisis as the top issues facing the global economy.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday that reforms in Europe "could take years to bear fruit".

"In these periods of time, where people were very worried about the risk of collapse in Europe, you saw an impact on financial markets and confidence that was very, very substantial," he told a meeting of Indian and U.S. business leaders in New Delhi. "Europe still has a very hard road ahead of them."

His comments echoed those of Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who last week said Europe's debt crisis was "a clear and present danger".

The IMF forecast in its latest health check on the world economy that global output in 2012 would grow just 3.3 percent, down from a July estimate of 3.5 percent.

That would make this the slowest year of growth since 2009 when the world was struggling to pull out of the global financial crisis. It predicted only a modest pickup next year to 3.6 percent, below its July estimate of 3.9 percent.

It projected U.S. growth would be a little more than 2 percent this year and next, but forecast a contraction in the euro area this year by 0.4 percent and modest growth in 2013 of 0.2 percent.

Emerging markets are still expected to grow four times as fast as advanced economies, but the IMF took a sharp knife to its estimates for India and Brazil, with the latter now seen growing slower than the United States this year.

It also cut its expectations for China in 2012 and 2013 but warned against being overly pessimistic about the prospects of these economies, which were major engines of growth in the global financial crisis.

"Let me be clear. We do not see these developments as signs of a hard landing in any of these countries," IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said at a briefing, referring to China, India and Brazil.

MORE AT WORK

The IMF said "familiar" forces were dragging down advanced economy growth: fiscal consolidation and a still-weak financial system, the same problems that have plagued the world since the global financial crisis exploded in 2008.

"More seems to be at work, however, than these mechanical forces - namely, a general feeling of uncertainty," Blanchard said in a commentary on the forecasts.

Measures of risk and uncertainty, such as the VIX volatility gauge in the United States, remain at low levels, Blanchard pointed out, which makes it difficult to assess the nature of the uncertainty.

"Worries about the ability of European policymakers to control the euro crisis and worries about the failure to date of U.S. policymakers to agree on a fiscal plan surely play an important role, but one that is hard to nail down," Blanchard said.

Geithner, who was speaking at an India-U.S. business forum in New Delhi, said he was "relatively confident" that Washington can manage its fiscal challenges.

"Now we're growing close to potential but if you look through those factors, it's a little more encouraging than you might think," he said. "We are now in a much stronger position than what is true for any other major developed economy."

Concerns about the health of the global economy and corporate earnings prospects have weighed on financial markets. World shares as measured by the MSCI world equity index .MIWD00000PUS fell 0.7 percent on Monday. The index was flat in Asia on Tuesday.

S&P 500 earnings for the third quarter are forecast to have fallen more than 2 percent from the year-earlier period, which would be the first decline in three years, Thomson Reuters data shows.

The IMF said financial conditions are likely to remain "very fragile" over the near term because repairing euro zone problems will take time and there are concerns about how the U.S. economy will cope with the expected spending cuts and tax increases.

The "urgent policy priorities" for the United States should include avoiding the fiscal cliff, which the IMF said at the extreme would amount to a fiscal withdrawal of more than 4 percent of GDP in 2013, and economic growth would stall.

"Both sides of the political isle (should) signal that they are willing to compromise and that they're willing to get this done ... that could help lower the level of uncertainty that is affecting U.S. investors and consumers," IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Resolving the euro area crisis would require progress in adopting and implementing the various measures discussed, including banking and fiscal union, the IMF report said.

"If the complex puzzle can be rapidly completed, one can reasonably hope that the worst might be behind us," Blanchard said.

Euro zone finance ministers on Monday unveiled the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a 500 billion euro rescue mechanism for lending to distressed economies in the 17-country bloc.

But perhaps the biggest contagion risk for the region is Spain, which a British finance ministry source suggested will be the top issue for finance ministers in Tokyo.

"We have always been very clear that the euro zone needs to take significant action," the source said.

The euro zone has already set aside 100 billion euros for Spain to recapitalize its banks but financial markets believe a government bailout will follow in coming weeks or months.

(Additional reporting by Anna Yukhananov in TOKYO, David Milliken in LONDON and Manoj Kumar and Rajesh Kumar Singh in NEW DELHI; Editing by Neil Fullick, Alex Richardson and Ron Popeski)

(This story corrects quote by Geithner in 7th paragraph)

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A man is silhouetted against a logo of Honda Motor at the company showroom in Tokyo January 31, 2012.

TOKYO | Sun Oct 7, 2012 4:15am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co (7267.T) said it would recall about 489,000 CR-Vs in Europe and the United States after finding rain water may enter the vehicles' power window switch on the driver's door, which could ultimately cause the switch to overheat and catch fire.

The Japanese automaker will be recalling about 220,000 CR-V sport utility vehicles in Europe, some 268,000 units in the United States and fewer than 100 in Africa, a Honda spokeswoman said on Sunday. All the recalled vehicles are from model years 2002 through 2006.

There have been reports of five switch fires, but no crashes or injuries have been reported related to the issue, the spokeswoman said.

Honda, Japan's third-largest automaker, did not give estimated costs for the recall.

The development comes on the heels of another Honda recall of more than 600,000 Accord mid-sized sedans in North America to address a potential power steering fluid leak problem that could cause a fire under the hood.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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* Second-quarter adjusted EPS $0.09 vs est $0.12

* Second-quarter revenue $105.1 mln vs est $113.3 mln

* Shares down 10 percent after the bell

Aug 9 (Reuters) - Enterprise software maker Pegasystems Inc's quarterly results fell short of analysts' expectations as customers in Europe delayed orders, sending its shares down nearly 10 percent after the bell.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned 9 cents per share for the second quarter, while revenue rose marginally to $105.1 million.

Analysts on average were expecting Pegasystems to earn 12 cents per share on revenue of $113.3 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Pegasystems sells software that help companies manage business processes and customer relationships.

"Some larger deals are being split into smaller projects, which, while still planned, are being pushed into future quarters," Chief Financial Officer Craig Dynes said in a statement.

He said the delays also made it very difficult for the company to surpass its full-year revenue goal of $500 million.

Analysts had estimated the company's full-year revenue at $490.5 million.

Pegasystems had a net loss of $2.3 million, or 6 cents per share, for the second quarter, compared with a profit of $2.3 million, or 6 cents per share, a year earlier.

Operating expenses rose 13 percent.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company's shares, which closed down 3 percent at $27.02 on the Nasdaq on Thursday, fell further to $24.28 after the bell.

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