1 of 10. A man carries his son across a flooded area at the business district in Jakarta January 17, 2013.

JAKARTA | Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:29am EST

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Severe floods in Jakarta eased on Friday, a day after unusually heavy monsoon rains swamped parts of the Indonesian capital in waist-deep water and left more than 18,000 people homeless.

However, authorities warned of more rain and disruptions in the city of about 10 million people after Thursday's floods killed six people and turned Jakarta's main thoroughfare into a stream of red mud.

Other main roads were still full of water and choked with traffic on Friday as commuters struggled to return to work and emergency workers tried to clear the mess.

"Many roads will remain flooded for the next two or three days," police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said. "Jakarta experienced quite a severe impact because 13 rivers flow into it from the south and west."

Large areas of the city were still without electricity after state utility PLN cut power in some places to avoid the risk of electrocution.

Investors however shrugged off the disruption, pushing the Jakarta stock index up 1 percent to a record high.

The central bank said it saw the weather causing disruption to food distribution, which was likely to push up inflation this month. Torrential rain across the main island of Java has not damaged key crops such as rice and palm oil, officials said.

The state palace was inundated and a $700,000 Rolls-Royce was among scores of cars swallowed by the floodwaters on Thursday, witnesses said. Many businesses remained closed.

Soldiers using an excavator struggled to stem the flow after a large section of a canal burst, sending a torrent of dirty water into the heart of the capital. Debris including sofas and dead fish littered the soggy streets and police captured a 3-metre python in the city, wrestling it into a van.

Many parts of Indonesia are regularly inundated during the annual rainy season, bringing already strained transport systems to a halt, although this flood was the worst the capital had suffered since 2007. Jakarta mayor Joko Widowo has declared a 10-day state of emergency.

Widodo, elected last year, is under pressure to improve drainage to prevent regular flooding in the low-lying capital, and to fix Jakarta's notoriously bad traffic. Plans are under way for new toll roads, bus lanes and a metro system.

(Additional reporting by Rieka Rahadiana, Janeman Latul and Adriana Nina Kusuma; Editing by Neil Chatterjee and Paul Tait)

View the original article here

SOFIA | Wed Aug 8, 2012 1:08pm EDT

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria hopes to draw tourists intrigued by ancient tombs, mosaics and sewage systems later this year, thanks to engineers excavating a new line for the Sofia metro who stumbled across a street of prime real estate - from the 4th century AD.

Beneath modern Sofia lie the remains of Serdica, a lively, cosmopolitan city where Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, lived for a year while looking for a new capital for his empire.

City officials plan to put an array of Roman remains on display in the next month, from bath houses to mosaics and tombs, and hope this will attract foreign tourists and help revive the Balkan nation's struggling economy.

Some 750,000 foreign tourists a year visit Sofia, and the opening of the new Roman attractions should increase this number, says Rumen Draganov, head of Sofia's Institute for Tourism Analysis and Assessment.

"We expect about 320,000 tourists to visit the new sights in the first year alone," he said. Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union, earns some 1.7 billion euros, 5 percent of its gross domestic product, from the 8.5 million tourists a year who flock to its Black Sea and mountain ski resorts.

Until recently archaeologists wrongly regarded countries such as Greece, Italy and Turkey as the only classical areas worthy of study, said Philip Kiernan, Professor in Roman Archaeology of U.S. Buffalo University.

"Serdica was a major metropolis and contains the physical remains of Thracian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine cultures - so it should not be any less significant," he said.

"It's time to stop thinking about cities like Serdica as being peripheral to the classical world, and take them for the important sites that they really are".

'CONSTANTINE LIVED HERE'

Emperor Constantine lived in Serdica for over a year while looking for a new capital in 316 AD as he could no longer effectively control his empire from Rome, a choice Kiernan said was based on Serdica's geographical position.

"From there he could react fast to problems on the border as it was near the Danube frontier but also close to Asia Minor".

Little was known about his stay in the provincial city until a whole street of 4th-5th century AD houses were found during excavations for a new Sofia metro line.

"The constructions are mainly from the time when Serdica was the capital of the Roman province Inner Dacia - it was then that the city was at its largest and most flourishing," said archaeologist Mario Ivanov.

A museum due for completion this summer will display the mosaics, early sewage systems and private bath houses of the ancient Romans who lived there, giving a flavor of the life of a provincial Roman nobleman.

"We found floor mosaics containing symbolic Roman vine leaves, but also a wheel of fortune and the words 'Felix' inscribed, which were most likely to bring good fortune to the inhabitants," said Ivanov, who heads the excavation team.

Bulgaria hopes the remains of ancient Serdica will be one of the capital's biggest attractions, and aims to link the ancient Roman finds with remains from the medieval and Renaissance periods over an area of around 19,000 square meters.

Cafes and bookshops will be incorporated into the ancient complex, and visitors will also be able to explore the ruins through a marked path through the historic site.

"We hope that this venture will become the emblem of our capital," said Hristo Ganchev, head of Cultural Heritage, who is in charge of the 16 million lev EU-backed project.

ANCIENT CHRISTIAN TOMBS

Work is also forging ahead on an underground museum in one of the oldest functioning churches in Europe, which is due to open in September.

The Basilica of St Sophia dates back to the 5th century. Repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, it served as a mosque during the Ottoman rule and is a remarkable mixture of Byzantine architecture, Islamic arches and Orthodox Christian icons.

Beneath the red-brick building, archaeologists found one of the first Christian catacombs. A well-preserved necropolis from the 4th century AD, containing around 100 tombs, will soon be ready for visitors.

Glass screens on the floor of the church will allow a view of the tombs from above, and narrow underground passages will allow visitors to explore the lighted crypts of the necropolis.

"The burial ground contains rich wall paintings made up of vine leaves, Maltese crosses and other early Christian symbols," said Yunian Meshekov, lead archaeologist of the excavations under the St Sophia Church.

Sofia has thousands of ancient sarcophagi scattered beneath the city centre, and the tombs discovered below the church are thought to hold the remains of early Christian dignitaries.

"They are most likely to be of wealthy citizens of Serdica who were related either to the new religion or to the actual church and there is a possibility that the remains of an early bishop are there," says Meshekov.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)

(This story was refiled to fix spelling mistake in first paragraph)

View the original article here

* Shareholder equity ratio at 2.2 pct in June vs 4.6 pct in March

* Keeps full-year operating profit outlook at 50 bln yen

* Shares drop 2.2 pct ahead of results

TOKYO, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Japan's Olympus Corp suffered a further deterioration in its ability to meet financial obligations as quarterly earnings slumped, adding pressure on the scandal-hit company to enter into a capital deal.

Shareholders' equity fell to 2.2 percent of total assets in June from 4.6 percent in March, the company said on Thursday. That takes Olympus further away from the 20 percent level widely regarded by analysts as indicative of financial stability.

Olympus needs a capital injection before its business year ends in March 2013, Senior Executive Managing Officer Yasuo Takeuchi told reporters at a briefing.

The 93-year-old manufacturer of cameras and medical equipment has held talks with several Japanese companies including FujiFilm Holdings and Sony Corp on a capital tie-up as it tries to mend its severely depleted balance sheet hit by a massive accounting scandal last year.

Olympus booked a 60 percent slump in operating profit to 2.12 billion yen ($27.05 million) for April-to-June as an operating loss at its camera division and a stronger yen offset a profit gain at its medical equipment division.

The company kept its full-year operating profit forecast at 50 billion yen.

Olympus posted a net loss of 49 billion yen in the year ended March 31, after admitting in November to a decade-long scheme of falsifying financial statements and hiding investment losses.

The company has promised investors it will boost its shareholders' equity ratio to 30 percent in five years. To raise it to 10 percent, Olympus said it needs to find some 50 billion yen in fresh capital.

Sources familiar with the matter have said Olympus is in final talks with Sony to accept a cash injection in return for a stake, while medical device maker Terumo Corp said last month it is seeking to form a joint holding company with Olympus as part of a 50 billion-yen capital infusion plan.

Olympus maintained on Thursday that it is in talks with several companies on financial support.

In an unusual turn of events, Terumo slapped its potential partner with a lawsuit last week for failing to disclose its accounting fraud before signing a business and capital tie-up with the medical equipment maker seven years ago.

In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Olympus said it expects creditors to continue providing loans despite the fact that misreported financial statements in the past meant it had violated covenants on some loans.

Shares in Olympus settled 2.2 percent lower before the earnings announcement. Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei average rose 1.1 percent. ($1 = 78.3600 Japanese yen) (Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Ryan Woo)

View the original article here