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Some of the leading U.S. producers of electronic cigarettes are moving their manufacturing to the United States from class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China in response to growing concern about quality and the prospect of tighter federal regulations. In recent weeks, some of the best-selling U.S. e-cigarette companies, including closely held Mistic and White Cloud, announced that they would move production to new, highly automated U.S. factories that would enable them to track ingredients and quality more closely. As a fringe benefit, they even expect costs to be lower than in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China , the country that invented the battery-powered cartridges that produce a nicotine-laced inhalable vapor. "People are concerned about quality," said Bonnie Herzog, a senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, who expects more manufacturing to shift to the United States.   true       "There is varying quality among all these different brands

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Business aircraft are taking to the skies again as many economies around the world improve, but a surplus of jets delivered just before the recession means the equivalent of 2,750 jets remain parked in hangars. An excess of jets is depressing prices for planes, particularly older ones, and clouding the outlook for manufacturers of new jets, such as Bombardier Inc, Gulfstream and Cessna. Some companies are cutting back on corporate jet travel and reducing executives' use of corporate jets for personal trips.   true       With so many jets not being flown, businesses are finding it more difficult to justify new purchases, said Rolland Vincent, president of Rolland Vincent Associates, a jet consulting firm that works with Utica, New York-based JetNet. "It's like having a lot of cars in your driveway," Vincent said. "If you don't use them that much, you're not going to be out shopping for another one." The

Credit Suisse's ( id="symbol_CSGN.VX_0"> CSGN.VX ) Chief Executive Brady Dougan told a Swiss Sunday newspaper he has no plans to step down and his bank would not need a capital increase despite a $2.5 billion deal with U.S. authorities over a tax dispute. _0"> Swiss lawmakers have been among those calling for Dougan and other executives to resign to allow the bank to make a fresh start after its settlement with U.S. authorities over charges it helped Americans to evade taxes. Asked in an interview with Sonntagsblick if he had thought about leaving the bank, Dougan said: "No. I have been working nearly 25 years for this bank, I'm committed to Credit Suisse, its customers, its staff, its shareholders."   true       Dougan said a capital increase would not be necessary for the bank to meet its goals of posting a capital ratio of at least 10 percent by the end of the year and targeting an 11 percent ratio thereafter. Switzerland's financial

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China has told its state-owned enterprises to sever links with American consulting firms just days after the United States charged five Chinese military officers with hacking U.S. companies, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. _0"> China's action, which targets companies like McKinsey & Company and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), stems from fears the firms are providing trade secrets to the U.S. government, the FT reported, citing unnamed sources close to senior Chinese leaders. "We haven't received any notification of this kind," said Margaret Kashmir, a spokeswoman for Strategy& - formerly Booz & Company - in an email, adding that serving clients in class="mandelbrot_refrag"> China and globally continues to be the company's main priority.   true       "We are unaware of any government mandates," added Bain & Company spokeswoman Cheryl Krauss. A McKinsey spokes

Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger who designed the monster and revolutionary sci-fi sets for the film "Alien" has died, his museum said on Tuesday. He was 74. _0"> Giger, who was born Hans Rudolf in the eastern Swiss town of Chur in 1940, died on Monday in Zurich from injuries he obtained after suffering a fall, an employee of the H.R. Giger Museum said, confirming reports in Swiss media. Famous for creating the otherworldly creature in Ridley Scott's 1979 horror film "Alien", Giger was awarded an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects in 1980. The son of a chemist, he studied architecture and industrial design in Zurich, and first experimented with ink drawing and polyester works before moving onto large freehand airbrush works showcasing nightmarish dreamscapes.   true       His work explored the relationship between the human body and the machine, and he created surrealist images of humans fused with industrial parts, a style he described

A Swiss art gallery discovered on Wednesday that it had been named as the sole heir of Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive German owner of a hoard of masterpieces discovered accidentally in a tax probe, who died this week aged 81. _0"> The Bern Art Museum said the news "came like a bolt from the blue" as it had no connection with Gurlitt. The collection - put together by his father Hildebrand, a dealer in so-called "degenerate" art for Adolf Hitler - is worth an estimated 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion). Kunstmuseum Bern's director, Mathias Frehner, said in a statement that Gurlitt's lawyer had told him the museum had been named his "unrestricted and unfettered sole heir".   true       The museum's response was tempered by caution since an as yet undetermined number of the works, which include hundreds of masterpieces by the likes of Chagall and Picasso, were looted by the Nazis from their Jewish owners during World War Two. "The

Detroit's three automakers are mulling a request by the city's art museum to help it raise money for a key component of Detroit's plan to restructure its debt and exit class="mandelbrot_refrag"> bankruptcy , representatives of the companies said on Tuesday. Under an $816 million so-called grand bargain, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) would contribute $100 million to ease pension cuts on the city's retirees and avoid a sale of art works to pay city creditors. The rest of the money would come from philanthropic foundations and the state of Michigan, where a $350 million contribution over 20 years or a $195 million lump sum payment needs legislative approval. "Chrysler Group is committed to playing a positive role in Detroit's revitalization. Accordingly, we are reviewing the DIA's request," said Chrysler spokesman Kevin Frazier in an email.   true       class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ford Motor Co spokesman Todd Nissen

American artist Barnett Newman's abstract painting "Black Fire I" sold for $84.2 million at Christie's contemporary art sale on Tuesday, setting a new auction record for the artist and confirming the buoyancy of the global art market. The price, including buyer's premium, easily surpassed the previous record of $43.8 million set a year earlier for Newman's "Onement VI," and topped the $80.8 million a private Asian buyer paid at Tuesday's sale for Francis Bacon's "Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards". All but four of the 72 lots on offer were sold as the post-war and contemporary sale also broke records for works by American sculptor Alexander Calder, sculptor and artist Joseph Cornell and several others.   true       Apart from the two top lots, four more fetched over $50 million, with deep-pocketed collectors from around the globe vying for the most coveted works of art. "These are incredible statistics," B

The head of Paris' Picasso museum was sacked on Tuesday as a looming staff revolt and a disputed renovation threatened the long-delayed reopening of the world's largest collection of the Spanish artist's works. _0"> Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti took the rare decision of firing Anne Baldassari after inspectors found the museum in crisis with "deep suffering and an anxious environment threatening workers", her ministry said in a statement. French authorities have also been keen to make peace with Pablo Picasso's descendents after his son accused them of dishonoring the artist by frequently delaying the reopening of the museum, which has been closed since 2009. [ID:nL6N0NR2IP]   true       Housing nearly 300 of Picasso's paintings, the museum in a 17th century mansion in central Paris was due to re-open in June after a 52-million-euro ($71.3-million) refurbishment. However, the Culture Ministry has said it had no choice but to push the re

Five centuries after he ruled the roost in Tudor England, Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell is playing to packed houses in London in two plays based on the best-selling novels of Hilary Mantel. It is further evidence of how her double Man Booker prize-winning books "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies", which have sold more than 3 million copies worldwide, resonate for modern audiences with their mix of political and sexual intrigue. The story of the matching and despatching of the king's wives - and the resulting political earthquake as Henry breaks with Rome to create a new Church of England - speaks across the ages, according to Mantel.   true       "This is our national soap opera," she said in an interview. "Henry is a monster king - a Bluebeard - with his wives and their various fates. No-one else has a king who marries six wives and executes two of them. It is one of our national glories, you know." The combined six-hou

A Stradivarius violin forgotten in a closet for decades and formerly owned by a reclusive U.S. heiress to a copper fortune could sell for as much as $10 million in a sealed bid auction next month, according to Christie's. _0"> If the 1731 violin, known as "The Kreutzer" after the French concert violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer who once owned it, reaches the top end of its pre-sale estimate it would be one of most expensive musical instruments ever sold. The violin is one of the highlights of the sale from the estate of Huguette Clark, a reclusive, eccentric heiress who owned sprawling Manhattan apartments and palatial homes but chose to spend her final decades living in a New York hospital where she died in 2011 at the age of 104.   true       After she died, the violin was found in a closet, where it had been for 25 years. The highest price paid for a Stradivarius violin is $16 million. A rare viola made by the Italian artisan Antonio Stradivari in 1719 that wil

A family portrait by Colombian artist Fernando Botero and a depiction of psychological turmoil by Chilean painter Roberto Matta are expected to be the highlights of Latin American art sales in New York next week. Botero's 1969 "Man Going to Work" is the top lot in Christie's line-up for its Wednesday sale, with a pre-sale estimate of up to $1.8 million. Matta's "Morphologie Psychologique" could fetch up to $3.5 million at class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Sotheby's two-day auction on Wednesday and Thursday. The Latin American auctions follow post-war and contemporary art sales earlier this month in which a Barnett Newman abstract painting called "Black Fire I" sold for $84.2 million, a new auction record for the artist, and Andy Warhol's "Six Self-Portraits," went to the highest bidder for $30.1 million.   true       "During the first half of May there were practically $2 billion in sales at auction houses in

(This May 13, 2014 story was refiled to correct the final words in quote in last paragraph and adds how Reuters received a copy of Umanets' video statement) A Mark Rothko painting vandalized at London's Tate Modern gallery 18 months ago went back on public view on Tuesday after the first-ever effort to strip graffiti ink off a major artwork without damaging the layers of paintwork.   true       Rothko's "Black on Maroon" was attacked in October 2012 by an aspiring artist who scrawled "Vladimir Umanets '12, A Potential Piece of Yellowism" in a lower corner. One of the Seagram Murals commissioned for the Four Seasons restaurant in 1958, the painting was valued at five million to nine million pounds by class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Sotheby's . Rothko donated it to the Tate in 1970. A Polish national called Wlodzimierz Umaniec, also known as Vladimir Umanets, claimed the graffiti was a creative act to promote his artistic movement, Y

The Nashville plane crash has left 4 person killed this week. A small plane was said to have lost altitude and struck a parking lot near a YMCA center, causing what one witness called the “largest fire” she had ever seen. Fox News confirms this Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014, that the fatal accident occurred Monday night, killing all members aboard the flight and damaging a number of cars below. The Nashville plane crash continues to be examined by local authorities, but it is believed that a total of 4 people aboard the plane were all members of the same family. The flying object struck not far from a YMCA (the Y) center in Bellevue. Officers from Nashville will not be releasing any of the identities of the victims until they can be verified, while no individuals on the ground at the time of the sudden impact were injured when the plane fell. During its fatal descent, police have reported that the plane was grazing trees near the YMCA before finally slamming into the ground at the far edge

A Taliban suicide bomber killed 13 people in a crowded market near the Pakistani army headquarters on Monday, a day after the Taliban killed 20 soldiers near the largely lawless, tribal region of North Waziristan, police said. The market, a short walk from the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad, was in one of the most secure areas of the city. The area was cordoned off by the military immediately after the blast. Two college students wearing blue uniforms were among the dead, their bodies lying near wreckage of a bicycle and pools of blood. Rescue workers struggled to help the wounded. Windows were shattered several hundred meters away. The attacks come after a couple of months of relative calm as the Taliban regrouped following the death of leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike in November. A drone had killed his deputy earlier in the year. After protracted negotiations, Mehsud was replaced by Mullah Fazlullah, a ruthless commander who has made lar

U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae, imprisoned in reclusive North Korea for more than a year, said on Monday he wants to return to his family as soon as possible and hopes the United States will help, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported. _0"> The appeal came after North Korea signaled last week it was prepared to reach out to South Korea if it abandoned military drills with the United States that start next month and as Pyongyang appeared to embark on a charm offensive. Bae, a 45-year old ethnic Korean, was jailed for 15 years of hard labor for state subversion in North Korea, where he was detained in 2012 while leading a tour group. North Korea's Supreme Court said he used his tourism business to form groups aimed at overthrowing the government. Bae met "a limited number of media outlets" in the North Korean capital Pyongyang and expressed hope of the United States securing his release, Kyodo said. He admitted he had broken North Korean laws. Footage release

Five people have been killed by sniper fire since Saturday in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, medical and security sources said. _0"> The deaths are the latest round of violence fuelled by sectarian tensions over neighboring Syria's civil war. Tripoli, 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Syrian border, has been subject to sharp divisions between the Sunni Muslim majority and small Alawite community for decades. The Lebanese army used "rockets" for the first time to quell the fighting between rival neighborhoods, one security source said, without specifying which weapons were used. Normally, soldiers use assault rifles to target snipers. The sources said three of the dead belonged to the Sunni Muslim Bab al-Tabbaneh district, whose residents overwhelmingly support the Sunni Muslim rebels battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Two others killed were from the Alawite neighborhood of Jebel Mohsen, which supports fellow Alawite Assad. Sniper attacks ar

Thai authorities are "very seriously" considering a state of emergency after a weekend of violence in the capital where protesters have been trying for more than two months to bring down the government, the security chief said on Monday. The violence is the latest episode in an eight-year conflict that pits Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment against poorer, mainly rural supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by the military in 2006. "We're prepared to use the emergency decree ... Everyone involved including the police, the military and the government is considering this option very seriously, but has not yet come to an agreement," National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattantabutr told Reuters after meeting Yingluck. "The protesters have said they will close various government offices. So far, their closures have been symbolic, they go to government offices

A Hong Kong woman was arrested on Monday on suspicion of abusing her Indonesian maids in a case that has sparked widespread outrage and drawn fresh attention to the risks faced by the migrant community. A housewife surnamed Law, 44, was arrested at the airport when she was trying to leave for Thailand , Hong Kong police said at a briefing. Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, a 23-year-old maid who said she had been badly beaten by her employer, is recovering at a hospital in Sragen, a city in central Java, after flying out from Hong Kong in early January. A second maid, identified only as Susi, who claimed to have been abused by the same employer, also gave a statement to police, saying she had frequently been beaten and abused. Law was believed to have a connection with the two cases, which would be dealt with as wounding cases, the police said. No formal charges have been laid against her. Hong Kong, an ex-British territory that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has around 300,000 foreig

Seven bomb explosions killed 26 people and wounded 67 in the Iraqi capital on Monday, police and medics said, as security forces battled Sunni Muslim militants around the western cities of Falluja and Ramadi. _0"> The bloodiest attack occurred in the mainly Shi'ite Muslim Abu Dsheer district in southern Baghdad, where a car bomb near a crowded market killed seven people and wounded 18. No group claimed responsibility for the blasts. But Sunni insurgents, some of them linked to al Qaeda, are widely blamed for a surge in violence in the past year apparently aimed at undermining the Shi'ite-led government and provoking a return to all-out sectarian strife. Al Qaeda militants and their local allies seized control of Falluja and parts of Ramadi on January 1, exploiting resentment among minority Sunnis against the government for policies perceived as unfairly penalizing their once-dominant community. Five of Monday's bombs targeted mainly Shi'ite districts of th

Syria's main opposition body, the National Coalition, will not attend peace talks in Switzerland scheduled for this week unless the United Nations retracts its invitation to Iran by 2:00 PM EST on Monday, a senior coalition member said. Late on Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited Iran to the conference, dubbed "Geneva 2", prompting the Coalition to quickly issue an ultimatum, on which it has now set a time limit. "We are giving a deadline of 1900 GMT (2:00 PM ET) for the invitation to be withdrawn," Anas Abdah, member of the National Coalition's political committee, told Reuters. Reading an official coalition statement, Abdah reiterated that the Coalition would accept Iran's participation only if it "publicly states that it is withdrawing its forces, committing to the Geneva 1 agreement in full and committing to implementing any results of Geneva 2". The accord reached in Geneva in 2012 calls for a transitional government

The European Union will send up to 1,000 soldiers to help stabilize Central African Republic, deploying its first major army operation in six years, EU foreign ministers decided on Monday. The EU has been spurred into action by communal bloodshed in Central African Republic that led a senior U.N. official to warn last week of a risk of genocide there without a more decisive international response. Meeting in Brussels, the ministers approved an outline plan to send a battalion-sized force to the violence-torn country but detailed military plans still need to be worked out. It is not yet clear which countries will provide the troops. Donors at another meeting in Brussels pledged nearly half a billion dollars in humanitarian aid for Central African Republic amid concern among aid officials at the deteriorating situation there. "This has been for far too long a forgotten crisis, (but it is) forgotten no more," EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva told repor

A group linked to al Qaeda, emboldened by its recent victory over rival rebels in Syria , has imposed sweeping restrictions on personal freedoms in the northern province of Raqqa as it seeks to consolidate control over the region. Reuters obtained copies of four statements issued on Sunday by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) prohibiting music from being played in public and photographs of people being posted in shop windows. The sale of cigarettes and shisha water pipes are banned, women must wear the niqab, or full face veil, in public and men are obliged to attend Friday prayers at a mosque. The directives, which cite Koranic verses and Islamic teaching, are the latest evidence of ISIL's ambition to establish a Syrian state founded on radical Islamist principles. ISIL is widely considered the most radical of the rebel groups fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, and increasingly each other, in Syria's civil war. The first and only city to h

A convicted member of a Greek guerrilla group that waged a 27 year campaign of killing appeared in a video on Monday promising to avenge the country's debt crisis and calling for a revolution against the state. _0"> Christodoulos Xiros, 56, was serving multiple life terms in Athens for being a member of the dismantled Marxist group November 17, when he was let out for a week over New Year. However, he never reported back to prison - triggering a massive police hunt and acute embarrassment for the authorities. A video uploaded on the leftist Indymedia website on Monday showed Xiros speaking to the camera with pictures of revolutionary Che Guevara, two Greek independence fighters, and a Communist World War Two resistance leader. "It is our job to light the fuse," he said calling on leftists and anarchists to unite against politicians, journalists and police. "What are we waiting for? If we don't react immediately, now, today, we will cease to exist a

Serbia's government, facing union opposition, said on Monday it would look again at draft legislation to liberalize the labor market, a move likely to further stoke concern among investors over the coalition's commitment to reform. _0"> Trade unions had called a one-day strike for January 23, angry at proposed changes to working hours and rules on hiring and firing. After a meeting with union leaders, the government said in a statement that it would form a joint working group with unions and business representatives to "consider the draft labor law, after which it will enter government and parliamentary procedure." It gave no time frame. The new consultations may fuel calls from some in the government for a snap parliamentary election, with the largest party - the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) - poised to take a decision this week on whether to go to voters in mid-March. The SNS is riding high in opinion polls and several senior party officials have s

Islamist militants stormed a village in remote northeast Nigeria on Monday, torching houses and spraying them with bullets in an attack that killed 18 people, witnesses said. The latest Boko Haram assault, on Sunday night, came hours before Nigeria's four top military chiefs handed over to fresh commanders in a ceremony on Monday. President Goodluck Jonathan announced the reshuffle of his entire military leadership last week in a bid to reinvigorate the fight against the insurgents. "Most of those who survived the attack have fled the village as they do not know if they will be attacked again," said Bulama Ibrahim, the chief of Alau Ngawo village, which was attacked sometime after 10 p.m. on Sunday. He said he had counted 18 bodies after the shooting and many houses burned. A former local councilor, Mustapha Galtimare, who was on the scene after the attack, concurred with the numbers of dead. The village lies in remote northeastern Borno state, the epicenter of the

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett dismissed on Monday a growing chorus of alarm that Israeli business will face international isolation if peace talks with the Palestinians fail. Indicating rising friction within the government, Bennett urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ignore the warnings, saying an independent Palestine would become a haven for militants and represent a serious threat to Israeli stability. "A Palestinian state would crush Israel's economy," Bennett told supporters of his right-wing nationalist 'Jewish Home' party that has threatened to quit Netanyahu's coalition if peace negotiations progress. Bennett's dire vision came on the day a group of prominent Israeli and Palestinian corporate leaders said they would fly to the Davos World Economic Forum this week to throw their weight behind U.S. efforts to secure an unlikely peace accord. Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador to Washington and a member of the Israeli-Palestinian