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Greece and other advanced economies need the political will to implement unpopular budget cuts, Canada said on Monday, comparing today

Missouri’s fledgling solar power industry could be severely wounded by a recent court decision declaring that mandated rebates on solar installations violate the state constitution.

The $2-a-watt rebate, approved by Missouri voters in 2008, shaves thousands of dollars off the cost of solar energy systems

Comments from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke set off a stock market rally early Wednesday, but it wasn’t long before another Fed official cut it short.

In testimony before Congress, Bernanke said the central bank would be open to new economic stimulus measures, but only if the economy gets much worse. The remarks were far from a promise for more Fed action, but markets reacted immediately nonetheless. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped as many as 164 points, or 1.3 percent.

Most of those gains evaporated later in the day after Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said in a speech that the Fed had already “pressed the limits of monetary policy.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 4.08, or 0.3 percent, to close at 1,318.72. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 44.73, or 0.4 percent, to 12,491.61. The Nasdaq composite rose 15.01, or 0.5 percent, to 2,796.92.

Stocks also took a hit in the afternoon when House Speaker John Boehner called into question whether lawmakers would agree to raise the government’s borrowing limit by an Aug. 2 deadline. Failure to meet the deadline could result in a U.S. debt default, which would have disastrous effects for the economy and financial markets. Boehner, a Republican, said that dealing with Democrats on the issue has been like “dealing with Jell-O.”

Bernanke spelled out specific steps the Fed might consider if the economy gets worse, including another round of bond purchases. He also detailed what the Fed would do should the economy improve.

Bernanke’s position remains that the slowdown in the U.S. economy this spring is due largely to temporary factors including high gas prices and parts shortages caused by the earthquake in Japan. He said he still expects economic growth to pick up in the second half of the year.

Energy and materials stocks rose more than the overall market as investors bought companies that would benefit most from an upturn in the economy creditreport. Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. rose 1.6 percent, the most of any of the 30 stocks in the Dow average.

The Fed’s policy of ultra-low interest rates and buying U.S. Treasury bonds on the open market has pushed stocks higher since last August. Many traders were disappointed when the Fed ended its second round of bond purchases in June.

Signs of healthy growth in China also helped push stocks higher. The Chinese government reported that the country’s economy grew at a slower but still healthy rate of 9.5 percent last quarter. China is attempting to rein in its speeding expansion and ease inflation, but a sudden drop-off in growth could hurt the U.S. economy by cutting into demand for U.S. exports.

Markets also rose because fears abated that Italy would default on its debt. The S&P 500 fell 2.9 percent over the past three days as traders worried one or more European countries would fail to pay their debts, causing a global slowdown in lending.

A successful auction of Italian government debt and a pledge by that country’s leaders to accelerate cost-cutting plans reassured markets that Europe’s third-largest economy was not on the verge of becoming the latest European country to need emergency financial support to avoid a default. Italian stocks rallied 1.8 percent on relief that Italy’s fiscal outlook was not as shaky as believed just a few days ago.

About two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was relatively light at 3.3 billion shares.

—

AP Business Writers Matthew Craft and David Randall contributed to this story.

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Masked assailants blew up the Egyptian pipeline that carries gas to Israel and Jordan early on Monday, starting a fire that burned for hours and disrupting the flow of the gas, security officials said.

The blast targeted a pumping station at a location of about 65 miles (100 kilometers) south of the Mediterranean coastal city of El-Arish in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

El-Arish is 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Israel’s border.

The officials said the attackers, armed with assault rifles, arrived in two pickup trucks without number plates and forced the three security guards on duty to leave before placing the explosives and shooting the pipeline’s valves to release the gas.

The explosion triggered a blaze that took firemen at least seven hours to extinguish, they said guaranteed high risk personal loans.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said there were no casualties.

Monday’s blast was the third to hit the strategic pipeline since an uprising overthrew Egypt’s longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February.

No one claimed responsibility for Monday’s explosion. Disgruntled Bedouin tribesmen in the area have been blamed for attacking the pipeline in the past. Islamists opposed to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel have also been suspected.

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Ads that are clever and actually help sell the product? What a novel idea.

This weekend at the Oscars of advertising, a festival in Cannes, France, judges for the first time will give an award for effectiveness _ evaluating ads for whether they sell more computers or deodorant, not just whether they make people laugh, cry or cringe.

The award, to be handed out Saturday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, signals a shift toward accountability, and comes at a time when advertising agencies are fighting for every dollar they can get.

Corporate marketing budgets were slashed by 8 percent during the Great Recession, and that spending still hasn’t come back, according to Zenith Optimedia, a research division of communications giant Publicis Groupe.

“You have to prove you got someone to pay attention and act, particularly in this economy,” said Chris Kempczinski, Kraft Foods’ senior vice president of marketing, who helped judge the category.

Cannes told agencies making submissions that to win in the effectiveness category, an ad had to show a proven impact on “consumer behavior, brand equity, sales, and where identifiable, profit.” Judges combed through more than 150 nomination forms audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The 10 finalists, announced Friday, include four campaigns from the United States and three from the United Kingdom.

Some were obvious picks, like Apple’s Mac-versus-PC campaign, in which two men, one uptight and the other hip, role-play as the equipment. Others had subtler impact, such as one for Hasbro’s online game “Monopoly City Streets,” where players built virtual properties on Google Maps, then collected rent.

Industry insiders say the front-runner is a campaign for Old Spice men’s body wash called “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” The commercials, made by the Portland office of agency Wieden+Kennedy, feature a muscular man _ shirtless more often than not _ who repeatedly tells female viewers to look over at her man _ then at him.

“Sadly, he isn’t me,” he says in the spot, “but if he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me.”

The ad created buzz for Procter & Gamble, which makes Old Spice. The first commercial in this campaign got 40 million YouTube views in a week. The spot was parodied dozens of times, including by Grover on “Sesame Street.” The star, Isaiah Mustafa, made the talk show rounds and appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Ellen.”

A response campaign consisting of more than 180 YouTube videos in which Mustafa addresses viewers’ comments directly got 5 payday loans.9 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours, more than President Barack Obama got for his election-night victory speech, Wieden+Kennedy says.

“It was a magic moment kind of thing,” says Mark Fitzloff, an executive creative director at the Portland agency.

But that won’t be enough by itself to convince the Cannes judges, who are more concerned with business results. The Old Spice spot will have to be deemed more effective than ads for Snickers and Axe shower gel, among others.

“Who cares about brand buzz?” says judge Tim Broadbent, Global Effectiveness Director at Ogilvy & Mather. “We wanted to know, could you prove to a skeptical finance director that it worked?”

Marc Pritchard, who oversees P&G’s $8.6 billion marketing budget, says yes. Before the campaign, the brand was facing huge challenges, he says. Old Spice was seen as, well, old. And most men were perfectly content to clean themselves with soap.

But that’s changed. Old Spice body wash sales grew 27 percent in the six months after the campaign launched, making it the top seller in the category.

The weeklong festival honors the most creative work from around the world in film, radio, print and outdoor advertising. Twelve of the 13 main categories will still be about presentation _ how funny, shocking or quirky the ads are.

In years past, when that was all the judges had to worry about, winners included Bud Light’s 2004 “Real Men of Genius” campaign, mocking men who commit faux pas like wearing too much cologne.

For traditional ad firms facing challenges from scrappy digital upstarts, it’s important to be able to demonstrate to clients like P&G that a full-fledged multimedia campaign featuring highly produced television commercials is a better investment than a viral video shot on a handheld camera.

After all, it can cost $2 million to produce a 30-second television commercial and an additional $10 million to buy the ad time for a national campaign in the U.S., Kraft’s Kempczinski says. Companies expect to get their money’s worth, especially because budgets are still tight.

“I think the idea that creatives should be shielded from commercial reality is insane,” Broadbent says. “Cannes is growing up.”

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Owners of cars that were new or redesigned for the 2011 model year are reporting more quality problems, partly because of glitches with the navigation screens, voice-activated systems and other technology packed into their dashboards.

J.D. Power and Associates released its annual survey of new vehicle quality Thursday. Lexus, Honda and Acura were the top performers. Dodge was the worst-performing brand.

The survey questioned 78,000 people about the problems they had with 2011 model-year vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership. Owners reported an average of 107 problems per 100 vehicles. That jumped to 122 problems for cars that were new or redesigned in 2011, up 10 percent from 2010 model-year cars and trucks.

J.D. Power said new technology was partly to blame.

“Clearly, consumers are interested in having new technology in their vehicles, but automakers must ensure that the technology is ready for prime time,” David Sargent, J.D. Power’s vice president of global research said in a statement. “There is an understandable desire to bring these technologies to market quickly, but automakers must be careful to walk before they run.”

New technology was likely responsible for Ford’s declining quality Online payday loans. The brand dropped from fifth place in 2010 to 23rd this year.

Ford launched its My Ford Touch voice-activated dashboard system on the Ford Edge and the Ford Explorer in the 2011 model year. The system allows drivers to control climate, navigation, entertainment and other features by voice. Ford said earlier this week that 73 percent of owners with My Ford Touch say they’re satisfied with it, but the company has acknowledged it’s been difficult for some buyers to use. Ford says it has made some software updates to make the system easier to use and is now offering workshops at dealerships to help owners.

Toyota saw a big leap in quality, jumping 14 spots to seventh place. Toyota’s 2010 rankings were hurt by a series of safety recalls that year. Also, Toyota introduced few new products for 2011, so it didn’t experience the glitches other manufacturers did.

Cadillac and GMC, both General Motors Co. brands, and Mazda rose into the top ten performers this year, while Hyundai and Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln luxury brand dropped out of the top tier.

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Wells Fargo & Co. has reached an agreement with the government to pay up to $16 million to settle complaints from customers who are deaf, hard of hearing or had speech defects.

The settlement involving Wells Fargo’s nearly 10,000 retail banking, brokerage and mortgage stores is designed to ensure equal access under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

According to the Justice Department, some disabled customers of Wells Fargo were referred to a device for text communication via a telephone line that told them to leave a message, which the government says went unanswered fast cash advance loan.

The Justice Department says the bank began addressing the customers’ concerns before the government began looking into the matter.

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Officials in Ivory Coast are drawing up a list of ministers, generals and journalists to be charged with blood crimes, corruption and hate speech, the justice minister responsible for human rights told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Top of the list is Charles Ble Goude, youth minister in the disgraced government of arrested former President Laurent Gbagbo, who organized a violent anti-French and anti-U.N. gang that has terrorized foreigners and ordinary civilians.

On Friday, a government spokesman said Ble Goude had been arrested. But Justice Minister Jeannot Ahoussou said that was a case of mistaken identity.

Ble Goude is known as the “street general” for organizing the violent gang that terrorized Ivory Coast’s foreign population between 2004 and 2005. More recently he incited his Young Patriots, a militia-like gang of thugs, to attack foreigners as well as supporters of democratically elected President Alassane Ouattara.

Hundreds of people have been killed since Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat at November elections and turned heavy weapons on civilians. Pro-Ouattara fighters captured him Monday after U.N. and French forces bombed the presidential residence where he had taken refuge in a fortified underground bunker.

“We are investigating every member of the Cabinet of Mr. Gbagbo for blood crimes, money crimes, buying guns and other arms,” Ahoussou told the AP in a telephone interview.

He said he also was investigating journalists who broadcast hate speech. Gbagbo had turned the state Radio Television Ivoirienne into a propaganda organ that broadcast statements inciting violence against tribes loyal to Ouattara.

Former rebel forces that fought to install Ouattara also are accused of atrocities, including the slaughter of hundreds of civilians in western Ivory Coast, a stronghold of Gbagbo’s Bete tribe and allied Guere people.

Ouattara said this week that Gbagbo will be tried by both national and international courts for his alleged crimes. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has said it is conducting a preliminary examination into crimes perpetrated by all sides in the conflict in this West African nation.

The telephone line broke as a journalist was asking the minister whether he also would be investigating pro-Ouattara forces that perpetrated crimes. Telephone communications are poor throughout the country including in Abidjan, the commercial capital and seat of the government.

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Loan relief granted to Greece last month may be inadequate to restore the country’s financial health, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said after European officials again ruled out debt restructuring.

Euro-area leaders decided on March 11 to reduce interest rates on loans for Greece under its 110 billion-euro ($159 billion) rescue package and to extend their maturities. Greece also gained the right to sell bonds directly to the region’s rescue fund.

“Whether that is enough and how this continues will have to be monitored closely,” Schaeuble told reporters today after a meeting of European Union finance ministers and central bank chiefs in Godollo, Hungary.

The doubts about Greece’s finances emerged as EU officials said a planned aid package for Portugal would draw a line under the region’s debt crisis, which was triggered by Greece and engulfed Ireland four months ago, when that nation received an 85 billion-euro rescue. The funds for Portugal are projected by the EU to total around 80 billion euros.

In return for aid, the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou has pledged to bring Greece’s budget shortfall to within the EU’s 3 percent limit in 2014. The deficit soared to 15.4 percent of gross domestic product in 2009. Greece intends to return to the markets for financing next year at the latest.

Shrinking Economy

Greece’s economic contraction is projected at 3 percent in 2011 as austerity measures bite. The economy shrank 4.5 percent last year, more than forecast. The nation’s overall debt will peak at 159.4 percent of GDP in 2012, according to EU projections made Feb. 24.

“We do exclude restructuring,” EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told reporters in Hungary today. “We have a solid plan and we are working on the basis of that plan. And it is based on very careful analysis of debt sustainability.”

Appearing with Rehn, European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet stressed the importance of the Greek austerity plan. In February, Trichet said “that program does not comprehend” the concept of losses for bondholders.

At the meeting in Hungary, euro-area finance ministers ratified last month’s decisions to cut the average rate on loans to Greece by 1 percentage point, to around 3.5 percent, and to lengthen the maturities to 7 1/2 years from three.

German Division

“It’s known that Greece has a strong refinancing requirement in coming years,” Schaeuble said. “That’s one of the reasons why we agreed in principle to extend the maturities for aid to Greece. We can’t say for good today whether that’s enough.”

Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition on April 7 didn’t rule out a restructuring of Greece’s debt, breaking with the official stance in Germany and in the EU.

As part of their March 11 accord, euro-area leaders also decided to let the European Financial Stability Facility, whose current role is to sell bonds to finance rescue loans, buy bonds directly from euro-area nations that are in an aid program.

Four days later, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said this would offer an “exceptionally important” backstop in 2012 as Greece seeks to tap the markets for financing.

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China ordered banks to set aside more cash for the third time this year, judging that inflation remains a bigger threat to the world’s second-largest economy than Japan’s earthquake and nuclear crisis.

Reserve requirements will increase half a percentage point from March 25, the People’s Bank of China said on its website yesterday. The ratio will rise to 20 percent for the nation’s biggest banks, excluding any extra limits for individual lenders.

Premier Wen Jiabao has set taming inflation as the nation’s top economic priority this year, citing “exorbitant” house- price increases and risks to social stability. China followed India, which raised interest rates the previous day, in tightening monetary policy even after Japan’s crisis roiled global stock markets and threatened to disrupt supply chains across Asia.

The move “is another sign that the tragic events in Japan are unlikely to have a significant impact on policy decisions elsewhere in Asia,” said Brian Jackson, an emerging-markets strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. “Uncomfortably strong inflation throughout the region suggests that more policy action is required.”

Crude oil pared gains and copper fell after the announcement. The move may lock up about 350 billion yuan ($53 billion), according to Australia & New Zealand Banking Group.

Reining in Credit

An interest-rate increase for China is “a couple of weeks away,” said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong-based economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd. He said the reserve-ratio increase was to soak up money as central-bank bills matured. Shen estimated that annual inflation may accelerate to 6 percent this month, the fastest pace since July 2008.

The benchmark one-year lending rate stands at 6.06 percent after three increases since mid-October. The government is aiming to rein in credit growth after a record 17.5 trillion yuan ($2.7 trillion) of lending over 2009 and 2010.

“This is clear evidence that the tightening agenda is still alive in China and signals that when nerves have settled, we will get more interest rate hikes,” said Stephen Green, a Shanghai-based economist for Standard Chartered Plc.

Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, said this month that rates will be used to curb inflation, and played down the role of currency gains, which U.S. officials have encouraged China to use as a tool.

Consumer prices rose at an annual 4.9 percent pace in February and output increased 14 percent in the first two months of 2011, according to the statistics bureau. Producer prices jumped 7.2 percent last month, the most since September 2008.

Inflation has topped the government’s 4 percent target for this year for each of the past five months.

–Zheng Lifei, with assistance from Sophie Leung. Editors: Paul Panckhurst, Stephanie Phang.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Lifei Zheng in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7560 or lzheng32@bloomberg.net

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