Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.


The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.


The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.


Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.


AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.


Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.


"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.


Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.


The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.


"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.


For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.


Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.


Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.


Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.


Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.


Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.


Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.


The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.


"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."


Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)



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The Lede: Social Media Images From Tunisia, as an Opposition Leader Is Buried

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Video of Friday’s funeral for Chokri Belaid, a Tunisian opposition leader assassinated two days ago, from the independent news site Nawaat.

Last Updated, 3:44 p.m. Activists, bloggers and journalists in Tunisia posted a stream of images on social networks Friday, showing thousands of mourners packed into the largest cemetery in the capital, Tunis, for the funeral of Chokri Belaid, a leading opposition figure whose assassination two days ago triggered a wave of street protests against the Islamist ruling party.

Among those uploading images of the funeral — which took place as the police fired tear gas at protesters and cars were set alight during clashes outside the graveyard — were my Times colleagues Kareem Fahim and Tara Todras-Whitehill, Thierry Brésillon of the French news site Rue 89, and Tunisian activists including Selim Kharrat of the rights organization Al Bawsala.

In video streamed live during the funeral by the activist blogger Slim Amamou, the 2011 revolutionary chant calling for the downfall of the regime could be heard echoing around the graveyard.

A photograph in a set uploaded to Facebook by the blogger Mon Massir appeared to show that even the late opposition leader’s young daughter was forced to shield her face from the tear gas fired by the police.

After the funeral, as photographs uploaded by Mr. Amamou and the rights activist Amira Yahyaoui showed, the security forces enforced a ban on gathering on the main Avenue Habib Bourguiba in central Tunis.

Emna Chebâane, who also works with the rights organization Al Bawsala, posted video on Facebook showing how the police moved in to clear a small number of protesters from the avenue.

It was not hard to imagine what the kind of protest the authorities were concerned about might look like. Two days earlier, when an ambulance carrying Mr. Belaid’s body to the morgue had passed through the same street, thousands of protesters swarmed around the vehicle. Video posted on YouTube late Wednesday by Jadal, a Tunisian news site, showed that scene.

Video recorded on Wednesday in Tunis as protesters gathered around an ambulance carrying the body of Chokri Belaid, a murdered opposition leader.

There were reports of protests in other parts of Tunisia on Friday, as many workers observed calls for a nationwide strike.

Video uploaded to YouTube by a blogger who said he was in the town of Sousse appeared to show the security forces, and officers in plain clothes, firing tear gas and dragging protesters away from a traffic circle pictured in a Wikipedia entry on the old town.

Video uploaded to YouTube on Friday, said to show the police cracking down on protesters in the Tunisian town of Sousse.

Two clips posted online earlier Friday by the same blogger appeared to show the divisions in Sousse, between supporters and opponents of the new government, which have emerged nationwide. One clip showed a loud march in favor of Ennahda, the Islamist party that now rules Tunisia; in another, a second group of protesters declared that they were committed to “bringing down the regime and avenging the death of Chokri Belaid.”

Video said to show supporters of Tunisia’s Islamist ruling party, marching in Sousse on Friday.

Video of antigovernment protesters, said to have been recorded in the Tunisian city of Sousse on Friday.

Video shot by bloggers for the independent news site Nawaat showed what they described as a demonstration in the city of Bizerte in honor of Mr. Belaid, outside the local headquarters of Ennahda. According to a description on Nawaat’s French-language live blog, the video shows an Islamist calling for calm and telling the demonstrators that the nation’s secularists have lost the struggle for power.

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Sue Paterno Breaks Her Silence, Defends Late Husband Joe

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By Nicole Weisensee Egan





02/08/2013 at 03:00 PM EST







Sue and Joe Paterno in 2010


Nabil K. Mark/Centre Daily Times/MCT/Getty


Nearly one year after Joe Paterno's death amid scandal, his widow is speaking out.

The football coach – whose heralded 61-year career at PSU ended amid speculation that he did not do enough to prevent former employee Jerry Sandusky from sexually abusing young boys – was "scrupulously honest, rigidly moral and absolutely unafraid of the consequences of doing the right thing," his widow, Sue, says in a letter sent to former Penn State football players Friday.

On Sunday morning, Sue Paterno will release the results of an investigation she ordered into her husband's conduct during the period when Sandusky was bringing his young victims to the university campus, and later when a witness to one of Sandusky's crimes came to the Paternos' home to report some of what he had seen.

She did not give the results of the report in her letter to the players, instead urging them to go to paterno.com on Sunday to read it themselves. The investigation, carried out by experts hired by her lawyers, was a response to a report commissioned by Penn State's board of directors and conducted by former FBI Director Louis Freeh last July. The report alleged that Paterno and other top school officials had shown "shocking disregard for child victims" and tried to cover up the scandal.

"I did not recognize the man Mr. Freeh described," she wrote. "I am here to tell you as definitively and forcefully as I know how that Mr. Freeh could not have been more off base in his assessment of Joe."

"I knew Joe Paterno as well as one human being can know another. Joe was exactly the moral, disciplined and demanding man you knew him to be."

In an exclusive at-home interview with PEOPLE, Sue, 73, goes on to say that "Joe lived his values every day, on and off the field, and he instilled those values in his players. Honesty was paramount."

In October, Sandusky, 69, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison on 45 counts of child sexual abuse.

For Sue Paterno's complete interview, pick up next week's PEOPLE, on newsstands next Friday

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Health officials: Worst of flu season may be over

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NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.


The number of states reporting intense or widespread flu dropped again last week, U.S. health officials said Friday.


The season started earlier than normal, spiking first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths have been dropping for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.


"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said in an email.


It's been nine years since a conventional flu season started like this one. That was the winter of 2003-04 — one of the deadliest in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths. Like this year, that season had the same dominant flu strain, one that tends to make people sicker.


But back then, the flu vaccine didn't protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated each year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed this year's version is about 60 percent effective.


So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.


The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 such deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week.


On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.


Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older.


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Wall Street jumps; Nasdaq near 12-year high

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Friday, pushing the S&P 500 to a fresh five-year high and putting the Nasdaq within a hair of a 12-year intraday high, following a batch of encouraging domestic and international economic reports.


Data showing stronger international trade in China and Germany, and a report indicating the U.S. trade deficit had narrowed in December, pointed to improving global demand.


"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.


The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1 percent. Gains in LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc following their quarterly results helped the sector.


The benchmark S&P 500 <.spx>, up more than 6 percent for the year, is on track for six straight weeks of gains for the first time since August 2012.


But an advance has been tougher in recent days as investors await strong trading incentives to drive the index further upward.


"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 40.94 points, or 0.29 percent, at 13,984.99. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 7.72 points, or 0.51 percent, at 1,517.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 27.94 points, or 0.88 percent, at 3,193.08.


The Nasdaq was just 3 points shy of its highest level since November 2000.


Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.1 percent to $150.31 after announcing quarterly profits and giving a bullish forecast for the year.


AOL Inc shares rose 7.5 percent to $33.77 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.


The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 4.2 percent at 12.94. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.


"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."


Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand, while German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.


Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)



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At War Blog: U.S. and Allies Conduct Drills in Persian Gulf, a Signal to Iran

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Deterring Iran is a delicate balance of diplomacy, sanctions and military muscle-flexing, all intended to send a strong signal – without proving so provocative that the region is pushed toward war. One piece of the effort – halting the proliferation of illicit weapons – got a practice run in the Persian Gulf this week.

Although the exercise did not explicitly name an adversary, geography certainly pointed to Iran, as well as to militants of Al Qaeda still operating in the region. The exercise, which ended Thursday, included a headquarters simulation to test the policy-making and coordination among the American military and two dozen nations that joined, as well as an extensive component of military drills at sea, in the air and on land.

Pentagon officials do not hide the fact that halting suspected smugglers, and boarding their vessels and inspecting them, is in some ways easier than knitting together a coalition of countries to operate under the decade-old Proliferation Security Initiative.

While there may be quiet agreement that Iran is a threat to regional stability, many nations – especially Iran’s neighbors – want to avoid any appearance of belligerence that might make relations even worse. In fact, several of the countries in this week’s exercise declined to officially confirm their participation.

That alliance cohesion problem is not new. When the Proliferation Security Initiative was begun by the administration of President George W. Bush, South Korea initially refused to join, for fear of angering North Korea. The government in Seoul eventually reversed the decision, and South Korea is among the nonproliferation program’s current members, a number that has expanded to 102 nations from the original 11.

Separate from this current multinational exercise, American and Yemeni officials disclosed last week that a joint operation had interdicted a boat carrying a large load of explosives and weapons, including shoulder-launched antiaircraft weapons. Intelligence indicated that the shipment came from Iran and was destined for Houthi insurgent militants inside Yemen.

Even before the proliferation exercise ended this week, the American military’s Central Command announced the scheduling of another exercise to practice mine countermeasures and maritime security in waters of the Middle East. Those skills would be necessary if Iran tried to close the Strait of Hormuz. More than 20 nations will participate in the exercise, set to begin in May.

But budget difficulties in Washington may make sustaining a large American military presence in the region more difficult. The Pentagon announced this week that, temporarily at least, there would be only one aircraft carrier strike group on patrol in the region, down from the usual two. The reason: the Defense Department needs to save money.

Related Coverage:

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Mindy McCready Committed to Treatment Facility

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By Steve Helling





02/07/2013 at 03:15 PM EST







Mindy McCready and David Wilson


Courtesy Mindy McCready


Just three weeks after Mindy McCready lost her boyfriend, songwriter David Wilson, the embattled country singer has suffered another setback.

In an emergency hearing on Wednesday, a judge ordered McCready to be committed to a treatment facility to cope with mental health and alcohol issues. During the hearing, McCready, 37, admitted to drinking too much alcohol, blaming her overindulgence on her grief at Wilson's death.

McCready's two children – Zander, 6, and Zayne, 9 months – have been removed from her home and are currently in foster care.

Zayne's father was David Wilson. Zander's father is singer Billy McKnight.

It's not the first time that trouble has found McCready, who has a long history of drug abuse, arrests, rehab and suicide attempts.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Billy McKnight calls the latest development "devastating" and is trying to gain sole custody of his son. McKnight acknowledges that he has faced his own personal demons. He battled substance abuse, and was arrested and charged with attempted murder in 2005 after a physical altercation with McCready.

Despite his difficult past, McKnight, 46, says it's all behind him. "I've been sober for years," he says. "All those problems ended when Mindy and I split up. I have been doing everything right. I'm gainfully employed, doing well in my career. I am clean. I live in a gated community. I can provide for Zander and give him stability."

McKnight has a lawyer and will be heading to Arkansas. "I'm going to fight for my son," he says. "I can't even talk to him and ask him how he's doing, because the Arkansas courts took Mindy's word that I was dangerous. It's time for me to fight for Zander's best interest. I want my son back."

McCready could be in treatment for up to 21 days. Meanwhile, authorities in Cleburne County, Ark., are investigating the circumstances surrounding David Wilson's death.

Although initial media reports claimed that Wilson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police have not yet ruled the case a suicide. (A source in the Sheriff's office tells PEOPLE that investigators are awaiting autopsy, ballistic and toxicology reports to determine how, exactly, Wilson died.)

McCready has neither been named nor cleared as a suspect in Wilson's death.

McCready's rep did not immediately return calls and emails for comment.

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

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Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.


It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.


Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.


"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.


People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.


In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.


"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.


Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.


The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:


—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.


—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.


—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.


—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.


—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.


"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.


Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.


There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.


There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.


The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.


Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.


The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.


"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.


"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."


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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street dips on renewed euro zone fears

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Thursday as comments by the ECB president on the euro raised worries about Europe's outlook and curbed investors' appetite for risky assets.


The euro currency dropped against the safe-haven dollar and yen after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the exchange rate was important to growth and price stability, which investors took as a sign the bank is concerned about the euro's advance in recent days.


Materials shares were among the weakest performers on the S&P 500, with the S&P 500 materials index <.splrcma> down 0.7 percent, while housing stocks also declined. A housing sector index <.hgx> was off 1.4 percent.


Despite the day's decline and weakness earlier this week, the stock market has been in an almost uninterrupted uptrend for most of the year, with the S&P 500 gaining more than 5 percent for 2013.


Many investors could see buying opportunities in the decline.


"I don't think there's the systemic risk that we had some time ago of bank failures in Europe and so forth. They seem to be ahead of that sort of crisis," said Dan Veru, chief investment officer of Palisade Capital Management, in Fort Lee, New Jersey.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 67.95 points, or 0.49 percent, at 13,918.57. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 6.31 points, or 0.42 percent, at 1,505.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 16.76 points, or 0.53 percent, at 3,151.72.


Top U.S. retailers reported strong January sales after offering compelling merchandise that drew in shoppers facing a hit to their take-home pay from higher payroll taxes.


Macy's Inc rose 1.5 percent to $40.09 after reporting January same store sales rose 11.7 percent.


But Ann Inc dropped 6.7 percent to $30.59 after forecasting fourth-quarter sales below analysts' expectations.


Fund manager David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital on Thursday said it has sued Apple Inc and said the company needs to do more to unlock value for shareholders. Apple shares gained 0.6 percent to $457.43.


Akamai Technologies Inc lost 15.6 percent to $35.06 as the worst performer on the S&P 500 after the Internet content delivery company forecast current-quarter revenue below analysts' expectations.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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The Lede: Video of Protests Across Tunisia After an Opposition Leader Is Gunned Down

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Video of a protest outside the interior ministry in Tunis on Wednesday from the blog Nawaat.

As my colleagues Monica Marks and Kareem Fahim report, there were protests across Tunisia on Wednesday following the assassination of Chokri Belaid, a leader of the secular opposition.

Video shot by activist bloggers for the independent Tunisian site Nawaat showed protesters rallying outside the interior ministry on the tree-lined Avenue Habib Bourguiba in Tunis early in the day, and then being chased from the street by police officers who fired tear gas into the crowd and beat demonstrators.

Video from the Tunisian blog Nawaat of police officers attacking protesters in Tunis on Wednesday.

After the avenue was cleared, witnesses reported that a small crowd accompanied the ambulance carrying Mr. Belaid’s body down the same street.

As news of the assassination spread, there were protests in other cities and reports of attacks on the offices of Ennahda, the ruling Islamist party. Mr. Belaid had criticized Ennahda’s leaders for failing to condemn violent attacks on his party’s activists by young Islamists, in a television appearance shortly before his death, the French radio station Europe 1 reported.

Agence France-Presse video showed protesters marching in Sidi Bouzid, the town where the Tunisian revolt began.

More video of the demonstration in Tunis, and a clip of protesters occupying the headquarters of Ennahda in the city of Sfax, was posted online by Jadal, a Tunisian news site set up by the Institute for Peace and War Reporting.

Video from the Tunisian news site Jadal, said to show protesters occupying the offices of the ruling party in Sfax on Wednesday.

A demonstration outside the office of Ennahda in the coastal city of Mahdia was caught on video by a Nawaat blogger.

Before the demonstration at the interior ministry was attacked by the police, activists in the crowd posted updates on the protest on Twitter.

Among the chants, witnesses reported, were calls for the resignation of the interior minister, Ali Larayedh, a leader of Ennahda who is a former dissident.

Mr. Larayedh called the assassination of Mr. Belaid a “terrorist act” and “a blow to the democratic transition experience in Tunisia,” the state news agency reported.

One member of the crowd was Amira Yahyaoui, the president of the rights organization Al Bawsala, who suggested that Tunisians had waited long enough for an overhaul of the country’s notoriously brutal police force. After Mr. Balaid’s death, she wrote, it was “necessary to go inside the interior ministry and clear out the incompetents and, worse, the facilitators” who had allowed such acts of political violence to take place.

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