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Asian stocks subdued after cautious Fed

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian stock markets fell on Thursday, while the dollar struggled to make much headway after the U.S. central bank chief signaled the recovery in the world's biggest economy was still fragile and warned against sharp spending cuts.

Commodity prices including crude oil were subdued after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested U.S. economic conditions were still too weak for the central bank to pull back on its vast monetary stimulus, despite a welcome drop in the jobless rate.

Japan's Nikkei (.N225) slipped, while shares elsewhere in Asia (.MIAPJ0000PUS) slid 0.7 percent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index (.HSI) and South Korea's KOSPI (.KS11) have completely erased this year's gains and were back at levels not seen since late December.

In contrast, last year's laggards like the Nikkei remained well in the black for the year.

"It's not like buying in Japanese stocks has completely stopped, but investors have been looking for a reason to take profits and now they're cautious about overheating in the market," said Norikazu Kitta, strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities.

Despite the generally downbeat mood, there were patchy bright spots in the market, among them, shares in Australian bourse operator ASX (ASX.AX) jumped more than 4 percent, while Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI) gained about 1.6 percent.

Investors are hoping that merger news between major bourses like the NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse would boost prospects of ASX's own planned merger with Singapore Exchange, which is facing political hurdles.

Global miner Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) edged up 0.3 percent ahead of its December-half results. Investors, however, pushed SingTel shares (STEL.SI) down 1 percent after the telecom company unveiled a 2.2 percent fall in quarterly profit.

DOLLAR SUBDUED

Meanwhile, the dollar index (.DXY), which tracks the greenback's performance against a basket of major currencies, limped up 0.06 percent to 77.690 after a steep decline overnight.

Still, many traders think the dollar is in a holding pattern for the near term as the euro was also lacking upward momentum of its own after the European Central Bank last week quelled expectations of an early rate hike.

The euro traded at $1.3715, down slightly from late U.S. levels but still up about 1 percent on the week.

"It's difficult for now for the euro to rise above the peak hit earlier this month. It will need a fresh factor to go beyond that peak," said Keiji Matsumoto, a strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities.

The Australian dollar dipped slightly in the wake of solid jobs numbers as investors bet they were not so strong as to make a rate rise more likely anytime soon.

U.S. crude was little changed at $86.83 a barrel, while gold edged lower to $1,361.55 an ounce, well off a lifetime high around $1,430 hit in December.

Copper, which hit an all-time high of $10,160 per ton on Monday, traded at $9,988.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Andrew Marshall)

Food costs at records, U.N. warns of volatile era

MILAN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Global food prices tracked by a U.N. agency hit their highest level on record in January, a problem set to worsen after a massive snowstorm in the United States and floods in Australia.

The United Nations said on Thursday its Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index rose for the seventh month in a row to reach 231 in January, topping the peak of 224.1 last seen in June 2008. It is the highest level the index has reached since records began in 1990.

"These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come," FAO economist and grains expert Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement.

Wheat underscored the problem affecting commodity prices around the world, settling on Thursday slightly lower after hitting a 2- year high earlier in the day. Corn and soybeans, which also have been hovering near long-term highs, also declined.

Global food inflation is a mounting worry for world leaders. It has contributed to political unrest in countries with high poverty rates and unemployment, as evidenced in the toppling of Tunisia's president in January. That unrest has spilled into Egypt, Yemen and Jordan.

In response, some countries are increasing food imports and have built stockpiles to meet their domestic needs. Among them is Algeria, wary after food riots in early January. It has made huge wheat purchases to avoid shortages, and on Thursday it announced plans to lift a 19-year-old state of emergency in a bid toavert spreading protests.

In Central America, Honduras has frozen prices on many basic foodstuffs despite complaints from farmers. El Salvador is increasing anti-poverty programs by 30 percent, and Guatemala is considering slashing import tariffs on wheat and is handing out food and cash vouchers to landless peasants.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick in a Reuters interview urged world leaders to "wake up" to the dangers of rising food inflation, a problem said he sees no relief from.

"We are going to be facing a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices," he said.

SUPPLY THE KEY

Catastrophic storms and droughts have slammed the world's leading agriculture countries in recent months, including flooding and a massive cyclone in Australia and a powerful winter storm that swept across the United States.

Dubbed "Stormageddon," one of the biggest snowstorm in decades dumped up to 20 inches of snow in some parts of the U.S. grain belt this week, paralyzing the shipment of grain and livestock.

A deep-freeze forecast for the Midwest, the bread basket of the United States, threatens the region's winter wheat because it may lack sufficient insulating moisture to withstand the cold.

Sugar prices also have surged to three-decade highs on fears of damage Cyclone Yasi would bring to the Australian cane crop. Prices for Malaysian palm oil, a cooking staple in the developing world, hit 3-year highs on flooding.

Big companies have had to adjust to higher raw material costs. Kellogg Co, the world's largest breakfast cereal company, said on Thursday it has boosted prices on many of its products to offset rising costs for ingredients such as grains and sugar.

"Today's announcement by the Food and Agriculture Organization should ring alarm bells in capitals around the world," said Gawain Kripke, a policy and research director for Oxfam America, an international development group.

"Governments must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when countries reacted to spiraling prices by banning exports and hoarding food. This will only make the situation worse and it is the world's poorest people who will pay the price," he said.

Janis Huebner, economist at Germany's DekaBank said inflation partly fueled by increasing food prices could in turn trigger interest rate rises in several countries this year.

"This could mean a slowing down of growth in the countries which raise their interest rates," he said. "This could involve Asian countries and other regions, this would somewhat brake growth but I do not expect a hard landing."

STOCK BUILDING

Some countries, particularly where food prices loom large in household budgets, have been building up food stocks to contain prices -- and to limit the political and social fallout.

During the last food price crisis, the World Bank estimated that some 870 million people in developing countries were hungry or malnourished. The FAO estimates that number has increased to 925 million.

"2008 should have been a wake-up call, but I'm not yet sure all the countries in the world that we need to support this have woken up to it," the World Bank's Zoellick said.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy, last week bought 820,000 tonnes of rice, lifting rice prices, while suspending import duties on rice, soybeans and wheat.

Algeria last week bought almost 1 million tonnes of wheat, bringing its purchases to at least 1.75 million since the start of January, and ordered a speeding up of grain imports.

On a day of bloody confrontation in Egypt, where protesters are demanding an end to the 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak, the U.N. World Food Programme's Executive Director Josette Sheeran said the world was now in an era where it had to be very serious about food supply.

"If people don't have enough to eat they only have three options: they can revolt, they can migrate or they can die. We need a better action plan," she said.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in London, Martinne Geller in New York, Lesley Wroughton and Christopher Doering in Washington and Michael Hogan in Hamburg; editing by Jonathan Thatcher, Keiron Henderson, Russell Blinch and Xavier Briand)

T-Mobile tops J.D. Power customer satisfaction study - again

J.D. Power and Associates have , which attempts to measure customer satisfaction with mobile operators based on responses from over 9,700 mobile users who contacted their providers customer service departments from July through December 2010. And, for the second year running, number-four mobile operator T-Mobile earned the top ranking, with an overall score of 758 on a 1,000-point scale. Verizon Wireless came in second with a score of 743; the industry average was 739.

J.D. Power also found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that customers are generally more satisfied with their support queries if they interact with a human beingwhether over a phone or in-person at a storeas opposed to dealing with automated response systems via phone or the Web.

As more companies encourage customers to contact them on the Web to save operating costs, they run the risk of increased customer churn if the number of contacts needed to resolve a complaint or issue rises, said J.D. Power and Associates senior director for wireless services Kirk Parsons, in a statement. Switching intent is four times as high among those who rate their wireless carrier below average in customer care, so the challenge for wireless carriers is to offer an easy and efficient customer care transaction experience.

The study, currently in its ninth year, found that just over half (51 percent) of telephone contacts in the industry are resolved primarily by a service representative, rather than via automated systems. Where the industry average satisfaction level was 739, the satisfaction level for Web-based contact was just 684 out of 1,000, and automated response systems only did a little better, averaging 704. Reaching a live human being, however, had an overall satisfaction rate of 774.

The study also found customers are most satisfied with their customer service experience if they spend only a short time using automated systems, and quickly move on to a live representative. The study found T-Mobile did a particularly good job at handling calls that move through automated systems to live representatives, as well as direct calls to customer service, although T-Mobile also lead all wireless carriers amongst users seeking help online.

Customers pampered at Manila's first "maid cafe"

MANILA (Reuters Life!) – Waitresses in frilly French maid costumes, some with elaborate blonde ringlets tumbling down their shoulders, serve coffee and tea, pampering customers at Manila's first "maid cafe."

The recently-opened cafe in capital Manila, also a Philippines first, hopes to cash in on the growing popularity of "cosplay" or costume play among Filipinos, in which participants dress up as favorite characters from anime or manga comics to indulge in a little escapist fantasy.

The trend originated in Japan, where maid cafes -- a subset of cosplay restaurants -- have been around for over a decade.

In "Meidolls," the Manila cafe, waitresses dress as anime-inspired French maids, complete with wigs with long tresses, dresses and pinafores. Some wear cat or rabbit ears with their outfits, while others sport pink hair.

The waitresses treat their patrons as masters and mistresses, acting like servants in a private home.

"I guess that's what we all want once in a while after a busy day of work or busy day at school. You wanna just, you know, lie back and be served by your own servants," said Reia Ayunan, owner of Meidolls.

Ayunan added that since Filipinos are naturally passionate and hospitable to guests, this combines perfectly with the idea of service required in a maid cafe.

Maid cafe waitresses are required to engage with their customers, making sure they feel at home.

"We're trying to take it one step higher than the (usual) Filipino hospitality," said Ariane Gonzaga, one of the cafe attendants.

Ayunan's cafe, set up with the help of the growing Filipino cosplay community, has so far done well with customers.

"The servers are courteous, they're all pretty and nice to talk to," said customer Wow Nabong, who had never heard of a cosplay cafe before or even watched any Japanese anime.

To avoid problems with customers who might perhaps show too much interest in the waitresses, the cafe has strict rules of conduct, driven home by a video played in the cafe.

Customers are not allowed to ask for personal information, nor are they allowed to stalk any of the staff.

The number of cosplay enthusiasts has been growing in the Philippines, with over 10,000 people taking part in cosplay conventions around the country. Maid cafes were often set up during these gatherings on a temporary basis.

Occasionally, carrying the anime theme still further, the waitresses entertain patrons by singing Japanese songs and dancing with them.

"For me, it's fun because we're always in costume," said Meidolls waitress Sarah Guevara.

"Every day is a cosplay day."

(Reporting by Reuters Television; editing by Elaine Lies)

Fans miss out on Super Bowl in seating blunder

DALLAS (Reuters) – Four hundred Super Bowl fans, who paid at least $900 per ticket, were denied their spots at the NFL's showcase game Sunday after an embarrassing mess-up over seating at the $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium.

Another 850 fans with tickets in the affected section were relocated to other areas, the NFL said in a statement.

"Incomplete installation of temporary seats in a limited number of sections made the seats unusable," the NFL said in a statement.

The 400 fans were offered the chance to watch the game from a standing room only area or on monitors in a club area behind the Pittsburgh Steelers bench.

All the affected fans will receive a refund triple the cost of the face value of their tickets.

"We regret the situation and inconvenience that it may have caused. We will conduct a full review of this matter," said the NFL statement issued shortly before kickoff.

As well as the fall-out from the seating blunder, stadium officials had to deal with irate fans frustrated at the difficulty of moving between levels by elevator in the 100,000-seat venue.

(Reporting by Simon Evans in Dallas; Editing by Steve Ginsburg)