U.S. employers added 175,000 jobs last month, slightly more than the 170,000 forecast by economists, according to data provider FactSet. The figure is consistent with steady hiring but less robust than the pace reported in the fall and winter.

The report gave a boost to stock market bulls, who expect the Federal Reserve to keep up its stimulus program as the U.S. economy continues to recover moderately. That combination pushed the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index to record highs last month.

For investors who expect the Fed to stay the course, "these types of slow economic growth reports speak to that," said Kevin Mahn, chief investment officer at Hennion & Walsh Asset Management. "It keeps interest rates at record lows and it keeps the equity markets humming."

The Dow Jones Industrial average jumped 165 points, or 1 percent, to 15,206 as of 10:56 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Home Depot rose $1.63, or 2.1 percent, the $78.90, the most of the 30 stocks in the index.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 15 points, or 1 percent, to 1,637. The Nasdaq composite rose 27 points, or 0.8 percent, to 3,451.

The market slumped on Tuesday and Wednesday after disappointing reports on private-sector hiring and manufacturing. The S&P 500 index lost 1.9 percent over those two days.

Friday's gains were broad. Nine of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index rose, led by industrial stocks, which stand to benefit more than other sectors if the economy picks up. The only group that fell was telecommunications, a so-called defensive sector that investors favor when they are seeking safety and high dividends.

Financial markets have turned volatile over the past two weeks as traders parse comments from Federal Reserve officials for hints about when the central bank will cut back on its support and the impact that will have on long-term interest rates and the economy. The Fed is buying $85 billion of bond every month to keep interest rates low and encourage borrowing and spending.

The S&P 500 index is down 1.8 percent since reaching a record high on May 21. The next day, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed could act to ease up on its economic stimulus program in one of its next few meetings

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.14 percent from 2.08 percent late Thursday as investors moved out of safer assets.

The Labor Department's monthly survey of employment is one of the most important gauges of the U.S. economy and receives close scrutiny from investors. It can frequently cause big moves in financial markets, especially if the report shows that employment is stronger or weaker than economists were expecting.

On May 3, the government reported not only a strong pickup in hiring in April but it also revised sharply upward its estimates for job growth in February and March. That sent the Dow Jones industrial average past 15,000 for the first time, while the S&P 500 index broke through 1,600.

In the weeks following that report, bond yields rose from 1.63 percent as high as 2.20 percent May 31. That meant investors think the economy was strengthening, dampening the appeal of low-risk assets like bonds. It also meant investors thought the Federal Reserve would act sooner than previously thought to curtail its bond-buying program.

In commodities trading Friday, the price of oil rose 93 cents, or 1 percent, to $95.68 a barrel. The price of gold fell $30, or 2.2 percent, to $1,385 an ounce.

Among stocks making big moves:

Gap rose 96 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $44.85. The San Francisco-based clothing store chain reported late Thursday that its sales jumped 7 percent in May, more than expected, helped by strong results at its namesake Gap and Old Navy stores.

TiVo plunged $2.40, or 17.4 percent, to $11.36 after the company settled patent disputes with several technology companies including Cisco and Motorola Mobility but received far less than what most investors inspected. TiVo has posted annual losses in nearly all of the past 10 years.

Thor Industries rose $5.18, or 12.6 percent, to $46.42 after the company reported a 6 percent increase in income. The results beat market expectations on stronger sales of RVs and a lower tax rate.

At the Hernando Siles, La Paz

Scorers: Bolivia - Jhasmany Campos 86 Venezuela - Juan Arango 58

Halftime: 0-0

Teams:

Bolivia: 23-Sergio Galarza; 21-Edward Zenteno, 16-Ronald Raldes (22-Jhasmany Campos 73), 2-Ronald Eguino; 7-Juan Carlos Arce, 6-Walter Veizaga, 3-Alejandro Chumacero, 10-Rudy Cardozo, 17-Daniel Chavez (14-Gualberto Mojica 46); 19-Carlos Saucedo, 9-Marcelo Martins (18-Eduardo Fierro 64)

Venezuela: 1-Renny Vega; 16-Roberto Rosales, 20-Grenddy Perozo, 6-Gabriel Cichero, 13-Luis Seijas; 11-Cesar Gonzalez (21-Alexander Gonzalez 71), 5-Angel Flores, 8-Tomas Rincon, 18-Juan Arango (2-Rolf Feltscher 80); 17-Josef Martinez, 7-Richard Blanco (14-Evelio Hernandez 67)

Referee: Patricio Loustau (Argentina) (Compiled by Carlos Quiroga, editing by Ed Osmond)

Investors were also registering disappointment with the European Central Bank after it failed to fulfill hopes for a dramatic step to spark economic activity in the recession-mired region. Confusion about which direction the U.S. Federal Reserve might go with its bond-buying stimulus also kept investors edgy.

"I think market sentiment is still weak because there is still concern about what the next move of the Federal Reserve will be," said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong.

Fed chief Ben Bernanke has said the U.S. central bank might pull back on its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program if economic data, especially hiring, improves. But other Fed officials have spoken about a winding down of asset purchases sooner. Stock markets, which have been pushed up by investors looking for returns that outpace bonds, might feel the pinch if the Fed scales back purchases that have kept interest rates low.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index lost 1.3 percent to 12,734.91 after the yen climbed against the dollar. That pummeled Japan's exporters, which generally welcome a weaker currency to make products more competitive overseas. Isuzu Motors plunged 7.9 percent. Yamaha Motor Ltd. sank 6.4 percent. Toshiba Corp. dropped 6.1 percent.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.3 percent to 21,549.68. South Korea's Kospi lost 1.5 percent to 1,930.80. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.7 percent to 4,746.40.

Later Friday, the U.S. Labor Department will release its employment report for May. The report is closely watched for signs of improvement in hiring, critical for an economy trying to pick up the pace of a sluggish recovery. A recent batch of weak manufacturing reports has also heightened concerns about the economy's strength.

On Thursday, investors were disheartened by the lack of new initiatives from European Central Bank president Mario Draghi that might help boost ailing European economies.

Even though the ECB cut its 2013 growth and inflation forecasts for the 17-country euro currency grouping, Draghi said the governing council felt there was no reason to act now, especially as recent data suggest an improvement in the current gloomy economic conditions.

Analysts at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong called the ECB's pronouncements "fairly disappointing for anyone looking for some signal of more easing to come."

Wall Street posted a modest recovery Thursday. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent to 15,040.62 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 added 0.9 percent, to 1,622.56 points. The Nasdaq composite index rose 0.7 percent, to 3,424.05 points.

Benchmark oil for July delivery was up 8 cents to $94.85 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.02 to close at $94.76 a barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3258 from $1.3245 late Thursday in New York. The dollar fell to 96.19 yen from 97.22 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) - While the first two Champions Trophies were intended to raise the profile of cricket in host nations Bangladesh and Kenya, the seventh and last edition starting in England on Thursday will be a straight shootout between the sport's eight heavyweight nations.

The hosts, holders Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka will do battle in Group A while India, Pakistan, South Africa and West Indies compete for semi-final places in Group B as the game's 50-over format gets a rare moment in the spotlight.

With test cricket still the pinnacle, and the increasing popularity of the Twenty20 format, 50 overs matches have often become dull with formulaic batting and defensive bowling dominating for large chunks of the games.

But with attacking batsmen of the quality of West Indian Chris Gayle and New Zealand's Brendon McCullum and bowlers such as South African paceman Dale Steyn and Pakistan spinner Saeed Ajmal there could be fireworks in the 18-day tournament.

Picking a winner is difficult and every team look to have genuine hopes of lifting the trophy at Edgbaston in Birmingham on June 23. British bookmaker Ladbrokes make South Africa favourites at odds of 4/1 with New Zealand the outsiders at just 12/1.

England, who have never won a major 50 overs tournament, were hoping that home conditions would work in their favour but they were mauled by New Zealand in the first two games of the current one-day series.

They also have injury doubts over Stuart Broad and Steve Finn and, if the two tall fast bowlers fail to recover in time, captain Alastair Cook looks short of quality options with the ball.

PURPLE PATCH

New Zealand opener Martin Guptill is enjoying a purple patch with two unbeaten centuries against England, including a brilliant 189 not out in the last game in Southampton.

With their classiest batsman Ross Taylor also returning to form and a well-balanced bowling attack, the Black Caps will fancy their chances of going one better than in 2009 when they lost in the final to Australia. New Zealand beat India to win the trophy in Kenya in 2002.

The Australians are no longer the dominant force in one-day international cricket but they have fast bowlers in Mitchell Starc and Clint McKay who should thrive in English conditions.

South Africa, who play India in the tournament's opening match, enter a new era without great all-rounder Jacques Kallis, who is unavailable for personal reasons, but captain AB de Villiers has the best fast bowling attack at his disposal led by Steyn.

If De Villiers can lead by example with the bat, the South Africans will be confident of giving their departing coach Gary Kirsten the perfect send-off.

West Indian cricket is on a high after their shock win in last year's Twenty20 World Cup.

The imposing Gayle is the most destructive batsman in the world on his day as he showed six weeks ago in his astonishing record-breaking innings of 175 from 66 balls in the Indian Premier League.

The team from the Caribbean will be led by all-rounder Dwayne Bravo and they did win the Champions Trophy in 2004, the last time it was played in England.

India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will ensure a strong Asian challenge.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni led India to the 2011 World Cup and, with batsmen of the calibre of Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and the captain himself, run-scoring should not be a problem.

Pakistan are the most wildly inconsistent team in world cricket.

But they have come together well as a unit under the captaincy of Misbah-ul-Haq and Ajmal's guile is a game-changing weapon.

"He's always special for us," Misbah said. "Everybody knows that he's at the moment one of the best spinners in the world. He always has something special to offer to this team. These kind of bowlers always love these sort of occasions."

Sri Lanka have a formidable top order with the experience of Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan and a devastating pace bowler in Lasith Malinga. (Editing by Justin Palmer)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - French electronic dance music duo Daft Punk scored their first No. 1 album on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, as their risk to use retro technology paid off with fans.

"Random Access Memories," the highly anticipated fourth studio album from Daft Punk, sold 339,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. That was the group's best sales week to date.

Digital downloads of the album were approximately 65 percent of overall sales, with 221,000 copies downloaded.

Daft Punk, formed by childhood friends Thomas Bangalter, 38, and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, 39, were at the forefront of electronic dance music in the 1990s, fusing synthesizers and computers to create music on hits such as "Around the World." Daft Punk became popular figures in the dance music field, known for wearing shiny helmets on stage and being elusive and unpredictable.

For the release of their latest album, they stayed away from big stages and instead launched it at a small music festival in the small Australian town of Wee Waa on May 17, which they themselves did not attend.

After the 2005 album "Human After All," Bangalter and de Homem-Christo said they took time out to explore "uncharted territories" in their field, waiting eight years before releasing "Random Access Memories."

"It's always been a quest (with the) making of each record, somehow reinventing ourselves a little bit, and this time we feel like it's the same musical influence somehow that we maybe had 15 years ago on our first record," Bangalter told Reuters ahead of the album's release.

"Random Access Memories" is not just an homage to the dance floor music of the late 1970s but an attempt to capture the actual time period itself, the duo said.

"If you listen to Pink Floyd records or the majority of the albums in the late 1970s, they were really experimenting with art, elegance, radicality and integrity," Bangalter said. "That was inspiring for this record, to try to do something that has certain elegance and certain experimentation to it."

The new album features numerous collaborators, including singer Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, veteran Italian music producer Giorgio Moroder and R&B singer Pharrell Williams, who lent his vocals to the raunchy dance floor track "Get Lucky."

ANALOG IN A DIGITAL WORLD

After inspiring a new wave of electronic dance music DJs in the past decade that has included David Guetta, "Random Access Memories" sees Daft Punk strip away all digital components, recording solely with live instruments onto analog tape in a studio setting.

"Digital technologies are more efficient at working on other aspects of music, like dynamic and energetic qualities," Bangalter said.

"In the same way that sometimes a film camera seems to grab a moment in raw emotion than with a digital camera, that's what analog tape usually is ... it tends to - and we don't know why - grab a magic moment that is emotional."

The risk of going analog appears to have paid off, as the duo topped the Billboard chart with the second-highest debut album of the year, behind only Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience," which opened in March with 968,000 copies.

"Get Lucky," which first premiered as a music video broadcast at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Southern California in April, has been streamed more than 33 million times globally on Spotify since its April 18 release.

Daft Punk led four new albums debuting in the top 10 of the Billboard chart this week. Darius Rucker, frontman of rock group Hootie & the Blowfish, entered the chart at No. 2 this week with his country solo effort, "True Believers," selling 83,000 copies.

Rock band The National landed at No. 3 with "Trouble Will Find Me," while rapper French Montana rounded out the debuts in the top 10 this week with his first album, "Excuse My French," at No. 4.

Rockers 30 Seconds to Mars landed at No. 6 the album "Love Lust Faith + Dreams," while last week's chart-toppers, Vampire Weekend, fell to No. 7 this week as sales of "Modern Vampires of the City" dropped by 64 percent.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Bill Trott)

In particular, close observers on both sides of the gay marriage divide are wondering whether Justice Anthony Kennedy's view could be decisive since he often has been the swing vote on the high court.

It is always possible that Justice Kennedy is reading the newspapers and is impressed with the progress," said Michael Klarman, a Harvard University law professor and author of a recent book on the gay marriage fight.

In earlier cases on gay rights and the death penalty, Kennedy has cited the importance of changing practices, both nationally and around the world.

The court is expected to rule by late June in two cases involving same-sex marriage. One is a challenge to California's voter-approved Proposition 8 that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The other seeks to strike down a portion of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that denies to legally married same-sex couples a range of benefits that generally are available to married heterosexuals.

The justices took an initial vote in the days after hearing arguments in the two cases in late March. The senior justice on the winning side and the senior justice in dissent assigned opinions based on those votes. But while that first vote is important, it is not the end of the process; justices' assessments of a case can shift subtly or, in some cases, dramatically.

In 1992, Kennedy initially drew the assignment to write a majority opinion for five justices allowing prayers at public school graduations. In the end, he ended up writing the opinion for a different five-justice majority striking down the graduation prayers. According to several accounts, Kennedy simply changed his mind during the writing process.

Current events also can find their way into opinions. Last year, Justice Antonin Scalia's fiery dissent from a court ruling that watered down Arizona's crackdown on immigration included a reference to comments President Barack Obama made at a news conference that took place between the argument in the case in April and the announcement of the decision in June.

There is no way to know at this point whether anything similar will happen in the gay marriage cases, either of which could be decided on technical legal grounds that would say little about the court's view of the issue. But there has been no shortage of action.

In a 10-day span earlier this month, lawmakers in Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island gave final approval to bills to legalize same-sex marriages. Minnesota was the last of the three to act, on May 13, and when Gov. Mark Dayton signed the bill into law the following day, Minnesota became the 12th state, plus the District of Columbia, to approve same-sex unions. The other nine are: Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington.

Internationally, French President Francois Hollande signed a law this month making France the 14th country to recognize gay marriages. Uruguay and New Zealand took similar steps in April.

And further change could come soon. The Illinois Senate has approved a gay marriage bill that now is pending in the state House in advance of the May 31 end of the legislative session. Gov. Pat Quinn has said he would sign it.

In Great Britain, a bill to legalize same-sex weddings in England and Wales easily cleared the House of Commons and will be debated in the House of Lords beginning in July.

Both sides in the high court gay marriage debate say the recent events reinforce arguments they made to the court in March.

Defenders of limiting marriage to heterosexuals say the justices need only look at the change in marriage laws to see that there is no reason for them to step in and declare a national rule in favor of gay marriage that would upend constitutional bans in 30 states and laws prohibiting same-sex unions in roughly half a dozen others.

"These developments provide yet further evidence...that the claim that gays and lesbians are politically powerless and that the courts therefore have some special role in subjecting classifications affecting them to strict scrutiny is baseless," said Ed Whelan, an opponent of same-sex marriage who is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Jim Campbell, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, said the court should not short-circuit a vigorous national debate.

"The vast majority of the states have decided to retain the traditional view of marriage that has existed throughout Western civilization. This decision belongs to the people and should be decided by the people," Campbell said.

Mary Bonauto, the director of the Civil Rights Project at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said the assessment of the political clout of gays and lesbians is misleading. The number of states allowing same-sex weddings has doubled in less than a year and now represents 18 percent of the U.S. population. If Illinois joins in and the court were to affirm a lower court decision that struck down the California ban, just over a third of the population would live in 14 states and the District of Columbia where gay marriage would be legal.

That's not nearly enough, especially in the context of a decades-long struggle by gays and lesbians to win the right to marry, Bonauto said. "These states moving in the direction of marriage is a far cry from all states doing it," she said.

Klarman said gays and lesbians have made huge political strides in "deep blue" Democratic states.

"It is absolutely true that the political process continues to work and it is working with extraordinary rapidity," he said. By some estimates, in roughly 10 years majorities in all but a handful of Southern states will favor gay marriage.

"The only argument against this position is, what about the gay couple in Mississippi?" Klarman said, pointing to a state where the prohibition on same-sex unions is likely to endure.

The same argument could have been made, and was, during the court's deliberations over the Brown v. Board of Education case that outlawed segregation in public schools, he said.

Justice Stanley Reed, a Southerner, suggested that the court "let things play themselves out," although he eventually joined in the unanimous opinion in Brown.

During argument in the California case, Kennedy strongly suggested that he was not about to give gay marriage proponents what they are asking for, a decision that would allow same-sex couples to wed everywhere in the United States.

But Klarman wonders whether Kennedy might consider his legacy and the fact that at 76 years old, he might not be on the court for the next big gay marriage case. "He knows that today, he can write the opinion that would be the Brown of the gay rights movement," Klarman said.

___

Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter at www.twitter.com/shermancourt

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Floyd Mayweather showed little sign of ring-rust after a year out of the sport as he used sublime defense and a steady parade of right hands to dominate fellow American Robert Guerrero and retain his WBC welterweight championship on Saturday.

One day short of 12 months since his last bout, Mayweather, who also spent two months in jail in 2012 for a domestic abuse offence, landed an astonishing 60 percent of his power punches en route to a unanimous 12-round decision.

All three judges scored the fight 117-111 in favour of the undefeated Mayweather, who admitted that a damaged hand had prevented him from ending the fight early.

"I really was looking for a knockout, but I hurt my right hand," he revealed. "After that, I just had to box smart.

"Robert Guerrero was a tough warrior. He was trying to press the attack. But I got really good work in the gym and I felt comfortable in the ring. My defense was on point."

After an opening two rounds in which the southpaw Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KOs) had some success, Mayweather (44-0, 26 KOs) seemed to slip into his comfort zone from the third.

Although the challenger's game plan seemed to be to back Mayweather to the ropes with his jab and then land punches to the body, the champion repeatedly slipped under his opponent's left, landed one or more right hands and moved out of danger.

After being hit with several rights in the third, Guerrero appeared more hesitant to commit to his attack, giving Mayweather yet more time to slip in and out of range and land his key punches.

"I thought Floyd did an excellent job tonight," said the 36-year-old's father and trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr.

"There was nothing he couldn't do in there tonight. I told him to steal it with the right hand. That was a punch (Guerrero) couldn't see and wasn't expecting each time he threw it."

By the eighth round, Mayweather was stepping up his assault, landing right hands with greater force and mixing in left hooks as he opened up a cut over a clearly hurt Guerrero's left eye.

At that stage, it appeared that Mayweather would stop Guerrero inside the distance and although he continued to paint his opponent with right hands and left hooks, the champion remained content to focus on coasting toward the finish.

"Floyd was tricky with his punches," Guerrero said in a post-fight interview. "He's a great fighter. He's slick and he's quick. He's better than I thought. He was definitely on his game tonight."

In the latest rankings of such corporate policies by the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group, many of Exxon's Fortune 500 counterparts got scores of 80 or higher on a scale of 100. Exxon, the nation's largest oil and gas company, became the first firm to get a score below zero.

On Wednesday, in the latest attempt to pressure the company into change, a gay-rights group called Freedom to Work teamed with a high-powered Washington law firm to file what they described as a groundbreaking discrimination complaint against Exxon in Illinois.

The complaint, filed with the state's Department of Human Rights, says Exxon was sent two nearly identical resumes for a job opening at its office in Patoka, Ill. The only substantive differences were that one of the fictional applicants was clearly depicted as a gay-rights activist, and had higher college and high-school grades than the other applicant.

According to the complaint, Exxon's human resources office at its home base in Texas confirmed receipt of both applications, then made several efforts to contact the applicant with the lower grades to set up an interview. The applicant who indicated she was gay received no such follow-ups.

"Exxon has repeatedly claimed they do not discriminate," said Freedom to Work's president, Tico Almeida. "We are bringing forward proof they've broken the law, and we're hopeful this compelling case will move them over the tipping point."

An Exxon Mobil spokesman, Charles Engelmann, said the company was reviewing the complaint, and had no immediate comment on its allegations.

"Exxon Mobil's global policies and processes prohibit all forms of discrimination, including those based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in any company workplace, anywhere in the world," Engelmann said in an e-mail. "In fact, our policies go well beyond the law and prohibit any form of discrimination."

The Washington-based law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, which often works with advocacy groups on workplace discrimination cases, has provided two of its attorneys to handle the Freedom to Work complaint. One of them, Peter Romer-Friedman, contended that Exxon's handling of the two job applications was a clear violation of Illinois' anti-discrimination law.

Illinois is one of 21 states that prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Texas has no such law, and Congress has not passed a nationwide ban.

Romer-Friedman said the tactic of submitting fictional, nearly identical applications is a time-tested, legally accepted technique that has been successful in the past in uncovering bias against blacks and women in hiring and fair-housing cases. The Exxon case marks the first time the tactic has been used to allege anti-gay bias, he said.

The next step, Romer-Friedman said, would be for the Illinois Human Rights Department to investigate the complaint a process which could take a year. At that stage, Freedom to Work could seek a hearing before the state's Human Rights Commission or take the case to court.

However, the attorney said it's likely that Illinois human rights officials would invite Freedom to Work and Exxon to negotiate a settlement before the investigation ends. For Freedom to Work, the goal is to get Exxon to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories in its equal employment opportunity policy, and to implement training programs on how to prevent any such bias.

"Our goal is to settle as quickly as possible, so Exxon will let everyone know they're going to get a fair shot, no matter who they are or who they love," Almeida said.

Exxon has been criticized over workplace policies in an era where the vast majority of other large U.S. corporations, including rival oil companies, have adopted policies that earn high scores from the Human Rights Campaign. Most, for example, voluntarily offer health benefits to employees' same-sex partners; Exxon does not do so.

"We've seen public opinion on every issue move toward equality, including in corporate America," said HRC spokesman Paul Guequierre. "To see one company stick out like this is surprising and frustrating."

Exxon insists its policies toward gay and lesbian employees are fair and supportive, and rejects the HRC scorecard.

For the past several years, New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli who oversees a state employee retirement fund has filed a resolution at Exxon Mobil's shareholder meeting proposing that the company explicitly ban discrimination against gay and transgender workers as part of its equal employment opportunity policy. The same proposal is on the agenda for this year's meeting on May 29 in Dallas.

The previous resolutions have been defeated at the urging of Exxon management, and the board of directors is again calling for a "No" vote this year.

"Exxon Mobil's policies go beyond the law and prohibit any form of discrimination," the proxy statement says. "The board believes the proposal is unnecessary."

DiNapoli, trustee of a fund with roughly $1.3 billion worth of Exxon shares, disputes the company's assertions. He notes that after Exxon acquired Mobil in 1999, it ended Mobil's policy of providing health benefits to same-sex partners except those previously covered.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, DiNapoli faulted Exxon's leaders for "tone-deafness."

"We want our investment to be maximized," he said. "If there's any sense there's not equal opportunity for the best talent, that's going to hold people back."

After last year's shareholder meeting, leaders at Resource Center Dallas, the main gay community center in Exxon's home region, wrote to the company offering their expertise in developing more gay-friendly policies.

Cece Cox, the center's CEO, said a meeting resulted in June 2012 with several senior Exxon executives, including vice presidents for human resources and for investor relations. Attending with Cox were members of the resource center's board who had helped develop anti-discrimination policies at the Fortune 500 companies they worked for.

Cox said she came away from the meeting with optimism, but never heard back in any substantive way. "We felt like they were looking at making changes and then nothing," she said. "We are really stumped."

Since 2006, Exxon's chairman and CEO has been Rex W. Tillerson. Pressure on the company from gay-rights groups has increased during his leadership. Tillerson also is a member of the national executive board of the Boy Scouts of America, and served as its president in 2010-2012, a period in which it resisted pressure to ease its ban on openly gay youth members and adult leaders.

For now, Exxon faces no major shareholder rebellion votes for DiNapoli's resolution at last year's annual meeting accounted for only 20.5 percent of all shares.

Phil Weiss, an energy industry securities analyst with New York-based Argus Research, said the controversies over gay-related employment policies were a minor concern, at most, for most Exxon investors.

However, Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy industry expert at the University of California, Davis, said Exxon might be mistaken to think its current stance won't be harmful in the long term.

"The millennial generation is very into social equality," she said. "Exxon is not going to get the top candidates they want, coming out of engineering schools, if their values don't conform with those of the millennials."

___(equals)

Follow David Crary on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CraryAP

TOKYO (Reuters) - Banks have failed, the yen has fallen and Japan's economy has collapsed, leading to political turmoil. Its great ally, the United States, abandons it. Then comes the final straw: an attack by North Korean guerrillas posing as Korean tourists.

"From the Fatherland, With Love", by veteran Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami, chronicles the political fumbling that is the Japanese government's response and the eventual counterattack by a motley group of homeless, psychotic misfits using largely homemade weapons.

The book is written at least partly from the point of view of the North Koreans, echoing this year's Pulitzer prize-winning novel: "The Orphan Master's Son," by Adam Johnson.

Murakami, 61, who has played in rock bands and dabbled in filmmaking, is often referred to as the "enfant terrible" of Japanese literature for the dark, satiric lens he turns on Japanese society. He spoke with Reuters about his book.

Q: You've said before that all your books start from a "seed," what was the seed for this one?

A: After the end of the bubble economy, Japan - economically, politically and socially - has had a sense of being stalled. Many seriously unsettled misfits have emerged and there are crimes as a result. There hasn't been anything big like terrorism yet, but I wondered about a group of dangerous young people getting together and doing something. On top of that, I'd had (in mind) a vague story about the North Korean High Command invading a Japanese city, Fukuoka. I started feeling that I'd like to write about those misfits facing off with the North Koreans.

Q: And from there?

A: I'd thought as far as North Korea attacking, but if the real North Korean army came, it would just turn into an ordinary war. There was a Hollywood movie just at that time with Michael Caine, and they were trying to kidnap Churchill. German soldiers dressed in English uniforms and pretending to be English military, and that became a hint for me. If you have a group of soldiers who are basically set up as rebels, that allows the government to disown them - and that intrigued me. It wouldn't become a war. If it became a war, it would just turn into a war novel. I also thought the Japanese government would end up in a very tight spot this way.

Q: North Korea, as it has shown up in novels like "The Orphan Master's Son", is really still an unknown country. How did you manage to come up with the North Korean characters?

A: I read a lot of books. A lot of books. There's also North Korean movies that most people can't see - but there's one store in Tokyo that sells those movies. I must have seen 10 movies or so. As a result, I got a pretty good idea of peoples' lives. Scenes of Pyongyang and the countryside show up in the news, and of course I also spoke with refugees from North Korea in the South. They'd always been asked about their escapes, apparently - how and why - but instead I asked about their lives, where they lived, please draw a map of the towns, diagram your houses, and so on. They all thought I was a spy.

Q: Does the fact that the misfits fight back instead of the government to repel these invaders symbolize something?

A: In principle, governments and companies are supposed to guide their organization in a certain direction and have an image of what that direction is. The basic reason Japan's government is dysfunctional is that they don't really seem to understand which direction they should move in.

In most novels, if it was just entertainment, somebody like James Bond emerges and fights everybody. I didn't want to write that kind of book, I wanted the irony of these homeless and really rather strange misfits ending up doing the fighting.

Q: Was envisioning North Korea the hardest part?

A: The North Korean High Command are the ones that tell all the stories, that made things very difficult ... They tell all the stories as if they're the only main characters. But of course there are plenty of things all people have in common - taking care of their parents, falling in love. We all have basic things in common - that we're sad if our mother dies, it hurts if you break a bone, your own son and daughter are unbelievably dear to you. So I wrote based on that, and on the movies that showed a special North Korean way of thought.

Q: Can anybody outside of North Korea understand it? Perhaps the only way is through literature.

A: Nobody really knows the truth there...The thing I think of most vividly is something that happened when the commandos, pretending to be Korean tourists, checked into the hotel. One of them touches some tissues sitting there. It's the softest thing he's ever touched in his life. There's nothing like that in North Korea. First of all they were surprised that Japan had the skills to make something like this, but then they also realized that they would never lose to people who were so soft as to use fluffy paper like this. The tissue paper is a very simple symbol that shows the distance and difference between the two countries. And when I wrote that, it was a hint to me of how to enter the minds of the commandos. I figured that would allow me to really figure out how they thought.

Q: By using this kind of device in literature, you can actually approach close to the truth.

A: Yes. It's all a question of imagination.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by Paul Casciato)

Government spokesman Albert Camara said Monday that in addition to the 12 dead, 26 people were hospitalized with injuries from the violence last week.

Hospital workers said the death toll is actually higher, at 18, because some families took their dead from the morgue for immediate burial.

The clashes on Thursday and early Friday were the latest in the ongoing fight between the country's opposition and the ruling party over the details of a much-delayed parliamentary election.

Opposition spokesman Aboubacar Sylla on Sunday denounced the "unprecedented violence."