Hitachi, one of Japan's biggest companies with a $31 billion market capitalization and more than 300,000 employees worldwide, said on Friday it expected an operating profit of 500 billion yen ($5.03 billion) for the year to March 31, 2014. That compared with a 524.8 billion yen average forecast by 21 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For the year that ended on March 31 of this year, Hitachi logged an operating profit of 422.03 billion yen, up 2.4 percent from the previous year.

Hitachi said it expected a recovery in its construction equipment division, which was hit last year by a slowdown in the key Chinese market. The division was seen posting an operating profit of 82 billion yen in the year to March, up from 54.6 billion yen in the previous year.

The company's biggest domestic rival, Toshiba Corp, said this week it expected a 34 percent jump in operating profit this financial year, supported by strong memory chip sales and a recovery in its nuclear power business.

Hitachi, which operates two nuclear power joint ventures with General Electric Co, announced last year that it would merge its thermal power business with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd to better compete against Toshiba and foreign rivals such as Siemens AG.

Shares in Hitachi have risen 28 percent since January, compared with a 40 percent rally in Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei average. Hitachi shares ended up 2.7 percent at 645 yen ahead of Friday's earnings announcement.

Hitachi said it was assuming exchange rates of 95 yen per dollar and 120 yen per euro for the current financial year.

($1 = 99.3050 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Zynga Inc said on Wednesday the number of people playing its online games dropped dramatically in the first quarter, a development that overshadowed better-than-expected revenues and sent its stock tumbling in after-hours trade.

Shares fell 10 percent to $2.99 in extended trading.

The San Francisco-based publisher behind games like "FarmVille" and "Words With Friends" said its number of monthly players continued its decline to 253 million, the lowest figure since the number peaked at 331 million at the end of the third quarter of 2012.

On an adjusted basis, Zynga reported earnings of 1 cent per share, beating analyst expectations of a loss of 4 cents per share. But the company also projected that its second-quarter loss would be between 3 to 5 cents per share, exceeding the 1 cent per share loss analysts had expected.

"The second quarter guidance is light," said Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia. "We continue to think that any hope for real growth for this nebulous company really depends on what it can do in real-money gaming."

Zynga has struggled to keep users, who once flocked to its games on Facebook Inc's website. In recent months, Zynga and Facebook have revised their business partnership, as Zynga has sought to establish itself as a more independent gaming network at the risk of receiving less visitor traffic from Facebook.

Zynga has promised investors that it could tap into a potentially lucrative new revenue stream by launching real-money casino games around the world.

The company reported revenues of $263.6 million, down 18 percent from the year-ago quarter but above Wall Street's depressed expectations as the online game maker wrung more sales than expected out of its shrinking user base.

Zynga's quarterly bookings of $229.8 million also topped estimates but represented a 30 percent decline from a year ago.

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The political goal is the same as it was in the mid-1980s: grassroots support for an overhaul of the U.S. tax code. But lawmakers' approach this time is thoroughly modern.

The chairmen of Congress's tax-writing committees on Thursday launched a website they hope will boost public support for overhauling the tax code in the same way that a "Write Rosty" letter-writing campaign did a quarter-century ago.

TaxReform.gov, created by U.S. Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat, and Representative Dave Camp, a Republican, asks Americans to share their stories and ideas about tax reform.

The site's home page heading says, "Comprehensive Tax Reform: building a tax code for the 21st century."

The U.S. tax code has not been revamped since 1986. The last successful effort was led by Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic Representative Dan Rostenkowski, who held the position Camp holds today.

As chairman of the tax-writing House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, Rostenkowski asked the public to "Write Rosty" if they backed his effort to reform the tax code along with Reagan. More than 75,000 letters to Rostenkowski poured in.

Camp has vowed to move a tax reform bill out of Ways and Means this year. Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has said he wants to spend much of the remaining time before his 2014 retirement working on tax reform.

Polls show the public wants a simpler tax code, but major obstacles confront Baucus and Camp.

One is the political divide over whether tax reform should increase tax revenue. Another is the difficulty of eliminating scores of tax breaks prized by individuals and corporations alike.

U.S. President Barack Obama backs a tax code rewrite and he has listed detailed proposals in repeated budget plans, but he has not pursued that objective as aggressively as Reagan did.

There are other significant differences from that period.

Clint Stretch, a former congressional tax staffer, said, "Reagan talked about tax reform constantly and it was well received in stump speeches."

In 1986, the tax code was less complex and the tax loopholes being exploited were more glaring. Reform advocates also won the backing of a big share of the business community.

BUSINESS BUY-IN

Today's business community is divided, and the code is loaded with hundreds of special exemptions, deductions and other favors to special interests. Also, the lobbying industry that protects each of these is larger and more entrenched.

"The public, just like in 1985, is naturally skeptical of tax reform," Camp and Baucus said in a joint statement.

"The kind of engagement the 'Write Rosty' campaign sparked nearly 30 years ago is even easier today thanks to the Internet and social media. That's why the chairmen are launching TaxReform.gov" and a @simplertaxes Twitter handle," they said.

Also on Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee met to weigh options on boosting U.S. companies' global competitiveness, the latest in a series of meetings on tax issues.

Businesses often complain that the top U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, which is high by global standards, though many companies pay well below that rate due to their ability to use tax breaks and shift profits offshore.

A 12-page paper by bipartisan finance committee staff was discussed at the meeting. It included options to move toward a so-called territorial system - where companies' foreign income is largely exempt from U.S. income tax. That policy is backed by much of corporate America and most Republicans.

It also included options that move in the other direction, including repealing deferral of taxation on foreign profits and the immediate taxation of all income from company subsidiaries in low-tax countries - ideas backed by some Democrats.

The paper does not lay out a one-time tax holiday known as "repatriation" that would put a lower tax rate on profits if they were brought into the United States.

The paper cited estimates of taxable income shifted by U.S. companies from higher-tax countries to tax havens at between $58 billion to $111 billion annually.

Large U.S. companies boosted their offshore earnings by 15 percent last year to a record $1.9 trillion, avoiding hefty tax bills by keeping the profits abroad, according to a report released this week by research firm Audit Analytics.

(Reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh,Vicki Allen, Doina Chiacu)

Target said its new program relies on shoppers using their Facebook accounts. However, shoppers can only redeem the offers they choose in Target's U.S. stores, not online.

With Cartwheel, shoppers select the deals they want online and then bring a barcode - either on paper or on a mobile phone - to a Target store to get the discounts. Shoppers can see what offers their Facebook friends have chosen, and earn more offers by having their Facebook friends sign up.

This service comes as traditional retailers try to keep shoppers buying from them rather than from Amazon.com Inc and other online-only retailers, especially as shoppers use their smartphones to compare prices.

Twenty percent of cellphone owners research products using their phones before they buy, and 18 percent of them compare prices on their phones before making a purchase, according to Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services.

Cartwheel follows efforts such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc letting shoppers in some of its U.S. stores scan their goods with their iPhones while they shop and then more quickly proceed through a self-checkout lane. Sears Holdings Corp's "Member Assist" program gives its loyal shoppers the ability to get personalized shopping advice from in-store personnel without even stepping foot in a Sears or Kmart store.

"It is very fascinating to see the very different approaches that retailers are taking to achieve the same goals," said Carol Spieckerman, president of newmarketbuilders, a retail strategy firm.

Retailers are using digital tools to better cater to shoppers who love to comparison shop while in their stores. Target and other retailers offer free WiFi, and at one of its Minnesota stores Best Buy Co Inc has tested its "Page a Blue Shirt" service that lets customers summon a store associate with a click on a store iPad.

For chains such as Kmart, Target and Walmart, such issues are increasingly important as their businesses have evolved since each opened its doors in 1962. Their stores used to be one-stop shops for everything from books and movies to photo developing. As such services have waned in popularity with the rise of digital books, movies and photo sharing sites, the chains are doing what they can to figure out new ways to make their stores more attractive to shoppers and, ultimately, more profitable.

CARTWHEEL'S BETA ROLLOUT

Starting on May 8, Target is opening Cartwheel to the public in a beta test, and asking for feedback as it makes changes. The service will initially be advertised on Target's website, through Facebook and in emails to Target's best shoppers and card holders.

Target did not rule out the possibility of allowing Cartwheel offers to be redeemed on its website someday.

Target said it worked in a close partnership with Facebook Inc for about a year. While Facebook has worked on the project, Cartwheel is owned by Target. For now, Target has no plans to extend it to other social sites such as Pinterest.

Linking offers through Facebook will let the retailer know exactly what Facebook can or cannot accomplish for it. While Twitter can be useful to promote timely, limited offers, Facebook is "the dominant platform" for connecting with shoppers and, in turn, with their connections, Spieckerman said.

Target sees the program as a way to extend the trips shoppers take into parts of the store they might normally skip, in order to pick up a promoted item. An app coming in June will let shoppers scan a photo of an item's barcode to quickly see if an offer is available on that item.

Shoppers using Cartwheel can choose from hundreds of deals on items such as Target's own Threshold home goods and name brand goods such as M&Ms candy and Coca-Cola soft drinks. The weekly, monthly and quarterly deals include discounts from 5 percent off to as much as 40 percent off of certain goods, and differ from other Target offers in circulars or coupon booklets.

Shoppers can share the deals they are picking with their Facebook friends, but offers on more discreet items - from bras to Tums - will not be visible to others.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago, additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Hamlin insisted he'll again give Vickers the car at some point Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

But with a sly smile, Hamlin left the door open to run a full race in his return from a compressed fracture of a vertebra in his lower back. After missing four races, he was cleared Thursday to get back in the car this weekend and said doctors gave him permission to run the entire race.

He said his intention was to "take a knee" after the start by getting out of the car during a caution and allowing Vickers to finish the race. That slightly contradicted crew chief Darian Grubb, who said earlier Friday they'd play race-day by ear and see how the race flows.

When asked about that after his practice stint, Hamlin stammered about his true plans.

"Ummm, yeah. I'd say there's going to be a caution at some point and I'd like to get out and just ensure myself of one more week of healing," Hamlin said.

So bet on Hamlin getting out of the car?

"Is there that bet in Vegas?" Hamlin asked.

He doesn't particularly like Talladega, or restrictor-plate racing, for that matter. But he found himself tossing and turning Thursday night, unable to sleep because he was so anxious to get back in his firesuit, back into his race car and back onto the track.

"If it wasn't for my crew chief, I would have ran it out of gas," he said of his only run Friday. "I just wanted to feel speed again. We're competitors and when you see the people on TV in other sports fighting through injuries to come back to the field or the court, we feel that same thing. We have alligator blood. I don't know what to say. We're a different breed. We're willing to throw caution to the wind just to get back to what we are doing."

His return drew mixed reactions in the garage.

Race car driving by nature is dangerous and every day on the job has its risks. Now Hamlin is coming back from a serious injury that not everyone would treat the same.

"This is how we make a living," Clint Bowyer said. "You've got to put food on the table and we're all in the same boat. We're all given a wonderful opportunity to get paid doing what we love to do, so anytime a racer is OK to get back in the car, he's going to do it whether he's sore or whatever the case is. We'd do it even if it didn't pay anything. It's just the nature of the beast."

Jeff Gordon, at 41 years old and the father of two young children, wasn't sure what his approach would be.

"You have to take yourself out of that and understand what the dangers are, what the risks are and if you re-injure yourself, can that be life-threatening or something that ends your career," he said. "I think for me, I'm later in my career and have a family and so an injury like what Denny went through, I don't know. I might not come back from that just because, is it worth it?

"For Denny, I think it's worth it for him to really take his time and do it right. What he's doing this weekend, to me that makes sense. It's Talladega, there's ways to avoid those incidents," Gordon said. "I'll be interested to see if he gets out or stays in there. If I know Denny, he's going to have a hard time getting out. Sounds like he is ready to go."

Hamlin was supposed to get out of the car in his return race at Phoenix after knee surgery three years ago. But he stuck it out to prove something to his team because he was injured playing basketball and felt he owed it to his crew to fight through the pain.

"I felt like I had put my team in a very bad spot by getting hurt outside of racing," he said. "I stayed in to tell them basically that I was sorry and I was going to do whatever I could for them. That hurt worse than what this does in the race car."

There's no pain this time around, he said, and the only discomfort is when he actually gets out of the car. To alleviate that, the Joe Gibbs Racing team has taken the option of using a roof hatch and Hamlin is using it to exit the car.

He practiced the driver exchange with Vickers on Friday and twice did it in just over a minute fast enough to ensure the car would remain on the lead lap if they swapped under caution.

Hamlin now goes forward this week balancing risk versus reward and the challenge ahead. He's currently 28th in the standings and needs to climb to 20th in the Sprint Cup standings to be eligible to claim one of two wild-card slots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

He'll earn the points Sunday if he starts the race.

"We're going to have to make a big, big run if we're going to be part of the postseason," he said. "Our Chase has to start right now. We have to perform each week like it's a Chase race and do everything we can to get wins. If we don't win, it doesn't matter."

But there is a risk, he admitted.

"I don't know the exact science, and no one knows the exact percentages. That's what makes this really, really hard," he said. "But, as far as I've been told, I understand it would take such a significant hit that you probably would be injured from it even if you were 100 percent healthy. I've got to let the doctors speak for that a little bit more than me because I don't know the risks exactly and neither do they. We're just trying to buy myself another week obviously until Darlington, but the risk is so minimal that it's almost not even there."

Officials did not rule out the possibility the death toll could rise more as emergency workers continued sifting through the charred remains of vehicles and homes built near the highway on the northern edge of the metropolis.

Residents pitched in to rescue people from the wreckage of crushed and burned cars and shattered homes. Television footage showed plumes of flame shooting out of homes in the pre-dawn darkness.

"We just pulled burned people, and put out the fire in the houses, but we don't really know what happened," said Rogelio Martinez, a resident of the neighborhood where the crash occurred.

A huge piece of the truck's gas tank was blown 50 yards by the force of the blast, landing atop the wall of a house and cars parked outside. Charred wreckage of cars littered the blast site.

Hundreds of police, ambulance drivers, paramedics, soldiers and firefighters gathered at the scene, where a giant plume of smoke rose over the area after the explosion around 5 a.m. Tuesday local time.

Pablo Bedolla, the mayor of Ecatepec, a mainly working-class area, said 20 homes and one school had been damaged in the blast. The explosion happened before class hours, so there were no apparent injuries in the school, but emergency personnel at the scene reported pulling dead victims from their homes, some apparently burned in their beds.

"People are very shaken, above all because of the injuries and the large number of dead," said Bedolla. "I've spoken with the families of the victims, and they are just sobbing."

The explosion closed the highway between Mexico City and Pachuca for hours.

The pre-dawn accident exposed two recurrent public safety issues in Mexico: extremely heavy trucks that are frequently involved in serious accidents, and the construction of improvised homes just feet away from major highways.

Some of the cinderblock homes hit by the massive explosion were just steps away from the busy, four-lane highway.

Mexican trucks, often overloaded or unsafely operated, have been involved in a number of spectacular, deadly accidents in recent years.

The truck involved in Tuesday's accident was a double tanker: one cab pulling two gas tanks. The driver was injured in the crash, and was under detention at a local hospital.

One year ago, the Mexican government announced measures to tighten inspections and lower maximum allowed weights for freight trucks after protests over a string of deadly accidents involving double-trailer trucks.

Mexico had allowed trucks to travel two-lane roads with loads of up to 80 metric tons and lengths exceeding 100 feet, compared to a U.S. limit of is 80,000 pounds (40 tons) on interstate highways. It subsequently reduced that limit by about 4.5 tons.

In April 2012, a double-trailer truck on a two-lane road in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz lost its rear trailer, which slammed into a bus carrying farm workers, killing 43 people.

MIAMI (Reuters) - A depleted Chicago Bulls dug deep for another impressive display of character and collective strength as they stunned defending NBA champions Miami Heat 93-86 in the opening game of their Eastern Conference semi-final series on Monday.

On the night when LeBron James was presented with his fourth Most Valuable Player award from league commissioner David Stern, it was instead the more modest but seemingly tireless talent of Chicago's Jimmy Butler which proved decisive.

Butler played all 48 minutes for the third straight game and scored 21 points, while grabbing 14 rebounds and three assists.

On top of that, in the absence of the ailing Luol Deng, Butler guarded James, restricting him to just two points in the first half, a post-season career low for the Miami forward.

Although James stepped it up after the break, finishing with 24 points on 8-of-17 shooting, Butler inspired the Bulls to a fourth quarter rally as they roared back from a seven-point deficit to grab the early advantage in the best-of-seven series.

"I like the mental toughness of this team," said Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau, who was also unable to call on the services of injured Kirk Henrich and long-term absentee Derrick Rose.

"When you are facing adversity, you have to be mentally tough. But this is just one game. We are going to have to play much better in the next one," he added.

Butler, who came into the contest after playing every minute in Game Six and Saturday's Game Seven series decider against the Brooklyn Nets, epitomized that spirit.

"He is a tough kid," Thibodeau said. "He is mentally tough and that is what we need him to do right now. We're short-handed. We have a number of guys playing big minutes and that is what we need."

RUSTY HEAT

Miami's Dwyane Wade, returning from a knee injury which kept him out of Game Four of the series sweep over Milwaukee was impressed with the 23-year-old Butler, who is playing like a veteran in just his second year in the league.

"Jimmy is turning out to be a really good NBA player earlier in his career than some people expected. I think he is better than a lot of people think," he said.

Despite being the most dominant team in the NBA this season, the Heat suffered from what their fans had feared after seven full days of rest - rustiness.

Sweeping the Bucks earned the Heat that week off, while the Bulls were fighting past Brooklyn, and the unusually long break carried the danger of Miami losing their edge.

That certainly looked the case in the first half with Miami failing to make the most of their opportunities, but coach Erik Spoelstra was more concerned with the way his team lost the fourth quarter 35-24.

"We are not making any excuses for time off or anything else. With 35 points in the fourth quarter you are not going to win games in the playoffs giving that amount. We didn't close out the game in the way we are capable of," he said.

"This is going to be about who is going to impose their identity on the other team. They imposed their identity in this first game, no question. We did not," he added.

The defeat ended the Heat's franchise record-tying eight game post-season winning streak and was their second loss to Chicago at home this season.

Nate Robinson top scored for the Bulls with 27 points and the former New York Knicks and Boston Celtics guard said there was a unique team spirit to the current Chicago team.

"There is something special about this group. I don't know what it is but it just feels like we have been playing together for ten years - we just love to play for each other," he said.

The series continues with Game Two in Miami on Wednesday.

(Editing by John O'Brien)

MASINLOC, Philippines (Reuters) - For decades, fishermen along the northwestern Philippine coast treated the teeming fishing grounds of the Scarborough Shoal as their backyard, less than a day's boat ride away.

Now, they see it as a foreign country.

"I lost my livelihood when we lost the Scarborough Shoal to the Chinese," said Mario Forones, a 53-year-old who owns three fishing boats that worked the reef for about a dozen years before armed Chinese vessels arrived in force last April.

Reuters interviews with fishermen in two coastal Philippine towns - some of whom tried to fish the shoal as recently as this month - show how the Philippines has effectively ceded sovereignty of the reef about 124 nautical miles off its coast after a naval stand-off last year.

China's consolidation and expansion of its grip on the disputed South China Sea looms over a gathering of Southeast Asian leaders in the tiny kingdom of Brunei this week as they try to kickstart stalled efforts to ease one of Asia's biggest security flashpoints.

Beijing claims almost the entire sea as its territory based on historical records, setting it directly against U.S. allies Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to parts. Except for China and Taiwan, all the claimants are members of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Diplomats hope leaders at the two-day ASEAN summit starting on Wednesday can put aside bitter differences that emerged last year and pave the way for China to join a proposed dispute-management mechanism.

But the fishermen's accounts vividly show how China's expanding, assertive naval reach could be overtaking diplomatic efforts to ease a crisis whose stakes have risen with the U.S. military's "pivot" to refocus its forces on Asia.

In rare first-hand descriptions of the situation at the remote outcrop claimed by both China and the Philippines, the men described being chased off aggressively by large, fast-moving, white Chinese ships armed with guns and rockets. In recent months, they said the Chinese vessels had laid down thick undersea ropes to keep fishing boats out.

"I don't know the specifics of the situation," said Hua Chunying, spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when asked by Reuters to comment on the fishermen's accounts. "But as you know, the Scarborough Shoal is indisputably part of China's territory, and China will ensure that its sovereignty over this area is not being violated."

The 10-member ASEAN aims to agree a legally binding Code of Conduct to manage maritime conduct in disputed areas, but prospects for quick progress appear dim.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told Reuters in an interview that the summit would mostly be about "making sure that things do not regress".

Even if they agree, China has said it will only join talks when the time is "ripe" and that countries should first build trust by observing a weaker Declaration of Conduct (DOC) signed in 2002, which has so far failed to dampen tensions.

Natalegawa accused China of "flouting" the commitment in that agreement to exercise "maximum restraint".

"You are seeing a number of unilateral steps that China has taken that is clearly not in line with the spirit of the DOC," he said in Jakarta.

China says diplomatic efforts were set back by U.S. ally the Philippines' request in January for a United Nations tribunal to order a halt to Beijing's activities, such as those at Scarborough Shoal, that it said violated its sovereignty.

"Nothing has changed from the Chinese perspective," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. "The fact that the Philippines has submitted its claims to the U.N. gives China another pretext not to discuss the Code of Conduct."

TENSIONS IN BATHTUB

As monsoon weather eases and China imposes a unilateral annual fishing ban that has stoked tensions with Vietnam and the Philippines, tensions are likely to grow in coming months.

China, which has said it will hold 40 naval exercises in the South China Sea this year, further antagonized Vietnam this month by saying it would allow Chinese tourists to visit the disputed Paracel islands for "sightseeing" trips. Two weeks earlier Hanoi accused Chinese ships of opening fire on a Vietnamese fishing boat, a charge that Beijing denied.

China stirred alarm in the region last month by sending four warships to land troops on its southernmost claim -- the James Shoal, just 80 km (50 miles) off the Malaysian coast and close to Brunei. The crew of the ships held a ceremony on the shoal, swearing an oath to defend and "build up" the South China Sea and protect China's sovereignty, state media reported.

The show of strength likely ruffled Malaysia, which has taken a more low-key approach than Vietnam and the Philippines over its claims.

Regional navies are no match for China, but the United States, which has said it has a national interest in maritime freedom of passage, is beefing up its forces in the region, especially after recent tensions with North Korea.

U.S. B-52 and B-2 bombers flew sorties over South Korea in recent weeks and Washington is moving the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system to its Pacific base in Guam.

Last week, the United States sent the first of its Littoral Combat Ships, a new class of a coastal warship, on an eight-month deployment to Singapore.

"It's a bathtub and more and more countries are pouring ships into the bathtub," said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy. "It's just a matter of time before they bump into one another."

CAT AND MOUSE

Tensions over the dispute first peaked last year in the two-month stand-off between China and the Philippines at the Scarborough Shoal.

Forones, the fisherman in the coastal town of Masinloc, says he was working at the shoal when the confrontation started.

"That was the first time we saw large ships from the two countries appearing at the shoal at the same time. Then our coastguard came and told us to leave because there might be a war ... That was the last time we had a bountiful harvest."

Since then, his catch has shrank so much that his wife has switched from selling fish at the local market to selling pork. He said he was considering selling one of his three boats and his delivery truck.

The Scarborough shoal is famed among fisherman for its rich waters, packed with turtles and squid as well as fish such as grouper and mackerel. The long monsoon season means it is only accessible by small boats from January to May, giving fish stocks plenty of time to recover each year.

Forones and other fishermen still try to fish at the shoal, face a tense cat-and-mouse game with the Chinese ships.

"It's really scary now," said Miguel Betana, a 45-year-old boat captain, who has fished at the shoal for 15 years.

"I have had worse experiences at sea, but being chased by a very fast Chinese ship I was thinking what if the ship rams our boat or if they shoot us. No one will ever find out."

When he was last there in late March, he saw five Chinese ships, four of them sitting at the shoal's mouth. After being chased off by one armed ship, he said he returned under cover of darkness to resume fishing.

Zaldy Godores, a 34-year-old from the town of Santa Cruz, said his boats could no longer fish far from shore because they had lost the protection from storms provided by the shoal.

Forones said three of his ships were chased as far as 24 km (15 miles) from the shoal in January. That was when he noticed that the Chinese had submerged an arm-thick rope stretching across the shoal's mouth to snag boat propellers.

"We are like thieves, stealing what really should be our riches," Forones said.

(Additional reporting by Stuart Grudgings in Kuala Lumpur, Randy Fabi and Jonathan Thatcher in Jakarta and Ben Blanchard and Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing; Writing by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Jason Szep, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)

A museum devoted to the pop superstars opening in Stockholm on Tuesday will celebrate the band's long list of hits. But it will also show off paraphernalia, including the helicopter featured on the cover of its "Arrival" album, a star-shaped guitar and dozens of glitzy costumes the Swedish band wore at the height of its 1970s fame.

Some gear is definitely not on show. With a smirk on his face, band member Bjorn Ulvaeus says certain items are "mysteriously ... forever lost," conceding only that among them are "embarrassing" tight costumes he wore when he was "slightly overweight." He declined to say more on the matter.

Some 40 sets of the trademark shiny flares, platform boots and knitted hats are on display in the museum. But visitors can also see digital images of what they would look like in costumes, record music videos and sing such hits as "Dancing Queen" and "Mamma Mia" on a stage next to hologram images of the band members.A telephone also has been placed in a corner and ABBA members have promised to "Ring, Ring" and speak to visitors occasionally.

But the museum also shows a less glamorous, more everyday side of the history of a band that has sold 400 million records and consistently topped the charts in the decade after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo." The band made up of Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Faltskog started out as two married couples, and continued performing after their divorces, before eventually drifting apart in the early 1980s.

The collection includes models of the band's kitchen, a cottage where they used to compose their songs and the small, rustic park venues Bjorn and Benny played when they first met in the 1960s. Visitors can listen to the band members' recollections and one section is dedicated to the breakup and the story of the divorces.

"It (touches) on those things as well because we think they are important in telling the story," Ulveaus said.

The museum also includes a Swedish Music Hall of Fame, detailing other Swedish artists.

It was a long time coming, eagerly anticipated by fans and visitors to the Swedish capital. Ulvaeus said they needed the time to reflect on their careers."You need some distance, you need perspective to be able to tell a story like that and I guess you can say that we have perspective now, 30 years on," he told reporters.

Outside the newly built wooden museum scores of international ABBA fans gathered Monday, singing the band's songs and hoping to get a glimpse of their idols arriving for a gala dinner.All were expected except Faltskog, who is currently promoting her comeback album "A'' in Britain.

Nikita Stolyarov, a 21-year-old student from Russia said he got a glimpse of Lyngstad on Sunday when she came by for an early view of the museum.

"It was so exciting, I can't describe my feelings," he said.

"Health insurance issuers have asked us to provide them with more time to submit their applications to offer Qualified Health Plans and we are accommodating that request," Alicia Hartinger, a spokeswoman at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in an emailed statement.

The exchanges are due to start open enrollment on October 1, 2014.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)