* Voting in second poll since war hailed free and fairBy Richard Valdmanis and Alphonso TowehMONROVIA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Liberia is to release a first batch of official results on Thursday from its hotly-contested presidential election, in which Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is seeking a second term.The vote is seen as a test of Liberia’s progress since the 1989-2003 civil war killed nearly a quarter of a million people and left infrastructure in ruins. If smooth, the election could pave the way to billions of dollars in investment in Liberia’s mining, energy and agriculture sectors.”We are all waiting for the results, and from my perspective, I think they will be accepted,” said Amadou Kante, a resident of the Sinkor neighbourhood in the capital Monrovia.A local media association, the Liberia Media Center (LMC), published unofficial partial results on Wednesday showing Johnson-Sirleaf just ahead of her main rival Winston Tubman, with just over 96,000 votes to his nearly 80,000 of a total 220,000 votes counted.Around 1.8 million Liberians registered for Tuesday’s election, the second since the fighting and the first to be organized locally. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the two front-runners from a field of 16 will go into a run-off vote scheduled for early November.Ex-rebel leader Prince Johnson was a distant third with just under 20,000 votes, the LMC said, adding the tally was based on its reporters calling in results that are being pinned up at polling stations across the country.Official preliminary figures will be released by the National Election Commission on Thursday. Many voters were tuned to radio or television stations as the LMC’s unofficial tally came through.Voting on Tuesday passed off peacefully in Monrovia. Observer groups said they had received no reports of trouble elsewhere in the country of four million people, but have expressed concern that the results could be a flashpoint.”The mission is of the view that there were no major irregularities and incidents of violence. It estimated that on the whole, the elections of October 11, 2011 were conducted under acceptable conditions of freedom of voters and transparency of the process,” Attahiru Jega, head of the observation mission from West African bloc ECOWAS, said on Wednesday.Johnson-Sirleaf got a pre-poll boost with her award of the Nobel Peace Prize last Friday, but rivals have said Liberians will judge her on her success in fighting poverty in a country with an average annual income of $300 a head.A dispute over the results of the 2005 election that brought Johnson-Sirleaf to power as Africa’s first freely elected female head of state triggered days of rioting.

By Alistair BarrSAN FRANCISCO, Oct 11 (Reuters) - EBay Inc is set to deepen its relationship with social network leader Facebook at a developer conference this week, a person familiar with the e-commerce company said on Tuesday.EBay will also unveil a new online identification service for shoppers called PayPal Access, the person added.The company expects almost 4,000 people to attend its X.commerce conference in San Francisco on Oct. 12, 13 and 14. The event marks the official launch of the company’s new X.commerce division, which will target e-commerce software developers. [ID:nS1E78I0U3EBay is trying to encourage outside developers to create applications for its e-commerce platforms and is making a particularly strong push in mobile commerce.At the end of September, Katie Mitic, head of Platform and Mobile Marketing at Facebook, joined eBay’s board of directors, sparking speculation that the two companies were working on new partnerships.Mitic is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the X.commerce conference on Wednesday. Facebook Platform, which Mitic helps run, is the company’s developer unit, so any new partnership will focus on this area, the person said on condition of anonymity because the plans aren’t public yet.EBay and Facebook have an existing partnership the allows the purchase of Facebook self-serve ads and Facebook Credits using PayPal, eBay’s electronic payments system.”We believe a deeper partnership could be announced at the conference,” Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JPMorgan, wrote in a note to investors on Monday.PAYPAL ACCESSEBay’s new PayPal Access service will let users shop across the Web using just their PayPal email credentials and password, according to the person.The service will eliminate the need to type in credit card information, billing and shipping addresses and any age verification requirements, they said.Customers will be able to chose whether to activate PayPal Access. Merchants who sign up for the service will only see customers’ shipping addresses because PayPal has already verified the other information, they added.Merchants may be attracted to PayPal Access because it could encourage shoppers to complete purchases, rather than giving up when they’re asked for a lot of information at checkout.For eBay, the new service could encourage more merchants to accept PayPal as a payment option.

* Paulson not expected to take in new moneyBy Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Katya WachtelBOSTON/NEW YORK, Oct 11 (Reuters) - John Paulson could face a two-pronged problem in the coming weeks as outside investors and possibly even some of his own employees walk in the wake of the hedge fund firm’s worst-ever returns.The firm told investors on Tuesday that as much as a quarter of its assets could depart in a “worst-case” scenario if all people who are eligible cash out by the end of the year.Paulson’s team hosted a call to go over last month’s results only a few days after he notified investors that one of Paulson & Co’s biggest funds is down 47 percent for the year.Many of Paulson’s funds have lost big this year, as the well-known money manager bet wrong that the U.S. economy would revive sooner rather than later.However, in the days leading up to the investor call, some on Paulson’s team had been telling brokers and others on Wall Street that at least 20 percent of the $30 billion in assets the fund manages could be redeemed. The deadline to get out of the biggest funds — the Advantage funds — is coming up on Oct. 31.Outsiders have long said Paulson is in no danger of collapsing because about 40 percent of the assets are owned by the billionaire stock picker and his dozen or so most trusted lieutenants.But some analysts working in the $2 trillion hedge fund industry say with Paulson’s funds slumping so badly, some of his top employees could look to leave at year’s end and cash-in their chips.Some of Paulson’s employees — whose money has been locked up for years — will receive the final installment of their bonus for 2008 this year, say people familiar with the hedge fund.For some time Paulson had structured bonuses to vest over a four-year period. That practice has been scrapped this year so that bonuses for 2011 — a year where Paulson’s flagship Advantage Fund is off 32 percent and its Advantage Plus cousin is down 47 percent — would be paid immediately.Consultants who track personnel movements in the hedge fund industry believe that there will not be a mass exodus from Paulson. The man who earned the hedge fund industry’s biggest payday with his $5 billion last year will still be able to pay his roughly 120 employees very well considering the management fees he will earn on $30 billion in assets.One recruiter in the industry said he has not yet received any resumes from Paulson employees.”He has huge management fees and his team will likely still be compensated very well so I think they will stick it out — everyone can have a bad year,” said the person who asked not to be named because he is fielding calls from many hedge fund firm employees.One critical point is that industry consultants and bankers on Wall Street are fairly sure Paulson will not be able to attract new money now even though he promised not to charge performance fees on new money.The billionaire investor had been a possible target of the Occupy Wall Street protesters on Tuesday when they threatened to march to the upper east of New York City to the homes of the wealthiest on Wall Street.He was spared, according to several witnesses.In addressing the growing protests against Wall Street, Paulson sent out a statement. “Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them to remain in New York City and continue to grow,” the New York native wrote.He underscored that he and his employees contribute plenty to the city’s coffers.”The top 1 percent of New Yorkers pay over 40 percent of all income taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state. Paulson & Co and its employees have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in New York City and New York State taxes in recent years and have created over 100 high paying jobs in New York City since its formation,” he said in the statement.