Vampires, 007 may set record Thanksgiving sales












LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The teen vampire movie “Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ continued to lure huge audiences, siphoning off $ 12.8 million in Wednesday night showings in what could fuel a record box office haul for the five-day Thanksgiving Day holiday.


The final film in the “Twilight” series, collected $ 141.3 million last weekend for the industry’s eighth largest opening weekend. On Wednesday it combined with the Daniel CraigJames Bond” film “Skyfall” to lead a slate of films that generated $ 44.3 million in total U.S. and Canadian ticket sales for the day, according to unofficial data from Hollywood.com’s box office division.












That’s 20 percent ahead of last year’s take for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and, if the pace holds, would put Hollywood on a path to a $ 278 million holiday weekend, according to Hollywood.com estimates. The 2009 holiday weekend record of $ 273 million included “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and the football flick, “The Blind Side.”


Hollywood traditionally opens its largest Thanksgiving weekend films on Wednesday, when schools are closed before the Thursday holiday.


“Skyfall,” the 23rd film in the “James Bond” series about the exploits of a British spy, collected $ 7.4 million in Wednesday showings.


Dreamworks Animation’s “Rise of the Guardians,” featuring the voices of Chris Pine and Alec Baldwin in a story about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and other childhood characters that save the world, opened with $ 4.85 million in Wednesday sales.


“Twilight” and “Skyfall” each easily appear headed to more than $ 200 million in box office sales. “Skyfall,” released by Sony Pictures in association with MGM, has generated more than $ 178 million so far in domestic ticket sales through Wednesday, already making it the 10th biggest selling film of 2012.


“Twilight,” starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, has totaled $ 175.5 million through Wednesday in the U.S. and Canada, according to the Hollywood.com unofficial tally. It was released by Lionsgate Entertainment.


(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Editing by Sandra Maler)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Germany rejects Swiss tax deal













Germany’s upper house of parliament has rejected a deal with Switzerland to tax German assets held in Swiss bank accounts.












The deal would have allowed Germans with undeclared assets in Switzerland to avoid punishment by making a one-off payment of between 21% and 41% of the value of their assets.


The deal had been negotiated in April and was due to take effect in January.


But it needed to be ratified by both parliaments.


The rejection by the German upper house, the Bundesrat, prolongs the dispute between the two countries over how to deal with the estimated 180-200bn euros (£145-160bn) of German assets hidden in Switzerland.


German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had called for support for the deal, saying: “The agreement tries to find a better solution for a situation which is unsatisfactory.”


But Norbert Walter-Borjans, of the main opposition Social Democrats, told the Bundesrat it was a deal which made “honest taxpayers feel like fools”.


Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said her government remained “committed to a successful ratification”.


And the Swiss Bankers Association said in a statement: “The German upper house has missed a major opportunity to reach a fair, optimum and sustainable solution for all parties to definitively settle the bilateral tax issues.”


BBC News – Business


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Egypt reformist warns of turmoil from Morsi decree












CAIRO (AP) — Prominent Egyptian democracy advocate Mohammed ElBaradei warned Saturday of increasing turmoil that could potentially lead to the military stepping in unless the Islamist president rescinds his new, near absolute powers, as the country’s long fragmented opposition sought to unite and rally new protests.


Egypt‘s liberal and secular forces — long divided, weakened and uncertain amid the rise of Islamist parties to power — are seeking to rally themselves in response to the decrees issued this week by President Mohammed Morsi. The president granted himself sweeping powers to “protect the revolution” and made himself immune to judicial oversight.












The judiciary, which was the main target of Morsi’s edicts, pushed back Saturday. The country’s highest body of judges, the Supreme Judical Council, called his decrees an “unprecedented assault.” Courts in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria announced a work suspension until the decrees are lifted.


Outside the high court building in Cairo, several hundred demonstrators rallied against Morsi, chanting, “Leave! Leave!” echoing the slogan used against former leader Hosni Mubarak in last year’s uprising that ousted him. Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of young men who were shooting flares outside the court.


The edicts issued Wednesday have galvanized anger brewing against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which he hails, ever since he took office in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president. Critics accuse the Brotherhood — which has dominated elections the past year — and other Islamists of monopolizing power and doing little to bring real reform or address Egypt’s mounting economic and security woes.


Oppositon groups have called for new nationwide rallies Tuesday — and the Muslim Brotherhood has called for rallies supporting Morsi the same day, setting the stage for new violence.


Morsi supporters counter that the edicts were necessary to prevent the courts, which already dissolved the elected lower house of parliament, from further holding up moves to stability by disbanding the assembly writing the new constitution, as judges were considering doing. Like parliament was, the assembly is dominated by Islamists. Morsi accuses Mubarak loyalists in the judiciary of seeking to thwart the revolution’s goals and barred the judiciary from disbanding the constitutional assembly or parliament’s upper house.


In an interview with a handful of journalists, including The Associated Press, Nobel Peace laureate ElBaradei raised alarm over the impact of Morsi’s rulings, saying he had become “a new pharaoh.”


“There is a good deal of anger, chaos, confusion. Violence is spreading to many places and state authority is starting to erode slowly,” he said. “We hope that we can manage to do a smooth transition without plunging the country into a cycle of violence. But I don’t see this happening without Mr. Morsi rescinding all of this.”


Speaking of Egypt’s powerful military, ElBaradei said, “I am sure they are as worried as everyone else. You cannot exclude that the army will intervene to restore law and order” if the situation gets out of hand.


But anti-Morsi factions are chronically divided, with revolutionary youth activists, new liberal political parties that have struggled to build a public base and figures from the Mubarak era, all of whom distrust each other. The judiciary is also an uncomfortable cause for some to back, since it includes many Mubarak appointees who even Morsi opponents criticize as too tied to the old regime.


Opponents say the edicts gave Morsi near dictatorial powers, neutering the judiciary when he already holds both executive and legislative powers. One of his most controversial edicts gave him the right to take any steps to stop “threats to the revolution,” vague wording that activists say harkens back to Mubarak-era emergency laws.


Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in nationwide protests on Friday, sparking clashes between anti-and pro-Morsi crowds in several cities that left more than 200 people wounded.


On Saturday, new clashed broke out in the southern city of Assiut. Morsi opponents and members of the Muslim Brotherhood swung sticks and threw stones at each other outside the offices of the Brotherhood‘s political party, leaving at least seven injured.


ElBaradei and a six other prominent liberal leaders have announced the formation of a National Salvation Front aimed at rallying all non-Islamist groups together to force Morsi to rescind his edicts.


The National Salvation Front leadership includes several who ran against Morsi in this year’s presidential race — Hamdeen Sabahi, who finished a close third, former foreign minister Amr Moussa and moderate Islamist Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh. ElBaradei says the group is also pushing for the creation of a new constitutional assembly and a unity government.


ElBaradei said it would be a long process to persuade Morsi that he “cannot get away with murder.”


“There is no middle ground, no dialogue before he rescinds this declaration. There is no room for dialogue until then.”


The grouping seems to represent a newly assertive political foray by ElBaradei, the former chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. ElBaradei returned to Egypt in the year before Mubarak’s fall, speaking out against his rule, and was influential with many of the youth groups that launched the anti-Mubarak revolution.


But since Mubarak’s fall, he has been criticized by some as too Westernized, elite and Hamlet-ish, reluctant to fully assert himself as an opposition leader.


The Brotherhood‘s Freedom and Justice political party, once headed by Morsi, said Saturday in a statement that the president’s decision protects the revolution against former regime figures who have tried to erode elected institutions and were threatening to dissolve the constitutional assembly.


The Brotherhood warned in another statement that there were forces trying to overthrow the elected president in order to return to power. It said Morsi has a mandate to lead, having defeated one of Mubarak’s former prime ministers this summer in a closely contested election.


Morsi’s edicts also removed Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, the prosecutor general first appointed by Mubarak, who many Egyptians accused of not prosecuting former regime figures strongly enough.


Speaking to a gathering of judges cheering support for him at the high court building in Cairo, Mahmoud warned of a “vicious campaign” against state institutions. He also said judicial authorities are looking into the legality of the decision to remove him — setting up a Catch-22 of legitimacy, since under Morsi’s decree, the courts cannot overturn any of his decisions.


“I thank you for your support of judicial independence,” he told the judges.


“Morsi will have to reverse his decision to avoid the anger of the people,” said Ahmed Badrawy, a labor ministry employee protesting at the courthouse. “We do not want to have an Iranian system here,” he added, referring to fears that hardcore Islamists may try to turn Egypt into a theocracy.


Several hundred protesters remained in Cairo’s Tahrir Square Saturday, where a number of tents have been erected in a sit-in following nearly a week of clashes with riot police.


____


Brian Rohan contributed to this report from Cairo.


Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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HP says products may have been sold to Syria by others












(Reuters) – Hewlett Packard Co said in a letter made public on Friday that its products could have been delivered to Syria through resellers or distributors, but the world’s largest PC maker affirmed it did not sell directly to the country.


The letter was a response to a request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission‘s Office of Global Security Risk that asked whether HP’s products were sold in countries where they would be subject to U.S. sanctions.












“We are aware of November 2011 news reports that your equipment was installed by the Italian company, Area SpA, in Syria as part of a nationwide surveillance and tracking system designed to monitor people in that country,” the SEC wrote in its request.


“Please describe to us the nature, duration, and extent of your past, current, and anticipated contacts with Syria and Iran, whether through subsidiaries, distributors, resellers, vendors, retailers, or other direct or indirect arrangements.”


In a letter dated October 9, HP said it had not authorized the sale of products to Syria.


Instead, HP said the Italian surveillance company had likely obtained its products from an HP partner that was unaware of their ultimate destination.


In another October 9 letter to the agency, HP said it ended its contract with Area SpA in April.


Calls to HP seeking further comment were unanswered as were calls to Area SpA.


HP’s overseas subsidiaries ended sales of printers and related supplies to third-party distributors and resellers with customers in Iran in early 2009, the company wrote.


But because its products are often sold by others through indirect channels without its knowledge or consent “it is always possible that products may be diverted to Iran or Syria after being sold to channel partners, such as distributors and resellers,” HP said.


Reuters has documented how banned computer equipment from U.S. companies has made its way to Iran’s largest telecommunications company through China-based ZTE.


Networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc has since cut its ties to ZTE.


HP said in both letters that it would continue to work with ZTE, but it had conducted an internal investigation relating to an alleged sale of its products to MTN Irancell, Iran’s second largest mobile carrier.


The company was also asked about EDS – an IT outsourcing company that HP bought in 2008 – and any activity in Iran, Syria and Sudan.


HP said it had the same policy regarding Sudan as it did on sales to Iran or Syria.


HP is eager to avoid more negative publicity after surprising the market on Tuesday with an $ 8.8 billion write-down on its $ 11.1 billion acquisition of software group Autonomy, accusing the British company of improper accounting to inflate sales.


Autonomy has denied any wrongdoing.


(Reporting by Nicola Leske in New York. Editing by Leslie Gevirtz and Andre Grenon)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Secret message found with carrier pigeon may never be deciphered












 Secret message found with carrier pigeon may never be decipheredBritish man finds carrier pigeon skeleton in his fireplace with unbreakable secret code (Reuters)


Before military forces had secure cell phones and satellite communications, they used carrier pigeons. The highly trained birds delivered sensitive information from one location to another during  World War II. Often, the birds found the intended recipient. But not always.












A dead pigeon was recently discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, England. There for roughly 70 years, the bird had a curious canister attached to its leg. Inside was a coded message that has stumped the experts.


The code features a series of 27 groups of five letters. According to Reuters, nobody from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters has been able to decipher it. The message was sent by a Sgt. W. Scott to someone or something identified as “Xo2.”


A spokesperson remarked, “Although it is disappointing that we cannot yet read the message brought back by a brave carrier pigeon, it is a tribute to the skills of the wartime code-makers that, despite working under severe pressure, they devised a code that was indecipherable both then and now.”


The bird was discovered by a homeowner doing renovations earlier this month. In an interview with Reuters, David Martin remarked that bits of birds kept falling from the chimney. Eventually, Margin saw the red canister and speculated that it might contain a secret message. And it seems as if the message will always be secret.


Carrier pigeons played a vital role in wars due to their incredible homing skills. All told, U.K. forces used about 250,000 of the birds during World War II.


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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EU budget talks end without deal













The Brussels summit has ended without agreement on the 27-strong union’s next seven-year budget.












A BBC correspondent says another meeting will have to be called to sort out the difficulties but it is unclear how differences will be resolved.


European Council chief Herman Van Rompuy said he was confident a deal would be reached early next year.


Hours of talks failed to bridge big gaps between richer countries and those which rely most on EU funding.


The UK said current EU spending levels must be frozen.


Continue reading the main story

Start Quote



Angela Merkel and I both agreed that it would be better to take some time out”



End Quote Francois Hollande French president


The EU’s divisions are very clear and have become even more stark at a time of economic crisis, says the BBC’s Chris Morris in Brussels.


Mr Van Rompuy had reshuffled the allocations in his original proposed budget during the summit, but he kept in place a spending ceiling of 973bn euros (£783bn; $ 1.2tn).


With the eurozone’s dominant states, Germany and France, unable to agree on the budget, UK Prime Minister David Cameron had warned against “unaffordable spending”.


The failure to decide on a budget came just days after the finance ministers of the 17 eurozone states failed to agree on conditions for releasing a new tranche of bailout money to Greece, raising questions about the union’s decision-making process.


‘No threats’


Mr Van Rompuy’s budget had been unacceptable to a number of other countries, not just Britain, Mr Cameron told reporters.


Continue reading the main story

Analysis


The summit laid bare clear divisions between richer northern countries in the EU, and the poorer south and east. It mirrored the divide that has emerged in the eurozone between northern creditors and southern debtors.


But the uneasy relationship between France and Germany also played a role – when they don’t agree, things tend to move slowly. Germany wanted further cuts in the budget proposal – not as many as Britain and others – but cuts all the same.


France on the other hand, supported by Italy and Spain, was keen to defend the EU’s biggest spending projects.


So striking a deal at a second summit in the New Year won’t be at all easy. But there are two reasons to think that it might succeed.


One is that failure to reach an agreement would mean the EU falling back on more expensive annual budgets.


The other is that many people are keen to avoid a prolonged budget stalemate, which could divert attention from other more important issues – notably the need to take more steps to resolve the crisis in the eurozone.



“Together, we had a very clear message: ‘We are not going to be tough on budgets at home just to come here and sign up to big increases in European spending’,” he said.


“We haven’t got the deal we wanted but we’ve stopped what would have been an unacceptable deal,” he added. “And in European terms I think that goes down as progress.”


German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was sympathetic towards Mr Cameron’s view – but no more than she was to all countries involved in the discussion.


“The discussions, both the bilateral discussions and the common discussion, have shown us that there is sufficient potential for an agreement,” she added.


French President Francois Hollande said the summit had made “progress”.


“There were no threats, no ultimatums,” he told reporters. “Angela Merkel and I both agreed that it would be better to take some time out because we want there to be an agreement.”


Without naming the UK, he also said it was time the system of budget rebates was reconsidered.


“It is a paradox, because some net contributors [EU countries that pay in more than they get back] get some of the money back even though they are in a situation where they are wealthy enough for them not to get this money back,” he said.


Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite remarked that the atmosphere at the summit had been “surprisingly good because the divergence in opinions was so large that there was nothing to argue about”.


European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said the talks had failed owing to “important differences of opinion – especially in overall size of the budget”.


Revisions


The Commission, which drafts EU laws, had originally called for a budget of 1.025tn euros.




UK Prime Minister David Cameron: “We still believe a deal is do-able”



Its position was supported by the European Parliament and many countries which are net beneficiaries, including Poland, Hungary and Spain.


While most EU members supported some increase in the budget, several, mostly the big net contributors, argued it was unacceptable at a time of austerity.


Germany, the UK, France and Italy are the biggest net contributors to the budget, which amounts to about 1% of the EU’s overall GDP.


Mr Van Rompuy’s revised budget would have softened the blow to the two main areas of spending: development in the EU’s poorer regions, and agriculture.


Instead, there would have been greater cuts to energy, transport, broadband and the EU’s foreign service.


His proposal, put to leaders on Thursday evening, would have made no change to the level of administrative costs – something the UK might have found unacceptable.


Speaking after the summit, Mr Van Rompuy said: “My feeling is that we can go further… It has to be balanced and well prepared, not in the mood of improvisation, because we are touching upon jobs, we are touching upon sensitive issues.”


Failure to agree on the budget by the end of next year would mean rolling over the 2013 budget into 2014 on a month-by-month basis, putting some long-term projects at risk.


Analysts say that could leave the UK in a worse position, because the 2013 budget is bigger than the preceding years of the 2007-2013 multi-year budget.


BBC News – Business


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Cricket-Australia v South Africa – second test scoreboard












ADELAIDE, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Scoreboard at the close of the


third day of the second test between Australia and South Africa












at Adelaide Oval on Saturday:


Australia won the toss and chose to bat


Australia first innings 550


South Africa first innings


G. Smith c Wade b Siddle 122


A. Petersen run out 54


H. Amla st Wade b Warner 11


J. Rudolph c Quiney b Lyon 29


AB de Villiers lbw b Siddle 1


F. du Plessis c Clarke b Hilfenhaus 78


D. Steyn c Ponting b Hilfenhaus 1


R. Kleinveldt b Hilfenhaus 0


J. Kallis c Wade b Clarke 58


M. Morkel b Lyon 6


I. Tahir not out 10


Extras (b-7, lb-2, w-3, nb-6) 18


Total: (all out, 124.3 overs) 388


Fall of wickets: 1-138 2-169 3-233 4-233 5-240 6-246 7-250


8-343 9-352 10-388


Bowling: B. Hilfenhaus 19.3-6-49-3, J. Pattinson 9.1-0-41-0


(nb-4, w-1) N. Lyon 44-7-91-2, P. Siddle 30.5-6-130-2 (nb-2), M.


Clarke 7-1-22-1, M. Hussey 1-0-7-0 (w-2), D. Warner 5-0-27-1, R.


Quiney 8-3-12-0


Australia second innings


D. Warner c Du Plessis b Kleinveldt 41


E. Cowan b Kleinveldt 29


R. Quiney c De Villiers b Kleinveldt 0


R. Ponting b Steyn 16


M. Clarke not out 9


P. Siddle c De Villiers b Morkel 1


M. Hussey 5


Extras (lb-7, nb-3) 10


Total (for five wickets, 32 overs) 111


Fall of wickets: 1-77 2-77 3-91 4-98 5-103


Still to bat: M. Wade, B. Hilfenhaus, J. Pattinson, N. Lyon.


Bowling: Steyn 10-4-28-1, Morkel 9-2-24-1, Kleinveldt


6-1-14-3 (nb-2), Tahir 7-1-38-0 (nb-1)


- -


Third test: WACA, Perth Nov. 30-Dec. 4


(Compiled by Ian Ransom; Editing by Alastair Himmer)


Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Country singer Kristofferson looks to end of road












GENEVA (Reuters) – Kris Kristofferson — Oxford scholar, athlete, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, country music composer, one-time roustabout, film actor, singer, lover of women, three times a husband and father of eight — seems ready to meet his maker.


At least, that was the clear impression he left with an audience of middle-aged-and-upwards fans at a concert in Geneva this week, a message underscored by his 28th and latest album, “Feeling Mortal” and its coffin-dark cover.












At a frail-looking 76, his ample beard more straggly than ever and his always gravel-laden voice gasping out the familiar lyrics of his great classics from “Bobby McGee” to “Rainbow Again”, the hereafter appears at the front of his mind.


“I’ve begun to soon descend, like the sun into the sea,” runs the title song of the new CD.


On the stage without backing group in Geneva, the first leg of a solo European tour to promote the disc from his own record company, “God” trips off his lips like a punctuation mark.


Even the old songs that made him — as well as other country artists like Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, and his one-time girl-friend Janis Joplin — internationally famous, sound shaped by the fading voice to underscore a spiritual dimension.


“Sunday Morning Coming Down” emerges less as an ode to elderly loners facing old age without family and children and more as a call to prepare for the next life.


Religiosity was never that far from Kristofferson, son of a major-general in the U.S. Air Force, grandson of a Swedish army officer and in the 1ate 1950s a Rhodes Scholar in English Literature at England’s Oxford University.


CRUCIFIXION


In the 1971 “Jesus was a Capricorn” he predicts the Christian savior would be crucified again if he came back preaching peace and love among all races and creeds.


In the new album, “Ramblin’ Jack” is semi-autobiographical — a song about a wandering singer “with a face like a tumbled-down shack” of “wild and righteous, wicked ways” who “ain’t afraid of where he’s goin’.”


Kristofferson is adored by many believers, probably the vast majority of U.S. country fans and performers. But his fans among the unreligious and the atheists were also happy just to relish the poetry of his lyrics and the idiosyncrasy of his voice.


In Geneva, despite its Calvinist past as secular today as any major European city, the ageing 1,000-odd audience in a theatre seating twice that number, were certainly ready to enjoy anything he gave them.


They cheered and applauded his political declaration, an aside injected after a song line: “nobody wins.” “But somebody has just won. Obama won, so the whole world has won!” he rasped, waving his electric guitar in the air.


SELF-MOCKERY


They loved his self-mockery when, overcome briefly by a sniffle and pulling a blue bandana — cousin of the red one in “Bobby McGee”? — from his jeans pocket, he asked them if they minded having paid $ 100 “to watch an old fart blow his nose.”


And they laughed with him when — in the full flood of lyrics on the pleasure of being around “a lot of lovely girls in the best of all possible worlds — he confided: “I wrote this song a LONG time ago.”


His 22-year-old angel-faced daughter Kelly, a banjoist and vocalist, joined him on stage for a handful of numbers, while in the hall outside son Jesse manned a stall selling the new CD and the black “Feeling Mortal Tour” t-shirts.


Children — their dreams and the dreams of their parents for them — have also long been a central theme of his music.


“I wrote this for my little girl,” he says of a father’s song pledging he will be “forever there” for a daughter through life, and after. “Spread your wings,” he tells her.


More prosaically, he recalls a rebuke from Jesse at age five over his 1970s hit: “The Silver-Tongued Devil”: “That’s a bad song. You’re blaming all your troubles on someone else.”


After the concert, the Kristofferson family left for Zurich and Vienna to continue the tour. “This may be our last goodbye,” he sang in a final song. “We may not pass this way again.”


“We’ll miss you,” called a voice from the audience.


(Reported by Robert Evans)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar












LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.


The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.












On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.


“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.


The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.


Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.


Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.


Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.


Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.


The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.


“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.


It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.


“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.


Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.


The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.


The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.


“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.


(Editing by Alison Williams)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Marc Anthony comes to aid of Dominican orphanage












SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Singer Marc Anthony is coming to the aid of an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.


A foundation run by Anthony with music and sports producer Henry Cardenas plans to build a new residence hall, classrooms and a baseball field for the Children of Christ orphanage in the eastern city of La Romana. Anthony attended the groundbreaking ceremony Friday with his model girlfriend Shannon de Lima.












Children of Christ Foundation Director Sonia Hane said Anthony visited the orphanage previously and decided to help. His Maestro Cares Foundation raised $ 200,000 for the expansion on land donated by a sugar company. The orphanage was founded in 1996 for children who were abused or abandoned or whose parents were unable to care for them.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Wall St Week Ahead: Political wrangling to pinch market’s nerves












NEW YORK (Reuters) – Volatility is the name of this game.


With the S&P 500 above 1,400 following five days of gains, traders will be hard pressed not to cash in on the advance at the first sign of trouble during negotiations over tax hikes and spending cuts that resume next week in Washington.












President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders are expected to discuss ways to reduce the budget deficit and avoid the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 that could tip the economy into recession.


As politicians make their case, markets could react with wild swings.


The CBOE Volatility Index <.VIX>, known as the VIX, Wall Street‘s favorite barometer of market anxiety that usually moves in an inverse relationship with the S&P 500, is in a long-term decline with its 200-day moving average at its lowest in five years. The VIX could spike if dealings in Washington begin to stall.


“If the fiscal cliff happens, a lot of major assets will be down on a short-term basis because of the fear factor and the chaos factor,” said Yu-Dee Chang, chief trader and sole principal of ACE Investments in Virginia.


“So whatever you are in, you’re going to lose some money unless you go long the VIX and short the market. The ‘upside risk’ there is some kind of grand bargain, and then the market goes crazy.”


He set the chances of the economy going over the cliff at only about 5 percent.


Many in the market agree there will be some sort of agreement that will fuel a rally, but the road there will be full of political landmines as Democrats and Republicans dig in on positions defended during the recent election.


Liberals want tax increases on the wealthiest Americans while protecting progressive advances in healthcare, while conservatives make a case for deep cuts in programs for the poor and a widening of the tax base to raise revenues without lifting tax rates.


“Both parties will raise the stakes and the pressure on the opposing side, so the market is going to feel much more concerned,” said Tim Leach, chief investment officer of U.S. Bank Wealth Management in San Francisco.


“The administration feels really confident at this point, or a little more than the Republican side of Congress may feel,” he said. “But it’s still a balanced-power Congress so neither side can feel that they can act with impunity.”


THE MIDDLE EAST AND EUROPE


Tension in the Middle East and unresolved talks in Europe over aid for Greece could add to the uncertainty and volatility on Wall Street could surge, analysts say.


An Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force late on Wednesday after a week of conflict, but it was broken with the shooting of a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers, according to Palestine’s foreign minister.


Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating the truce, Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi assumed sweeping powers, angering his opponents and prompting violent clashes in central Cairo and other cities on Friday.


“Those kinds of potential large-scale conflicts can certainly overwhelm some of the fundamental data here at home,” said U.S. Bank’s Leach.


“We are trying to keep in mind the idea that there are a lot of factors that are probably going to contribute to higher volatility.”


On a brighter note for markets, Greece’s finance minister said the International Monetary Fund has relaxed its debt-cutting target for Greece and a gap of only $ 13 billion remains to be filled for a vital aid installment to be paid.


Still, a deal has not been struck, and Greece is increasingly frustrated at its lenders, still squabbling over a deal to unlock fresh aid even though Athens has pushed through unpopular austerity cuts.


HOUSING DATA COULD CONFIRM RECOVERY


Next week is heavy on economic data, especially on the housing front. Some of the numbers have been affected by Superstorm Sandy, which hit the U.S. East Coast more than three weeks ago, killing more than 100 people in the United States alone and leaving billions of dollars in damages.


The housing data, though, could continue to confirm a rebound in the sector that is seen as a necessary step to unlock spending and lower the stubbornly high unemployment rate.


Tuesday’s S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for September is expected to show the eighth straight month of increases, extending the longest continuous string of gains since prices were boosted by a homebuyer tax credit in 2009 and 2010.


New home sales for October, due on Wednesday, and October pending home sales data, due on Thursday, are also expected to show a stronger housing market.


Other data highlights next week include durable goods orders for October and consumer confidence for November on Tuesday and the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index on Friday.


At Friday’s close, the S&P 500 wrapped up its second-best week of the year with a 3.6 percent gain. Encouraging economic data next week could confirm that regardless of the ups and downs that the fiscal cliff could bring, the market’s fundamentals are solid.


Jeff Morris, head of U.S. equities at Standard Life Investments in Boston, said that “it’s kind of noise here” in terms of whether the market has spent “a few days up or down. It has made some solid gains over the course of the year as the housing recovery has come into view, and that’s what’s underpinning the market at these levels.


“I would caution against reading too much into the next few days.”


(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jan Paschal)


Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Beijing’s S. China Sea rivals protest passport map












TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has enraged several neighbors with a few dashes on a map, printed in its newly revised passports that show it staking its claim on the entire South China Sea and even Taiwan.


Inside the passports, an outline of China printed in the upper left corner includes Taiwan and the sea, hemmed in by the dashes. The change highlights China’s longstanding claim on the South China Sea in its entirety, though parts of the waters also are claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.












China’s official maps have long included Taiwan and the South China Sea as Chinese territory, but the act of including them in its passports could be seen as a provocation since it would require other nations to tacitly endorse those claims by affixing their official seals to the documents.


Ruling party and opposition lawmakers alike condemned the map in Taiwan, a self-governed island that split from China after a civil war in 1949. They said it could harm the warming ties the historic rivals have enjoyed since Ma Ying-jeou became president 4 1/2 years ago.


“This is total ignorance of reality and only provokes disputes,” said Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the Cabinet-level body responsible for ties with Beijing. The council said the government cannot accept the map.


Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters in Manila that he sent a note to the Chinese Embassy that his country “strongly protests” the image. He said China’s claims include an area that is “clearly part of the Philippines’ territory and maritime domain.”


The Vietnamese government said it had also sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, demanding that Beijing remove the “erroneous content” printed in the passport.


In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said the new passport was issued based on international standards. China began issuing new versions of its passports to include electronic chips on May 15, though criticism cropped up only this week.


“The design of this type of passports is not directed against any particular country,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily media briefing Friday. “We hope the relevant countries can calmly treat it with rationality and restraint so that the normal visits by the Chinese and foreigners will not be unnecessarily interfered with.”


It’s unclear whether China’s South China Sea neighbors will respond in any way beyond protesting to Beijing. China, in a territorial dispute with India, once stapled visas into passports to avoid stamping them.


“Vietnam reserves the right to carry out necessary measures suitable to Vietnamese law, international law and practices toward such passports,” Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said.


Taiwan does not recognize China’s passports in any case; Chinese visitors to the island have special travel documents.


China maintains it has ancient claims to all of the South China Sea, despite much of it being within the exclusive economic zones of Southeast Asian neighbors. The islands and waters are potentially rich in oil and gas.


There are concerns that the disputes could escalate into violence. China and the Philippines had a tense maritime standoff at a shoal west of the main Philippine island of Luzon early this year.


The United States, which has said it takes no sides in the territorial spats but that it considers ensuring safe maritime traffic in the waters to be in its national interest, has backed a call for a “code of conduct” to prevent clashes in the disputed territories. But it remains unclear if and when China will sit down with rival claimants to draft such a legally binding nonaggression pact.


The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled to meet Dec. 12 to discuss claims in the South China Sea and the role of China.


___


Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam, and researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.


Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi, Miley Cyrus Share Birthday Joy On Twitter












Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was celebrating her 25th birthday on Black Friday, but it wasn’t the shops that provided her with her favorite present.


The reality star and new mom Tweeted that her baby boy — Lorenzo, who was born in August — was the most rewarding gift of all.












PLAY IT NOW: The Jersey Shore Cast Makes A Plea To Help ‘Restore The Shore’


“My favorite birthday gift,” she Tweeted, linking to a photo of the MTV star holding her little one. (Click HERE to see the full pic.)


But, Snooki didn’t leave out her love for her fiance, Lorenzo’s daddy — Jionni LaValle, thanking him for celebrating her big day with her.


VIEW THE PHOTOS: We Did It All For The ‘Snooki’! Hot Shots Of The ‘Jersey Shore’ Star!


“Best Birthday ever with my fiance @JLaValle and Lorenzo,” she wrote.


In typical Snooki fashion, though, she wasn’t the perfect birthday girl. She made sure to emphasize it was her big day.


“Lol I’m being that annoying birthday girl to @JLaValle saying ‘but it’s my birthday today you have to,’” she Tweeted.


VIEW THE PHOTOS: She’s Just Bein’ Miley!


Snooki wasn’t the only celeb celebrating their birthday on Black Friday. Miley Cyrus turned 20, and hit Twitter to thank her fans for their well wishes.


“So much BIRFFFDAY love!” she wrote. “i wish everyday was like this.”


VIEW THE PHOTOS: Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth: Young Hollywood’s Hot Power Couple


Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Do drunks have to go to the ER?
















NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – With the help of a checklist, ambulance workers may be able to safely reroute drunk patients to detoxification centers instead of emergency rooms, according to a new study.


Researchers in Colorado found no serious medical problems were reported after 138 people were sent to a detox center to sleep it off, instead of to an ER.













In 2004, according to the researchers, it’s estimated that 0.6 percent of all U.S. ER visits were made by people without any problems other than being drunk. Those visits ended up costing about $ 900 million.


“Part of the issue has been – as it is in many busy ER departments – there’s a lot of chronic alcoholics that are brought in by ambulance, police or just come in. Often they are brought in because they have not committed a crime or there is limited space in our detoxification center. So the majority were brought to the ER department,” said Dr. David Ross, the study’s lead author from Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs.


Ross said the ambulance company where he serves as medical director created the checklist with the help of the local detox center, which provided limited medical care by a nurse, and the local hospitals to reduce the number of drunks without medical needs being sent to the local ERs.


They created a checklist with 29 yes-or-no questions, such as whether the patient is cooperating with the ambulance worker’s examination and if the patient is willing to go to the detox center.


The patient was sent to the ER if the ambulance worker checked “no” on any question.


The researchers then went back to look at the patients they transported between December 2003 and December 2005 to see whether or not any of them ended up having serious medical problems at the detox center.


During that two year period, the ambulance workers transported 718 drunks. The detox center received 138 and the local ERs got 580.


Overall, 11 of the patients who were taken to detox were turned away because there was no room, their blood alcohol level exceeded the limit, their family came to pick them up or they were combative.


Another four patients at the detox center were taken to the ER because of minor complications, including chest and knee pain. However, there were no serious complications reported.


“We really believe that we did not miss anybody with a serious illness and injury that didn’t go to the ER as they should have,” said Ross.


But the researchers write in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that their study did have some limitations.


Specifically, the researchers did not plan in advance to do a study when they were creating the checklist, which means their findings are limited to whatever information was collected at the detox center and ERs.


Also, the number of people who were sent to the detox center in their study is relatively small, so it’s hard to tell how many serious complications they’d see among a larger group of people.


“We tried to estimate how likely we would have been to encounter a serious event… We estimated at most we’d encounter three serious adverse events (in 748 patients),” Ross told Reuters Health.


SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QgPCT5 Annals of Emergency Medicine, online November 9, 2012.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Serious About Free Markets? Prove It
















On Friday the Republican Study Committee, a policy shop for congressional Republicans, published a memo on how to fix copyright law. By Saturday afternoon the group’s executive director had pulled the memo, which had evidently failed to approach the subject with “all facts and viewpoints in hand.” This is Washington’s way of saying that an interest group hit the roof, and indeed, Ars Technica reports that lobbyists from the “content industry”—Hollywood and recording companies—pressured the group to renounce the memo.


Copyright being in fact broken, you can still read copies of the memo online. It lays out what copyright reform advocates have been saying for years. Copyright protections now extend 70 years past the life of the author; for a corporation, 95 years after publication. This, along with punitive laws on copyright violation, hinders creativity and innovation. These facts aren’t new. What’s new is the tone. Derek Khanna, the memo’s author, writes like an unashamed free marketeer, and in doing so manages to latch on to a larger point: Laws that help businesses often harm markets. From the memo:













Today’s legal regime of copyright law is seen by many as a form of corporate welfare that hurts innovation and hurts the consumer. It is a system that picks winners and losers, and the losers are new industries that could generate new wealth and added value. We frankly may have no idea how it actually hurts innovation, because we don’t know what isn’t able to be produced as a result of our current system. (Emphasis in the original.)


Radical stuff. There’s no one in Washington to lobby for industries that don’t exist yet, and ever so briefly, Khanna and the Republican Study Committee stepped into that breach. Then they stepped back, to gather more facts and viewpoints. Here’s one: Pro-business and pro-market are not the same thing. The most pleasant place for a business is not elbows-out in the middle of a free market, but sitting alone, atop a fat monopoly. Ask your local cable provider. The larger a business gets, the more it has to protect from the companies and industries that might follow it with something better or cheaper. And the best way to protect what you have is to have it written into law.


Real markets, with real competition, are most helpful to newcomers. Small businesses and new industries create new value. Once created, they, too, move to Washington to protect it. Witness the growth of Google (GOOG) and Facebook’s (FB) lobbying operations in the Capitol. Khanna describes extended copyright protection as rent-seeking—in his words, “non-productive behavior that sucks economic productivity and potential from the overall economy.” What’s true of Hollywood and the recording industry could be said of any established industry.


Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a regular contributor to Bloomberg View, points out that larger companies can lobby for special exemptions in the tax code. This creates complexity in the tax code, which punishes smaller businesses that can’t pay for tax lawyers and don’t have anyone’s buttonhole on Capitol Hill. Zingales prefers simple regulations and simple taxes, which are harder for lobbyists to game and easier for democracies to understand. He sees this as a bipartisan problem. The left is inclined toward more regulation, and the right is pro-business, rather than pro-markets.


The direction Khanna was headed—a defense of open, competitive markets at the expense of existing businesses—is still wide open space, claimed by no party. This summer, conservatives such as Timothy Carney at the Examiner and Yuval Levin at National Review urged Mitt Romney to back markets, not businesses. But he chose not to, even though he, in his day, disrupted existing markets of his own. Some enterprising Republican can still do it. Derek Khanna in 2016! He’s young. Maybe VP.


Businessweek.com — Top News



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Former Ivory Coast leader’s wife wanted by ICC
















THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court unsealed an indictment Thursday against former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo‘s wife on charges including murder, rape and persecution. It was the first time in the court’s 10-year history it has charged a woman.


The world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal said the arrest warrant was issued on Feb. 29 for former first lady Simone Gbagbo for crimes against humanity.













Her husband, Laurent Gbagbo, is already in custody at the court’s detention unit in The Hague facing similar charges stemming from his fight to retain power after losing a 2010 presidential election. If his wife is extradited, they could face justice together in an unprecedented husband-wife trial.


But a senior member of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara‘s government, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said Ivory Coast has already informed the ICC that the nation will not let her go.


“We informed them of this a long time ago,” he said.


The court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, urged Ivory Coast to extradite Gbagbo.


“The type of crimes committed in the aftermath of the 2010 elections did not happen by chance — they were planned and coordinated at the highest political and military levels and all those bearing the greatest responsibility must be held to account,” Bensouda said in a statement.


She said prosecutors continue to investigate crimes committed by both sides in Ivory Coast’s bloody power struggle and expect to issue further arrest warrants in the future.


“The investigations are objective, impartial and independent, and are conducted in strict accordance with the law,” she said.


Ivory Coast officials are holding the 63 year old under house arrest in the northwest town of Odienne. Last week, Ivorian prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau said lawyers had questioned Simone Gbagbo there for two days and that the domestic charges against her remained the same: genocide, blood crimes and economic crimes.


Unsealing the ICC arrest warrant issued nearly nine months ago appears to be a tactic by the court to put pressure on Ouattara’s administration to hand over Ms. Gbagbo.


If authorities in Ivory Coast want to prosecute her, they have to convince judges at The Hague tribunal that their case involves the same crimes she is charged with at the ICC. It is a court of last resort, meaning it only takes cases from countries unwilling or unable to prosecute them.


The international court said in the warrant that there is evidence pro-Gbagbo forces deliberately attacked perceived supporters of Ouattara in the aftermath of the election.


Judges who reviewed evidence supporting the charges against Ms. Gbagbo said they found “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms. Gbagbo bears individual criminal responsibility for the crimes … as ‘an indirect co-perpetrator.’”


The warrant called Gbagbo an “alter ego for her husband” with the power to make state decisions. It said there is evidence to suggest she “instructed the pro-Gbagbo forces to commit crimes against individuals who posed a threat to her husband’s power.”


Her husband was the first former head of state to be taken into custody by the court when he was extradited to The Hague by the Ivory Coast government last year.


Prosecutors say about 3,000 people died in violence by both sides after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat following the election. Ouattara finally took power in April 2011 with the help of French and U.N. forces.


Ivory Coast is not a member state of the court, but has voluntarily accepted its jurisdiction.


It is very rare for a woman to be charged by an international war crimes court. In the past, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic of persecution and sentenced her to 11 years imprisonment.


The announcement of the arrest warrant and Ivory Coast’s refusal to hand over Gbagbo appeared likely to raise tensions between supporters of her husband and those who back Ouattara.


Moussa Toure Zeguen, a leader of the Gbagbo allies in exile in Ghana, said by phone from Accra that the former president’s supporters had no faith in the Ivorian authorities to give Simone Gbagbo a fair trial.


“We don’t trust them. The only thing that Ouattara is doing is revenge,” Zeguen said. “He wants to try us without trying any of the fighters from his side who also committed crimes. It is not fair, and this cannot bring reconciliation.”


____


Associated Press writers Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal, and Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, contributed to this report.


Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is Good, But No iPad Killer [REVIEW]
















Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9


Click here to view this gallery.


[More from Mashable: Apple Now Owns the iMessage Name]













Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?


If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.


[More from Mashable: 9 Black Friday Deals For iPhone Owners]


That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.


All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.


The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.


Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.


The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen


What It Is


If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).


Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).


I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.


Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.


The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.


The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)


Not Packing a Punch


As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.


Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.


The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.


Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.


The Good


Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.


Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.


The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.


Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.


There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.


Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.


Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.


Staying Connected


The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).


Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).


In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.


At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”


The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.


Review continues after FreeTime Gallery


FreeTime


Kindle HD FreeTime Start


Click here to view this gallery.


Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.


Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.


To Buy or Not to Buy


Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.


Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.


For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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McCartney, Houston, Dylan lead Grammy Hall of Fame inductees
















LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Music by Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Elton John and late singers Whitney Houston and James Brown will be inducted into the 2013 Grammy Hall of Fame, The Recording Academy said on Wednesday.


Paul McCartney & Wings‘ 1973 album “Band on the Run,” long credited with reigniting McCartney’s career following the Beatles’ split in 1970, was one of the 27 new inductees into the Grammy Hall of Fame, on display at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.













Houston‘s self-titled 1985 debut album was also named an inductee, following the singer’s sudden death aged 48 in February this year. Australian hard-rock band AC/DC’s top-selling 1980 “Back in Black” album was also named a new entry.


The Recording Academy, which also runs the Grammy awards, picks songs and albums from all genres that are at least 25 years old, with either “qualitative or historical significance” to be considered annually for the Grammy Hall of Fame by a committee.


“Memorable for being both culturally and historically significant, we are proud to add (the 2013 inductees) to our growing catalog of outstanding recordings that have become part of our musical, social and cultural history,” The Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said in a statement.


As well as albums, the Grammy Hall of Fame also includes songs of historic and cultural significance and the inductees for 2013 see a range of classic American songs.


Iconic Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changing” from 1964, R&B singer Ray Charles’ 1961 tune “Hit the Road Jack,” Rat Pack star Frank Sinatra’s 1980 “Theme from ‘New York, New York’”, and ‘Godfather of soul’ James Brown‘s 1965 classic “I Got You (I Feel Good)” were all honored.


Other 2013 inductees include Elton John‘s 1970 self-titled second album and American debut, Billy Joel’s 1973 hit “The Piano Man” and Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s 1953 R&B classic “Hound Dog,” later covered by Elvis Presley.


(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)


Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Medication cuts crime rate among ADHD sufferers
















LONDON (Reuters) – Criminal behavior in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drops sharply when they take stimulant drugs like Ritalin to help them to control impulses, scientists said on Wednesday.


A study of more than 25,000 people with ADHD found the number of crimes committed was about a third or more lower in those taking medication, suggesting that encouraging ADHD patients to stay on the pills could cut the risk of crime.













Past international studies show up to two-thirds of young offenders and half the adult prison population screen positively for childhood ADHD, and many may still have symptoms as adults.


British and Swedish researchers who conducted the new study found that patients who went through periods on and off ADHD drugs had a significantly reduced risk of engaging in criminal activity when they were medicated.


“The bottom line is that medication led to a 32 percent reduction in crime rates in men and a 41 percent reduction in crime rates in women,” said Seena Fazel, a forensic psychiatrist at Britain’s Oxford University who presented the findings at a briefing in London


Paul Lichtenstein of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, who worked with Fazel and colleagues, said the results suggested that encouraging more ADHD sufferers to take medication could help to reduce crime and re-offending rates.


“It’s said that roughly 30 to 40 percent of long-serving criminals have ADHD. If their chances of recidivism can be reduced by 30 percent, it would clearly affect total crime numbers in many societies, he said in a statement.


Some 5 percent of school-age children and around half as many adults worldwide have ADHD, a disorder characterized by distractedness and impulsive and sometimes violent behavior.


In the United States, it is one of the most common childhood disorders with an average of 9 percent of children between the ages of five and 17 are diagnosed with it each year.


Previous studies have shown that people with ADHD have on average less education and lower incomes, higher rates of unemployment, divorce and substance abuse, and are more likely to enter a life of crime. But until now health experts were not clear how medication might be affecting the crime risk.


“We’ve shown that ADHD medication very probably reduces the risk of crime,” said Henrik Larsson of the Karolinska Institute. “However … most medical treatments can have adverse side effects, so risks must be weighed up against benefits.”


Ritalin, known generically as methylphenidate, is sold by the Swiss drugmaker Novartis and is widely used in developed countries to help people with ADHD to concentrate better and control impulsiveness. Other ADHD drugs include Johnson & Johnson’s Concerta, Shire’s Adderall and Vyvanse and Eli Lilly’s Strattera.


Philip Asherson, an ADHD expert from Britain’s Institute of Psychiatry who was not involved in this research but was speaking at the London briefing, said the findings could point to a cost-effective way to help patients stay out of trouble.


In Britain for example, a month’s supply of ADHD medication costs around 300 pounds per patient, he said – a fraction of the cost to society of keeping someone in prison.


Asherson stressed however that decisions about medication should be a personal choice.


The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.


(Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Stephen Nisbet)


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More government action on mergers

















The government plans to become more active in mergers and acquisitions involving UK companies.













The decision is part of the government response to the Kay Review into how to discourage short-termism in markets.


The government has decided it should “engage with companies and their investors… to promote investment which benefits the UK economy”.


Professor John Kay called for it to discourage acquisitions that would threaten a firm’s operations in the UK.


The government’s response comes in the week that the acquisition of Autonomy, which was once Britain’s biggest software company, by Hewlett Packard of the US has ended in acrimony and allegations of financial misbehaviour.


‘No blanket regulation’


The Kay Review was commissioned by Business Secretary Vince Cable and published in July.


The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills endorsed Prof Kay’s 10 principles for stock markets, which were designed to encourage more focus on the long-term returns from businesses rather than short-term profits.


Prof Kay also called for the way that directors are paid to be changed to encourage more long-term thinking.


He suggested that bonuses should only be paid in shares that could not be sold until after an executive left the company.


The government responded that it “does not believe there is a case for blanket regulation”, but hopes that its reforms, designed to empower shareholders and create more transparency in remuneration, will help bring about such good practice.


Similarly, Prof Kay proposed that bankers and investment managers should receive bonuses either in the form of shares in the firms for which they work, or an interest in the investment funds they manage.


Again, such shares could not be sold until they left the company.


The government plans to promote this as best practice rather than imposing it through regulation.


The application of Good Practice Statements for company directors, bankers and investors are to be encouraged by the government.


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Ivory Coast: New prime minister named
















ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — President Alassane Ouattara has tapped Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan to serve as prime minister in a new government one week after the surprise dissolution of cabinet.


The appointment of Duncan, a member of the PDCI party of former President Henri Konan Bedie, was announced at a press conference Wednesday by Amadou Gon Coulibaly, general secretary of the presidency.













Ouattara dissolved the cabinet last week over a feud between his political party and the PDCI over proposed changes to the country’s marriage law.


The PDCI supported Ouattara in the November 2010 runoff election in exchange for the prime minister’s post, helping him defeat incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office led to five months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives before Ouattara’s forces won.


Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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