Japan votes in election seen returning LDP to power

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan voted on Sunday in an election expected to return the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power after a three-year hiatus, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe.

Polls opened at 0700 a.m. (1700 ET) and will close at 8 p.m. (0600 ET), when major TV broadcasters will issue exit polls forecasting results.

An LDP win would usher in a government committed to a tough stance in a territorial row with China, a pro-nuclear power energy policy despite last year’s Fukushima disaster and a potentially risky prescription for hyper-easy monetary policy and big fiscal spending to beat deflation and tame a strong yen.

Media surveys have forecast the LDP will win a big majority in parliament’s powerful 480-seat lower house, just three years after a devastating defeat that ended more than 50 years of almost non-stop rule by the business-friendly party. However, many voters remained undecided just days before the vote, the polls showed.

Together with a small ally, Abe’s LDP could even gain the two-thirds majority needed to break through a policy deadlock that has plagued successive governments for half a decade.

Abe, 58, who quit abruptly as premier in 2007 after a troubled year in office, has been talking tough in a row with China over uninhabited isles in the East China Sea, although some experts say he may temper his hard line with pragmatism once in office.

The soft-spoken grandson of a prime minister, who would become Japan’s seventh premier in six years, Abe also wants to loosen the limits of a 1947 pacifist constitution on the military, so Japan can play a bigger global security role.

The LDP, which promoted atomic energy during its decades-long reign, is expected to be friendly to nuclear utilities, although deep public safety concerns remain a barrier to business as usual for the industry.

ECONOMY IN DOLDRUMS

Abe has called for “unlimited” monetary easing and big spending on public works – for decades a centerpiece of the LDP’s policies and criticized by many as wasteful pork barrel – to rescue the economy from its fourth recession since 2000.

Many economists say that prescription for “Abenomics” could create temporary growth and enable the government to go ahead with a planned initial sales tax rise in 2014 to help curb a public debt now twice the size of gross domestic product.

But it looks unlikely to cure deeper ills or spark sustainable growth, and risks triggering a market backlash if investors decide Japan has lost control of its finances.

Japan’s economy has been stuck in the doldrums for decades, its population ageing fast and big corporate brands faltering, making “Japan Inc” a synonym for decline.

Consumer electronics firms such as Sony Corp are struggling with competition from foreign rivals and burdened by a strong yen, which makes their products cost more overseas.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda‘s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) surged to power in a historic victory in 2009 promising to pay more heed to consumers than companies and put politicians, bureaucrats, in charge of policymaking.

Many voters now feel the DPJ pledges were honored in the breach as the novice party struggled to govern and to cope with last year’s huge earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster and then pushed through an unpopular sales tax increase with LDP help.

Voter distaste for both major parties has spawned a clutch of new parties including the right-leaning Japan Restoration Party founded by popular Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto.

Surveys show the DPJ, hit by a stream of defections, is likely to win fewer than 100 seats, less than a third of its tally in 2009.

(Additional reporting by Leika Kihara, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.

Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta. The People’s Democratic Party’s statement described Yakowa’s death as a “colossal loss.”

The statement said the former national security adviser, General Andrew Azazi, also died in the crash. Azazi was fired in June amid growing sectarian violence in Nigeria, but maintained close ties with the government.

Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said four other bodies had been found, but he could not immediately give their identities.

The crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. after the navy helicopter took off from the village of Okoroba in Bayelsa state where officials had gathered to attend the burial of the father of a presidential aide, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu. He said that the helicopter was headed for Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt when it crashed in the Nembe area of Bayelsa state.

Aviation disasters remain common in Nigeria, despite efforts in recent years to improve air safety.

In October, a plane made a crash landing in central Nigeria. A state governor and five others sustained injuries but survived.

In June, a Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane crashed into a neighborhood in the commercial capital of Lagos, killing 153 people onboard and at least 10 people on the ground. It was Nigeria’s worst air crash in nearly two decades.

In March, a police helicopter carrying a high-ranking police official crashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos, killing four people.

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Ten Commandments join Isaac Newton’s notes online

LONDON (Reuters) – A copy of The Ten Commandments dating back two millennia and the earliest written Gaelic are just two of a number of incredibly rare manuscripts now freely available online to the world as part of a Cambridge University digital project.

The Nash Papyrus — one of the oldest known manuscripts containing text from the Hebrew Bible — has become one of the latest treasures of humanity to join Isaac Newton‘s notebooks, the Nuremberg Chronicle and other rare texts as part of the Cambridge Digital Library, the university said on Wednesday.

“Cambridge University Library preserves works of great importance to faith traditions and communities around the world,” University Librarian Anne Jarvis said in a statement.

“Because of their age and delicacy these manuscripts are seldom able to be viewed – and when they are displayed, we can only show one or two pages.”

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nash Papyrus, was by far the oldest manuscript containing text from the Hebrew Bible and like most fragile historical documents, only available to select academics for scrutiny.

The university’s digital library is making 25,000 new images, including an ancient copy of the New Testament, available on its website (http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/), which has already attracted tens of millions of hits since the project was launched in December 2011.

The latest release also includes important texts from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

In addition to religious texts, internet users can also view the 10th century Book of Deer, which is widely believed to be the oldest surviving Scottish manuscript and contains the earliest known examples of written Gaelic.

“Now… anyone with a connection to the Internet can select a work of interest, turn to any page of the manuscript, and explore it in extraordinary detail,” Jarvis said.

The technical infrastructure required to get these texts to web was in part funded by a 1.5 million pound ($ 2.4 million) gift from the Polonsky Foundation in June 2010.

($ 1 = 0.6210 British pounds)

(Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Roll Up! “Magical Mystery Tour” gets U.S. TV debut

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Give four pop stars turned hippies a movie camera in 1967 and what do you get? The Beatles‘ “Magical Mystery Tour” film, which will receive its long-awaited U.S. broadcast television debut on Friday on PBS.

Long a curiosity in the United States, the film will be accompanied by a new documentary about its making. A restored version was released on DVD and blu-ray in October.

The third film for The Fab Four, after a “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964 and “Help!” a year later, “Magical Mystery Tour” is a shambolic trip through the English countryside on a bus filled with odd characters, but thin on plot. It first aired on BBC television the day after Christmas 1967.

Although it was initially panned by British critics, time has delivered some justice to the project, Jonathan Clyde, the producer of the documentary, told Reuters.

“‘Magical Mystery Tour‘ has always been the black sheep of the Beatles family, but I think it’s been rehabilitated into the Beatles canon,” Clyde said. “It’s no longer the ‘mad uncle in the attic’ that nobody wants to talk about. It’s been let out.”

In the United States, little was known about the film at the time of its release.

Beatles fans only had the album of music, or saw a poor print of the film in a double-feature midnight showing with “Reefer Madness,” a 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film often screened decades later for comedic effect.

“I first saw it in 1974 at a university,” Bill King, the longtime publisher of Beatles fanzine Beatlefan, said of “Magical Mystery Tour.” “By then, though, it had taken on mythic status. I loved it.”

At the time of its making, The Beatles were arguably at their creative peak on the heels of a seminal album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and their summer of love anthem “All You Need Is Love,” which debuted on global TV.

SCRIPT WANTED

But even before “Sgt. Pepper’s” release in June 1967, Paul McCartney had already conceived of the film project. The only thing he was missing: a script.

“Paul had drawn out a pie chart,” said Clyde, also a longtime consultant for The Beatles‘ company, Apple Corps. “It just said things like ‘Get on coach,’ ‘Dreams,’ ‘End Song.’ They really had no idea what it was going to be like.”

The group hired a bus, a film crew, and a handful of extras and set out around England, creating scenes with everything from magicians to Ringo Starr’s oversized Aunt Jessie being stuffed with spaghetti by waiter John Lennon.

McCartney did most of the directing.

“It really had something for everyone, which is something I like about it,” Clyde said. “It was really a nod not only to the younger people watching, but to their parents’ generation, as well.”

The film also was loaded with six new Beatles songs, presented as what now would be considered music videos.

The music itself, including songs “I Am the Walrus” and “The Fool on the Hill,” was as innovative as any of the band’s music that year – and mostly recorded just before filming started.

“The Beatles were driven and inspired by having a deadline,” said Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin. The younger Martin remixed the songs at the legendary Abbey Road studios for the DVD and broadcast.

“And songs like ‘Walrus’ are a brilliant mix of both The Beatles as a rock and roll band and as masters of groundbreaking experimental recording,” Martin added.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Nick Zieminski)

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Deeper eurozone union ‘agreed’

14 December 2012 Last updated at 08:55 ET

EU leaders have agreed on a roadmap for eurozone integration beyond the deal on centralised banking supervision, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Specific dates have not yet been agreed for the phases of integration.

But the EU summit chairman, Herman Van Rompuy, said a deal should be reached next year on a joint resolution scheme for winding up failed banks.

Mr Van Rompuy’s far-reaching roadmap was the main topic of the two-day Brussels summit.

Speaking after the summit talks, French President Francois Hollande said: “There is no doubt today about the integrity of the eurozone – Europe cannot now be taken by surprise.”

But beyond the banking reforms, he said, Europe must address the problems of unemployment and feeble growth.

The deal to make the European Central Bank (ECB) the chief regulator should pave the way for direct recapitalisation of struggling eurozone banks by the main bailout fund, the 500bn-euro (£406bn; $ 654bn) European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Spain is especially anxious to get that help for its debt-laden banks.

Direct recapitalisation would help break the “vicious circle” in which bank debts have put a crippling burden on national budgets and led to massive taxpayer-funded bailouts.

However, Germany insists that the ESM should not be used to write off the existing “legacy” debts that have burdened Spain, Greece and the Republic of Ireland. Any ESM loans will be accompanied by tough rules on budget discipline.

June deadline

Continue reading the main story

Eurozone integration – next steps

• ECB takes charge of bank supervision no later than March 2014


• Joint scheme to wind down broken banks, planned for launch in mid-2014


• Joint deposit guarantee scheme, to prevent bank runs


• Main bailout fund – ESM – gets power to recapitalise banks, under strict conditions


• More centralised economic governance, including enforceable “contracts” between governments and EU Commission


• Tighter co-ordination of national budget targets

At a late-night news conference, Mrs Merkel said “we agreed a roadmap for the future development of the currency union and talked about different aspects of this that are important.

“Above all, it was important to define when we do what.”

Mr Van Rompuy aims to present detailed plans for deeper economic integration in time for the June 2013 EU summit. They would include “mutually agreed contracts for competitiveness and growth between governments and EU institutions”.

Much closer EU scrutiny of national budgets is envisaged, including penalties if governments rack up unsustainable debts.

Contractual agreements on things such as taxation and labour market policy are likely to require changes to the EU treaties – so these are likely to be put off until after the European elections in mid-2014.

The UK, along with Denmark, has a formal opt-out from joining the euro, and will not be part of the new banking union. But the UK’s banking pre-eminence in Europe means it is taking an intense interest in the negotiations.

UK ‘at heart’ of EU

At a news conference after the summit, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said a “multi-faceted” Europe, with countries going at different speeds, did not leave the UK in an uncomfortable position.

Continue reading the main story

Eurozone banking deal

• ECB to act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks and lenders


• ECB to co-operate closely with national supervisory authorities


• Direct oversight of banks with assets greater than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) or with 20% of national GDP


• National supervisors to remain in charge of other tasks


• Non-eurozone countries that wish to take part can make close co-operation arrangements

He stressed that the UK had been “at the heart of decision making” on important issues like sanctions and EU enlargement, and “we wrote the rules of the single market and benefit from it today”.

He said the eurozone countries were committed to protecting the euro, but deeper integration involved big sovereignty issues. “I personally believe Britain won’t ever join, certainly not while I’m prime minister,” he said.

Referring to the EU’s crisis response, he said that “as this plays out it’s changing the European Union… so I believe there are opportunities for others, like Britain, to make changes themselves”.

‘Good example’

New rules on prudent banking are seen as vital to bolster the euro, as bank failures triggered the financial crash.

Under the deal expected to take effect in March 2014, banks with more than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) in assets will be placed under ECB oversight.

The ECB would also be able to intervene with smaller lenders and borrowers at the first sign of trouble.

Speaking after the summit, Mr Hollande said Europe had been unprepared for the financial crisis but now had a “crisis management authority” which allowed for the “return of confidence and growth”.

The agreement on a financial transactions tax was, he told reporters, a good example of how countries could be brought into eurozone integration through closer co-operation, signing up to agreements at a later stage.

A non-eurozone country, Lithuania, joined the group adopting a financial transaction tax.

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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea’s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.

The launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea’s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”

But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future.”

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.

“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea’s political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.

Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.

____

Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet – but something went wrong.

Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn’t work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent right away. So, he needed a little help from his friends.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli of the Vatican‘s communications department showed the pontiff how to do it, but the pope hesitated. Celli touched the screen lightly himself and off went the papal tweet.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart,” he said in his introduction to the brave new world of Twitter.

The tweet was sent at the end of weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The pope already had just over a million followers in all of the languages combined minutes before he sent his first tweet and the number was growing.

PAPAL Q AND A

Later on Wednesday after the audience was over and the television cameras turned off, the pontiff answered the first of three questions sent to him at #askpontifex.

The first question answered by the pope was: “How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?”

His answer: “By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need.”

The pope, who, as leader of the Roman Catholic Church already has 1.2 billion followers in the standard sense of the word, won’t be following anyone else, the Vatican has said.

After his first splash into the brave new world of Twitter on Wednesday, the contents of future tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays.

They are also expected to include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

The Vatican says papal tweets will be little “pearls of wisdom”, which is understandable since his thoughts will have to be condensed to 140 characters, while papal documents often top 140 pages.

The Vatican said precautions had been taken to make sure the pope’s certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican’s secretariat of state will be used for the tweets.

After Wednesday, Benedict won’t be pushing the button on his tweets himself. They will be sent by aides but he will sign off on them.

The pope’s Twitter page is designed in yellow and white – the colors of the Vatican, with a backdrop of the Vatican and his picture. It may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

The pope has given a qualified welcome to social media.

In a document issued last year, he said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity”, but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

In 2009, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called “The pope meets you on Facebook”, and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff’s speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

The Vatican famously got egg on its face in 2009 when it was forced to admit that, if it had surfed the web more, it might have known that a traditionalist bishop whose excommunication was lifted had for years been a Holocaust denier.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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‘Homeland’ leads old favorites in Golden Globes TV race

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Cable shows got more Golden Globe nominations for television than traditional network programs on Thursday as HBO‘s political movie “Game Change” and Showtime‘s psychological thriller series “Homeland,” – one of last year’s big winners – led the race.

“Homeland” led the TV drama category with four nominations including best drama, best actor for Damian Lewis and best actress for Claire Danes in her role as a bi-polar CIA agent tracking down a home-grown Muslim extremist.

The show faces stiff competition from British aristocratic drama “Downton Abbey, which also won an acting nod for Michelle Dockery, along with “Breaking Bad,” “Boardwalk Empire,” and newcomer “The Newsroom.”

“‘Homeland’ fans seemed to be a little more split on whether creatively the second season was as successful as the first season so it’ll be curious if that ends up impacting the show’s chances in terms of taking home the awards,” James Hibberd, senior staff writer at Entertainment Weekly, told Reuters.

“Downtown Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes told Reuters: “We’re up against the big boys now, but the whole thing is very flattering and exciting.”

He added: “The themes of the show are pretty international, they’re about adjusting to change and being caught out by what life does to you…all of that is common to every country.”

HBO movie “Game Change,” about the surprise selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign, landed five nods in the miniseries/movie category, including for actors Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson.

“‘Game Change’ is pure awards bait. It’s a well-done, smart political drama based on a book, with a certain amount of left-wing political slant and it’s very much the type of movie you’d expect awards voters to like,” Hibberd said.

New HBO drama “The Newsroom” bumped long-time awards favorite “Mad Men” from the best drama category, surprising many who believed the stylish advertising series was a shoo-in.

“The Globes tend to like the glamorous and sophisticated dramas with big city settings and they tend to shy away from gritty, rural Americana dramas…about sweaty guys with guns instead of charming men in suits, like ‘The Newsroom’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire,’” Hibberd said.

He noted that the only exception was “Breaking Bad,” which finally made the best drama category this year after four seasons on air.

Other notable snubs included HBO‘s epic fantasy drama “Game of Thrones,” which failed to pick up any nominations, and Ryan Murphy’s miniseries “American Horror Story: Asylum” which landed one best actress nod for Jessica Lange, who took home the award for 2012.

‘MODERN FAMILY’ LEADS COMEDY RACE

While last year’s Golden Globes picked newcomers over staple awards favorites for leading nominees, this year’s comedy categories saw the return of many old faces, including “Modern Family,” which led the comedy race with three nods.

Comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who will be hosting the awards ceremony on January 13, each landed a best comedy actress nod in the television race for their long-popular NBC comedies – Fey for “30 Rock” and Poehler for “Parks and Recreation.”

“You can be sure that the hosts are going to have fun with this during the telecast, they’re going to find ways to play off this during their presentation,” Hibberd said.

Fey and Poehler will replace Ricky Gervais at the awards gala dinner, after the British comedian helmed the Globes with his risqué dry humor for three years.

HBO‘s raunchy new comedy “Girls” earned two key nominations in the best TV comedy category and best comedy actress for Lena Dunham, while Showtime‘s new satire “House of Lies” landed the show’s lead Don Cheadle a best actor nod.

With the exception of NBC’s musical comedy “Smash” in the best comedy series category, no new network comedies managed to break into key races, which Hibberd attributed to a “disappointing” fall season.

Cable channel HBO picked up 17 nominations and Showtime garnered 7 across all major television categories. Networks ABC had 5, CBS and NBC got 4, and Fox got 2.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Mental health scars common after cardiac arrest

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A quarter of cardiac arrest survivors suffer long-term psychological problems such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, a new review of research estimates.

This additional stress on recovering patients is under-diagnosed, researchers say, and doctors have few standard methods for identifying who is at risk.

“Anxiety, depression and PTSD are major concerns after cardiac arrest,” said lead author Kathryn Wilder Schaaf, a postdoctoral fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University. “We have the tools to treat this, (so) it’s important to make sure that it’s identified,” she added.

Many long-term care issues for survivors are unknown, experts said, largely because only 10 percent of the 382,800 Americans who suffer cardiac arrest each year survive.

And that rate is higher than in the past. Cardiac arrest – when the heart stops beating suddenly and completely – is distinct from conditions often labeled as “heart attacks.” In cardiac arrest, if the heart is not re-started quickly, brain damage or death usually results.

Cold therapy, which can protect the brain for a time, and implanted defibrillator devices, which can re-start an arrested heart, have helped to lower the death toll from cardiac arrest, but little is known about what mental and emotional scars may linger among survivors.

Wilder Schaaf and colleagues reviewed 11 studies published between 1993 and 2011 that looked at mental health issues following cardiac arrests experienced outside of a hospital and found problems plaguing anywhere from 15 percent to 50 percent or more of patients.

Months to years after surviving cardiac arrest, about one-third of patients were depressed and nearly two-thirds were experiencing anxiety. Even PTSD symptoms were surprisingly common, afflicting 19 percent to 27 percent of survivors, the medical literature showed.

In reality, however, the long-term mental health state of many cardiac arrest survivors is not typically considered or assessed, the researchers write in their report, which appears in the journal Resuscitation.

But treating mental illnesses in other types of heart patients has been shown to increase long-term survival while decreasing costs, according to independent research.

In a study published in November, for example, researchers found that a depressed patient recovering from a heart attack treated with psychotherapy and antidepressants during a six-month trial incurred – on average – $ 1,857 in medical costs, whereas a depressed patient who received no psychological treatments cost an average of $ 2,797 over the same time period.

Other research suggests that mental health issues impact physical recovery, too. Over a five-year period, survivors of cardiac arrest and similar events who did not show signs of PTSD lived three and a half times longer than those with ongoing trauma, according to a 2008 study by Dr. Karl-Heinz Ladwig, an epidemiologist at the Helmholtz Zentrum München in Germany.

Stress can affect the nervous system and impact heart rates, as well as worsening chronic inflammation, which also hurts the heart Ladwig told Reuters Health.

“We have problems convincing cardiologists to understand that depression is a very relevant part of their clinical work,” Ladwig said.

Ladwig suggested that doctors can gauge trauma through screening questions that are, “easy to put in a normal discussion.”

“This is a brand new area that is going to require thoughtful scientists, vigilant family members and an awareness from patients,” said Dr. Karina Davidson, director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the new study.

Nightmares plus an avoidance of doctors, medications or follow-up appointments are all signs that a recovering heart patient should seek mental health help, Davidson said.

Psychological recovery includes the patient developing feelings of safety and believing the future will be prosperous, said Samuel Sears, a professor at East Carolina University who studies the psychological effects of cardiac trauma.

A range of tools can help patients achieve that goal, including peer support groups such as the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivors Association and smart-phone apps such as ICD Coach (in which Sears has a financial interest), he noted.

Sears said he is optimistic that an understanding of the connection between head and heart will eventually reach the doctor’s office.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TUsLLI Resuscitation, online December 3, 2012.

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Eurozone bank deal boosts summit

13 December 2012 Last updated at 12:55 ET

EU leaders have gone into a Brussels summit buoyed by a landmark deal on centralised supervision of eurozone banks, seen as a key integration step.

The European Commission said the leaders must “keep the same sense of urgency” despite an easing of market pressure on the eurozone recently.

The UK government says the new agreement does not threaten the City of London, the EU’s main financial centre.

The leaders will discuss a far-reaching roadmap for eurozone integration.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the deal reached by EU finance ministers after all-night talks “protected our interests in the single market”. He praised UK Chancellor George Osborne for “an excellent job”.

The UK, along with Denmark, has a formal opt-out from joining the euro, and will not be part of the new banking union. But the UK’s banking pre-eminence in Europe means it is taking an intense interest in the negotiations.

Mr Cameron said “this change does give us a chance to get a better deal in Europe”.

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“Start Quote

This deal is a further example of how the eurozone crisis is carving out a new Europe less from choice but more by the need to survive”

End Quote

Sweden is also outside the euro, and its prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said the deal would still enable non-eurozone countries to have influence in European banking decisions.

“To start with Sweden will stay outside… Swedish taxpayers don’t want to cover losses in other countries,” he told reporters on arrival at the summit.

Around 200 of the biggest banks will come under the direct oversight of the European Central Bank, which will act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks.

New rules on prudent banking are seen as vital to bolster the euro, as bank failures triggered the financial crash.

The measures are also aimed at preventing banking failures, of the type that happened in Greece and Spain, ending up on the books of eurozone governments.

Eurozone finance ministers also agreed formally to release a long-delayed instalment of 34bn euros (£27bn; $ 44bn) to Greece over the next few days, with a further 15bn later on. Athens has been waiting for the bailout funding since June.

Heavily indebted Italy has also been a worry for investors, and political uncertainty has increased since former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confirmed that he would run again in a general election expected in February.

At a pre-summit meeting in Brussels conservative leaders voiced support for Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti, some urging him to run for election against Mr Berlusconi, sources who were there said.

Mr Monti, an unelected technocrat, has pushed through some unpopular but long-delayed reforms, including big public service cuts, since taking over from Mr Berlusconi a year ago with the EU’s approval.

‘Core demands’

EU finance ministers finally clinched the banking deal just before dawn on Thursday after 14 hours of talks.

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Eurozone banking deal

• ECB to act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks and lenders


• ECB to co-operate closely with national supervisory authorities


• Direct oversight of banks with assets greater than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) or with 20% of national GDP


• National supervisors to remain in charge of other tasks


• Non-eurozone countries that wish to take part can make close co-operation arrangements

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the agreement, telling the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) that Germany’s “core demands” had been secured. “It cannot be praised too highly.”

She has previously warned against rushing into banking union out of concern that Germany would face further financial demands.

Significantly, a large number of French banks will be supervised by the ECB but rather few institutions in Germany will, because of its fragmented banking industry, says the BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Peston.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hailed the deal as “a crucial and very substantive step towards completion of the banking union”.

‘Significant transfer’

For months, the threshold at which the ECB would act as chief supervisor has been the subject of strained negotiations.

Under the deal expected to take effect in March 2014, banks with more than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) in assets will be placed under the oversight of the European Central Bank.

The ECB would also be able to intervene with smaller lenders and borrowers at the first sign of trouble, the BBC’s Europe Editor Gavin Hewitt says.

Europe’s finance ministers have taken another major step towards closer integration, with a significant transfer of authority from national governments to the ECB, he says.

The deal gives the ECB powers to close down eurozone banks that do not follow the rules. It also paves the way for the EU’s main rescue fund to come to the direct aid of struggling banks.

It represents the first stage of a banking union – known as a Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) – which EU leaders believe can be put in place without having to change EU treaties.

BBC News – Business

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