Australia’s Gillard in spoof: Mayans were right, world is ending

CANBERRA (Reuters) – According to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Mayans were right and the apocalypse is near.

In a spoof 50-second video appearance promoting a local radio station‘s breakfast show, Gillard provided hair-raising details that she said would come when the world ends this month, as the ancient Mayans calendar predicted.

With the straight face she often uses in a normal press conference, and surrounded by Australian national flags, Gillard addressed viewers as “My dear remaining fellow Australians.”

“The end of world is coming. It wasn’t Y2K, it wasn’t even the carbon price,” said Gillard firmly. “It turns out that the Mayan calendar is true.”

Y2K was the computer glitch feared globally just before the year 2000, while the carbon tax refers to a major controversial policy put forward by her Labour government in 2012.

She went into terrifying details about the end of the world such as “flesh-eating zombies” and “demonic hell beasts”, but then wooed her constituents with promises.

“If you know one thing about me it is this: I will always fight for you to the very end,” she said, but noted that there is also a bright spot.

“At least this means I won’t have to do Q&A again,” she said, referring to an Australian TV show where politicians usually have to face tough questions from the audience.

A spokesman for Gillard said the video, which was uploaded by radio station Triple J on Thursday and has already been viewed more than 232,000 times on YouTube, was simply a spoof.

“It’s just bit of fun,” he told Reuters. “It’s just a bit of humor for the end of the year. Nothing else.”

The video comes out in the wake of a phone hoax in which two Australian presenters from another local radio station called the hospital which is treating Prince William’s wife Kate and posed as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles to ask questions about her condition.

(Reporting By Maggie Lu Yueyang, editing by Elaine Lies)

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Supreme Court: Both sides in gay marriage debate voice optimism

Both sides of the contentious debate over same-sex marriage in America are expressing optimism over the news Friday that the US Supreme Court has agreed to take up two potential landmark gay rights cases.

The high court announced it would hear arguments in a case testing the constitutionality of California’s Prop. 8 ban on same-sex marriage.

It also said it would hear the case of an elderly New York City woman who claims the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates her right to have her same-sex marriage recognized and respected by the federal government on the same terms as marriages of opposite-sex couples.

Gay marriage laws around the globe

DOMA restricts receipt of federal spousal benefits to marriages comprised of one man and one woman. Same-sex spouses who are legally married in their home states are nonetheless barred from receiving federal benefits under the 1996 law.

The high court action comes a month after voters in three states – Maryland, Washington, and Maine – agreed to join six other states and the District of Columbia in embracing same-sex marriages.

“With our wins at the ballot box last month and the fight for marriage equality reaching our nation’s highest court, we have reached a turning point in this noble struggle,” said Chad Griffin, president of the gay rights group, Human Rights Campaign.

“Today’s announcement gives hope that we will see a landmark Supreme Court ruling for marriage this term,” he said in a statement.

Kate Kendell, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, sounded similarly optimistic.

“We are confident the Supreme Court will strike down DOMA once and for all next year, and, after four long years, will finally erase the stain of Proposition 8 and restore marriage equality to California couples,” she said.

“The day is now clearly in sight when the federal government, the state of California, and every state will recognize that same-sex couples and their children are entitled to the same respect and recognition as every other family,” Ms. Kendell said.

At the same time, those defending the traditional definition of marriage – as the union of one man and one woman – also viewed the court’s action as a step forward toward legal vindication of their position.

John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, said the court’s decision to take up the Prop. 8 case suggests an intent by the justices to reinstate California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

“We believe it is a strong signal that the court will reverse the lower courts and uphold Proposition 8,” Mr. Eastman said.

“Had the Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts’ decisions invalidating Proposition 8, it could simply have declined to grant … the case,” Eastman said. “It’s a strong signal that the justices are concerned with the rogue rulings that have come out of San Francisco.”

Eastman added that the Prop. 8 appeals court decision was written by Judge Stephen Reinhart. “It’s worth noting that Judge Reinhart is the most overruled judge in America. I think this case will add to his record.”

Others disagreed.

Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, said the high court action opens the way for a civil rights breakthrough for same-sex spouses.

“Gay and lesbian couples in California – and indeed all over this country – now look to the Supreme Court to affirm that the Constitution does not permit states to strip something as important as the freedom to marry away from one group of Americans,” he said.

Mr. Wolfson urged the justices to move quickly to affirm the 10 federal court judges who have ruled in recent years that DOMA is unconstitutional.

“When it comes to the whole federal safety net that accompanies marriage – access to Social Security survivorship, health coverage, family leave, fair tax treatment, family immigration, and over 1,000 other protections and responsibilities – couples who are legally married in the states should be treated by the federal government as what they are: married,” Wolfson said.

Others viewed the high court’s task in broader terms.

“Today, the Supreme Court has put itself on the path of deciding the most contentious civil rights issue of our day,” said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

“By taking both cases, the court is boldly asserting its role in same-sex marriage,” he said.

Professor Cohen said the justices have a choice to either follow the example of prior courts that have ruled to expand civil rights or those that ruled in ways that contracted civil rights. Given shifting public opinion in support of gay rights and same-sex marriage, the professor says it is unlikely that the court will rule against a broader conception of marriage.

Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the conservative group, Alliance Defending Freedom, stressed that Americans have a right to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. He said the institution forms a “fundamental building block of civilization.”

“Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western civilization,” he said. “Marriage expresses the truth that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life.”

Gay marriage laws around the globe

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Protesters surge around Egypt’s presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around the presidential palace on Friday and the opposition rejected President Mohamed Mursi‘s call for dialogue to end a crisis that has polarized the nation and sparked deadly clashes.

The Islamist leader’s deputy said he could delay a December 15 referendum on a constitution that liberals opposed, although the concession only partly meets a list of opposition demands that include scrapping a decree that expanded Mursi‘s powers.

“The people want the downfall of the regime” and “Leave, leave,” crowds chanted after bursting through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the palace of Egypt‘s first freely elected president.

Their slogans echoed those used in a popular revolt that toppled Mursi’s predecessor Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said in a statement sent to local media that the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.

The dialogue meeting was expected to go ahead on Saturday in the absence of most opposition factions. “Tomorrow everything will be on the table,” a presidential source said of the talks.

The opposition has demanded that Mursi rescind a November 22 decree giving himself wide powers and delay the vote set for December 15 on a constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly which they say fails to meet the aspirations of all Egyptians.

The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting in Egypt.

Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters that delaying expatriate voting was made to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition’s stance.

He said the core opposition demand was to freeze Mursi’s decree and “to reconsider the formation and structure of the constituent assembly”, not simply to postpone the referendum.

The opposition organized marches converging on the palace which elite Republican Guard units had ringed with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi killed seven people and wounded 350.

Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead. “With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam,” they chanted.

“ARM-TWISTING”

In a speech late on Thursday, Mursi had refused to retract his November 22 decree or cancel the referendum on the constitution, but offered talks on the way forward after the referendum.

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join the dialogue. The Front’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as “arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli”.

Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said opposition reactions were sad: “What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?” he asked.

Mursi’s decree giving himself extra powers sparked the worst political crisis since he took office in June and set off renewed unrest that is dimming Egypt’s hopes of stability and economic recovery after nearly two years of turmoil following the overthrow of Mubarak, a military-backed strongman.

The turmoil has exposed contrasting visions for Egypt, one held by Islamists, who were suppressed for decades by the army, and another by their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms.

Caught in the middle are many of Egypt’s 83 million people who are desperate for an end to political turbulence threatening their precarious livelihoods in an economy under severe strain.

“We are so tired, by God,” said Mohamed Ali, a laborer. “I did not vote for Mursi nor anyone else. I only care about bringing food to my family, but I haven’t had work for a week.”

ECONOMIC PAIN

A long political standoff will make it harder for Mursi’s government to tackle the crushing budget deficit and stave off a balance of payments crisis. Austerity measures, especially cuts in costly fuel subsidies, seem inevitable to meet the terms of a $ 4.8-billion IMF loan that Egypt hopes to clinch this month.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Mursi on Thursday of his “deep concern” about casualties in this week’s clashes and said “dialogue should occur without preconditions”.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation worries the United States, which has given billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The conflict between Islamists and opponents who each believe the other is twisting the democratic rules to thwart them has poisoned the political atmosphere in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, told Reuters that if the opposition shunned the dialogue “it shows that their intention is to remove Mursi from the presidency and not to cancel the decree or the constitution as they claim”.

Ayman Mohamed, 29, a protester at the palace, said Mursi should scrap the draft constitution and heed popular demands.

“He is the president of the republic. He can’t just work for the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mohamed said of the eight-decade-old Islamist movement that propelled Mursi from obscurity to power.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Edmund Blair and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Trade-offs in raising Medicare eligibility age

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are living longer, and Republicans want to raise the Medicare eligibility age as part of any deal to reduce the government’s huge deficits.

But what sounds like a prudent sacrifice for an aging society that must watch its budget could have some surprising consequences, including higher premiums for people on Medicare.

Unlike tax hikes, which spawn hard partisan divisions, increasing the Medicare age could help ease a budget compromise because President Barack Obama has previously been willing to consider it. A worried AARP, the seniors’ lobby, is already running ads knocking down the idea as a quick fix that would cause long-term problems. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., doesn’t like it either.

But for Republicans seeking more than just tweaks to benefit programs, raising the current eligibility age of 65 has become a top priority, a symbol of their drive to rein in government. If Obama and the GOP can’t agree soon on a budget outline, it may trigger tax increases and spending cuts that would threaten a fragile economic recovery.

Increasing the eligibility age to 67 would reduce Medicare spending by about 5 percent annually, compounding into hundreds of billions of dollars over time. But things aren’t that simple.

“This is a policy change that seems straightforward, but has surprising ripple effects,” said Tricia Neuman, a leading Medicare expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s a simple thing to describe, and the justification is that people are living longer, but I don’t think people have thought through the indirect effects.”

Among the cost shifts identified in a Kaiser study:

—Higher monthly premiums for seniors on Medicare. Their costs would go up because keeping younger, healthier 65- and 66-year-olds out of Medicare’s insurance pool would raise costs for the rest. The increase would be about 3 percent when the higher eligibility age is fully phased in.

—Higher premiums for private coverage under Obama’s health overhaul. That’s because older adults would stick with private insurance for two extra years before moving into Medicare. Compared with younger adults, they are more expensive to insure.

—An increase in employer costs because older workers would try to stay on company insurance plans.

—Higher out-of-pocket health care costs for two out of three older adults whose entry into Medicare would be delayed.

The Congressional Budget Office has also projected an increase in the number of uninsured. That possibility becomes more real with populous states like Texas saying they won’t accept the Medicaid expansion in Obama’s health overhaul, which would provide coverage to low-income adults. Then there’s the impact on people with physically demanding jobs, for whom extending their working years may be difficult.

Still, the idea isn’t going away.

Polls show that many Americans are willing to consider raising the age at which people become eligible for Medicare benefits as part of a plan to reduce deficits, even if on the whole it’s still unpopular.

A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that four in 10 back gradually raising the eligibility age, while 48 percent oppose that plan.

Those under age 30 were most supportive, while a clear majority of those between the ages of 30 and 64 were opposed. Seniors were split. Surprisingly, there were no significant differences by political party. Overall, foes of the idea were more adamant, with strong opponents outnumbering strong supporters by 2-1.

U.S. life expectancy has risen by about eight years since Medicare was created in 1965. During the 1980s, Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to gradually increase the age for receiving full Social Security benefits from 65 to 67. But they didn’t touch Medicare eligibility.

Since then, some policy experts have advocated aligning the Medicare and Social Security eligibility ages through a gradual phase-in that would spare those close to retirement.

The idea gained new life when Republicans won the House in 2010, and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., embraced it. Obama indicated he was open to it during budget talks with Republicans in 2011. But the president quickly retreated, and now says he’s not willing to consider cutting Medicare unless Congress agrees to raise taxes on the wealthy.

The No. 2 Democrat in the House, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, says raising the eligibility age and other cuts “clearly are on the table,” although he doesn’t see much chance for them if Republicans don’t yield on taxes.

For his part, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has relented from pursuing other major changes to Medicare, such as privatization. But when it comes to the eligibility age, he is still pushing.

“It’s a structural change but it doesn’t require you to adopt a whole new model,” said Scott Gottlieb, a health policy expert with the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute. “It can be enacted quickly so you get the savings, and it can be phased in so you don’t affect people about to retire.”

AARP and other groups representing older adults are mobilizing against it.

“We are prepared to oppose this one pretty strongly,” said AARP legislative policy director David Certner. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

Raising the eligibility age is not the only Medicare cut in play. Hospitals and other service providers could see reductions in payments, drug companies may owe new rebates to the government and upper-income seniors would face higher monthly premiums. The total package could reach around $ 400 billion over 10 years.

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Spotify gains more listeners and Metallica

(Reuters) – Digital music service Spotify rolled out new features and said it increased the number of active users at a press event that featured a special musical performance by Frank Ocean.

Spotify now has 20 million active users worldwide, up 33 percent in less than six months. The company counts five million people among paying subscribers, a 25 percent increase during the same time period.

Spotify also revealed it has one million paid subscribers in the United States, that it added a Twitter like functionality that allows users to follow one another, and that the rock band Metallica‘s music was now available on the service.

The company made the announcements at a splashy New York event on Thursday that included a conversation between Spotify backer Sean Parker and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich.

Ulrich’s appearance is notable since his band was one of the leading crusaders against Napster, the digital music sharing company co-founded by Parker more than a decade ago that was a flashpoint for digital rights and artist compensation.

“We have more in common than the whole thing that happened 12 years ago,” said Ulrich about Parker.

Ulrich said the decision to join Spotify coincided with the fact the band now owns its entire catalogs of music.

Spotify, which strikes royalty deals with record labels, has paid more than $ 500 million to the music industry since its launch four years ago – an amount that has more than doubled in the past nine months. It pays roughly 70 percent of its revenue back to rights holders.

“The more music that gets shared the more money goes back to artists,” said Daniel Ek, CEO and co-founder of Spotify.

Spotify is a free on-demand streaming music service that is rising in popularity. People can pay to hear music without interruptions from advertising and the ability to play lists and preferences from any device any time.

The company has struck up a partnership with Facebook – Parker is Facebook’s founding president – that allows listener’s to display their music choices on their personal pages.

Streaming music services such as Spotify and Pandora are being carefully watched by the music industry concerned over the royalty payments.

For example, Pandora is pushing the Internet Radio Fairness Act, which would change how royalties are paid to artists. As of now, online streaming music companies like Pandora pay a different rate to license music than say traditional radio companies.

Many of music’s most notable names like Billy Joel and Rihanna are opposing the proposed change.

(Reporting By Jennifer Saba in New York)

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Both sides hint at renewed 'fiscal cliff' talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the "fiscal cliff" but refused to divulge details.

A day after a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to kick-start communications, both sides used similar language to describe the state of negotiations but imposed a media blackout on developments.

"Lines of communication remain open," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when pressed on whether staff talks were taking place to avoid the steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the first of next year unless the parties agree on a way to stop them.

Asked the same question, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also said "lines of communication are open."

The acknowledgement, even without signs of anything approaching a breakthrough, passed for encouraging news after a week of public maneuvering on the fiscal cliff by both sides to gain the maximum political and public relations advantage.

Republicans have worried publicly and privately that they are losing the war of appearances in the battle over the cliff.

On Thursday, another poll showed Republicans may have reason to worry about public perception. A Quinnipiac University survey found respondents trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on the cliff talks by a wide margin - 53 percent to 36 percent.

In both public statements and private encounters, Obama has tried to encourage Republicans wavering from the position of the party leadership.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, who last week broke ranks with his party and agreed to accept higher tax rates on the richest Americans, said Obama took him aside at a White House Christmas party on Monday and joked about the criticism Cole had received from Republicans.

"The president pulled me over and he said, 'Cole, come closer, I want to see the bruises,'" Cole told Reuters. "He said, 'Seriously, I will go further on this thing than you guys think. I know we can get something done.'"

While other Republicans have questioned Obama's commitment, Cole said, "I take him at his word," adding: "The best is to get to that discussion as quickly as we can."

'SOLVABLE PROBLEM'

Obama, meanwhile, played to his strengths with the latest in a series of the sort of public events he has used against Republicans in the fiscal cliff fight: a visit with a family in the Virginia suburbs of Washington to illustrate how Republican tax proposals would hurt the middle class.

"The message that I think we all want to send to members of Congress is: this is a solvable problem," Obama said while visiting the home of a couple in Falls Church, Virginia. "We are in the midst of the Christmas season and I think the American people are counting on this getting solved."

Neither side in the showdown would characterize Wednesday's conversation between Boehner and Obama or suggest it opened up new area of compromise.

Obama and Democrats in Congress want the tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year to be extended for taxpayers with incomes below $250,000 a year but not for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

In exchange, the president has said he is willing to consider significant spending cuts wanted by Republicans to "entitlement" programs such as Medicare, the government health insurance plan for seniors.

Republicans have held out for an extension of all the tax cuts, but they have become increasingly divided about whether they can prevail in the face of Obama's firm stance and Republican control of only the House but not the U.S. Senate.

TANGLING OVER DEBT LIMIT

The debt ceiling issue - the same one that provoked a showdown in 2011 that led to a downgrading of the U.S. credit rating - has become a centerpiece of the fiscal cliff debate, thanks in part to Obama's insistence that Congress give him enhanced power to increase the debt limit, which needs to be raised again in the next few months.

"It ought to be done without delay and without drama," Carney, the White House spokesman, said of raising the debt ceiling.

That issue produced a largely partisan procedural scuffle on Thursday in the Senate when Republicans tried to provoke a vote on giving Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had argued that not even Democrats would support giving Obama greater flexibility, tried to prove it by pushing for a vote.

When Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid went ahead and scheduled it, confident he had enough support to win on a straight majority vote, the Republicans backed down, with McConnell demanding that 60 votes be required for passage, more than the Democrats can muster.

No new vote was scheduled. While the measure could come up again, it was dead for the moment.

"Senator McConnell took obstruction to new heights by filibustering his own bill," Reid said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York told reporters that Republicans were losing the argument on raising top tax rates and "are trying to pivot away to other parts of the fiscal cliff in a desperate attempt to assert leverage and change the subject."

The exchange may be a taste of things to come as Congress moves toward the fiscal cliff deadline.

Economists have warned a plunge over the cliff could drive the economy back into a recession. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told the congressional Joint Economic Committee that failure to strike a deal could have serious economic consequences relatively quickly.

"By mid-February you would be doing a lot of damage," Zandi said.

(Additional reporting by Margaret Chadbourn, Rachelle Younglai, David Lawder, Jason Lange; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Fred Barbash and Eric Beech)

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Apple to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc plans to move some production of Macintosh computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in remarks published on Thursday, in what could be a important test of the nascent comeback in U.S. electronics manufacturing.

Apple makes the majority of its products, from Macs to the iPhone and iPad, in China, the world’s factory floor for electronics. But like other U.S. corporations, it has come under fire for relying on low-cost Asian labor and contributing to the decline of the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Cook did not say which Macintosh products will be produced in the United States. But the effort is expected to go well beyond simple final assembly of devices, with Apple and unnamed partners building most or all of the components in the United States as well.

The company will spend more than $ 100 million on the U.S. manufacturing initiative, Cook said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, published on Thursday.

“This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” Cook said.

He told NBC’s “Rock Center” program, in an interview to be aired later Thursday, that only one of the existing Mac product lines would be manufactured exclusively in the United States.

Apple declined to comment beyond the interview.

Apple’s decision, hailed by some analysts as an important first step even if it affected a tiny fraction of its overall output, was dismissed by others who saw it as an opportunistic public relations ploy with little effect on jobs.

Some Apple suppliers were struggling to assess its impact.

“At the end of the day, Apple knows moving production to the U.S. means lower profits for Apple,” said a senior executive at Taiwan’s Quanta Computer Inc who declined to be named because of the companies’ business relationship.

“If Apple is really serious about moving production to the U.S., they would need to invest 10 times or even 100 times of that amount. We see only a minor impact on Apple suppliers.”

Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross said it made sense for Apple to bring some manufacturing back to the United States, because some components were already being produced there.

Also, while cheaper labor costs have been a key factor in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to move production to China, wages and other costs have risen sharply – particularly in the main coastal manufacturing centers. Labor costs, moreover, account for only a tiny portion of overall expenses: the research firm iSupply says the total cost, including labor, for final manufacturing of an iPhone 5 is just $ 8.

Experts estimate that the total base cost of all components that go into the gadget, or bill of materials, comes to around $ 200.

Cross pointed to other potential benefits of U.S. manufacturing, including mitigating the risk of intellectual property theft.

Cook has said in the past that he would like to see more of the company’s products assembled back home, but declining U.S. manufacturing expertise made that difficult. Apple makes applications processors for the iPad and iPhone via Samsung Electronics in Austin, Texas, and sources glass for the same devices from a Corning facility in Kentucky.

IHS iSuppli, a research firm that tracks supply chains, said the company now outsources production of notebook personal computers to Taiwan’s Quanta Inc and Foxconn, which also makes the iPhone and iPad, and Pegatron Corp. Foxconn and Quanta have U.S. facilities.

“Apple’s move appears to be a symbolic effort to help improve its public image, which has been battered in recent years by reports of labor issues at its contract manufacturing partners in Asia,” Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for computer systems at His. “However, given Apple’s high profile in the market, the company’s ‘insourcing’ initiative could compel other companies to follow suit and transfer production to the United States over the next few years.”

Apple’s stock rose 1.6 percent on Thursday, a tepid bounceback from Wednesday’s 6.4 percent dive that was its biggest single-day loss in almost four years.

MAKING STRIDES

Analysts say the stock, which has fallen steadily since September, has come under pressure from investors worried about the rapidly intensifying competition from Google Inc’s Android products.

Samsung, in particular, has emerged as a formidable competitor, chipping away at Apple’s dominance in the tablet market and leading the smartphone pack in China, where the U.S. company’s smartphone market ranking fell to No. 6 in the third quarter from No. 4 in the previous three months, research outfit IDC estimates.

Samsung’s stock has climbed 8 percent since the end of September.

Apple’s domestic manufacturing effort will likely buy the brand some goodwill at home, where the debate about off-shoring has heated up as the economy sputters along. It has also come under fire for excessive working hours and dismal conditions at Foxconn’s plants in China, and critics have accused Apple of helping to create a high-stress environment for migrant workers.

Beyond the marketing boost, some analysts said Apple could blaze a trail should it prove that American manufacturing of electronics can be profitable.

“It seems to me like a nice time for Apple to do something,” Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said. “If it can be a profitable business, and others follow, then Apple has shown the way.”

Others were skeptical that Apple’s latest move was much more than a symbolic gesture.

“Such a strategy has been used by other companies in the past, which had no actual impact on their outsourcing,” said Li Qiang, director of New York-based China Labor Watch, in an emailed statement.

“The key question is how many jobs (percentage of the entire workforce) and what kind of jobs (production or administration) are to be moved back. I don’t think Apple is ready to relocate a large percentage of its production jobs back to U.S.”

Earlier this year, Google made waves when it announced it would build its Nexus Q home entertainment streaming device – deemed by many analysts to be an experimental product – in the heart of Silicon Valley. Google said it hoped to speed up innovation on the device and improve time-to-market.

Lenovo Group Ltd – China’s largest PC maker – said this year it will move a limited amount of computer manufacturing to North Carolina, to be closer to the market.

“Lenovo’s announcement appears to have flown under the radar,” said Jeffrey Wu, senior analyst for OEM research at IHS.

“Apple is a company that is always in the spotlight, and the company’s image sets the standard in the PC world. If Apple is doing it, will others follow?”

(Additional reporting by Faith Hung in TAIPEI, Lucy Hornby in BEIJING and Lee Chyen Yee in HONG KONG; Editing by Maureen Bavdek, Richard Chang and Ken Wills)

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Men more likely to die of cancer: study

(Reuters) – Not only are men more likely than women to be diagnosed with cancer, men who get it have a higher chance of dying from the disease, according to a U.S. study.

In an analysis of cases of all but sex-specific cancers such as prostate and ovarian cancer, for example, men were more likely than women to die in each of the past ten years, said researchers, whose findings appeared in The Journal of Urology.

That translates to an extra 24,130 men dying of cancer in 2012 because of their gender.

“This gap needs to be closed,” said Shahrokh Shariat from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who worked on the study. “It’s not about showing that men are only doing worse and, ‘poor men.’ It’s about closing gender differences and improving health care.”

Using U.S. cancer registry data from 2003 through 2012, Shariat and his colleagues found the ratio of deaths to cancer diagnoses decreased 10 percent over the past decade – but was consistently higher among men than women.

Overall, men with any type of cancer were six percent more likely to die of their disease than women with cancer. When men and women with the same type of cancer were compared, that rose to more than 12 percent.

In 2012, Shariat’s team calculated that about 575,130 men and 457,240 women would be diagnosed with a non-sex specific cancer. Also this year, an estimated 243,620 men will die of cancer – one death for every 2.36 new diagnoses, compared to 182,670 women dying, or one for each 2.5 new diagnoses.

“We found that from the 10 most common cancers in males and females… men present at a higher stage than females, and adjusted for the incidence, are more likely to die from the cancer,” Shariat told Reuters Health.

“If you take an average of the 10 most common cancers, men are more likely to die in seven out of the ten,” he added. In contrast, women are more likely to die only from bladder cancer.

The new study can’t show what’s behind the differences in cancer deaths, but possible theories include men’s higher rates of smoking and drinking combined with less frequent doctor’s visits – which cause men’s cancers to be diagnosed in later, more advanced stages.

Sex hormones may also contribute to differences in men’s and women’s immune systems, metabolism and general susceptibility to cancer, according to Yang Yang, a sociologist and cancer researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studies health disparities but wasn’t part of the study.

She said the new findings are consistent with work suggesting a higher risk of death for men from many causes, not just cancer.

But a full understanding of the origins and mechanisms in sex differences in cancer, as well as overall mortality, has remained elusive,” Yang told Reuters Health in an email.

Shariat said men should be particularly proactive about their health care.

“That means going to screening programs, seeing a general practitioner or primary care provider on a regular basis and as soon as symptoms arise that are new, mentioning that to their primary care physicians,” he added. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Vz8RJI

(Reporting from New York by Genevra Pittman at Reuters Health, editing by Elaine Lies)

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sean Bean replaces Brendan Fraser in TNT pilot “Legends”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – TNT‘s upcoming pilot “Legends” is getting a Stark makeover.

Sean Bean, who played ill-fated Lord of Winterfell Eddard Stark in HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” has signed on to replace Brendan Fraser in TNT’s upcoming pilot “Legends.”

Fraser dropped out of the pilot last month; the show would have marked his first starring turn on a TV series.

Bean will play Martin Odum, a deep-cover operative who has a chameleon-like ability to transform himself into a different person for each mission. The project is based on a book by spy novelist Robert Littell.

“Homeland” duo Howard Gordon and Alexander Cary are executive-producing the pilot, which comes from Fox 21, as are Jeffrey Nachmanoff (“The Day After Tomorrow”) and Jonathan Levin (“Charmed”).

Deadline first reported news of Bean’s “Legends” casting.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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U.S software guru John McAfee arrested in Guatemala

Eccentric software tycoon John McAfee, wanted in Belize for questioning in the shooting death of his neighbor, has been arrested in Guatemala for entering the country illegally, his Guatemala attorney told ABC News.

Before McAfee's arrest, he told ABC News in an exclusive interview he would be seeking asylum in Guatemala. McAfee was arrested by the Central American country's immigration police and not the national police, said his attorney, who was confident his client would be released within hours.

"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," said McAfee, 67, before his arrest. "I chose Guatemala carefully."

McAfee said that in Guatemala, the locals aren't surprised when he says the Belizean government is out to kill him.

"Instead of going, 'You're crazy,' they go, 'Yeah, of course they are,'" he said. "It's like, finally, I understand people who understand the system here."

But McAfee added he has not ruled out moving back to the United States, where he made his fortune as the inventor of anti-virus software, and that despite losing much of his fortune he still has more money than he could ever spend.

In his interview with ABC News, a jittery, animated but candid McAfee called the media's representation of him a "nightmare that is about to explode," and said he's prepared to prove his sanity.

McAfee has been on the run from police in Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull.

During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.

He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.

Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.

McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.

McAfee has been hiding from police ever since Faull's death -- but Telesforo Guerra, McAfee's lawyer in Guatemala, said the tactic was born out of necessity, not guilt.

"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him."

Guerra, who is a former attorney general of Guatemala, said it would take two to three weeks to secure asylum for his client.

According to McAfee, Guerra is also the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha. McAfee said the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.

"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s***," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"

Before his arrest, McAfee said he would hold a press conference on Thursday in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denied any involvement in Faull's death.

False Report of McAfee Arrest on Mexico Border

Over the weekend, a post on McAfee's blog claimed that he had been detained on the Belizean/Mexico border.

On Monday, a follow-up post said that the "John McAfee" taken into custody was actually a "double" who was carrying a North Korean passport with McAfee's name.

That post claimed that McAfee had already escaped Belize and was on the run with Samantha and two reporters from Vice Magazine.

McAfee did not reveal his location in that post, and a spokesman for Belize's National Security Ministry, Raphael Martinez, told ABC News on Monday that no one by McAfee's name was ever detained at the border and that Belizean security officials believed McAfee was still in their country.

However, a photo posted by Vice magazine on Monday with their article, "We Are With John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," apparently had been taken on an iPhone 4S and had location information embedded in it that revealed the exact coordinates where the photo was taken -- in the Rio Dulce National Park in Guatemala -- as reported by Wired.com.

A subsequent blog post on McAfee's site confirmed that the photo had mistakenly revealed his location, and said that Monday was "chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters.

"We made it to safety in spite of this handicap," the post read. "I had to cancel numerous interviews with the press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of those affected.

"I apologize for all of the misdirections over the past few days . ... It was not easy to exit Belize and required many supporters in many countries."

Belizean authorities said there was no manhunt, and have questioned McAfee's sanity.

"He is extremely paranoid. I would go far as to say even bonkers," said Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow, circling his index finger.

But now, all the misdirection may be coming to any end. Asked if he feels safe, McAfee told ABC News, "Oh, absolutely. I feel like I've come home."

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Death toll from Philippine typhoon nears 300

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Stunned parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides Wednesday, a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.

Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.

At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley when Typhoon Bopha lashed the region Tuesday, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre said.

Disaster-response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited the town, said 319 others remained missing.

“These were whole families among the registered missing,” Roxas told the ABS-CBN TV network. “Entire families may have been washed away.”

The farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha’s ferocious winds.

Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. Some were badly mangled after being dragged by raging flood waters over rocks and other debris. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to keep away swarms of flies.

A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother, meanwhile, went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. “I have three children,” she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.

Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after swirling flood waters surrounded their home. She said they escaped and made their way up a hill to safety, bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees as they climbed.

“The water rose so fast,” she told AP. “It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end.”

In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by the typhoon as it blew from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished, mostly in three towns that were so battered that it was hard to find any buildings with roofs remaining, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.

“We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs,” Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $ 4.8 million to help people directly affected by the typhoon.

The sun was shining brightly for most of the day Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soaked clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.

But as night fell, however, rain started pouring again over New Bataan, triggering panic among some residents who feared a repeat of the previous day’s flash floods. Some carried whatever belongings they could as they hurried to nearby towns or higher ground.

After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared quickly across the southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and plantations damaged. More than 170,000 fled to evacuation centers.

As of Wednesday evening, the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III’s government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region where sprawling export banana plantations have been planted over the decades because it seldom experiences strong winds that could blow down the trees.

A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless.

The United States extended its condolences and offered to help its Asian ally deal with the typhoon’s devastation. It praised government efforts to minimize the deaths and damage.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.

Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple’s shares swallow biggest loss in four years

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc shares tumbled more than 6 percent on Wednesday, chalking up their biggest single-day loss in four years as fears grow about intensifying competition in the mobile device market.

Investors and analysts blamed the sell-off on a mix of factors, including a forecast by an influential research firm that the iPad maker is continuing to cede ground to rival Google Inc’s Android gadgets, and unconfirmed reports that at least one major stock-clearing house was raising margin requirements on Apple stock trades.

Analysts also cited fears about a hike in the capital gains tax in 2013 in the event that ongoing Washington fiscal negotiations fail, as well as news that Nokia had beat Apple to the punch by striking a deal to sell its flagship Lumia through China Mobile, that country’s largest wireless carrier.

Wednesday’s drop rounded off a bleak 10 weeks for the most valuable U.S. company.

The stock was one of the day’s biggest percentage losers on the S&P 500, shedding $ 35 billion of market value as more than 37 million shares changed hands — blowing past the company’s average daily volume over 50 days of 21 million.

Apple‘s shares, once among the most desirable of portfolio holdings, have headed steadily lower since September on growing uncertainty about the company’s ability to fend off unprecedented competition. This year saw a surge in sales of Amazon.com Inc’s cheaper Kindle Fire and Microsoft Corp’s first foray into the tablet market with its Surface.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics continues to chip away at the iPad‘s dominance with its Galaxy line.

The assault on Apple‘s consumer-electronics home turf presents a stiff challenge for CEO Tim Cook, who was elevated shortly before the death of Silicon Valley legend Steve Jobs and is now charged with keeping the world’s largest technology company humming.

“This is not going to be a short-term trend. This is a management test, of how well they can perform without Steve Jobs,” said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago. Referring to Apple‘s new iPad mini, which is only a smaller version of the existing iPad, Battle said the company needs “another home run” for shares to return to levels around $ 700.

“They need another new product that hits it out of the park. Without that, they could get a gradual grind-down in confidence,” he said.

On Wednesday, research firm International Data Corp said Apple most likely shed market share in the tablet computer space in 2012. Its worldwide tablet market share will slip to 53.8 percent in 2012 from 56.3 percent in 2011, while Android products would increase their share to 42.7 percent from 39.8 percent, IDC said.

Concerns that tax rates on dividends and capital gains may rise next year were also cited as contributing to the Apple sell-off.

The stock’s massive market value meant Apple was almost single-handedly responsible for Wednesday’s 1.1 percent decline in the Nasdaq 100 Index.

Apple is still up 33 percent this year, but is down nearly 24 percent from its record high of $ 705.07, hit on September 21. The stock slid more than 6.4 percent on Wednesday to close at $ 538.7923.

BEFUDDLING SLIDE

Some analysts were perplexed at the fall from favor in Apple stock, which has been a staple in almost all growth portfolios. The company is expected to deliver reliably high revenue and earnings expansion for years to come, and one in two tablets sold globally remains an iPad.

It is now gearing up for the introduction of its latest iPhone 5 and iPad mini in international markets. It will begin selling the iPhone 5 in 50 countries in December, including China and South Korea.

“Apple stock is significantly more volatile than its earnings and innovation stream,” said Daniel Ernst, analyst with Hudson Square Research. “And yet the wind blows slightly from the south instead of the east one particular morning, and the stock is down 6 percent.”

“It makes no sense. There are lines around the block for their products all around the world,” he added. “No other company has that.”

Separately, Nokia said it will partner with China Mobile, in a sales deal that will give the Finnish company an opportunity to win back Chinese market share from Apple‘s iPhone.

But some analysts continue to believe the dominant carrier in the world’s largest cellular market will eventually embrace the iPhone as well.

“China Mobile already carries multiple smartphones from multiple vendors. We continue to expect China Mobile to add the iPhone in the back half of 2013,” Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster wrote in a research note.

While lines for the latest iPad model appeared lighter than usual when it hit stores in November, Apple said at the time that demand was so strong that it “practically sold out of iPad minis.” It sold 3 million of the new iPads — including the full-sized version — in the first three days on the market.

Some analysts suggested that investors also sold shares of Apple amid uncertainty over ongoing fiscal negotiations in Washington. If no agreement is reached on the issue, higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains are possible in 2013.

Investors who had hoped for a special dividend this year, as many other corporations have announced on expectations of higher tax rates next year, may be disappointed as time is running out.

“If you were expecting a special dividend by year end, that’s less likely to happen because its December 5,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners.

The fear of higher taxes on capital gains also has prompted some investors to lock in profits now, particularly on a stock like Apple, which has posted gains of at least 25 percent for four consecutive years.

“Depending on what happens with the (U.S. fiscal negotiations), rates could rise next year or they could stay the same,” said Battle, of Performance Trust Capital. “They will not be lower, so if you’re an investor who has seen gains in Apple, it is better to take those gains this year rather than next.”

Tax selling “can take a life of its own,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

“Some taxable investors take the gains, that creates some negative momentum, institutional investors are heavily weighted the stock and reduce exposure.”

Some market participants also cited reports by media including CNBC, which Reuters could not confirm, that margin requirements on the trading of Apple stock had been raised by at least one clearing firm.

(Additional reporting by Charles Mikolajczak in New York and Doris Frankel in Chicago; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Andrew Hay, Leslie Adler and Ken Wills)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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FDA staff says Zogenix painkiller has abuse risks

(Reuters) – Drug reviewers said a painkiller developed by Zogenix Inc could possibly be abused more than currently available hydrocodone combination products.

Zogenix’s painkiller Zohydro is a single-entity product containing hydrocodone — a narcotic painkiller. Hydrocodone and oxycodone are often-abused drugs.

Combination hydrocodone drugs usually also contain acetaminophen, the active ingredient in common pain products such as Tylenol.

However, since an overdose of acetaminophen can cause liver damage, especially in patients on other acetaminophen medications, there is a requirement for painkillers without acetaminophen.

The reviewers said the expected higher levels of abuse with Zohydro were based on what has been observed for oxycodone products, according to briefing documents released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday. (http://link.reuters.com/hux44t)

“The abuse ratio for oxycodone combination products was 24 emergency department visits per million tablets dispensed, compared with 85 visits for oxycodone single-entity ER products,” the FDA reviewers said in the documents.

An independent panel of experts will advise the FDA and vote on the drug’s safety, efficacy and approval on Friday.

Zogenix shares were down 6 percent at $ 2.39 in early trade on Wednesday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

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Hugh Hefner heads to altar again, with “runaway bride”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is headed to the altar again – with the blonde Playmate who ditched him five days before their planned wedding in 2011.

Hefner, 86, and his former “runaway bride” Crystal Harris, 26, obtained a marriage license in Beverly Hills on Tuesday, Los Angeles County Recorder spokeswoman Elizabeth Knox said.

Celebrity website TMZ.com said the couple, who reunited earlier this year, are planning a New Year’s Eve wedding.

Harris was Playboy magazine‘s Miss December 2009 and appeared on the July 2011 cover of the adult magazine with a “runaway bride” sticker covering her bottom half.

In what was described at the time only as a “change of heart,” Harris dumped the magazine mogul and left his Playboy Mansion five days before a lavish June 2011 wedding before 300 guests.

This time around, the couple are playing it low-key, staying mum on their busy Twitter accounts with Hefner’s spokeswoman declining to confirm or deny their plans.

Hefner, founder of the Playboy adult entertainment empire, has been married twice before. He and his second wife Kimberley Conrad, also a former Playmate, divorced in 2010 after a lengthy separation. His first marriage to Mildred Williams ended in divorce in 1959. He has two children from each marriage.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant)

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More than 200 dead in Philippine typhoon

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — The death toll from a powerful typhoon in the southern Philippines climbed to more than 200 people Wednesday and officials feared many more bodies could be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that had been isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.

At least 151 people have died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley since Typhoon Bopha began lashing the region early Tuesday, including 66 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp in New Bataan town, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre told The Associated Press.

About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, but an unspecified number of villagers remain missing. On Wednesday, the farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and columns of coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha's ferocious winds.

Army Maj. Gen. Ariel Bernardo said 51 people died and 98 others are missing in nearby Davao Oriental province.

Disaster-response agencies reported seven other typhoon-related deaths elsewhere.

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WestJet embraces tech to woo business travelers

TORONTO (Reuters) – WestJet Airlines Ltd will use technological innovation, including a new Internet ticket booking system, to help it transform from a no-frills carrier to a lower-cost full-service airline courting lucrative corporate travelers, its chief executive said on Monday.

Canada’s second-biggest airline plans to launch a series of technology systems, most notably the new online booking engine, which will sell three tiers of tickets, in the next two months.

“Companies evolve or they die,” Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky told Reuters in a phone interview from the company’s Calgary head office.

“We’re 16 and going on 17 years old and we can’t stay just as we were 17 years ago. The world has changed. And we are changing to be more relevant for a broader segment of guests.”

The new Internet booking system, which WestJet hopes to launch in late January, will sell economy, mid-tier and premium tickets. That is a major shift from its current system, which sells only the lowest-priced ticket available.

Economy tickets under the new system will continue to sell the lowest available fare, but the cancellation fee for them will jump to C$ 75 ($ 75.48) from C$ 50. Mid-tier tickets will have a C$ 50 cancellation fee.

Premium tickets, unavailable until late March when WestJet finishes reconfiguring its 100 Boeing 737 planes to allow more leg room, will include priority screening and boarding, free cancellations and flexibility on ticket changes.

Pricing for those tickets, which may include free meals and drinks and an extra baggage allowance, has not yet been determined. Fares will be well below half the price for business class at WestJet’s bigger competitor, Air Canada, Saretsky said.

“It’s time for us to be more serious with respect to going after business travelers because frankly, they’re the ones who are booking last-minute and are happy to pay for the conveniences,” Saretsky said.

WestJet will launch its premium economy service with 24 seats per plane, but will consider expansion if it proves “wildly successful,” he added.

POISED FOR CHANGE

WestJet, which has spent about C$ 40 million over the past two years on technology projects, is poised for major changes in 2013 as it readies to launch a new regional airline, Encore.

Saretsky hopes that WestJet’s switch in coming weeks to a new Internet phone system will allow ticket reservation agents to work from home and help make room for Encore staff.

Some 750 reservation agents work at WestJet’s Calgary offices, which house about 2,400 staff. Space will be needed for Encore employees over the next 18 months while their office, hangars and maintenance stores are constructed at the WestJet campus.

Encore will be launch in the second half of 2013, “probably closer to July than December,” Saretsky said, with seven Bombardier Q400 planes.

While WestJet won’t announce Encore’s schedule until Jan 21, the carrier will initially serve only “a handful” of new cities, with ticket prices up to 50 percent below Air Canada’s, he added.

Over the next two months, WestJet will also roll out a guest notification system that alerts travelers via email about their flights, allowing them to check in remotely.

Such self-service technology will be critical as WestJet faces increasing labor costs, Saretsky said.

Wage and benefit costs, which represent about a third of operating costs, have climbed 50 percent since WestJet was founded in 1996.

“You can see that creates a little bit of drag on earnings,” Saretsky said. “We’ve got to find ways of reducing our component costs.”

If WestJet can increase self service options for travelers, that could limit the need for new employees, Saretsky said. Management also wants to improve attendance management, so that fewer employees book off sick around long weekends, and more quickly clean and process planes between flights, he said.

(Reporting By Susan Taylor; Editing by Peter Galloway)

(This story was corrected to show that WestJet is replacing its Internet booking engine, not entire reservation system, in the first and second paragraphs)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Amazon launches Kindle content service for kids

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is launching a subscription service for children’s games, videos and books aimed at getting more kids to use its Kindle Fire tablet devices.

Amazon.com Inc. plans to announce Wednesday that the Kindle FreeTime Unlimited service will be available in the next few weeks as part of an automatic software update.

Amazon said subscribers will have access to “thousands” of pieces of content, though the company did not give a specific number. Kids will be able to watch, play and read any of the content available to them as many times as they want. Parents can set time limits, however.

The service, aimed at kids aged 3 to 8, will cost $ 4.99 per month for one child. It’ll cost $ 2.99 per child for members of Amazon Prime, the company’s premium shipping service. Amazon Prime costs $ 79 per year for free shipping of merchandise purchased in the company’s online store.

Family plans for up to six kids will cost $ 9.99 per month and $ 6.99 for Prime members.

The Kindle already allows for parental controls through its FreeTime service. Parents can set up profiles for up to six children and add time limits to control how long kids can spend reading, watching videos or using the Kindle altogether. With the content subscription service, kids can browse age-appropriate videos, games and books and pick what they want to see. They won’t be shown ads and will be prevented from accessing the Web or social media. Kids also won’t be able to make payments within applications.

Amazon is launching the service as competition heats up in the tablet market among Apple, Barnes & Noble, Microsoft and Samsung. Amazon’s strategy is to offer the Kindle at a relatively low price and make money selling the content.

Offering a subscription service aimed at kids helps set the Kindle apart from its many competitors.

“We hope that our devices are really, really attractive for families,” said Peter Larsen, vice president of Amazon’s Kindle business.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Casting Light on Astronaut Insomnia: ISS to Get Sleep-Promoting Lightbulbs

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Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Don Cheadle Sign on for James Cameron’s Climate-Change Doc

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – James Cameron‘s climate-change documentary “Years of Living Dangerously” has lined up some high-level talent to get its message across. Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin and Don Cheadle have signed on to narrate the documentary, Showtime – which will air the project over multiple episodes next year – said Monday.

Actor Edward Norton is also expected to come aboard, Showtime said, with additional talent to be announced.

As previously reported exclusively by TheWrap, Cameron is teaming with producer and noted philanthropist Jerry Weintraub on the project, which will report on first-person accounts of people who’ve been affected by global warming. Cameron and Weintraub will executive “Years of Living Dangerously,” along with Arnold Schwarzenegger.la

“60 Minutes” producers Joel Bach and David Gelber are also executive-producing, along with climate expert Daniel Abbasi.

“The recent devastation on the East Coast is a tragic reminder of the direct link between our daily lives and climate change,” Showtime Networks’ president of entertainment David Nevins said. “This series presents a unique opportunity to combine the large-scale filmmaking styles of James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger – arguably some of Hollywood’s biggest movie makers – with the hard-hitting, intimate journalism of ’60 Minutes’ veterans Joel Bach and David Gelber. I believe this combination will make for a thought-provoking television event.”

“We’ll make it exciting,” added Cameron. “We’ll make it investigative. We’ll bring people the truth. And people are always hungry for the truth.”

In addition to the narrators, “Years of Living Dangerously” will use reporting from the field, with New York Times journalists Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof, columnist Mark Bittman and MSNBC host Chris Hayes.

“Years of Living Dangerously” will air over six to eight one-hour episodes, Showtime said.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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U.S., allies weighing military options if Syria uses WMD

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and its allies are weighing military options to secure Syria's chemical and biological weapons, after U.S. intelligence reports show the Syrian regime may be readying those weapons and may be desperate enough to use them, U.S. officials said Monday.

President Barack Obama, in a speech at the National Defense University on Monday, pointedly warned Syrian President Bashar Assad not to use his arsenal.

"Today I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching," Obama said. "The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, said she wouldn't outline any specifics.

"But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur," Clinton said.

Options now being considered range from aerial strikes to limited raids by regional forces to secure the stockpiles, according to one current U.S. official, and one former U.S. official, briefed on the matter. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

The administration remains reluctant to dispatch U.S. forces into Syria, but a U.S. special operations training team is in neighboring Jordan, teaching troops there how to safely secure such sites together with other troops from the region, the officials said.

The warnings to Syria come after U.S. intelligence detected signs the Syrian regime was moving the chemical weapons components around within several of Syria's chemical weapons sites in recent days, according to a senior U.S. defense official and two U.S. officials speaking on Monday. The activities involved movement within the sites, rather than the transfer of components in or out of various sites, two of the officials said.

But they were activities they had not seen before, that bear further scrutiny, one said.

Another senior U.S. official described it as "indications of preparations" for a possible use of the chemical weapons. The U.S. still doesn't know whether the regime is planning to use them, but the official says there is greater concern because there is the sense that the Assad regime is under greater pressure now.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters.

U.S. intelligence officials also intercepted one communication within the last six months they believe was between Iran's infamous Quds Force, urging Syrian regime members to use its supplies of toxic Sarin gas against rebels and the civilians supporting them in the besieged city of Homs, a former U.S. official said. That report was not matched by other intelligence agencies, and other intelligence officials have said Iran also does not want the Syrians to use their chemical weapons.

The Assad regime insists it would not use such weapons against Syrians, though it carefully does not admit to having them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the government "would not use chemical weapons — if there are any — against its own people under any circumstances." The regime is party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons in war.

The Syrian assurances did not placate the White House.

"We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people," said White House press secretary Jay Carney.

"Assad has killed so many of his people, I just wouldn't be surprised if he turned these weapons on them," added Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, after intelligence briefings Monday.

An administration official said the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons, or movement with the intent to use them, or the intent to provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The U.S. is trying to determine whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official said. The administration official was speaking on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Syrian chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other anti-Israel groups, or even be fired toward Israel in an act of desperation by Syria.

Syria has some 75 sites where weapons are stored, but U.S. officials aren't sure they have tracked down all the locations, and fear some stockpiles may have already been moved. Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads, plus several tons of material stored in either large drums, or in artillery shells, which become deadly once fired.

"In Syria, they have everything from mustard agent, Sarin nerve gas, and some variant of the nerve agent VX," according to James Quinlivan, a Rand Corp. analyst who specializes in the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

A primary argument against sending in U.S. ground troops is that whoever takes possession of the chemical weapons will be responsible for destroying them, as part of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Destroying Syria's stockpiles could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and take more than a decade, Quinlivan said.

Syria's arsenal is a particular threat to the American allies, Turkey and Israel, and Obama singled out the threat posed by the unconventional weapons earlier this year as a potential cause for deeper U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war. Up to now, the United States has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria's rebels for fear of further militarizing a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

Activity has been detected at Syrian weapons sites before.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in late September the intelligence suggested the Syrian government had moved some of its chemical weapons in order to protect them. He said the U.S. believed that the main sites remained secure.

Asked Monday if they were still considered secure, Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment about any intelligence related to the weapons.

Senior lawmakers were notified last week that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected activity related to Syria's chemical and biological weapons, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings. All congressional committees with an interest in Syria, from the intelligence to the armed services committees, are now being kept informed.

"I can't comment on these reports, but I have been very concerned for some time now about Syria's stockpiles of chemical weapons and its stocks of advanced conventional weapons like shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles," said House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich.

"We are not doing enough to prepare for the collapse of the Assad regime, and the dangerous vacuum it will create. Use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be an extremely serious escalation that would demand decisive action from the rest of the world," he added.

The U.S. and Jordan share the same concern about Syria's chemical and biological weapons — that they could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

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Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper in Prague, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Albert Aji in Damascus and Matthew Lee, Lolita C. Baldor and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

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Official: Syria moving chemical weapons components

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, as the Obama administration strongly warned the Assad regime against using them.

A senior defense official said intelligence officials have detected activity around more than one of Syria‘s chemical weapons sites in the last week. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, reiterated President Barack Obama‘s declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a “red line” for the United States that would prompt action.

“We have made our views very clear: This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton told reporters. “I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

Syria said Monday it would not use chemical weapons against its own people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Syria “would not use chemical weapons — if there are any — against its own people under any circumstances.”

Syria has been careful never to confirm that it has any chemical weapons.

The use of chemical weapons would be a major escalation in Assad’s crackdown on his foes and would draw international condemnation. In addition to causing mass deaths and horrific injuries to survivors, the regime’s willingness to use them would alarm much of the region, particularly neighboring states, including Israel.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States. “

Administration officials would not detail what that response might be.

Although Syria is one of only seven nations that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Treaty, it is a party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that bans the use of chemical weapons in war. That treaty was signed in the aftermath of World War I, when the effects of the use of mustard gas and other chemical agents outraged much of the world.

Clinton didn’t address the issue of the fresh activity at Syrian chemical weapons depots, but insisted that Washington would address any threat that arises.

An administration official said the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons or movement with the intent to use or provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The U.S. is trying to determine whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official said. The administration official was speaking on condition of anonymity this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The senior defense official said the U.S. does not believe that any Syrian action beyond the movement of components is imminent.

An Israeli official said if there is real movement on chemical weapons, it would require a response. He didn’t say what that might be and spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal government response to the reports of the latest activities.

Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Syrian chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other anti-Israel groups, or even be fired toward Israel in an act of desperation by Syria.

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

Its arsenal is a particular threat to the American allies, Turkey and Israel, and Obama singled out the threat posed by the unconventional weapons earlier this year as a potential cause for deeper U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war. Up to now, the United States has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria’s rebels for fear of further militarizing a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

Clinton said that while the actions of President Bashar Assad‘s government have been deplorable, chemical weapons would bring them to a new level.

“We once again issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behavior is reprehensible, their actions against their own people have been tragic,” she said. “But there is no doubt that there’s a line between even the horrors that they’ve already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing their chemical weapons.”

Activity has been detected before at Syrian weapons sites, believed to number several dozen.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in late September the intelligence suggested the Syrian government had moved some of its chemical weapons in order to protect them. He said the U.S. believed that the main sites remained secure.

Asked Monday if they were still considered secure, Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment about any intelligence related to the weapons.

Senior lawmakers were notified last week that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected activity related to Syria’s chemical and biological weapons, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings. All congressional committees with an interest in Syria, from the intelligence to the armed services committees, are now being kept informed.

“I can’t comment on these reports but I have been very concerned for some time now about Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons and its stocks of advanced conventional weapons like shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles,” said House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. “We are not doing enough to prepare for the collapse of the Assad regime, and the dangerous vacuum it will create. Use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be an extremely serious escalation that would demand decisive action from the rest of the world,” he added.

Syria is believed to have one of the world’s largest chemical weapons programs, and the Assad regime has said it might use the weapons against external threats, though not against Syrians. The U.S. and Jordan share the same concern about Syria’s chemical and biological weapons — that they could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

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Klapper reported from Prague. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Albert Aji in Damascus and Matthew Lee, Kimberly Dozier, and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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