Canadian job creation seen sharply lower in December

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OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada‘s job market is expected to slow markedly in December to reflect the sluggish economy and employers’ fears about the U.S. fiscal crisis following outsized gains of over 50,000 jobs in two of the previous three months.


The median forecast in a Reuters poll is for the economy to add just 5,000 jobs in the month, with forecasts ranging from a loss of 20,000 positions to a gain of 21,000.






The forecast compares with employment growth of 59,600 in November, 1,800 in October and 52,100 in September.


The unemployment rate is seen ticking higher in the final month of the year to 7.3 percent from 7.2 percent.


Derek Holt, vice president of economics at Scotiabank, said he’s been surprised by the strength of job growth which he estimates to be the equivalent in the United States of about 1.5 million non-farm payroll jobs over the last three months.


“Here we are with the conundrum where we have zero growth in the Canadian economy, long predating the appearance of the greatest fiscal-cliff risks and yet we’re heaping on jobs like there’s no tomorrow,” Holt said.


Unlike the United States, Canada has long recovered all the jobs lost during the 2008-09 recession but the pace of hiring in 2012 was unsteady.


Benjamin Reitzes, economist at BMO Capital Markets, said if the 5,000-job forecast was accurate, it would put 2012 job growth at just 1.1 percent, “the weakest non-recession year since 1996.”


Canadian employers have faced uncertainty in one form or another during the recovery and are now fretting about the U.S. fiscal cliff, a set of tax hikes and spending cuts that will automatically take effect and could throw the United States into recession unless the White House and Congress reach an alternative agreement.


“For as long as Washington cannot agree on the new tax rules and spending focus, they’re not going to give business the confidence to go out and hire and engage in capital spending projects and that’s going to impede the pace of recovery until we get more clarity,” said Holt.


With the Canadian economy now expected to grow by far less in the fourth quarter than the Bank of Canada‘s projection of 2.5 percent, annualized, the blockbuster jobs growth of recent months looks suspect. The six-month trend shows more sustainable gains of about 21,000 a month.


The moderation means the Bank of Canada will be in no hurry to raise its benchmark interest rate, which it has held at 1.0 percent since September 2010.


Market players surveyed by Reuters in late November predicted the bank would resume hiking rates in the fourth quarter of 2013.


(Reporting by Louise Egan; Editing by Kenneth Barry)


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Can Samsung survive without Android?

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Samsung (005930) is the world’s top Android smartphone vendor by a staggering margin. Aside from LG (066570), which managed a small $ 20 million profit from its mobile division last quarter, no other global Android vendor can figure out how to make money selling Android phones. Meanwhile, Samsung posted a $ 6 billion profit on $ 47.6 billion in sales in the third quarter, thanks largely to record smartphone shipments and a massive marketing budget. Even as industry watchers turn sour on Apple, Samsung is seen steamrolling into 2013 and its stock is up nearly 50% on the year while Apple (AAPL) shares continue to fall from a record high hit in September. As unstoppable as Samsung appears right now, one key question remains: Is Samsung driving Android’s success or is Android driving Samsung’s success? Starting in 2013, we may finally begin to find out.


[More from BGR: Unreleased ‘BlackBerry X10′ QWERTY phone appears again in new photos]






Earlier this year, BGR wrote about Samsung’s effort to look beyond Android. Even with its own UI and application suite — and even with its own content services — Samsung will always rely on Google (GOOG) if it continues to base its devices on Google’s latest Android builds.


[More from BGR: RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone]


This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it means Samsung will never truly control the end-to-end experience on its products. It also means Samsung will never truly own its smartphones and tablets. Instead, Samsung’s devices will deliver an experience that is an amalgamation of Google’s vision and its own.


But there are alternative options. One example is the path Amazon (AMZN) has taken. Amazon let Google do the grunt work and then took its open-source Android OS and built its own software and service layer on top. Kindle Fire users don’t sit around waiting for Android updates — many of them don’t even know they’re using an Android-powered tablet.


Samsung could do the same thing, but there is a great deal of prep work that would need to be done first. Amazon’s efforts were so successful (depending on your measure of success) because the company already had a massive ecosystem in place before it even launched its first device. Streaming movies and TV shows, eBooks, retail shopping and a stocked application store were all available on the Kindle Fire from day one.


Samsung doesn’t have this luxury. Yet.


Samsung could also take ownership of a new OS, and Tizen may or may not end up being that OS. Samsung is co-developing the new Linux-based mobile platform with Intel (INTC) and others, and a new rumor from Japan’s The Daily Yomiuri suggests Samsung plans to launch its first Tizen phone in 2013. “Samsung will probably begin selling the [Tizen] smartphones next year and they are likely to be released in Japan and other countries at around the same time,” the site’s sources claim.


This will be a slow process. If Samsung follows the same path it took with Bada, Samsung’s earlier Linux-based OS that was folded into the Tizen project, things will start out slow as Samsung launches regional devices that are restricted to a few Eastern markets. Testing the waters before dumping serious marketing dollars into the project isn’t a bad idea, especially considering the battle at the bottom of the smartphone OS food chain that will already be taking place in 2013.


But one thing is clear: Samsung is looking to broaden its strategy and move beyond a point where it relies entirely on another company for its smartphone software.


This article was originally published by BGR


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List: No love for ‘fiscal cliff,’ ‘spoiler alert’

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DETROIT (AP) — Spoiler alert: This story contains words and phrases that some people want to ban from the English language. “Spoiler alert” is among them. So are “kick the can down the road,” ”trending” and “bucket list.”


A dirty dozen have landed on the 38th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. The nonbinding, tongue-in-cheek decree released Monday by northern Michigan’s Lake Superior State University is based on nominations submitted from the United States, Canada and beyond.






“Spoiler alert,” the seemingly thoughtful way to warn readers or viewers about looming references to a key plot point in a film or TV show, nevertheless passed its use-by date for many, including Joseph Foly, of Fremont, Calif. He argued in his submission the phrase is “used as an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what.”


At the risk of further offense, here’s another spoiler alert: The phrase receiving the most nominations this year is “fiscal cliff,” banished because of its overuse by media outlets when describing across-the-board federal tax increases and spending cuts that economists say could harm the economy in the new year without congressional action.


“You can’t turn on the news without hearing this,” said Christopher Loiselle, of Midland, Mich., in his submission. “I’m equally worried about the River of Debt and Mountain of Despair.”


Other terms coming in for a literary lashing are “superfood,” ”guru,” ”job creators” and “double down.”


University spokesman Tom Pink said that in nearly four decades, the Sault Ste. Marie school has “banished” around 900 words or phrases, and somehow the whole idea has survived rapidly advancing technology and diminishing attention spans.


Nominations used to come by mail, then fax and via the school’s website, he said. Now most come through the university’s Facebook page. That’s fitting, since social media has helped accelerate the life cycle of certain words and phrases, such as this year’s entry “YOLO” — “you only live once.”


“The list surprises me in one way or another every year, and the same way every year: I’m always surprised how people still like it, love it,” he said.


Rounding out the list are “job creators/creation,” ”boneless wings” and “passion/passionate.” Those who nominated the last one say they are tired of hearing about a company’s “passion” as a substitute for providing a service or product for money.


Andrew Foyle, of Bristol, England, said it’s reached the point where “passion” is the only ingredient that keeps a chef from preparing “seared tuna” that tastes “like dust swept from a station platform.”


“Apparently, it’s insufficient to do it ably, with skill, commitment or finesse,” Foyle said. “Passionate, begone!”


As usual, the etymological exercise — or exorcise — only goes so far. Past lists haven’t eradicated “viral,” “amazing,” ”LOL” or “man cave” from everyday use.


___


Follow Jeff Karoub on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffkaroub


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La terapia prostática con protones no provoca menos efectos adversos

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NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – Un costoso tratamiento para el


cáncer de próstata, conocido como terapia con haz de protones,






provoca tantos efectos adversos como las radioterapias más


comunes y económicas.


“En el largo plazo, realmente no existen diferencias entre


los resultados de la terapia con protones y la radioterapia de


intensidad modulada (IMRT, por su sigla en inglés) en los


hombres con cáncer prostático”, dijo el autor principal del


estudio, el doctor James Yu, radiólogo y oncólogo de la Facultad


de Medicina de la Universidad de Yale.


Los defensores de la terapia con protones sostienen que el


haz de protones irradia directamente al tumor y, así, evita los


efectos adversos. La IMRT, que es más común, deja expuestos a la


radiación a tejidos sanos, lo que para los investigadores


aumentaría los efectos adversos y el riesgo de nuevos tumores.


Pero, en un año, los autores del nuevo estudio hallaron la


misma cantidad de efectos adversos en pacientes tratados con


ambos métodos.


El cáncer de próstata es el cáncer masculino más común; cada


año, causa 28.000 muertes en Estados Unidos. Aun así, muchos


hombres mueren por otras causas porque este cáncer avanza


lentamente. Los tratamientos incluyen la quimioterapia, la


hormonoterapia, la cirugía y la espera vigilada.


Aunque los investigadores aún debaten cuál de los dos


tratamientos (haz de protones e IMRT) son la mejor opción para


los pacientes que optan por la radioterapia, eso no impidió que


proliferaran los centros que ofrecen la terapia con protones. La


Asociación Nacional de Terapia con Protones estima que en


Estados Unidos existen 10 centros y ocho en desarrollo o


construcción.


Cada centro cuesta más de 125 millones de dólares y Medicare


reintegra el doble de eso a cambio de sus servicios.


En el estudio publicado en Journal of the National Cancer


Institute, los autores revisaron los reintegros de Medicare del


2008 y el 2009 debido a complicaciones asociadas con el


tratamiento en casi 28.000 hombres con cáncer de próstata desde


hacía un año. Sólo el 2 por ciento de esos pacientes había


recibido terapia con protones; el resto, IMRT.


A los seis meses, casi el 10 por ciento de los pacientes


tratados con IMRT y el 6 por ciento de aquellos tratados con haz


de protones tuvieron efectos adversos, como incontinencia,


sensación de quemazón al orinar o problemas de erección.


Y las diferencias desaparecieron al año del tratamiento,


cuando casi uno de cada cinco pacientes padecía efectos adversos


independientemente del tratamiento recibido.


El equipo de Yu determinó que la terapia con protones cuesta


dos veces más que la IMRT: 32.428 dólares por ronda, versus


18.575 dólares, algo que coincide con estudios previos.


“Ahora, son los defensores de la terapia con protones los


que deberían probar los beneficios”, dijo Yu.


Los autores se concentraron en los efectos adversos, no en


comparar la efectividad de los tratamientos, lo que para los


promotores del uso del haz de protones es una gran debilidad.


FUENTE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, online 14


de diciembre del 2012.


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Biden, McConnell 'jump-start' stalled talks

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Vice President Joe Biden looks on as President Barack Obama announces the nomination of Senator John Kerry as Secretary …Merry Cliffmas Eve? Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday pursued their behind-closed-doors efforts to avoid the “fiscal cliff” with just hours to halt painful automatic income tax hikes from biting into American paychecks.


McConnell announced on Sunday that he had reached out to Biden to help “jump-start” stalled negotiations with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The two veteran Washington deal-makers spoke at 12:45 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., a McConnell aide said.


“The Leader and the VP continued their discussion late into the evening and will continue to work toward a solution,” McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told reporters by email on Monday, promising “more information as it becomes available.”


The two sides were wrangling over how to extend massive tax cuts adopted in 2001 and 2003 and expiring at midnight. President Barack Obama campaigned on letting tax rates rise on income above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for households, but any final deal is expected to set the threshold considerably higher.


They were also battling over the estate tax paid on large inheritances. Republicans have fought to extend the current levels of what they call the “death tax” – exempting estates under $5 million and taxing transfers above that at 35%.  Absent a deal, the tax will hit estates above $1 million and impose a top tax rate of 55%.


The two sides were also struggling with the so-called sequester -- $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to domestic and defense programs over ten years. Democrats suggested Sunday that they hoped to use some of the new tax revenues to postpone some proportion of those cuts. Republicans objected, saying that only new spending cuts could be used to offset the sequester.


And there was feuding over how to spare tens of million of Americans who otherwise would find themselves paying the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), and over how to prevent cuts in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.


Any deal would need to clear both the Democratic-led Senate and the Republican-held House of Representatives. Neither looked to be an easy effort.


And it was unlikely that the compromise would spare the country another bruising partisan battle over whether and how to raise the national debt limit. Republicans have signaled that they will hold the threat of a first-ever default as leverage to win more spending cuts from the Administration. President Barack Obama has signaled that he will not negotiate on the issue the way he did in 2011, when the partisan feuding over what had typically been a routine vote in the past led to the first-ever downgrade of America’s credit rating.



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Suspected US drone kills 3 al-Qaida men in Yemen

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SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Three al-Qaida militants were killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike in southern Yemen, Yemeni security officials said, the fourth such attack this week and a sign attacks from unmanned aircraft are on the upswing in the country.


The officials said the three men were hit as they were riding in a Land Cruiser in el-Manaseh village on the outskirts of Radda in Bayda province. Dozens of local al-Qaida-linked fighters protested the drone strikes after traditional Islamic Friday prayers.






Earlier this week another suspected U.S. drone strike killed two militants in Radda itself, Yemeni security officials say, and seven were killed in two other strikes in the southeastern province of Hadramawt. Four suspected drone strikes a week is uncommon in Yemen.


According to statistics gathered by the Long War Journal before Saturday’s attacks, the United States “is known to have carried out 41 airstrikes” this year against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as the group’s branch in Yemen is known. That makes for an average of around three to four strikes per month.


The Journal, a product of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that was founded by former U.S. officials, says that since December 2009, the CIA and the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command are known to have conducted at least 54 air and missile strikes inside Yemen, excluding Saturday’s suspected attack.


AQAP overran entire towns and villages — including Radda — last year by taking advantage of a security lapse during nationwide protests that eventually ousted the country’s longtime ruler. Backed by the U.S. military, Yemen’s army was able to regain control of the southern region but al-Qaida militants continue to launch deadly attacks on security forces that have killed hundreds.


Also on Saturday, two gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed an intelligence officer in the southeast, security officials said. They said that the officer, Mutea Baqutian, was on his way to work in Mukalla, capital of Hadramawt province, when the men stopped his car, gunned him down, and fled.


The government has blamed al-Qaida militants for similar assassinations of several senior military and intelligence officials this year. The bullet-riddled body of Major al-Numeiry Abdo al-Oudi, deputy director of the security department of al-Qitten in Hadramawt, was found in the town’s suburbs last week. He had been kidnapped earlier in the month.


All officials spoke on condition of anonymity according to regulations.


Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Seif, who is commander of Yemen’s central military region, said the Defense Ministry has deployed an infantry brigade in the northeastern province of Marib to stop armed tribesmen who maintain cordial ties with al-Qaida from attacking oil pipelines and power generating stations, as well as to counter al-Qaida militants.


State TV meanwhile aired a meeting between President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and eight Yemeni sailors who were rescued last week by forces of Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland region after being held for nearly three years by Somali pirates.


The Puntland government says that its forces captured the hijacked Panama-flagged MV Iceberg 1 on Sunday after a siege that lasted two weeks. They freed the eight Yemeni sailors together with five Indians, two Pakistanis, four Ghanaians, two Sudanese and a Filipino. The ship was hijacked March 29, 2010.


Hadi congratulated the eight sailors for their safety and ordered the government to compensate them for their suffering.


Eqbal Yassin, a relative of one of the freed sailors, told The Associated Press that the hijackers had allowed some sailors to phone their relatives and convey the pirates’ demand for $ 5 million ransom. He said he was told by his relative that the hijackers killed a Yemeni sailor who tried to escape. He gave no further details.


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Hot spots draw believers, but not doomsday

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As the sun rose from time zone to time zone across the world on Friday, there was still no sign of the world’s end — but that didn’t stop those convinced that a 5,125-year Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse from gathering at some of the world’s purported survival hot spots.


Many of the esoterically inclined expected a new age of consciousness — others wanted a party. But, in some places said to offer salvation from the end, fewer people showed up than officials had predicted — much to the disappointment of vendors hoping to sell souvenirs.






Here are some key places being marked by the fascination over doomsday rumors:


MEXICO


In an area of Mexico that was once the ancient Mayan heartland, spiritualists gathered in the darkness before dawn on Friday to prepare white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense. They believed the sunrise would herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end.


Many people who came to Yucatan for the occasion were already calling it “a new sun” and “a new era.”


FRANCE


According to one rumor, a rocky mountain in the French Pyrenees will be the sole place on Earth to escape destruction. A giant UFO and aliens are said to be waiting under the mountain, ready to burst through and spirit those nearby to safety. But there is bad news for those seeking salvation: French gendarmes, some on horseback, blocked outsiders from reaching the Bugarach peak and its village of some 200 people.


Eric Freysselinard, head of local government, said the security forces had “partially stopped the new age enthusiasts as well as curious people from coming to the area.”


Meanwhile, some Bugarach residents dressed up like aliens, with tinfoil costumes and funnels and fake antenna on their heads, strolling around their village Friday to make light of the rumored UFO prophecy.


RUSSIA


Doomsday rumors have prompted some people across Russia to stock up on candles, water, canned foods and other non-perishable foods. The apocalypse has proven a good business, with some shops selling survival aid packages that include soap and vodka.


In Moscow, salvation has also been promised in the underground bunker for the former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — with a 50 percent refund if nothing happens. An underground stay was originally priced at 50,000 rubles ($ 1,625) but dropped to 15,000 ($ 490) a week ahead of the feared end.


The bunker, located 65 meters (210 feet) below ground, was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Now home to a small museum, it has an independent electricity supply, water and food — but no more room, because the museum has already sold out all 1,000 tickets.


BRITAIN


Hundreds of people have converged on Stonehenge for an “End of the World” party that coincides with the Winter Solstice.


Arthur Uther Pendragon, Britain’s best-known druid, said he was anticipating a much larger crowd than usual at Stonehenge this year. But he doesn’t agree that the world is ending, noting that he and fellow druids believe that things happen in cycles.


“We’re looking at it more as a new beginning than an end,” he said. “We’re looking at new hope.”


Meanwhile, end-of-days parties will be held across London on Friday. One event billed as a “last supper club” is offering a three-course meal served inside an “ark.”


SERBIA


Some Serbs are saying to forget that sacred mountain in the French Pyrenees. The place to be Friday is Mount Rtanj, a pyramid-shaped peak in Serbia already drawing cultists.


According to legend, the mountain once swallowed an evil sorcerer who will be released on doomsday in a ball of fire that will hit the mountain top. The inside of the mountain will then open up, becoming a safe place to hide as the sorcerer goes on to destroy the rest of the world. In the meantime, some old coal mine shafts have been opened up as safe rooms.


On Friday a New Age group called “The Spirit of Rtanj” was holding a conference there. Participants, however, said they expect not the end of time but the start of a new time cycle. Locals turned out to sell brandy and herbs.


“There will be no tragedy, no doomsday,” said resident Dalibor Jovic. “It was supposed to happen at 12:12 and I think that time has passed. So, we can now go on with our lives and be happy to be alive.”


TURKEY


A small Turkish village known for its wines, Sirince, has also been touted as the only place after Bugarach that would escape the world’s end. But on Friday journalists and security officials outnumbered cultists. This outcome disappointed local business people who had prepared a range of doomsday products to sell, including a specially labeled Doomsday wine and Turkish delight candy whose “best before” date was Dec. 21, 2012. One restaurant prepared a special “last meal” menu that included a “heaven kebab” and “forbidden fruit dessert.”


ITALY


Another spot said to be spared: Cisternino, a beautiful small town in southern Italy in an area of trulli, traditional dry stone huts with conical roofs. The notion that Cisternino could be a safe haven at world’s end derives from an Indian guru, Babaji, who said “Cisternino will become an island” at world’s end. His followers built a community in Cisternino centered on an ashram built in 1979. Hotel bookings are up this weekend.


Mayor Donato Baccaro told the AP that the beauty of the place has inspired many foreigners to live there. “This confirms that this place has a special energy,” he said.


CHINA


A fringe Christian group has been spreading rumors about the world’s impending end, prompting Chinese authorities to detain more than 500 people this week and seize leaflets, video discs, books and other material.


Those detained are reported to be members of the group Almighty God, also called Eastern Lightning, which preaches that Jesus has reappeared as a woman in central China. Authorities in the province of Qinghai say they are waging a “severe crackdown” on the group, accusing it of attacking the Communist Party and the government.


U.S.


Dozens of Michigan schools canceled classes for thousands of students to cool off rumored threats of violence and problems related to doomsday. The fears were exacerbated by the recent shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which “changed all of us,” the school system in Genesee County said. “Canceling school is the right thing to do.”


___


Associated Press writers Florent Bajrami in Bugarach, France; Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow; Peppino Ciraci in Cisternino, Italy; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Paisley Dodds in London; and Dejan Mladenovic in Mount Rtanj, Serbia, contributed to this report.


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Republican Senator: chances for “fiscal cliff” deal “exceedingly good”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that chances for a small “fiscal Cliff” deal in the next 48 hours were “exceedingly good” and that President Barack Obama had won.


“I think people don’t want to go over the cliff if we can avoid it,” Graham said on Fox News Sunday.






“This deal won’t affect the debt situation, it will be a political victory for the president and I hope we’ll have the courage of our convictions when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling to fight for what we believe as Republicans, but hats off to the president, he won,” Graham said.


(Reporting By Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by David Brunnstrom)


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Last-minute fiscal cliff talks in Senate

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders groped for a last-minute compromise Saturday to avoid middle-class tax increases and possibly prevent deep spending cuts at the dawn of the new year as President Barack Obama warned that failure could mean a "self-inflicted wound to the economy."


Obama chastised lawmakers in his weekly radio and Internet address for waiting until the last minute to try and avoid a "fiscal cliff," yet said there was still time for an agreement. "We cannot let Washington politics get in the way of America's progress," he said as the hurry-up negotiations unfolded.


For all the recent expressions of urgency, bargaining took place by phone, email and paper in a Capitol nearly empty except for tourists. Alone among top lawmakers, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell spent the day in his office.


In the Republicans' weekly address, Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri cited a readiness to compromise. "Divided government is a good time to solve hard problems — and in the next few days, leaders in Washington have an important responsibility to work together and do just that," he said.


Even so, there was no guarantee of success, and a dispute over the federal tax on large estates emerged as yet another key sticking point alongside personal income tax rates.


In a blunt challenge to Republicans, Obama said that barring a bipartisan agreement, he expected both houses to vote on his own proposal to block tax increases on all but the wealthy and simultaneously preserve expiring unemployment benefits.


Political calculations mattered as much as deep-seated differences over the issues, as divided government struggled with its first big challenge since the November elections.


Speaker John Boehner remained at arms-length, juggling a desire to avoid the fiscal cliff with his goal of winning another term as speaker when a new Congress convenes next Thursday. Any compromise legislation is certain to include higher tax rates on the wealthy, and the House GOP rank and file rejected the idea when he presented it to them as part of a final attempt to strike a more sweeping agreement with Obama.


Lawmakers have until the new Congress convenes to pass any compromise, and even the calendar mattered. Democrats said they had been told House Republicans might reject a deal until after Jan. 1, to avoid a vote to raise taxes before they had technically gone up and then vote to cut taxes after they had risen.


Nor was any taxpayer likely to feel any adverse impact if legislation is signed and passed into law in the first two or three days of 2013 instead of the final hours of 2012.


Gone was the talk of a grand bargain of spending cuts and additional tax revenue in which the two parties would agree to slash deficits by trillions of dollars over a decade.


Now negotiators had a more cramped goal of preventing additional damage to the economy in the form of higher taxes across the board — with some families facing increases measured in the thousands of dollars — as well as cuts aimed at the Pentagon and hundreds of domestic programs.


Republicans said they were willing to bow to Obama's call for higher taxes on the wealthy as part of a deal to prevent them from rising on those less well-off.


Democrats said Obama was sticking to his campaign call for tax increases above $250,000 in annual income, even though he said in recent negotiations he said he could accept $400,000. There was no evidence of agreement even at the higher level.


There were indications from Republicans that estate taxes might hold more significance for them than the possibility of higher rates on income.


One senior Republican, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, said late Friday he was "totally dead set" against Obama's estate tax proposal, and as if to reinforce the point, Blunt mentioned the issue before any other in his broadcast remarks. "Small businesses and farm families don't know how to deal with the unfair death tax_a tax that the president and congressional leaders have threatened to expand to include even more family farms and even more small businesses," he said.


Several officials said Republicans want to leave the tax at 35 percent after exempting the first $5 million in estate value. Officials said the White House wants a 45 percent tax after a $3.5 million exemption. Without any action by Congress, it would climb to a 55 percent tax after a $1 million exemption on Jan. 1.


Democrats stressed their unwillingness to make concessions on both income taxes and the estate tax, and said they hoped Republicans would choose which mattered more to them.


Officials said any compromise was likely to ease the impact of the alternative minimum tax, originally designed to make sure that millionaires did not escape taxation. If left unchanged, it could hit an estimated 28 million households for the first time in 2013, with an average increase of more than $3,000.


Taxes on dividends and capital gains are also involved in the talks, as well as a series of breaks for businesses and others due to expire at the first of the year.


Obama and congressional Democrats are insisting on an extension of long-term unemployment benefits that are expiring for about 2 million jobless individuals.


Leaders in both parties also hope to prevent a 27 percent fee cut from taking effect on Jan. 1 for doctors who treat Medicare patients.


There was also discussion of a short-term extension of expiring farm programs, in part to prevent a spike in milk prices at the first of the year. It wasn't clear if that was a parallel effort to the cliff talks or had become wrapped into them.


Across-the-board spending cuts that comprise part of the cliff were a different matter.


Republicans say Boehner will insist that they will begin to take effect unless negotiators agreed to offset them with specified savings elsewhere.


That would set the stage for the next round of brinkmanship — a struggle over Republican calls for savings from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal benefit programs.


The Treasury's ability to borrow is expected to expire in late winter or early spring, and without an increase in the $16.4 trillion limit, the government would face its first-ever default. Republicans have said they will use administration requests for an extension as leverage to win cuts in spending.


Ironically, it was just such a maneuver more than a year ago that set the stage for the current crisis talks over the fiscal cliff.


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C. African Republic president seeks foreign help

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BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The president of Central African Republic on Thursday urgently called on France and other foreign powers to help his government fend off rebels who are quickly seizing territory and approaching the capital, but French officials declined to offer any military assistance.


The developments suggest Central African Republic could be on the brink of another violent change in government, something not new in the history of this resource-rich, yet deeply impoverished country. The current president, Francois Bozize, himself came to power nearly a decade ago in the wake of a rebellion.






Speaking to crowds in Bangui, a city of some 600,000, Bozize pleaded with foreign powers to do what they could. He pointed in particular to France, Central African Republic’s former colonial ruler.


About 200 French soldiers are already in the country, providing technical support and helping to train the local army, according to the French defense ministry.


“France has the means to stop (the rebels) but unfortunately they have done nothing for us until now,” Bozize said.


French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France wants to protect its interests in Central African Republic and not Bozize’s government. The comments came a day after dozens of protesters, angry about a lack of help against rebel forces, threw rocks at the French Embassy in Bangui and stole a French flag.


Paris is encouraging peace talks between the government and the rebels, with the French Foreign Ministry noting in a statement that negotiations are due to “begin shortly in Libreville (Gabon).” But it was not immediately clear what, if any, dates have been set for those talks.


French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, meanwhile, spoke via phone with Bozize, asking the president to take responsibility for the safety of French nationals and diplomatic missions in Central African Republic.


U.S. officials said Thursday the State Department would close its embassy in the country and ordered its diplomatic team to leave. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the evacuation publicly.


The United Nations Security Council issued a press statement late Thursday reiterating its concern about the situation in the country and condemned the attacks.


“The members of the Security Council reiterate their demand that the armed groups immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from captured cities and cease any further advance towards the city of Bangui,” the statement reads.


Bozize’s government earlier reached out to longtime ally Chad, which pledged to send 2,000 troops to bolster Central African Republic’s own forces. But it was unclear if the Chadian troops had all arrived, and even then, it is far from certain if the combined government forces could withstand rebel attacks.


At least four different rebel groups are involved, though their overall numbers could not immediately be confirmed.


Central African Republic, a landlocked nation of some 4.4 million people, is roughly the size of France. It has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since gaining independence in 1960 and remains one of the poorest countries in the world.


The rebels behind the most recent instability signed a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army, but insurgent leaders say the deal wasn’t fully implemented.


Already, the rebel forces have seized at least 10 towns across the sparsely populated north of the country, and residents in the capital now fear the insurgents could attack at any time, despite assurances by rebel leaders that they are willing to engage in dialogue instead of attacking Bangui.


The rebels have claimed that their actions are justified in light of the “thirst for justice, for peace, for security and for economic development of the people of Central African Republic.”


Despite Central African Republic’s wealth of gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the government remains perpetually cash-strapped. Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service, said rebel groups are unhappy because they feel the government doesn’t invest in their areas.


“The main thing they say is that the north of the country, and especially in their case the northeast, has always been neglected by the central government in all ways,” he said.


But the rebels also are demanding that the government make payments to ex-combatants, suggesting that their motives may also be for personal financial gain.


Bozize, a former military commander, came to power in a 2003 rebel war that ousted his predecessor, Ange-Felix Patasse. In his address Thursday, Bozize said he remained open to dialogue with the rebels, but he also accused them and their allies of financial greed.


Those allies, he implied, are outside Central African Republic.


“For me, there are individuals who are being manipulated by an outside hand, dreaming of exploiting the rich Central African Republic soil,” he said. “They want only to stop us from benefiting from our oil, our diamonds, our uranium and our gold.”


___


Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.


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Apple still said to account for 87% of North American tablet traffic as Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 gain

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Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.


[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]






Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.


[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]


The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.


“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.


This article was originally published by BGR


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Piano maker Steinway takes down “for sale” sign

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Steinway Musical Instruments Inc, the famous manufacturer of pianos, saxophones and trumpets, said on Wednesday it had decided not to sell itself following a 17-month-long exploration of strategic alternatives.


An American icon synonymous with handmade grand pianos, Steinway has struggled to keep its production margins competitive amid stagnant sales, and has seen its shares plunge 10 percent year-to-date. Still, its third-quarter earnings last month offered signs that cost-cutting was paying off.






In a statement on Wednesday, Steinway said it had received several non-binding indications of interest in buying the company, following talks with other companies in the sector as well as private equity, yet these did not offer more value than its own strategic plan.


“We will continue to focus management’s efforts on execution of that plan and we look forward to a prosperous 2013,” Steinway CEO Michael Sweeney said in the statement.


An in-principle agreement to sell its band instrument division to an investor group led by two of its board members, Dana Messina and John Stoner, was also scrapped in light of the current operating performance of the band division, Steinway said.


In July 2011, Messina, Stoner and other members of management made an offer for Steinway’s band instrument and online music divisions, prompting the company to set up a special committee in order to assess it.


Later that month, Steinway asked investment bank Allen & Company LLC to a assist the special committee on exploring strategic alternatives that could also include selling the whole company outright to other interested parties.


By October 2011, Messina had stepped down as CEO of the company after 15 years at the helm to pursue his bid, yet he remained a board member. He was replaced by Sweeney, a chairman of the board of Star Tribune Media Holdings and a former president of Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Ltd.


Steinway said on Wednesday that it was continuing a separate process to sell its leasehold interest in New York’s Steinway Hall building, situated on Manhattan’s 57th Street, and was in talks with several parties.


According to its website, Steinway & Sons, the company’s piano unit, opened the first Steinway Hall on 14th Street in Manhattan in 1866.


With a main auditorium of 2,000 seats, it became New York City’s artistic and cultural center, housing the New York Philharmonic until Carnegie Hall opened in 1891. These days, Steinway Hall is a showroom for the company’s instruments.


The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company’s pianos have been used by legendary artists such as Cole Porter and Sergei Rachmaninoff and by contemporary ones like Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang.


(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by M.D. Golan)


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MSF warns Kenya not to send more refugees to stricken camp

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LONDON (Reuters) – Conditions in a camp for Somali refugees in Kenya are deplorable and a government plan to send in thousands more would pose a major risk to health, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Friday.


Kenya has more than half a million refugees from Somalia, which has lacked an effective central government since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.






A series of bombings, shootings and hand-grenade attacks blamed on Somali militants prompted the government on December 18 to stop registering asylum seekers and refugees in urban areas.


A Kenyan official said more than 100,000 refugees must now head to the remote Dadaab camp in the country’s remote north. Amnesty International said the order breached international law.


Dadaab camp was set up 20 years ago and already houses four times the population it was built for. Hunger and disease outbreaks are common.


MSF says its inhabitants suffer from overcrowding and poor sanitation that recent floods had worsened.


“The assistance provided here in Dadaab is already completely overstretched and is not meeting the current needs,” said Elena Velilla, MSF’s head of mission in Kenya.


In the last month, the number of children admitted to Dadaab’s hospital for severe acute malnutrition has doubled to around 300, MSF said. Sixty-three of those were taken to intensive care this week after developing serious complications.


Most of the sick are also suffering from acute watery diarrhea or severe respiratory tract infections, MSF said.


(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)


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A make-or-break moment for 'fiscal cliff' negotiations

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid partisan bluster, top members of Congress and President Barack Obama were holding out slim hopes for a limited fiscal deal before the new year. But even as congressional leaders prepared to convene at the White House, there were no signs that legislation palatable to both sides was taking shape.


The Friday afternoon meeting among congressional leaders and the president — their first since Nov. 16 — stood as a make-or-break moment for negotiations to avoid across-the-board first of the year tax increases and deep spending cuts.


Obama called for the meeting as top lawmakers alternately cast blame on each other while portraying themselves as open to a reasonable last-minute bargain.


Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid all but conceded that any effort at this late date was a long shot. "I don't know timewise how it can happen now," he said.


For Obama, the 11th-hour scramble represented a test of how he would balance the strength derived from his re-election with his avowed commitment to compromise. Despite early talk of a grand bargain between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner that would reduce deficits by more than $2 trillion, the expectations were now far less ambitious.


Although there were no guarantees of a deal, Republicans and Democrats said privately that any agreement would likely include an extension of middle-class tax cuts with increased rates at upper incomes, an Obama priority that was central to his re-election campaign. The deal would also likely put off the scheduled spending cuts. Such a year-end bill could also include an extension of expiring unemployment benefits, a reprieve for doctors who face a cut in Medicare payments and possibly a short-term measure to prevent dairy prices from soaring, officials said.


To get there, Obama and Reid would have to propose a package that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell would agree not to block with procedural steps that require 60 votes to overcome.


Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said he still thinks a deal could be struck.


The Democrat told NBC's "Today" show Friday that he believes the "odds are better than people think."


Schumer said he based his optimism on indications that McConnell has gotten "actively engaged" in the talks.


Appearing on the same show, Republican Sen. John Thune noted the meeting scheduled later Friday at the White House, saying "it's encouraging that people are talking."


But Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., predicted that "the worst-case scenario" could emerge from Friday's talks.


"We will kick the can down the road," he said on "CBS This Morning."


"We'll do some small deal and we'll create another fiscal cliff to deal with the fiscal cliff," he said. Corker complained that there has been "a total lack of courage, lack of leadership," in Washington.


Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell cautioned: "Republicans aren't about to write a blank check for anything the Democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff."


Nevertheless, he said he told Obama in a phone call late Wednesday that "we're all happy to look at whatever he proposes."


If a deal were to pass the Senate, Boehner would have to agree to take it to the floor in the Republican-controlled House.


Boehner discussed the fiscal cliff with Republican members in a conference call Thursday and advised them that the House would convene Sunday evening. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., an ally of the speaker, said Boehner told the lawmakers that "he didn't really intend to put on the floor something that would pass with all the Democratic votes and few of the Republican votes."


But Cole did not rule out Republican support for some increase in tax rates, noting that Boehner had amassed about 200 Republican votes for a plan last week to raise rates on Americans earning $1 million or more. Boehner ultimately did not put the plan to a House floor vote in the face of opposition from Republican conservatives and a unified Democratic caucus.


"The ultimate question is whether the Republican leaders in the House and Senate are going to push us over the cliff by blocking plans to extend tax cuts for the middle class," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said. "Ironically, in order to protect tax breaks for millionaires, they will be responsible for the largest tax increase in history."


Boehner, McConnell, Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi are all scheduled to attend Friday's White House meeting with Obama. Vice President Joe Biden will also participate in the meeting, the White House said.


Despite the urgency to act, the rhetoric Thursday was quarrelsome and personal.


The House of Representatives is "being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker," Reid said on the Senate floor. He attributed Boehner's reluctance to put a version of Senate bill that raised tax rates on incomes above $250,000 for couples to fears he could lose his re-election as speaker next week.


"Harry Reid should talk less and legislate more if he wants to avert the fiscal cliff," countered Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Boehner.


If a deal is not possible, it should become evident at Friday's White House meeting. If that occurs, Obama and the leaders would leave the resolution to the next Congress to address in January.


Such a delay could unnerve the stock market, which performed erratically Thursday amid the developments in Washington. Economists say that if the tax increases are allowed to hit most Americans and if the spending cuts aren't scaled back, the recovering but fragile economy could sustain a traumatizing shock.


But a sentiment is taking hold that despite a black eye to its image, Congress could weather the fiscal cliff without significant economic consequences if it acts decisively next month.


"Going over is likely because at this point both sides probably see a better deal on the other side of the cliff," Jared Bernstein, Biden's former economic adviser, wrote in a blog post Thursday.


By letting current tax cuts expire and rise, Bernstein and others say, Republicans would be voting to lower taxes next month, even if not for all taxpayers. Democrats — and Obama — would be in a stronger position to demand that taxpayers above the $250,000 threshold pay higher taxes, instead of the $400,000 threshold that Obama proposed in his latest offer to Boehner.


And the debate over spending cuts, including changes to politically sensitive entitlement programs such as Medicare, would have to start anew.


___


Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Charles Babington and David Espo contributed to this report.


___


Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn


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Cuba has much to lose as ally Chavez fights cancer

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HAVANA (AP) — Cubans who were tuned in to the nightly soap opera on a recent Saturday received a sudden burst of bad news, from the other side of the Caribbean.


State TV cut to the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez revealed that his cancer had returned. Facing his fourth related surgery in 18 months, he grimly named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his possible successor.






The news shocked not only Venezuelans but millions of Cubans who have come to depend on Chavez’s largesse for everything from subsidized oil to cheap loans. Venezuela supplies about half of Cuba‘s energy needs, meaning the island’s economy would be in for a huge shock and likely recession if a post-Chavez president forced the island to pay full price for oil.


Despite the drama, the news likely wasn’t a surprise to Cuba’s Communist government, and not only because Chavez has been receiving medical care on the island.


Havana learned important lessons about overdependence when the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union threw the country into a deep crisis. Trying to avoid the consequences of a similar cut, the Cuban government has been diversifying its portfolio of economic partners in recent years, looking to Asia, Europe and other Latin American nations, and is only about half as dependent on Caracas as it was on the former Soviet Union.


Cuba is also working to stimulate its economy back home by allowing more private-sector activity, giving a leg up to independent and cooperative farming, and decentralizing its sugar industry. A stronger Cuban economy would in theory have more hard currency to pay for energy and other imports.


Also getting off the ground is an experiment with independent nonfarm collectives that should be more efficient than state-run companies. And next year, another pilot program is planned for decentralized state enterprises that will enjoy near-autonomy and be allowed to control most of their income.


“This could have good results,” said a Cuban economist who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the foreign media. Cuba “is also thinking of boosting foreign investment in areas of the national economy, including in restricted areas like the sugar industry.”


One of the country’s top goals has been to make the island’s struggling economy less dependent on a single benefactor.


Under the leadership of Chavez, who regularly calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his ideological father and has followed parts of the Communist leader’s governance playbook, Venezuela has sent billions of dollars a year to Cuba through trade and petro-aid.


Bilateral trade stood at a little over $ 8 billion last year, much of it in Cuban imports of oil and derivatives. In return, Havana primarily provides Venezuela with technical support from Cuban teachers, scientists and other professionals, plus brigades of health care workers. Analysts say those services are overvalued by outside standards, apparently costing as much as $ 200,000 per year per doctor. Experts peg the total Venezuelan subsidy to Cuba at around $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion a year.


While business with Venezuela makes up 40 percent of all Cuban trade, it’s still a far cry from the days when the Communist Eastern Bloc accounted for an estimated 80 percent.


“A (loss of) $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion would definitely pinch. But it is not the same relative weight as the sudden complete withdrawal of the Soviet subsidies in the early ’90s,” said Richard E. Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego. “Cuba’s not going to go back to the days of bicycles. Could it throw the Cuban economy into recession? Yes.”


That kind of resilience would result largely from Cuba’s successes in courting foreign investors for joint ventures.


Last month, authorities announced a deal with a subsidiary of Brazil’s Odebrecht to manage a sugar refinery, a rare step in an industry that has long been largely off limits to foreign involvement.


China has invested in land-based oil projects, and along with Canada is a key player in Cuba’s important nickel industry. Spain has ventures in tourist hotels and tobacco, while French company Pernod Ricard helps export Cuban liquors. And since 2009, Brazil has been a partner in a massive project to modernize and expand the port at Mariel, west of the capital.


Trade with China alone was $ 1.9 billion and rising in 2010, and Raul Castro paid a visit to Chinese and Vietnamese leaders earlier this year to help cement Asian relationships.


But while Havana says it wants to boost foreign investment, obstacles remain. The approval process for investment projects can be long and cumbersome, and pilferage, disincentives to productivity and government intervention can cut into efficiencies. Foreign companies also pay a sky-high payroll tax.


Feinberg, who wrote a report on foreign investment in Cuba published this month by the U.S. think tank the Brookings Institution, said that while a number of foreign companies are successfully doing business with the island, others have run into problems, sending a chilly message to would-be investors. In particular he noted the recent cases of a government takeover of a food company run by a Chilean businessman accused of corruption, and contentious renegotiations of a contract with Dutch-British personal and home care products giant Unilever amid shifting government demands.


“The Cuban government has to decide that it wants foreign investment unambiguously. I think now there seem to be divisions among the leadership,” Feinberg said. “Some are afraid that foreign investment compromises sovereignty, creates centers of power independent of the leadership or is exploitative.”


He estimated Cuba has left on the table about $ 20 billion in missed investment over the past decade by not following practices typical of other developing nations. Instead, Cuba received $ 3.5 billion in foreign investment in that period.


Experts say a worst-case scenario for Chavez wouldn’t automatically translate into the oil spigot shutting off overnight.


If Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Vice President Maduro, were to take office, he would likely seek to continue the special relationship.


Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has said he wants to end the oil-for-services barter arrangements, but could find that easier said than done should he win. The two countries are intertwined in dozens of joint accords, and poor Venezuelans who benefit from free care by Cuban doctors would be loath to see that disappear.


“You can’t flip the switch on a relationship like this,” said Melissa Lockhart Fortner, a Cuba analyst at the Pacific Council on International Policy, a Los Angeles-based institute that focuses on global affairs. “It would be terrible politics for him. … Switching that off would really endanger his support far too much for that to be really a feasible option.”


For Cuba, Chavez’s latest health scare capped off a year of disappointments in the island’s attempt to wean itself from Venezuelan energy.


Three deep-water exploratory oil wells drilled off the west coast failed to yield a strike, and last month the only oil rig in the world capable of drilling there without violating U.S. sanctions sailed away with no return in sight.


Yet time and again Havana has shown that it’s nothing if not resilient, weathering everything from U.S.-backed invasion and assassination plots in the 1960s to the austere “Special Period” in the early 1990s, when the Soviet collapse sent Cuba’s GDP plummeting 33 percent over four years. When hurricanes damaged the country’s agriculture sector and the global financial crisis squeezed tourism four years ago, Cuba tightened its belt, slashed imports and survived.


“Some people are saying the demise of Chavez is also going to be the demise of Communism in Cuba because the regime’s going to collapse and the people are going to rise up,” Feinberg said. “That’s probably yet another delusion of the anti-Castro exile community.”


Still, many Cubans are nervously tuning into the near-daily updates about Chavez’s health, carried prominently in state media.


“I don’t know what would happen here,” said 52-year-old Havana resident Magaly Ruiz. “We might end up eating grass.”


___


Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.


___


Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi


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British actress Kate Winslet marries for third time

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LONDON (Reuters) – British Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet has married for the third time, her publicist confirmed on Thursday.


The 37-year-old, best known for her starring role in the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic”, married Ned RocknRoll, a nephew of music and aviation tycoon Richard Branson.






The private ceremony was attended by Winslet’s two children from previous marriages and “a very few friends and family”, according to the publicist, and took place in New York earlier this month.


“The couple had been engaged since the summer,” Winslet’s spokeswoman said in a statement.


Winslet has been nominated for six Academy Awards and won once for her lead role in “The Reader”.


Her other notable performances include Iris Murdoch in “Iris”, Clementine Kruczynski in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and April in “Revolutionary Road“.


That film was directed by Sam Mendes, whom Winslet wed in 2003 and divorced seven years later. Her first marriage was to Jim Threapleton, which lasted from 1998 to 2001.


According to online reports, RocknRoll had his name changed by deed poll from Ned Abel Smith and is an executive for Branson’s space flight venture Virgin Galactic.


The Sun newspaper said the New York wedding was so secret that even the couple’s parents did not know about it.


Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who co-starred with Winslet in Titanic and Revolutionary Road, gave her away, the newspaper said.


(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Steve Addison)


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Obama heads back to Washington as “cliff” deadline nears

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama was flying back to Washington on Thursday and the top Republican in Congress planned to speak with House of Representatives lawmakers as the clock ticked toward a year-end deadline for action to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” tax hikes and spending cuts.


Markets around the world awaited action in Washington to prevent tax hikes on nearly all Americans and the deep automatic government spending cuts due to kick in at the beginning of next month that could push the U.S. economy back into recession.






Such action, however, remained far from certain, with Republicans and Democrats each insisting the other side move first amid continuing partisan gridlock.


Air Force One carrying Obama from Hawaii took off at about 3 a.m. EST for a journey that can take nearly half a day.


The U.S. Senate was scheduled to meet later on Thursday but on matters unrelated to the “fiscal cliff.” The Democrats control the Senate and the Republicans control the House.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday said through a spokesman that the Senate was ready to consider any bills coming from the House but would take no action on its own.


Speaker John Boehner and other House Republican leaders, who said on Wednesday they were willing to take up a “fiscal cliff” measure only after the Senate acts on one, planned a conference call with Republican House members on Thursday.


The expectation for the call was that lawmakers would be told to get back to Washington within 48 hours to consider anything the Senate might pass.


Weather permitting, that would bring them to Washington with perhaps three days left before the deadline for action. Storms affecting the Midwest, the South and the Northeast played havoc with airline schedules.


“This isn’t a one party or one house problem. This is (that) leaders in both parties in all branches of the government are not willing to make the deal that they know they have to make. Everybody wants their stuff but doesn’t want to give up what they don’t want to give up,” Republican U.S. Representative Steven LaTourette told CNN on Thursday.


The House and Senate passed bills months ago reflecting their own sharply divergent positions on the expiring low tax rates, which went into effect during the administration of Republican former President George W. Bush.


‘ALL TOO SLOWLY’


Democrats want to allow the tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans want to extend the tax cuts for everyone.


“We’re in an economy now that is fragile – still recovering, all too slowly. These tax cuts must be extended for the middle class. We need to protect the middle class from that huge tax increase,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told CNN.


While Obama and congressional leaders have said that they are willing to negotiate, no substantive discussions are known to have taken place over the holidays and the gap between them appears to remain.


A senior Obama administration official told reporters traveling with Obama that Republican leaders in Congress should step up to head off the looming tax and spending hit.


Congress has proven that it can act swiftly once an agreement is reached. Hope persisted that Republicans and Democrats might come up with a resolution before New Year’s Day that might at least postpone the impact of the tax hikes and spending cuts while further discussions take place.


On that basis, world shares and the euro edged higher on Thursday.


“There is still hope for a last-minute deal, otherwise we’re in for a correction in January. People have already priced in an agreement. Without it, the market can’t stay at these levels,” a Paris-based trader said.


Another battle is just over the horizon in late January or early February over raising the debt ceiling, which puts a limit on the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its debts and can be raised only with the approval of Congress.


Republican leaders have said they will insist on more budget cuts as a condition of raising the ceiling. Without any action, the U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday the government is set to reach its $ 16.4 trillion debt ceiling on December 31.


The Treasury Department said in a statement it would begin “extraordinary measures” to buy time. Many analysts believe the government can stave the default date off into late February.


(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Alina Selyukh; Editing by Will Dunham)


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Winter storm whips across Northeast

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A powerful winter storm brought snow to inland parts of the Northeast and driving rain and wind to areas along the coast Thursday, a day after it swept through the nation's middle, dumping a record snowfall in Arkansas and wrecking post-holiday plans for thousands of travelers.


The storm, which was blamed for 12 deaths, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and made its way into the Northeast Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, there was anywhere from a few inches of snow to a foot in some locations.


National Weather Service spokesman David Roth said the Northeast's heaviest snowfall would be in northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and inland sections of several New England states before the storm ended Friday morning and headed to Canada.


Dale Lamprey, who was clearing off the sidewalk outside the legislative office building in Concord, N.H., already had several hours of shoveling under his belt by 8:30 a.m. Thursday.


"I got here at quarter of five and it's been windy, it's been snowing and I think it changed over to sleet and freezing rain at one point," he said. "It's pretty bad."


He didn't expect it to get much better.


"I'm going to be shoveling all day, just trying to keep up with the snow," he said. "Which is impossible."


The East Coast's largest cities — New York, Philadelphia and Boston — were seeing mostly high winds and rain Thursday morning. Other areas were getting a messy mix of rain and snow or just rain — enough to slow down commuters and those still heading home from visits with family.


Thousands of travelers were trying to make it home Thursday after the fierce storm stranded them at airports or relatives' homes around the region. Some inbound flights were delayed in Philadelphia and New York's LaGuardia, but the wet and windy weather wasn't leading to delays at other major East Coast airports.


A flight that landed safely in Pittsburgh during the storm Wednesday night got stuck in snow for about two hours on the tarmac.


The American Airlines flight arrived between 8 and 9 p.m., but then ran over a snow patch and got stuck.


Airport spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers tried for nearly two hours to tow the plane to the gate before deciding to bus passengers to the terminal.


Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed on Wednesday and scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts. Said John Kwiatkowski, an Indianapolis-based meteorologist with the weather service: "The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex."


The storm system spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day, startling people like Bob and Sherry Sims of Mobile, Alabama, who'd just finished dinner.


"We heard that very distinct sound, like a freight train," said Bob Sims. They headed for a center bathroom.


Power was still out at the Sims' home on Wednesday, but the house wasn't damaged and they used a generator to run heaters to stay warm. Some neighbors were less fortunate, their roofs peeled away and porches smashed by falling trees.


The storm also left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida saw severe thunderstorms.


Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were urged to avoid it. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.


About 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of 3 inches an hour in some places.


Officials in Ohio blamed the bad weather for a crash that killed an 18-year-old girl, who lost control of her car Wednesday afternoon and smashed into an oncoming snow plow on a highway northeast of Cincinnati.


A man and a woman in Evansville, Ind., were killed when the scooter they were riding went out of control on a snowy street Wednesday and they were hit by a pickup truck.


Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana. Other storm-related deaths include a man checking on a disabled vehicle near Allentown, Pa., who was struck and killed Wednesday night, and two people killed in separate crashes in Virginia.


The day after Christmas wasn't expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.


In Arkansas, some of the nearly 200,000 people who lost power could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 10 inches of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas.


Other states also had scattered outages.


As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of a foot or more.


Few truckers were stopping into a TravelCenters of America truck stop in Willington, Conn., near the Massachusetts border early Thursday. Usually 20 to 30 an hour stop in overnight, but high winds and slushy roads had cut that to two to three people an hour.


"A lot of people are staying off the road," said Louis Zalewa, 31, who works there selling gasoline and staffing the store. "I think people are being smart."


As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of trails.


"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Knight, who described the weather at the 500-acre farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks — we don't know what we're going to get."


Behind the storm, Mississippi's governor declared states of emergency in eight counties with more than 25 people reported injured and 70 homes left damaged.


Cindy Williams stood near a home in McNeill, Miss., where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove. But she focused instead on the fact that all her family members had escaped harm.


"We are so thankful," she said. "God took care of us."


___


Associated Press writers Rick Callahan and Charles Wilson in Indianapolis, Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark.; Jim Van Anglen in Mobile, Ala.; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.; Julie Carr Smyth and Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio; Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md.; and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.


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VP says Chavez up, walking; doubts persist

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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolas Maduro surprised Venezuelans with a Christmas Eve announcement that President Hugo Chavez is up and walking two weeks after cancer surgery in Cuba, but the news did little to ease uncertainty surrounding the leader’s condition.


Sounding giddy, Maduro told state television Venezolana de Television that he had spoken by phone with Chavez for 20 minutes Monday night. It was the first time a top Venezuelan government official had confirmed talking personally with Chavez since the Dec. 11 operation, his fourth cancer surgery since 2011.






“He was in a good mood,” Maduro said. “He was walking, he was exercising.”


Chavez supporters reacted with relief, but the statement inspired more questions, given the sparse information the Venezuelan government has provided so far about the president’s cancer. Chavez has kept secret various details about his illness, including the precise location of the tumors and the type of cancer. His long-term prognosis remains a mystery.


Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, said it was an encouraging sign that Chavez was walking, and it indicated he would be able to return to Venezuela relatively soon. But he said the long term outlook remained poor.


“It’s definitely good news. It means that he is on the road to recover fully from the surgery,” Pishvaian said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “The overall prognosis is still pretty poor. He likely has a terminal diagnosis with his cancer that has come back.”


Pishvaian and other outside doctors have said that given the details Chavez has provided about his cancer, it is most likely a soft-tissue sarcoma.


Chavez first underwent surgery for an unspecified type of pelvic cancer in Cuba in June 2011 and went back this month after tests had found a return of malignant cells in the same area where tumors were previously removed.


Venezuelan officials said that, following the six-hour surgery two weeks ago, Chavez suffered internal bleeding that was stanched and a respiratory infection that was being treated.


Maduro’s announcement came just hours after Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read a statement saying Chavez was showing “a slight improvement with a progressive trend.”


Dr. Carlos Castro, director of the Colombian League against Cancer, an association that promotes cancer prevention, treatment and education, said Maduro’s announcement was too vague to paint a clear picture of Chavez’s condition.


“It’s possible (that he is walking) because everything is possible,” Castro told AP. “They probably had him sit in up in bed and take two steps.”


“It’s unclear what they mean by exercise. Was it four little steps?” he added. “I think he is still in critical condition.”


Maduro’s near-midnight announcement came just as Venezuelan families were gathering for traditional late Christmas Eve dinners and setting off the usual deafening fireworks that accompany the festivities. There was still little outward reaction on a quiet Christmas morning.


Danny Moreno, a software technician watching her 2-year-old son try out his new tricycle, was among the few people at a Caracas plaza who said she had heard Maduro’s announcement. She said she saw a government Twitter message saying an announcement was coming and her mother rushed to turn on the TV.


“We all said, thank God, he’s okay,” she said, smiling.


Dr. Gustavo Medrano, a lung specialist at the Centro Medico hospital in Caracas, said if Chavez is talking, it suggests he is breathing on his own despite the respiratory infection and is not in intensive care. But Medrano said he remained skeptical about Maduro’s comments and could deduce little from them about Chavez’s prognosis for recovery.


“I have no idea because if it was such a serious, urgent, important operation, and that was 14 days ago, I don’t think he could be walking and exercising after a surgery like that,” Medrano said.


Over the weekend, Chavez’s ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, made a lightning visit to Cuba that only added to the uncertainty.


Journalists had been summoned to cover his arrival and departure in Havana, but hours later that invitation was canceled. No explanation was given, though it could have been due to confusion over Morales’ itinerary as he apparently arrived later than initially scheduled.


Cuban state media published photos of President Raul Castro receiving Morales at the airport and said he came “to express his support” for Chavez, his close ally, but did not give further details. He left Sunday without making any public comments.


For the second day in a row Tuesday, Morales made no mention of his trip to Cuba during public events in Bolivia.


Yet more questions surround Chavez’s political future, with the surgery coming two months after he won re-election to a six-year term.


If he is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution calls for new elections to be held. Chavez has asked his followers to back Maduro, his hand-picked successor, in that event.


Venezuelan officials have said Chavez might not return in time for his Jan. 10 inauguration.


Opposition leaders have argued that the constitution does not allow the president’s swearing-in to be postponed, and say new elections should be called if Chavez is unable to take the oath on time.


But government officials have said the constitution lets the Supreme Court administer the oath of office at any time if the National Assembly is unable to do it Jan. 10 as scheduled.


___


Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana, Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Camilo Hernandez in Bogota, Colombia, and Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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