Analysis: In India, a sense of crisis fans embers of reform (Reuters)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) ? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's move to open India's protected retail sector to global supermarket giants last week surprised critics who had written him off as a policy ditherer, but he was probably motivated by expedience rather than any reformist zeal.

India's stellar economic growth is slowing, the rupee has skidded to record lows and inflation is stuck close to a double-digit clip. Faced with this predicament, Singh may have simply weighed the benefits of opening a $450 billion market to foreign investment against the political risk, and taken his chance.

Just as he did back in 1991, when the central bank was forced to airlift 47 tonnes of gold to Europe as collateral for a loan to avert a sovereign default, Singh has opted for liberalization to deal with urgent economic problems.

"In India, we've always achieved economic reform at gunpoint," said political commentator Swapan Dasgupta.

Many seized on Singh's retail sector decision, taken in the face of dissent within his own cabinet, as a sign that the reform process he had helped father was finally back on track. The frontpage headline of the Economic Times on Friday crowed: "Hello Walmart, Goodbye Inertia".

Unpopular, saddled with petulant coalition allies, up against a combative opposition and facing elections in five states next year, Singh's Congress party is likely to shy away from far-reaching economic reforms that could cost it votes.

Nevertheless, the move to allow multinationals into the retail market could be the first of several liberalization initiatives aimed at silencing complaints from business leaders and even its own supporters that this is a government adrift.

"They are not reformers," said Surjit Bhalla, chairman of Oxus Investments. "But, given its huge unpopularity, Congress is now looking to do what it can. There's more than an even chance that reforms will continue."

Next up may be a decision to open India's airline sector, which is struggling with cost pressures and a fierce price war, to foreign investors.

RISK AND REWARD

Singh, who will be 80 next year, earned his reformist stripes as finance minister back in 1991 when he prised open India's state-stifled economy, opening the way for a long run of dazzling growth.

However, as prime minister since 2004, he has presided over less spectacular reforms such as opening the country's nuclear power market and freeing petrol and fertilizer pricing. And his government, beleaguered by corruption scandals, has slipped into a policy paralysis since it won a second term two years ago, taking the gloss off the "India Shining" story.

Asia's third-largest economy is nowhere near the crisis it was facing 20 years ago. However, growth has sagged since it topped 9 percent for three years in a row before the global financial crisis, and a monetary tightening cycle to stamp out inflation that began in March 2010 is exacerbating the slowdown.

The move to allow multinationals into India's vast retail market will eventually help unclog some of the supply bottlenecks that stoke inflation.

It will also generate sorely needed foreign capital, not least for infrastructure investment, which the government's latest five-year plan targets at an ambitious $1 trillion.

The government has taken other steps recently to attract funds from abroad. It has raised the limit on foreign investment in government and corporate bonds, and the cabinet has approved a law that - once it has parliamentary approval - will allow limited foreign direct investment in pensions firms.

While none of this will address the country's economic ills in the short term, it may bring an immediate political gain.

Welcoming in the world's big supermarket brands was risky. It will fuel fury with Congress among the millions of neighborhood store owners, who could make the party pay in next year's state elections.

But the promise of world-class shopping will be welcomed by India's growing ranks of urban middle classes, and Singh's uncharacteristic boldness could shore up public faith in his government as it gears up for a general election in 2014.

If there is a new phase of reforms underway, it is likely to be tentative rather than sweeping.

Some reforms, such as removing subsidies on diesel, are politically untouchable because of the backlash the party would face from the poor. Even the decision to open up the retail sector was hedged with provisos that will protect shopkeepers in small towns and rural areas.

The government's plans to pass a food security bill, which would widen subsidies for the poor, are an example of how there has been little change in the populist stance of the Congress party. Critics say the bill will only add to the fiscal deficit.

Nevertheless, with its back to the wall, the government appears to have snapped out of its inertia.

"Reforms have been thrust upon it," said Bhalla. "As long as the pressure is on this government it will continue to act."

(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Ron Popeski)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111127/wl_nm/us_india_reform

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'Breaking Dawn' Wins Box Office, 'Muppets' Makes Big Cash

LOS ANGELES ? The latest "Twilight" movie has plenty of daylight left with a second-straight win at the weekend box office.

"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part 1" took in $42 million domestically over the three-day weekend and $62.3 million in the five-day Thanksgiving boom time from Wednesday to Sunday. That raised its domestic total to $221.3 million, while it added $71.5 million overseas, lifting its worldwide total to $489.3 million.

Debuting at No. 2 was the family flick "The Muppets," with $29.5 million for the three-day weekend and $42 million over the five-day holiday haul.

Three other family films rounded out the top-five for the three-day weekend: "Happy Feet Two" at 3 with $13.4 million; "Arthur Christmas" at No. 4 with $12.7 million; and "Hugo" at No. 5 with $11.4 million.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/27/breaking-dawn-wins-box-of_n_1115056.html

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Islamist party takes most seats in Morocco poll

Observers from Czech and Council of Europe look at the president of the polling station who show a Ballot as he and Officials and political party's representatives count the ballots in a polling station in Rabat, Morocco, Friday , Nov. 25, 2011. Moroccans voted for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Observers from Czech and Council of Europe look at the president of the polling station who show a Ballot as he and Officials and political party's representatives count the ballots in a polling station in Rabat, Morocco, Friday , Nov. 25, 2011. Moroccans voted for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

The president of a polling station reverses the ballot box prior vote counting in the polling station in Rabat, Morocco, Friday , Nov. 25, 2011. Moroccans voted for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

The president of a polling station shows a ballot as officials and political party's representatives count the ballots as Tomas Jirsa, an observers from Czech Republic, back, looks on in the polling station in Rabat, Morocco, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. The voter has selected the lamp that is the logo of Morocco's Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), Moroccans voted for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change.. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

Abdelilah Benkirane, the secretary general of Morocco's Islamist Justice and Development Party, votes in Rabat, Morocco, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Moroccans began voting for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change. (AP Photo/Mustapha Houbis)

Abdelilah Benkirane, the secretary general of Morocco's Islamist Justice and Development Party, leaves the voting booth in Rabat, Morocco, Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. Moroccans began voting for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change. (AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

RABAT, Morocco (AP) ? An Islamist Party is on track to become the largest party in Morocco's new parliament with a dominant showing after two-thirds of the seats were announced by the Interior Ministry Saturday.

The Justice and Development Party has taken 80 seats, almost twice as many as the next most successful party, with 282 seats announced out of the 395 up for grabs in the nationwide vote a day earlier.

Barring a massive upset, the PJD ? known by its French initials ? will be the largest party in the new parliament and charged with forming a new government ? making another Islamist victory in an election brought about by the Arab Spring.

Last month, Tunisia's Ennahda Party took 40 percent of the seats in elections in the country that started a wave of pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East after its people overthrew their long-serving president.

Egypt is set to hold elections of its own on Monday that are also expected to be dominated by Islamist parties, lending increasing weight to the view that religious movements have been some of the biggest benefactors of the Arab Spring.

Like the rest of the region, Morocco was swept by pro-democracy protests decrying lack of freedoms and widespread corruption, which the king attempted to defuse over the summer by ordering the constitution modified to grant more powers to the Parliament and prime minister and then holding elections a year earlier.

Activists, however, have called the moves insincere and clamored for a boycott.

Complete results, including those of 90 seats reserved for women and youth and the 23 remaining regular seats will be announced Saturday. PJD is expected to ultimately win up to 110 seats.

The Islamists' biggest rivals in Morocco's elections is a coalition of eight liberal, pro-government parties led by Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar, which has amassed more than 111 seats, but under the new constitution the party with the most seats gets first crack at forming a new government.

The Islamists must now find coalition partners, with their natural allies being the "Democratic Bloc," an alliance of the right-of-center Istiqlal, or Independence Party, the left-of-center Union of Socialist Progressive Forces and the former communist party ? venerable political parties that have been eclipsed by Mezouar's so-called Group of Eight.

"We are ready to work with the PJD on the condition that all the parties of the bloc participate in this government," affirmed Mohammed al-Khalifa, a member of the Istiqlal Party's political bureau.

Ali Bouabid, a member of the USFP's leadership, agreed that an alliance was certainly possible and must be discussed.

"If the bloc allies with the PJD it must be on the basis of a strong political program," he said. Such an alliance would be 165 seats strong and a majority of the results announced so far.

In recent years Morocco's Islamists have cultivated an image as honest outsiders battling corruption, and seeking to improve services and increase employment, rather than focusing on moral issues such as whether women wear the Islamic headscarf or the sale of alcohol.

Morocco, a close U.S. ally and popular European tourist destination suffers from high unemployment and widespread poverty.

With dozens of parties running and a complex system of proportional representation, Morocco's parliaments are typically divided up between many parties each with no more than a few dozen seats, requiring complex coalitions that are then dominated by the king.

The government announced a 45-percent turnout in Friday's contest, slightly more than legislative elections in 2007, but still less than local elections in 2009 and the summer's constitutional referendum.

There are almost 13.5 million registered voters in this North African kingdom of 32 million, though it is estimated that there are many more people of voting age not registered, something an European observer team noted in their report that otherwise praised the election as free and fair.

"The completeness of these lists are a key element of the electoral process and the delegation regrets that the current system, according to some, does not make it easy for citizens to register. In effect, a considerable part of the some 20 million Moroccans of election age are not on the lists," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

As in 2007, a significant number of the ballots cast were invalid, in some cases because voters marked them incorrectly, but in others it was clearly a form of protest with the entire ballot or all the parties crossed out.

The U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, which sent an election observer mission to Morocco, estimated that 20 percent of the ballots they saw during counting were invalid, suggesting a "citizen interest in further and deeper political reforms," according to its statement.

"The vigor with which some people expressed their protests on their ballot form was noted by many of our observers in all parts of the country," said Bob Rae, a member of the delegation and the leader of Canada's Liberal Party.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-26-ML-Morocco-Elections/id-4b471a65c1cb4c728f53907b837c5280

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In "The Artist," silence is golden (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Actor Jean Dujardin won this year's best actor award at the Cannes film festival for playing a man who hardly says a word, but not because his character couldn't speak. In fact, he says quite a lot.

Dujardin stars in "The Artist," a silent movie made more than 80 years after those films gave way to "talkies," and the movie has Hollywood buzzing with Oscar talk. Directed by Frenchman Michel Hazanavicius, it tells of a silent film star (Dujardin) whose career is cut short by the advent of sound.

"People think silent movies are intellectual," Hazanavicius told Reuters about his old-is-new-again creation. "It's just the opposite. It's really sensual. Instead, talking movies use dialogue in an intellectual way to tell stories."

In "The Artist," Dujardin plays George Valentin, a pompous leading man in 1920's Hollywood. French actress Berenice Bejo plays Peppy Miller, an ingenue looking for a big break.

The pair meet and fall in love, but the advent of talkies brings divergent fortunes. Valentin's career implodes, while the singing and dancing Miller rockets to stardom.

"The Artist" is, at its heart, a rather simple tale of personal redemption and love, but making a silent movie in these modern days of action, special effects and 3D was anything but easy.

"Everybody tells you that it's not do-able because nobody wants to see a silent movie," he said. "The first person I had to convince was myself."

Giving Hazanavicius and his investors confidence was his enthusiasm for the project and his success with a pair of spy spoofs, "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" and "OSS 117: Lost in Rio." Those movies mimicked early James Bond such as 1962's "Dr. No," and starred Dujardin in the lead role.

SILENT CHALLENGES

Bringing back the silent form for modern audiences was itself the obvious challenge, Hazanavicius said, noting that what appears to be a simpler storytelling form is deceptively complicated for both the filmmaker and audience.

"It's a paradox, in a way. The actors are very far from reality. You can't hear them. They are black-and-white," he explained. "But you fill the gap, as an audience, with your imagination. You create the voice, you create the sound design, you create your own dialogue."

And casting, he said, was also critical, because he needed actors who were experts at expressing ideas, thoughts and emotions with their body movements and facial expressions.

Dujardin recalled that when he first read the script, he was impressed by the director's ambition, but he admitted he was initially nervous about some of the more dramatic scenes.

"Up until then, we'd made comedies where we had a lot of fun with characters and situations," he explained. "'The Artist' was full of emotion. I was touched by all it said about cinema, its history and actors.

"I had no lines to hold on to ... But I discovered that silent film was almost an advantage. You just have to think of the feeling for it to show," Dujardin said.

The coming of sound permanently altered the language of cinema, transforming an image-focused medium into one often driven by words. But Hazanavicius feels something more was compromised.

"We lost a universal language and something which was really specific to the medium: to tell a story with moving images," he said.

It's no coincidence that many of Hollywood's greatest directors got their start in silent films: John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Raoul Walsh and Howard Hawks, to name a few.

Still, the director readily concedes that comedic filmmakers like Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges made witty and sophisticated dialogue their trademark.

"If you look at a great director like Ernst Lubitsch, his talking comedies are much better than his silent comedies."

And yet, Hazanavicius said he discovered that making a silent film gave him a better understanding of his craft.

"Watching a silent, I get the same feeling I had when I was a child looking at the movies in theaters," he confides. "I wanted to share that experience with an audience today."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Chris Michaud)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/film_nm/us_theartist

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Egypt releases three U.S. students: source (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? The Egyptian authorities on Thursday released three U.S. students held in Cairo on suspicion of taking part in violence during a protest against the country's ruling military council, a security source said.

The three, students at the American University in Cairo, were paraded Tuesday on Egyptian television. It cited an Interior Ministry official saying they had been detained after throwing petrol bombs at police protecting the Interior Ministry building. The university had previously named them as Gregory Porter, Luke Gates and Derrik Sweeney.

(Writing by Tom Perry)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111124/us_nm/us_egypt_protest_students

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Libyan official says oil output increasing fast

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) ? Libya's oil production is quickly increasing and now stands at more than 600,000 barrels a day, a prominent Libyan oil expert said Thursday.

Ali Tarhouni, who just stepped down as the oil and finance minister, said he expects production to reach 700,000 barrels a day within a few days.

He held his government post until a new transitional government was sworn in Thursday. He said he refused an offer to serve in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib because of the many challenges it will face in establishing governance and economic stability.

Before the civil war, Libya was producing about 1.6 million barrels per day. Tarhouni said he expects production to reach about 1.2 to 1.3 million barrels by next June, when elections are scheduled to be held.

"That would be tremendous," he said.

Tarhouni told reporters in Tripoli that he will not hold any official position for now. He said he plans instead to travel around the country to give lectures and meet with young people in an effort to encourage civil society and democracy.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-24-ML-Libya-Oil/id-226ef83c19214d4db3658ecca1e538ff

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Brazil suspends Chevron's drilling rights (Reuters)

BRASILIA (Reuters) ? The Brazilian government on Wednesday suspended Chevron Corp's drilling rights in Brazil until it clarifies the causes of an offshore oil spill, the latest twist in a political firestorm threatening the U.S. company's role in Brazil's oil bonanza.

The decision was announced as the chief executive of Chevron's Brazilian unit was testifying before the Brazilian Congress, where he publicly apologized for the November 8 spill that leaked about 2,400 barrels of oil into the ocean off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil's National Petroleum Agency said it decided to halt Chevron's drilling rights after determining that there was evidence that the company had been "negligent" in its study of data needed to drill and in contingency planning for abandoning the well in the event of accident.

The agency, known as ANP, also rejected a request from Chevron to drill deeper wells into subsalt areas in the Frade field where the spill took place. The Frade field, which is located in the oil-rich Campos Basin, is the only block in Brazil where Chevron is producing oil and is the operator.

The Campos Basin is currently the source of more than 80 percent of Brazil's oil output.

Chevron has previously drilled for subsalt depth targets in the field, which is also owned by Brazil's state-controlled energy giant Petrobras and Frade Japao, a Japanese consortium. Chevron owns 52 percent of Frade, whereas Petrobras owns 30 percent and Frade Japao 18 percent.

Chevron has already been fined $28 million by Brazil's environmental agency for the spill, an amount that is sure to rise sharply when the ANP and Rio's state government slap fines on the company, as they have pledged to do.

Chevron's CEO in Brazil, George Buck, told Brazilian lawmakers on Wednesday that the company "acted as rapidly and safely as possible" and "used all resources" to contain and stop the flow of oil from the well.

"We controlled the source in four days. We worked with transparency and cooperation with the authorities of Brazil," Buck said. "Please understand that during those first days it was very confusing, very difficult to manage the flow of information."

The ANP said the suspension will remain in place until Chevron fully restores safety conditions in the field.

The Frade leak, while small, is likely to provide more ammunition for the growing worldwide opposition to offshore drilling in the wake of the estimated 4-million-barrel BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the U.S. Gulf in 2010.

Chevron is also a 30 percent partner in the nearby $5.2 billion Papa-Terra project. Petrobras is the operator in Papa Terra.

Chevron, Petrobras and Frade Japao produce about 79,000 barrels a day of oil in Frade. Petrobras and Chevron expect to produce about 140,000 barrels of oil and equivalent gas from Papa-Terra in 2013.

(Additional reporting by Jeb Blount in Rio de Janeiro; Writing by Todd Benson and Reese Ewing; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/bs_nm/us_chevron_brazil_anp

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Art Smith: Creating Family Among Friends and Fame (Huffington post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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Milwaukee's Ryan Braun wins NL MVP (AP)

NEW YORK ? Milwaukee's Ryan Braun won the NL Most Valuable Player Award on Tuesday after helping lead the Brewers to their first division title in nearly 30 years.

The left fielder received 20 of 32 first-place votes and 388 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

"I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't anxious or nervous because I was," said Braun, who was sitting on the balcony of his home in Malibu, Calif., when he received the call that he had won. "I was obviously thrilled, excited. It's honestly difficult to put into words how much this means to me.

Los Angeles center fielder Matt Kemp, who came close to winning the Triple Crown, received 10 first-place votes and finished second with 332 points. Braun's teammate Prince Fielder finished third with 229 points, and Arizona's Justin Upton finished fourth with 214 points. Fielder and Upton each received one first-place vote.

St. Louis' Albert Pujols finished fifth. It was the 11th straight year the three-time MVP was in the top 10 in balloting.

NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw was 12th in the voting a day after Detroit's Justin Verlander added the AL MVP to his Cy Young.

"I think he was the single most dominant player in baseball this year," Braun said of Verlander. "As a position player I'm biased to the fact that I think position players should be at the forefront of the award but if you honestly look at what he accomplished, how much he meant to that team and how dominant he truly was you cannot make any argument against him winning that award."

Braun led the NL with a .597 slugging percentage and had a chance to overtake Jose Reyes for the batting title on the last day of the season but finished second with a .332 average. The four-time All-Star had 33 homers, 111 RBIs, 109 runs scored and stole 33 bases as Milwaukee won a franchise-best 96 games. His 77 extra-base hits was tops in the league.

Kemp led the NL in homers with 39 and RBIs with 126 and was third in average (.324), but played for the NL West's third-place Dodgers. He also won a Gold Glove.

"Matt's one of the best players in the game. No question about it. The season he had will go down as one of the greatest in Dodgers history," said Braun, who grew up rooting for the Dodgers. "If he had won the MVP I certainly couldn't have argued with him winning. he had a phenomenal year."

While Braun and Kemp had similar statistics, Kemp was hindered by the Dodgers' 82-79 third-place finish in the NL West.

"Without a doubt I think it's a drastically different experience playing meaningful games down the stretch," Braun said.

The 28-year-old Braun is the first Brewers player to win the MVP award in the National League and first since Robin Yount won in 1989, when Milwaukee was in the AL East. Rollie Fingers (1981) and Yount in 1982 are the other Brewers to take home MVP honors.

"Robin's the greatest player in Milwaukee Brewers history so anytime you're mentioned alongside him it's a tremendous achievement," Braun said.

Braun signed a $105 million, five-year contract extension in April, linking him to the Brewers through 2020. He received a $100,000 bonus for winning the MVP.

"This team has been so loyal to me. They believed in me. They drafted me. They helped to develop me and there would be nothing more meaningful to me than to eventually win a world championship in Milwaukee," he said. "It would mean a lot more to me than if I went to a large-market team, big-market-team and won two or three championships."

The 2007 NL Rookie of the Year winner rewarded the club with his fourth straight season with more than 100 RBIs. He hit a three-run, go-ahead homer in the eighth inning on Sept. 23 to clinch the division title for Milwaukee.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbn_nl_mvp

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Networks walk a tightrope over crowded debates (AP)

NEW YORK ? Keeping the crowded Republican presidential debates fair, lively and topical can seem like the equivalent of juggling while walking a tightrope.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer is the next television personality on stage. He's moderating Tuesday's GOP forum in Washington, a little more than a week after a misplaced email from the CBS News political director raised questions about whether networks give short shrift to candidates they determine have little chance of reaching the White House.

The fluidity of the Republican nomination process and the increased importance of the debates make fairness an important issue. Viewership is up significantly compared with a similar point in the campaign four years ago, and political pros say the debate performances of Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have had a big impact on their poll standings.

Tim Graham of the Media Research Center, a conservative press watchdog, said he thinks there is "a tilt" at the networks "toward front-runners."

"The only thing that makes it less unfair is that the front-runners keep changing," Graham said.

That nod to front-runners was made clear when CBS political director John Dickerson questioned, in an email sent to colleagues on Nov. 12, how much airtime Bachmann would be getting during and after the network's debate that night. "She's not going to get many questions," he wrote in apparent reference to Bachmann's shrinking standing in opinion polls.

The email was mistakenly sent to Bachmann's campaign, which immediately seized upon it. Keith Nahigian, her campaign manager, said on Facebook that the email was "concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already knows ? the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative message."

During that night's debate, seven questions went to Bachmann ? four of them during an online-only portion shown after the television network's coverage ended. Cain and Newt Gingrich were asked 11 questions each, and Mitt Romney had 10. Perry and Rick Santorum each had eight questions, while Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman each had five.

PBS' Jim Lehrer, who has moderated 11 general election presidential debates, said running these pre-primary debates is extremely difficult.

"You not only want to be fair, you have to be perceived as being fair," Lehrer said, "and it's really hard when you have eight or nine candidates."

Playing favorites in terms of questions asked is dangerous because, as borne out by this year's opinion polls, today's also-ran could be tomorrow's front-runner. A network that doesn't try to treat everyone onstage equally is "buying themselves a lot of trouble that they don't need," said Lehrer, author of a recent book on debates, "Tension City: My View From the Middle Seat."

A network might naturally want to spend more time with a front-runner, but in these situations has a civic role more than a journalistic one, Lehrer said. CBS News President David Rhodes argued that handling the debates as journalists serves a civic purpose.

"Part of why we're here is to serve an audience," Rhodes said. "The audience has a greater interest in people who are more likely to succeed in the process. You could argue that's unfair because some of the people who are not successful today could become successful tomorrow, and that's true. But that's a challenge for these people ? not for us."

Networks usually have people backstage tracking how many questions are asked, often with stopwatches to measure airtime, said David Bohrman, president of Current TV and former CNN Washington bureau chief. If there was too much of an imbalance, he would try to get word to the moderator.

"You have to treat all of the candidates the same," said Sam Feist, CNN's current Washington bureau chief. "If you're going to invite them, you have to treat them the same, particularly with the fluidity of this race."

Except for some quick follow-up questions, moderators at recent debates aired on CNBC and Fox News Channel made a conscious effort to ask each candidate onstage to address one issue at the start of their debates. Fox said it tries to treat each candidate equally; NBC News would not discuss its debate policies.

An examination of transcripts for four debates (one each by CNN, CBS, Fox and CNBC) revealed that Romney, generally perceived as the front-runner, had the most questions addressed to him. He had 45, with Cain next at 37, Perry at 36 and Gingrich at 35. Santorum and Bachmann had 29 and Paul had 27. Huntsman did not participate in all four debates.

Even the networks that strive for some equality in asking questions can't guarantee equal time on camera. If one candidate specifically criticizes another in an answer, the victimized candidate is generally given rebuttal time. Organizers seem to relish when a couple of candidates go after one another and often let those exchanges play out.

Networks that try to be even-handed with the questions show favoritism by placing candidates who are high in the polls near the center of the stage, increasing the likelihood these leaders are involved in more exchanges. In two separate debates, Huntsman complained that it was "lonely out here" on the fringe.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_en_tv/us_tv_fair_debates

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Solar Eclipse on Friday Could Wow Small Audience

News | Space

This will be the fourth time that a new moon will orbit between the sun and Earth to cause a solar eclipse in 2011, just one eclipse shy of the annual max

By Joe Rao and SPACE.com ?| November 21, 2011

A partial solar eclipse will be visible in southern South Africa, Antarctica, Tasmania, and most of New Zealand. Image: Starry Night Software

This Friday (Nov. 25), a rather large partial eclipse of the sun will be on view ? but only for a relatively small audience.

This will be the fourth time that a new moon will orbit between the sun and Earth to cause a solar eclipse in 2011, just one eclipse shy of the maximum for the number of solar eclipses in a given year.?

The first eclipse on Jan. 4 coincided with sunrise across Europe.

Some Alaskans and Canadians shared a view of a partially obscured sun on the afternoon of June 1. [Photos: The First Solar Eclipse of 2011]

And perhaps just a few penguins experienced a very slight eclipse a month later off Lutzlow-Holm Bay on the coast of Antarctica.

On Friday, the moon's penumbral, or outer, shadow will brush the southern belly of the Earth, initially touching down in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) a southwest of Cape Town, but only managing to encompass the southern and western portion of South Africa, completely missing Lesotho and barely grazing the border of Namibia. The sun will be seen rising with a dent in its upper right rim.

The axis of the Earth's shadow, containing the cone of darkness known as the umbra, from where we could see a total solar eclipse, misses Earth entirely, passing at its nearest, only about 0.05 of the Earth's radius, or about 210 miles (340 km) out in space.

So the depth of this partial eclipse is greater than the three others that preceded it. At greatest eclipse, 90.5 percent of the sun's diameter will be covered as seen from the place nearest to the shadow axis, at a point in the Bellingshausen Sea along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Here, the sun will be seen to dip to the southern horizon at the "midnight" of its 24-hour southern late spring day, and as it slowly ascends still very low to the south-southeast horizon it turns into a delicate boat-shaped crescent in eclipse; the horizon along which the dazzling boat goes rocking is that of "The Ice" (a nickname for Antarctica, being "on the ice").

As the penumbra slides under the bottom of the Earth, the partial eclipse is visible in varying extent across the icy land continent and just as it begins to slide back out into space it (just barely) manages to pass over Tasmania as well as portions of New Zealand's South Island. In fact, the last contact of the shadow with Earth occurs just to the west of the South Island, in the Tasman Sea.

Coming attractions
If you have already obtained a calendar for 2012, be sure to put a big red circle around May 20.?

That is the date of the next solar eclipse and it promises to be a spectacular event.? It will be an annular ("ring") eclipse that will be visible from parts of eight western U.S. states during the late-afternoon hours.?

For those living in parts of New Mexico and west Texas, the setting sun will be transformed into a blazing "ring of fire," in some cases lasting for more than five minutes. And across much of North America, the exception being those near and along the Atlantic Coast, the sun will appear partially eclipsed.?

Across the Pacific for parts of China and Japan, the annular eclipse will also be visible (Tokyo is directly in the eclipse track), although for Asia, being positioned to the left (west) of the International Date Line, this event will take place on the morning of May 21.?

Needless to say, in contrast to next Friday, next May's solar eclipse will have a huge viewing audience.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=15f1885d29fe5d0a4d50f9025c14b107

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Obama cites jobs payoff from Asia trip

U.S. President Barack Obama looks after attending the East Asia Summit at Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia on Saturday Nov. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

U.S. President Barack Obama looks after attending the East Asia Summit at Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia on Saturday Nov. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

El presidente Barack Obama aborda el avi?n Air Force One que lo llevar? de regreso a Washington tras concluir su gira por Asia, en Bali, Indonesia, el s?bado 19 de noviembre de 2011. (Foto AP/Firdia Lisnawati)

From left to right, U.S. President Barack Obama, Myanmar's President Thein Sein, rear, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Vietnamese President Nguyen Tan Dung, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak leave the stage after a group photo at the Retreat Session of East Asia Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Romeo Gacad, Pool)

From left to right, U.S. President Barack Obama, Myanmar's President Thein Sein, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Vietnamese President Nguyen Tan Dung, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully prepare for a group photo at the retreat session of East Asia Summit in Nusa Dua, on the holiday island of Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Romeo Gacad, Pool)

U.S. President Barack Obama attends the retreat session of the East Asia Summit in Nusa Dua, on the island of Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Romeo Gacad, Pool)

BALI, Indonesia (AP) ? After a nine-day trip through Asia in which he showed command on the world stage, President Barack Obama is headed back to debt-deadlocked Washington, where he'll confront fresh reminders of the limits of his power at home.

Obama departed from Bali's international airport Saturday afternoon for a 21-hour flight that, factoring in time-zone changes, was to return him to the White House before dawn Sunday. He'll be arriving days ahead of a deadline for a congressional supercommittee to produce recommendations to attack the country's yawning deficit.

But even though the president spoke to the supercommittee leaders from Air Force One as he headed out of town and urged them to get a deal, the panel is no further along than when Obama left Washington: frozen stuck along partisan lines.

If no agreement is reached, steep cuts would be enacted across the federal government that both sides say they want to avoid, particularly to the defense budget. But no end game was in sight as Obama made his way back home from the other side of the globe.

Also awaiting him are presidential politics heading into the 2012 election year, something Obama largely avoided while traveling in Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia. And with his opponents on the attack over his stewardship of the listless economy, Obama will renew his largely futile efforts to get Congress to pass his jobs bill as he aims to cast Republicans as the ones to blame.

For Obama, it may amount to something of a harsh homecoming after playing proud host in his native Hawaii to a summit of Pacific Rim nations, and traveling on to two countries where he remains highly popular and received warm welcomes.

Obama set out in his Asia-Pacific tour to deepen U.S. engagement in a fast-growing region that the White House views as increasingly critical to America's security and economic prosperity. He achieved some successes, including progress on a regional free-trade deal that could pay off with U.S. jobs, and a new military agreement with Australia that will boost the U.S. defense posture in the region by deploying more marines and U.S. aircraft to Australia.

Obama also announced he was dispatching his secretary of state to Myanmar in a significant step to prod forward reforms in that country, and throughout the trip the complexities of the U.S. relationship with China were on display.

But domestic issues were on Obama's mind as he wrapped up his trip. Obama focused his Saturday morning radio and Internet address on the trade deals he presided over and the jobs they were likely to create back home, including a multi-billion-dollar Boeing sale of commercial planes to Indonesia and a deal to export General Electric engines.

He portrayed his trip around the Pacific Rim as a hunt for new markets.

"As the fastest-growing region in the world, no market is more important to our economic future than the Asia Pacific ? a region where our exports already support five million American jobs," he said.

In a further reminder of what awaits Obama in Washington, Saturday's Republican address focused on the work of the supercommittee. Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, a member of the panel and architect of one of the central GOP proposals, said that despite the fast-approaching deadline he remained hopeful lawmakers could still accomplish some deficit reduction.

"We have what is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pass legislation that will generate millions of jobs, create a simpler, fairer tax system with lower rates for everyone, and put our government on a path toward fiscal sanity," he said.

On China, throughout his trip Obama sent both public and private signals to the rising giant, cementing American power in a manner seen to counter China, and scolding Chinese leaders about the need to play by the rules economically.

On the final day of his trip, Saturday in Indonesia, Obama held a surprise meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of an East Asia summit, focusing on the economic matters that have prompted disputes between the two major world powers.

White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon told reporters that Obama stressed the importance of China adjusting the value of its currency, which the United States contends is deeply undervalued, and he said Obama and Wen also briefly discussed territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Later, Obama and leaders at an East Asia summit retreat raised the issue of maritime security, prompting Wen to respond. A senior U.S. administration official told reporters aboard Air Force One that Wen's remarks signaled a gradual evolution toward resolving quarrels with Asian neighbors over the major shipping route. He said U.S. officials were encouraged by Wen's response.

Donilon downplayed tensions and rejected suggestions that the nine-day mission in the Asia-Pacific was designed to thwart a rising China. The U.S. policy, Donilon said, was about rebalancing U.S. interests and focusing once more on the Asia-pacific region.

"This has nothing to do with isolating or containing anybody," he said.

___

Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: http://www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-19-Obama/id-586a6ad9b3684787989af79c19af71f4

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Vt. ski town rebuilding after Irene

MONTPELIER, Vt.?? Visitors to Vermont's ski country may be surprised to find some restaurants and stores boarded up in the valley town near Mount Snow ? one of the communities hardest hit by Tropical Storm Irene? but the skiing and riding should be the same depending on the snow.

Many Wilmington businesses have already reopened or vow to do so ? it's just a matter of when.

"It's mind-boggling to think what I have to do to think about reopening," said Lori Downey, who with her husband hope to reopen Bean Head's coffee shop, after losing everything in the flood ? from coffee grinders, a cappuccino maker, refrigerators and freezers to panini grills, meats, cream cheeses and coffee. "I think what we're going to have to do is start small and build our stuff back up."

Other businesses are going full bore hoping to reopen by Thanksgiving ? when second homeowners come up hoping for early season skiing ? or Christmas. But the owners of the buildings that got the brunt of the flooding ? like beloved Dot's restaurant, which often had a line outside on the weekends ? don't yet know if they'll reopen and certainly not this year.

"We just don't have things like Dot's," said Cheryl Rothman, president of the Mount Snow Chamber of Commerce. "You know there's no place to go for breakfast. It's awful, really. Such a community hotspot so to speak, it's just gone."

The owners are thinking about a seasonal restaurant in the same spot, and expect they'll have to tear down most of the current historic building because of flood damage.

So much of the center of the small town is boarded up that the chamber is trying to figure out how to spruce the place up before winter, maybe with a mural painting contest.

"The biggest thing about Wilmington is the fact that our entire business community was gone," said Rothman, of the Aug. 28 storm that turned streams and rivers into raging waterways and carried away bridges and large segments of roads around Vermont cutting off at least a dozen communities and damaging or destroying at least 840 homes.

The slopes and buildings at Mount Snow, however, were unharmed. A snowmaking pump house that became submerged in water has been replaced. The resort hopes to open around Thanksgiving as long as it stays cool enough for it to make snow.

At Killington Resort, in another community cut off by road damage in the days after Irene, part of a lodge collapsed in the flooding. The resort has opted to replace it with a deck and two outdoor heated umbrella bars.

It also had to regrade parking lots, dredge a snowmaking pond and replace carpets and drywall in the some of the lodges that had water damage.

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Farther north, parts of the Mad River Valley ? home to Sugarbush and Mad River Glen ? also were hit hard by flooding, though the resorts were unharmed.

American Flat Bread ? a popular pizza restaurant in Waitsfield ? has reopened after losing 40 cords of spit firewood for its wood-fired oven and flood damage to its offices, property and parking lot. The Mint restaurant in the center of town is now serving lunch in a local church while rebuilding and the Green Cup is seeking donations as it seeks to rebuild.

At New Hampshire's Loon Mountain, river flooding tore away the abutments of a bridge to the resort and part of the Kankamagus Highway through the White Mountains. A temporary bridge is scheduled to be open by Thanksgiving until the damaged bridge can be repaired in the spring.

Back in Wilmington, evidence of the flooding is visible in the scars in the land and in the debris hanging high in trees, where it was deposited by flood waters ? such as yarn swept away from a yarn store in town.

But many businesses have reopened, such as the Vermont House, Apres Vous, the Anchor Restaurant and others.

"Our story here is we're reopening," said Rothman.

And much of the $194,000 raised so far by early this month to help the flood-damaged businesses has come from out of state, from second homeowners.

"It's a wonderful surprise to me how involved our second homeowners are with our community and how much they consider it their community," Rothman said. "They were here immediately helping. We had so many second homeowners here downtown working alongside building owners and other town residents."

"It's going to be a while before Wilmington comes back," Downey said. "And you know what, it's going to be a long time before all of Vermont gets their bearings back."

___

If You Go...

MOUNT SNOW: West Dover, Vt.; http://mountsnow.com/ or 800-245-7669. Opening planned around Thanksgiving.

KILLINGTON: Killington, Vt.; http://www.killington.com or 802-422-6200. Open for the season, with skiing and riding only on advanced trails at this time.

MAD RIVER GLEN: Waitsfield, Vt.; http://www.madriverglen.com or 802-496-3551. Opening planned after Thanksgiving.

SUGARBUSH: Warren, Vt.; http://www.sugarbush.com/ or 800-537-8427. Opening planned around Thanksgiving.

LOON MOUNTAIN: Lincoln, N.H.; http://www.loonmtn.com/ or 800-229-5666. Temporary bridge is scheduled to open before Thanksgiving to provide access. Open for skiing around Thanksgiving, depending on weather.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45358023/ns/travel-destination_travel/

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ASUS and Dell not exiting the tablet business | Ubergizmo

On Thursday, the folks over at DigiTimes reported that companies like ASUS, Acer and Dell were looking to retreat from the tablet business due to the OEMs struggling to make a dent in Apple?s share of the tablet market and the arrival of low cost tablets like the Kindle Fire and NOOK Tablet. Well, two of the companies decided to set the story straight by responding to those rumors. ASUS? spokes man Gary Key was quoted as saying, ?As usual, the rumors and reports from Digitimes are incorrect. Asus is not exiting the Android tablet business.? Let?s not forget that the company has the Transformer Prime tablet slated for December, so it seemed like a pretty odd rumor in the first place.

A Dell spokesman also said that the company didn?t have any plans to exit the business either, while an Acer representative wasn?t available for comment. So for those of you who were worried about your favorite company exiting the tablet business, fret not. However it is noted that the manufacturers could be scaling back on resources for Android tablets to focus on Windows 8 tablets instead. I guess we?ll just have to wait and see.

Source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/asus-dell-not-exiting-the-tablet-business/

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Oklahoma State copes with 2nd crash in 10 years (AP)

TULSA, Okla. ? It had been 10 years and 10 months since the plane crash that killed 10 people associated with Oklahoma State's men's basketball program ? long enough for the healing to begin but recent enough to rush old memories to the surface when news of another plane crash broke.

This time, two coaches from the women's basketball team had been killed.

"I feel for the Oklahoma State community. How many more tragedies can they endure?" said head coach of top-ranked Baylor, Kim Mulkey.

Kurt Budke, the head coach for the women's basketball team, and Miranda Serna, his assistant, were killed Thursday when the single-engine plane transporting them on a recruiting trip crashed in steep terrain in Arkansas, the university in Stillwater said. The pilot, 82-year-old former Oklahoma state Sen. Olin Branstetter, and his 79-year-old wife, Paula, also died when the plane sputtered, spiraled out of control and nosedived into the Winona Wildlife Management Area near Perryville, about 45 miles west of Little Rock.

The crash was the second major tragedy for the sports program in about a decade. In January 2001, 10 men affiliated with the university's men's basketball team died in a Colorado plane crash.

For some, the news brought back the emotions felt a decade ago.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about one of those guys," said Eddie Sutton, the OSU men's basketball coach at the time of the 2001 crash. "It's emotional, believe me. This brings back a lot of unpleasantness."

Roger Engelsman, undersheriff for Adams County in Colorado, the site of the first crash, has attended the service held there each year ? a service attended by OSU officials.

"Quite honestly, it takes a lot to surprise me or shock me, but I was just in disbelief," said Engelsman. "My friends at Oklahoma State are suffering in this fashion again.

"What are the odds of two plane crashes, both affecting the basketball programs?" he said.

After the 2001 crash, the university required that planes used by the school's sports team undergo safety checks before travel. OSU President Burns Hargis said coaches were not bound by the same rules and that the school left such decisions to their discretion.

"When something like this happens and, God forbid it happened again, we have to pull together as a family. We've got to try to do that," Hargis said at a news conference Friday, as he broke down in tears.

Hargis called Budke "an exemplary leader and man of character," and credited him with elevating the team in a tough program. Serna, he said, was "an up-and-coming coach and an outstanding role model" for the players. Former Assistant Coach Jim Littell will serve as interim head coach. The team's games scheduled for Saturday and Sunday were canceled. The university plans to hold a public memorial service Monday at Gallagher-Iba Arena.

Budke turned Oklahoma State's women's basketball team into a winner and hoped he'd found the place where he'd coach until he retired. Serna had passed up opportunities to leave his side, staying loyal to the man whom she had helped to win a junior college national championship and then rebuild a big-time college program.

The university hired Budke from Louisiana Tech seven years ago and the Salina, Kan., native compiled a 112-83 record with three trips to the NCAA tournament. This year's team was 1-0 after defeating Rice on Sunday.

Budke coached Serna and Trinity Valley to a junior college national title in 1996. Serna went on to play for Houston before returning to the community college to become an assistant coach under Budke. He also had Serna on his staff at Louisiana Tech and Oklahoma State. She was the recruiting coordinator for the Cowgirls.

Budke agreed to a five-year contract extension through June 2017 last year and said at the time: "This is where I want to be the rest of my life. This is where I want to finish my career."

Serna, 36, was also devoted to OSU. Top coaches around the country considered her one of the better young recruiters, but she stuck with Budke as the Cowgirls rose from a losing program into one that made the postseason five years in a row.

"She worked hard. She believed in him. That's why she stayed. ... She had some opportunities to look at some other jobs, but she wanted to bring in players and help him win at Oklahoma State," said Carlene Mitchell, another of Budke's former players from Trinity Valley who's now the coach at UC Santa Barbara.

The Branstetters also had ties to Oklahoma State. Jim Berscheidt, spokesman for the OSU Foundation, confirmed that the Branstetters established two scholarships at the university. He could not disclose how much was given to fund them. One was through the university's College of Education and the other was through the business school.

FAA records showed the plane was built in 1964 and registered to Olin Branstetter. Oklahoma State spokesman Gary Shutt said the coaches were going to watch recruits playing in two games in Little Rock.

Perry County Sheriff Scott Montgomery said hunters called emergency officials about 4 p.m. Thursday after they heard the plane apparently in trouble, then saw it nosedive into a heavily wooded area. National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jason Aguilera said it would issue a preliminary report in five days, but it could be more than a year before the agency's investigation is complete.

The weather at the time was clear. The Piper Cherokee Piper PA-28-180 (N7746W) didn't have flight data or voice recorders, Aguilera said, but it's possible a GPS unit might be recovered and used to reconstruct the flight's path.

The Jan. 27, 2001, crash occurred about 35 minutes after the plane took off in light snow. The Beechcraft King Air 200 carrying players and others connected to the OSU men's basketball team crashed in a field 40 miles east of Denver as the Cowboys returned from a game at Colorado.

An NTSB report cited a power loss aboard the plane and said the pilot suffered disorientation while flying the plane manually with still-available instruments.

___

Associated Press photographers Sue Ogrocki in Stillwater and Danny Johnston in Perryville, Ark.; writers Jeff Latzke in Stillwater, Okla., and Ken Miller and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; and AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111119/ap_on_sp_co_ne/bkw_fatal_plane_crash_coaches_killed

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Obama warns market turmoil to continue over Europe (Reuters)

CANBERRA (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama on Wednesday said he was deeply concerned about the euro zone crisis and market turmoil would continue until Europe has a concrete plan to deal with its sovereign debt woes.

Obama's comments added to a chorus of non-European policymakers urging greater action to deal with the two-year-old crisis, and came as equity markets fell in response to a sell-off in euro zone bond markets.

"Until we put in place a concrete plan and structure that sends a clear signal to the markets that Europe is standing behind the euro and will do what it takes, we are going to continue to see the kinds of market turmoil we saw," Obama told a news conference in the Australian capital of Canberra.

Asian shares fell on Wednesday and the euro slipped to its lowest levels in a month against the dollar and the yen.

Investors have been spooked by signs the crisis is spreading from heavily indebted Greece and Italy to the region's core nations, with yield spreads on Austrian, Belgian and French 10-year bonds over Germany Bunds hitting euro-era highs on Tuesday.

Obama said that whilst there had been progress in putting together unity governments in Italy and Greece, Europe still faced a "problem of political will" rather than a technical problem.

"We're going to continue to advise European leaders on what options we think would meet the threshold where markets would settle down. It is going to require some tough decisions on their part," he said.

"Ultimately, what they are going to need is a firewall that sends a clear signal -- we stand behind the European project, we stand behind the euro."

Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, speaking earlier on Wednesday in Japan, urged European leaders to put "meat on the bones" of plans to stem the contagion.

"Until European countries build firewalls for their financial system, I think we will continue to see market volatility," he said. "Some of us are frustrated by the failure of clear and decisive action in Europe."

China's central bank also voiced its concern, saying in its quarterly monetary policy report posted on its website that the European debt crisis was a prime risk to the global economy.

"The sovereign debt problem in the euro zone will cause continuous turbulence in financial markets, and, if the crisis spreads to core member countries, it may cause global systematic risks," the report said.

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa told a news conference there were signs the European crisis was starting to affect emerging economies through trade and other channels.

"Dollar funding at European banks has also worsened and there are signs of dollar assets being squeezed, or so-called deleveraging," he said.

(Additional reporting by Stanley White in Tokyo; Writing by Alex Richardson; Editing by Dean Yates)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111116/bs_nm/us_obama_eurozone

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Democrats see minefield in Occupy protests (AP)

NEW YORK ? The Republican Party and the tea party seemed to be a natural political pairing. But what may have seemed like another politically beneficial alliance ? Democrats and Occupy Wall Street ? hasn't happened.

Although both Democrats and the Occupy protesters have similar views on economic inequality and corporate responsibility, each holds the other at arm's length. There's little benefit to Democrats in opening their arms wide to a scruffy group that has erupted in violence, defied police and shown evidence of drug use while camping in public parks across the country ? much as the prospect of such a pairing delights Republicans.

Many protesters, in turn, are contemptuous of Democrats, arguing that both political parties are equally beholden to corporate interests and responsible for enacting policies that have hurt the middle class.

Both sides may be missing an opportunity. Polling shows the public supports the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement even if people have reservations about the encampments themselves. And political observers say Democrats may be missing a chance to reinvigorate their base.

"It's injecting energy and life into progressive ideas and values, and it's showing some weak-kneed Democrats they should be more aggressive on those issues," Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic strategist and longtime labor leader, said. "I don't think it will translate into boots on the ground or a clear organization for the 2012 election, but it will definitely help shape the debate."

Occupy Wall Street hasn't been easy for risk-averse elected officials to endorse.

The movement has lacked leadership and a clear focus, and illegal behavior has turned off some politicians. Mayors, citing concerns over sanitation and public safety, have begun to crack down on the encampments, and police in riot gear have cleared protesters from several cities, including New York, Portland, Ore., and Oakland, Calif.

Republicans have largely dismissed the Occupy Wall Street as a band of anti-capitalist ruffians, while trying to goad Democrats into embracing the movement or answering for its excesses.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has called the movement dangerous class warfare, while Michele Bachmann called the protesters "ignorant" and "disrespectful."

So far, Democrats have tried to have it both ways ? embracing the movement's economic concerns while steering clear of its rougher edges.

"I think people feel separated from their government," President Barack Obama told ABC News. "They feel that their institutions are not looking out for them." The president has said his jobs plan, which would boost taxes on high earners, is a way to address some of the protesters' concerns.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has gone a step further, posting a petition, "100,000 Strong Standing With Occupy Wall Street," that blames Republican policies for the nation's economic discontent.

But many Occupy Wall Street activists say they are disillusioned with Obama and have no interest in helping him or other Democratic candidates.

"The Occupy movement is rooted in the idea that the political system is broken to such a degree that we can no longer work through the Republican or Democratic parties," Tim Franzen, a spokesman for Occupy Atlanta, said.

"This is not about politics. This is about people," said Marsha Spencer, an Occupy volunteer in New York. "We've lost our government. It's not by the people, for the people anymore. We need to get it back, and we don't need a political party to do that."

Such talk has frustrated some Democratic leaders, who say engaging electoral politics would make the Occupy Wall Street movement more effective.

"I want them to get up and start registering voters, start playing towards the 2012 election," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said at a seminar at Harvard University last week. "Not just the presidential, but congressional and Senate elections and state legislative elections. That's where they can make real change."

At least one candidate seems to be channeling the energy of the Occupy Wall Street movement: Democrat Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor challenging Republican Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Warren's campaign has drawn national attention after she described how the rich should pay more in taxes since they had benefited the most from government policies. Warren later claimed to have laid the "intellectual foundation" for the Occupy movement but stressed that protesters need to obey the law.

While Warren's campaign has drawn intense grass-roots enthusiasm ? an estimated 1,000 people jammed a volunteer meeting in Boston on Sunday ? Republicans are eager to turn her ties to the Occupy movement against her.

Crossroads GPS, a Republican super PAC with ties to former George W. Bush political director Karl Rove, released a television ad in Massachusetts linking Warren to rowdy Occupy protests. The group also called on Warren to "condemn the Occupy Wall Street movement for the escalating criminality, violence and extreme radicalization."

For their part, Republicans recognized an electoral ally in the tea party movement soon after its inception in early 2009, when activists began protesting government spending and the federal bank bailouts.

While many tea party members claimed to be nonpartisan, they were mostly white, older and Republican-leaning and shared the GOP's goal of limiting government and cutting spending. Obama was the poster child for the opposite view. Tea party activists helped drive many of the angry congressional town hall meetings protesting Obama's health care overhaul, and the sweeping Republican victories in the 2010 midterm elections were fueled in large party by tea party enthusiasm.

While the Occupy movement has not had similar tangible goals, activists say it has already had an impact on the political dialogue.

Labor leaders say the movement's message of economic inequality was a factor in Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly repealed a law curtailing public employees' right to collective bargaining. And some are crediting the movement with successfully pressuring Bank of America to drop its plan to charge customers a $5 monthly fee to use their bank cards.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., introduced legislation last week to prevent banks from circumventing state-level caps on interest rates. In an interview with The Associated Press, Whitehouse credited the Occupy movement for renewing public focus on banking practices.

"I'm hoping we can take advantage of some of that interest and energy in this," Whitehouse said.

Karin Hofmann, an Occupy activist in New York, said she was sure Obama's decision to delay approval of the controversial Keystone oil pipeline was a reaction to the Occupy movement.

"We've changed the whole conversation. It's been a paradigm shift," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Erika Niedowski in Providence, R.I., and Leonard Pallats in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111117/ap_on_el_ge/us_occupy_politics

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Microsoft shareholders grumble at brief annual meet (Reuters)

BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) ? Microsoft Corp shareholders filed out of the software giant's annual meeting grumbling that they did not get to ask more questions in their once-a-year opportunity to quiz Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer.

The gathering broke up with only a smattering of applause from 450 or so in attendance, while a handful of shareholders angrily shouted for more time to ask questions, after a strictly enforced 15 minutes.

"Why can't they answer questions for another hour?" said Bill Parker, a shareholder from Cashmere, Washington, a two-hour drive over the Cascade mountains.

"We drove through the snow to get here. He (Ballmer) is talking about tablets and phones as if it were a new thing. Apple's had these things for years. My granddaughters don't even know what Microsoft does. They should treat the owners better than they do."

Despite posting record profit of $23.1 billion last fiscal year, many shareholders are concerned about Microsoft's static share price, which has been stuck in the $20 to $30 range for more than a decade, and worry the company is losing ground to tech rivals Apple Inc and Google Inc.

At the meeting, Ballmer rejected a shareholder suggestion to break up the company, and laid out his often-stated plan to put Windows at the forefront of the company's push into new forms of computing such as tablets. He also highlighted the Xbox video game console as a game-changing consumer device.

In his only utterance, Gates defended the build-up of cash on Microsoft's balance sheet, now totaling more than $57 billion.

"You want to retain enough (cash) so the company has the strength to be able to take big risks even in the face of some economic uncertainty," said Gates. "I've always been a big believer in having a very strong balance sheet for the company."

He added that Microsoft's opportunity to be the best software company is "stronger today than it has ever been," and pointed to "upside" in the phone and tablet business.

ONCE A YEAR

Microsoft's annual meeting is the only time shareholders get to express their concerns directly to Gates, who retired as a day-to-day employee in 2008, and Ballmer.

"I don't know why guys who know their business as well as these guys do seem so hesitant to have a robust interaction with the owners of the company," said Larry Dohrs, from Seattle-based Newground Social Investment, a money manager that targets socially responsible and environmentally friendly investments for clients.

"Give that extra half hour and show us the self-confidence that other management teams show at their annual meeting," said Dohrs.

Microsoft is not alone among big companies in holding brief shareholder meetings, but competitors like Google and Apple typically allow shareholders half an hour or more to question executives.

Dohrs compared the meeting unfavorably to that of retailer Costco, from nearby Issaquah, Washington, which also holds its annual meeting at Bellevue's Meydenbauer Convention Center. Costco CEO James Sinegal likes to answer shareholder questions for many hours.

"In this same room, with a larger crowd, Jim Sinegal stands up there and will answer questions until every last question is responded to," said Dohrs. "From an investor point of view, what could give you a higher level of confidence in the management team than that ability to stand up and answer everything? This was close to the opposite."

Thushara Athukorala, a shareholder from Monterey, California, also bemoaned the lack of time allotted to questions.

"We should have at least two hours. Most shareholders probably have good things to say. We just want to feel good about it," said Athukorala.

"Fourteen minutes and 32 seconds and rush out?" he asked rhetorically, gesturing at the digital clock Microsoft erected by the corner of the stage.

He compared the meeting to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's legendary all-day Q&A sessions at annual meetings for Berkshire Hathaway Inc, whose board Bill Gates sits on.

"Those two guys -- both over 80 -- answer for six hours, non-stop. They don't even take a (bathroom) break," said Athukorala. "No matter what the question is, they had an answer."

Despite the complaints, none of the grumbling shareholders are considering selling their Microsoft stakes.

"I'm a loyal Microsoft shareholder," said Athukorala, "I wouldn't be buying my first house if I didn't have Microsoft shares."

Parker, who says he has owned Microsoft shares from "day one" -- Microsoft went public in 1986 -- is not yet ready to sell his shares, which are in a college fund for his grandchildren.

"They keep sending me a dividend check," he said.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; editing by John Wallace)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/software/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111115/bs_nm/us_microsoft

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