The Artist 2011

The Artist ( 2011) DVD DVDRip 1 Link NO RAR

IMDB Rating: The Artist (2011) - IMDb
Genre: Romance | Comedy | Drama
Director: Michel Hazanavicius
Writer: Michel Hazanavicius
Stars: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo and John Goodman
Trailer: The Artist Trailer 2011 HD - YouTube
Spoken language: English
Texted language (subtitles): English/Spanish

Plot:
Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

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Judith S. Beck, Ph.D.: The Reasons I Chose CBT

Every now and then I'm asked the question, "Why do you practice cognitive behavior therapy (CBT)?" Aside from the fact that my father, Aaron T. Beck, is the "father" of cognitive therapy, it's the the most widely researched and evidence-based form of psychotherapy; it's been shown in hundreds and hundreds of clinical trials to be effective for a wide range of psychiatric disorders, psychological problems, and even some medical conditions with psychological components (chronic pain conditions, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, obesity, for instance). If you had a vision problem, wouldn't you first seek the treatment that's been researched and demonstrated to be most effective? Why should it be different for psychiatric disorders or psychological problems? Beside the overwhelming body of research that supports CBT, this therapy simply makes the most sense to me.

Jennifer, a 36-year-old married woman, is a typical depressed patient. She's been clinically depressed for about nine months. Last year, Jennifer was laid off from work. Since then, she's had difficulty getting out of bed in the morning and completing everyday tasks: washing clothes, straightening the living room, making dinner, opening mail. She talks with friends infrequently and rarely socializes. She reports feeling "sad" and "worn out." She presents as self-critical, often blaming herself for things out of her control. She's lost interest in the things that used to bring her a sense of achievement -- things she used to find enjoyable (cooking dinner for her family, painting, gardening and reading). She reports that her interactions with friends and family members -- her husband, parents and sister with whom she's always had good relationships -- feel effortful, and so she isolates herself.

As a cognitive behavior therapist, it makes the most sense to me to work with Jennifer on the problems she's experiencing now. First I'll orient Jennifer to treatment. We'll work collaboratively, setting specific treatment goals and choosing specific problems to work on that Jennifer expects to encounter in the coming week. I'll teach Jennifer the cognitive and behavioral skills she needs to help get her life in order and reduce her suffering. I'll provide her with the rationales for the strategies and interventions we'll use, and I'll establish and maintain a strong therapeutic rapport by actively listening, demonstrating empathy and support and asking Jennifer for feedback (to make sure I understood her correctly and that she agrees with the treatment plan).

Together, we'll create an activity schedule which includes getting out of bed by 9 a.m., showering and dressing immediately, and preparing and eating breakfast. I'll ask Jennifer for some other activities or tasks she might be willing to try. Together we may decide to add calling a specific friend, doing one load of laundry and reading the newspaper for 20-minutes to her activity schedule. I'll help Jennifer identify and respond to the thoughts and ideas that might prevent her from doing these activities, such as, "I'll never be able to get myself out of bed before 9a.m.", "I don't have it in me to cook breakfast", "Lisa won't want to hear from me." And I'll help Jennifer develop more realistic and adaptive views and modify her more deeply-held beliefs about herself ("I'm worthless"), her world ("Life is too hard") and her future ("I'll never feel better"), which have become activated during this bout with depression (and which could contribute to a future relapse). CBT requires patients and therapists to work actively together. I'll provide direction and keep Jennifer focused on one problem at a time, I'll offer suggestions, and I'll teach skills, all of which will help Jennifer recover more quickly.

I practice this therapy, ultimately, because it's effective and humane, it helps alleviate suffering quickly, and it aims to prevent relapse.

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Follow Judith S. Beck, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/beckinstitute

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-s-beck-phd/cognitive-behavior-therapy-_b_1106168.html

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They call it 'guppy love': Biologists solve an evolution mystery

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Guppies in the wild have evolved over at least half-a-million years ? long enough for the males' coloration to have changed dramatically. Yet a characteristic orange patch on male guppies has remained remarkably stable, though it could have become redder or more yellow. Why has it stayed the same hue of orange over such a long period of time?

Because that's the color female guppies prefer.

"Sometimes populations have to evolve just to stay the same," said Greg Grether, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and co-author of a study published Nov. 23 in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, a major journal for research in evolutionary biology.

"In this case, the males have evolved back over and over again to the color that females prefer," said Grether, who noted that there are many examples in which there is less variation among populations of a species than life scientists would expect.

The new study, funded by the National Science Foundation, "provides a neat solution to a mystery that has puzzled me for years," he said.

The orange patches on male guppies are made up of two pigments: carotenoids (which they ingest in their diets and are yellow) and drosopterins (which are red and which their bodies produce). Carotenoids are the same pigments that provide color to vegetables and fruits. Plants produce carotenoids, but animals generally cannot; guppies obtain most of their carotenoids from algae.

UCLA's Kerry Deere, the lead author of the study, conducted experiments in which she presented female guppies (Poecilia reticulata) with a choice of males with low, medium and high levels of drosopterin to see which males they preferred. In her experiments, the females were given a wider range of pigment choices than they would find in the wild. Deere, who was a graduate student of ecology and evolutionary biology in Grether's laboratory at the time and is currently a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in human genetics, conducted more than 100 mate-choice trials.

The females strongly preferred the intermediate males, those whose patches, or spots, were the right hue of orange ? not too red and not too yellow.

"The females preferred the males with an intermediate drosopterin level by a highly significant margin," Deere said.

"Males that are closer to this preferred hue probably have more offspring," Grether said.

If guppies were dependent only on carotenoids for their orange coloration, one would expect to find large changes in the color of their orange patches because the availability of algae varies by location. Guppies are native to Trinidad and Venezuela; the ones in this study were from Trinidad.

(Unlike the colorful guppies sold in pet stores, female guppies in the wild do not have bright coloration like the orange patches. Males are not as ornate, or as large, as the pet-store variety either.)

"A pattern I discovered 10 years ago, which was mysterious at first, is that in locations where more carotenoids are available in their diet, guppies produce more of the drosopterins," Grether said. "There is a very strong pattern of the ratio of these two kinds of pigments staying about the same.

"To human eyes at least, as the proportion of carotenoids in the spots goes up, the spots look yellower, and as the proportion of drosopterins goes up, the spots look redder. By maintaining a very similar ratio of the two pigments across sites, the fish maintain a similar hue of orange from site to site. What is maintaining the similar pigment ratio across sites and across populations? The reason for the lack of variation is that genetic changes counteract environmental changes. The males have evolved differences in drosopterin production that keep the hue relatively constant across environments. As a result of Kerry's experiment, we now have good evidence that female mate choice is responsible for this pattern."

While there are many cases in nature in which genetic variation in a trait masks environmental variation, there are very few examples where the cause is known.

"I originally assumed if there was variation among populations in drosopterin production, it would be the populations where carotenoid availability was lowest that were producing more of these synthetic pigments to compensate for the lack of carotenoids in their diet. But we found the opposite pattern," Grether said. "They're not using drosopterins as a carotenoid substitute; they're matching carotenoid levels with drosopterins. Why they are doing that was a mystery. The answer appears to be that it enables them to maintain the hue that female guppies prefer."

###

University of California - Los Angeles: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu

Thanks to University of California - Los Angeles for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115457/They_call_it__guppy_love___Biologists_solve_an_evolution_mystery

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A Brief Study of Entrepreneurial Finance on Venture Life Cycle ...

home > Management > A Brief Study of Entrepreneurial Finance on Venture Life Cycle

?Abstract? In the last 30 years the rate of Chinese economic growth has been almost miraculous, averaging 8% growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per annum, particularly within the SME section, which mainly grew from entrepreneurial venture, accounts 98% of total number of enterprises, 58% of total GDP, provides 75% of total employment. The world economy now faced great challenges, and so as China. Our government greatly encourages entrepreneurship and venture enterprise, therefore, entrepreneurial financing became a crucial problem to be studied and researched.This paper is based on theoretical discussion and practical case study. Firstly, it defined the entrepreneurial finance related concepts and illustrated the venture life cycle theory. Secondly, it discussed the related financing theory, selection of financing channels and entrepreneurial financing planning on venture life cycle approach. Joint those fundamental theories and principles with real case study, we furthered the research in a practical perspective. This paper, from an entrepreneur viewpoint, comprehensively discussed entrepreneurial finance and its practice in China, provided some valuable reference and guideline for an entrepreneurial venture.Through the research in this paper, we found that entrepreneurial venture has obvious features of high risk and high potential return, entrepreneurial financing has many obstacles in terms of valuation, information asymmetry, moral hazard and so on. The valuation of venture was considered as a subject between science and arts, quantitive models usually do not work well, in practice, quality models and even the venture capitalists? instinct and experience played a very important role. Based on life cycle approach, this paper studied how to plan entrepreneurial financing in different life cycle stage, in terms of balancing short-term and long-term fund needs, optimizing the financing cost, trade off the benefit and loss by different contractual terms and conditions arrangement. Finally, the author provided some suggestions and outlook in macro landscape perspective, including the credit system, finance market, venture investment, GEM and so on. This paper, from entrepreneur?s and practical perspective, intend to provide theoretical and practical viewpoints assisting development of entrepreneur venture in China.

Title: A Brief Study of Entrepreneurial Finance on Venture Life Cycle
Category: Management economics
Filename: A Brief Study of Entrepreneurial Finance on Venture Life Cycle.pdf
Pages: 184
Price: US$40.00
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Wild sign 51-year old hockey goaltender

Minnesota Wild emergency backup goalie, 51-year-0ld Paul Deutsch, right, visits with temmate Brad Staubitz during warmups prior to an NHL hockey game against the Nashville Predators, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Minnesota Wild emergency backup goalie, 51-year-0ld Paul Deutsch, right, visits with temmate Brad Staubitz during warmups prior to an NHL hockey game against the Nashville Predators, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Minnesota Wild emergency backup goalie, 51-year-old Paul Deutsch, right, visits with Nashville Predators goalie Anders Lindback, of Sweden, during warmups prior to an NHL hockey game on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Minnesota Wild emergency backup goalie, 51-year-old Paul Deutsch heads to the net to warm up prior to an NHL hockey game against the Nashville Predators, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) ? Paul Deutsch's pals in his recreational hockey league needed to find a replacement goalie Wednesday night. The 51-year-old embroidery shop owner was going to be suiting up for another team: The NHL's Minnesota Wild.

The Wild signed Deutsch to an amateur tryout contract to serve as an emergency backup to starter Josh Harding for Wednesday's game against the Nashville Predators.

"Actually giving up my Wednesday night game," Deutsch said. "We play at Bloomington Ice Gardens at 9:45 p.m. till they turn the lights off. Tonight's the night. I can't make it."

Deutsch was signed after Niklas Backstrom was declared out for personal reasons. Matt Hackett was recalled from Houston, but his flight wasn't scheduled to land in the Twin Cities until about 6:30 p.m. and, with the holiday traffic, Minnesota couldn't take any chances of being short a goaltender.

Deutsch's improbable shot at playing in an NHL game ended almost as quickly as it started, though. Hackett arrived at the arena just before the 7 p.m. game time and Deutsch was scratched.

Wearing a pair of former Wild goaltender Manny Fernandez's pads, Deutsch participated in pregame warmups.

"Pretty nervous and I just want to make sure I don't do anything stupid," Deutsch said. "Stay out of their way and do what I'm supposed to do, give Harding a break when he needs one and let the guys fire away."

Deutsch never made it to the bench during the game. Instead he watched from a suite with members of his daughter's under-14 girl's hockey team. Deutsch is a coach for the team and the suite was arranged long before Deutsch received a call from the Wild.

"Another goaltending controversy there, if he got in there, who knows," Wild coach Mike Yeo joked after the game. "It's great for him and he handled it great. Guys really enjoyed having him in there."

Deutsch watched the Wild win their fifth straight game with starting goaltender Josh Harding making 23 saves. He likely felt much more comfortable watching from the suite than he would have at ice-level.

"Told me I better be good tonight so he didn't have to go in," Harding said. "It was a lot of fun for him."

Deutsch's signing was not as unlikely as it seems for someone who last played in a competitive league in 1978, when he was a junior varsity defenseman for Minneapolis Roosevelt High School.

He is a good friend of former Wild assistant coach Mike Ramsey and has been used as a fill-in goalie at Minnesota practices.

And because of NHL rules, the Wild weren't allowed to sign a goaltender with professional experience. Deutsch's amateur tryout contract fit within the rules.

"It's very nervous," Deutsch said. "Practice is one thing. I have to tell you the game faces are on. I don't see that very often with these guys. At practice it's calm, laughing and ha-has. Game day is different."

Deutsch runs a screen printing and embroidery store in a St. Paul suburb and plays recreational hockey. He didn't even start playing goalie until he was 37.

"When you play senior men's hockey and there is no goalie, there is no game," Deutsch said. "That's how I started. I was tired of coming into the room and saying 'Oh rats, there aren't two goalies.' Guys would literally go home. So I said, "You know what, I'm going to play."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-24-Wild-51-Year-Old%20Goalie/id-43f296f3ee5b43e4ac42f0c8f6012960

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Earlier deals, longer hours woo Friday shoppers (AP)

A few violent incidents broke out across the country on Black Friday as millions of shoppers rushed into stores that opened their doors several hours earlier than usual on the most anticipated shopping day of the year.

Early signs point to bigger crowds at the nation's malls and stores as retailers like Macy's and Target opened their doors at midnight. Toys R Us and a few stores other stores that opened on Thanksgiving Day also were filled with shoppers.

The early morning crowds were mostly peaceful, but Los Angeles authorities say 20 people at a local Walmart store suffered minor injuries when a woman used pepper spray to gain a "competitive" shopping advantage shortly after the store opened on Thursday evening. In Fayetteville, N.C., police are looking for two suspects after gunfire erupted early Friday at Cross Creek Mall. And police say two women have been injured and a man charged after a fight broke out at an upstate New York Walmart.

Later in the morning, a Phoenix television station KSAZ reported that a grandfather in a Walmart in Buckeye, Ariz., was roughed up by police after the man allegedly put a game in his waistband so that he could lift his grandson out of the crowd. Witnesses told the station that police slammed the man to the ground ? possibly thinking he was stealing the game.

Adding to that, some Occupy Wall Street protesters, which turned up for the Macy's midnight opening, are expected to plan flash mobs and other events later in the day in places like Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Boise, Idaho to urge people to reconsider shopping at national chains on Black Friday.

The incidents come as a record number of shoppers are expected to head out to stores across the country this weekend to take advantage of discounts of up to 70 percent. For three days starting on Black Friday, 152 million people are expected shop, up about 10 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Indeed, about 600 shoppers were in line at a Target store in Brooklyn in New York when it opened at midnight. By the time it opened at midnight, nearly 2,000 shoppers wrapped around a Best Buy store in St. Petersburg, Fla. Mall of America, the nation's largest mall in North America, had 15,000 shoppers for its midnight opening. And more than 9,000 people were outside the flagship Macy's store in New York's Herald Square at its midnight opening, up from 7,000 a year ago.

"I came here for the deals," said Sidiki Traore, 59, from Roosevelt Island, N.Y. who bought three shirts for $50 at the Macy's. He also went to Toys R Us for its 9 p.m. opening on Thanksgiving and bought three toys for $106 for his four-year-old son.

The crowds are good news for retailers, many of which depend on the busy holiday shopping season for up to 40 percent of their annual revenue. To draw in shoppers this year, they pulled out of their bag of tricks. In addition to several retailers opening much earlier than previous years, some began offering to match the prices of competitors and rolling out layaway programs.

Their strategy seems to be working. About 34 percent of consumers said they planned to shop on Black Friday, up from 31 percent last year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Shoppers on Friday say they were mostly were lured into stores by the deals, that include discounts of 20 to 60 percent on many items at The Gap and a $400 Asus Transformer 10-inch tablet computer for $249.99 at Best Buy.

After showing up at Best Buy in New York on Wednesday at 3 p.m., Emmanuel Merced, 27, and his brother were the first in line when it opened. On their list was a Sharp 42-inch TV for $199, a PlayStation 3 console with games for $199.99 and wireless headphones for $30. Merced says he likes camping out for Black Friday and he figures he saved 50 percent.

"I like the experience of it," says Merced, who plans to spend $3,000 to $4,000 on gifts this season.

To be sure, not every stores was full of people looking for deals on Black Friday. At a Target on Chicago's north side, crowds were light four hours after the store opened. And door-buster deals, including the typically quick-to-sell out TVs and gaming systems, remained piled up in their boxes. Shoppers pushed carts through mostly empty aisles while thumbing through circulars and employees - some in Santa hats - roamed the store. There was no Christmas music ? or any music ? playing.

Rebecca Carter, a graduate assistant, began Black Friday shopping at 11 p.m. on Thursday night and left Target around 4 a.m. carrying a bag full of pillows. Carter, who prowls Black Friday deals every year, said crowds were noticeably lighter this year as she and a friend picked up a television set ($180 for a 32-inch TV) and a laptop for $198, along with toys and pajamas.

"It's quiet," she says. "There were all these televisions still there. It was shocking."

At a Walmart supercenter in Cary, N.C., things were quiet around 7 a.m. after a mad rush the night before. Sheranae and Stephen Stoddard were glad for the peace as they browsed for their two children, ages 2 and 4.

"I think Black Friday is mostly hype," said Stephen, 27, who works as a security guard. "They put on the sale the things that haven't been selling throughout the year."

David Bassuk, managing director of retail at AlixPartners, a consultancy, says retailers are going to have to do a lot of discounting during the holiday shopping season to keep customers coming back.

"Consumers have made it clear that they're only going to spend so much money, and the people who are going to get them to open their wallet first are going to win," he says. "This is a consumer who is smart and well informed but also cash-strapped and cautious."

_____

Retail writer Mae Anderson reported from New York. AP writers Anne D'Innocenzio in New York, Christina Rexrode in Cary, N.C. and Ashley Heher in Chicago contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_bi_ge/us_black_friday

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AP Source: JP Morgan buys LME stake from MF Global

A person familiar with the deal says J.P. Morgan is buying a stake in the London Metal Exchange from MF Global Holdings.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is paying 25 million pounds ($39.1 million) for a 4.7 percent slice of the London Metal Exchange. That's according to a source with knowledge of the deal who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

J.P. Morgan already has a 6.2 percent stake in the London Metal Exchange.

MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 31 after making a disastrous bet on European debt.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-22-US-MF-Global-London-Metal-Exchange/id-925ad9db85f14630881a2a72fd4a42c0

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Open Thread: There Will Be Blood (Balloon Juice)

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Sprint releases Unlimited iPhone 4S commercial

Sprint has released its first commercial for the iPhone 4S titled ?Unlimited iPhone?. The ad is all about the Sprint unlimited data plan that comes with an iPhone 4S on its network.

With over half a million apps, there’s no limit to what the iPhone can do. So why

...

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DisplayLink adds DVI to its USB display adapter repertoire, in Japan

Tired of all those USB to HDMI adapters? Got yourself a monitor sporting only an old-school DVI port? Well, don't worry, DisplayLink has your back... as long as you live in Japan. The cumbersomely named I-O DATA USB-RGB3/D USB 3.0 to DVI display adapter just hit shelves in the Land of the Rising Sun for the equivalent of $137. By hooking up to a computer's USB 3.0 port the adapter is able to push video at resolutions up to 2048 x 1152 over a standard DVI cable. It's a great way to salvage that aging, but still high-quality display if you've got a newer notebook that's gone the HDMI-only route. Hopefully some adapters powered by DisplayLink's tech will start making their way stateside soon. If not, there's always imports. Check out the complete PR after the break.

Continue reading DisplayLink adds DVI to its USB display adapter repertoire, in Japan

DisplayLink adds DVI to its USB display adapter repertoire, in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan?s quake-hit regions promote disaster tourism

Bakery and cake shop ?Eclair? serves customers in the tsunami-hit city of Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture after it reopened following the March 11 tsunami and earthquake disaster. ? AFP/Relaxnews pic

TOKYO, Nov 19 ? Companies and communities in Japan?s disaster-stricken northeast are devising schemes to earn a living from their misfortune, eight months after their livelihoods were wiped out by the biggest natural disaster to strike the nation in living memory.

Those efforts received a boost this week when the foreign ministry announced that foreign tourists who visit Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima ? the three prefectures worst affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami ? will not have to pay for a visa from next week. The scheme will run until at least November 2016, the ministry said, and travellers will be required to show transport tickets or proof of their accommodation to be exempt from paying for a tourist visa.

The visas cost ?3,000 (RM123) for a single entry and ?6,000 for multiple entries and the scheme is aimed at visitors from countries such as China, Thailand and Malaysia. Travellers from a number of countries are already not required to pay for a tourist visa.

Some 77,000 tourists visited the three prefectures in 2010, but numbers have been significantly lower since March 11, falling 88 per cent in Fukushima and 90 per cent in Iwate during the second quarter.

But people who earned a living from the tourism industry in the affected areas are devising their own schemes to attract visitors.

A group of residents of the port town of Otsuchi, for example, is inviting visitors to stay in their homes and experience fishing and farming in the community. They are also creating a tourism centre to show the history of the town and the damage that the earthquake and tsunami caused, while they also plan to train local guides and produce souvenirs from the town.

Elsewhere, Sanriku Railway Co. started tours of disaster areas as early as May and has so far taken more than 1,000 people through some of the hardest hit parts of Iwate Prefecture. JTB Tohoku Inc. introduced similar tours of Rikuzentakata in October.

Another proposal is to create a Japanese version of Germany?s famous Fairytale Road the length of the coast of Iwate Prefecture. The route would take in the key points of the towns of Otsuchi, Kamaichi and Hanamaki ? which served as the backdrop for many of the poems and fairy tales that were written by Kenji Miyazawa.

The organisers hope to imitate the route that has been created in Germany to follow the tales of the Brothers Grimm and attract both domestic and foreign visitors. ? AFP/Relaxnews

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UN bashing is popular among Republican candidates (AP)

UNITED NATIONS ? Bashing the United Nations seldom fails as an applause line for Republican presidential candidates.

Mitt Romney says the U.N. too often becomes a forum for tyrants when it should promote democracy and human rights. Newt Gingrich pledges to take on the U.N.'s "absurdities." Herman Cain says he would change some of its rules. Rick Perry says he would consider pulling the United States out of the U.N. altogether.

All that U.N. bashing has raised questions about whether a Republican victory could strain the relationship between the United Nations and its host country, the United States.

President Barack Obama's Democratic administration considers the U.N. critical to the country's interests, while Republicans traditionally have been disenchanted with the world body over America's inability to reliably win support for its positions. It doesn't help that U.N. members often criticize American policies, especially as they relate to Israel and the Palestinians.

That was reinforced last month when the U.N. cultural agency voted to approve a Palestinian bid for full membership in that body, and the U.S. responded by cutting off funding.

Yet history shows that any American president learns to get along with the United Nations "simply because there's a lot of stuff the U.N. does that is useful to the United States," said David Bosco, who writes the Multilateralist blog for Foreign Policy magazine.

Case in point: Even the harshest American critics were silent earlier this month when the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog concluded that Iran was probably developing nuclear arms.

Bosco, also an assistant professor at American University's School of International Service, noted that the Republican administration of George W. Bush supported a major expansion in U.N. peacekeeping despite regular sniping about the world body.

But the relationship wasn't a smooth one. Tensions ran high between the U.S. and the world body during the Bush presidency, especially when outspoken John Bolton was the U.S. ambassador.

U.N. officials have declined to comment on the possibility that a Republican win could strain the United Nations' relationship with the U.S.

"The United States is an important state at the United Nations and we would expect that relationship would continue under any administration," said Martin Nesirky, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The presidential race has been dominated by the economy and other domestic issues, but foreign affairs are taking on greater importance and will be the subject of a debate by the Republican candidates Tuesday, giving them another chance to air their views on the U.N.

Cain says he has read and admires Bolton's foreign policy views, which are highly critical of the United Nations. But the former ambassador to the U.N. said Friday he has not endorsed any of the candidates.

One of the loudest U.N. critics among the candidates is Perry, the Texas governor who has recently slipped in the polls. "I think it's time for us to have a very serious discussion about defunding the United Nations," he declared in October.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said in 2007 that U.N. failures were "simply astonishing," but he has been more measured during the current campaign.

U.N. supporters say that when the candidates bash the world organization, they are simply playing to the most conservative Republicans: the primary voters and caucus-goers needed early in the electoral contest.

"My sense is that if any of them were to be elected president, they would quickly realize that the U.N. serves American interests," said Peter Yeo, vice president for public policy of the U.N. Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the world body's work.

"They would find a way to constructively work within the U.N. system," Yeo added.

Detractors say that the candidates are just being truthful.

"I wouldn't call it U.N. bashing; I'd call it U.N. realism," said Bolton. "I think the issue for the United States is what to do to make the U.N. more effective, and the answer to that has to lie in how it is funded."

Contributions to the U.N.'s regular budget are assessed on a scale based primarily on a country's ability to pay. Additional contributions to U.N. entities such as the children's agency UNICEF are voluntary.

The U.S. assessment is the highest ? 22 percent of the total U.N. operating budget. By comparison, China pays 3 percent.

In the 2010 budget year, the U.S. provided $7.7 billion to the U.N. for its regular budget, peacekeeping and other programs, up from $6.1 billion the previous year.

House Republicans recently introduced legislation to force the U.N. to adopt a voluntary funding system. The administration opposes it and it is unlikely to become law.

___

Online:

U.N. Foundation: http://www.unfoundation.org

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111119/ap_on_el_pr/un_un_republican_candidates

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Obama: U.S. must rely more on building instead of buying (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama said on Saturday the United States has relied too much on buying, consuming and amassing debt in the past decade and must now work harder to restore its manufacturing might to spur exports and create jobs.

As Obama wrapped up a nine-day Asia-Pacific tour and headed back to Washington, he used his weekly radio address to tout business deals announced during his trip that he estimated would support nearly 130,000 American jobs and potentially raise U.S. exports by up to $39 billion.

He had cast his travels as a bid to re-engage with the world's fastest-growing region and boost trade ties there, largely to help lift the U.S. economy and curb 9 percent unemployment, regarded as crucial to his 2012 re-election.

But Obama also put some of the onus on the nation to change its ways. "Over the last decade, we became a country that relied too much on what we bought and consumed. We racked up a lot of debt, but we didn't create many jobs at all," Obama said in a speech broadcast after an East Asia summit in Bali.

"If we want an economy that's built to last and built to compete, we have to change that. We have to restore America's manufacturing might, which is what helped us build the largest middle-class in history," Obama said.

It was another example of the tough-love rhetoric Obama has occasionally used with the American public and businesses struggling through hard economic times and as lawmakers in Washington remain gridlocked over U.S. jobs and deficit woes.

While hosting an Asia-Pacific summit in Honolulu last weekend, Obama suggested the United States had been partly to blame for losing ground to China and other competitors for not working harder to attract foreign investment.

"We've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades," Obama said at the time. "We've kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here -- and we aren't out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America."

Some Republican presidential candidates jumped on those remarks, accusing Obama of calling Americans lazy. But the Democratic president's supporters dismissed that as distorting what he said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111119/pl_nm/us_obama_jobs

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Greece promises sharper deficit cut in 2012

Greek Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos, speaks during a news conference on the 2012 budget in Athens, on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Greece's finance minister says a new debt deal and bond writedown to be agreed by banks will make Greece's national debt "totally sustainable." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Greek Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos, speaks during a news conference on the 2012 budget in Athens, on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Greece's finance minister says a new debt deal and bond writedown to be agreed by banks will make Greece's national debt "totally sustainable." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Greek Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos, left, and Greek Prime minister Lukas Papademos chat during a parliament meeting on the 2012 budget, in Athens, on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Greece's finance minister says a new debt deal and bond writedown to be agreed by banks will make Greece's national debt "totally sustainable." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Greek Parliament Speaker Philippos Petsalnikos holds a flash drive containing the 2012 state budget in Parliament in Athens on Friday, Nov.18, 2011. Greece's finance minister says a new debt deal and bond writedown to be agreed by banks will make Greece's national debt "totally sustainable." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Greek Prime minister Lukas Papademos listens during a parliament meeting on the 2012 budget, in Athens, on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Greece's finance minister says a new debt deal and bond writedown to be agreed by banks will make Greece's national debt "totally sustainable." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Greek Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos speaks in parliament prior to the submission of the 2012 budget, in Athens, on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Greece's finance minister says a new debt deal and bond writedown to be agreed by banks will make Greece's national debt "totally sustainable." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Greece predicted Friday that its budget deficit will fall sharply next year, helped by a bond writedown, and insisted that no fresh austerity measures will be needed to plug a hole in this year's finances.

Submitting the 2012 budget, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the deficit will shrink from an expected 9 percent of gross domestic product this year to 5.4 in 2012 year, lower than previous targets.

Next year's figure factors in writedowns on the value of Greek bonds held by private creditors as part of a second international bailout agreed by European leaders last month. Without it, the deficit would have shrunk to 6.7 percent of GDP next year, according to budget calculations.

The new bailout was negotiated to save Greece from bankruptcy and a possible exit from the euro.

"This budget comes during extremely hard international conditions ... the attack is now focusing on the hard core of the eurozone," the minister said, referring to rising borrowing rates in larger countries like Italy.

Venizelos, who kept his job in the new interim coalition government formed last week and led by technocrat Lucas Papademos, said the new debt deal will make the country's national debt "totally sustainable."

The deal includes provisions for banks and other private holders of Greek bonds to write off 50 percent of their Greek debt holdings ? potentially cutting the country's debt by euro100 billion and reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 120 percent by 2020 from an expected 161.7 percent this year . But the details have not yet been worked out, and negotiations have only just begun.

Greece has been relying on international bailout loans since May 2010 after its borrowing rates ballooned. The country turned to its European partners and the International Monetary Fund, winning an initial euro110 billion ($148 billion) bailout in return for an austerity package to cut deficits bloated by years of government overspending. It soon became clear that the rescue loans were not enough, and European leaders agreed on a second deal as part of a package to shore up a debt crisis that's been spreading to bigger economies, such as Italy.

"The entire process is voluntary," Venizelos said of the bond writedown. "There won't be one model for Greek banks and foreign banks (alike), but there will be two or three variations and anybody can pick the one that suits them."

Gripped by a vicious financial crisis since last year, the Greek government has imposed a series of harsh austerity measures, including salary and pension cuts and increased taxes.

But the measures have led to a deep recession, with the economy projected to contract by 5.5 percent of GDP this year, and a further 2.8 percent next year. Unemployment is also steadily increasing, with the jobless figure expected to reach 15.4 percent this year and 17.1 percent in 2012.

"When it comes to direct taxes, the mechanisms must work. And ours suffer from great deficiencies," Venizelos said, referring to the country's notoriously inefficient tax collection system.

"We all want to be rich and healthy, nobody wants to be poor and sick. But we must save the country, remain in the euro ... and maintain our standard of living," Venizelos said.

On a positive note, for the first time in several years Greece expects to post a primary surplus ? a budget surplus when not counting interest rate payments on outstanding debt ? of 1.1 percent of GDP next year.

"After very many years we can present a primary surplus of 1.1 percent," Venizelos said. "We started with a primary deficit of euro24 billion in 2009, and are achieving a 2.5 billion primary surplus in 2012. This is under very hard circumstances and a deeper recession than initially expected."

Parliamentary debate on the budget is to start on Dec. 3 and be completed on Dec. 7, so it can be voted on before an EU summit set for Dec. 8-9, the minister said.

Venizelos and Papademos met separately Friday evening with a delegation from Greece's international creditors ? the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Commission ? for talks on releasing a vital euro8 billion installment of the country's current bailout. Without the funds, Greece will go bankrupt before Christmas.

The delegation of creditors will meet Saturday with the leader of conservative New Democracy party Antonis Samaras.

Papademos, a former central banker and vice president of the ECB, also met Bank of Greece governor George Provopoulos and travels to Brussels on Monday to see top EU officials. He then heads on to Luxembourg Tuesday for talks with eurozone head Jean-Claude Juncker.

Papademos was appointed last week to head a coalition government formed following laborious power-sharing talks between the country's main parties. The discussions followed a severe political crisis sparked by his predecessor's sudden announcement that he would put the new debt deal to a referendum.

The government, which is only expected to last until elections in February, won a confidence vote earlier this week. Its mandate is to save Greece from bankruptcy by securing continued payment of the rescue loans, approve last month's bailout deal and implement sweeping reforms already passed.

____

Elena Becatoros and Demetris Nellas contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-18-EU-Greece-Financial-Crisis/id-5c2f8aea57c440beb2485016ebc00ef1

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Bieber baby drama may not be over yet

Mariah Yeater may still be out for blood. Or at least a cheek swab.

After switching up the legal team that filed ? and subsequently filed to dismiss ? her paternity suit against Justin Bieber, the 20-year-old mother of a 4-month-old son has obtained new counsel and is moving forward with her mission to get the teen heartthrob to take a DNA test, E! News confirms.

And just because she's not suing the teen heartthrob right now, however, doesn't mean she never will again, says attorney Jeffrey Leving, the remaining lawyer from her original team.

MORE: Justin Bieber Flips the Bird in London

The case was dismissed "without prejudice," Leving asserted. "That means we can refile it at any time...It can be filed again tomorrow."

In the meantime, the Chicago-based attorney has handpicked two new West Coast members of Yeater's legal camp, John Carlson of Los Angeles and Art Kallow of San Diego.

Leving says that their client is still getting death threats and is coping as well as any 20-year-old single mom with "no money [who's] being stalked" can be. So, he adds, it would be best if any future paternity test could take place outside the proverbial confines of the court "so we don't have a media circus."

READ: Five Other Alleged Baby Daddies Who Let Their DNA Do the Talking

"We want privacy," he says, "and we want to wrap this up."

Well, Bieber might want a little something for his troubles, too.

While his lawyer hasn't yet returned calls for comment, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik told E! News Wednesday that Team Bieber will "continue to consider all of our options to protect Justin."

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GALLERY: Justin Bieber ? What's the appeal?

After performing on the German version of "The X Factor" Tuesday, the 17-year-old tweeted that he had "a great time," and, "I love and appreciate the fans! they get me thru everything. Im here for them!"

Presumably when he says "everything," that includes this particular pickle.

? Reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum

? 2011 E! Online

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45331751/ns/today-entertainment/

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Occupy London protesters "repossess" UBS site (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? British anti-capitalist protesters occupied a third location in London on Friday, "repossessing" a large empty office block owned by Swiss banking giant UBS.

A dozen protesters from the "Occupy London" group scaled ladders to gain access overnight to the first floor of the sprawling office complex in the capital's financial district.

"UBS was bailed out for $60 billion in 2008 and had a rogue trader that lost billions just this year," said the group's spokeswoman Tanya Paton.

"It just shows how wealthy and incompetent banks are that they can lose this money and not even notice. Swiss banks have been used as a tax haven for everyone from the Nazis to Gaddafi."

The Occupy London group, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, has set up camps outside St Paul's Cathedral and in Finsbury Square in the heart of the City.

The choice of site for a third occupation appeared a mixture of pragmatism as well as ideology. The UBS building is well-known to squatters and was used by them during a meeting of G20 leaders in London in 2008.

Protesters led Reuters on a tour of the cavernous complex. Rubble-filled rooms were littered with screwdrivers, tins of paint, ropes and bedding.

Occupiers had been tidying up with brooms and vacuum cleaners. An executive pay advice brochure lay discarded under piles of broken glass on damp-stained carpets. Old computers, invoice files and Venetian blinds were still in place.

"BANK OF IDEAS"

The protesters said the location would be reopened on Saturday as a "Bank of Ideas" but there would be no permanent residential occupation as at the other camps.

The Occupy group argued while banks were repossessing homes of families who could not keep up their mortgage repayments, they were sitting on huge empty properties themselves. Official figures show 9,200 homes in Britain were repossessed by mortgage lenders in the third quarter of the year.

"We hope this is the first in a wave of 'public repossessions' of property belonging to companies that crashed the global economy," said protester Jack Holburn.

UBS has been in the headlines in Britain after one of its London-based employees was charged with rogue trading which the bank said had cost it some $2.3 billion.

Kweku Adoboli, a former director of exchange traded funds at UBS, is due to enter a plea to those charges in court next week.

UBS, which confirmed it was the legal owners of the site, said the building was unoccupied and the action had no impact on either its business or its staff.

"We are aware of the situation and are taking appropriate action," the bank said in a statement.

Under laws governing squatting, building owners have to go to court to obtain a possession order, a procedure that usually takes about a month, the Occupy group said.

On Thursday, the anti-capitalists defied a deadline to remove their tents from outside St Paul's Cathedral. The City of London Corporation, which owns much of the land on which the 200 tents were pitched a month ago, will now begin legal proceedings in the High Court to remove them.

The corporation has followed different methods from New York authorities, which used riot police to kick out Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in a surprise pre-dawn raid on Tuesday.

(Writing by Michael Holden; editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111118/wl_nm/us_britain_occupy

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Fandango debuts mobile phone tickets for movies (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Online ticket seller Fandango said Thursday that customers heading to see movies on more than 1,000 screens owned by Regal Entertainment Corp. no longer have to print out tickets ? as long as they have a cellphone with a screen.

Fangango will now send movie-goers a bar code that ticket-takers at participating theaters will read using a scanner.

The paperless system is launching just in time for Friday's debut of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1."

Regal theaters across the country will accept the bar-code tickets, including in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Honolulu, Knoxville, Tenn., Lexington, Ky., Los Angeles, Nashville, Tenn., New York, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111117/ap_en_mo/us_regal_fandango

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Surety Bond: Breast-Feeding May Increase Children's IQ

News | Mind & Brain

When it comes to brain development, the missing ingredient in bottle-feeding is a bond with the mother, not the chemicals in the milk

By R. Douglas Fields ?| November 16, 2011

Image: shingleback, courtesy Flickr

Children breast-fed longer than six months scored a 3.8-point IQ margin over those who were bottle-fed, according to a seven-year study by researchers at Jagiellonian University Medical College in Poland.

Medical epidemiologist Wieslaw Jedrychowski and colleagues followed 468 babies born to nonsmoking mothers. The children were tested five times at regular intervals from infancy through preschool age. The data showed that cognitive abilities of preschoolers who were breast-fed scored significantly higher than bottle-fed infants, and IQ score was directly proportional to how long the infants had been breast-fed: IQs were 2.1 points higher in children who were breast-fed for three months; 2.6 points higher when babies were breast-fed for four to six months; 3.8 points higher in children breast-fed longer than six months. The results were published in the May 2011 issue of the European Journal of Pediatrics.

This research confirms observations reported 70 years ago by Carolyn Hoefer and Mattie Hardy in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as many subsequent studies. This body of research provides the scientific basis for the World Health Organization's recommendation that all infants should be exclusively breast-fed for the first six months of life. But what is the missing ingredient that undermines the cognitive development of bottle-fed babies?

Chemists searching for a specific compound in mother's milk have been overlooking the obvious difference between breast-feeding and bottle-feeding?something that could easily account for the difference in cognitive development, wrote Tonse Raju, a pediatrician and neonatalogist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the current issue of Breastfeeding Medicine, October 2011. (Raju was not involved in the Jedrychowski study.)

"Sometimes even the most obvious facts need to be reiterated," he wrote. "An infant suckling at his or her mother's breast is not simply receiving a meal, but is intensely engaged in a dynamic, bidirectional, biological dialogue." It is the physical and psychological bonding and interaction between infant and mother during breast-feeding that nurtures development of an infant's cognitive abilities.

Jedrychowski strongly agrees with Raju's statement, and adds: "I believe the IQ effect may in part be explained by this dynamic interaction between mother and child in the breast-feeding process."

Brain bulk and white matter in early life
During the first year of life, a baby's brain weight nearly doubles. Much of that increase comes from growth of white matter, the electrical insulation on nerve fibers that speeds transmission of electrical impulses at least 50 times faster than uninsulated fibers. New research provides insight into why formation of this insulation (myelination) takes place after birth?during childhood and adolescence. Early childhood experiences influence myelination and helps the developing brain adapt to its environment, rather than form along strict genetically determined lines.

Martin Teicher, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Laboratory of Developmental Psychopharmacology at McLean Hospital, says that his current research suggests that parental verbal affection is the most important factor affecting IQ early in life. And his previous research has showed that exposure to parental and peer verbal aggression is associated with alterations in white matter tracts. So it is not just brain bulk that increases in the first year of a baby's life; major developmental changes in visual, motor and voice-processing regions of the brain take place. These are the foundations for language acquisition, and all of them are influenced to a considerable extent by what a baby experiences.

Donna Ferriero, professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco's Benioff Children's Hospital, agrees that experiences early in life can have a profound influence on children's cognitive development. "Certainly there is substantial preclinical and clinical literature arguing that early life stress negatively impacts brain development and future social and cognitive interactions," she says. "Conversely, there are data showing that environmental enrichment can reverse adverse effects of early brain injury."

Simply put, a bottle is a poor substitute for a breast when it comes to enriching a baby's brain. At such a critical time in an infant's development, the experience of suckling and engaging in a positive sensory exchange with the mother facilitates optimal nurturing of the growing brain.

Breast-feeding biochemistry
It is difficult to separate the nutritional and behavioral benefits of breast-feeding from epidemiologic data alone, Jedrychowski notes. There is a need for further experimental studies on mother?newborn interaction during breast-feeding.
????????
Some of the links between that biochemistry and behavior are already worked out. "How a baby is fed versus what it is fed is an important factor that has been overlooked in many studies," Raju says. "Suckling at the breast results in changes in the mother's brain?increased blood flow and oxytocin release [a hormone promoting bonding between mother and infant], and probably in the baby's brain."

A study led by Terry Pivik at the Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center examining brain waves in infants and published last year in the journal Early Human Development supports Raju's conclusion. Electroencephalogram, or EEG, (brain-wave) activity was measured in infants who were either bottle-fed milk-based or soy-based formula or breast-fed to track neurodevelopment at three, six, nine and 12 months of age. The EEG changes reflect significant milestones in brain development, including increased myelination and synapse formation as well as development of connections between the left and right cerebral cortices. The research was motivated by contents in the formula and mother's milk, not the feeding method. The nutritionists were concerned that estrogenlike compounds in soy-based formula might have adverse effects on infant neuro-development, or that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are present in breast milk and absent from milk-based baby formula until recently, could explain why breast-feeding boosts a baby's cognitive development. The results were unexpected: Bottle-feeding, regardless of the formula used, accounted for the differences. Brain-wave development was similar in bottle-fed babies, regardless of whether milk-based or soy-based formula was used, but different in breast-fed infants "Mothers who must bottle-feed for work should use breast milk collected using a breast pump, but they should breast-feed at home at night," Raju advises.

Mothers who cannot breast-feed should not be alarmed; in fact if Raju's analysis is correct, they should be relieved. The missing ingredient may not be in the infant formula itself, but rather in the experience of an infant in a mother's arms feeding at her breast. This natural mode of feeding promotes the closest and most beneficial physical and emotional dialogue between mother and child, but recognizing the importance of this interaction, mothers and fathers of formula-fed infants can take care not to "overlook the obvious," and work to provide the ingredient that is missing in a baby bottle.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b2e6fbc75dc483ca461d1f76b0ae1608

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Consumers hit retail stores to give economy boost (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Consumers are giving a modest lift to the economy.

They spent more on trucks, electronics and building supplies in October to boost retail sales for the fifth straight month.

The gains provide an encouraging start for the October-December quarter. They come just as separate reports show that wholesale prices are flattening and U.S. shoppers are spending more at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer.

Still, consumers might not be able to sustain their spending growth if unemployment remains high and pay raises scant. And Europe may be on the brink of a recession that could further slow U.S. growth next year.

"The consumer has to come through this holiday season if we are going to get back to more decent growth rates, and the early readings are those households have hit the stores quite strongly," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors.

Retail sales rose 0.5 percent from September to October, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Healthy auto sales helped. Even without autos, sales rose by the most since March.

And excluding autos and sales at gasoline stations, sales rose 0.7 percent, also the biggest increase since March.

A rebound in consumer spending was the key reason why the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the July-September quarter. It was the best quarterly performance in a year.

Economists said the October retail sales data suggest that the economy is growing at roughly the same pace in the final three months of the year. Consumer spending fuels about 70 percent of economic activity.

Stronger growth has helped calm fears that the U.S. economy might be at risk of another recession.

Still, economists worry that the spending can't continue at the same pace. Over the summer, consumers spent more while earning less. Many had to dip into their savings to make up the difference.

"Overall, the economy appears to be growing at a decent clip," said Paul Dales, a senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

Still, Dales added, "Consumption cannot grow at a faster rate than incomes indefinitely."

Many fear Europe's debt crisis is on the verge of triggering a recession in the region. The eurozone economy barely grew in the July-September quarter, according to the European Union statistics office. It was the second straight quarter of paltry growth.

Most economists say growth won't improve in the months ahead. Consumers and governments in Europe are expected to spend less because of the debt crisis.

One positive sign for the U.S. economy: Inflation pressures are starting to ease, largely because energy costs have declined.

U.S. companies paid less for wholesale goods last month for the first time since June. And excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called "core" wholesale prices were unchanged.

Lower prices mean consumers will have more buying power, potentially boosting consumer spending. A jump in gas and food prices earlier this year had slowed consumption over other goods.

October retail sales were 7.2 percent higher than the same month last year. Internet and catalog sales have risen more than 11 percent since then. Consumers also spent more on sporting goods and at hobby and book stores.

Auto sales have also rebounded since the Japan earthquake and tsunami. The 0.4 percent rise in October from September followed a 4.2 percent surge in the previous month. Sales have increased 7 percent from the same month last year.

In the Miami area, auto sales were decent in October and picked up in the first half of November, said Ed Williamson, part owner of two Buick-Cadillac-GMC dealerships.

People are particular about prices and want incentives, such as low-cost leases, Williamson said. Still, he's optimistic that the slow auto sales recovery in South Florida will continue into next year.

"I think things started to get better down here in the summer," Williamson said. "But at the moment we're seeing the most showroom traffic that we've seen all year in the first two weeks of November."

People are also buying more electronics and appliances. Sales at those stores surged 3.7 percent in October, the biggest monthly gain for that group in nearly two years.

Chris G. Christopher, senior economist at IHS Global Insight, said the launch of the Apple iPhone 4S helped drive those sales.

"People are splurging a little bit here and there," Christopher said, who cautioned that weak income growth will remain a drag on spending next year.

Megan Dunn, a grad student from Philadelphia, said she's limited herself to buying clothes on clearance. But she still goes out for dinner sometimes because she enjoys the time with friends and doesn't mind spending on small treats.

"Eating out is always going to be expensive," Dunn said. "But it's a social experience."

David Hauck said sales at the children's store he owns with his wife in Boston have been up almost every month this year. In October, they rose 8 percent.

He suspects many people want to keep spending on their children, no matter how bad the economy gets.

Hauck and his wife have adjusted their inventory to focus on what people need. More baby supplies, fewer toys.

"Maybe they're cutting back in other ways," he said. "But they know they're going to have a crib or stroller for many years."

General merchandise stores, which include Wal-Mart and Target, reported flat sales in October after a modest increase in September.

But Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, reported its first quarterly revenue gain in more than two years at its branded U.S. stores. The retail giant says it did so by focusing on low pricing and by stocking popular brands and products.

The gain is a good sign for the retail industry and the U.S. economy as a whole. Wal-Mart's core low-income shoppers have been particularly hard hit by unemployment, which has been near 9 percent for more than two years.

__

AP Business Writers Pan Pylas in London, Christina Rexrode and Anne D'Innocenzio in New York, Tom Krisher in Detroit and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111115/ap_on_bi_ge/us_economy

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Video: Intel Capital Global Summit

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45309868#45309868

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Video: It?s thrilling: Rare Jackson video

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Most Greeks back unity government and new PM: poll (Reuters)

ATHENS (Reuters) ? An overwhelming majority of Greeks believe a coalition government, like the one formed on Friday, offers the best solution for Greece to fight economic crisis, a poll published Saturday showed.

The survey by pollsters MRB, published in the newspaper Realnews, found that 68 percent of Greeks were in favor of a unity government like that sworn in Friday and headed by ex-ECB Vice President Lucas Papademos, who was backed by 75 percent of respondents.

If an election were held today, conservative party New Democracy would win 33.1 percent of the vote, but fall short of a parliamentary majority, while socialists PASOK would take 18.1 percent.

The poll was taken on November 10 when Papademos was confirmed as prime minister and on November 11 when his cabinet was sworn in.

(Reporting By Karolina Tagaris; writing by Ben Harding)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111112/ts_nm/us_greece_poll

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