Waltz wins supporting-actor Globe for ‘Django’

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Christoph Waltz has won the supporting-actor Golden Globe for his role as a genteel bounty hunter who takes on an ex-slave as apprentice in “Django Unchained.”

Sunday’s win was Waltz’s second supporting-actor prize at the Globes, both of them coming in Quentin Tarantino films. Waltz’s violent but paternal and polite “Django” character is a sharp contrast to the wickedly bloodthirsty Nazi he played in his Globe and Oscar-winning role in Tarantino’s 2009 tale “Inglourious Basterds.”

“Let me gasp,” Waltz said. “Quentin, you know that my indebtedness to you and my gratitude knows no words.”

Show hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who co-starred in the 2008 big-screen comedy “Baby Mama,” had a friendly rivalry at the Globes. Both were nominated for best actress in a TV comedy series, Fey for “30 Rock” and Poehler for “Parks and Recreation.”

“Tina, I just want to say that I very much hope that I win,” Poehler told Fey at the start of the show.

“Thank you. You’re my nemesis. Thank you,” Fey replied.

Poehler also had a quip about television vs. film at the Globes, where the small-screen category typically takes a backseat to the big-screen nominees.

“Only at the Golden Globes do the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people of television,” Poehler said.

An unusually chilly day in southern California left Globe guests looking glamorous but feeling frigid.

Debra Messing from “Smash” came in a strapless black gown and goosebumps. Asked how she was coping with the cold, she replied, “Not well.” Melissa Rauch of “The Big Bang Theory” also shivered in her strapless red gown. “I’m absolutely freezing!” she said.

Claire Danes of “Homeland” in Versace and Zooey Deschanel of “New Girl” in a strapless Oscar de la Renta gown walked near heat lamps as the mercury stayed in the high 50s. “I’m so cold. My legs aren’t cold but my arms are,” said Deschanel.

Not everyone was grousing. “I’m totally comfortable,” Glenn Close, whose Zac Posen dress was paired with matching jacket, told NBC. “Usually, it’s really hot, so I’m having a nice time so far.”

The Globes are in a rare place this season, coming after the Academy Award nominations, which were announced earlier than usual and threw out some shockers that have left the Globes show a little less relevant.

Key Globe contenders lined up largely as expected, with Steven Spielberg‘s Civil War saga “Lincoln” leading with seven nominations and two CIA thrillers — Kathryn Bigelow‘s “Zero Dark Thirty” and Ben Affleck‘s “Argo” — also doing well.

All three films earned Globe nominations for best drama and director. Yet while “Lincoln,” ”Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty” grabbed best-picture slots at Thursday’s Oscar nominations, Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed for directing honors after a season that had seen them in the running for almost every other major award.

The Globe and Oscar directing fields typically match up closely. This time, though, only Spielberg and “Life of Pi” director Ang Lee have nominations for both. Along with Spielberg, Lee, Bigelow and Affleck, Quentin Tarantino is nominated for directing at the Globes. At the Oscars, it’s Spielberg, Lee, “Silver Linings Playbook” director David O. Russell and two surprise picks: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for “Amour” and first-time director Benh Zeitlin for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

That forces some top-name filmmakers to put on brave faces for the Globes. And while a Globe might be a nice consolation prize, it could be a little awkward if Affleck, Bigelow or Tarantino won Sunday and had to make a cheery acceptance speech knowing they don’t have seats at the grown-ups table for the Feb. 24 Oscars.

That could happen. While “Lincoln” has the most nominations, it’s a purely American story that may not have as much appeal to Globe voters — about 90 reporters belonging to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who cover entertainment for overseas outlets.

The Bigelow and Affleck films center on Americans, too, but they are international tales — “Zero Dark Thirty” chronicling the manhunt for Osama bin Laden and “Argo” recounting the rescue of six U.S. embassy workers trapped in Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis.

Globe voters might want to make right on a snub to Bigelow three years ago, when they gave their best-drama and directing prize to ex-husband James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar” over her Iraq war tale “The Hurt Locker.”

Bigelow made history a month later, becoming the first woman to win the directing Oscar for “The Hurt Locker,” which also won best picture.

Globe voters like to be trend-setters, but they missed the boat on that one. Might they feel enough chagrin to hand Bigelow the directing trophy this time?

Spielberg already has won two best-director Globes, so that might be a further inducement for the foreign-press members to favor someone else this time.

Their votes were locked in before the Oscar nominations came out. Globe balloting closed Wednesday, the day before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its awards lineup.

The Globe hosts had a wisecrack at Cameron’s expense. Poehler noted that she had not been following the controversy over “Zero Dark Thirty,” which has drawn criticism for indicating torture was pivotal in producing the tip that led to Bin Laden.

But “when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who was married for three years to James Cameron,” Poehler said.

The Globes feature two best-picture categories — one for drama and one for musical or comedy. Most of the Globe contenders also earned Oscar best-picture nominations, including all of the drama picks: “Argo,” ”Lincoln,” ”Life of Pi,” ”Django Unchained” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Yet only two of the Globe musical or comedy nominees — “Les Miserables” and “Silver Linings Playbook” — are in the running at the Oscars. That’s not unusual, though, since Oscar voters tend to overlook comedy. The other Globe nominees for musical or comedy are “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” ”Moonrise Kingdom” and “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.”

Globe acting recipients usually are a good sneak peek for who will win at the Oscars. All four of last season’s Oscar winners — Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady,” Jean Dujardin for “The Artist,” Octavia Spencer for “The Help” and Christopher Plummer for “Beginners” — took home a Globe first.

Jodie Foster will receive the Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 70th Globes ceremony.

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Top Venezuelan leaders in Cuba to support Chavez

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela‘s three most powerful government figures after President Hugo Chavez gathered in Havana on Sunday to check on their ailing leader’s condition and meet with Cuban allies.

Vice-President Nicolas Maduro, Congress head Diosdado Cabello, and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez have been shuttling to and from Cuba since the 58-year-old socialist president’s fourth and most serious cancer operation a month ago.

Chavez, who missed his own inauguration for a new, six-year term last week, has not been seen or heard from in public since the surgery. Many Venezuelans are assuming his momentous 14-year rule of the South American OPEC nation could be nearing an end.

Though acknowledging the gravity of the situation and a severe lung infection Chavez is suffering, officials are trying to stay upbeat on the president’s hopes for recovery. His brother on Saturday denied that Chavez was in a coma.

“We are all Chavez!” and “Chavez will return!” were among slogans sang and chanted at numerous solidarity rallies, meetings and concerts across Venezuela over the weekend drawing thousands of passionate and anxious supporters.

Venezuelan state TV on Sunday split its screen into four to show events going on around the nation. “Commander, take your time returning to us,” Trujillo state Governor Henry Rangel said at one.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Maduro, who Chavez recently designated as his successor, informed Venezuela’s leader of the outpouring at home. He gave no more details of their encounter or the president’s condition.

State media said Maduro, Cabello, Ramirez – who also heads the powerful state oil company PDVSA – and Attorney General Cilia Flores all met Cuban President Raul Castro over the weekend. But there were no details of the talks.

‘TELL THE TRUTH’

The joint presence of top Venezuelan officials in Havana inevitably deepens rumors Chavez is at death’s door – and draws opposition criticism that Raul and Fidel Castro are giving instructions behind the scenes.

But officials have been lashing “necrophilic” opponents for such speculation, and Chavez’s brother said on Saturday that, on the contrary, he was improving daily.

One opposition leader, Julio Borges, said on Sunday the secrecy around Chavez’s exact condition was unacceptable.

“No one is asking for details of the operation or the president’s treatment, but that simply they tell the truth about his health prognosis,” said Borges, a right-wing legislator who wants Chavez formally declared absent from office.

That would trigger the naming of a caretaker president, and an election within a month, but Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ratified that Chavez remains president with Maduro in charge as No. 2 until his health situation is clarified.

“It’s been a year-and-a-half of contradictions and announcements of his complete curing followed by relapses,” Borges added, saying problems like inflation, housing shortages and power-cuts were being neglected during a political impasse.

Since the disease was discovered in mid-2011, Chavez has in fact wrongly declared himself cured twice, in an extraordinary and unsettling saga for Venezuela’s 29 million people.

The stakes are high for the wider region too. Cuba and a handful of other leftist-ruled nations have for years been depending on Chavez’s aid to bolster fragile economies.

Should Chavez die or be incapacitated, the most likely next step would be an election pitting Maduro, 50, against Henrique Capriles, 40, the main opposition leader who lost to Chavez in an October presidential election.

In a statement on Sunday, Capriles railed against the “national paralysis” but said the opposition would not be drawn into confrontation or street protests. That tactic failed spectacularly for them a decade ago when Chavez was briefly toppled but came back stronger than before.

“Just as the president has the right to attend his ill health, so Venezuelans do not deserve urgent problems to be put on hold,” Capriles said. “We are not going to play the game of calling people onto the street to create a confrontation that will benefit the violent and radical ones.”

(Editing by Diego Ore and Paul Simao)

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Democracy Sputters in the Arab Spring’s Birthplace

Two years after he set himself on fire, Mohamed Bouazizi remains history’s most famous fruit vendor. Like many enterprising Tunisians, Bouazizi, 26, was subject to constant fines of as much as 10 times his daily earnings as he tried to make a living on the streets of Sidi Bouzid. After his scale and cart were seized on Dec. 17, 2010, he doused himself with a liter of paint solvent while standing in front of the provincial governor’s office. A flick of a lighter and …

What then? Tunisia’s revolution and the Arab Spring that followed created a list of dead, imprisoned, or exiled autocrats—including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, and Tunisia’s own Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. (Syria’s Bashar Assad hangs on, brutally.) But hope and vengeance are very different from progress, as Ben Ali’s successor as president, the physician and ex-opposition leader Moncef Marzouki, has discovered.

On Dec. 17, 2012, Marzouki went to Sidi Bouzid to commemorate the man and the moment that began all the changes in the region, only to be greeted by angry chants of “Leave! Leave!” When he told the crowd he lacked a “magic wand” to cure Tunisia’s ills, the response was a hailstorm of rocks and tomatoes. Marzouki had to be hustled into a car and sped away from the stage.

“Nothing has changed, and that’s the sad reality,” says Mohamed Amri, a close friend of the Bouazizi family. Unemployment is officially 18 percent, but a September study published by the Middle East Economic Association says about 50 percent of young Tunisians with higher education are without work. At 33, Amri is unemployed and relies on an allowance from his father to cover soaring food and living costs. “I feel like I need to be optimistic, but in the end, I’m pessimistic.”

On Dec. 12, Fitch Ratings downgraded Tunisia’s sovereign ratings, citing the slow transition to a free economy and “large twin budget and current-account deficits.” Standard & Poor’s (MHP) has downgraded the country to junk status, too. Meji Djelloul, a professor of Islamic history at Manouba University in Tunis, the capital, says 80 percent of his students are eager to leave after graduating. “In 25 years of teaching I have never encountered such a sense of helplessness,” he says.

It need not be this bleak. The revolution lifted restraints on expression that had existed for decades, and Tunisians seem to agree that even without a functioning constitution, they feel more free—a significant accomplishment. The country has close social and economic ties to Europe, a highly educated populace, and infrastructure that’s among the best in the Arab world, with good roads and nine commercial airports serving a country the size of Florida.

Tunisia has the further comfort of knowing it’s not alone. In its political and economic struggles, Egypt is Tunisia’s larger, perhaps more troubled mirror. Both saw Islamists take top government positions while Salafis, who embrace the strictest, most puritanical interpretation of Islam, have pressed for an even greater role for religion in the reborn nations. (Egyptian secularists are angered by a constitution they say was forced upon them, while Tunisia’s latest constitutional draft was stripped of references to sharia, or Islamic law.) Both countries also saw their economies contract sharply in reaction to change. Egypt’s net international reserves fell almost 60 percent, to $ 15 billion, over the past two years. Tunisia’s economy contracted 1.8 percent in 2011. Last year growth was likely 2.7 percent and could rise to 3.3 percent this year, says the International Monetary Fund. “We are going through a complicated transition, not unlike what Eastern Europe went through,” says Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, a former professor of politics in Britain who returned to Tunisia after the revolution. “We need to prove that it is possible to have democracy in the Arab world.”

Weaker economies in Europe have hurt tourism and exports, two of Tunisia’s chief sources of revenue. That’s left officials appealing to the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, for investment. So far Tunisia hasn’t received the support it sought, let alone the aid it was promised. At its May 2011 summit in Deauville, France, the Group of Eight pledged more than $ 30 billion to assist new Arab governments. “When we spoke about intentions, it was $ 30 billion,” jokes Alaya Bettaieb, secretary of state to the minister of investment and international cooperation. “When we spoke about action, it was $ 250 million” that was delivered.
 
 
Tunisia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy would have been easier had the collapse of the Ben Ali regime not been so sudden. Amri, Bouazizi’s friend, suggests the man who started it all didn’t even know how flammable the paint thinner he poured on himself was, let alone the impact of his act of martyrdom. Other protesters, in Tunisia and across the Arab world, decided to set themselves afire in the weeks and months that followed. Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist best known for his work seeking property rights for peasants, has studied the underclass in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere. He documented 164 deaths by self-immolation in the six months following Bouazizi’s act. “The ground was fertile socially, economically, and politically for this kind of statement,” says Ali Bouazizi, a cousin who played a key role in the revolution by filming and uploading to his Facebook (FB) page a video of the protest after the fruit seller’s death.

The embers of unrest remain hot. Tunisia’s first truly free elections in 2011 yielded a Constituent Assembly charged with drafting the country’s new charter and also serving as its parliament. Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party whose name translates to Renaissance, won 41 percent of the seats and together with two smaller secular parties formed a ruling coalition.

The constitution is still a source of great uncertainty, as are Ennahda’s broader intentions. Critics on the right maintain that the party has stressed its commitment to Tunisia’s secular tradition in public, while urging Salafis to be patient for the realization of their goals behind closed doors. Salafis, including Mouldi Mojahed, who heads the Salafi-controlled al-Asala Party, says Ennahda “has backed away from its principles.”

Neither side has been pacified. Salafis have been blamed for the serial arson of stores selling alcohol as well as the September attack on the U.S. embassy amid outrage over a YouTube (GOOG) clip denigrating Islam’s prophet. Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, an official in the opposition Jumhuri, or Republican, Party says, “The Islamists don’t know how to govern,” and the win by Ennahda in October 2011 was “not very reassuring to the economic stakeholders in the country.”

Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali has tried to walk the middle ground. “The Tunisian people have their own identity, and they agreed on this identity,” says Jebali in an interview, affirming the country’s commitment to secularism. Jebali, who spent 10 years in solitary confinement while Ben Ali controlled the country, says the new constitution won’t impose Islamic law and will respect women’s rights. He and Ennahda have also pledged to support a market economy, if not a workers’ paradise; he rages at those he suggests have riled up labor unions and “who live with the idea of the proletariat revolution, and who believe that the revolution in Tunisia was led by the proletariat.”

Sorting out how to improve the lives of ordinary Tunisians, regardless of their politics, is complicated by a lack of economic facts. At a conference organized by Utica, a group representing Tunisia’s largest employers, De Soto, the economist, estimated that the black market economy is more than 10 times the size of all companies on the country’s stock exchange. Others have suggested off-the-books trade represents as much as 30 percent of Tunisia’s GDP. The divisions between the corporate and informal sectors run deeper than matters of accounting. Wided Bouchamaoui, Utica’s president and head of one of Tunisia’s largest business enterprises, says the informal economy condones violence. “It is disastrous for legitimate businesses serving consumers,” she says.

Prime Minister Jebali acknowledges the size of the informal economy and continued problems with corruption. (The nation saw its corruption ranking, issued by Transparency International, slide from 59th in 2010 to 75th in 2012.) He pledges that Tunisia will do more to address these problems as democratic institutions take hold and the economy strengthens. In the meantime, he says priorities include addressing the “heavy taxation of the formal economy” and the inability of a “young economy to absorb unemployed youth.”

For those who have been waiting, patience is running short. Habib Kasdalli set himself afire shortly after Bouazizi when a civil servant denied him government benefits for a mental disability. Seated in a Tunis hotel, Kasdalli describes his nervous condition as his burn-scarred hands twitch. When he pulls off a blue knit cap, his scalp is grotesquely scarred. “I felt oppressed, and I felt hopelessness,” Kasdalli says. The revolution offered a respite. Relief remains a long way off.

With Jihen Laghmari and Caroline Alexander

Businessweek.com — Top News

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French commando killed in Somalia hostage raid

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A raid to free a French intelligence agent held captive in Somalia for three years went horribly wrong, leaving 17 Islamists and at least one French commando dead in a mud-caked farming town deep in militant territory.

In the chaotic aftermath of the firefight, the hostage’s fate was unclear Saturday. The Islamists denied French claims that he was killed and said they had a new prisoner — a wounded French soldier.

The botched rescue in East Africa came the same day French airstrikes in the West African nation of Mali targeted resurgent rebel Islamists. French officials said the two operations were unrelated, but stepped up domestic counter-terror measures to protect public places and transportation networks.

Confusion surrounded early reports of the failed rescue of the French agent, known by his code-name Denis Allex. He was captured in Somalia on July 14, 2009 — Bastille Day — and last seen in a video released in October pleading for the French president to help him.

But it was clear that a dangerous raid the French defense minister said was planned with the utmost of care had gone horribly wrong from the moment the helicopters swooped in.

“This operation could not be achieved despite the sacrifice of two of our soldiers and doubtless the murder of our hostage,” French President Francois Hollande said in a grim nationwide broadcast. “But this operation confirms the determination of France not to give into blackmail by terrorists.”

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Allex was killed by his captors and that one French soldier was missing and one dead, along with 17 Islamists. The Defense Ministry earlier said two commandos were killed in the fighting in the Somali town of Bulomarer, a small farming community under Islamist control for four years.

“It was an extremely dangerous mission,” Le Drian said. “Everything indicates Denis Allex was killed.”

The militant Islamist group al-Shabab, which held Allex for more than three years, said Saturday that he remained alive and in its custody, as was a new captive — a French commando wounded in fighting. There are also seven French hostages in Mali.

Residents of Bulomarer described hearing explosions and gunfire from what they called an al-Shabab base. An al-Shabab official said that fighting began after helicopters dropped off French soldiers.

“Five helicopters attacked a house in the town. They dropped soldiers off on the ground so that they could reach their destination,” he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The French attack was swift and loud, residents said.

“We heard a series of explosions followed by gunfire just seconds after a helicopter flew over the town,” Mohamed Ali, a resident of Bulomarer, told The Associated Press by telephone. “We don’t know exactly what happened, but the place was an al-Shabab base and checkpoint.”

An elder in the town, Hussein Yasin, said the French troops shot dead two residents who turned on flashlights after hearing movement. As the soldiers walked away, they encountered an al-Shabab checkpoint and the gunfire began.

As the Islamists retreated, the helicopters returned to retrieve the commandos, he said.

The al-Shabab official said some soldiers were killed, but the group held only one dead French soldier. Later, the Islamist group released a statement saying that Allex “remains safe and far from the location of the battle.” It said there would be a verdict in his case in two days.

The chief of staff of the French army, Edouard Guillaud, said France had exhausted any other way to free Allex.

“When you get to the point of launching an assault, it means the other options had failed,” Guillaud said.

Allex was kidnapped from a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 14, 2009 with a colleague who later escaped. They were in Somalia to train government forces, which are fighting Islamist militiamen.

In October, Hollande pledged to “use all means” to contact “anyone who can help free our hostages.”

In 2009, a Frenchman held hostage by pirates off the Somali coast was killed in the crossfire during a commando rescue on his captive sailboat. The man’s family was rescued.

And in 2011, two French hostages kidnapped in Niger were killed by their captors as French troops closed in for a rescue.

___

Jamey Keaten reported from Paris.

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RIM shares climb as investors bet on new BlackBerry

TORONTO (Reuters) – Shares of Research In Motion rallied on Friday as investors positioned themselves ahead of the launch of its new make-or-break BlackBerry 10 smartphones at the end of the month.

Morningstar analyst Brian Colello did not see any one news story driving the stock, which climbed steadily through much of the day. The new phones are to be formally unveiled on January 30.

“The stock has been extremely volatile, based on BlackBerry 10 rumors and the potential for success in the market,” said Colello.

Several blog posts published on Friday showed purportedly leaked photos of what could be the new phones, and a number of tech sites confirmed that Sprint Nextel Corp would carry BlackBerry 10.

“Sprint plans to bring BlackBerry 10 to our customers later this year. We will share more details soon,” Mark Elliot, a spokesman for the U.S. carrier, said in an email.

Earlier this week, executives at Verizon Communications, AT&T Inc and T-Mobile USA all confirmed they would carry the smartphones, and said they are looking forward to the new devices.

“There are, I think, good indications that they’re going to get a seat at all the tables that matter,” said IDC analyst John Jackson, who called carrier support “necessary, but not sufficient” to ensure the success of BlackBerry 10.

Throughout the autumn of 2012, RIM’s stock rose as investors grew more optimistic about BlackBerry 10. Morningstar’s Colello said the market went from pricing in no chance of success, to betting on at least some chance of success for the new products.

But the rally broke off after RIM reported earnings in December, revealing that it would roll out a new fee structure for its services segment which some fear could put pressure on the high-margin business.

The new line’s success is crucial to the future of RIM, which has lost ground to competitors such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics, and in December reported its first-ever decline in total subscribers.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said the news that all four major U.S. carriers would offer BlackBerry 10 was likely lifting the stock, along with Nokia’s stronger-than-expected quarterly results — a sign that Google Inc’s Android smartphones have not completely taken over its market.

“The smartphone market is one of the most robust, largest markets in the world … it’s also dynamic,” said Gillis. “The winners and losers are going to be shifting. That said, it’s a difficult road the company is facing.”

RIM’s Nasdaq-listed shares were up 13.2 percent at $ 13.49. Shares jumped 12.6 percent to C$ 13.27 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. That more than doubled the price since the low of C$ 6.10 it touched in September. By late afternoon, RIM was the day’s most heavily-traded stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Nicola Leske in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Alden Bentley)

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Sony Pictures executive: “Zero Dark Thirty” “does not advocate torture”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Sony Pictures executive Amy Pascal lashed out on Friday at a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) who accused Osama bin Laden film “Zero Dark Thirty” of promoting torture and urged fellow Academy members not to vote for it in the Oscars race.

In a strongly worded statement, Pascal said the “attempt to censure one of the great films of our time should be opposed.”

“We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda,” said Pascal, who is co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and chairman of its Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group.

“This film should be judged free of partisanship,” she said, adding that the film “does not advocate torture.”

Pascal’s comments came in response to Academy member David Clennon’s remarks at a rally against the torture of terror suspects in Los Angeles on Friday.

“I believe that the film clearly promotes a tolerance for torture,” Clennon told local ABC TV news affiliate KABC, adding “I hope that my fellow members of the Academy will consider the morality of each nominee.”

Clennon, an actor who appeared in 1980s TV series “thirtysomething,” also wrote an opinion piece earlier this week criticizing the film.

“At the risk of being expelled for disclosing my intentions, I will not be voting for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ – in any Academy Awards category,” Clennon wrote on progressive news website Truth-out.org in a January 9 posting.

“‘Zero’ never acknowledges that torture is immoral and criminal. It does portray torture as getting results,” he added.

The 6,000 members of the Academy are urged not to reveal who they cast their votes for. Academy Award winners are revealed at a ceremony in February, the highlight of Hollywood’s award season.

The Academy on Friday declined to comment on Clennon’s remarks.

“Zero Dark Thirty” won five Oscar nominations, including a nod for best picture, despite coming under attack in Washington over its source material and claims by politicians that it depicts torture as helping the United States find and kill the al Qaeda leader in May 2011.

Among the film’s nominees were actress Jessica Chastain and screenwriter Mark Boal, but director Kathyrn Bigelow surprisingly failed to make the Oscar best director shortlist.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is a unit of Sony Corp.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)

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Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez not in coma, brother says

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela‘s cancer-stricken president, Hugo Chavez, is recovering in Cuba and is not in a coma as some have rumored a month after surgery, his brother, Adan Chavez, said after a visit to Havana.

The 58-year-old socialist leader has not been seen or heard from since his December 11 cancer surgery – his fourth such operation after the disease was detected in his pelvic area in mid-2011 – leaving Venezuela in a state of suspense.

But older brother Adan Chavez, who is governor of the family’s home state of Barinas, said the president was improving daily, according to a news release on Saturday from his office.

“The head of state continues to assimilate treatment well and his recovery is advancing daily,” the statement read.

“Information on social networks and in other places, saying the president is in a coma and his family are discussing the supposed disconnection of life support equipment, are totally false,” it added.

Chavez missed his own inauguration for a new, six-year term last week, although Venezuela’s top court ruled that he remained in power and Vice President Nicolas Maduro could deputize until there was clarity over the president’s condition.

The rumors were stoked when Chavez did not send a message to Thursday’s pro-government rally, the day he was supposed to be sworn in. Unlike past trips to Cuba for medical treatment, no images have been released of him.

The saga has enormous stakes for Venezuela, a nation of 29 million people with the world’s largest oil reserves, as well as for the wider region. Cuba and a handful of other leftist-ruled nations depend on Chavez’s economic aid.

Peruvian and Argentine Presidents Ollanta Humala and Cristina Fernandez, both friends of Chavez, visited Cuba this week. There was no sign either of them saw him.

Finishing her visit on Saturday, Fernandez said it was “inappropriate” for her to talk about Chavez’s condition, which was a matter for his family. “I ask you to show a lot of respect and solidarity,” she told reporters in Havana.

‘DEAD OR ALIVE?’

Adan Chavez, a physicist by profession who has been a political mentor to his brother and is viewed by Venezuelans as a hard-liner, said foreign media were in league with local opposition activists to promote lies about the president.

“We know this is part of a dirty war by the necrophilic opposition,” he was quoted as saying in the news release. “We are sure that with the support of God, science and the people, our president will triumph in this new battle.”

Venezuela’s opposition leaders are furious at what they see as a Cuban-inspired manipulation of the constitution by Maduro and other top “Chavista” figures aimed at preventing the naming of a caretaker president due to Chavez’s absence.

Should Chavez die or have to step down, a new election would be called and would likely pit Maduro against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state, who lost to Chavez in last year’s presidential election.

He and other mainstream opposition leaders have criticized secrecy over Chavez’s condition, but have taken a wait-and-see attitude, preferring to prepare behind the scenes for a possible new vote.

There have been small protests by students, none numbering more than several hundred people. A handful of people were injured in Tachira state on Friday, local media said, when protesting students clashed with police.

“Who knows if Chavez is alive or dead? They don’t say clearly if he is breathing, if he can talk or not,” 22-year-old university student Daniella Contreras said at a protest meeting in Caracas on Saturday.

“They should send a medical committee to Havana to confirm if the president is still capable of governing.”

The government has been giving regular but terse updates on Chavez’s condition, the latest being that he is struggling with a severe lung infection after the operation.

The silence from the normally garrulous leader famous for his lengthy speeches has led many Venezuelans to conclude his 14-year rule is ending.

Venezuela’s most prominent female opposition activist, right-wing legislator Maria Corina Machado, told Saturday’s gathering of about 400 protesters that the government was now illegitimate.

“We are in the terrible situation of having to acknowledge there is today no government in Venezuela. Government is in Cuba, led by the Cubans, deciding what we do and what happens with our country,” Machado said.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas urged Venezuelans to avoid being drawn into trouble. “An irresponsible minority are causing provocations to create a macabre show,” he said.

The Chavez years have been turbulent ones, particularly during a short coup against him and a national oil strike in 2002 and 2003, and many Venezuelans are praying that whatever happens next, it will be non-violent.

(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta in Caracas, Rosa Tania Valdes in Havana; Editing by Jackie Frank and Peter Cooney)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dreamliner plane review ordered

11 January 2013 Last updated at 10:32 ET

FAA administrator Michael Huerta: “We are confident about the safety of this aircraft”

US regulators have ordered a review of the 787 Dreamliner plane after a series of incidents put a question mark over the safety of Boeing’s flagship plane.

The review by the Federal Aviation Administration will look at the design and manufacture of the planes.

The planes will not be grounded while the safety review is carried out.

An electrical fire, a brake problem, a fuel spill and cracks in the cockpit’s windshield have affected Dreamliner flights in the past week.

FAA administrator Michael Huerta told a news conference that nothing in the data the agency had seen suggested the plane was not safe, thought it still felt the review was necessary.

In a statement, Boeing said: “Boeing is confident in the design and performance of the 787. It is a safe and efficient airplane.

“The airplane has logged 50,000 hours of flight and there are more than 150 flights occurring daily.”

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is one of the most advanced aeroplanes ever created. Much of it is made from very strong, light carbon-fibre composite material.

However, a spate of technical issues has hurt its image. On Friday, two new problems were found, adding to Boeing’s woes.

Continue reading the main story

Getting the Dreamliner to market was a slow and painful process.

Although it completed its first test flight back in December 2009, it was the autumn of 2011 before the plane was delivered to launch customer All Nippon Airways – more than four years late.

Conflicts with Boeing’s suppliers contributed to the delay in making the world’s first carbon-composite aircraft, but there were also plenty of technological hurdles.

Now it seems many of them have not yet been overcome, with ever more airline customers questioning whether the planes are sufficiently reliable, and indeed, whether they are even safe.

Boeing insists the latest hiccups are mere teething problems, though it is clear that even in a best-case scenario the aerospace giant’s reputation will have suffered a serious setback.

• On Friday, All Nippon Airways reported a crack in the window on the pilot’s side of the cockpit. It caused no problems for the 237 passengers and nine crew on a flight from Tokyo’s Haneda airport to Matsuyama, but the return flight was cancelled


• The same airline said another Dreamliner flight, shuttling between Haneda and the southern Miyazaki prefecture, experienced a delay due to an oil leak from a generator inside an engine


• On Wednesday, ANA cancelled a 787 flight from Yamaguchi to Tokyo because of a brake problem


• On Tuesday, Japan Airlines cancelled a Boston to Tokyo flight after about 40 gallons (151 litres) of fuel spilled


• An electrical fire broke out on board a Japan Airlines Dreamliner on Monday shortly after it landed in Boston, following a flight from Tokyo


• Last year, a United Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing because of an electrical problem


• In December, Qatar Airways grounded one of its 787 Dreamliners after several manufacturing faults caused electrical problems similar to those that affected the United plane.

Last month, the head of Qatar Airways criticised Boeing in an interview with the BBC over several manufacturing faults that have resulted in the grounding of one of its three 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

Boeing has delivered 50 of the 787s, starting in late 2011, and has orders for nearly 800 more. To get through the backlog, Boeing is increasing production to build 10 of the planes per month by the end of the year.

By comparison, it builds more than one 737, Boeing’s best seller, every day.

BBC News – Business

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Pakistani Shiites protest after attack kills 86

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Shiite Muslims hit by a twin bombing that killed 86 people refused to bury their dead Friday, demanding the Pakistani government do more to protect them from increasing violence against the minority sect.

The attack on a billiards hall Thursday night in the southwestern city of Quetta marked a bloody start to the new year after a human rights group said 2012 was the deadliest ever for Shiites in the majority Sunni Muslim country.

Many of the attacks last year were carried out by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban that also claimed responsibility for the bombing of the billiards hall. The attack was one of three that took place across Pakistan on Thursday, killing 120 people in the country’s deadliest day in five years.

The billiards hall was located in a predominantly Shiite area, and most of the dead and wounded were from the sect. Members of the beleaguered Shiite community laid about 50 of their dead on the street Friday, saying they would not bury them until the government improves security in the area. Islamic custom dictates the dead should be buried as soon possible.

Young Shiite men also set tires on fire and blocked a nearby road in protest.

“We want safety for all our sects, and all security measures should be taken for our safety, said Fida Hussain, a relative of one of the victims. “We will not bury them until the government fulfills all our demands.”

The Shiites finally ended their protest and agreed to bury the dead late Friday after hours of negotiation with police and government officials, who promised to provide greater protection and arrest the killers, said senior police officer Hamid Shakeel.

Rights groups have also accused the government of not doing enough to protect Shiites in the country. Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused the Pakistani military and other security agencies of “callousness and indifference” when it came to the killing of Shiites.

Pakistan’s intelligence agencies helped nurture Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the 1980s and 1990s to counter a perceived threat from neighboring Iran, which is mostly Shiite. Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001, but the group continues to operate fairly freely.

The billiards hall bombing started with a suicide attack followed by a car blast minutes later. Militants often use such staggered bombings to maximize the body count by targeting rescuers and others who rush to the scene after the first explosion.

On Friday, Shiite volunteers erected tents to keep bystanders away from the severely damaged building, where the pool hall once occupied the basement.

Nearby resident Jan Ali described it as a neighborhood gathering spot where young and old often waited in line to play on its six tables.

After the attack, “it was a scene like hell on Earth,” said Ali. “Rescue people were carrying out dead and injured, people bleeding and crying, and rushing them toward ambulances. I have never seen such a horrifying situation in my life.”

One of those killed was a young human rights activist named Irfan Ali.

“He was a very active, energetic activist,” said Tahir Hussain, a lawyer and vice chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s Baluchistan chapter. He said Ali was associated with the HRCP for the last 10 years, often writing about social issues and oppression of the Shiite Hazara community. Ethnic Hazaras migrated from Afghanistan more than a century ago and have been the targets of dozens of attacks over the past year, but Thursday’s was by far the bloodiest.

Ali appeared to have been killed during the second explosion after he rushed to the scene to help, said Hussain. On his Twitter feed before the attack, Ali wrote about Hazara families who were leaving the area in fear.

Many residents railed at the government over the repeated acts of violence.

“This government has totally failed in protecting us,” said Abbas Ali, who was collecting items from the rubble of his nearby shop, also destroyed in the blast. “Somehow we will get compensation for our losses but those who have gone away will not come back.”

Five victims of the billiards hall attack died of their wounds overnight, said Shakeel, who put the death toll at 86.

The strike was the worst of three deadly bombings targeting Shiites and soldiers in Quetta and worshippers at a Sunni mosque in the northwest on the same day.

It appeared to be Pakistan’s worst day of violence since October 2007, when 150 were killed in a bombing aimed at Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. She survived the blast but was assassinated two months later.

Last year was the bloodiest year for Pakistan’s Shiite community, with over 400 members of the sect killed in targeted attacks throughout the country, according to Human Rights Watch.

Violence has been especially intense in southwest Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital and the country’s largest concentration of Shiites live. More than 120 Shiites were killed in targeted attacks in Baluchistan in 2012.

In Quetta on Friday, suspected militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a terminal where trucks carrying supplies to NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan were parked, said Shakeel, the senior police officer. The attack killed two people, wounded another and set 10 trucks ablaze.

___

Abbot reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Rebecca Santana in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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In gun debate, video game industry defends itself

WASHINGTON (AP) — The video game industry, blamed by some for fostering a culture of violence, defended its practices Friday at a White House meeting exploring how to prevent horrific shootings like the recent Connecticut elementary school massacre.

Vice President Joe Biden, wrapping up three days of wide-ranging talks on gun violence prevention, said the meeting was an effort to understand whether the U.S. was undergoing a “coarsening of our culture.”

“I come to this meeting with no judgment. You all know the judgments other people have made,” Biden said at the opening of a two-hour discussion. “We’re looking for help.”

The gaming industry says that violent crime, particularly among the young, has fallen since the early 1990s while video games have increased in popularity.

There are conflicting studies on the impact of video games and other screen violence. Some conclude that video games can desensitize people to real-world violence or temporarily quiet part of the brain that governs impulse control. Other studies have concluded there is no lasting effect.

Cheryl Olson, a participant in Biden’s meeting and a researcher of the effect of violent video games, said there was concern among industry representatives that they would be made into a scapegoat in the wake of the Connecticut shooting.

“The vice president made clear that he did not want to do that,” Olson said.

Biden is expected to suggest ways to address violence in video games, movies and on television when he sends President Barack Obama a package of recommendations for curbing gun violence Tuesday. The proposals are expected to include calls for universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Obama appointed Biden to lead a gun violence task force after last month’s shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 children and six educators dead.

Gun-safety activists were coalescing around expanded background checks as a key goal for the vice president’s task force. Some advocates said it may be more politically realistic — and even more effective as policy — than reinstating a ban on assault weapons.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said some 40 percent of gun sales happen with no background checks, such as at gun shows and by private sellers over the Internet or through classified ads.

“Our top policy priority is closing the massive hole in the background check system,” the group said.

While not backing off support for an assault weapons ban, some advocates said there could be broader political support for increasing background checks, in part because that could actually increase business for retailers and licensed gun dealers who have access to the federal background check system.

“The truth is that an assault weapons ban is a very important part of the solution — and it is also much tougher to pass,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines are also seen by some as an easier lift politically than banning assault weapons.

The National Rifle Association adamantly opposes universal background checks, as well as bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines — all measures that would require congressional approval. The NRA and other pro-gun groups contend that a culture that glamorizes violence bears more responsibility for mass shootings than access to a wide range of weapons and ammunition.

In a 2009 report, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared, “The evidence is now clear and convincing: Media violence is one of the causal factors of real-life violence and aggression.”

The report focused on all types of media violence. But for video games in particular, the pediatricians cited studies that found high exposure to violent ones increased physical aggression at least in the short term, and warned that they allow people to rehearse violent acts. On the other hand, it said friendly video games could promote good behavior.

A wide spectrum of the video game industry was represented at the meeting with the vice president, including the makers of violent war video games like “Call of Duty” and “Medal of Honor” and a representative from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which sets age ratings that on every video game package released in the United States.

The vice president met Thursday with representatives from the entertainment industry, including Motion Picture Association of America and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. In a joint statement after the meeting, a half-dozen said they “look forward to doing our part to seek meaningful solutions” but offered no specifics.

Biden, hinting at other possible recommendations to the president, said he is interested in technology that would keep a gun from being fired by anyone other than the person who bought it. He said such technology may have curtailed what happened last month in Connecticut, where the shooter used guns purchased by his mother.

The vice president has also discussed making gun trafficking a felony, a step Obama can take through executive action. And he is expected to make recommendations for improving mental health care and school safety.

“We know this is a complex problem,” Biden said. “We know there’s no single answer.”

The president plans to push for the new measures in his State of the Union address, scheduled for Feb. 12.

___

Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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