“American Idol” returns with feuds, fame, fortune

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “American Idol” returns on Wednesday with the tantalizing promise of fame, fortune and feuds – and that’s just among the celebrity panel hired to find the next pop music sensation.

Singer Mariah Carey, rapper Nicki Minaj and country artist Keith Urban make their debut as judges when the TV talent contest begins its 12th season on Fox.

“All three judges are eminently qualified. It’s a good spectrum in terms of embracing hip-hop, country and pop,” HitFix.com music blogger Melinda Newman said.

“What everyone is going to be looking at, sadly, is how Mariah and Nicki Minaj get along, instead of focusing on the contestants,” she said.

Carey, with more than 200 million album sales, the outspoken Minaj, one of the most exciting voices in rap, and Urban are expected to revive interest in the contest. Last year average audiences dipped below 20 million, and “Idol” lost its eight-year crown as the most watched show on U.S. television to NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”

The three newcomers replace departing judges Jennifer Lopez and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler who quit last year after two seasons.

The new panel, rounded out by old hand record producer Randy Jackson, didn’t come cheap. Carey is reported to be earning approximately $ 18 million for the season, Minaj about $ 12 million and Urban $ 8 million.

But industry watchers say “Idol” needs more than big names to bring in audiences at a time of cutthroat competition from talent contests like “The Voice,” “The X Factor,” and “America’s Got Talent.”

“While shaking up the show can initially provide curiosity tune in, at the end of the day, the panel needs to click with each other and with fans,” Entertainment Weekly’s James Hibberd said.

“‘Idol’ used to have the playground all to itself. After four months of ‘The Voice’ and ‘ X Factor’ last fall, are audiences still going to be excited by ‘Idol’?” Hibberd asked.

The new season of “Idol” was making headlines in September, when video of Carey and Minaj arguing during early auditions was leaked online.

Minaj also was reported to have threatened to shoot Carey, who said in a TV interview last week that she had hired extra security while filming the show.

FOCUS ON CONTESTANTS

In a tense media appearance last week, the two divas claimed they had put their feud behind them, attributing the fight to passionate differences of opinion about the contestants auditioning for a chance to make it through to later rounds.

Newman said it would be a shame if the fight overshadows the show’s original mission of finding new talent, an achievement that could prove the biggest boost to “Idol” ratings.

“All these shows have become more about the contestants than the judges. It would be nice if ‘American Idol,’ as the one that started it all, got the focus back on the contestants.

“Ten years ago, people were really excited when they were voting for (‘Idol’ winners) Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood. There needs to be a powerhouse group of contestants who really capture people’s interest, and who you want to root for,” Newman said.

The new judges say that’s what they want too.

“When I watch these shows and someone says yes to a person who clearly doesn’t deserve it, it bothers me,” Minaj told TV reporters last week. “And I want to jump through the TV because I feel like, for the people who are talented, it kind of minimizes how talented they really are. So when I came on, I didn’t really have a problem with saying no, because I kind of felt like we’re looking for the best of the best.”

Aspiring rappers – never a group that has been embraced by “Idol” producers or fans – will get short shrift.

“I definitely don’t think a rapper should be in this competition … When I got involved in the competition, I specifically said, I hope they didn’t try to do that because I was on the show, because I think America loves that it’s an honest singing competition,” Minaj said.

“American Idol” kicks off on Wednesday on Fox with a two-hour premiere, followed by a one-hour show on Thursday. Fox is a unit of News Corp.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy

NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It’s safe to get a flu shot.

The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.

The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.

But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.

“This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women,” said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.

The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it’s not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.

The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.

Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.

The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren’t vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.

U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can’t be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.

Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The vaccine is safe,” she said.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Japan emergency hits Dreamliners

16 January 2013 Last updated at 17:53 ET

The ANA flight made an emergency landing at Takamatsu

Japan’s two main airlines have grounded their Boeing 787 Dreamliners after one was forced to make an emergency landing because of battery problems.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) grounded its fleet of 17 Dreamliners when its flight NH 692 from Yamaguchi Ube was forced to land shortly after take-off.

Japan Airlines followed suit, saying it would ground its fleet of seven 787s from 16 January until further notice.

This is the latest setback for Boeing and its problem-hit Dreamliner planes.

On Wall Street, shares in Boeing closed down more than 3% following the Japanese announcements on Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Dreamliners have suffered issues including fuel leaks, a cracked cockpit window, brake problems and an electrical fire.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

There have been six separate safety incidents with Japanese-owned 787s in the last week and a half. But they are not all equal.

The incident today was by far the most serious. Smoke inside an aircraft while in-flight is always a serious matter. That’s why the plane was so quickly diverted, and probably why ANA and JAL have now ordered their fleets to be grounded.

It also looks like this incident may not be isolated. It appears very similar to an electrical fire on board a Japan Airlines 787 in the United States last week.

The source of that fire was the 787′s lithium Ion battery pack. All the way back in 2007, the US Federal Aviation Administration expressed concern about the installation of Lithium Ion batteries on board the 787 because of their known problem with so-called “thermal runaway”. It’s a problem that has caused mobile phones and laptop computers to catch fire in the past.

The 787 is not the only aircraft to use Lithium Ion battery packs. The Airbus A380 uses a smaller number. And the upcoming Airbus A350 will use a much larger number

“You’re nearing the tipping point where they need to regard this as a serious crisis,” said Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

“This is going to change people’s perception of the aircraft if they don’t act quickly.”

Battery malfunction

On Wednesday, ANA’s flight NH 692 left Yamaguchi Ube in western Japan at 08:10 local time (23:10 GMT) and headed for Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

Earlier reports that smoke was seen in the cockpit were inaccurate, ANA said. The pilots saw a warning on their computer screen telling them there was smoke inside one of the electrical compartments, the airline said. The source of the smoke is not yet known.

The pilots also received a warning that there was a fault in the battery system. ANA said the battery in the forward cargo hold was the same type as the one involved in a fire on another Dreamliner at a US airport last week.

The ANA flight landed at Takamatsu airport at 08:47 on Wednesday after the pilot saw an error message in the cockpit.

“There was a battery alert in the cockpit and there was an odd smell detected in the cockpit and cabin, and [the pilot] decided to make an emergency landing,” said Osamu Shinobe, an ANA vice president, at a news conference.

ANA said that the 129 passengers and eight crew were evacuated, with a number of people sustaining minor injuries.

The Reuters news agency reported that five people were injured, while Bloomberg said that one person was sent to hospital. ANA officials were not immediately available to confirm the figures.

The BBC’s correspondent in Tokyo, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, said that local television footage showed emergency chutes were deployed from the plane. There were also fire trucks on the runway.

Paul Lewis, a spokesman for Boeing, told the BBC that the planemaker was “aware of the diversion of a 787 operated by ANA to Takamatsu in western Japan”.

He added that Boeing “will be working with our customer and the appropriate regulatory agencies”.

Dreamliner’s technical problems Continue reading the main story

CLICKABLE

Fuel tanks

Electronics

Engines

Brakes

Cockpit

Fuel tanks

8 Jan 2013: Take-off aborted after about 150 litres of fuel spill from Japan Airlines Dreamliner in Boston

13 Jan: Same aircraft experiences another, separate fuel leak while undergoing tests in Tokyo

Electronics

4 Dec 2012: A United Airlines 787 makes emergency landing in New Orleans after electrical problems

13 Dec: Qatar Airways 787 grounded after electrical power distribution problems

17 Dec: United finds electrical problem in second aircraft

7 Jan 2013: Fire starts in lithium ion battery pack of Japan Airlines 787 in Boston

8 Jan: United Airlines also finds faulty wiring to battery

Engines

July 2012: Fan shaft on engine fails during runway tests at Charleston International Airport

11 Jan 2013: Oil leak found in engine of All Nippon Airways 787 flight

Brakes

9 Jan 2013: All Nippon Airways cancels flight when computer wrongly reports a brake problem

Cockpit

11 Jan 2013: Cockpit window on an All Nippon Airways Dreamliner cracks during a Japanese domestic flight. The plane lands safely with no injuries

15 Jan: Another Dreamliner operated by ANA makes an emergency landing at Takamatsu in Japan after a smoke alert goes off

Market Reaction

The concerns have spread beyond Japan, however, not least because the Dreamliner was seen as Boeing’s flagship new aeroplane and had attracted orders from many of the world’s biggest and best-known airlines.

The 787 is said to be one of the most fuel-efficient in the industry, and Boeing delivered 46 Dreamliners to customers in 2012.

Following Wednesday’s landing, India’s aviation regulator said it would review the Dreamliner’s safety and talk to parts makers.

The regulator said it was in contact with Boeing but as yet had no plans to ground the five Dreamliners that are currently being used by Air India.

Continue reading the main story

Dreamliners in use

• Air India: 5


• All Nippon Airways (Japan): 17


• Ethiopian Airlines: 4


• Japan Airlines: 7


• LAN Airlines (Chile): 3


• Lot Polish Airlines: 2


• Qatar Airways: 5


• United Airlines (US) 6


• Total: 49

Source: Boeing

Australia’s Qantas Airways said its order for 15 Dreamliners remained on track. Its subsidiary Jetstar is due to take delivery of the first of its aircraft in the second half of this year.

United Airlines is the only US carrier currently flying Dreamliners, and the carrier said it was not taking any immediate action.

Closer look

Even before Wednesday’s emergency landing, Boeing was facing an inquiry by Japanese and US authorities over its Dreamliner issues.

Last week, the US Federal Aviation Administration started a joint review with Boeing of the design, manufacturing and assembly of the Dreamliner.

On Tuesday, Japanese authorities said they would conduct an inquiry after two successive fuel leaks on a different 787 operated by Japan Airlines.

On 8 January, Japan Airlines reported that a fire broke out on a 787 shortly after it landed in Boston. There have also been reports of brake issues.

Inside the cockpit of the Dreamliner

“It is not abnormal for new aircraft to have some teething problems,” said Chris de Lavigne of Frost and Sullivan in Singapore.

“There were initial issues with the Airbus A380 as well. Look where it is today; it is flying successfully and everyone seems to be happy with it.”

However, he added that a lot would depend on the outcome of the two investigations.

“If it turns out to be a major issue and requires re-engineering to be done, then you may need to ground some of the planes or even the entire fleet.”

BBC News – Business

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Puerto Rico to consider anti-discrimination bill

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s legislature is expected to approve a long sought-after bill that would make it a crime to discriminate against people based on their gender or sexual orientation.

The bill was submitted Tuesday by Senator Ramon Luis Nieves of the Popular Democratic Party, which gained control of the Senate and House of Representatives after November’s general election.

The bill aims to protect people in the U.S. territory from being discriminated at work, in public places, and during transactions including renting or selling property.

“A human being’s dignity cannot be violated,” said Nieves, who was flanked by supporters including Pedro Peters Maldonado, a San Juan legislator who is Puerto Rico’s first openly gay elected official.

A similar proposal was approved by the House of Representatives in recent years, but was rejected by the Senate, which was then controlled by the pro-statehood New Progressive Party.

Human rights organizations have long demanded such a bill, saying that many gay, lesbian and transgender people in the conservative U.S. territory are at the mercy of homophobic attitudes. Most government departments already have their own anti-discriminatory policies, but human rights activists say they are often not enforced.

The bill comes a week after another legislator submitted a bill demanding that all partners, regardless of their sexual orientation or civil status, be covered by domestic violence laws.

Legislators are expected to debate both bills in upcoming weeks.

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Tablet shipments in 2013 could be lower than previously expected

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Lindsay Lohan pleads not guilty to car crash charges

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to three charges related to a June traffic accident that led a judge to revoke the troubled actress’ probation last month.

Lohan, 26, who did not attend the hearing, was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, lying to police and obstructing police when she said she was not behind the wheel of her sports car, which smashed into a truck in Santa Monica, California.

Lohan’s not guilty plea was entered in a Los Angeles court by her attorney.

The “Liz & Dick” actress is on probation for a 2011 jewelry theft and could be sent to jail if she is found to have violated the terms of her probation.

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Jane Godfrey, who will also preside over Lohan’s probation hearing, on Tuesday ordered the actress to attend a January 30 pretrial hearing. A date for Lohan’s probation hearing will be set at that time.

Lohan has been in and out of rehab and jail since a 2007 arrest for drunk driving and cocaine possession.

The former “Parent Trap” child star was arrested in New York on a misdemeanor assault charge on the same day that the Santa Monica car crash charges were filed.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has not filed a criminal complaint in the assault case.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Stacey Joyce)

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AstraZeneca’s new CEO removes R&D, commercial heads

LONDON (Reuters) – AstraZeneca‘s new chief executive stamped his authority on the struggling drugmaker on Tuesday by removing the heads of research and commercial operations in a management revamp designed to speed decision-making.

Pascal Soriot, who took the helm at Britain’s second-biggest pharmaceutical company in October, said the roles held by Martin Mackay and Tony Zook respectively had been eliminated and both men would leave the company at the end of January.

Instead, Soriot is creating three senior research and development (R&D) roles responsible for discovery and early stage development in small molecules, biologics and late-stage development.

On the commercial side, three positions will in future represent the different regions. A further senior role – to be filled at a later date – will oversee the global portfolio and product strategy, bridging the R&D and sales organizations.

The move effectively strips out a layer of senior management and means executives in charge of different divisions will have a seat at the executive top table – something Soriot hopes will reduce bureaucracy.

“This new senior executive team structure, that draws heavily from the leadership talent within the company, enables us to bring an even sharper management focus to key pipeline assets, key brands and key markets, and helps us further accelerate decision-making,” Soriot said.

The former Roche executive is striving to return AstraZeneca to health in the face of one of the industry’s steepest patent “cliffs” – when patents expire and drugs face generic competition.

He is expected to set out his ideas for the group when he presents full-year results on January 31, before delivering full details of an in-depth strategy review during a meeting for analysts and investors in March.

CLEARING THE DECKS

“He is clearing the decks,” said Navid Malik, an analyst at Cenkos Securities.

“But it is a surprise to see Mackay leaving. He was a one-time head of research at Pfizer, so he’s a heavy-hitter brought on board to solve problems and he hasn’t really had a lot of time to do that.”

Mackay jumped ship from Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, to AstraZeneca in May 2010.

Malik said AstraZeneca’s decision to give biologic products an equal ranking with traditional small molecule drugs in the R&D structure reflect a renewed focus on biotech treatments, which are increasingly seen as the future of modern medicine.

Soriot himself has extensive experience of the biologics side of the industry from his time at Roche, where he headed up its Genentech biotech unit.

His first decision on taking office was to suspend share buybacks, prompting immediate speculation that he will embark on more acquisitions to replace lost revenue. But he is also likely to re-focus both R&D and marketing operations in a bid to make the most of existing assets.

The company is not alone in facing big patent losses, but while rivals like GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi have now put the worst behind them, AstraZeneca still has the worst to come.

Its two biggest selling drugs – Nexium for stomach acid and the cholesterol fighter Crestor – will lose U.S. protection in 2014 and 2016.

Soriot’s new line-up for the key R&D functions will see Mene Pangalos take over as head of innovative medicines, with Bahija Jallal responsible for biologic drug development at the MedImmune unit, and Briggs Morrison heading up global medicines development.

(Additional Reporting by Karen Rebelo in Bangalore; Editing by Jane Merriman and David Cowell)

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Analysis: Once reliable technology sector drags down earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) – This earnings season, the U.S. technology industry is in an unusual position – dragging corporate America down, rather than lifting it up.

Wall Street expects the tech sector’s fourth-quarter earnings to be down 1.1 percent from a year ago, the first drop since the third quarter of 2009, even though overall S&P 500 profits are still forecast to show growth, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Chip companies are expected to be among the worst performers because of softer-than-expected personal computer sales. Weak overseas demand and worries about the U.S. fiscal crisis have also likely caused corporations to put off IT spending.

“The lack of economic growth we’ve seen in Europe, the deceleration of emerging markets – that has put a significant amount of pressure, particularly on technology,” said Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer for equities at Charles Schwab Corp, in San Francisco.

Tech stocks have struggled recently and further weakness could dent the bullish 2013 forecasts many strategists have for the U.S. stock market. But some investors and analysts say weak fourth-quarter numbers have already been baked into many tech stock prices and valuations are attractive.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a note this week that tech stocks are undervalued by about 32 percent, more than any other sector, based on current forward price-to-earnings ratios. Every tech industry except IT services is trading well below historical levels, the note said.

Within tech, “you’re finding a lot of cash-rich companies trading at reasonably cheap multiples. So to value investors like us … it starts to seem intriguing,” said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago, whose firm owns Microsoft Corp and Intel Corp.

It is unusual for tech, the largest of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index’s 10 industry sectors and accounting for nearly 23 percent of earnings, to underperform. Tech has been in the top half of S&P sectors for the last four earnings periods and it has posted stronger profit growth than the overall market 83 percent of the time in the last 10 years, according to Thomson Reuters.

Apple Inc usually provides one of the biggest boosts to U.S. corporate earnings, but this time its December quarter profit is forecast to fall 3.8 percent year on year, compared with the S&P 500‘s overall 1.8 percent profit growth, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Apple has only missed analyst earnings expectations four times in the last 10 years, two of those in the most recent reporting periods, Thomson Reuters data showed. Its shares are down again this week after reports the company is ordering fewer components because of lower-than-expected demand for its iPhone5.

But even Apple stock, which fell below $ 500 a share on Monday for the first time since February, is looking more attractive to value investors, Kuby said.

INTEL FIRST

The bulk of technology companies do not start to report results until next week, but Intel is due out on Thursday.

Among tech’s sub-industries, 13 semiconductor companies are expected to report an aggregate 28.4 percent fall in quarterly profit and four semiconductor equipment makers are expected to see a 50.7 percent drop, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Texas Instruments Inc was among top chip companies that have warned on the fourth quarter, along with Applied Materials Inc. Texas Instruments, which last cut its profit target in December, cited restructuring charges. The stock closed on Tuesday at $ 32.28, off its $ 34.24 high in March.

Others warnings have come from Cisco Systems Inc, Hewlett Packard Co and Qualcomm Inc.

The S&P 500 tech sector rose 13.2 percent in 2012, about the same as the S&P 500‘s 13.4 percent gain, but tech stocks by at least one measure have been underperforming since September. The SPDR XLK technology fund ETF ended last quarter with a loss of 6.1 percent, while the S&P 500 was down just 1 percent.

“The S&P 500 peaked in mid-September, had a pullback and it’s already pretty close to that September high. Contrasting that, the XLK hasn’t even come close to getting back to where it was in September,” said Chris Burba, co-founder and chief technical strategist at miAnalysis Inc in New York.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)

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Voter turnout push could challenge Israeli leader

JERUSALEM (AP) — With large numbers of Israelis expected to sit out next week’s election, centrist activists have launched a last-ditch appeal to get out the vote, hoping to defy what appears to be a guaranteed victory for a hard-line bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This grassroots effort could be the moderate camp’s only chance. Moderate, secular voters tend to turn out in smaller numbers than ideologically motivated hard-liners. Reversing this trend, experts say, is the surest way to take on the government’s handling of major issues like stalled peacemaking with the Palestinians, Iran’s nuclear program and a troubled economy.

Polls published in Israeli newspapers over the weekend projected Netanyahu and his traditional right-wing and religious allies winning between 64 and 71 seats, enough to secure a majority in the 120-member parliament, compared to 49 to 56 for centrist and Arab parties.

Pollster Camil Fuchs says those numbers reflect current trends. “But a four to five percentage point change in turnout could change things,” he said.

The get-out-the vote campaigners, including television personalities and local celebrities, present their efforts as non-partisan, but many are perceived to be aligned with Netanyahu’s opponents.

Netanyahu’s opponents say the stakes are especially high in the current election. Critics point to the deadlock in peace efforts with the Palestinians, his repeated run-ins with President Barack Obama and Iran’s suspect nuclear program. Without a strong alliance with the U.S., they say, it would be difficult to halt the Iranians or rally international support for Israel’s positions toward the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s Likud Party has fielded an especially hawkish slate of candidates who reject concessions to the Palestinians. The rise of “Jewish Home,” a pro-settler party that could play a major role in the next coalition government, could further affect peace efforts. Jewish Home’s leader, Naftali Bennett, and many inside Likud have advocated annexing parts of the West Bank.

Reflecting his hawkish line Monday, Netanyahu told Israel‘s Channel 2 TV that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not want to negotiate. “We don’t have to say that we don’t have a future here because Abu Mazen doesn’t want to negotiate with us,” Netanyahu said, referring to Abbas by his nickname. Abbas blames Israel for a four-year stalemate in peace talks.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for their hoped-for state. Israeli moderates warn that Israel’s continued control of these territories and their millions of Palestinian residents threaten Israel’s status as a Jewish democracy.

Despite the pressing issues, turnout in recent elections has been just over 60 percent. Fuchs said turnout among supporters of Netanyahu and his allies is generally higher than among the rest of the population.

According to pollsters, turnout is especially low among several key groups — political moderates, people under 30 and Israeli Arabs. These constituencies all tend to favor Netanyahu’s opponents.

Political parties are conducting classic get-out-the-vote campaigns, with automated phone calls, parlor meetings, transportation to polling stations and specific appeals to groups, like women and young voters.

Other groups not directly affiliated with specific parties are also getting out the message.

Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, teamed up with people from Israel’s popular TV satire “A Wonderful Country” to produce a get-out-the-vote video clip for his Facebook page. In his largely ceremonial post, Peres, 89, is supposed to avoid politics, but the Nobel peace laureate’s dovish leanings are well known.

Social activists who drew hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets last year to demonstrate against the gaps between rich and poor have recruited dozens of artists, TV personalities and journalists to take part in an ad campaign called “2013 elections — this time we’re all voting.” In ads, they don black shirts that read, “Vote or they’ll vote for you.”

Israeli film producer Ofir Kedar, who is based in London, is pushing a get-out-the-vote campaign with two YouTube videos he hopes will go viral. One of the clips, produced with the “One Voice” non-profit organization, shows a potential voter having a nightmare in which he is fired from his job and Israel is under attack and isolated internationally. He snaps out of it only when his young son says “wake up,” followed by a call to go vote.

“I’m trying to help the center-left bloc, not necessarily a specific party, but those who support a two-state solution,” Kedar said.

Under Israel’s system of proportional representation, voters cast ballots for parties, not individuals, and parties receive seats in parliament based on the percentage of votes they win. To enter parliament, a party must win at least 2 percent of all votes cast, or about 70,000, giving them a minimum of two seats.

“If two … parties on the left pass the threshold, that could change the blocs,” Fuchs said. “The chance for a big change is small but it exists.”

A recent poll by the University of Haifa predicted that just half of Israeli Arabs will vote. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they have no faith that Arab parties will be able to improve the lot of their communities, which suffer from poverty and discrimination.

If the Arab voters were to increase their turnout by 10 percentage points, they could win an additional five or six parliamentary seats, said Ytzhak Katz, of the Maagar Mohot survey service. “They could tap their electoral potential and strengthen themselves, but they don’t do it,” he said.

Helmi Kittani, executive director of the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development, has appealed to Arab voters directly, telling them it’s not too late to speak up.

“It’s not right to sit in your chairs and watch others wage your just struggle,” he said. “Elections are an opportunity to change your lives. Don’t sit at home.”

____

Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-kvsmXvUhU

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple stock wilts on worries about iPhone demand

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple‘s stock slipped below $ 500 for the first time in 11 months on Monday as investors reacted to reports signaling the company’s latest iPhone is falling further behind a slew of sleek alternatives running Google’s Android software.

The latest indication that Apple, the world’s most valuable company, is seeing sluggish demand for its iPhone 5 emerged in separate stories published Monday in the Japanese newspaper Nikkei and The Wall Street Journal. Both publications cited unnamed people familiar with the situation saying Apple has dramatically reduced its orders for the parts needed to build the newest iPhone because the device isn’t selling as well as the company hoped.

The adjustment means Apple will buy about half as many display screens for the iPhone as management originally planned for the opening three months of the year, according to the newspapers.

Apple Inc., which is based in Cupertino, Calif., declined to comment Monday. Spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said Apple executives would share their views on market conditions Jan. 23 when the company is scheduled to release its financial results for the final three months of 2011. The period covers the first full quarter that the iPhone 5 was on sale.

Although Apple hailed the iPhone 5 as the best version yet of a product that has revolutionized the telecommunications and computing industry, the company’s stock has wilted since the device hit the market.

After peaking at $ 705.07 on the day of the iPhone 5′s Sept. 21 release, Apple’s stock has plunged nearly 30 percent. The shares fell $ 18.55, or 3.6 percent, to close Monday’s regular trading at $ 501.75, dragging the company’s market value nearly $ 190 billion below where it stood in late September. The stock traded at $ 498.51 earlier in the day, its lowest price since February.

The stock’s decline hasn’t been entirely caused by concerns about the iPhone 5′s sales performance. Industry analysts are also worried about the recent introduction of a smaller, less expensive iPad cutting into the company’s profits.

But the biggest fears hover around the iPhone because it has become Apple’s most valuable product since the company’s late CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the first model in 2007. Apple has sold more than 271 million of the devices since then, and in the company’s last fiscal year ending in September, the iPhone generated $ 80 billion in sales to account for more than half of the company’s total revenue.

But Apple’s upgrades of the iPhone in the past two years have disappointed gadget lovers who have been clamoring for Apple to do more to stay in front of device makers relying on the free Android software made by Google Inc. For instance, there were high hopes for a larger iPhone screen with the release of the 2011 model, but Apple waited until last September to take that leap. And when Apple moved to a larger display screen with the iPhone 5, it didn’t include a special chip to enable users to make mobile payments by tapping the handset on another device at the checkout stand. Such a mobile payment feature is available on some Android phones.

Finally, Apple has insisted that wireless carriers subsidize so much of the iPhone’s cost in exchange for customers’ two-year commitments on data plans that the carriers make little or no money by selling the devices. That has prompted more wireless carriers to tout less expensive Android phones in their stores, undercutting the demand for iPhones, said Darren Hayes, who has been studying the shifting market conditions as chairman of the computing systems program at Pace University in New York.

Through the third quarter of last year, Android devices represented 75 percent of smartphone shipments worldwide according to the research firm International Data Corp. That was up from 58 percent at the same point 2011. Meanwhile, Apple’s share of worldwide smartphone shipments has fallen from a peak of 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 15 percent in the third quarter of last year.

Samsung Electronics, in particular, has been benefiting from the growing popularity of its Android-powered phones, led by its Galaxy S line. The company said Monday that it sold more than 100 million Galaxy S phones in less than three years. It took the iPhone nearly four years to reach that milestone.

“This is a real wake-up call for Apple,” Hayes said. “They need to be more flexible in how they do things.” Among other things, Hayes thinks Apple may have to reduce the financial burden on wireless carriers selling the iPhone and spend more money advertising the devices, especially with the recent wave of phones running on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software. Apple’s efforts to sell more iPhones to companies also could be short-circuited if Research in Motion Ltd.’s upcoming release of a revamped BlackBerry proves to be a hit. The BlackBerry is due out Jan. 30.

In an attempt to regain its competitive edge, Apple already is considering the release of a less expensive version of the iPhone made of cheaper parts to boost sales in less affluent countries, according to a report last week in The Wall Street Journal. The company so far hasn’t commented on that speculation, either. The least expensive iPhone 5 without a wireless contract sells for $ 649. With the subsidy included with a two-year wireless service contract, the iPhone 5 sells for as little as $ 199.

Even as it loses ground to Android products, the iPhone remains a solid seller. Some analysts believe Apple sold more than 50 million iPhones in its last quarter ending in December, which would be far the most units that the company has ever shipped during any previous three-month period.

What’s more, the iPhone 5 got off to a torrid start in China, where Apple expects to eventually sell more devices than it does in the U.S. Apple said it sold more than two million iPhone 5s in the three days after its debut in China last month.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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