34-Year Prison Sentence in Colorado Child Porn Case

According to the United States Attorney’s Office , District of Colorado, an Indiana man has been sentenced to serve more than 34 years in a federal prison this week after pleading guilty of attempted coercion and enticement to engage in unlawful sexual activity with a minor child and distribution of child pornography in Colorado. Here are the details.

* Steven Raines, 35, of Fort Wayne, Ind., was first charged by criminal complaint on July 2 and was indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver on July 9, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported. He pleaded guilty to those charges in October and was sentenced on Tuesday.

* On April 1, Raines began chatting online with an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent out of Glenwood Springs, Colo., after the agent entered a publicly accessible chat room whose topic focused on sex with children. The agent was pretending to be a single mother of two daughters under the age of 16.

* An individual, later identified as Raines, engaged in a conversation with the agent and expressed interest in having sex with the agent and the two minor children, stating that he had been searching for 20 years for someone like the agent who would provide access to her children, the attorney’s office reported.

* For the next three months, according to the attorney’s office, Raines continued chatting and emailing with the agent via his smart phone. He began sending pictures depicting child pornography and making plans to travel to Colorado to have sex with the two young girls, including one who was under the age of 6.

* Raines admitted that he had been a pedophile since the age of 15, the attorney’s office stated.

* Raines made plans to bring his child pornography with him to Colorado in order to “teach” the girls, the attorney’s office reported. He made statements about his own children and admitted to sexually molesting another child and producing pornographic images of his sexual abuse of that child.

* In late June, Raines began traveling to Colorado, arriving on June 30 to a residence in Garfield County, Colo., which was the address the agent had provided to him.

* According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Raines was taken into custody at that address and agents and officers discovered approximately 130 images and 84 videos of child pornography on a cell phone that was seized from Raines at that time.

* Further discs containing child pornography were discovered at Raines’ home and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children identified 23 known series of child pornography on his phone and email.

* According to U.S. Attorney John Walsh of Colorado, Raines will receive a severe penalty of decades in prison followed by a life term of supervised release.

* The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, the attorney’s office reported. The Homeland Security Investigations Resident Agent in Charge in Indianapolis and the United States Attorney’s Office in Fort Wayne, Ind., also assisted in the investigation and prosecution.

* According to an October press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, Raines’ plea agreement stipulated that he would receive a sentence of at least 30 years. He was ordered held without bond until sentencing.

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Cricket-Williamson’s unbeaten ton boosts New Zealand

KIMBERLEY, South Africa, Jan 22 (Reuters) – A brilliant undefeated innings of 145 from Kane Williamson propelled New Zealand to 279 for eight after a slow start in the second one-day international against South Africa on Tuesday.

The Black Caps, who won the first game of the three-match series, were asked to bat first by South African captain Faf du Plessis and lost two early wickets after failing to score in the first three overs.

However, a partnership of 127 between Williamson and Grant Elliott (48) changed the momentum of the innings and, despite a middle-order collapse, the hosts will face a target of 280 from their 50 overs.

Earlier, Martin Guptill was dismissed for his second consecutive duck when he fell in the third over to Rory Kleinveldt. (Reporting by Michael Todt; Editing by Mark Meadows; [email protected]; +44 20 7542 7933; Reuters Messaging:; [email protected])

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“Zero Dark Thirty” heads to Europe: will torture controversy follow?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Best Picture Oscar nominee “Zero Dark Thirty” rolls out in several Western European countries starting Wednesday, absent – at least for now – the firestorm of criticism that has accompanied its U.S. release.

The movie has been a lightning rod for detractors in the U.S. over its perceived endorsement of torture, an allegation that director Kathryn Bigelow and Sony executives have repeatedly denied.

“Overall, I believe Europeans are far less ambiguous than Americans when it comes to the use of torture,” Bruce Nash of box-office tracking service TheNumbers told TheWrap.

“To the extent that the film is perceived as pro-torture — whether it is or not, and I don’t believe it is — if that somehow became how the film is defined, that would hurt it at the box office,” Nash said. “But I don’t think that’s the case.”

Bigelow, screenwriter Marc Boal and several others involved with the picture have been in Europe for the past two weeks to promote the film. Boal told the New York Times that interviewers in France seemed to regard the torture issue as belonging to the Americans, and in fact appreciated the film’s head-on approach.

Indeed, the film begins its foreign run with a lot of momentum. The dark thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden was No. 1 in its first week of wide release on January 11 and has finished a strong second for the past two weeks.

Of course, the publicity surrounding the torture issue hasn’t hurt it at the box office in the U.S. The domestic haul for “Zero Dark Thirty” to this point is nearly $ 57 million, ahead of pre-release projections and likely heading for $ 100 million.

The film’s five Oscar nominations and the critical acclaim it has received have helped, too, but even Sony has acknowledged the flood of news stories raised the film’s profile.

Universal will be handling the film’s release in most countries in Western Europe, after buying rights to those territories from Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures, which financed it and cut distribution deals territory by territory.

It will open in France and Switzerland on Wednesday and in the U.K and Finland on Friday. Its debut in Germany will be on January 31, and Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Norway and South Africa will follow in February. Regional distributors will handle the film’s February releases in Russia and Latin America, and the Annapurna is still considering a China run.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is one of three Best Picture Oscar nominees that is currently hitting overseas theaters with a distributor different than the one that handled its U.S.release.

Sony, which along with the Weinstein Company co-financed “Django Unchained,” is overseeing the foreign release of Quentin Tarantino’s slave saga. It opened last weekend and took in $ 48 million from 54 overseas markets.

DreamWorks’ “Lincoln,” distributed by Disney in North America, debuted in Spain and Mexico this past weekend via Fox.

With an explanatory preamble approved by director Steven Spielberg added, “Lincoln” opened to $ 2.3 million on 344 screens in Spain and to $ 729,000 on 259 screens in Mexico. “Lincoln” goes much wider next weekend, when it opens in 19 markets including Brazil, Germany, Italy, Russia and the U.K..

As for the torture controversy that accompanied “Zero Dark Thirty’s” U.S. release, it doesn’t seem to have caused the slightest ripple.

Indeed, the fact that torture has been used in the war against terror has been seen as a reality in Europe for some time.

In December, Europe’s highest court, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, concluded that techniques used routinely by the Bush-era CIA in connection with its extraordinary-renditions program constituted torture.

If torture does not become an issue, The Numbers’ Nash said it should do solid business. He pointed out that other U.S. films about the war on terror have done pretty well overseas. In 2006, “United 93″ made $ 31 million domestically and nearly $ 45 million overseas. Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” did $ 70 million in the U.S. and went to make $ 92 million abroad that same year.

Bigelow’s last movie, “The Hurt Locker,’” was about a U.S. bomb squad in the Iraq war, and it nearly doubled its $ 17 million domestic take, with $ 32 million from abroad in 2009. The bulk of that foreign run came after its surprise victory over “Avatar” for the Best Picture Oscar, however.

This weekend’s U.K. and France debuts will be telling, but Universal quietly opened “Zero Dark Thirty” on just 250 screens in Spain on January 4. With a minimum of criticism, politicians’ ire or public furor, the movie has taken in nearly $ 4 million over three weekends.

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Intimidating debt collectors push Britons to suicide: report

LONDON (Reuters) – Irresponsible lending and intimidating debt collectors are pushing thousands of people in Britain into depression and suicide, a report said on Wednesday and separate data showed more people are taking their own lives.

Many people already struggling with the economic slowdown, wage freezes and benefit cuts were often overwhelmed by tactics used by some money lenders, including persistent phone calls and threatening letters, said the paper.

“Debt clients frequently feel humiliated, disconnected and entrapped, with the process of debt collection having a clear impact on people’s mental health,” the report by researchers from England’s University of Brighton said.

“The government must take urgent action to tackle the problem of irresponsible lending and intimidatory collection tactics which has left thousands of people trapped in a spiral of debt and at risk of depression and even suicide,” it said.

Separately, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released on Tuesday showed a “significant” rise in suicides in 2012.

The Brighton report, launched on Wednesday by British parliamentarian Molly Meacher, said there were cases of individuals not eating properly and asking their young children for money to tide them over.

One individual who owed money described the effect of his wife’s credit card lapsing.

“I was very close to calling the doctor to her because she is that close to breaking because of … these continual phone calls,” the man was quoted as saying.

SIGNIFICANT RISE

The total number of suicides in the UK hit 6,045 in 2011, a 7.8 percent increase on 2010 with deaths among men accounting for the largest proportion, according to figures from the ONS.

A total of 4,552 men took their own lives in 2011 compared with 1,493 women.

British mental health charity SANE said the downturn in Britain, which is struggling to maintain economic growth, was behind a “significant” rise in the number of suicides, reflecting a trend seen in other Western countries.

“These figures … reveal the profound human consequences of the economic downturn, in which unemployment, debt and the relationship breakdowns that often follow can push people who may be already vulnerable to take their own lives,” said Marjorie Wallace, SANE’s chief executive.

Suicide rates in the United States have also risen more steeply in recent years.

“It is also worrying that the group most at risk should be middle-aged men, who are not usually perceived to be at risk,” said Wallace, commenting on the ONS figures.

Among men aged between 45 and 59 years old, the suicide rate increased significantly between 2007 and 2011 to 22.2 deaths per 100,000 people, the ONS said.

(Editing by Kate Kelland and Andrew Heavens)

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Bank chief calls for further action

22 January 2013 Last updated at 15:53 ET

Mr King was speaking to CBI delegates in Belfast

Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King has called for further action to boost the UK’s ailing economy, in a speech in Belfast.

He said much has been done by the government and the Bank, but more was needed, particularly to restore confidence in banks.

Sir Mervyn said there were signs a “gentle recovery” was under way.

He also defended the Bank’s inflation targeting but said to review it given recent events would be sensible.

Sir Mervyn, who steps down from his post in June, said the Bank had allowed inflation to remain above the target 2% rate, as raising interest rates to tackle price rises would have created a deeper recession and pushed up unemployment.

But he said the Bank’s current remit did not specify how it should “strike a balance between growth and inflation in the short run”.

This, he said, meant there were “certainly aspects of the inflation targeting regime to consider”.

His comments come after his successor, the current Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, said the Bank’s 2% target rate might need be more flexible to allow for higher growth.

‘Squeeze’

Speaking to CBI delegates in the Northern Irish capital, Sir Mervyn highlighted how the economic recovery in the UK has been “noticeably slower” than in many other countries.

He said this was largely down to a “deep and protracted squeeze” on many people’s real incomes, as inflation outstrips pay rises and energy and food prices increase.

He also highlighted the extent to which UK banks were forced to rein in lending after borrowing too much in the run-up to the financial crisis, and the impact on exports of the eurozone debt crisis.

To combat all this, the Bank has cut interest rates to record lows and pumped £375bn into the economy to try and stimulate demand under the programme known as quantitative easing (QE).

QE was “crucial in avoiding a depression,” he said.

In conjunction with the government, the Bank has also made about £60bn available to banks on the condition they lend it on to businesses and individuals.

Higher inflation

But Sir Mervyn said more needed to be done.

“There remains spare capacity – certainly in the labour market,” he said.

“So should we do more to revive the patient? The short answer is yes.”

He talked of the need to restore confidence in the banking system and to implement reforms to boost investment and spending by companies and individuals.

He also expressed disappointment at higher-than-expected inflation, which stands at 2.7%, but reiterated the Bank’s belief that the rate would come back down to its target rate of 2% over the next two years.

Sir Mervyn argued, in the long run, the Bank must maintain its 2% target, as price stability must remain the primary responsibility of all central banks.

He also said low interest rates simply encouraged spending today at the expense of spending tomorrow, and so were not a sustainable way to achieve long-term growth.

Sir Mervyn also pointed to a “gentle [economic] recovery” and some grounds for optimism, such as improving credit conditions and lower mortgage rates, and the fact that companies were sitting on large piles of money.

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Inside job, 2 Canadian militants in Algerian siege

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — The Islamist militants who attacked a natural gas plant in the Sahara included two Canadians and a team of explosives experts who had memorized the layout of the sprawling complex and were ready to blow the place sky-high, Algeria’s prime minister said Monday.

Militants in the highly-organized operation also wore military uniforms and appeared to have help from the inside — a man from Niger who had once worked as driver at the plant, according to accounts from the prime minister and state television.

Algeria detailed a grim toll from the attack, saying that 38 hostages and 29 militants died in four days of mayhem. Three of the attackers were captured and five foreign workers remained unaccounted for, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told reporters at a news conference in Algiers, the capital.

He did not specify the nationalities of the captured militants, report their medical conditions or say where they were being held.

Monday’s account offered the first Algerian government narrative of the four-day standoff, from the attempted bus hijacking early Wednesday to the moment when the attackers prepared to explode bombs across the gas plant, which spreads out over 5 square kilometers (2 square miles) deep in the desert, 800 miles (1,300 miles) south of Algiers.

All but one of the dead hostages — an Algerian guard — were foreigners. The dead hostages included seven Japanese workers, six Filipinos, three energy workers each from the U.S. and Britain, two from Romania and one worker from France.

The final death toll was still unclear, since accounts from other governments appeared to indicate that more than five workers were still missing. It was also lower than the 81 estimated Sunday from Algerian reports of dead and missing.

The militants had said during the standoff that their group included Canadians, and hostages who had escaped recalled hearing at least one of the militants speaking English with a North American accent.

In addition to the Canadians, the Algerian prime minister said the militant cell included men from Egypt, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Tunisia, as well as three Algerians.

Officials in Canada could not immediately confirm whether two of the attackers were citizens.

“Canada condemns in the strongest possible terms this deplorable and cowardly act and all terrorist groups which seek to create and perpetuate insecurity,” said Chrystiane Roy, a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs.

“We are pursuing all appropriate channels to seek further information and are in close contact with Algerian authorities,” she said in a statement.

The Algerian prime minister indicated that this operation was not — as the Islamists had claimed — an immediate reaction to France’s recent military intervention against Islamists in neighboring Mali, since the captured militants said it took two months of planning. But he said the group did come from northern Mali, hundreds of miles away from the gas plant.

He said the group included a former driver at the complex from Niger and that the attackers “knew the facility’s layout by heart.”

They wore military uniforms, state TV reported, bolstering accounts by escaped hostages that they didn’t just shoot their way in.

“Four attackers stepped out of a car that had flashing lights on top of it,” one of the former hostages, Liviu Floria, a 45-year-old mechanic from Romania, told The Associated Press.

The prime minister said “the last words of the terrorist chief” was to slaughter the hostages.

“He gave the order for all the foreigners to be killed, so there was a mass execution, many hostages were killed by a bullet to the head,” he said.

Three Americans died in the attack and seven made it out safely, a U.S. official in Washington said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. Their bodies have been recovered, the official said.

Algeria has not reported any military deaths from four days of confronting the fighters.

The attack began early Wednesday with the attempted hijacking of two buses filled with workers outside the complex. Under assault from Algerian forces, the militants moved on the main complex, armed with missiles, mortars and bombs for their three explosives experts, Sellal said.

He praised the quick wits of a guard who tripped an alarm that stopped the flow of gas and warned workers of an imminent attack.

“It was thanks to him that the factory was protected” from what could have been a far deadlier attack, he said.

Floria, the former hostage, remembered the moment when the power was cut.

“I ran together with other expats and hid under the desks in my office, locking the door. Attackers went scanning the office facility, kicking the doors in. Luckily our door did not break and they went on to other offices,” he said. “Locals were freed, the attackers made clear from the beginning that only foreigners were a target.”

Floria ultimately escaped, but not before he heard the two gunshots that killed two wounded foreign hostages that he said he had tried to save.

Sellal said the facility had 790 Algerian workers and 134 foreigners from 26 countries. The Algerians were freed early in the standoff — former hostages said the attackers immediately separated out the foreigners, forcing some to wear explosive belts.

The prime minister said the militants carried a great deal of explosives and mined the facility. Sellal justified the Algerian military helicopter attack Thursday on vehicles filled with hostages and Islamists out of the fear that the kidnappers were attempting to escape.

The Algerian special forces assault on the refinery on Saturday that killed the last group of militants and hostages came after the kidnappers attempted to destroy the complex.

The Masked Brigade, the group that claimed to have masterminded the takeover, has warned of more such attacks against any country backing France’s military intervention in Mali. Algeria had allowed French planes to fly over its territory to reach Mali.

Sellal said the militants had expected to return to Mali with the foreign hostages. Seven French citizens taken hostage in recent years are thought to be held by al-Qaida linked groups in northern Mali.

“Their goal was to kidnap foreigners,” Sellal said. “They wanted to flee to Mali with the foreigners but once they were surrounded they started killing the first hostages.”

The operation was led by an Algerian, Amine Benchenab, who was known to security services and was killed during the assault, he added. Sellal said negotiating was not impossible.

“They led us into a real labyrinth, in negotiations that became unreasonable,” he said.

Norway said five of its citizens from the plant were still unaccounted for, while Japan said three Japanese were still missing. Britain said three citizens and one resident were feared dead but not accounted for. Four Filipinos and two Malaysian plant workers were also missing, according to their governments.

___

Associated Press reporters Bradley Klapper in Washington, Rob Gillies in Toronto, and Nicolae Dumitrache and Vadim Ghirda in Pitesti, Romania, contributed to this report.

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Sony to sell new Xperia tablet in Japan: Nikkei

(Reuters) – Sony Corp’s Sony Mobile Communications Inc said it will sell the new version of its Xperia tablet in Japan this spring, the Nikkei reported, citing Kyodo News.

The Xperia Tablet Z, whose price has not been announced, has a 10.1-inch display, is 6.9 mm thin and weighs 495 grams, according to the company’s website.

Rival Google Inc’s Nexus 10 tablet is 8.9 mm thick, while Apple Inc’s iPad mini measures 7.9 mm.

Sony halted sales of Xperia in October, a month after launch, after discovering gaps between the screen and the case that made some of the machines susceptible to water damage.

The Nikkei reported on Sunday that Japanese smartphone makers seem to be regaining some market share they lost to companies like Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.

(Reporting by Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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Chastain horror film “Mama” takes big box office win

(Reuters) – Jessica Chastain overpowered Mark Wahlberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others as her low-budget horror flick emerged as the North American weekend box office champ and her Oscar-nominated “Zero Dark Thirty” captured the second spot as well.

Chastain’s supernatural thriller, “Mama,” pulled in $ 28.1 million from Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to studio estimates, beating out a crop of new testosterone-fueled, male-targeted releases that finished far back in the pack.

“Zero Dark Thirty,” for which Chastain is a leading best actress Oscar contender, took in $ 17.6 million, while another late 2012 release and Oscar favorite, “Silver Linings Playbook,” finished third with $ 11.35 million.

“Broken City,” a crime thriller starring Wahlberg and Russell Crowe, finished fifth with $ 9 million behind “Gangster Squad’s” $ 9.1 million, while Schwarzenegger’s new action film, “The Last Stand,” earned $ 6.3 million for a dismal 10th place.

“Mama” stars Chastain as a guitarist who doesn’t want children but is forced to take care of two orphaned nieces who have been living in the woods. She and her husband try to re-adjust the little girls to normal life.

Based on a 2008 short film, the movie was produced for roughly $ 15 million.

“This is a great result, one we never would have expected especially for a film of this genre,” said Nikki Rocco, Universal’s president for domestic distribution.

“The timing was perfect,” she said, noting “the key was it’s a PG-13 movie that appealed to the under-25 female audience.”

The studio said it was hopeful that as the only PG-13 film in release this month it would continue to find an audience.

Chastain is a best actress Oscar nominee for her role as a dogged CIA agent in “Zero Dark Thirty,” the weekend’s second-place film about the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden. The movie has taken in $ 55.9 million since late December.

“Silver Linings Playbook,” an Oscar-nominated romantic comedy about a former mental patient trying to rebuild his life, expanded nationwide for a strong third-place finish and a $ 55.3 million total since the movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence opened in late autumn.

Both Oscar contenders handily beat out a pair of new, male-oriented films, as did crime thriller “Gangster Squad.”

“The Last Stand” features Schwarzenegger’s return to a starring, big-screen role after a seven-year break while he was serving as governor of California, but managed only $ 6.3 million to finish 10th. The former “Terminator” will star in three movies over the next 12 months.

Schwarzenegger plays a retired Los Angeles policeman who works to protect a tiny border town from a notorious drug kingpin. The film was produced for about $ 45 million.

The studio noted that the weekend was crowded with several movie-going choices, and that two films were competing for the same audience, referring to the weekend’s other new movie, “Broken City,” which stars Wahlberg as a former New York cop who uncovers a scandal involving the mayor, played by Russell Crowe.

The top 10 movies were rounded out by “A Haunted House,” “Django Unchained,” “Les Miserables” and “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”

“Zero Dark Thirty” was released by Sony Corp’s movie studio.

“The Last Stand” was distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment.

“The Hobbit” and “Gangster Squad” were released by Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

“A Haunted House” was released by Open Road Films, a joint venture between theater owners Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment Inc.

“Django Unchained” and “Silver Linings Playbook” were distributed by Weinstein Co.

“Broken City” was distributed by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

“Les Miserables” and “Mama” were distributed by Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine and Chris Michaud; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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In China, signs that one-child policy may be coming to an end

JIUQUAN, China (Reuters) – China could be considering relaxing its harsh one-child policy because of women like Hu Yanqin, who lives in a village at the edge of the Gobi desert.

When Hu married a construction worker seven years ago, she knew she was going to have only one child, although the area where she lives, the Jiuquan region in northwestern Gansu province, is one of the rare places in China where those living in rural areas have been free to have two children since 1985.

“Those people with two children are those who are better off,” said Hu, 32, dropping her six-year-old son off at kindergarten. “The majority of people in my village only have one child.”

Advocates of reforming China’s one-child policy use Hu and millions like her as evidence that relaxing the law will not lead to a surge of births in the world’s most populous nation.

Jiuquan has a birth rate of 8 to 9 per 1,000 people, lower than the national average of about 12 births per 1,000 people.

The policy, implemented since 1980 alongside reforms that have led to rapid economic expansion, is increasingly being seen as an impediment to growth and the harbinger of social problems.

The country’s labor force, at about 930 million, will start declining in 2025 at a rate of about 10 million a year, projections show. Meanwhile, China’s elderly population will hit 360 million by 2030, from about 200 million in 2013.

“If this goes on, there will be no taxpayers, no workers and no caregivers for the elderly,” said Gu Baochang, a demography professor at Renmin University.

China’s top statistician, Ma Jiantang, said last Friday that the country should look into “an appropriate and scientific family planning policy” after data showed that the country’s working-age population, aged 15 to 59, fell for the first time.

Economists say the policy is also responsible for China’s high savings rate. A single child often must take care of two – and four in the case of married couples – retired parents, increasing the likelihood that working adults will save money for their old age rather than spend.

That has delayed the “rebalancing” of Beijing’s economy toward more consumption, a step economists believe China needs to take to keep its growth going.

Expectations that Beijing will ease the restrictions, by gradually allowing couples to have two children, have been building since outgoing President Hu Jintao conspicuously dropped the phrase “maintain a low birth rate” in a work report to a Communist Party congress in November.

It was the first time in a decade that a major speech by a top leader had omitted such a reference and could signal that the new government led by Xi Jinping is leaning toward reform.

“I think that the 18th Party Congress report indicates that, and this is my personal interpretation, the one-child policy is going to be adjusted,” said Ji Baocheng, a delegate to China’s rubber stamp parliament who advocates change in the policy.

BRUTAL

The one-child policy covers 63 per cent of the country’s population and Beijing says it has averted 400 million births since 1980.

Its enforcement can be brutal. Couples who flout family planning laws are, at minimum, fined, some lose their jobs, and in some cases mothers are forced to abort their babies or be sterilized.

Last summer, a woman who was seven months pregnant was forced to have an abortion, triggering outrage on China’s Internet and international condemnation.

But evidence has been mounting for years that the policy may be unnecessary to control population growth.

In 2008, Renmin University’s Gu and the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy’s Wang Feng published a study on two-child policy programs in four regions, home to about 8 million people. They concluded that the high cost of having children is enough to hold down birthrates, but the freedom to have a second child results in a less skewed gender disparity.

The next year, sources told Reuters, the National Population and Family Planning Commission decided, as a first step, to expand pilot programs to relax the policy in four to five other regions.

The proposal was dropped for lack of a consensus among the leadership, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The new leadership in Beijing, which assumes power formally in March, is likely to make another run at change, reform advocates believe.

“The adjustment of the policy is certain, it’s only a question of time,” said a recently retired official from the family planning commission, who maintains close ties with the agency.

BOYS AND GIRLS

A skewed gender ratio is another unwelcome effect of the one-child policy.

Like most Asian nations, China has a traditional bias for sons. Many families abort female fetuses and abandon baby girls to ensure their one child is a son, so about 118 boys are born for every 100 girls, against a global average of 103 to 107.

In Jiuquan, there are 110 boys for every 100 girls, far less skewed than the national average, because of the freedom to have two children.

Tian Xueyuan, one of the drafters of the original one-child policy, told Reuters that he had warned top officials nearly a decade ago of the flaws.

“A substantial portion of China’s men will not be able to find a match … and that will be a major factor of social instability,” Tian said he told party leaders.

The usefulness of the one-child policy, he said, has run its course. “It’s a special policy with a time limit, specifically, to control the births of one generation,” Tian told Reuters.

Still, there are significant pockets of resistance. Last week, Wang Xia, the minister in charge of the family planning commission, said China will “unswervingly adhere” to its family planning policy.

Her remarks dismayed reformers expecting change from the new government, and ignited an outcry among Chinese Internet users.

Analysts said Wang’s remarks did not necessarily reflect the thinking of the incoming government. The commission declined to comment.

In Jiuquan today, though the one-child policy is relaxed, women are still subject to strict family planning rules. They are fitted with intra-uterine devices after their first child, sterilized after their second. Anyone who defies the two-child quota pays a 30,000 yuan fine.

Few do. The women in Jiuquan complain about expensive school fees and other expenses of bringing up children.

“It’s hard to raise a child,” said Xing Juan, a 26-year-old with one son. “The burden is heavy.”

(Editing by Bill Powell, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Paul Tait)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Obama’s Hidden Hard Line on Immigration

President Obama’s second inaugural address was heavy on the theme of unity. He used the word “together” seven times in the 15-minute speech. But tucked inside was a prelude to a contentious fight he’ll soon have with Republicans—the battle over reforming the nation’s immigration laws.

Obama couched his comments about the issue in uplifting language: “Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity,” he said. “Until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce, rather than expelled from our country.”

On the surface, there’s nothing controversial about that. Increasing the number of visas for highly-skilled immigrants is one of the few policy goals Obama and the GOP agree on. That reflects a big change in Republican thinking in recent months, as party leaders saw support among Hispanics drop in the face of tough anti-immigrant rhetoric. When Mitt Romney talked about immigrants during the Republican primaries, he focused on undocumented workers, suggesting they should “self-deport.” By the summer, he had softened his tone, saying he wanted to “staple a green card to the diplomas” of all foreign math and science grads who study at U.S. universities.

If visas for highly -skilled workers were the only issue on the table, Democrats and Republicans could solve it fairly quickly. The GOP would need a little time to convince the staunchest conservatives to sign on. Democrats would have to win over unions, but that might not be too difficult because most science and engineering grads work in fields with few union jobs, anyway.

But that’s not the way it’s going to happen. What Obama didn’t say in his speech, and the thing Republicans will latch onto in the days ahead, is that he wants to tie the popular idea of raising visas for skilled workers to making broader changes in immigration laws—to which that Republicans strongly object.

Last week, administration officials—speaking anonymously, of course—”leaked” to reporters some of the details of Obama’s immigration plan. For the first time, the White House made clear that the president won’t agree to raise the visa caps for highly skilled immigrants unless it’s part of an overall reform plan that includes a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.

These immigrants aren’t the “bright young” future job-creators Obama lauded in his speech. Most work dirty jobs for low wages, and many lack high-school diplomas. They’re the undocumented workers that Republican governors in Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, and other states have driven away with tough anti-immigration laws.

Obama’s insistence on an everything-at-once approach puts Republicans in a difficult position as the party struggles to settle on a policy that its different factions can rally around. For many House Republicans from Southern and border states, such words as “legalization” and “citizenship” are non-starters. But increasingly, party leaders and other prominent conservatives—House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Charlie Spies, counsel for the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, even Bill O’Reilly–are advocating for a compromise—yet to be defined—between “throw them out” and “let them stay.”

This means that skilled would-be immigrants hoping for the door to open could be in for a long wait. They’ve become the essential bargaining chip in what will likely be a tense, protracted negotiation—not just between Democrats and Republicans, but among Republicans themselves.

Businessweek.com — Top News

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