Boehner sees no progress in fiscal cliff talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday that “fiscal cliff” talks with the White House had made no substantive progress and criticized President Barack Obama and Democrats for failing to get serious about including spending cuts in a final deal.

Boehner said he was “disappointed” after a phone call with Obama on Wednesday night and a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday moved the two sides no closer to an agreement to avert the tax hikes and spending cuts that will be triggered at the start of 2013 unless Congress intervenes.

“I’m disappointed in where we are and disappointed in what’s happened over the last couple of weeks,” Boehner, of Ohio, told reporters after a private session with Geithner at the Capitol.

“No substantive progress has been made in the talks between the White House and the House over the last two weeks,” he said. “There’s been no serious discussion of spending cuts so far, and unless there is, there’s a real danger of going off the fiscal cliff.”

Markets dipped briefly into negative territory on Boehner’s comments, continuing a pattern of gyration based on the latest utterance or headline about the outlook for an agreement to avert the fiscal cliff.

The tone was in sharp contrast to the one expressed on November 16, the last time Obama met with congressional leaders. Boehner then stood next to Democratic leaders and voiced optimism they could find common ground in fiscal cliff negotiations.

Complicating the debate on Thursday was a renewed fight over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. That explosive issue, which could have been handled separately in the spring, was thrust into the fiscal cliff fray on Thursday in an exchange between Republicans and Democrats.

Boehner said any debt limit increase needed to be matched or exceeded by spending cuts to be proposed by Obama as part of the cliff negotiations.

‘DEEPLY IRRESPONSIBLE’

White House spokesman Jay Carney responded by demanding that Congress go ahead and raise the debt ceiling as part of any year-end deal to avoid the cliff. To do otherwise, he said, would be “deeply irresponsible.”

The last partisan fight over the nation’s borrowing limit in 2011 was settled by a law that led directly to the fiscal cliff and to a downgrade of the government’s credit rating.

Geithner, Obama’s top negotiator in the talks, met with congressional leaders from both parties at the Capitol as the end-of-year deadline approaches to avoid the onset of $ 600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts that analysts warn could push the U.S. economy back into recession.

The immediate issue is whether the tax cuts that originated in the administration of former President George W. Bush should be extended beyond December 31 for all taxpayers including the wealthy, as Republicans want, or just for taxpayers with income under $ 250,000, as Obama and his fellow Democrats want.

Republicans have said they are willing to consider new ways to raise revenue as long as Democrats and Obama agree to accompany it with significant spending cuts, particularly to entitlement programs like the government-sponsored Medicare and Medicaid healthcare plans.

“Without spending cuts and entitlement reform, it’s going to be impossible to address our country’s debt crisis. Right now, all eyes are on the White House,” Boehner said.

Boehner said Geithner and the administration had not offered any new plans during the meeting to break the impasse, while Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Democrats were still waiting for a “reasonable” proposal from Republicans.

Carney said the president had put forward “very specific spending cuts,” including some in the entitlement healthcare programs, but had not seen any movement from Republicans.

CRACKS IN REPUBLICAN RANKS

Despite a few cracks in Republican ranks, most notably from Republican Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, neither side has budged significantly in recent weeks from its position, leaving the markets and political analysts alike to grasp at wording nuances.

“I think unfortunately it seems pretty clear that the market is trading very much off the reading of the tea leaves on how these fiscal cliff negotiations are going,” said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.

In the absence of progress, or any realistic understanding as to when or if Republicans and Democrats might avert the cliff or come up with some deficit reduction agreement, prodding has started to come on a regular basis from business leaders as well as Federal Reserve officials.

New York Fed President William Dudley and Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, highlighted the problems that U.S. lawmakers were causing for both hiring and the economy with each day they fail to strike a deal to avoid a pending fiscal crisis.

Dudley said on Thursday that if it is not addressed, the economic contraction is likely to be larger than normal because interest rates are so low.

The post-election lame-duck session of Congress also has made clear that until the two sides get over the immediate tax issue, they will not be able to move forward on the serious discussions they desire on longer-term deficit reduction and tax reform.

Keeping the nation in suspense down to a white-knuckled deadline has become the rule rather than the exception for Congress in recent years.

Whether the risk has been a government shutdown or, as in the events that led to the fiscal cliff, default for failure to raise the U.S. government’s borrowing power, Republicans and Democrats have needed the pressure of time and possible disaster to bring them together.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai, Thomas Ferarro and Kim Dixon; Writing by John Whitesides and Fred Barbash; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

___

AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Zynga slides after updated agreement with Facebook

NEW YORK (AP) — Zynga shares tumbled nearly 12 percent in after-hours trading Thursday after the online game company and Facebook disclosed that they changed their relationship status to become less attached to each other.

Zynga Inc. said in a regulatory filing Thursday that it will no longer have to display Facebook ads or use Facebook payments on its own properties — such as Zynga.com. In addition Zynga will no longer be required to use Facebook as the exclusive social site for its games, or to grant Facebook exclusive games.

Facebook Inc., which filed a similar disclosure, will also be able to develop its own games after the end of March. Its deal with Zynga previously prohibited that.

The amendments change the companies’ 2010 contract that gave Zynga special status among Facebook game developers. San Francisco-based Zynga relies on Facebook for most of the revenue it generates, but the company has been working to establish its independence — while also maintaining ties with Facebook.

Zynga’s titles range from “FarmVille” to “CityVille” to “Words With Friends,” the Scrabble-like game made popular on mobile devices.

Zynga shares fell 31 cents, or 11.8 percent, to $ 2.31 in after-hours trading. The stock closed up 11 cents, or 4.4 percent, at $ 2.62 in the regular session.

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Former boxing champ Mike Tyson to take one-man show on the road

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson plans to take his one-man theater show on the road across the United States early next year.

Tyson, 45, made the announcement on ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.

“Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth” is an autobiographical monologue performed by Tyson in which he reflects upon his tough childhood in Brooklyn, the absence of his father and his self-described “reckless and destructive” behavior. It premiered in Las Vegas in April and had a run on Broadway.

Tyson, whose reputation was boosted by a cameo in the 2009 hit comedy “The Hangover,” told Kimmel that his inspiration for the show came from a one-man performance of “A Bronx Tale” in Las Vegas.

The 23-date tour, which features the Broadway show directed by Spike Lee, is scheduled to begin on February 12 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the city where Tyson was convicted in 1992 of raping then 18-year-old beauty queen Desiree Washington.

Tyson, who at the age of 20 became the youngest world heavyweight champion, served three years in prison before restarting his boxing career in 1995.

He later became better known for his erratic behavior than for his prowess in the ring. Tyson notoriously bit off portions of opponent Evander Holyfield’s ears in a 1997 bout and publicly said he wanted to eat British champion Lennox Lewis’ children.

Tyson retired from boxing in 2006.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Patrica Reaney)

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Where You Work Matters When It Comes to Breast Cancer Risk

Regulations to protect workers from on-the-job hazards—and to compensate them for occupational harms—have a strong and storied history in the United States and Canada. But those protections are lacking for women who are at increased risk of breast cancer due to their occupation, says the author of a new study on breast cancer risk.

Previous research has hinted that some types of occupational exposures can raise the risk of breast cancer. Chemicals used in plastics manufacturing jobs, like polybrominated diphenyl esters—or PBDEs—are known carcinogens, as is secondhand tobacco smoke. Yet too little attention has been paid to women’s exposures to these chemicals and cancer risk, says Dr. James Brophy, adjunct faculty at the University of Windsor in Ontario, and a co-author of the new research.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Health, looked at women who were diagnosed with breast cancer in Essex or Kent Counties in Southern Ontario. Researchers  surveyed 1,006 women with breast cancer and a control group of 1,147 women without the disease regarding factors known to influence breast cancer risk—such as family history, use of hormone therapy, smoking, number of children and other factors. The women also described where they worked and their job activities.

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The study showed that women who worked for 10 years in jobs that involved exposure to chemicals had a 42 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared to women who worked in occupations without chemical exposures.

The findings should help shine a light on the link between breast cancer and occupational exposures, Brophy told TakePart.

“In cancer causality, there has been a real turning away from involuntary exposures since the late 1970s,” he says. “Cancer causality has been considered lifestyle choices, such as smoking, drinking, diet. Attention to other causes of cancer has been considered marginal. But the majority of women who get the disease don’t have the known or suspected risk factors. The disease is occurring among many healthy women. That’s opening up a major public health question about why. “

Breast cancer likely arises due to a combination of factors, such as genetics and outside influences, like chemical exposures or diet. But in the study, researchers found a clear link to some occupations even when controlling for many of the other risk factors for the disease.

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Women who work in farming had a 36 percent increased risk of breast cancer, Brophy says. In Canada, he notes, employment in farming often begins early in a woman’s life. Early exposure to pesticides may account for the excessive risk.

The study also showed that the breast cancer type was linked to some occupations. For example, women in agricultural occupations with breast cancer were more likely to have a type known as estrogen receptor negative.

“That is the most difficult breast cancer to treat,” Brophy notes. “What we showed was these different occupational exposures were influencing the predominant type of tumor status in these women. That is a significant thing. It added weight that occupation was influencing the disease and the development of the disease.”

Breast cancer risk was almost double for women working in the Canadian car industry’s plastics manufacturing sector. The study showed that breast cancer risk was nearly five times higher in premenopausal women working in plastics and food canning. Breast cancer typically occurs after menopause.

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“The elevated risk for premenopausal women in auto plastics and canning was really very shocking,” he says. “These diseases are occurring among young women, which is normally a low-risk group.”

Overall, breast cancer risk was doubled for women working in food canning or tinning. Women in metalworking had a 73 percent increased risk of breast cancer.

Perhaps not as surprising, women employed in bars, casinos and at race tracks had double the risk of developing breast cancer, most likely due to secondhand tobacco smoke exposure.

More attention has been paid to the health effects of chemical exposures to males in particular industries, Brophy notes, such as the risk of lung cancer linked to mining. However, the theory that certain chemicals, called endocrine disruptors, can cause cellular changes during critical periods of breast development is well known in the medical world.

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“In occupational health, in general, there has been an ongoing tension about the lack of focus and concern about issues for women,” he says. There is a lack of attention to blue-collar occupations, but even less attention paid to the working conditions of women.”

Even in occupations where men and women hold the same position, women are affected differently and may require a different set of workplace protections, he says.

“A woman janitor in a hospital is assumed to have the same exposure as a male janitor in a hospital ,” he says. “The accepted idea is that their exposures are the same as men. But what we discovered in our study is often in these workplaces there is a division of labor in which men have certain tasks and women certain tasks and their exposures can be entirely different…Women have a different vulnerability. On the whole issue of hormonal disruption, what that means for a woman would differ than for a man.”

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The concept that workers should be protected from occupational harm has been expanding in recent years in some areas. For example, some countries now recognize that working irregular shifts or night shifts can increase the risk of obesity and obesity-related diseases, like diabetes.

But there is still no workplace standard that accounts for exposure to chemicals that are known endocrine disruptors, Brophy says.

“There is very little being done to protect women from these exposures,” he says. “I think there is an awareness among workers. The problem has been what you can do about it.”

Emerging scientific evidence may give workers  an avenue to seek compensation for harms through the courts, Brophy adds.

“It’s only after you establish compensation that there is a real incentive for employers to do something about it,” he says.

Question: Should employers act now to protect female workers from an increased risk of breast cancer linked to particular occupations? Tell us what you think in the comments.

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Shari Roan is an award-winning health writer based in Southern California. She is the author of three books on health and science subjects.

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The Needless Tragedy of Student Loan Defaults

For the first time on record, the delinquency rate on student loans has jumped above the rate for credit cards, car loans, or any other kind of consumer loan. The tragedy? Many of those loans will default, with stunningly harsh consequences, even though there are many good options for debt relief—deferment, forebearance, or reductions in monthly payments.

“There is actually no rational reason for a borrower to be delinquent or default on their loans,” says Mark Kantrowitz, president of MK Consulting in Cranberry Township, Pa., and operator of the FinAid.org website.

Borrowers who are unemployed, in the military, or back in school can ask for up to three years or full or partial deferment on repayment of a federal loan. For those who have a job but don’t earn enough to cover the monthly payment, there are six options: graduated repayment, extended repayment, income-based repayment, income-contingent repayment, income-sensitive repayment, and pay-as-you-earn repayment. In other words, the federal government will do just about anything to keep borrowers from giving up and walking away completely.

If that’s the carrot, here’s the stick: Defaulting is “like a trip through hell with no light at the end of tunnel,” says Kantrowitz. The federal government can garnish up to 15 percent of a borrower’s wages, Social Security disability, and Social Security retirement income without a court order. Unlike other debt, student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. Collection charges of up to 20 percent can be skimmed off the top of payments—enough to turn a 10-year loan into a 19-year loan. To say nothing of the lasting damage to a borrower’s credit score, which will make it hard or impossible to get a credit card, auto loan, or mortgage.

And, oh, by the way, if you win the lottery, the first winner from your windfall is the Education Department.

With that kind of downside, why do so many people default on their student loans? Some may not understand their options, or put off dealing with the problem. Also, research shows that many borrowers consider their student loans illegitimate and don’t feel they should have to pay them back. In fact, default rates are four times as high for dropouts, who presumably feel they didn’t get their money’s worth.

There’s a cyclical factor, too. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported on Nov. 27 that the percentage of student loan balances that were 90 or more days delinquent rose to 11 percent in the July-September quarter, higher than the delinquency rate on credit cards since the survey began in 2003. The spike comes at a time when youth unemployment remains historically high. Even for those with jobs, people are paying ever more money for educations that don’t equip them for jobs that pay them enough to cover their debts, as I wrote earlier this year in “Debt for Life.”

At the same time, delinquency rates on credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages have been falling because bad credit has been washed out of the system. There’s no such cleansing mechanism for student debt, which now totals $ 956 billion in outstanding loans, according to the New York Fed. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, using different methodologies, says student loan debt passed the $ 1 trillion mark sometime last winter.

Then there’s the fact that some of these student borrowers were probably lousy bets for repayment in the first place. The federal government, which holds 85 percent of outstanding student debt, doesn’t make loans to students based on their ability to repay them. That may sound crazy, but it is designed to ensure that students of all backgrounds and income levels get a shot at a college degree.

That willful blindness also sets up the government for huge losses. The purpose of the draconian punishment for defaulters is to make up for the lack of sound underwriting on the original lending. Clearly, though, the threats aren’t working—and neither are the multiple repayment options the government offers.

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Rapper PSY wants Tom Cruise to go ‘Gangnam Style’

BANGKOK (AP) — The South Korean rapper behind YouTube’s most-viewed video ever has set what might be a “Mission: Impossible” for himself.

Asked which celebrity he would like to see go “Gangnam Style,” the singer PSY told The Associated Press: “Tom Cruise!”

Surrounded by screaming fans, he then chuckled at the idea of the American movie star doing his now famous horse-riding dance.

PSY’s comments Wednesday in Bangkok were his first public remarks since his viral smash video — with 838 million views — surpassed Justin Bieber‘s “Baby,” which until Saturday held the record with 803 million views.

“It’s amazing,” PSY told a news conference, saying he never set out to become an international star. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song — wow.”

The video has spawned hundreds of parodies and tribute videos and earned him a spotlight alongside a variety of superstars.

Earlier this month, Madonna invited PSY onstage and they danced to his song at one of her New York City concerts. MC Hammer introduced the Korean star at the American Music Awards as, “My Homeboy PSY!”

Even President Barack Obama is talking about him. Asked on Election Day if he could do the dance, Obama replied: “I think I can do that move,” but then concluded he might “do it privately for Michelle,” the first lady.

PSY was in Thailand to give a free concert Wednesday night organized as a tribute to the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 85 next month. He paid respects to the king at a Bangkok shopping mall, signing his name in an autograph book placed beside a giant poster of the king. He then gave an outdoor press conference, as screaming fans nearby performed the pop star’s dance.

Determined not to be a one-hit wonder, PSY said he plans to release a worldwide album in March with dance moves that he thinks his international fans will like.

“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the (next) music video.”

“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”

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Associated Press writer Thanyarat Doksone contributed to this report.

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Turkish PM fumes over steamy Ottoman soap opera

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A hit TV show about the Ottoman Empire‘s longest-reigning Sultan has raised a political storm in Turkey, with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urging legal action over historical inaccuracies and the opposition accusing him of artistic tyranny.

Erdogan tore into the weekly soap opera “Magnificent Century”, which attracts an audience of up to 150 million people in Turkey as well as parts of the Balkans and Middle East, in response to criticism of his government’s foreign policy.

The lavish television production, which grips audiences with tales of power struggles and palace intrigue, is set during the 16th century reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, when Ottoman rulers held sway over an empire straddling three continents.

Bristling at suggestions that Turkey was meddling too much in its neighbors’ affairs, Erdogan recalled Turkey’s heritage, and said Suleiman had been a proud conqueror rather than the indulgent harem-lover portrayed in the show.

“(Critics) ask why are we dealing with the affairs of Iraq, Syria and Gaza,” Erdogan said at the opening of an airport in western Turkey on Sunday.

“They know our fathers and ancestors through ‘Magnificent Century’, but we don’t know such a Suleiman. He spent 30 years on horseback, not in the palace, not what you see in that series.”

Scenes that showed Suleiman with women in the harem have prompted calls from viewers in the mostly Muslim and largely conservative country for the broadcasting regulator (RTUK) to ban the series. But it tops the viewing charts each week.

Erdogan said the director of the series, which has been on air since January 2011, and the owner of the channel that broadcasts it had been warned, but also said he expected the judiciary to act, without elaborating.

Erdogan’s opponents accused him of authoritarianism.

“The prime minister must be jealous of the series’ popularity. He thinks there’s no need for another sultan when he’s in power,” said Muharrem Ince, the deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

“Erdogan wants to be the only sultan.”

Elected a decade ago with the strongest majority seen in years, Erdogan has overseen a period of unprecedented prosperity in Turkey. But concerns are growing about his increasingly authoritarian rule.

Hundreds of politicians, academics and journalists are in jail on charges of plotting against the government, while more than 300 army officers were given prison terms in September for conspiring to topple him not long after he swept to power.

Turkey has been increasingly assertive in regional politics, most notably over the crisis in neighboring Syria, where it has led calls for international action and scrambled war planes in a warning to Damascus not to violate its territory.

“I think the prime minister’s aim here is to change the agenda. I can’t think of any other reason to discuss an imaginary television series when there are so many problems in a country,” Nebahat Cehre, who played Suleiman’s mother during the first two seasons, told Turkey’s Birgun newspaper.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Jon Hemming)

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Youth HIV Rate High, Testing Low

Americans between the ages of 13 and 24 accounted for more than a quarter of new HIV infections in 2010 — about 12,000 cases — but only a third of that age group had ever been tested for the virus, the CDC reported.

“This is our future generation, and the bottom line is that every month, 1,000 youth are becoming infected with HIV,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the agency.

The “shocking” data, reported in a Vital Signs article from Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, detail the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors of HIV among youths, Frieden said in a teleconference with reporters.

Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.

One implication of the new incidence data is a growing future healthcare burden, Frieden said.

Noting that the lifetime cost of care for a person with HIV is about $ 400,000, he said: “Every month we are accruing about $ 400 million of healthcare costs — and every year $ 5 billion — from preventable infections in youth.”

“It is just unacceptable that young people are becoming infected at such high rates,” Frieden said.

CDC researchers used surveillance data to analyze 2009 prevalence rates of diagnosed HIV among youths and the number of new infections in the 13 to 24 age group in 2010.

They also assessed the prevalence of risk factors and HIV testing among youths, both those still in high school and those 18 through 24.

They found that in 2009, the prevalence of HIV among youth was 69.5 per 100,000 population, with a state-by-state range from 2.3 to 562.8 per 100,000.

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The rates were higher in southern and northeastern states compared with the West and Midwest.

Also, of the estimated 47,500 new HIV infections in 2010, 12,200 (25.7 percent) were among youths.

More than four-fifths of the new infections in 2010 (82.8 percent) were acquired by males.

Among newly infected youth, 57.4 percent were African American, 19.6 percent were Hispanics, and 19.5 percent were white.

Male-to-male sexual contact accounted for 72.1 percent of infections, while 19.8 percent were because of heterosexual contact. Injection drug use accounted for 4 percent, and 3.7 percent of infections were due to a combination of male-to-male sex and injection drug use.

Among males, 87.1 percent of infections were attributed to male/male sex, while among females, 85.7 percent were attributed to heterosexual contact.

Overall, youths with HIV made up 6.7 percent of the 1.1 million HIV-positive people in the U.S., the agency reported, and 59.5 percent of those did not know they were infected.

“That’s a much higher proportion than the less than the 20 percent we estimate overall don’t know they are HIV-infected,” Frieden said.

The agency used data from 12 states and nine large urban school districts, collected in 2009 and 2011, to analyze risk behaviors among male and female students in grades 9 through 12.

Males who reported sexual contact with other males, the CDC found, reported more risky behavior than other youths.

For instance, they were more likely to report sexual intercourse with four or more persons during their lifetime (39.4 percent versus 26.9 percent) and to have ever injected any illegal drug (20.4 percent versus 2.9 percent).

Importantly, they were also significantly less likely to have used a condom during last their sexual intercourse (44.3 percent versus 70.2 percent), the agency reported.

They were less likely to report having ever been taught in school about AIDS or HIV infection (74.6 percent versus 86.3 percent), the CDC found.

Overall, in 2011, 12.9 percent of all students in grades 9 through 12 reported that they had ever been tested for HIV, but the proportion reached 22.2 percent among those who reported being sexually active (49.2 percent of males and 45.6 percent of females).

In the older group – those 18 through 24 — 34.5 percent reported ever having been tested for HIV.

The CDC has recommended for several years that HIV testing should be part of routine medical care, but Frieden said many doctors still haven’t bought into the idea.

“You have a very, very small proportion of who refuse testing,” he said, “but unfortunately a relatively large proportion of doctors who don’t make it routine.”

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U.S. declines to name China currency manipulator

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Tuesday said China‘s currency remained “significantly undervalued” but stopped short of labeling the world’s second-biggest economy a currency manipulator.

In a congressionally mandated semi-annual report, the U.S. Treasury noted that yuan had risen 12.6 percent against the U.S. dollar in inflation-adjusted terms since June 2010. An official said it was up 9.7 percent on a nominal basis through Tuesday, when it closed at a record high.

Although Beijing keeps the yuan, also known as the renminbi, in a tight trading band, the Treasury said China did not meet the legal requirements to be deemed a currency manipulator. The label is largely symbolic but would require Washington to open discussions with Beijing on adjusting the yuan’s value.

The Chinese government had “substantially” reduced its intervention in foreign exchange markets since the third quarter of 2011 and loosened capital controls, the Treasury said in the report, which examines the currency practices of major U.S. trading partners.

“In light of these developments, Treasury has concluded that the standards … have not been met with respect to China,” it said. “Nonetheless, the available evidence suggests the renminbi remains significantly undervalued.”

During the U.S. presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney pledged to label China a manipulator on his first day in office to show he would be tougher on the United States’ chief economic competitor than President Barack Obama.

Many U.S. businesses and lawmakers complain that China keeps the value of its currency artificially low to gain an advantage in trade.

But an international consensus is growing that the yuan is closing in on its fair value after about a decade at an artificially weak level. The International Monetary Fund softened its language on the yuan in July.

YUAN AT RECORD HIGH

The yuan closed at a record high on Tuesday as the central bank’s reluctance to let the currency rise more quickly limited trading activity.

The People’s Bank of China limits currency moves by allowing the yuan to rise or fall by only 1 percent from whatever rate the central bank sets that day.

It has been 18 years since the U.S. Treasury has designated any country a currency manipulator. China was so labeled five times from May 1992 to July 1994.

Charles Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate and a longtime critic of China’s yuan policy, said the Treasury should label China a manipulator to be able to impose penalties on it.

“It’s time for the Obama administration to rip off the band-aid, and force China to play by the same rules as all other countries,” the New York senator said in a statement.

But the U.S.-China Business Council, which represents about 240 American companies that do business with China, applauded the latest decision.

“The exchange rate has little to do with the U.S. trade balance or employment,” council President John Frisbie said. “We need to move on to more important issues with China, such as removing market access barriers and improving intellectual property protection.”

The Treasury said further appreciation of the yuan would help China balance its economy toward consumption by giving households greater purchasing power.

The report also called on China to reduce its “exceptionally high” foreign exchange reserves and to publish data about its intervention in currency markets.

The Obama administration also used the report to keep pressure on South Korea to limit its intervention in foreign exchange markets.

South Korea says it intervenes to smooth the volatility of its won currency, but it has gone into the market throughout 2012, the Treasury report said. In July, the IMF said the won was undervalued by up to 10 percent.

“We will continue to press the Korean authorities to limit their foreign exchange interventions to the exceptional circumstances of disorderly market conditions,” the report said.

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov, additional reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by James Dalgleish and Dan Grebler)

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