Five accused of rape in India appear in court for charges


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of the rape and murder of an Indian student appeared in court on Monday to hear charges against them after two of them offered evidence possibly in return for a lighter sentence in the case that has provoked widespread anger.


The five men, along with a teenager, are accused of raping the 23-year-old physiotherapy student after she boarded their bus on the way home from a movie in New Delhi on December 16. She died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.


The attack on the student has ignited protests against the government and anger towards the police for their perceived failure to protect women. It has also provoked a rare national debate about rising violence against women.


A police guard said the men had their faces covered when they entered the courtroom, which had been closed to the public minutes earlier.


The five had already been charged with murder, rape and abduction along with other offences and the magistrate gave them copies of the charges, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.


The court has yet to assign them defense lawyers or legal aid, said public prosecutor Rajiv Mohan. Most lawyers are unwilling to defend them because of the brutality of the crime.


Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail, and walking through a metal detector into the South Delhi court, across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before boarding the bus with a male friend on December 16.


Following shouting and angry scenes in the packed court, the magistrate, Namrita Aggarwal, closed the hearing to the media and the public. The court was cleared and police were posted at its doors before the accused were brought in.


"Keeping in view the sensitivity of this case that has risen, the proceedings including the inquiry and trial are to be held in camera," Aggarwal said, before ordering people not connected with the case out of the courtroom.


Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. She did not say when the case would go to trial in a separate, fast-track court, set up after the attack on the woman.


Two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, moved an application on Saturday requesting they be made "approvers", or informers, against the other accused, Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura, prosecutor Mohan said.


Mohan said he was seeking the death sentence given the "heinous" crime.


"The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty," he said, echoing public sentiment and calls from the victim's family.


Most members of the bar association in Saket district, where the case is being heard, have vowed not to represent the accused.


GROUNDS FOR APPEAL?


But on Monday, lawyers Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand stood up to offer representation to the men. They were heckled by other lawyers who said the accused did not deserve representation.


"We are living in a modern society. We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right to represent his or her case to defend themselves," Lal Sharma said.


The court asked Anand to get the approval of the accused to represent them. If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange their own lawyers, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.


Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the five have no lawyers.


Legal experts say their lack of representation could give grounds for appeal should they be found guilty. Similar cases have resulted in acquittals years after convictions.


Last week, chief justice Altamas Kabir inaugurated six fast-track courts to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.


But some legal experts have warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.


The sixth member of the gang that lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.


The government is aiming to lower the age teenagers can be tried as an adult, given widespread public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.


The victim, who died on December 29 in hospital in Singapore, where she had been taken for treatment, was identified by a British newspaper on the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.


Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them from the media glare in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.


But her father repeated on Monday his wish that she be identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.


"We don't want to hide her identity, there is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.


He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that those responsible be hanged.


(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel)



Read More..

Alcatel One Touch readies U.S. invasion with world’s thinnest smartphone and a colorful 5-inch phablet






TCL Communication’s (2618) Alcatel One Touch brand is ostensibly unknown in the United States, but the company is looking to make a name for itself at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. Alcatel One Touch has a number of new devices debuting at CES 2013 and to start things off, the China-based firm has unveiled a trio of intriguing new Android phones.


[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]






While the show doesn’t officially begin until Tuesday, Alcatel One Touch got an early start on Monday — likely in order to ensure that it can lay claim to “the world’s thinnest smartphone” for at least a few hours.


[More from BGR: Next-generation LTE chips to reduce power consumption by 50%]


The first of three smartphones debuting at CES 2013 is the One Touch Idol Ultra, a sleek Android-powered handset that is just 6.45 millimeters thick. To put that dimension in perspective, the phone is 15% thinner than Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 5.


Other notable specs include a 4.7-inch HD AMOLED display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.


Next up is the One Touch Idol, an entry-level version of the Idol Ultra. Measuring a slightly thicker 8.15 millimeters, the One Touch Idol includes a 4.7-inch qHD IPS display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, 512MB of RAM and the same Jelly Bean OS as the Ultra model.


Finally, Alcatel One Touch has unveiled its first entry into the “phablet” market with the One Touch Scribe HD. This stylus-ready device features a 5-inch HD IPS display, the 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589 chipset, an 8-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM, a microSD slot and Android 4.1. The One Touch Scribe HD also comes in a variety of colors including black, white, red and yellow.


Each of the three smartphones Alcatel One Touch debuted on Monday will launch in China later this month. The One Touch Scribe HD will then be released in the U.S. some time in the second quarter for a surprisingly affordable $ 397 before taxes and subsidies, and both the One Touch Idol and One Touch Idol Ultra will launch at a later point in time. The latter will cost $ 444 before taxes and subsidies, while pricing for the One Touch Idol has not yet been announced.


No carrier partners have been revealed at this point in the U.S. or in China.


This article was originally published by BGR


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News




Read More..

Heidi Klum: It's Good to Be Experimental in Bed















01/07/2013 at 09:00 AM EST



Heidi Klum believes in letting out her wild side in between the sheets.

"It's good to make an effort to dress up sometimes – to do things outside of the norm," the fashion mogul, who is currently courting bodyguard Martin Kirsten, tells Marie Claire in its February issue.

"Some people are more experimental in bed and others are more boring. If you are wild and crazy, bring it on so the other person is well aware that you have little devil horns that come out every once in a while."

Klum, 39, who filed for divorce from Seal last April, doesn't understand why people call her split "devastating."

"Did I wish for this to happen to my family? No," she says. "But everyone is healthy. We're moving on with our lives. If someone got [very sick] – god forbid – that would be a real problem. It's not what I wanted. It's not what anyone wanted. Butit's not a real problem."

Although Klum does not seem scarred by her split, she doesn't intend to say, "I do" again.

“I don't think [I'll get married again], no, no," she says. "I wanted to keep the memory of [mine and Seal's] wedding alive every year. That's why I thought it would be fun to get married over and over. But now I don't think it's that important. I'm not angry about anything, but I don’t think I will. Maybe if I'm with someone for 15 or 20 years, and we do it in our old age as a fun thing to do. … But I don't have the urgency anymore."

Heidi Klum: It's Good to Be Experimental in Bed| Project Runway, Heidi Klum

Heidi Klum

Courtesy of Marie Claire

Another thing the mother of four knows she doesn't want is to become a cougar.

"I can understand why a woman finds a young man attractive, because the truth is that when men get older, their shape changes," Klum says.

"Younger men train more, and when the clothes come off, it is nice to look at a sexy, ripped body. But I am realistic. I'm turning 40 next year. I don't think I could deal with waking up next to a 25-year-old."

Read More..

Your medical chart could include exercise minutes


CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.


Wait, what?


If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.


Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.


Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.


"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.


He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.


It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.


Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.


Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."


She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.


Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.


She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.


Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."


Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.


A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.


Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.


"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.


NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.


Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.


Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."


Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.


___


Online:


Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


Read More..

Stock futures slip after five-year high, fourth-quarter earnings in focus


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were set to fall at the open on Monday as markets are seen consolidating after the S&P 500 closed Friday at a five-year high and before this week's start of earnings season.


Last week was the best for U.S. stocks in more than a year as a budget deal and economic data boosted investor confidence.


Investors will likely turn their attention to the fourth-quarter earnings season that kicks off this week. Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.


"We have a cautious market entering fourth-quarter earnings season," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "I think it's going to be a disappointing one this time around."


Financial shares will be in focus a day after global regulators known as the Basel Committee gave banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers, scaling back moves that aimed to help prevent another financial crisis.


By spurring credit, the easing of the bank rules may help support growth, potentially boosting investments in equities and other relatively risky assets.


"Basel giving banks four more years to get their act together will be good" for stocks, Cardillo said.


Separately, Bank of America shares added more than 2 percent before the market opened after it reached a settlement with Fannie Mae to resolve agency mortgage repurchase claims.


S&P 500 futures dipped 2.5 points and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 17 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures fell 4 points.


Walt Disney Co started an internal cost cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.


Video-streaming service Netflix Inc said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.


Major U.S. technology companies could miss estimates for fourth-quarter earnings as budget worries likely led some corporate clients to tighten their belts last month.


Amazon shares rose 1.8 percent $263.70 in premarket trading after Morgan Stanley raised its rating on the stock to "overweight" from "equal weight."


Roche's chairman was quoted saying the Swiss pharmaceutical group is no longer considering a bid for the U.S. gene-sequencing company Illumina . Illumina shares were off 8 percent at $50.20 in premarket trading.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



Read More..

Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by enemies


BEIRUT (Reuters) - A defiant President Bashar al-Assad presented what he described as a new initiative on Sunday to end the war in Syria but his opponents dismissed it as a ploy to cling to power.


Appearing before cheering supporters who packed the Damascus Opera House, it was his first such speech since June and first public appearance of any kind since a television interview in November.


He called for national mobilization in a "war to defend the nation", describing rebels fighting him as terrorists and foreign agents with whom it was impossible to negotiate.


His new initiative, including a reconciliation conference that would exclude "those who have betrayed Syria", contained no concessions and appeared to recycle proposals that opponents have rejected since the uprising began nearly two years ago.


The opposition National Coalition said the speech was an attempt to thwart an international agreement, backed by Western and Arab powers, that he must stand down.


British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one". In a Twitter message, he added: "Death, violence and oppression engulfing Syria are of his own making."


EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".


Assad spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, Oh Bashar!"


At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling Assad waved and was escorted from the hall.


"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."


Saying that "suffering is overwhelming" the land, he added: "The nation is for all and we all must protect it."


Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.


DEATHS


The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war in Syria. Fighting has arrived at the edge of the capital in what has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge from two years of revolts in Arab states.


The past six months have seen rebels advance dramatically. They now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey.


But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.


The rebels are drawn mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls. He has backing from Shi'ite Iran while most Arab and Western powers sympathies with the rebels.


Assad, a 47-year-old eye doctor, succeeded his late father, Hafez, in 2000. The family has ruled Syria since the elder Assad led a military coup 42 years ago.


Assad's speech seemed ostensibly aimed at showing Syrians, and perhaps diplomats, that he is open to change.


But the plan could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt their operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.


NO DIALOGUE


Assad repeatedly described parts of the opposition as agents of foreign powers who could not be included in any negotiations: "We will not have dialogue with a puppet made by the West," he said to an outburst of applause.


The opposition has consistently said it will not cease fire until the army does, and will not negotiate any transitional government unless Assad is excluded.


Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and Islamist radicals. Washington, which supports the opposition, has also labeled one of the main rebel groups terrorists and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.


Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with the United States, European powers, Arab states and Turkey all demanding Assad leave power, while Russia and Iran refuse to exclude him from talks on a future government.


U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss a peace proposal that does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.


National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni told Reuters that Assad's speech was timed to try and prevent a breakthrough from those talks by taking a position intended to thwart compromise:


"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.


"He is sensing the danger that any initiative would entail."


Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could itself be seen as a show of strength for a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.


He spoke before a giant flag, constructed of portraits of what state television described as victims of the conflict.


"We meet today, and suffering is overwhelming the land of Syria. There is no place for joy while security and stability are absent on the streets of our country," he said.


"But from the womb of pain, hope must be born."


(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



Read More..

Barnes & Noble sells fewer Nooks, retail revenue falls






(Reuters) – Barnes & Noble Inc’s Nook unit reported weak holiday season numbers on Thursday as it sold fewer e-readers and tablets at its own stores, and its e-books sales growth slowed, raising questions about the future of its digital business.


The Nook, launched in 2009 to compete with Amazon.com Inc‘s market-leading Kindle, has been the cornerstone of Barnes & Noble‘s strategy to counter the shift by many book readers to digital books. Early growth attracted a big investment last year from Microsoft Corp.






And last week, British education and media publisher Pearson Plc said it would take a 5 percent stake in Barnes & Noble‘s Nook Media unit, which also includes its college bookstore chain, giving it a $ 1.8 billion value, about double the company’s value as a whole.


But questions swirled about whether it is worth that much, after the retailer said that the Nook segment’s revenue fell 12.6 percent from a year earlier during the nine weeks ended December 29, hurt by lower unit sales and prices.


Sales of digital content like e-books and magazines rose 13.1 percent during the holidays, a much slower pace than the 38 percent gain last quarter and 113 percent in the 2011 holiday season, suggesting Barnes & Noble is having trouble holding on to its 25-30 percent share of the U.S. e-books market.


“We are way beyond the point where you should see content sales accelerate,” Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom told Reuters. “That hasn’t materialized and that’s concerning.”


The numbers were all the more disappointing given that in late November, Barnes & Noble had told investors Nook device sales doubled over the Black Friday weekend, which follows Thanksgiving and kicks off the holiday season in earnest.


That suggests the rest of season was a debacle, analysts said, and Chief Executive William Lynch said in a statement that Barnes & Noble is “examining the root cause” of the shortfall and will adjust its strategy.


“The investment question for Barnes & Noble in 2013 is the Nook‘s staying power as a legitimate tablet device,” Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter wrote in the note, predicting the retailer will face stiffer competition this year from the likes of Apple Inc and Google Inc, since tablets now have improved functions that make them more appealing to book readers.


The drop in Nook sales came despite the launch of two well-reviewed high-definition Nook tablets in October and promotions at large chains like Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp, both of which stopped selling Kindles last year.


Despite the holiday results, Barnes & Noble still expects Nook Media sales of $ 3 billion this fiscal year, keeping a forecast it gave in October.


That steady forecast helped lift shares 2.6 percent to $ 14.88 in morning trading.


The company will report full quarterly results in late February.


The results follow a warning from Barnes & Noble in a filing last week that holiday sales would come in below its expectations. The warning erased most of the gains in its share price that followed the news of Pearson’s investment.


FEWER VISITORS IN STORES


Compounding Barnes & Noble‘s troubles, fewer shoppers came into its bookstores during the Christmas period.


Barnes & Noble, which had enjoyed a sales bump after onetime rival Borders Group liquidated in 2011, reported a 10.9 percent decrease in sales at its bookstores and on its website over the holiday period.


Sales at stores open at least 15 months fell 3.1 percent, excluding Nook products, despite the benefit of some store closings — Barnes & Noble operates 689 bookstores, 14 fewer than a year ago.


“The Borders tailwind is over,” Morningstar’s Wahlstrom said.


(Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; editing by John Wallace and Nick Zieminski)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Barnes & Noble sells fewer Nooks, retail revenue falls
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/barnes-noble-sells-fewer-nooks-retail-revenue-falls/
Link To Post : Barnes & Noble sells fewer Nooks, retail revenue falls
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Bethenny Frankel Divorcing Jason Hoppy















01/05/2013 at 05:00 PM EST







Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy


Albert Michael/Startraks


It's official – Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy's marriage is over.

Having announced a separation over the holidays, the reality star began the divorce process by filing earlier this week in New York, TMZ reports.

"It brings me great sadness to say that Jason and I are separating," Frankel, 42, had said in a statement Dec. 23. "This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family."

The split comes after months of rumors that the pair – who married in 2010 and are parents to daughter Bryn, 2½ – were on the rocks.

"Bethenny is devastated," a friend tells PEOPLE.

Read More..

FDA: New rules will make food safer


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.


The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.


The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.


Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.


Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.


In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.


Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.


"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.


The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.


The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.


The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.


Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.


In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."


The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.


FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.


The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.


Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.


"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.


Read More..

"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.


Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.


That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.


Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.


In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.


"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.


Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.


U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.


Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.


"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.


Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.


REVENUE WORRIES


One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.


S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.


On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.


For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.


Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.


In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.


"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.


Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.


Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



Read More..