The Man With a China Growth Plan

China’s premier-elect, Li Keqiang, ran a province of 93 million people that endured three deadly fire disasters and an HIV blood scandal on his watch. His run of bad luck as Governor of Henan from 1998 to 2004 earned him the nickname Three-Fires Li in the foreign press. Beijing’s Communist officialdom, however, has high hopes for Li, an award-winning economist for his work on urbanization, in his new role as the country’s top economic policymaker.

In March, Li, 57, will inherit an economy forecast to grow at 7 percent in 2013, the slowest pace in at least 23 years, according to investment fund company Pimco. It will take major economic reforms to arrest the slowdown, encourage growth of globally competitive private sector companies, and address a widening income gap. China’s new leadership team, led by incoming Communist Party General Secretary and President-elect Xi Jinping, needs to roll back the dominant state-owned enterprises that receive the majority of loans from government-controlled banks, according to the World Bank’s “China 2030” study, which Li has publicly endorsed. Another task: Allow the markets—not bureaucrats—to determine the prices for everything from bank loans to raw materials.

Although millions have escaped poverty since Deng Xiaoping opened China to foreign investment and put in place limited reforms in 1978, the world’s second biggest economy faces new challenges—namely, what economists call the middle-income trap. That refers to the slower growth developing economies encounter when they fail to implement political, financial, and legal reforms needed to create a bigger middle class. Of 101 middle-income economies in 1960, only 13 became high-income societies by 2008, the World Bank estimates. The bank defines high-income as $ 12,476 or more in per-capita gross national income.

In speeches, Li hasn’t been shy about pointing to what he thinks are China’s economic shortcomings: an unsustainable rate of investment, an overdependence on exports, weak domestic consumption, and an underdeveloped service sector. Li has also emphasized the growing income inequality that resulted in city dwellers earning 3.3 times more than their rural counterparts in 2009.

More than 100 million people left farms for cities during Hu Jintao’s presidency, many for jobs in factories, and Li wants to see even faster urban migration to boost incomes. By 2030 as many as 300 million more people will have moved from the countryside to join 600 million already living in cities, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates. Urbanization “is the fuel for a sustained high-investment ratio in Chinese GDP,” says Stephen Roach, former nonexecutive chairman at Morgan Stanley (MS) in Asia and a senior fellow at Yale University. “But here’s the catch—urbanization is a transition strategy at best. It will have to have an increasingly services-led job creation to absorb the influx of surplus labor, and only then can the urbanization strategy really come to life.”

Rebalancing Chinese growth away from exports and expanding middle-class incomes will require taking on provincial governments and state-run companies and banks that have grown rich off the current system. “The big question is whether China will change before a crisis forces it to,” says David Loevinger, former senior coordinator for China affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department.

Few dispute Li’s economic credentials. During the years he spent running Henan and then Liaoning, these regions grew at more than 10 percent annually. He has a law degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Peking University. “He is a new generation of leader,” says Robert Lawrence Kuhn, author of How China’s Leaders Think and an adviser to the Chinese government. Yet it will take more than economic savvy to push through controversial economic reforms. Big state companies and bureaucrats “won’t be listening to a weak premier,” says Lam Wo Lap Willy, an adjunct professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. China needs an iron-fisted reformer like Premier Zhu Rongji, who fought government corruption and forced state-owned banks to deal with dud loans during the 1990s, he says. “People feared Zhu Rongji,” says Lam. “But nobody is going to fear Li Keqiang.”

The bottom line: China’s new reformist premier aims to expand migration to cities, where incomes are three times higher than in the countryside.

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Egypt’s Mursi faces judicial revolt over decree

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi faced a rebellion from judges who accused him on Saturday of expanding his powers at their expense, deepening a crisis that has triggered violence in the street and exposed the country’s deep divisions.

The Judges’ Club, a body representing judges across Egypt, called for a strike during a meeting interrupted with chants demanding the “downfall of the regime” – the rallying cry in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.

Mursi’s political opponents and supporters, representing the divide between newly empowered Islamists and their critics, called for rival demonstrations on Tuesday over a decree that has triggered concern in the West.

Issued late on Thursday, it marks an effort by Mursi to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. The decree defends from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.

It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the body with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.

Egypt’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, said the decree was an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of the judiciary. The Judges’ Club, meeting in Cairo, called on Mursi to rescind it.

That demand was echoed by prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei. “There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says ‘let us split the difference’,” he said.

“I am waiting to see, I hope soon, a very strong statement of condemnation by the U.S., by Europe and by everybody who really cares about human dignity,” he said in an interview with Reuters and the Associated Press.

More than 300 people were injured on Friday as protests against the decree turned violent. There were attacks on at least three offices belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement that propelled Mursi to power.

POLARISATION

Liberal, leftist and socialist parties called a big protest for Tuesday to force Mursi to row back on a move they say has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

In a sign of the polarization in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood called its own protests that day to support the president’s decree.

Mursi also assigned himself new authority to sack the prosecutor general, who was appointed during the Mubarak era, and appoint a new one. The dismissed prosecutor general, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, was given a hero’s welcome at the Judges’ Club.

In open defiance of Mursi, Ahmed al-Zind, head of the club, introduced Mahmoud by his old title.

The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak’s rule to a new system of democratic government.

Analysts say it reflects the Brotherhood’s suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak’s days.

“It aims to sideline Mursi’s enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution,” said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.

“We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and its getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down.”

ADVISOR TO MURSI QUITS

Following a day of violence in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, the smell of tear gas hung over the capital’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011 and the stage for more protests on Friday.

Youths clashed sporadically with police near the square, where activists camped out for a second day on Saturday, setting up makeshift barricades to keep out traffic.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of Egypt’s most widely read dailies, hailed Friday’s protest as “The November 23 Intifada”, invoking the Arabic word for uprising.

But the ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamist groups that have been pushing for tighter application of Islamic law in the new constitution have rallied behind Mursi’s decree.

The Nour Party, one such group, stated its support for the Mursi decree. Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, which carried arms against the state in the 1990s, said it would save the revolution from what it described as remnants of the Mubarak regime.

Samir Morkos, a Christian assistant to Mursi, had told the president he wanted to resign, said Yasser Ali, Mursi’s spokesman. Speaking to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Morkos said: “I refuse to continue in the shadow of republican decisions that obstruct the democratic transition”.

Mursi’s decree has been criticized by Western states that earlier this week were full of praise for his role in mediating an end to the eight-day war between Israel and Palestinians.

“The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Marwa Awad, Edmund Blair and Shaimaa Fayed and Reuters TV; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Hobbits, superheroes put magic in NZ film industry

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A crate full of sushi arrives. Workers wearing wetsuit shirts or in bare feet bustle past with slim laptops. With days to go, a buzzing intensity fills the once-dilapidated warehouses where Peter Jackson‘s visual-effects studio is rushing to finish the opening film in “The Hobbit” trilogy.

The fevered pace at the Weta Digital studio near Wellington will last nearly until the actors walk the red carpet Nov. 28 for the world premiere. But after “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters, there’s more work to be done.

Weta Digital is the centerpiece of a filmmaking empire that Jackson and close collaborators have built in his New Zealand hometown, realizing his dream of bringing a slice of Hollywood to Wellington. It’s a one-stop shop for making major movies — not only his own, but other blockbusters like “Avatar” and “The Avengers” and hoped-for blockbusters like next year’s “Man of Steel.”

Along the way, Jackson has become revered here, even receiving a knighthood. His humble demeanor and crumpled appearance appeal to distinctly New Zealand values, yet his modesty belies his influence. He’s also attracted criticism along the way.

The special-effects workforce of 150 on “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy a decade ago now numbers 1,100. Only five of Weta Digital‘s workers are actual employees, however, while the rest are contractors. Many accept the situation because movie work often comes irregularly but pays well. Union leaders, though, say the workers lack labor protections existing in almost any other industry.

Like many colleagues, Weta Digital‘s director, Joe Letteri, came to New Zealand in 2001 to work on the “Rings” trilogy for two years. The work kept coming, so he bought a house in Wellington and stayed.

“People come here because they know it’s their chance to do something really great and to get it up on the screen,” he said in a recent interview. “And you want to do it in these next two weeks, because the two weeks after the movie’s finished are useless.”

Jackson, who declined to be interviewed for this story, launched Weta in 1993 with fellow filmmakers Jamie Selkirk and Richard Taylor. Named after an oversized New Zealand insect, the company later was split into its digital arm and Weta Workshop, which makes props and costumes.

Loving homages to the craft are present in Weta Digital’s seven buildings around the green-hilled suburb of Miramar. There are old-time movie posters, prop skulls of dinosaurs and apes, and a wall of latex face impressions of actors from Chris O’Donnell to Tom Cruise.

Its huge data center, with the computing power of 30,000 laptops, resembles a milk-processing plant because only the dairy industry in New Zealand knew how to build cooling systems on such a grand scale.

Little of Weta’s current work was visible. Visitors must sign confidentiality agreements, and the working areas of the facilities are off-limits. The company is secretive about any unannounced projects, beyond saying Weta will be working solidly for the next two years, when the two later “Hobbit” films are scheduled to be released.

The workforce has changed from majority American to about 60 percent New Zealanders. The only skill that’s needed, Letteri says, is the ability to use a computer as a tool.

Beyond having creativity as a filmmaker, Jackson has proved a savvy businessman, Letteri says.

“The film business in general is volatile, and visual effects has to be sitting right on the crest of that wave,” Letteri says. “We don’t get asked to do something that somebody has seen before.”

The government calculates that feature films contribute $ 560 million each year to New Zealand‘s economy. Like many countries, New Zealand offers incentives and rebates to film companies and will contribute about $ 100 million toward the $ 500 million production costs of “The Hobbit” trilogy. Almost every big budget film goes through Jackson’s companies.

“New Zealand has a good reputation for delivering films on time and under budget, and Jackson has been superb at that,” says John Yeabsley, a senior fellow at New Zealand‘s Institute of Economic Research. “Nobody has the same record or the magic ability to bring home the bacon as Sir Peter.”

“You cannot overestimate the fact that Peter is a brand,” says Graeme Mason, chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission. “He’s built this incredible reputational position, which has a snowball effect.”

Back in 2010, however, a labor dispute erupted before filming began on “The Hobbit.” Unions said they would boycott the movie if the actors didn’t get to collectively negotiate. Jackson and others warned that New Zealand could lose the films to Europe. Warner Bros. executives flew to New Zealand and held a high-stakes meeting with Prime Minister John Key, whose government changed labor laws overnight to clarify that movie workers were exempt from being treated as regular employees.

Helen Kelly, president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, says a compromise could easily have been reached. She says the law changes amounted to unnecessary union-busting and a “gross breach” of employment laws.

“I was very disappointed at Peter Jackson for lobbying for that,” she says, “and I was furious at the government for doing it.”

Weta Digital’s general manager Tom Greally compared it to the construction industry, where multiple contractors and mobile workers do specific projects and then move on.

Animal rights activists said last week they plan to picket the premiere of “The Hobbit” after wranglers alleged that three horses and up to two dozen other animals died in unsafe conditions at a farm where animals were boarded for the movies. Jackson’s spokesman Matt Dravitzki acknowledged two horses died preventable deaths at the farm but said the production company worked quickly to improve animal housing and safety. He rejected claims any animals were mistreated or abused.

Jackson’s team pointed out that 55 percent of animal images in “The Hobbit” were computer generated at Weta. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have asked Jackson in the future to create all his animals in the studio.

Controversies aside, the rise of Weta and the expat American community in and around Miramar is visible in everything from a Mexican restaurant to yoga classes. On Halloween, which in the past was not much celebrated in New Zealand, hundreds of costumed children roamed about collecting candy. Americans gave the tradition a boost here, but the locals have embraced it.

The National Business Review newspaper estimates Jackson’s personal fortune to be about $ 400 million, which could rise considerably if “The Hobbit” franchise succeeds. Public records show Jackson has partial ownership stakes in 21 private companies, most connected with his film empire. He’s spent some of his money on philanthropy, helping save a historic church and a performance theater.

For all his influence, Jackson maintains a hobbit-like existence himself, preferring a quiet home life outside of work. In the end, many say, he seems to be driven by what has interested him from the start: telling great stories on the big screen.

___

Follow Nick Perry on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nickgbperry

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First Person: Unemployed, Disabled and Hungry for Work

Five million Americans are among the long-term unemployed–those without a job for 27 weeks or longer–according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Another 7.3 million are looking for work, while the unemployment rate sits at 7.9 percent. Numbers aside, individual stories illustrate how America is affected. To see how joblessness hits home, Yahoo News asked unemployed workers to share their job-hunting stories. Here’s one.

FIRST PERSON | I am 40 and live in Racine, Wis. I have been unemployed since I was 33. I try to find work, but I’ve been disabled since 27, and I do not collect Social Security or other income. On job applications, when I am asked if I have any disabilities, I answer yes.

I have even tried to travel to different states for employment. I am seeking employment where I can. I have tried Lowe’s, Home Depot and other similar stores. All I get are letters saying I do not qualify for employment.

By trade, I am a tattoo artist, a job I have been very good at until I became disabled. I have shoulder impingement syndrome, which consists of some of the following: torn ligaments, torn tendons, bone spurs, bursitis and arthritis.

And constant pain. I feel the weather. I hardly sleep. I wish I could be somewhere else, as it is hard on my mind to deal with on a daily basis.

Still, I try to find work where I can in this tough economy, and I am on several lists to be called and never have been called to date.

I am too proud to try to get Social Security. I cannot even afford insurance to get my condition fixed. I even have applied for local state insurance to get the problem resolved so I can work again, always with no luck. So I have remained unemployed now for over 10 years and going.

I injured myself, and I am not able to lift more than 10 pounds at a time or stand or sit for long periods of time.

I just want a job so I can try to cover the medical expenses myself since I cannot get help. Surgery costs are around $ 18,000, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I am no stranger to hard work. Since 12, I cut grass, shoveled snow, painted houses and fences, swept chimneys, worked in heat treatment plants with dirt and oil, worked in the casting of hot metals, laid brick, made bathroom sinks, swept floors in factories, did drill-press work, sanding work, and worked at fast food places.

I do not lie to get jobs or hid my injury. I do want to work, but I worry now that my disability will mean I won’t be hired by companies because they’re afraid it will come back on them and their company.

I cannot afford private insurance as I do not have steady income. Now I find whatever I can do to reach my goal of paying for my own surgery.

It is a sad world when you live in pain, day in and day out, and you want and need to find work.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Taming the Workplace Bully

It started during the training sessions for her new job. Elizabeth Santeramo, a cancer information specialist in New York, saw a woman across the room glance in her direction, whisper in the ear of a co-worker, and then snort derisively. The episode seemed so brazenly immature, as if plucked directly from Mean Girls, that Santeramo shrugged it off. “The work we were doing was to help people who were just diagnosed with cancer,” she says. “We’re all empathic, compassionate people, I told myself. I’m just being paranoid.” A few days later, the abusive snickering intensified.

One day Santeramo’s nemesis approached a cubicle near hers, where she removed a cutout picture of a golden-haired cat and propped it up so everyone in the room could see it. When Santeramo stood up, puzzled, the woman began to meow at her. Her colleagues around her joined in. Soon, a chorus of malicious meowing would follow Santeramo in and out of the office like a demented soundtrack. “To this day,” she says, “I remain mystified by the meows.”

The abuse, which led to an emotional meeting with her supervisor, is just one indication of how bullying, contrary to popular stereotype, has made its way from high school locker rooms and hallways to the office. “In a lot of workplaces, it’s just considered part of daily workplace culture,” says Joe Grimm, professor of journalism at Michigan State University. “Browbeating, intimidation, cutting people off, and being the loudest in the room with an opinion.” In a recent book he edited, The New Bullying: How Social Media, Social Exclusion, Laws and Suicide Have Changed Our Definition of Bullying, Grimm reveals how bullying has some professionals living in debilitating fear of the office, which may sound familiar for viewers of The Devil Wears Prada, the thinly veiled account of working at Vogue, or the junior analysts at Goldman Sachs (GS) who were once forced to dress up like Teletubbies. “When bullies get out of school,” says Grimm, “they don’t stop being bullies.”

By some accounts, legions of Biff Tannens and Nurse Ratcheds are running rampant, inflicting cruelty on a large part of the American workforce. In August, CareerBuilder announced that 35 percent of employees surveyed claim to have been bullied at work, up from 27 percent the year before. The Workplace Bullying Institute, based in Bellingham, Wash., has 36 state chapters, a 10,000-person mailing list, and local, on-the-ground “targets” (the WBI doesn’t like the word victim) who now direct anti-bullying campaigns and serve as local points of contact. This year legislation making it easier for bullying victims to sue employers was introduced in 13 states.

The official definition of bullying, according to the WBI, is a “repeated, health-harming mistreatment” by one or more “perpetrators” that takes the form of “verbal abuse, offensive conduct/behaviors which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating,” or “work interference-sabotage—which prevents work from getting done.” Here, WBI representatives make a distinction between a bully and someone who’s just mean. An overly demanding boss, explains a WBI volunteer, generally puts pressure on all underlings. Once a task is finished, however, verbal assaults stop. Bullies tend to single out an individual with an added level of personal malice. When a manager at a Direct Federal Credit Union a few years ago seized an underling’s diary and read excerpts to her co-workers, that was bullying.

In the corporate world, bullying tends to be about power, control, and career advancement. “Bullying can be a way of getting ahead,” says Stacey Kessler, assistant professor of management at Montclair State University. For decades researchers have used questionnaires known as Machiavellianism (or Mach) scales to measure an individual’s capacity to engage in the manipulative, amoral, and deceitful behaviors espoused by the 15th century ends-justify-the-means diplomat. Recently psychologists found that those who score high on the 100-point Mach scale are also among those likeliest to engage in office bullying. The employee “might bully someone at the job to keep them quiet or to get an individual to do more things for him or her,” says Kessler. The person could also be popular and want to maintain his or her status, or have low self-esteem and want to feel superior, adds Robin Kowalski, a psychology professor at Clemson University. “In workplace bullying,” she says, “you’re talking about adults who have a certain degree of self-control, so they are more devious and calculating.”

This raises the question: Should business become more like high school and impose strict rules protecting individuals from persecution? Gary Namie, a social psychologist, would say yes. Ever since his wife was bullied by a boss and fell into depression in the 1980s, Namie has been working to shed light on office bullying. He co-founded the WBI with his wife in 1991 but has been fighting a largely losing battle in the courts. He estimates that in almost 20 years he’s been involved in 30 bullying cases, five of which settled and 22 of which were thrown out. Only one went to trial. “I feel bad for the clients because they sunk money into these cases,” he says. “Nothing that employers do seems to be outrageous enough for the courts.” Much of this failure stems from employment laws that stack the deck in the bully’s favor. Many states preclude employees from taking actions against employers for emotional harm unless there’s a discriminatory or retaliatory component—in other words, unless race, gender, or whistle-blowing is a factor. “I lost another summary judgment in favor of employers just last week,” says Namie.

In a case cited by David Yamada, a professor and founding director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, a physician in Arkansas abused an employee for two years, called her a “slut,” and told her repeatedly that women who work outside the home are “whores and prostitutes.” Making matters worse, he threatened to kill her if she quit. In its decision, an Arkansas court ruled that even if the allegations were true, they still didn’t add up to intentional affliction of emotional stress. “Many targets say, ‘I’m just being crushed at work,’ ” Yamada says. “And the lawyers are telling them this type of mistreatment is completely legal.”

Lawsuits aside, there’s at least one powerful incentive for companies to consider adopting anti-bullying measures. According to a landmark 2008 Gallup Poll of more than 1 million workers, the most common reason for quitting a job: an overbearing boss. “Bullying is hugely expensive,” says Michigan State’s Grimm. “It keeps people from the jobs they could best do. If you quit because of bullying, it would take a company twice your annual salary to replace you: flying in job candidates, hiring, and training.” And sometimes these conflicts are more easily fixable. After Santeramo complained to her supervisor about her tormentor, which had little effect, she decided to test the age-old theory that “bullies are cowards.”

“I approached her to befriend her,” she says. “And it worked.”

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Cricket-Australia v South Africa – second test scoreboard

ADELAIDE, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Scoreboard at the close of the

third day of the second test between Australia and South Africa

at Adelaide Oval on Saturday:

Australia won the toss and chose to bat

Australia first innings 550

South Africa first innings

G. Smith c Wade b Siddle 122

A. Petersen run out 54

H. Amla st Wade b Warner 11

J. Rudolph c Quiney b Lyon 29

AB de Villiers lbw b Siddle 1

F. du Plessis c Clarke b Hilfenhaus 78

D. Steyn c Ponting b Hilfenhaus 1

R. Kleinveldt b Hilfenhaus 0

J. Kallis c Wade b Clarke 58

M. Morkel b Lyon 6

I. Tahir not out 10

Extras (b-7, lb-2, w-3, nb-6) 18

Total: (all out, 124.3 overs) 388

Fall of wickets: 1-138 2-169 3-233 4-233 5-240 6-246 7-250

8-343 9-352 10-388

Bowling: B. Hilfenhaus 19.3-6-49-3, J. Pattinson 9.1-0-41-0

(nb-4, w-1) N. Lyon 44-7-91-2, P. Siddle 30.5-6-130-2 (nb-2), M.

Clarke 7-1-22-1, M. Hussey 1-0-7-0 (w-2), D. Warner 5-0-27-1, R.

Quiney 8-3-12-0

Australia second innings

D. Warner c Du Plessis b Kleinveldt 41

E. Cowan b Kleinveldt 29

R. Quiney c De Villiers b Kleinveldt 0

R. Ponting b Steyn 16

M. Clarke not out 9

P. Siddle c De Villiers b Morkel 1

M. Hussey 5

Extras (lb-7, nb-3) 10

Total (for five wickets, 32 overs) 111

Fall of wickets: 1-77 2-77 3-91 4-98 5-103

Still to bat: M. Wade, B. Hilfenhaus, J. Pattinson, N. Lyon.

Bowling: Steyn 10-4-28-1, Morkel 9-2-24-1, Kleinveldt

6-1-14-3 (nb-2), Tahir 7-1-38-0 (nb-1)

- -

Third test: WACA, Perth Nov. 30-Dec. 4

(Compiled by Ian Ransom; Editing by Alastair Himmer)

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Secret message found with carrier pigeon may never be deciphered

British man finds carrier pigeon skeleton in his fireplace with unbreakable secret code (Reuters)

Before military forces had secure cell phones and satellite communications, they used carrier pigeons. The highly trained birds delivered sensitive information from one location to another during  World War II. Often, the birds found the intended recipient. But not always.

A dead pigeon was recently discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, England. There for roughly 70 years, the bird had a curious canister attached to its leg. Inside was a coded message that has stumped the experts.

The code features a series of 27 groups of five letters. According to Reuters, nobody from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters has been able to decipher it. The message was sent by a Sgt. W. Scott to someone or something identified as “Xo2.”

A spokesperson remarked, “Although it is disappointing that we cannot yet read the message brought back by a brave carrier pigeon, it is a tribute to the skills of the wartime code-makers that, despite working under severe pressure, they devised a code that was indecipherable both then and now.”

The bird was discovered by a homeowner doing renovations earlier this month. In an interview with Reuters, David Martin remarked that bits of birds kept falling from the chimney. Eventually, Margin saw the red canister and speculated that it might contain a secret message. And it seems as if the message will always be secret.

Carrier pigeons played a vital role in wars due to their incredible homing skills. All told, U.K. forces used about 250,000 of the birds during World War II.

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Country singer Kristofferson looks to end of road

GENEVA (Reuters) – Kris Kristofferson — Oxford scholar, athlete, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, country music composer, one-time roustabout, film actor, singer, lover of women, three times a husband and father of eight — seems ready to meet his maker.

At least, that was the clear impression he left with an audience of middle-aged-and-upwards fans at a concert in Geneva this week, a message underscored by his 28th and latest album, “Feeling Mortal” and its coffin-dark cover.

At a frail-looking 76, his ample beard more straggly than ever and his always gravel-laden voice gasping out the familiar lyrics of his great classics from “Bobby McGee” to “Rainbow Again”, the hereafter appears at the front of his mind.

“I’ve begun to soon descend, like the sun into the sea,” runs the title song of the new CD.

On the stage without backing group in Geneva, the first leg of a solo European tour to promote the disc from his own record company, “God” trips off his lips like a punctuation mark.

Even the old songs that made him — as well as other country artists like Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, and his one-time girl-friend Janis Joplin — internationally famous, sound shaped by the fading voice to underscore a spiritual dimension.

“Sunday Morning Coming Down” emerges less as an ode to elderly loners facing old age without family and children and more as a call to prepare for the next life.

Religiosity was never that far from Kristofferson, son of a major-general in the U.S. Air Force, grandson of a Swedish army officer and in the 1ate 1950s a Rhodes Scholar in English Literature at England’s Oxford University.

CRUCIFIXION

In the 1971 “Jesus was a Capricorn” he predicts the Christian savior would be crucified again if he came back preaching peace and love among all races and creeds.

In the new album, “Ramblin’ Jack” is semi-autobiographical — a song about a wandering singer “with a face like a tumbled-down shack” of “wild and righteous, wicked ways” who “ain’t afraid of where he’s goin’.”

Kristofferson is adored by many believers, probably the vast majority of U.S. country fans and performers. But his fans among the unreligious and the atheists were also happy just to relish the poetry of his lyrics and the idiosyncrasy of his voice.

In Geneva, despite its Calvinist past as secular today as any major European city, the ageing 1,000-odd audience in a theatre seating twice that number, were certainly ready to enjoy anything he gave them.

They cheered and applauded his political declaration, an aside injected after a song line: “nobody wins.” “But somebody has just won. Obama won, so the whole world has won!” he rasped, waving his electric guitar in the air.

SELF-MOCKERY

They loved his self-mockery when, overcome briefly by a sniffle and pulling a blue bandana — cousin of the red one in “Bobby McGee”? — from his jeans pocket, he asked them if they minded having paid $ 100 “to watch an old fart blow his nose.”

And they laughed with him when — in the full flood of lyrics on the pleasure of being around “a lot of lovely girls in the best of all possible worlds — he confided: “I wrote this song a LONG time ago.”

His 22-year-old angel-faced daughter Kelly, a banjoist and vocalist, joined him on stage for a handful of numbers, while in the hall outside son Jesse manned a stall selling the new CD and the black “Feeling Mortal Tour” t-shirts.

Children — their dreams and the dreams of their parents for them — have also long been a central theme of his music.

“I wrote this for my little girl,” he says of a father’s song pledging he will be “forever there” for a daughter through life, and after. “Spread your wings,” he tells her.

More prosaically, he recalls a rebuke from Jesse at age five over his 1970s hit: “The Silver-Tongued Devil”: “That’s a bad song. You’re blaming all your troubles on someone else.”

After the concert, the Kristofferson family left for Zurich and Vienna to continue the tour. “This may be our last goodbye,” he sang in a final song. “We may not pass this way again.”

“We’ll miss you,” called a voice from the audience.

(Reported by Robert Evans)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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EU budget talks end without deal

23 November 2012 Last updated at 16:35 ET

The Brussels summit has ended without agreement on the 27-strong union’s next seven-year budget.

A BBC correspondent says another meeting will have to be called to sort out the difficulties but it is unclear how differences will be resolved.

European Council chief Herman Van Rompuy said he was confident a deal would be reached early next year.

Hours of talks failed to bridge big gaps between richer countries and those which rely most on EU funding.

The UK said current EU spending levels must be frozen.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Angela Merkel and I both agreed that it would be better to take some time out”

End Quote Francois Hollande French president

The EU’s divisions are very clear and have become even more stark at a time of economic crisis, says the BBC’s Chris Morris in Brussels.

Mr Van Rompuy had reshuffled the allocations in his original proposed budget during the summit, but he kept in place a spending ceiling of 973bn euros (£783bn; $ 1.2tn).

With the eurozone’s dominant states, Germany and France, unable to agree on the budget, UK Prime Minister David Cameron had warned against “unaffordable spending”.

The failure to decide on a budget came just days after the finance ministers of the 17 eurozone states failed to agree on conditions for releasing a new tranche of bailout money to Greece, raising questions about the union’s decision-making process.

‘No threats’

Mr Van Rompuy’s budget had been unacceptable to a number of other countries, not just Britain, Mr Cameron told reporters.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

The summit laid bare clear divisions between richer northern countries in the EU, and the poorer south and east. It mirrored the divide that has emerged in the eurozone between northern creditors and southern debtors.

But the uneasy relationship between France and Germany also played a role – when they don’t agree, things tend to move slowly. Germany wanted further cuts in the budget proposal – not as many as Britain and others – but cuts all the same.

France on the other hand, supported by Italy and Spain, was keen to defend the EU’s biggest spending projects.

So striking a deal at a second summit in the New Year won’t be at all easy. But there are two reasons to think that it might succeed.

One is that failure to reach an agreement would mean the EU falling back on more expensive annual budgets.

The other is that many people are keen to avoid a prolonged budget stalemate, which could divert attention from other more important issues – notably the need to take more steps to resolve the crisis in the eurozone.

“Together, we had a very clear message: ‘We are not going to be tough on budgets at home just to come here and sign up to big increases in European spending’,” he said.

“We haven’t got the deal we wanted but we’ve stopped what would have been an unacceptable deal,” he added. “And in European terms I think that goes down as progress.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was sympathetic towards Mr Cameron’s view – but no more than she was to all countries involved in the discussion.

“The discussions, both the bilateral discussions and the common discussion, have shown us that there is sufficient potential for an agreement,” she added.

French President Francois Hollande said the summit had made “progress”.

“There were no threats, no ultimatums,” he told reporters. “Angela Merkel and I both agreed that it would be better to take some time out because we want there to be an agreement.”

Without naming the UK, he also said it was time the system of budget rebates was reconsidered.

“It is a paradox, because some net contributors [EU countries that pay in more than they get back] get some of the money back even though they are in a situation where they are wealthy enough for them not to get this money back,” he said.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite remarked that the atmosphere at the summit had been “surprisingly good because the divergence in opinions was so large that there was nothing to argue about”.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said the talks had failed owing to “important differences of opinion – especially in overall size of the budget”.

Revisions

The Commission, which drafts EU laws, had originally called for a budget of 1.025tn euros.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron: “We still believe a deal is do-able”

Its position was supported by the European Parliament and many countries which are net beneficiaries, including Poland, Hungary and Spain.

While most EU members supported some increase in the budget, several, mostly the big net contributors, argued it was unacceptable at a time of austerity.

Germany, the UK, France and Italy are the biggest net contributors to the budget, which amounts to about 1% of the EU’s overall GDP.

Mr Van Rompuy’s revised budget would have softened the blow to the two main areas of spending: development in the EU’s poorer regions, and agriculture.

Instead, there would have been greater cuts to energy, transport, broadband and the EU’s foreign service.

His proposal, put to leaders on Thursday evening, would have made no change to the level of administrative costs – something the UK might have found unacceptable.

Speaking after the summit, Mr Van Rompuy said: “My feeling is that we can go further… It has to be balanced and well prepared, not in the mood of improvisation, because we are touching upon jobs, we are touching upon sensitive issues.”

Failure to agree on the budget by the end of next year would mean rolling over the 2013 budget into 2014 on a month-by-month basis, putting some long-term projects at risk.

Analysts say that could leave the UK in a worse position, because the 2013 budget is bigger than the preceding years of the 2007-2013 multi-year budget.

BBC News – Business

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Bank of Canada keeps “over time” condition on rate hike

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Tim Lane repeated on Wednesday the central bank‘s message that interest rate increases will likely be needed, but only over time.

The “over time” phrase was introduced in the bank’s key guidance in its rate statement on October 23 as a way of signaling that while the next rate move is likely to be up, such a move was less imminent than it had been.

“Over time, some gradual withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required, consistent with achieving the inflation-control target,” Lane said, according to a prepared presentation he was giving on Wednesday in Moncton, New Brunswick.

Another part of the presentation, which was posted on the central bank’s website, noted: “The Canadian economy continues to operate with a small amount of excess supply.”

The Bank of Canada is alone in the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries in signaling an intention to raise rates despite expectations of modest and unbalanced global growth.

Lane forecast “very robust growth” in emerging markets, stagnation in Europe and significant dampening of U.S. growth due to fiscal consolidation. He said Canada‘s real gross domestic product was still expected to grow at a moderate pace.

(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson; and Peter Galloway)

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