WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident


LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.


In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.


"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."


The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.


On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.


In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.


Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.


In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.


The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.


Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.


For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."


David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.


Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.


Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.


"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.


WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.


Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.


"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.


Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.


"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.


In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."


Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.


Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.


Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.


"I'm enraged," he said.


___


Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.


__


Online:


WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb


Read More..

Spill in China Lays Bare Environmental Concerns


Adam Dean for The New York Times


A member of the Handan Winter Swimming Association, which has sued over a chemical spill.







HANDAN, China — The first warning came in the form of dead fish floating in a river.




Then officials in this city got confirmation that a chemical spill had taken place at a fertilizer factory upstream. They shut off the tap water, which sent residents into a scramble for bottled water. In the countryside, officials also told farmers not to graze their livestock near the river.


The spill, which occurred on Dec. 31, affected at least 28 villages and a handful of cities of more than one million people, including Handan. Officials here were irate that their counterparts in Changzhi, where the polluting factory was located, had delayed reporting the spill for five days. For the past two months, Changzhi officials and executives at the company running the factory, Tianji Coal Chemical Industry Group, have generally stayed silent, exacerbating anxiety over water quality.


The conflict over the Changzhi spill has drawn attention to the growing problems with water use and pollution in northern China. The region, which has suffered from a drought for decades, is grappling with how industrial companies should operate along rivers. Local officials are shielding polluting companies and covering up environmental degradation, say environmentalists.


“Problems with water weren’t so serious before, but they have become much worse with industrial consumption,” said Yin Qingli, a lawyer in Handan who filed a lawsuit in January against Tianji, which uses water to convert coal to fertilizer at the factory in Changzhi.


Environmental degradation has led many Chinese to question the Communist Party’s management of the country’s economic growth. Addressing the problem is one the greatest challenges for the administration of Xi Jinping, the new chief of the Communist Party. Environmental issues will most likely be on the agenda at the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, scheduled to begin on Tuesday.


The results of an official investigation into the Tianji spill were announced on Feb. 20 by Xinhua, the state news agency, which reported that a faulty hose had resulted in the leakage of about 39 tons of aniline, a potential carcinogen, from the fertilizer factory. Thirty tons were contained by a reservoir, but nearly nine tons leaked into the Zhuozhang River, which feeds into the Zhang River that runs to Hebei Province, where Handan is, and Henan Province. The Xinhua report said 39 people had been punished, including Zhang Bao, the mayor of Changzhi, who was removed from his post. But the party chief, Tian Xirong, the city’s top authority, was recently promoted to deputy director of the provincial Parliament.


Some critics say officials may be slow to divulge information because the acting governor of Shanxi Province, where Changzhi is, is Li Xiaopeng, the “princeling” son of Li Peng, a powerful Communist Party elder. At a news conference in January after news of the spill had emerged, the younger Mr. Li urged officials to make safety a top priority.


Handan officials first got a tip about a potential spill on Jan. 4 from a water management agency upstream. But when they tried contacting Changzhi officials, there was no response. “After more than 30 calls, we still weren’t able to reach them,” a Handan environmental official told Xinhua. Only the next day did Changzhi officials agree to meet with Handan officials.


At least two managers of Tianji have been fired, but the company, which is the foundation of Changzhi’s economy, appears to have suffered no other significant consequences. It is one of many companies in China’s booming coal-to-chemicals industry, in which a water-intensive gasification process is used to convert coal to chemicals that are critical for a wide range of products. The process results in large amounts of wastewater that is supposed to be treated and then contained.


After sending a team to Handan in January, Greenpeace East Asia issued a report on the spill. It said that there were about 100 coal-to-chemical factories on the upper reaches of the Zhuozhang River. “There is a history of clashes between heavily water-consuming coal-to-chemical factories and citizens downstream who are trying to compete for water to drink,” the report said. Larger factories like those of Tianji use 2,000 to 3,000 tons of water per hour, equivalent to the amount of water that more than 300,000 people use in a year.


The factory in Changzhi dumps more than six million tons of wastewater per year, about 30 percent of the water taken from the river, according to Greenpeace. The wastewater is supposed to drain into a receptacle.


Amy Qin and Patrick Zuo contributed research from Handan and Beijing.



Read More..

HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.


LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.






Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.


HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.


“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.


“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.


Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”


Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.


LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.


HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.


The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.


HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.


WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.


(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hp-sells-webos-operating-system-to-lg-electronics/
Link To Post : HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
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..

Family Creates Bucket List for Dying 9-Month-Old Daughter















03/01/2013 at 12:00 PM EST







Quinn Linzer and her parents, Brett and Eileen Linzer



A Long Island family, facing the prospect of the death of their 9-month-old daughter, has created a bucket list of sorts to maximize her brief life.

Quinn Linzer suffers from Neimann-Pick Disease Type A, which causes the brain and body to regress. The family learned of Quinn's disease when she was just 3 months old, with doctors saying she is not expected to live past her first birthday.

So her family created Quinn's List, which includes up to 50 experiences for the little Lynbrook, N.Y. resident to complete, reports Long Island's News 12.

Among them are a visit to FAO Schwarz, a trip to Disney, tea at New York's Plaza Hotel and time spent swimming with dolphins.

Fundraisers have been held, online and elsewhere, to help the family of five, including Quinn's two brothers, raise enough money to make some of the dreams come true.

Even as the family's doctor had encouraged the Linzers to take Quinn home and give her love, saying nothing more could be done for her, the family was inspired to give their daughter the fullest life possible. Mom Eileen Linzer shared photos of the family enjoying time together with Quinn on a blog she created, called Team Linzer.

As it says on Quinn's List, her family is on a "mission to give her as wonderFULL a life as we could possibly give her."

Read More..

WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident


LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.


In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.


"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."


The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.


On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.


In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.


Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.


In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.


The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.


Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.


For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."


David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.


Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.


Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.


"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.


WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.


Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.


"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.


Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.


"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.


In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."


Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.


Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.


Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.


"I'm enraged," he said.


___


Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.


__


Online:


WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb


Read More..

At War Blog: Remembering a Silent Success in Afghanistan

December in the mountains of southern Afghanistan greeted me and my men with strong and seemingly endless gusts of wind. The frigid temperatures were equally unforgiving. Our living quarters were constructed out of cardboard boxes and plastic sheeting, which didn’t create much of an escape. The highlight of my day, despite the obvious threat, was leading patrols as a squad leader. The physical activity kept me comfortably warm and allowed me to distance my mind from our frosty reality.

Despite daily patrols, it took me a few months to build rapport with the residents of Kunjak in Helmand Province. During the first month of my deployment in 2010, barely any villagers talked to me. This is when my interpreter, who we called H.B., suggested I start inviting the elders to our base for a meeting, or shura. He assured me this would build a mutual trust.

Soon, my Sunday mornings consisted of two to three hours of conversing with dozens of village elders. At 9 a.m., my interpreter and I would greet them as they climbed the steep and sandy hill to my remote outpost. To present a less hostile environment, I chose to meet them without my body armor or weapon.

We sat outside, suffering in the wind together. My interpreter would make chai, but I always brewed a pot of Starbucks coffee and offered some to my guests. Some liked it, some didn’t. I would like to think my generosity was appreciated.

The shuras were full of requests for new wells and mosques. But if there are two things Afghanistan has a plethora of, it’s those two things. I chose to propose something different, which thrilled them all.

We would build a school.

The Taliban had prevented them from being able to send their kids to school for years. With one suggestion, I had won over the villagers.

As the sun rose the following day, despite not having a school yet, I had over a dozen children waiting outside my base. Many had traveled from afar to attend what they thought was the first day of class. The last thing I wanted to do was send the children away. We invited them on the base, and H.B. taught them the Pashtu alphabet on our dry-erase board. It was on that Monday morning I realized I had to do something fast.

Our supplies were stored in a small tent at the back of our outpost, but I made the decision to move the tent to the base of our hill to serve as the school. By positioning it there, we could maintain its security, protecting it from Taliban attacks.

At 8:45 every morning, my Marines patrolled the school and used our metal detectors to sweep for improvised explosive devices. The safety of the children had to be paramount or our efforts would be for nothing. As the days passed, a growing number of children ranging in the age from 4 to 10 arrived for school. Within weeks we were teaching more than 40 boys and girls. During our time in Afghanistan, not a single child was injured at our school, and for the last four months of my deployment, the school was a giant success.

The Afghan National Police officers attached to my outpost did not participate much in the security of the school. In fact, many of them disapproved of it because it catered to girls as well as boys. I fear that as the American military presence draws down in Afghanistan, initiatives like our school will be abandoned by the Afghan government or destroyed by the Taliban. While the district mayor of Musa Qala knew of our efforts at the school, we received little to no local government support. Requests for a teacher, supplies and a permanent structure were either ignored or forgotten.

Stories like the one of our school tend to never make the limelight. Far too often the news is only about the horrors of war, or mistakes made by NATO troops, rather than their successes. It is easy to focus on the negative, especially as the United States plans to withdraw most of its forces by the end of 2014.

As I left Afghanistan in the spring of 2011, dozens of Afghans were attending our shuras, and they were full of varying requests. They no longer asked for wells and mosques. Now they wanted a community center and a larger school. I left before I could make those dreams come true for them. But I hoped the Marines who relieved me would be able to fulfill them.

I came home and listened and watched the news a lot. I kept hoping I would see or hear something good from Afghanistan. To no avail; the stories were depressing. After spending seven months in Afghanistan, I now knew good things were happening, but they just weren’t being shown.

I hope that my school wasn’t short-lived, and I would like to think that it is still operating safely. Whether it is or not, I still fondly remember our efforts. They led to one of the silent successes that have happened and, I believe, will continue to happen in Afghanistan.


Thomas James Brennan is a military affairs reporter with the Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C. Before being medically retired this fall, he was a sergeant in the Marine Corps stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, and is a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. Follow him on Twitter at @thomasjbrennan.

Read More..

HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.


LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.






Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.


HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.


“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.


“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.


Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”


Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.


LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.


HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.


The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.


HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.


WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.


(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hp-sells-webos-operating-system-to-lg-electronics/
Link To Post : HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
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..

Tom Cruise Bonds with Suri in Quiet Rendezvous Outside London















02/28/2013 at 01:00 PM EST







Tom and Suri Cruise


Dave M. Benett/WireImage; Javier Mateo/Startraks


She's still his little girl.

Tom Cruise spent four to five days of quality time with daughter Suri last week, as he flew her over in his private jet from New York to London and then brought her up to the swanky Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire.

A source told PEOPLE that Suri was with her father for several days, "but they kept such a low profile that nobody really knew she was there."

Partly because of Cruise's film commitments, it hasn't been easy for father and daughter to spend much time together since the actor, 50, and Katie Holmes split last summer.

Tom and Suri were together at both Thanksgiving and Christmas last year, yet they communicate daily.

Suri, 6, is now based with her mother full time in New York City, where she is enrolled in Manhattan's private Avenues school. She cannot visit her father on set these days as easily as she could when she was home-schooled.

Meanwhile, Holmes, 34, was spotted courtside at the New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, just seats away from New York Giants star Victor Cruz.

Read More..

Wall Street drifts after two-day run, Dow record in sight

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged higher on Thursday with investors hard-pressed to lift indexes to multi-year highs despite strong economic data.


The U.S. economy ticked up in the fourth quarter, reversing an earlier estimate showing contraction, and a drop in new claims for unemployment benefits last week added to a string of data that suggests the economy improved early this year.


Still, the positive revision to GDP data was expected and the claims continue a trend that is baked into prices. The market lacks catalysts as it digests its recent move higher, according to Kevin Caron, market strategist at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co in Florham Park, New Jersey, where he helps oversee $120 billion in assets under management.


"That's why I think you're seeing a fairly listless trading environment today," Caron said.


The Dow was within striking distance of a record high after a more than 7 percent year-to-date run. The Dow transports index <.djt>, seen as a bet on future growth, is up almost 13 percent this year and hit a record intraday high Thursday before turning slightly negative.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 14.79 points or 0.11 percent, to 14,090.16, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 3.12 points or 0.21 percent, to 1,519.11 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 9.13 points or 0.29 percent, to 3,171.39.


The Dow's intraday record, set October 11, 2007, stands at 14,198.10.


The S&P 500 has gained more than 2 percent in the past three sessions.


Equity markets suffered steep losses earlier in the week on concerns over the impact of an Italian election on the European economy, but bounced back on strong data and recent comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that showed continued support for the Fed's economic stimulus policy.


J.C. Penney Co Inc slumped 17.9 percent to $17.38 after the department store reported a steep drop in sales on Wednesday. Groupon Inc also slumped on weak revenue, with the stock off 20 percent at $4.76.


Cablevision shares tumbled nearly 10 percent after the cable provider took a $100 million hit on costs related to Superstorm Sandy and posted deeper video customer losses than expected.


Mylan Inc shares were on track to close at their highest ever after the generic drugmaker posted a 25 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit and said it will buy a unit of India's Strides Arcolab Ltd. Shares were last up 3.8 percent at $29.66.


Investors were keeping an eye on the debate in Washington over U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting Friday if lawmakers fail to reach agreement on spending and taxes. President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders arranged last-ditch talks to prevent the cuts, but expectations were low that any deal would emerge.


With 93 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69.5 percent have beaten profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6.2 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Nick Zieminski)



Read More..

U.S. Pledges Food, Medical Aid and $60 Million to Syrian Opposition





ROME — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that the United States would provide food rations and medical supplies to the Free Syrian Army, the military wing of the opposition that is fighting to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.




The assistance represents the first time that the United States has publicly committed itself to sending nonlethal support for armed factions that are battling the Assad government in the two-year-old uprising.


But the supplies Mr. Kerry announced fell well short of the weapons and equipment Syrian rebels have requested. And it remained unclear how such modest support might change Mr. Assad’s calculations about his ability to retain power, which Mr. Kerry has repeatedly said is Mr. Assad’s goal.


In addition to the nonlethal aid, the United States is providing $60 million in assistance to help the political wing of the Syrian anti-Assad coalition improve the delivery of basic services like sanitation and education in areas it has already wrested from the government’s control.


Mr. Assad is “out of time and must be out of power,” Mr. Kerry said, after meeting with Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, during a conference in Rome of the so-called “Friends of Syria” countries that support the anti-Assad uprising in Syria.


Defending the limited program of assistance to the Free Syrian Army, Mr. Kerry said that other countries would also provide help and that the “totality” of the effort would make an impression on Mr. Assad.


“We’re doing this, but other countries are doing other things,” Mr. Kerry said. But neither he nor any diplomat here provided details about that effort.


Britain is planning to provide more substantial nonlethal aid, which could include vehicles, bulletproof vests and night vision equipment, according to an American official. British officials have been consulting with their European counterparts about what sort of nonlethal aid might be allowed under the terms of European Union decisions and plans to announce its steps soon.


There has been speculation that the Obama administration might expand its program of support to the Free Syrian Army to include nonlethal equipment if rebel fighters use the initial assistance effectively and do not allow any of it to fall into the hands of extremists.


But Mr. Kerry provided no indication that such a phased expansion of nonlethal support was being planned by the White House.


American officials declined to discuss an ongoing covert program to train rebel fighters or the extent to which it has made a difference on the battlefield.


Some members of the Syria opposition said they were disappointed by the results of the Rome session.


“It is obvious that the real support is absent,” said Dr. Walid al-Bunni, a member of the anti-Assad coalition. What the resistance needed most, he said, was weapons. “What we want is to stop the Scuds launched on Aleppo, to stop the warplanes that are bombing our town and villages.”


Mr. Khatib, for is part, delivered an emotional statement in which he urged that steps be taken to establish a humanitarian corridor to the besieged city of Homs and complained that many in the West were too quick to judge some members of the opposition as Islamic extremists because of “the length of a beard of a fighter.”


“Bashar Assad, for once in your life, behave as a human being,” Mr. Khatib said. “Bashar Assad, you have to make at least one wise decision in your life for the future of your country.”


Facing divisions within the Syrian opposition about the value of the meeting, Mr. Khatib had initially decided to boycott the conference until he was encouraged to attend in phone calls from Mr. Kerry and Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.


One aim of the $60 million in assistance is to help the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the umbrella resistance group that the United States backs and has helped shape, build up its credibility within the country and contest the influence of extremist groups like the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliated organization.


American officials have become increasingly concerned that the Al Nusra Front is making inroads among the Syrian population by dispersing assistance in the areas it controls, replicating a successful strategy used by Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite organization that is a politically powerful force in Lebanon.


Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon, Mark Landler from Washington and Christine Hauser from New York.



Read More..