Downgraded France says it needs more time

PARIS (AP) — France‘s government has shrugged off the latest downgrade of its credit rating, saying Tuesday that it just needs time for reforms to the sluggish economy to take root.

In a setback for President Francois Hollande‘s Socialist government, Moody’s Investors Service stripped Europe‘s No. 2 economy of it of its prized AAA credit rating late Monday on concerns that its rigid labor market and exposure to Europe’s financial crisis were threatening its prospects for economic growth.

This is the second ratings downgrade to have hit France this year: Standard & Poor’s agency lowered its score in January. The third leading agency, Fitch, still ranks France at AAA-rating but has had it on review for a downgrade since late last year.

But Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici insisted that France’s credibility remains strong and that the government‘s plan to reduce unemployment and restore growth would bear fruit.

France has come under scrutiny as its €2 trillion ($ 2.5 trillion) economy has stagnated, with many leading French companies laying off workers. Meanwhile Hollande has struggled to reassure economists that his attempts to revive the French economy will be successful.

Hollande’s government has laid out a series of deficit-reduction targets, vowing to bring it in line with European rules next year. It has also unveiled a plan to improve the competitiveness of its economy, by giving companies €20 billion ($ 25 billion) in tax rebates, reducing red tape for businesses, and providing small companies with extra support to compete abroad.

However, many economists say that the greatest threat to France’s economy is its stringent labor rules, which make firing difficult and expensive and thus deter hiring. The country has been losing global business for years to more dynamic economies like China‘s, while fighting unemployment of 10.8 percent and concerns about the future of the eurozone.

The French government is currently leading negotiations between businesses and unions in the hopes of reforming labor rules by the end of the year.

Moscovici pleaded for time Tuesday, saying the government was convinced it was on the right path but that its reforms just need to take effect.

“It takes time to reverse the flow of things. It takes courageous decisions, and that’s what we’re promising to do,” he told reporters.

To the ratings agencies, critics and investors, he said: “Judge us on our results.”

Trouble for France would mean wider trouble for Europe. France and Germany, which underpin the group of 17 European Union countries that use the euro, have taken the lead in finding solutions to Europe’s debt crisis. Any slip in France’s clout could endanger its ability to lead negotiations.

He also insisted that relations with Germany remained strong. There have been reports recently that Germany is concerned about the health of the French economy.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble seemed unconcerned about the downgrade.

“We have received the news that, overnight, our most important partner got a little admonition from a rating agency,” Schaeuble said in the German Parliament. “The rating for France is still very stable, so that we avoid any dramatization.”

Moody’s itself said that the rating remains so high — now Aa1, just a notch below triple-A —because of the size of the French economy and the government’s commitment to make structural reforms. It kept the rating’s outlook at negative, meaning it could face future downgrades.

The downgrade, like S&P’s before it, appeared to be having a limited effect on France’s borrowing costs. The yield, or interest rate, on the benchmark 10-year bond was up 0.04 percentage points to 2 percent on Tuesday afternoon. Germany’s was up the same rate to 1.39 percent.

Moscovici said he expected the country to continue to be able to borrow at those historically low rates because of the seriousness of its reform package.

___

Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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Canada pledges again to balance budget by 2015

OTTAWA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Canadian government on Friday reiterated its intention to balance its budget by 2015, three days after projecting there would be deficits until 2016-17.

In separate appearances in Quebec City and New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.

“It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election. The recent economic and fiscal update by the minister indicates we are actually very close to that objective,” Harper told reporters in Quebec City. The next election is in October 2015.

Flaherty’s fall fiscal update on Tuesday had pushed back the target date for eliminating the deficit by a year, to 2016-17, citing a weak global economy.

But the minister said in a speech in New York that the government was on track to balance the budget in the next two to three years, barring major external events, and he later clarified that he intended a balanced budget by 2015.

“The prime minister’s always correct,” he chuckled.

He sought to explain the discrepancy by saying the fiscal update had built in a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion, meaning there was an underlying surplus of C$ 1.2 billion for 2015-16. He said the projection of a C$ 1.8 billion deficit amounted to about half a percent of the C$ 275 billion federal budget.

“There’s lots of water to go under the bridge between now and then,” he said.

The opposition New Democratic Party noted the discrepancy in a release headlined: “Stephen Harper makes stuff up about balancing the budget.”

It pointed out that balancing the budget by the next election was not the same as balancing it by 2016-17.

As it is, even the 2015-16 timetable is a year later than offered in the Conservative campaign for reelection in May 2011. They had promised a balanced budget by 2014-15, followed by major personal income tax relief before the 2015 election.

Flaherty’s timetable drew criticism this week from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said the minister had become expert at kicking the can down the road.

The projections could be thrown out of whack if the United States goes off the fiscal cliff, a set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are to be triggered on January 2 if legislators and the White House cannot agree on a more nuanced budget deal.

Flaherty said U.S. failure to avert the fiscal cliff would cause a significant and immediate decline in Canada’s gross domestic product, and he would counter it.

Referring to a possible economic shock from Europe or the United States, he said: “If that were to happen and if the Canadian economy were to be pushed back into recession with the resulting danger for higher unemployment and the danger always of a prolonged recession, then we would act.”

He added: “We would not stand by and let that happen. The kinds of measure we can take: there are various tax measures we can take, there are measures with respect to stimulus we can take, these are things that we have done before and we can do again.”

On Tuesday, Flaherty spoke of having prepared various contingency plans.

(Additional reporting by Louse Egan; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Celtic sparkle catches rapper Snoop Dogg’s eye

(Reuters) – U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg says he would be ready to splash his cash and invest in Scottish soccer champions Celtic.

The 41-year-old, who is as well known for his love of sport as he is his music and drugs busts, fell further in love with the Glasgow club after watching highlights of Celtic‘s heroic 2-1 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League this month.

“I got a lot of interest in soccer. It’s not a new thing for hip hop stars to invest in sports teams but it is a new thing for hip hop stars to invest in soccer teams,” Snoop Dogg was quoted as saying in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper on Sunday.

“I didn’t catch the whole Barcelona game but I watched the highlights. I know Barcelona are a big deal and it shows Celtic are a big deal as well.

“I see how passionate Celtic fans are about their team and I could see myself making an investment if any of the board wanted to sell.

“I haven’t really thought how much. I don’t need to run a soccer club but enough of a percentage to get me on the board so I can be heard.

“I want to bring a bit of Snoop to things.”

Former England captain David Beckham was consulted by Snoop, who said he had even thought about courting the Los Angeles Galaxy player for a stint at ‘the Hoops’.

Out of the current crop of Neil Lennon’s side, the rapper’s favorite player is Greece international Giorgios Samaras, whom he described as a “proper athlete” that could take modest Celtic far in Europe.

(Reporting by Mark Pangallo, editing by Mark Meadows)

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One in 20 youth has used steroids to bulk up: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – About five percent of middle and high school students have used anabolic steroids to put on muscle, according to a new study from Minnesota.

In addition to steroid use, more than one-third of boys and one-fifth of girls in the study said they had used protein powder or shakes to gain muscle mass, and between five and 10 percent used non-steroid muscle-enhancing substances, such as creatine.

Researchers said a more muscular body ideal in the media may be one factor driving teens to do anything possible to get toned, as well as pressure to perform in sports.

“Really the pressure to start using (steroids) is in high school,” said Dr. Linn Goldberg, from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

“You get the influence of older teens in high school, so when you’re a 14-year-old that comes in, you have 17-year-olds who are the seniors, and they can have great influence as you progress into the next stage of your athletic career.”

The new data came from close to 2,800 kids and teens at 20 different middle and high schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. During the 2009-2010 school year, those students completed a survey on food and weight-related behaviors, including activities tied to muscle gain.

The majority of kids surveyed were poor or middle-class.

Almost all of them had engaged in at least one muscle-building activity in the past year, most often working out more to get stronger. But up to one-third of kids and teens used what the researchers deemed to be unhealthy means to gain muscle mass, including taking steroids and other muscle-building substances or overdoing it on protein shakes, dieting and weight-lifting.

Student-athletes were more likely than their peers to use most methods of muscle-building. Steroid use, however, was equally common among athletes and non-athletes.

According to findings published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Asian students were three to four times more likely to have used steroids in the past year than white students. Most Asians in the study were Hmong, lead researcher Marla Eisenberg from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and her colleagues noted.

Their study shows higher adolescent use of steroids and other muscle-boosting substances than most other recent research and “is cause for concern,” according to the researchers. But it’s not clear whether the findings would apply to an area outside of the Twin Cities, or among wealthier students, they noted.

ROID RAGE?

Anabolic steroids are synthetic versions of testosterone, the male sex hormone. Steroids are prescribed legally to treat conditions involving hormone deficiency or muscle loss, but when they’re used for non-medical purposes, it’s typically at much higher doses, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In those cases, steroids can cause mood swings – sometimes known as roid rage – and for adolescents, stunted growth and accelerated puberty.

Anabolic steroids have become pervasive in professional sports, including baseball, football and boxing. (Another example of performance-enhancing drug use is “blood doping” with erythropoietin or EPO, which is behind the Lance Armstrong cycling controversy that caused him to be stripped of his Tour de France titles last month.)

Experts have worried that the drive to get ahead of competitors at any cost could trickle down to college and high school athletes, as well.

Goldberg, co-developer of the ATLAS and ATHENA programs to prevent steroid and other substance use on high school teams, said it’s important to give teens healthier alternatives to build muscle.

“I would stay away from all supplements, because you don’t know what’s in them,” Goldberg, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

“What’s important is to teach kids how to eat correctly,” he said. Goldberg said getting enough protein through food, eating breakfast and avoiding muscle toxins like alcohol and marijuana can all help young athletes get stronger without shakes or supplements.

Eisenberg’s team did not find clustering of steroid use and other muscle-enhancing behaviors within particular schools.

“Rather than being driven by a particular school sports team coach or other features of a school’s social landscape, this diffusion suggests that muscle-enhancing behaviors are widespread and influenced by factors beyond school, likely encompassing social and cultural variables such as media messages and social norms of behavior more broadly,” the researchers wrote.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/jsoh2P Pediatrics, online November 19, 2012.

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SAS near deal to avoid bankruptcy

19 November 2012 Last updated at 08:16 ET

The troubled Scandinavian airline SAS has said it is close to reaching a deal with trade unions needed to avoid bankruptcy, following all-night talks.

Owners and creditors of the airline have a plan to cut costs and jobs, but it needs approval from eight trade unions representing pilots and cabin crew in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

The airline said on Monday morning it had reached agreement with all but one of the unions.

SAS wants to cut 6,000 jobs.

Talks are still continuing with the Danish cabin crew, according to the news agency Reuters.

Shares in the company jumped by a quarter in early trading on hopes of a turnaround. Even so, they are still down by 98% since their peak in 2007.

Cashflow concerns

“We have successfully negotiated seven of eight collective agreements, which is gratifying,” said chief executive Rickard Gustafson.

“But there remains one union and we must have it on board too. That is a condition for carrying out our plan.”

An agreement with all eight unions is a precondition for SAS to receive a 3.5bn-Swedish crown ($ 518m, £325m) loan from its three government parents and from six banks.

Despite the encouraging turn of events, rating agency Standard & Poor’s said on Monday that it had cut SAS’s credit rating from B- to CCC+, and placed it on review for further downgrade.

S&P attributed its downgrade decision to the company’s weak cashflow position, noting it had debts coming up for repayment over the next 12 months, and risked a loss of confidence by its suppliers.

The rating agency made no reference to the union negotiations, but said it would make a decision about a possible further downgrade in the next three months, once it becomes clear whether SAS’s restructuring plan is successful, including the possible knock-on impact on ticket sales.

SAS has struggled to deal with stiff competition from rival discount airlines, despite several attempts to cut its own costs.

Continue reading the main story

It has been a very gruelling process”

End Quote Espen Pettersen Deputy head of the main Norwegian cabin union

The airline, in which the governments of Sweden, Denmark and Norway control key stakes, had set Sunday as a deadline for an agreement with trade unions on wage cuts, as well as changes to pensions and working hours for staff, but talks were extended into Monday.

‘Not very happy’

In the early hours of Monday, at Copenhagen’s main airport, negotiators were seen entering and leaving the company’s headquarters, taking a break for food and drink.

“It has been a very gruelling process,” said Espen Pettersen, deputy head of the main Norwegian cabin union.

“We have made big concessions in this agreement. We are not very happy, but we felt we had no other choice but to sign to secure the jobs and the company.”

According to Norwegian press, pilots have agreed to a pay cut equivalent to one month’s salary, as well as an 8% increase in their workload.

Fears have been widely expressed in the Scandinavian media that a lack of a deal might prompt the airline to apply for immediate bankruptcy.

SAS has told crews to ensure planes are fully fuelled, so that they are able to return home if necessary.

The carrier has also given cash to staff to ensure they can get access to hotels in the case of a bankruptcy.

SAS has said that it wants to cut staff numbers from 15,000 to 9,000, as well as cut salaries by up to 17%.

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw “some indications” of a truce ahead.

Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.

“As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn’t worth it to cease fire,” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.

“If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”

Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel’s raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain’s Sky News.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop “transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity”.

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: “This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning.”

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel’s blows Hamas “is still strong enough to destroy the enemy”.

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant’s family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron “expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides,” in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was “putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate,” the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu “to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.”

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through “de-escalation” and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that “there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.”

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying “there is hope,” but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan. … It will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

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“Simpsons” actor Hank Azaria sues Craig Bierko over character right

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Hank Azaria, who provides the voices for a host of characters on “The Simpsons,” including Moe Szyslak and Chief Wiggum, is suing over the rights to one of his characters.

Azaria and his How to Pictures, Inc. filed suit Wednesday against “Leap Year” actor Craig Bierko in U.S. District Court in Central California on Wednesday, saying that Bierko is jeopardizing a potential movie deal by falsely laying claim to a voice that Azaria claims he created nearly 30 years ago.

Don’t worry, though; Springfield’s favorite curmudgeonly bartender and inept police chief won’t be affected.

According to the suit, Azaria created a voice for a “a colorful baseball announcer who speaks with peculiar speech inflections” in 1983 or beforehand, and introduced the voice to Bierko after meeting him in 1990.

In 2010, Azaria used the voice in a Funny or Die skit in which he played a sportscaster named Jim Brockmire, which employed the voice in question. (The suit also notes that the Brockmire character employed other attributes, such as a plaid jacket and a back story about his wife abandoning him.)

The video became a hit, the lawsuit says – so much so that Azaria was able “to entertain discussions to develop a feature-length motion picture based upon the Jim Brockmire Character who uses the Azaria Voice.”

It also drew the attention of Bierko, who subsequently contacted Azaria and claimed to have created the voice either independently or in collaboration with Azaria, the suit says. (The complaint says that Bierko never made clear which it was, and that Azaria denies the claim in either case.)

The suit claims that Bierko’s claim to ownership on the voice “has created a cloud over the rightful ownership of the Azaria Voice (which is an integral part of the Jim Brockmire Character) such that Plaintiffs’ ability to develop a feature length motion picture based upon the Jim Brockmire Character is being significantly impeded.”

A representative for Bierko has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Azaria is seeking a declaration that the sportscaster voice alone isn’t copyrightable, but that the Brockmire character is, plus a declaration that Bierko as no claim to the voice. (He also wants Bierko blocked from laying claim to the voice.)

The suit also asks for attorney’s fees and court costs.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

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Monti repeats Italy does not need euro zone aid

MILAN (Reuters) – Prime Minister Mario Monti rejected suggestions on Saturday that Italy should seek aid from its euro zone partners to bind a new government to strict reform conditions after elections likely to be held in March.

Monti’s comments, in a panel discussion at Milan’s Bocconi University, follow growing speculation that he might try to use an aid program to guarantee that his broad economic agenda is continued once his term in office ends.

He said he had nothing against mechanisms including the special euro zone bailout fund and the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program to help governments that have undertaken budget and economic reforms but he said he would like to see other countries resort to such assistance.

“I don’t think Italy needs it, nor will need it,” he said in answer to a question during the discussion.

Italy’s borrowing costs have come down sharply since the ECB announced its so-called “Outright Monetary Transactions” plan in September. The yield on its 10-year BTPs is now just under 5 percent, well below a high of over 7 percent when Monti came to office during the height of the financial crisis a year ago.

Monti also defended his government’s decision to stick to the goal of a balanced budget, in structural or growth-adjusted terms, by 2013, despite the strain the objective imposes on Italy’s recession-hit economy.

He said the government had considered asking for more time to meet the objective but had decided not to.

“I have not regretted not asking for it,” he said, noting that a number of other euro zone countries had delayed budget deficit reduction targets and that Italy would not have seen its own interest rates fall if it had done the same.

The discussion came on the same day the government issued a 17-page account of its year in office which emphasized the international credibility Italy gained after Monti took over from the scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi.

CREDIBILITY

With the countdown to elections now on following President Giorgio Napolitano’s indication on Friday of a possible date of March 10, attention has focused on what will come after.

Opinion polls suggest that a center-left government of some form is the most likely outcome, but the political parties have yet to choose their main candidates or even decide under what voting system the ballot will be held.

Much attention has been focused on the possibility that Monti himself may return at the head of a broad-based reform coalition if the election fails to produce a clear winner.

His government has been widely praised abroad and the former European commissioner has strong support among business leaders, but the painful tax hikes and spending cuts imposed by his government have also sparked anger among ordinary Italians.

On Saturday, students protested outside the university buildings where Monti was speaking and two policemen were injured by firecrackers.

Monti, who said his record in office was neither as good as his many international admirers believed nor as bad as the critics among his fellow economists claimed, has said repeatedly that he would be available to serve if needed.

But he repeated that he had no plans to run in the election himself. “Noone has asked me for a commitment and I’m not committing myself today,” he said.

At a separate event in Rome, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the chairman of sportscar maker Ferrari, who leads a civil movement aimed at promoting reform, praised Monti but said that he did not expect him to take a political lead.

“We are not asking the premier today to assume the leadership of this political movement because it would prejudice his work,” he said.

(Writing By James Mackenzie; editing by Jason Webb)

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Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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