Seized Arms Off Yemen Raise Alarm Over Iran

An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a development that could signal an escalation of Iran’s support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the United States.

Among the items aboard the dhow, according to a review of factory markings on weapons and their packing crates, were 10 Chinese heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, most of them manufactured in 2005.

The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they had been assembled at a factory represented by the state-owned China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.

The Chinese missiles were part of a larger shipment interdicted by American and Yemeni forces in January, which American and Yemeni officials say was intended for the Houthi rebels in northwestern Yemen. But the presence of the missiles in the seized contraband complicates an already politically delicate case.

The shipment, which officials portray as an attempt to introduce sophisticated new antiaircraft systems into the Arabian Peninsula, has raised concerns in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, as the weapons would have posed escalated risks to civilian and military aircraft alike.

And it has presented the Obama administration with a fresh example of Iran’s apparent transfer of modern missiles from China to insurgents in the larger regional contest between Sunni-led and Shiite-led states, in which the American military has often been entwined.

The United States has previously accused Iran, a Shiite-led theocracy, of sending weapons to the Houthis, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Saudi Arabia, an American ally, is considered the leading Sunni power in the region. Both sides have aided and equipped groups or governments they deem aligned with their interests, helping to fuel violence in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Sudan and elsewhere.

Iran has rejected the allegations as “baseless and absurd.” Neither the Iranian government nor the Chinese firm that markets QW missiles answered written requests for comment.

The government of Yemen has asked the United Nations to investigate the shipment and report the findings to the Security Council. Yemeni news media reported that United Nations experts were in Yemen last week.

The analysis of the weapons’ markings and origins was based on photographs taken when Yemeni officials briefly displayed the weapons to journalists.

Concerns over sophisticated Chinese missiles reaching Iran’s proxies have considerable regional history. They are part of both the larger worries over antiaircraft weapons set loose by conflicts across the Middle East in the past decade and the lingering frustration in Washington over China’s military aid to Iran.

In 2008, late in the Bush administration, the United States complained to China about two similar antiaircraft missiles that were recovered from Shiite militants in Iraq, according a diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks.

“We have demarched China repeatedly on its conventional arms transfers to Iran, urging Beijing to stop,” the cable noted.

The cable said the QW-1 missiles recovered in Iraq had been manufactured in China in 2003.

Like the American-made Stinger, China’s QW series is part of a class of weapons known as man-portable air-defense systems, or manpads. The cable instructed American diplomats to warn China of the “unacceptably high risk that any military equipment sold to Iran, especially weapons like manpads, that are highly sought-after by terrorists, will be diverted to nonstate actors who threaten U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as civilians across the region.”

The latest discovery of Chinese manpads came after the United States Navy detected the dhow, the Jeehan 1, as it took on cargo in an Iranian military-controlled port. The vessel then embarked on a high-seas smuggling run, according to accounts by Yemeni and American officials.

The vessel tied off on a pier in the harbor on Lesser Tunb Island, a tiny spit of land just west of the Strait of Hormuz that is claimed by both Iran and the United Arab Emirates, officials familiar with its voyage said. The island is occupied by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

After passing eastward through the strait and heading south along the Arabian Peninsula, the dhow was stopped on Jan. 23 by the American destroyer Farragut and a Yemeni boarding team off the coast of Al Ghaydah.

The dhow’s Iranian crew initially insisted the vessel was Panamanian-flagged and carried only fuel, an American official said. The military cargo, which included many ammunition crates that had been painted over with white or black paint, was found in hidden compartments, American officials said.

That cargo also included 316,000 cartridges for Kalashnikov rifles, nearly 63,000 cartridges for PK machine guns or the Dragunov series of sniper rifles, more than 12,000 cartridges for 12.7-millimeter DShK machine guns and 95 RPG-7 launchers.

The rifle cartridges were packaged in crates strongly resembling packaging used by Iran’s Defense Industries Organization, another firm under American sanction, according to James Bevan, director of Conflict Armament Research, a private arms-tracking firm that has documented the spread of Iranian ammunition in East and West Africa.

The vessel also carried 10 SA-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles with two gripstocks for firing them, nearly 17,000 sticks of Iranian-made C-4 plastic explosives, 48 Russian PN-14K night vision goggles, and 10 LH80A laser range finders made, according to their placards, by the state-run Iran Electronics Industries, also under American sanction.

The original provenance of the SA-7s was not clear, though the crates they were in had stenciling in Bulgarian.

The captain and crew of the Jeehan 1 remain in Yemeni detention, and the dhow has been impounded under Yemeni custody, a Yememi official said.

An American official called the shipment “deeply disturbing” and said it “clearly appeared to violate” Security Council resolutions prohibiting Iran from exporting arms.

Two independent arms-trafficking researchers who have reviewed photographs and written a summary of the markings on the missiles and crates said the weapons appeared to be of Chinese origin.

Matthew Schroeder, an analyst for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington and the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, said that this was the first time to his knowledge that the QW-1M had left state control.

“If so, and these missiles were indeed bound for insurgents, this shipment is extremely worrisome, both from a regional security and a global counterterrorism perspective,” he said.

Unlike many older shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles seen in insurgent hands around the world, the QW-1M is believed by analysts to have a seeker head more resistant to countermeasures intended to deceive it.

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Modern Family Stars Stuck In Elevator

By Sarah Michaud

03/02/2013 at 01:00 PM EST

Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Courtesy of Jesse Tyler Ferguson

It was a Friday night to remember for a few members of the Modern Family cast – they spent an hour of it trapped in an elevator.

Eric Stonestreet, Julie Bowen and Jesse Tyler Ferguson were on their way to headline a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kansas City – Stonestreet's hometown – when the elevator at the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center stopped.

"Stuck in an elevator for 35 mins," Ferguson Tweeted, sharing a video of the crowd of 15 asking firemen to "Get us out!"

Rescuers worked their way from the 40th floor down to the third to free everyone, the Kansas City Star reports.

"After a quick hour trapped in the service elevator, we were rescued," Bowen Tweeted.

"That's my mom in blue," Stonestreet writes, sharing the above photo before joking, "I honestly handled being stuck in an elevator better than I thought. All Jesse did was pass wind."

The trio finally hit the stage at about 10 p.m. and closed with the line, "Have a great night – don't use the elevators!"

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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

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India Ink: Image of the Day: March 1

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Bonnie Franklin Dies at 69

Breaking News

By Stephen M. Silverman

03/01/2013 at 01:35 PM EST

One Day at a Time star Bonnie Franklin, who announced last September that she was suffering from pancreatic cancer, died of complications of the disease on Friday, her family told the Los Angeles Times. She was 69.

Franklin died at her Los Angeles home, and is survived by her mother, Claire Franklin, and stepchildren Jed Minoff and Julie Minoff, said the paper.

On the long-running CBS series, which was developed by Norman Lear and on the air from 1975-1984, Franklin starred as divorced mom Ann Romano, alongside Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli, who played her teenage daughters.

Franklin and Bertinelli reunited on the small screen in 2011 when the Franklin played the mother of Bertinelli's character's boyfriend on Hot in Cleveland.

When Franklin's disease was first revealed, Phillips Tweeted, "Sending out love and sweet prayers to my 'mom.' The incomparable Bonnie Franklin."

A California native, Franklin was born in the beach city of Santa Monica but moved to Beverly Hills as a teen. Her father was a Russian-born investment banker, and her mother was born in Romania – and they remained her most ardent fans. She attended Smith College in Massachusetts and then transferred to UCLA.

Acting since childhood, Franklin first appeared on TV at the age of 3 (reciting Shakespeare) and in movies – including Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, starring Henry Fonda. In 1970 she sang the title song in the Tony-winning Lauren Bacall Broadway musical Applause. Franklin played a sunny chorus gypsy, and stopped the show twice.

From 1967 to 1970 she was married to the playwright Ronald Sossi, and then from 1980 until his death in 2009, to producer Marvin Minoff. Speaking to The New York Times about their marriage in 1980, Franklin said that she had promised Minoff that their years together would be many things, "but I promised him they weren't going to be boring."

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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..

India Ink: India’s Budget Targets Women

At a time when India’s commitment to women’s rights is under scrutiny, the government’s annual budget released Thursday proposed a number of measures for women, including increased spending to improve their safety and a bank only for women.

These provisions are part the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government’s broader focus on “inclusive” growth, through collecting more taxes from the country’s super-rich and increasing social spending. Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram on Thursday stressed the need to lift up groups that “will be left behind” unless they receive “special attention,” as he allocated greater funds for programs for women, lower castes and tribes and India’s rural poor.

On Thursday, Mr. Chidambaram set aside 971 billion rupees ($18 billion) for what is known as the “gender budget,” a concept introduced in the 2005–06 fiscal year, which reflects the total spending on programs likely to benefit women. This represents a more than 10 percent increase from last year.

The central government will contribute 10 billion rupees to a fund to provide better security and safety for women, called “Nirbhaya,” or “fearless,” the name used by the media to refer to a victim of a gang rape in Delhi in December, whose death prompted thousands to take to the streets to demand greater rights for women.

“Recent incidents have cast a long, dark shadow on our liberal and progressive credentials,” Mr. Chidambaram said Thursday. “As more women enter public spaces — for education or work or access to services or leisure — there are more reports of violence against them.”

Some women’s rights advocates welcomed the additional resources for safety. “I think it is extremely encouraging and high time that the government moves towards ensuring a focus and priority on women’s issues,” said Pinky Anand, a lawyer in the Supreme Court who has worked on rape and sexual assault laws.

More important than the amount is “the fact that the government has chosen to put these issues on top of the list of priorities,” she said.

Others criticized the government for not doing enough. Jayati Ghosh, a professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, called the sum “peanuts,” dismissing it as a “grandstanding gesture” rather than a serious measure.

“Security of women is a basic responsibility of the state,” Ms. Ghosh said, rather than something that should be addressed with a special fund.

The All India Democratic Women’s Association said in a statement that the scope of the fund remained undefined, which showed that the government was “keen to make a hasty political move to garner the trust and confidence of the women protesters without taking any specific and concrete steps to implement the Justice Verma Committee recommendations.” The group was referring to a report released in January that recommended sweeping changes in India’s police and judicial system.

Mr. Chidambaram also proposed a new state bank for women, which would employ mostly women. The bank, which will start with a capital of 10 billion rupees, will lend to women, women’s self-help groups and women-owned business.

Again, women’s rights activists were divided. Ms. Ghosh called the idea of a women’s bank “almost offensive,” and said the government should give women better access to all banks instead. “It is this ghettoization I have a problem with,” she said.

Ranjana Kumari, the director of the Center for Social Research in Delhi, called the idea an act of “political symbolism.” “Nevertheless,” she said, “it is a good development because this is the first time that women are being formally engaged in the financial sector.”

The budget also allocated 2 billion rupees for programs to combat sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace. On Feb. 26, Parliament passed a bill that aims to prevent, prohibit and punish sexual harassment of women in the workplace, the first comprehensive law on such harassment.

The budget didn’t go far enough, said the All India Democratic Women’s Association, which criticized the government for not dedicating enough money to women’s issues and failing to come up with specific measures to address pressing issues like health care and employment for women.

On Feb. 8, several women’s organizations, including the All India Democratic Women’s Association and the All India Women’s Conference, submitted a report to the finance minister requesting he address certain concerns in the budget, including a rise in violence against women, which they said could be traced back to growing economic disparities.

“The lack of recognition of women’s contribution to the economy and its underestimation are issues that are central to the increasing discriminatory trends,” the report said.

Among their demands were increased spending for the effective implementation of laws protecting women, greater safety in public transport, improved sanitation, the rehabilitation of victims of violence and an allocation of resources for the creation of jobs for women.

The finance minister did not meet with women’s groups despite repeated requests, Ms. Kumari said, and the budget did not reflect their demands.

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Rob Kardashian Tweets His Way to Fitness

By Cara Lynn Shultz

02/28/2013 at 01:30 PM EST

Rob Kardashian in Feb. 2011 (left) and in Dec. 2012

Scott Kirkland/Getty, Seth Browarnik/Startraks

Breaking up is hard to do. And if you're in the public eye like Rob Kardashian, it's proven to be a weighty issue.

The reality star is looking to shed 50 lbs., reportedly gained after his breakup with singer Rita Ora. He's now hard at work to take off the weight, sharing his progress (and frustrations with his "fat boy" breakfasts!) with his fans on Twitter and Instagram.

See what his workout soundtrack includes, and check out his best pics of his healthy meals and workouts below.

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WHO: Small cancer risk after Fukushima accident

LONDON (AP) — People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer but one so small it probably won't be detectable, the World Health Organization said in a report released Thursday.

A group of experts convened by the agency assessed the risk of various cancers based on estimates of how much radiation people at the epicenter of the nuclear disaster received, namely those directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, a rural agricultural area about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Some 110,000 people living around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant were evacuated after the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 knocked out the plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water.

In the new report, the highest increases in risk appeared for people exposed as infants 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.

"These are pretty small proportional increases," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report.

"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," he said. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since 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.

WHO 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, one of the most treatable cancers when caught early, and the normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That risk would be half of one percentage point higher for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

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

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected 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 heavily exposed 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 to 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 was not connected to the WHO 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 WHO 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. Kanno accused the report 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.

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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)

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IHT Rendezvous: Will Turkey Make Peace With the Kurds?

LONDON — There is growing optimism that a ceasefire in Turkey’s three-decade war with Kurdish guerrillas will be declared to coincide with the Kurdish New Year in three weeks.

Under a draft plan reported on Wednesday, the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., would lay down its arms on March 21 and withdraw its forces from Turkish territory by August.

The potential for a breakthrough in ending the conflict, which has claimed 40,000 lives since 1984, came when the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened talks late last year with Abdullah Ocalan, the P.K.K.’s jailed leader.

Intelligence agents made a series of visits to the prison island of Imrali near Istanbul to negotiate with the former guerrilla chief, who was once Turkey’s most wanted man.

In their latest visit, last weekend, they accompanied a delegation of Kurdish legislators from the Peace and Democracy Party, or B.D.P.

Selahattin Demirtas, the B.D.P. co-chairman, said this week that there was already a de facto ceasefire. The P.K.K. was not carrying out armed action and the Turkish army was not conducting significant military operations against the rebels.

He quoted a letter from Mr. Ocalan in which he expressed the belief that the process would lead to an eventual resolution of the Kurdish issue. “Neither we nor the state can abandon that process,” he quoted the letter as saying.

The P.K.K. has abandoned its previous demands for independence but continues to seek equal rights for Kurds within the Turkish state.

Mr. Erdogan meanwhile dramatically underlined his own good intentions by telling his parliamentary colleagues he was prepared to drink poison if it meant achieving peace.

There are reports that the P.K.K. is preparing to release 16 Turkish prisoners, possibly as early as this weekend, as part of the peace moves.

Mr. Ocalan has sought the backing of P.K.K. exiles in Europe for the peace initiative, as well as that of guerrilla fighters based in the north of Iraq.

Duran Kalkan, a senior P.K.K. commander based in Iraq, said this week that he is open to the idea of a prisoner release. “However, nobody should expect us to make a unilateral move.”

In what appeared to be a positive response to the peace moves, he told the Kurdish Firatnews: “If everybody does what is required to do, I can say on behalf of the P.K.K. that the Kurdish armed movement will never pose an obstacle to the democratization of Turkey and the solution of the Kurdish question.”

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Kathy Bates Joins American Horror Story, Ron Livingston Joins Boardwalk Empire

By Andrea Billups

02/27/2013 at 01:45 PM EST

Kathy Bates and Ron Livingston

Retna; WireImage

Two familiar stars will join the casts of American Horror Story and Boardwalk Empire for the shows' new seasons.

Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar for her frightening role as Annie in the horror film Misery, will join season 3 of FX's American Horror Story alongside fellow Oscar-winner Jessica Lange, EW reports.

Bates, 64, won an Emmy Award in 2012 for her guest turn on Two and a Half Men. She also appeared on Harry's Law and The Office. Bates announced last September that she had undergone a double-mastectomy for breast cancer after surviving ovarian cancer nine years earlier.

While he charmed on Sex and the City and Band of Brothers, Ron Livingston is set to play a wealthy businessman who shakes things up on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, working on season 4 of the Prohibition-era drama alongside star Steve Buscemi.

Livingston, 45, an Iowa native whose TV anchor sister drew praise over a bullying flap last year, gained fame in the film Office Space. He had previously starred in HBO's political drama Game Change.

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont nurse disfigured in a 2007 lye attack has received a new face at a Boston hospital.

Carmen Blandin Tarleton's full facial transplant at Brigham & Women's Hospital included transplanting a female donor's facial skin to Tarleton's neck, nose and lips, along with facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

Hospital officials say the 44-year-old Thetford, Vt., woman suffered burns on more than 80 percent of her body after her estranged husband attacked her.

Tarleton's sister said Wednesday she showed "great appreciation" for the gift she's been given.

The donor's family believes their loved one's spirit lives on in Tarleton.

Tarleton has undergone more than 50 surgeries. The latest took 15 hours and included a team of more than 30 medical professionals.

Tarleton once worked as a transplant nurse.

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IHT Rendezvous: Memories of Floating Over Luxor, Now Tinged With the Macabre

My 5-year-old son spent the entire hot-air balloon ride over Luxor crouched in the bottom of the basket, terrified of the flames that kept shooting into the balloon—the flames that produced the hot air that kept us afloat. He missed the glorious views: of the ancient ruins and the quilts of green grass, of the magnificent sunrise and the dancing shadows it created out of the dozens of other hot-air balloons with which we shared the early-morning sky.

We had hardly thought about danger when we booked the ride, a staple of Luxor vacations, worrying only about whether it would be worth the $240 pricetag for our family of four—and the 4:40 a.m. wake-up call. Less than two months later, with Tuesday’s horrific headlines about a crash on one of those very balloons that killed at least 18, it seems my son may have been on to something.

This is not my first there-but-for-the-grace experience. Days after I went skydiving in the Chicago suburbs to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday, I read that a skydiver who crash-landed into a lake we had flown over had drowned. While covering the small-plane crash that killed Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota in 2002, I discovered that the day I had spent with him three weeks earlier was on the very same King Air A-100.

Skydiving and small-plane rides in rural areas are known risks. But a fatal hot-air balloon ride? Did not occur to me. (Maybe it’s that tourist mentality: I never inquired about whether the camels we rode through back roads and villages were insured, either.)

Before this morning, the balloon ride was easily one of the best memories of our weeklong adventure in Luxor and Cairo over New Year’s.

It did not begin well: The hotel failed to make that 4:40 a.m. wake-up call, and we were hopelessly late. That meant we kept a literal boatload of Chinese tourists waiting to cross the Nile. Aboard the rickety wooden boat there was instant coffee, tea, and, oddly, Twinkies. On the other side, we were shuttled in vans to the open field where these huge, colorful balloons were in various stages of life—some lying limp on the ground, others half-filled, some taking flight.

My twins hoped for one of the multicolored balloons, but we ended up in red. Some 20 strangers joined us in the basket, where the kids were just the right height to peer out of the footholds we had used to climb in. My daughter peeked; my son cowered. The blue flames roared, and we were
airborne.

The ride lasted perhaps a half-hour, each minute offering a landscape transformed by the relative height of our balloon, the others, and the emerging sun. It was remarkable, if was not quite peaceful — there were those loud, hot flames shooting up a few feet away every few seconds. It was flames like those that, for the doomed balloon, ignited the stream from a ripped gas hose at landing, sending it bouncing back into the air to explode.

For us, on Dec. 31, the landing was smooth. Once on the ground, each rider was given a signed certificate commemorating the flight. (We passed on the offers to purchase
photographs or video.)

My daughter excitedly pasted her certificate into the vacation journal she was keeping for kindergarten. Now that seems like a macabre piece of memorabilia. We will be waiting a long time to tell our children the postscript to our adventure.

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Kim Kardashian & Kanye West Get Hot & Heavy in New Photo Shoot

02/26/2013 at 02:00 PM EST

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West

Nick Knight for L'Officiel Hommes (out March 4th)

Kim Kardashian is turning up the heat in her latest magazine cover.

The expectant mom, 32, recently sat – well, stood? – for a racy photo shoot with boyfriend Kanye West for the March 4 issue of French magazine, L'Officiel Hommes.

The couple hold each other passionately, while Kardashian's facial expression makes it seem like she's in the middle of an intimate moment.

Although this cover may prove to be one of the reality starlet's most sensual photographs, she is no stranger to showing skin.

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Wall Street up as Bernanke defends policy, warns on cuts

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus before Congress, but he warned forced spending cuts that could be triggered this week represented a headwind for the economy.

Gains in homebuilders and other consumer stocks, following strong economic data, kept the S&P 500 up slightly and a 5 percent jump in Home Depot lifted the Dow industrials. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> rose 2.6 percent.

Stocks hit session highs shortly after Bernanke, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, strongly defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus program that has been essential for the stock market's recovery.

However, he also urged lawmakers to avoid sharp spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday, which he warned could combine with earlier tax increases to create a "significant headwind" for the economic recovery.

Bernanke's cautiousness was behind a late morning pullback in stocks, according to Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Banyan Partners LLC in New York.

He also said concerns about the Fed's next move are unjustified for the moment.

"The Fed isn't going to be pulling back monetary stimulus any time soon," Pavlik said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 92.07 points or 0.67 percent to 13,876.24. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 4.67 points or 0.31 percent to 1,492.52. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 1.44 points or 0.05 percent to 3,117.69.

The S&P 500 failed to move above 1,500, a closely watched level that was technical support until recently, but could now become a hurdle.

Cable network AMC Networks was among the Nasdaq's biggest percentage decliners after the home of popular shows such as "The Walking Dead" and "Mad Men" reported a quarterly profit way below analysts' estimates. Its stock fell 6.7 percent to $54.19.

Equities continued to be weighed by concerns about a stalemate in Italy after a general election failed to give any party a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and financial crisis in Europe.

The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> closed down 1.4 percent. The benchmark Italian index <.ftmib> tumbled 4.9 percent.

Dow component Home Depot was the top gainer in both the Dow and the S&P 500 after the world's largest home improvement chain reported adjusted earnings and sales that beat expectations. Its shares jumped 5.5 percent to $67.43.

Macy's shares climbed 3.5 percent to $39.87 after the department-store chain stated it expects full-year earnings to be above analysts' forecasts because of strong holiday sales.

Economic reports that showed strength in housing and consumer confidence also supported stocks. U.S. home prices rose more than expected in December, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Consumer confidence rebounded in February, jumping more than expected, and new-home sales rose to their highest in 4-1/2 years.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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India Ink: ‘Life of Pi’ Shines at the Oscars

While no Indian film was up for nomination in the 85th annual Academy Awards, held Sunday night in Los Angeles, Taiwan-born Ang Lee’s win in the Best Director category for “Life of Pi’’ ensured a national connection to this year’s Oscars.

The movie, based on the 2001 novel by Yann Martel, is set in the mid-1970s in the town of Pondicherry (now Puducherry), a former French colony in India. Mr. Lee shot the film in Puducherry, as well as the hill station of Munnar in Kerala state and in Taiwan. The movie had a large Indian cast, including Suraj Sharma as the 16-year-old protagonist, Pi; Irrfan Khan as an adult Pi; Tabu as Pi’s mother; and Adil Hussain as his father. Younger versions of Pi were played by Gautam Belur and Ayush Tandon, while Pi’s older brother was played by Ayan Khan, Mohamed Abbas Khaleeli and Vibish Sivakumar. Shravanthi Sainath plays Pi’s teenage girlfriend. The film also stars Gérard Depardieu. 

“Life of Pi” was the highest-grossing Hollywood film in India in 2012, pulling in $17 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Worldwide, it grossed more than $583 million at the box office as of February 24.

“Life of Pi” also won for Original Score. Michael Dynna accepted the award and thanked his Indian-born wife, Aparna, and their two boys. Aparna Dynna wore a blue-and-silver Indian lehenga, or skirt, blouse and  dupatta, or scarf, to the Oscars.

The movie also took home Oscars for both Cinematography and Visual Effects. Some of the visual effects for the film were done in Mumbai and Hyderabad, at the offices of Rhythm & Hues Studios, which is headquartered in California.

“Pi’s Lullaby,” sung by Jayashri Ramnath, a Carnatic music singer popularly known as Bombay Jayashree, was up for Best Song, but it lost to Adele Atkins for the James Bond theme song, “Skyfall.” Bombay Jayashree looked resplendent in a red silk sari and pearls on the red carpet.

Centered around the adventures of Pi, short for Piscine Molitor Patel, “Life of Pi” brings together fantasy and mysticism as an older Pi (Khan) recounts two alternate versions of his time on a boat with a tiger, named Richard Parker. The young Pi’s family owns a zoo in Pondicherry, but upon selling it to the local government, decides to migrate to Canada. The family and the animals from the zoo embark on their journey to Canada but meet with disaster on the ocean. The story is a retelling of that fateful journey, based on the older Pi’s recollections of what transpired. There is a strong spiritual undercurrent to the story, with the idea of God a central theme.

“Life of Pi” wasn’t immune to controversies, with Bombay Jayashri accused of borrowing from a well-known Malayalam lullaby in composing her song for the film. Ms. Jayashri has denied the allegations.

Although Mr. Khan and Ms. Tabu are well known in India, Mr. Sharma, who played the teenage Pi, had never acted before. Mr. Lee, in his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards, called him a “miracle,” before signing off in both Mandarin and Sanskrit: “Xie, xie” and “namaste.”

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Still Got It! Seven PEOPLE's Sexiest Men Alive Hit Oscar Red Carpet

Years have passed for some of our favorites, but that didn't stop Ben Affleck, Richard Gere, Denzel Washington and more from looking stunning

Credit: George Pimentel/Getty

Updated: Monday Feb 25, 2013 | 01:30 PM EST

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Dow, S&P slip after uncertain Italian election

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks mostly fell on Monday on fears that a divided parliament in Italy would get in the way of the country's reforms and hamper the euro zone's stability.

Election projections showed the center-right coalition led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was leading in the race for the Italian Senate, contradicting initial exit polls and raising the specter of deadlock in parliament.

Earlier polls pointing to a center-left victory lifted stocks in Milan and other European markets on investors' belief that they would continue the path to pay down Italian debt, said Art Hogan, managing director of Lazard Capital Markets in New York.

"What we don't want to hear is a renewed fear about a euro- zone fracture," he said.

Last week, the benchmark S&P 500 closed below its 14-day moving average on Wednesday for the first time this year. At midday, the S&P 500 was trading just below that level, now near 1,515.

The index was, nonetheless, still near highs not seen in five years, as bets on a strong U.S. economy have given equities support. The S&P 500's slight fall last week was the first weekly drop after a seven-week string of gains.

Banks and other financial stocks led Monday's decline on concern about the sector's exposure to Italy's massive debt. The KBW Bank Index <.bkx> fell 0.7 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 18.58 points or 0.13 percent, to 13,981.99. The Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> shed 2.30 points or 0.15 percent, to 1,513.30. But the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> rose 3.03 points or 0.10 percent, to 3,164.85.

Barnes & Noble Inc shares climbed 11.9 percent to $15.12 after the bookseller's chairman offered to buy its declining retail business.

The Nasdaq received support from Amgen Inc , up 4.2 percent at $90.47, after a rival issued a voluntary recall of its only drug, an anemia treatment that competes with Amgen's top-selling red blood cell booster, Epogen.

The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> unofficially closed up 0.1 percent and Italy's main FTSE MIB <.ftmib> ended up 0.7 percent after earlier gaining near 4 percent.

U.S. equities will face a test with the looming debate over the so-called sequestration, U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting on Friday if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement over spending and taxes. The White House issued warnings about the harm the cuts are likely to inflict on the economy if enacted.

With 83 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69 percent beat 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 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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In Last Sunday Address as Pope, Benedict Says He Will Continue to Serve

Andrew Medichini/Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI delivered his final Sunday address from the window of his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square.

VATICAN CITY — In his last Sunday blessing before he retires, Pope Benedict XVI reassured Catholics that he was not abandoning them but would continue to serve the church even in his retirement.

Romans, pilgrims and curious tourists filled St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for Benedict’s second-to-last public appearance before he steps down on Thursday, the first pope in six centuries to do so willingly.

Reading from prepared remarks as he stood at the window of the Apostolic Palace, Benedict that said he was being called by God “to climb up on the mountain” and to dedicate himself more to “prayer and meditation.”

“This doesn’t mean abandoning the church,” the pope added, to the applause of the crowd. “On the contrary, if God asks me, this is because I can continue to serve” the church “with the same dedication and the same love which I have tried to do so until now, but in a way more suitable to my age and to my strength.”

Cardinals from around the world have begun gathering in Rome to greet Benedict before he retires at 8 p.m. on Thursday. At that point, the cardinals will meet to discuss when to begin the conclave to elect his successor.

One member of the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Jan Cartwright, 61, said she had traveled to Rome from Wales. “We’ve come for the rugby, but we’re Catholic, and it is history, isn’t it,” she said.

Ms. Cartwright said she was surprised that the pope had decided to resign. “We have the queen,” she said. “No one in the royal family would step down, they just go on until they die, really.” But she said she admired Benedict’s decision. “I think it’s a brave thing to do,” she said. “He’s an old man.”

Maria Concetta Campanella from Rome was also in the crowd. “It’s a historic moment,” she said. “It teaches us humility. He teaches us that we can’t sit in our chairs forever, that when the time is right, we have to leave the chair.”

Vito Ugo, an Augustinian monk holding a Brazilian flag, was taking pictures with two of his fellow monks, all dressed in long black robes. “We feel great emotion to be here,” he said.

Asked whether he hoped the cardinals would elect a South American pope in the conclave, Brother Ugo smiled. “It’s what God wants,” he said humbly.

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You're Invited to PEOPLE.com's Oscars Party!

02/24/2013 at 08:40 AM EST

From left: Bradley Cooper, Oscar, Jessica Chastain

AFP/Getty; Wireimage; Splash News Online

Oscars host Seth MacFarlane isn't the only one gearing up for Hollywood's biggest night – we are too!

Be a part of the glamour and excitement Sunday starting at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT when we roll out the red carpet for our PEOPLE.com VIPs.

Here's what you can expect:
• Tune in to our live red carpet preshow for exclusive A-list interviews
• Be the first to see the gorgeous gowns – and make your own best-dressed list
• Download your own play-along ballot – and vote on your Academy Awards picks
• Tweet with our editors at #PeopleOscars, and watch the conversation on our homepage. We'll be joined by DKNY PR Girl (@dkny), model Coco Rocha (@cocorocha), the hilarious Go Fug Yourself (@fuggirls), @WhoWhatWear and blogger @Possessionista!
• Take our up-to-the-minute Oscars polls

And come back the next day for so much more ...
• See the night's best dresses from all angles with our 360º slideshow
• Come inside the most exclusive Oscars after-parties
• Relive the most memorable quotes of the show
• Get the scoop on the night's biggest shockers and funniest moments everyone is talking about

We're looking forward to a fun, fashion-filled night – see you then!

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Investors face another Washington deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts next week, but it's not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed large.

Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defense, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling.

Talks on the U.S. budget crisis began again this week leading up to the March 1 deadline for the so-called sequestration when $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to take effect.

"It's at this point a political hot button in Washington but a very low level investor concern," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The fight pits President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats against congressional Republicans.

Stocks rallied in early January after a compromise temporarily avoided the fiscal cliff, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> has risen 6.3 percent since the start of the year.

But the benchmark index lost steam this week, posting its first week of losses since the start of the year. Minutes on Wednesday from the last Federal Reserve meeting, which suggested the central bank may slow or stop its stimulus policy sooner than expected, provided the catalyst.

National elections in Italy on Sunday and Monday could also add to investor concern. Most investors expect a government headed by Pier Luigi Bersani to win and continue with reforms to tackle Italy's debt problems. However, a resurgence by former leader Silvio Berlusconi has raised doubts.

"Europe has been in the last six months less of a topic for the stock market, but the problems haven't gone away. This may bring back investor attention to that," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

OPTIONS BULLS TARGET GAINS

The spending cuts, if they go ahead, could hit the defense industry particularly hard.

Yet in the options market, bulls were targeting gains in Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's biggest supplier.

Calls on the stock far outpaced puts, suggesting that many investors anticipate the stock to move higher. Overall options volume on the stock was 2.8 times the daily average with 17,000 calls and 3,360 puts traded, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

"The upside call buying in Lockheed solidifies the idea that option investors are not pricing in a lot of downside risk in most defense stocks from the likely impact of sequestration," said Jared Woodard, a founder of research and advisory firm condoroptions.com in Forest, Virginia.

The stock ended up 0.6 percent at $88.12 on Friday.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on reducing the U.S. budget deficit in the next few days, a sequester would include significant cuts in defense spending. Companies such as General Dynamics Corp and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp could be affected.

General Dynamics Corp shares rose 1.2 percent to $67.32 and Smith & Wesson added 4.6 percent to $9.18 on Friday.

EYES ON GDP DATA, APPLE

The latest data on fourth-quarter U.S. gross domestic product is expected on Thursday, and some analysts predict an upward revision following trade data that showed America's deficit shrank in December to its narrowest in nearly three years.

U.S. GDP unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, according to an earlier government estimate, but analysts said there was no reason for panic, given that consumer spending and business investment picked up.

Investors will be looking for any hints of changes in the Fed's policy of monetary easing when Fed Chairman Ben Bernake speaks before congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Shares of Apple will be watched closely next week when the company's annual stockholders' meeting is held.

On Friday, a U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with the iPhone maker, blocking the company from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.

(Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Iran Says It Has Found New Uranium Deposits

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) — Days before resuming talks over its disputed nuclear program, Iran said Saturday that it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations.

The state news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which said that the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had tripled the amount outlined in previous estimates.

There was no independent confirmation. Western experts had previously thought that Iran, with few uranium mines of its own, might be close to exhausting its supply of raw uranium.

“We have discovered new sources of uranium in the country, and we will put them to use in the near future,” Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted as saying at Iran’s annual nuclear industry conference.

The timing of the announcement suggested that Iran, by talking up its reserves and nuclear ambitions, may hope to strengthen its negotiating hand at talks in Kazakhstan on Tuesday with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Diplomats say the six powers are willing to offer Iran some relief from international sanctions if it agrees to curb its production of higher-grade enriched uranium.

The West says Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a purity of 20 percent demonstrates its intent to develop a nuclear weapons ability, an allegation the Islamic republic denies.

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas at high speeds. The gas is derived from yellow cake, a concentrate from uranium ore found in mines.

Iran’s raw uranium reserves now total around 4,400 tons, including discoveries over the past 18 months, IRNA quoted the report as saying.

In another sign that Iran is intent on pushing forward with its nuclear ambitions, the report also said that 16 sites had been identified for the construction of nuclear power stations. It did not specify the exact locations but said they included coastal areas of the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, Khuzestan Province and the Caspian Sea.

The Iranian authorities have long announced their desire to build more nuclear power plants for electricity production. Only one currently exists, in the southern city of Bushehr, and it has suffered several shutdowns in recent months.

The announcements could further complicate the search for a breakthrough in Kazakhstan, after three unsuccessful rounds of talks between the sides in 2012.

“We are meeting all of our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and we should be able to benefit from our rights,” Saeed Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted as saying at the conference on Saturday. “We don’t accept more responsibilities and less rights.”

In what Washington has called a provocative move, Iran is also installing new-generation centrifuges, capable of producing enriched uranium much faster, at a site in Natanz in the center of the country.

Western diplomats say the six powers will reiterate demands for the suspension of uranium enrichment to a purity of 20 percent, the closing of Iran’s Fordo enrichment plant, increased access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and an agreement to address concerns on existing uranium stockpiles.

In return, the latest embargoes on gold and metals trading with Iran would be lifted. Iran has criticized the offer and says its rights need to be fully recognized.

If the West wants to start constructive talks with Tehran, “It needs to present a valid proposal,” Mr. Jalili said. In a statement issued before the Iranian announcement, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said the six-power group wanted to enter a “substantial negotiation process” over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The talks in Kazakhstan “are a chance which I hope Iran takes,” he said.

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Beyoncé & Blue Ivy Made Readers Smile

By Andrea Billups

02/23/2013 at 01:35 PM EST

What's on the minds of PEOPLE readers this week? We love getting your feedback, and as always, you weighed in with plenty of strong reactions.

From your love of a new photos of Beyoncé's growing daughter Blue Ivy to your sadness over the suicide of country star Mindy McCready, readers responded to what made them mad, sad and also what kept them laughing out loud.

Check out the articles with the top reactions on the site this week, and keep clicking on the emoticons at the bottom of every story to tell us what you think!

There is no doubt the baby Blue Ivy is a Daddy's girl as new snaps of the child and her mother Beyoncé revealed this week. While her famous parents have kept her out of the spotlight, a photo of Blue Ivy, now 1, was apparently leaked from Beyoncé's HBO documentary, showing mom and daughter sharing the same photogenic smile.

Meanwhile, seeing Taylor Swift in a very Beyoncé-esque costume at the Brit Awards drew some amusement from readers who wondered if Sasha Fierce now has a pop-country cousin.

Chaz Bono has quickly followed through on his goal to lose significant weight, and readers were wowed by inspirational photos that saw him significantly trimmer and 43 pounds lighter. "I've been sticking to a really strict diet," he tells PEOPLE. "It's not any type of starvation thing. I'm just cutting out a lot of stuff and eating primarily protein and vegetables and fruit."

Readers told us they were angered by Kim Kardashian's maternity style as she continues her habit of wearing tight-fitting fashion, even as her pregnancy has moved into its second trimester. Mom-to-be Kardashian, 32, defended her hourglass shape and its limitations with clothes. "I think because I have big boobs it could make me look heavier if I don't, like, show off my waist or something," she told Du Jour magazine.

Country singer Mindy McCready's tragic suicide at 37 saddened readers. After years of dealing with addiction and legal problems, McCready killed herself at her Arkansas home, leaving behind son Zander, 6, with her ex Billy McKnight, and son Zayne, just 10 months.

Check back next week for another must-read roundup, and see what readers are reacting to every day here.

Taylor Swift at the Brit Awards (right) and Beyoncé at the Super Bowl

Getty; PictureGroup

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Investors face another Washington deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts next week, but it's not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed large.

Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defense, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling.

Talks on the U.S. budget crisis began again this week leading up to the March 1 deadline for the so-called sequestration when $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to take effect.

"It's at this point a political hot button in Washington but a very low level investor concern," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The fight pits President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats against congressional Republicans.

Stocks rallied in early January after a compromise temporarily avoided the fiscal cliff, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> has risen 6.3 percent since the start of the year.

But the benchmark index lost steam this week, posting its first week of losses since the start of the year. Minutes on Wednesday from the last Federal Reserve meeting, which suggested the central bank may slow or stop its stimulus policy sooner than expected, provided the catalyst.

National elections in Italy on Sunday and Monday could also add to investor concern. Most investors expect a government headed by Pier Luigi Bersani to win and continue with reforms to tackle Italy's debt problems. However, a resurgence by former leader Silvio Berlusconi has raised doubts.

"Europe has been in the last six months less of a topic for the stock market, but the problems haven't gone away. This may bring back investor attention to that," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

OPTIONS BULLS TARGET GAINS

The spending cuts, if they go ahead, could hit the defense industry particularly hard.

Yet in the options market, bulls were targeting gains in Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's biggest supplier.

Calls on the stock far outpaced puts, suggesting that many investors anticipate the stock to move higher. Overall options volume on the stock was 2.8 times the daily average with 17,000 calls and 3,360 puts traded, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

"The upside call buying in Lockheed solidifies the idea that option investors are not pricing in a lot of downside risk in most defense stocks from the likely impact of sequestration," said Jared Woodard, a founder of research and advisory firm condoroptions.com in Forest, Virginia.

The stock ended up 0.6 percent at $88.12 on Friday.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on reducing the U.S. budget deficit in the next few days, a sequester would include significant cuts in defense spending. Companies such as General Dynamics Corp and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp could be affected.

General Dynamics Corp shares rose 1.2 percent to $67.32 and Smith & Wesson added 4.6 percent to $9.18 on Friday.

EYES ON GDP DATA, APPLE

The latest data on fourth-quarter U.S. gross domestic product is expected on Thursday, and some analysts predict an upward revision following trade data that showed America's deficit shrank in December to its narrowest in nearly three years.

U.S. GDP unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, according to an earlier government estimate, but analysts said there was no reason for panic, given that consumer spending and business investment picked up.

Investors will be looking for any hints of changes in the Fed's policy of monetary easing when Fed Chairman Ben Bernake speaks before congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Shares of Apple will be watched closely next week when the company's annual stockholders' meeting is held.

On Friday, a U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with the iPhone maker, blocking the company from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.

(Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Torrential Rains Flood Athens and Strand Motorists

ATHENS — Torrential rain of an intensity not seen in decades flooded roads in Athens on Friday, overturning parked cars and stranding dozens of motorists, including a 28-year-old woman who died of what appeared to be a heart attack.

More than six hours of solid rainfall starting at 5 a.m. flooded the streets of the capital, caused two rivers to break their banks and paralyzed public transport, causing traffic chaos as tens of thousands of Athenians sought to reach their offices during the morning rush hour. Two electricity substations were deluged, prompting power cuts, and the fire service was besieged with more than 800 calls from residents with flooded homes and 100 from motorists stuck in floodwaters.

The amount of rain that fell was equal to the average rainfall for the whole month of February, meteorologists said.

A woman found slumped over the wheel of her car in the northern Athens suburb of Halandri died of natural causes, according to doctors at the hospital to which she was taken by rescue workers. Greek news media reported that the woman had died of a heart attack prompted by shock. A few blocks away, residents rescued another woman from her stranded car as muddy floodwaters gushed by, overturning several parked vehicles on the same road.

The rainfall also led to a freak accident at the Parliament building, where a cleaner working on the roof after the rain had stopped stepped through a glass ceiling as she tried to mop up water dripping into the main assembly hall, where lawmakers were to gather for a debate. The woman, who had been wearing a harness, according to parliamentary officials, was left dangling several yards above the deputies’ benches for a few minutes, until a police officer came to her aid.

In another unusual incident, a derelict building in the run-down central district of Aghios Panteleimonas collapsed, apparently because of the force of the sustained downpour. No one was injured after the collapse in the busy neighborhood, one of the poorest and most densely populated in the city center.

Although heavy rain is not unusual during Greece’s brief winter season, an antiquated drainage system in the capital means that streets often remain waterlogged for hours after storms. The scale of Friday’s downpour was unusual, however, with meteorologists referring to the heaviest rainfall in 50 to 60 years in comments on state television.

The Greek government, which is struggling to keep the debt-racked country afloat with billions of euros in rescue loans from foreign creditors, was not able to provide an assessment of the cost of the damage caused to homes, businesses, cars and roads.

 

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