Keys to donate instruments to her high school (AP)

NEW YORK ? Alicia Keys is heading back to high school.

The Grammy-winning singer will visit the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan on Tuesday and donate music instruments to its students.

Keys says her alma mater is underfunded and oversubscribed, "and I hope to make this better for them."

She will also launch an online contest where people can share how they would use $1,000 "to make the world a better place." It is part of the global campaign, "World of Betters."

The contest begins Tuesday and ends Dec. 15.

"World of Betters" also features rapper K'Naan, who will host an event in Johannesburg, and Indian singer Sunidhi Chauhan, who will host an event in Mumbai, India.

___

Online:

http://www.worldofbetters.com

http://www.aliciakeys.com/us

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111101/ap_on_en_mu/us_people_alicia_keys

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New drug shows promise against multiple sclerosis

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 1-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi
jason.bardi@ucsf.edu
415-502-4608
University of California - San Francisco

An experimental drug called Ocrelizumab has shown promise in a Phase 2 clinical trial involving 220 people with multiple sclerosis (MS), an often debilitating, chronic autoimmune disease that affects an increasing number of people in North America. It usually strikes young adults and is more common in women than in men.

The study, carried out by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center, and involving hospitals in the United States, Canada, and Europe, is described this week in the British medical journal Lancet.

The study involved patients with relapsing-remitting MS, a form of the disease marked by the accumulation of lesions in the brain and spinal cord and periodic "attacks" of neurological impairment.

The 220 patients were randomly enrolled into four groups two that received injections of the monoclonal antibody Ocrelizumab at two different doses, one that received the standard multiple sclerosis drug interferon-beta, and one "control" group that was given a placebo.

The doctors gauged the effectiveness of each treatment by performing monthly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans of the patients and counting the number of visible marks that indicate inflamed lesions, a hallmark of the disease. They also compared the severity and frequency of neurological "attacks" that cause loss of vision, incoordination, weakness and numbness, among other symptoms.

The results of this trial showed that patients who received the drug generally fared well and showed fewer signs of the disease than patients who receive a placebo or the standard Interferon treatment. Overall, the trial found that Ocrelizumab led to a 89 percent reduction in the formation of brain lesions, and it also reduced the number of new multiple sclerosis attacks over 24 weeks. During this relatively short-term study, interferon performed no better than placebo on these outcomes.

"It really is a remarkable finding," said Stephen Hauser, MD, the Robert A. Fishman Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at UCSF who was the senior author on the study. "This is extremely exciting, both in terms of the prospect of improved therapy for people with multiple sclerosis but also for the lessons that it teaches us about the fundamental cause of the disease."

"The prospect of an extremely effective therapy for multiple sclerosis that can be safely administered at six month intervals could represent a major step forward, if the safety profile and benefits are sustained over longer periods of use," he added.

At 24 weeks, serious adverse events were reported in 4 percent of patients in the placebo arm, 4 percent of those taking interferon, and 2 percent and 6 percent of patients taking 600 mg and 2000 mg of Ocrelizumab. One patient taking Ocrelizumab died, but the relationship with the study drug, if any, is as yet unclear.

Hauser said that the next step for the drug will be to see if the drug's effect and positive safety profile will be sustained over time. These questions will be addressed in two parallel Phase 3 trials, now enrolling a larger number of patients who will receive the drug regimens for a longer period of time. This trial is now underway at several hundred sites around the world. Hauser serves as lead investigator for these trials, which are sponsored by Roche, the company that owns Ocrelizumab.

What the Trial Suggests About Multiple Sclerosis

Besides the obvious question of whether the drug would work, also under scrutiny in the clinical trial was whether a drug like Ocrelizumab would work in the first place. Its mechanism of action is fundamentally different than other existing therapies for multiple sclerosis. All multiple sclerosis drugs work by targeting a person's immune system only they target fundamentally different parts.

In multiple sclerosis, a person's immune system attacks the myelin sheath that insulated nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Most of these attacks have no associated symptoms, but damage to these sheaths can short circuit signals traveling along the nerve fibers. This disrupts the normal flow of communication from the brain and can cause a range of symptoms including visual impairment, weakness, sensory disturbance, fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and loss of coordination.

For decades, work in the field has focused on targeting one component of the immune system the T cells which were always seen as the "smoking gun" of the disease because they attack nerve fibers in the brain, causing the lesions and ultimately the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Ocrelizumab, in contrast, targets a molecule called CD20 found on the surface of B cells, a separate component of the immune system.

Although the mechanism is not exactly clear, said Hauser, the B cells seem to induce the T cells to attack. If T cells are pulling the trigger on nerve fibers in the brain, B cells seem to be the ones that are loading the gun. The Phase 2 trial showed, in essence, that if you block one, you may be able to stop the other.

Hauser said the recently concluded trial validated the idea that targeting the B cells could ultimately help people with multiple sclerosis an idea that Hauser has championed for more than a decade after basic research in his laboratory in the 1990s suggested that these cells play a role in the disease.

"This is a great example of lessons learned at the bench bringing us to an experiment at the bedside that completely transformed our understanding of what we needed to do to develop more selective and more effective therapy for MS" he said.

###

The article, "Ocrelizumab in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: a phase 2, randomised, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial" by Ludwig Kappos, David Li, Peter A Calabresi, Paul O'Connor, Amit Bar-Or, Frederik Barkhof, Ming Yin, David Leppert, Robert Glanzman, Jeroen Tinbergen, and Stephen L Hauser is published online by the journal Lancet on November 1, 2011.

This work was funded by Roche.

In addition to UCSF, the authors of this study are affiliated with University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA; Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 1-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi
jason.bardi@ucsf.edu
415-502-4608
University of California - San Francisco

An experimental drug called Ocrelizumab has shown promise in a Phase 2 clinical trial involving 220 people with multiple sclerosis (MS), an often debilitating, chronic autoimmune disease that affects an increasing number of people in North America. It usually strikes young adults and is more common in women than in men.

The study, carried out by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center, and involving hospitals in the United States, Canada, and Europe, is described this week in the British medical journal Lancet.

The study involved patients with relapsing-remitting MS, a form of the disease marked by the accumulation of lesions in the brain and spinal cord and periodic "attacks" of neurological impairment.

The 220 patients were randomly enrolled into four groups two that received injections of the monoclonal antibody Ocrelizumab at two different doses, one that received the standard multiple sclerosis drug interferon-beta, and one "control" group that was given a placebo.

The doctors gauged the effectiveness of each treatment by performing monthly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans of the patients and counting the number of visible marks that indicate inflamed lesions, a hallmark of the disease. They also compared the severity and frequency of neurological "attacks" that cause loss of vision, incoordination, weakness and numbness, among other symptoms.

The results of this trial showed that patients who received the drug generally fared well and showed fewer signs of the disease than patients who receive a placebo or the standard Interferon treatment. Overall, the trial found that Ocrelizumab led to a 89 percent reduction in the formation of brain lesions, and it also reduced the number of new multiple sclerosis attacks over 24 weeks. During this relatively short-term study, interferon performed no better than placebo on these outcomes.

"It really is a remarkable finding," said Stephen Hauser, MD, the Robert A. Fishman Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at UCSF who was the senior author on the study. "This is extremely exciting, both in terms of the prospect of improved therapy for people with multiple sclerosis but also for the lessons that it teaches us about the fundamental cause of the disease."

"The prospect of an extremely effective therapy for multiple sclerosis that can be safely administered at six month intervals could represent a major step forward, if the safety profile and benefits are sustained over longer periods of use," he added.

At 24 weeks, serious adverse events were reported in 4 percent of patients in the placebo arm, 4 percent of those taking interferon, and 2 percent and 6 percent of patients taking 600 mg and 2000 mg of Ocrelizumab. One patient taking Ocrelizumab died, but the relationship with the study drug, if any, is as yet unclear.

Hauser said that the next step for the drug will be to see if the drug's effect and positive safety profile will be sustained over time. These questions will be addressed in two parallel Phase 3 trials, now enrolling a larger number of patients who will receive the drug regimens for a longer period of time. This trial is now underway at several hundred sites around the world. Hauser serves as lead investigator for these trials, which are sponsored by Roche, the company that owns Ocrelizumab.

What the Trial Suggests About Multiple Sclerosis

Besides the obvious question of whether the drug would work, also under scrutiny in the clinical trial was whether a drug like Ocrelizumab would work in the first place. Its mechanism of action is fundamentally different than other existing therapies for multiple sclerosis. All multiple sclerosis drugs work by targeting a person's immune system only they target fundamentally different parts.

In multiple sclerosis, a person's immune system attacks the myelin sheath that insulated nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Most of these attacks have no associated symptoms, but damage to these sheaths can short circuit signals traveling along the nerve fibers. This disrupts the normal flow of communication from the brain and can cause a range of symptoms including visual impairment, weakness, sensory disturbance, fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and loss of coordination.

For decades, work in the field has focused on targeting one component of the immune system the T cells which were always seen as the "smoking gun" of the disease because they attack nerve fibers in the brain, causing the lesions and ultimately the symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Ocrelizumab, in contrast, targets a molecule called CD20 found on the surface of B cells, a separate component of the immune system.

Although the mechanism is not exactly clear, said Hauser, the B cells seem to induce the T cells to attack. If T cells are pulling the trigger on nerve fibers in the brain, B cells seem to be the ones that are loading the gun. The Phase 2 trial showed, in essence, that if you block one, you may be able to stop the other.

Hauser said the recently concluded trial validated the idea that targeting the B cells could ultimately help people with multiple sclerosis an idea that Hauser has championed for more than a decade after basic research in his laboratory in the 1990s suggested that these cells play a role in the disease.

"This is a great example of lessons learned at the bench bringing us to an experiment at the bedside that completely transformed our understanding of what we needed to do to develop more selective and more effective therapy for MS" he said.

###

The article, "Ocrelizumab in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: a phase 2, randomised, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial" by Ludwig Kappos, David Li, Peter A Calabresi, Paul O'Connor, Amit Bar-Or, Frederik Barkhof, Ming Yin, David Leppert, Robert Glanzman, Jeroen Tinbergen, and Stephen L Hauser is published online by the journal Lancet on November 1, 2011.

This work was funded by Roche.

In addition to UCSF, the authors of this study are affiliated with University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA; Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/uoc--nds110111.php

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DirecTV to continue airing Fox shows (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? DirecTV Group, the largest U.S. satellite TV provider, said on Monday it will continue carrying all shows by Fox Networks, a week after a dispute broke out between the two over carriage fees.

Fox, which is owned by News Corp, had asked DirecTV's customers to pay 40 percent more for the same channels they already received, DirecTV said on October 21, and this could have led to DirecTV discontinuing all Fox channels from November 1.

"We both know the past ten days have been challenging, but we're pleased that both sides could eventually come together to ensure our viewers continue to enjoy Fox programing," the companies said in a statement.

(Reporting by Gowri Jayakumar in Bangalore; Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111101/media_nm/us_directv

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Strife continues over remains of 9/11 victims (AP)

NEW YORK ? An emotionally laden debate over the future resting place of thousands of unidentified remains of Sept. 11 victims is lingering as the attacks' 10th anniversary recedes, with several relatives saying they aren't satisfied with a recent city effort to spread the word about a plan to house the remains in the forthcoming 9/11 museum.

Under pressure from families who oppose the plan, the city outlined it in a letter sent last week to relatives of all the nearly 2,800 people killed at the World Trade Center. The letter came after 17 relatives sued the city to try to get addresses so they could poll the families themselves.

A judge rejected their request last week, but the city ? which has maintained that the plans have long been known and families approved them ? sent out the letters in hopes of resolving the matter.

"We know how profoundly significant and sensitive this matter is to victims' families," notes the letter from Dr. Charles Hirsch, the city's chief medical examiner, and Joe Daniels, the president of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum, which counts some victims' relatives as board members.

At the other sites where hijacked planes crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, the placement of unidentified remains has been resolved. Those from the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed, were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on the first anniversary of the attacks. Three caskets of unidentified remains from the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a field in Shanksville, Pa., were buried there this September.

To the trade center victims' relatives who sued, the letter doesn't settle their dispute, which reflects years of strife over the search for and handling of victims' remains.

Remains have never been identified for more than 1,100 people killed at the site. With the subterranean museum still under construction, about 9,000 pieces of unidentified remains are now in a weatherproof tent along the East River in Manhattan, near the medical examiners' office.

The current plan calls for moving them in 2013 to a private repository in the museum, according to the letter. The repository would be off limits to the public, behind a wall inscribed with a quote from the Roman poet Virgil: "No day shall erase you from the memory of time."

There would be a private viewing area for families, who wouldn't be charged the museum's potential $20 admission fee and would be allowed to visit after hours, the letter notes.

Regardless, the objecting families feel a museum is no place for their loved ones' remains. They bristle at the prospect of passing a gift shop and tourists on their way to pay respects 70 feet underground. They want the remains to be put in a separate space on the memorial plaza that opened this Sept. 11, seeing that as a more respectful treatment.

"I think that would bring some more reverence to it," says Jim Riches, a retired firefighter who lost his firefighter son Jimmy in the attack.

Riches and others who sued want to survey the full roster of trade center victims' families to gauge opinion ? something the city's letter doesn't invite.

"The fact that a letter went out is positive, but it's not adequate because it ignores the most important part, from the (families') perspective, which is the input," said their lawyer, Norman Siegel. His clients are considering appealing the court's denial of their bid for access to the city's full list of 9/11 families' names and addresses, he said.

Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern said in an Oct. 25 ruling that turning over the list would invade the other families' privacy and that the city's letter "clearly and explicitly informs" them.

The families had said any privacy concerns could be allayed by giving the list only to a retired judge who could send out a survey to the 2,752 trade center victims' next of kin. But the city argued that state public-records law would require releasing the list publicly if it were released at all, and that would subject families to unwelcome solicitations.

City lawyer Thaddeus Hackworth said officials were glad the court agreed that releasing the list would compromise the families' privacy.

"The mailing sent by the 9/11 Memorial and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner added to the abundance of information that families already had received regarding the plans," he added in a statement Tuesday.

Memorial officials had no immediate reaction.

Identifying, finding and determining a resting place for remains has been a fraught issue for some victims' families since the 2001 attacks.

After Hirsch stopped trying to make identifications in 2005, saying the effort had reached the limits of DNA technology, the discovery of human remains on a bank tower roof and in a manhole near ground zero a year later outraged families who said the search for their loved ones had been rushed initially. The findings prompted a renewed search that cost the city tens of millions of dollars and uncovered 1,500 pieces of remains.

Meanwhile, some victims' relatives sued the city over its decision to move 1.6 million tons of materials from the trade center site to a landfill, saying the material might contain victims' ashes and should have been given a proper burial. The city said it had searched the material diligently for remains, which the families' disputed. Federal judges sided with the city, and the case came to an end when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it last year.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_re_us/us_sept11_remains

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East Coast storm drops 15 inches of snow in places

A powerful storm bringing damp snow and heavy winds churned its way up the East Coast on Saturday, dumping up to 15 inches of snow in some places and knocking out power for more than 2 million customers. Three deaths were being blamed on the storm.

"This is unprecedented in the last 100 years ? for October," Bill Simpson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boston, said in an interview with The Times.

The storm is expected to continue into early Sunday, possibly worsening as it moves north.

By Saturday evening, 15.5 inches of snow had fallen in West Milford, N.J.; 14.3 inches in Plainfield, Mass.; and about 10 inches in Terra Alta, W.Va., and Ogletown, Pa.

Power outages were affecting more than 2.3 million residents and businesses from Maryland to Massachusetts, including more than half a million in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts declared emergencies statewide, as did New York in 13 counties.

The snow and powerful winds of up to 60 mph could leave more people without power by knocking down power lines and trees with leafy branches, Barry Lambert, a National Weather Service meteorologist in State College, Pa., told The Times.

On the plus side, the wet, sloppy nature of the snow might prove beneficial.

"It's so wet that it was actually melting quickly and sliding off the trees," he said.

In New York, the 1.3 inches of snow that had fallen at Central Park by midday made this month the snowiest October since record-keeping began in 1869.

stephen.ceasar@latimes.com

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/36Ai23HT9bw/la-na-cold-weather-20111030,0,1716582.story

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New 'Twilight' film screens at Rome festival (AP)

ROME ? Jackson Rathbone, a star of the "Twilight" movies, likened the wildly popular series about love between a human and a vampire to the story of Romeo and Juliet, as the next-to-last film in the saga was screened Sunday at Rome's film festival.

Speaking to reporters about "The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn Part 1," Rathbone called the love between Bella and Edward "almost as mythological as the Romeo and Juliet story," referring to Shakespeare's play about star-crossed lovers.

A co-star, Nikki Reed, who plays a teenage vampire twin to Rathbone's character, mused about the popularity of the series, which has raked in over $2 billion (euro1.41 billion) worldwide.

"This love between Edward and Bella is just out of the realm of possibility and reality. I mean, it's unattainable, it's not real, and that's what makes it so magnetic," Reed said.

She added that she thinks "that's why there's no specific demographics for this, because you know, 12-year-old girls fantasize about having this, and women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, think about when they had that first love."

Rathbone said he is still grappling with the reasons for the runaway success of the series. "When I first came on board of 'Twilight,' I had no idea what was going to happen with it, and for it to be now a worldwide phenomenon is still baffling," he said.

The Rome festival runs through Nov. 4 and includes 15 in-competition films plus documentaries, children's films, exhibits and screenings of movie classics.

(This version corrects quote from 'mythical' to 'mythological.')

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111030/ap_on_en_mo/eu_rome_film_festival_twilight

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Of Flash Mobs and Four Loko

Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On an ordinary afternoon at Copenhagen Central Station, a performer sets up a drum in the center of a large hall. A cellist joins him. A woman approaches with her flute. They strike up a melody that seems familiar. A clarinet and bassoon and other instruments start playing. People pull out their cell phones and record video. Within minutes an entire symphony orchestra has assembled in the middle of the station, and suddenly it?s clear that this isn?t just your typical street performance; it?s the Copenhagen Philharmonic, and the tune is Ravel?s Bol?ro. This musical flash mob is a very different experience from watching an orchestra perform in a music hall, perhaps because of the novelty of the surroundings.

The same sort of disconnect may explain the peculiar potency of Four Loko, a fruit flavored, caffeinated, alcoholic drink that was invented by three Ohio State University students in 2005. Following a series of reported hospitalizations, in 2010 the Food and Drug Administration declared that it was illegal to add caffeine to alcoholic beverages, and the makers of Four Loko complied.

Case closed? That caffeinated alcoholic drinks are dangerous is clear, but is caffeine the culprit? Shepard Siegel, a psychologist at McMaster University in Ontario writing in a recent issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, doesn?t think so.

For one thing, caffeine doesn?t seem to affect the way that alcohol gets absorbed by the body. Moreover, many drugs, including alcohol, are known to be more potent if they are taken in an unusual context. In a 1976 paper in Science, Siegel termed this the ?situational specificity of tolerance.? Environmental variables ranging from the room where a drug is administered to flavor cues can influence an individual?s drug-related tolerance. What this comes down to is classical Pavlovian conditioning. The body of a social drinker learns to prepare for the alcohol in response to the environment, before the alcohol is even ingested. Siegel?s argument is that people became especially drunk after drinking Four Loko because of the unexpected way in which it was presented: it doesn?t actually taste like alcohol.

If Siegel is right, the decaf approach that the manufacturer of Four Loko has now taken could be troubling. It has announced a new beverage that comes with ?a brand new flavor profile every four months.? This doesn?t fix the problem. Once someone becomes tolerant to the effects of the alcohol in one flavor, his or her tolerance would be eliminated when the next one is released. Intentional or not, Four Loko takes advantage of the situational specificity of tolerance. It has more in common with the
Copenhagen Philharmonic flash mob than with your morning cuppa joe.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=1cf8f21929edb71c9421c79fa2bd8bf4

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For Obama, this G20 is more about Europe (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Early in his presidency, Barack Obama went to London for his first world economic summit as a global rock star ? the U.S. president who as a candidate could command giant crowds at home in Denver or abroad in Berlin. This week he arrives in Cannes, France, for his fifth such summit no longer starring, just a key player in the band.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has pushed countries with trade surpluses such as China, Germany and Japan to do more to promote domestic spending and more to support global economic growth.

Though Obama continues to push that agenda, all eyes at this week's meeting of leaders from the 20 largest industrial and developing nations will be on the urgency of Europe's debt crisis and whether the continent can implement an ambitious plan to save the euro and keep the crisis from contaminating other economies.

"It's much more about Europe," said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. "There's not much the Americans can do."

For Obama, it means walking a fine line between pushing the Europeans to act swiftly and expressing confidence that they will.

Administration officials on Monday played down any financial role by the United States in helping Eurozone leaders create a firewall that would stop Greece's crisis from spreading. Though they noted that the IMF, with U.S. financial assistance, could be called on to assist.

The key is containing Greece's problems and keeping them from advancing to Italy and Spain, at which point it could let loose a global financial emergency.

"Obviously the challenges facing Europe have significant implication for the U.S. economy and for the global economy," said Lael Brainard, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for international affairs. "Fortunately, Europe has the resources and capacity to overcome these risks."

In an opinion piece in the Financial Times Friday, Obama called on the crisis in Europe to be resolved quickly. But the president otherwise reiterated his commitment to push for a short-term stimulus and mid-term fiscal restraint in the U.S. and for balanced international growth and global banking reforms.

"The only overriding international issue for the G-20 is the continuing crisis in Europe," said Rob Shapiro, a former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and now chairman of Sonecon, an economic consulting firm.

"His take away needs to be a commitment and actual steps by the Eurozone countries to solidify the commitment to stand behind the sovereign debt of Italy and Spain," Shapiro added. "In the international economy, there's nothing else that comes close to the significance of that."

To be sure, Obama has a huge vested interest in a healthy European economy. But his influence at the G- 20 summit is driven less by what the United States can do, than by the fact that the United States remains the largest world economy. Obama has frequently mentioned the situation in Europe as one of the factors that have contributed to anemic economic growth in the U.S.

Underscoring U.S. vulnerability are new unemployment figures for October that will be released Friday by the Labor Department, just as the G-20 meeting is wrapping up. Unemployment in the United States has been stuck at 9.1 percent for three months.

On Thursday, Obama will hold individual meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, this year's summit host by virtue of France's year-long presidency of the G-20 meetings.

In his Financial Times opinion piece and in remarks by administration officials, Obama and the White House insist the U.S is playing a leadership role in the global recovery.

U.S. officials point to the $800 billion stimulus in 2009 and to Obama's push for an overhaul of financial regulations as key steps needed to stabilize the economy. More recently, however, the president has been struggling to win support for a $447 billion jobs bill and for a longer term deficit reduction package that relies in part on tax increases.

The summit occurs one year before next year's presidential elections, a campaign the president enters with job approval ratings of 46 percent, according to the latest AP-GfK poll. Obama's precarious political position places him in common company at the G-20. Merkel is facing strains with her governing coalition over the Greece bailout and Sarkozy, also heading for a re-election bid, is trying to turn around his unpopularity.

When the G-20 leaders line up for their end-of-summit portrait, many might be appearing for their final time, noted Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"When you see the family photo and look at the G-20 table, you'll see political leaders in peril," she said. "These are leaders having a difficult time domestically."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111031/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_g20

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Have you heard? Buy the dip (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? With the S&P 500 about to end its best month in almost 40 years, many would be happy to cash in gains and start packing for the ski slopes.

But some underperforming investors are being cornered into putting yet more money into U.S. stocks.

The S&P 500 on Friday closed its fourth week of gains and is up more than 13 percent in October alone. But many, including hedge funds, were caught wrong-footed by the rally.

Even though some pullback may be expected next week, the clearer picture after the European deal "should give a green light for many of the funds to get back in risk assets," according to Robert Francello, head trader at hedge fund Apex Capital, which manages about $2 billion in San Francisco.

"Hopefully we'll be able to see some further gains into the year end," he said.

Hedge funds, among the equity market's power players, are on average sitting on losses of 8 percent for the year according to Hedge Fund Research. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up for the year, if only a bit more than 2 percent.

A JPMorgan note to clients following Thursday's 3 percent rally on the U.S. benchmark index argues for a "strong foundation for an equity rally into year end," with a 1,400-1,475 target.

That's more than the 8 percent gain hedge funds would need to come out of the red for the year.

"If you're a hedge fund manager and you want to put money to work it feels like it has to be on the long side: buying stocks, buying risky assets," said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group in New York.

"For the moment, you've taken away major risk in Europe and you've replaced it with a potential positive in stock valuations and no double-dip."

European leaders reached a long-awaited agreement to boost the region's bailout fund and struck a deal with banks and insurers who will take a 50 percent loss on their Greek bonds.

A more disorderly default from Greece, and the possibility of sovereign defaults spreading in Europe, were part of the reason the S&P 500 closed its worst quarter since 2008 in September.

The market was also relieved after data earlier this week showed the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in a year in the third quarter.

A heavy flow of job market data, capped on Friday by the government's monthly report of job payrolls, will be closely watched to confirm the upbeat macroeconomic trend. A Reuters poll of economists shows employers created 95,000 jobs in October.

EARNINGS AND FED TO POWER ON THE RALLY

More than 100 S&P 500 companies will report earnings next week, with Lowes (L.N), Pfizer (PFE.N) and Kellogg (K.N) among the highlights.

Among the more than 300 that have already posted earnings for the past quarter, roughly seven out of 10 have reported better numbers than analysts expected.

Some expect the Federal Reserve to announce another round of asset purchases -- similar to the quantitative easing plan set up last year that sparked a year-long rally in stocks.

An equities rally following Fed purchases would most likely be led by commodity-related sectors, said Apex Capital's Francello.

"The Fed is beginning to lay the groundwork for another round of quantitative easing, so that should also put some wind in the back of risk assets," he said.

CHARTS ALSO LOOK BULLISH

The technical picture is also turning bullish, with the S&P moving this week above its 200-day moving average for the first time since early August.

At 1,285 the S&P faces resistance just below 1,300, an RBC Capital Markets note said, but the year-end trend for stocks points higher.

"We're still in a period of high volatility so you can't take anything for granted," said Colas from ConvergEx Group.

"Do you buy the dips? I believe that is the case."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Svea Herbst; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111029/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks_weekahead

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Russia thanks Switzerland for WTO mediation

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, shakes hands with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. Medvedev, who spoke at the meeting with visiting Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, thanked her for Swiss mediation of Russia's WTO accession talks.(AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, shakes hands with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. Medvedev, who spoke at the meeting with visiting Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, thanked her for Swiss mediation of Russia's WTO accession talks.(AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, left, gestures while speaking to Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. Medvedev, who spoke at the meeting with visiting Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, thanked her for Swiss mediation of Russia's WTO accession talks.(AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, left, gestures while speaking to Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011. Medvedev, who spoke at the meeting with visiting Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, thanked her for Swiss mediation of Russia's WTO accession talks.(AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service)

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russia said Sunday it's close to a deal in talks with Georgia that would open the way for Moscow to be approved as a member of the World Trade Organization by the end of the year.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev thanked visiting Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey for Swiss mediation of the talks. Calmy-Rey voiced hope that her nation's efforts will help Russia join the global trade body this year, and Medvedev responded that "we very much would like to see that."

Russia needs to reach individual agreements with all 153 members of the WTO, and the lack of progress in talks with Georgia has been the last significant stumbling block. Switzerland has sponsored the negotiations between the two nations, which fought a brief war in 2008 leading to a breakdown in diplomatic ties.

Georgia said Thursday it has accepted a Swiss proposal providing guarantees of international supervision of all trade and cargo between Russia and the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russian officials said they need several days to analyze the offer.

Medvedev didn't say in public remarks at the start of his talks with Calmy-Rey if Russia is ready to accept the Swiss offer, but the Kremlin economic advisor, Arkady Dvorkovich, said after the meeting that a deal is close and could be reached within hours.

"There are no major problems, but some issues need to be clarified," Dvorkovich said, according to Russian news reports. He added that if the deal with Georgia is finalized, Russia can be acceped as a member of the WTO at its ministerial meeting in mid-December.

Russia is by far the largest economy still outside the international trade body despite 18 years of talks. Both the European Union and the United States have voiced hope that Moscow could join the WTO by the year's end.

Georgia previously demanded that Moscow allow Georgian customs officials to operate in two breakaway provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia, which has recognized the two regions as independent states and strengthened its military presence there, flatly rejected the Georgian push.

The Swiss compromise proposal tried to solve the deadlock by offering to deploy international monitors at border checkpoints in the two separatist provinces.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-30-EU-Russia-WTO/id-46907d6b2cfa4d2d9fcaff9a9b7dcf16

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