Thousands celebrate Hobbit premiere in New Zealand

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people packed New Zealand’s capital city, clambering on roofs and hanging onto lamp posts on Wednesday to get a glimpse of the stars at the red carpet world premiere of the film “The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey”.

Wellington, where director Peter Jackson and much of the post production is based, renamed itself “the Middle of Middle Earth“, and fans with prominent Hobbit ears, medieval style costumes, and wizard hats had camped out the night before to claim prized spaces along the 500 meter (550 yards) red carpet.

Jackson, a one time newspaper printer and the maker of the Oscar winning “Lord of the Rings” trilogy more than a decade ago, was cheered along the walk, stopping to talk to fans, sign autographs and pose for photos.

The Hobbit trilogy is set 60 years before the Rings movies, but Jackson said it has benefited from being made after the conclusion of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy saga.

“I’m glad that we established the style and the look of Middle Earth by adapting Lord of the Rings before we did the Hobbit,” Jackson told Reuters from the red carpet.

Jackson, a hometown hero in Wellington, said the production had been on a “difficult journey”, alluding to Warner Brothers’ financial problems, and a later labor dispute with unions.

“Fate meant for us to be here,” he told an ecstatic crowd, which hailed him as a film genius, but also a down to earth local boy.

“I came here to see the stars but also Peter (Jackson)…I loved the Lord of the Rings and that made me want to be here, without him none of it would be here,” said teenage student Samantha Cooper.

OLD FRIENDS

The cast was no less enthusiastic about the Hobbit, especially those who had starred in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

British actor Andy Serkis, who plays the creature Gollum with a distinctive throaty whisper, said picking up the character after a near-ten year break was like putting on a familiar skin.

“I was reminded on a daily basis with Gollum (that) he’s truly never left me,” he said.

Most of the film’s stars attended the premiere, including British actor Martin Freeman, who plays the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, and Elijah Wood. Ian McKellen, who plays the wizard Gandalf, was absent.

Freeman, known for his roles in the comedy The Office and Sherlock Holmes, said he looked for a different, lighter, slightly pompous Baggins from the older, wiser character played by Ian Holm in the Rings movies.

“Between us – Peter (Jackson) and me — we hashed out another version of Bilbo. There’ll be others, but our version is this one and I hope people like it,” he said.

The production was at the center of several controversies, including a dispute with unions in 2010 over labor contracts that nearly sent the filming overseas and resulted in the government stepping in to change employment laws.

The only sour note at the premiere came when animal rights activists held up posters saying “Middle Earth unexpected cruelty” and “3 horses died for this film”, after claims last week that more than 20 animals died during the making of the film.

Event organizers tried to block out the protesters’ posters with large Hobbit film billboards. Jackson has said some animals died on a farm where they were housed, but none had been hurt during filming.

The movies have been filmed in 3D and at 48 frames per second (fps), compared with the standard 24 fps, which Jackson has likened to the quality leap to compact discs from vinyl records.

The second film “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” will be released in December next year, with the third “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” due in mid-July 2014.

(Editing by Elaine Lies)

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Médicos de atención primaria siguen sin recibir aumento de salario en EEUU

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – A pesar del aumento del gasto

en la atención de la salud de Estados Unidos, un estudio sugiere

que los médicos de atención primaria seguirían sin recibir los

beneficios en sus sueldos.

Esto podría influir en lo que algunas predicciones señalan

como una reducción de los profesionales de atención primaria en

algunas regiones del país en los próximos años.

Los autores descubrieron que desde finales de la década de

1980, el salario promedio de los médicos había crecido más

lentamente que el de otros profesionales, como los

farmacéuticos, los dentistas y los enfermeros.

“Es posible que existan algunas especialidades a las que les

fue muy bien en los últimos 10 o 15 años”, dijo el investigador

especializado en políticas de salud Amitabh Chandra, de Harvard

University, Massachusetts, y coautor del estudio.

Pero, “en términos de experiencia, el médico promedio no

está a la altura del aumento de los costos que estamos viendo en

Estados Unidos”, agregó. Y eso tendría consecuencias en la

atención primaria de los próximos años.

El equipo de Chandra analizó información de una encuesta

nacional de ocupaciones e ingresos de Estados Unidos realizada

entre 1987 y el 2010. Cada ronda de encuestas incluyó a

trabajadores mayores de 35 años de 60.000 hogares del país.

En los 14 años de estudio, participaron 30.556 profesionales

de la salud, incluidos 6.258 médicos. El equipo observó que

entre los períodos 1987-1990 y 2006-2010, el ingreso medio anual

de los médicos había aumentado de 143.963 a 157.751 dólares o un

9,6 por ciento, tras considerar las diferencias salariales según

el género, la edad y la ubicación.

En cambio, el salario de los farmacéuticos aumentó un 44 por

ciento (de 70.341 a 101.279 dólares) y el del dentista promedio

lo hizo un 23 por ciento (de 105.511 a 129.795 dólares), según

detalla el equipo en Journal of the American Medical

Association.

Un análisis más detallado demostró que los salarios de los

médicos habían crecido entre los períodos 1987-1990 y 1996-2000,

pero luego se estancaron durante la siguiente década, cuando los

salarios de otras especialidades siguieron aumentando.

Chandra consideró que este lento crecimiento salarial es un

patrón propio de los médicos de atención primaria, mientras que

las ganancias en algunas “especialidades orientadas a los

procedimientos”, como la cardiología, habrían crecido

enormemente.

Opinó que los recortes de Medicare en sus reembolsos y las

negociaciones más duras con los seguros de salud serían

parcialmente responsables de este retraso del crecimiento

salarial en el campo de la atención primaria.

Además, hay cada vez más mujeres y miembros de las minorías

que optan por el ejercicio de la medicina y estudios previos

habían sugerido que esos grupos ganan menos dinero que los

médicos blancos y varones, según recordó Bob Konrad, de

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Konrad, que realizó estudios sobre los salarios de los

médicos, dijo que los nuevos resultados no abarcarían la

totalidad de la evolución económica de los médicos de atención

primaria.

FUENTE: Journal of the American Medical Association, online

27 de noviembre del 2012

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Mexican beauty queen killed in shootout

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — A 20-year-old state beauty queen died in a gun battle between soldiers and the alleged gang of drug traffickers she was traveling with in a scene befitting the hit movie “Miss Bala,” or “Miss Bullet,” about Mexico’s not uncommon ties between narcos and beautiful pageant contestants.

The body of Maria Susana Flores Gamez was found Saturday lying near an assault rifle on a rural road in a mountainous area of the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa, the chief state prosecutor said Monday. It was unclear if she had used the weapon.

“She was with the gang of criminals, but we cannot say whether she participated in the shootout,” state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said. “That’s what we’re going to have to investigate.”

The slender, 5-foot-7-inch brunette was voted the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in a beauty pageant in February. In June, the model competed with other seven contestants for the more prestigious state beauty contest, Our Beauty Sinaloa, but didn’t win. The Our Beauty state winners compete for the Miss Mexico title, whose holder represents the country in the international Miss Universe.

Higuera said Flores Gamez was traveling in one of the vehicles that engaged soldiers in an hours-long chase and running gun battle on Saturday near her native city of Guamuchil in the state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel. Higuera said two other members of the drug gang were killed and four were detained.

The shootout began when the gunmen opened fire on a Mexican army patrol. Soldiers gave chase and cornered the gang at a safe house in the town of Mocorito. The other men escaped, and the gunbattle continued along a nearby roadway, where the gang’s vehicles were eventually stopped. Six vehicles, drugs and weapons were seized following the confrontation.

It was at least the third instance in which a beauty queen or pageant contestants have been linked to Mexico’s violent drug gangs, a theme so common it was the subject of a critically acclaimed 2011 movie.

In “Miss Bala,” Mexico’s official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of this year’s Academy Awards, a young woman competing for Miss Baja California becomes an unwilling participant in a drug-running ring, finally getting arrested for deeds she was forced into performing.

In real life, former Miss Sinaloa Laura Zuniga was stripped of her 2008 crown in the Hispanoamerican Queen pageant after she was detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations. She was later released without charges.

Zuniga was detained in western Mexico in late 2010 along with seven men, some of them suspected drug traffickers. Authorities found a large stash of weapons, ammunition and $ 53,300 with them inside a vehicle.

In 2011, a Colombian former model and pageant contestant was detained along with Jose Jorge Balderas, an accused drug trafficker and suspect in the 2010 bar shooting of Salvador Cabanas, a former star for Paraguay‘s national football team and Mexico’s Club America. She was also later released.

Higuera said Flores Gamez’s body has been turned over to relatives for burial.

“This is a sad situation,” Higuera told a local radio station. She had been enrolled in media courses at a local university, and had been modeling and in pageants since at least 2009.

Javier Valdez, the author of a 2009 book about narco ties to beauty pageants entitled “Miss Narco,” said “this is a recurrent story.”

“There is a relationship, sometimes pleasant and sometimes tragic, between organized crime and the beauty queens, the pageants, the beauty industry itself,” Valdez said.

“It is a question of privilege, power, money, but also a question of need,” said Valdez. “For a lot of these young women, it is easy to get involved with organized crime, in a country that doesn’t offer many opportunities for young people.”

Sometimes drug traffickers seek out beauty queens, but sometimes the models themselves look for narco boyfriends, Valdez said.

“I once wrote about a girl I knew of who was desperate to get a narco boyfriend,” he said. “She practically took out a classified ad saying ‘Looking for a Narco’.”

The stories seldom end well. In the best of cases, a beautiful woman with a tear-stained face is marched before the press in handcuffs. In the worst of cases, they simply disappear.

“They are disposable objects, the lowest link in the chain of criminal organizations, the young men recruited as gunmen and the pretty young women who are tossed away in two or three years, or are turned into police or killed,” Valdez said.

___

Associated Press Writer E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this report

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Nintendo says more than 400,000 Wii Us sold in US

NEW YORK (AP) — Nintendo has sold more than 400,000 of its new video game console, the Wii U, in its first week on sale in the U.S., the company said Monday.

The Wii U launched on Nov. 18 in the U.S. at a starting price of $ 300. Nintendo said the sales figure, based on internal estimates, is through Saturday, or seven days later.

The Wii U is the first major game console to launch in six years. It comes with a new touch-screen controller that promises to change how people play games by offering different people in the same room a different experience, depending on the controller used.

Six years ago, Nintendo Co. sold 475,000 of the original Wii in that console’s first seven days in stores, according to data from the NPD Group. The original Wii remains available, and Nintendo said it sold more than 300,000 of them last week, along with roughly 250,000 handheld Nintendo 3DS units and about 275,000 of the Nintendo DS.

At this early stage, demand isn’t the only factor dictating how many consoles are sold. Supply is, too. This means it’s likely that more people wanted to buy the Wii U in the first week than those who were able to. The original Wii was in short supply more than a year after it went on sale.

As of Monday afternoon, the website of Best Buy Co. was sold out of the Wii U. Video game retailer GameStop Corp. said there was at least a three day wait for a deluxe Wii U, which costs $ 350, has more memory and comes with a game called “Nintendo Land.” GameStop still had the basic, $ 300 version available.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates that Nintendo will ship 1 million to 1.5 million Wii Us in the U.S. through the end of January.

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Disney Channel to debut ‘Sofia the First’ Jan. 11

NEW YORK (AP) — Disney says its animated children‘s series “Sofia the First” will premiere Jan. 11 on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior networks.

Created for kids ages 2 to 7, “Sofia the First” is about a young girl who becomes a princess and learns that honesty, loyalty and compassion are what makes a person royal.

Sofia is voiced by “Modern Family” actress Ariel Winter, and her mother is played by “Grey’s Anatomy” star Sara Ramirez.

Last week’s premiere of the “Sofia the First” animated movie drew a total audience of more than 5 million viewers. It was the year’s top-rated cable TV telecast among kids ages 2 to 5.

In the series’ debut episode, Sofia strives to become the first princess to earn a spot on her school’s flying derby team.

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Leading U.S. Democrat Durbin embraces future Medicare reforms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dick Durbin, one of U.S. President Barack Obama‘s leading allies, urged fellow liberals on Tuesday to consider reforming the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs that they have long fought to shield from cuts.

“Progressives should be willing to talk about ways to ensure the long-term viability of Medicare and Medicaid” programs for the elderly and poor, Durbin said in excerpts of a speech he is to deliver later in the day.

Most Democrats have avoided talking about cutting these two “entitlement” programs, which have been adding to U.S. budget deficits because of the growing numbers of participants and escalating healthcare costs.

Instead, Obama and Democrats in Congress mostly have stressed the need to raise income taxes on the wealthy as part of renewed efforts to reduce budget deficits that have topped $ 1 trillion in each of the past four years.

Lately, Durbin has made high-profile remarks about eventually reducing Medicare and Medicaid costs, just as Republicans have begun talking about raising revenues as part of a tax overhaul effort next year.

On Sunday, Durbin raised the possibility of Democrats accepting Medicare reforms to make higher-income seniors pay more for their care. He made his remarks on ABC’s “This Week” program.

The Illinois senator said, however, that the debate over Medicare and Medicaid should not be part of the more immediate negotiations on averting the “fiscal cliff” of steep tax hikes and spending cuts.

“Meaningful reforms can protect the vulnerable and improve care and efficiency, leaving the programs stronger for future generations,” Durbin said in excerpts of the speech he is to deliver at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Durbin’s remarks sought to foster productive talks aimed at averting on January 1 the fiscal cliff, the start of about $ 600 billion worth of tax hikes and automatic spending cuts that could shove the nation into a recession early next year if allowed to go forward.

The key battle pits Republican demands for deep spending cuts against Democrats’ insistence on tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans.

“We can and we should avoid ‘the fiscal cliff’ by acting now – before January 1st – to extend middle class tax cuts for 98 percent of the American people and allow the tax cuts to expire for those earning over $ 250,000 a year,” Durbin said.

Republicans could block any bill that does not extend all tax cuts. But after January 1, with all tax cuts expired, Democrats could draft a bill that cuts taxes only for those earning up to $ 250,000, cranking up pressure on Republicans to go along.

Durbin said decisions on Medicare and Medicaid should not be put off too long.

“Putting the discussions off indefinitely makes our choices harder, our success less likely and negative effects on current beneficiaries a near certainty,” he said.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Global recovery ‘under threat’

27 November 2012 Last updated at 07:41 ET

Decisive policy action is needed to ensure the world is not “plunged back into recession”, according to the OECD.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which represents the world’s richest nations, also lowered its growth forecasts.

The group’s economies will grow by 1.4% next year, rather than the 2.2% forecast in May, it said.

The eurozone recession will also be deeper and more prolonged than previously thought, it added.

The group highlighted the so-called US fiscal cliff and the eurozone debt crisis as the biggest risks to the global economy.

The fiscal cliff refers to spending cuts and tax rises, designed to reduce the US government’s debt levels, that are due to kick in in the new year.

Downgrades

“The world economy is far from being out of the woods,” said the OECD’s secretary general Angel Gurria.

“The US fiscal cliff, if it materialises, could tip an already weak economy into recession, while failure to solve the euro area debt crisis could lead to a major financial shock and global downturn.”

The OECD cut its growth forecast across its 34 members for this year and next. It also revised down sharply its estimate for the eurozone economy, which it now believes will contract by 0.1% in 2013, rather than grow by 0.9% as forecast in May.

The forecast for growth in the UK next year was cut to 0.9%, down from 1.9% previously.

The revised forecasts were published just hours after eurozone finance ministers finally agreed to help debt-ridden Greece.

After hours of late-night negotiations, they agreed to cut the country’s debts by 40bn euros ($ 51bn; £32bn) and have paved the way for releasing the next tranche of much-needed bailout loans.

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UN climate talks open in Qatar

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — U.N. talks on a new climate pact resumed Monday in oil and gas-rich Qatar, where negotiators from nearly 200 countries will discuss fighting global warming and helping poor nations adapt to it.

The two-decade-old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose: reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

Attempts to create a new climate treaty failed in Copenhagen three years ago but countries agreed last year to try again, giving themselves a deadline of 2015 to adopt a new treaty.

A host of issues need to be resolved by then, including how to spread the burden of emissions cuts between rich and poor countries. That’s unlikely to be decided in the Qatari capital of Doha, where negotiators will focus on extending the Kyoto Protocol, an emissions deal for industrialized countries, and trying to raise billions of dollars to help developing countries adapt to a shifting climate.

“We all realize why we are here, why we keep coming back year and after year,” said South Africa Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led last year’s talks in Durban, South Africa. “We owe it to our people, the global citizenry. We owe it to our children to give them a safer future than what they are currently facing.”

The U.N. process is often criticized, even ridiculed, both by climate activists who say the talks are too slow, and by those who challenge the scientific near-consensus that the global temperature rise is at least partly caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.

The concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide has jumped 20 percent since 2000, according to a U.N. report released last week.

A recent projection by the World Bank showed temperatures are on track to increase by up to 4 degrees C (7.2 F) this century, compared with pre-industrial times, overshooting the 2-degree target that has been the goal of the U.N. talks.

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Rolling Stones turn back clock with hit-filled comeback

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones turned back the clock in style on Sunday with their first concert in five years, strutting and swaggering their way through hit after familiar hit to celebrate 50 years in business.

Before a packed crowd of 20,000 at London‘s O2 Arena, they banished doubts that age may have slowed down one of the world’s greatest rock and roll bands, as lead singer Mick Jagger launched into “I Wanna Be Your Man”.

More than two hours of high-octane, blues-infused rock later, and they were still going strong with an impressive encore comprising “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.

In between there were guest appearances from American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige, who delivered a rousing duet with Jagger on “Gimme Shelter” and guitarist Jeff Beck who provided the power chords for “I’m Going Down”.

Former Rolling Stones Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor were also back in the fold, performing with the regular quartet of Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards on guitar and Charlie Watts on drums for the first time in 20 years.

“It took us 50 years to get from Dartford to Greenwich!” said Jagger, referring to their roots just a few miles from the venue in southeast London. “But you know, we made it. What’s even more amazing is that you’re still coming to see us…we can’t thank you enough.”

The Sunday night gig was the first of two at the O2 Arena before the band crosses the Atlantic to play three dates in the United States.

The mini-tour is the culmination of a busy few months of events, rehearsals and recordings to mark 50 years since the rockers first took to the stage at the Marquee Club on London‘s Oxford Street in July, 1962.

There has been a photo album, two new songs, a music video, a documentary film, a blitz of media appearances and a handful of warm-up gigs in Paris.

“STYLE AND PANACHE”

The reunion nearly did not happen. One factor behind the long break since their record-breaking “A Bigger Bang” tour in 2007 has been Wood’s struggle with alcohol addiction, while Jagger and Richards also fell out over comments the guitarist made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.

But they eventually buried the hatchet, and Richards joked in a recent interview: “We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!”

Critics were fulsome in their praise of the first comeback gig.

“Keith Richards has said that the beauty of rock and roll is that every night a different band might be the world’s greatest. Well, last night at the O2 Arena, it was the turn of the Rolling Stones themselves to lay claim to the title they invented,” wrote Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph.

“And they did it with some style and panache.”

The big question on every fan’s lips is whether the five concerts lead to a world tour and even new material. The Stones sang their two new tracks “Doom and Gloom” and “One More Shot”, which appeared on their latest greatest hits album “GRRR!”.

Richards has hinted that the five concerts ending at the Newark Prudential Center in the United States on December 15 would not be the last.

“Once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop,” he told Rolling Stone magazine. “So without sort of saying definitely yes – yeah. We ain’t doing all this for four gigs!”

The band has come in for criticism from fans about the high price of tickets to the shows – they ranged from around 95 pounds ($ 150) to up to 950 pounds for a VIP seat.

The flamboyant veterans, whose average age is 68, have defended the costs, saying the shows were expensive to put on, although specialist music publication Billboard reported the band would earn $ 25 million from the four shows initially announced. A fifth was added later.

“Everybody all right there in the cheap seats,” Jagger asked pointedly as he looked high to his left at the arena. “They’re not really cheap though are they? That’s the trouble.”

Among the biggest cheers on the night were for classics including “Wild Horses”, “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and “Start Me Up”.

There was even time for the odd reference to their advancing years.

“Good to see you all,” said Richards with a mischievous grin. “Good to see anybody.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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