Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.

In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.

Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.

All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.

“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”

Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.

The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.

The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.

Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.

Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.

Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.

“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.

What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.

In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.

“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.

BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS

While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.

Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.

That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.

Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.

The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.

“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”

Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $ 715 million.

Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”

(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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NY appeals court takes up Cameron Douglas case

NEW YORK (AP) — The Douglas name — first with patriarch Kirk and later with son Michael — has always meant gold for Hollywood. But drama for the third generation of the Douglas family has occurred mostly off-screen, where Cameron Douglas has battled drug addiction and legal troubles.

In papers submitted for appeals court arguments Wednesday, prosecutors and a lawyer for Cameron Douglas have retold in greater detail than before how a man who seemed to have so many advantages in life could land in prison for a decade on a drug conviction.

The dispute is over Manhattan Judge Richard M. Berman‘s decision to double Douglas’ five-year prison term after he committed several new drug infractions, including convincing a lawyer-turned-love interest to sneak drugs into prison for him in her bra on three or four occasions.

Berman said he had not “ever encountered a defendant who has so recklessly and wantonly and flagrantly and criminally acted in as destructive and (as) manipulative a fashion as Cameron Douglas has.”

In his brief, Douglas’ lawyer Paul Shechtman called the additional sentence “shockingly long,” saying it “may be the harshest sentence ever imposed on a federal prisoner for a drug possession offense.”

Douglas, 34, was originally accused of distributing and conspiring to distribute more than 4.5 kilograms of methamphetamine and 20 kilograms of cocaine from August 2006 until his July 28, 2009, arrest at a Manhattan hotel. At the time, he was so visibly high on heroin that he was taken first to a hospital before he was brought to court, and it was later learned he had been shooting heroin five to six times a day for five years, Shechtman noted.

He was released from custody on the condition that he remain under “house arrest” with a private security guard at his mother’s apartment, Shechtman said. Within days, he persuaded his girlfriend, Kelly Sott, to smuggle heroin to him, hidden in an electric toothbrush. Once discovered, his bail was revoked and he was incarcerated. Sott pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a plea deal and was sentenced to the seven months she had already served.

Still, Douglas gained leniency from what otherwise could have been a mandatory 10-year prison sentence by cooperating with the government, contacting his suppliers by telephone and text messages as law enforcement agents watched. As a result, two drug suppliers were arrested and convicted. Douglas testified at the trial of one supplier.

Douglas was sentenced to five years in prison for a Jan. 27, 2010, guilty plea to narcotics distribution charges even before his cooperation was completed.

At sentencing, Berman noted that the Douglas family had staged interventions for Douglas that he had refused and that two decades of drug addiction treatment had been unsuccessful. He said it appeared incarceration had produced the longest period of sobriety for Douglas since he was 13.

However, it was learned afterward that even prior to the April 20, 2010, sentencing, Douglas had persuaded one of his attorneys — a 33-year-old associate at a law firm with whom lawyers said he also had a romantic relationship — to smuggle Xanax pills to him in prison. Shechtman said she “apparently became enamored of Cameron during frequent visits.”

He admitted that he had shared the 30 Xanax pills with other inmates and that he had also smoked cigarettes, gambled, snorted substances and committed other infractions while in prison.

Shortly after testifying at the Oct. 3, 2011, trial of a drug supplier, prison staff caught Douglas with the opioid dependence medication Suboxone and a white powdery substance believed to be heroin. The prison punished him with disciplinary segregation for 11 months and canceled nearly three months of his good conduct time.

On Oct. 20, 2011, Douglas again pleaded guilty to drug possession, agreeing in a plea deal that the sentencing range should be an additional 12 to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors say that within a week of the plea, the government learned from a cooperating defendant in another case that Douglas had misled the government about how he obtained heroin while in prison.

Douglas had claimed he got it in a television room or at a church service or that he obtained the heroin by chance, picking it up off the floor after another inmate dropped it, the government said. But prosecutors say the cooperator revealed he had brought Douglas the drugs directly to his cell.

In court papers, Shechtman blamed Cameron Douglas’ long history of substance abuse and growing up with little parental support.

“While still a young teenager, he drank heavily and began selling drugs after his father sharply limited snorting cocaine,” he said. “He used illegal drugs to self-medicate — to ward off depression and panic attacks.”

He began using intravenous cocaine at age 20 and then started using heroin so that by age 25, “his life revolved around heroin,” Shechtman said.

His friends were fellow users, who gravitated to him because of his access to family money, which supported their habits, the lawyer said. His drug habit led him to be fired from a movie in which he had a minor role in 2006.

“Exasperated, his father gave him an ultimatum: enter a drug rehabilitation program or have his access to family money sharply limited. Cameron declined to enter treatment; his father carried out his threat; and Cameron turned to drug dealing to support his habit,” Shechtman wrote.

Shechtman argued that the judge had gone too far with Cameron Douglas, punishing an addict for something beyond his control.

“While we recognize that many of the words that the district court used to describe Cameron’s conduct — ‘reckless,’ ‘manipulative,’ ‘destructive,’ — were apt, the simple truth is that Cameron Douglas is a heroin addict who has yet to shake his habit,” he said.

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Diabetes remission possible with diet, exercise

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – One in nine people with diabetes saw their blood sugar levels dip back to a normal or “pre-diabetes” level after a year on an intensive diet and exercise program, in a new study.

Complete remission of type 2 diabetes is still very rare, researchers said. But they added that the new study can give people with the disease hope that through lifestyle changes, they could end up getting off medication and likely lowering their risk of diabetes-related complications.

“Kind of a long-term assumption really is that once you have diabetes there’s no turning back on it, and there’s no remission or cure,” said Edward Gregg, the lead author on the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The research, he told Reuters Health, “is a reminder that adopting a healthy diet, physically-active lifestyle and reducing and maintaining a healthy weight is going to help manage people’s diabetes better.”

His team’s study can’t prove the experimental program – which included weekly group and individual counseling for six months, followed by less frequent visits – was directly responsible for blood sugar improvements.

The original goal of the research was to look at whether that intervention lowered participants’ risk of heart disease (so far, it hasn’t).

But the diabetes improvements are in line with better weight loss and fitness among people in the program versus those in a comparison group who only went to a few annual counseling sessions, Gregg’s team reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

IS IT COST-EFFECTIVE?

About eight percent of people in the United States have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. The new study included 4,503 of them who were also overweight or obese.

People randomly assigned to the intensive program had diet and exercise counseling with a goal of cutting eating and drinking back to 1200 to 1800 calories per day and increasing physical activity to just under three hours per week.

After one year, 11.5 percent of them had at least partial diabetes remission, meaning that without medication their blood sugar levels were no longer above the diabetes threshold. That compared to just two percent of participants in the non-intervention group who saw their diabetes improve significantly.

People who’d had diabetes for fewer years were more likely to have blood sugar improvements, as were those who lost more weight or had stronger fitness gains during the study.

However, less than one-third of people whose diabetes went into remission during the program managed to keep their blood sugar levels down for at least four years, the researchers found.

“Clearly lifestyle intervention is good for people with diabetes,” said Dr. John Buse, a diabetes researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

“The question is how cost-effective is it, what are the long-term consequences (and) how would it really compare with alternative approaches like bariatric surgery and drug therapy?” Buse, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

Dr. David Arterburn, from Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, said some studies of weight-loss surgery, for instance, have found two-thirds of people who start out with diabetes have complete remission.

Arterburn, who co-wrote an editorial published with the new study, said anyone with diabetes – or at high risk – should consider either lifestyle interventions or surgery, if they’re eligible, to reduce future health risks.

Gregg said his team was working on a cost-analysis of the current program, but that it was fairly “resource-intensive.”

“If people have access to the support to make these sorts of changes, they may have the benefits that we’ve seen here,” he said. But, “What we should remember is that more modest changes in lifestyle are also effective.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online December 18, 2012.

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A Banner Year for Sex Toys

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N. Korea displays Kim Jong Il a year after death

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.

North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week’s launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.

The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology, was portrayed not only as a gift to Kim Jong Il but also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.

The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.

The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday’s launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il’s nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star,” a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.

Cameras were not allowed inside the mausoleum, and state media did not release any images of Kim Jong Il’s body.

With the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.

His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim’s father and grandfather.

There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.

North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumors even in Pyongyang about whether the country’s first couple is expecting.

To honor Kim’s father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.

Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang’s outskirts.

“Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away,” Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. “But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. … We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country.”

Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military’s top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it “a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity.”

Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.

The test, which the U.N. Security Council said violated a ban on launches using ballistic missile technology, underlined Kim Jong Un’s determination to continue carrying out his father’s hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.

Washington said Monday it has no option but to seek to isolate Pyongyang further.

“What’s left to us is to continue to increase pressure on the North Korean regime and we are looking at how to best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward until they (North Korea) get the message. We are going to further isolate this regime,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang’s next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.

Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.

At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea’s top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea’s parliament, called the launch a “shining victory” and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.

The rocket’s success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il’s death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un’s reign.

In a sign of the rocket launch’s importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.

The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader’s death follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the anniversary of his death in 1994.

___

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Jean Lee, AP’s bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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How to turn an old Kindle Fire into a Nexus 7 with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean [video]

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“Silver Linings Playbook” sweeps Satellite Awards

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Silver Linings Playbook” was the big winner at Sunday night’s Satellite Awards, a show produced by and voted on by the International Press Academy and held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The David O. Russell comedy, which has been overshadowed in the awards picture by more recent films like “Les Miserables” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” won five awards, including Best Motion Picture. Rusell won the award for directing, while stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence were named best actor and actress. The film also won for editing.

Supporting actor and actress awards went to Anne Hathaway for “Les Miserables” and Javier Bardem for “Skyfall.”

Mark Boal won the original-screenplay award for “Zero Dark Thirty,” while David Magee won the adapted-screenplay honor for “Life of Pi.”

Other winners: “Rise of the Guardians,” best animated film; “Chasing Ice,” best documentary; and a tie between “The Intouchables” and “Pieta” for best foreign film.

Proving that the IPA is a body of voters inclined toward sweeps, the television series “Homeland” and “The Big Bang Theory” each won three awards in the TV categories, picking up honors as best drama and comedy series, respectively, and also winning the actor and actress awards.

The awards:

FILM AWARDS

Motion picture: “Silver Linings Playbook”

Director: David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Actor: Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Supporting actor: Javier Bardem, “Skyfall”

Supporting actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”

Original screenplay: Mark Boal, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Adapted screenplay: David Magee, “Life of Pi”

Motion picture, animated or mixed media: “Rise of the Guardians”

Motion picture, documentary: “Chasing Ice”

Motion picture, international: (tie) “The Intouchables,” “Pieta”

Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, “Life of Pi”

Editing: Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Score: Alexandre Desplat, “Argo”

Song: “Suddenly” from “Les Miserables”

Sound (editing and mixing): Andy Nelson, John Warhurst, Lee Walpole, Simon Hayes, “Les Miserables”

Visual effects: Michael Lantieri, Kevin Baillie, Ryan Tudhope, Jim Gibbs, “Flight”

Art direction & production design: Rick Carter, Curt Beech, David Crank, Leslie McDonald, “Lincoln”

Costume design: Manon Rasmussen, “A Royal Affair”

TELEVISION AWARDS

Miniseries or movie made for television: “Hatfields & McCoys”

Actor in a miniseries/movie made for television: Benedict Cumberbatch, “Sherlock

Actress in a miniseries/movie made for television: Julianne Moore, “Game Change”

Supporting actor in a miniseries/TV movie: Neal McDonough, “Justified”

Supporting actress in a miniseries/TV movie: Maggie Smith, “Downton Abbey”

Drama series: “Homeland”

Genre series: “Walking Dead”

Actor in a drama: Damian Lewis, “Homeland”

Actress in a drama: Claire Danes, “Homeland”

Comedy or musical series: “The Big Bang Theory”

Actor in a comedy: Johnny Galecki, “The Big Bang Theory”

Actress in a comedy: Kaley Cuoco, “The Big Bang Theory”

SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Outstanding contribution to the entertainment industry: Terence Stamp

Nikola Tesla Award: Walter Murch

Auteur Award: Paul Williams

Honorary Satellite Award: Bruce Davison

Newcomer Award: Quvenzhane Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Humanitarian Award: Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Motion picture ensemble: “Les Miserables”

Television ensemble: “Walking Dead”

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Amgen to plead guilty in criminal case Tuesday: prosecutors

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Biotech company Amgen Inc is scheduled to plead guilty on Tuesday in a criminal case in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, prosecutors said.

A brief statement from the U.S. Attorney‘s office gave no details of the charges Amgen would plead guilty to.

Representatives of Amgen could not immediately be reached to comment.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye)

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“Fiscal cliff” hopes lift Asian shares, other risk assets

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares and other risk assets rose on Tuesday as signs of compromise sparked new optimism that the U.S. “fiscal cliff” budget tussle could be settled before tax hikes and spending cuts begin to bite early next year.

Differences over how to resolve the fiscal cliff narrowed significantly Monday night as President Barack Obama made a counter-offer to Republicans that included a major change in position on tax hikes for the wealthy, according to a source familiar with the talks.

The move, which the source stressed was not Obama’s final offer, was welcomed by a spokesman for Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, potentially advancing negotiations towards a deal by the end-year deadline.

Oil, copper and gold also firmed on the prospect of progress in the U.S. budget talks, which reduced worries about economic damage, but expectations of more monetary easing in Japan kept the yen soft.

“The market will view any advance in talks as positive for confidence, which has been battered by the daily flow of political fighting,” Ben Taylor, sales trader at CMC Markets said in a report.

“Regardless of what is decided, the market is looking for a decision and any compromise will help provide a clearer picture for the future.”

European shares were expected to keep up the positive momentum, with financial spreadbetters predicting London’s FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris’s CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt’s DAX <.gdaxi> will open as much as 0.5 percent higher. A 0.3 percent gain in U.S. stock futures suggested a higher Wall Street opening. <.l><.eu><.n></.n></.eu></.l></.gdaxi></.fchi></.ftse>

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.2 percent, following a rise in global shares on Monday. The index snapped an eight-day winning streak on Monday as investors took profits from last week’s rally.</.miapj0000pus>

Regional equities also took direction from local factors.

Australian shares <.axjo> gained 0.5 percent to a 17-month high, with resource stocks elevated by a rise in iron ore prices <.io62-cni> to a five-month high.</.io62-cni></.axjo>

“Iron ore is a very key commodity in the Chinese industrial machine, steel usage will bounce back and that is good news for our exporters,” said Baillieu Holst director Richard Morrow.

Seoul shares <.ks11> rose marginally but underperformed some others in Asia, as investors were reluctant to build positions ahead of South Korea’s presidential vote on Wednesday.</.ks11>

London copper was up 0.3 percent to $ 8,085 a metric ton (1.1023 tons).

“Before the end of the year, I don’t really see huge selling pressure, with improving data from China and expectations for a resolution to the fiscal cliff,” said analyst Bonnie Liu of Macquarie.

U.S. crude surged 0.8 percent to $ 87.85 a barrel and Brent rose 0.7 percent to $ 108.41.

Spot gold added 0.3 percent to $ 1,702.01 an ounce.

Solid performance in stocks boosted Asian credit markets, narrowing the spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by two basis points.

JAPAN POLITICS MATTER

In Japan, the Nikkei average <.n225> closed up 1.0 percent at an 8-1/2-month high and edged closer to the key 10,000-mark, with sentiment bolstered by a landslide election win for the conservative Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday. <.t></.t></.n225>

LDP leader Shinzo Abe, due to be confirmed as Japan’s premier on December 26, is calling for far more aggressive monetary stimulus and huge public works spending to rescue Japan from decades-long deflation. His pledges are seen as pressuring the yen and supporting Japanese stocks by improving earnings for the country’s exporters.

“The Nikkei is up today primarily due to the rise in U.S. stocks overnight, but the ‘Abe-effect’ is surprisingly longer-lasting as investors seem to be postponing the timing of unwinding their positions until they see the details and specifics in policies,” said Ayako Sera, market economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

The dollar inched up 0.1 percent to 83.96 yen, off a 20-month high of 84.48 yen hit on Monday but well above its late New York levels on Friday.

Abe applied fresh pressure on the Bank of Japan on Monday, saying that the election result reflected strong public support for his views, which he hoped the BOJ would take into account at its two-day policy meeting starting on Wednesday.

“The dollar has more upside against the yen ahead of the BOJ’s meeting, with expectations for some additional easing steps being strengthened after Abe’s comments yesterday,” said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.

“The corrective fall in the dollar/yen after the election was small and it’s crawling up because the yen weakening trend is still intact. But after the BOJ meeting, there will likely be pre-holiday profit-taking, pushing the dollar/yen down by 1 to 2 yen,” Saito said, adding that the dollar could temporarily touch 85 yen before profit-taking sets in by year-end.

Concerns that big-scale fiscal stimulus could seriously increase the country’s debt burden pushed the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield to a one-month high of 0.750 percent.

U.S. Treasury yields also inched up in Asia, with the 10-year yields briefly reaching 1.796 percent, its highest level since October 26, on hopes for a deal on the U.S. fiscal cliff. [US/T

(Additional reporting by Victoria Thieberger in Melbourne and Manash Goswami and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

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Egyptians hand Islamists narrow win in constitution vote

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptians voted in favor of a constitution shaped by Islamists but opposed by other groups who fear it will divide the Arab world’s biggest nation, officials in rival camps said on Sunday after the first round of a two-stage referendum.

Next week’s second round is likely to give another “yes” vote as it includes districts seen as more sympathetic towards Islamists, analysts say, meaning the constitution would be approved.

But the narrow win so far gives Islamist President Mohamed Mursi only limited grounds for celebration by showing the wide rifts in a country where he needs to build a consensus for tough economic reforms.

The Muslim Brotherhood‘s party, which propelled Mursi to office in a June election, said 56.5 percent backed the text. Official results are not expected until after the next round.

While an opposition official conceded the “yes” camp appeared to have won the first round, the opposition National Salvation Front said in a statement that voting abuses meant a rerun was needed – although it did not explicitly challenge the Brotherhood‘s vote tally.

Rights groups reported abuses such as polling stations opening late, officials telling people how to vote and bribery. They also criticized widespread religious campaigning which portrayed “no” voters as heretics.

A joint statement by seven human rights groups urged the referendum’s organizers “to avoid these mistakes in the second stage of the referendum and to restage the first phase again”.

Mursi and his backers say the constitution is vital to move Egypt’s democratic transition forward. Opponents say the basic law is too Islamist and tramples on minority rights, including those of Christians who make up 10 percent of the population.

The build-up to Saturday’s vote was marred by deadly protests. Demonstrations erupted when Mursi awarded himself extra powers on November 22 and then fast-tracked the constitution through an assembly dominated by his Islamist allies.

However, the vote passed off calmly with long queues in Cairo and several other places, though unofficial tallies indicated turnout was around a third of the 26 million people eligible to vote this time. The vote was staggered because many judges needed to oversee polling staged a boycott in protest.

The opposition had said the vote should not have been held given the violent protests. Foreign governments are watching closely how the Islamists, long viewed warily in the West, handle themselves in power.

“It’s wrong to have a vote or referendum with the country in the state it is – blood and killings, and no security,” said Emad Sobhy, a voter who lives in Cairo. “Holding a referendum with the country as it is cannot give you a proper result.”

INCREASINGLY DIVIDED

As polls closed, Islamists attacked the offices of the newspaper of the liberal Wafd party, part of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition that pushed for a “no” vote.

“The referendum was 56.5 percent for the ‘yes’ vote,” a senior official in the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party operations room set up to monitor voting told Reuters.

The Brotherhood and its party had representatives at polling stations across the 10 areas, including Cairo, in this round. The official, who asked not to be identified, said the tally was based on counts from more than 99 percent of polling stations.

“The nation is increasingly divided and the pillars of state are swaying,” opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter. “Poverty and illiteracy are fertile grounds for trading with religion. The level of awareness is rising fast.”

One opposition official also told Reuters the vote appeared to have gone in favor of Islamists who backed the constitution.

The opposition initially said its exit polls indicated the “no” camp would win comfortably, but officials changed tack during the night. One opposition official said in the early hours of Sunday that it would be “very close”.

A narrow loss could still hearten leftists, socialists, Christians and more liberal-minded Muslims who make up the disparate opposition, which has been beaten in two elections since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown last year.

They were drawn together to oppose what they saw as a power grab by Mursi as he pushed through the constitution. The National Salvation Front includes prominent figures such as ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and firebrand leftist Hamdeen Sabahy.

If the constitution is approved, a parliamentary election will follow early next year.

DEADLY VIOLENCE

Analysts question whether the opposition group will keep together until the parliamentary election. The Islamist-dominated lower house of parliament elected earlier this year was dissolved based on a court order in June.

Violence in Cairo and other cities has plagued the run-up to the referendum. At least eight people were killed when rival camps clashed during demonstrations outside the presidential palace earlier this month.

In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of those casting ballots. There are 51 million eligible voters in the nation of 83 million.

Islamists have been counting on their disciplined ranks of supporters and on Egyptians desperate for an end to turmoil that has hammered the economy and sent Egypt’s pound to eight-year lows against the dollar.

The army deployed about 120,000 troops and 6,000 tanks and armored vehicles to protect polling stations and other government buildings. While the military backed Mubarak and his predecessors, it has not intervened in the present crisis.

(Additional reporting Yasmin Saleh and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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