S&P downgrades eurozone bailout fund to AA+

BRUSSELS?? Rating agency Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating of the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone's rescue fund, by one notch to AA+ on Monday, three days after it cut the ratings of France and Austria by the same margin.

In a statement, S&P said the decision was all but inevitable following the cuts to the creditworthiness of France and Austria, which were two of the EFSF's guarantors.

"We consider that credit enhancements that would offset what we view as the now-reduced creditworthiness of the EFSF's guarantors and securities backing the EFSF's issues are currently not in place," the agency said in a statement.

"We have therefore lowered to AA+ the issuer credit rating of the EFSF, as well as the issue ratings on its long-term debt securities.

The EFSF was set up by the 17 governments that share the European single currency in May 2010 and has so far been used to provide emergency loans to Ireland and Portugal. It is also expected to contribute to a second bailout of Greece.

The fund has an effective lending capacity of 440 billion euros, which depends on guarantees, mainly from the euro zone's AAA countries, only four of which now remain: Germany, Luxembourg, Finland and the Netherlands.

In a statement, the EFSF said the downgrade would not affect its lending capacity, and emphasized that its short-term rating remained at S&P's top level.

"The downgrade to 'AA+' by only one credit agency will not reduce EFSF's lending capacity of 440 billion euros," the fund's chief executive, Klaus Regling, said.

"EFSF has sufficient means to fulfill its commitments under current and potential future adjustment programs until the ESM becomes operational in July 2012," he added.

The ESM ? the European Stability Mechanism ? is a permanent rescue fund that is expected to have an effective capacity of 500 billion euros, based on paid-in capital of 80 billion euros and callable capital of 620 billion euros.

However, details about the structure of the ESM have still not been agreed among all euro zone member states. The original plan was to introduce it in July 2013, but that was brought forward by a year. Now euro zone policymakers are working hard to ensure the ESM can come into effect in just six months time.

EU leaders will meet for a summit in Brussels on January 30 when they are expected to discuss jobs and growth as well as issues such as the permanent rescue fund and how to go about tackling the threat of a debt default by Greece.

In the long-term, and particularly if Moody's and Fitch, the two other major ratings agencies, decide to cut the EFSF's rating as well, it may be impossible for the fund to sustain its effective capacity unless it just accepts that it will issue bonds at a lower credit rating, and pay more to do so.

The alternative would be to ask Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to increase their total guarantees to the fund to get its credit rating back up to AAA. It's very unlikely the countries would agree to such a move.

However, S&P said that if the EFSF could find ways of providing credit enhancements, it could reassess its move.

"We understand that EFSF member states may currently be exploring credit-enhancement options," it said.

"If the EFSF adopts credit enhancements that in our view are sufficient to offset its now-reduced creditworthiness, in particular if we see that once again the EFSF's long-term obligations are fully supported by guarantees from EFSF member-guarantors rated 'AAA' or by securities rated 'AAA', we would likely raise the EFSF's long-term ratings to 'AAA'."

Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the Eurogroup, which represents the 17 euro zone countries, said the implications of S&P's decision would be discussed, probably when finance ministers next meet on January 23.

"We take note and will examine the consequences of the decision announced by Standard & Poor's to downgrade the credit rating," he said in a statement.

"EFSF continues to be assigned the best possible credit rating by Moody's (Aaa) and Fitch (AAA), underlining its solidity. Neither rating agency has indicated any rating action for EFSF in the immediate future."

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46014869/ns/business-world_business/

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Study: Babies try lip-reading in learning to talk

This undated handout photo provided by Florida Atlantic University shows a baby, looking at a monitor, wearing a band that contains a little magnet that the head-tracker, under the monitor uses to determine head position which, in turn, enables the eye tracker to find the eye and the pupil. New research suggests babies don't learn to talk just from hearing sounds _ they're lip-readers, too. It happens during that magical stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first "mama" or "dada." (AP Photo/Florida Atlantic University)

This undated handout photo provided by Florida Atlantic University shows a baby, looking at a monitor, wearing a band that contains a little magnet that the head-tracker, under the monitor uses to determine head position which, in turn, enables the eye tracker to find the eye and the pupil. New research suggests babies don't learn to talk just from hearing sounds _ they're lip-readers, too. It happens during that magical stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first "mama" or "dada." (AP Photo/Florida Atlantic University)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Babies don't learn to talk just from hearing sounds. New research suggests they're lip-readers too.

It happens during that magical stage when a baby's babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first "mama" or "dada."

Florida scientists discovered that starting around age 6 months, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them.

"The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they're hearing," explains developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study being published Monday. "It's an incredibly complex process."

Apparently it doesn't take them too long to absorb the movements that match basic sounds. By their first birthdays, babies start shifting back to look you in the eye again ? unless they hear the unfamiliar sounds of a foreign language. Then, they stick with lip-reading a bit longer.

"It's a pretty intriguing finding," says University of Iowa psychology professor Bob McMurray, who also studies speech development. The babies "know what they need to know about, and they're able to deploy their attention to what's important at that point in development."

The new research appears in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It offers more evidence that quality face-time with your tot is very important for speech development ? more than, say, turning on the latest baby DVD.

It also begs the question of whether babies who turn out to have developmental disorders, including autism, learn to speak the same way, or if they show differences that just might provide an early warning sign.

Unraveling how babies learn to speak isn't merely a curiosity. Neuroscientists want to know how to encourage that process, especially if it doesn't seem to be happening on time. Plus, it helps them understand how the brain wires itself early in life for learning all kinds of things.

Those coos of early infancy start changing around age 6 months, growing into the syllables of the baby's native language until the first word emerges, usually just before age 1.

A lot of research has centered on the audio side. That sing-song speech that parents intuitively use? Scientists know the pitch attracts babies' attention, and the rhythm exaggerates key sounds. Other studies have shown that babies who are best at distinguishing between vowel sounds like "ah" and "ee" shortly before their first birthday wind up with better vocabularies and pre-reading skills by kindergarten.

But scientists have long known that babies also look to speakers' faces for important social cues about what they're hearing. Just like adults, they're drawn to the eyes, which convey important nonverbal messages like the emotion connected to words and where to direct attention.

Lewkowicz went a step further, wondering whether babies look to the lips for cues as well, sort of like how adults lip-read to decipher what someone's saying at a noisy party.

So he and doctoral student Amy Hansen-Tift tested nearly 180 babies, groups of them at ages 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months.

How? They showed videos of a woman speaking in English or Spanish to babies of English speakers. A gadget mounted on a soft headband tracked where each baby was focusing his or her gaze and for how long.

They found a dramatic shift in attention: When the speaker used English, the 4-month-olds gazed mostly into her eyes. The 6-month-olds spent equal amounts of time looking at the eyes and the mouth. The 8- and 10-month-olds studied mostly the mouth.

At 12 months, attention started shifting back toward the speaker's eyes.

It makes sense that at 6 months, babies begin observing lip movement, Lewkowicz says, because that's about the time babies' brains gain the ability to control their attention rather than automatically look toward noise.

But what happened when these babies accustomed to English heard Spanish? The 12-month-olds studied the mouth longer, just like younger babies. They needed the extra information to decipher the unfamiliar sounds.

That fits with research into bilingualism that shows babies' brains fine-tune themselves to start distinguishing the sounds of their native language over other languages in the first year of life. That's one reason it's easier for babies to become bilingual than older children or adults.

But the continued lip-reading shows the 1-year-olds clearly still "are primed for learning," McMurray says.

Babies are so hard to study that this is "a fairly heroic data set," says Duke University cognitive neuroscientist Greg Appelbaum, who found the research so compelling that he wants to know more.

Are the babies who start to shift their gaze back to the eyes a bit earlier better learners, or impatient to their own detriment? What happens with a foreign language after 12 months?

Lewkowicz is continuing his studies of typically developing babies. He theorizes that there may be different patterns in children at risk of autism, something autism experts caution would be hard to prove.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-16-US-MED-HealthBeat-Baby-Talk/id-bcfb2d67c4614802b97e7f6a51de649b

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Coastguard heard pleading with Italian ship captain (Reuters)

GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? Italian coastguards urged the captain of a stricken cruise liner to return to his listing ship, leaked recordings showed, as divers continued their search for survivors into the night after finding five more bodies in the half-submerged wreck.

The discoveries took the known death toll to 11. A list of 28 missing people was posted on an Italian interior ministry web site, though authorities said that likely included the five found dead on Tuesday that are so far unidentified.

Captain Francesco Schettino has been allowed to leave jail but is under house arrest, blamed by his employer for risking the lives of more than 4,200 passengers and crew and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.

Rescuers used explosives to blast through the maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive inside the Costa Concordia, which lies semi-submerged on its side after being ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.

Dutch maritime services company SMIT said it was ready to start pumping fuel from the stricken liner as early as Wednesday once search operations for missing people have ended and they get the go-ahead from local authorities.

SMIT has been asked by the ship's owner and insurer to salvage up to 2,300 tons of fuel from the 114,500-ton ship and clean up if fuel on the vessel starts to leak.

The giant cruise ship, a floating pleasure palace of bars, spas, state rooms and tennis courts, slid a little on Monday, threatening to plunge below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding marine nature reserve.

This forced a brief suspension of rescue efforts, which were also halted overnight on Monday though searches were continuing through Tuesday night. A coastguard said they would go on until the entire ship had been checked.

The list of people still unaccounted for on Tuesday evening included 13 German, four French, five Italian and two American passengers, together with four crew members from Italy, India, Hungary and Peru.

Captain Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before all his passengers and crew scrambled off.

He has denied the charges and told magistrates on Tuesday he believed he should be credited with saving "hundreds, if not thousands" of lives because he brought the ship close to shore after it hit a rock, lawyer Bruno Leporatti said.

A judge ruled he could be allowed out of jail on Tuesday and will be placed under house arrest at his home near Sorrento in southern Italy.

The skipper, who underwent toxicology tests, claims he did not abandon the ship while passengers were still aboard.

But newspaper Corriere della Sera released what it said was a recording of ship-to-shore radio communications in which the enraged coastguards repeatedly order him back on board.

"GO BACK ON BOARD!"

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Damn it, go back on board!" one coastguard says.

Speaking by radio from a lifeboat, Schettino pleads: "Do you realize that it is dark and we can't see anything?"

The coastguard shouts back: "So, what do you want to do, to go home, Schettino?! It's dark and you want to go home? Go to the bow of the ship where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done, how many people there are, and what they need! Now!"

Officials did not confirm the tape's origins but other shouts heard in the background added authenticity. The Coast Guard official on the tape told a local newspaper he could tell by the "tone of the captain's voice" that something was very wrong. Schettino's lawyer said he would not comment.

The owners of the vessel - the biggest passenger ship ever wrecked and twice the tonnage of the Titanic - accused their captain of causing the disaster by sharply deviating from the charted course.

The ship foundered after striking a rock as dinner was being served on Friday night. The owners say the captain swung inshore to "make a bow" to the islanders, who included a retired Italian admiral. Investigators say it was within 150 meters of shore.

Most of the passengers and crew survived despite hours of chaos and confusion after the collision. The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.

Video taken from a rescue helicopter in the early hours of Saturday, using a night vision camera, showed an extraordinary scene of dozens of passengers being gingerly lowered on ropes down the upturned hull of the ship into rescue boats.

The wreck, with a long gash below the waterline, looms over the normally tranquil island of Giglio.

The father of the ship's head waiter told Reuters his son had telephoned him before the accident to say the crew would salute him by blowing the ship's whistle as they passed close by Giglio, where both the waiter, Antonello Tievoli, and his 82-year-old father Giuseppe live.

Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi on Monday blamed errors by Schettino for the disaster. He told a news conference the company would provide its captain with any assistance he required. "But we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," he added.

Foschi said company vessels were forbidden to come closer than 500 meters to the Giglio coast. Schettino denies being too close and says the rock he hit was not marked on charts.

The ship is resting in about 20 meters (60 feet) of water but could go down by as much as 130 meters if it shifts free from the rocks.

(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene, Silvia Aloisi, Kate Hudson and Catherine Hornby, Writing by Barry Moody and Philip Pullella; Editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120118/wl_nm/us_italy_ship

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'Twilight: The Musical' Vamps In New York

Harry, Ron and Hermione make 'Twilight' debut in the off-Broadway parody.
By Amy Wilkinson

The cast of "Twilight: The Musical"
Photo: Dreamcatcher Entertainment

NEW YORK — When "Dreamgirls" helmer Bill Condon took over direction of "The Twilight Saga," more than a few cheeky journalists wondered if he'd treat fans to a bloodsucking song-and-dance extravaganza. Alas, vogueing Volturi weren't meant to be — at least on the big screen. They have, however, found a temporary home on the New York City stage in the form of "Twilight: The Musical." The off-Broadway parody production premiered Monday night at the New World Stages, raising money for the charity Blessings in a Backpack.

Written by Ashley Griffin and directed by Gabriel Barre, "Twilight: The Musical" is, for now, staged as a concert reading, meaning that the actors hold scripts throughout the show. But the cheat sheets did little to diminish the enthusiasm of the oft-hilarious production.

A group of eight actors play more than 30 roles, with some pulling quadruple and even quintuple duty (such as standouts Lauren Lopez and Jenna Leigh Green). With her bobbing ponytail, zip-up hoodie, skinny jeans and sullen expression, Meghann Fahy ("Next to Normal") is a dead ringer for Bella Swan (or, at the very least, Kristen Stewart's portrayal of Bella Swan), while "Wicked" actor Colin Hanlon looks perfectly pained as Edward Cullen. Jared Zirilli ("Wicked") spends the entire second act shirtless, portraying Jacob with the kind of earnestness that's made Taylor Lautner the object of many a teen's fever dreams.

The show opens much as the "Twilight" movie does, with Bella's monologue about her impending death followed by the cafeteria scene and the upbeat track "Looking for Something." (Sample lyrics: "I think I see a Fork stuck in my road," "We're standing on the twilight of something good.") The first act hems closely with its source material, including all the requisite scenes: Edward's biology class freak-out, Bella's car accident and the bookstore gang-up. Much of the dialogue comes straight from screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg's script, too, albeit with much-welcomed embellishments. (Charlie to Bella: "I know it's awkward starting in the middle of a semester, so I got you a truck!")

But things take a canon-twisting turn about two-thirds of the way through the first act when Hermione, Ron and Harry show up. Yes, someone got "Harry Potter" in our "Twilight." Instead of Victoria, James and Laurent, Hogwarts' finest play the villains here. The meta levels reach 11 when the wizards mistakes Edward for Cedric Diggory. And so it is that Ron tracks Bella down in her old ballet studio and is done in by the Cullen coven, leaving Hermione to avenge the death of her beloved. The first act closes on Bella's birthday — the surprisingly bloody scene from "New Moon."

The second act opens with a freshly shorn Jacob (his wig somehow even mangier than Lautner's) singing with his pack. From there, the production speeds through the last three books of Meyer's series, compressing much of the story in favor of cramming it all in. Despite the odd pacing, the production sang thanks to details only a true fanatic could relish. Edward's sparkling-in-the-sun effect is achieved with a glittery bodysuit hidden underneath the actor's button-down like Superman's spandex. The iconic apple from the book's cover hangs limply (and obviously) from a springing wire gizmo as Edward tries to suavely hand it to Bella. Not to mention the actors muster plenty of fourth-wall-breaking furtive glances, letting the audience know they are in on the joke.

But the tongue-in-cheek vibe is abandoned late in the second act for a sobering bit of moralizing from Harry, who comes to Bella in a dream sequence asking if it was all worth it. "You were willing to sacrifice everything to get a boyfriend," he says. "In the end, you destroyed yourself." Point taken, Harry Potter. But what a buzzkill.

If you weren't able to make the one-night-only charity benefit, don't fret: Work is being done to bring the production to the New York stage for good.

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677398/twilight-the-musical.jhtml

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Rio crowd explodes as Jose Aldo posts crazy finish of Chad Mendes at UFC 142

So much for the lack of finishes from Jose Aldo. The UFC's featherweight champ ended the "Rocky IV" dreams of Chad Mendes with a big knee and two brutal punches.

The champ beat the clock at the end of the first round by landing a vicious knee. Mendes went limp and fell before eating two more punches squarely on the face. Referee Mario Yamasaki stopped it at the 4:59 mark of the first round in the main event of UFC 142 in Rio de Janeiro.

Aldo can be a boisterous sometimes when it comes to the post-fight celebration. Tonight, he went a little overboard. At the end of the fight, the second the Octagon door opened, he flew through running into the crowd. In what was a near riot-like scene, the fans went crazy on Aldo. He was eventually carried on their shoulders and got back into the cage after a few minutes.

Aldo (21-1, 3-0 UFC) runs his win streak to 14 straight. He hasn't lost a fight since 2005.

"Jose is a great champion. I wanted keep the pressure on and close the distance and get my hands on him," Mendes said. He's got great takedown defense and footwork. Watching a lot of his fights, I knew it would be tough to take him down. He was the better man."

Mendes, a former elite college wrestler, had to get the fight to the ground to give himself a shot. Aldo was simply too big and too athletic. The champ stuffed all five of Mendes' takedown attempts.

In between those tries, Mendes ate kick after kick on his lead leg. It took roughly three minutes for the challenger to switch stances to protect that leg.

With just under a minute left in the round, Mendes actually got into a favorable position. He had standing back control and delivered some solid knees to the back of Aldo's legs. Aldo freed himself with eight seconds left in the round. Mendes turned, ducked his head and tried to shoot forward for another takedown. Aldo's reaction time was ridiculous as he landed a quick left knee. Mendes fell to his back where he ate the next punches to force the stoppage.

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/rio-crowd-explodes-jose-aldo-posts-crazy-finish-050851819.html

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97% The Artist

The Artist is a black and white silent movie set in the late 1920s and continuing into the 1930s about two actors and how the arrival of sound in motion pictures impacts their silent movie careers. This is undeniably one of the most brilliant films in recent years. It's charming, witty, funny, shocking, emotional, and a delight from start to end. If you've never seen a silent film before, this is the perfect one to start with. It not only homages the genre, but embraces it and reminds us of a lost palette that still holds up after 80 years of absence. The Artist's most endearing quality is how anyone of any age can enjoy this film no matter what genres peak their interest. I had the pleasure of spending it with an audience full of demographics that was just as alive as the images on the silver screen. The film's only fault in my opinion, which may be the film's greatest strength, is how it takes the aged art of early cinema and cleans it up with minimal scratching, bigger scaled shots, occasional CGI, and the introduction of sound (which may in fact be the film's highest point considering the film's plot). It doesn't matter if you're into stoner comedies or somber dramadies, The Artist is definitely one that can't be missed.

January 1, 2012

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_artist/

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Japan FM: stable oil prices key to Iran sanctions (AP)

TOKYO ? Japan's top diplomat says maintaining stable global oil prices is critical for imposing effective sanctions on Iran, saying that higher oil prices could benefit Iran and hurt the global economy.

Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said Friday that the U.S.-proposed sanctions must be considered "carefully and wisely" during a joint news conference with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.

On Thursday, Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Japan would start reducing Iranian imports in support of the U.S. campaign. Japan obtains about 10 percent of its oil from Iran.

Gemba said his recent trip to the Mideast was made in anticipation of possible sanctions on Iran.

Juppe said he was doubtful the sanctions would have an adverse effect on global oil prices or the world economy.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_iran

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