Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw “some indications” of a truce ahead.

Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.

“As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn’t worth it to cease fire,” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.

“If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”

Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel’s raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain’s Sky News.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop “transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity”.

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: “This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning.”

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel’s blows Hamas “is still strong enough to destroy the enemy”.

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant’s family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron “expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides,” in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was “putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate,” the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu “to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.”

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through “de-escalation” and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that “there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.”

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying “there is hope,” but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan. … It will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

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So, Here’s That ‘Big Bang Theory’ Flashmob You Wanted

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Beating Novak Djokovic: Never Forget Three-Fingered Steve

Psychologist Richard Wiseman has an interactive game for you to let you know you’re just predictable. To be fair, a couple of us tried it out and were not as predictable as Wiseman thought we were going to be. But without further ado, here it is (have some screen cleaner ready):

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We too are very excited for the Disney installments of Star Wars. New movies, Ewoks, whatever count us in. We’re just not this excited: 

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If you don’t know, The Big Bang Theory is basically a show about a bunch of really smart, really nerdy dorks. Now when it comes to the actual cast of The Big Bang Theory, we’re only pretty sure (and happy to be proven wrong) only one of those things apply:

And finally, do you have $ 37? If so, would you mind donating it to The Atlantic Wire robot fish aquarium fund? We promise, it’s totally a great cause. Thanks in advance!

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Lindsay Lohan pushed for Elizabeth Taylor TV role

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan so wanted to play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming film “Liz & Dick” that she cut out the middle man and went straight to the producer herself, the tabloid-favorite star said in an interview on Friday.

Lohan, 26, plays Taylor in an upcoming television movie that dramatizes the long love affair between the late Hollywood legend and actor Richard Burton.

“It’s a funny story, actually. I had seen that they were going to be making the movie and I got the producers’ numbers and started harassing (producer) Larry Thompson,” Lohan said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I didn’t even care if my agents were going to do it or not, I just did it myself, too,” the “Mean Girls” actress said. “Because I was like, ‘No one else is going to play this role, I have to do this.’”

Early reviews of “Liz & Dick,” which premieres on U.S. cable channel Lifetime on November 25, have ranged from middling to poor. But TV critics noted the similarities between Lohan and Taylor, both often-troubled actresses who started life as child stars.

“‘Liz & Dick’ truly drags,” said the Hollywood Reporter. “Luckily, you can’t take your eyes off of Lohan playing Taylor, which the producers clearly thought would work because they share similar back stories.”

Lohan’s acting alongside New Zealand’s Grant Bowler as Burton was described by Variety on Friday as “adequate, barring a few awkward moments, thanks largely to the fabulous frocks and makeup … she gets to model.”

Lohan’s reputation, much like Taylor’s, has been built from her tabloid persona more than on-screen performance.

In and out of legal trouble, jail and rehab since 2007, Lohan faced media blow-back this week after canceling an in-depth interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress’ publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)

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Twinkies maker Hostess plans to go out of business

(Reuters) – Hostess Brands Inc, the bankrupt maker of Twinkies snack cakes and Wonder Bread, is seeking a U.S. court’s permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

The 82-year-old Hostess, which has about $ 2.5 billion in sales and is one of the largest wholesale bakers and distributors of breads and snack cakes in the United States, filed the request with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York early Friday morning. A hearing on the matter is set for Monday.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs. Hostess immediately suspended operations at all of its 33 plants across the United States as it moves to start selling assets.

“We’ll be selling the brands and as much of the infrastructure as we can,” said company spokesman Lance Ignon. “There is value in the brands. But some bakeries will never open again as bakeries.”

Ignon said the company made final deliveries on Friday of products made on Thursday night. Hostess’s top-selling products are its chocolate cupcakes, Twinkies cakes and its powdered sugar and frosted “Donettes.”

Hostess products, particularly the golden, cream-filled Twinkies cakes, are deeply ingrained in American pop culture and have long been packed in school children’s lunch boxes. Entrepreneurs on auction site eBay Inc were asking as much as $ 100 for a box of 10 Twinkies on Friday morning.

Raj Patel, owner of Sarah’s Market in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said he was sorry to see the company go out of business.

“It’s been around for ages,” said Patel, 40. “A lot of people are familiar with the brand and it’s going to be tough for some people to do without.”

NOT INTERESTED IN BREAD

Hostess blamed heavy debt and burdensome wage and pension obligations for its financial woes. It said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), which began November 9, was part of a long series of battles between labor and management that contributed to the company’s inability to restructure its finances and produce and deliver products at several facilities.

But union officials and line workers said union workers had already agreed to a series of concessions over the years and the company had failed to invest in brand marketing and modernization of plants and trucks and had focused instead on enriching owners such as private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings and hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital.

Officials at the three firms declined to comment.

“Our members decided… they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and ‘restructuring specialists’ walk away with untold millions of dollars,” said BCTGM International Union President Frank Hurt.

Picketing workers echoed the sentiment.

“The people who are running this company are not interested in making bread,” said Roger Harrison, 56, who bags buns at the Hostess plant in Lenexa, Kansas, and has been with the company for 35 years.

“They are not in the baking industry; they are just interested in the money,” Harrison said.

The company had started implementing an 8 percent pay cut, a 20 percent increase in healthcare costs, and changes to pension and workday provisions when workers went on strike on November 9. Hostess had given employees a deadline to return to work on Thursday, but the union held firm, saying it had already given far more in concessions than workers could bear and that it would not bend further.

“The union has been the death of this company,” said a human resources manager who recently left Hostess.

LONG LABOR BATTLES

Hostess’s battle with its workforce has brewed for years. Formerly known as Interstate Bakeries Corp (IBC), the company for decades was based in Kansas City, Missouri. It filed for bankruptcy in September 2004 and emerged in 2009 with a host of employee concessions from various unions.

A source with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity said the company was well positioned when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, but the recession, a spike in commodity prices and consolidation of major competitors reshaped the landscape and forced more restructuring.

“We tried to get the senior creditors and the unions together and it dragged on and on and on and the company got weak,” said the source. “I’m still praying, literally, that something is worked out and they don’t liquidate the business.”

When Hostess filed for bankruptcy protection in January of this year the company said it must withdraw from multi-employer pension plans, address legacy health and welfare costs and secure new capital to modernize its operations.

The company has spent the last several months battling for wage cuts and other concessions from 12 unions representing Hostess workers. At one point earlier this year, Hostess had a potential outside equity investor lined up, but failure to gain pension relief from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union killed that option, the company said in its court filing on Friday.

The company submitted offers to both the Teamsters and the bakery union in August, in what the company said was a final effort to save the company. The Teamsters accepted the proposal but the bakery union balked.

With court approval, Hostess implemented the contract changes in October. The bakery workers then launched strikes that disrupted operations at 24 bakeries. Hostess said the strikes were the final blow to the already “daunting obstacles” to reorganization.

The company’s court filing said that it hopes it can arrange the sale of groups of assets to be operated as going concerns.

WIND-DOWN PLAN

Hostess has 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores, as well as the 33 bakeries. Besides Twinkies and Wonder Bread, its brands include Nature’s Pride, Dolly Madison, Drake’s, Butternut, Home Pride and Merita.

The company said in Friday’s court filing that it would probably take about a year to wind down. It will need about 3,200 employees to start that process, but only about 200 after the first few months.

Hostess had been gauging acquisition interest for certain brands for months and in late September received “a number of potentially viable proposals” to purchase certain assets.

Pabst Brewing Co owner, C. Dean Metropoulos & Co, is considering making an offer to buy Hostess Brands Inc, Daren Metropoulos, a principal at the private-equity firm, told Bloomberg News. Metropoulos did not return a request for comment.

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst William Chappell Jr. said Flowers Foods Inc could be among the potential buyers for some Hostess assets. And he said the company’s liquidation was a “positive step” for the sector because it will reduce the number of major vendors.

In addition to Flowers, Bimbo Bakeries USA, a division of Mexico-based Grupo Bimbo, and Pepperidge Farm, a division of Campbell Soup Co, were considered prospective buyers, analysts said.

It is not a given that all of the better-known brands will survive, analysts said. “I’d be surprised if the Twinkies brand isn’t gone for good,” said Timothy Ramey, analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co.

The company has canceled all orders with its suppliers and said any product in transit would be returned to the shipper.

The company’s last operating report, filed with the bankruptcy court in late October, listed a net loss of $ 15.1 million for the four weeks that ended in late September, mostly due to restructuring charges and other expenses.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bangalore, Ben Berkowitz, Nick Zieminski and Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Phil Berlowitz, Andre Grenon, Tim Dobbyn and Carol Bishopric)

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Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Review: Nintendo Wii U blows up dual-screen gaming

When Nintendo first broached the idea of multiple-screen video games in 2004, many critics were skeptical that players could focus on two images at once. Yet the handheld DS, blending one touch-sensitive screen with a slightly larger video display, became a runaway hit.

Turns out the portable DS may have just been a dress rehearsal for Nintendo‘s latest home console, the Wii U, which blows up the dual-screen concept to living-room size. It goes on sale in the U.S. on Sunday, starting at $ 300.

The Wii U is the heir to the Nintendo Wii system, whose motion-based controls got couch potatoes around the world to burn calories as they swung virtual tennis rackets, bowled and flailed around in their living rooms. The new console still allows you to use your old “Wiimotes,” but its major advancement is a new controller, the GamePad, with a built-in touch screen that measures 6.2 inches diagonally.

The GamePad looks like the spawn of a tablet computer and a classic game controller. Its surface area is a little smaller than an iPad’s, but it’s about three times as thick, largely because it has hand grips that make it more comfortable over prolonged game sessions. It has an accelerometer and gyroscope for motion-controlled games, as well as a camera, a microphone, speakers, two analog joysticks and a typical array of buttons.

It’s the touch screen that really makes the difference. In some cases, it houses functions that are typically relegated to a game’s pause screen. In others, it allows a group of people playing the same game together to have different experiences depending on the controller used. Nintendo Co. calls this “asymmetric gaming.”

In the mini-game collection “Nintendo Land,” you can shoot arrows or fling throwing stars by swiping on the touch screen. One of the games in the collection, “Mario Chase,” uses the GamePad to provide a bird’s-eye view of a maze through which you can guide the hero. His pursuers — up to four players using Wiimotes — see the maze from a first-person perspective on the TV screen.

“New Super Mario Bros. U” brings the asymmetric approach to cooperative action. While Wiimote-wielding players scamper across its side-scrolling landscapes, the GamePad user can create “boost blocks” to help them reach otherwise inaccessible areas. If you’re going solo, you can play the entire adventure on the GamePad screen, freeing up the TV for family members who might want to watch something else.

On a more basic level, the GamePad lets you select your next play or draw new routes for your receivers in Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Madden NFL 13.” You use it to adjust strategy or substitute players in 2K Sports’ “NBA 2K13.”

Ubisoft’s “ZombiU” — the best original game at launch — turns the GamePad into your “bug-out bag.” It’s where you’ll find all your undead-fighting supplies, from bats and bullets to hammers and health kits. It lets you access maps and security-camera footage as you navigate the devastated streets of London. If you hold it vertically, you can scan the virtual space in three dimensions to locate zombies who are lying in wait.

Essentially, the GamePad functions like the bottom half of the portable DS, with triggers, buttons and the touch screen offering additional information and an added dimension of control. In this comparison, your living-room TV would be the equivalent of the DS’ top display.

It’s somewhat gimmicky: Much of the time, you can easily imagine playing with just a regular joystick. But in “ZombiU,” the GamePad adds to the atmosphere, creating the panicky feeling of scrambling around in a backpack while another undead horde approaches.

The high-definition graphics produced by the Wii U are close to those of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3. That should bring back some of the game makers who had fled the underpowered Wii — at least until Microsoft and Sony bring out their next-generation consoles (neither company has announced any plans yet).

Some fine games from the past couple of years — Warner Bros.’ “Batman: Arkham City,” Electronic Arts’ “Mass Effect 3″ and THQ Inc.’s “Darksiders II” — are finally coming to a Nintendo console. The enhanced GamePad controls don’t substantially alter their DNA, and if you’ve already played them on the Xbox or PS3, you aren’t missing much. But if I’d had the option to play them the first time around with the enhanced GamePad controls, I would have.

The Wii U’s online functions include video chat, its own social network and the ability to search for TV shows and movies from services such as Netflix and Hulu. These are all free. I wasn’t able to test those features before writing this review. Nintendo said Friday that many of these features won’t be available until next month.

I don’t expect the Wii U to make as big a splash as the original Wii did six years ago. Nintendo‘s competitors are dipping their toes into the dual-screen pool as well: Some Sony games link the PS3 with the handheld Vita, while Microsoft’s SmartGlass app for tablet computers adds bonus material to Xbox games such as “Halo 4″ and “Forza Horizon.”

Still, the Wii U goes all in on the multiscreen concept for a relatively inexpensive price. And in a world where people tweet on their iPads while watching sports or reality shows on their TVs, the whole GamePad concept feels perfectly natural.

The Wii U’s success will depend on what Nintendo and other developers do with that second screen. The early results are very promising.

___

About the Wii U:

The basic Wii U model, with 8 gigabytes of internal storage, costs $ 300. The deluxe set, with 32 GB, “Nintendo Land” and a charging stand for the controller, costs $ 350. It comes to the U.S. on Sunday, later this month in Europe and Dec. 8 in Japan.

Both versions come with the GamePad, but you’ll need to snag old-school Wii controllers from older Wiis or buy them separately.

___

Follow Lou Kesten at http://twitter.com/lkesten

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Juanes, Jesse & Joy take home top Latin Grammys

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Colombian rocker Juanes and the Mexican brother and sister pop duo Jesse & Joy took home the top Latin Grammys on Thursday in Las Vegas on a night in which the contemporary triumphed over the traditional.

Juanes, one of the most well known Latin American stars worldwide, won the coveted album of the year with his “MTV Unplugged,” which also won best long-form video. Dominican singer and songwriter Juan Luis Guerra won producer of the year for Juanes‘ album.

“Here’s to the maestro Juan Luis Guerra for making this possible,” said Juanes, 40, who now has won 19 Latin Grammys, tying him with reggaeton group Calle 13 for the most awards.

Guerra, who made the romantic Bachata music famous and is known to sweep the awards from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, led the nominations with six nods this year. But he lost out on the big awards for record and song of the year with his “En El Cielo No Hay Hospital” (In Heaven There Is No Hospital).

Those two awards went to “Corre!” (Run!) by Jesse & Joy, the duo from Mexico City who won best new artists in the same Las Vegas venue in 2007. Their third studio album Con Quien Se Queda El Perro? (Who Is The Dog Staying With?) lost out on album of the year, but won best contemporary pop vocal album.

“Viva Mexico!,” said Jesse upon accepting record of the year, a phrase repeated several times by winners at the 13th edition of the Latin Grammys Thursday night.

Like Jesse & Joy five years earlier, Mexican pop group 3BallMTY won best new artists with their musical style known as “tribal guarachero,” a mix of Mexican cumbia and electronic dance music.

The trio, barely beyond their teenage years, found success on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border with their debut album “Intentalo” (Try It). They dedicated their Latin Grammy to Mexican DJs.

Mexico’s Carla Morrison won best alternative music album with “Dejenme Llorar” (Let Me Cry). Wearing a red dress and sporting multiple tattoos on her arms, she let loose an expletive on the live broadcast after crying out “Viva Mexico!”

Among the top performances of the night were Juanes playing with veteran guitarrist Carlos Santana. The show opened with Miami-born rapper Pitbull, who sings in both English and Spanish.

Brazilian singer and songwriter Caetano Veloso was honored as the Latin Recording Academy‘s person of the year in a ceremony on Wednesday. A founder of the 1960s musical movement known as Tropicalia, Veloso continues to to be one of Brazil’s most popular and innovative artists at 70 years of age.

(Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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EU watchdog endorses Sanofi diabetes and cancer drugs

LONDON (Reuters) – Sanofi won the backing of European regulators for two new drugs against diabetes and cancer on Friday, a shot in the arm for the French company’s drive to bring new products to market.

New diabetes drug Lyxumia was recommended for treating type 2 diabetes and Zaltrap was endorsed for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.

Recommendations from the EMA are normally endorsed by the European Commission within a couple of months.

Lyxumia, which Sanofi licensed from Denmark’s Zealand Pharma, is part of a new class of diabetes treatments called GLP-1 analogues which prompt the body to release insulin when a diabetic’s blood sugar level climbs too high.

It is one of several new medicines Sanofi is banking on to drive growth after patent losses on former top-selling drugs.

Rivals in the GLP-1 space include Novo Nordisk’s Victoza, and Byetta and Bydureon, from Amylin, the U.S. drugmaker acquired earlier this year by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.

Zaltrap, developed with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, is a so-called anti-angiogenic agent, designed to starve tumours of blood. It was approved in the United States in August.

Sanofi plans for submit Lyxumia for approval with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Chris Wickham)

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China’s commerce minister voted out in rare congress snub: sources

BEIJING (Reuters) – China‘s commerce minister was surprisingly blocked from a spot on the ruling Communist Party’s elite body during a conclave this week, sources said, a rare snub for an official that could raise questions about trade policies during his tenure.

The failure of Chen Deming to secure a seat on the 25-member Politburo marks one of the few surprises to emerge from the party’s five-yearly congress that wrapped this week with the anointing of a new slate of top leaders who will run the world’s second largest economy.

It is also the first time in more than two decades that an official designated for a Politburo spot has been voted out of the party’s 205-member Central Committee in elections. Central Committee membership is a prerequisite for a Politburo seat.

“Chen Deming was voted out during multi-candidate elections to the Central Committee,” one source told Reuters. State news agency Xinhua said there were eight percent more candidates than seats in a preliminary vote before the formal election on Wednesday.

Not being name as an alternate or full member during the party’s 18th congress means Chen, who was previously an alternate member, is almost certain to step down as commerce minister next March. Party regulations require cabinet ministers to be Central Committee members.

It is unclear why Chen, who was seen as a strong candidate for a vice premiership and at 63 is young enough to serve another five-year term under party rules, did not secure the votes for a seat on the Central Committee.

Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo, 58, who was elected a full member of the Central Committee, is front-runner to replace Chen as commerce minister, two sources with ties to the leadership said.

Ma Kai, 66, secretary general of the State Council, or cabinet, is tipped to become a vice premier now that Chen is out of the running, the sources said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics.

Until now, a politician designated to become a Politburo member has not been barred from the Central Committee since 1987, when Deng Liqun, an ultra-conservative and reviled Marxist ideologue, was voted out at the 13th congress in a deeply embarrassing fall from grace.

Chen’s imminent retirement as commerce minister, a post he has held since taking over from now disgraced politician Bo Xilai in late 2007, would come as China faces growing tension with major trade partners in Europe and the United States and Chinese officials warn of increasing protectionism.

China’s leaders set a goal for 10 percent export growth this year, but it is more likely to come in at around 7 percent as the world has struggled to recover from financial crisis.

DEFENDED RECORD

Some experts suggest that Chen’s age was the main factor in his ouster.

“Minister Chen didn’t get onto the Central Committee because of his age. He was born in 1949 and that makes him too old to serve a full term,” said a Commerce Ministry official who declined to be identified.

But exceptions to the mandatory retirement age of 65 are often made for cabinet ministers and provincial governors and politicians can become a vice premier before they turn 68.

Du Qinglin, 66, a vice chairman to parliament’s advisory body, was just elected to the Central Committee.

At a news conference last week on the sidelines of the congress, Chen declined to answer questions about whether he was being considered for a vice premier post, but he defended the ministry’s record at the World Trade Organisation.

“When you consider the volume of trade cases in which China is involved, we’ve won quite a few,” Chen said. “But we haven’t bragged about our wins, whereas some of our foreign colleagues have trumpeted theirs.”

Analysts said Chen had a reputation as a competent and moderate minister, suggesting his performance may not have been at the center of his failure to secure a central committee seat, and despite the questions that are bound to arise, policy would probably not change.

“China’s overall trade policy is not set by the ministry, but by the central government,” said He Weiwen, director of the China-U.S. Trade Research Centre at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Under Chen, the ministry has increased its use of WTO legal processes, in part to gain experience. China has a relatively short history of participating in multilateral institutions and while it has lost most of WTO cases filed against it, most countries defending against complaints have the same problem.

Scott Kennedy, director of the Research Centre for Chinese Politics and Business at Indiana University said Chen’s departure from the Central Committee was puzzling and political motives could be at play.

“I don’t think he could be punished for his record as minister of commerce. I think overall he’s done a pretty decent job with the hand he has been dealt,” Kennedy said.

(Additional reporting by Lucy Hornby and Nick Edwards; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Jamaica to abolish slavery-era flogging law

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is preparing to abolish a slavery-era law allowing flogging and whipping as means of punishing prisoners, the Caribbean country’s justice ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said the punishment hasn’t been ordered by a court since 2004 but the statutes remain in the island’s penal code. It was administered with strokes from a tamarind-tree switch or a cat o’nine tails, a whip made of nine, knotted cords.

Justice Minister Mark Golding says the “degrading” punishment is an anachronism which violates Jamaica’s international obligations and is preventing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller‘s government from ratifying the U.N. convention against torture.

“The time has come to regularize this situation by getting these colonial-era laws off our books once and for all,” Golding said in a Thursday statement.

The Cabinet has already approved repealing the flogging law and amendments to other laws in the former British colony, where plantation slavery was particularly brutal.

The announcement was welcomed by human rights activists who view the flogging law as a barbaric throwback in a nation populated mostly by the descendants of slaves.

“We don’t really see that (the flogging law) has any part in the approach of dealing with crime in a modern democracy,” said group spokeswoman Susan Goffe.

But there are no shortage of crime-weary Jamaicans who feel that authorities should not drop the old statutes but instead enforce them, arguing that thieves who steal livestock or violent criminals who harm innocent people should receive a whipping to teach them a lesson.

“The worst criminals need strong punishing or else they’ll do crimes over and over,” said Chris Drummond, a Kingston man with three school-age children. “Getting locked up is not always enough.”

The last to suffer the punishment in Jamaica was Errol Pryce, who was sentenced to four years in prison and six lashes in 1994 for stabbing his mother-in-law.

Pryce was flogged the day before being released from prison in 1997 and later complained to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 2004 that the form of corporal punishment was cruel, inhuman and degrading and violated his rights. Jamaican courts then stopped ordering whipping or flogging.

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