Jon Bon Jovi Had 'No Idea' About His Daughter's Drug Trouble

By Dahvi Shira

12/03/2012 at 07:20 PM EST

Jon Bon Jovi and daughter Stephanie

Dave M. Benett/Getty

Jon Bon Jovi isn't just livin' on a prayer following the apparent heroin overdose that hospitalized his daughter Stephanie Rose Bongiovi last month.

Speaking out about the issue with his daughter, the legendary rocker, 50, says he's "confident" Bongiovi, 19, will be okay, telling the Associated Press, "You surround them with the best help and love and move on, and that's where we're at with it."

Although the musician and his family are getting past the Nov. 14 incident that occurred in Bongiovi's Hamilton College dorm room in Clinton, N.Y., the musician is still surprised it happened.

"I'm shocked as much as the next parent with this situation and had no idea," Bon Jovi explains. "Steph is a great kid. Great GPA. Cool school … everything about it is idyllic. She was doing great, then a sudden and steep decline."

Reflecting back, Bon Jovi says when he first became a father he wasn't sure how best to raise a little girl, but he and his wife provided a loving, stable home for their daughter.

"I didn't have any sisters," he says. "We bring home this girl the first day. Now what? Where's the manual? There was no manual. So you bring her up the best you can, you surround her with hugs and kisses and know that she may eventually fall down," he says. "I appreciate the outpouring of kindness in light of what happened in my household … No one knows the future. It is what it is."

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Fossil fuel subsidies in focus at climate talks

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.

"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."

To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.

Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.

Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.

"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.

He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.

The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.

Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.

"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.

Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.

The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.

When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.

Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.

Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.

"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."

The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.

The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."

In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.

Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.

In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.

"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.

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Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report

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Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

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Fed officials laud stimulus, quibble over future plans

NEW YORK/LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Central bankers appear satisfied with the impact of their latest monetary stimulus, though there is some disagreement over how forcefully to continue purchasing bonds, remarks by two top policymakers on Monday showed.

Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren, one of the most vocal proponents of Fed asset purchases, said there was a "strong case" for the Fed to stay the course on accommodative policies next year and continue buying a total of $85 billion in bonds each month.

In September, the Fed announced an open-ended bond buying scheme that began with $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed securities.

That new effort to boost the economy comes on top of a separate program in which the Fed was buying $45 billion of longer-term Treasury securities per month with proceeds from sales of a like amount of shorter-term debt.

The latter plan, known as Operation Twist, is set to expire at the end of this month, and most analysts expect the central bank to substitute an equal amount of long-term Treasury buying.

However, James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, argued the central bank should not replace its expiring 'Operation Twist' program on a dollar-for-dollar basis. He said purchases that expand the Fed's $2.8 trillion balance sheet would have a bigger effect than Twist, which does not add to the balance sheet.

"If the goal is to keep policy on its present course, the replacement rate should be less than one-for-one," Bullard told the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, suggesting $25 billion as an adequate monthly amount.

THRESHOLDS

Whether to expand the Fed's balance sheet further will be a key topic of debate at Fed policymakers' next meeting on December 11-12. Also under consideration: tweaking Fed communications by adopting numerical thresholds for inflation and joblessness to signal when rates might rise.

Bullard on Monday said he supported the adoption of such thresholds as long as the Fed can address his concerns, especially his worry that the Fed is seen as trying to target unemployment. That approach was badly discredited in the 1970s, he said, when rates were kept low to boost jobs and inflation skyrocketed.

Bullard had previously sounded more skeptical on thresholds, saying they could rob the central bank of flexibility.

But the idea has recently gained traction, with Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen voicing strong support for the idea, first advocated by Chicago Fed President Charles Evans a year ago.

Evans wants the Fed to keep rates low until unemployment drops to at least 6.5 percent, as long as inflation does not threaten to rise above 2.5 percent. Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota and Boston Fed's Rosengren have also pitched specific proposals.

GROWTH

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter but is expected to have slowed in the final months of the year. Unemployment remains elevated at 7.9 percent.

Bullard said he expects the expansion to pick up steam in 2013, allowing gross domestic product to rise about 3.5 percent. But he added that estimate was predicated on a successful resolution of a year-end budget crunch, still a big "if".

William Dudley, head of the New York Fed, argued the Fed's mortgage-backed securities purchases have provided much-needed support to the economy, even if their benefits in easing financial conditions have not been fully passed through from financial institutions down to customers.

"Our policy has been and continues to be effective - though it is certainly not all-powerful in current circumstances," he said at a conference on mortgage finance at the New York Fed, at which his Boston Fed counterpart Rosengren was the keynote speaker.

The conference was aimed at exploring some of the blockages in the transmission of Fed policy to American consumers, Dudley said.

"We are focusing on ... the significant widening of the spread between yields on mortgage-backed securities and primary mortgage rates," he said.

In response to the financial crisis and deep recession of 2007-2009, the Fed had already slashed official rates to zero and bought some $2.3 trillion in government and mortgage-backed bonds prior to the launch of its latest stimulus.

(Writing by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Syrian spokesman flees country, diplomat says

CAIRO/BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, who was the most public face of Bashar al-Assad's government as it battled a 20-month-old uprising, has fled the country, a diplomat in the region said on Monday.

Jihad al-Makdissi, who is in his 40s, previously worked at the Syrian embassy in London and returned to Damascus a year ago to serve as spokesman for the ministry, defending the government's crackdown on the revolt against Assad's rule.

He had little influence in a system largely run by the security apparatus and the military. But Assad's opponents will see the loss of such a high profile figure, if confirmed, as further evidence of a system crumbling from within.

Rebel forces have made advances in recent weeks, seizing military bases including some close to the capital Damascus. Amid talk that troops had moved chemical weapons, U.S. President Barack Obama again warned Assad against using them.

Makdissi belongs to Syria's Christian minority, which has largely stood behind Assad. He worked with the foreign ministry for 10 years and speaks fluent English, a rarity in a state apparatus shaped by the Baath Party's anti-Western ideology.

"He defected. All I can say is that he is out of Syria," the diplomatic source, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

Lebanon's al-Manar Television, citing government sources, said Makdissi was sacked for making statements that did not reflect the government's position.

He was rarely seen in the media in recent weeks. His mobile telephone was switched off and there was no immediate comment in Syrian state media. The pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya said Makdissi had left Beirut and was on his way to London, where he was expected to remain.

"We're aware of reports that he has defected and may be coming to the UK. We're seeking clarification," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Rebels have begun to advance more quickly after months of slow sieges to cut off army routes and supplies. In the past few weeks, they seized several military bases, and are now using anti-aircraft weapons to attack the military helicopters and fighter jets that had bombarded their positions with impunity.

Media reports citing European and U.S. officials said Syria's chemical weapons had been moved and could be prepared for use in response - long a fear raised by the opposition.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. concerns about Syria's intentions regarding the use of chemical weapons were increasing, prompting Washington to make contingency plans.

Syria said it would not use chemical weapons against its own people: "Syria has stressed repeatedly that it will not use these types of weapons, if they were available, under any circumstances against its people," the foreign ministry said.

Obama, who has steered clear of repeating in Syria the kind of military engagements Washington has seen in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, later repeated a warning to Assad - vaguely worded - against using chemical weapons to keep himself in power:

"The world is watching," Obama said. "The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable and if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable."

DAMASCUS BATTLES

The army appears to have focused most of its energy on Damascus, where rebels have been planning to push into the capital from the surrounding suburbs.

The military has been trying to seal off the city, using heavy bombardment and air raids to try to drive rebels back. Over 56 people were killed around Damascus alone on Sunday, with 200 dead across the country.

Damascus itself has not been free of unrest. Rebel-held southern districts have been bombarded heavily, activists say. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce clashes around the Tishreen military hospital in the northern Barzeh district and a car bomb in the southern area of Tadamon.

Neither side appears to have the upper hand in the fighting around Damascus. A previous attempt by rebels last July to hold ground in the city was crushed, but the fighters fell back into the suburbs and nearby countryside.

Clashes and tensions also remain high around Damascus International Airport and along the airport highway, which has become an on-and-off battleground that forced foreign airlines to suspend flights to Damascus since Thursday evening.

EgyptAir, which tried to resume flights on Monday, had to call back a plane headed to Damascus due to the "bad security situation" around the airport, an airline official said.

The conflict has grown increasingly bloody in recent months, as rebels began to contest Assad's power around the capital as well as in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. More than 40,000 people have died in the conflict, with hundreds more killed each week.

The United Nations said on Monday it was withdrawing "all non-essential international staff" from Syria because of deteriorating security, and was restricting remaining staff to Damascus. It said more armored vehicles were needed following attacks on humanitarian aid convoys sometimes caught in the crossfire.

A European Union official said the EU was pulling international staff from Damascus because of the security situation and its ambassador to Syria had ended his posting.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald; Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Erika Solomon, Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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News Corp shutting down iPad newspaper ‘The Daily’ on December 15th

News Corp’s iPad newspaper “The Daily” is officially dead. Launched in February 2011, The Daily was a “ bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation,” but like so many pioneering ideas, it “could not find a large enough audience quickly enough” to keep the publication going, according to Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman of News Corporation and Chairman and CEO of Fox Group. The Daily will officially cease publishing on December 15th and will see Jesse Angelo, its Editor-in-Chief and Executive Editor of The New York Post move into the role of Publisher for the latter. The Daily was supposed to signal a new era of app-based interactive newspapers, but alas, in a world of Flipboard, Instapaper and social media, finding a new channel to distribute and aggregate news has proven to be challenging, even for corporations with plenty of resources.

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Kellan Lutz, Hugh Jackman Take Bites and Swipes & More Casting News

By Julia Haskins

12/02/2012 at 07:00 PM EST

Kellan Lutz (left) and Hugh Jackman

Christopher Polk/Getty, Han Myung-Gu/WireImage

It's comeback time. Whether seeking revenge or reprising beloved roles, a fresh crop of movies shows that the best characters always come back for more.

Twilight's Kellan Lutz feasts on others as a vampire, but this time, he's utilizing his own body for powers, Zimbio reports.

The actor will star in Tatua as a tattooed assassin whose weapons are extracted from the ink on his body. The process is a strain on the hit man, but he must put that aside when his son is kidnapped by a dangerous foe.

Hugh Jackman is set to reprise his role as Wolverine in
X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Hollywood Reporter. Ian McKellen (Magneto) and Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier), will also be joining Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult.

Charlize Theron will star in an adaptation of the final installment of a South Korean revenge trilogy, the Hollywood Reporter also says. The original movie revolves around a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 13 years who then sets out to seek her long-awaited revenge. Writer William Monahan says the English-language remake will be "very American – and very unexpected."

The made-for-TV Disney channel movie Life-Size is getting a sequel, Variety reports. Tyra Banks will reprise her role as Eve, the doll who comes to life, and also executive produce the movie. No word yet on whether Lindsay Lohan, who played Eve's owner, will be making a return.

Also coming soon:

Beyoncé won't be slowing down after her Super Bowl performance in February. Just a couple weeks later, she'll introduce her still untitled, feature-length documentary on HBO, Deadline reports. The documentary airs Feb. 16.

Bridesmaids' Rose Byrne will be going through the motions as a newlywed in I Give it a Year, Zimbio reports. As if being newly married wasn't tough enough, the "too perfect" ex Anna Faris will be shaking up an already teetering balance.

Cate Blanchett will be stirring up her wicked ways as the evil stepmother in a live-action adaptation of Disney's Cinderella, also according to Zimbio.

And George Clooney is sticking to his winning formula by joining forces with his Argo team to produce an untitled crime drama, Variety reports.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

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Cliff fight may knock out December rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In normal times, next week's slew of U.S. economic data could be a springboard for a December rally in the stock market.

December is historically a strong month for markets. The S&P 500 has risen 16 times in the past 20 years during the month.

But the market hasn't been operating under normal circumstances since November 7 when a day after the U.S. election, investors' focus shifted squarely to the looming "fiscal cliff."

Investors are increasingly nervous about the ability of lawmakers to undo the $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January; those changes, if they go into effect, could send the U.S. economy into a recession.

A string of economic indicators next week, which includes a key reading of the manufacturing sector on Monday, culminates with the November jobs report on Friday.

But the impact of those economic reports could be muted. Distortions in the data caused by Superstorm Sandy are discounted.

The spotlight will be more firmly on signs from Washington that politicians can settle their differences on how to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"We have a week with a lot of economic data, and obviously most of the economic data is going to reflect the effects of Sandy, and that might be a little bit negative for the market next week, but most of that is already expected - the main focus remains the fiscal cliff," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

Concerns about the cliff sent the S&P 500 <.spx> into a two-week decline after the elections, dropping as much as 5.3 percent, only to rally back nearly 4 percent as the initial tone of talks offered hope that a compromise could be reached and investors snapped up stocks that were viewed as undervalued.

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 gained more than 20 points from its intraday low after House Speaker John Boehner said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avoid big spending cuts and tax hikes could be worked out. The next day, more pessimistic comments from Boehner, an Ohio Republican, briefly wiped out the day's gains in stocks.

On Friday, the sharp divide between the Democrats and the Republicans on taxes and spending was evident in comments from President Barack Obama, who favors raising taxes on the wealthy, and Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, who said Obama's plan was the wrong approach and declared that the talks had reached a stalemate.

"It's unusual to end up with one variable in this industry, it's unusual to have a single bullet that is the causal factor effect, and you are sitting here for the next maybe two weeks or more, on that kind of condition," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago.

"And that is what is grabbing the markets."

BE CONTRARY AND MAKE MERRY

But investor attitudes and seasonality could also help spur a rally for the final month of the year.

The most recent survey by the American Association of Individual Investors reflected investor caution about the cliff. Although bullish sentiment rose above 40 percent for the first time since August 23, bearish sentiment remained above its historical average of 30.5 percent for the 14th straight week.

December is a critical month for retailers such as Target Corp and Macy's Inc . They saw monthly retail sales results dented by Sandy, although the start of the holiday shopping season fared better.

With consumer spending making up roughly 70 percent of the U.S. economy, a solid showing for retailers during the holiday season could help fuel any gains.

Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, believes the recent drop after the election could be a market bottom, with sentiment leaving stocks poised for a December rally.

"The concerns on the fiscal cliff - as valid as they might be - could be overblown. When you look at a lot of the overriding sentiment, that has gotten extremely negative," said Detrick.

"From that contrarian point of view with the historically bullish time frame of December, we once again could be setting ourselves up for a pretty nice end-of-year rally, based on lowered expectations."

SOME FEEL THE BIG CHILL

Others view the fiscal cliff as such an unusual event that any historical comparisons should be thrown out the window, with a rally unlikely because of a lack of confidence in Washington to reach an agreement and the economic hit caused by Sandy.

"History doesn't matter. You're dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances that could very well end up in the U.S. economy going into a recession," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York.

"And the likelihood of that is exclusively in the hands of our elected officials in Washington. They could absolutely drag us into a completely voluntary recession."

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: charles.mikolajczak(at)thomsonreuters.com )

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Egypt's top court shuts down, blames Islamist protesters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protests by Islamists allied to President Mohamed Mursi forced Egypt's highest court to adjourn its work indefinitely on Sunday, intensifying a conflict between some of the country's top judges and the head of state.

The Supreme Constitutional Court said it would not convene until its judges could operate without "psychological and material pressure", saying protesters had stopped the judges from reaching the building.

Several hundred Mursi supporters had protested outside the court through the night ahead of a session expected to examine the legality of parliament's upper house and the assembly that drafted a new constitution, both of them Islamist-controlled.

The cases have cast a legal shadow over Mursi's efforts to chart a way out of a crisis ignited by a November 22 decree that temporarily expanded his powers and led to nationwide protests against him and his Muslim Brotherhood group.

The court's decision to suspend its activities appeared unlikely to have any immediate impact on Mursi's drive to get the new constitution passed in a national referendum on December 15.

Judges supervise voting in Egypt, and Mursi will need them to oversee the referendum.

But in a blow to the president, an influential body representing judges decided on Sunday not to oversee the vote, the state news agency reported. The Judges' Club's decisions are not binding on members, however.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said on Sunday he was confident the judges would perform that role, despite calls by Mursi's critics in the judiciary for a boycott.

Three people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests and counter-demonstrations over Mursi's decree.

At least 200,000 of Mursi's supporters attended a rally at Cairo University on Saturday. His opponents are staging an open-ended sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cradle of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The National Salvation Front, an alliance of liberal, leftist and socialist opposition groups, called for protests in Tahrir Square on Tuesday against Mursi holding the referendum on what it branded an "illegitimate constitution".

Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled him to power in a June election, hope to end the crisis by pushing through the new constitution hastily adopted by the drafting assembly on Friday. The next day the assembly handed the text to Mursi, who called the referendum and urged Egyptians to vote.

"The Muslim Brotherhood is determined to go ahead with its own plans regardless of everybody else. There is no compromise on the horizon," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

DEEP SUSPICION

Outside the Supreme Constitutional Court, Muslim Brotherhood supporters rallied behind the referendum date. "Yes to the constitution," said a banner held aloft by one protester. Chants demanded the "purging of the judiciary".

The interior minister told the head of the court that the building was accessible and that the protests were peaceful, according a statement from the ministry.

The protest reflected the deep suspicion harbored by Egypt's Islamists towards a court they see as a vestige of the Mubarak era. The same court ruled in June to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood-led lower house of parliament.

Since then, several legal cases have challenged the legitimacy of the upper house of parliament and the 100-member constituent assembly that wrote the constitution.

Those against the upper house have focused on the legality of the law by which it was elected, while the constitutional assembly has faced a raft of court cases alleging that the way it was picked was illegal.

Mursi believes securing approval for the new constitution in a popular referendum will bury all arguments on the legality of the constituent assembly, as well as controversy over the text it worked through the night to finish on Friday.

It will also override the November 22 decree that drew concern from Western governments and a rebellion by sections of the judiciary. The decree shielded Mursi from judicial oversight.

While the Islamists' critics, including representatives of the Christian minority, have accused the Brotherhood of trying to hijack the constitution, investors appear to have seen Mursi's moves as a harbinger of stability. They were also relieved that Saturday's mass Islamist protest went off calmly.

The main stock market index, which lost a tenth of its value in response to Mursi's November 22 decree, rallied more than 2 percent when the market opened on Sunday.

"The events that took place through the weekend, from the approval of the final draft of the constitution and the president calling a referendum, gave some confidence to investors that political stability is on track," said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage.

OPPOSITION INFURIATED

But opposition parties have been infuriated by what they see as the Brotherhood's attempt to ram through a constitution that does not enjoy national consensus. Mursi's opponents warn of deeper polarization ahead.

Liberal figures, including former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, pulled out of the constituent assembly last month, as did Christian representatives.

The draft constitution contains Islamist-flavored language which opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism. It forbids blasphemy and "insults to any person", does not explicitly uphold women's rights and demands respect for "religion, traditions and family values".

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the draft constitution protected some rights while undermining others.

The text limits presidents to two four-year terms, requires parliamentary approval for their choice of prime minister, and introduces some civilian oversight of the military - although not enough for critics. Mubarak ruled for three decades.

Mursi described it as a constitution that fulfilled the goals of the revolution that ended Mubarak's rule. "Let everyone -- those who agree and those who disagree -- go to the referendum to have their say," he said.

The Islamists are gambling that they will be able to secure a "Yes" vote by mobilizing their core support base.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Roger Atwood)

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Euro zone crisis drags down European ad spending: report

LONDON (Reuters) – The euro zone crisis has left Western Europe the only world region to see a fall in advertising spending this year, market research group ZenithOptimedia said.

The forecasting group said advertising expenditure in Western Europe fell 2.2 percent to $ 106.8 billion this year compared with an average increase of 3.3 percent worldwide.

North American ad spending rose 4.1 percent to $ 171.9 billion and Asia’s expenditure was up 6.1 percent to $ 140.1 billion this year.

“Developing markets, social media and online video are all growing rapidly, supporting continued expansion in global ad expenditure despite stagnation in the eurozone,” said Steve King, global chief executive of ZenithOptimedia Group.

The company, part of advertising agency Publicis, also said European ad spending would be flat next year before growing by about 2 percent in 2014 and 2015.

This leaves Europe lagging faster-growing regions such North America, which will grow by 3.5 percent next year, as well as Asia (5.5 percent) and Latin America (10 percent).

“The euro zone crisis is dragging down economic growth at the moment,” ZenithOptimedia said on Monday.

“Because the eurozone is in recession, its imports from other countries are slowing down or shrinking, and the risk of eurozone collapse adds to global uncertainty, leading companies to hoard cash instead of investing in growth,” the firm said in an emailed statement.

Ad spending generally tracks economic growth, so recessions tend to hit the shares of advertising agencies, including market leaders WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Group and Publicis.

ZenithOptimedia said global ad expenditure would rise 4.1 percent next year to reach $ 518 billion, driven largely by faster growth in the developing markets.

(Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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