India and Canada finalise conditions of nuclear deal
India and Canada have finalised the terms for their nuclear deal, paving the way for Canadian firms to export uranium to India.
Once implemented, the deal is likely to provide a boost to India's plans to increase its nuclear capacity to meet growing energy demands.
The deal was agreed in 2010, but there had been differences over supervision of the use of uranium in India.
Canada has banned the trade of nuclear materials with India since 1976.
"Canada with its large and high quality reserves of uranium could become an important supplier to the Indian nuclear power programme," India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper said in a joint statement.
'Important economic opportunity'
India's economy has seen rapid expansion in recent years resulting in a surge in demand for energy in the country.
In a bid to meet its growing energy needs, India has been looking to increase its dependence on nuclear energy.
It is planning to set up some 30 reactors over as many years and get a quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy by 2050.
As a result it has been looking to secure supplies of uranium to achieve that target.
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that being able to be a part of India's nuclear power plans was "a really important economic opportunity for an important Canadian industry... that should pay dividends in terms of jobs and growth for Canadians down the road".
Earlier this month, India agreed to begin negotiations on a civil nuclear co-operation agreement with Australia, which holds an estimated 40% of the world's uranium.
Last year, it agreed a deal that will allow South Korea to export its nuclear energy technology to India.
British officials planning talks with Syrian armed groups
Downing Street says Britain is to begin talks with armed Syrian rebels in a bid to unite the opposition to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The announcement came as David Cameron arrived in Jordan on the latest stage of his visit to the Middle East.
Mr Cameron will discuss the fighting in Syria with the King of Jordan and meet refugees from the conflict.
Downing Street said the talks between UK officials and Syrian rebels would take place in Jordan and Turkey.
A spokesman said Britain would not be arming the Syrian rebels, or giving them access to military advisers.
The UK is also to increase its humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees to more than £50m, making it the second largest donor after the United States.
Safe passage
The conflict has been high on the agenda in Mr Cameron's talks with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during his three-day trip to the GulfHe said on Tuesday that he was prepared to see President Assad allowed safe passage out of Syria if that would help ensure a peaceful power shift.
But Mr Cameron insisted that he would "favour him facing the full force of international law and justice for what he's done."
Number 10 said the talks with Syrian rebels would help the UK "better understand the actual situation and the relationship between political and armed opposition groups."
A spokesman said: "The government will make absolutely clear to these groups that they must respect human rights and humanitarian law standards.
"We will also call on them to work with aid agencies to facilitate vital humanitarian access."
More than 30,000 people have been killed in the violence in Syria which began last year.
Defence partnership
An estimated 2.5m people in the country need humanitarian assistance, and the number of refugees in the surrounding region is predicted to almost double to 710,000 by the end of December.
It is thought that Mr Cameron is the first leader of a G20 country to visit Syrian refugees in Jordan and see for himself the conditions they face.
On Tuesday Britain and the United Arab Emirates announced a joint defence partnership, following Mr Cameron's two-day visit to the country.
Downing Street said the deal would involve "close collaboration" on the Typhoon jet - although the UAE has not agreed to buy the fighter.
Britain is looking to sell Typhoon jets to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, despite allegations of human rights abuses.
It is Mr Cameron's second visit to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as prime minister.
Wreck-It Ralph scores big at North American box office
Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph has scored an impressive weekend at the US box office with $49.1m (£30.7m) in ticket sales.
The movie, about a video game villain who tries to become a hero, earned almost twice as much as the number two movie, Denzel Washington's Flight.
Ben Affleck's Argo, based on the true story of a 1979 hostage crisis in Iran, came third with $10.2m (£6.4m).
Cinema attendance was up this week in areas hit by superstorm Sandy.
Dave Hollis at Walt Disney Studios said audiences in areas affected by the storm were "very healthy" and had been boosted by school closures on Friday.
"In a nice way, Wreck-It Ralph ended up actually becoming an opportunity to relieve yourself from the reality that might be going on around you," he told the Reuters news agency.
"I don't know if it was a function of cabin fever or just escaping by getting into a movie theatre, but there was definitely a gravitating towards the theatre phenomenon.Last week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named Wreck-It Ralph as one of 21 features eligible for next year's best animated film Oscar.
Others include Brave, which has so far earned $235.8m (£147.5m) after 20 weeks on release, and Frankenweenie, which has brought in $33.3m (£20.8m) in North American ticket sales.
The Man with the Iron Fists, starring Russell Crowe, brought in $8.2m (£5.1m) to take the number four spot in this week's Top 10.
Liam Neeson's action film Taken 2 came fifth, while Cloud Atlas, in which Tom Hanks and Halle Berry play six different roles across 500 years, was ranked sixth.
Rounding off the Top 10 was Silent Hill: Revelation, the latest in the horror film franchise, which earned $3.3m (£2.1m) in ticket sales the weekend after Halloween.
Skyfall enjoyed another successful second weekend internationally, earning $156m (£97.6m) in overseas ticket sales.
The new James Bond film, starring Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem, will be released in the US and Canada on 9 November.
NORTH AMERICAN TOP FIVE
1. Wreck-It Ralph - $49.1m (£30.7m)
2. Flight - $25m (£15.6m)
3. Argo - $10.2m (£6.3m)
4. The Man with the Iron Fists - $8.2m (£5.1m)
5. Taken 2 - $6m (£3.7m)
Source: Hollywood.com
Jay-Z, Opening for Obama, Puts Romney in Lyrics
Jay-Z has a fix for his lyrics that meets parental guidance requirements — and President Barack Obama’s approval.
The rapper and producer performed his hit “99 Problems” as he and Bruce Springsteen opened for an Obama rally in Columbus, Ohio. He changed a key word that rhymes with “witch” to make his own political endorsement. He sang: “I got 99 problems but Mitt ain’t one.”Springsteen performed first, as he did earlier Monday in Madison, Wis.
Jay-Z said Obama asked him if he would join him and Springsteen at a rally.
He says he replied: “Michelle is coming?” The first lady won’t join her husband until later Monday in Des Moines, Iowa.
Obama assured the crowd that both performers are on his iPod.
Source-TIME
Backstreet Boys release new Christmas song: Listen here (and get filled with joy)
Christmas has come early for your inner 13-year-old!
In anticipation of the holidays, the Backstreet Boys have released a new Christmas song, and, if you’re anything like yours truly, the tune will fill you with the cheer that you and Nordstroms normally reserve until after Thanksgiving. But once you listen to the infectiously sweet track, titled “It’s Christmas Time Again,” we think you’ll have no complaints about a little premature Christmasfication.
Penned in part by BSBers Nick Carter and Howie Dorough, the tune — which is the band’s first new release since becoming whole again — follows every rule of Backstreet pop song-making. There’s a catchy tune, a little boy band hook (la-ta, la-ta, da-da, ta), a five-part harmony (as it should be), and lyrics in which they never call us fat.
Rihanna tweets 'Unapologetic' tracklist, including Chris Brown duet
As if it wasn’t already stormy enough out there, Rihanna looks ready to make things even more Breezy.
After finishing up work in the studio for new upcoming Unapologetic, RiRi used old-school social media — ink on a bar napkin — to write out the Nov. 16 album’s tracklist scrawled, and then sent out an image to her Twitter followers.
The songs that made the cut look more or less how you might expect them to — titles like “No Love Allowed” and “Love Without Tragedy.” But it’s the duets that are making people talk that talk — particularly one with Chris Brown. We don’t yet know what the song’s about, of course, but it’s titled “Nobodies Business,” which could be a misspelling of “Nobody’s Business” — as in butt out of their rumored rekindled relationship. Or perhaps it’s a play on the phrase, and the song’s about an industry — the media, maybe? — that they think is full of nobodies.
Elsewhere on the album is a cred-boosting collab with rising rapper Future and a sure-to-be buzzy song with Eminem titled “Numb.”
Check out the full playlist (as per Rihanna’s bar napkin, at least) below and let us know what you think it the comments:
1. ”Fresh Out The Runway”
2. ”Diamonds”
3. ”Numb” (featuring Eminem)
4. ”Pour It Up”
5. ”Loveeeeeee Song” (featuring Future)
6. “Jump”
7. ”Right Now”
8. ”What Now”
9. ”Stay” (featuring Mikky Ekko)
10. ”Nobodies Business” (featuring Chris Brown)
11. ”Love Without Tragedy / Mother Mary”
12. ”Get It Over With”
13. ”No Love Allowed”
14. ”Lost In Paradise”
15. “Half of Me” (Bonus track)
TLC plan first album for 10 years
The surviving members of US R&B group TLC have confirmed plans for a new album, a decade after the death of bandmate Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes.
Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas and Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins will also go on tour and are making a TV biopic of their lives.
Speaking at the Mobo Awards in Liverpool, T-Boz said the duo are due to start work on new material soon.
"We're going to still sound like TLC, evolving to whatever level we need to be at this time," she said.The group were one of the biggest-selling and most influential acts of the 90s in the US, with hits including Waterfalls, Creep and No Scrubs.
After Lopes died in a car crash in Honduras in 2002, the remaining pair completed the group's fourth album 3D but have since only released occasional new songs.
Asked how they would fit into the modern pop scene, T-Boz said: "We've always grown throughout the years and have always had our own sound. That's what works for us and we don't have to worry about anybody else.
"When that stops working, maybe we'll hang up the towel, but that still works. We have to get into the studio and start feeling how we feel. You have to find yourself first and then you find the path and then you have an album before you know it."
There has been speculation that Lopes could be incorporated into the accompanying tour in the form of a hologram.
T-Boz and Chilli are also executive producers of the VH1 biopic and are about to cast actresses to play themselves.
Asia drives BMW to record third quarter profit rise
Booming sales in Asia have helped German car firm BMW shrug off the gloom in Europe to report a record third quarter pre-tax profit.
The world's largest luxury carmaker saw sales in China and Japan rise by 33% and 21.5% respectively in the nine months to the end of September.
This drove a 17.6% rise in pre-tax profit to 2bn euros (£1.6bn; $2.5bn) for the period between July and September.
In Europe, sales rose 2.6%.
"We expect further sales volume growth for the fourth quarter, even though it is clear that we—and indeed the sector as a whole—are likely to be confronted with adverse business conditions," said BMW chief executive Norbert Reithofer.
Overall BMW sales, including its Rolls Royce and Mini brands, were up 9% to 434,963 for the three months to the end of September.
BMW said it remained confident of meeting its full-year targets and anticipates new pre-tax profit and sales records.
"Like the rest of the sector, we are now beginning to feel some headwind," cautioned Mr Reithofer.
Mr Reithofer said BMW's forecasts were based on the assumption that worldwide economic conditions did not deteriorate sharply.
US election: Tight race for Obama and Romney
Tens of millions of Americans are voting to decide whether to re-elect Democratic President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney.
Polls are to start closing in eastern states at 18:00 EST (23:00 GMT) and a winner could become clear within hours.
Turnout is crucial, with polls suggesting a neck-and-neck race, but giving the president a slender lead in crucial swing states.
Mr Romney has continued campaigning, with a trip to the swing state of Ohio.
The importance of the Midwestern state for both campaigns was underlined by Vice-President Joe Biden whose plane also arrived in Cleveland, on an unannounced stop.
New Hampshire tie
After a hard-fought race that began nearly two years ago and cost more than $2bn (£1.3bn), national polls by Washington Post/ABC News and the Pew Research Center both give Mr Obama a three-point edge over his rival.
More than 30 million voters had already cast their ballots before Tuesday's polls opened, with more than 30 states allowing either absentee voting or early voting in person. That is nearly a quarter of the total votes cast in the 2008 presidential election, when more than 130 million people voted.
On the stroke of midnight, the first election day votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Mr Obama and Mr Romney.
In areas of New Jersey and New York that were damaged by storm Sandy a week ago, turnout was described as heavy. One high school being used as a shelter for displaced families doubled up as a voting centre. Mr Obama was the first of the two rivals to cast their ballot by voting last month in his adopted home city of Chicago, and becoming the first sitting president to vote before election day.
Mr Romney and his wife Ann voted in Belmont, Massachusetts, shortly before 09:00 local time. He told reporters he felt "very good".
Their running mates also voted early on Tuesday. The vice-president queued with his wife, Jill, outside a polling station in Greenville, Delaware, and urged voters to "stand in line as long as you have to".
Republican Paul Ryan cast his vote with his wife, Janna, at a public library in Janesville, Wisconsin.
The election is decided by the electoral collegeEach state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes - by prevailing in the mostly winner-take-all state contests - becomes president.
Also on Tuesday's ballot are 11 state governorships, a third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats are tipped to do the same in the Senate.
The presidential candidates spent Monday criss-crossing the crucial battleground states including Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Virginia, making final appeals to voters. They aimed to encourage their own supporters to go to the polls while also persuading the small sliver of undecided voters to back them. In speeches, Mr Romney kept up his attack on Mr Obama's record, reciting a litany of statistics that he says illustrate the president has failed to lift the US economy out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929.
"If you believe we can do better, if you believe America should be on a better course, if you're tired of being tired... then I ask you to vote for real change," Mr Romney told a rally in a Virginia suburb of Washington DC.
The president appeared at rallies with singer Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z. He acknowledged frustration with the still-lagging economy but told voters "our work is not done yet".
"We've come too far to turn back now," the president said in Ohio. "We've come too far to let our hearts grow faint... We'll finish what we started. We'll renew those ties that bind us together and reaffirm the spirit that makes the United States of America the greatest nation on Earth." With voter turnout seen as vital for both candidates, campaigning continued on Tuesday. Both men gave radio interviews, and Mr Romney hit the campaign trail again as he headed for an event in Cleveland, Ohio. He was also due to visit Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before holding an election night rally in Boston.
Mr Obama, who will hold an election night rally at a convention centre in Chicago, visited a campaign office in the city to talk to volunteers.
With observers anticipating a close race, both sides have readied teams of lawyers for possible legal fights, especially in the critical battleground state of Ohio.
Some analysts fear the election will not be decided on Tuesday night if the state's vote becomes mired in legal battles.
Source-BBC
France to raise VAT to fund company tax breaks
The French government has said it will raise value added tax and cut public spending in order to fund tax credits for firms that keep jobs in France.
The 20bn-euro (£16bn) plan comes after a government-commissioned report by industrialist Louis Gallois called for big cuts in payroll taxes.
Mr Gallois, the former boss of aerospace group EADS, urged President Francois Hollande's administration to improve competitiveness.
The IMF also called for similar action.
In its annual review of the French economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday that France should ease employment laws to make it easier to both hire and fire workers, as well as cut payroll taxes to encourage employers to hire more staff.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government was adopting nearly all the measures recommended in Mr Gallois' report, which was published on Monday.
Mr Ayrault said "ambitious and courageous decisions" were required, adding: "France needs a new model."
Falling exports
Mr Gallois was asked by President Hollande to investigate what was holding France back, as part of a "competitiveness pact", looking at why the French economy has fallen behind rivals such as Germany and suggesting reforms that could help address the gap.
Mr Gallois suggested laws should be changed to make the creation of start-up businesses easier. But his main proposal was to cut French payroll taxes by 30bn euros (£24bn) in two years.
The government has not gone that far, but it has undertaken to cut public spending by 10bn euros and raise another 10bn by increasing VAT from 19.6% to 20% from 1 January next year.
This will fund tax credits that will be available from next year, French media reports said.
The high tax burden on French firms is frequently cited as one of the main reasons for France's loss of competitiveness in recent years. It now accounts for just 13% of eurozone exports, compared with 17% a year ago, and its unemployment rate stands at 10.2%, as against Germany's 6.9%.
Growth 'overshadowed'
On Monday, the IMF also suggested the French government should make working hours more flexible, limit future rises in the minimum wage and reduce unemployment benefits during economic upturns to provide a greater incentive to look for work.
"[France's] growth outlook is being overshadowed by a significant loss of competitiveness," the IMF said.
Last month, the IMF cut its growth forecasts for Europe's second-largest economy to 0.1% this year and 0.4% in 2013, from 0.3% and 0.8% respectively.