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.
Apple v Google: US judge dismisses patent lawsuit
A US judge has dismissed Apple's case in which it alleged that Google's Motorola unit was seeking excessive royalty payments for patents.
Motorola has sought 2.25% of the price of Apple products that use some of its patents, which Apple said was too high.
Last week, Motorola asked the court to set a price but Apple said it would not pay more than $1 (£0.60) per device.
Firms that own industry-essential patents are expected to offer them under fair licensing terms.
Motorola said it was still open to negotiations with Apple and was interested in reaching an agreement.
"Motorola has long offered licensing to our extensive patent portfolio at a reasonable and non-discriminatory rate in line with industry standards," the firm said in its statement.
Obama, Romney focus on swing states in late campaigning
President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney made their final urgent pleas to voters on Monday in a closing sprint through vital battleground states that will determine who wins their agonizingly close race for the White House.
Both candidates sought to whip up a strong turnout from their supporters and to sway independent voters to their side in the last hours of a race that polls showed was deadlocked nationally. Obama had a slight lead in the eight or nine battleground states that will tell the tale on Election Day on Tuesday.
The Democratic incumbent, appearing in Madison, Wisconsin, drew a large crowd that was warmed up by Bruce Springsteen.
"Wisconsin, tomorrow you have a choice to make," he said. "It is a choice between two different visions for America."
On the defensive throughout the year for presiding over persistently high unemployment, Obama said the choice was between the Republicans' "top-down policies that crashed our economy" and his own approach to moving the country forward.
Romney was in Lynchburg, Virginia, telling voters: "One final push is going to get us there.
"We're only one day away from a fresh start, one day away from the start of a new beginning," he said.
Obama was making stops in three swing states and Romney was hitting four. Their goal was to piece together the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory in the state-by-state battle for the presidency.
All eyes were on the Midwestern state of Ohio, whose 18 electoral votes could be decisive. After voting early in his home state of Massachusetts, Romney was considering a last-second visit to Ohio on Tuesday to try to drive turnout, aides said.
AD BARRAGE
The election's outcome will impact a variety of domestic and foreign policy issues, from the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that could kick in at the end of the year to questions about how to handle illegal immigration or Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The balance of power in Congress also will be at stake on Tuesday, with Obama's Democrats now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority and Romney's Republicans favored to retain control of the House of Representatives.
In a race where the two candidates and their party allies raised a combined $2 billion, the most in U.S. history, both sides have pounded the heavily contested battleground states with an unprecedented barrage of ads.
The close margins in state and national polls suggested the possibility of a cliffhanger that could be decided by which side has the best turnout operation and gets its voters to the polls.
In the final days, both Obama and Romney focused on firing up core supporters and wooing the last few undecided voters in battleground states.
Romney reached out to dissatisfied Obama supporters from 2008, calling himself the candidate of change and ridiculing Obama's failure to live up to his campaign promises. "He promised to do so very much but frankly he fell so very short," Romney said at a rally in Cleveland on Sunday.
Obama, citing improving economic reports on the pace of hiring, argued in the final stretch that he has made progress in turning around the economy but needed a second White House term to finish the job. "This is a choice between two different versions of America," Obama said in Cincinnati.
FINAL SWING-STATE BLITZES
Obama will close his campaign on Monday with a final blitz across Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa - three Midwestern states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would be enough to get him more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.
Polls show Obama has slim advantages in all three. His final stop on Monday night will be in Iowa, the state that propelled him to the White House in 2008 with a victory in its first-in-the nation caucus.
Romney will visit his must-win states of Florida and Virginia - where polls show he is slightly ahead or tied - along with Ohio before concluding in New Hampshire, where he officially started his presidential run last year.
The only state scheduled to get a visit on Monday from both candidates is Ohio, the most critical of the remaining battlegrounds - particularly for Romney. He has few paths to victory if he cannot win in Ohio, where Obama has kept a small but steady lead in polls for months.
One in every eight jobs in Ohio is tied to car manufacturing and Obama has been buoyed in the state by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry. Ohio also has a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9 percent national rate.
That has undercut Romney's frequent criticism of Obama's economic leadership, which has focused on the persistently high jobless rate and what Romney calls Obama's big-spending efforts to expand government power.
Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, has centered his campaign pitch on his own experience as a business leader at a private equity fund and said it made him uniquely suited to create jobs.
Obama's campaign fired back with ads criticizing Romney's experience and portraying the multimillionaire as out of touch with everyday Americans.
Obama and allies said Romney's firm, Bain Capital, plundered companies and eliminated jobs to maximize profits. They also made an issue of Romney's refusal to release more than two years of personal tax returns.
China-bashing ad takes voters for a ride
Candidates clash over whether automakers sent jobs overseas
In the final days of a close US presidential race, both candidates have been battling intensively in swing states, particularly Ohio. And one of the key issues they have been debating is whether automakers General Motors and Chrysler have shipped jobs to China.
Republican Mitt Romney's campaign, seizing on a recent news report that Chrysler is planning to open a Jeep plant in China, launched TV and radio ads in Ohio and Michigan to attack President Barack Obama.
"Barack Obama says he saved the auto industry. But for who? Ohio, or China? Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs. But they are planning to double the number of cars built in China, which means 15,000 more jobs for China," the radio ad says.
"And now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making jeeps in, you guessed it, China. What happened to the promise made to autoworkers in Toledo and throughout Ohio, the same hardworking men and women who were told that Obama's auto bailout would help them?" says the adThe TV commercial sends the same message, accusing Obama of selling Chrysler to Italian firm Fiat, which is going to build jeeps in China.
Campaigning in Ohio, Wisconsin and Virginia on Nov 3, Obama accused Romney of being "dishonest" in the ads.
"It's not true. Everybody knows it's not true," Obama told a cheering crowd in Mentor, Ohio. He then said the car companies themselves told former governor Romney to knock it off.
Obama has repeatedly rebuked Romney over that ad in the past days. At a rally on Nov 2 in Hilliard, a suburb in Columbus, Ohio, Obama accused Romney of frightening voters.
"This isn't a game. These are people's jobs. These are people's lives. And you don't scare hardworking Americans just to scare up some votes. That's not what being president is all about," Obama said.
In a counterattack, the Obama campaign aired TV ads in Ohio and Michigan, saying Romney's ad was false. The ads emphasized that Chrysler Jeep was not cutting jobs, but adding them in Ohio. The ad then reminds voters of Romney's New York Times opinion piece in August 2011 headlined "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt".
Chrysler and Fiat chief executive Sergio Marchionne said repeatedly in the last week that Chrysler is not moving any US Jeep production to China. On the contrary, it is planning to add Jeep jobs in the United States. And its production in China is only intended for sale in the Chinese market.
GM, meanwhile, also defended itself from Romney's attack.
"We've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the US and repatriating profits back to this country," GM spokesman Greg Martin was quoted as saying by the Detroit Free Press.
The Obama campaign has often touted the $85 billion auto bailout, made mostly after 2009, as a success, stressing that Obama is willing to make tough, albeit unpopular, decisions to save US jobs.
C.D
Zimbabwe to establish special election courts
Zimbabwe will establish special courts to deal with cases of political violence during the forthcoming elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said Thursday.
Acting chairperson Joyce Kazembe told news agency New Ziana in an interview that special magistrates and electoral courts would be set up to try cases of politically-motivated violence in elections set ostensibly for the first half of 2013.
Warning that punishment on culprits would be severe, she said the special courts would deal with complaints of electoral offences raised by aggrieved political parties.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission would also attend to grievances from disgruntled political parties and candidates, she added.
"There shall be special magistrates' courts and electoral courts set by the Chief Justice to address and deal with election related cases," said Kazembe.
The Code of Conduct for political parties, she said, was clear on what would happen if it was violated.
She said ZEC had held workshops with all 23 political parties in the country to familiarize them with the election Code of Conduct and the Electoral Act so they could avoid violating electoral laws.
Among other things, the political parties are expected to form multi-party liaison committees to deal with conflict resolution in line with the Code of Conduct and the Electoral Act.
The committees will be at national, provincial, district and ward levels.
"We have engaged the organ of National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration, the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee, Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, Zimbabwe Media Commission and Zimbabwe Republic Police.
"They have already set up a small committee that will lay the groundwork on how we can collaborate together to combat any conflict within the society so that it does not degenerate into violence," Kazembe said.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in 2008 withdrew from the presidential election race alleging that his supporters were being subjected to acts of political violence.
President Robert Mugabe has of late been emphasizing on citizens co-existing despite their political affiliations.
Somali PM announces new cabinet
Somalia's Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdoon on Sunday announced much-anticipated 10-member cabinet.
The ministers include two women. One of them, Fowsiya Adan, was named Foreign Minister, first time in the country's history.
Speaking at the joint press conference at the State House in Mogadishu, Shirdoon said that he formed small cabinet with security as a priority.
"Considering the difficult situation our country is in, I have formed a small cabinet of full quality that can lead the country to reliable stability in this difficult time," Prime Minister Shirdon said.
The Minister of defense portfolio went to Abdelhakim Mohamoud Haji Fiqi who held this position in government of former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdulahi Farmajo between 2010 and 2011.
It was the leanest government formed for Somalia thus far since successive interim administrations the country had for the past decade.
The prime minister is expected to present his cabinet and its program to the Somali parliament in next few days when a vote of confidence will be carried out to endorse or reject the new ministerial line-up.
Somalia has been without a central government since former ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre was ousted in 1991.
Damascus bomb kills at least 11
The state television report gave no further details. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog, said at least 11 people had been killed and 30 wounded by a car bomb in the area known as "Mezzeh 86".
The district, situated on a hilltop near the highway to Lebanon, is mostly inhabited by members of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority, a sect of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated power in majority Sunni Muslim Syria since the 1960s.
Seif al-Sham, an Islamist rebel unit, claimed responsibility for the attack, which targeted what it described as a meeting point for the army and police, as well as militia loyal to Assad and known as shabbiha (ghosts).
"The operation was in response to the savage actions of the regime," a statement by the group said.
Elsewhere on Monday, a suicide bomber killed at least 50 members of the Syrian security forces and Assad loyalists in an attack in the Hama province, the Observatory said, and at least 20 rebel fighters were killed in an air strike in Idlib province, near the northwestern border with Turkey.