Rugby-England add flyhalf Burns to squad for All Blacks’ test

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) – England called up uncapped Gloucester flyhalf Freddie Burns on Tuesday to their squad for Saturday’s test against New Zealand in place of the injured Toby Flood.

Flood sustained ligament damage to a big toe during the 16-15 loss to South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday.

Owen Farrell, whose last start was in the first test in South Africa this year, is set to replace Flood in the starting XV against the world champions.

Lock Courtney Lawes, who missed England’s first three tests of the November series because of a knee injury, has also been included in the 23-man squad. Two other locks, Mouritz Botha and Tom Palmer, have been omitted.

After beating Fiji in their opening match, England have lost to Australia and the Springboks and now face a daunting match against the All Blacks who are unbeaten in 20 tests since the start of their victorious World Cup campaign last year.

“For those in Saturday’s squad the message is clear – last week we went toe to toe with the second best team in the world and felt we should have won,” England head coach Stuart Lancaster said in a statement.

“Now we have a chance to take on the number one side in front of a passionate Twickenham crowd, who have been fantastic throughout the Internationals, and it is a challenge we will meet head on.” (Reporting by John Mehaffey; Editing by Ken Ferris)

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Privacy groups ask Facebook to withdraw proposed policy changes

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Two privacy advocacy groups urged Facebook Inc on Monday to withdraw proposed changes to its terms of service that would allow the company to share user data with recently acquired photo-application Instagram, eliminate a user voting system and loosen email restrictions within the social network.

The changes, which Facebook unveiled on Wednesday, raise privacy risks for users and violate the company’s previous commitments to its roughly 1 billion members, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy.

“Facebook’s proposed changes implicate the user privacy and terms of a recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission,” the groups said in a letter to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg that was published on their websites on Monday.

By sharing information with Instagram, the letter said, Facebook could combine user profiles, ending its practice of keeping user information on the two services separate.

Facebook declined to comment on the letter.

In April, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

Facebook, Google and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

Facebook unveiled a variety of proposed changes to its terms of service and data use polices on Wednesday, including a move to scrap a 4-year old process that can allow the social network’s roughly 1 billion users to vote on changes to its policies.

If proposed changes generate more than 7,000 public comments during a seven-day period, Facebook’s current terms of service automatically trigger a vote by users to approve the changes. But the vote is only binding if at least 30 percent of users take part, and two prior votes never reached that threshold.

The latest proposed changes had garnered more than 17,000 comments by late Monday.

Facebook also said last week that it wanted to eliminate a setting for users to control who can contact them on the social network’s email system. The company said it planned to replace the “Who can send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.

That change is likely to increase the amount of unwanted “spam” messages that users receive, the privacy groups warned on Monday.

Facebook’s potential information sharing with Instagram, a photo-sharing service for smartphone users that it bought in October, flows from proposed changes that would allow the company to share information between its own service and other businesses or affiliates it owns.

The change could open the door for Facebook to build unified profiles of its users that include people’s personal data from its social network and from Instagram, similar to recent moves by Google Inc.

In January, Google said it would combine users’ personal information from its various Web services – such as search, email and the Google+ social network – to provide a more customized experience. The unified data policy raised concerns among some privacy advocates and regulators, who said it was an invasion of people’s privacy.

“As our company grows, we acquire businesses that become a legal part of our organization,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an emailed statement on Monday.

“Those companies sometimes operate as affiliates. We wanted to clarify that we will share information with our affiliates and vice versa, both to help improve our services and theirs, and to take advantage of storage efficiencies,” Noyes said.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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Nobel winner and organ transplant pioneer Joseph Murray dies at 93

(Reuters) – Dr. Joseph Murray, the surgeon who carried out the first successful kidney transplant and later won a Nobel Prize for his work in medicine and physiology, died on Monday in Boston at the age of 93.

Murray died after suffering a stroke last Thursday, Brigham and Women’s Hospital spokesman Tom Langford said.

Murray and his team completed the first human organ transplant in 1954, taking a kidney from one identical twin and giving it to his twin brother, opening a new field in medicine, the hospital said.

“The world is a better place because of all Dr. Murray has given. His legacy will forever endure in our hearts and in every patient who has received the gift of life through transplantation,” hospital president Dr. Elizabeth Nabel said in a statement.

Later in his career, Murray continued to search for ways of suppressing a patient’s immune response to prevent it from rejecting foreign tissue, eventually becoming a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1990.

“Difficulties are opportunities. This is a quote that sits atop my father’s desk at home. It reflects the unwavering optimism of a great man who was generous, curious, and always humble,” his son Rick said in a statement.

Murray began a career in medicine on graduating from Harvard Medical School in the 1940s, and developed an interest in transplanting tissue while working with service personnel injured in World War Two, according to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

He completed his surgical training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and later returned to join the staff and serve as chief of plastic surgery.

With broad interests beyond medicine, Murray said in a brief autobiography for the Nobel Prize organization that he and his extended family had been “blessed in our lives beyond my wildest dreams.”

“My only wish would be to have 10 more lives to live on this planet. If that were possible, I’d spend one lifetime each in embryology, genetics, physics, astronomy and geology,” he said.

“The other lifetimes would be as a pianist, backwoodsman, tennis player, or writer for the National Geographic.”

More than 600,000 people worldwide have received transplants since Murray’s innovation, the hospital said.

(Additional reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Asian shares, euro rise on Greek debt deal

TOKYO (Reuters) – The euro hit a one-month high and Asian shares climbed for a seventh consecutive day on Tuesday while commodities rose and the dollar eased after a deal on new debt targets for Greece and a political agreement on disbursing the next installment of aid.

After 12 hours of talks at their third meeting in as many weeks, Greece’s international lenders agreed on a package of measures to cut Greek debt to 124 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, and pledged to take further steps to lower the debt below 110 percent of GDP in 2022.

Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said ministers would formally approve the release of crucial aid for debt-stricken Greece, removing uncertainty over whether Athens could avoid a near-term bankruptcy.

Investors’ focus is likely to shift now to another major concern hanging over markets, a looming U.S. fiscal crisis.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> gained 0.6 percent to its highest level in nearly three weeks, led by a 1 percent advance in Korean shares <.KS11> and a 0.6 percent rise in Australian shares <.AXJO>.

“The news of the Greek debt deal, plus U.S. fiscal cliff talks resuming this week, has spurred investor appetite,” Kim Young-joon, an analyst at SK Securities, said of Korean stocks.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress on Monday called on President Barack Obama to detail long-term spending cuts to help solve the country’s fiscal crisis, while holding firm against the income tax rate increases for the wealthy that Democrats seek.

“Now people will start focusing on the U.S. fiscal cliff and there could be some nervousness there, particularly if it drags on,” said Burrell & Co dealer Jamie Elgar of Australian shares.

The euro gained as much as about 0.3 percent to $ 1.3010, its highest level since October 31, in reaction to the Greek news, before paring most gains to be up 0.1 percent at $ 1.2982.

Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan for UBS in Tokyo, cautioned that the euro still faced downside risks as the latest agreement does not offer a fundamental resolution to the euro zone’s debt crisis.

“The euro gained but the rise is small, and it’s unlikely that it will climb further, with big funds winding down their positions ahead of the year-end. Any rise will be countered by selling to cap the euro’s upside,” Maeba said.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average <.N225> edged up 0.4 percent, nearing Monday’s seven-month closing high. The benchmark has climbed more than 8 percent in two weeks as the yen has weakened on expectations of easier monetary policy with the likely election of a new government. <.T>

WEAK USD, CHINA HELP COMMODITIES

The dollar was down 0.1 percent against the yen at 82 yen.

Traders said some investors unwound long positions in the dollar built up in recent weeks on expectations that a new government for Japan, which is likely to be installed after next month’s election, will pressure the central bank to pursue aggressive monetary easing.

The dollar eased 0.2 percent against a basket of key currencies <.DXY>, helping to underpin dollar-based commodities.

U.S. crude futures rose 0.3 percent to $ 88.03 a barrel and Brent was up 0.2 percent to $ 111.12.

Spot gold was up 0.1 percent to $ 1,749.30 an ounce, just below a six-week high of $ 1,754.10 hit on Friday.

London copper inched up 0.1 percent and hit a near one-month high as the Greek debt deal added to confidence over demand for copper after recent positive data from its top consumer China.

Sentiment may be further underpinned by a report saying China has approved construction of two city subway projects worth 49 billion yuan ($ 7.87 billion), adding to the list of recent railway project approvals aimed at boosting growth in the world’s second biggest economy.

In another possible sign of economic recovery, China’s industrial profits in October were up 20.5 percent from a year earlier, accelerating from 7.8 percent growth in September.

Asian credit markets firmed slightly, narrowing the spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by 1 basis point.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo, Joyce Lee in Seoul and Victoria Thieberger in Melbourne; Editing by Edwina Gibbs & Kim Coghill)

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Dog days in Cuba: from shih tzus to schnauzers

HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban capital has played host to political summits and art festivals, ballet tributes and international baseball competitions. Now dog lovers are getting their chance to take center stage.

Hundreds of people from all over Cuba and several other countries came to a scruffy field near Revolution Plaza this past week to preen and fuss over the shih tzus, beagles, schnauzers and cocker spaniels that are the annual Fall Canine Expo’s star attractions. There were even about a dozen bichon habaneros, a mid-sized dog bred on the island since the 17th century.

As dog lovers talked shop, the merely curious strolled the field, checking out the more than 50 breeds on display while carefully dodging the prodigious output of so many dogs.

The four-day competition, which ended Sunday, included competitions in several breeding categories, and judges were flown in from Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico.

“This is a small, poor country, but Cubans love dogs,” said Miguel Calvo, the president of Cuba’s dog federation, which organized the show. “We make a great effort to breed purebred animals of quality.”

Winners don’t receive any trophy or prize money, but that doesn’t mean the competition is any less fierce.

Anabel Perez, owner of a cocker spaniel named Lisamineli after the U.S. actress, spent more than half an hour coifing the dog’s hair in preparation for the competition, while the owner of a shih tzu named Tiguer meticulously brushed his coat nearby.

“I’m a hairdresser for humans,” explained Tiguer’s owner, Miguel Lopez. “So it’s easy for me. I like shih tzus because they are a lot of work to keep well groomed.”

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Nokia imaging chief to quit

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Nokia‘s long-time imaging chief Damian Dinning has decided to leave the loss-making cellphone maker at the end of this month, the company said in a statement.

The strong imaging capabilities of the new Lumia smartphone models are a key sales argument for the former market leader, which has been burning through cash while losing share in both high-end smartphones and cheaper handsets.

Nokia’s Chief Executive Stephen Elop has replaced most of the top management since he joined in late 2010 and Dinnig is the latest of several executives to leave.

Dinning did not want to move to Finland as part of the phonemakers’ effort to concentrate operations and will join Jaguar Land Rover to head innovations in the field of connected cars, he said on Nokia’s imaging fan site PureViewclub.com.

(Reporting By Tarmo Virki, editing by William Hardy)

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“Rise of the Guardians” Barrier-Breaker: The First African-American to Direct a CG Animation Film

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Peter Ramsey didn’t just have the pressure of making his feature directing debut on an $ 145 million tentpole film, he also had to deal with the expectations that came with being a barrier-breaker.

By sliding behind the camera on DreamWorks Animation‘s “Rise of the Guardians” Ramsey made history as the first African-American to helm a major CG animated film.

“Rise of the Guardians,” a sort of “Avengers” for the fairy-tale set, opened Wednesday. It tells the story of a group of mythological heroes like Santa Claus (voiced by Alec Baldwin), Jack Frost (Chris Pine) and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) who team up to prevent the Nightmare King (Jude Law) from plunging children around the world into a state of despair and hopelessness. The film is an adaptation of a popular series of children’s books by William Joyce.

Ramsey talked with TheWrap about the responsibility of being a role model, the need to inject a little darkness into children’s entertainment and the possibility of a “Guardians” sequel.

What does it mean to be the first African American to direct a CG movie on this scale?

I really wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I’m a pioneer” when I first got the project. It wasn’t until my mom and dad saw an article that mentioned that fact – and I saw that my dad had tears in his eyes – that it really snapped back to me and I realized this is kind of a big deal. That’s the way it is any time some hurdle falls away.

I grew up in South-Central L.A. at a time before there was Spike Lee or John Singleton, so there was really no conception that I could make films. It’s super fulfilling that kids growing up like I did can now have it permanently in mind that it’s a possibility for them.

What films inspired your approach to the film?

I always knew that I wanted to make a fun, action-packed, big, epic fantasy movie rather than a quaint little fairy tale. So I thought of “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter,” where there were big ensemble casts. But stylistically I also thought of Michael Powell’s “Black Narcissus.” I really wanted Santa’s world to have the same dreamlike feel with bold, striking visuals.

There are some really dark elements in the film. Were you worried about it becoming too scary?

It’s important that we acknowledge the existence of some darkness in the world. Part of the point of the film is to say that these characters are real because kids believe in them, that kids know fear, too. We didn’t want to present a world that was free of the shadow that the Guardians fight, because they are using imagination to combat fear and hopelessness.

What drew you to the material?

For me, it was just hearing about Bill Joyce’s notion that all these characters are real and knew each other and had a common purpose.

It seemed like it had this epic fantasy, “Lord of the Rings” potential.

And when I started looking at what Bill had done, I was blown away. The mythologies are so wild and ornate. It’s an entirely new universe, and our movie just scratches the surface. We just started to go down the rabbit hole.

I’m beginning to smell “franchise.” Would you want to direct the sequels?

Yeah, I would love to. I’ve fallen in love with the characters. I feel like there’s plenty of fertile ground for more good stories. There’s more opportunities to push it further. I almost wish I could do the first feature again, to do it more justice.

You are self-taught, no? You came into this industry not as a director, but as a storyboard artist, is that correct?

Yeah, I am. It’s the old thing about how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. I’ve been drawing ever since I was 3. But I wanted to be a comic-book artist, and it was not until quite a bit later that I realized I could work in the movie business.

I stumbled into story boarding through a lucky confluence of things. I realized the work I was doing for comics was similar to helping directors visualize a story. I took maybe a couple of film history classes in college, but I couldn’t afford to make films in film school. I needed to get in on the fringes of the industry to get the on the job training I needed to become a director.

Did you have a favorite Guardian?

If I had to say one, it would be North. It was great to give him a real presence, and casting Alec did a lot to help that. It was slightly unexpected, but it feels so right. I would just love to hang out with that guy and it helps that he reminds me of Guillermo del Toro.

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GlaxoSmithKline has no plans to delist Indian arm – executive

MUMBAI (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline Plc has no plans to delist its Indian consumer products arm GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd, David Redfern, chief strategy officer at Britain’s biggest drugmaker, said on Monday.

GSK said earlier it planned to buy up to an additional 31.8 percent stake in the Indian unit for 52.2 billion rupees ($ 939 million).

The company has been expanding into both emerging markets and non-prescription consumer health – and in some cases a combination of the two.

The company, which plans to launch new variants of the flagship Horlicks brand in India, is looking to increase penetration of the product in the north and western regions of the country, Redfern said.

(Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

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The Man With a China Growth Plan

China’s premier-elect, Li Keqiang, ran a province of 93 million people that endured three deadly fire disasters and an HIV blood scandal on his watch. His run of bad luck as Governor of Henan from 1998 to 2004 earned him the nickname Three-Fires Li in the foreign press. Beijing’s Communist officialdom, however, has high hopes for Li, an award-winning economist for his work on urbanization, in his new role as the country’s top economic policymaker.

In March, Li, 57, will inherit an economy forecast to grow at 7 percent in 2013, the slowest pace in at least 23 years, according to investment fund company Pimco. It will take major economic reforms to arrest the slowdown, encourage growth of globally competitive private sector companies, and address a widening income gap. China’s new leadership team, led by incoming Communist Party General Secretary and President-elect Xi Jinping, needs to roll back the dominant state-owned enterprises that receive the majority of loans from government-controlled banks, according to the World Bank’s “China 2030” study, which Li has publicly endorsed. Another task: Allow the markets—not bureaucrats—to determine the prices for everything from bank loans to raw materials.

Although millions have escaped poverty since Deng Xiaoping opened China to foreign investment and put in place limited reforms in 1978, the world’s second biggest economy faces new challenges—namely, what economists call the middle-income trap. That refers to the slower growth developing economies encounter when they fail to implement political, financial, and legal reforms needed to create a bigger middle class. Of 101 middle-income economies in 1960, only 13 became high-income societies by 2008, the World Bank estimates. The bank defines high-income as $ 12,476 or more in per-capita gross national income.

In speeches, Li hasn’t been shy about pointing to what he thinks are China’s economic shortcomings: an unsustainable rate of investment, an overdependence on exports, weak domestic consumption, and an underdeveloped service sector. Li has also emphasized the growing income inequality that resulted in city dwellers earning 3.3 times more than their rural counterparts in 2009.

More than 100 million people left farms for cities during Hu Jintao’s presidency, many for jobs in factories, and Li wants to see even faster urban migration to boost incomes. By 2030 as many as 300 million more people will have moved from the countryside to join 600 million already living in cities, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates. Urbanization “is the fuel for a sustained high-investment ratio in Chinese GDP,” says Stephen Roach, former nonexecutive chairman at Morgan Stanley (MS) in Asia and a senior fellow at Yale University. “But here’s the catch—urbanization is a transition strategy at best. It will have to have an increasingly services-led job creation to absorb the influx of surplus labor, and only then can the urbanization strategy really come to life.”

Rebalancing Chinese growth away from exports and expanding middle-class incomes will require taking on provincial governments and state-run companies and banks that have grown rich off the current system. “The big question is whether China will change before a crisis forces it to,” says David Loevinger, former senior coordinator for China affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department.

Few dispute Li’s economic credentials. During the years he spent running Henan and then Liaoning, these regions grew at more than 10 percent annually. He has a law degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Peking University. “He is a new generation of leader,” says Robert Lawrence Kuhn, author of How China’s Leaders Think and an adviser to the Chinese government. Yet it will take more than economic savvy to push through controversial economic reforms. Big state companies and bureaucrats “won’t be listening to a weak premier,” says Lam Wo Lap Willy, an adjunct professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. China needs an iron-fisted reformer like Premier Zhu Rongji, who fought government corruption and forced state-owned banks to deal with dud loans during the 1990s, he says. “People feared Zhu Rongji,” says Lam. “But nobody is going to fear Li Keqiang.”

The bottom line: China’s new reformist premier aims to expand migration to cities, where incomes are three times higher than in the countryside.

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Israel successfully tests missile defense system

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel successfully tested its newest missile defense system Sunday, the military said, a step toward making the third leg of what Israel calls its “multilayer missile defense” operational.

The “David’s Sling” system is designed to stop mid-range missiles. It successfully passed its test, shooting down its first missile in a drill Sunday in southern Israel, the military said.

The system is designed to intercept projectiles with ranges of up to 300 kilometers (180 miles).

Israel has also deployed Arrow systems for longer-range threats from Iran. The Iron Dome protects against short-range rockets fired by militants in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Iron Dome shot down hundreds of rockets from Gaza in this month’s round of fighting.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the success of Iron Dome highlighted the “immense importance” of such systems.

“David’s Sling,” also known “Magic Wand,” is developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and U.S.-based Raytheon Co. and is primarily designed to counter the large arsenal of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon.

The military said the program, which is on schedule for deployment in 2014, would “provide an additional layer of defense against ballistic missiles.”

The next generation of the Arrow, now in the development stage, is set to be deployed in 2016. Called the Arrow 3, it is designed to strike its target outside the atmosphere, intercepting missiles closer to their launch sites. Together, the two Arrow systems would provide two chances to strike down incoming missiles.

Israel also uses U.S.-made Patriot missile defense batteries against mid-range missiles, though these failed to hit any of the 39 Scud missiles fired at Israel from Iraq In the first Gulf War 20 years ago. Manufacturers say the Patriot system has been improved since then.

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