Led Zeppelin will Reunite – for “Letterman” interview

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The surviving members of Led Zeppelin will make a rare appearance together on “Late Show With David Letterman” on December 3, CBS said Friday.

Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones will drop in on the late-night show for an interview – which isn’t quite the reunion that Zep fans have been patiently waiting for, but it might have to do. With the exception of a one-off tribute concert for Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun at London’s O2 Arena in 2007 – which was released as the DVD “Celebration Day” in October – Jones has largely been estranged from Page and Plant since the group’s 1980 breakup following drummer John Bonham‘s death.

The “Late Show” appearance won’t be the only time that Letterman hangs out with the rock legends – the group, along with Letterman, will be lauded at the 35th Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., which will take place December 2 and air December 26 on CBS.

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GSK details hopes for 14 pipeline drugs in 2013-14

LONDON (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline expects to have pivotal clinical trial results on up to 14 medicines in the next two years, including two new products which – if they work – could change the way cancer and heart disease are treated.

Unveiling the next wave of its pipeline on Monday, Britain’s biggest drugmaker said it was now developing a broader range of drugs than in the past, as it moves away from the industry’s traditional focus on “blockbusters”.

Some of the new medicines will be relatively small commercially but a handful have the potential to become multibillion-dollar-a-year sellers.

GSK is banking on the pipeline to revive its business after it failed to grow sales this year as hoped, due to steep pressure on drug prices in austerity-hit Europe.

Key experimental drugs that will have results from final-stage Phase III clinical trials in 2013 and 2014 include the heart drug darapladib and therapeutic cancer vaccine MAGE-A3, the company said in a briefing to investors and analysts.

Chief Executive Andrew Witty said he did not expect any significant increase in costs as a result of the roll out of new products and GSK would continue to look for ways to increase efficiency across the business.

(Editing by Kate Kelland)

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Millions ‘facing money struggle’

2 December 2012 Last updated at 04:52 ET

Millions of households are struggling to make ends meet, consumer organisation Which? has claimed.

Its research, based on a poll of 2,100 people in October, suggests nearly 10% of households have defaulted on a loan, bill or housing payment.

Some 32% of people surveyed say they are finding it difficult to cope on their current level of income.

It comes as Chancellor George Osborne concludes work on the Autumn Statement, to be delivered on Wednesday.

BBC political correspondent Iain Watson says the Statement is a Budget by any other name and some tax rises for the wealthy and cuts in welfare are widely expected.

Continue reading the main story

People are having to turn to increasingly expensive ways to meet their costs”

End Quote Richard Lloyd Which?

It found that 2.3 million households had defaulted on a loan, bill or housing payment.

And 1.5 million households had taken out one or more unauthorised overdrafts or payday loans just to make ends meet.

The Executive Director of Which?, Richard Lloyd, argues that people can become trapped in a vicious spiral.

He said: “There are huge knock-on effects for people if they are not paying their loans, paying their bills, their housing costs on time. They often have to pay extra charges, pay extra interest where they are defaulting on debts, and they are unable to get access to credit.

“People are having to turn to increasingly expensive ways to meet their costs. It’s a real worry for many, many people getting in to debt.”

Mr Lloyd says the government “has a job on its hands to convince people that everything possible is being done to keep unavoidable costs like energy and food bills under control”.

“We’re looking for further progress in reforming the energy market, an end to misleading food price promotions, and more competition in banking to take some of the pressure off hard-pressed consumers,” he said.

It comes as the chancellor acknowledged that deficit reduction may take longer than he had planned.

He has called for people to “have the courage to stay the course” amid suggestions that the better-off could be required to contribute more.

However, Labour’s shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, said it was time to “change the medicine – or change the doctor”.

Which? researchers asked participants if they had experienced a range of financial difficulties in the previous month

Respondents were classified according to the most severe difficulty they said they had experienced.

BBC News – Business

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Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier

ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.

Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has campaigned on an Obama-style “Let’s change Italy now” mantra.

Nearly all polls show Bersani winning the primary, after he won the first round of balloting Nov. 25 with 44.9 percent of the vote. Since he didn’t get an absolute majority, he was forced into a runoff with Renzi, who garnered 35.5 percent.

After battling all week to get more voters to the polling stations for round two, Renzi seemed almost resigned to a Bersani win by Sunday, saying he hoped that by Monday “we can all work together.”

Bersani, a former transport and industry minister, seemed confident of victory as well, joking about Berlusconi’s flip-flopping political ambitions by asking “What time did he say it?” when told that the media mogul had purportedly decided against running.

Next year’s general election will largely decide how and whether Italy continues on the path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis.

The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Berlusconi’s ability to reign in Italy’s public debt and push through sorely needed structural reforms.

Berlusconi has largely stayed out of the public spotlight for the past year, but he returned with force in recent weeks, announcing he was thinking about running again, then changing his mind, then threatening to bring down Monti’s government, and most recently staying silent about his political plans.

His waffling has thrown his People of Freedom party into disarray and disrupted its own plans for a primary — all of which has only seemed to bolster the impression of order, stability and organization within the center-left camp.

A poll published Friday gave the Democratic Party 30 percent of the vote if the election were held now, compared with some 19.5 percent for the upstart populist movement of comic Beppe Grillo, and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in third with 14.3 percent. The poll, by the SWG firm for state-run RAI 3, surveyed 5,000 voting-age adults by telephone between Nov. 26 and 28. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.36 percentage points.

It’s quite a turnabout for Berlusconi’s once-dominant movement, and a similarly remarkable shift in fortunes for the Democratic Party, which had been in shambles for years, unable to capitalize on Berlusconi’s professional and personal failings while he was premier.

But Berlusconi’s 2011 downfall and a series of recent political party funding scandals that have targeted mostly center-right politicians have contributed to the party’s rise as Italy struggles through a grinding recession and near-record high unemployment.

Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s hand-picked political heir, seemed again exasperated Sunday after a long meeting with his patron over Berlusconi’s plans. News reports have suggested Berlusconi might split the party in two and re-launch the Forza Italia party that brought him to political power for the first time in 1994.

“We have to work to reconstruct the center-right, and reconstructing it means having a big center-right party,” not a divided one, Alfano said.

He added that Berlusconi didn’t say one way or another if he would run himself. “It’s his choice,” he said. “If there are any decisions in this regard, he’ll be the one to say so.”

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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7 Quirky Christmas Gift Ideas

‘Tis the season to give…bacon-shaped Christmas tree ornaments? Stocking-stuffer candy simulating black lumps of coal? Crime scene tape for wrapping packages? How about a dreidel with Santa’s picture on it?

Yes to all these and more, say fans of quirky gifts.

Online retailers specializing in leg-lamps–the kind made famous by the movie “A Christmas Story”–and in Emergency Santa Kits say business is brisk.

Seattle novelty-seller Archie McPhee, for instance, which makes the Emergency Santa Kit, reports its business is up 20 percent from last year. Each Kit contains an inflatable white beard and red hat. “It’s in case you’re ever on an airplane flight and you suddenly have to play Santa,” explains McPhee’s spokesperson and self-styled Director of Awesomeness, David Wall.

Anything involving bacon, he says, has been selling well—so well that McPhee dedicates a portion of its website to bacon-inspired items, including candy canes, ornaments and toothpaste.

“People just naturally enjoy bacon,” he says. “At a time when everybody is so health-conscious, it’s become a kind of ‘rebel’ food. It seems naughty. To our customers, bacon has become a sign of rebellion against the status quo.”

Online retailer Perpetual Kid sells black, lump-shaped candy-coal. Says vice president Wendy Paula, “We’re definitely seeing people looking for silly products this year—things you buy for their ‘smile value.’ Candy coal has been Christmas season favorite for us for years.” She herself grew up with it. “It’s just got to be in your stocking.”

Unlike some novelty purveyors, says Paula, Perpetual Kid, shies away from anything that could be considered offensive or in bad taste. Not so Things You Never Knew Existed, a website that appears to have cornered the market on flatulent-Santa items. These include a Pull My Finger Santa’ and a spherical ornament simulating Santa’s buttocks.

For a slideshow of quirky items appropriate (or not) for holiday giving, read on.

“The world’s only beanie with a built-in beard,” trumpets website Fab.com. The tightly-knit cap and attached face-warmer is perfect for snowball fights, says the site, and will keep any chin warm on the coldest of days. “A great gift for the facial-hair challenged.” ($ 29)

Website for Perpetual Kid calls this cinnamon-flavored candy coal the perfect stocking stuffer: “You can always tell who has been naughty Christmas morning, since this candy will temporarily turn your mouth blue! Great for office parties and gift exchanges.” ($ 4.49)

The dreidel depicts Santa on one side, a Christmas tree on the other. “Don’t choose between Christmas and Hanukkah,” says Archie McPhee’s website. “Choose Chrismukkah! Imagine the fun you’ll have playing the dreidel game by the light of the menorah while waiting for Santa and his reindeer to arrive.” ($ 4.50)

“Big bacon flavor in a candy cane,” promises Archie McPhee. Canes come in both regular size and colossal. Of the collosal, the site says, “If there were a king of bacon, this would be his scepter. It’s bacon-y Christmas perfection.” For proper dental hygiene, you’ll want to brush afterwards with bacon-flavored toothpaste, also available on the website. (Colossal cane, $ 5.00)

Archie McPhee doesn’t explicitly recommend this tape for sealing up the seams of wrapping paper you have used to decorate your gifts—but just think how festive and disturbing it will look underneath the tree. Alternatively, says the website, you can use it to “mark off the scene of an itty-bitty murder.” ($ 4.50).

Christmas-in-a-tin, Archie McPhee calls its Emergency Santa Kit. “Let’s say you’re on a long flight, and everyone around you is frowning and grumpy,” says the site. Each Kit contains an inflatable white beard and jaunty Santa hat. “Just open the tin, inflate the beard, put on the hat, and shake your belly like a bowl full o’ jelly.” Before you know it, “Everyone will be sitting on your lap.” ($ 12.00)

The morning after Christmas you’ll run no risk of oversleeping if someone has been kind enough to give you this especially aggressive alarm clock. Hit its snooze button once too often, and Clocky takes matters into its own hands (or feet) by rolling away from you on powered wheels. “It will literally jump off your nightstand and scurry way, forcing you to get up out of bed and go get it to turn it off,” says a spokesperson for novelty retailer Fab.com. ($ 45.00)

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German producers plan Pope Benedict biopic

MUNICH, Germany (Reuters) – Two German producers have bought the film rights to an upcoming biography of Pope Benedict by the Bavarian author of three best-selling interview books with the pontiff.

The Odeon Film company said producers Marcus Mende and Peter Weckert planned a film for international release based on a biography by journalist Peter Seewald due to be published in early 2014.

Seewald’s book-length interviews with Benedict – two as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and one as pope – have given readers many insights into the life and thoughts of the shy theologian who now heads the Roman Catholic Church.

Seewald has signed on as a consultant to the scriptwriter, Odeon Film said in a statement on Thursday. It gave no information about the schedule for the film or who might play the main role.

“The producers plan an international film that illustrates all aspects of the extraordinary life and work of Joseph Ratzinger from his birth on Easter night in 1927 in Marktl am Inn in Bavaria to his pontificate today,” it said.

Benedict’s predecessor Pope John Paul was the subject of a dozen documentary films around the world and two major television movies in the United States.

(Reporting by Tom Heneghan; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Geithner predicts Republicans will accept higher tax rates

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pressed Republicans to offer a plan to increase revenues and cut government spending, and predicted they would agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest to secure a deal by year-end to avoid the “fiscal cliff.”

In a blitz of appearances on five Sunday morning talk shows, Geithner insisted that tax rates on the richest needed to go up in order to reach a deal, a step Republicans have so far resisted, and he dismissed much of the contentious rhetoric from last week as “political theater.”

“The only thing standing in the way of would be a refusal by Republicans to accept that rates are going to have to go up on the wealthiest Americans. And I don’t really see them doing that,” Geithner, who is leading the Obama administration‘s fiscal cliff negotiations, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The comments mark the latest round of high-stakes gamesmanship focusing on whether to extend the temporary tax cuts that originated under former President George W. Bush beyond their December 31 expiration date for all taxpayers, as Republicans want, or just for those with incomes under $ 250,000, as President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats want.

Republicans, who control the House of Representatives but are the minority in the Senate, have expressed a willingness to raise revenues by taking steps such a limiting tax deductions, but they have largely held the line on increasing rates.

A handful of House Republicans expressed flexibility beyond that of their party leaders about considering an increase in tax rates for the wealthiest, as long as they are accompanied by significant spending cuts.

But most House Republicans refuse to back higher rates, preferring to raise revenue through tax reform.

“There’s not going to be an agreement without rates heading up,” Geithner said bluntly on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The scheduled expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and automatic reductions government spending set to take hold early next year would suck about $ 600 billion out of the economy and could spark a recession. The Obama administration and Congress are engaged in talks to avoid the fiscal cliff with a less-drastic plan to reduce U.S. budget deficits.

WHO SHOULD PAY?

Geithner’s Sunday interviews are part of a broader push to build public support for the Democrats’ position in the negotiations. Obama has made campaign-style appearances, including visiting a Pennsylvania toy factory on Friday where he portrayed Republicans as scrooges at Christmas time.

While breaking no new ground on the Obama administration’s position on Sunday, Geithner repeatedly urged Republicans to provide their own plan.

“They said they’re prepared to raise revenues but haven’t said how, or how much, or who should pay,” Geithner said on NBC.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, asked Democrats to accept an increase in the Medicare eligibility age, impose higher Medicare premiums for the wealthy, and slow cost-of-living increases for Social Security.

At least one of those suggestions appears to have White House support. On CNN, Geithner said the administration‘s proposal included a modest rise in premiums for higher-income Medicare beneficiaries.

“What we can’t do is sit here trying to figure out what works for them,” Geithner said. “The ball really is with them now.”

The administration has said it is willing to find savings in the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs for the elderly and poor, but Geithner reiterated in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” that it would only be open to looking at changes in the Social Security retirement program outside of the context of a fiscal cliff deal.

(Reporting By Aruna Viswanatha; Editing by Eric Beech)

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South Korea November exports show fragile, uneven global recovery

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean exports last month marked their first back-to-back growth of the year, but demand from the advanced economies was weak, data showed on Saturday, indicating any global recovery would be fragile at best.

November exports grew by 3.9 percent over a year earlier to $ 47.8 billion on top of a revised 1.1 percent rise in October, while imports last month rose by 0.7 percent to $ 43.3 billion, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy data showed.

The November data, released for the first time by a major exporting economy, and the robust survey findings in China disclosed earlier in the day offered fresh signs of the global economy regaining some momentum.

Shipments to China and the southeast Asian countries posted sharp gains over a year earlier, whereas demand from the United States and the European Union shrank, according to break-down figures for the November 1-20 period released later.

“Robust data from China and today’s Korean data increase the chances for Korean exports maintaining a modest recovery,” said Park Sang-hyun, chief economist at HI Investment & Securities.

RARE ANNUAL DROP IN EXPORTS

Data released earlier on Saturday showed China’s manufacturing sector activity was at a seven-month high in November, while South Korea’s October industrial output also expanded for the second straight month.

“But as Europe and the U.S. are not getting any stronger soon, any global recovery will be an uneven and fragile one for the time being,” Park added.

Analysts in a Reuters survey had forecast November exports would grow a median 2.6 percent over a year before on top of a revised 1.1 percent gain in October, when overseas sales posted their first growth in four months.

The ministry’s data showed South Korea ran a trade surplus of $ 4.48 billion for November, compared with a revised surplus of $ 3.73 billion in October. The country’s trade balance has been in black for all but two months since early 2009.

Meanwhile, exports for the January-November period were 0.8 percent less than the comparable period of 2011, making it highly likely the country will miss its export target of a 3.5 percent gain set for the whole of 2012.

Reuters calculations show South Korean exports this year would post an annual loss unless shipments in December grow 9 percent or more on a year-on-year basis. The country’s exports grew in all but three years for the past 50 years at least.

South Korea is home to some of the world’s largest suppliers of cars, smartphones and ships. It sends roughly a quarter of its total exports to China and about 10 percent each to the European Union and the United states.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Cargo plane crashes in Brazzaville, 3 dead

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — A cargo plane owned by a private company crashed Friday near the airport in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, killing at least three people, officials said.

The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 belonged to Trans Air Congo and appeared to be transporting merchandise, not people, said an aviation official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The plane was coming from Congo‘s second-largest city, Pointe Noire, and tried to land during heavy rain, he said.

Ambulances rushed to the scene in the Makazou neighborhood, located near the airport, but emergency workers were hampered by the lack of light in this capital, which like so many in Africa has a chronic shortage of electricity.

“At the moment, my team is having a hard time searching for survivors in order to find the victims of the crash because there is no light and also because of the rain,” Congolese Red Cross head Albert Mberi said.

He said that realistically, they will only be able to launch a proper search Saturday, when the sun comes up.

Reporters at the scene fought through a wall of smoke. Despite the darkness, they could make out the smoldering remains of the plane, including what looked like the left wing of the aircraft. A little bit further on, emergency workers identified the body of the plane’s Ukrainian pilot, and covered the corpse in a blanket.

Firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze of a part of the plane that had fallen into a ravine. They were using their truck lights to try to illuminate the scene of the crash. Although the plane was carrying merchandise, emergency workers fear that there could be more people on board.

Because of the state of the road connecting Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, many traders prefer to fly the roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles).

Africa has some of the worst air safety records in the world. In June, a commercial jetliner crashed in Lagos, Nigeria, killing 153 people, just a few days after a cargo plane clipped a bus in neighboring Ghana, killing 10.

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New job posting suggests Nokia may still be considering Android after all

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