Laurie Holden Walking Dead Season Three Finale Interview

Between its rule-breaking storytelling and off-screen ratings success, The Walking Dead has been a headline behemoth, with everyone in and out of Hollywood buzzing about the third season of AMC's zombie drama.

With only one episode to go in the sensationally scary and better-than-ever season, ETonline caught up with star Laurie Holden to talk about Andrea's foray into Woodbury, her time in The Governor's bed and what it will mean when Rick rolls into town!

ETonline: First of all, I have been loving Andrea this season.

Laurie Holden: Even though I'm sleeping with The Governor? [laughs]

ETonline: Absolutely. Why, is that a big complaint you're hearing from fans?

Holden: I don't think it's going over so well ... but it's not supposed to.

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ETonline: Well, the audience sees such a different side of The Governor than Andrea does. I mean, do you think she has any inkling there's so much going on behind the scenes?

Holden: I don't think Andrea thinks there's anything wrong with the town – she hasn't seen the fishtank, she hasn't seen Penny, she didn't see him attack Maggie or his assassinations of other people. He's a sociopath, but she only sees what The Governor lets her see. It's a different face – with Andrea, he's charming and respectful and generous. The only thing she found off-putting was the gladiator fights, but he explained that quite well. Plus, when she walks around and sees women and children smiling and the elderly planting in their gardens, she's like, Wow, this man created a community that makes people happy.

ETonline: What did you think about Andrea's journey when the producers spelled it out for you at the start?

Holden: At first I was really sad because I genuinely love my Walking Dead family – we're really tight and I work with the best people in the world. I mean, we spend our holidays together, so I had to wrap my head around the fact I wasn’t going to be with Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride. I felt like I was almost on another television show. But at the same token, we were going to explore subject matter that was completely deviating from the graphic novel and rather risque, so part of me was really excited about that. We didn't know if expanding The Walking Dead world in the way we did would work. It was a big gamble, but it paid off. Which is exciting because now that means The Walking Dead can go anywhere now in terms of the storytelling.

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ETonline: Last week's episode ended with Rick, Michonne, Daryl and Oscar outside Woodbury. Is it safe to say that Sunday's finale will see Andrea forced to choose between these two sides?

Holden:I can't say if that happens in the finale, but that is definitely something she will be confronted with at some point. I am excited to see the world's collide on Sunday, which just makes the show that much more intense and dangerous and terrifying. I can say that the mid-season finale is going to make people want top throw their TV sets out the window. I want to apologize in advance to the world because it is a treacherous way to leave people hanging until the new season starts. But it's good storytelling.

ETonline: Part of that good storytelling has involved the willingness to kill off main characters, as the show did this year with Lori. Obviously no one wants to lose a job, but from an artistic standpoint, is it exciting to be part of such bold storytelling?

Holden: Yeah, that's the tough thing. I'm not going to lie, none of us like that – we all love our jobs, we love Georgia [where The Walking Dead films] and we love each other, so we'd like to be here forever. But the truth of the matter is we can go at any point. I don't think anybody is safe and in a way I think that makes us all the more grateful and makes us feel blessed every single day that we have that day, because we're all going to die eventually.

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ETonline: Looking ahead, is there anything you haven't gotten to do with Andrea that you'd like to do before she, theoretically, dies?

Holden: To be honest, I don't even know what that would be because she's already been the most complex character and taken the most incredible journey. I mean, what I'm shooting now is like a totally different Andrea compared to the episode you're about to see. I feel like I've shot 10 movies in three years. I was suicidal and then I was isolated and then I was angry and then I joined the group and became empowered and became a warrior and then I fell in love. I feel like it's been such a gift already!

The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

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Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.

Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.

"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."

In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.

"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."

As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.

Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.

"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.

Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.

The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.

The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.

"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."

He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.

But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.

For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.

Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.

Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.

"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.

When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.

"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."

___

On the Internet:

http://www.trees4children.org/

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Wall Street trims gains, volatile after Boehner remarks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday, but shed some earlier gains, after John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, poured cold water on hopes that lawmakers were getting closer to cutting a budget deal that would avert a possible recession next year.

Boehner's comment - that no "substantive" progress had been made in fiscal talks with the White House - was the latest in a string of contrary pronouncements by policymakers that have wobbled the markets as investors attempt to speculate over whether Washington will finally cut a deal.

There have been some signs that leaders are moving closer to a fiscal agreement. The S&P 500 has gained nearly 5 percent after dropping almost 8 percent following the U.S. election in November. But investors remain wary that ad hoc statements from politicians can spark quick reversals in the market.

"When the sentiment is that nothing is going to get done, it does create a lot of anxiety and selling pressure. If there's any sense of progress, then the market seems to rally," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management in Chicago. "I think we're hostage to this for the rest of the year."

Discussions are ongoing in Congress over avoiding big spending cuts and tax hikes, known as the "fiscal cliff," that will begin to take effect from January.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 6.95 points, or 0.05 percent, to 12,992.06. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 3.40 points, or 0.24 percent, to 1,413.33. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 11.82 points, or 0.40 percent, to 3,003.60.

U.S.-listed shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion surged 5.9 percent to $11.75 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral" on optimistic ahead of the launch of the BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

Shares of top retailers retreated in the wake of data showing a weak start to November sales after superstorm Sandy. Target fell 1.6 percent to $61.80 percent and Kohl's Corp dropped 8.2 percent to $46.94.

The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses restocked, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the economic recovery's underlying weakness.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the quarter, the Commerce Department said, as export growth helped offset the weakest consumer spending and first drop in business investment in more than a year.

Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose more than expected in October, a sign the housing market recovery advanced into the fourth quarter despite a mammoth storm and concerns over looming tax hikes.

Shares of companies that build homes rose. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> rose 0.4 percent, shedding some earlier gains in line with the pullback in the broader market.

Tiffany shares slumped 6.7 percent to $59.48 after the upscale jeweler reported quarterly results and cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts.

Although domestic events largely dominated investors' attention, the euro zone is still on the radar. The yield on Italy's 10-year bonds fell to the lowest in two years at an auction, amid relief that international lenders reached agreement this week to reduce Greece's debt by more than 40 billion euros.

"The fact that the bond sales in Europe went well suggest confidence is beginning to reenter some of the peripheral nations and that is a good sign," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Palestinians turn to U.N. for state recognition

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly is set to approve an implicit recognition of Palestinian statehood on Thursday despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding funds for the West Bank government.

A resolution that would lift the Palestinian Authority's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member state," like the Vatican, is expected to pass easily in the 193-nation General Assembly. At least 15 European states plan to vote for it.

Israel, the United States and a handful of other members are set to vote against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians, which takes place on the 65th anniversary of the assembly's adoption of resolution 181 on the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, which follows an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose his efforts toward a negotiated peace.

The U.S. State Department made a last-ditch effort to get Abbas to reconsider, but the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, gave no sign that it was turning back.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated to reporters in Washington on Wednesday the U.S. view that the Palestinian move was misguided and efforts should focus instead on reviving the stalled Middle East peace process.

"The path to a two-state solution that fulfills the aspirations of the Palestinian people is through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York," she said. "The only way to get a lasting solution is to commence direct negotiations."

Speaking at an annual U.N. event in support of the Palestinians, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki appealed to U.N. member states to support Thursday's U.N. resolution. He also repeated his support for peace with Israel.

"Despite diminishing hopes and the decline of the situation on the ground due to Israel violations, we remain committed to the two-state solution and our hand remains extended in peace," he said at U.N. headquarters in New York.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland reiterated U.S. warnings that the move could cause a reduction of U.S. economic support for the Palestinians. The Israelis have also warned they might take significant deductions out of monthly transfers of duties that Israel collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

PALESTINIANS RALLY IN WEST BANK, GAZA

Despite its fierce opposition, Israel seems concerned not to find itself diplomatically isolated. It has recently toned down threats of retaliation in the face of wide international support for the initiative, notably among its European allies.

"The decision at the United Nations will change nothing on the ground," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Jerusalem. "It will not advance the establishment of a Palestinian state. It will delay it further.

But U.N. diplomats say that Israel's reaction might not be so measured if the Palestinians seek ICC action against Israel on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity or other crimes the court would have jurisdiction over.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as calling on Washington and Israel to avoid "any hasty and destructive decisions."

"Supporting the Palestinian authorities is not only in the interest of the Palestinian side, but also of Israel and the whole international community that is longing for a peaceful political settlement," he said.

The European Union, a key donor for the Palestinians, has made clear it will not curtail aid after Thursday's vote.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also called for a revival of the peace process: "Israelis and Palestinians must break out of a zero-sum mentality, and embrace a peaceful path forward."

Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it would allow them access to the International Criminal Court and other international bodies, should they choose to join them.

Flag-waving Palestinians thronged the squares of the West Bank and Gaza Strip before Thursday's vote. In a rare show of unity, Abbas's Islamist rivals Hamas, who have ruled Gaza since a brief civil war in 2007, let backers of the president's Fatah movement hold demonstrations there.

Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world. There are 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

In the draft resolution, the Palestinians have pledged to relaunch the peace process immediately following the U.N. vote, expected sometime after 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Thursday.

With strong support from the developing world that makes up the majority of U.N. members, it is virtually assured of securing more than the requisite simple majority. Palestinian officials hope for more than 130 yes votes.

Abbas has focused on securing as many votes as possible from Europe, and his efforts appear to have paid off.

Austria, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland all pledged to support the resolution. Britain said it was prepared to vote yes, but only if the Palestinians fulfilled certain conditions.

The fiercely pro-Israel Czech Republic was planning to vote against the move, dashing European hopes of avoiding any no votes that would create a three-way split on the continent into supporters, abstainers and opposers.

It was unclear whether some of the many undecided Europeans would join the Czechs. Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Estonia and Lithuania plan to abstain.

(Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Michelle Nichols in New York, Robert Mueller in Prague, Gabriela Baczynska and Reuters bureau in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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Video Games: Art-Tested, MoMA-Approved

Citing a palpable “aesthetic experience” in classic games while eschewing others, the Museum of Modern Art announced Thursday that it has assembled a new collection of video games. The museum’s initial collection includes 14 classics like Pac-Man and Tetris, but also more recent additions to the canon like Passage and Canabalt. The museum has a “wish list” of about 40 total games, which include Pong, The Legend of Zelda, and Minecraft. The games will be exhibited starting in March 2013, but the selections aren’t necessarily what you’d expect.

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Video games are art. That’s a fact (which has some notable dissenters) that’s even been determined by the Supreme Court in a a case decided in 2011. And games have been embraced by art institutions before. In an exhibition this year, the Smithsonian American Art Museum explored The Art of Video Games. But in a blog post today, Paola Antonelli, senior curator in MoMA‘s department of design, explained that the museum’s intention is not as simple as evaluating the artistic value of certain video games. They want to look at games from a design perspective: “Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design.” 

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Because the museum is looking for specific design traits, Antonielli explained that MoMA has not acquired, and is not looking for, some games that might seem like “no-brainers to video game historian.”

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Here are some images of the games MoMA has acquired, via the museum: 

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Tetris

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flOw

Myst

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Chris Colfer Glee Interview Land of Stories 2 Details

Earlier this year, I had the great pleasure of catching a screening of Struck By Lighting; the brave, funny, inspiring and touching film Chris Colfer wrote and starred in. Now, he's revisting the character of Carson Phillips in Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal, a novel that serves as the perfection companion piece to the film.

On the small screen, Colfer recently lost his perfect companion (affectionately nicknamed Klaine by their fans) when Blaine admitted to cheating on Kurt out of fear their long distance relationship was driving them apart. But the characters, and actors, recently reunited in NYC to film scenes for Glee's Christmas episode, which is where ETonline caught up with Colfer to talk about the future of Klaine, learn how Lighting struck twice and what's next for his critically acclaimed fantasy series, The Land of Stories.

ETonline: How has your trip to New York been?

Chris Colfer: It's been a whirlwind, but amazing. We got to film at the ice skating rink in Bryant Park, which was just incredible. It was one of the best filming experiences I've ever had. For one, we were on ice skates for 11 hours, in the heart of the city, surrounded by the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building. It was gorgeous.

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ETonline: Are you a good skater?

Colfer: You know, I have only skated once before in my life so I was really, really cautious the first hour. I got progressively much, much better as the night goes on. Now, I'm ready for The Olympics.

ETonline: They say the key to skating is perfecting the fall.

Colfer: If there's one thing I know how to do, it's fall. But every time I would fall, I would try to strike a pose to make people know I was all right ... which the paparazzi always managed to catch [laughs].

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ETonline: What can you tell me about the scenes you and Darren Criss were filming?

Colfer: It's the Christmas episode and that whole scene is a long awaited conclusion to the character's troubles and their relationship. I don't want to say if they get back together or not, but as of right now, they've decided to be very good friends. They're too close and mean too much to one another to ever let anything ruin their relationship.

ETonline: Before we get the Christmas episode, Kurt will take another stab at getting into NYADA. Is he dissatisfied at Vogue or is he jealous of what Rachel gets to do?

Colfer: I think a little bit of both. There's always the question of, "What If?" He never wants to feel like he missed out on an opportunity, and while everything is going great with Vogue so far, he just wants to make sure he's pursuing all his options.

ETonline: Kurt working for Vogue.com has allowed you to work with Sarah Jessica Parker, and tonight you duet on Let's Have a Kiki. Did you ever imagine something like that?

Colfer: What if I said yes? [laughs] I am a huge fan of The Scissor Sisters and Sarah Jessica Parker, but never thought I would be celebrating my fandom of both in the same situation. I kind of lucked out on this one.

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ETonline: Your NY trip has also been in support of Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal. Is it a straight novelization of the film, or something else?

Colfer: Carson is killed by a bolt of lightning in the first scene of the movie and everything is told in flashbacks with his narration from beyond the grave. The book is the journal he kept during the last few months of his life. The book is a little bit more intimate. The best compliment I've been getting is that the book and the movie work well as a pair. What you don't get from the movie, you get from the book, and vice versa.

ETonline: A lot of writers who adapt their own works for other platforms will talk about the joys of using that opportunity to right wrongs, or add in things they wish they could have the first time. Did that happen here?

Colfer: Yes! There are going to be so many deleted scenes on the DVD – there was so much from the funeral that we cut because it actually played too sad with them in there. I mean, it's already sad, but with all this funeral stuff, you just wanted to kill yourself because it was so depressing. We wanted the movie to end on an upbeat note, but there's a line that Allison Janney's character has when she's talking about lightning. She says that after her son died, she was reading that lighting is a negative charge between the friction that the clouds carry in the sky and she'd like to think that her son was so positive, that the moment he died, he attracted the bolt right out of the sky. I thought it was so powerful and tragic and sad, so I was able to incorporate that line into the book.

ETonline: With this journal off your plate, has that opened up room for you to focus on Land of Stories 2?

Colfer: Yeah, it absolutely has. I am my own worst enemy, I guess, because whenever I'm writing one thing, I can't stop thinking about the next thing I'm going to write, so I'm very excited to be working on the sequel. Actually, I have my computer open right now and I'm tightening up chapter 10.

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ETonline: Anything you can tease about the next book?

Colfer: The sequel takes place two years after the first book, so the twins are 14, and they have not been back to the Land of Stories, or seen their grandmother, in two years and they don't know why. They desperately want to go back into the fairytale world and see their grandmother, and they can't figure out what is preventing that. Hopefully, knock on wood, [the book will come out] in late summer/early fall of 2013 – sooner rather than later. I know a lot of readers are anxious for the next chapter, which I'm excited about.

ETonline: Once that's off your plate, is there another project waiting in the wings of your imagination?

Colfer: Always! I'm always thinking about my next script is or what the next film I'm going to pursue is. The most fun for me is creating worlds and creating characters -- I just have the best time writing.

Glee airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Fox, and to pick up Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal, click here!

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Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

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Wall Street gains on hopes for "fiscal cliff" deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks turned higher on Wednesday on investors' hopes that a compromise could be reached to avoid the "fiscal cliff" after comments from U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama.

Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp jumped 5.5 percent to $101.81 after the retailer became the latest company to announce a special dividend in case taxes jump next year.

The market sharply pared losses in volatile late morning trading after Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said he was optimistic that a deal on the "fiscal cliff" to avert large tax hikes and spending cuts could be reached. That helped reverse a slide of 1 percent.

Adding to the more positive tone, the president, speaking later in the day, said he hoped to get a deal done before Christmas.

For weeks now, the market has been swinging back and forth on headlines from Washington. Wednesday's gyrations served to once again highlight the extent that the impasse is affecting the market and the likelihood of more volatility to come.

"There's only one issue in front of the financial markets, and it's the debate on the fiscal cliff," said Jack De Gan, chief investment officer of Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"That's the only issue out there, and I think in the short term, there's not much that we can do other than watch, and try to anticipate what's going to happen."

One possible result of the deficit-reduction talks is a rise in the tax rate on dividends, prompting some companies to issue special dividends or move up plans for dividends.

The latest example is retailer Costco, which said it will pay a special dividend of roughly $3 billion to investors - the largest payout so far from any company ahead of a likely increase in the dividend tax. Costco also posted monthly same-store sales that beat forecasts. [ID:nL5E8MS8MP] Costco's stock hit an intraday high of $102.14, close to its 2012 high of $104.43 set on October 10.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 79.75 points, or 0.62 percent, to 12,957.88. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 5.87 points, or 0.42 percent, to 1,404.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 9.04 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,976.83.

Knight Capital Group Inc shares jumped 14.1 percent to $3.39 on news that Getco LLC has sent a proposal for a merger between Getco and Knight Capital at a price of $3.39 per share, according to a regulatory filing.

Obama is meeting on Wednesday at the White House with chief executives from top corporations, including Goldman Sachs , Deloitte LLP and Caterpillar Inc , to discuss U.S. fiscal problems.

"While there's little that the president and vice president could do at today's meeting to improve moods in America's corner office, we still believe a legislative compromise will be reached before 'fiscal cliff' detonates," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private Bank, in Chicago.

"In the meantime, we expect daunting headlines and emotional market volatility."

On the earnings front, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc forecast quarterly and full-year earnings well ahead of analysts' expectations, helped by an expanded lineup of single-serve coffee makers and drinks. The company's stock surged 24 percent to $35.91.

The S&P 500's drop of 1 percent in the morning was partly caused by data that showed U.S. single-family home sales fell in October, casting a shadow over what has been one of the brighter spots in the U.S. economy.

Housing stocks fell after the data. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> slipped 0.5 percent. D.R. Horton Inc , the biggest U.S. home builder, fell 1.2 percent to $19.34.

(Reporting by Ed Krudy; Additional reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Egypt assembly seeks to wrap up constitution

CAIRO (Reuters) - The assembly writing Egypt's constitution said it could wrap up a final draft later on Wednesday, a move the Muslim Brotherhood sees as a way out of a crisis over a decree by President Mohamed Mursi that protesters say gives him dictatorial powers.

But as Mursi's opponents staged a sixth day of protests in Tahrir Square, critics said the Islamist-dominated assembly's bid to finish the constitution quickly could make matters worse.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protest set off by Mursi's decree.

The Brotherhood hopes to end the crisis by replacing Mursi's controversial decree with an entirely new constitution that would need to be approved in a popular referendum, a Brotherhood official told Reuters.

It is a gamble based on the Islamists' belief that they can mobilize enough voters to win the referendum: they have won all elections held since Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power.

But the move seemed likely to deepen divisions that are being exposed in the street.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies called for protests on Saturday in Tahrir Square, setting the stage for more confrontation with their opponents, who staged a mass rally there on Tuesday.

The constitution is one of the main reasons Mursi is at loggerheads with non-Islamist opponents. They are boycotting the 100-member constitutional assembly, saying the Islamists have tried to impose their vision for Egypt's future.

The assembly's legal legitimacy has been called into question by a series of court cases demanding its dissolution. Its popular legitimacy has been hit by the withdrawal of members including church representatives and liberals.

"We will start now and finish today, God willing," Hossam el-Gheriyani, the assembly speaker, said at the start of its latest session in Cairo, saying Thursday would be "a great day".

"If you are upset by the decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately," he said. Three other members of the assembly told Reuters there were plans to put the document to a vote on Thursday.

ENTRENCHING AUTHORITARIANISM

Just down the road from the meeting convened at the Shura Council, protesters were again clashing with riot police in Tahrir Square. Members of the assembly watched on television as they waited to go into session.

"The constitution is in its last phases and will be put to a referendum soon and God willing it will solve a lot of the problems in the street," said Talaat Marzouk, an assembly member from the Salafi Nour Party, as he watched the images.

But Wael Ghonim, a prominent activist whose online blogging helped ignite the anti-Mubarak uprising, said a constitution passed in such circumstances would "entrench authoritarianism".

The constitution is supposed to be the cornerstone of a new, democratic Egypt following Mubarak's three decades of autocratic rule. The assembly has been at work for six months. Mursi had extended its December 12 deadline by two months - extra time that Gheriyani said was not needed.

The constitution will determine the powers of the president and parliament and define the roles of the judiciary and a military establishment that had been at the heart of power for decades until Mubarak was toppled. It will also set out the role of Islamic law, or sharia.

The effort to conclude the text quickly marked an escalation, said Nathan Brown, a professor of political science at George Washington University in the United States.

"It may be regarded with hostility by a lot of state actors too, including the judiciary," he said.

Leading opposition and former Arab League chief figure Amr Moussa slammed the move. He walked out of the assembly earlier this month. "This is nonsensical and one of the steps that shouldn't be taken, given the background of anger and resentment to the current constitutional assembly," he told Reuters.

Once drafted, the constitution will go to Mursi for approval, and he must then put it to a referendum within 15 days, which could mean the vote would be held by mid-December.

COURTS DECLARE STRIKE

Deepening the crisis further on Wednesday, Egypt's Cassation and Appeals courts said they would suspend their work until the constitutional court rules on the decree.

The judiciary, largely unreformed since the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak, was seen as a major target in the decree issued last Thursday, which extended his powers and put his decisions temporarily beyond legal challenge.

"The president wants to create a new dictatorship," said 38-year-old Mohamed Sayyed Ahmed, an unemployed man, in Tahrir.

Showing the depth of distrust of Mursi in parts of the judiciary, a spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which earlier this year declared void the Islamist-led parliament, said it felt under attack by the president.

In a speech on Friday, Mursi praised the judiciary as a whole but referred to corrupt elements he aimed to weed out.

"The really sad thing that has pained the members of this court is when the president of the republic joined, in a painful surprise, the campaign of continuous attack on the Constitutional Court," said the spokesman Maher Samy.

Senior judges have been negotiating with Mursi about how to restrict his new powers.

Mursi's administration insists that his actions were aimed at breaking a political logjam to push Egypt more swiftly towards democracy, an assertion his opponents dismiss.

The West worries about turbulence in a nation that has a peace treaty with Israel and is now ruled by Islamists they long kept at arms length.

Trying to ease tensions with judges, Mursi said elements of his decree giving his decisions immunity applied only to matters of "sovereign" importance, a compromise suggested by the judges.

A constitution must be in place before a new parliament can be elected, and until that time Mursi holds both executive and legislative powers. An election could take place in early 2013.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Perry; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

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German lawmakers condemn Google campaign against copyright law

BERLIN (Reuters) – Senior German politicians have denounced as propaganda a campaign by Google to mobilize public opinion against proposed legislation to let publishers charge search engines for displaying newspaper articles.

Internet lobbyists say they are worried the German law will set a precedent for other countries such as France and Italy that have shown an interest in having Google pay publishers for the right to show their news snippets in its search results.

Lawmakers in Berlin will debate the bill in the Bundestag (lower house) on Thursday. Google says the law would make it harder for users to retrieve information via the Internet.

Google launched its campaign against the bill on Tuesday with advertisements in German newspapers and a web information site called “Defend your web”.

“Such a law would hit every Internet user in Germany,” Stefan Tweraser, country manager for Google Germany, said in a statement. “An ancillary copyright means less information for consumers and higher costs for companies.”

The campaign has caused outrage among some members of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition.

“The campaign initiated by Google is cheap propaganda,” said conservative lawmakers Guenter Krings and Ansgar Heveling.

“Under the guise of a supposed project for the freedom of the Internet, an attempt is being made to coopt its users for its own lobbying,” the two said in a statement.

Supporters of the law argue that newspaper publishers should be able to benefit from advertising revenues earned by search engines using their content.

Under the plans, publishers would get a bigger say over how their articles are used on the Internet and could charge search engines for showing articles or extracts.

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a member of the Free Democrats (FDP) who share power in Merkel’s government, said she was astonished that Google was trying to monopolize opinion-making. She is responsible for the law.

“PANIC MONGERING”

Germany’s newspaper industry, suffering from economic slowdown and keen to get its hands on any revenues it can, backs the plans and railed against Google’s campaign.

“The panic mongering from Google has no justification,” Germany’s BDZV newspaper association said in a statement.

“The argument from search engine companies that Internet searching and retrieval will be made more difficult is not serious. Private use, reading, following links and quoting will be possible, just as before.”

Internet lobbyists in Brussels fear the European Commission is sympathetic to publisher demands for a piece of Google’s profits online. Recent statements, they say, are proof.

“Consumers are not the only ones facing difficulties,” Michel Barnier, the EU’s internal market commissioner, said in a speech on November 7. “Think of newspaper publishers who see the content they produce being used by others to attract consumers on the net and generate advertising revenues.”

French newspapers and magazines want Google to pay them for linking to their articles on Google. The French government has named a mediator to negotiate with the press and Google to try to get a deal by the end of the year.

If no deal emerges, President Francois Hollande’s government will ask parliament to draft a law modifying copyright laws to protect the press from appropriation of its content online, according to a letter signed by two ministers on November 28.

(Additional reporting by Harro ten Wolde in Frankfurt, Claire Davenbport in Brussels and Leila Abboud in Paris; Writing by Madeline Chambers, Editing by Gareth Jones and)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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