The father of a teenage Pakistani activist shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating girls’ education has been given a diplomatic post in Britain. The activist, Malala Yousafzai, 15, has been recovering at a hospital in Birmingham, England, after being shot in October in Pakistan. The Taliban have vowed to target her again. Her father, Ziauddin, has been appointed Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham, virtually guaranteeing that Ms. Yousafzai will remain in Britain. Her case has generated worldwide recognition of the struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan. In a sign of her reach, Ms. Yousafzai made the shortlist for Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2012.
World Briefing | Europe: Pakistani Girl Shot by Taliban Will Stay in Britain
Label: WorldApple may have sold up to 4 million iPhones to businesses in Q4
Label: TechnologyAs we’ve mentioned countless times, it’s a good thing that RIM (RIMM) will release BlackBerry 10 soon, because otherwise Apple (AAPL) and Android will continue to wreck its market share among enterprise users. Benzinga reports that Trip Chowdhry, a managing director at Global Equities Research, has put out a research note estimating that Apple sold between 3 million and 4 million iPhones to businesses over the past quarter, some of whom have switched over from BlackBerry.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
“This figure emerges from a combination of new purchase of iPhones and users switching to iPhones from Blackberry,” Chowdhry writes. “After the two-year contract expiration on Apple iPhone[s], [the] majority of the enterprises have replaced their employees’ current phones with the new iPhone 5.”
[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]
As for reasons why more companies are switching to the iPhone, Chowdhry says that salespeople for key enterprise apps such as Salesforce, Workday and VMware are increasingly “demonstrating their enterprise offering on iPhones, which is also acting as a trigger for enterprises to purchase iPhones for their employees.” Chowdhry also thinks that the advent of mobile device management software has boosted the iPhone’s security capabilities and has made it less risky for companies to adopt.
This article was originally published by BGR
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Jennie Garth Wants to Date a Man with 'Positive Energy'
Label: LifestyleWhen it comes to her current love life, Jennie Garth has a new mantra.
"I'm learning to date again," the actress, who split from husband Peter Facinelli in March 2012, tells Health in its January issue, "[and] looks aren't important to me anymore. ... I like positive energy."
The actress, who dropped 30 lbs. last year, plans to keep her health a priority in 2013.
"Every day, I just renew my healthy choices," she says. "I feel really good about myself now, and I don't want to do anything to change that."
That means avoiding trendy diets or weight-loss gimmicks.
"My biggest regret is putting my body through fad diets: Atkins, cleanses, the hCG diet," Garth, 40, says. "I lost like 18 lbs., but it came right back. The worst was fasting with colonics for three or four days. It was the most horrifying experience ever."
In addition to her body, Garth says she's trying to maintain a positive outlook, even when times are tough.
"When I'm in excruciating pain, like with what I've been through with my breakup and that grief and loss that's just immobilizing, it helps to remember that it only lasts for 13 to 15 minutes, max," she tells Health. "And then it's over."
"Your mind is ready to go to something else," Garth continues. "You might come back to it, but it helps to just know that that pain is not going to last forever."
Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating
Label: HealthThis is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.
After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.
It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.
All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.
For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.
Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."
What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.
"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.
What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.
A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.
The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.
Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.
Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.
"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.
A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.
Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.
"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."
___
Online:
Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
___
Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe
Asia stocks eke out gains on China hopes, oil eases
Label: BusinessHONG KONG (Reuters) - Most Asian stock markets edged higher on Thursday on hopes of a steady economic revival in China, although oil gave back part of the previous session's strong gains as investors took some money off the table and braced for more U.S. budget battles.
The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index of stocks <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.2 percent following Wednesday's 2 percent jump on relief that U.S. politicians had averted the "fiscal cliff".
Data from China showing the services sector expanded in December continued to underpin expectations of an economic recovery that has helped spur a strong rally in Hong Kong-listed Chinese shares <.hsce> over the past month.
The China Enterprises index <.hsce> which rallied more than 4 percent in the previous session eased 0.2 percent. Onshore Chinese markets will resume trading on Friday.
"China looks like it's improving at the margin and the market has momentum that could last for at least a few months," said Christian Keilland, head of trading at BTIG in Hong Kong.
"Investors seem to have accepted that reforms are underway but they're going to happen at a slower pace."
Australian stocks <.axjo> rose 0.7 percent to their highest in more than 19 months, with mining giants Rio Tinto
South Korea's Kospi <.ks11> underperformed the region, falling 0.4 percent as automakers and other exporters slumped on a stronger Korean won, which hit a 16-month high against the dollar overnight.
In other currency markets, the Japanese yen bounced after hitting a 29-month low versus the dollar earlier in the day but analysts warned that any strength is likely to be short-lived.
"Technically dollar/yen looks somewhat overbought here. It's gone a long way in a very short time," said Callum Henderson, global head of FX research for Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, adding that the dollar could see some consolidation in the near term before heading higher.
The euro which in overnight trading was close to a 8-1/2 month high against the dollar, slipped 0.1 percent.
The U.S. dollar rose 0.2 percent <.dxy> against a basket of major currencies.
President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans face even bigger budget battles in the next two months after a hard-fought deal averted the fiscal cliff of automatic tightening that threatened to push the U.S. into recession.
Strength in the dollar and profit-taking pushed oil prices lower with Brent crude slipping 0.3 percent and U.S. crude futures down 19 cents to $92.93.
"After the initial excitement, reality sets in," said Victor Shum, oil consultant at IHS Purvin & Gertz. "There will be other negotiations and the deal is a compromise."
(Reporting by Vikram Subhedar; Editing by Kim Coghill and Eric Meijer)
From Brooklyn to Bolivian Rice Venture, Prison and Sean Penn’s Help
Label: World
Jacob Ostreicher was a flooring contractor and father of five from Borough Park, Brooklyn, who, like more than a few entrepreneurs battered by the recession, decided to seek his fortune abroad. In his case, he went into rice farming in Bolivia.
But Mr. Ostreicher’s venture has landed him in what, by his account, is a nightmare that has included 18 months in a notorious Bolivian prison and a lengthy battle with corrupt Bolivian prosecutors bent on stealing his business.
His arrest has turned into an international affair that has drawn in the State Department and the actor-director Sean Penn, who traveled to Bolivia to make a public appeal for Mr. Ostreicher’s release from prison in December.
Mr. Penn’s lobbying appeared to persuade the Bolivian authorities to relent, at least partly. Mr. Ostreicher was allowed out of prison on bail, but he remains under house arrest in Bolivia.
At the same time, more than a dozen Bolivian officials — including prosecutors and the chief legal counselor in the Interior Ministry — have now themselves been thrown into prison, charged with trying to extort Mr. Ostreicher’s assets.
In a telephone interview from his home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Mr. Ostreicher, 54, professed his innocence and criticized Bolivian and American authorities. His voice was often weak from the effects of a lengthy hunger strike during which he lost 70 pounds.
The Bolivian prosecutors, he said, saw an opportunity to steal at least $16 million in equipment and $20 million in rice from his business. He said prosecutors had trumped up accusations that he laundered drug money.
“They put me in jail without a single shred of evidence,” Mr. Ostreicher said. “I felt like a lost soul, a dog.”
The Bolivian government insists that despite the subsequent corruption allegations against the prosecutors, investigators had valid suspicions about Mr. Ostreicher’s activities.
Carlos Romero, the interior minister, said Mr. Ostreicher had been arrested because of his involvement in a land deal with a convicted Brazilian drug trafficker. “Surely this made the entities charged with investigating these matters believe that it was very possible that there was some illegal link with Mr. Ostreicher,” Mr. Romero said.
By Bolivian standards, Mr. Ostreicher’s treatment may not be all that unusual.
Roberto Desogus, an official with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told American diplomats last July that Mr. Ostreicher was “yet another victim of a brutally slow, inefficient, underfunded and corrupt judicial system,” Mr. Desogus’s office said.
Still, Mr. Ostreicher’s supporters, including Dov Hikind, a Democratic New York State assemblyman from Borough Park, and Christopher H. Smith, a Republican United States representative from New Jersey, have assailed the State Department for what they said was its indifferent response.
Elizabeth A. Finan, a department spokeswoman, said consular officials had visited Mr. Ostreicher in prison more than 20 times and frequently pressed Bolivian officials for “a prompt and fair hearing of the facts.”
Mr. Ostreicher, an Orthodox Jew, said that as far as he knew, anti-Semitism did not play a role in how Bolivian prosecutors handled his case.
Mr. Penn intervened after the Aleph Institute, an organization that aids Jewish prisoners, contacted him. He is known for his outspoken left-wing views, including his championing of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a fierce opponent of the United States. The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, a socialist, is a close ally of Mr. Chavez.
After speaking with Mr. Morales, Mr. Penn was able to visit Mr. Ostreicher in Palmasola Prison.
A few days before Mr. Ostreicher’s release on Dec. 18, Mr. Penn held a news conference, with Mr. Ostreicher at his side, connected to an intravenous feeding tube. “There is a cancer attacking at Bolivia’s heart,” Mr. Penn declared, referring to official corruption.
“Jacob and his family are living a nightmare of human abuse,” he said. “And this is a moment for me to call on my Bolivian brothers and sisters to lend their courage and compassion on behalf of a man known by all parties — known by all parties — to be totally innocent of any criminal activity.”
Mr. Penn did not explain why he decided to get involved in Mr. Ostreicher’s case.
In the telephone interview, Mr. Ostreicher praised Mr. Penn, saying: “Not too many people love Americans more than Sean Penn. Sean Penn helped me because I’m an innocent American.”
Mr. Ostreicher, a grandfather of 11, is the son of Holocaust survivors. He said that around the World War II era, his parents and extended family were able to transfer assets to Switzerland, where Andre Zolty, a lawyer in Geneva, was most recently handling their investments.
In 2008, Mr. Zolty, who has a specialty in agriculture, was convinced by a Colombian lawyer who had worked for him, Claudia Liliana Rodriguez, that there was money to be made in farming rice in Bolivia’s lowlands. He urged Mr. Ostreicher to invest.
Mr. Ostreicher traveled to Bolivia periodically to check on the enterprise and became suspicious that Ms. Rodriguez was skimming money. He reported her to the Bolivian authorities, and she is now in jail.
But one of the farmland parcels she had bought belonged to Maximiliano Dorado, who had been convicted in Brazil on drug charges and had escaped to Bolivia. Prosecutors investigating Ms. Rodriguez said they concluded that Mr. Ostreicher could be entangled in the laundering of “capital of dubious origin.”
The prosecutors never produced evidence to charge him formally. Nevertheless, Mr. Ostreicher ended up in June 2011 as the only American in Palmasola Prison, an experience he described as “sheer terror.”
It is a huge complex with 3,500 prisoners and is run internally by an inmates’ committee, although guards ring the perimeter.
Those close to him say Mr. Ostreicher was assaulted and humiliated until he paid money to committee functionaries. Before his hunger strike, he was able to obtain kosher food, and his wife took him matzos for Passover.
Mr. Ostreicher, who does not know when he will be able to return to the United States, said he was grateful to have survived.
“When I was in prison, I was thinking about Sean Penn’s movie ‘Dead Man Walking,’ ” he said. “When they dragged me like a dog into the courtroom, I felt like a dead man walking.”
7 Apps for Creepers
Label: Technology1. Sneakypix
Ever been waiting on the train platform, minding your business, only to glance to your left and find yourself face-to-face with a grown-up nose picker? In this day and age, our first inclination is to snap a discreet photo. Sneakypix makes it appear as if you’re on a phone call, but instead, aim your camera lens at the nasal aficionado and the app will fire off a series of stealth photos or video. Price: $ 0.99
Click here to view this gallery.
[More from Mashable: Mom Gives Son a Christmas iPhone — With Strings Attached]
Do you have a smartphone? Then chances are you’ve been a creeper.
Now don’t get all defensive, just yet. How many times have you snapped a photo of some hipster’s pink beard on the subway? How often do you send racy pictures to your husband during his business trips? How many times have you wondered whether your teenager was smoking pot on the Williamsburg Bridge or visiting his grandma in Queens?
[More from Mashable: 9 Apps to Fast-Track Your New Years’ Resolutions]
While we’re not advocating sinister, paranoid behavior (take a hike, stalkers), sometimes it’s helpful and downright fun to act like James Bond. And it turns out, you don’t need all the slick gadgets to do it.
These seven iPhone and Android apps will get you started, secret agent-style.
But seriously, for the love of Carl, don’t do anything illegal. Mmm-kay?
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, klosfoto
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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Jessica Simpson and Kendall & Kylie Jenner Make Readers Smile - and Frown
Label: LifestyleSplash News Online; Michael Simon/Startraks
What's on the minds of PEOPLE readers this week? We love getting your feedback, and as always, you weighed in – even while celebrating during the holidays – with plenty of reactions to all of our stories.
From Kelly Osbourne's dramatic weight loss to Jessica Simpson's happy baby news to the tragic death of hero surfer Dylan Smith in Puerto Rico, readers responded to what made them happy, what made them laugh out loud and what made them sad this week.
Check out the articles with the top reactions on the site this week, and keep clicking on the emoticons at the bottom of every story to tell us what you think!
Kelly Osbourne says loving herself was the key to her 60-lb. weight loss. She had to get to a place where she respected herself enough to take care of her health – and she emerged a fierce style star who is not afraid to rock a bikini.
Jessica Simpson became a new mom just 8 months ago – so the news that she's expecting baby No. 2 with fiancé Eric Johnson made readers say, "Wow!"
Reality stars Kendall and Kylie Jenner showed off expensive Christmas gifts on Instagram, and their pricey public display turned many readers off. From a pair of Louboutin spike heels to Balenciaga boots with a more than $1,000 price tag, the teens cleaned up with lavish presents that most could only dream about.
Dylan Smith captured our hearts with his heroic efforts during Superstorm Sandy, saving six people on his surfboard. But the Queens, N.Y., lifeguard, 23, who was named one of PEOPLE's Heroes of the Year, drowned on Dec. 24 in a surfing accident off Puerto Rico.
Does the idea of Tom Cruise dating a new woman make you laugh? Maybe. A story that falsely linked the actor romantically to a 26-year-old restaurant manager, had readers clicking LOL. Or maybe the funny part was this quote from a source, who told told PEOPLE: "He's single and will be talking to women – all of whom he won't be instantly dating."
Check back next week for another must-read roundup, and see what readers are reacting to every day here.
Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating
Label: HealthThis is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.
After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.
It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.
All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.
For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.
Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."
What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.
"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.
What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.
A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.
The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.
Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.
Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.
"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.
A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.
Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.
"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."
___
Online:
Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
___
Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe
Asia stocks take off as U.S. fiscal cliff crisis ends
Label: BusinessHONG KONG (Reuters) - Asian stocks rose nearly two percent to hit a five-month high and the dollar fell as both houses of Congress passed a bill to end the "fiscal cliff" crisis that threatened a U.S. recession and roiled world financial markets.
European markets were set to rally on the news, with spreadbetters expecting London's FTSE <.ftse> to rise about 1 percent and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> to open up 0.5 percent.
The Congress approved extending lower Bush-era tax rates to all but the nation's wealthiest households in a budget deal that stopped automatic implementation of $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases.
The bill's passage in Congress allayed earlier concerns over complaints from a number of Republicans that spending cuts were still not adequately addressed.
The temporary reprieve that the deal offers the U.S. economy also sets up Wall Street for a strong start to trading which resumes later in the day.
Asian stock markets cheered the developments as a major risk for investors, namely a slump in the global economy, appeared to have receded for now.
"This is great news for global growth and explains why shares and other growth-related assets such as the Australian dollar are up strongly today," said Shane Oliver, strategist at AMP Capital.
Australian shares <.axjo> rose to a 19-month high while the Aussie dollar jumped to 1.4082.
The MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index of stocks <.miapj0000pus> rose 1.9 percent. Chinese shares in Hong Kong <.hsce> jumped 3 percent as last month's rally spilled over into the new year with stocks closely linked to China's economy such as steel and cement posting the biggest gains.
In South Korea, where data showed manufacturing activity rose for the first time in seven months in December, the KOSPI index <.ks11> was up 1.6 percent led by a 3.6 percent jump in smartphone giant Samsung Electronics .
"The index is riding high on the U.S. fiscal deal. This upward momentum will last a couple of weeks, after which there will be a reality check due to the unresolved issue of the spending cuts and debt ceiling," said Cho Tae-hoon, an analyst at Samsung Securities.
Singapore <.ftsti> was the best-performing market in South East Asia rising 1.2 percent after data showed the city-state dodged an expected economic recession in the last three months of 2012.
RISK ON
Asian stocks outside Japan rose nearly 20 percent last year as a combination of improving economic data from China, easing worries about a euro zone blow-up, and global central bank easing that encouraged investors back into equity markets.
Sakthi Siva, Asia strategist for Credit Suisse, said in a note to clients that 2013 could see similar returns for Asian equities, given a solution to the fiscal crisis.
"As we move into 2013 we retain our bullish bias, and our theme is whether markets could catch up with earnings," said Siva, adding that markets in China and India could offer the most upside given the mismatch between index levels and earnings expectations.
Risky assets across the board got a lift with crude oil futures up 1.1 percent and copper futures in London jumping 1.7 percent.
The euro rose to $1.3261 against the U.S. dollar.
The safe-haven U.S. dollar edged lower, falling 0.4 percent against a basket of major currencies <.dxy>.
The Japanese yen continued its slide as investors wagered the Bank of Japan would have to take ever-more aggressive easing steps to support the economy and satisfy the new government.
The yen fell to 87.17 against the dollar to its weakest level since July 2010.
The Japanese currency also dropped to depths not seen in more than four years against the Australian and New Zealand dollars.
(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in SYDNEY, Masayuki Kitano in SINGAPORE and Somang Yang in SEOUL; Editing by Eric Meijer)
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