Asian shares down; Seoul hit by weak techs but Nikkei surges

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Friday, hurt by a drop in regional technology stocks and on caution ahead of the corporate earnings season, but gains in Japan and Australia limited overall losses for equities.

Upbeat manufacturing reports from the United States, Germany and China underpinned sentiment for other assets, supporting copper while curbing selling pressure in oil.

"The PMI indicators from the U.S., Europe and China should serve to keep markets tracking higher," said CMC Markets senior trader Tim Waterer in Sydney.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> eased 0.5 percent, and was set for a weekly drop of 1 percent, its biggest such loss in two months.

A 1.4 percent slide in the technology sector <.miapjit00pus> dragged the pan-Asian index down, as tech-heavy markets such as South Korea and Taiwan fell.

Seoul shares <.ks11> declined 0.9 percent, weighed by weak profits for automakers, while tech shares continued to falter as Samsung Electronics announced cautious spending plans for the first time since the global financial crisis.

Shares of Apple Inc's suppliers extended their declines after Apple's below-estimate results announced earlier in the week: Taiwan's Largan Precision weakened and Samsung shares shed as much as 3.3 percent.

Hong Kong <.hsi> and Shanghai <.ssec> were the other laggards as investors took profits from recent rallies and remained cautious ahead of the upcoming earnings season.

A 0.3 percent rise in London copper to $8,118 a metric ton and gold prices steadying around $1,669 an ounce helped push commodity-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> up 0.5 percent to a fresh 21-month high, marking an eighth straight session of gains.

U.S. crude eased 0.1 percent to $95.87 a barrel and Brent inched down 0.2 percent to $113.11.

"It now seems that the stronger tone in global equity markets, coupled with a notable easing in European and US market tensions, is leading to short-term pressure on gold," said Ed Meir, an analyst at INTL FCStone, in a research note.

European markets are seen falling, with financial spread-betters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open down as much as 0.4 percent. U.S. stock futures were down 0.2 percent, pointing to a softer Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

JAPAN IN SPOTLIGHT

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> outperformed its Asian peers with a 2.9 percent surge as the yen hit fresh lows versus the dollar and the euro on expectations Japan will continue to pursue bold policies to beat deflation and stimulate growth. The Nikkei rose for an 11th straight week. <.t/>

"Trading on Japan is gaining momentum among foreign investors, centering around the dollar/yen, which has dictated Nikkei's direction," said Tetsuro Ii, the chief executive of Commons Asset Management.

The yen's slide bolsters sentiment for Japanese equities as it lifts earnings prospects for exporters, ahead of the quarterly earnings season set to start next week.

The dollar scaled its highest level since June 2010 to reach 90.695 yen early on Friday and the euro rose to 121.32, its highest since April 2011. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new administration has made clear it wants a weaker yen, providing investors a reason to short the currency.

More than 80 percent of Japanese firms are in favor of Abe's drive for aggressive monetary easing and huge fiscal spending, though most also feared Japan would face a debt crisis within a few years, according to a Reuters poll.

The yen's two-month decline has more legs, many traders and analysts believe, noting the yen has barely caught up to levels before a potential debt default by Greece sparked the euro zone debt crisis and sent the euro plummeting nearly three years ago.

The yen was around 95 yen against the dollar and 123 yen against the euro early in May 2010 when protests flared up in Greece against its austerity steps in exchange for a bailout.

Despite the recent rallies, the Nikkei remains well below levels before the 2008 financial crisis while the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> and Germany's benchmark stock index have both already exceeded that level, thanks to the weakness of the euro and the dollar, measured against a basket of currencies.

"JPY weakness should continue over the coming year driven by an expansion of the Bank of Japan's balance sheet relative to the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve," said Kit Juckes, FX strategist at Societe Generale in a note. "I don't know how long the USD/JPY is going to pause at around 90, but a move to 100 still seems very likely in the longer run."

(Additional reporting by Victoria Thieberger in Melbourne and Rujun Shen in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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IHT Rendezvous: Cat Rescues in China Raise Host of New Questions

BEIJING — The crazy meowing from a truck crashed on a highway outside Changsha, in central China, told rescuers this was no ordinary cargo; inside, over 1,000 cats and kittens were crammed into bamboo cages, headed for restaurant tables in the southern city of Guangzhou, Chinese media reported.

Some cats were badly injured in the nighttime accident two Sundays ago. Some were dying of thirst. Some were giving birth. Some were adopted by animal lovers who rushed to the scene, alerted by text message, telephone or microblog posts, said participants. In all, about 200 cats died; about a dozen are still in animal hospitals in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, according to local media reports.

But in a new twist, 800 cats released by rescuers into the city are now causing a different kind of concern: how will they impact on the local environment? As well as dealing with hundreds of new, potentially fast-multiplying cats in the neighborhood, some rescuers are afraid the animals have simply escaped one fate for another and will soon be caught and sold again by the cat trappers and traders. As the Sanxiang Metropolitan News, a local newspaper, wrote, the fate of these cats is “an awkward fate.”

China has a different “cat problem” from the one my colleague, Gerry Mullany, wrote about yesterday in a post about a New Zealand economist who wants cats to be removed from his country because of their threat to the native bird species.

In China, in a brutal trade, cats are widely eaten, as are dogs. But increasingly, ordinary citizens are acting to stop it, carrying out “animal rescues” like in Changsha. The trade is a barely regulated free-for-all, and rescuers, well-wired, can be quick on the scene. There have been at least five major rescues over the last two years, according to Chinese animal rights activists.

In the case of Changsha, the cargo was reportedly worth about 50,000 renminbi ($8,000 US), according to some Chinese media; to get the cats away from the drivers at the crash scene, animal rescuers paid between 7,000 and 10,000 renminbi, according to people there (the detail remains a little unclear.)

A man who asked to be identified as Hunter, who works for the Changsha Small Animal Protection Association was there that night.

“The truck was badly destroyed and some of the cages broken, some cats escaped but we don’t know how many,” he said in a telephone interview.

“It was crowded and a mess, very smelly and dirty,” he added. “When we got there about 25 cats had already died and some were very weak or injured.”

“About 50 animal lovers came to the truck to rescue the cats and many people brought one home, or called their friends to adopt a cat,” he said.

In a recent article, the Sanxiang Metropolitan News interviewed an animal welfare volunteer called Ms. Tian who recently had become concerned about the fate of the 800 released cats.

“Cats reproduce fast,” she said. “It’s very possible that it could cause alarm among people living in the community and lead to disaster for the feline ecosphere,” she said.

As the newspaper wrote: “From a journey to death to a journey to homelessness, from the table to the street, luck will determine which cats live.”

“Though neither their rescue nor their current conditions are ‘perfect,’ yet when seen from the point of view of living creatures, every good heart that protects life is worthy of respect,” the paper wrote. “Cat traders, cat catchers and cat eaters cannot escape people’s pursuit of morality.”

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Nicki Minaj Storms Off American Idol Set in Charlotte, N.C.

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

01/23/2013 at 10:50 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

Michael Becker/FOX.

As American Idol's talent search headed to Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, the already-tense relationship between judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj went even further south.

Things got so heated that the production had to shut down for a bit, leaving a speedway full of aspiring singers sitting idle. The cause of the friction? Disagreements over the judges' varying styles of critique – particularly when it came to 20-year-old Summer Cunningham.

"Why are we picking her apart?" Minaj asked after Carey questioned whether the contestant's voice was best-suited for country music.

"Really? Is that what I did?" responded Carey. "We're trying to help her as opposed to just talk about her outfit."

That retort caused Minaj to throw a fit. "Oh, you're right. I'm sorry I can't help her. Maybe I should just get off the [BLEEP] panel," she said before walking off the set.

As Minaj left, Carey got in one more shot: Referring to Minaj storming off, she said, "I was going to do that the next time she ragged on me."

But the judging panel – including Keith Urban and Randy Jackson – also had plenty moments of togetherness in Charlotte. They gave unanimous thumbs up to Brian Rittenberry, 27 – a dad from Jasper, Ga., whose wife bounced back from battling cancer – for belting out "Let It Be" with a big booming voice.

They also swooned over 16-year-old Isabel Gonzalez, who Jackson plucked out of a high school class to audition for Idol as part of this season's new nomination segments. And they were all in agreement that 20-year-old Joel Nemoyer from Carlisle, Pa., should try a different line of work after he tried crooning a Michael Bublé song while lying flat on his back.

Even without the histrionics, Minaj proved to be the most entertaining of the judges. Between her ongoing habit of assigning nicknames to all the contestants – she dubbed singers everything from "collard greens" to "Jumanji" – Minaj also managed to ask hilariously bizarre questions ("Have you ever lived in Tokyo?") and put new and sometimes creepy twists on her positive critiques. "I want to skin you and wear you," she told one girl she was particularly fond of.

Even with the short interruption due to the judges' kerfuffle, the Idol gang managed to find 36 contestants to put through to Hollywood.

And they'll be back for more auditions in Baton Rouge, La., on Thursday.

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Women have caught up to men on lung cancer risk

Smoke like a man, die like a man.

U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more — that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows.

Women also have caught up with men in their risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses. Lung cancer risk leveled off in the 1980s for men but is still rising for women.

"It's a massive failure in prevention," said one study leader, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society. And it's likely to repeat itself in places like China and Indonesia where smoking is growing, he said. About 1.3 billion people worldwide smoke.

The research is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. It is one of the most comprehensive looks ever at long-term trends in the effects of smoking and includes the first generation of U.S. women who started early in life and continued for decades, long enough for health effects to show up.

The U.S. has more than 35 million smokers — about 20 percent of men and 18 percent of women. The percentage of people who smoke is far lower than it used to be; rates peaked around 1960 in men and two decades later in women.

Researchers wanted to know if smoking is still as deadly as it was in the 1980s, given that cigarettes have changed (less tar), many smokers have quit, and treatments for many smoking-related diseases have improved.

They also wanted to know more about smoking and women. The famous surgeon general's report in 1964 said smoking could cause lung cancer in men, but evidence was lacking in women at the time since relatively few of them had smoked long enough.

One study, led by Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, looked at about 217,000 Americans in federal health surveys between 1997 and 2004.

A second study, led by Thun, tracked smoking-related deaths through three periods — 1959-65, 1982-88 and 2000-10 — using seven large population health surveys covering more than 2.2 million people.

Among the findings:

— The risk of dying of lung cancer was more than 25 times higher for female smokers in recent years than for women who never smoked. In the 1960s, it was only three times higher. One reason: After World War II, women started taking up the habit at a younger age and began smoking more.

—A person who never smoked was about twice as likely as a current smoker to live to age 80. For women, the chances of surviving that long were 70 percent for those who never smoked and 38 percent for smokers. In men, the numbers were 61 percent and 26 percent.

—Smokers in the U.S. are three times more likely to die between ages 25 and 79 than non-smokers are. About 60 percent of those deaths are attributable to smoking.

—Women are far less likely to quit smoking than men are. Among people 65 to 69, the ratio of former to current smokers is 4-to-1 for men and 2-to-1 for women.

—Smoking shaves more than 10 years off the average life span, but quitting at any age buys time. Quitting by age 40 avoids nearly all the excess risk of death from smoking. Men and women who quit when they were 25 to 34 years old gained 10 years; stopping at ages 35 to 44 gained 9 years; at ages 45 to 54, six years; at ages 55 to 64, four years.

—The risk of dying from other lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis is rising in men and women, and the rise in men is a surprise because their lung cancer risk leveled off in 1980s.

Changes in cigarettes since the 1960s are a "plausible explanation" for the rise in non-cancer lung deaths, researchers write. Most smokers switched to cigarettes that were lower in tar and nicotine as measured by tests with machines, "but smokers inhaled more deeply to get the nicotine they were used to," Thun said. Deeper inhalation is consistent with the kind of lung damage seen in the illnesses that are rising, he said.

Scientists have made scant progress against lung cancer compared with other forms of the disease, and it remains the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. More than 160,000 people die of it in the U.S. each year.

The federal government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the cancer society and several universities paid for the new studies. Thun testified against tobacco companies in class-action lawsuits challenging the supposed benefits of cigarettes with reduced tar and nicotine, but he donated his payment to the cancer society.

Smoking needs more attention as a health hazard, Dr. Steven A. Schroeder of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a commentary in the journal.

"More women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer. But there is no 'race for the cure' for lung cancer, no brown ribbon" or high-profile advocacy groups for lung cancer, he wrote.

Kathy DeJoseph, 62, of suburban Atlanta, finally quit smoking after 40 years — to qualify for lung cancer surgery last year.

"I tried everything that came along, I just never could do it," even while having chemotherapy, she said.

It's a powerful addiction, she said: "I still every day have to resist wanting to go buy a pack."

___

Online:

American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org

National Cancer Institute: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/smoking and http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/lung

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Asian shares recover on improved China PMI

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Thursday in choppy trade, as positive Chinese manufacturing data was eclipsed by North Korea threatening a nuclear test and on below-view results from Apple Inc .

"Markets see a global economic recovery trend but there is no consensus on the strength of growth, capping many markets. Equities have been clearly benefiting from accommodative monetary conditions," said Koichiro Kamei, managing director at financial research firm Market Strategy Institute.

China's HSBC flash purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 51.9 in January to a two-year high, signaling a rebound in manufacturing activity and confirming a recovery in the world's second largest economy was on track.

However, while the data briefly spurred markets higher, geopolitical uncertainty on the Korean peninsula and Apple's disappointing earnings dented overall demand.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was down 0.4 percent after rising as much as 0.2 percent earlier. The index briefly touched a fresh 17-1/2-month high the day before, exposing many bourses to profit taking pressures ahead of the regional earnings season set to start in earnest later this month.

The pan-Asia index's technology sector <.miapjit00pus> and the region's Apple suppliers fell after the world's largest technology company missed revenue forecast for the third straight quarter after iPhone sales undershot expectations, sending its shares down over 10 percent in after-hours trading.

A sharp drop in Apple's component suppliers such as South Korea's LG Display and Taiwan's Hon Hai dragged South Korean shares <.ks11> down 0.9 percent and Taiwan stocks <.twii> down 0.6 percent.

China shares <.ssec> surrendered strong early gains, weighing on Hong Kong <.hsi>, after North Korea said it would carry out a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy".

Bucking the trend, Australian shares rose 0.5 percent <.axjo> to a fresh 21-month high after reversing morning losses after the data from China, Australia's top export market.

The data also helped push Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> up 1.3 percent, as firms with high exposure to the Chinese economy notching up gains. Most Japanese suppliers to Apple also recouped earlier losses.

"The underlying tone is still bullish, so even bad news about Apple or whatever doesn't hit stocks too hard," said Masato Futoi, head of cash equity trading at Tokai Tokyo Securities, adding that three days of losses spurred dip-buying. <.t/>

European markets are seen easing, with financial spread-betters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open down as much as 0.1 percent. U.S. stock futures were down 0.3 percent, pointing to a softer Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

YEN BUYING HALTED

The two-day yen buying spree came to a pause. The currency's recent rebound came after the Bank of Japan's latest policy easing steps on Tuesday failed to provide immediate stimulus as expected by some investors. The BOJ pledged to achieve a 2 percent inflation target and promised to start open-ended asset buying from 2014.

The dollar rose 0.8 percent to 89.33 yen while the euro also advanced 0.8 percent to 118.93 yen. The yen is still down 12 percent from its mid-November levels, when markets began pricing in strong monetary accommodation from the BOJ.

Many market players believe the yen's weakness will persist due to widespread expectations the BOJ will continue pursuing aggressive monetary easing policies to beat the country's stubborn deflation.

"I think we will struggle to break 91, but I will still keep looking for us to trade above 90 in the short-term," said Jesper Bargmann, Asia head of G11 spot FX for RBS in Singapore, referring to the outlook for the dollar versus the yen over the next week or so.

Data on Thursday confirming a deteriorating Japanese trade balance also encouraged yen selling, traders said. Japan logged a record annual trade deficit in 2012.

Investors were aalso reminded of the challenges facing the global economy on Wednesday when the International Monetary Fund predicted that an unexpectedly stubborn euro zone recession and weakness in Japan will hurt world growth. A Reuters poll also showed Asian economies will see weaker growth this year despite expected policy easing by central banks.

U.S. crude rose 0.4 percent at $95.57 a barrel while Brent steadied at $112.78.

London copper was down 0.3 percent at $8.076 a tonne and spot gold fell 0.4 percent to $1,678.81 an ounce, slipping from a recent one-month high.

(Additional reporting by Sophie Knight in Tokyo and Masayuki Kitano in Singapore; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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India Ink: India Undermined by Lack of Long-Term Vision

(Page 2 of 2)

Finally, the debate over overhauls and policy is muddied by mainstream political parties that have no clear economic vision. Instead, every party prefers to take stances that are inconsistent but that are perceived to serve it well in the short term.

In 1991, the finance minister Manmohan Singh opened up the Indian economy by relaxing many import and foreign investment restrictions and simplifying a byzantine licensing regime. But as prime minister since 2004, he has been far more timid in pushing through a second major round of policy changes.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which headed India’s coalition government from 1999 to 2004, used to pitch strongly for economic liberalization, promising to, for example, allow greater foreign investment in India’s retailing sector. Now that it is in the opposition, however, the party has resisted the passage of that very same measure for retailing — resisted it so strongly, in fact, that it refused to let Parliament function for days on end, claiming that big-box retailing chains would hurt small shopkeepers.

“There may have been some rationale for it in 2004,” Arun Jaitley, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said vaguely by way of not quite clarifying his party’s reversal on the policy.

Such policy reversals have drawn sharp criticism from both foreign and domestic analysts and investors. In 2006, the Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill ranked India a lowly 97th in the world by potential risks to growth, below Brazil and the Philippines. In his 2011 book “Growth Map,” Mr. O’Neill said that the country’s problems boiled down to a lack of leadership.

Last April the steel baron Lakshmi Mittal said that India was “low on the investment priority list of countries.”

Ratan Tata, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Tata Sons empire, told The Financial Times in an interview that even though he was “bullish about India’s potential,” Indian companies could not help but look overseas, where “you wouldn’t have an eight-year or seven-year wait to get all the clearances for a steel plant.”

Late last year, in a rare moment of plain speaking, Mr. Singh, the prime minister, acknowledged that his government needed “courage and some risks” to see India through the policy logjam.

Pashmina shawls and loaded iPods will not do the trick any more.

Samanth Subramanian is the India correspondent for The National. He is working on a book about the Sri Lankan civil war.

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Recibe el Cenart el “Live Performers Meeting” del 24 al 26 de enero

México, 22 Ene. (Notimex).- Del 24 al 26 de enero en el Centro Nacional de las Artes (Cenart) se llevará a cabo el “Live Performers Meeting” (LPM), el evento más importante a nivel mundial dedicado a la manipulación y mezcla de video en tiempo real.

Mediante un comunicado de la oficina de prensa del Cenart, se informó que el encuentro incluirá otras actividades en el Centro Cultural Border y la Fundación Alumnos47.

El LPM ofrece la oportunidad de experimentar tres días de actuaciones audiovisuales, talleres, mesas redondas, muestra de productos presentados por cientos de VJs, artistas audiovisuales, profesionales de los nuevos medios y pensadores de todo el mundo.

El evento promueve la práctica de las actuaciones de video en directo, gracias a un programa rico e impredecible que busca explorar temas diferentes a través de nuevos lenguajes audiovisuales, técnicas y tecnologías.

Las atracciones principales de la edición mexicana serán una gran variedad de presentaciones audiovisuales en vivo, talleres, showcases y sesiones de Djs con Vjs, así como un concurso internacional de video jockeys.

El público interesado encontrará espectáculos que van desde el live cinema, videodanza, interacción en vivo, videoarte, mapping, instalaciones multimedia, programación, arte generativo, live coding, danza y teatro con visuales, entre otras.

El LPM empezó en Italia hace ocho años y ha reunido a más de dos mil artistas de todo el mundo en sus 11 ediciones pasadas. Más de 50 mil personas han asistido a sus actividades ya que ofrece una gran gama de talleres y showcases gratuitos para el público en general, así como algunos de paga.

En esta edición en la Ciudad de México, más de 200 artistas provenientes de Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Canadá, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, España, Estados Unidos, Francia, Italia, México, Perú, Turquía, Reino Unido, Rusia, Uruguay y Venezuela, participarán en casi 100 presentaciones y talleres.

Las presentaciones audiovisuales se realizarán del 24 al 26 de enero, en el Centro Nacional de las Artes. Éstas que van desde el video teatro a la video danza, actuaciones de live cinema, visuales y música generativa, live coding, hasta las fiestas finales animadas por DJs y VJs internacionales.

El Cenart, el Centro Cultural Border y la Fundación Alumnos47 albergarán en un horario de 10:00 a 18:00 horas talleres y presentaciones dedicados a aprender y compartir, basándose en el tema de la cultura de video en vivo.

Se explorarán las teorías de producción de contenidos y el procesamiento de imágenes, además de estudiar y experimentar con nuevas tecnologías así como desarrollar debates sobre la cultura de prácticas libres y Open Source.

NTX/LGZ/MAG

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PEOPLE's Music Critic: Why We're Upset About Beyoncé's Lip-Synching Drama

By Chuck Arnold

01/22/2013 at 08:40 PM EST

Did she lip-synch or didn't she?

That's the question surrounding Beyoncé after reports surfaced that she didn't sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" live at yesterday's presidential inauguration.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marine Band, which backed the pop diva at the ceremony, said Tuesday that Mrs. Jay-Z decided to use a previously recorded vocal track before delivering the national anthem, but later on another spokesperson, this one for the Pentagon, said there was no way of knowing whether the 16-time Grammy winner was guilty of lip-synching or not.

Should it matter? Let's remember that Whitney Houston, in what is widely considered one of the best renditions of "The Star-Spangled Banner" of all time, didn't sing it live either at the 1991 Super Bowl.

There are all sorts of technical reasons why it can be challenging to perform a song as difficult as this on such a large scale, and there are many extenuating circumstances that could have played a role in any decision to lip-synch. Certainly no one is questioning whether Beyoncé – who, in removing her earpiece midway through, may have been experiencing audio problems – has the chops to sing it.

Lip-synching – or at least singing over pre-recorded vocal tracks – has long been acceptable for dance-driven artists like Madonna, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears, whose emphasis on intense, intricate choreography makes it hard to execute the moves fans have come to expect while also singing live. Huffing and puffing into the microphone or barely projecting for the sake of keeping it real just isn't gonna cut it. Of course, there have been other instances – such as Ashlee Simpson's 2004 Saturday Night Live debacle – where faking it crossed the line.

Surely there wouldn't be the same controversy about Beyoncé had she been hoofing across the stage performing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" on one of her tour stops. But this was the presidential inauguration, the national anthem, and there was no choreography involved.

Some things have to remain sacred, and for "the land of the free and the home of the brave," this was one of them.

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

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Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Asian shares inch higher on improving global confidence

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares retreated from multi-month highs on Wednesday amid caution as the earnings season gathers pace, with Tokyo stocks falling to three-week closing lows in response to a firm yen.

"Asian markets have been climbing steadily and it's natural for investors to want to book profits as the region's earnings season begins in full force later this month," said Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.

"The uptrend remains intact given improving fundamentals globally, so selling like this is a healthy correction that may lead to putting a solid floor to prices," he said.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.3 percent after earlier reaching a 17-1/2-month high. The index has risen nearly 30 percent since a low touched in June, 2012.

The yen held firm against the dollar and the euro as monetary easing announced on Tuesday by the Bank of Japan failed to provide an immediate stimulus as some had hoped, though many analysts acknowledged the BOJ's resolve to tackle Japan's stubborn deflation and economic stagnation.

The stronger yen hurt Japanese exporters, dragging the benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> down 2.1 percent to a three-week closing low. The yen has weakened by around 12 percent since mid-November against the dollar, and boosted the Nikkei by more than 20 percent as a weaker yen improved exporters' earnings outlook. <.t/>

The BOJ on Tuesday doubled its inflation target to 2 percent and adopted an open-ended commitment to buy assets starting 2014, sparking an unwinding of yen short positions from speculators looking for more immediate easing step.

The dollar fell 0.6 percent to 88.20 yen while the euro slid 0.7 percent to 117.45 yen. The dollar hit a 2-1/2-year high of 90.25 yen on Monday.

Many still believe the yen will resume its recent downtrend, seeing the latest rebound in the Japanese currency as a correction to its rapid and sharp decline.

With the BOJ joining the continued push by global central banks to support growth, Morgan Stanley said in a research note that policy easing by central banks was positive for emerging markets, with more bond portfolio inflows increasingly towards local markets.

"Our key themes for 2013 are rebalancing and reflation, with both prevalent so far this year. Even given a migration towards global equities and away from fixed income, emerging market fixed income remains well-placed," it said.

Elsewhere, Hong Kong and Chinese shares were among the hardest hit as investors took profits from recent gains, with indexes faltering at technical resistances. Hong Kong <.hsi> shares slipped from a 19-1/2-month high and were down 0.4 percent while Shanghai shares <.ssec> fell 0.5 percent, moving further away from a 7-1/2 month high.

"We have risen by quite a bit in a very short time, so investors have been taking some profit in the last week or so, looking for new ideas to rotate into," said Larry Jiang, chief strategist at Guotai Junan International Securities.

Australian shares <.axjo> bucked the trend to edge up 0.2 percent to their highest close in almost 21 months after miner BHP Billiton gained after reporting a rise in quarterly iron ore production.

BETTER ENVIRONMENT

European markets are seen rising, with financial spread-betters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open as much as 0.4 percent higher. U.S. stock futures were down 0.2 percent, pointing to a softer Wall Street start. <.l><.eu><.n/>

On Tuesday, hopes of an improvement in the global economy led the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> to a five-year high.

Investors were also cheered by easing worries over the U.S. budget crisis.

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives said they aim to pass on Wednesday a nearly four-month extension of the U.S. debt limit to May 19.

U.S. crude was down 0.1 percent to $96.59 a barrel and Brent eased 0.2 percent to $112.23.

Spot gold was at $1,692.66 an ounce, near Tuesday's one-month high of $1,695.76, while London copper traded down 0.3 percent at $8,107 a metric ton but clinging near a one-week high of $$8,144.50 hit on Tuesday.

(Additional reporting by Clement Tan in Hong Kong; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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