Is “Our Kind of Traitor” next for Mads Mikkelsen?

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Since winning the Best Actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Thomas Vinterberg‘s “The Hunt,” Mads Mikkelsen has been inundated with offers for new projects.


Mikkelson, who also stars in Denmark’s entry for the foreign Oscars, “A Royal Affair,” has yet to decide what he will do next, according to his representatives. But one of his choices, they say, is “Our Kind of Traitor,” the film adaptation of the John le Carre spy novel.













“Our Kind of Traitor, is being put together by a consortium of British producers, including Film4, Potboiler Productions and The Ink Factory.


It will be directed by Justin Kurzel from a screenplay by Hossein Amini. It tells the story of a young English couple who bond with a millionaire Russian businessman after a chance encounter on vacation.


What they don’t know is that the enigmatic Russian is a money launderer seeking to defect to British intelligence before his rivals have a chance to murder him. He has chosen the couple as his lifeline.


The couple’s recruitment by the secret service is followed by a deadly chase, which takes them from the souks of Marrakesh to London, to the French Open Tennis Final in Paris and to a thrilling climax in the Swiss Alps.


Ralph Fiennes name has also come up with the project, as has Jessica Chastain‘s, although a rep for the actress says she has yet to receive an offer.


Mikkelsen has lately been busy in Canada filming his role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, which U.S. writer-producer Bryan Fuller has reinvented for a 13-episode NBC-Gaumont television series, “Hannibal.”


Mikkelsen, who got his break in Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “Pusher” in 1996, has notched up a number of high-profile credits, including the role of the villain Le Chiffre in the James Bond movie, “Casino Royale.” He also played the composer in “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” and could be seen in “Clash of The Titans” and “The Three Musketeers.”


This summer he filmed Fredrik Bond’s “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman,” with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and Danish director Asger Leth’s “Move On.” The Danish film powerhouse, TrustNordisk is also working on a new project for the actor to film next summer but said that it is keeping the details closely under wraps.


His other upcoming films include the French period piece “Michael Kohlhaas,” which tells the story of a well-to-do horse merchant, and an adventure-western called “The Stolen.”


The Ink Factory and Potboiler Productions did not return calls to TheWrap for comment on the casting for “Our Kind of Traitor.”


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Boehringer Ingelheim to start late-stage hepatitis C drug trial

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BOSTON (Reuters) – Boehringer Ingelheim said on Saturday it plans to initiate a late-stage clinical trial of its experimental hepatitis C treatment following promising results from earlier studies.


The company announced final data from a mid-stage trial of its treatment regimen which showed that 69 percent of patients in the study were free of the virus 12 and 24 weeks following the end of treatment.













Hepatitis C is a blood-borne infectious disease of the liver that can lead to liver failure and transplant.


Historically, hepatitis C has been treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, but treatment lasts as long as 48 weeks and interferon is associated with flu-like side effects.


The goal of drugmakers now, including Boehringer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc, Gilead Sciences Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co is to develop products that do not need to be combined with interferon. Most analysts consider Gilead to currently be at the forefront of the race.


Full results from Boehringer’s trial, known as SOUND-C2, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Boston. Preliminary data were presented earlier this year.


Boehringer’s trial tested a combination of BI-201335, a protease inhibitor, BI-207127, a polymerase inhibitor, and ribivirin.


Boehringer is a privately held company headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany.


(Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Marguerita Choy)


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Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath

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NEW YORK (AP) — Some of society's most vulnerable people — the elderly, the disabled and the chronically ill — have been pushed to the brink in the powerless, flood-ravaged neighborhoods struggling to recover from Superstorm Sandy.

The storm didn't just knock out electricity and destroy property when it came ashore in places like the Far Rockaway section of Queens. It disrupted the fragile support networks that allowed the neighborhood's frailest residents to get by.

Here, the catastrophe has closed pharmacies, kept home care aids from getting to elderly clients and made getting around in a wheelchair impossible. The city has recorded at least two deaths of older men in darkened buildings.

For some living in the disaster zone, it has all been too much.

When a team of medics and National Guardsmen turned up at Sheila Goldberg's apartment tower in Far Rockaway on Friday to check on the well-being of residents, floor by floor, the 75-year-old burst into tears and begged for help caring for her 85-year-old husband.

"This is a blessing. I'm at my wit's end," she said, sobbing.

Her husband, Irwin, has a pacemaker, wears a colostomy bag and needs her help to do almost everything. When the power was on, Goldberg said, "I could take care of him by myself and survive." But for days, the building had no heat or electricity. There were no open stores to buy food. Until the end of the week, there was no water or elevators either, meaning residents like the Goldbergs, on the 25th floor, had to cart water up the steps themselves just to flush the toilet. A bad stench permeates much of the building.

"I'm running out of my blood pressure medication. We're both going to drop dead in this apartment," Sheila said. The medical team said it would make arrangements to transfer Irwin to a medical facility, at least temporarily.

City and federal officials, and a growing army of volunteers, are trying hard to make sure families like that don't fall into despair. Their efforts come alongside relief workers, donations, volunteers and demolition crews who flocked to New York and New Jersey in recent days to assist in the massive cleanup. The region took a few more steps to move past the storm Saturday, when power was restored for many more and gas rationing eased some of the clogged lines at stations in New York.

Paramedics from all over the country, including the ones that found the Goldbergs, fanned out across the Rockaways this weekend to check on shut-ins and anyone else who might need help.

The idea was to find people who "sheltered in place" during the storm, who might need assistance, said Nancy Clark, an assistant commissioner in the city's health department.

The going was slow. In their first three hours, the teams had gone through five high-rise towers. Several people were taken to the hospital. Others were hooked up with water, food, blankets or needed prescription medications.

Two floors below the Goldbergs, medics from South Carolina found Daisy Nixon, 70, slumped in a chair under a pile of blankets. A diabetic and a victim of two strokes, she was suffering from an untreated dislocated shoulder injured before the storm. Nate Thompson, an EMT, checked her blood glucose levels and found them troublingly high.

"It's been cold. Lord, have mercy," Nixon said. She said she was also having trouble breathing at night. When Thompson said he would get her an ambulance, Nixon was overjoyed.

"Can I kiss you? Don't you walk away from me," she said, and planted a smooch on his cheek.

Another neighborhood resident, Joseph Williams, said that the home care aide who normally helps look after his 27-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy and needs a wheelchair, hasn't been able to visit since the storm. After days of trying to take care of him himself, in a flooded high-rise with no utilities, Williams gave up and carried him down seven flights, so he could be evacuated to Brooklyn.

Yet, there were rays of hope amid the gloom. In Newark, N.J., an Amtrak train arrived pulling a box car filled with donations from New Orleans.

Fuel lines in the region remained long, but were only a shade of the nightmare they had been in recent days. Some gas stations on Staten Island had 20 cars in line Saturday afternoon.

In Staten Island's waterlogged New Dorp section, volunteers walked in knots, often carrying shovels and pails with the price tags still on them. A Boy Scout troop served hot dogs and grilled cheese. People pushed grocery carts filled with food and bottled water. On one sidewalk, a generator was hooked up to a popcorn maker, spilling a fresh batch into a bowl.

Mandie Collins and Mary Lou Sabatini, from the West Brighton neighborhood of Staten Island, cooked a turkey and ham, and walked door to door with coolers offering sandwiches.

"It's surreal," Collins said. "I lived down the block before. I passed by my old apartment and it's gone."

Utility companies have made progress restoring power. Most service was expected to be restored in New Jersey over the weekend, and the utility that serves New York City and suburban Westchester County said it has restored electricity to about 99 percent of the 1 million homes and businesses that lost power in the storm and a subsequent nor'easter, though that percentage doesn't count tens of thousands of homes the utility says are too damaged to receive power.

Power problems remained unresolved on New York's Long Island, where about 300 people staged an angry protest at an office of the beleaguered Long Island Power Authority. About 130,000 of its customers still didn't have power Saturday, LIPA said.

Amid the drudgery and heartbreak of cleanup came one special moment for Joanne McClenin, who had 5 feet of water in her Staten Island home.

On Wednesday, her husband returned to their house to find someone had returned Joanne's 1930 baptism certificate from St. Anthony's Church in Manhattan. It had a smudge of mud on it.

The certificate had been stored in a file cabinet of her late parents' belongings, stored in a shed in their yard. The water from Sandy swept it away.

"It felt like my father was watching me," she said.

___

Associated Press writers David Bauder, Verena Dobnik and Mae Anderson contributed to this report.

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Syria opposition bloc elects Christian as leader

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DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Syria‘s main opposition group in exile has elected a Christian Paris-based former geography teacher as its new president.


George Sabra said Friday that his election as head of the Syrian National Council is a sign that the opposition is not plagued by sectarian divisions.













Sabra says the SNC‘s main demand is to receive weapons from the international community. The U.S. and some other foreign backers of rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad have so far refused to send weapons for fear they can fall into the wrong hands.


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Walmart Moves Up Black Friday

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Walmart is kicking off Black Friday shopping earlier than ever this year, opening stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.


“In addition to offering amazing low prices on the season’s top gifts, Walmart is taking the historic step to ensure wishlist items like the Apple iPad2 are available for customers during a special one-hour event on Thanksgiving,” the world’s largest retailer said in a statement today.













“We know it’s frustrating for customers to shop on Black Friday and not get the items they want,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer, Walmart U.S. “This year, for the first time ever, customers that shop during Walmart’s one-hour event will be guaranteed to have three of the most popular items under their tree at a great low price.”


Other retailers will also be opening earlier, including Sears at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, moved up from 4 a.m. on Black Friday last year. Kmart will be open Thanksgiving Day 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., then it will close and reopen 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. Macy’s, Kohl’s and Best Buy open at midnight; Toys R Us hasn’t announced its plans. Advice on how to snag the best deals.


To help convince folks to head out to the store after dinner, Walmart said it will guarantee that customers who are inside the store and in line between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. can get these deals:


Apple iPad ®2 16GB with Wi-Fi – $ 399 plus get a $ 75 Walmart Gift Card


Emerson ® 32 720p LCD TV – $ 148


LG ® Blu-ray™ Player – $ 38


“If any of these items happen to sell out before 11 p.m. local time, Walmart will offer a Guarantee Card for the item which must be paid for by midnight and registered online. The product will then be shipped to the store where it was purchased for the customer to pick up before Christmas,” the retailer said.


A few of the top items available in store, while supplies last, include:


8 p.m. on November 22: Gifts for the Entire Family – Toys, Gaming, Home and Apparel


Xbox 360 ® 4GB + SkyLanders ™ Bundle – $ 149


Wii ™ Console- $ 89


More than 100 video games priced at $ 10, $ 15 or $ 25 each


Top Toys of the Season: Leappad ® 1.0 Learning Tablet ($ 65) and Furby ® ($ 45)


Razor ® Accelerator 12-Volt Electric Scooter – $ 79


Fisher Price Power Wheels ® Jeep ® Wrangler 6-Volt Ride Ons (Hot Wheels ® and Barbie ®) – $ 89 each


Licensed Boys’ and Girls’ 2-Piece Sleep Set – $ 4.50 each


Mens and Ladies Denim – $ 9.50 each


Home appliances such as a Crock Pot ® 6-Quart Slow Cooker and Mr. Coffee ® Programmable 12-Cup Coffee Maker – $ 9.44 each


Shark ® Steam Pocket Mop and Ninja ® Pulse Blender – $ 39 each


Fashion Dolls such as Barbie ®, Bratz ™ and Disney ® Princess – $ 5 each


Hundreds of DVD and Blu-ray movies such as Brave, The Amazing Spiderman, Hunger Game ranging from $ 1.96 to $ 9.96 each


Better Homes and Gardens ® 700-Thread Count Sheet Set – $ 19.96


48″ Air-Powered Hockey Table – $ 29.86


14′ Trampoline with Enclosure and Bonus Flash Light Zone – $ 159


10 p.m. on November 22: The BIG Event – Brand Name Electronics


Vizio ® 60″ 720p LED Smart TV with built in Wi-Fi – $ 688


Samsung ® 43″ 720p 600Hz Class Plasma HDTV – $ 378


HP ® 15.6″ Laptop with 4GB and 320GB hard drive – $ 279


Nikon ® D3000 Digital Camera with Lens Kit – $ 449


Samsung ® Smart ST195 Digital Camera – $ 99


Beats by Dr. Dre ® Headphones – $ 179.95


Nook ® Color ™ 8GB Tablet – $ 99


Virgin Mobile ® 3G/4G Hotspot – $ 39.88


5 a.m. on Nov. 23: Caffeine Not Needed – Great Savings on Gifts from Jewelry to Tires


Sharp ® 70″ 1080p 120Hz HDTV – $ 1,798


Acer ® 13.3″ Ultrabook ™ with 4GB and 320GB solid state drive – $ 499


$ 100 Walmart gift card with the purchase of select smartphones such as the Samsung ® Galaxy S III, Droid RAZR M by Motorola ® and HTC ® One X


Goodyear Tires ranging from $ 59 – $ 99 each


Forever Bride 1/3 -Carat T.W. Diamond Ring in 10K Gold – $ 198


Stanley ® 6-Drawer Rolling Tool Cabinet with 85-Piece Mechanic Tool Set – $ 99


Singer ® Sew Mate 5400 60-Stitch Sewing Machine – $ 99.97


5? Pre-Lit Harrison Christmas Tree – $ 20


Better Homes and Gardens Deluxe Recliner – $ 199


Black Friday Specials & More Online:


Samsung 50″ Class LED 1080p 60Hz HDTV – $ 698


Ematic 7″ Tablet Android 4.0 1GHz, 4GB – $ 49


Dsi XL Ultimate Bundle – $ 129


Razor A Kick Scooter, Multiple Colors – $ 25


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“Lincoln” Reviews: Is Steven Spielberg’s biopic Oscar-worthy?

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Lincoln,” with a cast of acting titans like Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones, arrives in theaters Friday with many predicting big things come Oscar night. But does Steven Spielberg‘s biopic of the Great Emancipator live up to the early hype?


Based on initial reviews, it seems like Spielberg and company have delivered. Critics are raving about Day-Lewis’ performance and crediting the film with taking a historical figure who is cloaked in myth and making him relatable and sympathetically human. Instead of uncoiling a birth-through-death chronology of Father Abraham, “Lincoln” narrows its gaze to a few key months in 1865 when the president was trying to simultaneously end the Civil War and pass an amendment abolishing slavery.













The film, which will expand nationally next week after opening in limited release this weekend, scored a bullish 92 percent “fresh” rating on critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.


In TheWrap, Alonso Duralde lavished praise on the film and its literate script from Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner for finding the man behind the monument. His one bone of contention was not with the film itself but with its gauzy ad campaign.


“The dreadful trailer makes ‘Lincoln‘ look like an awful collection of Spielbergian excesses, including swelling John Williams moments (admittedly, there are one or two) and Janusz Kaminski’s honey-baked lighting (OK, granted, it appears, but not too often), not to mention Tommy Lee Jones‘ terrible wig (which actually winds up being organic in his memorable turn as Thaddeus Stevens),” Duralde writes. “Don’t let the marketing campaign keep you from seeing one of the best American movies this year, and Spielberg’s finest work in decades.”


Perhaps no critical enthusiasm could match that of A.O. Scott. In a glowing review in The New York Times, Scott sounds the trumpets for Spielberg’s epic, urging parents to bundle their children into the local multiplex to see history unfurl across the screen.


“Some of the ambition of ‘Lincoln‘ seems to be to answer the omissions and distortions of the cinematic past, represented by great films like D. W. Griffith‘s ‘Birth of a Nation,’ which glorified the violent disenfranchisement of African-Americans as a heroic second founding, and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ with its romantic view of the old South,” Scott writes. “To paraphrase what Woodrow Wilson said of Griffith, Mr. Spielberg writes history with lightning.”


For Kenneth Turan, the greatness of the film lies in its understatedness. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, he lauded Spielberg for abandoning his more bombastic impulses to focus on the interior life of an American president.


“There is nothing bravura or overly emotional about Spielberg’s direction here, but the impeccable filmmaking is no less impressive for being quiet and to the point,” Turan writes. “The director delivers selfless, pulled-back satisfactions: he’s there in service of the script and the acting, to enhance the spoken word rather than burnish his reputation.”


It’s an “A,” declares Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, who hails the film for getting its hands dirty while depicting the sausage-making of politics.


The Lincoln we see here is that rare movie creature, a heroic thinker,” he writes. “He has the serpentine intellect of a master lawyer, infused with a poet’s passion. ‘Lincoln’ brilliantly dramatizes the delicacy of politics, along with the raw brutality of it.”


In New York magazine, David Edelstein savored the film, but admitted that a few moments could have gone down more smoothly. In particular, he said the film’s initial scenes suffered from musty dialogue and some of the political wrangling it depicted was difficult to follow. Ultimately, however, he credited the picture with finding a fresh take on a president whose legacy has been dissected and debated for generations.


“By the time the movie ends, you don’t feel as if you know Lincoln – few, in his own time, claimed to know him,” Edelstein writes. “But you feel as if you know what it was like to be in his presence. And so an icon (it’s a measure of how promiscuously that word is thrown around that it seems inadequate for one of history’s truly iconic figures) has become a man – and, startlingly, within reach.”


There were a few critics, of course, who were not ready to endorse “Lincoln.” In the Newark Star-Ledger, Stephen Whitty slammed the movie for choking on its own self-serious and mocked it for too many scenes of intense debates held by men with copious facial hair.


“So if you’ve been sitting around wondering, ‘Gee, when is Spielberg ever going to make another ‘Amistad?’ ’ here’s your answer,” Whitty writes.


Apparently, Whitty would prefer another “Jaws.”


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California teen steps into rattlesnake nest, survives

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SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A teenage California girl searching for a cell phone signal to call her mother in a rural area outside San Diego inadvertently stepped into a nest of rattlesnakes and was bitten six times, but survived.


The 16-year-old, Vera Oliphant, spent four days in the intensive care unit of Sharp Grossmont Hospital, and doctors gave her 24 vials of antivenom after she was bitten by an adult rattlesnake and five young rattlers outside her uncle’s home.













“I was trying to find a signal to call my mom and text my boyfriend,” Oliphant said on Friday, a day after she was released from the hospital following the October 27 incident.


“I didn’t see them until I already stepped on their nest and I felt them biting me.”


“My vision started to go right away. First it looked like the snakes blended into the leaves and then I started seeing black spots around the edges and I started blacking out.”


She returned to her uncle’s home in Jamul, outside San Diego, and he immediately packed her into the car and rushed her to the emergency room, she said.


On the way, she talked to her mom and her boyfriend, who told her to stay calm so the venom wouldn’t spread.


“I told my mom and my boyfriend I love them in case I don’t get to see them again,” she said.


Doctors there administered 24 vials of antivenom to quash the dangerous toxins, according to a hospital spokesman. Snakebites usually aren’t fatal, although a handful of people die in the United States each year from snake bites, including bites from rattlesnakes.


Oliphant has recovered and will be returning to classes at Chaparral High School in El Cajon on Monday. She said the next time she can’t get a signal, she will handle it differently.


“Be careful where you step,” she said. “If you don’t need to, just wait until you are somewhere that you can call people.”


(Editing By Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham)


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How 'poor judgment' felled military star Petraeus

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Petraeus was a star on the battlefield, commanding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but was undone by "poor judgment" in engaging in an extramarital affair that led to his downfall as CIA director.


Just two days after his 60th birthday, Petraeus stepped down from the spy agency where he had held the top office since September 6, 2011.


"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation," Petraeus told the shadow warriors he commanded at CIA.


It was a stunning downfall for a revered military man who was seen as one of the top American leaders of his generation and was once considered a potential contender for the White House.


Petraeus was credited with pulling Iraq from the brink of all-out civil war and for battlefield successes in Afghanistan after overseeing a surge of 30,000 troops ordered by President Barack Obama in late 2009. He became known for counter-insurgency strategies that were seen as gaining ground against the Taliban in Afghanistan.


"I don't think he was professionally overrated. His were genuine accomplishments," said James Carafano, a war historian with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.


At the time of his nomination to the CIA post, some Washington insiders had said the White House wanted to find a prominent position for Petraeus to ensure he would not be recruited by Republicans as a challenger to the 2012 Obama-Biden ticket.


When he was nominated to lead the CIA there were some concerns in intelligence circles that the high-profile four-star Army general might not be able to lead from the shadows as appropriate for a spy chief.


But once he took over the head office at the U.S. spy agency, Petraeus kept a decidedly low public profile.


Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, expressed regret about the resignation of "one of America's best and brightest" and said it was an "enormous loss" for the country.


"At CIA, Director Petraeus gave the agency leadership, stature, prestige and credibility both at home and abroad. On a personal level, I found his command of intelligence issues second to none," she said.


RESIGNATION ACCEPTED


After accepting his resignation about a year-and-a-half after nominating Petraeus to the CIA post, Obama said: "By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end."


Earlier this week, in a Newsweek article entitled "General David Petraeus's Rules for Living," he listed 12 lessons for leadership. Number 5 was: "We all will make mistakes. The key is to recognize them and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear­ view mirrors - drive on and avoid making them again."


In 2010 Petraeus stepped into the breach as the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to replace General Stanley McChrystal who was fired by Obama in a scandal over an article in which McChrystal and his aides made mocking comments about the president and some of his top advisers.


In 2009 Petraeus was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent radiation treatment. The media-friendly general joked at that time at a Washington event that reporters were only gathered "to see if the guy is still alive."


Petraeus, born in Cornwall, New York, lives in Virginia with his wife Holly. They have two grown children, a son who was an Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, and a daughter.


Petraeus's wife, Holly, is an activist and volunteer who champions military families, and she continued that work after her husband retired from the military and moved to the CIA.


She currently is assistant director of the office of servicemember affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she tries to keep unscrupulous lenders from taking advantage of military personnel. The bureau was championed by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, who was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts this week.


Holly Petraeus is the daughter of four-star General William Knowlton, who was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when Petraeus was a cadet.


She briefed the press at the Pentagon on her efforts recently and was introduced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who called her "a true friend of the Department of Defense and a dedicated member of our military family."


Petraeus has four Defense Distinguished Service Medal awards, three Distinguished Service Medal awards, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, and the State Department Distinguished Service Award.


He has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University.


(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Diane Bartz; Editing by Warren Strobel and Jackie Frank)

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Myanmar says Obama to visit later this month

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YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — President Barack Obama will make a groundbreaking visit later this month to Myanmar, an official said Thursday, following through with his policy of rapprochement to encourage democracy in the Southeast Asian nation.


The Myanmar official speaking from the capital, Naypyitaw, said Thursday that security for a visit on Nov. 18 or 19 had been prepared, but the schedule was not final. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to give information to the media.













The official said Obama would meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as government officials including reformist President Thein Sein.


It would be the first-ever visit to Myanmar by an American president. U.S. officials have not yet announced any plans for a visit, which would come less than two weeks after Obama’s election to a second term.


Obama’s administration has sought to encourage the recent democratic progress under Thein Sein by easing sanctions applied against Myanmar’s previous military regime.


Officials in nearby Thailand and Cambodia have already informally announced plans for visits by Obama that same week. Cambodia is hosting a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Thailand is a longtime close U.S. ally.


The visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, would be the culmination of a dramatic turnaround in relations with Washington as the country has shifted from five decades of ruinous military rule and shaken off the pariah status it had earned through its bloody suppression of democracy.


Obama’s ending of the long-standing U.S. isolation of Myanmar’s generals has played a part in coaxing them into political reforms that have unfolded with surprising speed in the past year. The U.S. has appointed a full ambassador and suspended sanctions to reward Myanmar for political prisoner releases and the election of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi to parliament.


From Myanmar’s point of view, the lifting of sanctions is essential for boosting a lagging economy that was hurt not only by sanctions that curbed exports and foreign investment, but also by what had been a protectionist, centralized approach. Thein Sein’s government has initiated major economic reforms in addition to political ones.


A procession of senior diplomats and world leaders have traveled to Myanmar, stopping both in the remote, opulent capital city, which was built by the former ruling junta, and at Suu Kyi’s dilapidated lakeside villa in the main city of Yangon, where she spent 15 years under house arrest. New Zealand announced Thursday that Prime Minister John Key would visit Myanmar after attending the regional meetings in Cambodia.


The most senior U.S. official to visit was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who last December became the first U.S. secretary of state to travel to Myanmar in 56 years.


The Obama administration regards the political changes in Myanmar as a marquee achievement in its foreign policy, and one that could dilute the influence of China in a country that has a strategic location between South and Southeast Asia, regions of growing economic importance.


But exiled Myanmar activists and human rights groups are likely to criticize an Obama visit as premature, rewarding Thein Sein before his political and economic reforms have truly taken root. The military — still dominant and implicated in rights abuses — has failed to prevent vicious outbreaks of communal violence in the west of the country that have left scores dead.


Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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US video game sales drop 25 percent in October

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NEW YORK (AP) — A research firm says U.S. retail sales of new video game hardware, software and accessories fell 25 percent in October.


The drop marks the 11th straight month of declining sales for physical game products. Many gamers are waiting for big holiday releases such as Activision Blizzard Inc.‘s “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”













The NPD Group said Thursday that sales fell to $ 755.5 million from $ 1 billion a year earlier.


Sales of video games themselves, excluding PC titles, fell 25 percent to $ 432.6 million. Sales of hardware such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 fell 37 percent to $ 187.3 million. Sales of accessories, meanwhile, grew 5 percent to $ 135.6 million.


NPD estimates that retail sales account for about half of all video game spending. The rest is downloads, apps and the like.


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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