Mediterranean-style diets found to cut heart risks

Pour on the olive oil, preferably over fish and vegetables: One of the longest and most scientific tests of a Mediterranean diet suggests this style of eating can cut the chance of suffering heart-related problems, especially strokes, in older people at high risk of them.

The study lasted five years and involved about 7,500 people in Spain. Those who ate Mediterranean-style with lots of olive oil or nuts had a 30 percent lower risk of major cardiovascular problems compared to those who were told to follow a low-fat diet but who in reality, didn't cut fat very much. Mediterranean meant lots of fruit, fish, chicken, beans, tomato sauce, salads, and wine and little baked goods and pastries.

Mediterranean diets have long been touted as heart-healthy, but that's based on observational studies that can't prove the point. The new research is much stronger because people were assigned diets to follow for a long time and carefully monitored. Doctors even did lab tests to verify that the Mediterranean diet folks were consuming more olive oil or nuts as recommended.

Most of these people were taking medicines for high cholesterol and blood pressure, and researchers did not alter those proven treatments, said one study leader, Dr. Ramon Estruch of Hospital Clinic in Barcelona.

But as a first step to prevent heart problems, "we think diet is better than a drug" because it has few if any side effects, Estruch said. "Diet works."

Results were published online Monday by the New England Journal of Medicine and were discussed at a nutrition conference in Loma Linda, Calif.

People in the study were not given rigid menus or calorie goals because weight loss was not the aim. That could be why they found the "diets" easy to stick with — only about 7 percent dropped out within two years. There were twice as many dropouts in the low-fat group than among those eating Mediterranean-style.

Researchers also provided the nuts and olive oil, so it didn't cost participants anything to use these relatively pricey ingredients. The type of oil may have mattered — they used extra-virgin olive oil, which is minimally processed and richer than regular or light olive oil in the chemicals and nutrients that earlier studies have suggested are beneficial.

The study involved people ages 55 to 80, just over half of them women. All were free of heart disease at the start but were at high risk for it because of health problems — half had diabetes and most were overweight and had high cholesterol and blood pressure.

They were assigned to one of three groups: Two followed a Mediterranean diet supplemented with either extra-virgin olive oil (4 tablespoons a day) or with walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds (a fistful a day). The third group was urged to eat a low-fat diet heavy on bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, fruits, vegetables and fish and light on baked goods, nuts, oils and red meat.

Independent monitors stopped the study after nearly five years when they saw fewer problems in the two groups on Mediterranean diets.

Doctors tracked a composite of heart attacks, strokes or heart-related deaths. There were 96 of these in the Mediterranean-olive oil group, 83 in the Mediterranean-nut group and 109 in the low-fat group.

Looked at individually, stroke was the only problem where type of diet made a big difference. Diet had no effect on death rates overall.

The Mediterranean diet proved better even though its followers ate about 200 calories more per day than the low-fat group did. The study leaders now are analyzing how each of the diets affected weight gain or loss and body mass index.

The Spanish government's health research agency initiated and paid for the study, and foods were supplied by olive oil and nut producers in Spain and the California Walnut Commission. Many of the authors have extensive financial ties to food, wine and other industry groups but said the sponsors had no role in designing the study or analyzing and reporting its results.

Rachel Johnson, a University of Vermont professor who heads the American Heart Association's nutrition committee, said the study is very strong because of the lab tests to verify oil and nut consumption and because researchers tracked actual heart attacks, strokes and deaths — not just changes in risk factors such as high cholesterol.

"At the end of the day, what we care about is whether or not disease develops," she said. "It's an important study."

Rena Wing, a weight-loss expert at Brown University, noted that researchers provided the oil and nuts, and said "it's not clear if people could get the same results from self-designed Mediterranean diets" — or if Americans would stick to them more than Europeans who are used to such foods.

Dr. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., said he would give the study "a positive — even glowing — comment" and called it "the best and certainly one of the largest prospective dietary trials ever done."

"The data are sufficiently strong to convince me to move my dietary pattern closer to the Mediterranean Diet that they outline," he added.

Another independent expert also praised the study as evidence diet can lower heart risks.

"The risk reduction is close to that achieved with statins," cholesterol-lowering drugs, said Dr. Robert Eckel, a diet and heart disease expert at the University of Colorado.

"But this study was not carried out or intended to compare diet to statins or blood pressure medicines," he warned. "I don't think people should think now they can quit taking their medicines."

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Online:

Journal: http://www.nejm.org

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

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IHT Rendezvous: Opera for an Era When Money Is Tight

VIENNA—Not long ago it looked as if cuts in arts funding would sound the death knell of the Vienna Chamber Opera, known in German as the Kammeroper, an ensemble esteemed for its chamber-scale productions in an intimate, inviting setting. The Austrian federal government’s decision to eliminate entirely its support, which constituted half of the company’s governmental subsidies (the other half coming from the city) effectively put the Kammeroper out of business.

Yet the 2012-13 season has seen the Kammeroper come roaring back with five new productions—including a “Bohème” finishing up performances this weekend— put on by a resident company with an established orchestra in the pit.

How to explain this turnaround? In fact, the old company, which was founded over 50 years ago by Hans Gabor and was subsequently run by Isabella, his widow, is history. The new Kammeroper, formally known as Theater an der Wien in der Kammeroper, is a case of one opera company rushing to fill the void left by the collapse of another.

Few opera companies today are in a financial position to go into expansionary mode. But, with the city willing to continue its support, the Theater an der Wien saw an opportunity, as its director of artistic administration, Sebastian Schwarz, who oversees the Kammeroper, explained by phone. Surprisingly, as he pointed out, the Vienna Staatsoper lacks a young artists program, so the new venture helps meet a need in the city. It also adds a degree of continuity to the Theater an der Wien’s own operations, which include world-class productions of interesting repertory that are assembled individually, with visiting performers and orchestras.

What has happened at the Kammeroper would be akin the Metropolitan Opera taking over the name and venue of a smaller New York company in financial trouble, giving the city the “Mini-Met” audiences have fancied for decades. The Kammeroper’s venue is especially choice: the gilded former ballroom, dating from the turn of the last century, of the venerable Hotel Post in the old Fleischmarkt district of the city. Outfitted with an orchestra pit, it comfortably seats 300. The performance I attended was packed, and with ticket prices ranging from 16 to 48 euros ($21-64), it is a bargain.

At the core of the new Kammeroper is an ensemble of seven young singers, which Mr. Schwarz described as constituting a “cast for ‘Così Fan Tutte’ ”—two sopranos, a mezzo soprano, a tenor, a baritone and a bass, plus a counter-tenor. In addition to their Kammeroper duties, the singers take smaller roles at the Theater an der Wien.

“La Bohème” can make a special impact when cast with young singers, and so it does here, as performed in Jonathan Dove’s 1986 chamber version with newly composed modernistic music at the start and between acts by Sinem Altan. Basically, the opera is performed straight, but with choral and other big moments from Acts 2 and 3 excised. The interludes, which included prerecorded music, are atmospheric and intermittently engaging, but essentially peripheral. For one not knowing what to expect, it was a relief when—with Rodolfo and Marcello already onstage—the familiar music of Act 1 began to unfold and continued on uninterrupted.

The lively, updated staging is by Lotte de Beer, the young director of Robin de Raaff’s recent “Waiting for Ms. Monroe” at the Netherlands Opera. The set by Clement & Sanôu, who also did the lighting, focuses on the modern kitchen of the bohemians’ apartment, which also, somewhat confusingly seems to be part high-end boutique (at least until the merchandise is removed after Act 2). In any case, it is handsome and full of stylish details. The playwright Rodolfo writes at a laptop and throws pages of his opus into the oven for warmth.

There is an inevitable loss of grandeur in Act 2, but Ms. de Beer nicely handles Rodolfo and Mimi’s growing attraction to each other and the conflicts of Act 3. The setting of Mimi’s hospital room for Act 4 is rather contrived, however, especially since the others, not at first being allowed in, communicate with her from pay phones in the lobby, which detracts from the emotional impact. Mimi has lost her hair, presumably as a result of treating a fatal illness different from that specified by Puccini. Still, this is an engaging show

The vocal ensemble, which is capably augmented by two guests, Oleg Loza as Schaunard and Martin Thoma as Benoit and Alcindoro, is uniformly strong. From the opera’s opening line by Marcello, one admired Ben Connor’s rich, fluent baritone, and it didn’t take long for the tenor Andrew Owens to catch his stride as Rodolfo and spin his own handsomely lyrical phrases and a fine high C.

All the singers displayed ample voices that could be overpowering in a hall this size, but they didn’t allow that to happen. Cigdem Soyarslan’s Mimi was a little uneven at first, but one came to appreciate her warm spinto sound, especially in her Act 3 aria, and Anna Maris Sarra sings Musetta with a glinting soprano that is heard to fine effect in her animated account of the waltz aria.

Igor Bakan brings a full, resonant bass voice and a strong emotional charge to Colline’s farewell to his overcoat. The fine Vienna Chamber Orchestra is in the pit, led with assurance by Claire Levacher.

The newly constituted Kammeroper has thus emerged as a bright spot on the Viennese opera scene.

Two more productions remain this season, a double bill of Britten’s “Curlew River” and “Prodigal Son” and Handel’s “Orlando.”

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Daniel Radcliffe Dances to Nelly in West Hollywood

Caught in the Act

02/24/2013 at 04:00 PM EST

We're not in Hogwarts anymore.

Daniel Radcliffe made an unexpected appearance at Bootsy Bellows in West Hollywood on Friday night. Arriving with a male pal around 1:40 a.m., the Harry Potter star was "in party mode but really friendly," an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

Wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and jeans, the actor hung out at a table in the club's back VIP room, where he made himself vodka cocktails.

As DJ BeeFowl spun hit after hit, Radcliffe "started singing and dancing at the table to Nelly's 'Country Grammar' and 'Ride Wit Me'," the source adds. "He introduced himself to people at his table casually as 'Dan.' "

As the evening progressed, Girl Meets World star Ben Savage chatted up Radcliffe and the two shared a laugh.

The next song to make Radcliffe dance was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

The source adds, "He was very happy-go-lucky," and Radcliffe "posed for a few photos and stayed at the club until closing time."

– Jennifer Garcia

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Investors face another Washington deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors face another Washington-imposed deadline on government spending cuts next week, but it's not generating the same level of fear as two months ago when the "fiscal cliff" loomed large.

Investors in sectors most likely to be affected by the cuts, like defense, seem untroubled that the budget talks could send stocks tumbling.

Talks on the U.S. budget crisis began again this week leading up to the March 1 deadline for the so-called sequestration when $85 billion in automatic federal spending cuts are scheduled to take effect.

"It's at this point a political hot button in Washington but a very low level investor concern," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The fight pits President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats against congressional Republicans.

Stocks rallied in early January after a compromise temporarily avoided the fiscal cliff, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> has risen 6.3 percent since the start of the year.

But the benchmark index lost steam this week, posting its first week of losses since the start of the year. Minutes on Wednesday from the last Federal Reserve meeting, which suggested the central bank may slow or stop its stimulus policy sooner than expected, provided the catalyst.

National elections in Italy on Sunday and Monday could also add to investor concern. Most investors expect a government headed by Pier Luigi Bersani to win and continue with reforms to tackle Italy's debt problems. However, a resurgence by former leader Silvio Berlusconi has raised doubts.

"Europe has been in the last six months less of a topic for the stock market, but the problems haven't gone away. This may bring back investor attention to that," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

OPTIONS BULLS TARGET GAINS

The spending cuts, if they go ahead, could hit the defense industry particularly hard.

Yet in the options market, bulls were targeting gains in Lockheed Martin Corp , the Pentagon's biggest supplier.

Calls on the stock far outpaced puts, suggesting that many investors anticipate the stock to move higher. Overall options volume on the stock was 2.8 times the daily average with 17,000 calls and 3,360 puts traded, according to options analytics firm Trade Alert.

"The upside call buying in Lockheed solidifies the idea that option investors are not pricing in a lot of downside risk in most defense stocks from the likely impact of sequestration," said Jared Woodard, a founder of research and advisory firm condoroptions.com in Forest, Virginia.

The stock ended up 0.6 percent at $88.12 on Friday.

If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on reducing the U.S. budget deficit in the next few days, a sequester would include significant cuts in defense spending. Companies such as General Dynamics Corp and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp could be affected.

General Dynamics Corp shares rose 1.2 percent to $67.32 and Smith & Wesson added 4.6 percent to $9.18 on Friday.

EYES ON GDP DATA, APPLE

The latest data on fourth-quarter U.S. gross domestic product is expected on Thursday, and some analysts predict an upward revision following trade data that showed America's deficit shrank in December to its narrowest in nearly three years.

U.S. GDP unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter, according to an earlier government estimate, but analysts said there was no reason for panic, given that consumer spending and business investment picked up.

Investors will be looking for any hints of changes in the Fed's policy of monetary easing when Fed Chairman Ben Bernake speaks before congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Shares of Apple will be watched closely next week when the company's annual stockholders' meeting is held.

On Friday, a U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with the iPhone maker, blocking the company from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.

(Additional reporting by Doris Frankel; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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The Lede: Reeva Steenkamp, Steve Biko and the Quest for Justice in South Africa

LONDON – The title of the presiding judge 35 years ago was the same, chief magistrate of Pretoria, and the venue for the hearing, a converted synagogue, was not far from the modern courthouse seen on television screens around the world in recent days as Oscar Pistorius, the gold medal-winning Paralympic athlete, fought for bail in the killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

The case that unfolded in the last weeks of 1977, like the one featuring Mr. Pistorius, centered on a death that captured global attention. Then, too, it was the role of the chief magistrate, a jurist of relatively minor standing in South Africa’s legal system, to weigh whether it was a case of murder or mishap. Then, too, there were constituencies, inside the courtroom and beyond, that clamored passionately for their version of the truth.

The similarities – and dissimilarities – will have pressed in on anyone who was present in the Pretoria courtroom those decades ago, when the proceeding involved was an inquest, and the death that of Steve Biko, a 30-year-old black activist who was a popular youth leader of the anti-apartheid movement. By the miserable manner of his dying, alone, naked, and comatose on the floor of a freezing prison cell, Mr. Biko became, in death still more than in life, a powerful force for an end to South Africa’s institutionalized system of racial repression.

A British television report from South Africa in 1977, eight days after Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist, was beaten to death in police custody.

The two cases, of course, will find widely different places on history’s ladder. Mr. Pistorius, awarded bail on Friday after a hearing that was sensational for what it revealed of his actions in shooting Ms. Steenkamp, and for the raw emotions the athlete displayed in the dock, became a global celebrity in recent years for his feats as the Blade Runner, a track star who overcame the disability of being born with no bones in his lower legs.

But for all that it has been a shock to the millions who have seen his running as a parable for triumph in adversity, Mr. Pistorius’s tragedy — and still more, Ms. Steenkamps’s — has been a personal one. Mr. Biko’s death was considered at the time, as it has been ever since, as a watershed in the history of apartheid, a grim milestone among many others along South Africa’s progress towards black majority rule, which many ranked as the most inspiriting event in the peacetime history of the 20th-century when it was finally achieved in 1994.

Still, for a reporter who covered the Biko inquest for the Times as the paper’s South Africa correspondent through the turbulent years of the 1970’s, there were strong resonances in the week’s televised proceedings in Pretoria. Among them was the sheer scale of the media coverage, and the display of how live-by-satellite broadcasting and the digitalization of the print press, with computers, cellphones and Twitter feeds, have globalized the news business.

Oscar Pistorius facing the media during his bail hearing this week in Pretoria.

For the Pistorius hearing, there was a frenzied, tented camp of television crews outside the court, a crush among reporters struggling to get into the hearing, and platoons of studio commentators eager to have their say.

The crush among reporters outside the bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius this week in Pretoria.

On each of the 13 days the Biko inquest was in session, I had no trouble finding myself a seat in the airy courtroom. I took my lunch quietly with members of the Biko family’s legal team, and loitered uneasily during adjournments in an outside passageway, eavesdropping on the policemen who were Mr. Biko’s captors in his final days as they fine-tuned the testimony they were to give in court.

In the Pistorius case, the police again emerged poorly, having, as it seemed, bungled aspects of the forensic investigation in ways that could complicate the prosecution’s case that Mr. Steenkamp’s death was a case of premeditated murder — and having assigned the case to an officer who turned out to be under investigation in a case of attempted murder himself. But nothing in that bungling could compare with the sheer wretchedness of the security police officers in the Biko case, who symbolized, in their brutal and callous treatment of a defenseless man, and in the jesting about it I heard in that courtroom passageway, just how far below human decency apartheid had descended.

There was, too, the extraordinary contrast in the deportment of the magistrates in their rulings in the two cases, and what that said about the different South Africas of then and now. Desmond Nair, presiding at the Pistorius hearing, took more than two hours to review the evidence in the killing of Ms. Steenkamp, swinging back and forth in a meandering — and often bewildering — fashion between the contending accounts of Ms. Steenkamp’s death offered by Mr. Pistorius’s legal counsel and those put forward by the police.

Marthinus J. Prins, the chief magistrate in the Biko inquest, took an abrupt three minutes to deliver his finding, a numbing, 120-word exculpation of the policemen and government doctors who ushered Mr. Biko to his death on the stone-flagged floor of the Pretoria Central Prison. “The court finds the available evidence does not prove the death was brought about by any act or omission involving any offense by any person,” Mr. Prins said, reading hurriedly from a prepared statement before leaving the courtroom and slipping away by a rear door.

In finding that nobody was to blame in the black leader’s death, the magistrate brushed aside testimony suggesting what the policemen and doctors involved acknowledged many years later to have been true, when they petitioned for amnesty under the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process that sought to heal the wounds of apartheid: that Mr. Biko had been beaten in police custody, suffering a severe brain injury that was left untreated until he died.

The utter lack of compassion, and of anything resembling justice, was expressed in the dull-eyed satisfaction of Mr. Prins when I caught up with him an hour or so after the verdict in his vast, dingy office a few blocks from the courtroom.

“To me, it was just another death,” he said, pulling off his spectacles and rubbing his eyes. “It was just a job, like any other.”

Mr. Prins, who rose to his position through the apartheid bureaucracy, without legal training, appeared at that moment, as he had throughout the inquest, to be disturbingly sincere, yet utterly blinded. Faithful servant of the apartheid system, he had given it the clean bill of health it demanded, and freed the police to continue treating black political detainees as they chose. Among the country’s rulers, the verdict was embraced as a triumphal vindication, while those who chose to see matters more clearly understood it to be a tolling of history’s bell.

Listening to Mr. Nair delivering his ruling in the Pistorius case, there will have been many, in South Africa and abroad, who will have found his monologue on Friday confusing, circular in its argument, and numbingly repetitive. As an exercise in jurisprudence, it was something less than a stellar advertisement for a South African legal system that, at its best, is a match for any in the world, as it was back in 1977.

Sydney Kentridge, lead counsel for the Biko family at the inquest, moved seamlessly to England in the years that followed, and became, by widespread reckoning among his peers, Britain’s most distinguished barrister, still practicing in London now, well into his 80’s.

In the 2011 Steve Biko Lecture at the University of Cape Town, Sydney Kentridge spoke about the inquest into his death in 1977.

A host of other South African expatriates who fled apartheid have made outstanding careers as lawyers and judges in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, but many others stayed at home, and continue to serve a court system that has fared rather better, in recent years, than many other institutions in the new South African state.

But even if Mr. Nair, in granting Mr. Pistorius bail, seemed no match in the elegance of his argument for South Africa’s finest legal minds, he nonetheless did South Africa proud. In the chaotic manner of his ruling, which sounded at times like a man grabbing for law books off a shelf, he was, indisputably, doing something that Mr. Prins, all those years before, had not even attempted: looking for ways to steer his course to justice. People will disagree whether Mr. Pistorius deserved the break he got in walking free from that courtroom, but nobody could reasonably contest that what we saw in his case was the working of a legal system that strives for justice, and not to rubber-stamp the imperatives of the state.

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We Totally Agree With Your Pick for Best Dressed Star This Week

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/23/2013 at 12:00 PM ET

Sara De Boer/Startraks

For a moment, it looked like Miranda Kerr was going to be crowned the best dressed star for a second week in a row. But one very stylish actress managed to steal the supermodel’s throne: Mila Kunis.

The Oz: The Great and Powerful star’s cream lace tea-length Dolce & Gabbana dress earned just enough votes to place first on this week’s best dressed list. Kunis paired the winning number with Christian Louboutin peep-toe heels and purple Sutra statement earrings for the film’s Hollywood premiere.

PHOTOS: SEE THE TOP 10 BEST DRESSED STARS ON PEOPLE.COM THIS WEEK!

Kerr was about 400 votes shy of nabbing the number one spot thanks to her LBD, ankle-strap heels and red lips, which she donned to a Clear Scalp & Hair event in Sydney, Australia.

Check out who else made the top 10 and vote for your favorites here. Tell us: Is Kunis your best dressed star of the week? If not, who is?

–Jennifer Cress

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Chinese Passports Seen as Political Statement

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Hu Ping, the editor of a pro-democracy journal in New York, has not seen his aging parents in decades because of passport restrictions.

BEIJING — Flush with cash and eager to see the world, millions of middle-class Chinese spent the 10-day Lunar New Year holiday that ended on Monday in places like Paris, Bangkok and New York. Last year, Chinese made a record 83 million trips abroad, 20 percent more than in 2011 and a fivefold increase from a decade earlier.

Sun Wenguang, a retired economics professor from China’s Shandong Province, was not among those venturing overseas, however. And not by choice. An author whose books offer a critical assessment of Communist Party rule, Mr. Sun, 79, has been repeatedly denied a passport without explanation.

“I’d love to visit my daughter in America and my 90-year-old brother in Taiwan but the authorities have other ideas,” he said. “I feel like I’m living in a cage.”

Mr. Sun is among the legions of Chinese who have been barred from traveling abroad by a government that is increasingly using the issuance of passports as a cudgel against perceived enemies — or as a carrot to encourage academics whose writings have at times strayed from the party line to return to the fold.

“It’s just another way to punish people they don’t like,” said Wu Zeheng, a government critic and Buddhist spiritual leader from southern Guangdong Province whose failed entreaties to obtain a passport have prevented him from accepting at least a dozen speaking invitations in Europe and North America.

China’s passport restrictions extend to low-level military personnel, Tibetan monks and even the security personnel who process passport applications. “I feel so jealous when I see all my friends taking vacations in Singapore or Thailand but the only way I could join them is to quit my job,” said a 28-year-old police detective in Beijing.

Lawyers and human rights advocates say the number of those affected has soared in recent years, with Tibetans and Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking minority from China’s far west, increasingly ineligible for overseas fellowships, speaking engagements or the organized sightseeing groups that have ferried planeloads of Chinese to foreign capitals.

Although the government does not release figures on those who have been denied passports, human rights groups suggest that at least 14 million people — mostly those officially categorized as ethnic Uighurs and Tibetans — have been directly affected by the restrictions as have hundreds of religious and political dissidents. A representative of the Exit-Entry Administration of the Public Security Bureau declined to discuss the nation’s passport policies.

The seemingly arbitrary restrictions also affect overseas Chinese who had grown accustomed to frequent visits home. Scores of Chinese expatriates have been denied new passports by Chinese embassies when their old ones expire, while others say they are simply turned away after landing in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong. After finding their names on a blacklist, border control officers will escort returnees on to the next outbound flight. Even if seldom given explanations for their expulsions, many of those turned away suspect it is punishment for their anti-government activism abroad.

“Compared to other forms of political persecution, the denial of the right to return home seems like a small evil,” said Hu Ping, the editor of a pro-democracy journal in New York who has not seen his aging parents in decades. “But it’s a blatant violation of human rights.”

Even those carrying valid passports are subject to the whims of the authorities. On Feb. 6, Wang Zhongxia, 28, a Chinese activist who had planned to meet the Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was barred from boarding a Myanmar-bound flight from the southern city of Guangzhou. Four days earlier, Ilham Tohti, an academic and vocal advocate for China’s ethnic Uighurs, was prevented from leaving for the United States.

Mr. Tohti, who was set to begin a yearlong fellowship at Indiana University, said he was interrogated at Beijing International Airport for nearly 12 hours by officers who refused to explain his detention. Speaking from his apartment in the capital, Mr. Tohti said Uighurs have long faced difficulties in obtaining passports but that the authorities have made it nearly impossible in recent years. “We feel like second-class citizens in our own country,” he said.

For decades after the Communists came to power in 1949, most Chinese could only dream of traveling abroad; the handful who managed to leave often escaped by evading border guards and swimming across shark-infested waters to what was then British-ruled Hong Kong. As China opened up to the outside world in the early 1980s, the government began providing passports and exit visas to graduate students with acceptance letters from universities overseas.

Patrick Zuo contributed research.

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Nick Carter Engaged to Lauren Kitt

By Jennifer Garcia and Patrick Gomez

02/22/2013 at 04:30 PM EST

Lauren Kitt and Nick Carter

Angela Weiss/WireImage

Nick Carter has found his fire, his one desire.

"I had the ring in my pocket for two weeks," the Backstreet Boy tells PEOPLE exclusively of his engagement to fitness expert/actress Lauren Kitt.

"I was like, 'I don't want it anymore!' It was driving me insane. I just wanted to get it out of my hands and on to hers."

For the momentous occasion, Carter, 33, took his fiancée, 29, to the Florida Keys where he planned a romantic boat ride to a secluded island – but things did not go as smoothly as expected.

"My boat was in such bad condition because I hadn't used it for, like, six years. It took me five days literally on my hands and knees, scraping up my body [to fix it,]" Carter says. "The engine wasn't complete yet but we still decided to go out."

Despite the engine stalling a few times as they set out to sea Wednesday, Carter and Kitt – along with some close friends and Kitt's father – arrived at a small island Carter had spent time on as a child.

It was there, on the island the couple now refers to as "Engagement Island," that the Backstreet Boy dropped to one knee and presented his girlfriend of over four years with a seven-carat diamond ring from XIV KARATS.

"She said, 'Yes,' and I'm, like, 'I don't know what to do," Carter tells PEOPLE of the proposal. "She said, 'You're supposed to put it on my finger.' So I did. I was in shock."

The proposal came as a surprise to the bride-to-be as well.

"I wasn't expecting it. It just felt very surreal," explains Kitt. "We both are just so happy in love right now and on cloud nine."

And while the couple is excited for their wedding, there are a few other people they must consult before planning their impending nuptials – the band.

"Our first thought was, 'We need to contact the Backstreet Boys and find out when their schedule will permit,'" Kitt says of wedding planning while the band works on a new album and prepares for their sold-out fan cruise in October to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

"It's not up to us. It's up to the schedule. We're just excited and looking forward to the next chapter of our lives."

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Wall Street rebounds on HP results, Fed officials' views

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday as Dow component Hewlett-Packard surged on strong results and comments from Fed officials allayed fears that the central bank would curtail its stimulus measures.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke downplayed worries that the Fed has fueled asset bubbles that could hurt the economy in a private meeting with bond dealers and investors earlier this month, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

Bernanke's view helped ease fears that the central bank may end its easy money policies. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's January meeting hit markets on Wednesday as investors interpreted divergent opinions on the benefit of stimulus as a sign the measures may be halted sooner than thought.

"They are in uncharted territory with divergent views," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago. "I could see some pretty heated opinions on what the ultimate outcome is, so I do believe there is dissension."

Hewlett-Packard Co shares jumped more than 12 percent and gave one of the biggest boosts to both the Dow and the S&P 500 after the personal computer maker's quarterly revenue and forecasts beat expectations. Hewlett-Packard's stock rose to $19.20 at the close, up 12.3 percent for the day.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 119.95 points, or 0.86 percent, to 14,000.57 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 13.18 points, or 0.88 percent, to 1,515.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 30.33 points, or 0.97 percent, to end at 3,161.82.

With Bernanke's reported comments much on their minds in Friday's session, investors will want the Fed chairman to reiterate his remarks publicly when he speaks before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. That would echo comments made by two top Fed officials on Friday.

Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Fed Governor Jerome Powell both defended the U.S. central bank's asset-buying program, arguing that the policy helps the U.S. economy.

The S&P 500 shed 1.9 percent over the previous two sessions, its worst two-day drop since early November, following the release of the Fed's minutes on Wednesday. The selloff marked the end of seven back-to-back weeks of gains for stocks.

For the week, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq lost nearly 1 percent. Only the Dow ended the week with a gain - up just 0.1 percent.

HP's results come near the end of a relatively strong earnings season in which 70 percent of S&P 500 companies beat analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.

"Overall, the earnings supports were better than expected in this cycle," said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois. "We may see the market rising during the month of March."

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

But with only a handful of companies left to report earnings, investors are looking ahead to the possibility of hefty automatic budget cuts that could happen on March 1.

A large option investor appeared to be adjusting a bearish view on the SPDR S&P 500 Trust fund while locking in previously established gains, in a possible hedge ahead of the automatic budget cuts that are set to take effect at the beginning of next month. The play involved weekly puts, expiring next Friday.

"An institutional investor appears to be rolling down and increasing in size a defensive hedge timed to match the March 1 deadline for the sequester," said Henry Schwartz, president of options analytics firm Trade Alert.

The trader sold 132,000 $149 to $150 weekly put spreads for 22 cents as shares of the exchange-traded fund had traded near $151.14 on Friday morning. The transaction entailed the sale of $150 weekly puts to buy the $149 weekly puts. In addition, the investor purchased another 42,000 $149 weekly puts, which increases the size of the hedge to 174,000 contracts.

"It is likely this large position protects an existing underlying long position in a portfolio," Schwartz said.

In another political risk factor, Italians go to the polls this weekend in an election that could threaten reforms in the indebted country. Silvio Berlusconi's resurgence has thrown the vote wide open, with deep uncertainty over whether the poll can produce the strong government the country needs.

Inconclusive Greek elections last year sparked a protracted selloff and a period of uncertainty in markets.

In the tech sector, Marvell Technology Group Ltd forecast results this quarter that were largely above analysts' expectations. Marvell gained market share in the hard-disk drive and flash-storage businesses. The stock rose 4.4 percent to $9.89.

Texas Instruments Inc raised its dividend by a third and boosted its stock-buyback program, driving its stock up 5.2 percent to $34.18.

The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox> gained 2.1 percent.

"Dividends growing are another way the market's level is justified, if not especially attractive at these levels," said Rex Macey, chief investment officer of Wilmington Trust in Atlanta, who manages about $20 billion in assets.

On the downside, Abercrombie & Fitch dropped 4.5 percent to $46.86 after the youth-oriented clothing retailer reported a drop in fourth-quarter comparable sales, even as its latest quarterly earnings topped estimates.

Insurer American International Group Inc posted fourth-quarter results that beat analysts' expectations. AIG's stock advanced 3.1 percent to $38.45.

About three stocks rose for every one that fell on both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Around 5.8 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the 20-day moving average of around 6.51 billion shares.

(Additional Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica and Doris Frankel; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Jan Paschal)

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