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Berlusconi says will run for Italian leadership again

ROME (Reuters) – Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday he will stand to lead Italy for a fifth time, challenging the leftist frontrunner a year after being forced to resign amid a sex scandal and a debt crisis.

The 76-year-old media tycoon, facing possible jail time for tax fraud and a trial for having sex with an underage prostitute, had hinted for months he might make a comeback in an election in about three months’ time. He accuses technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti of bringing the third-biggest euro zone economy to “the edge of an abyss” with austerity policies.

Berlusconi’s center-right People of Liberty Party (PDL) lags Pier Luigi Bersani‘s center-left Democratic Party (PD) by at least 16 percentage points in opinion polls, and also trails the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

While another Berlusconi victory looks almost impossible, the man who has dominated Italy’s center-right for 19 years may hope to help it win enough support to keep the center-left from winning a clear majority in both houses of parliament.

The question mark that remains over the election is whether the current prime minister will run. So far Monti has said he will step in only if the election result is unclear, but there has been speculation he could join forces with a centrist group.

Berlusconi’s comeback arrives slightly more than a year after he resigned as prime minister as collapsing market confidence pushed Italy’s debt costs to critical levels.

His international reputation had already been left in tatters by a lurid stories of “bunga bunga” parties with pole-dancing prostitutes at his home outside Milan. He is currently appealing a four-year jail sentence for tax fraud and faces a trial over paying for sex with an underage nightclub dancer.

Italians will probably vote in March with a recession that began mid-way through last year showing no signs of abating and unemployment at 11.1 percent, a record high.

“I race to win,” Berlusconi told reporters at the practice field for AC Milan, the soccer club he controls, after repeating criticism of Monti’s handling of the economy over the past year.

“To win, everyone said there had to be a tested leader. It’s not that we did not look for one. We did, and how! But there isn’t one… I’m doing it out of a sense of responsibility.”

His move may unsettle financial markets, whose loss of faith in Berlusconi’s guidance of the economy pushed the country to the edge of a Greek-style debt crisis last year and prompted President Giorgio Napolitano to ask the former European commissioner Monti to step in to restore confidence.

With the support of a right-left coalition including the PDL, Monti imposed austerity measures to bring borrowing costs under control, but Berlusconi said on Wednesday that the economic professor’s policies had left Italy facing a “recessive spiral without end”.

The PDL withdrew parliamentary support for Monti on Thursday, raising the specter of a snap election and driving up the difference between German and Italian benchmark bonds by about 30 basis points.

GOVERNMENT WILL NOT FALL

However, on Saturday Berlusconi said the PDL would pass legislation proposed by Monti’s government, including next year’s budget, and that March 10 was an acceptable date for the parliamentary election.

The media magnate has ample resources to back his bid – the country’s biggest TV network, its biggest magazine publisher, and a family-owned newspaper.

He will likely campaign against Monti’s tax increases, especially an unpopular housing levy, that were used to bring down the deficit, and against Germany’s role in enforcing European austerity.

Berlusconi has also criticized the single currency, echoing comments by fiery comic Beppe Grillo, leader of the 5-Star Movement, who says Italy should hold a referendum over whether to keep the euro.

In his blog, Grillo commented that Berlusconi, whom he calls the “psycho-dwarf”, is running for office again because he knows the average Italian “is literally terrified about the prospects of five more years of Monti-like rule”.

PD leader Bersani and the prime minister have yet to comment on Berlusconi’s decision. But Monti said on Saturday whoever takes over “must absolutely prevent Italy from going back into the situation” of last year, and he warned against “populism”.

Monti was scheduled meet President Napolitano later on Saturday to discuss the political situation.

The PD this week had 30.3 percent support, up from 30 percent a week earlier, higher than a 19.7 percent readout for the 5-Star Movement, a poll by the SWG institute showed.

A second poll by research group Demos and Pi gave the PD 37.8 percent, up more than ten points from a poll in September.

The PDL saw a slight drop in both polls, with SWG showing it at 13.8 percent and Demos at 18.2 percent.

In the Demos survey, Berlusconi emerged as one of the least popular leaders among 16 graded, with an approval rating of just 20.8 percent. With 50.1 percent, PD leader Bersani was among the most popular, as was Monti, with 47.3 percent.

(With additional reporting by Elvira Pollina in Milan, Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, and Lionel Laurent in Cannes, France; Editing by Sophie Hares and Jason Webb)

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Anger at Australian radio station over royal hoax

LONDON (AP) — It started out as a joke, but ended in tragedy.

The sudden death of a nurse who unwittingly accepted a prank call to a London hospital about Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate has shocked Britain and Australia, and sparked an angry backlash Saturday from some who argue the DJs who carried out the hoax should be held responsible.

At first, the call by two irreverent Australian DJs posing as royals was picked up by news outlets around the world as an amusing anecdote about the royal pregnancy. Some complained about the invasion of privacy, the hospital was embarrassed, and the radio presenters sheepishly apologized.

But the prank took a dark twist Friday with the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, a 46-year-old mother of two, three days after she took the hoax call. Police have not yet determined Saldanha‘s cause of death, but people from London to Sydney have been making the assumption that she died because of stress from the call.

King Edward VII’s Hospital, where the former Kate Middleton was being treated for acute morning sickness this week, wrote a strongly-worded letter to the 2DayFM radio station’s parent company Southern Cross Austereo, condemning the “truly appalling” hoax and urging it to take steps to ensure such an incident would never happen again.

“The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients,” the letter read. “The longer term consequence has been reported around the world and is, frankly, tragic beyond words.”

The hospital did not comment when asked whether it believed the prank call had directly caused Saldanha’s death, only saying that the protest letter spoke for itself.

DJs Mel Grieg and Michael Christian, who apologized for the prank on Tuesday, took down their Twitter accounts after they were bombarded by thousands of abusive comments. Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, said the pair have been offered counseling and were taken off the air indefinitely.

No one could have foreseen the tragic consequences of the prank, he stressed.

“I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it’s fair to say they’re completely shattered,” Holleran told reporters on Saturday.

“These people aren’t machines, they’re human beings,” he said. “We’re all affected by this.”

Details about Saldanha have been trickling out since the duty nurse’s body was found at apartments provided by the private hospital, which has treated a line of royals before, including Prince Philip, who was hospitalized there for a bladder infection in June.

The nurse, who was originally from India, had lived with her partner Benedict Barboza and a teenage son and daughter in Bristol, in southwestern England, for the past nine years. The hospital praised her as a “first-class nurse” who was well-respected and popular among colleagues during her four years working there.

Just before dawn on Tuesday, Saldanha was looking after her patients when the phone rang. A woman pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II asked to speak to the duchess, and, believing the caller, Saldanha transferred the call to a fellow nurse caring for the duchess, who spoke to the two DJs about Kate’s condition live on air.

During the call — which was put online and later broadcast on news channels worldwide — Grieg mimicked the Britain’s monarch’s voice and asked about the duchess’ health. She was told Kate “hasn’t had any retching with me and she’s been sleeping on and off.” Grieg and Christian, who pretended to be Prince Charles, also discussed with the nurse when they could travel to the hospital to check in on Kate.

Three days later, officers responding to reports that a woman was found unconscious discovered Saldanha, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Police didn’t release a cause of death, but said they didn’t find anything suspicious. A coroner will make a determination on the cause.

In the aftermath of Saldanha’s death, some speculated about whether the nurse was subject to pressure to resign or about to be punished for the mistake. Royal officials said Prince William and Kate were “deeply saddened,” but insisted that the palace had not complained about the hoax. King Edward VII’s Hospital also maintained that it did not reprimand Saldanha.

“We did not discipline the nurse in question. There were no plans to discipline her,” a hospital spokesman said. He declined to provide further details, and did not respond to questions about the second nurse’s condition.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which regulates radio broadcasting, said it has received complaints about the prank and is discussing the matter with the Sydney-based station, which yanked its Facebook page after it received thousands of angry comments.

Holleran, the radio executive, would not say who came up with the idea for the call. He only said that “these things are often done collaboratively.” He said 2DayFM would work with authorities, but was confident the station hadn’t broken any laws, noting that prank calls in radio have been happening “for decades.”

The station has a history of controversy, including a series of “Heartless Hotline” shows in which disadvantage people were offered a prize that could be taken away from them by listeners.

Saldanha’s family asked for privacy in a brief statement issued through London police.

Flowers were left outside the hospital’s nurse’s apartments, with one note reading: “Dear Jacintha, our thoughts are with you and your family. From all your fellow nurses, we bless your soul. God bless.”

Officials from St. James’s Palace have said the duchess is not yet 12 weeks pregnant. The child would be the first for her and William.

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iPad mini fails to draw crowds for China launch

Either Apple’s (AAPL) reservation-only system works better than anyone could have expected, or consumers in China have little interest in the company’s new iPad mini. Apple’s tiny tablet launched on schedule on Friday but according to IDG News Service, the turnout for Apple’s new slate was minimal. At Apple’s new flagship store in the well-trafficked Wangfujing district in Beijing, for example, turnout was “nearly nonexistent” according to the report, with no lines forming at all on Friday.

We’ve seen Apple rack up big numbers despite small launch-day turnouts in the past, but Apple’s reservation system does not appear to be responsible for the seemingly slow launch — according to IDG, many consumers who did turn up at Apple stores looking to purchase an iPad mini were unable to do so because they weren’t even aware that the reservation-only system existed.

Apple’s iPhone 5, which will presumably draw more of a crowd, launches in China next Friday.

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Czech MPs vote to legalize marijuana for medical use

PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech lawmakers voted on Friday to allow marijuana and drugs derived from it to be available on prescription from pharmacies from next year, extending narcotics laws which permit possession of small amounts of drugs including heroin and cocaine.

Only imported marijuana will be available for the first year, after which the central European country‘s State Institute for Drug Control will allot licenses to local growers.

“The point of the proposal is to make medical marijuana accessible to patients that need it and that already use it today, even when it is against the law,” said Pavel Bem, one of a group of deputies who created the bill.

The central European country already lets the public grow, possess, and consume – but not sell – small amounts of most illicit drugs and considers the possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana as legal.

It also tolerates the use of recreational drugs in pubs and clubs, and the sight of people rolling and smoking marijuana joints in public and outside pubs is common.

Czech lawmakers were told how the use of marijuana can help some people with debilitating medical conditions. The upper house Senate is expected to approve the bill, which needs to be signed by the president.

(Reporting by Jana Mlcochova and Robert Mueller; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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Employment ducks superstorm Sandy punch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Companies kept up their steady but slow hiring pace in November, defying predictions that superstorm Sandy would deal a big blow to the labor market.

While the unemployment rate fell to a near four-year low of 7.7 percent, that was only because many Americans gave up the hunt for work, tempering the signal from the stronger-than-expected payrolls growth.

A big drop in consumer confidence in December also offered a cautionary note on the economy’s health.

Nonfarm employment expanded by 146,000 jobs last month after gaining 138,000 in October, the Labor Department said on Friday. The increase was well above the 93,000 expected on Wall Street.

“We are moving in a trend-like modest job-growth environment,” said Michael Hanson, a senior economist at Bank of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “We really need to see payroll numbers break above 200,000 for a while to think we have a more sustained recovery underway.”

The government said Sandy, which slammed the densely populated East Coast in late October, did not have a substantive impact on the data. Economists had thought it would, with some predicting it would cut up to 75,000 jobs off payrolls growth.

Nevertheless, the storm did hit the economy hard.

Sandy knocked retail sales and industrial output in October and led to a big spike in claims for jobless benefits, one of the reasons economists expected job growth to slow.

A Labor Department survey of households found 369,000 workers were unable to make it to work in the aftermath of the storm and a further 1.1 million ended up working only part time. However, the department still considered them employed.

U.S. stocks were little changed at mid-day, with the downbeat reading on consumer confidence largely offsetting the stronger-than-expected payrolls data. Prices for U.S. government debt fell, while the dollar edged up against a basket of currencies.

MODEST TREND

November’s job gains left them just below the monthly average of 151,000 that has prevailed since January.

Economists consider that pace just enough to push the jobless rate lower over time. But they say roughly 200,000 to 250,000 jobs per month would be needed to make noticeable headway in absorbing the 22.7 million Americans who are either jobless or underemployed.

The 0.2 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate, which took it to its lowest level since December 2008, was due to a decrease in the size of the labor force, a suggestion frustrated Americans were giving up the hunt for work.

The labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, fell back to near a 31-year low.

Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said it could take more than 10 years for the unemployment rate to drop back to its pre-recession level around 5 percent at the current pace of job growth.

Last month, the retail sector accounted for more than a third of jobs gains, which economists tied to a brisk start to the holiday shopping season. Still, private hiring slowed to 147,000 from 189,000 in October, pulled down by a sharp decline in construction employment and weak manufacturing payrolls.

FISCAL CLIFF WORRIES

Employment continues to be held back by fears the government may fail to prevent the $ 600 billion in automatic tax hikes and government spending cuts set to take hold at the start of next year. The debt crisis in Europe has also weighed.

Worries about this so-called fiscal cliff hit consumer sentiment in early December. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s preliminary confidence reading plummeted to 74.5 from 82.7 in November.

“That confirms my belief that the only thing the economy has to fear is Washington itself,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

“There is some real underlying strength in the economy as the November jobs numbers indicate, but it could be wiped out by the games being played by our political representatives,” he said.

With the labor market far from full health, Federal Reserve policymakers, who meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, look certain to keep U.S. monetary policy on its current ultra-easy course.

Economists said an anticipated tightening of fiscal policy next year, even if a deal is reached to avoid completely going over the fiscal cliff, provides ample reason for the U.S. central bank to maintain its stance.

The retail sector added 52,600 jobs last month after rising 50,900 in October. The pace of retail hiring over the last three months was the fastest since 1995.

There were also increases in information and temporary help hiring. But transport, financial, education and health services employment slowed.

Manufacturing employment fell 7,000, marking the third month it has dropped this year.

Construction payrolls surprisingly tumbled 20,000, despite a surge in homebuilding, which is benefiting from the Fed’s effort to hold borrowing costs down. Economists said they expect construction jobs to rise in the coming months as the housing recovery returns full swing.

Average hourly earnings increased four cents. In the 12 months to November, average hourly earnings are up just 1.7 percent, underscoring the trouble workers are having keeping up with inflation.

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish)

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Protesters surge around Egypt’s presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around the presidential palace on Friday and the opposition rejected President Mohamed Mursi‘s call for dialogue to end a crisis that has polarized the nation and sparked deadly clashes.

The Islamist leader’s deputy said he could delay a December 15 referendum on a constitution that liberals opposed, although the concession only partly meets a list of opposition demands that include scrapping a decree that expanded Mursi‘s powers.

“The people want the downfall of the regime” and “Leave, leave,” crowds chanted after bursting through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the palace of Egypt‘s first freely elected president.

Their slogans echoed those used in a popular revolt that toppled Mursi’s predecessor Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said in a statement sent to local media that the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.

The dialogue meeting was expected to go ahead on Saturday in the absence of most opposition factions. “Tomorrow everything will be on the table,” a presidential source said of the talks.

The opposition has demanded that Mursi rescind a November 22 decree giving himself wide powers and delay the vote set for December 15 on a constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly which they say fails to meet the aspirations of all Egyptians.

The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting in Egypt.

Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters that delaying expatriate voting was made to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition’s stance.

He said the core opposition demand was to freeze Mursi’s decree and “to reconsider the formation and structure of the constituent assembly”, not simply to postpone the referendum.

The opposition organized marches converging on the palace which elite Republican Guard units had ringed with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi killed seven people and wounded 350.

Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead. “With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam,” they chanted.

“ARM-TWISTING”

In a speech late on Thursday, Mursi had refused to retract his November 22 decree or cancel the referendum on the constitution, but offered talks on the way forward after the referendum.

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join the dialogue. The Front’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as “arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli”.

Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said opposition reactions were sad: “What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?” he asked.

Mursi’s decree giving himself extra powers sparked the worst political crisis since he took office in June and set off renewed unrest that is dimming Egypt’s hopes of stability and economic recovery after nearly two years of turmoil following the overthrow of Mubarak, a military-backed strongman.

The turmoil has exposed contrasting visions for Egypt, one held by Islamists, who were suppressed for decades by the army, and another by their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms.

Caught in the middle are many of Egypt’s 83 million people who are desperate for an end to political turbulence threatening their precarious livelihoods in an economy under severe strain.

“We are so tired, by God,” said Mohamed Ali, a laborer. “I did not vote for Mursi nor anyone else. I only care about bringing food to my family, but I haven’t had work for a week.”

ECONOMIC PAIN

A long political standoff will make it harder for Mursi’s government to tackle the crushing budget deficit and stave off a balance of payments crisis. Austerity measures, especially cuts in costly fuel subsidies, seem inevitable to meet the terms of a $ 4.8-billion IMF loan that Egypt hopes to clinch this month.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Mursi on Thursday of his “deep concern” about casualties in this week’s clashes and said “dialogue should occur without preconditions”.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation worries the United States, which has given billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The conflict between Islamists and opponents who each believe the other is twisting the democratic rules to thwart them has poisoned the political atmosphere in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, told Reuters that if the opposition shunned the dialogue “it shows that their intention is to remove Mursi from the presidency and not to cancel the decree or the constitution as they claim”.

Ayman Mohamed, 29, a protester at the palace, said Mursi should scrap the draft constitution and heed popular demands.

“He is the president of the republic. He can’t just work for the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mohamed said of the eight-decade-old Islamist movement that propelled Mursi from obscurity to power.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Edmund Blair and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Facebook might buy Microsoft’s Atlas Ad platform to compete with Google

Is Facebook (FB) preparing to compete with Google (GOOG) in online advertising? According to AllThingsD and BusinessInsider’s sources Facebook might be taking steps to build its own advertising network for online websites. AllThingsD says that rather than build a new advertising network from scratch, Facebook could just buy Microsoft’s (MSFT) Atlas Solutions platform “that already delivers billions of ad impressions a day.”

BusinessInsider reports that Facebook will reportedly pay a lower price than the $ 6 billion that Microsoft paid for aQuantive in 2007 that included Atlas Solutions. It’s estimated that Atlas is worth more than $ 30 million — a small price to pay to compete with Google’s DoubleClick ad network.

So why is Facebook interested in advertising now? Well, it’s got over 1 billion active users with emails, phone numbers, and unprecedented amounts of “likes.” As BusinessInsider puts it, Facebook has so much data it could “tell marketers whether or not a Facebook user saw, on Facebook.com, an ad for a product before going to the store and buying it.”

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Kristen Wiig may join “Anchorman: The Legend Continues”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Kristen Wiig is being eyed for a role in “Anchorman: The Legend Continues” for Paramount Pictures, a person familiar with the negotiations has told TheWrap.

Wiig would play opposite Steve Carell, as a love interest in the sequel. The script is still being written, and no cast beyond the principals has been set.

Adam McKay is directing the feature, which is being produced by Judd Apatow through his Apatow Productions banner. The film is a sequel to the 2004 hit, “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and is due to be released in October 2013.

Best known for her work on “Saturday Night Live,” Wiig is one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood, since appearing in the film “Bridesmaids.” She could recently be seen at the Toronto International Film Festival in the indie feature “Imogene,” and has been busy filming a number of titles, including “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and “Hateship Friendship,” with Guy Pearce.

“Anchorman: The Legend Continues” will see the original film’s cast return, including Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd and Carell. The story follows the on-set adventures of San Diego’s top newsman who is played by Ferrell. “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” made around $ 85 million at the box office.

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Massachusetts sanctions three more pharmacies, recasts oversight board

BOSTON (Reuters) – Massachusetts regulators on Thursday continued their crackdown on pharmacies in the wake of a deadly meningitis outbreak, announcing sanctions on three companies while recasting an oversight board that has been criticized for being too lax.

Massachusetts pharmacy operations have been under close scrutiny since New England Compounding Center, a specialty pharmacy, shipped thousands of vials of a tainted steroid to medical facilities throughout the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 36 people have died and 541 have been injured from injections of methylprednisolone acetate, a drug typically used to ease back pain.

Massachusetts regulators said they ordered the temporary shutdown of one pharmacy, Oncomed Pharmaceuticals, on November 21, over concerns about how it stored chemotherapy drugs. It also ordered partial shutdowns of Pallimed Solutions, after it used improper components in preparing one drug, and the Whittier Pharmacist for violations in its sterile compounding operations.

All three pharmacies are working with regulators and are expected to reopen once the concerns are addressed, said David Kibbe, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Representatives of the three pharmacies could not be reached for immediate comment.

The DPH also announced three new members to fill seats on the Massachusetts pharmacy board. Unlike past appointments, the new board members are not necessarily pharmacists. The new picks are executives from a large healthcare system, a large health insurer and a rehabilitation and skilled nursing center.

“These respected health care professionals will use their experience to bring change to the Board of Pharmacy to enhance our oversight of this industry,” Interim Commissioner Lauren Smith said in a press release. “We expect additional changes to the board after the Commission on Pharmacy Compounding issues its recommendations to Governor Deval Patrick at the end of the month.”

This week, the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy held a public hearing on emergency regulations that were put in place by Patrick’s administration to enhance monitoring and scrutiny of the compounding industry.

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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