Olympics, elections and horsing around in odd 2012

LONDON (Reuters) – Presidential preening, golden Olympic gaffes, a royal windfall for a skydiving British queen on her diamond jubilee and the endless end of days marked the odd stories in 2012 which pranced across the news in Gangnam Style.

The year opened with a tale that flocks of magpies and bears had been spotted in mourning for North Korea‘s “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il who died in December 2011 and was succeeded by his 20-something son Kim Jong-un.

Winter weather was so cold in Brussels that the Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures.

There was slightly warming news about Mondays in Germany, where crematoriums are struggling to adapt to an increasingly obese population and a boom in extra-large coffins.

“We burn particularly large coffins on Monday mornings when the ovens are cold,” one crematorium said.

In March Polish media reported that kite surfer Jan Lisewski fought off repeated shark attacks and overcame thirst and exhaustion in a two-day battle of survival on the Red Sea with just his trusty knife as protection.

“I was stabbing them in the eyes, the nose and gills.”

In other animal news, dairy cows across the world mourned the loss of “Jocko”, the world’s third most-potent breeding bull and Yvonne the German cow who evaded helicopter searches and dodged hunters landed a film deal: “Cow on the Run”.

A Nepali man who was bitten by a cobra snake bit it back and killed the reptile after it attacked him in his rice paddy.

“I could have killed it with a stick but bit it with my teeth instead because I was angry,” Mohamed Salmo Miya said.

A scathing resignation letter of a Goldman Sachs executive published in the New York Times inspired a sheaf of online spoofs, including Star Wars villain Darth Vader.

“The Empire today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about remote strangulation. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore,” Vader wrote in a published letter.

Austerity in Europe saw a once-thriving Greek sex industry become the latest victim of the country’s debt crisis with Greeks spending less on erotic toys, pornography and lingerie.

But lust appeared to be in the rudest of health elsewhere.

Turkish emergency workers rescued an inflatable sex doll floating in the Black Sea and a German disc jockey vowed to press charges against a woman who locked him in her apartment and ravaged him for hours until he rang the police.

“She was sex mad and there was no way out of the flat,” Dieter S. told police.

@ROYALFETUS

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 60th year on the throne with Diamond Jubilee celebrations that saw a 1,000-ship rain-sodden flotilla sail down the River Thames, a massive party in front of Buckingham Palace, street parties across the country and a spoof incarnation of her majesty on Twitter.

“OK, fire up the Bentley. Let’s rock,” tweeted “Elizabeth Windsor“, the comic online alter ego of the British monarch in a typical tweet from the spoof Twitter account @Queen_UK, a virtual monarch with a razor-sharp wit and a penchant for gin.

And Twitter positively exploded with spoof royal accounts later in the year when Elizabeth’s grandson William and his wife Kate announced she was pregnant with a future monarch.

“I may not have bones yet, but I’m already more important than everyone reading this,” was the tweet from @RoyalFetus.

Leadership and change was a theme which ran through a year in which socialist Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Mimi the clown to become French president, Vladimir Putin was elected Russian president again and U.S. President Barack Obama won re-election over Republican Mitt Romney.

Amid the tight election race, Obama met a gaffe-prone Romney for an exchange at a charity dinner ahead of the November poll, where America’s first black president poked fun at Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood for lecturing an empty chair as if it were Obama during the Republican convention.

“Please take your seats,” Obama told the crowd, “or else Clint Eastwood will yell at them.”

“THE MODFATHER”

Sporting news was dominated by the London Olympics during the summer, where the opening ceremony included a vignette of Queen Elizabeth being escorted by James Bond before apparently skydiving into the Olympic stadium for her arrival.

“Good evening Mr. Bond,” was her only line.

Olympic embarrassments were few, but they began early with organizers forced into apologies for displaying the South Korean flag on a video screen for North Korea‘s women’s soccer team.

British cycling sensation Bradley “the Modfather” Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, sparking a craze among fans for cutout cardboard sideburns modeled on his own and shouting “here Wiggo” as he raced to Olympic gold.

London’s eccentric and loquacious Mayor Boris Johnson fell rather awkwardly silent when he got stuck dangling from a zip wire, waving two Union flags in drizzling rain.

Olympic chiefs urged youthful athletes to drink “sensibly”.

But there was anything but restraint for Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who declared an early night at one point only to be photographed later with three members of the Swedish women’s handball team. Early one Sunday morning Bolt also dazzled dancers at a London night club with a turn in the DJ booth.

“I am a legend,” Bolt shouted out to a packed dance floor from the decks with his arms raised in the air.

Towards the close of the year, tens of thousands of mystics, hippies and tourists celebrated in the shadow of ancient Maya pyramids in southeastern Mexico as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as the end of the world.

“It’s pure Hollywood,” said Luis Mis Rodriguez, 45, a Maya selling obsidian figurines and souvenirs.

Finally, a chubby, rapping singer with slicked-back hair and a tacky suit became the latest musical sensation to burst upon the world from South Korea, via a YouTube music video that has been seen more than a billion times.

Decked out in a bow tie and suit jackets varying from pink to baby blue, as well as a towel for one sequence set in a sauna, Psy busts funky moves based on horse-riding in venues ranging from playgrounds to subways.

The video by Psy has been emulated by everyone from Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei to students at Britain’s elite Eton College, gurning politicians, spotty teens and embarrassing dads worldwide.

“My goal in this music video was to look uncool until the end. I achieved it,” Psy told Reuters.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Mike Collett-White)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Eric Prydz Picks a New Year's Eve Playlist

By Dahvi Shira

12/31/2012 at 06:50 PM EST

Unfortunately not everyone can be in Las Vegas when the ball drops this year, but Eric Prydz is bringing the party to PEOPLE.com readers in advance.

The DJ and producer, 36 – best known for his 2004 hit single, "Call on Me" – is playing a three-hour extended set at Surrender Nightclub on Monday, and he's sharing the tracks he's most excited to spin, including songs from his album, Eric Prydz Presents Pryda.

"I love to play on New Year's Eve because it has that special tension in the air," Prydz says. "People are so excited about the new year coming, leaving the old behind and starting fresh. It's also the perfect excuse to blow off some steam after that long Christmas with family. Let's make New Year's Eve 2013 one to remember!"

Recently scoring a Grammy nomination for his remix of M83's "Midnight City," Prydz, who is relocating to Los Angeles, already predicts 2013 "is going to be an amazing year."

As for his evening playlist, he plans to "blend a lot of the highlights from the past year with classics and brand new music set to blow up in 2013."

Check out part of his planned set below:

• Jeremy Olander – "Let Me Feel"
"This tune has spring/summer of 2013 written all over it. It's such a feel good track!"
Listen here

• Fehrplay – "I Can't Stop It"
"Fehrplay had a great year in 2012 and is set to blow up in 2013. This is his forthcoming single on my Pryda Friends imprint. The first time I heard this record, it took me somewhere really nice."
Listen here

• Rone – "Parade (Dominik Eulberg Remix)"
"Every now and then there is a track that comes along and blows your mind. This is one of those tracks. Nine minutes of pure emotion."
Listen here

• Eric Prydz – "Every Day"
"This one has been huge for me this summer and fall. Enough said."
Listen here

• Pachanga Boys – "Time"
"This was the soundtrack of my summer 2012. And I'm sure I'm not alone on that one."
Listen here

• Para One – "When the Night (Breakbot Remix)"
"I've been a fan of Para One's music for many years and this one is no exception. This song has a great retro vibe with a modern touch from Breakbot on this remix."
Listen here

• Pig & Dan – "Savage"
"This is a real club stomper. I can't wait to play this one out."
Listen here

• Pryda – "The End"
"I had to throw this one in. It's one of the biggest releases on Pryda to date."
Listen here

• Green Velvet & Harvard Bass – "Lazer Beams"
"Hit me with those laser beams!"
Listen here.

• Deetron feat. Hercules & Love Affair – "Crave (Deetron cRAVE Dub)"
"This song is a dark, big room destroyer."
Listen here

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.

Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.

The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.

This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."

It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

"Wouldn't that be exciting?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes. Why wouldn't she?"

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

"Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. "The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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Senate approves 'fiscal cliff' deal, crisis eased

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate moved the U.S. economy back from the edge of a "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday, voting to avoid imminent tax hikes and spending cuts in a bipartisan deal that could still face stiff challenges in the House of Representatives.

In a rare New Year's session at around 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT), senators voted 89-8 to raise some taxes on the wealthy while making permanent low tax rates on the middle class that have been in place for a decade.

But the measure did little to rein in huge annual budget deficits that have helped push the U.S. debt to $16.4 trillion.

The agreement came too late for Congress to meet its own deadline of New Year's Eve for passing laws to halt $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts which strictly speaking came into force on Tuesday.

But with the New Year's Day holiday, there was no real world impact and Congress still had time to draw up legislation, approve it and backdate it to avoid the harsh fiscal measures.

That will need the backing of the House where many of the Republicans who control the chamber complain that President Barack Obama has shown little interest in cutting government spending and is too concerned with raising taxes.

All eyes are now on the House which is to hold a session on Tuesday starting at noon (1700 GMT).

Obama called for the House to act quickly and follow the Senate's lead.

"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," he said in a statement.

"There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it. But tonight's agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans," Obama said.

Members were thankful that financial markets were closed, giving them a second chance to return to try to head off the fiscal cliff.

But if lawmakers cannot pass legislation in the coming days, markets are likely to turn sour. The U.S. economy, still recovering from the 2008/2009 downturn, could stall again if Congress fails to fix the budget mess.

"If we do nothing, the threat of a recession is very real. Passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt, far from it. We can all agree there is more work to be done," Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, told the Senate floor.

A new, informal deadline for Congress to legislate is now Wednesday when the current body expires and it is replaced by a new Congress chosen at last November's election.

The Senate bill, worked out after long negotiations on New Year's Eve between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also postpones for two months a $109 billion "sequester" of sweeping spending cuts on military and domestic programs.

It extends unemployment insurance to 2 million people for a year and makes permanent the alternative minimum tax "patch" that was set to expire, protecting middle-income Americans from being taxed as if they were rich.

'IMPERFECT SOLUTION'

The tax hikes do not sit easy with Republicans but conservative senators held their noses and voted to raise rates for the rich because not to do so would have meant increases for almost all working Americans.

"It took an imperfect solution to prevent our constituents from a very real financial pain, but in my view, it was worth the effort," McConnell said.

House Speaker John Boehner - the top Republican in Congress - said the House would consider the Senate deal. But he left open the possibility of the House amending the Senate bill, which would spark another round of legislating.

"The House will honor its commitment to consider the Senate agreement if it is passed. Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members ... have been able to review the legislation," Boehner and other House Republican leaders said in a statement.

Boehner has struggled for two years to get control over a group of several dozen Tea Party fiscal conservatives in his caucus who strongly oppose tax increases and demand that he force Obama to make savings in the Medicare and Social Security healthcare and retirement programs.

A campaign-style event held by Obama in the White House as negotiations with Senate leaders were taking place on Monday may have made it more difficult for Republicans to back the deal. In remarks to a group of supporters that resembled a victory lap, the president noted that his rivals were coming around to his way of seeing things.

"Keep in mind that just last month Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. Obviously, the agreement that's currently being discussed would raise those rates and raise them permanently," he said to applause before the Senate deal was sealed.

Obama's words and tone annoyed Republican lawmakers who seemed to feel that the Democrat was gloating.

"That's not the way presidents should lead," said Republican Senator John McCain, Obama's rival in the 2008 election.

A deal with the House on Tuesday, while uncertain, would not mark the end of congressional budget fights. The "sequester" spending cuts will come up again in February as will the contentious "debt ceiling," which caps how much debt the federal government can hold.

Republicans may see those two issues as their best chance to try to rein in government spending and clip Obama's wings at the start of his second term.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Mark Felsenthal, Rachelle Younglai, Kim Dixon and Jeff Mason; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Mexico City Journal: Mobile Factory With Hope for a Better Life – Mexico City Journal

MEXICO CITY — The sound of a surprising opportunity rose above the tumult of traffic. “Factory for electronic textiles offering work,” came the message, shouted from a megaphone that sat in the basket of a white bicycle pedaled by Amor Muñoz, an artist in a black jumpsuit. “One hundred pesos an hour!”

Even on the streets of this busy capital, where sales pitches flow from speakers attached to anything with wheels, the offer stood out. Work? For about $7.50 an hour, a little above the American minimum wage?

The rush was on. By the time Ms. Muñoz parked in her usual spot outside a hospital in one of Mexico City’s peripheral neighborhoods, a line had already formed. Women of all ages squeezed together — one held a baby, another was nearly too old to walk — as Ms. Muñoz opened up a white wooden box revealing thread, needles, cloth, timecards and employment contracts. The work involved creating interactive art pieces that combine the old craft of sewing with 20th-century electronics and 21st-century tags allowing smartphone users to look up who worked on a given piece.

“It’s about community,” Ms. Muñoz said. “I’m interested in sharing the experience of art.”

If that were her only interest, it would be enough to make alpha geeks swoon; a local glossy magazine and the revered Austrian technology festival, Ars Electronica, recently honored Ms. Muñoz with their annual awards. But behind her vintage glasses and dimpled smile, Ms. Muñoz has a sharper message.

Her maquiladora, or factory, she said, is a “fantasy” meant to condemn the harsh reality of a global economy that uses and discards poor workers, especially women, to keep prices low.

In Mexico these days the project amounts to artistic subversion. At a time when the country’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, is trying to recast Mexico as an economic marvel, with growth rates surpassing Brazil, Ms. Muñoz’s factory is a countervailing force — a mobile reality check highlighting Mexico’s darker economic truths.

Take wages. The minimum wage in Mexico is about 60 cents an hour, and while the average pay in manufacturing has grown over the past decade, it is still only about $3.50 an hour, according to government statistics. Even according to higher estimates by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, Mexico’s hourly compensation costs are still only two-thirds of those found in Brazil, where the benefits of economic growth have helped a larger share of workers rise from poverty.

Economists recognize the problem. “We need to increase wages to become a true modern country,” said Luis de la Calle, a former Mexican government official who helped negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. But as Mexico tries to improve its image and gloss over its violent drug war, government officials have mostly described Mexico’s low wages in positive terms, as a way to compete with China. The market, it is generally assumed, will eventually drive up wages.

Ms. Muñoz is unwilling to wait. She described Mexican wages as an insult to human dignity, and every time her mobile factory appears, the power of work for reasonable pay goes on display. The crowds that gather are typically large. Sometimes people push and shove for two hours of work and $15, though once the day’s employees are selected (first come first hired), a calm tends to follow.

Earlier this month, the team included nearly a dozen women and one young man, all that Ms. Muñoz could afford. Many, like Sara Peregrino, 50, were homemakers with sewing experience. Others, like David Quiróz, 18, a taxi dispatcher, struggled to thread a needle without drawing blood.

Nearly everyone said the money they earned would go to one of two things — food or Christmas presents. “For women, it’s very hard to find a good job,” said Patricia Zamora, 33, a mother of two who arrived with Ms. Peregrino, one of her neighbors. “There is a lot of work for not much pay.”

Many of the women seemed to appreciate a chance to be involved in an art project. María González, 75, smiled widely when handed a needle and adjusted her purple scarf, excited to be creating something rather than worrying about her husband in the hospital. “This,” she said, sewing without looking down, “is a wonderful distraction.”

Ms. Muñoz seemed to agree. She stood nearby, waiting for her favorite time of day — when she paid the workers and took their photographs, which she would post online, linked to the artwork. It is an effort to make the workers more visible, she said, but also hints at her working-class past.

She grew up playing among the hammers and nails of the hardware store her parents owned in a marginal neighborhood like the one with her factory. She said she always appreciated manual labor and never felt comfortable in an office, even after receiving a law degree.

Textiles had once been a hobby — she used to collect huipiles, the traditional woven tunics of Mexico and Central America — but when she decided to become an artist in 2006, she returned to cloth and sewing. Her work now involves a mixture of textiles and technology. Many of her pieces involve sewn images with circuits that let users push buttons for sounds or displays of light.

Completed works from the mobile maquiladora project, for example, will create the whine of an ambulance siren.

Like many other young artists in the capital, she is trying to push Mexico forward by combining older traditions with the interactivity of social media and open-source software development. She dreams of finding financing for more mobile factories, and her lack of faith in government and industry is matched only by the optimism she expresses when discussing the power of networked youth.

“With technology, everything can be democratized,” she said. “It’s fabulous.”

Still, the human interactions are what she values most, so when Ms. Peregrino suddenly appeared and presented her with a pink plastic bag after being paid, Ms. Muñoz was visibly touched. The two women hugged as Ms. Muñoz put the gift in into the bicycle basket with the megaphone. Only later did she look inside, finding a hand-sewn purple scarf that must have taken days to complete.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 31, 2012

An earlier version of this story misstated an organization that gave an award to Amor Muñoz. It was Ars Electronica, not Ars Technica.

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Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Expecting a Child

By Mike Fleeman

12/31/2012 at 03:45 AM EST

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West

Splash News Online

Talk about onstage pyrotechnics!

Kanye West dropped a bombshell during an Atlantic City concert on Sunday night, revealing that he and girlfriend Kim Kardashian are expecting a child.

The news of the reality starlet's pregnancy was quickly followed by an outpouring of congratulatory Twitter messages from family members.

"Oh BABY BABY BABY!!" shouts Kim's mom Kris Jenner.

Adds sister Kourtney: "Been wanting to shout from the rooftops with joy and now I can! Another angel to welcome to our family. Overwhelmed with excitement!

Kardashian, 32, and West, 35, went public with their relationship last April, about six months after Kardashian filed for divorce from Kris Humphries. The divorce action is still pending.

During Sunday's concert at Revel Resort's Ovation Hall, West revealed his big news by singing, "Now you having my baby" to the roar from the crowd of 5,000, the Associated Press reports.

West asked concertgoers to congratulate his "baby mom" and called the pregnancy the "most amazing thing."

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Stock futures edge higher hours before "cliff" deadline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures edged higher on Monday after a five-session losing streak as political leaders in Washington worked against the clock to keep the United States from going over the "fiscal cliff."

Negotiations continued between top lawmakers and the White House on how to head off $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that kick in January 1 and could drag the economy in recession.

The lack of panic on markets so far suggests investors still expect officials to find a solution to the budget problems early in the New Year. The measures that kick in on January 1 will have only a gradual impact.

The Democrat-controlled Senate reconvenes on Monday with only hours to find a legislative solution, most likely a stop-gap deal, that would also have to be passed by the Republican-majority House of Representatives.

Despite the gains in futures, stocks still could fall on Monday when the cash markets open if there is no sign lawmakers are making progress.

"I expect today's move to be exaggerated considering that it will be a light volume day. The market is hopeful that there will be some kind of temporary fix here, so if we don't see a deal here, not even a mini deal, I suspect the market could sell off," said Peter Cardillo, chief market analyst for Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

While midnight on Monday marks the deadline for a deal, the government can pass legislation in 2013 that retroactively prevents the United States going over the fiscal cliff, an option that is viewed as politically easier.

S&P 500 futures rose 3 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 23 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 2.5 points.

European markets were slightly down on Monday morning, although trading was muted as markets in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were closed while British, French, Dutch and Spanish markets were only open for half a session. <.eu/>

U.S. stocks dropped on Friday, with significant losses in the last minutes of trading, as prospects for a deal worsened at the beginning of the weekend.

The S&P 500 closed at 1,402.43 at 4 p.m. on Friday, down 1.1 percent, but futures continued to fall before closing 15 minutes later with a loss of 1.9 percent. S&P futures and the S&P cash index do not match point-by-point, but the size of the disparity on Monday points to a weak opening in stocks.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said investors could begin to show greater concerns in the new year.

Investors have remained relatively sanguine about the process, believing it will eventually be solved. In the past two months markets have not shown the kind of volatility that was present during the fight to raise the debt ceiling in 2011.

Rather, equities have largely performed well in the last two months despite constant chatter about the fiscal cliff, though the last few days showed increased worry. The Dow industrials and the S&P 500 each lost 1.9 percent last week after stocks fell for five straight sessions, which marked the S&P 500's longest losing streak in three months.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> rose to its highest level since June on Friday, closing at 22.72.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Gérard Depardieu Stirs Belgian Border Town

Benoit Tessier/Reuters

French actor Gérard Depardieu is accused by the French government of trying to dodge taxes by moving to Belgium.

NÉCHIN, Belgium — The last time a big star lit up this sleepy village of potato fields and rain-drenched pastures was in 1667, when the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, stopped by for the day. But even he may not have created quite the commotion caused by Gérard Depardieu, the celebrated actor, turbulent bon vivant and, since a visit to the mayor’s office here on Dec. 7 to register as a resident, France’s most reviled tax exile.

“I thought it was a joke,” said the mayor, Daniel Senesael, recalling his disbelief when he was first told that Mr. Depardieu intended to leave his mansion in Paris and move to Néchin, a rural settlement in Belgium with just 2,200 people, two cafes, a fast-food fry shop, a ruined chateau and no cinema.

“Let’s be honest, this is not Las Vegas,” Mr. Senesael said. “There are no lights and no discos. I get flooded with complaints when anyone suggests opening even a wind farm.”

Michel Sardou, a veteran French singer who has joined a frenzy of criticism directed at Mr. Depardieu in France, mocked the actor’s flight to Néchin, predicting that he would be “as bored as a rat” here. “So, there is some divine justice after all,” the singer joked on French television.

For Mr. Depardieu, and scores of wealthy French citizens who already live here, however, Néchin does have one seductive asset: it is beyond the reach of the French tax authorities but so close to France that an unmarked border running through the village puts the gardens of some properties in France and adjoining houses in Belgium.

“Our geographic situation makes us very attractive,” said Mr. Senesael, noting that Néchin is an easy place to get into and out of, with a nearby airport, a major highway and a railway station just a few miles away in the French city of Lille with regular high-speed trains to Paris, Brussels and London.

“Nobody should be astonished that big fortunes have found a certain fiscal advantage” in moving to this side of the border, said the mayor, whose domain covers Néchin and a cluster of other hamlets that form what is known as the Entity of Estaimpuis. Mr. Depardieu’s critics, he said, should direct their ire not at the actor but at the failure of European governments to harmonize tax rates across the 27 nations of the European Union.

A customs post and border guards disappeared decades ago from the end of Néchin’s main street, swept away by Europe’s effort after World War II to break down barriers that led to past conflicts and to allow for the free flow of goods, services and people.

Still firmly in place, however, are rigidly defined tax frontiers that mean that people living just a few yards from one another can pay vastly different levels of tax, particularly if they happen to be wealthy.

Belgium has higher income taxes for most people than in much of Europe, but the country is much easier on the rich than France, where the government of President François Hollande has announced a “temporary supertax” of 75 percent on annual incomes of more than 1 million euros, or about $1.3 million. France’s Constitutional Council on Saturday declared the tax unconstitutional, prompting the government to announce that it would introduce a revised version next year. France also has a “wealth tax” on assets worth more than $1.7 million, something that does not exist in Belgium, as well as far higher taxes on capital gains and inheritance.

“We’ve abolished border controls but not all the other stupidities,” said Philippe Vandenhemel, the owner of a garage just outside Néchin that sells and repairs imported American cars and was visited several times by Mr. Depardieu. (The actor apparently likes old American cars.)

Mr. Vandenhemel scoffed at attacks on the movie star by French politicians and commentators. “If I were in his shoes, I would do exactly the same thing and leave,” he said. Mr. Depardieu, he added, will benefit not only from lower taxes in Belgium but also from the fact that “we Belgians are not jealous and don’t mind people getting rich.”

“Jealousy is France’s national disease,” he said.

Mr. Hollande, who made a pledge to squeeze the rich to help reduce the government’s budget deficit a cornerstone of his successful election campaign this year, once said on television, “I don’t like the rich.” His right-wing predecessor and rival and in the May election, Nicolas Sarkozy, lost in part because he flaunted a liking for expensive watches and other accessories and the company of rich friends, a habit that earned him mockery as “Le Président Bling-Bling.”

Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.

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Matthew & Camila McConaughey Name Their Son Livingston

12/29/2012 at 09:15 PM EST

Camila and Matthew McConaughey

Gary Miller/FilmMagic

Matthew McConaughey has spilled the beans about his new baby!

"Camila gave birth to our third child yesterday morning. Our son, Livingston Alves McConaughey, was born at 7:43 a.m. on 12.28.12," he wrote on his Whosay page Saturday night.

"He greeted the world at 9 lbs., and 21 inches. Bless up and thank you for your well wishes."

Camila, 29, and her actor husband, 43, welcomed their third child in Austin, Texas, Friday, PEOPLE previously confirmed.

The couple – also parents to Vida, almost 3, and Levi, 4 – announced the pregnancy in July, just one month after they wed in Texas.

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