Hagel counters critics as confirmation hearing begins

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel sparred with Sen. John McCain over whether the surge during the Iraq war was worthwhile.

WASHINGTON -- Making his first public comments after his nomination to lead the Pentagon, former Sen. Chuck Hagel said Thursday he stood by his record but also urged senators to look beyond controversial votes and statements he has made, which critics have seized on.

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing as defense secretary, Hagel sought to rebut critics who contend he may not push hard enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, declaring himself "fully committed to the president's goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

"My policy is one of prevention and not one of containment, and the president has made clear that is the policy of our government," Hagel said.

The hearing is Hagel’s first chance to explain his views since his selection last month ignited fierce opposition from several former Republican colleagues and pro-Israel groups. They contend Hagel was not tough enough on Iran during his two terms as a GOP senator from Nebraska, and warn that he might not push for a U.S. attack on Iran if one is needed.

PHOTOS: President Obama's second inauguration

[Updated, 8:32 a.m. Jan. 31: In a sharp exchange, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized Hagel's opposition to the George W. Bush administration's decision to send more troops to Iraq in 2007.

"The question is, were you right or were you wrong?" McCain said.

"I'm not going to give you a yes or no answer," Hagel said. "I think it's far more complicated than that."

The nominee said his opposition to the so-called surge was rooted in his opposition to the decision to invade Iraq in the first place.

He said he would leave the question of whether he was correct about the surge to the "judgment of history."

McCain responded: "I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, and you are on the wrong side of it."

Hagel acknowledged that he also disagreed with President Obama's decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009.]

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

Hagel has already met privately with dozens of senators and won over key Democratic support, most notably Charles E. Schumer of New York. Hagel used his opening statement before the committee to publicly defend himself, saying he was "proud" of his record.

He noted that in two terms in the Senate, he'd cast thousands of votes and given hundreds of interviews and speeches.

"As you all know, I am on the record on many issues. But no one individual vote, no one individual quote, no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs or my record," he said. "My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world; that we must lead the international community to confront threats and challenges together -- and take advantage of opportunities together --  and that we must use all tools of American power to protect our citizens and our interests."

Hagel offered a broad overview of his views on the issues that would be most pressing at the Pentagon, all in line with Obama administration policy.

On Afghanistan, he said U.S. forces' role should be limited to counter-terrorism and the training of Afghan forces.

He also said he would "keep up the pressure" on militant groups in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa. But his opening statement did not refer to the controversial campaign of drone strikes that is the core of the administration's counter-terrorism effort.

Though Hagel appears likely to win confirmation, he faces tough questioning, even from lawmakers who have announced they intend to vote for him. Sen Carl Levin (D-Mich.) referred to what he called Hagel's "troubling" statements about Israel, his calls for direct talks with the militant group Hamas, and his calls for not isolating Iran.

"While there is value in communicating with our adversaries, the formulation used by Sen. Hagel seemed to imply a willingness to talk to Iran on some issues that I believe most of us would view as non-negotiable," Levin said.

Even more critical was Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the committee's new ranking Republican, who said that "too often, it seems he is willing to subscribe to a worldview that is predicated on appeasing our adversaries while shunning our friends."

Asked about his votes against some bills imposing sanctions against Iran, Hagel acknowledged that he has long opposed unilateral sanctions but had supported other legislation targeting Iran.

"We were in a different place with Iran at the time," Hagel said. "It was never a question of did I disagree with the objective" of denying Iran a nuclear weapon.

Hagel was introduced by two other former senators, both former chairmen of the Armed Services Committee: Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia and Republican John Warner of Virginia.

The confirmation of Hagel may be the most difficult of the slate of new Obama appointments for his second-term Cabinet, though John Brennan, the president's choice to lead the CIA, may also face resistance. John Kerry is set to be sworn in as secretary of State after a 94-3 confirmation vote Tuesday.

Just one Republican, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, has publicly stated his support for Hagel. Democrats have, though, begun to coalesce around his nomination, with Levin saying earlier this week that his colleagues were "leaning strongly" in his favor.

Outside groups have been mobilizing against Hagel, however. The group Americans for a Strong Defense, led by former Mitt Romney campaign aides, launched television advertisements in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana and North Carolina, all states represented by Democratic senators facing reelection in 2014.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday declined to rule out the possibility that Republicans would require a 60-vote threshold for confirming Hagel.

"Sen. Hagel hasn't had his hearing yet, and I think it's too early to predict the conditions under which his nomination will be considered," McConnell said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has said he would block Hagel’s nomination from coming to a vote unless the current Pentagon chief, Leon E. Panetta, agrees to testify about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya. A White House official downplayed the possibility that Hagel’s nomination could be blocked, saying negotiations were underway to let Panetta testify.

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Telecoms boom leaves rural Africa behind

JOHANNESBURG/FREETOWN (Reuters) – While mobile phone usage has exploded across Africa over the last decade, transforming daily life and commerce for millions, it’s a revolution that has left behind perhaps two thirds of its people.

Poor or no reception outside the towns helps explain why the continent’s mobile penetration, in terms of the percentage of the population using the service, is far lower than previously thought, and the cost of providing that service to impoverished, sparsely populated areas remains prohibitive.

In rural Sierra Leone, a country where GDP per capita is less than $ 400 a year, money doesn’t grow on trees, but mobile reception can, says street trader Abass Bangura in Freetown, the West African country’s capital.

In parts of Tonkolili, a district in the center of the country, or Kailahun to the east, it’s the only way you can get reception, he said.

“You climb stick, like mango tree, before you have network,” he said.

In South Sudan, the world’s newest state, it’s a similar story. Less than a year old, the country already has five mobile operators, and its capital, Juba, is teeming with giant billboards advertising mobile phones, but go just a few kilometers beyond a handful of fast-growing towns, and cell phones become useless.

Multiple SIM cards help users navigate patchy network coverage and take advantage of price promotions from rival operators.

That is typical of much of the continent.

With a population of just over a billion people, Africa has over 700 million SIM cards, but with most users owning at least two cards, penetration is only about 33 percent, according to a study released in November by industry research firm Wireless Intelligence.

“If we look at the fact that the rural population of Africa is about 60-70 percent of the population, and if we look at the degree of penetration into the rural market, it’s very, very low,” said Spiwe Chireka of advisory firm IDC.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there are more than enough SIM cards for everyone, but penetration is only 61 percent, according to a 2012 study by research firm Informa.

The average mobile phone user in Nigeria owns an average of 2.39 SIM cards. Globally, only Indonesia is higher, with an average of 2.62 SIM cards per user.

Even in Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa, SIM numbers comfortably exceed the population, but given the number of people using multiple devices, actual population penetration is closer to 80 percent, says market leader Vodacom.

“You’ve got a lot of people buying SIMs, but maybe not enough phones to put it in,” said Olayemi Jinadu, an executive with the Sierra Leone arm of Indian telco Bharti Airtel.

COST VERSUS BENEFIT

The unserved rural millions could represent another growth opportunity for Africa-focused telcos like South Africa’s MTN Group, Bharti Airtel and Kuwait’s Zain, but first they have to figure out a cost-effective way to push into sub-Saharan Africa’s remote corners.

“There’s great potential, but the big concern for us is operational costs,” said Andre Claasson, chief operating officer at Zain South Sudan.

In rural Africa, the cost of running a network tower often exceeds the revenue it reaps. Fuel is typically about 40 percent of a tower’s operating cost, and in remote areas companies burn more diesel by bringing fuel to towers than is used powering them.

Although roughly 73 percent of Africa’s land has cell phone coverage, according to market research firm IDC, that still leaves vast tracts of rural Africa without network access.

Africa has 170,000 mobile towers now and needs another 60,000, according to tower company IHS Group, which at an average $ 200,000 each means an outlay of $ 12 billion.

“If you are an operator asked to spend $ 200,000 to build a site and another $ 2,000 a month to run it in an area with 500 people herding cows, it doesn’t make sense,” said Issam Darwish, IHS’s chief executive.

Average revenue per user is also low. It can vary between $ 1 and $ 10 per month, much lower than in developed markets such as the United States, which delivered ARPU of $ 51 in 2012 or Britain, $ 27.

Bharti, sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest telecom group, says it makes $ 6.40 per user in Africa, which is higher than its home Indian market, where it makes only $ 3.30 a month, but the cost of operating in Africa is much higher and there isn’t a comparable middle class ready and able to spend more.

“You either have a handful of people in the affluent part of the society or you have lots of people who can’t afford the services,” its Chairman Sunil Mittal said last year.

Operators can save money by sharing towers, but even then, some sites will never make sense without government subsidies, analysts say.

African expansion has not been cheap for telcos. Over the past five years, mobile operators have spent a combined $ 16.5 billion on capital expenditure in the key markets of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana, according to Wireless Intelligence.

Bharti has earmarked $ 1.5 billion for capex this year, while fourth-placed France Telecom is spending $ 9.3 billion between 2010 and 2015.

Spare cash is increasingly rare for debt-strapped European telecoms operators, which are cutting their dividends to cope with falling revenues and network upgrade costs in their home markets.

Some African regulators have set up funds to promote coverage, to which operators are expected to contribute.

In Sierra Leone, the Universal Access Development Fund (UADF) is yet to subsidize the cost of putting up a single mast, though it has been active for several years. The regulator complains networks do not contribute the fees they should.

“If we can’t subsidize, they’ll never erect towers there,” said Bashir Kamara, Project Manager at UADF.

($ 1 = 0.6350 British pounds)

(Additional reporting by Hereward Holland in Juba and Chijioke Ohuocha in Lagos; Editing by David Dolan and Will Waterman)

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ABC orders pilots for “Big Thunder” drama, Gothic soap opera

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – ABC has ordered pilots for the dramas “Big Thunder” and “Gothica,” the network said Tuesday.

“Big Thunder,” which is written by “Ice Age” writer Jason Fuchs (pictured) and executive produced by Chris Morgan (“Wanted,” “The Troop”) follows a brilliant doctor in late 19th century New York whose family is given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relocate to a frontier mining town run by a powerful, but mysterious tycoon. However, they quickly realize that not everything in Big Thunder is as it seems.

ABC Studios is producing the pilot, which is based on the Big Mountain Thunder Railroad ride at several Disney-owned theme parks.

“Gothica,” meanwhile, is described as a “sexy gothic soap opera set in present day” that “weaves together a mythology that incorporates the legends of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray among others.”

The project, written by Matt Lopez, comes from ABC Studios and the Mark Gordon Company.

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Well: Myths of Weight Loss Are Plentiful, Researcher Says

If schools reinstated physical education classes, a lot of fat children would lose weight. And they might never have gotten fat in the first place if their mothers had just breast fed them when they were babies. But be warned: obese people should definitely steer clear of crash diets. And they can lose more than 50 pounds in five years simply by walking a mile a day.

Those are among the myths and unproven assumptions about obesity and weight loss that have been repeated so often and with such conviction that even scientists like David B. Allison, who directs the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, have fallen for some of them.

Now, he is trying to set the record straight. In an article published online today in The New England Journal of Medicine, he and his colleagues lay out seven myths and six unsubstantiated presumptions about obesity. They also list nine facts that, unfortunately, promise little in the way of quick fixes for the weight-obsessed. Example: “Trying to go on a diet or recommending that someone go on a diet does not generally work well in the long term.”

Obesity experts applauded this plain-spoken effort to dispel widespread confusion about obesity. The field, they say, has become something of a quagmire.

“In my view,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Friedman, a Rockefeller University obesity researcher, “there is more misinformation pretending to be fact in this field than in any other I can think of.”

Others agreed, saying it was about time someone tried to set the record straight.

“I feel like cheering,” said Madelyn Fernstrom, founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Weight Management Center. When it comes to obesity beliefs, she said, “We are spinning out of control.”

Steven N. Blair, an exercise and obesity researcher at the University of South Carolina, said his own students believe many of the myths. “I like to challenge my students. Can you show me the data? Too often that doesn’t come into it.”

Dr. Allison sought to establish what is known to be unequivocally true about obesity and weight loss.

His first thought was that, of course, weighing oneself daily helped control weight. He checked for the conclusive studies he knew must exist. They did not.

“My goodness, after 50-plus years of studying obesity in earnest and all the public wringing of hands, why don’t we know this answer?” Dr. Allison asked. “What’s striking is how easy it would be to check. Take a couple of thousand people and randomly assign them to weigh themselves every day or not.”

Yet it has not been done.

Instead, people often rely on weak studies that get repeated ad infinitum. It is commonly thought, for example, that people who eat breakfast are thinner. But that notion is based on studies of people who happened to eat breakfast. Researchers then asked if they were fatter or thinner than people who happened not to eat breakfast — and found an association between eating breakfast and being thinner. But such studies can be misleading because the two groups might be different in other ways that cause the breakfast eaters to be thinner. But no one has randomly assigned people to eat breakfast or not, which could cinch the argument.

So, Dr. Allison asks, why do yet another study of the association between thinness and breakfast? “Yet, I can tell you that in the last two weeks I saw an association study of breakfast eating in Islamabad and another in Inner Mongolia and another in a country I never heard of.”

“Why are we doing these?” Dr. Allison asked. “All that time and effort is essentially wasted. The question is: ‘Is it a causal association?’” To get the answer, he added, “Do the clinical trial.”

He decided to do it himself, with university research funds. A few hundred people will be recruited and will be randomly assigned to one of three groups. Some will be told to eat breakfast every day, others to skip breakfast, and the third group will be given vague advice about whether to eat it or not.

As he delved into the obesity literature, Dr. Allison began to ask himself why some myths and misconceptions are so commonplace. Often, he decided, the beliefs reflected a “reasonableness bias.” The advice sounds so reasonable it must be true. For example, the idea that people do the best on weight-loss programs if they set reasonable goals sounds so sensible.

“We all want to be reasonable,” Dr. Allison said. But, he said, when he examined weight-loss studies he found no consistent association between the ambitiousness of the goal and how much weight was lost and how long it had stayed off. This myth, though, illustrates the tricky ground weight-loss programs have to navigate when advising dieters. The problem is that on average people do not lose much – 10 percent of their weight is typical – but setting 10 percent as a goal is not necessarily the best strategy. A very few lose a lot more and some people may be inspired by the thought of a really life-changing weight loss.

“If a patient says, ‘Do you think it is reasonable for me to lose 25 percent of my body weight,’ the honest answer is, ‘No. Not without surgery,’” Dr. Allison said. But, he said, “If a patient says, ‘My goal is to lose 25 percent of my body weight,’ I would say, ‘Go for it.’”

Yet all this negativism bothers people, Dr. Allison conceded. When he talks about his findings to scientists, they often say: “O.K., you’ve convinced us. But what can we do? We’ve got to do something.” He replies that scientists have an ethical duty to make clear what is established and what is speculation. And while it is fine to recommend things like bike paths or weighing yourself daily, scientists must make sure they preface their advice with the caveat that these things seem sensible but have not been proven.

Among the best established methods is weight-loss surgery, which, of course, is not right for most people. But surgeons have done careful studies to show that on average people lose substanial amounts of weight and their health improves, Dr. Allison said. For dieters, the best results occur with structured programs, like ones that supply complete meals or meal replacements.

In the meantime, Dr. Allison said, it is incumbent upon scientists to change their ways. “We need to do rigorous studies,” he said. “We need to stop doing association studies after an association has clearly been demonstrated.”

“I never said we have to wait for perfect knowledge,” Dr. Allison said. But, as John Lennon said, “Just give me some truth.”

---

Here is an overview of the obesity myths looked at by the researchers and what is known to be true:

MYTHS

Small things make a big difference. Walking a mile a day can lead to a loss of more than 50 pounds in five years.

Set a realistic goal to lose a modest amount.

People who are too ambitious will get frustrated and give up.

You have to be mentally ready to diet or you will never succeed.

Slow and steady is the way to lose. If you lose weight too fast you will lose less in the long run.

Ideas not yet proven TRUE OR FALSE

Diet and exercise habits in childhood set the stage for the rest of life.

Add lots of fruits and vegetables to your diet to lose weight or not gain as much.

Yo-yo diets lead to increased death rates.

People who snack gain weight and get fat.

If you add bike paths, jogging trails, sidewalks and parks, people will not be as fat.

FACTS — GOOD EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT

Heredity is important but is not destiny.

Exercise helps with weight maintenance.

Weight loss is greater with programs that provide meals.

Some prescription drugs help with weight loss and maintenance.

Weight-loss surgery in appropriate patients can lead to long-term weight loss, less diabetes and a lower death rate.

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DealBook: Justice Dept. Seeks to Block Anheuser's Deal for Modelo

The Justice Department sued on Thursday to block the Anheuser-Busch InBev proposed $20.1 billion deal to buy control of Grupo Modelo of Mexico, arguing that the merger would significantly reduce competition in the American beer market.

The deal, announced last summer, would add Corona Extra to the company’s formidable stable of brands, including Budweiser and Stella Artois.

But the Justice Department said in its lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, that allowing the merger to proceed would reduce competition in the beer industry across the country as a whole and in 26 metropolitan areas in particular. The combined company would control about 46 percent of annual sales in the country, the government said, far outpacing Anheuser-Busch InBev’s closest competitor, MillerCoors.

“If ABI fully owned and controlled Modelo, ABI would be able to increase beer prices to American consumers,” William J. Baer, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in a statement. “This lawsuit seeks to prevent ABI from eliminating Modelo as an important competitive force in the beer industry.”

The deal is the biggest to be opposed by the Justice Department since 2011, when it sued to block the proposed $39 billion takeover by AT&T of T-Mobile USA.

The government’s move is the first significant effort to halt widespread consolidation in the beer industry in some time. Anheuser-Busch InBev itself was the product of a blockbuster merger between two of the world’s biggest brewers, and one of MillerCoors’s parents is the acquisitive SABMiller.

In its complaint, the Justice Department said Modelo had served as a low-price counterbalance to its larger competitors, resisting the price increases Anheuser-Busch InBev has promoted regularly.

In a statement, Anheuser-Busch said, “We remain confident in our position, and we intend to vigorously contest the D.O.J.’s action in federal court.”

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Toyota recalls 1 million of its Corollas and Lexus IS sport sedans

Toyota Motor Corp. announced recalls of 1 million vehicles, including some models of its popular Toyota Corolla and its Lexus IS sports sedan.

About 752,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix vehicles are being recalled to fix an air-bag control module that is susceptible to short circuiting that could eventually cause the front air bags and seat belt pretensioners to deploy when they shouldn't.

The recall affects Corollas from the 2003 and 2004 model years. There have been two reported accidents and 18 injuries linked to the problem, said Brian Lyons, a Toyota spokesman.

For years, the Corolla has played a key role in Toyota's sales success in the U.S.  It was the second-best-selling compact car nationally last year with sales of 291,000 vehicles, second only to the Honda Civic, which sold about 318,000.

The Corolla was last redesigned in 2009. Toyota introduced a concept version of what is expected to become the new Corolla at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this month.

Toyota also said it will recall 270,000 IS sport sedans sold by its luxury Lexus division because a nut on the front windshield wiper arms could be insufficiently tight. If movement of the wipers is restricted by an external load, such as a buildup of heavy snow on the windshield, one or both of the wipers could stop working.

The recall includes vehicles from the 2006 model year through the beginning of the 2013 model year. There have been 25 reports of wipers not functioning correctly, but no reports of accidents as a result.

Toyota plans to roll out a new generation of the IS line this year.
 
Owners of vehicles covered by these safety recalls will be notified by mail. Dealers will fix the problems at no cost to the vehicle owner.

Toyota has had a series a large recalls in recent years and has paid record federal fines for not recalling its vehicles fast enough.  But that doesn’t seem to bother buyers.

Toyota’s share of U.S. auto sales rose to 14.4% last year from 12.9% the year before. Globally, it recaptured the position as the world’s biggest auto seller last year, knocking General Motors from the No. 1 spot.

“Despite the flood of recalls, buyers continue to be extremely loyal to Toyota,” said George Cook, professor at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. “Toyota is keenly aware of post-recall challenges and continues to be extremely proactive about announcing even the smallest of problems to ensure a positive consumer response.”

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RIM starts glitzy BlackBerry 10 launch parties

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Wednesday kicked off a string of global launch parties for a long-delayed line of smartphones it says will put it on the comeback trail in a market it once dominated.

The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple‘s iPhone and devices using Google‘s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.

They boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large app library.

(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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Spielberg seen winning director Oscar for “Lincoln”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – American filmmaker Steven Spielberg is clear favorite among the public to win the best director award for his film about President Abraham Lincoln at the Academy Awards this year, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

While the race to win best film at the February 24 ceremony was shaken up by “Argo” stealing the thunder of “Lincoln” at two award ceremonies last weekend, the best director statuette was deemed destined for one man.

Spielberg, 66, who has been nominated seven times for best director at the Oscars and won twice – for the World War Two dramas “Schindler’s List” in 1993 and “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998 – was seen as far ahead in the all-male field of five.

A Reuters Ipsos poll of 1,641 Americans found 41 percent thought Spielberg should win and 38 percent said he was most likely to win for his U.S. Civil War-era drama in which British actor Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln.

Almost half of the respondents to the survey conducted Friday through Tuesday were unsure who should or was most likely to be voted best director. The accuracy of the poll uses a statistical measure called a “credibility interval” and is precise to within 2.8 percentage points.

The online poll comes before the Directors Guild of America awards on Saturday in Los Angeles. Since 1948, there have been only six occasions where the winner of the DGA Award for Feature Film has not gone on to win the Oscar for best director.

But this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose members choose Oscar winners, overlooked the directors of four of the year’s biggest movies – Ben Affleck (“Argo”), Kathryn Bigelow (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Quentin Tarantino (“Django Unchained”) and Tom Hopper (“Les Miserables”) – opening the possibility of a rare split in February in the best film and best director categories.

Betting agencies also have earmarked Spielberg as clear favorite, with William Hill offering odds of 1-5 on Spielberg.

“Our theory is that Spielberg will win best director but not best film,” said Rupert Adams, a spokesman for bookmaker William Hill. “If you listen to what people are saying it is that ‘Lincoln’ is a brilliant film in terms of direction but it is not that exciting to watch unlike ‘Argo.’”

Ang Lee, with his 3-D film adaptation of the best-selling novel “Life of Pi” about an Indian boy adrift at sea with a tiger, was ranked second in the Reuters poll with about one in 10 respondents saying he should or was most likely to win.

The Taiwanese director won the Academy Award for best director in 2005 for the gay-themed Western romance “Brokeback Mountain.”

David O. Russell with the quirky comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” was rated third in the poll with about 5 percent.

The two surprise contenders in the race ranked fourth and fifth: Benh Zeitlin, 30, with his first feature, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” and Austrian director Michael Haneke with the French-language drama “Armour” about illness and old age.

The exclusion of Bigelow for her film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden has been controversial in the run-up to the 85th Academy Awards. Bigelow, 61, is the only woman to win a best director Oscar, for “The Hurt Locker” in 2009.

Affleck, 40, whose Iran hostage thriller “Argo” swept the board at last weekend’s Hollywood awards shows, was also notable by his absence, as were Hooper and Tarantino. However, all four of their movies are in the running for best film at the Oscars.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Belinda Goldsmith)

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Phys Ed: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.

The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal ski gear and schuss or ride down the slopes at their preferred speed. Although they hadn’t informed the volunteers, their primary aim was to determine whether wearing a helmet increased people’s willingness to take risks, in which case helmets could actually decrease safety on the slopes.

What they found was reassuring.

To many of us who hit the slopes with, in my case, literal regularity — I’m an ungainly novice snowboarder — the value of wearing a helmet can seem self-evident. They protect your head from severe injury. During the Big Air finals at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., this past weekend, for instance, 23-year-old Icelandic snowboarder Halldor Helgason over-rotated on a triple back flip, landed head-first on the snow, and was briefly knocked unconscious. But like the other competitors he was wearing a helmet, and didn’t fracture his skull.

Indeed, studies have concluded that helmets reduce the risk of a serious head injury by as much as 60 percent. But a surprising number of safety experts and snowsport enthusiasts remain unconvinced that helmets reduce overall injury risk.

Why? A telling 2009 survey of ski patrollers from across the country found that 77 percent did not wear helmets because they worried that the headgear could reduce their peripheral vision, hearing and response times, making them slower and clumsier. In addition, many worried that if they wore helmets, less-adept skiers and snowboarders might do likewise, feel invulnerable and engage in riskier behavior on the slopes.

In the past several years, a number of researchers have attempted to resolve these concerns, for or against helmets. And in almost all instances, helmets have proved their value.

In the Innsbruck speed experiment, the researchers found that people whom the questionnaires showed to be risk takers skied and rode faster than those who were by nature cautious. No surprise.

But wearing a helmet did not increase people’s speed, as would be expected if the headgear encouraged risk taking. Cautious people were slower than risk-takers, whether they wore helmets or not; and risk-takers were fast, whether their heads were helmeted or bare.

Interestingly, the skiers and riders who were the most likely, in general, to don a helmet were the most expert, the men and women with the most talent and hours on the slopes. Experience seemed to have taught them the value of a helmet.

Off of the slopes, other new studies have brought skiers and snowboarders into the lab to test their reaction times and vision with and without helmets. Peripheral vision and response times are a serious safety concern in a sport where skiers and riders rapidly converge from multiple directions.

But when researchers asked snowboarders and skiers to wear caps, helmets, goggles or various combinations of each for a 2011 study and then had them sit before a computer screen and press a button when certain images popped up, they found that volunteers’ peripheral vision and reaction times were virtually unchanged when they wore a helmet, compared with wearing a hat. Goggles slightly reduced peripheral vision and increased response times. But helmets had no significant effect.

Even when researchers added music, testing snowboarders and skiers wearing Bluetooth-audio equipped helmets, response times did not increase significantly from when they wore wool caps.

So why do up to 40 percent of skiers and snowboarders still avoid helmets?

“The biggest reason, I think, is that many people never expect to fall,” says Dr. Adil H. Haider, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-author of a major new review of studies related to winter helmet use. “That attitude is especially common in people, like me, who are comfortable on blue runs but maybe not on blacks, and even more so in beginners.”

But a study published last spring detailing snowboarding injuries over the course of 18 seasons at a Vermont ski resort found that the riders at greatest risk of hurting themselves were female beginners. I sympathize.

The takeaway from the growing body of science about ski helmets is in fact unequivocal, Dr. Haider said. “Helmets are safe. They don’t seem to increase risk taking. And they protect against serious, even fatal head injuries.”

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, of which Dr. Haider is a member, has issued a recommendation that “all recreational skiers and snowboarders should wear safety helmets,” making them the first medical group to go on record advocating universal helmet use.

Perhaps even more persuasive, Dr. Haider has given helmets to all of his family members and colleagues who ski or ride. “As a trauma surgeon, I know how difficult it is to fix a brain,” he said. “So everyone I care about wears a helmet.”

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BlackBerry Maker Unveils Its New Line

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Thorsten Heins, the chief executive of BlackBerry, which was known as Research in Motion, introduces the company's new phones.

BlackBerry’s maker unveiled a new operating system and a new line of phones on Wednesday, along with a new corporate name, with the hope of restoring its products’ status as a symbol of executive cool.Analysts, technology reviewers and app developers with advance access to the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry 10 operating system have said it is the company’s first competitive touch-screen phone. But BlackBerry 10 arrives long after Apple’s iPhone and phones using Google’s Android operating system have come to dominate the smartphone market that the BlackBerry effectively created. According to IDC, BlackBerry now holds just 4.6 percent of that market, about one-tenth of its historic peak.

To emphasize the changes brought by the new operating system, Thorsten Heins, who took over as chief executive a year ago, said the company, known until now as Research In Motion, had adopted BlackBerry as its corporate name. Its Nasdaq trading symbol will become BBRY, and it will trade as BB in Toronto.

In addition to the BlackBerry Z10 phone, there will be a second model, the Q10, that includes one of the line’s signature physical keyboards.

Verizon Wireless announced that it would price the Z10 at $200 with a two-year contract. It will also be carried by AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

“Today represents a new day in the history of BlackBerry,” Mr. Heins said. “These BlackBerry 10 devices are absolutely the best typing experiences in the industry.”

BlackBerry said the Z10 would be available in the United States in March and in Canada on Feb. 5.

There were few surprises in the initial portion of Mr. Heins’s presentation. The company began demonstrating the touch-screen phone and operating system in May and also made prototypes available to app developers at the time. In recent weeks, photographs of the final version of the phones have made their way to various American and European technology Web sites.

Physically, the Z10 resembles an iPhone 5 with its corners snipped off.

But unlike its competitors, the Z10 lacks a button to take users back to a home page and relies entirely on users swiping their fingers across the 4.2-inch screen from different directions to summon features or menus.

While the Z10 lacks a physical keyboard, the main attraction of BlackBerrys for many current users, the company said that it had developed software which should alleviate some of the inadequacies of on-screen typing. According to BlackBerry, its software studies users’ common typing mistakes over time and then starts automatically correcting them. It will also build up a list of commonly used words and offer them as suggestions that can be selected with a flick of a finger.

While developing the new operating system, the company took great pains to improve its strained relationship with app developers. The operating system was also designed in a way that allows them to adapt Android apps for BlackBerry 10 by making some relatively minor modifications.

BlackBerry said Wednesday that more than 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps were now available.

For corporate and government users, BlackBerry 10 server software will allow them to divide employees’ BlackBerry 10 phones into separate work and personal spheres and give I.T. managers complete control over the former.

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