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Legal Theory Blog: Legal Theory Lexicon: Utilitarianism

Introduction

This installment of the?Legal Theory Lexicon?is an introduction to utilitarian moral and political philosophy tailored to law students (especially first-year law students) with an interest in legal theory.

Law students learn early on that classroom discussion of cases and statutes may begin with questions about?what the rule is?but is likely to turn to questions about?what the rule should be. And in most law school classrooms, analysis of the ?should? question is likely to go down one of two paths. The first path leads to?fairness?(which outcome in this case is fair to the parties; which rule will produce fair results in the future). The second path leads to?policy?(which rule will produce the best consequences in the future). Theories about fairness will be covered in future installments of the?Legal Theory Lexicon; today, we focus on arguments of policy and the theoretical question, ?What does it mean to say that a rule would produce the best consequences?? One answer to that question is ?utilitarianism,? a theory of enormous interest and influence. But what exactly is ?utilitarianism? and how might it be criticized or defended?

What is ?utilitarianism??

Just about every law student has some basic familiarity with the idea of utilitarianism, but unless you were a philosophy or economics major, you may have only a fuzzy notion of what this term really means. (And by the way, philosophers and economists use the term "utilitarian" in slightly different ways.)? In this history of moral philosophy, utilitarianism is strongly associated with two historical figures, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Mill?s views are important and deeply interesting, but they are also extremely difficult to sort out properly. Jeremy Bentham, however, provides a wonderful entr?e into the world of utilitarian moral and political philosophy. Law students should be especially fond of Bentham, because with only a bit of exaggeration, we can say than Bentham is the original disgruntled law student. Bentham, you see, was highly displeased with William Blackstone?s lectures on law at Oxford University. The common law, Bentham thought, was a disorganized body of archaic and dysfunctional rules. Common-law judges irrationally worshiped historical pedigree and had an immoral disregard of the consequences of legal rules.

Legal rules, Bentham believed, should be codified, and the codes should be written so as to produce ?the Greatest Good, for the Greatest Number.? That is, we should adopt those legal rules that will?maximize utility.

Consequentialism

Utilitarianism is just one member of a more general family of moral theories, which we might call ?consequentialism.? Consequentialism is the view that morality is about consequences of decisions. Utilitarianism is a particular form of consequentialism, but not the only form. Consequentialism is sometimes contrasted to?deontology, where deontological moral and political theories maintain that there are moral rules or principles, the violation of which cannot be justified on the ground that good consequences would result. Thus, a consequentialist might believe that one may tell lies, break promises, or injure innocent persons in order to accomplish a greater good, whereas a deontologist might believe that such actions are forbidden--even if good consequences will result. ?Both consequentialism and deontology are contrasted to?aretaic (or virtue-centered) moral theories.

Disambiguating Utilitarianism

Let?s pause for a moment. It turns out that ?utilitarianism,? the term, refers to many different interrelated theories. ?Utilitarianism? is ambiguous, and so we need to specify what we mean by utilitarianism by answering some questions:

• What is utility? That is, when we say, the greatest ?good? for the greatest number, what do we mean by ?good??


• What is scope of decision? That is, what should maximize utility, individual actions, general rules, principles, or something else?


• What does it mean to maximize utility?


• Does the rightness of an action depend on actual or expected utilities?

What is utility?

What is utility? What is a good consequence? Or to use a bit of jargon, what is a ?utile,? where the word ?utile? stands for a unit of utility? There are many possible answers to this question, but here are three versions of utilitarianism that give three different answers to this question:

Hedonistic Utilitarianism.?Bentham himself believed that utility was pleasure and the absence of pain. Suppose it were possible to measure and quantify pleasures and pains. We might then call one unit of pleasure a positive ?hedon? and one unit of pain a negative ?hedon.? Maximizing utility then, would simply be to maximize the sum of hedons. When we evaluated legal rules, we would engage in what Bentham called a ?hedonic calculus.?

Eudaimonistic Utilitarianism.?But is the good really just a matter of pleasures and pains? Many of Bentham?s critics argued that not all pleasures are good. Would you really want to live your life carrying around a device that constantly stimulated the pleasure center of your brain and suppressed the pain center? Rather than maximize pleasure, we might instead maximize ?happiness??eudaimonia in ancient Greek. Happiness may be related to pleasure, but it includes more abstract satisfactions. Climbing a mountain may involve much more pain than pleasure, but this activity may still contribute to the happiness of the climber.

Preference-Satisfaction Utilitarianism.?But if happiness seems a better candidate for ?good? than pleasure, there are difficulties with the proposition that the law should maximize ?happiness.? Happiness is notoriously difficult to define, and different persons have different views about what makes for a happy life. Moreover, happiness, like pleasure, is difficult to measure directly. For these reasons and others, some utilitarian theorists (especially economists) substitute ?preference? for happiness as the ?good? to be maximized. Preferences can be measured in a variety of ways. For example, we can ask individuals to simply rank order their preferences among various states of affairs, giving us an?ordinalutility function for the individual. Economists have devised a variety of techniques for translating these rank orderings (1st best, 2nd best, etc.) into numerical values. Thus, we can construct a?cardinal?utility function for an individual. Because preference-satisfaction is measurable, most economists use a preference-based conception of utility. And because of the influence of economics on legal theory, this form of utilitarianism has had the greatest impact on contemporary legal theory as well.

There are other versions of utilitarianism, but you get the idea.

Scope of Decision

So let?s assume we have a working conception of utility. Our next question is:?What exactly is the decision that is supposed to maximize utility??Is each individual action required to maximize utility? Or is it general rules that we are concerned with? Or principles? Or something else? I am going to call this question, the?scope of decision?question. Different forms of utilitarianism give different answers to the scope of decision question. Let?s take a quick look at some of the possibilities:

• Act Utilitarianism.?(abbreviated?AU) The first possibility is that each individual?action?should maximize utility. Given this answer to the scope of decision question, we might formulate utilitarianism as follows:

  Act so that your action maximizes utility as opposed to any alternative action that you could perform.

  Suppose, for example, that you must decide whether to break or keep a promise to have lunch with a friend. You would ask yourself, ?Would keeping my promise produce greater utility than breaking it?? Thus, you would consider the costs of your decision, such as: (1) your friend will be hurt, (2) you will miss out on the satisfaction of having lunch with your friend, and (3) your friend may not trust your promises in the future if you break this promise. And you would consider the benefits, such as: (1) you will be able to use a free ticket to go to the baseball game if you break the promise, and (2) you will not have to listen to your friend's boring stories. You then add the utilities for each action, and choose the action that produces the greatest utility.

• Rule Utilitarianism.?(abbreviated?RU) The case of promises reveals a potential problem with AU. If I calculate utilities every time, I decide whether to break or keep a promise, my promises may not be viewed by others as trustworthy. And if my promises are not trustworthy, then I will not be able to use the institution of promising to coordinate my behavior with that of other people. But the ability to coordinate through promises produces good consequences. One way out of these difficulties is to shift the scope of decision from individual actions to general rules. Thus, although the individual actions of breaking my promise might maximize utility as compared to the alternative, the general rule, ?keep your promises,? might produce more utility than the alternative rules, such as ?keep your promises, but only when there is nothing better to do.?

Rule utilitarianism itself has two important subvariants, and we can add a third, specifically legal, variant as well:

Ideal Rule Utilitarianism?(IRU) says that you should act in accordance with the set of ?ideal rules? that would maximize utility if everyone were actually to act in conformity with the rules.

Actual Rule Utilitarianism?(ARU) says that you should act in accord with the set of ?actual rules? that would maximize utility if it were adopted as the moral code of a real society in which persons will sometimes fail to live up to the requirements of the moral code.

Legal Rule Utilitarianism?(LRU) responds to an obvious fact about the application of utilitarianism to the law. The law is concerned with individual acts (e.g. an individual judge's decision in an individual case at the trial level), but it is also concerned with rule-creating acts (e.g. the decision of a legislator to vote for or against a given bill). So it is reasonable for legal theorists to advance a more specialized version of utilitarianism, which we can call "Legal Rule Utilitarianism," as a theory about legal rules. Notice, however, that LRU will have a set of variants. So we can distinguish the utility of an?ideal system?of legal rules (with perfect compliance) versus an?actual system?of legal rules (with disobedience and enforcement costs) versus a?single nonideal actual rule?(where the status quo system of rules is assumed and we look at the utility of changing only a single rule).

• Utilitarian Generalization?(abbreviated?UG) There is one more answer to the scope of decision problem that is worth mentioning. UG is the view that one should act on the basis of principles (or maxims) that would produce the greatest utility if they were generalized (e.g. we acted upon by everyone. Because this form of utilitarianism, plays very little role in legal thought, I won't discuss it further.

What does it mean to maximize utility?

There is yet another ambiguity about utilitarianism that is really important to its application. What does "the?greatest?good for the?greatest?number" mean? Alternatively, what does it mean tomaximize?utility? This is a really complex topic. Right off the bat, it has both an intrapersonal and interpersonal dimension. To simplify, I will focus on the interpersonal problem. Let's assume we have utility values for individuals. What do we do with them? You may think the answer is obvious, "Add them up!," but it isn't so easy. Here are some alternatives:

• Classical Utilitarianism.?"Add them up" is the classic answer. That is, we simply sum individual utilities. Sometimes this is called the "utilitarian social welfare function" by economists.?This can lead to some confusion as this is what some economists think the term "utilitarianism" means.
• Average Utilitarianism.?But we could average rather add. That is, we could take the sum of individual utilities and divide by the number of persons.?You, gentle reader, undoubtedly have run way ahead of me and seen that this will make a big difference to things like population policy.?We might have a choice between a larger population with a lower average utility but a greater sum, and a smaller population, with a higher average, but a lower sum.
• Bernoulli-Nash?John Nash (of?A Beautiful Mind?fame) is associated with another alternative. We might multiply rather than add utilities. I won't go into the reasons why this might be a good idea, except to tell you that multiplication makes more sense if we our utility values for individuals are relative rather than absolute.

Actual or Expected Utilities

We rarely know with certainty what consequences will result from actions or rules. Utilitarianism might look to the actual consequences of rules. If so, then some actions that looked right at the time will turn out to be very wrong, because of some unanticipated effect of the action. The alternative is to say that the rightness or wrongness of an action depends on its expected consequences. Given the phenomenon of uncertainty, a given action may lead to several different possible future states of the world. If we could assign a probability to each state, then the expected consequences of a given action could be calculated by taking the product of the utility value for the state and the probability that the state will coming into being. Take the following choice situation:

Action A has a 50% chance of producing a utility of 10 and a 50% chance of producing a utility of 0. Since .5*10 + .5*0 = 5, the expected utility of action A is 5.?

Action B has a 90% chance of producing a utility of 0, and a 10% chance of producing a utility of 100. Since .9*0 +.1*100 = 10, the expected utility of action A is 10.

And since 10 > 5, action B has the greater expected utility. Of course, it may turn out that action B produces a utility of zero, but if what counts is expected utility, then this?ex postfact is irrelevant to the?ex ante?moral evaluation of actions A and B.

Some Objections to Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an enormously controversial view, with adamant defenders and critics. It is worth our while to examine a few of the most prominent objections, but we will only be sliding across the surface of a deep and complex topic.

The Rights Objection.?Utilitarianism evaluates actions on the basis of the consequences they produce, and therefore does not?require?respect for moral or legal rights. The literature is full of hypotheticals in which utilitarianism is alleged to justify intuitively unattractive rights violations. Suppose, for example, the slavery is contrary to a moral right, but that in a particular society, enslaving a small minority of the population would produce greater utility for the majority than it produced disutility for the enslaved minority. If these facts were true, the utilitarianism seems to say that slavery would be morally required. But most people would disagree, saying that slavery cannot be justified simply because it produces good consequences: ?We have a moral right not to be enslaved." Utilitarians are likely to get quite huffy when this argument is made. They may say, ?But slavery does?not?produce good consequences. It produces bad consequences, and that?s why we think slavery is so awful.? And then the critic might say, ?But suppose slavery did produce good consequences, what then?? You can see how this debate could go on for quite some time before we made any progress. Notice, however, that act utilitarianism seems more open to the rights objection than does rule utilitarianism. Rules against rights violations may produce good consequences, even if individual acts of rights violation could be justified on utilitarian grounds.?

The Self-Defeating Objection. Another objection is that utilitarianism may be self-defeating or self-effacing. Suppose that everyone tried to deliberate as a utilitarian. It might turn out that nonetheless they would make decisions that led to bad consequences. For example, some people may be extremely bad at predicting the consequences of their actions. Others may systematically overestimate their own utilities while systematically underestimating those of others. One answer to this objection is famously associated with the British moral philosopher R.M. Hare. Hare proposed a two-level theory of morality. Utilitarianism, Hare argued, operates at the level of detached moral theorizing. Ultimately, an action is deemed good or bad based on its utility. But ordinary moral deliberation, Hare continued, operates at a different level. Ordinary folks should deliberate on the basis of moral rules of thumb, such as keep your promises, don?t steal, and don?t enslave your enemies when you vanquish them. As you might guess, there are many criticisms of two-level theories, but you get the general idea.

The Impossibility of Interpersonal Utility Comparisons.? This one gets very complicated, very fast. So let me just state the general idea. Suppose we are trying to add up individual utilities for everyone in society. How do we come up with values that are truly comparable across persons. That is, how do we know that X amount of my pleasure or happiness or preference satisfaction is equal to Y amount of yours? This problem is especially vexing for economists (who need to be able to translate utility into values that are susceptible of mathematical treatment).? One solution is simply to limit the conclusions of economics to cases that involve making everyone better off or that make at least one person better off and no one worse off?hence obviating the need for interpersonal comparisons: for more on this, see?Legal Theory Lexicon 060: Efficiency, Pareto, and Kaldor-Hicks.

The Demandingness Objection.? The list of objections goes on and on, but let?s do just one more. It is frequently argued that utilitarianism (especially act utilitarianism) is?too demanding.?Why?

Imagine that it is your day off. You have two choices. You can either read a novel or your can work for Oxfam. If you read a novel, you will produce some positive utility?your enjoyment of the novel. But if you worked for Oxfam, you would save 1.7 starving children in the third world from death. Well, of course, you should work for Oxfam. But the problem is that it will always be the case that I could produce more utility for others if I dedicated my time to helping the least fortunate. Utilitarianism seems to require me to work for Oxfam after work and to stay up as late as I possibly can. In fact, I may be able to maximize utility by neglecting my health and family. If this is true, many would find utilitarianism too demanding and hence implausible.? There are various answers to this objection, but some utilitarians embrace demandingness, arguing that most affluent persons do have very demanding moral obligations.

Utilitarianism and Legal Theory?

In the law, utilitarian thinking is most associated with normative law and economics. It is useful to review the various forms of utilitarianism in this context:

--Normative law and economics uses?preferences?rather than pleasure or happiness as its concept of utility.?

--Normative law and economics usually assumes that the system of legal rules (as opposed to individual actions or ideal moral rules) provide the relevant scope of decision.

--Normative law and economics usually assumes that utilities are to be summe?although this issue is rarely addressed in any detail.

--Normative law and economics usually assumes that it is expected utilities, rather than actual utilities, that are to be maximized.

If you are interested in the relationship between utilitarianism and legal theory, you will definitely want to check out Kaplow and Shavell?s book,?Fairness versus Welfare. Kaplow and Shavell don?t take a stand on the question as to whether utilities should be summed, multiplied, or combined in some other way, but they do offer a trenchant defense of consequentialism as well as an attack on nonconsequentialist approaches to legal theory.?

Related Legal Theory Lexicon Entries

Links to Other Resources on the Web

Bibliography

The literature on utilitarianism is vast, but here are some good starting points:

(This post was last modified on November 27, 2011.)

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Who Is The Next Batman? Christian Bale's Replacement Will Be... (PHOTOS)

It's been a breakout year for Fassbender, who will have put out four critically acclaimed movies by the time the ball drops on December 31st. The man can certainly go dark and brooding, as audiences will soon see in 'Shame,' and he's done the comic book thing before, playing Magneto in this summer's 'X-Men: First Class.' That association shouldn't get in his way, though; plenty of stars have been involved in multiple super hero films, and X-Men is Marvel, while Batman is DC.

It's been a breakout year for Fassbender, who will have put out four critically acclaimed movies by the time the ball drops on December 31st. The man can certainly go dark and brooding, as audiences will soon see in 'Shame,' and he's done the comic book thing before, playing Magneto in this summer's 'X-Men: First Class.' That association shouldn't get in his way, though; plenty of stars have been involved in multiple super hero films, and X-Men is Marvel, while Batman is DC.

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Report: Millions of birds killed by power lines

Tens of millions of flamingos, storks, pelicans and other migratory birds are being killed across the world when they fly into power lines, according to a new study.

The AFP news agency reported that wildfires had been caused in dry areas of the United States and Eastern Europe by birds hitting power lines, then falling to the ground in flames.

The study was published at Convention on Migratory Species in Bergen, Norway, according the news agency.

Tens of millions of birds are killed in collisions and hundreds of thousands are electrocuted in Africa and Eurasia, the study said.

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Dutch ornithologist Hein Prinsen, who took part in the study, told AFP that "collision and electrocution are among the most important human-related causes for bird mortality," along with hunting.

Solution needed
There are about 43 million miles of power lines in the world, the news agency reported.

"Today, Eastern Europe is a hot spot for problems, for great bustards and birds of prey for example," John O'Sullivan, an ex-member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told AFP.

"But the worst situation may well be soon to be found in India and Africa where vast amounts of power lines are being built and where there are very large populations of birds," he added.

O'Sullivan said it "completely makes sense" to try to solve the problem because power outages resulting from collisions had a "high costs for society."

AFP said that 12 percent of blue cranes died annually after flying into power lines in South Africa. The blue crane is that country's national bird.

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45443549/ns/world_news-world_environment/

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Nine-Spotted Ladybug, Long-Absent New York State Insect, Is Back

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The nine-spotted ladybug, the state?s official insect, was found summering in Amagansett after an absence of 29 years. Now scientists are nurturing a thriving colony of the bugs.

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Sarkozy, Merkel agree to stop sniping on ECB crisis (Reuters)

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) ? France and Germany agreed on Thursday to stop arguing in public over whether the European Central Bank should do more to rescue the euro zone from a deepening sovereign debt crisis.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel said after talks with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti that they trusted the independent central bank and would not touch its inflation-fighting mandate when they propose changes of the European Union's treaty to achieve closer fiscal union.

They also demonstrated their backing for Monti, an unelected technocrat, to surmount Italy's daunting economic challenges, in contrast to the barely concealed disdain they showed for his predecessor, media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi.

"We all stated our confidence in the ECB and its leaders and stated that in respect of the independence of this essential institution we must refrain from making positive or negative demands of it," Sarkozy told a joint news conference in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.

French ministers have called for the central bank to intervene massively to counter a market stampede out of euro zone government bonds, while Merkel and her ministers have said the EU treaty bars it from acting as a lender of last resort.

The Netherlands however moved closer to endorsing the ECB as lender of last resort, apparently breaking ranks with Germany.

Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said he would prefer that the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone bailout fund, should be strengthened. But if the EFSF did not succeed, other measures would have to be considered.

"In a crisis one should never exclude anything beforehand. In the end, something has to happen," he said.

Sarkozy said Paris and Berlin would circulate joint proposals before a December 9 EU summit for treaty amendments to entrench tougher budget discipline in the 17-nation euro area.

Merkel said the proposals for more intrusive powers to enforce EU budget rules, including the right to take delinquent governments to the European Court of Justice, were a first step toward deeper fiscal union.

But she said they would not modify the statute and mission of the central bank, nor soften her opposition to issuing joint euro zone bonds, except perhaps at the end of a long process of fiscal integration.

Some French and EU officials hoped Berlin would soften its resistance to a bigger crisis-fighting role for the ECB after Germany itself suffered a failed bond auction on Wednesday, showing how investors are wary even of Europe's safest haven.

"There is urgency (for ECB intervention)," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told France Inter radio before the meeting.

Sarkozy took a step toward Merkel this week by agreeing to amend the treaty to insert powers to override national budgets in euro area states that go off the rails. But there was no sign of a German concession on euro zone bonds or the ECB's role.

"This is not about give and take," Merkel said. Only when European countries reformed their economies and cut their deficits would borrowing costs converge. "To try to achieve this by compulsion would weaken us all."

With contagion spreading fast, a majority of 20 leading economists polled by Reuters predicted that the euro zone was unlikely to survive the crisis in its current form, with some envisaging a "core" group that would exclude Greece.

Analysts believe that sense of crisis will in the end force dramatic action. "I think we are moving closer to a policy response probably, which could be either more aggressive ECB action or the idea of euro bonds could gain some traction," said Rainer Guntermann, strategist at Commerzbank.

RESISTANCE

In signs of public resistance to austerity in two southern states under EU/IMF bailout programs, riot police clashed with workers at Greece's biggest power producer protesting against a new property tax, and Portuguese workers staged a 24-hour general strike.

Credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded Portugal's rating to junk status, saying a deepening recession made it "much more challenging" for the government to cut the budget deficit, highlighting a vicious circle facing Europe's debtors.

German bonds fell to their lowest level in nearly a month after Wednesday's auction, in which the German debt agency found no buyers for half of a 6 billion euro 10-year bond offering at a record low 2.0 percent interest rate.

The shortage of bids drove Germany's cost of borrowing over 10 years to 2.2 percent, above the 1.88 percent markets charge the United States and the 2.18 percent that heavily indebted Britain has to pay.

Bond investors are effectively on strike in the euro zone, interbank lending to euro area banks is freezing up, ever more banks are dependent on the ECB for funding, and depositors are withdrawing increasing amounts from southern European banks.

"It's quite telling that there has been upward pressure on yields in Germany - it might begin to change perceptions in Germany," Standard and Poor's head of sovereign ratings, David Beers, told an economic conference in Dublin.

In one possible response, people familiar with the matter said the ECB is looking at extending the term of loans it offers banks to two or even three years to try to prevent a credit crunch that chokes the bloc's economy.

Monti repeated Italy's goal of achieving a balanced budget by 2013 but said there was room for a broader discussion about how fiscal targets could be adjusted in a worse-than-expected recession.

Italian bond yields' jumped this month to levels above 7 percent widely seen as unbearable in the long term, despite stop-go intervention by the ECB to buy limited quantities, triggering Berlusconi's fall.

Keeping Italy solvent and able to borrow on capital markets is vital to the sustainability of the euro zone. Key Italian bond auctions early next week will test market confidence.

GERMAN EXPOSURE

German officials said the failed auction did not mean the government had refinancing problems and several analysts said Berlin just needed to offer a more attractive yield.

But it was a sign that, as the bloc's paymaster, Germany may face creeping pressure as the crisis deepens that may cause it to re-examine its refusal to embrace a broader solution.

Economy Minister Philipp Roesler of the Free Democratic junior coalition partner called for parliament to reject euro zone bonds "because we don't want German interest rates to rise dramatically."

But some market analysts are convinced joint debt issuance will eventually have to be part of a political solution to hold the euro zone together.

"Although it is not easy to see how the region will get to a fiscal union with Eurobonds, we believe that this is the path that will be chosen," JP Morgan economist David Mackie said in a research note.

With time running out for politicians to forge a crisis plan that is seen as credible by the markets, the European Commission presented a study on Wednesday of joint euro zone bonds as a medium-term way to stabilize debt markets alongside tougher fiscal rules for member states.

The borrowing costs of almost all euro zone states, even those previously seen as safe such as France, Austria and the Netherlands, have spiked in the last two weeks as panicky investors dumped paper no longer seen as risk-free.

(Reporting by Stephen Brown, Noah Barkin, Natalia Drozdiak, Veronica Ek, Eva Kuehnen, Ana Nicolaci da Costa, Giselda Vagnoni, Padraic Halpin; Writing by Paul Taylor, editing by Mike Peacock/Janet McBride/Giles Elgood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/bs_nm/us_eurozone

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Arabs give Syria one day to agree monitors or face sanctions (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? The Arab League gave Syria one day to sign a protocol allowing monitors into the country or face sanctions over its crackdown on protests including halting flights and suspending transactions with the central bank.

Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo on Thursday said unless Syria agreed to let the monitors in to assess progress of an Arab League plan to end eight months of bloodshed, officials would consider imposing sanctions on Saturday.

Under a November 2 Arab League initiative, Syria agreed to withdraw troops from urban centers, release political prisoners, start a dialogue with the opposition and allow monitors and international media into the country.

Since then hundreds of people, civilians, security forces and army deserters, have been killed as the unrest which the United Nations says has killed 3,500 people since March continued unabated.

The violence prompted former ally Turkey to bluntly tell President Bashar al-Assad to step down and led France to propose "humanitarian corridors" in Syria to help transport medicines or other supplies to civilians in need.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said he would discuss the idea with the Arab League but a source at the 22-member body said the proposal was not brought up at the Cairo meeting.

"In the case that Syria does not sign the protocol ... or that it later violates the commitments that it entails, and does not stop the killing or does not release the detainees ... (Arab League officials) will meet on Saturday to consider sanctions on Syria," the Arab ministers said in a statement.

They said possible sanctions, which were not intended to affect ordinary Syrians, included suspending flights to Syria, stopping dealings with the central bank, freezing Syrian government bank accounts and halting financial dealings with Syria.

They could also decided to stop commercial trade with the Syrian government "with the exception of strategic commodities so as not to impact the Syrian people," the statement said.

Syria's economy is already reeling from the eight months of unrest, aggravated by U.S. and European sanctions on oil exports and several state businesses.

"HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS"

After months in which the international community has seemed determined to avoid direct entanglement in a core Middle East country, the diplomatic consensus seems to be changing.

The Arab League suspended Syria's membership two weeks ago, while this week the prime minister of regional heavyweight Turkey - a NATO member with the military wherewithal to mount a cross-border operation - told Assad to quit and said he should look at what happened to fallen dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Libya's deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

France became the first major power to seek international intervention in Syria when it called for "humanitarian corridors" in Syria to alleviate civilian suffering.

A Western diplomatic source said the French plan, with or without approval from Damascus, could link Syrian civilian centers to frontiers such as Turkey and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean coast or to an airport.

Its aim would enable the transport of humanitarian supplies or medicines to a population that is suffering, the source said.

Juppe insisted the plan fell short of a military intervention, but acknowledged that humanitarian convoys would need armed protection.

"There are two possible ways: That the international community, Arab League and the United Nations can get the regime to allow these humanitarian corridors," he told French radio on Thursday. "But if that isn't the case we'd have to look at other solutions ... with international observers."

Asked if humanitarian convoys would need military protection, he said: "Of course... by international observers, but there is no question of military intervention in Syria."

He added that he had spoken to partners at the United Nations and U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and would speak later on Thursday to the Arab League. On Wednesday Juppe also said the exiled opposition Syrian National Council was a legitimate group that France sought to work with.

In a sign of Paris' growing frustration at events on the ground, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said France was particularly concerned with what was happening in the city of Homs, which has become a center of resistance against Assad.

"Information from several sources tells us that the situation in Homs is particularly worrying. It would appear to be under siege today, deprived of basic materials and experiencing a brutal repression," he said.

"A way must be found so that this city is supplied with humanitarian aid," he added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group, said at least 23 people were killed in Syria on Thursday, including six civilians in the city of Homs.

Eleven military and security personnel were killed by army deserters in the city of Houla, the Observatory said. Alongside the mainly peaceful protests, armed insurgents have increasingly attacked military targets in recent weeks.

State media have reported the funerals of 34 soldiers and police in the last four days. Since the outbreak of the uprising officials have blamed armed groups for the violence and say 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed.

"MOST DANGEROUS PHASE"

Activists and a resident said Syrian troops in tanks fired on hideouts of army deserters near the central town of Rastan on Thursday, two months after the authorities said they had regained control of the region.

"The Syrian crisis may or may not have entered its final phase, but it undoubtedly has entered its most dangerous one to date," the International Crisis Group said on Thursday.

"Many in Syria and abroad are now banking on the regime's imminent collapse and wagering that all then will be for the better. That is a luxury and optimism they cannot afford."

Washington repeated an appeal on Wednesday for U.S. citizens to leave Syria: "The U.S. Embassy continues to urge U.S. citizens in Syria to depart immediately while commercial transportation is available," the embassy said on its website.

The U.S. navy said the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush arrived this week in the Mediterranean, en route to the United States.

"It is probably routine movement," said a Western diplomat in the region. "But it is going to put psychological pressure on the regime, and the Americans don't mind that."

NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said allies were watching the situation in Syria with great concern, but reiterated that the alliance had no intention to intervene in Syria as it had done in Libya.

"There's been no request and there is no specific discussion about these proposals," she said in response to Juppe's proposal.

She said the situation in Syria could not be compared with Libya, where NATO had a clear United Nations mandate for intervention and support from the Arab League.

Assad, 46, seems prepared to fight it out, playing on fears of a sectarian war if Syria's complex ethno-sectarian mosaic shatters and relying on support of senior officials and the military to suppress the protests, inspired by Arab uprisings which toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

However many experts say Assad, who can depend mainly on the loyalty of two elite Alawite units, cannot maintain current military operations without cracks emerging in the armed forces.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Marwa Awad and Ayman Samir in Cairo, John Irish in Paris, David Brunnstrom, Robin Emmot and Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Peter Graff and Louise Ireland)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111124/ts_nm/us_syria

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LeapFrog Tag Reading System

The LeapFrog Tag Reading System ($39.99 list) is a halfway point between an interactive website and a physical book. The Tag Reader uses physical books with a pen-like stylus to help kids read stories, solve puzzles, and sound out words that they?re learning to read. The stylus is actually an optical pen with a built-in speaker to give your child audible feedback during reading and play sessions. It?s pretty neat, but there are a couple drawbacks to its use.

The Tag Reader stylus fits easily in a child or adult hand, and works even if you don?t hold it perfectly straight. However, there definitely is a ?more correct? way to hold it that's both more ergonomic and lets the internal sensor see what you?re pointing at more accurately. This is because the stylus body is slightly curved, and the sensor at the tip of the stylus works best when the pointed end is above the word you want to point at. Once you hold it right, the stylus responds quickly and accurately. It has obviously been playtested with kids, since the Tag Reader was able to keep up with my four-year-old son?s rapid tapping on several words in succession. Even faster than many well designed interactive websites, the Tag Reader reacted to split-second shifts from one word to another. It can read words at New York City speech speeds or the more leisurely pace of a toddler trying to read a passage for the first time. This is one of its strengths, as your child can go as fast or as slow as he wants.

The Tag Reader I reviewed came with a book with sample pages from several titles, including pages featuring Disney characters, other licensed characters like Scooby Doo, and Leapfrog?s mascot Little Leap. The sample book can give you an idea of how the system works for your child, but to get the full potential you?ll need to buy the full priced books. Books on learning to read, write, and use basic mathematics are supplemented by maps that teach geography, science, and social studies. The books are aimed at the 4-to-8-year-old crowd, including prep for kindergarten. The presentation and knowledge were interesting enough to temporarily transfix my 12-year-old daughter as well, particularly the geography pages. The Tag Reader holds 32MB of data, enough for about a dozen or so books and activities. You?ll need to connect the Tag Reader to your PC or Mac to download the audio to the stylus? internal memory via a USB cable. All of the audio is accessible online, though you won?t be able to hear the audio unless you buy the corresponding physical book. It?s an interesting take on the old handle and razor blades model, but it does work. There are over 40 titles and map sets currently available for purchase.

Are there any drawbacks aside from the need to download audio? Well, the PC and Mac conduit programs are free, but they require the use of Adobe Flash, which can be temperamental on some systems. There?s also the animation factor: When you use a learning website or software on a computer, that learning experience is likely to be embellished with sound effects and animation. You?ll get the sound effects with the Tag Reader, but you won?t get the animation. The audio is certainly more effective than simply reading a book, but it can?t compete for attention like an animated website or console game. Make sure you?re letting your child use Tag in a room away from the TV or an easily accessible computer.

The Leapfrog Tag Reading System is a well designed, well supported way for your child to learn how to read at his or her own pace. It takes the constant adult supervision out of the equation, so the child can repeat a single word or audio sequence as many times as is necessary (to him or her). This is a good thing when your child?s favorite character is based on a goofy cartoon. Or named Walter the Farting Dog.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/N2AW8f5hj6E/0,2817,2396772,00.asp

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Moroccans choose new parliament after protests (AP)

RABAT, Morocco ? Moroccans began voting for a new parliament Friday in Arab Spring-inspired elections that are facing a boycott by democracy campaigners who say the ruling monarchy isn't committed to real change.

A moderate Islamist party and a pro-palace coalition are expected to do well in the voting, but a key test for the authorities' legitimacy will be how many voters cast ballots.

The result will be watched by Morocco's U.S. and other western allies, as well as European tourists who cherish its beaches and resorts.

In the affluent Agdal neighborhood of Rabat a steady stream of professionals lined up early in morning at a polling station to vote before work.

"I've always voted but this time it is more important," said Mohammed Ennabli, a doctor. "Before it was the king who chose, now it is the people who choose."

Nadia Zerrou, a woman in her 30s, said voting "is a right which I always exercise."

"This time there have been developments, there is more transparency and voters are more aware," Zerrou said.

Morocco's reputation as a stable democracy in North Africa has taken a hit with this year's protests. And its once-steady economy is creaking from the amount of money the government has pumped into raising salaries and subsidies to keep people calm amid the Arab world turmoil.

The election campaign has been strangely subdued, unlike the lively politicking in nearby Tunisia when it held the first elections prompted by the Arab uprisings last month.

Morocco with its many political parties and regular elections was once the bright star in a region of dictatorships.

But all that has changed with the Arab uprisings that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. Now a political system that holds elections but leaves all powers in the hands of a hereditary king does not look so liberal.

Under the new constitution, the largest party must form the government, which could well be the Islamist party, known by its French initials PJD. But there's uncertainty over whether it can truly change anything.

The Islamists' biggest rival for the top spot is Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar's Rally of Independents, which leads an alliance of seven other pro-palace parties.

Mezouar said he expected his coalition to take a majority of the parliament and ruled out any kind of alliance with the Islamists. He also told The Associated Press that he expected a high turnout.

"I am confident about the level of participation, because during this campaign we've seen how interested the citizens are in this election, enormously more than in 2007," he said.

Like elsewhere in the Arab world, Moroccans hit the streets in the first half of 2011 calling for more democracy, and King Mohammed VI responded by amending the constitution and bringing forward elections.

But since then the sense of change has dissipated.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said that since Oct. 20 government has taken more than 100 activist in for questioning for advocating a boycott.

"Moroccans feel that aside from the constitutional reform, nothing has really changed, meaning that the elections of 2011 will be a copy of the elections 2007 and that is what will probably keep the participation low," said Abdellah Baha, deputy secretary general of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.

The 2007 elections, the first with widespread international observation, had just 37 percent turnout, and some fear it could be even lower this time around.

The constitutional referendum passed with over 98 percent voting in favor, and a staggering 72 percent turnout, which most observers found hardly credible.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_morocco_elections

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Vote for the greatest Science Geek Gift

Bre Pettis

Uranium marbles glow under ultraviolet light in a picture taken by MakerBot Industries co-founder Bre Pettis.

By Alan Boyle

How about a dinosaur skull for the holidays? Or a handful of glow-in-the-dark uranium marbles? Cast your vote and help us crown the geekiest gift for the holiday season.

The gift suggestions for this year's Science Geek Guide are in line with a proud tradition here at msnbc.com. You can always find guides to Black Friday tech deals, or the top 20?toys of 2011, or the hottest holiday hostess gifts. But where else can get a line on a nuclear-powered?plaything, or a six-dimensional paperweight, or brains to fit your budget?

---

Live Poll

Vote for the top geek gift

• 169026

  Uranium marbles

  23%

• 169027

  Dinosaur skulls

  5%

• 169028

  Elements Vault

  4%

• 169029

  Magnifying glasses

  2%

• 169030

  Mars lunchbox

  6%

• 169031

  USB microscope

  8%

• 169032

  Plush microbes

  4%

• 169033

  Wi-Fi T-shirt

  18%

• 169034

  Star Trek pizza cutter

  25%

• 169035

  Pi plate

  4%

VoteTotal Votes: 2371

Even better, this is a geek gift guide created by geeks for geeks, with some geeky prizes thrown into the bargain. Last week I put out the call for?suggestions, and?it'll be up to you to select the?coolest,?most offbeat prize from the top 10. The geek who made the top-rated suggestion will be eligible to receive a pile of books, including "Science Ink," "The Cult of Lego," "The Physics Book" and "The Case for Pluto" (autographed by?yours truly).

Here are this year's 10 finalists:

Uranium marbles:?"Nothing says Merry Christmas like a little bit of radiation," says?Richard-1971294. He'd love to get his hands on some uranium marbles. Back in the old days,?pigments containing uranium oxide were used in?lots of items, including ceramic glazes, green-tinted glassware and, yes, children's marbles. Black Light World, which sells a three-pack of uranium-doped marbles for $9.95, says they're "totally safe" ? even though?radioactive caution?stickers are plastered all over the promotional images. You can also find 'em on eBay.

Dinosaur Corporation

A carnotaurus skull is flanked by a scale replica, available from the Dinosaur Corporation.

Dinosaur skulls: "Dino skull replicas are cool and geeky!" David Flowers tweeted in his response to the call for entries.?The Dinosaur Corporation offers a wide selection of skulls, molded?out of?polyurethane resin?to look like the real thing ...?only smaller. If you're looking for a real dinosaur skull, that'll cost you. A T. rex skull sold for $215,000 in March (and some?dino dung went for $1,200). Flowers also put a naked mole rat plushie on his geek-gift wish list.

The Elements?Vault: "Physics is hot these days, but for lovers of chemistry, this kit from Theodore Gray will be a real treat." says KGill. "His gorgeous book about the elements, 'The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe,' showcased the elegance of the periodic table, and the beauty of the elements. This collection incudes new text and photographs, reproductions of historic documents, a pop-up model of an atom, and samples of several elements."

Magnifying glasses and other optics: "Nothing beats a brand new magnifying glass," says?Jennifer Hancock, a Humanist author and speaker. "They get cruddy after a while, always nice to have a new one." Here's the set she has her eye on. Oh, and she wouldn't mind?getting a hand-held microscope and illuminator, plus a snazzy pair of binoculars. In her Twitter profile, Hancock calls herself a dork, but she sounds like?a bona fide geek to?me.?There is a difference.

NASA / JPL

Flaunt your Martian pride with a JPL lunchbox.

Mars rover lunchbox: Lights in the Dark blogger Jason Major says anything from ThinkGeek will do the trick, but he'd sure like to get a $20?Mars Exploration Rover lunchbox from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's online store. Space geeks of the female persuasion might consider some Red Planet earrings in honor of the about-to-be-launched Mars Science Laboratory mission.

USB microscope: "A USB microscope, with the ability to capture images digitally, is a great geek gift!" says Paliniasky. There's a mind-boggling selection, ranging from less than $20 to astronomical prices.

Plush microbes:?"GiantMicrobes are way awesome and super cute ? stuffed animal versions of microorganisms," says biology student?Kelsey Plesniak, a member of the Cosmic Log corps on Facebook. As we head into flu season, what better gift could you give a microbiology geek than ... a cuddly flu bug?

Wi-Fi detector shirt: This $14.99 ThinkGeek T-shirt has a?decal that glows to indicate the signal strength of wireless networks in the area. "My son the math teacher bought one of these earlier this year," George Buddy?Dow says on Facebook. "Inexpensive and practical." Just don't forget to remove the decal and the battery pack before you put it in the wash. Dow also puts in a plug for the "Ant Farm Revolution," which sounds like an entomological Occupy movement.

ThinkGeek

Cut a slice with the starship Enterprise.

Star Trek pizza cutter: Joel Davis casts his vote for a $29.99 ThinkGeek?kitchen accessory that promises to "boldly?cut pizza where no man has cut before." It's as if you're?holding a miniaturized starship Enterprise in the palm of your hand. Come to think of it, I've seen that episode.

Pi plate: "A pi plate is available. To make pies in," Jan Smith writes. "Has a large pi symbol in the center and the numbers 3.14159...?etc., all around the edge of the plate. I got one for my son." Here's an alternate design for the pi plate. Any way you slice it, this will be a good kitchen item to have around for March 14 ...?Pi Day.

Extra credit: You'll find all sorts of geeky (and not-so-geeky) gift ideas by following the links below,?and?you'll also want to check out our holiday book?roundup. You might also consider supporting The Illuminated Origin of Species, an effort by artist/naturalist Kelly Houle to create?an illuminated manuscript of Charles Darwin's masterwork in the spirit of the Book of?Kells. To support the effort, Houle is offering sets of Darwin-themed greeting cards, beetle prints and an adopt-a-beetle program.

Don't forget to cast a vote for your favorite gift among the top 10, and may the best geek win!

Previous Science Geek Gift Guides:

More science gifts:

Update for 4:45 p.m. ET Nov. 23: Thanks so much for your votes. Looks like it could be a close contest.?The top Science Geek Gift of 2011 will be selected based on the tally as of noon ET Sunday, and announced in a follow-up item on Monday.

---

You don't need to buy me a present. All I ask is that you connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.?

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/23/8960430-cast-your-vote-for-the-geekiest-gift

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Jagger, Richards share new love for 'Some Girls' (AP)

NEW YORK ? Keith Richards equates the rush to release the Rolling Stones' seminal album "Some Girls" as "the same as cutting off your baby's head."

"We couldn't release a double album and we were on deadline," the guitarist said of the 1978 recording. "Sometimes you're really getting into tracks you want to finish, but they don't make (it) because time was up."

Now many of those songs will be included when the album is re-released on Tuesday as a double disc with previously unreleased material. A box set from the album also is being released.

Mick Jagger said "Some Girls" was a pivotal album for the band.

"The records that came before this were not as good. This was better," Jagger said, referencing the heavily produced "Goats Head Soup," and "It's Only Rock and Roll," which preceded it.

At the time, punk rock and disco were threatening the old "dinosaur rockers," as Richards said, so the band had to get back to its basic stripped-down sound.

"The punks started to kick us ... the Sex Pistols, and The Clash, and other bands were coming out and we realized we were already in a second generation," Richards said.

One of the album's biggest hits, and also the most criticized at the time, was the dance track "Miss You."

"It's not like we wanted to make a career out of disco; it just happened to be that beat, and Mick came up with this beautiful idea. If you're ever gonna do disco, you got to do it now. It was like a one-off," Richards said.

Jagger, who says he loves all forms of dance music from the 1930s to house music, didn't know why it mattered.

"I never thought for one minute that people would criticize you for doing something with a dance beat," Jagger said. "So the idea of it being `Bob Dylan going electric' never occurred to me."

The song went to No. 1 on the Billboard chart, and spawned a variety of dance mixes.

Next year, the band will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and there's a great deal of speculation as to whether the band will tour for their milestone.

"I'm hoping to do something about it. Right now, I don't want to go too much into it. I'm pulling the boys together and (will) see what happens. It's a work in progress. I'm not Nostradamus on this, but we all want to do something for the big 5-0," Richards said.

All Jagger would say is that "we have a lot of things planned, who knows what will come to fruition."

According to Richards, he and Jagger recently mended fences after Richards revealed too much about his songwriting partner in his autobiography earlier this year.

"He's a brother, a best friend, and probably the most contentious person I know. All collaborations are like that. Nothing goes totally smoothly, but we always patch it up. We patched it up now. The thing is we enjoy working with each other; it's the idea of it that's frightening," Richards laughed.

The duo has written most of the Rolling Stones music, and though Jagger usually sings them, Richards does have his signature tracks. Among them is "Before They Make Me Run" from "Some Girls"; it has become one of his favorite songs to perform.

"It's pretty autobiographical. ... I was feeling a little hounded, so I think it came out of feeling that. I was on the run, basically. Very few countries would accept me at the time," said Richards, who was facing a potentially long prison sentence at the time because of a heroin possession charge in Toronto.

Other major hits from the album include, "Shattered," the Temptations cover of "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)," and "Beast of Burden."

While Richards said the unreleased music was ready to go, Jagger did say he tinkered with the remixes.

"'Claudine' and `Tallahassee Lassie' were all more or less as (they) were. I just listened and said, `Do they need a bit of percussion or a harmony vocal?,' but apart from that they're fine," Jagger said.

Richards is just happy that the band gets to release "Some Girls" with the songs they wanted to include.

"In a way it's interesting to put the head back on the baby," Richards said.

____

Online:

http://www.rollingstones.com

____

John Carucci covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://www.twitter.com/jcarucci_ap

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_en_mu/us_music_rolling_stones

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Fitch cuts Portugal rating on high debts, worse outlook

LISBON?? Fitch downgraded Portugal's credit rating to junk status on Thursday, citing large fiscal imbalances, high debts and the risks to its EU-mandated austerity program from a worsening economic outlook.

The ratings agency cut Portugal to BB+ from BBB-, which is still one notch higher than Moody's rating of Ba2. S&P still rates Portugal investment grade.

Fitch said a deepening recession makes it "much more challenging" for the government to cut the budget deficit but it still expects fiscal goals to be met both this year and next.

"However, the risk of slippage - either from worse macroeconomic outturns or insufficient expenditure controls - is large," Fitch said.

The challenging economic environment was clear in a Reuters poll on Thursday, where economists forecast Portugal's economy will contract by 2.9 percent next year, the deepest recession since the 1970s, and 1.6 percent this year, in line with the government's estimates.

Portugal's 10-year bond prices plunged, sending yields surging more than 100 basis points to 13.85 percent -- the second highest level in the euro zone after Greece. The spread to German Bunds also rose more than 100 basis points to 1,168.

The downgrade of Portugal came after the dramatic deterioration of the euro zone crisis in recent weeks as it spread to bigger countries like Italy and Spain.

"The worsening regional outlook helped inform the downgrade (of Portugal)," Rabobank said in an analyst note. "This, in turn, underlines the mounting risk of systemic downgrades."

Portugal sought a 78-billion-euro bailout from the European Union and IMF earlier this year and has adopted sweeping austerity measures to bring public accounts under controls.

Under the loan program Portugal must cut the budget deficit to 5.9 percent of gross domestic product this year from around 10 percent in 2010. Next year it must cut the deficit further to 4.5 percent.

STATE COMPANIES A RISK

Fitch said the state-owned "enterprise sector is another key source of fiscal risk" and has caused a number of upward revisions to the country's debt and budget deficit figures this year. The government has said there was an unexpected fiscal shortfall of about 3 billion euros this year.

"Given these downside risks, Fitch sees a significant likelihood that further consolidation measures will be needed through the course of 2012," Fitch said.

It sees Portugal total debt peaking at 116 percent of GDP in 2013 from 93.3 percent at the end of last year.

Filipe Garcia, an economist at Informacao de Mercados Financeiros, said that while the downgrade does not change the government's financing conditions as it is under a bailout, it could worsen the situation for companies.

"Where (the downgrade) has an impact is on companies, such as banks and other issuers like EDP or Brisa, whose ratings are greatly influenced by the sovereign rating, leaving them in a more difficult situation," said Garcia.

The agency said Portugal's debt crisis poses big risks for the country's banks. "Recapitalisation and increased emergency liquidity provision from the ECB to Portugal's banks will, in Fitch's view, be needed and provided," it said.

Under Portugal's bailout, 12 billion euros has been set aside for funding banks if necessary.

Fitch said a worsening fiscal or economic situation could lead to further downgrades. "Furthermore, although Portugal is funded to end-2013, sovereign liquidity risk may increase materially toward the end of the program if adverse market conditions persist," Fitch said.

The government hopes to return raising debt in financial markets at the end of 2013.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45427292/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

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Conn. killer objects to testimony from daughter, 9 (AP)

NEW HAVEN, Conn. ? A Connecticut man facing a possible death sentence for a home invasion that killed three people told a judge that he didn't want the jury to see a videotaped interview of his 9-year-old daughter, because he didn't want her to feel compelled to help "one of the most hated people in America." The judge, however, sided with his attorneys in allowing the video.

Joshua Komisarjevsky, speaking for the first time in his trial other than a taped confession, told a judge Wednesday that his daughter was coached, an allegation denied by an attorney for the girl's guardian.

"I've carefully come to the overwhelming opinion that I am not at all comfortable putting my daughter in a position wherein she may feel that she has to explain or justify herself to anyone who perceives her statements to somehow help one of the most hated people in America," Komisarjevsky said.

"She's 9 years old. Had this interview been her decision to make and she was old enough to understand that decision that would be one thing. However, that is not the case in this situation. The decision has been made for her," he said.

Komisarjevsky noted his life is on the line. He said the negative consequences to his daughter outweigh the benefits of helping to save his life.

"I will not beg for my life," he said. "I will humbly request in earnest that your honor please uphold the thoughtfully weighed decision of defendant over the wish of the defense team."

Komisarjevsky's lawyers sought his daughter's testimony, hoping to persuade New Haven Superior Court jurors to spare him the death penalty. New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue agreed with the attorneys that they have the final say.

The attorney for the girl's guardian said the interview with the girl was done carefully in a nonconfrontational way.

Komisarjevsky said his daughter has been told by her guardian not to talk about him.

"It should also be considered how her memorialized words will affect her emotionally and psychologically in the future if she believes she's party to assisting the effort to put me to death," he said.

Komisarjevsky and his co-defendant, Steven Hayes, were convicted of murder in the killing of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters at their Cheshire home. Hayes is on death row, and the jury that convicted Komisarjevsky is now taking testimony on whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison.

Komisarjevsky also objected to planned testimony by an expert on the effect his execution would have on his daughter.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111123/ap_on_re_us/us_home_invasion

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Galaxy Nexus shipping now in America: unlocked for $750 through Expansys

Pre-order, pre-schmorder. Americans more anxious to blow $750 on the planet's first Ice Cream Sandwich handset than anything on Black Friday can do so right now, as Samsung's Galaxy Nexus is shipping from the warehouses at Expansys. We've received independent confirmation that orders placed today are shipping out, with the aforesaid tally nabbing you an unlocked 16GB GSM (HSPA+) build that plays nice with T-Mobile and AT&T's 3G bands. What it won't nab you, however, is a pack of nabs. Can't win 'em all, right?

[Thanks, Dan]

Galaxy Nexus shipping now in America: unlocked for $750 through Expansys originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/1NHUX28TUNs/

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Singapore predicts sharp economic slowdown in 2012 (AP)

SINGAPORE ? Singapore warned Monday that its economy will likely suffer a sharp slowdown next year as export demand from developed countries wanes.

Gross domestic product growth will probably drop to between 1 percent and 3 percent in 2012 from 5 percent this year, the Trade and Industry Ministry said.

"Singapore's externally oriented sectors such as electronics and wholesale trade will continue to perform poorly," the ministry said in a statement. "Although resilient domestic demand in emerging Asia will provide some support to global demand, it will not fully mitigate the effects of an economic slowdown in the advanced economies."

Singapore, an island of 5.1 million people off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, relies on exports, finance and tourism to maintain one of the world's highest levels of GDP per head.

Because of its high reliance on trade, Singapore is often a bellwether for the rest of Asia.

The economy grew 6.1 percent in the third quarter from a year ago and a seasonally-adjusted annualized 1.9 percent from the previous quarter, the ministry said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111121/ap_on_bi_ge/as_singapore_economy

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