2012 most expensive year for US motorists

NEW YORK | Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:39pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The average U.S. gasoline price in 2012 was a record-high $3.60 a gallon, topping the previous high of $3.51 in 2011, travel group AAA said on Monday.

AAA blamed refinery outages, major hurricanes and unrest in the Middle East for the rise.

Drivers in states like Hawaii, Alaska, California and New York paid the highest prices.

However, the price fell to $3.30 a gallon in December, the lowest monthly average for the year, AAA said.

(Reporting by Selam Gebrekidan)

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Kosovo struggles to shake Wild West image among investors

A general view of Pristina, capital of the breakaway Kosovo province, is seen as the sun rises, January 22, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Hazir Reka

By Fatos Bytyci

ASTRAZUB, Kosovo | Mon Dec 31, 2012 7:09am EST

ASTRAZUB, Kosovo (Reuters) - When Briton Christopher Gilbert and London-educated Etrur Albani teamed up to dig marble in Albani's native Kosovo, they knew they were taking a gamble.

For two years, Albani and Gilbert, who was better known in Britain as an entertainment industry entrepreneur, knocked on literally hundreds of doors in search of intrepid investors.

They eventually turned up 12, convincing them that the risk associated with investing in this young Balkan nation was overblown and that the image of crime and corruption did not match the reality.

One of the poorest corners of Europe, Kosovo is in dire need of outside investment as it tries to make a go of the independence it won from Serbia in 2008.

By September, Gilbert and Albani's Fox Marble Holdings (FOX.L) was listed on the junior tier of the London Stock Exchange and had spent 1 million euros in readying five mines for business.

Mining is seen as a potential driver of growth in Kosovo, a small country blessed with mineral deposits and Europe's youngest population, but shackled with a damaging reputation for gangsters and graft.

Now, Fox Marble's dream is in tatters, its licences to cut and sell Kosovo's marble revoked and millions of euros of investment hanging in the balance.

Whether the victim of over-zealous officials or something more sinister, Fox Marble has gone from investment trailblazer to cautionary tale in the risks of doing business in this country of 1.7 million people roughly half the size of Wales.

"We spent two years convincing people that the country risk was not something that people needed to be concerned about and now everybody is turning to me and saying, 'We told you so'," Gilbert told Reuters.2

In December, Kosovo's Mining and Minerals Commission ICMM.L revoked four of Fox Marble's five licences, saying the firm had failed to start work within an agreed time frame.

"It could take years for the work to start. How do we know?" the chairman of the ICMM board, Ahmet Tmava, told Reuters. "Our resources must not be held hostage."

Gilbert said the firm had needed more time to raise funds but had already spent heavily on machinery, taxes and preparing the mines.

He cited a Kosovo law saying that the ICMM is obliged to inform the company in writing and give it 2-4 months to address the complaint. Fox Marble got neither, Gilbert said. Tmava said the company was informed "verbally".

"VERY STRANGE"

Asked what was behind the decision, Gilbert, who was in Pristina trying to save the licences, chose his words carefully.

He said the mining authorities had acted outside the law, and suggested there was perhaps more to the matter than met the eye. The mines contain deposits valued by Gilbert and Albani at billions of euros.

"It's certainly a very strange situation for a company that is spending money in Kosovo. We don't know what the realpolitik is behind this, but clearly there is something going on."

Asked about the allegations of political interference in the marble case, Kosovo's minister of economy and development, Besim Beqaj, said only: "I'm not aware of anything like that."

Britain's ambassador to Kosovo, Ian Cliff, said the British government was "very concerned" and, in a written response to questions from Reuters, said he had heard of allegations of political interference.

"I hope this is not the case," Cliff said, adding that British Foreign Secretary William Hague had raised the issue with Kosovo "at the highest level".

The United States and the European Union have spent an estimated 4 billion euros in stabilising Kosovo and encouraging good governance and growth since NATO went to war in 1999 to halt the killing and expulsion of civilians by Serbian forces fighting rebels from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.

With ethnic tensions subsiding, Western powers formally gave up "supervisory" powers over Kosovo this year. But an EU police and justice mission retains some executive authority to investigate cases of organised crime, corruption and war crimes.

NATO retains some 6,000 troops on the ground, mainly in the north where a small Serb minority still rejects Kosovo as a sovereign state.

The government insists it is changing perceptions. There are positives: Kosovo's legislative framework has been crafted to meet most EU standards; construction is thriving, driving average annual economic growth of 5 percent over the past five years; foreign direct investment was up 14 percent to 379 million euros in 2011; in October the World Bank lifted Kosovo from 126 to 98th place in a poll on ease of doing business.

"Kosovo has been challenged by a bad image unfairly attached to it due to the past," said Valdrin Lluka, head of the Kosovo Investment Promotion Agency, part of the Ministry of Trade.

"When investors come with expectations of high crime and corruption, they see a beautiful country, friendly people and a friendly business environment," he told Reuters. "Good news is not news, so foreigners get to know only the dark side of Kosovo, and that's what's damaging us."

HARD TO INVEST WITHOUT BRIBES?

But there was more bad news in November: an Austrian firm said it had stopped printing Kosovo's biometric passports for now because 1.4 million euros in fees had not been paid.

Natali Velija, a German citizen and the company's local partner in Kosovo, was arrested on suspicion of embezzling the money, but Velija says it was spent on bribes for a handful of officials from the Ministry of Interior.

The Austrian company denies bribing anyone.

Kosovo suffered a heavy blow last year when the sale of the country's most profitable company, the state telecom concern PTK, collapsed after corruption charges were filed against a number of senior PTK officials.

Avni Zogiani, founder of the Cohu (Wake Up) non-governmental organisation dedicated to fighting corruption, said it was extremely difficult to invest in Kosovo without political connections or a readiness to bribe.

"When we talk about small and medium-sized projects of a few million euros, then they're dealt with through bribes," he said.

Albani said he and Gilbert had struggled to shake the stereotype. "When we went to Italy to buy machines," he said, "they asked, 'Why are you coming with a letter of credit? Where's your suitcase of money?'"

Investors and Western officials in Kosovo also cite frequent power cuts, an underdeveloped administration, widespread tax evasion and high interest rates on bank loans, some as much as 25 percent as banks hedge against political and economic instability.

Kosovo is ranked 105 on Transparency International's graft perception index, on a par with Bolivia, Gambia and Mali.

"I spend a lot of my time persuading British companies and financial institutions that the Kosovo 'country risk' is less than they think - so that they will support investment here," said Cliff, the British ambassador.

"The key practical question for the Kosovo institutions is this: can Kosovo afford to lose 10 million pounds of British investment and the jobs and exports that will go with it?"

Gilbert and Albani, first inspired by a 2005 USAID report extolling the quality and colour of marble in Kosovo, stood to make a lot of money.

They estimate the five mines that Fox Marble won licences to exploit, including Red Rock near the village of Astrazub in southwest Kosovo, contain around 240 million cubic metres of marble worth billions of euros.

Albani and Gilbert say Kosovo marble was used in building the White House in Washington and the Vienna Opera House.

In Astrazub, villagers recall marble mining under socialist Yugoslavia, and say their ancestors told stories of its extraction when Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire.

Signs of traditional, small-scale excavation can still be seen. A new mining venture would be a boon for the local economy, which like the rest of Kosovo struggles to absorb new jobseekers who often end up emigrating for work. Kosovo also has lignite, lead, chromium, zinc, nickel and silver deposits.

Mining in Kosovo ground to a halt during the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and has only restarted on a limited scale over the past few years. In the north, Kosovo's giant Trepca lead and zinc mine complex stands idle, hostage to complex ownership disputes.

Fox Marble has filed a complaint with the ICMM, and Gilbert insisted they would not give up. "We're not going anywhere. This is grave for Fox Marble, but it's a tragedy for Kosovo." (Editing by Matt Robinson and Mark Heinrich)

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Sculpture knock-offs prove plague of art world

By Daniel Grant

AMHERST, Massachusetts | Mon Dec 31, 2012 1:48pm EST

AMHERST, Massachusetts (Reuters) - An epidemic of sculpture knock-offs is plaguing the art world, and just like the sale and production of counterfeit designer handbags and shoes, law enforcement is having a difficult time keeping up.

Statues, wildlife figures and, in one case, a copy of Jasper Johns' 1960 metallic collage "Flag," are turning up for sale in stores, garden centres and other outlets without the approval of the artists who originally created them, and sometimes at top-end prices.

American sculptors say they are losing income and spending tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses trying to track down and stop the knock-offs, often with little success. Many of the forgeries come from foundries in Asia, while advances in digital scanning and photography are making copycat sculptures even easier to create.

Art crime police say it is difficult to estimate the scale of the trade in fakes.

"There is a significant problem of knock-offs in all areas of the art world," Robert K. Wittman, retired founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, told Reuters.

He cited an Interpol statistic of $6 billion in annual art crimes around the world, of which the majority are forgeries. Unauthorized sculpture castings are classified by the FBI and Interpol as forgeries.

Eli Hopkins, business manager for his father, Colorado-based wildlife sculptor Mark Hopkins, said he found fibreglass copies of his father's bronzes in a Hobby Lobby arts and crafts store selling for one-tenth the price of the originals.

"I used to get catalogues of decorations just to look for copycats, but I just stopped after a while," Hopkins told Reuters. "I got too stressed out finding things and then finding out that I couldn't do anything to stop it."

Over the years, he and his father, whose work has been collected by McDonnell Douglas Corp and former President Bill Clinton, among others, have spent more than $75,000 in legal expenses, hiring lawyers to write cease-and-desist letters, occasionally going to court and only sometimes meeting with success.

"You try to get the judge to award legal fees but that doesn't always happen," he said. The real culprits, Hopkins said, are foundries in China and Thailand that produce knock-offs and who appear to be outside the reach of the law.

DISCOUNT PRICES

The same problem happened to Jane Dedecker, a sculptor in Loveland, Colorado, whose works have been collected by television hostess Kathie Lee Gifford and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others.

She first discovered unauthorized reproductions of her work 10 years ago at a garden store. One of the sculptures looked like hers and bore her signature but it wasn't made by Dedecker and the price was less than one-third of the $21,000 she charged for the original version.

Dedecker and her business managers say they have identified approximately 30 of her sculptures that have been reproduced by unknown others.

On occasion, a culprit is found. In November, Brian Ramnarine, owner of the Empire Bronze Art Foundry in Long Island, New York, was charged with one count of wire fraud after he attempted to sell both privately and through an international auctioneer an unauthorized copy of Johns' 1960 metallic collage "Flag" for $11 million.

The foundry was known to Johns, who, in 1990, had brought a mould for the sculpture to the foundry in order to create a wax cast of the piece, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan.

Ramnarine produced the wax cast for Johns but is accused of keeping the original mould and later using it to manufacture the knock-off. Ramnarine pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

Many foundries today do not need a mould or a casting to recreate sculptures. Photographs of art works can be scanned into computers and turned into three-dimensional models from which new moulds are created.

"With the advances in 3D scanning and other digital technologies, I suspect it is easier than ever to duplicate work and create copies," DeWitt Godfrey, professor of art at Colgate University and an authority on unethical castings, told Reuters.

It was through photographs used to make digital files that Dedecker's and Hopkins' work was appropriated. Dedecker recently went public with the experience on website bronzecopyright.com.

"I get calls all the time from sculptors, asking me, 'What do I do?' They figure that since it happened to me, I've figured out some way of fighting back, but I never know what to tell them," she said. "Personally, I just try not to think about it."

Dedecker advises artists to copyright all their work, which will not stop people from making and selling knock-offs but may lead, if a lawsuit ever gets to court and results in a win for the artist, to recovering attorneys' fees. (Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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New airline operating licences in Saudi may take 3-6 months

By Asma Alsharif and Praveen Menon

JEDDAH/DUBAI | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:13am EST

JEDDAH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Foreign airlines may need about three to six months to obtain operating licences letting them enter Saudi Arabia's domestic aviation market, a spokesman for the General Authority for Civil Aviation GACA.L said on Saturday.

GACA announced on Friday that Qatar Airways and Bahrain's national carrier Gulf Air had become the first foreign airlines to obtain carrier licences under which they would be able to run local and international flights in the kingdom.

Fourteen foreign and local companies had applied for the licences, which mark a major reform of the aviation market in Saudi Arabia, the biggest Arab economy and by far the largest country in the Gulf geographically.

Currently, only national carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines and budget airline National Air Services serve a domestic market of about 27 million people. Foreign carriers can only fly in and out of Saudi Arabia, not within the country.

Over 54 million passengers passed through Saudi Arabia's 27 airports last year, up 13.6 percent from 2010, according to GACA data. But the kingdom has one of the smallest airline networks in the region relative to its size, and passengers have complained about the limited range of flights as well as the quality of service.

In a statement to Reuters on Saturday, the GACA spokesman said Qatar Airways and Gulf Air were working on final procedures for their operating licences.

He did not comment on whether other firms among the 14 that applied for carrier licences might eventually be successful. The 14 included firms fully owned by Saudis, Gulf-Arab firms, and consortiums of Saudi-Gulf and Saudi-Chinese companies.

OPPORTUNITY

Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has taken steps to liberalise its economy in several areas in an effort to create jobs and diversify away from heavy dependence on oil. For example, it is trying to develop a home mortgage industry.

Earlier this month the information minister said GACA would be allowed to grant permission for airlines to raise their fares under certain circumstances, and that fuel prices at Saudi airports would be reviewed to ensure fairer competition.

Abdulwahab Abu Dahesh, a Saudi financial analyst, said he believed the government would also remove subsidies now provided to existing Saudi airlines.

"This has to happen in 2013 because there will be no competition unless that problem is solved," he said. "This needs to be resolved before these firms start operations."

Qatar Airways could be a strong competitor in Saudi Arabia. It is growing rapidly, and in October became the first major Gulf airline to announce plans to join the oneworld alliance, a global group of carriers which cooperate in areas such as route networks, frequent flyer schemes and procurement.

Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, has said he is interested in the possibility of launching an airline in Saudi Arabia.

By contrast, Gulf Air has been struggling; last month it cut an order for Boeing (BA.N) planes and revised a deal with Airbus (EAD.PA) as it restructured its fleet to reduce pressure on its finances.

Nevertheless, Riyadh has been supporting Manama politically and economically during the social unrest that has plagued Bahrain since last year. A Saudi operating licence could help Gulf Air by letting it diversify beyond its weak home market.

Officials for Qatar Airways and Gulf Air declined to comment on the airlines' plans when contacted by Reuters on Saturday. (Writing by Andrew Torchia)

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Yale under fire for new campus in restrictive Singapore

Handout image shows an artist's rendition of the learning commons at the Yale NUS College in Singapore.

Credit: Reuters/Yale NUS College/Handout

By Stephanie Simon

NEW HAVEN | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:49am EST

NEW HAVEN (Reuters) - For more than 300 years, Yale University has prided itself on training top students to question and analyze, to challenge and critique.

Now, Yale is seeking to export those values by establishing the first foreign campus to bear its name, a liberal arts college in Singapore that is set to open this summer. The ambitious, multimillion-dollar project thrills many in the Yale community who say it will help the university maintain its prestige and build global influence.

But it has also stirred sharp criticism from faculty and human-rights advocates who say it is impossible to build an elite college dedicated to free inquiry in an authoritarian nation with heavy restrictions on public speech and assembly.

"Yale's motto is 'Lux et veritas,' or 'Light and truth,'" said Michael Fischer, a Yale professor of computer science. "We're going into a place with severe curbs on light and truth ... We're redefining the brand in a way that's contrary to Yale's values."

Yale President Richard Levin describes the new venture as a chance to extend Yale's tradition of nurturing independent thinkers to a dynamic young nation at the crossroads of Asia. In the 19th century, Yale scholars fanned out to launch dozens of American colleges, Levin noted in a 2010 memo presenting the concept to faculty. "Yale could influence the course of 21st century education as profoundly," he wrote.

Levin, who spent years expanding Yale's campus in New Haven before initiating the Singapore project in 2010, has announced plans to retire at the end of the academic year. His successor, Yale Provost Peter Salovey, also supports the Singapore venture.

Working with the National University of Singapore, or NUS, Yale is building a comprehensive liberal arts college from scratch. The school will offer majors from anthropology to urban studies, electives from fractal geometry to moral reasoning, and a rich menu of extracurricular activities -- sports, drama, debate, even a juggling club.

Scheduled to open this summer with 150 students, it is slated to grow to about 1,000 undergraduates living in a high-rise campus now under construction.

While American universities have been venturing overseas for decades, they have mostly offered tightly focused degree programs, often for graduate students. The closest analogy to the Yale project may be New York University's branch campuses now under construction in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

But the new NYU campuses are extensions of the university. The Yale venture, which targets top students from around the globe, is an unusual hybrid.

It will be called Yale-NUS College. It will draw some faculty -- and its inaugural president, Pericles Lewis -- straight from New Haven. Students will spend the summer before freshman year in New Haven, attending seminars with Yale faculty. When they graduate, they will be welcomed into the Association of Yale Alumni.

Yet Yale officials are emphatic that the new school is not a branch campus. The degrees it issues will not be Yale degrees.

"It is not Yale," said Charles Bailyn, an astronomy professor on leave from Yale to serve as the founding dean of Yale-NUS.

OPPORTUNITY OR "FRANKENYALE"?

The new college will be funded entirely by the Singapore government, which will also subsidize tuition. Singapore citizens will pay about $18,000 a year, including room and board. International students will pay about $43,000 unless they secure a discount by committing to work for a Singapore company for three years after graduation.

Yale and Singapore will get an equal number of seats on the new college's governing board -- but Singapore's education minister must approve all the Yale nominees.

The arrangement exposes Yale to risk because its name is on the college, yet the university does not have control over the end product, said Richard Edelstein, who studies trends in higher education at the University of California at Berkeley. One angry member of Yale's faculty, Christopher Miller, a professor of French and African American studies, has dubbed the venture "Frankenyale."

Those involved in the project say the novel structure is a boon that will enable educational experimentation, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary seminars and student research. It's a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a new college program from the ground up," said Yale anthropologist Bernard Bate, who has signed on to teach in Singapore.

He and others say they will bring the best of their new approach back to New Haven. And they contend that fears about censorship in Singapore are wildly overblown.

That issue came to the fore last spring, when Yale faculty voted 100 to 69 for a resolution raising concern about the venture in light of "the history of lack of respect for civil and political rights" in Singapore.

Human Rights Watch, the international advocacy group, subsequently accused Yale of "betraying the spirit of the university." This month the American Association of University Professors weighed in, expressing concern about the project's implications for academic freedom.

Singapore, an island nation in southeast Asia, is a democracy but has been dominated by one political party since securing independence from Britain half a century ago. In the name of stability and security, the government restricts public demonstrations to a corner of one park and heavily regulates news and entertainment, according to the U.S. State Department.

Last year a British author was jailed for writing a book critical of Singapore's judiciary. This spring the government prevented an opposition politician from leaving the country to speak at the Oslo Freedom Forum.

Still, Yale faculty working on the new college said they had spoken with foreign professors teaching on other campuses in Singapore and came away convinced that academic freedom would be respected.

George Bishop, a Yale PhD who been teaching psychology at the National University of Singapore since 1991, says he has never felt restricted. In a class on the AIDS epidemic, he and his students freely discuss how Singapore's anti-sodomy laws hinder the nation's public-health response.

"We criticize the government all the time in class," said Bishop, who has joined the faculty of the new college.

PLENTY OF APPLICANTS

Yet Yale-NUS will not be free and open in the way American students may expect.

Singapore bans speech deemed to promote racial or religious strife. As long as they toe that line, students will be free to hear speakers and express views inside campus buildings. But many outdoor assemblies will require a government permit, Yale-NUS President Lewis said. Singapore law defines "assembly" quite broadly, to include a single protester holding a sign or an open-air debate.

"Can you march on City Hall?" asked Bailyn, the Yale-NUS dean. No, he answered -- but said that didn't trouble him, as "that's not really an educational matter." Bailyn said he had been promised complete freedom with "the core mission of the college -- researching, teaching, unfettered discussion."

Indeed, Yale-NUS faculty say they expect Singapore to be cautious about interfering with the new college for fear of provoking an incident and prompting Yale to withdraw its name.

"We know what a liberal arts education is, what intellectual freedom is," said Keith Darden, a professor of social sciences at Yale-NUS, "and we'll accept nothing less than that for ourselves and our students."

Under the philosophical questions lies a pragmatic one: Will the new college succeed?

For all its wealth, Singapore has not always proved an ideal marketplace for higher education. Australia's University of New South Wales opened a campus in Singapore in 2007 -- only to shut it after one semester because of low enrolment. This fall, NYU announced it would close its graduate film school in Singapore because of financial trouble.

Other American ventures in Singapore have done better, including a music conservatory developed by Johns Hopkins University.

Interest in Yale-NUS is running high. Almost 2,600 students from around the globe have applied for the initial 150 spots. Several dozen have already been accepted -- among them, Singaporean students who suggest Yale's faculty might do well to back off the criticism and trust in the value of the liberal arts education they hold so dear.

"Ideological purity and moral righteousness from these critics will not make Singapore a free society, but education and the spread of ideas will," Jared Yeo, a Singapore native accepted to Yale-NUS, wrote on the college's blog.

Perhaps the most pointed critique of the New Haven protests came from E-Ching Ng, a Singaporean who earned an undergraduate degree at Yale and remained on campus to study linguistics. In a column in the Yale Daily News last spring, she urged faculty to respect the rules Singapore has developed to maintain public order.

"Qur'an burning is illegal in Singapore, and we like it that way," she wrote. "We prioritize our values differently, and different doesn't mean wrong. At least, that's what I learned from a Yale liberal arts education." (Reporting By Stephanie Simon in New Haven. Additional reporting by Kevin Lim in Singapore. Editing by Jonathan Weber and Douglas Royalty.)

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Qatar Airways files $600 mln claim over new airport

DUBAI | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:11am EST

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar Airways said it was filing a $600 million legal claim against a contractor for a delay in opening a new international airport in Doha.

Lindner Depa Interiors, a German-Dubai joint venture DEPA.DI, holds a $250 million contract to build 19 airport lounges by the middle of 2012, Qatar Airways said in a statement on Saturday.

In a statement later in the day, LDI said it had not received a legal claim from Qatar Airways and described the carrier's allegations as "false and misleading".

It said it was not able to meet its original completion deadline because it was denied full access to the project site for the first nine months of a 16-month contract.

LDI also said it had no contractual relationship with Qatar Airways and that it was in arbitration with its client on the project, New Doha International Airport. Qatar Airways will run the airport when it becomes operational.

The $15.5 billion airport in the Qatari capital will be the hub for the airline, which has grown to a fleet of 116 aircraft since its launch 15 years ago. The new airport was scheduled to open this month but is now expected to start operating in late 2013, Qatar Airways said.

It said Doha's existing airport had reached capacity and the delay in moving to a new facility was hindering the company's expansion plans.

LDI is a joint venture between Lindner Group and Depa United Group DEPA.DI. (Reporting By Praveen Menon; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Robert Birsel and Jane Baird)

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Passengers on Queen Mary 2 sickened by unidentified pathogen

By Sharon Begley

NEW YORK | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:29am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An unknown illness, suspected of being a norovirus, has sickened 194 passengers and 11 crew members aboard the luxury cruise ship Queen Mary 2, causing vomiting and diarrhoea, federal health officials said on Friday.

Earlier in the week, 189 passengers and 31 crew members on the Emerald Princess came down with the same symptoms.

The symptoms are those of norovirus, a contagious microorganism that can be acquired from an infected person, contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated surfaces, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Norovirus causes an inflammation of the stomach or intestines called acute gastroenteritis, producing stomach pain, nausea and diarrhoea, and is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United States.

Each year, norovirus causes some 21 million illnesses, of which 70,000 require hospitalization. It kills about 800 people a year, the CDC says.

The Queen Mary 2, with 2,613 passengers and 1,255 crew members, is now docked in Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, according to ship owner Cunard Line, which is owned by Carnival Corp (CCL.N). The cruise left Brooklyn, New York, last Saturday and is due to return there next Thursday.

The CDC learned of the illnesses on the QM2 on Christmas Day on Tuesday, and of those on the Emerald Princess last Saturday. Vessels are required to notify the agency when 2 percent of those on board develop a gastrointestinal illness.

Although the microbial culprit remains unclear In both cases, another reason to suspect norovirus is that the pathogen "has affected a number of schools, hospitals, nursing homes and children's day care centres this winter" in the United Kingdom, Cunard said in a statement.

The UK's Health Protection Agency reports that norovirus activity in the country is 83 per cent higher than last year.

The QM2 sails regularly scheduled crossings between New York and Southampton, England, between April and late November, Cunard spokeswoman Jackie Chase said in an email. "In addition, many of our guests come from the UK."

The QM2's captain is advising passengers with gastrointestinal symptoms to report to the medical centre, Chase said. Those sickened are asked to "isolate themselves in their cabin until non-contagious. They are also asked not to proceed ashore, and any shore excursion costs will be refunded. Room service is provided to affected passengers and every effort is made to make them as comfortable as possible."

Of the 194 QM2 passengers who had fallen sick, said Chase, all but 12 had recovered as of Friday.

'NOROVIRUS ACTIVE ON BOARD'

In a post on the message board cruisecritic.com on Wednesday, a woman who said her daughter was on the QM2 said she "just received a message from her indicating that the Norovirus is active on board."

On Thursday, someone reporting being on the ship posted that "the restaurants are still full. The Captain last night recommended that people take all of their meals in the full-service restaurants rather than the buffet, but the buffet remains open as of this morning. We've been kept informed daily of the persistent cases."

Another post said: "The crew are working like crazy to service all the guests. At lunch today I noticed the hand rails on the promenade deck were wiped three times in about 1 hour."

In response to the outbreak, the QM2 crew has increased cleaning and disinfection procedures, the CDC said, and is asking passengers and crew to report cases of illness and "encourage hand hygiene."

Medical personnel are also collecting stool specimens from ill passengers and crew, which a CDC lab will analyze to make a definitive diagnosis.

When the QM2 docks in Brooklyn, an officer from the CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program and an epidemiologist will board, conduct an environmental health assessment "and evaluate the outbreak and response activities," the CDC said.

Two officers boarded the Emerald Princess, also owned by Carnival, when it arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thursday and are conducting an environmental assessment.

The Vessel Sanitation Program has authority to inspect cruise ships that carry 13 or more passengers and call at U.S. ports. It gave the Queen Mary 2 a perfect 100 on its most recent inspection this past summer, but found a few minor infractions, including a lack of serving utensils with breakfast pastries at a buffet.

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Short and social workouts led fitness trends in 2012

By Dorene Internicola

NEW YORK | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:23am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - From mud races to sweat parties to CrossFit competitions, workouts turned smarter, shorter and more social in 2012, experts say, as fitness was sweetened with a little help from smart phones and friends.

"Everything is about making fitness fun," said Jenna Autuori-Dedic, senior fitness editor at Fitness Magazine.

Even those gruelling indoor cycling classes were a chance to mingle.

"I truly think that spinning was one of the biggest things to come out of 2012," said Autuori-Dedic. "They (fitness studios) made it fun. You can go with your friends, match your workout to the music. When you work out with friends, you don't realize you're working out."

She said 2012 also saw the rise of the sweat party.

"Instead of hitting the bars for that bachelorette party or night out with the girls, women are going in groups to fitness studios," she explained. "You don't have to choose between working out and meeting your friends, you can do both."

Working women have begun treating clients to boot camp classes in lieu of happy-hour, she added, and more co-workers host conference room workouts at lunchtime.

Mud runs were another 2012 trend that Autuori-Dedic expects to grow in the new year, along with fun obstacle-type races in general, during which participants can get blasted with paint or chased by "zombies," often for charity.

Donna Cyrus, senior vice president of programming at the Crunch national chain of fitness centres, said dance classes and short, results-driven workouts dominated group fitness.

"Going into 2012 everybody was looking for the next Zumba," said Cyrus of the Latin-based dance fitness craze. "We find that people are looking for fun easy-to-follow dance moves."

Crunch created 2FLY, a dance class based on music of the '80's and '90's that strives to feel more like a house party than a workout.

The other big trend from 2012, according to Cyrus, is the 30-minute workout.

"Everybody is realizing that you can get results in 30 minutes," she said, so this year was also about hard core, body-sculpting, CrossFit-type classes.

CrossFit is an intense, constantly varied, strength and conditioning program.

Autuori-Dedic said the CrossFit games, which are competitions that grew out of the workout regimen, mushroomed from only 4,000 participants to nearly 70,000 this year.

Richard Cotton, national director of certification programs for the American College of Sports Medicine, said 2012 signalled a welcome shift back to the basics of training people to be prepared for daily living.

"We're finally getting smart about what functional exercise actually is," Cotton said. "Simpler and basic, easier to do at home, there are fewer silly ball exercises, (such as) balancing on a ball while doing bicep curls."

Cotton said personal trainers increasingly apply troubleshooting, motivational interviewing and coaching techniques to their sessions with clients.

Autuori-Dedic said 2013 will see more trainers displaying their wares online.

"Trainers are live-streaming workouts and putting things on Twitter, iTunes, everywhere," she said.

And sophisticated tracking apps are here to stay.

Autuori-Dedic cited a study showing that people lost an average of 15 pounds and kept it off for at least a year just by tracking their statistics with an app.

"It used to be that stepping on a scale once a week would tell you how far you've come," she said. "Now with our smartphones we can log in at any time and see how we're doing every step of the way." (Editing by Patricia Reaney and Vicki Allen)

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U.S. clears way for wider in-flight Internet deployment

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:09am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has cleared the way for wider adoption of in-flight Internet services, aiming to cut by as much as 50 percent the time needed for regulatory approval.

Newly adopted rules should boost competition in this part of the U.S. mobile telecommunications market and promote "the widespread availability of Internet access to aircraft passengers," the FCC said in a statement Friday.

Since 2001, the commission has cleared companies on an ad hoc basis to market in-flight broadband services via a satellite antenna fixed to an aircraft's exterior.

Under a newly adopted framework, the licensing procedures will be simpler, the commission said.

Airlines will be able to test systems that meet the commission's standards, establish that they do not interfere with aircraft systems and then get approval of the Federal Aviation Administration, the FCC statement said.

The FAA, a Labor Department arm responsible for operating the nation's air traffic control system, said in response that the FCC's effort to establish standards "will help to streamline the process" for airlines to install Internet hookups on planes.

The goal is to speed the processing of applications by up to 50 percent, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a separate statement.

The FCC drive to promote broadband aboard planes does not change a ban on the in-flight use of cell phones, which is tied to concerns about interference with ground stations.

Genachowski earlier this month urged the Federal Aviation Administration to allow more electronics on aircraft.

The FAA announced in August that it was forming a government-industry group to study aircraft operators' policies to determine when portable electronic devices may be used safely during flight. (Reporting By Jim Wolf; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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Storms on U.S. Plains stir memories of the "Dust Bowl"

A sprinkler is in use near Dodge City, Kansas, November 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Kevin Murphy

By Kevin Murphy

LIBERAL, Kansas | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:43am EST

LIBERAL, Kansas (Reuters) - Real estate agent Mark Faulkner recalls a day in early November when he was putting up a sign near Ulysses, Kansas, in 60-miles-per-hour winds that blew up blinding dust clouds.

"There were places you could not see, it was blowing so hard," Faulkner said.

Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.

Nearly 62 percent of the United States was gripped by drought, as of December 25, and "exceptional" drought enveloped parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

There is no relief in sight for the Great Plains at least through the winter, according to Drought Monitor forecasts, which could portend more dust clouds.

A wave of dust storms during the 1930s crippled agriculture over a vast area of the Great Plains and led to an exodus of people, many to California, dramatized in John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

While few people believe it could get that bad again, the new storms have some experts worried that similar conditions - if not the catastrophic environmental disaster of the 1930s - are returning to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado.

"I hope we don't talk ourselves into complacency with easy assumptions that a Dust Bowl could never happen again," said Craig Cox, agriculture director for the Environmental Working Group, a national conservation group that supports converting more tilled soil to grassland. "Instead, we should do what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Satellite images on December 19 showed a dust storm stretching over an area of 150 miles (240 km) from extreme southwestern Oklahoma across the Panhandle of Texas around Lubbock to extreme eastern New Mexico, said Jody James, National Weather Service meteorologist in Lubbock. Visibility was reduced to half a mile in places, stoked by high winds, he said. At least one person was killed and more than a dozen injured in car crashes.

"I definitely think these dust storms will become more common until we get more measurable precipitation," James said.

'DIRTY 30S'

The Great Plains is a flat, semi-arid, area with few trees, where vast herds of buffalo once thrived on native grasses. Settlers ploughed up most of the grassland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to create the wheat-growing breadbasket of the United States, encouraged by high commodity prices and free "homestead" land from the government.

The era known as the "Dirty 30s" - chronicled by Ken Burns in a Public Broadcasting Service documentary that aired in November - was when a 1930s drought gripped the Great Plains and winds carried away exposed soil in massive dust clouds.

Bill Fitzgerald, 87, a farmer near Sublette, Kansas, remembers "Black Sunday" on April 14, 1935, when a clear, sunny day in southwest Kansas turned black as night by mid afternoon because of a massive cloud of dust that swept from Nebraska to the Texas panhandle.

"My older brother and I were in my dad's 1927 or '28 Chevy truck a mile north and a mile west of the house and we saw it rolling in," Fitzgerald said. "It was about 10 p.m. when it cleared enough for us to go home."

Farming practices have vastly improved since the 1930s. Farmers now leave plant remnants on the top of the soil and less soil is exposed, to preserve moisture and prevent erosion.

Irrigation beginning in the 1940s from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge network of water under the Great Plains, also made land less vulnerable to dust storms.

DRYING UP

But the Ogallala aquifer is drying up after years of drawing out more water than was replenished.

Many farmers have had to drill deeper wells to find water. Others are giving up on irrigation altogether, which means they can no longer grow crops of high-yielding and lucrative corn. They will instead grow wheat, cotton or grain sorghum on dry land, which depends completely on natural precipitation in an area that typically gets 20 inches of rain a year or less.

Near Sublette, Kansas, farmer Gail Wright said he would probably give up irrigating two square miles of his land and would plant wheat and grain sorghum instead of corn because of the diminishing aquifer. Drilling deeper wells would cost $120,000 each, Wright said.

"When we drilled those wells in the 1960s and 70s, we were doing 1,500 or 1,600 gallons per minute," said Wright. "Now, they are down to anywhere from 400 to 600 gallons per minute. We probably pumped out 200 feet of water."

Another farmer in Sublette, 79-year-old Lawrence Withers, whose family farms land his grandfather settled in 1887, is resigned to a future without irrigation.

"We have pumped 170 feet off the aquifer, that's gone. There's just a little tick of water at the bottom," he said.

The Ogallala supplies water to 176,000 square miles (456,000 square km) of land in parts of eight states from the Texas panhandle to southern South Dakota. That amounts to about 27 percent of all irrigated land in the nation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The volume of water in the aquifer stood at about 2.9 billion acre feet in 2009, a decline of about 9 percent since 1950, according to the Geological Survey. About two-and-a-half times as much water was drawn out in the 14 years ended 2009 as during the prior 15-year period, data shows.

The water may run out in 25 years or less in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and southwest Kansas, although in other areas it has 50 to 200 years left, according to the Geological Survey.

Rationing has been imposed on irrigation in the region but it may be too little too late.

"It's a situation where across the Plains the demand far exceeds the annual recharge," said Mark Rude, executive director of the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District.

RECORD DROUGHT

The worst drought in decades has exacerbated the situation. The semi-arid area around Lubbock, which typically gets about 19 inches of rain a year, received less than 6 inches in 2011, the lowest ever recorded. This year was better but still far below normal at 12.5 inches, meteorologist James said.

Climate change is also having an impact on the region, said atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, co-director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

"It is definitely hotter in the summer and drier in the summer because of climate change," she said.

The average annual temperature in Lubbock has increased by one full degree over the last decade, according to National Weather Service data, and the average amount of rainfall has fallen during summer months by about .50 inch over the decade.

Some say government policies are making things worse.

Federal government subsidized crop insurance pays farmers whether they produce a crop or not, encouraging farmers to plant even in a drought year.

Another subsidized U.S. government program that pays farmers to take sensitive marginal land out of crop production and put it into grassland is gradually shrinking.

In a possible case of history repeating itself, high commodity prices are encouraging farmers to break up the land and plant crops when the 10-year conservation contracts with the government expire, said environmentalist Cox. This is similar to what happened in the 1920s when vast areas of grassland were ploughed up.

The government also has imposed restrictions on how much land can go into conservation reserves to save money at a time of massive U.S. budget deficits, he said.

The amount of land in conservation reserves has declined by more than 2.3 million acres over the last five years in five states of the Great Plains - Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.

If most of that land is ploughed up for crops it could lead to more dust storms in the future.

"I think you are probably going to see increased erosion if that happens," said Richard Zartman, Chairman of the Plant and Soil Science Department at Texas Tech, adding that it was unlikely to get as bad as the Dust Bowl days. (Additional reporting by Greg McCune and Christine Stebbins; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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Faulty brakes may be to blame in Russian plane crash

An aircraft wreckage lies next to a highway near Moscow's Vnukovo Airport December 30, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Mikhail Voskresensky

MOSCOW | Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:54am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Faulty brakes may be to blame for a Russian airliner sliding off the runway and smashing onto a highway near Moscow, killing five people, a member of the crash investigation team said on Sunday.

Investigators said they were examining the black boxes to try to determine the cause of Saturday's crash, which cracked the wings off the Tupolev-204 plane and split the fuselage clean into three pieces.

If they find bad brakes were at fault, it would match a warning issued to the state-owned Tupolev by Russia's aviation authority to fix problems with the brakes that may have caused a Tu-204 with 70 people onboard to go off a Siberian runway on December 21.

Any sign that the catastrophe during peak holiday travel could have been avoided will worsen concerns over the country's poor air-safety record, despite President Vladimir Putin's calls to improve controls.

"After landing the pilot uses all the available brake systems on the plane, but for some reason the machine did not stop," a member of the investigation team told the Interfax news agency. "Most likely it was faulty reverse engines or brakes."

A fifth crew member of the Red Wing plane, which was travelling without passengers, died of her injuries in hospital on Sunday, the company said.

Despite icy weather conditions, the plane had been piloted by an experienced crew with many hours of flying under their belt, according to Russia's aviation safety body.

Television footage showed the jet with smoke billowing from the tail end and the cockpit broken clean off after the crash.

A photo showed a crew member, still strapped to a seat, sprawled on the pavement after apparently being hurled far from the plane during its impact with the highway barrier.

Red Wings, whose fleet includes nine of the Soviet-designed Tu-204 jets, said on Sunday it would not retire them from use.

The Russian-built Tu-204, which is comparable in size to a Boeing 757 or Airbus A321, was produced in the mid-1990s but is no longer being made.

Russia and other former Soviet republics had some of the world's worst air-traffic safety records last year, with a total accident rate almost three times the world average, the International Air Transport Association said. (Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Residents flee Bangui as rebels pause for talks

Smoke is seen after residents of Central African Republic participated in a protest in front of the French Embassy in the capital Bangui, December 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

By Paul-Marin Ngoupana

BANGUI | Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:10pm EST

BANGUI (Reuters) - Residents of Central African Republic's riverside capital Bangui fled in overloaded cars and boats on Friday or stockpiled food and water as rebel forces paused at the city gates for ceasefire talks.

An insurgency has swept across much of the poverty-stricken but resource-rich former French colony since December 10, posing the biggest threat yet to President Francois Bozize's nearly 10 years in power and threatening a humanitarian crisis.

The government on Thursday urged Western powers France and the United States to help push back the rebels, though Paris said it would not use soldiers to defend Bozize's government and Washington evacuated its embassy.

The Central African Republic is one of a number of nations in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local forces try to track down the Lords Resistance Army, a rebel group responsible for killing thousands of civilians across four African nations.

"Our last chance, our only chance, is dialogue with the rebels," bus driver Jerome Lega said as he weaved through traffic in the centre of Bangui.

Scores of wooden boats piled high with baggage and people crossed the Oubangui River toward Democratic Republic of Congo on the other side, while the main road south away from rebel lines was choked with overloaded vehicles.

Those remaining said they were stockpiling food and water and praying international mediation efforts would convince the insurgents not to enter the city shooting.

"We are hoping that Bangui will not be attacked," said Eugenie Bosso, a woman running a market stall.

In a sign of rising tensions, the government announced a ban on motorcycle taxis in Bangui after nightfall, amid suspicions rebels were using them to infiltrate the city unnoticed.

GROUNDWORK FOR PEACE TALKS

Envoys from across central Africa arrived in Bangui on Thursday to lay the groundwork for peace talks with the rebels, and regional foreign ministers were due to meet in Gabon later on Friday to discuss the crisis.

African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra said regional leaders were seeking to convince the rebels to send a delegation to Gabon's capital Libreville to hash out a peace deal and end the crisis.

"If that is not successful, of course other options will be considered," he told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, adding central African states could provide additional troops to reinforce CAR's army against the rebels.

A spokesman for the SELEKA rebel coalition - which said it will oust Bozize unless he honours a previous rebel peace agreement that provided payments and jobs to former fighters - said on Thursday it would halt its advance short of Bangui to allow for the mediation efforts.

A military source and an aid worker said the rebels had advanced to within 75 km (45 miles) of Bangui by late Wednesday, and a diplomatic source said they had since moved closer to the capital, effectively surrounding it.

The rebel advance has highlighted the instability of a country that has remained poor since independence from France in 1960 despite rich deposits of uranium, gold and diamonds. Average income is barely $2 a day.

French nuclear energy group Areva (AREVA.PA) mines the Bakouma uranium deposit in the CAR's south - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday condemned the rebel advance. Regional and Western powers have been pushing for a negotiated solution.

Neighbouring Chad has sent troops to bolster CAR's weak army though it is unclear whether they would be enough to halt a renewed rebel assault on the capital.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was working to provide displaced people with water, sanitary facilities, and other necessities, and called on rebel and government forces to spare civilians. It said it had withdrawn eight staff for security reasons, but that 14 foreign staff remained in the country.

The SELEKA coalition brings together three former rebel groups that had largely been contained in CAR's northwest by government forces in recent years, but with foreign backing.

Paris in 2006 defended Bozize's government from a rebel advance using air strikes. President Francois Hollande on Thursday poured cold water on the latest request for help.

"Those days are over," he said.

Government soldiers were deployed at strategic sites and French troops reinforced security at the French Embassy after protesters threw rocks at the building on Wednesday.

With a government that holds little sway outside the capital, some parts of the country have long endured the consequences of conflicts spilling over from troubled neighbours Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For a graphic on Central African Republic, click here: link.reuters.com/ret84t (Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa and by Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Alitalia denies tie-up talk with Italy state railway

An Alitalia jet takes off over another three parked at Fiumicino airport in Rome December 23, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Chris Helgren

MILAN | Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:18am EST

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian airline Alitalia, still reeling from financial troubles in 2008, denied media speculation about a possible tie-up with state railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato.

"Since rumours continue to appear on the front pages of newspapers, we are forced to utterly and strongly deny any idea of an agreement between Alitalia and Ferrovie dello Stato," Alitalia said in a statement. "No such plan is being considered."

On Sunday Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Ferrovie dello Stato was considering investing in Alitalia as part of an eventual turnaround plan that would involve an industrial partnership with Franco-Dutch airline Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA).

Alitalia returned to profit in the third quarter after reporting losses in the first half, but it is losing ground to high-speed railway operators such as Ferrovie dello Stato and private newcomer Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV.L).

Alitalia is owned by CAI, a consortium of investors that bought the then-bankrupt airline in 2008. CAI is partly owned by Air France-KLM. Alitalia's shareholders can exercise options to trade their shares when a lock-up period ends in January.

In May, Air France said it would probably wait until at least 2014 before using its option to take control of Alitalia, in which it has held 25 percent since January 2009.

Alitalia booked net profit of 27 million euros in the third quarter, down from 70 million euros a year before. A protracted recession in Italy is also hurting demand.

Net debt rose to 923 million euros at the end of September, up by 61 million euros from the end of June. (Reporting by Antonella Ciancio; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

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Qatar Airways, Gulf Air awarded Saudi aviation licences

RIYADH | Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:02am EST

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Civil Aviation has awarded carrier licenses to Gulf Air and Qatar Airways, the Saudi state news agency reported on Friday, the first foreign airlines to win such a license in the kingdom.

The license, which 14 companies had applied for, is to operate both local and international flights, GACA has previously said.

Until now only the national carrier Saudi Airlines and budget airline National Air Services NAS.L have serviced a domestic market of around 27 million people.

With Saudi Arabia's price cap on domestic flights, private airlines have struggled with their profit margins.

Saudi Airlines, which is undergoing a slow privatization process, receives fuel at subsidized prices unlike private carriers, allowing it to offset the limits of the ticket cost ceiling. (Reporting by Angus McDowall, Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Kazakh rescuers find flight recorder after military plane crash

Still image from video shows the remains of an Antonov An-72 military transport plane after it crashed near Shymkent December 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/TV7.kz/Handout

By Dmitry Solovyov

ALMATY | Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:18am EST

ALMATY (Reuters) - Rescue teams have recovered a flight recorder from a plane which crashed in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, killing all 27 people on board in the country's worst military air disaster since independence.

The twin-engine Antonov An-72 transport jet disappeared from radar screens at about 1900 local time (1300 GMT) as it was circling in a raging blizzard, trying to land at the city of Shymkent, the capital of the South Kazakhstan Region.

It crashed into an open-cast mine, littering the area with mangled, burning fragments.

The plane belonged to the border troops of Kazakhstan's KNB security service. Those killed included the commander of the country's border guards, Turganbek Stambekov, and his wife.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered a national day of mourning on Thursday, his press service said.

"Most probably, the black box (flight recorder) will give us a clue about what caused this catastrophe," KNB chief Nurtai Abykayev told a news conference in Shymkent, according to local media.

"Special commissions that are investigating will look into various possible causes. These can include weather conditions, the human factor or the plane's technical condition. Anything."

The Soviet-designed plane, which can take off from rough gravel runways just 800 metres long, is widely considered to be a reliable and sturdy workhorse of the air forces of several former Soviet states.

The one that crashed near Shymkent was made in 1990, and in November it underwent maintenance at the factory in Ukraine that built it, after which it had accumulated just 40 hours of flight time, including 30 take-offs and landings, local media said.

The plane was carrying officers from Kazakhstan's southern border protection district who had attended an annual meeting in the capital Astana.

Oil-producer Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest economy, has seen accidents with smaller military aircraft and helicopters during the 21 years of its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

GRIEF AND ANGER

Kazakhstan is predominantly Muslim and according to Islamic tradition the first funerals of those killed in the crash should have been held on Wednesday. But this was not possible because medical experts still had to identify badly mutilated bodies, Abykayev said.

Several distraught relatives could be seen near the cordoned-off crash site on Wednesday. They did not try to conceal their anger and frustration.

"They should have allowed us to take away the remains and bury them," a middle-aged woman, whose brother was among the killed officers, told Kazakhstan's Channel 7 television.

"My brother left four children. They must know where their father died so they can bring flowers here," she said. "He had great plans which will never be realised. He aspired to rise to the rank of general."

Thursday will be the second time Kazakhstan, a vast nation of 17 million people, will observe a day of national mourning this year. In June, the country mourned 14 border guards and a herder killed by a fellow serviceman at a remote border post near China's border.

In one of the world's worst civilian air disasters, an Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane from Shymkent collided in midair with a Saudia Boeing 747 near New Delhi in November 1996, killing all 349 aboard both planes. (Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Iran bans flights during call to Islamic prayer

An Iranian Aseman Airlines' Fokker 100 takes off as an Iran Air aircraft is seen in the foreground at Tehran's international airport August 6, 2007.

Credit: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl

DUBAI | Wed Dec 26, 2012 6:04am EST

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's parliament has banned on airplanes from flying in the country during the Azan call to Islamic prayer, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Wednesday.

"According to the new directive, airplanes are banned from flying during Azan, especially during the call to morning prayers," Mehr quoted the spokesman for parliament's cultural committee Ali Taheri as saying.

The head of the Aviation Organization, Hamid Reza Pahlevani, said aircraft will be allowed to take off 30 minutes after the call to the morning prayer so that passengers have the time "to carry out their religious duties", the Iranian Students' News Agency ISNA.L reported.

Iran has practiced Sharia law since its 1979 Islamic revolution. Hardliners have pressed for stricter enforcement of religious measures since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won office in 2005 promising a return to the revolution's values.

Taheri also said serious attention will be given to observing the strict Islamic dress code for women working at airports or airline companies.

Women in Iran are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing to disguise their figures and protect their modesty. Violators can be flogged, fined or imprisoned. (Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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China to open world's longest high-speed rail line

An attendant stands inside a high-speed train during an organized experience trip from Beijing to Zhengzhou, as part of a new rail line, December 22, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/China Daily

BEIJING/ZHENGZHOU, China | Mon Dec 24, 2012 6:37am EST

BEIJING/ZHENGZHOU, China (Reuters) - China will open the world's longest high-speed rail line next week when a link between Beijing and the southern metropolis of Guangzhou is inaugurated, officials said on Saturday, underscoring its commitment to a trouble-plagued transport scheme.

The 2,298-km (1,428-mile) line, parts of which are already in operation, will begin full service on Wednesday, halving travel time to less than 10 hours on trains which will run at 300 kph (186 mph).

The new route offers a chance for China's railways ministry, which has been dogged by scandals and missteps, to redeem itself.

A July 2011 crash of a high-speed train killed 40 people and raised concerns about the safety of the fast-growing network and threatened plans to export high-speed technology.

"We have developed a full range of effective measures to manage safety," Zhou Li, head of the ministry's science and technology department, told reporters on a trial run from Beijing to the central city of Zhengzhou.

"We can control safety management," he added.

Last year's accident near the booming eastern coastal city of Wenzhou occurred when a high-speed train rammed into another stranded on the track after being hit by lightning.

Rail investment slowed sharply in the wake of that accident and state media reported earlier this year that the government had cut planned railway investment by 500 billion yuan to 2.3 trillion yuan under a five-year plan to 2015.

But that may reflect cuts that have already taken place as the Ministry of Railways has raised its planned investment budget three times this year as part of government efforts to bolster a slowing economy.

The ministry plans to spend a total of 630 billion yuan in 2012 and has been given clearance to sell more bonds to finance the investments - one of the few outright spending commitments made by the central government in a slew of project approvals worth $157 billion which have not specified how they will be funded.

The approvals include 25 rail investments, state media say.

Despite its expanding network, the Ministry of Railways struggles to make money. It suffered an after-tax loss of 8.8 billion yuan in the first half of 2012 in the face of rising operating costs and mounting debts.

However, the government says it remained committed to building high-speed railways between its major cities, with China eventually planning to run them into Russia and down to Southeast Asia.

"High-speed railways are needed for national development, for the people and for regional communication. Many countries have boosted their economies by developing high-speed rail," Zhou said.

China said in May it would open up the railway industry to private investment on an unprecedented scale, but private investors have been sceptical.

The need for funding is acute. China still needs billions more in rail investment to remove bottlenecks in cargo transport, ease overcrowding in passenger transport and develop commuter lines in its sprawling megacities. (Reporting by Sabrina Mao and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Nick Edwards; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Pipeline blast, quake strike 2014 Olympics Russian host Sochi

A view of a new hotel district at Krasnaya Polyana, a venue for the Sochi 2014 winter Olympics, is seen near Sochi December 9, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski

MOSCOW | Wed Dec 26, 2012 7:16am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, has been hit by a gas pipeline blast and a mild earthquake, a government spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Irina Gogoleva, of Russia's Emergencies Ministry, said no one was hurt and there was no apparent damage to the city's infrastructure after a 5.3 magnitude earthquake was reported at 0242 local time on Wednesday (2242 GMT on Tuesday).

"Emergencies Ministry servicemen scoured through the city districts, bridges and electrical cables, there was no damage," Gogoleva said.

The epicentre of the quake was about 150 km (93 miles) off Sochi in the Black Sea.

President Vladimir Putin ordered authorities to inspect Olympic sites, particularly those under construction, to ensure there was no damage, Interfax news agency reported.

Authorities said a explosion on a gas pipeline that feeds a local power station occurred before the earthquake and was not related.

Gogoleva said the power plant had switched to fuel oil and the city was receiving electrical power. She said the reason for the blast was unknown.

Sochi, the first Russian city to host the Winter Olympics, is located near Russia's North Caucasus, which is plagued by violence linked to an Islamist insurgency.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Brazilians top for New Year celebrations

People watch fireworks exploding above Copacabana beach during New Year celebrations in Babilonia slum in Rio de Janeiro January 1, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes

LONDON | Thu Dec 27, 2012 9:17am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Dancing to the beat alongside a Brazilian on Copacabana beach on New Year's Eve appears to be the dream way to ring in 2013 if a global survey of 17,000 people is any indicator.

The survey conducted by social network Badoo.com (www.badoo.com) across 17 countries and four continents showed Brazilians were considered the top nationality the rest of the world would most like to share New Year's with.

Americans ranked second in the poll, with Spaniards, Italians and the French coming third, fourth and fifth. Belgians and Swiss ranked joint last.

"This seems harsh on the Swiss and Belgians", Badoo director Louise Thompson said. "But I can understand that most people would rather celebrate New Year's Eve on a beach in Brazil than by huddling against the cold in northern Europe."

New Year's Eve falls in the middle of Brazil's summer, which makes the climate perfect for huge, outdoor parties of the kind Brazilians enjoy attending with friends or family to welcome the new year.

The festivities are held in cities across the country, but Rio is judged to have the best, including Brazil's most famous New Year's Eve event - the giant gathering on Copacabana beach, attended annually by some 2.5 million revellers and widely considered the best New Year's Eve party in the world.

Spanish also gather en masse on New Year's Eve in Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where both those present and many more watching at home listen to the clock chime 12 times while eating one grape on each chime, to bring prosperity for the new near.

The Italians, who ranked fourth in the Badoo poll, brought a more romantic flavour to New Year's Eve gatherings by staging a mass kiss in Venice's Piazza San Marco.

None of these gatherings, however, can match the scale of the festivities on Rio's Copacabana beach, which are also famed for their spectacular fireworks display. Ocean liners are known to moor nearby to watch.

For those near the beach on New Year's Eve, the tradition in Brazil is to jump seven waves at midnight while throwing flowers in the sea and making a wish - one wish for each wave.

Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city, also boasts a giant New Year's Eve party, held in Paulista Avenue and attended by over a million merrymakers. Only in Brazil could a party this big rank second best.

There may, however, be one way Europeans can claim to surpass the Brazilians on New Year's Eve, which is when it comes to clothes.

Brazilians traditionally dress in white on New Year's Eve, to bring luck for the new year. This tradition turns Rio's Copacabana beach into a giant carpet of white.

Both the Spanish and Italians, however, take a more colourful approach - welcoming the New Year by observing the local custom of wearing red underwear for good luck.

Badoo is a site for chatting, flirting, dating and meeting new people, with 168 million users across over 180 countries. (Reporting by Paul Casciato)

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Manila primes for casino boom despite graft spotlight

1 of 2. People mill outside the Solaire casino which due to open in three months at Entertainment City in Pasay city, metro Manila December 17, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

By Farah Master

MANILA | Thu Dec 27, 2012 7:14am EST

MANILA (Reuters) - The two most richly valued companies in the financial and consumer discretionary sectors in Southeast Asia share two things in common - both are controlled by Filipino tycoons and both are building casinos by the azure waters of Manila Bay.

The lofty valuations of Bloomberry Resorts Corp (BLOOM.PS) and Belle Corp (BEL.PS), measured by forecast earnings multiples, show the size of bets being laid on the Philippines' ambition to join Macau and Singapore among the ranks of Asia's top gaming destinations.

Buoyed by stellar economic growth and one of the world's top performing stock markets this year, the casino rush is starting with the slated opening in March of port magnate Enrique Razon Jr's $1.2 billion Solaire property.

But it also comes as the government is investigating bribery allegations related to Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada's bid to build a casino in the same Manila Bay development, shining an unwelcome spotlight on President Benigno Aquino's drive to shed the Philippines' reputation for corruption.

Razon, chairman of Bloomberry and the third richest man in the Philippines, has said the investigation has had no impact on his development.

"Mr Okada, being a foreigner, maybe didn't know exactly how to operate in the Philippines, but the administration now with President Aquino has created serious credibility on the corruption front," Razon told Reuters at his coffee-and-tan hued office in Manila's port area.

A short distance away, 6,000 workers are racing to finish the 15-storey, 500-room Solaire resort. Rows of slot machines and crystal chandeliers in plastic wrapping cover the main gaming hall that will soon see an inflow of eager punters.

Part of a tourism project that the government hopes will draw in millions of foreigners each year, Solaire will be the first of four resorts to open over the next three years within the 100-hectare (250-acre) complex.

Other projects include a casino owned by the country's wealthiest man, Henry Sy, who controls Belle, together with Macau operator Melco Crown (6883.HK), owned by Australian billionaire James Packer and Hong Kong businessman Lawrence Ho.

THRIVING LOCAL MARKET

Challenges include Manila's dilapidated infrastructure and general concerns over both safety and corruption - problems that have limited foreign investment in the Philippines for years.

But a thriving local casino market, where residents are free to gamble and operators enjoy strong government support, means investors remain optimistic.

Average bets at Manila's gambling venues are only around 40 pesos, compared with Macau where gambling tables often have a minimum bet of 300 patacas. To change that, Manila is aiming to increase the use of junkets to bring in high-rollers from China and the rest of Asia.

Junkets - intermediaries who work on behalf of casino operators, loaning credit to players and helping them bypass currency restrictions - are prevalent in Macau where they account for more than 70 percent of total gaming revenue.

The Philippines is offering lower gaming taxes and lucrative payment terms to the junkets, which face increased regulation and scrutiny in their home turf of Macau.

Paul Joseph Garcia, chief investment officer at BPI Asset Management in Manila, said the jury was still out on whether the Philippines would be successful in luring junkets.

"I am still not that confident about our ability to attract the foreign VIPs, the junkets from Macau and other players from the region. We have a chance of getting some market share, that is for sure," said Garcia, adding he would wait for lower share prices before increasing BPI's exposure to Philippine gaming.

Regulated by government body PAGCOR, which itself operates 13 casinos, gambling has been entrenched in the Philippines since the 1800s when the country was a Spanish colony.

Casinos, basketball betting, bingo and jueteng - an illegal numbers game that implicated two former presidents for accepting bribes - are popular with both low and high income residents.

"I come after work and meet my friends, it's nice for us to socialize," said Will, a 60-year-old Manila resident as he entered the Resorts World casino, owned by Genting Hong Kong Ltd (0678.HK) and Philippine property tycoon Andrew Tan.

With a shopping mall, a theatre featuring Broadway shows, hotels including a Marriott (MAR.N) and a high stakes VIP club and a cavernous mass gambling floor, the glitzy Resorts World contrasts with PAGCOR's Casino Filipino branches where elderly locals play bingo on plastic chairs beneath fluorescent lights.

On a recent Sunday night the property's VIP floor was filled with Chinese gamblers playing baccarat while Mandarin-speaking waitresses served drinks.

HIGH ROLLERS

Razon's Solaire, which will open with 90 VIP tables and 200 for mass gamblers, is also vying to attract moneyed Chinese to its oceanfront casino. Bloomberry is in talks with more than two dozen junket operators and is aiming to have more than 50 percent of total revenues from the VIP segment after a year.

Heavy traffic and an overburdened, 40-year-old main international airport are hurdles that Razon's group is preparing to overcome as it seeks to lure high-rollers away from the strongholds of Macau and Singapore.

"We would fly them in privately from Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, places like that," said Razon, who commutes around the city in a black Jaguar. The 52-year-old only takes a helicopter if he's late or in a hurry, he adds with a smile.

Brokerage CLSA estimates the Philippine gaming market will reach $3 billion by 2015. While Macau raked in more than 10 times that amount in 2011, the Philippines is seen more closely matching Singapore which made $5.7 billion in 2011.

Vietnam, Korea and Taiwan are also mulling gaming legislation. For the next few years, however, investors view the Philippines as a more immediate alternative.

That has helped push Bloomberry's forward price earning ratio - a widely used valuation metric - to 37, with Belle's at nearly 73, both the richest in their sectors in Southeast Asia, Thomson Reuters Starmine data showed.

Genting and Alliance Global's (AGI.PS) Philippine joint venture, Travellers Hotel International Group Inc, is expanding Resorts World and a new casino by Manila Bay, adding around 5,000 hotel rooms in the next five years.

Okada's Universal Entertainment is continuing construction of its $2 billion casino which is due to open by end-2014, pending the result of the investigation into allegations the company paid bribes to a former PAGCOR consultant in 2010.

Universal denies any wrongdoing and has filed suit against Reuters for defamation in Japan over a story related to the allegations.

PAGCOR's dual role as operator and regulator means that if there is enough evidence to show bribery they could immediately strip Okada of the license. Jay Santiago, chief legal counsel at PAGCOR, said the license was not transferable but ownership could change with approval.

Okada's subsidiary, Tiger Resorts Leisure and Entertainment, said on December 12. that it had signed an initial deal with property company Robinsons Land Corp (RLC.PS), run by local billionaire John Gokongwei.

"Everybody is excited about the integrated resort development," Frederick Go, Robinson's president and Gokongwei's nephew, said in an interview. "Potentially if you look at what the others are projecting to do, it would double our profitability." (Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato and Rosemarie Francisco in Manila and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bangalore; Editing by Alex Richardson, Emily Kaiser, Mark Bendeich and Ron Popeski)

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48 Hours in Tokyo around New Year's

1 of 2. The silhouette of Japan's highest mountain Mount Fuji (C) is seen beyond buildings in Tokyo December 12, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Issei Kato

By Elaine Lies

TOKYO | Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:52am EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo is one of the world's most crowded and bustling cities, but anyone who travels there around New Year's will be able to see a far different face as workaholic Japan takes its longest holiday of the year.

Christmas, which is a normal work day, is mainly a retail event, with Japan devoting all its energy to "Oshogatsu," the New Year period extending roughly from Dec 29 to Jan 3 - the first part in frantic preparation, the second in enjoyment.

Days of dry, crisp cold bring clear air and sharp views of Mount Fuji from many parts of the city, and with most Japanese companies closed and many people back in their hometowns, trains and streets empty out and the capital takes on a laid-back and leisurely air for those who choose to stay.

Reuters correspondents with local knowledge help visitors get the most out of a 48-hour visit.

FRIDAY

5 p.m. - Head to "Ameyokocho," one of Tokyo's oldest market streets. Bracketing the raised tracks of the Yamanote Line and running south from Ueno Station on Tokyo's northern side, the area is boisterous on regular weekends but really cranks it up at this time of year as people come shopping for New Year feasting. Just about anything imaginable is for sale here - fish on trays of ice, piled vegetables and fruits. Vendors shout to attract business under bright lights, and pots of food at nearby open-air restaurant stalls steam in the cold.

New Year food is called "Osechi," and housewives prepare enough for the three days from New Year's day so they don't have to do any cooking then. Most foods have symbolic meanings, like simmered black soybeans for good health, and herring roe, which symbolizes a wish to have many children. Many people eat sea bream, whose Japanese name echoes the word "congratulations."

6 p.m. - If you decide not to drop into one of the restaurants under the train tracks for some sticks of grilled meat and a glass or two of hot sake, hop on the Yamanote Line at Okachimachi Station and get off a few stops later at Yurakucho, on the edge of the posh Ginza shopping area.

The area under the tracks is crammed with restaurants, from Italian to Thai and Californian cuisine. But try "Andy's Shin Hinomoto," across from the Yurakucho Denki Building. Run by genial Briton Andy, Shin Hinomoto features sashimi, stir fries, tempura and daily specials in a long room with arched ceilings and a jovial, casual atmosphere. (03-3214-8021) As the evening wears on, loud groups of people drift out into the street after "Bonenkai," or "Forget the Year" parties, in many cases a bit the worse for wear.

9 p.m. - Stroll the Ginza, checking out the window decorations in stores like Cartier, or lit-up trees in front of Mikimoto, the pearl shop. Other colourful displays can be found in Roppongi Hills or the Marunouchi area near Tokyo Station.

As New Year's day nears, many stores will also sport large "kadomatsu" decorations - literally "gate pines" - consisting of pine boughs and bamboo stalk arrangements on each side of the door. This is echoed in private homes, where pine is used to welcome ancestral spirits.

Stop to admire the lit-up front of Tokyo Station, unveiled in its pre-war classical brick glory in October after an extensive exterior renovation.

SATURDAY

4:30 a.m. - If you can pry yourself out of bed, or never went, head for Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market and the tuna auctions. Long a tourist staple, entrance has been limited to 140 people a day since 2010. People who want to see the auctions must apply on a first-come, first-serve basis from 4:30 a.m. at the Fish Information Center at the Kachidoki entrance. One group of 70 will be let in between 5:00-5:40, the other from 5:40-6:15.

Though the tuna auction is the highlight, wandering the aisles between stalls in the rest of the market is fun too. Take in the boxes of flopping eels, heaps of clams, or tunas being cut apart with band saws. Shopping here too is at fever pitch.

8 a.m. - Breakfast on sushi in any of the restaurants inside the market. Though the thought of fish this early may be daunting, do it - the freshness is more than worth it.

9 a.m. - Take the Ginza Subway line to Asakusa and make your way to Sensoji, the Asakusa Kannon temple. Enter through the Kaminarimon, a bright red gate with a huge dangling lantern, and head up the Nakamise shopping street. Though many of the goods here are of the cheap souvenir variety, other stalls offer crisp, freshly made rice crackers and other tasty treats.

Sensoji is popular for "Hatsumode," or the first shrine and temple visits of the New Year, when people go to pray for good luck in the coming year. It can take hours to move the 200 metres (yards) up Nakamise, but the mood is jovial amidst incense smoke from huge metal burners near the main temple building. Millions visit Sensoji and other popular sites, such as the Meiji Shrine, during the first three days of the year - some wearing the traditional kimono.

Other people make these visits at midnight on the 31st, when temple bells all over Japan boom out 108 times for each of the sins of mankind. Trains run all night and some restaurants and pubs stay open until dawn.

Afterwards, wander around the Asakusa area, which still has an old neighbourhood flavour. About five minutes' walk from the temple is a street of open-air restaurants selling grilled meat on skewers and stewed tripe with tofu. Belly up to a counter stool and have some beer or hot sake.

1 p.m. - Head east across the Sumida River. You'll pass the headquarters of Asahi Beer - recognisable by the "Flamme d'Or" (Golden Flame) sculpture on its roof that locals refer to as "The Golden Turd" - on your way to Tokyo's newest landmark: the Tokyo Skytree.

A futuristic broadcasting tower of dubious beauty, the Skytree is 634-metres high and has been certified by Guinness as the world's tallest tower. It anchors a shopping and pleasure complex that includes movie theatres and an aquarium, and boasts two observation decks: one at 350 metres and the other at 450 metres. (here)

Tickets to the observatories cost 2,000 yen for the lower one and 1,000 yen for the higher one, and can be bought on the day. But check the website for special periods, such as New Year's, when other arrangements may have to be made.

6 p.m. - Feel daring? Then eat at Torafugu Tei Monzen Naka-cho (r.gnavi.co.jp/fl/en/b267803/), which features fugu, the blowfish that can be fatal if improperly prepared. Torafugu Tei has reasonably priced courses that start with delicate slices of raw fugu fanned across a plate and ends with a thick rice porridge in fugu-flavoured soup. To drink, try hot sake with a lightly grilled fugu fin in it for flavor.

SUNDAY

8 a.m. - If it's the first or fourth Sunday of the month, check out the flea market at the Togo Shrine, at Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line. The shrine is crowded with vendors selling everything from junk to elaborate wedding kimonos and antiques. Also on the first Sunday is a flea market at Arai Yakushi Shrine at Arai Yakushi-mae on the Seibu Shinjuku Line. Hope for good weather as it's cancelled in the event of rain.

11 a.m. - Brunch at Suji's (www.sujis.net), a restaurant in the Roppongi entertainment district with all the traditional options, including Eggs Benedict or even just two eggs with home fries and toast. Large portions and good prices.

1 p.m. - With the construction of several new museums in recent years, Roppongi is now billing itself as "Art Triangle Roppongi." Within a short walking distance are the Mori Art Museum, the Suntory Museum of Art, and The National Art Center, Tokyo. (here) Notable is the Mori Art Museum, on the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower in the Roppongi Hills complex, which offers good views along with the art. Both Roppongi Hills and the Tokyo Midtown, near the National Art Center, have seasonal light displays.

3 p.m. - Take the Hibiya Subway line up to Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics mecca. Year-end bargains are likely to abound, and many stores - like stores all over Japan - offer "fukubukuro," or lucky bags, on January 1. Each bag is sold for a set price, but the contents are unknown. Take a chance! (Reporting by Elaine Lies, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Top 10 New Year favourites

Men dressed as vikings stand in front of a 40 foot-long viking longship as it is burned on Calton Hill in Edinburgh for the city's Hogmanay (New Year) celebrations December 29, 2004.

Credit: Reuters/Jeff J Mitchell

BOSTON | Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:29am EST

BOSTON (Reuters) - New Year is a time for fresh starts, hopes, dreams and saying goodbye to the old year.

At this time of festive camaraderie and reflection, online travel adviser Cheapflights (www.cheapflights.com) offers its Top 10 favourite New Year traditions from across the globe. Reuters has not endorsed this list:

1. Germany & Finland

How about a spot of fortune telling to ring in the New Year?

Molybdomancy is an ancient technique of divination that involves interpreting the shapes made by dropping molten lead into cold water.

On New Year's Eve in Germany and Finland, family and friends come together for a spot of lead pouring - Bleigießen in German and uudenvuodentina in Finnish - and make predictions for the coming year.

It isn't an exact science and there are no firm rules on what the shapes actually represent. A bubbly surface can mean money is coming your way; a broken shape misfortune. Ships refer to travelling; a ball means luck; a monkey says beware of false friends; and a hedgehog means someone is jealous of you. But don't get too worried if you receive a bad fortune - the predictions are just for fun.

2. Mexico

In Mexico, families celebrate New Year's (Vispera de Año Nuevo) with a mix of religion, tradition, superstition and special festive foods.

Families decorate their homes in colours that represent wishes for the upcoming year: red for love, yellow for work and green for money. For even more wishes, Mexicans eat a grape (preferably seedless) with each of the 12 clock chimes at the stroke of midnight, while making a wish with each grape.

To start the year with a clean slate, another tradition involves writing a list of all the bad and unhappy events that happened over the year, then before midnight the list is thrown into a fire and the negative feelings of the past year are gone.

In keeping with the country's Catholic traditions, Mexican sweet bread (Rosca de Reyes) is baked with a coin or charm hidden in the dough. When the bread is served, whoever gets the slice with the coin or charm is said to be blessed with good luck for the New Year.

3. Wales

Calennig, the Welsh name for New Year, means New Year celebration or gift and since ancient times the tradition in Wales has been to give gifts and money to friends, family and neighbours. Today, it is customary to give bread and cheese on New Year's morning, with children receiving skewered apples covered with raisins and fruit. In some parts of Wales, people must visit all their relatives by midday to collect their Calennig. That's a lot of bread and cheese!

4. Japan

The Japanese New Year (Oshogatsu) is marked with a range of cultural and religious traditions from eating special family meals and making temple visits to sending postcards. Since 1873 Oshogatsu has been celebrated on January 1, but traditionally it followed the Chinese lunar calendar. O-misoka (New Year's Eve) welcomes Toshigami, the New Year's god, and across the country people celebrate with concerts, countdowns and fireworks as well as more traditional activities.

It is customary to send handwritten New Year's Day postcards (nengajo) to friends and family and the post office guarantees any cards sent in time will arrive on January 1.

Food plays a big part in New Year's celebrations. People eat a special selection of dishes called osechi-ryori, including of boiled seaweed (konbu), fish cakes (kamaboko), mashed sweet potato with chestnut (kurikinton), simmered burdock root (kinpira gobo), and sweetened black soybeans (kuromame).

Around 11 pm, people gather at home for one last time in the old year and eat a bowl of noodles-long noodles are associated with crossing over from one year to the next.

On the stroke of midnight, Buddhist Temples across the country ring their bells exactly 108 times. One of the most breathtaking celebrations takes place at the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo where thousands of people gather to release silver helium balloons carrying New Year's wishes into the midnight sky.

After the clocks strike 12, many families visit a shrine or temple for Hatsumode (first shrine visit of the year).

On New Year's Day, the Japanese give money to children in a tradition known as otoshidama. Money is handed in small decorated envelopes called pochibukuro. The amount of money given depends on the age of the child, but it is not uncommon for kids to get more than ¥10,000 (US$120).

5. Philippines

In the Philippines, New Year's Eve (Bisperas ng Bagong Taon) is a public holiday and people usually celebrate in the company of family and close friends. Traditionally, most households host or attend a Media Noche (dinner party).

Most Filipinos follow a set of traditions that includes wearing clothes with dots (in the belief that circles attract money and fortune) and bright colours to show enthusiasm for the coming year.

Throwing coins at the stroke of midnight is said to increase wealth as does serving circular shaped fruits and shaking of coins inside a metal can while walking around the house.

Things really get loud as people make noises by blowing on cardboard or plastic horns (torotot) banging pots and pans, playing music, or lighting fireworks to scare away bad spirits.

6. Scotland

Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the year and has become one of the world's most recognized New Year's celebrations.

The roots of Hogmanay date back to the celebration of the winter solstice, incorporating elements of the Gaelic celebration of Samhain.

There are many customs, local and national, linked with Hogmanay. The most widespread is the practice of 'first-footing' which starts immediately after midnight. First-footing involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour's home and giving symbolic gifts such as salt, coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (a rich fruit cake) to bring luck to the householder. This goes on throughout the early hours of the morning and into the next day, and can last well into mid-January.

But it's not just about ancient traditions in Scotland. On New Year's Day a new custom has begun to take hold - the Loony Dook. Since 1987, the brave (and the mad) have taken the plunge into the icy cold River Forth in Queensferry, Edinburgh for a refreshing start to the year. A sure fire way to get rid of a hangover, the event attracts thousands of Loonies, spectators and swimmers alike.

7. Ecuador

One of Ecuador's quirkiest traditions sees men putting on their finest frocks and dressing up as women to represent the "widow" of the year that has passed.

However, the focus of the country's celebrations comes in a much more fiery form.

At midnight, families and communities come together to light fireworks and burn Monigotes - papier-mâché effigies - of politicians, public figures and popular culture icons.

The puppets range from small, simple, homemade offerings to giant, detailed, professionally made creations.

The puppets are filled with sawdust or newspaper and, in some cases, firecrackers. Burning the Monigotes represents getting rid of the bad feelings, events and spirits of the past year.

8. Greece

While Christmas in Greece is a relatively solemn occasion, New Year's Day is filled with celebrations and gift giving. January 1 is the name day of Aghios Vassilis (St. Basil), the Greek Santa Claus, and many customs are based upon his arrival.

On the morning of New Year's Eve, children go door to door and ask permission to sing kalanta (carols) to bring good wishes to their neighbours, announce the coming of Aghios Vassilis and bless the house.

Later in the evening, families gather for a meal of roast lamb or pork and an extra place is set at the table for Aghios Vassilis.

An onion is hung on the front door (alongside a pomegranate that has been hanging since Christmas) as a symbol of rebirth and growth.

Around midnight the household lights are switched off and the family goes outside. One lucky person is given the pomegranate and smashes it against the door as the clock strikes midnight.

As the New Year rolls over, Greek families all over the world cut into a cake - the Vassilopita - bearing the name of Aghios Vassilis. Each Vassilopita is baked with a coin or medallion hidden inside and whoever gets it will be rewarded with good fortune in the New Year.

9. Italy

As you might expect, New Year's celebrations in Italy start with eating a whole heap of delicious foods.

The evening begins with the traditional dish, "cotechino e lenticchie." Cotechino is a savoury pork sausage that contains "lo zampone," the actual hoof of the pig, and is a symbol of abundance. Lenticchie (lentils) are believed to bring good luck and prosperity in the coming year to those who eat them on New Year's Eve and represent the money that you will earn in the coming year. So the more you eat, the more you!

If you're looking for love, or a bit of help in the fertility department, red underwear is the way to go on New Year's Eve. To complete the ritual, these red delicates must be thrown out on January 1.

Sadly, several of Italy's more wild New Year traditions are rarely seen today.

In the past, people would throw old personal effects out their windows (it doesn't hurt to be wary of open windows on New Year's just in case) and smash plates, glasses, vases and other pottery against the ground to drive away bad spirits.

10. Chile

The citizens of Chile have developed a range of traditions to bring them luck and help make their wishes come true in the New Year.

Several sure-fire ways of scoring yourself some good fortune involve food and drink. Eating lentils and downing a dozen grapes - one for each month of the year - on New Year's Eve will ensure prosperity in the coming year as will drinking a glass of champagne with a gold ring inside.

Sticking a "luca" (1,000 Chilean peso bill) in your shoe before midnight will see it multiply in the coming year and, if you're feeling generous and want to spread the good will around, give your friends, family and neighbours ribbon-wrapped sprigs of wheat at midnight.

But it's not all about money.

Wear yellow undies for romance, wear them inside out for a well-stocked closet and wheel your luggage around the block if you're dreaming of travel.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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