Asian shares recover on firm euro zone data, yen slips

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares recovered on Wednesday as solid euro zone data calmed nerves jarred by potential political turmoil in Spain and Italy, while the prospect of a dovish new governor for the Bank of Japan dragged the yen to a new low.

Sentiment for other risk assets also improved, pushing London copper up 0.4 percent to $8,302.75 a tonne to a near four-month high, while Brent crude hovered near a 20-week high. Signs of recovery taking root in Europe, the United States and China have helped improve the demand outlook.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> added 0.3 percent, tracking an overnight gain in global equities on data showing the U.S. services sector extended a three-year expansion in January and business activity in the euro zone climbed to a 10-month high last month.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained over 1 percent.

In Asia, investors have been quick to book profits as prices approached their highs, but analysts and traders say any dip was likely to be seen as a chance to buy back into the market.

The pan-Asian index scaled a 18-month high on Monday, and was up about 2.3 percent so far this year, considerably modest compared to the S&P's nearly 6 percent gain in the same period.

Australian shares <.axjo> jumped 0.9 percent, leading the regional peers.

"We're following on from a pretty good lead from global markets last night," said Steve Daghlian, market analyst at Commonwealth Securities, of Australian equities.

Brent crude was up 0.2 percent to $116.72 a barrel while U.S. crude was barely changed at $96.64.

Japanese equities and government bonds rose while the yen touched fresh lows on expectations for stronger reflationary policies from the BOJ.

The dollar touched 93.91 yen to its highest since May 2010, while the euro also rose to 127.65 yen, its loftiest since April 2010. The Aussie reached a 4-1/2 year peak around 97.42 yen. The pound touched a 3-year high near 147.25 yen.

Yen selling resumed after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said he would step down on March 19, three weeks earlier than the official end of his five-year term, leaving at the same time as his two deputies, and raising the prospect that the next BOJ governor will more readily adopt the expansionist monetary policy demanded by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"The Bank of Japan is about to get a lot more dovish, and sooner than previously thought," said Christopher Vecchio, a currency analyst at DailyFX.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> soared 3.1 percent to a 33-month high. <.t/>

"I think the market could yet rise when they announce the new governor's name, particularly if it makes an asset purchase budget of 50 trillion yen ($535 billion) from the BOJ more likely," said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley.

The 10-year JGB yield fell 1.5 basis points to 0.775 percent after opening higher, at 0.800 percent.

The euro drew support from growing confidence in the region's economy and improving funding conditions for deeply-indebted euro zone members.

News the European Central Bank's balance sheet fell to an 11-month low of 2.8 trillion euros ($3.8 trillion) as markets unwound some of the ECB's crisis funding measures underpinned the euro, coming in stark contrast to the U.S. Federal Reserve and the BOJ which keep expanding asset buying.

"Flows matter more than stock in currency markets when comparing central bank balance sheets ... highlighting the euro's outperformance over the last few months," said Ashraf Laidi, chief global strategist at City Index, in a note to clients.

The euro was steady at $1.3578, above a key technical support of its 14-day moving average at $1.34653.

The ECB is expected to keep interest rates unchanged at its policy meeting on Thursday, but its president may face a grilling over an Italian banking scandal.

Spanish and Italian yields fell on Tuesday after jumping on worries over a corruption scandal in Spain and polls showing Italy's former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regaining ground before elections this month.

The yen's fall lifted benchmark Tokyo gold futures to a record high of 5,067 yen per gram on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Ian Chua and Thuy Ong in Sydney and Ayai Tomisawa and Sophie Knight in Tokyo; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Read More..

India Ink: Five Questions For: Journalist and Author Mary Harper

Mary Harper, the Africa editor at the BBC World Service, is the author of “Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State,” which was released in February 2012. While she is particularly interested in Somalia, which she visits regularly, Ms. Harper has reported from several other African conflict zones, including Algeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan. India Ink interviewed Ms. Harper at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

What are the occupational hazards of being a writer?

It is interesting how different the experience of being a writer is to being a journalist. As a journalist, you’re a writer as well, but I never realized that the two things would be so completely different. I’m a broadcast journalist so I normally write pieces that are about 30 seconds or one minute long so the challenge of writing a book was pretty big for me.

It was a slow start, but once I got into it, it was like I was a thing possessed, and I could not stop doing that. The research in a way was about 20 years of working in Somalia, and I did a lot of reading for it as well, which took about a year. But the actual writing of it took me about six months, and I did that at the same time as I was working for the BBC. So I had virtually no time for anything and had to be really focused.

What is your everyday writing ritual?

I couldn’t work at home, and I didn’t write my book at the BBC. I wrote it in two libraries in London because I kind of needed to be with other people who were working quietly. One of them is the library at the School of Oriental and African Studies, which was brilliant in terms of the resources.

My favorite place to really write was in the British Library. It’s funny because it’s quite easy to join and it’s free for all, but there was a place in the top floor called Africa room or something, and there was this chair in there that I thought of as mine, and if ever anyone was sitting on that chair I used to get angry. It was a public library so it was kind of terrible that I used to get possessive about that chair. But if someone else was sitting there, I would walk past them and try to stare them away.

Why should we read your latest book?

The image that most people have of Somalia is that it’s a land full of pirates, starving people and terrorists. I got so tired of writing the pirate stories. Even at the BBC, they called me the “pirate queen” because I was the one who used to interview the pirates and things. I got this reputation as a person who covers piracy, and it was driving me mad.

And it was actually things like that made me want to tell the story of Somalia that I saw whenever I went there, which didn’t match the way that it was portrayed. I wanted to talk about the amazing economic dynamism of people, the money that is in the country, the fact that Africa’s biggest money transfer company is based there, the fact that large parts of the territory that function as if they were independent countries, the fact that they have incredibly cheap and efficient mobile phone services — they use their mobile phones to pay money – all sorts of things like that that were just not being talked about.

It was almost like there was a conspiracy against telling those stories because they didn’t fit into that Western image of Africa as the dark, hopeless, conflict-ridden, famine-ridden continent.

How do you deal with your critics?

Certainly, writing about Somalia, you are definitely going to get some vicious criticism from Somalis because they are incredibly opinionated, and they are never afraid to tell you exactly what they think. I was expecting more – I was actually surprised by how well received my book has been by Somalis.

Of course, I’ll get very targeted specific attacks on certain subjects. But I think because I was so careful when I wrote my book, I feel comfortable with every single word . So even if someone doesn’t agree with me, I feel capable of explaining why I said the things I said.

Why does the Jaipur Literature Festival matter to you?

It’s just been the most magical experience. It’s interesting because the last literature festival I attended was this one in this part of Somalia called Somaliland. It’s a tiny little festival, but actually there are lots of parallels. And what I loved about that one is that in this country that is associated with war you saw how literature and art and poetry allow people to think about other things and actually start doing other things.

And here, just seeing the enthusiasm of the crowd — we were joking before we went on to the panel about Africa that no one’s going to come – and in fact it was packed! The fact that there is this thirst for knowledge and this thirst for stimulating debate all over the world is just so encouraging. And maybe this sounds a little silly and romantic, but you kind of wish that people would spend more time doing things like this than starting wars.

(This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

Read More..

Jillian Michaels: My Son Phoenix Is 'Fiery' Like Me

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/04/2013 at 03:00 PM ET

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Jillian Michaels‘ son Phoenix is already taking after his mama — just not the expected one!

Although The Biggest Loser trainer expected her baby boy to inherit her partner’s laidback approach to life — Heidi Rhoades delivered their son in May — the 8-month-old’s budding personality is the polar opposite.

“He wants to walk and he gets really pissed about it when he can’t. He gets frustrated,” Michaels, 38, told PEOPLE at the recent TCAs.

“He’s a fiery little sucker, he’s just like me. I’m like, ‘You were supposed to be like Heidi!’ But he’s not. It’s not good, not good.”

Admitting she is “terrified for when he’s a teenager,” Michaels has good reason to be: Recently she spotted her son — who is “crawling aggressively” — putting his electrician skills to the test in the family room.

“He’s into everything, which is kind of a nightmare to be totally honest,” she says. “We have an outlet in the floor in the living room and I caught him eating the outlet on the floor … I was like, ‘Mother of God!’”

Phoenix’s big sister Lukensia, 3, has also been busy keeping her mamas on their toes. “Lu just had her first ski trip and she had a little crush on her teacher, Ollie,” Michaels shares.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re letting our baby go!’ The second day we took her she ran right to him — loves Ollie.”

');var brightcovevideoid = 2096123300001

');var targetVideoWidth = 300;brightcove.createExperiences();/* iPhone, iPad, iPod */if ((navigator.userAgent.match('iPhone')) || (navigator.userAgent.match('iPad')) || (navigator.userAgent.match('iPod')) || (location.search.indexOf('ipad=true') > -1)) { document.write('

Read More..

Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Read More..

Asian shares drop on euro zone worry, soft U.S. data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares slid on Tuesday as investors saw opportunities to cash in from recent strong rallies in the face of weak U.S. data and worries that a potential political shake-up could disrupt the eurozone's efforts to resolve its debt crisis.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> tumbled 0.8 percent, dragged lower by a steep 1.8 percent fall in Hong Kong shares <.hsi>.

The euro took the brunt of renewed focus on the euro zone problems, having risen 2.3 percent so far this year against the U.S. dollar, up about 5.4 percent against sterling and 1.8 percent higher against the Australian dollar.

The euro eased 0.1 percent to $1.3496, retreating further from Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711, ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday.

The euro's fall helped euro/crosses recover, underpinning such currencies as the Australian dollar against the U.S. unit.

Aussie eased 0.1 percent to $1.0423 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate steady at 3.0 percent, as expected, having just cut in December.

Spain's opposition party on Sunday called for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign over a corruption scandal, an allegation Rajoy denies, pushing Spanish 10-year bond yields to six-week highs.

In Italy, 10-year Italian government bond yields hit their highest since late December, as chances of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regaining power raised worries about Rome's ability to fix its fiscal problems.

"Markets have been increasingly comfortable with European risks over the past few months and are largely not positioned for this increase in political problems. The outcomes in Spain and Italy are far from certain and may represent stumbling blocks for further expansion in risk appetite," Barclays Capital said in a research note.

The yen took a breather, firming from lows against a broad range of currencies.

The dollar was down slightly at 92.31 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 93.185 on Monday, while the euro eased 0.1 percent to 124.61 yen, off its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 hit on Friday.

"Markets are broadly undergoing a correction and the euro is definitely facing profit-taking, given the pace of its climb. Worries about the euro zone debt crisis always remain a downside risk for the euro, and could push it lower to $1.32-$1.33," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan at UBS in Tokyo. "But the trend is still upward for dollar/yen, cross/yen. The dollar could reach 95 yen by the end of the month."

As long as markets hold out expectations for the Bank of Japan to implement aggressive monetary easing to beat decades of deflation in Japan, the yen will stay pressured. Any correction to the dollar's rise against the yen was also be seen as shallow, with many traders and analysts seeing a firm floor around 87-88 yen.

Relatively positive data from China on Tuesday failed to change the bearish mood, weighed down by a fall in overnight U.S. equities, which have rallied 6 percent so far this year, on discouraging U.S. factory orders and euro zone jitters.

The HSBC services purchasing managers' index rose to a four-month high of 54 in January from December's 51.7, underlining confidence in the world's second-biggest economy, which is expected to grow 8.1 percent this year, off a 13-year low of 7.8 percent hit in 2012.

"The data globally is unquestionably better but the recovery still seems gradual. (China) hit the bottom and they had a bit of a bounce but nothing much else happened. We don't really seem to have preconditions for a much stronger bounce than that (8 percent growth)," said Richard Yetsenga, Head of Global Markets at ANZ Research.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> fell 1.3 percent, after scaling a 33-month high on Monday. <.t/>

U.S. stocks slid on Monday, leaving the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> at its worst day since November after the index rose just 60-odd points away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 on Friday.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

Read More..

India Ink: 'Lalla Roukh' at the Rose Theater

Richard Termine for The New York Times

Lalla Roukh Marianne Fiset and Emiliano Gonzalez Toro starred in this work presented by Opera Lafayette on Thursday at the Rose Theater.

On Thursday evening Opera Lafayette presented a graceful and witty production of Félicien David’s “Lalla Roukh” at the Rose Theater. This opéra-comique set in Mughal India had fallen into oblivion since its wildly successful premiere in 1862, well ahead of the wave of other French operas like Bizet’s “Pêcheurs de Perles,” Delibes’s “Lakmé” or Meyerbeer’s “Africaine.”

Operas like these, in which the West’s flirtation with distant locales is colored with condescension, can bring on a toothache in the stage director who has to choose between an unreconstructed eye-candy approach or a Splenda version that leaves an aftertaste of postcolonial embarrassment.

Here the director, Bernard Deletré, devised an unusual solution when he brought in an Indian fashion designer, Poonam Bhagat, and the exquisite Kalanidhi dance troupe choreographed by Anuradha Nehru to add vibrant touches of authenticity to the dress and movement of characters who otherwise seem less rooted in South Asia than in commedia dell’arte. The spoken dialogue was edited down to its dramatic essentials and delivered with great clarity by the glowing cast of singers, most of whom were native French speakers. Together with Ryan Brown, who conducted with a fine ear for flow and comic timing, they made a solid case for “Lalla Roukh” as an overlooked gem of more than historical interest.

The heroine is a princess from Delhi who travels to Bukhara to marry its king. On a mountain pass in Kashmir she is waylaid by a silver-tongued poet with whom she falls in love. She arrives at the court determined to throw over the royal match in favor of the penniless poet, but it turns out that he was in fact the king disguised to test Lalla Roukh’s heart.

The opera contains exquisite musical moments, like the ballet in Act I in which the chorus evokes the starry sky reflected in a clear mountain lake with filigree woodwind solos against caressing choral lines. The following ballet of bayadères is carried by lively rhythms on an array of exotic percussion instruments, here joined by the ankle bells of the dancers.

Although David’s Orientalism is never authentic, it is still rich in naturalistic touches. As a young man he spent two years in Cairo and his familiarity with non-Western modes comes through in finely wrought oboe solos, alluring chromatic vocal lines and, in one aria, pizzicato passages meant to imitate the sound of a guzla.

Marianne Fiset sang the title role with a glowing, well-supported soprano that brought out the Jane Austen-like independence and likability of her character. The tenor Emiliano Gonzalez Toro was outstanding as the poet-king Noureddin, bringing a scintillating array of nuances to a character who is by turns comic, regal and wistful. The role of Lalla Roukh’s quick-witted maid, Mirza, was sung by Nathalie Paulin with a honeyed soprano. Mr. Deletré, the director, stepped into the buffoonish role of Baskir, the king’s chamberlain, with conviction and comic abandon.

Read More..

Is it game over for Nintendo?

The Wii U is a bust (so far). And the legendary gaming company’s future is looking increasingly bleak

Nintendo had no choice but to go all in with the Wii U, the newest in a long line of ostensibly childhood-defining game consoles. Unfortunately, the company also inherited the weighty expectations of the original Wii — which, if you’ll remember, became a surprise hit when it debuted in 2006, or just two short years after the world was first introduced to a little-known senator named Barack Obama. But ever since the Wii U hit store shelves last November, sales have been disappointing. Now the company is dramatically lowering its forecasts for the future. 

Initial sales figures indicate that Nintendo has so far sold just 3.06 million Wii U game consoles, and anticipates moving just four million Wii U units through March — far below previous estimates of 5.5 million, predictions that weren’t even that optimistic to begin with. 

Initial reviews of the Wii U were mixed. Yes, it’s fun. But the console failed to offer a compelling reason for consumers to free up dusty shelf space alongside their Xbox 360s or PlayStation 3s. Some critics say the console is confused, and Nintendo didn’t know if it was targeting mature gamers fixated on first-person shooter games like Call of Duty and Borderlands, or more casual fans like the original Wii did with its motion-sensing nunchuck. Further complicating matters is a nimble new mobile industry, dominated by non-committal, take-anywhere games like Temple Run and Angry Birds. 

“Nintendo needs a change in strategy,” Michael Pachter, a gaming research analyst for Wedbush Securities, tells The New York Times. Even though Nintendo is an instantly recognizable brand the world over, the company still doesn’t license its gaming titles for other platforms (ever see Mario on an iPhone?). To make matters worse, on Thursday, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company has no intention of lowering the price of its $ 300 flagship gaming system anytime soon. “We were already offering it at a good price,” he said. 

That means Nintendo, unless it releases a best-selling breakout title soon (Zelda, perhaps? Super Smash Bros. Brawl?), will continue on its path toward an increasingly dark future. The company already had its worst year ever in 2011. Dramatic restructuring seems imminent.

Consoles — compared to phones, tablets, laptops, and many other gadgets — have a much slower product cycle. Manufacturers only press “reset” every couple of years so that game-makers aren’t constantly readjusting to new hardware.

For quickly aging dinosaurs like Nintendo, that means more plodding along. More disappointing forecasts. More reluctant critics. More lost opportunities to earn the trust of lifelong fans. More, more, more. (Or for Nintendo, less, less, less?)

“People have to try it to see it is fun,” Iwata said of the Wii U. Undoubtedly, it is.

But unfortunately for Nintendo, “fun” just isn’t good enough anymore.

View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week

Other stories from this topic:

Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily Newsletter
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Is it game over for Nintendo?
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/is-it-game-over-for-nintendo/
Link To Post : Is it game over for Nintendo?
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

What Football Game? Beyoncé Rocks the Superdome in Leather & Lace

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/03/2013 at 09:06 PM ET

One thing was certain going into Super Bowl XLVII: Beyoncé was going to put on a killer halftime show, and she was going to look amazing doing it. And if she practiced until her feet bled, there was no sign of it as she danced in her towering heels.

To strut out onstage during ‘Crazy In Love,’ the star wore an uncharacteristically demure belted lamé mini with wide lapels, but she quickly tore it away to reveal a leather bodysuit with a black lace skirt worn over her signature fishnets. She completed the look with thigh-highs and sexy black booties.

Destiny’s Child fans missing the trio’s epic matching outfits were given a treat when Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams proved the rumors true, joining Beyoncé onstage for a medley that included ‘Bootylicious’ and ‘Single Ladies.’ Their costumes echoed Bey’s: Rowland wore a revealing V-neck Emilio Pucci bodysuit, while Williams was glam in a tough-girl ribbed leather mini.

And to ensure that Beyoncé’s hair was supremely whip-able (as demonstrated during ‘Baby Boy’ and ‘Halo’), stylist Kim Kimble gave her a “soft glam” look by curling it, then brushing out the curls and smoothing them with Kimble Hair Care Brazilian Nut and Acai serum. She sprayed it with L’Oréal’s classic Elnett hairspray to ensure it wouldn’t budge no matter what the superstar put it through.

Tell us: What did you think of Beyoncé’s Super Bowl outfit — and the Destiny’s Child reunion looks?

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: VOTE ON MORE STAR STYLE HERE!

Read More..

Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Read More..

Asian shares advance after U.S. jobs, ISM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares advanced on Monday, drawing momentum from U.S. data showing some promise of a credible recovery, supported by Federal Reserve's easing plans and solid manufacturing data from Europe and China.

The yen took a break from heavy selling against the U.S. dollar and the euro, but fell to its lowest since August 2008 against the Australian and New Zealand dollars early on Monday on confidence of bold monetary support from the Bank of Japan to overcome the country's stubborn deflation.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.6 percent after posting a weekly gain of 0.7 percent.

"Asian shares are likely to take the cues from the rise in U.S. equities and prices of risk assets are generally expected to face upward pressures," said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose to 14,000 for the first time since October 2007 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> hit its highest point since December of that year.

U.S. data showed on Friday payrolls rose by 157,000 last month, with upward revisions for November and December, while the Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity rose to its highest since April.

China followed with positive news over the weekend, saying growth in its official purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector ticked up in January for the fourth straight monthly rise, confirming the world's second-largest economy was showing a modest recovery.

Resources-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> steadied after jumping 0.9 percent to a 21-month high on Friday. Positive economic news from China, Australia's largest export destination, usually boosts Australian investor sentiment.

South Korean shares <.ks11> were up 0.3 percent while Hong Kong shares <.hsi> added 0.7 percent.

NIKKEI MAY BE PEAKING

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> rose 0.5 percent after climbing to a fresh 33-month high earlier as the yen declined. The index logged its 12th straight week of increases last week, the longest run of weekly gains since 1959. <.t/>

Nikkei has been moving in tandem with the yen's two-month-long losing streak with investors eyeing the change in the BOJ's top personnel in April for clues on the degree of the bank's reflationary policy.

"The Nikkei may be nearing its peak for now as we may get a specific name of the most likely candidate for the next BOJ governor soon. That may provide an opportunity to close long dollar/yen positions, while a firming yen will then likely spur investors to book profits on Japanese stocks," said Tetsuro Ii, the chief executive of Commons Asset Management.

The dollar eased 0.1 percent to 92.72 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 92.97 on Friday, while the euro fell 0.3 percent to 126.32 yen, still near its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 touched on Friday.

In early Monday trade, the yen plunged to its lowest since August 2008 against both the Australian dollar, at 96.78 yen, and against the New Zealand dollar at 78.74 yen.

The euro inched down 0.1 percent to $1.3624, off Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711 hit after data showed euro zone factories had their best month in January in nearly a year.

On Friday, the dollar index measured against a basket of key currencies fell to a 4-1/2-month low of 78.918 <.dxy>. The index was up 0.2 percent on Monday.

As economic optimism rose and concerns about the euro zone's debt difficulties eased, investors took on more risk.

Research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said on Saturday investors poured a record $77.4 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, surpassing the previous monthly record of $53.7 billion in February 2000.

In the oil market, tension across the Middle East put Brent crude on track to its biggest weekly gain since mid-November, and U.S. crude rose for an eighth straight week, although it eased 0.2 percent to $97.56 a barrel on Monday.

With the rise in equities on recovering appetite for riskier assets, safe-haven appeal waned, pushing up yields of U.S. Treasury bonds. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield hit a nine-month high of 2.052 percent in Asia on Monday.

A weekly gauge of sentiment in the Japanese government bond market deteriorated sharply, remaining in negative territory for a fifth straight week as rising global appetite for risk sapped demand for bonds, the latest Reuters poll showed on Monday.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

Read More..