India's army chief turns up heat on Pakistan, says can retaliate

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's army chief held out the threat of retaliating against Pakistan for the killing of two soldiers at the de facto border in Kashmir, saying he had asked his ground commanders to be aggressive in the face of provocation.

General Bikram Singh's strong remarks on Monday, amid mounting public anger at the alleged decapitation of one of the slain soldiers, appeared set to ratchet up tensions further with Pakistan, although analysts said a breakdown in ties was highly unlikely.

Islamabad blames India for the latest crisis in ties.

The two nations have fought three wars, two over Kashmir, since independence in 1947 and are now both nuclear-armed.

Terming the beheading of the soldier as "gruesome", Singh told a news conference: "We reserve the right to retaliate at a time and place of our choosing."

Last week's fighting was the worst outbreak of violence in Kashmir, the Himalayan region both nations claim, since the two sides agreed a ceasefire nine years ago

Both armies have lost two soldiers each in the fighting along parts of the 740-km (460-mile) ceasefire line this month. The head of one of soldiers was severed, New Delhi said, inflaming tempers in the country and prompting his family to start a hunger strike demanding that the remains be brought back.

"The attack on January 8 was premeditated, a pre-planned activity. Such an operation requires planning, detailed reconnaissance," Singh said.

His remarks which came hours before local commanders met at a crossing point on the ceasefire line for the first time since the fighting erupted to try and reduce tensions.

There was no immediate word on what happened at the meeting.

Singh said the Indian army would honor the ceasefire in Kashmir, so long as Pakistan did, but would respond immediately to any violation of the truce.

"I expect all my commanders at the Line of Control to be both aggressive and offensive in the face of provocation and fire," he said.

Pakistan has termed the Indian allegations as propaganda and blamed it for violations on the ceasefire line.

The ceasefire in Kashmir has held since it went into effect in November 2003, surviving even the downturn in ties after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 by Pakistan-based militant group.

Analysts said it was unlikely the two armies would escalate the situation further and that Singh's remarks may well be addressed both to maintain the morale of his troops as well to respond to public anger over the mutilation of the bodies.

The family members of the slain Indian soldier, Hemraj Singh, have launched a hunger strike demanding retribution and that his severed head be back brought back. The family is not related to the army chief.

"Our demand is not something big. My brother's head should be brought back and the Pakistanis should be taught a lesson," said Jai Singh in their village in northern India.

The flare-up began on Jan 6 when Islamabad accused Indian soldiers of entering its territory and killing a soldier. India said Pakistani soldiers intruded about 600 meters (yards) into its territory two days later and killed two Indian soldiers on patrol, the attack the army chief was referring to.

Pakistan said one of its soldiers was killed in further fighting on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Satarupa Bhattacharjya; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/india-accuses-pakistan-planning-deadly-kashmir-incident-065036340.html

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Box Office Guru Wrapup: Audiences Propel Zero Dark Thirty to #1

Three films entered wide release shoving holiday holdovers to the side while major Oscar nominees cashed in on the added attention. Leading the way was the Osama bin Laden manhunt pic Zero Dark Thirty which captured the number one spot in its first weekend of wide release following a strong run in limited play. The spoof comedy A Haunted House pulled off an upset by opening in second place ahead of the all-star crime drama Gangster Squad which was in a thousand more theaters. Overall, the marketplace was vibrant inching ahead of the same frame from the last two years which was impressive since those had the added boost of being the MLK holiday weekend. The top four films are all R-rated and five of the top seven movies have running times of two-and-a-half to three hours.

Fighting off controversy and a major Oscar snub, Sony's awards hopeful Zero Dark Thirty surged to the top with an estimated $24M weekend easily leading the field of movie options. The Kathryn Bigelow-directed hit averaged a solid $8,172 from 2,937 locations after expanding from 60 sites last week. The total stands at $29.5M.

After winning a number of best picture awards from critics groups in the northeast, Zero nabbed five Academy Award nominations on Thursday including Best Picture, but not Director which was widely expected to be a lock. In addition, many U.S. Senators have publicly complained about how the film implies that illegal torture methods by the CIA helped in leading to the capture and killing of the terrorist mastermind. The controversy may have sparked curiosity among adult moviegoers and helped to drive in extra traffic. How it will affect Oscar voters in the weeks to come is anyone's guess.

Zero has earned rave reviews from critics and an encouraging A- CinemaScore grade from moviegoers polled on Friday. The R-rated film inched up only 3% on Saturday from Friday. Adult men made up the core crowd as males accounted for 59% of the audience while 62% was over 30. An opening this strong targeted at this audience when major football playoffs are going on both on Saturday and Sunday is especially impressive. The road ahead will not be easy as Hollywood has decided to squeeze five action films into the next three weeks hoping all will connect with ticket buyers.

Open Road scored a big hit with its spoof comedy A Haunted House which surged higher than expected with an opening weekend of $18.8M, according to estimates. Averaging a sturdy $8,712 from 2,160 theaters in the U.S. (it did not open in Canada), the R-rated laugher is a parody of recent found-footage horror hits like the Paranormal Activity series and connected with its target audience of older teens and young adults. In fact this audience was utterly ignored by Hollywood in December and has been responding this month with House and last weekend's top film Texas Chainsaw 3D both overperforming on opening weekend. House stars and was co-written by Marlon Wayans who has had success in the spoof genre throughout his career. The CinemaScore was a disappointing B-.

Settling for third place was the all-star crime drama Gangster Squad with an estimated $16.7M from 3,103 theaters for a moderate $5,385 average. The Warner Bros release had the most theaters and starpower of any of the weekend's three wide openers but attracted the least amount of business. Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and Emma Stone star in the R-rated pic set in 1949 and the cast worked hard in recent weeks by splitting up and appearing on talk shows in New York and Los Angeles.

But reviews were generally negative impacting a film that skews to an older adult audience. Studio research showed that 58% of the crowd was under 35 while males and females were evenly split. The CinemaScore was a decent B+ grade but sales dipped 8% on Saturday from Friday. The other new films enjoyed increases on Saturday.

Best Picture nominee Django Unchained dropped 45% to an estimated $11.1M in its third weekend of release raising its total to a sturdy $125.4M. That makes it Quentin Tarantino's highest grossing film ever surpassing the $120.5M of his last effort, 2009's Inglourious Basterds which was also a nominee for Best Picture. Django is also on track to surpass The King's Speech to become the top-grossing title ever for The Weinstein Co. Also in the race for the big prize, Universal's hot musical Les Mis?rables declined by a lower amount, 37%, and collected an estimated $10.1M for a cume to date of $119.2M. A similar $115.1M has been taken in abroad for a global tally of $234.3M.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey took a bigger tumble falling 48% to an estimated $9.1M for a cume to date of $278.1M for Warner Bros. The global tally rose to $886.1M with China still to open, tentatively in late February. 12 Oscar nominations juiced the grosses for awards frontrunner Lincoln which climbed up 17% from last weekend without any significant expansion. An estimated $6.3M weekend was enough to send the presidential pic over the $150M mark to a total to date of $152.6M with much more to come. As a director, Lincoln is Spielberg's 12th blockbuster to break the $150M domestic mark and he has become the only one ever to score such hits over five consecutive decades.

With all the new films carrying R ratings, Fox's PG-rated comedy Parental Guidance remained the only major choice for families slipping only 37% to an estimated $6.1M and $60.7M to date. Texas Chainsaw 3D, the new year's first chart-topper, took a freefall tumbling from first place all the way down to ninth with an estimated $5.2M for a terrible 76% nosedive in the sophomore frame. The Lionsgate release has banked $30.8M in ten days.

Cashing in on Oscar nominations, Silver Linings Playbook enjoyed an impressive 38% bump in sales from last weekend with an estimated $5M weekend. The acclaimed dramedy averaged a solid $6,173 from 810 locations adding just 65 theaters from last weekend. The Weinstein Co. has been unbelievably patient in its roll-out of the Bradley Cooper-Jennifer Lawrence hit and will now go fully nationwide on Friday in its tenth weekend of release expanding to 2,500+ theaters for the long MLK holiday session.

By being the last of the major Oscar contenders to go nationwide, it hopes to capitalize on the heat of its theatrical release and score better votes during the time when Academy members are actually casting ballots for winners. It hopes others will have peaked and become old news by then. Aside from frontrunner Lincoln, only two other movies scored broad support with nominations in the five key categories of picture, director, editing, screenplay, and acting - Life of Pi and Playbook. But only Playbook has the wizardry of Harvey Weinstein behind it.

Tied for tenth place according to estimates was Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher with an estimated $5M, off 46%, for a $72.8M cume for Paramount.

Older films scoring Oscar nominations for Best Picture enjoyed new interest from moviegoers. Nominated for 11 awards, Life of Pi kept on chugging away towards the century club with another $2.7M, according to estimates, for a low 5% dip. The Fox hit has grossed $94.8M domestically. Worldwide surged to $452.2M with the half-billion barrier ready to come down next week.

Warner Bros. expanded its October awards darling Argo after nabbing seven Oscar nominations by doubling its run from 302 to 621 theaters. The weekend gross saw a 57% bump to an estimated $1.2M giving the Ben Affleck film $111.6M to date.

The top ten films grossed an estimated $112.4M which was up 6% from last year when Contraband opened at number one with $24.3M; and up 4% from 2011 when The Green Hornet debuted in the top spot with $33.5M.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926651/news/1926651/

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Emma Watson mistaken for child at airport

Ian Gavan / Getty Images file

By Gina Serpe, E! Online

In Hollywood, a youthful look is an asset. In the line at airport security, not so much.

It's a lesson Emma Watson found out the hard, somewhat embarrassing way, as the erstwhile "Harry Potter" star took to Twitter to reveal that a member of the TSA held up her recent holiday journey after being convinced that she was a child.

Make that, a very young child, in need of a parent to travel with.

Check out the first image from Emma Watson's Lancome In Love campaign

"Passport control: 'unaccompanied minor?' Me: 'sorry?' Passport control: 'where is ur guardian?' Me: 'I'm 22!!!!!!! #neverwearingabackpackagain."

Clearly, that particular agent wasn't a Hermione fan. Well, at least the Brit -- proving she's ever bit an adult on the current cover of Marie Claire, incidentally -- has a sense of humor about it.

Oops! Emma Watson's red carpet gaffe was one of the top 10 wardrobe malfunctions of 2012

Then again, she's had some practice, as it's not exactly an unusual occurrence.

"The really sad thing is that this is not the first time this has happened," she added.

Long live the youthful glow.

Check out some hot celeb airport style

More in TODAY Entertainment:

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AP Photos: Dubai makes bid to be City of Gold

In this Thursday Oct. 11, 2012 photo, an Emirati woman discusses her purchases with a salesman at a jewelry shop in gold suq in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With low customs on gold imports, low labor charges, cheap prices and high quality, Dubai has become one of the world's best retail gold jewelry markets. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

In this Thursday Oct. 11, 2012 photo, an Emirati woman discusses her purchases with a salesman at a jewelry shop in gold suq in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With low customs on gold imports, low labor charges, cheap prices and high quality, Dubai has become one of the world's best retail gold jewelry markets. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

In this Tuesday Oct. 9, 2012 photo, technician prepares 1 Kg containers of gold grains for melting into 995.0 purity gold bars at the Emirates Gold refinery in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai now has about a 29 percent market share of global gold trade with nearly 1,200 tons -- worth about $41 billion -- changing hands annually in the city's gold markets, according to the gold industry website bullionstreet.com. At the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange, traders and speculators buy and sell the metal on the futures market. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

In this Tuesday Oct. 9, 2012 photo, strings of melted gold with a temperature of about 1050 degrees centigrade are poured into cooling water bath from a furnace at the Emirates Gold company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The emirate has set up gold refineries, vaults and jewelry-making facilities, importing gold -- including scrap from India -- and melting it down to produce gold bars. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

In this Tuesday Oct. 9, 2012 photo, Strings of melted gold are pour into a water bath from a furnace with temperatures exceeding 1000 degrees centigrade at the Emirates Gold company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai has set up gold refineries, vaults and jewelry-making facilities giving it a about a 29 percent market share of global gold trade. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

In this Thursday Oct. 11, 2012 photo, a Saudi customer discusses his purchases at a jewelry shop in the gold suq, or market, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The price of gold in Dubai is fixed daily and items are sold by weight. with little or no or little charge for the often exquisite workmanship. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) ? Dubai is sometimes called the "City of Gold" because of its stunning growth from a sleepy Gulf port to a world-famous business crossroads in the space of a single generation. Its nickname has a literal meaning for traders in the precious metal.

The city is building itself up as a center for the gold trade, between sources in Africa and consumers in the rising economies of China and India.

Dubai now has about a 29 percent market share of global gold trade with nearly 1,200 tons ? worth about $41 billion ? changing hands at the city's gold markets, according to the gold industry website bullionstreet.com.

That's up from around $6 billion worth traded in the emirate in 2003, said Malcolm Wall Morris, CEO of Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, set up by the emirate to oversee the trade. "There's no doubt the geographical location of Dubai has played an important factor," he said.

Dubai's tax-free status has made it one of the cheapest places to buy gold in the world. The emirate has set up gold refineries and vaults and jewelry-making facilities, importing gold ? including scrap from India ? and melting it down to produce gold bars. At the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange, traders and speculators buy and sell the metal on the futures market.

Gold prices remained relatively steady in 2012, close to $1,700 an ounce. Some traders predict prices could once again rise toward the record high of nearly $1,900 an ounce, as central governments and investors look to gold as a safe bet in the unsteady world economy.

The city has also become a retail center with 600 shops selling gold ? half of them crammed into the gold souq, drawing tourists, traders and local residents.

Lola Oyekola, from Lagos, Nigeria, came to Dubai especially to buy gold.

"Because I know I will get what I want, unique ones," she said. "I can tell them what I want and they will make it for me."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-05-Emirates-City%20Of%20Gold/id-69666e2b96a549f59b0428a6f91864d3

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The "Obesity Paradox": Is There an Ideal Weight for Health ...

Is there an ideal weight for health?

For years, we have been told that overweight and obesity are associated with serious medical morbidity, including certain cancers like breast, prostate, and colon, metabolic disturbances such as diabetes and abnormal blood lipid levels, as well as heart disease, orthopedic disability, sleep apnea, and hypertension. Most, but not all, researchers have led us to believe that overweight and obesity, as defined by body mass index (BMI), can substantially shorten our life expectancy, and the worse the level of obesity, the more likely, an earlier demise. This week, though, a new study received considerable media coverage and raises questions about some of these assumptions. Can being overweight or even somewhat obese actually be protective against mortality? For most in the field of obesity, this notion certainly seems counter-intuitive, surprising, and even nonsensical, and hence it has been called the ?obesity paradox.?

Katherine M. Flegal, Ph.D., from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and her colleagues, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (and extending their original 2005 study) conducted a rigorous, systematic review of almost 100 other studies involving a combined sample of 2.88 million people and 270,000 deaths to assess whether overweight and all levels of obesity are in fact related to increased mortality risk as most believe. Dr. Flegal et al?believe that knowing "relative mortality risks" associated with different levels of weight "may help to inform decision making in the clinical setting.? They note that in the U.S., for example, almost 40% of adult men and almost 30% of adult women are considered overweight by today?s BMI standards, while 36% of adults are considered obese. Significantly, though, more than half of those in the obese category are in the grade 1 category (BMI of 30 kg/m² to 34.9 kg/m².) In general, mortality-weight statistics follow a U-shaped curve, with extremes of being severely below normal weight or severely above it are at highest risk. What these researchers found is that Grade 1 obesity was not associated with higher mortality and what?s more, being overweight (BMI of 25 kg/m² to 29.9 kg/m²) was actually protective and associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality! Flegal and her colleagues, though, acknowledge that many of the studies included in their review relied on notoriously inaccurate self-reporting of height and weight that could result in misclassifications of BMI and bias their results. They also note that their study is limited in not addressing morbidity,?cause-specific mortality,? and issues of body composition (e.g. where fat is distributed on the body.)

In an Editorial accompanying the study, Drs. Steven B. Heymsfield and William T. Cefalu raise the provocative question, ?...are the concerns about overweight as currently defined unfounded?? Professor of Law and author of The Obesity Myth: Why America?s Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to your Health, Paul Campos, writing an editorial in the New York Times, in response to the Flegal study, certainly thinks they are and believes ?our current definition of ?normal weight? makes absolutely no sense.? He asserts that we are in an ?absurd situation? in which we are serving ?the economic interests of...the weight-loss industry and large pharmaceutical companies? and ?baselessly categorizing at least 130 million Americans--and hundreds of millions in the rest of the world--as people in need of ?treatment.??

Heymsfield and Cefalu, though, note that the Flegal study does confirm that higher levels of obesity are associated with increased mortality, but they also explain that the situation is far more complicated when we consider lower levels of obesity and even overweight. First, BMI (the ratio of weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) is not a perfect measure of fat: it does not account for differences in sex, race, or age or even a person?s cardiopulmonary level of fitness, as well as other risk factors such as blood pressure, glucose and lipid levels, and waist circumference. For example, fat around our internal organs is more dangerous than subcutaneous fat so that the ?apple? distribution of fat around the middle is worse than the so-called ?pear" distribution. Furthermore, these authors note that physicians may be ?increasingly aggressive? in treating the risk factors associated with obesity and hence may be affecting mortality statistics, particularly in these lower weight categories, such that ?overweight and grade 1 obesity might lead to greater morbidity that is not captured when evaluating associations between all-cause mortality and BMI.? They also point out that when there is a chronic wasting disease, being overweight and even slightly obese can be somewhat protective in providing ?needed energy reserves? and even protection against trauma. There have been, for example, earlier reports that those overweight and mildly obese patients with chronic heart failure and coronary artery disease had decreased mortality compared to those of normal weight. It is always important to consider whether weight loss is intentional or unintentional.

Bottom line: One size does not fit all. The relationship between weight and mortality is a complex one. For most people, being of normal weight is still healthiest but for some, particularly with advancing age and chronic wasting diseases, those extra pounds may not be so detrimental.

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-gravity-weight/201301/the-obesity-paradox-is-there-ideal-weight-health

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