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Reuters

  • Cumberbatch’s ‘Hamlet’ wears a hoodie, wows fans in London

    Ever since the 12-week run was announced a year ago and sold out in record time for a London stage show, people have been wondering if the production, which began previews on Aug 5 and officially opened on Tuesday, was going to be a Cumberbatch fest or a serious “Hamlet”.

    The fears can be laid to rest. It is “Hamlet,” but not in the brooding Laurence Olivier or Richard Burton tradition.

    The three-hour-long production directed by Lyndsey Turner at the Barbican Theatre is set for the first half in a palace that looks more like Downton Abbey than Elsinore, while in the second half the same set has been ravaged by war.

    Benedict Cumberbatch

    In this environment, the 39-year-old British film and television star works some of his most famous roles into the DNA of a very modern prince. He at one point wears a hoodie and for most of the play is dressed like a guy from the ‘hood – as are his mates.

    Displaying the quick wit and mental acuity of his television detective “Sherlock,” Hamlet figures out that his uncle Claudius, portrayed by a wonderfully two-faced Ciaran Hinds of “Game of Thrones” fame, killed his father, usurped the crown and married his mother (Anastasia Hille).

    The prince then does his best to alienate everyone around him, especially the young Ophelia (Sian Brooke), whom he deeply loves, a bit like Cumberbatch’s sociopath mathematician Alan Turing does to his colleagues in “The Imitation Game”.

    One thing Cumberbatch’s Dane is not is melancholy. There’s a hilarious scene in the first part where he enters dressed as a drum major and proceeds to dance and drum on a banquet table, before eventually retreating inside a toy fort guarded by four giant-sized toy soldiers.

    The production tinkers with the text, but “To Be or Not to Be,” which in early previews opened the play, sensibly has been restored to its normal spot.

    Other revisions are more subtle, including having Ophelia use some of the dialogue from earlier in the play for the wistful songs she sings just before she drowns herself.

    It may not be a “Hamlet” for the ages, but it is one for now, and for Cumberbatch’s legions of predominantly female fans.

    Some of those attending Tuesday’s performance said while queuing for day tickets that they were seeing it for the fourth or fifth time. At least one or two were planning to jump back in the queue when the show ended, to see it again.

    The production will be broadcast to cinemas on Oct. 15.

  • California man bitten by rattlesnake he picked up for photo

    Alex Gomez, 36, was bitten on Monday by the 4-foot (1.2-meter) rattler in a field at his family’s ranch in Lake Elsinore, a community about 60 miles (100 km) southeast of Los Angeles, according to TV station KCBS which showed a picture of the man holding the snake around his neck.

    Alex Gomez’s mother, Deborah, told KCBS on Tuesday that her son might lose his hand because of the bite wound to the extremity. The man’s hand swelled up after the bite, and he was taken to a local hospital and treated with anti-venom, according to the station.

    “I’m shocked that he would have that thing around his neck,” she told the station. “It could’ve bit his neck, and that would have been it. That’s just being a fool.”

    She could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

    Rattlesnakes, whose bites can be fatal, are found in many parts of California. The peak season for rattle snake bites, which occur about 800 times a year in California, is from April to October, state officials say. – Reuters

  • Afghan men in military uniform kill two foreign troops

    Violence has increased sharply across Afghanistan since foreign forces formally ended their combat mission last year, leaving a small contingent of about 12,000 NATO troops to train Afghan forces against a Taliban insurgency.

    The foreign forces heading the Resolute Support mission said the incident took place in the restive province of Helmand, where government forces are frequently targeted by militant attacks.

    “Two Resolute Support service members died early this morning, when two individuals wearing Afghan National Defense and Security Forces uniforms opened fire on their vehicle,” the alliance said in a statement.

    The statement did not give further information on the exact location of the incident and nationalities of those killed, but most foreign forces operating in Helmand are American.

    A regional official said the incident involved two apparent Afghan special forces firing on their allies at the former Camp Bastion, a major base handed over to Afghan forces last year.

  • Asian shares wobble as China rate cut fails to calm nerves

    China’s key share indexes moved higher several times during the day only to be slapped back by waves of selling, reflecting investors’ views that much more aggressive support is needed from the government and the central bank.

    European markets were expected to open lower, with futures on the euro zone’s blue-chip Euro STOXX index STXEc1 down by 1.6 percent.

    Germany’s DAX futures FDXc1 fell 1.7 percent, Britain’s FTSE 100 futures FFIc1 retreated 1.3 percent and France’s CAC futures FCEc1 dropped 1.2 percent.

    Following a near 20 percent plunge in stock prices in three days, the People’s Bank of China cut interest rates late on Tuesday and lowered the amount of reserves that banks must hold in a much-anticipated move that some economists said was long overdue.

    While the double-barrelled policy move was initially cheered by markets around the world, the relief didn’t last long as investors quickly resumed their focus on the deteriorating outlook for China and its impact on the global economy.

    “The seemingly endless issues confronting global markets remind us too much of the good old arcade game of Whack-A-Mole. Even as one problem retreats, another one seems to be lurking around and ready to spring up,” Wellian Wiranto, an economist at Singapore’s OCBC bank, said in a research note.

    “For one, renewed volatility in China and oil’s price slump have resurfaced to demand attention. Meanwhile, though the potential for Fed’s (interest rate) lift-off has receded somewhat, it remains a matter of time before it pops up again.”

    After yet another rollercoaster day, China’s CSI300 index .CSI300 ended down 0.6 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC fell 1.3 percent to fresh eight-month lows.

    Both had been up 3 percent at one point.

    MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS edged up 0.2 percent and remained just shy of a three-year low hit in the previous session.

    Japan’s Nikkei .N225 was among the few bright spots, rising 3.2 percent on bargain hunting after six days of declines, while Australia rose 0.7 percent.

    Companies such as mining giant BHP Billiton (BLT.L) have softened expectations of demand growth from China while countries most exposed to China’s economy, such as Indonesia, have dialed down their growth forecasts for 2015 in recent days.

    Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group at Franklin Templeton, told Reuters that fund managers are being forced to unwind their holdings because of a “loss of liquidity” and high volatility.

    The CBOE Market Volatility Index .VIX was still elevated at 36, indicating significant uncertainty, even though the “fear index” was below the previous day’s peak of 53.3, which was the highest since January 2009.

    In a sign of how fearful investors have become of risky assets, a rally on Wall Street fueled by China’s policy easing evaporated on Tuesday and stocks ended with deep losses.

    U.S. stock index futures ESc1 fell in early Asian trade before edging back up 0.5 percent.

    Fixed income markets were active with investors rushing for safety in government debt and cash.

    “Some parts of the Asian bond markets have become quite illiquid and investors are only buying high-quality paper amid this selloff,” said Hayden Briscoe, fixed-income director at AllianceBernstein in Hong Kong and part of a team that manages $250 billion in assets globally.

    In currencies, the dollar has also broadly lost steam as traders unwound massive carry trade bets built up in recent years based on higher yielding assets and instead flocked to safe-haven currencies such as euro and yen.

    China’s downturn and global market turmoil have also created fresh uncertainty over whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will begin raising interest rates this year.

    The euro was $1.1565, little changed from late U.S. trade, but more than a full cent above Tuesday’s low of $1.1396.

    The dollar was at 119.46, failing to maintain its brief foray above the 120 mark.

    Commodity prices hovered just above multi-year lows hit earlier in the week, but concerns that softer demand from China would worsen existing global supply gluts kept a lid on them.

    A 19-commodity Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index .TRJCRB was just holding above lows not seen since 2003.

    Brent crude futures LCOc1 last traded at $43.46 per barrel, about a dollar above 6 1/2-year low of $42.23 on Monday.

    Copper CMCU3, often considered a proxy for global economic activity because of the metal’s extensive use, fell 1.2 percent to $5,002 per tonne.

  • Gujarat hit by violent caste-related protests

    India deployed paramilitary forces and imposed a curfew in Gujarat on Wednesday after violence broke out at a protest led by a powerful clan to demand more government jobs and college places.

    The protests pose a challenge to the authority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who ran Gujarat for more than a decade before winning last year’s general election.

    At least half a million members of the Patidar, or Patel, community rallied on Tuesday in Ahmedabad to demand changes to policies that, they argue, unfairly favour groups at the lower end of India’s social order.

    Clashes broke out after the arrest of the movement’s leader, 21-year-old activist Hardik Patel, forcing police to fire teargas and to baton-charge protesters.

    “The agitators clashed with the police and members of the lower castes. They have burnt down nine police stations and over three dozen buses,” P.C. Thakur, Gujarat’s top police officer, told Reuters.

    “We had to impose a curfew to control the clashes. Offices, trading houses and educational institutions will not open today.”

    The Patels, a wealthy business community in India and overseas, have been a driving force in the country’s economic growth. The community dominates the thriving diamond trade, oil processing and the textile industry.

    But they say that caste-based reservations deprive them of opportunities. They insist the government should put an end to affirmative action policies that favour Muslims, low-caste Hindus and Other Backward Classes – a collective term covering socially and educationally deprived groups.

    Caste-based reservations has always been a sensitive issue in India, used often as a tool for what is called vote-bank politics.

    In a recent speech, Modi said that India must overcome its caste-based divisions, and work towards a more merit-based society. Modi comes from a lowly caste included in the Other Backward Classes, and has made much of his rise to power from humble origins as the son of a tea seller.

    Caste politics are likely to play a role in a forthcoming state election in Bihar, whose chief minister Nitish Kumar belongs to the Patel community and has sympathised with the Gujarat protesters.

  • Hindu population in India drops below 80pc as Muslim ratio rises

    Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party, which swept to power last year, have expressed growing concern about the rising numbers of Muslims.

    The census data shows that Hindus declined to 79.8 per cent of the country’s 1.2 billion people in 2011, from 80.5 per cent a decade earlier.

    The share of Muslims rose to 14.2 per cent from 13.4 per cent in 2001 – the only major religious group to record a rise. Christians stayed at 2.3 per cent and Sikhs fell to 1.7 per cent from 1.9 per cent.

    Sakshi Maharaj, a Hindu priest-turned-politician, caused an uproar earlier this year when he said Hindu women should give birth to four children to ensure that their religion survives.

    In the first census, conducted after Britain carved India and Pakistan out of colonial India in 1947, Hindus accounted for 84.1 per cent of the Indian population.

    Although population growth is slowing in all religious groups, India is still set to overtake China to become the world’s most populous country by 2022, according to a United Nations forecast.

    India’s population grew by almost a fifth during the period between the last two censuses, straining supplies of land, food and water and bloating its underemployed, poorly skilled workforce.

  • One Direction taking a break, not splitting: Horan

    Horan, 21, told his 23 million fans on Twitter that the group will continue to tour and play new music, after a report in a British newspaper said the band will be taking a year-long break next year so that members can pursue separate interests.

    “We are not splitting up, but we will be taking a well earned break at some point next year,” he said. “Don’t worry though, we still have lots we want to achieve!”

    A Sony Music representative for the band declined to comment to Reuters.

    The band, now comprising Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles, soared to international prominence after finishing third on the British version of “the X Factor” in 2010.

    One Direction

    The break will come after the band, reduced to four members following the departure of Zayn Malik earlier this year, release their fifth album in March, the report in the Sun said.

    “The guys have been together for five years, which is an incredible run for any boy band,” a source told The Sun.

    “They fully deserve to have at least a year to work on their own projects. There is absolutely no bad blood between them and they are all 100 percent behind the decision.”

    The group’s last scheduled stadium concert will be in Sheffield, England on Oct. 31. They will promote their new album in February, after a Christmas break, the Sun said.

  • Wall Street posts biggest rally of the year

    Financial markets also got a boost from China’s second interest rate cut in two months.

    The Nasdaq composite index .IXIC led stocks higher with a 3.3 percent rise, boosted by Apple’s (AAPL.O) 5.5 percent jump to $108.86.

    The stock slumped as much as 13 percent on Monday, when the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell more than 1,000 points in its biggest intraday fall ever and the S&P 500 .SPX recorded its worst day since 2011.

    Analysts were cautious, however, and even with Tuesday’s gains, the Dow and the S&P were on track for the their worst monthly losses since February 2009 and the Nasdaq for its steepest drop since November 2008.

    “Today’s rally can be attributed to value hunters who are slowly moving into the market as valuation levels now seem reasonable,” said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis, while warning that a “wall of uncertainty” about global growth remains.

    JPMorgan cut its forecast for their year-end target for the S&P 500 to 2,150 from 2,250.

    At 12:47 p.m. ET, the S&P 500 was up 44.23 points, or 2.34 percent, at 1,937.44, the Dow was up 358.9 points, or 2.26 percent, at 16,230.25 and the Nasdaq was up 151.29 points, or 3.34 percent, at 4,677.53.

    The brokerage lowered its weightings for the energy, financial and industrial sectors but raised consumer and health, suggesting these companies are better able to withstand a slowdown in global growth.

    Data on Tuesday showed U.S. consumer confidence increased to a seven-month high in August.

    The move by China’s central bank came after Chinese stocks slumped 8 percent on Tuesday following an 8.5 percent drop on Monday.

    “What we need to see to calm investors is positive economic data points out of China and only when we see that will the rallies be sustainable,” said Xavier Smith, investment director at Centre Asset Management.

    “Right now, it’s pretty meaningless,” he said of the interest rate cut.

    Nine of the 10 major S&P sectors were higher at midday, with the technology index’s .SPLRCT 3.4 percent rise leading the advancers. The utilities sector .SPLRCU was the laggard.

    U.S. banks rose along with expectations of a rate hike this year, with Bank of America (BAC.N) up 5.1 percent at $16.07.

    U.S. oil prices were up about 3 percent, bouncing back from heavy losses on Tuesday, but was still below $40 per barrel.

    Reflecting the easing of volatility, the CBOE volatility index .VIX was down about 11 points at 29.82 and on track for its largest one-day drop in four years. The index hit a six-and-a-half year high of 53.29 on Monday.

    Trading in options painted a mixed picture, with some traders keeping hedges in place and others closing existing positions or placing some speculative trades, Susquehanna derivatives strategist Christopher Jacobson said.

    New U.S. single-family home sales rebounded in July, adding to evidence of underlying strength in the economy that could allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year.

    Traders now see a 26 percent chance that the Fed would increase rates in September, up from 22 percent on Monday, according to overnight indexed swap rates.

    The dollar .DXY, which fell to a 7-month low against a basket of currencies on Monday, was up more than 1.4 percent.

    Among the big gainers, Facebook (FB.O) was up 5.7 percent at $86.81 and Netflix (NFLX.O) 9.4 percent at $106.

    Best Buy (BBY.N) jumped 15.3 percent to $33.74 after the owner of the biggest U.S. electronics chain reported an unexpected increase in quarterly sales.

    Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,528 to 531. On the Nasdaq, 2,276 issues rose and 533 fell.

    The S&P 500 index showed one new 52-week highs and seven new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded seven new highs and 55 new lows.

  • Asian shares move off three-year lows while China’s suffering goes on

    The MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 1.1 percent after an initial dip to three-year lows, paring about a quarter of Monday’s losses.

    Japan’s Nikkei .N225, which saw extremely volatile trading, ended 4 percent down.

    European shares are seen to open higher, with spread-betters expecting more than 2 percent gains in Germany’s DAX .GDAXI and a rise of above 1 percent in Britain’s FTSE .FTSE.

    “The recent turmoil has left even the most hardened trader gasping for air. And there’s probably more to come,” said Frederic Neumann, HSBC’s co-head of Asian economics research, in a note to clients.

    “China’s economy continues to slow and the (U.S.) Fed may still hike rates before the end of the year. That puts further cracks into the two main growth pillars for the world economy of recent years: Chinese demand (including commodities) and easy money,” Neumann said, even as he added that a re-run of Asia’s financial crisis in the late 1990s was unlikely.

    U.S. stock futures ESc1 gained 2.0 percent, aiding performance in some markets as signaling that New York markets which plunged on Monday will open stronger later in the day.

    “There appears to be buyback as many markets look oversold after panicky selling in the last few days. Even the shares that had little business ties with China were sold,” said Yukino Yamada, senior strategist at Daiwa Securities.

    Mainland Chinese shares had another calamitous day, with the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC falling another 7 percent and breaking below the key psychological level of 3,000. The index fell 15 percent the previous three days, including an 8.5 percent collapse on Monday.

    “Global investors are cannibalizing each other. Calling it a market disaster is not an overstatement,” said Zhou Lin, an analyst at Huatai Securities.

    “The mood of panic is dominating the market … And I don’t see any signs of meaningful government intervention.”

    Underlining concerns about China, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday he hoped Beijing would take action to stabilize its economy and that Tokyo had no plans for now to unveil its own new economic stimulus package.

    MSCI’s all country world index .MIWD0000PUS hovered near 10 1/2-month low marked on Monday, when it had fallen 3.8 percent, its biggest fall in almost four years.

    Global share markets have been hit by worries that the Chinese economy, the most important engine for the world economy, was growing at a much slower pace than Beijing’s 7 percent target for 2015.

    Investors are also unnerved by uncertainty over U.S. monetary policy. The Federal Reserve has said it plans to raise interest rates this year for the first time in almost a decade.

    The heavy fall in share prices worldwide over the past week has sharply reduced expectations of a U.S. rate hike in September, but the outlook is far from clear.

    Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, whose comments earlier this month sparked expectations of a hike in September, said on Monday that the Federal Reserve will likely begin raising rates “sometime this year.”

    On Wall Street, the S&P 500 Index .SPX fell 3.9 percent to a 10-month low on Monday. The CBOE volatility index .VIX, a key measure of U.S. equity volatility, shot up to more than 50 percent at one point for the first time since the 2008 global financial crisis.

    Because some investors often fund their investment in risk assets by borrowing low-yielding euro and yen, the sell-off in shares helped send both currencies to seven-month highs.

    On Monday, the euro rose as high as $1.1715 EUR= while the yen strengthened to 116.15 to the dollar JPY=.

    But both currencies stepped back in Asia on Tuesday. The euro slipped 0.7 percent to $1.1531 while the yen retreated to 119.05 to the dollar.

    Oil prices also stabilized in Asia after having plunged more than 6 percent on Monday to 6 1/2-year lows.

    U.S. crude futures CLc1 traded at $38.73 per barrel, up 1.2 percent on the day, and off Monday’s low of $37.75.

    Brent crude futures last stood at $43.03 after having fallen to $42.23 on Monday.

    Brent still stood not far from $36.20, its low hit in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, having fallen more than 66 percent from last year’s peak.

  • An aspirin a day – for years – may keep colon cancer away

    Earlier studies had suggested that aspirin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen may help protect against colorectal cancer, but it wasn’t clear how much had to be taken, and for how long, to achieve those benefits.

    Now, using data on more than 113,000 individuals, researchers have been trying to sort out the relationship between aspirin and NSAIDs, duration of treatment, and colorectal cancer rates.

    In general, the risk of developing colorectal cancer varies with age, race, ethnicity and lifestyle. More than 90 percent of cases are diagnosed in people older than 50, according to the National Cancer Institute.

    An online risk calculator from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (available here: 1.usa.gov/1DlscTL) indicates that in the U.S., for an average white or black woman in her late fifties, the 10-year risk of developing colorectal cancer is between 1 and 1.4 percent, and her lifetime risk is between 5 and 5.4 percent. For an average black or white male of the same age, the corresponding risks would be about 1.4 percent and 5.8 percent.

    In the new study from Denmark, taking low-dose aspirin continuously for at least five years appeared to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 27%, and using nonaspirin NSAIDs for at least five years appeared to reduce it by 30%.

    On the other hand, merely having taken aspirin did not alter the colorectal cancer risk, they reported in Annals of Internal Medicine.

    “Unless low-dose aspirin is taken continuously, there is little protection against colorectal cancer,” Dr. Soren Friis from the Danish Cancer Society Research Center in Copenhagen told Reuters Health.

    Nonaspirin NSAIDs were also protective against colorectal cancer with consistent long-term use, “and there was some indication that even non-continuous use of these agents may be (marginally) effective for the prevention of colorectal cancer,” Dr. Friis said.

    Aspirin and NSAIDs carry their own risks, however. Long-term use can cause gastrointestinal bleeding, for example, so the potential reduction in colon cancer risk needs to be balanced against potential side effects, the authors warn.

    The study had several limitations. For instance, the researchers only had data for users who obtained their aspirin or NSAIDs from doctors’ prescriptions. They didn’t include patients who made over-the-counter purchases of the medicines. Also, the researchers can’t rule out the possibility that other factors may have increased participants’ risk for colorectal cancer, such as obesity, dietary habits, alcohol use, and family history of colorectal cancer.

    Dr. Friis emphasized that people should not start taking aspirin or NSAIDs on the basis of the new findings.

    “Self-medication with aspirin or non-aspirin NSAIDs is strongly discouraged, due to the possibility of serious adverse events,” Dr. Friis said. “The public should not take any medication regularly without consulting with a physician.”

    Dr. Gurpreet Singh Ranger from Upper River Valley Hospital, Waterville, New Brunswick and Dalhousie Medical School, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, agreed with Dr. Friis.

    “Low dose aspirin, already taken regularly by millions, reduces the risk of colorectal cancer,” he told Reuters Health by email. But “before starting to take aspirin long term, it is important to discuss the implications with your family doctor or specialist.”