Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.

The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.

“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”

Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.

“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.

There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.

The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.

“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”

Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.

Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.

“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.

The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.

“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.

Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.

To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.

Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.

Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition

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Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com
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Lindsay Lohan pushed for Elizabeth Taylor TV role

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan so wanted to play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming film “Liz & Dick” that she cut out the middle man and went straight to the producer herself, the tabloid-favorite star said in an interview on Friday.

Lohan, 26, plays Taylor in an upcoming television movie that dramatizes the long love affair between the late Hollywood legend and actor Richard Burton.

“It’s a funny story, actually. I had seen that they were going to be making the movie and I got the producers’ numbers and started harassing (producer) Larry Thompson,” Lohan said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I didn’t even care if my agents were going to do it or not, I just did it myself, too,” the “Mean Girls” actress said. “Because I was like, ‘No one else is going to play this role, I have to do this.’”

Early reviews of “Liz & Dick,” which premieres on U.S. cable channel Lifetime on November 25, have ranged from middling to poor. But TV critics noted the similarities between Lohan and Taylor, both often-troubled actresses who started life as child stars.

“‘Liz & Dick’ truly drags,” said the Hollywood Reporter. “Luckily, you can’t take your eyes off of Lohan playing Taylor, which the producers clearly thought would work because they share similar back stories.”

Lohan’s acting alongside New Zealand’s Grant Bowler as Burton was described by Variety on Friday as “adequate, barring a few awkward moments, thanks largely to the fabulous frocks and makeup … she gets to model.”

Lohan’s reputation, much like Taylor’s, has been built from her tabloid persona more than on-screen performance.

In and out of legal trouble, jail and rehab since 2007, Lohan faced media blow-back this week after canceling an in-depth interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress’ publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)

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Israel hits Hamas government buildings, reservists mobilized

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the prime minister's office, after Israel's cabinet authorized the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a possible ground invasion.

Israeli planes shattered the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister - and struck the Interior Ministry.

Loud explosions regularly rocked the densely populated Palestinian territory, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The occasional hiss of outgoing rocket fire showed Islamist militants were pursuing their defiance of the assault.

Despite the violence, Tunisia's foreign minister arrived in the coastal enclave on Saturday in a show of solidarity, denouncing the Israeli attacks as illegitimate and unacceptable.

Officials in Gaza said 41 Palestinians, among them 20 civilians including eight children and a pregnant woman, had been killed in Gaza since Israel began operations four days ago. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel's military said its air force had hit at least 180 targets since midnight, including a police headquarters, government buildings, rocket launching squads and a Hamas training facility in the impoverished territory.

A three-storey house belonging to Hamas official Abu Hassan Salah was also hit and completely destroyed early on Saturday. Rescuers said at least 30 people were pulled from the rubble.

"What Israel is doing is not legitimate and is not acceptable at all," Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he visited Haniyeh's wrecked headquarters. "It does not have total immunity and is not above international law."

Israel launched a massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared aim of deterring Hamas from launching cross-border rocket salvoes that have plagued southern Israel for years.

The Palestinians have fired hundreds of rockets out of Gaza, including one at Jerusalem and three at Tel Aviv - Israel's commercial centre. Jerusalem had not been targeted in such a way since 1970, and Tel Aviv since 1991.

Although there were no reports of casualties or damage in either city, the long-range attacks came as a shock and advanced the prospect of an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza

"This will last as long as is needed; we have not limited ourselves in means or in time," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Channel One television on Saturday.

Hamas says it is committed to continued confrontation with Israel and is eager not to seem any less resolute than smaller, more radical groups that have emerged in Gaza in recent years.

The Islamist Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007. Israel pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but has maintained a blockade of the territory.

EGYPTIAN PEACE EFFORTS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a four-hour strategy session late on Friday with a clutch of senior ministers on widening the military campaign, while other cabinet members were polled by telephone on increasing mobilization.

Political sources said they decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000. It did not necessarily mean all would be called up.

Three soldiers were lightly hurt by fire from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the army said.

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil paid a high-profile visit to Gaza on Friday, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression and saying Cairo was prepared to mediate a ceasefire.

Egypt's Islamist government, which took power after free elections following an uprising that ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak, is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

"Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce," Kandil said.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of Cairo's mediation efforts said on Saturday that Egypt was pursuing a truce.

"Egyptian mediators are continuing their mediation efforts and these will intensify in the coming hours," he told Reuters.

In a further sign Netanyahu might be clearing the way for a ground operation, Israel's armed forces decreed a highway leading to the territory and two roads bordering the enclave of 1.7 million Palestinians off-limits to civilian traffic.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the sandy border zone on Saturday, and around 16,000 reservists have already been called to active duty.

The Israeli military said some 367 rockets fired from Gaza had hit Israel since Wednesday and at least 222 more were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Four Iron Domes were deployed initially and a fifth was rushed into action on Saturday, weeks ahead of schedule. The army said it was placed in the Tel Aviv area, showing Israel's concern for the safety of its heavily populated coastline.

Netanyahu is favored to win a January election, but further rocket strikes against Tel Aviv, a free-wheeling city Israelis equate with New York, and Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its capital, could be political poison for the conservative leader.

OBAMA REGRET

U.S. President Barack Obama commended Egypt's efforts to help calm the Gaza violence in a call to Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Friday, the White House said, and underscored his hope of restoring stability.

In a call with Netanyahu, Obama discussed options for "de-escalating" the situation, the White House added.

Obama "reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives," a statement on the call said.

Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent said the army's Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defense preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

The Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolutions and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread across borders.

"Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river," Tunisia's Abdesslem told reporters in Gaza.

It is the stiffest challenge yet for Mursi, a veteran politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after protests ended Mubarak's 30-year rule in 2011.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo's peace accord with Israel, which is seen in the West as the foundation of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas' supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity", at the United Nations later this month.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Writing by Crispian Balmer and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by)

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Jamaica to abolish slavery-era flogging law

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is preparing to abolish a slavery-era law allowing flogging and whipping as means of punishing prisoners, the Caribbean country’s justice ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said the punishment hasn’t been ordered by a court since 2004 but the statutes remain in the island’s penal code. It was administered with strokes from a tamarind-tree switch or a cat o’nine tails, a whip made of nine, knotted cords.

Justice Minister Mark Golding says the “degrading” punishment is an anachronism which violates Jamaica’s international obligations and is preventing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller‘s government from ratifying the U.N. convention against torture.

“The time has come to regularize this situation by getting these colonial-era laws off our books once and for all,” Golding said in a Thursday statement.

The Cabinet has already approved repealing the flogging law and amendments to other laws in the former British colony, where plantation slavery was particularly brutal.

The announcement was welcomed by human rights activists who view the flogging law as a barbaric throwback in a nation populated mostly by the descendants of slaves.

“We don’t really see that (the flogging law) has any part in the approach of dealing with crime in a modern democracy,” said group spokeswoman Susan Goffe.

But there are no shortage of crime-weary Jamaicans who feel that authorities should not drop the old statutes but instead enforce them, arguing that thieves who steal livestock or violent criminals who harm innocent people should receive a whipping to teach them a lesson.

“The worst criminals need strong punishing or else they’ll do crimes over and over,” said Chris Drummond, a Kingston man with three school-age children. “Getting locked up is not always enough.”

The last to suffer the punishment in Jamaica was Errol Pryce, who was sentenced to four years in prison and six lashes in 1994 for stabbing his mother-in-law.

Pryce was flogged the day before being released from prison in 1997 and later complained to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 2004 that the form of corporal punishment was cruel, inhuman and degrading and violated his rights. Jamaican courts then stopped ordering whipping or flogging.

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Juanes, Jesse & Joy take home top Latin Grammys

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Colombian rocker Juanes and the Mexican brother and sister pop duo Jesse & Joy took home the top Latin Grammys on Thursday in Las Vegas on a night in which the contemporary triumphed over the traditional.

Juanes, one of the most well known Latin American stars worldwide, won the coveted album of the year with his “MTV Unplugged,” which also won best long-form video. Dominican singer and songwriter Juan Luis Guerra won producer of the year for Juanes‘ album.

“Here’s to the maestro Juan Luis Guerra for making this possible,” said Juanes, 40, who now has won 19 Latin Grammys, tying him with reggaeton group Calle 13 for the most awards.

Guerra, who made the romantic Bachata music famous and is known to sweep the awards from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, led the nominations with six nods this year. But he lost out on the big awards for record and song of the year with his “En El Cielo No Hay Hospital” (In Heaven There Is No Hospital).

Those two awards went to “Corre!” (Run!) by Jesse & Joy, the duo from Mexico City who won best new artists in the same Las Vegas venue in 2007. Their third studio album Con Quien Se Queda El Perro? (Who Is The Dog Staying With?) lost out on album of the year, but won best contemporary pop vocal album.

“Viva Mexico!,” said Jesse upon accepting record of the year, a phrase repeated several times by winners at the 13th edition of the Latin Grammys Thursday night.

Like Jesse & Joy five years earlier, Mexican pop group 3BallMTY won best new artists with their musical style known as “tribal guarachero,” a mix of Mexican cumbia and electronic dance music.

The trio, barely beyond their teenage years, found success on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border with their debut album “Intentalo” (Try It). They dedicated their Latin Grammy to Mexican DJs.

Mexico’s Carla Morrison won best alternative music album with “Dejenme Llorar” (Let Me Cry). Wearing a red dress and sporting multiple tattoos on her arms, she let loose an expletive on the live broadcast after crying out “Viva Mexico!”

Among the top performances of the night were Juanes playing with veteran guitarrist Carlos Santana. The show opened with Miami-born rapper Pitbull, who sings in both English and Spanish.

Brazilian singer and songwriter Caetano Veloso was honored as the Latin Recording Academy‘s person of the year in a ceremony on Wednesday. A founder of the 1960s musical movement known as Tropicalia, Veloso continues to to be one of Brazil’s most popular and innovative artists at 70 years of age.

(Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Pfizer’s once-daily Lyrica trial fails to meet goal

(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc said on Friday a late-stage trial of a once-a-day formulation of its drug pregabalin did not significantly reduce the frequency of some types of seizures in patients with epilepsy.

The drug, sold under the brand name Lyrica, is currently used to treat epilepsy when given several times a day in combination with other drugs.

Pfizer said the lack of a statistically significant improvement may have been due to a higher-than-expected response among patients taking the placebo.

The trial was the first of three trials testing the drug as a once-a-day therapy. The company is also testing it in patients with fibromyalgia and some types of nerve pain, for which it is also approved in its immediate-release formulation.

(Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Curtains for Rice's State hopes?

By Walter Shapiro

Before the initials CIA came to stand for Covert Intimate Affairs, the battle over the next secretary of state would have been the main event of post-election November. Normally, it doesn’t get better than a brand-name Washington struggle pitting the newly reelected president against the Republican senator he defeated in 2008 over filling the Cabinet post soon to be vacated by an ex-president’s wife. 

Barack Obama’s ill-camouflaged inclination to name Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, as Hillary Clinton’s successor would normally be about as contentious as, well, a confirmation hearing for David Petraeus in 2011. Rice, an undersecretary of state in the Clinton administration, has by most accounts performed well in a job that pivots around the micro-wording of Security Council resolutions rather than grand geopolitical visions.

But all that good will evaporated when Rice, drawing the short straw as Obama’s designated foreign-policy spinner, dutifully made the rounds of the Sunday shows on Sept. 16, five days after the Libyan attacks. Repeating the White House line, Rice argued that, based on “the best information,” a “spontaneous protest” outside the American consulate in Benghazi attracted heavily armed “extremist elements” who murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. 

In John McCain’s splenetic view, Rice’s TV commentary smacks of a White House cover-up, since subsequent reporting has shown that initial accounts of a triggering protest were incorrect. As McCain put it Wednesday on Fox News, threatening to filibuster the nomination, “Susan Rice should have known better and if she didn’t know better, she is not qualified.”

At Obama’s first press conference since (gasp) June, the president displayed uncharacteristic moxie in his defense of Rice, who was a key foreign-policy supporter during his 2008 primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Obama called the attacks on Rice “outrageous” Wednesday and said that if the Republicans “think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me.”

All this posturing could be moot if Obama taps John Kerry for secretary of state, although the 2004 Democratic nominee now seems more likely to be headed to the Pentagon to replace Leon Panetta. (The secretary of defense has become one of the last remaining white-men-only jobs in government).

And even though one of the great political novels, “Advise and Consent” by Allen Drury, is built around a confirmation fight over a would-be secretary of state, this has always been one job that the Senate has given a president wide discretion in filling. For all the Iraq-war bluster over the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, Senate Democrats mustered only 13 votes against her in 2005, the highest number of votes against a secretary of state nomination since the early 19th century.

What makes all of this relevant now – before Obama has named a Hillary Clinton replacement – is that it underscores the illogic of most Senate confirmation fights. There may be hidden but valid strategic reasons to oppose a Rice Stuff nomination at State. But it represents a blame-the-messenger stretch even by Washington standards to ensnare Rice in the aftermath of Benghazi.

As should be obvious, the U.N. ambassador has nothing directly to do with embassy security, American covert operations in the Middle East or the flow of intelligence about terrorism. All Rice was doing in her television appearances on September 16 was reciting from talking points presumably prepared by the White House national security team based on information provided by the CIA and other agencies. According to reporting by Washington Post national security columnist David Ignatius, the CIA was still clinging to its belief that the Benghazi attacks began with a spontaneous protest when Rice made her ill-fated rounds of the Sunday shows.

This is not to deny the mysteries that are swirling around the Obama administration’s response to Benghazi. All roads lead to Libya may be the unified field theory linking all current Washington scandals. The Wall Street Journal suggested in a front-page article Thursday that a major reason why Petraeus’ resignation was accepted with such alacrity was the CIA director’s determination to shield the spy agency from blame over Benghazi. The CIA’s release of its Benghazi timeline reportedly angered National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who then used the revelation of Petraeus’ affair as a cudgel to drive him out of government.

Most likely the Republican fury over Benghazi is over-wrought, but it is also easy to grasp. The often secretive Obama administration may be tempted to try to keep everything under wraps, aside from a few sanitized disclosures, in the name of national security. But while there are presumably intelligence risks that would accompany full disclosure, the alternative is letting (probably outlandish) conspiracy theories fester.

The confusion surrounding Benghazi may be attributable to the fog of war – or the fog of a presidential election campaign. In any case, the American people deserve to know what happened and whether the root causes were bad intelligence, bad luck or just bad public explanations.

Otherwise, at the most promising bring-us-together moment of his presidency, the newly reelected Obama will find himself endlessly battling over Benghazi as he attempts to forge a second-term national security team.

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Sina banks on Weibo but weak fourth quarter guidance spooks investors

(Reuters) – Chinese Internet company Sina Corp said its fourth quarter will be hit by a softer economy and posted weaker-than-expected sales guidance, despite a stronger revenue contribution from its hot microblogging platform Weibo.

Shares in Sina fell 7 percent after it forecast adjusted net revenue of $ 132 million to $ 136 million in the current quarter, below analysts’ expectations for $ 151.9 million according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sina, which makes most of its revenue from online advertising both on its website and Weibo, is facing stiff headwinds as firms slash advertising budgets due to a worsening economic outlook.

“We are going to see a weaker quarter for advertising overall in the fourth quarter,” said Charles Chao, Sina’s chief executive on an earnings conference call. The firm forecast Q4 advertising revenues would rise 6-8 percent from a year earlier.

Chao said Weibo contributed 16 percent to total revenue in the third quarter, up from 10 percent in the previous quarter. The platform, which is very popular with white-collar workers, university students and celebrities, had 424 million registered users at the end of the quarter, up from 368 million three months earlier.

Advertisers, like luxury brands, that traditionally don’t advertise with Sina’s main portal website flocked to Weibo to test out the social platform, Chao said.

There were about 230,000 Weibo advertising accounts in the quarter, and Sina was in the process of rolling out a online payment system and new Weibo advertising product to increase monetization at the end of the fourth quarter.

“We believe a ‘promoted feed advertising’ will become one of the major forms of (Weibo) advertising going forward,” said Chao, adding that the product will be effective also on mobile platforms, allowing Sina to tap into Weibo’s growth on mobile devices.

Q3 PROFIT BEAT

For the third quarter, Sina’s net profit was $ 9.9 million compared with a loss of $ 336.3 million a year earlier, and slighly ahead of analysts’ expectations of $ 7.5 million.

Sina’s quarterly advertising revenue rose 19 percent to $ 120.6 million, while non-advertising revenue rose 9 percent to $ 31.8 million.

The company started monetizing Weibo by offering special services to business accounts and selling VIP memberships to regular users earlier this year.

For its mobile-value-added-services business, Sina said it expects revenue to continue to decline due to new regulatory policies.

The company was also affected by a spat between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea as Japanese automakers cut back on advertising in China. Chao said he expected the impact to last into the fourth quarter.

“It did have an impact on our third quarter as well as our fourth quarter. We did see cancellations from customers related to Japanese automobiles in the month of September and it impacted the fourth quarter (too),” Chao said.

Sina shares fell 6.74 percent to $ 49.52 in extended trading. They closed at $ 53.10 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Richard Pullin)

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Jamaica to abolish slavery-era flogging law

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is preparing to abolish a slavery-era law allowing flogging and whipping as means of punishing prisoners, the Caribbean country’s justice ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said the punishment hasn’t been ordered by a court since 2004 but the statutes remain in the island’s penal code. It was administered with strokes from a tamarind-tree switch or a cat o’nine tails, a whip made of nine, knotted cords.

Justice Minister Mark Golding says the “degrading” punishment is an anachronism which violates Jamaica’s international obligations and is preventing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller‘s government from ratifying the U.N. convention against torture.

“The time has come to regularize this situation by getting these colonial-era laws off our books once and for all,” Golding said in a Thursday statement.

The Cabinet has already approved repealing the flogging law and amendments to other laws in the former British colony, where plantation slavery was particularly brutal.

The announcement was welcomed by human rights activists who view the flogging law as a barbaric throwback in a nation populated mostly by the descendants of slaves.

“We don’t really see that (the flogging law) has any part in the approach of dealing with crime in a modern democracy,” said group spokeswoman Susan Goffe.

But there are no shortage of crime-weary Jamaicans who feel that authorities should not drop the old statutes but instead enforce them, arguing that thieves who steal livestock or violent criminals who harm innocent people should receive a whipping to teach them a lesson.

“The worst criminals need strong punishing or else they’ll do crimes over and over,” said Chris Drummond, a Kingston man with three school-age children. “Getting locked up is not always enough.”

The last to suffer the punishment in Jamaica was Errol Pryce, who was sentenced to four years in prison and six lashes in 1994 for stabbing his mother-in-law.

Pryce was flogged the day before being released from prison in 1997 and later complained to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 2004 that the form of corporal punishment was cruel, inhuman and degrading and violated his rights. Jamaican courts then stopped ordering whipping or flogging.

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