20 December 2012 Last updated at 06:06 ET
UK retail sales failed to grow in November, adding to fears that consumers are reining in spending ahead of Christmas.
Sales volumes were flat in November compared with October, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
They had been expected to bounce back after October’s shock 0.8% fall.
The one bright spot was in household goods stores, where sales rose by 3.8% on the month, including consumer electrical items.
However this failed to offset a 0.1% drop in both food sales and sales of clothes and shoes.
Year-on-year, sales volumes rose by 0.9%.
‘Last-minute rush’
By value, sales fell 0.1% on the month but increased 1.5% on the year.
Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP) in the UK.
The ONS figures increase the chance that the UK economy will contract in the last three months of 2012, something the Bank of England has already said is likely.
This year has seen a number of casualties on the High Street, the latest being electrical retailer Comet, whose last stores closed this week.
British Retail Consortium director-general Helen Dickinson, said that the coming weekend would be crucial for retailers.
“With Christmas falling on a Tuesday this year, this weekend will be the critical one – I’m expecting a last-minute rush but overall in sales terms it will be neither a bumper Christmas nor a disaster.”
BBC News – Business
(Reuters) – Police made critical errors in pursuing Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton partly because of “systemic bias” against his victims, sex trade workers from a rough Vancouver neighborhood, according to the final report from a public inquiry released on Monday.
Commissioner Wally Oppal was asked by the British Columbia government to investigate, in effect, why Pickton was not caught sooner. Women disappeared from the Downtown Eastside neighborhood for more than a decade before the pig farmer’s 2002 arrest.
“The investigations of missing and murdered women were characterized by blatant police failures, and by public indifference,” Oppal said at a press conference in Vancouver that was frequently interrupted by protesters.
Pickton was convicted of six murders, but prosecutors believe he killed many more – 20 other charges were stayed after he received the maximum possible sentence.
Oppal outlined a string of police errors, from failing to take proper reports when women went missing and communicate adequately with families, to ineffective coordination across jurisdictions. He called his more than 1,200-page report, which is based on eight months of hearings, “Forsaken”.
“After reviewing the evidence of the investigations, I have come to the conclusion that there was systemic bias by the police,” he said.
Oppal recommended that the provincial government establish a compensation fund for the children of the victims and consider creating a regional police force for Vancouver, instead of the patchwork of jurisdictions currently in place.
After Oppal’s announcement, B.C. Minister of Justice Shirley Bond wiped away tears as she spoke to victims’ families.
“I want you to know that, however inadequate these words sound, we are sorry for your loss,” she said. “We will work hard to prevent these circumstances from being repeated in our province.”
She announced the appointment of a former lieutenant governor, Steven Point, to serve as the report’s “champion”, guiding implementation. Bond said the government would immediately give new funding to WISH, a drop-in center for women who work in the Downtown Eastside’s sex trade.
POLICE RESPOND
The Vancouver Police Department said in a short statement that it is committed to learning from its mistakes and will study the report.
“We know that nothing can ever truly heal the wounds of grief and loss but if we can, we want to assure the families that the Vancouver Police Department deeply regrets anything we did that may have delayed the eventual solving of these murders,” it said.
Deputy Commissioner Craig Callens, who commands the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said in a statement that his force will review the report.
Oppal said many individual police officers were diligent, and he commended several by name. But he said that as a system, the authorities failed because of bias against Pickton’s victims, many of whom were poor and addicted to drugs.
“Would the reaction of the police and the public have been any different if the missing women had come from Vancouver’s (more affluent) west side? The answer is obvious,” he said.
Aboriginal women were overrepresented among the victims, and Oppal repeatedly referred to the broader “marginalization” of aboriginal people in Canada.
“There has to be community responsibility for what has taken place,” he said, highlighting poverty and the conditions on the Downtown Eastside. “The social reality is that racism and gender bias are prevalent within Canadian society, and we must do something to eradicate those.”
Victims’ families and activists were on hand for Oppal’s press conference, and he stopped speaking several times as audience members shouted criticism, chanted and played drums.
The provincial government did not offer funding to a number of community organizations that said they needed support to participate in the lengthy and complex inquiry. In protest, other groups boycotted the process.
In November, several organizations, including the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, released their own report, criticizing the inquiry for, among other things, excluding too many aboriginal women, sex trade workers and drug users.
Bond, the justice minister, said she did not regret the decision not to fund those groups, but said she saw them participating in the future. “I think going forward this is room for us to include other voices.” (Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Eric Beech)
Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Pretend writer Nathan Fillion will help honor real writers on February 17, when he hosts the Writers Guild Awards West Coast show, the Writers Guild of America, West said Monday.
Fillion, who plays a mystery novelist on ABC’s “Castle,” joked that he was “confused” when he was tapped for the hosting gig.
“When I first accepted the honor of hosting the Writers Guild Awards, I was confused and actually thought I was receiving one. Since I play a writer on TV, I felt perhaps someone was under the impression I deserved an award and I wasn’t about to correct them,” Fillion said. “However, now I’m in the perfect position to present myself with whichever award I choose. Who’s going to know?”
The Writers Guild Awards West Coast show will take place February 17, 2013 at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live. The East Coast show will take place simultaneously at B.B. King Blues Club in New York City.
Writers Guild Awards executive producer Cort Casady praised Fillion’s multiple talents – along with his thriving Twitter account – in the announcement.
“Not only does he play a writer brilliantly on ‘Castle,’ but also, in addition to acting, he sings, dances, is a popular voice talent, and has a great gift for comedy,” Casady said. “And with over 1.5 million Twitter followers, Nathan brings a smart, enthusiastic audience to our celebration of writing.”
TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News
BOSASO, Somalia (Reuters) – At least 18 Somalis drowned when their boat sank and their bodies washed ashore near the port city of Bosaso in Somalia‘s northern breakaway region of Puntland, a government official said on Tuesday.
The Puntland official said authorities believed a boat carrying illegal Somali migrants had capsized, and that it was likely that the death toll could rise.
African migrants often use unseaworthy boats to try to reach Yemen, seen as a gateway to wealthier parts of the Middle East and the West. Hundreds of the migrants have perished at sea.
“Today we found 18 dead bodies of Somalis on a beach 17 km away from Bosaso,” Seinab Ugas Yasin, the assistant health minister in the semi-autonomous region told Reuters.
“The dead bodies include those of 10 women, seven men and that of a baby. We also found 5 people alive,” she said.
Yasin gave no further details, but said authorities were looking for more dead people. Residents said the ill-fated boat had been carrying about 80 people from Bosaso.
At least 27 people were believed to have died in April after two boats that had set out from Somalia sank off the coast of Yemen.
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LONDON (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a flat-to-higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday, consolidating gains after the S&P 500′s best two-day run in a month.
* Futures for the S&P 500 were unchanged, while Dow Jones and Nasdaq 100 contracts rose 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, at 0924 GMT.
* Japan’s Nikkei <.n225> jumped 2.4 percent to end above 10,000 for the first time in more than eight months on Wednesday on growing expectations of easier monetary policy under a new government.</.n225>
* European shares continued to drift higher as expectations built that a budget deal in the United States is close, though traders reckoned any positive outcome is largely baked into the price.
* The U.S. Commerce Dept. releases housing starts and permits for November at 1330 GMT. Economists in a Reuters survey forecast 873,000 housing starts in November versus 894,000 in October, and a total of 875,000 building permits in November compared with 868,000 in the prior month.
* FedEx, the No. 2 U.S. package-delivery company, is due to report second-quarter results at 1230 GMT. It is expected to post earnings per share of $ 1.41 down from $ 1.57 one year earlier, as a weakening economy leads corporate customers to choose slower, cheaper and less profitable ways of shipping goods.
* Industrial machinery maker SPX Corp is closing in on a roughly $ 4.2 billion deal to buy rival Gardner Denver Inc , as it makes progress in securing financing, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
* U.S. securities regulators on Tuesday outlined potential ways to reduce conflicts of interest at the country’s largest credit-rating agencies, Moody’s Corp , McGraw-Hill Cos Inc’s Standard & Poor’s, and Fimalac SA’s Fitch.
* Google‘s Motorola Mobility unit cannot assert a patent against Apple Inc which covers a sensor that stops phone users from dialing wrong numbers on touchscreen devices, a U.S. trade judge ruled.
* The Federal Trade Commission is unlikely to finish its investigation before January into whether Google Inc abused its power in the search market, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the investigation.
* Oracle Corp’s quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations on strong software sales growth, suggesting that the approach of the “fiscal cliff” has yet to crimp corporate spending on technology.
* Pharma group Pfizer plans to cut about 20 percent of its sales force for primary-care drugs, Bloomberg News reported, as the pharmaceutical company copes with the loss of a patent for top-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor.
* Time Warner Cable , the second-largest cable TV distributor in the United States, said on Tuesday it is planning to drop arts-focused cable channel Ovation, citing its low ratings relative to the cost of carrying the network.
* Accenture, the technology outsourcing and consulting company, reports first quarter results after the market close.
* The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 115.57 points, or 0.87 percent, to 13,350.96 on Tuesday. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 16.43 points, or 1.15 percent, to 1,446.79. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 43.93 points, or 1.46 percent, to 3,054.53.</.ixic></.spx></.dji>
(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; editing by Patrick Graham)
Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels took full control of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Monday after fighting raged for days in the district on the southern edge of President Bashar al-Assad‘s Damascus powerbase, rebel and Palestinian sources said.
The battle had pitted rebels, backed by some Palestinians, against Palestinian fighters of the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC). Many PFLP-GC fighters defected to the rebel side and their leader Ahmed Jibril left the camp two days ago, rebel sources said.
“All of the camp is under the control of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army,” said a Palestinian activist in Yarmouk. He said clashes had stopped and the remaining PFLP fighters retreated to join Assad‘s forces massed on the northern edge of the camp.
The battle in Yarmouk is one of a series of conflicts on the southern fringes of Assad’s capital, as rebels try to choke the power of the 47-year-old leader after a 21-month-old uprising in which 40,000 people have been killed.
Government forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters but the violence has crept into the heart of the city and activists say rebels overran three army stations in a new offensive in the central province of Hama on Monday.
On the border with Lebanon, hundreds of Palestinian families fled across the frontier following the weekend violence in Yarmouk, a Reuters witness said.
Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees, most living in Yarmouk, descendants of those admitted after the creation of Israel in 1948, and has always cast itself as a champion of the Palestinian struggle, sponsoring several guerrilla factions.
Both Assad’s government and the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels have enlisted and armed divided Palestinian factions as the uprising has developed into a civil war.
“NEITHER SIDE CAN WIN”
Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa said in a newspaper interview published on Monday that neither Assad’s forces nor rebels seeking to overthrow him can win the war.
Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim in a power structure dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, has rarely been seen since the revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president’s inner circle directing the fight against Sunni rebels. But he is the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not win.
Sharaa said the situation in Syria was deteriorating and a “historic settlement” was needed to end the conflict, involving regional powers and the U.N. Security Council and the formation of a national unity government “with broad powers”.
“With every passing day the political and military solutions are becoming more distant. We should be in a position defending the existence of Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime,” Sharaa was quoted as telling Al-Akhbar newspaper.
“The opposition cannot decisively settle the battle and what the security forces and army units are doing will not achieve a decisive settlement,” he said, adding that insurgents fighting to topple Syria’s leadership could plunge it into “anarchy and an unending spiral of violence”.
Sources close to the Syrian government say Sharaa had pushed for dialogue with the opposition and objected to the military response to an uprising that began peacefully.
In a veiled criticism of the crackdown, he said there was a difference between the state’s duty to provide security to its citizens, and “pursuing a security solution to the crisis”.
He said even Assad could not be certain where events in Syria were leading, but that anyone who met him would hear that “this is a long struggle…and he does not hide his desire to settle matters militarily to reach a final solution.”
In Hama province, rebels and the army clashed in a new campaign launched on Sunday by rebels to block off the country’s north, activists said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked violence monitor, said fighting raged through the provincial towns of Karnaz, Kafar Weeta, Halfayeh and Mahardeh.
It said there were no clashes reported in Hama city, which lies on the main north-south highway connecting the capital with Aleppo, Syria’s second city.
Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said on Sunday fighters had been ordered to surround and attack army positions across the province. He said Assad’s forces were given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.
In 1982 Hafez al-Assad, father of the current ruler, crushed an uprising in Hama city, killing up to 30,000 civilians.
Qatiba al-Naasan, a rebel from Hama, said the offensive would bring retaliatory air strikes from the government but that the situation is “already getting miserable”.
(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes, Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Afif Diab at Masnaa, Lebanon; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
World News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ricky Gervais is in negotiations to star in “The Muppets” sequel at Disney, a representative for the actor told TheWrap.
Ty Burrell was cast in the film earlier this month after Christoph Waltz dropped out.
James Bobin, who directed the 2011 Muppets film, is directing the sequel, which he co-wrote with Nicholas Stoller.
Filming is expected to begin in Europe early next year.
The 2011 “Muppets” feature made $ 88 million at the U.S. box office.
David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are producing the sequel.
Gervais’ recent credits include “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D.” His upcoming films include “The Wind in the Willows.”
He is represented by WME and United Agents.
Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A number of obstacles may stand between a person and exercise, and hairstyles may be one of them for African-American women, according to a new study.
Researchers found about two of every five African-American women said they avoid exercise because of concerns about their hair, and researchers say that is concerning given the United States’ obesity epidemic.
“As an African-American woman, I have that problem, and my friends have that problem. So I wondered if my patients had that problem,” said Dr. Amy McMichael, the study’s senior researcher and a dermatologist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
McMichael and her colleagues, who published their findings in the Archives of Dermatology on Monday, said hair care can be tedious and costly for African-American women.
Rochelle Mosley, who owns Salon 804 in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, told Reuters Health some of her African-American clients come in once per week to get their hair straightened at a cost of about $ 40.
They may not want to wash their hair more than once a week to keep their hairstyle, and may avoid sweating because of that.
To find out if women were putting hair above their health, the researchers surveyed 103 African-American women who came to the dermatology clinic at Wake Forest University in October 2007.
They found that more than half of the women were exercising for less than 75 minutes per week, which is less than the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services‘ recommendation of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise.
That’s also less than U.S. women on average, according to a 2007 study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found about half of all U.S. women were exercising close to 150 minutes per week.
More than a quarter of the women in the new study said they didn’t exercise at all.
About a third of the women said they exercise less than they’d like because of their hair, and half said they have considered changing their hair for exercise.
McMichael and her colleagues found that women who avoided exercise because of their hair were almost three times less likely to meet the recommended physical activity guidelines. That finding, however, could have been due to chance.
Also, scalp issues, such as itching and dandruff, played a role in the women’s decision-making process.
SALON OWNER NOT SURPRISED
McMichael also admits that they only surveyed African-American women, and they can’t say whether this is a problem shared by other ethnicities.
“It is a really important conversation that African-American women want to have, and they’re looking for solutions,” said McMichael.
Salon 804′s Mosley told Reuters Health that she’s not surprised by the findings based on her 22 years in business.
Previously, studies have connected people who get their hair done and their overall health. Some barbershops and salons even act as health clinics (see Reuters article of June 29, 2011 here: http://reut.rs/WjFXgB).
Mosley added that some women schedule their visits around their exercise schedule, but she also tries to find a hairstyle that will work with physical activity.
“If you don’t have a healthy body then you aren’t going to have any hair to fix,” she said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/WjBo5P Archives of Dermatology, online December 17, 2012.
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
18 December 2012 Last updated at 02:45 ET
Comet stores are to close their doors for the last time on Tuesday, bringing the failed electrical retailer’s 79-year history to an end.
Of the 236 stores the firm presided over when it went into administration last month, only 49 are still open.
On Monday, administrators Deloitte said unsecured creditors would get back less than 1% of the money owed to them.
The chain’s collapse will also cost the government £49.4m in redundancy payments and foregone tax revenues.
The redundancy money owed to thousands of former Comet workers totals £23.2m and will be paid by the government’s Redundancy Payments Service (RPS).
Meanwhile, £26.2m is owed in taxes to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which is one of dozens of unsecured creditors of the retailer who are owed a total of £233m, none of which will be repaid.
Other unsecured lenders reportedly include landlords owed £135m in rents and other claims, manufacturers unable to reclaim goods delivered to Comet on credit worth £6m, and various other claimants owed £66m, such as ITV and Google, which had reportedly not been paid for advertising.
Big losses
The total hole in Comet’s balance sheet by the time it was wound up had reached £311m, according to Deloitte’s estimations.
Comet’s secured lenders will also be stung by the firm’s failure, receiving only £50m of the £145m they are owed, as the assets on which their debts were secured could not be sold off at a high enough price.
The company’s main secured lender is Hailey, the company set up by private equity firm OpCapita in order to buy up Comet from Anglo-French retail group Kesa last year for a nominal £1 payment.
Founded in 1933 as a business charging radio batteries
Opened its first store in Hull in 1968
Bought by Woolworths and B&Q owner Kingfisher in 1984, which expanded Comet into one of the UK’s best-known retail brands
In 2003 Comet became part of Kesa Electricals, after Kesa was demerged from Kingfisher
It was announced in November 2011 that Comet would be sold to private equity group OpCapita for just £1
OpCapita was also given £50m by Kesa as part of the deal
However, OpCapita failed to turn around Comet’s fortunes, as the company continued to suffer from the fall in UK consumer spending during the recession and the big growth in online rivals.
Deloitte also revealed on Monday that Comet’s losses in the year to April totalled £95m, while its revenues slumped by £200m.
In the subsequent five months, Comet lost a further £31m.
Towards the end, insurers refused to guarantee suppliers, who in turn refused to extend credit on sales to Comet in the run-up to the crucial Christmas sales period.
Comet’s demise is one of the biggest High Street casualties of recent years.
The 236-store business, which at the time employed about 7,000 people, was founded in Hull in 1933 and began life selling batteries and radios.
The closure of the final Comet stores comes after Deloitte failed to find a buyer for the company.
It is unclear what will become of the Comet brand, with one possibility being a sale to an online retailer, similar to the fate of Woolworths.
Kesa Electricals was renamed Darty in July this year.
Despite having its headquarters in London, it focuses on the continental market – especially France, where it has more than 200 stores under the Darty name.
BBC News – Business
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