Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.

The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.

“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.

Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.

“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.

Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.

“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”

Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.

“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.

“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.

Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.

Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.

“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”

Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.

He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.

“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”

Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.

Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.

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Average wireless bill increased 7% in 2012 , 70% of subscribers now own smartphones

We all love our smartphones, but they are a costly addiction to support. According to Consumer Reports, American wireless subscribers saw their wireless bills increase by 7% between 2011 and 2012, and the big culprit is the continued proliferation of smartphones. Overall, 70% of wireless subscribers who took part in Consumer Reports’ survey owned smartphones this year, up from 50% in 2011. As the publication notes, “upgrading from a plain cell phone at a major carrier isn’t cheap” since “you have to buy the smart phone itself (usually $ 100 to $ 400 when signing a two-year contract) and fork over $ 70 to $ 110 a month for a plan with data service… a lot more than a basic phone plan, which generally costs $ 40 to $ 70 a month.”

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Putin aide denies Russian president has health problems

TOKYO/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin is in good health, his chief of staff said on Friday after Japanese media said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had postponed a visit to Moscow next month because the Russian president had a health problem.

A former KGB officer who enjoys vast authority in Russia, Putin has long cultivated a tough-guy image, and health issues could damage that. His condition though has been questioned in some media since he was seen limping at a summit in September.

Three Russian government sources told Reuters late in October that Putin, who began a six-year term in May and turned 60 last month, was suffering from back trouble, but the Kremlin has dismissed talk that he had a serious back problem.

Putin’s health troubles stem from a recent judo bout, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said this week.

Then on Friday Japanese news agencies Kyodo and Jiji reported that Prime Minister Noda talked about the delay of a visit planned for December in a meeting with municipal officials on the northern island of Hokkaido.

“It’s about (President Putin’s) health problem. This is not something that can easily be made public,” Jiji cited one of the officials as quoting Noda as saying.

But Putin’s chief of staff Sergei Ivanov denied there was any problem.

“Please don’t worry, don’t be concerned. Everything is in order with his health,” Putin’s said in Vienna, according to state-run Russian news agency RIA.

In an interview published on Friday in the popular Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said rumors about a spine problem were “strongly exaggerated”.

“He is working as he has before and intends to continue working at the same pace,” Peskov said.

“He also does not plan to give up his sports activities and for this reason, like any athlete, his back, his arm, his leg might sometimes hurt a little – this has never gotten in the way of his ability to work.”

Putin had been expected to make several foreign trips in late October or November, but they did not take place.

Putin is however due to visit Turkey on Monday and Turkmenistan on Wednesday.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, made amply clear the Kremlin was displeased by the public discussion of scheduling by Japanese officials and denied that Noda’s visit had been postponed, saying no date had been set.

“It is just unethical to name the dates that were discussed. There were several: at first it was October, November, December, January … then we even shifted to February,” Ushakov said, adding that the sides eventually agreed tentatively on January.

He said the diplomatic process of agreeing dates for the visit should have been “hermetically sealed”.

Putin’s image as a fit, healthy man helped bring him popularity when he rose to power 13 years ago because of the stark contrast with his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who was sometimes drunk in public and had heart surgery when president.

He has used activities like scuba diving and horseback riding to maintain that image.

On Friday, Putin met leaders of parliamentary factions in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. He appeared in good health and was walking without any sign of a limp.

Likely to be on the agenda in talks between Russian and Japanese officials are energy cooperation and a decades-old dispute over islands north of Hokkaido known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

(Additional reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Tomasz Janowski and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jon Hemming)

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China Nov official factory PMI hits seven-month high

BEIJING (Reuters) – China‘s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose to a seven-month high of 50.6 in November from 50.2 in October, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday.

The headline figure is in line with an economist poll by Reuters this week, and confirms a trend toward recovering growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

A PMI reading below 50 suggests growth slowed, while a number above 50 indicates accelerating growth.

While growth accelerated for large firms for the third month in a row, medium and smaller companies saw a retrenchment, with the decline more pronounced for the smaller firms, the NBS said in an accompanying statement.

“The improving numbers are mostly because of government investment. From the second quarter the government has unleashed a lot of projects, and that has started to be felt in the economy, but it’s not a very healthy recovery yet,” said Dong Xian’an, economist with Peking First Advisory.

The HSBC China flash PMI – which gathers more data from smaller, privately-held firms that have a strong export focus – signaled that November growth in the manufacturing sector had quickened for the first time in 13 months with a reading of 50.4 when it was published last week, reflecting a steady uptick in the economy.

China’s economic health has improved since September, with an array of indicators from factory output to retail sales and investment showing Beijing’s pro-growth policies are starting to gain traction.

Analysts said the end of a destocking cycle and a greater pace of investment would keep driving up domestic demand, and extend the recovery trend into the final quarter of this year.

Smaller and private firms are still pleading for greater access to credit and investment incentives, which have gone disproportionately to the state sector, particularly since the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

China’s annual economic growth dipped to 7.4 percent in the third quarter, slowing for seven quarters in a row and leaving the economy on course for its weakest showing since 1999.

Given the recent signs of recovery, many analysts expect the economy to snap out of its longest downward cycle since the global financial crisis, and start to trend upwards in the fourth quarter.

But economists also warn of downside risks from still cloudy external markets. The European debt crisis and listless U.S. economy continue to crimp demand from China’s two largest trade partners.

China’s central bank has moved cautiously in easing monetary policy to underpin economic growth, wary of reigniting inflation and fanning property prices which are still high.

It cut interest rates twice in June and July and lowered banks’ reserve requirement ratio by 150 basis points in three stages since last November, but has refrained from further cuts since July. The authorities have opted to inject liquidity via open market operations to pump short-term cash into money markets.

The official PMI generally paints a rosier picture of the factory sector than the HSBC PMI because the official survey focuses on big, state-owned firms, while the HSBC PMI targets smaller, private companies. There are also differing approaches to seasonal adjustment between the two surveys.

This year’s final HSBC PMI reading is due to be published at 0145 GMT on Monday.

(Reporting By Lucy Hornby; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

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AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Stephen King and Steven Spielberg’s “Under the Dome” gets series order from CBS

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Under the Dome” has landed under the wing of CBS.

The network has given a 13-episode, straight-to-series order for the project, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name.

The series will premiere in summer 2013.

King will executive-produce, along with Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Television will produce the series in association with CBS Television Studios. Neal Baer, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Stacey Snider and Brian K. Vaughan are also executive-producing. Niels Arden Oplev (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”) will direct the first episode.

The series will revolve around a small New England town that is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an enormous transparent dome. The town’s inhabitants must deal with surviving the post-apocalyptic conditions while searching for answers to what this barrier is, where it came from and if and when it will go away.

“This is a great novel coming to the television screen with outstanding auspices and in-season production values to create a summer programming event,” CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said. “We’re excited to transport audiences ‘Under the Dome’ and into the extraordinary world that Stephen King has imagined.”

Showtime, which is owned by CBS, had previously been developing the project.

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Widower of woman denied abortion to sue Ireland

DUBLIN (AP) — The widower of an Indian woman who died in an Irish hospital after being refused an abortion plans to sue Ireland‘s government in the European Court of Human Rights.

Praveen Halappanavar confirmed his decision Thursday through his lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell.

His wife Savita died Oct. 28 in a hospital in Galway, western Ireland, one week after being admitted for severe pain amid a miscarriage.

Doctors refused to perform an abortion for three days while the 17-week-old fetus still had a heartbeat. Savita fell gravely ill after the dead fetus was removed and then suffered gradual organ failure. A coroner ruled she died from blood poisoning.

The case has forced Ireland to re-examine its two-decade failure to pass any laws governing when women can receive abortions to save their own lives.

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Argentina’s 11-Year War With Hedge Funds

Since it defaulted on its debt more than a decade ago, Argentina’s economy has engaged in a Cold War of sorts with international investors. Buenos Aires stuck bondholders with a take-it-or-leave-it exchange offer of 30¢ on the dollar, the harshest sovereign debt haircut in at least half a century.

Companies delisted. Foreign investors bolted. Argentina, meanwhile, was demoted from the league of “emerging markets” to that of less-developed “frontier” economies, alongside Bangladesh and Kenya—among which the South American nation has been struggling to remain. To inflict injury on these insults, late President Néstor Kirchner and the wife who succeeded him, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, have nationalized $ 24 billion in private pensions and assumed control of the country’s top energy company, which was majority owned by Spain’s Repsol (REP:SM). The government also instituted bizarre regulations, such as one that requires car importers to match their imports with exports of equal value.

However, a hardy group of “holdout” creditors, including U.S. institutional investors and a handful of elderly Argentinian pensioners, refused to participate in the nation’s 2005 and 2010 debt restructurings, wagering that they could band together to get better terms out of Buenos Aires. Last month’s scorched-earth volley: A court in Ghana, of all places, detained an Argentine frigate at the request of a hedge fund that says Buenos Aires owes it $ 300 million on old debt. Argentina just escalated the affair to the United Nations. All this at a time when the defiant Kirchner has rekindled nationalism over the Falkland Islands, over which Argentina went to war with the U.K. more than 30 years ago.

Now, the battle for the economic soul of the nation of 41 million—amid a raging international debate about the limits of creditor rights (Greece, anyone?)—is taking place in, of all places, New York. In courtrooms there, the aforementioned aggrieved hedgie, Paul Singer, is spearheading a campaign to wrest better payment on the debt he owns. Last week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa ordered Argentina to deposit $ 1.33 billion to pay the Singer-led holdouts. On Wednesday, an appeals court gave Argentina more time to fight the ruling.

The nervously awaited outcome could either sink Argentina’s economy or make it ever more hostile to the global capital markets. Or neither. Or both. Probably some titration therein. Fitch Ratings was sufficiently spooked by the standoff to say an Argentine default is now “probable.” It’s not just a matter of Argentina facing off with its creditors: Bondholders who agreed to the haircut don’t necessarily want to see the renegades made whole, especially if it threatens their own payments. Accordingly, Bush v Gore super lawyer David Boise has entered the crowded fray. It gets better: Theodore Olson, Boies’s Supreme Court opponent in Election 2000, could well end up arguing opposite Boies again. (At least they agree on something.) The boom in Argentina-related billable hours is an international incident unto itself. According to law firm White & Case, since Argentina’s default, jilted bondholders have filed at least 180 civil lawsuits against the country in the Empire State.

Confused? So is everyone else. This explainer, by Ohio State international financial law professor Steven Davidoff, is a must-read.

How, you ask, can Argentina possibly still wield any financial suasion abroad? Well, 1) Look at it on a map. 2) Try its steak. The geographically blessed nation has undeniable breadbasket appeal, with its abundance of soybeans, livestock, and minerals in a China-dominated world that wants ever more of those things.

Witness how very well Brazil, Colombia, and Peru have done during Argentina’s pariah decade. For all its faults, Argentina remains the continent’s No.2 economy. (Columbia is disputing that.) So even as its Merval stock index has been whittled to near-irrelevance by the delistings and falling international interest, it has more than quintupled since the nation’s financial meltdown.

“My view is that Argentina will stand more defiant than ever but at the same time, it will do whatever it can to make sure to keep servicing their debt and show the world community that they are the victims and that the ‘vulture funds’ are the bad guys,” says Santiago Maggi, managing partner with Latmark Asset Management in Miami.

“Without accessing capital markets, we have been punctually paying since 2005 with our own resources and we are going to continue to do so because we are going to honor our obligations as corresponds to a country that has recovered its self-esteem,” Kirchner said in a speech earlier this week.

Can she hang on long enough to be kept to her word? On top of legal and frigate-forfeiture problems, Argentina is mired in a deep recession marked by growing labor unrest, high inflation, and declining infrastructure.

Which, depending on Kirchner’s read, could call for more sticking it to los capitalistas.

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Rapper PSY wants Tom Cruise to go ‘Gangnam Style’

BANGKOK (AP) — The South Korean rapper behind YouTube’s most-viewed video ever has set what might be a “Mission: Impossible” for himself.

Asked which celebrity he would like to see go “Gangnam Style,” the singer PSY told The Associated Press: “Tom Cruise!”

Surrounded by screaming fans, he then chuckled at the idea of the American movie star doing his now famous horse-riding dance.

PSY’s comments Wednesday in Bangkok were his first public remarks since his viral smash video — with 838 million views — surpassed Justin Bieber‘s “Baby,” which until Saturday held the record with 803 million views.

“It’s amazing,” PSY told a news conference, saying he never set out to become an international star. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song — wow.”

The video has spawned hundreds of parodies and tribute videos and earned him a spotlight alongside a variety of superstars.

Earlier this month, Madonna invited PSY onstage and they danced to his song at one of her New York City concerts. MC Hammer introduced the Korean star at the American Music Awards as, “My Homeboy PSY!”

Even President Barack Obama is talking about him. Asked on Election Day if he could do the dance, Obama replied: “I think I can do that move,” but then concluded he might “do it privately for Michelle,” the first lady.

PSY was in Thailand to give a free concert Wednesday night organized as a tribute to the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 85 next month. He paid respects to the king at a Bangkok shopping mall, signing his name in an autograph book placed beside a giant poster of the king. He then gave an outdoor press conference, as screaming fans nearby performed the pop star’s dance.

Determined not to be a one-hit wonder, PSY said he plans to release a worldwide album in March with dance moves that he thinks his international fans will like.

“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the (next) music video.”

“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”

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Associated Press writer Thanyarat Doksone contributed to this report.

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‘The Inbetweeners’ Canceled by MTV

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “The Inbetweeners” now falls solidly in the “canceled” camp.

MTV has decided not to go forward with a second season of the scripted series, which premiered in August and was an adaptation of a British sitcom of the same name.

“While we won’t be moving forward with another season of ‘The Inbetweeners,’ we enjoyed working with the show’s creators and such a talented, funny cast,” an MTV spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement.

The series starred Joey Pollari, Bubba Lewis, Zack Pearlman, Mark L. Young and Alex Frnka as a group of “inbetweeners” – that is, kids who fall somewhere between nerds and jocks on the spectrum of teenage cliques.

The “Inbetweeners” cancelation follows the dropping of the MTV scripted effort “I Just Want My Pants Back” in May after one season.

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