Venezuela’s Chavez to have another cancer operation

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he would undergo another cancer operation in the coming days after doctors in Cuba found a third recurrence of malignant cells in his pelvic area.

The news is a big blow for his supporters in South America’s biggest oil exporter, who elected him in October to a new six-year term in power. Chavez has twice said he was cured, and then had to return to Cuba for more surgery.

In a televised broadcast flanked by ministers at the Miraflores presidential palace, Chavez said that if anything happened to him and a new vote had to be held, his supporters should vote for Vice President Nicolas Maduro – the first time the socialist leader has named a successor.

Chavez returned to Venezuela on Friday from having medical treatment in Cuba, ending a three-week absence from public view.

“Unfortunately, during these exhaustive exams they found some malignant cells in the same area … . It is absolutely necessary, absolutely essential, that I have to undergo a new surgical intervention,” the 58-year-old said, looking resolute.

“With God’s will, like on the previous occasions, we will come out of this victorious.”

The president has already had three cancer operations in Cuba since the middle of last year. News of more surgery will likely raise new doubts about his future and the fate of his self-styled “revolution” in the OPEC nation.

Chavez, who has dominated Venezuelan politics since taking power 14 years ago, said he would return to Havana on Sunday.

Under Venezuela’s constitution, an election would have to be held within 30 days if Chavez were to leave office within the first four years of his next term, due to begin on January 10.

The president has been receiving treatment at the Cimeq hospital in Havana as a guest of his friend and political mentor, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea and Diego Ore; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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North Korea considers delaying rocket launch

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea may postpone the controversial launch of a long-range rocket that had been slated for liftoff as early as this week, state media said Sunday, as international pressure on Pyongyang to cancel the provocative move intensified.

Scientists have been pushing forward with final preparations for the launch from a west coast site, slated to take place as early as Monday, but are considering "readjusting" the timing, an unidentified spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology told North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency.

It was unclear whether diplomatic intervention or technical glitches were behind the delay. A brief KCNA dispatch said scientists and technicians were discussing whether to set new launch dates but did not elaborate.

Word of a possible delay comes just days after satellite photos indicated that snow may have slowed launch preparations, and as officials in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow and elsewhere urged North Korea to cancel a liftoff widely seen as a violation of bans against missile activity.

Commercial satellite imagery taken by GeoEye on Dec. 4 and shared Friday with The Associated Press by the 38 North and North Korea Tech websites showed the Sohae site northwest of Pyongyang covered with snow. The road from the main assembly building to the launch pad showed no fresh tracks, indicating that the snowfall may have stalled the preparations.

However, analysts believed rocket preparations would have been completed on time for liftoff as early as Monday.

In Seoul, officials at the Defense Ministry, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Foreign Ministry said Sunday they were looking into what might be behind the possible delay.

North Korea announced earlier this month that it would launch a three-stage rocket mounted with a satellite from its Sohae station southeast of Sinuiju sometime between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22. Pyongyang calls it a peaceful bid to send an observational satellite into space, its second attempt this year.

The launch announcement captured global headlines because of its timing: South Korea and Japan hold key elections this month, President Barack Obama begins his second term next month and China has just formed a new leadership.

The United States, Japan, South Korea and others have urged North Korea to refrain from carrying out the launch, calling it a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on nuclear activity because the rocket shares the same technology used for firing a long-range missile.

China, the North's main ally and aid provider, noted its "concern." It acknowledged North Korea's right to develop its space program but said that had to be harmonized with restrictions including those set by the U.N. Security Council.

Past launches have earned North Korea international condemnation and a host of sanctions.

South Korean analysts said North Korea's announcement of a possible delay suggests the country wants to resume talks with the U.S. on receiving much-needed aid, or has yielded to diplomatic pressure by China.

North Korea may not fire the rocket if the U.S. actively engages in talks with Pyongyang and promises to ship stalled food assistance to the country, said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Seoul's Dongguk University.

In February, the U.S. agreed to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid to North Korea in exchange for a freeze in nuclear and missile activities. The deal collapsed after North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April.

Analyst Baek Seung-joo of the South Korean state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul said China must have sent a "very strong" message calling for the North to cancel the launch plans.

"North Korea won't say it would delay the launch due to foreign pressure so that's why they say scientists and technicians are considering delaying it," he said.

The unexpected launch announcement was issued Dec. 1 as North Koreans began mourning late leader Kim Jong Il, who died on Dec. 17, 2011.

An April launch from the same new launch pad was held on April 13, two days before the centennial of the birth of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. That rocket broke up just seconds after liftoff.

The U.S. and other nations see the launches as covers for illicit tests of missile technology. North Korea has unveiled missiles designed to target U.S. soil, and has tested two atomic bombs in recent years, but has not shown yet that it has mastered the technology for mounting a nuclear warhead to a long-range missile.

Six-nation negotiations to offer North Korea much-needed aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament have been stalled since 2009.

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Protesters surge around Egypt’s presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around the presidential palace on Friday and the opposition rejected President Mohamed Mursi‘s call for dialogue to end a crisis that has polarized the nation and sparked deadly clashes.

The Islamist leader’s deputy said he could delay a December 15 referendum on a constitution that liberals opposed, although the concession only partly meets a list of opposition demands that include scrapping a decree that expanded Mursi‘s powers.

“The people want the downfall of the regime” and “Leave, leave,” crowds chanted after bursting through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the palace of Egypt‘s first freely elected president.

Their slogans echoed those used in a popular revolt that toppled Mursi’s predecessor Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said in a statement sent to local media that the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.

The dialogue meeting was expected to go ahead on Saturday in the absence of most opposition factions. “Tomorrow everything will be on the table,” a presidential source said of the talks.

The opposition has demanded that Mursi rescind a November 22 decree giving himself wide powers and delay the vote set for December 15 on a constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly which they say fails to meet the aspirations of all Egyptians.

The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting in Egypt.

Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters that delaying expatriate voting was made to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition’s stance.

He said the core opposition demand was to freeze Mursi’s decree and “to reconsider the formation and structure of the constituent assembly”, not simply to postpone the referendum.

The opposition organized marches converging on the palace which elite Republican Guard units had ringed with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi killed seven people and wounded 350.

Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead. “With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam,” they chanted.

“ARM-TWISTING”

In a speech late on Thursday, Mursi had refused to retract his November 22 decree or cancel the referendum on the constitution, but offered talks on the way forward after the referendum.

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join the dialogue. The Front’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as “arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli”.

Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said opposition reactions were sad: “What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?” he asked.

Mursi’s decree giving himself extra powers sparked the worst political crisis since he took office in June and set off renewed unrest that is dimming Egypt’s hopes of stability and economic recovery after nearly two years of turmoil following the overthrow of Mubarak, a military-backed strongman.

The turmoil has exposed contrasting visions for Egypt, one held by Islamists, who were suppressed for decades by the army, and another by their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms.

Caught in the middle are many of Egypt’s 83 million people who are desperate for an end to political turbulence threatening their precarious livelihoods in an economy under severe strain.

“We are so tired, by God,” said Mohamed Ali, a laborer. “I did not vote for Mursi nor anyone else. I only care about bringing food to my family, but I haven’t had work for a week.”

ECONOMIC PAIN

A long political standoff will make it harder for Mursi’s government to tackle the crushing budget deficit and stave off a balance of payments crisis. Austerity measures, especially cuts in costly fuel subsidies, seem inevitable to meet the terms of a $ 4.8-billion IMF loan that Egypt hopes to clinch this month.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Mursi on Thursday of his “deep concern” about casualties in this week’s clashes and said “dialogue should occur without preconditions”.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation worries the United States, which has given billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The conflict between Islamists and opponents who each believe the other is twisting the democratic rules to thwart them has poisoned the political atmosphere in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, told Reuters that if the opposition shunned the dialogue “it shows that their intention is to remove Mursi from the presidency and not to cancel the decree or the constitution as they claim”.

Ayman Mohamed, 29, a protester at the palace, said Mursi should scrap the draft constitution and heed popular demands.

“He is the president of the republic. He can’t just work for the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mohamed said of the eight-decade-old Islamist movement that propelled Mursi from obscurity to power.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Edmund Blair and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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‘Borderlands 2,’ ‘Dishonored’ win at Spike VGAs

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The cartoony post-apocalyptic shoot-’em-up sequel “Borderlands 2″ and the stealthy first-person game “Dishonored” were among the early winners at the Spike Video Game Awards on Friday.

“Borderlands 2″ was picked as best shooter and multiplayer game, while “Dishonored” was awarded with the best action-adventure game trophy at the gaming extravaganza.

The ceremony honors outstanding achievements within the gaming industry over the past year.

“The Avengers” star and shooter fan Samuel L. Jackson hosted the 10th annual ceremony at Sony Pictures Studios — his fourth time as the show’s emcee.

This year’s ceremony was scheduled to screen never-before-seen footage from such upcoming titles as “The Last Us,” ”South Park: The Stick of Truth” and “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2.” It will also serve as the launch pad for newly announced game “The Phantom Pain.”

For the first time, the VGAs were streamed on Xbox Live, the online service for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. During the ceremony, online viewers could vote on show components such as what songs and clips would be played during the ceremony.

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Online:

http://www.spike.com/events/video-game-awards

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang

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FDA panel opposes recommending painkiller, cites safety

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts voted against recommending Zogenix Inc’s Zohydro painkiller for FDA approval on Friday, citing concerns about the danger of addiction posed by the drug class known as opioids.

But FDA officials said the regulatory agency could still approve the drug for sale in the United States by imposing restrictions to protect public safety.

In an 11-2 vote, advisory committee members said the San Diego-based pharmaceutical company had met narrow FDA targets for safety and efficacy but worried that the drug known generically as hydrocodone bitartrate could become a drug of choice for people addicted to other opioid painkillers including those based on the drug oxycodone.

“The primary thing has to be the public health,” said Dr Judith Kramer of Duke University. “And I don’t see how we can’t see this as a promised repeat performance.”

FDA officials will consider the committee’s recommendation in deciding by March 1 whether to approve Zohydro for sale in the United States for people who require a round-the-clock painkiller for an extended period of time.

Dr Bob Rappaport, director of the FDA’s division of anesthesia, analgesia and addiction products, said regulators must decide whether the panel’s decision was based on a tangible difference between Zohydro and opioid-based medications already available in the marketplace.

Otherwise, he told the panel, “you’re punishing this company and this drug because of the sins of the previous developers and their products. And from a regulatory standpoint, that’s not really something we can do.”

POSSIBLE SALES BOOST

Wall Street analysts say FDA approval could bring Zogenix up to $ 500 million in annual sales from Zohydro by 2019, or more than ten times the pharmaceutical company’s expected 2012 annual revenue of $ 45.5 million.

Trading of Zogenix shares was suspended on Friday because of the FDA hearing. The stock closed at $ 2.36 on Thursday.

Zohydro is a single-entity, extended-release product containing the narcotic painkiller hydrocodone with no other pharmaceutical ingredient such as acetaminophen, which can lead to liver damage if used too often.

“Zogenix recognizes and appreciates that prescription opioid misuse and abuse is a critical issue. However, it is also important to remember that there is a documented patient need for an extended-release hydrocodone medicine without acetaminophen,” the company said in a statement.

“We remain confident in the measures we have proposed to support safe use of Zohydro and are committed to continuing to work with the FDA through the review process to bring this treatment option to this specific patient population,” it added.

Health officials say hydrocodone, the active ingredient in Zohydro, is already the most widely abused drug in an opioid class linked to a prescription drug abuse epidemic that has ballooned over the past 20 years.

Law enforcement officials say prescription drugs now pose a bigger public safety hazard than more traditional narcotics, including heroin and cocaine.

An estimated 7 million Americans abuse pharmaceutical drugs. Prescription drugs account for about 75 percent of all drug-related U.S. overdose deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three of every four deaths from pills involve opioid pain relievers including oxycodone.

SHARPLY CONTRASTING TESTIMONY

Before voting, the panel heard testimony from more than a dozen public witnesses, including chronic pain sufferers who see drugs like Zohyrdo as needed treatments to control their chronic discomfort and allow them to lead normal lives without endangering their health.

But some speakers before the panel implored the experts not to recommend another potentially addictive opioid.

“Today we have a chance to save people,” said Avi Israel, father of an 18-year-old boy who suffered from Crohn’s disease and committed suicide after becoming addicted to hydrocodone that was prescribed to slow his bowels.

“Ask yourself this question,” he added, “do we really need another narcotic pill to help anybody with pain? We can’t handle what we have.”

Earlier on Friday, the panel conducted separate and sharply divided votes on safety and efficacy.

Committee members voted 9-5 to find that the drug was not safe for treating patients with moderate to severe chronic pain, after voting 7-6 to find the treatment effective against pain. A panel member later changed her vote on efficacy from “no” to “yes,” saying she had made a technical error.

(Editing by Carol Bishopric and Matthew Lewis)

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Court takes on same-sex marriage: What’s at stake

In a historic step that rivals other Supreme Court moves into the center of America’s cultural character, the justices on Friday agreed to consider the constitutionality of federal and state laws that deny marriage rights or marital benefits to same-sex couples. But the move carried with it the potential for stopping short of settling the core constitutional issue.

The court’s orders Friday afternoon said the justices would hear claims that states do not violate the Constitution when they allow marriage only for one man and one woman, and that the federal government does violate the Constitution when it denies benefits to same-sex couples who are already legally married under state laws. Those are the key questions on gays’ and lesbians’ right to marry.

At the same time, however, the court gave itself the option of postponing answers to those key questions. It raised a series of procedural issues that could mean that neither of the cases it granted would provide a definitive outcome. Which way it ultimately would choose to move is not predictable at this point. (Constitution Daily on Monday will provide a fuller analysis of what the court has said it would do.)

Last summer, as cases on same-sex marriage were reaching the Supreme Court, the justices were told that what was at stake was “the defining civil rights issue of our time.” That was a comment from two lawyers whose own fame–and past differences in court–have added to the high visibility of those cases: Theodore B. Olson and David Boies.

Once the opposing lawyers in the court’s celebrated decision in Bush v. Gore, settling a presidential election, Olson and Boies have joined forces to help speed up an already unfolding timetable of court rulings on whether gays and lesbians will be able to marry.  They won one of the most sweeping rulings ever issued by a court, when a federal judge in San Francisco two years ago struck down California’s ban on such marriages, “Proposition 8.”

But, years before those titans of the bar joined the fight, lawyers in gay rights organizations had been pressing the marriage issue in their own lawsuits. They, too, saw it as a defining issue of the day. They actually had two parallel campaigns going in the courts: open marriage to homosexual partners, and open the military to gays and lesbians, who could serve without hiding their sexual identities.

As the court now moves into the marriage issue, the fight over gays in the military already has been won. Congress repealed that ban, and the services are now welcoming gays and lesbians without trying to regulate their private lives.

There is virtually no chance that Congress–at least Congress as presently constituted–would pass legislation to open marriage to homosexuals on a nationwide basis. That is simply not politically possible and, besides, there is a question about whether Congress could impose such a requirement upon states, which traditionally have defined who can marry.

And, since the politics of gay rights do not suggest that a constitutional amendment to permit same-sex marriages will even be attempted, the path to such marriages remains either in state legislatures, with the voters of the states, or with the courts.

Recent Constitution Daily Stories

What’s the court doing with same-sex marriage cases?
Constitution Check: Would an Obama victory turn the Supreme Court sharply to the left?
Constitution Check: Will the politics of 2012 influence the constitutionality of gay marriage?

The campaign to pursue same-sex marriage through the courts has been marked, at times, by disagreements about what was the best strategy, and what was the best time to try to advance the cause. While supporters of same-sex marriage have had some control over the process, it has not been entirely a matter of their choice. Rigorous efforts challenging same-sex marriage have been made, in politics and in the courts, and have succeeded most of the time with the voters.

Still, it has been widely assumed that, sooner or later, the issue probably would be resolved as a constitutional matter by the Supreme Court. It has had rulings on gay rights in recent years, but it has never issued a full-scale ruling on the issue of marriage for homosexual couples.

Whether the review that is now beginning will lead to a sweeping new ruling, or only one that is limited in scope, will only become clear as the time for decision approaches.

Since the same-sex marriage cases began arriving at the court last summer, a total of 11 have now been placed on the docket. At a conference Friday morning, the court had before it 10 of those petitions, and the justices were examining them to decide which issues they were ready to confront.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 54 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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Toronto mayor to stay in power pending appeal of ouster

TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford can stay in power pending an appeal of a conflict of interest ruling that ordered him out of his job as leader of Canada’s biggest city, a court ruled on Wednesday.

Madam Justice Gladys Pardu of the Ontario Divisional Court suspended a previous court ruling that said Ford should be ousted. Ford’s appeal of that ruling is set to be heard on January 7, but a decision on the appeal could take months.

Justice Pardu stressed that if she had not suspended the ruling, Ford would have been out of office by next week. “Significant uncertainty would result and needless expenses may be incurred if a by-election is called,” she said.

If Ford wins his appeal, he will get to keep his job until his term ends at the end of 2014. If he loses, the city council will either appoint a successor or call a special election, in which Ford is likely to run again.

“I can’t wait for the appeal, and I’m going to carry on doing what the people elected me to do,” Ford told reporters at City Hall following the decision.

Ford, a larger-than-life character who took power on a promise to “stop the gravy train” at City Hall, has argued that he did nothing wrong when he voted to overturn an order that he repay money that lobbyists had given to a charity he runs.

Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland disagreed, ruling last week that Ford acted with “willful blindness” in the case, and must leave office by December 10.

Ford was elected mayor in a landslide in 2010, but slashing costs without cutting services proved harder than he expected, and his popularity has fallen steeply.

He grabbed unwelcome headlines for reading while driving on a city expressway, for calling the police when a comedian tried to film part of a popular TV show outside his home, and after reports that city resources were used to help administer the high-school football team he coaches.

The conflict-of-interest drama began in 2010 when Ford, then a city councillor, used government letterhead to solicit donations for the football charity created in his name for underprivileged children.

Toronto’s integrity commissioner ordered Ford to repay the C$ 3,150 ($ 3,173) the charity received from lobbyists and companies that do business with the city.

Ford refused to repay the money, and in February 2012 he took part in a city council debate on the matter and then voted to remove the sanctions against him – despite being warned by the council speaker that voting would break the rules.

He pleaded not guilty in September, stating that he believed there was no conflict of interest as there was no financial benefit for the city. The judge dismissed that argument.

In a rare apology after last week’s court ruling, he said the matter began “because I love to help kids play football”.

Ford faces separate charges in a C$ 6 million libel case about remarks he made about corruption at City Hall, and is being audited for his campaign finances. The penalty in the audit case could also include removal from office.

(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Russ Blinch, Nick Zieminski; and Peter Galloway)

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Comedian Katt Williams a no-show at arraignment

SEATTLE (AP) — Comedian Katt Williams didn’t show up at an arraignment hearing in Seattle to face assault charges stemming from several run-ins with people and police last weekend.

Williams’ attorney, Thomas McAllister, told the judge Thursday that his client was under the impression that he didn’t have to attend the hearing, citing information from a Seattle Times article. McAllister says Williams is back in California.

The Times reports (http://bit.ly/VJzMhX ) that the judge rescheduled the hearing for next week.

Authorities say Williams struck a man over the head with a microphone while performing Friday night, threw chairs at fans, and threatened a bar manager with a pool cue over the weekend.

Authorities say officers had to restrain Williams before he was taken into custody after the bar incident.

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Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Beyond mobile: Telcos hook up hospitals, cars and coffeemakers

BARCELONA (Reuters) – In Barcelona’s Hospital Del Mar, Telefonica is doing more than connecting phone lines – it is also developing a lucrative new business keeping patients’ hearts in good shape.

A heart-monitoring program put in place by Telefonica is just one kind of machine-to-machine (M2M) technology that telecom operators are racing to develop for sectors including healthcare, automotive, transportation and energy.

Carriers such as Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, Verizon, China Mobile, and France Telecom are betting that M2M will be a significant source of growth as the number of connected devices climbs to 12 billion or more by 2020.

In cars, for example, mobile technology can be used to automatically call emergency services after a road accident. In offices, France Telecom uses it to tell companies when their coffee machines need re-stocking, while energy companies are equipping homes with ‘smart meters’ to track consumption and permit differential pricing.

The potential prize is billions of dollars in new business for telecom groups, many of which are otherwise faced with declining sales, and the promise of big cost savings for their customers.

Yet turning the ‘Internet of Things’ into a real business will not be easy for big telcos, since the market is far more complicated than their traditional sales of mobile and Internet contracts to consumers and companies.

To succeed, they have to develop an understanding of a range of industries, their specific needs and regulatory constraints. They also have to outfox a phalanx of new competitors such as start-ups in Silicon Valley, app developers, and corporate giants like IBM, General Electric and Philips.

Analysts’ forecasts vary widely on the size of the M2M market and how much of it telcos can win, since the biggest opportunity comes not from putting a mobile SIM card in devices but from providing the software and services to make them work.

Machina Research predicts revenue of 714 billion euros ($ 933 billion) by 2020 for M2M overall. Informa Telecoms & Media’s Jamie Moss says the market is growing slowly and will reach 217 million connections and $ 9.3 billion for telcos by end 2014. They earned $ 5.7 billion from M2M this year, dwarfed by the roughly $ 1.14 trillion from mobile services in the same period.

“I am very convinced that M2M will be a profit driver,” said Matthew Key, who heads Telefonica’s digital unit, which aims to earn 500-800 million euros in annual M2M revenue by 2015.

“But we need to sell more than just basic connectivity by adding know-how and a complete service, and build the business locally step by step.”

NEW TERRITORY

The opportunity and the challenges for telcos in M2M are on display at the Hospital Del March

Every morning, patients recovering from heart attacks use equipment installed in their homes by Telefonica to weigh themselves, take their blood pressure and answer a few questions on their symptoms via a touch screen. The information is transmitted to nurses at the seaside hospital’s cardiac unit who follow up by phone if they have any concerns.

The program has had a positive effect on mortality rates, reduced hospital visits and saved 9,000 euros per cardiac patient since it began two years ago, according to doctors.

Nurse Ana Linas said the system was so simple to use that an illiterate elderly woman was among the patients able to use it.

Yet the hospital, which experienced some video connectivity problems that were quickly resolved by Telefonica, has no plans to expand the project because of the costs involved.

“You have to hire trained people so that it all works. Although costs fall a lot later on, the initial investment is high in staff and equipment,” said doctor Cristina Enjuanes.

With budgets under pressure and doctors often reluctant, getting the investment needed to roll out telehealth schemes can be an uphill struggle.

Telefonica wants to roll out the heart-monitoring program elsewhere in Spain and is also investing heavily in projects in Britain with the National Health Service.

“I cannot tell you when it will ramp up. What I can feel is that we are getting closer to it … We will know soon the speed at which demand will move, and whether there is finally an opportunity to create a totally new (business) category,” said Jose Perdomo, head of Telefonica’s e-Health division.

Telefonica has had more success rolling out e-health in Latin American markets such as Brazil and Chile, where more medical care is provided via the private sector than in Europe.

CARS AND HOMES

The M2M gold rush has sent some telcos on the acquisition trail to get technology and expertise. AT&T bought U.S. start-up Xanboo and has used its technology to develop security services for the home, as well as tools for homeowners to control their heating, lighting and appliances from a mobile phone.

Verizon paid $ 612 million in June for Hughes Telematics and plans to build on the company’s expertise in M2M software for tracking truck fleets, as well as crash detection, emergency calling, and maintenance needs for cars. Hughes has a worldwide contract with Volkswagen and a U.S. contract with Mercedes.

John Stratton, Verizon’s vice-president for enterprise, said the Hughes deal would allow it to gain know-how in the software needed to boost the profitability of M2M contracts beyond the few dollars earned from the connection itself.

“If we only transport the bits of data in M2M projects, that has relatively modest value, less than 10 percent of the market opportunity overall,” he said in an interview.

“The next big piece is the solutions on top, which is what motivated us to buy Hughes.”

Korea Telecom’s experience launching a taxi fleet management service powered by M2M technology demonstrates the point. Initially it earned about $ 5 a month per taxi for tracking taxi locations with mobile technology. It boosted that to $ 50 per month and signed five-year instead of two-year contracts by selling a software platform and call center as a package with the taxi tracking.

Telefonica invested 2 million euros in a Spanish start-up called addFleet that makes a free taxi-calling app for consumers, and a paid version for taxi owners to track cars.

“There is no global market for taxi cabs, so you need to go local first,” said Telefonica Digital chief Key.

Martin Garner, an analyst at consultancy CCS Insight, said telecom operators would have to adapt if they are to succeed in making M2M a mass technology, adding that for now the market was growing slower than they would have hoped.

“We do think there is a big world in M2M for the telcos,” said Garner. “But they have to go and take it: it will not come to them.”

($ 1 = 0.7652 euros)

(Additional reporting by Harro Ten Wolde, Robert-Jan Bartunek and Roberta Cowan; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Both sides hint at renewed 'fiscal cliff' talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the "fiscal cliff" but refused to divulge details.

A day after a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to kick-start communications, both sides used similar language to describe the state of negotiations but imposed a media blackout on developments.

"Lines of communication remain open," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when pressed on whether staff talks were taking place to avoid the steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the first of next year unless the parties agree on a way to stop them.

Asked the same question, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also said "lines of communication are open."

The acknowledgement, even without signs of anything approaching a breakthrough, passed for encouraging news after a week of public maneuvering on the fiscal cliff by both sides to gain the maximum political and public relations advantage.

Republicans have worried publicly and privately that they are losing the war of appearances in the battle over the cliff.

On Thursday, another poll showed Republicans may have reason to worry about public perception. A Quinnipiac University survey found respondents trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on the cliff talks by a wide margin - 53 percent to 36 percent.

In both public statements and private encounters, Obama has tried to encourage Republicans wavering from the position of the party leadership.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, who last week broke ranks with his party and agreed to accept higher tax rates on the richest Americans, said Obama took him aside at a White House Christmas party on Monday and joked about the criticism Cole had received from Republicans.

"The president pulled me over and he said, 'Cole, come closer, I want to see the bruises,'" Cole told Reuters. "He said, 'Seriously, I will go further on this thing than you guys think. I know we can get something done.'"

While other Republicans have questioned Obama's commitment, Cole said, "I take him at his word," adding: "The best is to get to that discussion as quickly as we can."

'SOLVABLE PROBLEM'

Obama, meanwhile, played to his strengths with the latest in a series of the sort of public events he has used against Republicans in the fiscal cliff fight: a visit with a family in the Virginia suburbs of Washington to illustrate how Republican tax proposals would hurt the middle class.

"The message that I think we all want to send to members of Congress is: this is a solvable problem," Obama said while visiting the home of a couple in Falls Church, Virginia. "We are in the midst of the Christmas season and I think the American people are counting on this getting solved."

Neither side in the showdown would characterize Wednesday's conversation between Boehner and Obama or suggest it opened up new area of compromise.

Obama and Democrats in Congress want the tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year to be extended for taxpayers with incomes below $250,000 a year but not for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

In exchange, the president has said he is willing to consider significant spending cuts wanted by Republicans to "entitlement" programs such as Medicare, the government health insurance plan for seniors.

Republicans have held out for an extension of all the tax cuts, but they have become increasingly divided about whether they can prevail in the face of Obama's firm stance and Republican control of only the House but not the U.S. Senate.

TANGLING OVER DEBT LIMIT

The debt ceiling issue - the same one that provoked a showdown in 2011 that led to a downgrading of the U.S. credit rating - has become a centerpiece of the fiscal cliff debate, thanks in part to Obama's insistence that Congress give him enhanced power to increase the debt limit, which needs to be raised again in the next few months.

"It ought to be done without delay and without drama," Carney, the White House spokesman, said of raising the debt ceiling.

That issue produced a largely partisan procedural scuffle on Thursday in the Senate when Republicans tried to provoke a vote on giving Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had argued that not even Democrats would support giving Obama greater flexibility, tried to prove it by pushing for a vote.

When Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid went ahead and scheduled it, confident he had enough support to win on a straight majority vote, the Republicans backed down, with McConnell demanding that 60 votes be required for passage, more than the Democrats can muster.

No new vote was scheduled. While the measure could come up again, it was dead for the moment.

"Senator McConnell took obstruction to new heights by filibustering his own bill," Reid said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York told reporters that Republicans were losing the argument on raising top tax rates and "are trying to pivot away to other parts of the fiscal cliff in a desperate attempt to assert leverage and change the subject."

The exchange may be a taste of things to come as Congress moves toward the fiscal cliff deadline.

Economists have warned a plunge over the cliff could drive the economy back into a recession. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told the congressional Joint Economic Committee that failure to strike a deal could have serious economic consequences relatively quickly.

"By mid-February you would be doing a lot of damage," Zandi said.

(Additional reporting by Margaret Chadbourn, Rachelle Younglai, David Lawder, Jason Lange; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Fred Barbash and Eric Beech)

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