Japan stocks rally to near four-year highs, yen resumes fall after G20

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese shares surged 2.1 percent on Monday and were on the brink of revisiting four-year highs tapped recently, as the yen slumped after Tokyo dodged direct criticism from G20 peers on its aggressive reflation plans that have weakened the currency. The G20 opted not to single out Tokyo, but committed members to refrain from competitive devaluations and said monetary...

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IHT Rendezvous: In Singapore's Immigration Debate, Sign of Asia's Slipping Middle Class?

BEIJING — Immigration is a hot-button issue nearly everywhere in the world, though the contours of the debate vary from place to place. In the United States, sweeping changes to the law may offer legal residency for millions of people who have entered the country illegally, my colleague Ashley Parker reports.In Singapore, the debate looks somewhat different: The government plans to increase the population...

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Can Vanilla Ice, Hardwick take Streamys to the mainstream?

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Nerd god Chris Hardwick, 1990s rap icon Vanilla Ice and a gallant troupe of YouTube stars have the same mission this weekend – to turn the unknown Streamy Awards into the Golden Globes of online video.That’s why Tubefilter, which conceived the show to honor the best in online video and helped produce its first two iterations, has partnered with Dick Clark Productions, the...

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Downton Abbey's Season 3 Finale: Shocking, Says PEOPLE's TV Critic

Downton Abbey By Tom Gliatto 02/17/2013 at 10:00 PM EST Downton Abbey season 3 cast Carnival Film & Television/PBS Downton Abbey's third season finale on PBS's Masterpiece was, to say the least, a spoiler's paradise. The episode, which saw the Granthams and...

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said."It's not just about turning off the television....

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After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance. Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> by 6.6 percent since the start of the year. ...

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IHT Rendezvous: In Singapore's Immigration Debate, Sign of Asia's Slipping Middle Class?

BEIJING — Immigration is a hot-button issue nearly everywhere in the world, though the contours of the debate vary from place to place. In the United States, sweeping changes to the law may offer legal residency for millions of people who have entered the country illegally, my colleague Ashley Parker reports.Here in Asia, in the nation of Singapore, the debate looks somewhat different: The government...

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Ubuntu Phone Software Design Revealed; Volunteers to Help Make Core Apps

As of yet, there’s no word on what smartphones running the Ubuntu OS will look like, hardware-wise. But Canonical — the tech startup which drives much of Ubuntu’s development and looks for ways to exploit it commercially — just recently posted its guidelines for the look and feel of Ubuntu on smartphones.These reveal its plan to make Ubuntu distinct from existing OSes like Android, and to help educate...

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Beyoncé's Life Is But a Dream: The Best Moments

TV Watch By Aaron Parsley 02/16/2013 at 11:05 PM EST I am ... still singing!Beyoncé's HBO documentary, Life Is But a Dream, aired Saturday night and it was a 90-minute whirlwind of music, dance and emotion. And though the singer, 31, has been everywhere recently (the Inauguration, the Super Bowl halftime show,...

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.Edwards...

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