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.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop star Ke$ ha made a name for herself with infectious dance-pop hits but the singer-songwriter is stepping out of her Auto-Tune comfort zone on “Warrior”, out this week.
Ke$ ha, 25, stormed the charts with hit songs about drinking, partying and having a good time, such as “TiK ToK” and “Your Love is my Drug” from her 2010 platinum-selling album “Animal”.
Ke$ ha talked with Reuters about the pressures of following up the success of her first album and responding to her critics.
Q: Did you feel additional pressure while working on this album after the success of your debut, “Animal”?
A: “Everybody keeps asking me about pressure, and I think a lot of other people maybe are feeling pressure about this record, but I just want to make a good record. If I sat around trying to make a number one record, I’d just be too consumed with that. I just want to make an awesome, kick-ass record that I love and that my fans love.”
Q: Was there anything that you weren’t happy with on the first album and that you wanted to change for the second?
A: “I just wanted to make sure my entire personality was presented more accurately. I feel like people really got to know the super-wild side of me but then sometimes a more vulnerable side. I didn’t really feel comfortable expressing it. So this time I kind of forced myself to express a little bit more vulnerability, less Auto-Tune, less vocal trickery. It’s a little more raw.”
Q: You received a lot of criticism for your use of Auto-Tune, masking your true singing voice. Was that a valid criticism for you, when many others use it?
A: “I remember having this conversation with my producer, and him saying, ‘We’re using a lot of vocal tricks,’ and I said, ‘People will get to know me as my career goes on, I just want it to sound really weird and cool and clubby right now, and super electronic.’ I made a conscious decision to use Auto-Tune for effect, as ear candy, and vocoders and chop up my words.
“This time around, I have heard so many different people say I can’t sing, it’s quite frankly irritating, so I … made a five-song acoustic EP (‘Deconstructed’, out on December 4) that’s kind of like my middle finger to all those people that said I couldn’t sing, and there’s more of my voice on this record. You know, haters are going to hate, you just have to do what you want to do.”
Q: Talk us through some of the collaborations on “Warrior”. There’s quite a variety, such as with Iggy Pop and Ben Folds.
A: “Ben Folds is a friend of mine. He gave me a giant glitter grand piano that’s in my house, so that one was natural. The Flaming Lips was probably surprising for a lot of people because we’re two super-different genres of music but we had the most fun and we made so many songs, it was super insane. We’re like best friends, we text everyday now, so that kind of came naturally. The one that I really have been working on for years was a collaboration with Iggy Pop. He’s one of my favorite musicians and artists of all time, so that was super exciting for me, because I respect him so much.”
Q: You’ve written tracks for Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears, and you’ve written all the songs for “Warrior”. What did you want to bring out in your lyrics this time round?
A: “I definitely wanted to maintain the irreverence, because that’s why my fans like me. It’s because I’m super honest, not always PG rated … but I didn’t want to let the haters somehow cramp my style or get the best of me, so I maintain my irreverence … I also really wanted to show the other side of my personality, which kind of is more nerve-wracking to show people, being a real person and the vulnerable side of my personality and voice. So there are tracks on this record that are super vulnerable and were hard even to write. I had to force myself to sit down and write these songs.”
Q: You’ve carved a distinctive image and also just launched your latest collaboration with Baby-G watches. How do you want to evolve your career in the future?
A: “I think that with this record, I really wanted to show that there are no rules or boundaries in art, at all, like I sing and I can use crazy Auto-Tune vocoders and I can rap and I can do a song with Iggy Pop. You can do all these things that make sense. You don’t have to just be one thing, like, you don’t adhere to any sort of stereotype or any boundaries or any rules, so for me it’s really fun to break down these boundaries.”
Q: You came in at the forefront of the electronic dance music explosion in the pop charts two years ago. Why do you think EDM is doing so well?
A: “Dancing is one of the ways we, as adult human beings, still get to play and it’s socially acceptable. Little kids play all the time, but as we grow up, we’re supposed to just not play anymore, so our version of that is going out and dancing, and I think it’s one way people are still visceral and animal-like.”
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Dale Hudson)
LONDON (Reuters) – Eli Lilly‘s erectile dysfunction drug Cialis can correct abnormal blood flow in patients with a certain type of muscular dystrophy and could in future be used to slow progression of the disorder, researchers said on Wednesday.
The findings suggest that while Cialis can’t cure the condition, known as Becker muscular dystrophy, it could be used as a treatment to slow or prevent muscle weakening and help patients retain more function for longer.
Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) is an inherited disorder that involves slowly worsening muscle weakness of the legs and pelvis. It is mostly found in boys and occurs in about 3 to 6 out of every 100,000 births.
Patients with BMD often have difficulties with walking that get worse over time. There is no cure for the condition, and by the age of 25 to 30 many patients are unable to walk.
In a small study involving men with the disorder, researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, in the United States took measurements when volunteers’ forearm muscles were either rested or lightly exercised with a handgrip.
They found that almost all the patients had defective blood flow when they exercised. This lack of blood flow may contribute to muscle fatigue and weakness, the researchers wrote in a study in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
But after giving some of the patients a single oral dose of Cialis and comparing them to others given a placebo, or dummy pill, the scientists found that normal blood flow was restored to the muscles of 8 out of 9 patients who got the drug.
Like other erectile dysfunction drugs, Cialis, known generically as tadalafil, dilates blood vessels and is designed to increase blood flow. In the impotence drug market, it is a longer-acting alternative to Pfizer’s blue pill, Viagra.
Sales of Cialis for erectile dysfunction brought in $ 1.875 billion for Eli Lilly in 2011, up 10 percent on 2010.
While using the drug in BMD may be a possibility in future, the researchers cautioned that doctors should not prescribe it for this indication until more, larger studies have been conducted to show whether the improved blood flow has a meaningful effect on dystrophic muscles.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Louise Heavens)
TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisia, struggling to ease economic difficulties that have provoked unrest since its democratic revolution, said on Wednesday it had secured more international lending to cover its 2013 spending.
Tunisia’s new, elected Islamist-led government has sought to revive the economy in the face of a decline in trade with the crisis-hit euro zone and disputes between secularists and hardline Salafi Islamists over the future direction of the North African Arab state.
At least 200 people were injured when Tunisians demanding jobs clashed with police on Tuesday and Wednesday in the city of Siliana in a region on the edge of the Sahara desert that has long complained of economic deprivation.
The state news agency TAP said Tunis had clinched a $ 500 million loan from the African Development Bank, after the World Bank approved a $ 500 million loan on Tuesday, and a government minister told Reuters finances were now in order for 2013.
“Next year our public expenditure is essentially covered, thanks also to lines of credit for a total of $ 1 billion from the World Bank and the African Development Bank,” Investment Minister Riad Bettaieb said on the sidelines of a meeting with a European Union business delegation.
“So we are not planning to ask for further international support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” he said.
But he said Tunisia could ask the IMF for a standby credit line worth $ 2.5 billion for 2014 and beyond. “We are considering asking the IMF for a precautionary line of credit to give a guarantee for our financing needs … around $ 2.5 billion.”
The loans, the World Bank’s second since the “Arab Spring” uprising that toppled autocrat Zain al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, aim to support economic recovery by improving the business and financial sectors and reforming social services.
BLINDED BY BIRDSHOT
In Siliana on Wednesday, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds who rallied for a second day.
A medic from Siliana Hospital who did not wish to named said more than 200 people had been injured in the clashes. A journalist from France 24 television told Reuters he and a colleague had been hospitalized for wounds from birdshot apparently fired by riot police.
State media said 17 people had been blinded by birdshot wounds to the eyes. Residents blocked the entrances to the city, setting tyres alight on roads.
Many protesters called for the resignation of local officials, saying the authorities had failed to release development funds for their region.
Iyed Dahmani, a politician from the Republican Party in the town, said the national guard – an interior ministry-run security force – had deployed tanks to help restore order.
Interior Minister Ali Larayed appeared on state television to call for calm. “I ask people in Siliana to calm down, to protest calmly and accept dialogue,” he said, accusing leftist politicians of inflaming the situation.
But state TV also showed Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali saying he would not remove the unpopular governor of the region: “I won’t accept sacking him; he will stay in place.”
Jebali has accused both Salafis and liberal elites of harming Tunisia’s economy and image through their conflict with each other. His Ennahda party has tried to present itself as a middle way between liberals and Salafis.
The protests are the fiercest since hardline Salafi Islamists attacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis in September over an anti-Islam film made in California. That violence left four people dead.
LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) – England called up uncapped Gloucester flyhalf Freddie Burns on Tuesday to their squad for Saturday’s test against New Zealand in place of the injured Toby Flood.
Flood sustained ligament damage to a big toe during the 16-15 loss to South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday.
Owen Farrell, whose last start was in the first test in South Africa this year, is set to replace Flood in the starting XV against the world champions.
Lock Courtney Lawes, who missed England’s first three tests of the November series because of a knee injury, has also been included in the 23-man squad. Two other locks, Mouritz Botha and Tom Palmer, have been omitted.
After beating Fiji in their opening match, England have lost to Australia and the Springboks and now face a daunting match against the All Blacks who are unbeaten in 20 tests since the start of their victorious World Cup campaign last year.
“For those in Saturday’s squad the message is clear – last week we went toe to toe with the second best team in the world and felt we should have won,” England head coach Stuart Lancaster said in a statement.
“Now we have a chance to take on the number one side in front of a passionate Twickenham crowd, who have been fantastic throughout the Internationals, and it is a challenge we will meet head on.” (Reporting by John Mehaffey; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News
NEW YORK (AP) — The teenage actor who stars in “Two and a Half Men” and called the CBS comedy “filth” may have some time before he faces the show’s producers.
Angus T. Jones wasn’t expected at rehearsal Tuesday because he is not going to be in the episode they are filming, according to a person close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because producers were not commenting publicly.
Jones, 19, has been on the show, which used to feature bad-boy actor Charlie Sheen and remains heavy with sexual innuendo, since he was 10 but says in a video posted online by a Christian church that he doesn’t want to be on it anymore.
“Please stop watching it,” Jones said. “Please stop filling your head with filth.”
The person familiar with the production schedule said Jones does not appear in either of the two episodes filming before the end of the year, so he wouldn’t be expected back at work until after the New Year.
His character has been largely absent because he has joined the Army.
CBS and producer Warner Bros. Television have not commented.
“Two and a Half Men” survived a wild publicity ride less than two years ago, when Sheen was fired for his drug use and publicly complained about the network and the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre.
Jones plays Jake, the son of Jon Cryer’s uptight divorced chiropractor character, Alan, and the nephew of Sheen’s hedonistic philandering music jingle writer, Charlie. Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher, who plays billionaire Walden.
In the video posted by Forerunner Chronicles in Seale, Ala., Jones describes a search for a spiritual home. He says the type of entertainment he’s involved in adversely affects the brain and “there’s no playing around when it comes to eternity.”
“You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that,” he said. “I know I can’t. I’m not OK with what I’m learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show.”
The show was moved from Monday to Thursday this season, and its average viewership has dropped from 20 million an episode to 14.5 million, although last year’s numbers were somewhat inflated by the intense interest in Kutcher’s debut. It is the third most popular comedy on television behind CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory” and ABC’s “Modern Family.”
The actors on “Two and a Half Men” have contracts that run through the end of the season.
In a new policy statement released online on Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) officially recommended that physicians consider prescribing teens emergency contraception in advance. This assertion by the AAP follows on the heels of a new recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) last week that advocated making birth control pills available to women as an over-the-counter medication.
The AAP stated in a press release published ahead of the policy statement that much of the justification for the organization’s stance lies in the fact that the “United States continues to see substantially higher teen birth rates compared to other developed countries.” Prescribing emergency contraception ahead of time, according to the AAP, may help lower those rates.
What exactly is the AAP recommending?
The AAP is recommending that physicians prescribe emergency contraception, more commonly known as “morning after” pills, to teens, particularly, although not limited to, those that are currently sexually active. Specifically, the AAP is recommending prescribing emergency contraception for those teens who are under the age of 17, as the organization notes that females who are already 17 years of age or older can obtain emergency contraception without a prescription.
What information is the AAP basing its recommendation on?
The AAP has looked at the available research and determined that there is a need for teens to be prescribed the pills in advance in order to try and mitigate the number of unplanned pregnancies, which account for 80 percent of all pregnancies in girls between the ages of 15 and 19. The organization’s policy statement cited the need for teens to be protected against improper use or failure of other contraceptive methods, such as condoms, and also made note of the need to protect teens who may be the victims of sexual assault. The AAP also cited research indicating that teens who are prescribed emergency contraception “in advance of need” are more likely to use it if that need presents itself later, as opposed to teens who must ask for emergency contraception after the fact.
What are the risks involved in prescribing emergency contraception in advance?
The biggest risk factor, according to the AAP’s policy statement, is the fact that emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy (by preventing ovulation), but not sexually transmitted infections. According to a Reuters report, studies have shown that there is no known correlation between a teenager being given access to emergency contraception and them becoming sexually active any earlier.
What has been the reaction to the AAP’s decision to publish this policy statement?
The statement has gotten mostly positive reviews from women’s health advocates, including Susan Wood of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health at George Washington University in Washington, who told Reuters on Monday that the AAP’s decision is “significant.” Bill Albert, who is the chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, also praised the decision, telling the Washington Times that his organization “supports wider access to all birth-control products.”
Not everyone is convinced that the AAP’s recommendation is a good thing, however. In that same Washington Times piece, Wendy Wright, who is the vice president for government relations at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, said that “there are too many questions to be answered” before the idea of prescribing emergency contraception to teens should be entertained.
Vanessa Evans is a musician and freelance writer based in Michigan, with a lifelong interest in health and nutrition issues.
Sir Mervyn King: “Mark Carney was the outstanding candidate”
The risk posed by the eurozone has grown, the departing Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King has warned.
The governor said problems in the eurozone, as well as the US and Asia, lay behind the Bank’s recent pessimism about UK growth prospects in 2013-14.
Speaking to MPs, he defended the Bank’s decision to pass interest earned on the UK gilts it owned back to the Treasury.
He also said the Bank would be in “very good hands” with his recently announced successor as governor, Mark Carney.
Mr Carney was named by Chancellor George Osborne on Monday as his surprise choice for the new Bank of England head.
Currently the governor of the Canadian central bank, Mr Carney will serve for five years and will hold new regulatory powers over banks.
The UK should take pride, Sir Mervyn said, in not only that it could search the world for the best candidate, but that the country was able to produce a “truly outstanding shortlist” from among its own citizens.
‘Slow and protracted’
In evidence to the Treasury Committee, the Bank governor said that Mr Carney – under whom the Bank will be taking on new responsibilities to oversee the health of the country’s banks – faced a difficult task.
“There is a great deal of adjustment to be made in the financial sector, a great deal of adjustment to be made in the economy as a whole,” he said.
“It may be unreasonable to expect anything other than a slow and protracted recovery absent a further fall in the real exchange rate.”
The Bank of England and most City economists say that UK banks must increase their reserves against potential future losses and work their way through problem loans, while the UK economy needs to boost its exports and investment.
The string of difficulties still faced by the UK explained why the Bank chose earlier this month to downgrade the chances of the country experiencing a significant rebound in growth over the coming two years.
“It would take a rather unusual combination of circumstances to see growth of 4% or above in 2013 or 2014,” Sir Mervyn said, adding that the recovery would be much more protracted than has typically been the case after previous recessions.
He confirmed that the Bank’s decision earlier this month to downgrade its forecasts was due to a change of heart amongst the Monetary Policy Committee, rather than any recent economic developments.
“I think there are times where you debate something and you finally decide: ‘Well look, our judgment really has to change now’,” he said.
Global economy doubts
The governor said that the biggest drag on the UK came from the weakness of the global economy.
Continue reading the main story
It is impossible to escape the conclusion that Mr Osborne wants to give a bit of shake to the Bank of England’s culture”
End Quote
Despite recent positive indications from China and from the US housing market highlighted in the Bank’s latest inflation report, the governor expressed doubts.
“I think the staff probably take a more upbeat view on the prospects of the Chinese economy than I would be inclined to,” he said.
He also divulged that private conversations with US colleagues led him to doubt the sustainability of the US recovery.
But he expressed his strongest concerns about the eurozone, claiming that – despite a lull in market anxiety over the euro’s future – the situation on the continent has become worse over the past year.
“The longer the problem goes on, the bigger the adjustment will need to be,” he said, pointing to the continued build-up in debt as southern European governments struggle to regain competitiveness and get their budgets under control.
The governor said that, while the UK economy continued its own adjustment process, the Bank’s ability to stimulate recovery would be limited, although he foresaw that further quantitative easing – purchases by the Bank of government debt – may be warranted.
However, he noted that one of his successor’s most difficult tasks may be to decide when to start raising interest rates or reversing quantitative easing.
“There’s a very difficult policy judgment to be made down the road, first as to when we start tightening monetary policy, and then how rapidly we tighten monetary policy,” he said.
Public accounts
The governor was also questioned by MPs about the Bank’s decision this month to hand back to the Treasury the surplus income that it earns on government debts it holds as a result of its quantitative easing policy.
He admitted that the timing of the announcement could have been handled better – particularly because the Bank’s private knowledge of the agreement had influenced its decision at a committee meeting a few days before the announcement to hold fire on further quantitative easing.
However, he said that the decision did not affect monetary policy or the Bank of England’s independence, although he was concerned it could create the appearance that the Bank was acting under the Treasury’s influence.
The move would not have any meaningful impact on taxpayers, Sir Mervyn said, and all it would achieve was a change in the way that the government reports its borrowing.
“This is about presentation of public accounts, and I do not want to dissuade you from looking into that and raising it with the Treasury, but it is a matter for the Treasury,” he said.
“They are entitled to publish their accounts in the way that they want. And you’re entitled to challenge them about whether those accounts are misleading or not.”
HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban capital has played host to political summits and art festivals, ballet tributes and international baseball competitions. Now dog lovers are getting their chance to take center stage.
Hundreds of people from all over Cuba and several other countries came to a scruffy field near Revolution Plaza this past week to preen and fuss over the shih tzus, beagles, schnauzers and cocker spaniels that are the annual Fall Canine Expo’s star attractions. There were even about a dozen bichon habaneros, a mid-sized dog bred on the island since the 17th century.
As dog lovers talked shop, the merely curious strolled the field, checking out the more than 50 breeds on display while carefully dodging the prodigious output of so many dogs.
The four-day competition, which ended Sunday, included competitions in several breeding categories, and judges were flown in from Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico.
“This is a small, poor country, but Cubans love dogs,” said Miguel Calvo, the president of Cuba’s dog federation, which organized the show. “We make a great effort to breed purebred animals of quality.”
Winners don’t receive any trophy or prize money, but that doesn’t mean the competition is any less fierce.
Anabel Perez, owner of a cocker spaniel named Lisamineli after the U.S. actress, spent more than half an hour coifing the dog’s hair in preparation for the competition, while the owner of a shih tzu named Tiguer meticulously brushed his coat nearby.
“I’m a hairdresser for humans,” explained Tiguer’s owner, Miguel Lopez. “So it’s easy for me. I like shih tzus because they are a lot of work to keep well groomed.”
NEW YORK (AP) — The teenage actor who plays the half in the hit CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men” says it’s “filth” and through a video posted by a Christian church has urged viewers not to watch it.
Nineteen-year-old Angus T. Jones has been on the show since he was 10 but says he doesn’t want to be on it. He says, “Please stop watching it. Please stop filling your head with filth.”
The video was posted by the Forerunner Christian Church in California, where Jones says he went to meet his spiritual needs.
Show producer Warner Bros. Television has no comment. CBS hasn’t responded to a request for comment left Monday.
The show stars Jon Cryer as Jones’ uptight dad and originally featured Charlie Sheen as his hedonistic philandering uncle, but Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher.
