China reports strong economy data

9 December 2012 Last updated at 06:49 ET

China’s economic growth rate may be gathering pace again, as the government released strong industrial output and retail sales figures.

Industrial production rose by 10.1% in November, compared with a year earlier, according to the official data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

This was better than expected, and the strongest performance since March.

At the same time, China’s retail sales increased by 14.9%. This was also the best showing for eight months.

‘Sweet spot’

The official economic data are the first to be released since the Communist Party appointed its new leaders last month.

The figures will be good news for them, but also for the world economy, as China’s factory output is indicative of global demand for the country’s consumer products.

Until the end of September, China had seen seven consecutive quarters of a slowing economic growth rate, due to both falling exports and weak domestic demand.

The data for the current three months from October to December will be released in the new year. For July to September, the rate of growth was 7.4%, down from 7.6% in the first quarter the year, and 9.2% for 2011 as a whole.

Other data released on Sunday showed that Chinese inflation rose slightly to 3% in November – from 2.7% in October.

“The Chinese economy is in the sweet spot now with rebounding GDP growth, rebounding earning growth and low inflation,” said Lu Ting, China economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

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Anger at Australian radio station over royal hoax

LONDON (AP) — It started out as a joke, but ended in tragedy.

The sudden death of a nurse who unwittingly accepted a prank call to a London hospital about Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate has shocked Britain and Australia, and sparked an angry backlash Saturday from some who argue the DJs who carried out the hoax should be held responsible.

At first, the call by two irreverent Australian DJs posing as royals was picked up by news outlets around the world as an amusing anecdote about the royal pregnancy. Some complained about the invasion of privacy, the hospital was embarrassed, and the radio presenters sheepishly apologized.

But the prank took a dark twist Friday with the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, a 46-year-old mother of two, three days after she took the hoax call. Police have not yet determined Saldanha‘s cause of death, but people from London to Sydney have been making the assumption that she died because of stress from the call.

King Edward VII’s Hospital, where the former Kate Middleton was being treated for acute morning sickness this week, wrote a strongly-worded letter to the 2DayFM radio station’s parent company Southern Cross Austereo, condemning the “truly appalling” hoax and urging it to take steps to ensure such an incident would never happen again.

“The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients,” the letter read. “The longer term consequence has been reported around the world and is, frankly, tragic beyond words.”

The hospital did not comment when asked whether it believed the prank call had directly caused Saldanha’s death, only saying that the protest letter spoke for itself.

DJs Mel Grieg and Michael Christian, who apologized for the prank on Tuesday, took down their Twitter accounts after they were bombarded by thousands of abusive comments. Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, said the pair have been offered counseling and were taken off the air indefinitely.

No one could have foreseen the tragic consequences of the prank, he stressed.

“I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it’s fair to say they’re completely shattered,” Holleran told reporters on Saturday.

“These people aren’t machines, they’re human beings,” he said. “We’re all affected by this.”

Details about Saldanha have been trickling out since the duty nurse’s body was found at apartments provided by the private hospital, which has treated a line of royals before, including Prince Philip, who was hospitalized there for a bladder infection in June.

The nurse, who was originally from India, had lived with her partner Benedict Barboza and a teenage son and daughter in Bristol, in southwestern England, for the past nine years. The hospital praised her as a “first-class nurse” who was well-respected and popular among colleagues during her four years working there.

Just before dawn on Tuesday, Saldanha was looking after her patients when the phone rang. A woman pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II asked to speak to the duchess, and, believing the caller, Saldanha transferred the call to a fellow nurse caring for the duchess, who spoke to the two DJs about Kate’s condition live on air.

During the call — which was put online and later broadcast on news channels worldwide — Grieg mimicked the Britain’s monarch’s voice and asked about the duchess’ health. She was told Kate “hasn’t had any retching with me and she’s been sleeping on and off.” Grieg and Christian, who pretended to be Prince Charles, also discussed with the nurse when they could travel to the hospital to check in on Kate.

Three days later, officers responding to reports that a woman was found unconscious discovered Saldanha, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Police didn’t release a cause of death, but said they didn’t find anything suspicious. A coroner will make a determination on the cause.

In the aftermath of Saldanha’s death, some speculated about whether the nurse was subject to pressure to resign or about to be punished for the mistake. Royal officials said Prince William and Kate were “deeply saddened,” but insisted that the palace had not complained about the hoax. King Edward VII’s Hospital also maintained that it did not reprimand Saldanha.

“We did not discipline the nurse in question. There were no plans to discipline her,” a hospital spokesman said. He declined to provide further details, and did not respond to questions about the second nurse’s condition.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, which regulates radio broadcasting, said it has received complaints about the prank and is discussing the matter with the Sydney-based station, which yanked its Facebook page after it received thousands of angry comments.

Holleran, the radio executive, would not say who came up with the idea for the call. He only said that “these things are often done collaboratively.” He said 2DayFM would work with authorities, but was confident the station hadn’t broken any laws, noting that prank calls in radio have been happening “for decades.”

The station has a history of controversy, including a series of “Heartless Hotline” shows in which disadvantage people were offered a prize that could be taken away from them by listeners.

Saldanha’s family asked for privacy in a brief statement issued through London police.

Flowers were left outside the hospital’s nurse’s apartments, with one note reading: “Dear Jacintha, our thoughts are with you and your family. From all your fellow nurses, we bless your soul. God bless.”

Officials from St. James’s Palace have said the duchess is not yet 12 weeks pregnant. The child would be the first for her and William.

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TNT’s “Leverage” could end this month, producer warns

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – This could end up being a very un-merry Christmas for “Leverage” fans.

Dean Devlin, executive producer of the TNT drama, penned an open letter to the show’s viewers on Thursday, telling them that he and fellow “Leverage” executive producer John Rogers crafted the show’s Season 5 finale – airing December 25 – as a series finale, because it just might be.

TNT has not yet decided whether it will renew the series, which stars Timothy Hutton as the leader of a squad of shady characters who use their skills to right corporate and government injustices. And judging from the tone of Devlin’s letter, he’s not terribly confident that they will.

“As of the writing of this letter, we still do not know if there will be a season six of our show. Just as we didn’t know when we created the last three episodes which are about to air,” Devlin wrote. “Because of this uncertainty, John Rogers and I decided to end this season with the episode we had planned to make to end the series, way back when we shot the pilot. So, the episode that will air on Christmas is, in fact, the series finale we had always envisioned.”

Of course, should “Leverage” get the go-ahead for a sixth season, Devlin notes, “Everyone involved with the show, from the cast, the crew, the writers and producers, would like nothing more than to continue telling these stories. But, in case we do not get that opportunity we felt that, creatively, after 77 episodes, we owed it to you, our fans, to end the show properly.”

The December 25 episode, according to Devlin, is “the most powerful episode we’ve ever done.”

So far this season, “Leverage” has averaged 3.5 million total viewers, down 11 percent from last season’s average, with 1.3 million in the 18-49 demographic most important to advertisers, an 18 percent decline from last season.

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Pfizer/Bristol drug cuts recurrence of blood clots – study

(Reuters) – A new blood clot preventer from Pfizer Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co reduced the risk of recurrence of clots in veins and lungs and death by 80 percent with no increase in major bleeding in a study testing extended use of the drug.

In the year-long trial of 2,486 patients who had been previously treated for the condition known as venous thromboembolism (VTE) the drug, apixaban, met the combined primary goal by significantly reducing the recurrence of blood clots and death from any cause compared with a placebo, according to data presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

The rate of recurrence or death was 11.6 percent in the placebo group compared with 3.8 percent for those who got 2.5 milligrams of apixaban and 4.2 percent for the 5 mg dose of the drug. The results were also published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The incidence of major bleeding, always a concern with blood thinners, was extremely low in all three arms of the trial, researchers said – 0.5 percent for placebo, 0.2 percent for the low dose of apixaban and 0.1 percent for the higher dose.

“Usually when you have an effective antithrombotic you have to pay a price in terms of bleeding. This was not the case in this study,” Dr. Giancarlo Agnelli, the study’s principal investigator, said in a telephone interview.

“There was no evidence at all of increased major bleeding and this is extremely important because you are comparing an active drug with placebo,” he said.

There was a slightly higher rate of clinically relevant nonmajor bleeding, such as nose bleeds that required medical attention, observed in patients taking the higher dose of apixaban at 4.2 percent compared with the low dose and placebo, researchers said.

Apixaban belongs to a new class of blood thinners that aim to replace decades old and difficult to use warfarin. The drug, which will be sold under the brand name Eliquis, is widely considered to be one of the most important new medicines for Pfizer and Bristol-Myers, both of which saw their top selling products lose patent protection in the past year.

AWAITING U.S. APPROVAL

It is approved in Europe and awaiting a U.S. approval decision for preventing blood clots and strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation – a type of irregular heart beat – and is also being tested against warfarin as a primary treatment for VTE with data expected next year.

A rival drug from Bayer and Johnson & Johnson called Xarelto is already approved for both conditions, but based on clinical data analysts have said they believe Eliquis is the best class.

An approval for extended use in VTE patients, during which they would take the drug for at least a year after initial treatment, could significantly boost future sales.

“The evidence is for one year. The next step would be to see whether this clinical benefit is extended after one year,” Agnelli said.

VTE consists of deep vein thrombosis, typically blood clots in the legs, and pulmonary embolism, which are dangerous clots in the lungs. Clots that begin in the extremities can travel to the heart and lungs and can be fatal. VTE is typically treated with warfarin for three to six months.

After that, “there is quite a remarkable level of uncertainty about whether to extend or not,” explained Agnelli, professor of internal medicine at the University of Perugia in Italy, who presented the data at the ASH meeting.

“Extended treatment might be clinically relevant because the recurrence rate after stopping treatment can be 10 percent in the first year,” Agnelli said. “Reducing the recurrence of VTE means reduced hospitalization costs and in some cases fewer fatal events.”

Physicians have been looking for alternatives to warfarin, which must be closely monitored to keep levels therapeutic but not toxic. The new drugs do not require monitoring or the dietary and lifestyle changes necessary with warfarin. But they still face an uphill battle as warfarin is far less expensive, and doctors have a comfort level using a drug that has been around for more than half a century despite the challenges.

Patients in the study had received treatment with warfarin for six to 12 months before starting the one-year extension trial that aimed to show further treatment could reduce recurrence rates and to see if the lower dose of apixaban was a viable option.

“It is quite clear that the lower dose is as effective as the higher. For the first time we showed that by reducing the dose of an antithrombotic agent in this clinical setting we can have the same efficacy with no major bleeding,” Agnelli said.

“This is actually something that could change clinical practice,” he added.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Berard Orr)

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Berlusconi says will run for Italian leadership again

ROME (Reuters) – Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday he will stand to lead Italy for a fifth time, challenging the leftist frontrunner a year after being forced to resign amid a sex scandal and a debt crisis.

The 76-year-old media tycoon, facing possible jail time for tax fraud and a trial for having sex with an underage prostitute, had hinted for months he might make a comeback in an election in about three months’ time. He accuses technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti of bringing the third-biggest euro zone economy to “the edge of an abyss” with austerity policies.

Berlusconi’s center-right People of Liberty Party (PDL) lags Pier Luigi Bersani‘s center-left Democratic Party (PD) by at least 16 percentage points in opinion polls, and also trails the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

While another Berlusconi victory looks almost impossible, the man who has dominated Italy’s center-right for 19 years may hope to help it win enough support to keep the center-left from winning a clear majority in both houses of parliament.

The question mark that remains over the election is whether the current prime minister will run. So far Monti has said he will step in only if the election result is unclear, but there has been speculation he could join forces with a centrist group.

Berlusconi’s comeback arrives slightly more than a year after he resigned as prime minister as collapsing market confidence pushed Italy’s debt costs to critical levels.

His international reputation had already been left in tatters by a lurid stories of “bunga bunga” parties with pole-dancing prostitutes at his home outside Milan. He is currently appealing a four-year jail sentence for tax fraud and faces a trial over paying for sex with an underage nightclub dancer.

Italians will probably vote in March with a recession that began mid-way through last year showing no signs of abating and unemployment at 11.1 percent, a record high.

“I race to win,” Berlusconi told reporters at the practice field for AC Milan, the soccer club he controls, after repeating criticism of Monti’s handling of the economy over the past year.

“To win, everyone said there had to be a tested leader. It’s not that we did not look for one. We did, and how! But there isn’t one… I’m doing it out of a sense of responsibility.”

His move may unsettle financial markets, whose loss of faith in Berlusconi’s guidance of the economy pushed the country to the edge of a Greek-style debt crisis last year and prompted President Giorgio Napolitano to ask the former European commissioner Monti to step in to restore confidence.

With the support of a right-left coalition including the PDL, Monti imposed austerity measures to bring borrowing costs under control, but Berlusconi said on Wednesday that the economic professor’s policies had left Italy facing a “recessive spiral without end”.

The PDL withdrew parliamentary support for Monti on Thursday, raising the specter of a snap election and driving up the difference between German and Italian benchmark bonds by about 30 basis points.

GOVERNMENT WILL NOT FALL

However, on Saturday Berlusconi said the PDL would pass legislation proposed by Monti’s government, including next year’s budget, and that March 10 was an acceptable date for the parliamentary election.

The media magnate has ample resources to back his bid – the country’s biggest TV network, its biggest magazine publisher, and a family-owned newspaper.

He will likely campaign against Monti’s tax increases, especially an unpopular housing levy, that were used to bring down the deficit, and against Germany’s role in enforcing European austerity.

Berlusconi has also criticized the single currency, echoing comments by fiery comic Beppe Grillo, leader of the 5-Star Movement, who says Italy should hold a referendum over whether to keep the euro.

In his blog, Grillo commented that Berlusconi, whom he calls the “psycho-dwarf”, is running for office again because he knows the average Italian “is literally terrified about the prospects of five more years of Monti-like rule”.

PD leader Bersani and the prime minister have yet to comment on Berlusconi’s decision. But Monti said on Saturday whoever takes over “must absolutely prevent Italy from going back into the situation” of last year, and he warned against “populism”.

Monti was scheduled meet President Napolitano later on Saturday to discuss the political situation.

The PD this week had 30.3 percent support, up from 30 percent a week earlier, higher than a 19.7 percent readout for the 5-Star Movement, a poll by the SWG institute showed.

A second poll by research group Demos and Pi gave the PD 37.8 percent, up more than ten points from a poll in September.

The PDL saw a slight drop in both polls, with SWG showing it at 13.8 percent and Demos at 18.2 percent.

In the Demos survey, Berlusconi emerged as one of the least popular leaders among 16 graded, with an approval rating of just 20.8 percent. With 50.1 percent, PD leader Bersani was among the most popular, as was Monti, with 47.3 percent.

(With additional reporting by Elvira Pollina in Milan, Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, and Lionel Laurent in Cannes, France; Editing by Sophie Hares and Jason Webb)

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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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Nurse who took prank call about royal Kate found dead

LONDON (Reuters) – A nurse who answered a prank call at the London hospital that was treating Prince William‘s pregnant wife Kate for morning sickness has been found dead, the hospital said on Friday, in a suspected suicide.

The death comes days after the King Edward VII hospital apologized for being duped by an Australian radio station and relaying details about Kate’s condition which made headlines around the globe.

“It is with very deep sadness that we confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff, Jacintha Saldanha,” John Lofthouse, the King Edward’s chief executive told reporters outside the central London hospital.

“We can confirm that Jacintha was recently the victim of a hoax call to the hospital. The hospital had been supporting her throughout this difficult time.”

Police said they had been called at 9:35 a.m. (4:35 a.m. EDT) about a woman found unconscious at an address near the hospital. The woman was pronounced dead after ambulance staff arrived.

Police said the death was being treated as unexplained but they we’re not looking for anyone else, indicating the nurse had taken her own life.

William and Kate, who left the hospital on Thursday, said they were “deeply saddened” by the death of the nurse, who was married with two children.

“Their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everybody at King Edward VII Hospital, and their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha’s family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time,” a statement from William’s office said.

CONFIDENTIAL DETAILS

The radio station launched its stunt in the wake of a frenzy of media attention in Britain and worldwide after officials announced Kate was pregnant with a future British king or queen.

Two presenters from Australia’s 2Day radio station called the hospital early on Tuesday British time, pretending to be William’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth and his father, the heir-to-the throne Prince Charles.

Despite unconvincing accents, presenters Michael Christian and Mel Greig were put through to the ward where Kate was being treated and were given details about how she was faring.

Saldanha had answered the call as it was early morning and there were no receptionists on duty, and had passed it to a nurse on the ward. Saldanha, who had worked at the hospital for four years, had not been facing any disciplinary action, a source said.

“She was an excellent nurse and well-respected and popular with all of her colleagues,” Lofthouse said.

William’s office said there had been no royal complaint about the breach of confidentiality, although the hospital said it was reviewing its “telephone protocols”.

“On the contrary, we offered our full and heartfelt support to the nurses involved and hospital staff at all times,” a royal spokesman said.

William’s father, Prince Charles, had made light of the intrusion, joking to reporters after the incident: “How do you know I’m not a radio station?’

The private hospital is one of Britain’s most exclusive and has a history of treating members of the royal family, including the Queen’s husband Philip who was admitted in June for a bladder infection after taking part in a jubilee pageant on the Thames river.

PRESENTERS “SHOCKED”

The prank call and its tragic aftermath comes as Britain’s own media scrambles to agree a new system of self regulation and avoid state intervention following a damning inquiry into reporting practices.

A recording of the call was widely available on the Internet and many newspapers printed a transcript of the call.

The Australian radio station and its owner Southern Cross Austereo said the presenters were shocked and would stay off their show until further notice out of respect for Saldanha’s death.

“Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and 2Day FM are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha from King Edward VII’s Hospital and we extend our deepest sympathies to her family.

“Chief Executive Officer Rhys Holleran has spoken with the presenters, they are both deeply shocked and at this time we have agreed that they not comment about the circumstances,” an SCA statement said.

The two presenters deleted their Twitter accounts shortly after the news broke and there was widespread condemnation of their actions on the social media website.

“Remember that #RoyalPrank …? Yeah, the girl you humiliated is dead. You must feel great,” one wrote.

Facebook tribute pages swiftly set up after the nurse’s death attracted messages of sympathy, some echoing calls for the radio station to pay compensation to her family and for the presenters to resign.

Saldanha’s body was removed from the red brick, five-storey building where it was found, and transferred to a small private ambulance, shortly after the hospital confirmed her death, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.

She had been staying in staff accommodation in the building, away from her family in the city of Bristol, western England, a source said.

Her family said they were deeply saddened and asked for media to respect their privacy “at this difficult time”, in a statement released by police.

(Additional reporting by Peter Schwartzstein and Michael Holden; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Supreme Court to hear “pay-for-delay” drug case

(Reuters) – The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether brand-name drug companies may pay money to generic drug rivals to keep their lower-priced products off the market, a practice estimated to cost consumers and the government billions of dollars each year.

The arrangements, known as “pay-for-delay” or “reverse payments,” have for more than a decade vexed antitrust enforcers including the Federal Trade Commission, which have been stung until recently by a series of court decisions allowing such practices.

In a typical case, a generic rival challenges the patent of a brand-name competitor, which then pays the rival a sum of money to drop its challenge. Defenders of the practice call it a legitimate means to resolve patent litigation.

The court accepted an appeal by the FTC, which had challenged annual payments of $ 31 million to $ 42 million by Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc, now owned by Abbott Laboratories Inc, to stop generic versions of AndroGel, a treatment for the underproduction of testosterone, until 2015.

These payments went to such rivals as Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc, Paddock Laboratories Inc and Par Pharmaceutical Cos, and were intended to help Solvay preserve annual profits estimated at $ 125 million. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the arrangement in April.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh)

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Employment ducks superstorm Sandy punch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Companies kept up their steady but slow hiring pace in November, defying predictions that superstorm Sandy would deal a big blow to the labor market.

While the unemployment rate fell to a near four-year low of 7.7 percent, that was only because many Americans gave up the hunt for work, tempering the signal from the stronger-than-expected payrolls growth.

A big drop in consumer confidence in December also offered a cautionary note on the economy’s health.

Nonfarm employment expanded by 146,000 jobs last month after gaining 138,000 in October, the Labor Department said on Friday. The increase was well above the 93,000 expected on Wall Street.

“We are moving in a trend-like modest job-growth environment,” said Michael Hanson, a senior economist at Bank of Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “We really need to see payroll numbers break above 200,000 for a while to think we have a more sustained recovery underway.”

The government said Sandy, which slammed the densely populated East Coast in late October, did not have a substantive impact on the data. Economists had thought it would, with some predicting it would cut up to 75,000 jobs off payrolls growth.

Nevertheless, the storm did hit the economy hard.

Sandy knocked retail sales and industrial output in October and led to a big spike in claims for jobless benefits, one of the reasons economists expected job growth to slow.

A Labor Department survey of households found 369,000 workers were unable to make it to work in the aftermath of the storm and a further 1.1 million ended up working only part time. However, the department still considered them employed.

U.S. stocks were little changed at mid-day, with the downbeat reading on consumer confidence largely offsetting the stronger-than-expected payrolls data. Prices for U.S. government debt fell, while the dollar edged up against a basket of currencies.

MODEST TREND

November’s job gains left them just below the monthly average of 151,000 that has prevailed since January.

Economists consider that pace just enough to push the jobless rate lower over time. But they say roughly 200,000 to 250,000 jobs per month would be needed to make noticeable headway in absorbing the 22.7 million Americans who are either jobless or underemployed.

The 0.2 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate, which took it to its lowest level since December 2008, was due to a decrease in the size of the labor force, a suggestion frustrated Americans were giving up the hunt for work.

The labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, fell back to near a 31-year low.

Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said it could take more than 10 years for the unemployment rate to drop back to its pre-recession level around 5 percent at the current pace of job growth.

Last month, the retail sector accounted for more than a third of jobs gains, which economists tied to a brisk start to the holiday shopping season. Still, private hiring slowed to 147,000 from 189,000 in October, pulled down by a sharp decline in construction employment and weak manufacturing payrolls.

FISCAL CLIFF WORRIES

Employment continues to be held back by fears the government may fail to prevent the $ 600 billion in automatic tax hikes and government spending cuts set to take hold at the start of next year. The debt crisis in Europe has also weighed.

Worries about this so-called fiscal cliff hit consumer sentiment in early December. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s preliminary confidence reading plummeted to 74.5 from 82.7 in November.

“That confirms my belief that the only thing the economy has to fear is Washington itself,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

“There is some real underlying strength in the economy as the November jobs numbers indicate, but it could be wiped out by the games being played by our political representatives,” he said.

With the labor market far from full health, Federal Reserve policymakers, who meet on Tuesday and Wednesday, look certain to keep U.S. monetary policy on its current ultra-easy course.

Economists said an anticipated tightening of fiscal policy next year, even if a deal is reached to avoid completely going over the fiscal cliff, provides ample reason for the U.S. central bank to maintain its stance.

The retail sector added 52,600 jobs last month after rising 50,900 in October. The pace of retail hiring over the last three months was the fastest since 1995.

There were also increases in information and temporary help hiring. But transport, financial, education and health services employment slowed.

Manufacturing employment fell 7,000, marking the third month it has dropped this year.

Construction payrolls surprisingly tumbled 20,000, despite a surge in homebuilding, which is benefiting from the Fed’s effort to hold borrowing costs down. Economists said they expect construction jobs to rise in the coming months as the housing recovery returns full swing.

Average hourly earnings increased four cents. In the 12 months to November, average hourly earnings are up just 1.7 percent, underscoring the trouble workers are having keeping up with inflation.

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish)

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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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