Asian shares edge higher on hopes for Greek deal

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Monday on the hope Greece can avoid a near-term bankruptcy, with euro-zone finance ministers meeting later in the day, but a regional Spanish vote favoring separatist parties clouded Madrid's push for fiscal austerity.

Expectations that an agreement will be reached soon to disburse crucial aid for debt-stricken Greece, and Germany's Ifo business climate index rising for the first time in seven months in November, boosted the euro and riskier assets broadly and reduced appetite for the safe-haven dollar on Friday.

"If there really is an agreement on Greece today, the euro could rise above $1.3 against the dollar and 107 against the yen," Masafumi Yamamoto, chief FX strategist at Barclays in Tokyo, said in a research note.

The euro was at $1.2966, hovering near a three-week high of $1.2991 reached on Friday, and traded at a seven-month peak of 107.10 yen on Monday.

The dollar <.dxy> inched up 0.1 percent, after falling to a three-week low of 80.128 against a basket of major currencies on Friday as risk appetite gained.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.2 percent after rising to a two-week high on Friday and ending its best week in more than two months with a 2.5 percent gain.

Australian shares <.axjo> were up 0.2 percent on gains in energy and mining stocks, and South Korean shares <.ks11> opened up 0.4 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> opened 1.1 percent higher at a seven-month high. Japanese financial markets were closed on Friday for a public holiday.<.t/>

"Although some investors are cautious against the fast-paced gains in the Japanese market, they will likely stay buyers on the back of the improving trading environment in the global market," said Hiroichi Nishi, general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities.

Some analysts said risk sentiment may be weighed by Spain's regional elections in Catalonia on Sunday.

Separatists in Spain's Catalonia won regional elections on Sunday but failed to get the resounding mandate they need to push convincingly for a referendum on independence.

The separatists parties win could raise concerns about the negative impact to the Spanish economy and its fiscal conditions, as Catalonia accounts for 20 percent of the economy and provides the most tax revenue to the central government.

"If the government is forced to give more autonomy to Catalonia in its fiscal policy, it risks derailing the push for fiscal austerity in other provinces, raising the possibility of shifting market focus back to Spain from Greece and undermining the euro," Yamamoto said.

European shares posted their best weekly gain so far this year after rising for a fifth day on Friday, while U.S. stocks rose for a fifth day, getting a lift from bellwether technology firms Intel and Microsoft in light volume after Thursday's U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

Germany's Ifo index, rising on the back of exports outside the euro zone and the prospect of strong Christmas sales, offered hope Europe's growth engine can retain some momentum.

As investors warmed towards risk, the Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index <.trjcrb>, a global commodities benchmark, rose to its highest close since October 23 on Friday -- its best weekly performance since mid-September with a 1.9 percent gain.

Spot gold eased 0.1 percent to $1,749.98 an ounce on Monday after rising above $1,750 for the first time in five weeks on Friday as a drop in the dollar and options-related buying triggered a technical breakout.

Analysts said Friday's gains could lead to a test above the $1,800 level which bullion has not seen since its rally to a record $1,920.30 in September 2011.

U.S. crude was down 0.2 percent to $88.07 a barrel.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo; Editing by Michael Perry)

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Bangladesh Fire Kills More Than 100 and Injures Many

MUMBAI, India — More than 100 people died Saturday and Sunday in a fire at a garment factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, in one of the worst industrial tragedies in that country.

It took firefighters all night to put out the blaze at the factory, Tazreen Fashions, after it started about 7 p.m. on Saturday, a retired fire official said by telephone from Dhaka, the capital. At least 111 people were killed, and scores of workers were taken to hospitals for treatment of burns and smoke inhalation.

“The main difficulty was to put out the fire; the sufficient approach road was not there,” said the retired official, Salim Nawaj Bhuiyan, who now runs a fire safety company in Dhaka. “The fire service had to take great trouble to approach the factory.”

Bangladesh’s garment industry, the second-largest exporter of clothing after China, has a notoriously poor fire safety record. Since 2006, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in factory fires, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group in Amsterdam. Experts say many of the fires could have easily been avoided if the factories had taken the right precautions. Many factories are in cramped neighborhoods and have too few fire escapes, and they widely flout safety measures. The industry employs more than three million workers in Bangladesh, most of them women.

Activists say that global clothing brands like Tommy Hilfiger and the Gap and those sold by Walmart need to take responsibility for the working conditions in Bangladeshi factories that produce their clothes.

“These brands have known for years that many of the factories they choose to work with are death traps,” Ineke Zeldenrust, the international coordinator for the Clean Clothes Campaign, said in a statement. “Their failure to take action amounts to criminal negligence.”

The fire at the Tazreen factory in Savar, northwest of Dhaka, started in a warehouse on the ground floor that was used to store yarn, and quickly spread to the upper floors. The building was nine stories high, with the top three floors under construction, according to a garment industry official at the scene who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. Though most workers had left for the day when the fire started, the industry official said, as many as 600 workers were still inside working overtime.

The factory, which opened in May 2010, employed about 1,500 workers and had sales of $35 million a year, according to a document on the company’s Web site. It made T-shirts, polo shirts and fleece jackets.

Most of the workers who died were on the first and second floors, fire officials said, and were killed because there were not enough exits. “So the workers could not come out when the fire engulfed the building,” said Maj. Mohammad Mahbub, the operations director for the Fire Department, according to The Associated Press.

In a telephone interview later on Sunday, Major Mahbub said the fire could have been caused by an electrical fault or by a spark from a cigarette.

In a brief phone call, Delowar Hossain, the managing director of the Tuba Group, the parent company of Tazreen Fashions, said he was too busy to comment. “Pray for me,” he said and then hung up.

Television news reports showed badly burned bodies lined up on the floor in what appeared to be a government building. The injured were being treated in hallways of local hospitals, according to the reports.

The industry official said that many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition and that it would take some time to identify them.

One survivor, Mohammad Raju, 22, who worked on the fifth floor, said he escaped by climbing out of a third-floor window onto the bamboo scaffolding that was being used by construction workers. He said he lost his mother, who also worked on the fifth floor, when they were making their way down.

“It was crowded on the stairs as all the workers were trying to come out from the factory,” Mr. Raju said. “There was no power supply; it was dark, and I lost my mother in dark. I tried to search for her for 10 to 15 minutes but did not find her.”

A document posted on Tazreen Fashions’ Web site indicated that an “ethical sourcing” official for Walmart had flagged “violations and/or conditions which were deemed to be high risk” at the factory in May 2011, though it did not specify the nature of the infractions. The notice said that the factory had been given an “orange” grade and that any factories given three such assessments in two years from their last audit would not receive any Walmart orders for a year.

A spokesman for Walmart, Kevin Gardner, said the company was “so far unable to confirm that Tazreen is a supplier to Walmart nor if the document referenced in the article is in fact from Walmart.”

But the International Labor Rights Forum, which tracks fires in the Bangladesh garment industry, said documents and logos found in the debris indicated that the factory produced clothes for Walmart’s Faded Glory line as well as for other American and foreign companies.

Bangladesh exports about $18 billion worth of garments a year. Employees in the country’s factories are among the world’s lowest-paid, with entry-level workers making the government-mandated minimum wage of about $37 a month or slightly above.

Tensions have been running high between workers, who have been demanding an increase in minimum wages, and the factory owners and government. A union organizer, Aminul Islam, who campaigned for better working conditions and higher wages, was found tortured and killed outside Dhaka this year.

Julfikar Ali Manik contributed reporting from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Stephanie Clifford and Steven Greenhouse from New York.

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HP says products may have been sold to Syria by others

(Reuters) – Hewlett Packard Co said in a letter made public on Friday that its products could have been delivered to Syria through resellers or distributors, but the world’s largest PC maker affirmed it did not sell directly to the country.

The letter was a response to a request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission‘s Office of Global Security Risk that asked whether HP’s products were sold in countries where they would be subject to U.S. sanctions.

“We are aware of November 2011 news reports that your equipment was installed by the Italian company, Area SpA, in Syria as part of a nationwide surveillance and tracking system designed to monitor people in that country,” the SEC wrote in its request.

“Please describe to us the nature, duration, and extent of your past, current, and anticipated contacts with Syria and Iran, whether through subsidiaries, distributors, resellers, vendors, retailers, or other direct or indirect arrangements.”

In a letter dated October 9, HP said it had not authorized the sale of products to Syria.

Instead, HP said the Italian surveillance company had likely obtained its products from an HP partner that was unaware of their ultimate destination.

In another October 9 letter to the agency, HP said it ended its contract with Area SpA in April.

Calls to HP seeking further comment were unanswered as were calls to Area SpA.

HP’s overseas subsidiaries ended sales of printers and related supplies to third-party distributors and resellers with customers in Iran in early 2009, the company wrote.

But because its products are often sold by others through indirect channels without its knowledge or consent “it is always possible that products may be diverted to Iran or Syria after being sold to channel partners, such as distributors and resellers,” HP said.

Reuters has documented how banned computer equipment from U.S. companies has made its way to Iran’s largest telecommunications company through China-based ZTE.

Networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc has since cut its ties to ZTE.

HP said in both letters that it would continue to work with ZTE, but it had conducted an internal investigation relating to an alleged sale of its products to MTN Irancell, Iran’s second largest mobile carrier.

The company was also asked about EDS – an IT outsourcing company that HP bought in 2008 – and any activity in Iran, Syria and Sudan.

HP said it had the same policy regarding Sudan as it did on sales to Iran or Syria.

HP is eager to avoid more negative publicity after surprising the market on Tuesday with an $ 8.8 billion write-down on its $ 11.1 billion acquisition of software group Autonomy, accusing the British company of improper accounting to inflate sales.

Autonomy has denied any wrongdoing.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske in New York. Editing by Leslie Gevirtz and Andre Grenon)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Political wrangling to pinch market's nerves

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Volatility is the name of this game.

With the S&P 500 above 1,400 following five days of gains, traders will be hard pressed not to cash in on the advance at the first sign of trouble during negotiations over tax hikes and spending cuts that resume next week in Washington.

President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders are expected to discuss ways to reduce the budget deficit and avoid the "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and spending cuts in 2013 that could tip the economy into recession.

As politicians make their case, markets could react with wild swings.

The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix>, known as the VIX, Wall Street's favorite barometer of market anxiety that usually moves in an inverse relationship with the S&P 500, is in a long-term decline with its 200-day moving average at its lowest in five years. The VIX could spike if dealings in Washington begin to stall.

"If the fiscal cliff happens, a lot of major assets will be down on a short-term basis because of the fear factor and the chaos factor," said Yu-Dee Chang, chief trader and sole principal of ACE Investments in Virginia.

"So whatever you are in, you're going to lose some money unless you go long the VIX and short the market. The 'upside risk' there is some kind of grand bargain, and then the market goes crazy."

He set the chances of the economy going over the cliff at only about 5 percent.

Many in the market agree there will be some sort of agreement that will fuel a rally, but the road there will be full of political landmines as Democrats and Republicans dig in on positions defended during the recent election.

Liberals want tax increases on the wealthiest Americans while protecting progressive advances in healthcare, while conservatives make a case for deep cuts in programs for the poor and a widening of the tax base to raise revenues without lifting tax rates.

"Both parties will raise the stakes and the pressure on the opposing side, so the market is going to feel much more concerned," said Tim Leach, chief investment officer of U.S. Bank Wealth Management in San Francisco.

"The administration feels really confident at this point, or a little more than the Republican side of Congress may feel," he said. "But it's still a balanced-power Congress so neither side can feel that they can act with impunity."

THE MIDDLE EAST AND EUROPE

Tension in the Middle East and unresolved talks in Europe over aid for Greece could add to the uncertainty and volatility on Wall Street could surge, analysts say.

An Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into force late on Wednesday after a week of conflict, but it was broken with the shooting of a Palestinian man by Israeli soldiers, according to Palestine's foreign minister.

Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating the truce, Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi assumed sweeping powers, angering his opponents and prompting violent clashes in central Cairo and other cities on Friday.

"Those kinds of potential large-scale conflicts can certainly overwhelm some of the fundamental data here at home," said U.S. Bank's Leach.

"We are trying to keep in mind the idea that there are a lot of factors that are probably going to contribute to higher volatility."

On a brighter note for markets, Greece's finance minister said the International Monetary Fund has relaxed its debt-cutting target for Greece and a gap of only $13 billion remains to be filled for a vital aid installment to be paid.

Still, a deal has not been struck, and Greece is increasingly frustrated at its lenders, still squabbling over a deal to unlock fresh aid even though Athens has pushed through unpopular austerity cuts.

HOUSING DATA COULD CONFIRM RECOVERY

Next week is heavy on economic data, especially on the housing front. Some of the numbers have been affected by Superstorm Sandy, which hit the U.S. East Coast more than three weeks ago, killing more than 100 people in the United States alone and leaving billions of dollars in damages.

The housing data, though, could continue to confirm a rebound in the sector that is seen as a necessary step to unlock spending and lower the stubbornly high unemployment rate.

Tuesday's S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for September is expected to show the eighth straight month of increases, extending the longest continuous string of gains since prices were boosted by a homebuyer tax credit in 2009 and 2010.

New home sales for October, due on Wednesday, and October pending home sales data, due on Thursday, are also expected to show a stronger housing market.

Other data highlights next week include durable goods orders for October and consumer confidence for November on Tuesday and the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index on Friday.

At Friday's close, the S&P 500 wrapped up its second-best week of the year with a 3.6 percent gain. Encouraging economic data next week could confirm that regardless of the ups and downs that the fiscal cliff could bring, the market's fundamentals are solid.

Jeff Morris, head of U.S. equities at Standard Life Investments in Boston, said that "it's kind of noise here" in terms of whether the market has spent "a few days up or down. It has made some solid gains over the course of the year as the housing recovery has come into view, and that's what's underpinning the market at these levels.

"I would caution against reading too much into the next few days."

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jan Paschal)

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News Analysis: On This, 2 Sides Agree: Fighting Hardened Positions

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Police officers amid rubble in Gaza City, where the recent outburst of fighting has left Hamas in a stronger position than it was. More Photos »

GAZA — The eight days of fighting between Hamas and Israel left more than 160 Palestinians and six Israelis dead, but there may be another casualty from the sudden burst of violence: whatever small chance there was for reviving a long-moribund peace process.

Emboldened by landing rockets near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem — and by the backing of Egypt and other regional powers — Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, has emerged as the dominant force in a divided Palestinian leadership, its resistance mantra drowning out messages of more moderate groups. The word “peace” has hardly been heard in public here since the shelling stopped, never mind “two-state solution.”

In a sermonlike speech laced with Koranic verses, the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, promised on Thursday to “establish an independent state on all Palestine land,” foreboding words from the leader of an organization whose charter prophesies Israel’s elimination. On Saturday, one of his top deputies, Mahmoud Zahar, added that Hamas would “continue getting arms” in “preparation for the next battle” and called on Arab and Muslim nations to provide Gaza with money and weapons.

While that would undo the main accomplishment of Israel’s operation, Hamas’s swagger might just make things easier for Israel’s hawkish leadership.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long insisted that negotiations are stalled because he lacks a willing partner for peace — even when he was dealing with the moderate president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. That argument might be more convincing if Hamas, which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organization, remains ascendant. .

“Israel and the Palestinians have been far from any deal for some time, and this just makes it farther away,” said Nathan Thrall, Middle East analyst for the International Crisis Group. “Prospects for a two-state solution are on the losing end,” Mr. Thrall’s group said in an after-action report published Friday. “Then again, what else is new?”

Hamas’s strengthened position might even pave the way for unilateral actions by Israel sought by some on the right — annexing parts of the West Bank, for example, or shutting off Gaza more completely — that redraw the political landscape, analysts say.

“I see many on the Israeli right who have an interest in this reality,” said Shlomo Brom, director of the program on Israel-Palestinian relations at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “If, like Netanyahu, you don’t want an agreement or you don’t believe in one,” he added, “it is very comfortable for them that Hamas is there.”

Left in the rubble after a week of relentless rocket fire into Israel and the Israeli bombing of more than a thousand targets in Gaza was the type of introspection that might lead to compromise. The violence, instead, exposed one of the unsettling realities of a conflict that has defied resolution for decades. Both sides deeply believe they are winning, and that they are right.

This latest round of hostilities seems only to have reinforced those ideas, causing Palestinians even in West Bank universities with little Hamas presence to raise the faction’s signature green flag, and leaving some Israelis asking whether the assault on Gaza stopped short.

Even the intervention of Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi — an Islamist praised by the Obama administration for his pragmatism in helping halt the fighting — could in the end reinforce the status quo. He held out the promise of helping to negotiate a long-term cease-fire, and perhaps bring a better standard of living to Gaza by opening borders and easing other restrictions. But Mr. Morsi, who shares Hamas’s roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, did not talk about a two-state solution, instead giving rhetorical support to Hamas and its ideology.

The Obama administration held out hope that in the future Mr. Morsi could be a voice for change, but officials were most intent on the practical prospect of having a partner in maintaining stability in the absence of a real push for peace on the ground.

“Egypt now has a degree of responsibility for preventing violence between two actors over which its control is very, very limited,” Daniel Levy, a left-leaning analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a commentary published Friday. Mr. Morsi, he added, “is likely to remind his Western friends that if they are unable to use a period of quiet to deliver broader progress on Israeli de-occupation, then he cannot be held fully responsible for the consequences later on.”

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Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi, Miley Cyrus Share Birthday Joy On Twitter

“Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi was celebrating her 25th birthday on Black Friday, but it wasn’t the shops that provided her with her favorite present.

The reality star and new mom Tweeted that her baby boy — Lorenzo, who was born in August — was the most rewarding gift of all.

PLAY IT NOW: The Jersey Shore Cast Makes A Plea To Help ‘Restore The Shore’

“My favorite birthday gift,” she Tweeted, linking to a photo of the MTV star holding her little one. (Click HERE to see the full pic.)

But, Snooki didn’t leave out her love for her fiance, Lorenzo’s daddy — Jionni LaValle, thanking him for celebrating her big day with her.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: We Did It All For The ‘Snooki’! Hot Shots Of The ‘Jersey Shore’ Star!

“Best Birthday ever with my fiance @JLaValle and Lorenzo,” she wrote.

In typical Snooki fashion, though, she wasn’t the perfect birthday girl. She made sure to emphasize it was her big day.

“Lol I’m being that annoying birthday girl to @JLaValle saying ‘but it’s my birthday today you have to,’” she Tweeted.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: She’s Just Bein’ Miley!

Snooki wasn’t the only celeb celebrating their birthday on Black Friday. Miley Cyrus turned 20, and hit Twitter to thank her fans for their well wishes.

“So much BIRFFFDAY love!” she wrote. “i wish everyday was like this.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Miley Cyrus & Liam Hemsworth: Young Hollywood’s Hot Power Couple

Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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What Made Jessica Biel Want to Steal a Girdle?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/21/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

Suzanne Tenner

Her wedding gown was dreamy, pink and modern, but while filming Hitchcock, Jessica Biel found herself taken with her character’s muted — and binding — mid-century costumes.

“I would have stolen that girdle, and pretty much everything that I could have,” the actress joked to PEOPLE at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday. “But I literally think that they would have hunted me down.”

In fact, while many actors are free to keep a memento from the project that they have worked on, Biel quickly got the sense that playing Vera Miles would be a labor of love steeped in authenticity — without the benefit of a fashion souvenir.

“Those costumes came from an amazing old costume house, and I really don’t know how many women wore the same costumes [on prior films],” Biel explained. “They have so much history, and they were not allowed to be taken away, so I didn’t actually take anything.”

That’s not to say that the stunning newlywed walked away completely empty-handed; Biel admitted that the experience, while sometimes uncomfortable, altered the way in which she views both fashion and femininity.

“I think every time that I step back into that period and really explore those beautiful, feminine shapes, especially where it’s all about the waist, I try to take that and bring that into my personal fashion and life,” she shared. “I try to do a little bit more of the feminine thing.” Tell us: Do you plan to see Hitchcock?

–Reagan Alexander

PHOTOS: SEE STARS ON SET IN ‘LIGHTS! CAMERA! FASHION!’

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

Read More..

Shoppers welcome early start to "Black Friday"

NEW YORK/BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota (Reuters) - Retailers declared their experiment with earlier store openings to kick off the holiday shopping season a success on Friday, with those new hours expected to be a Thanksgiving night staple for more retailers next year.

Stores such as Target Corp opened hours before midnight on Thursday to try to capture a bigger piece of the retail pie. The move seemed to bring out a different type of shopper than the usual one who grabs the "Black Friday" deals, analysts said.

That meant by Friday morning, some shoppers, like Christian Alcantara, 18, at a J.C. Penney Co Inc store in Queens, New York, had already made a lot of their purchases. J.C. Penney stuck to a more traditional 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT) Friday opening.

"They should open earlier. I've been everywhere else and I've already shopped," he said.

Shoppers like Alcantara are likely to force holdouts like J.C. Penney to move their post-Thanksgiving sales into Thursday night next year, said Liz Ebert, retail lead at consulting firm KPMG LLP.

"There will be pressure on them. There'll be an expansion of it next year," Ebert said.

Hard data on "Black Friday" store traffic will not come in until this weekend. But analysts said retailers who opened early brought in a non-traditional Black Friday shopper, with more families coming in together and buying more than just the "doorbuster" sale items.

"I've never seen parents bring so many kids on Black Friday," Toys R Us Chief Executive Jerry Storch said.

The National Retail Federation expects sales during November and December to rise 4.1 percent this year, below last year's 5.6 percent increase. That made store operators' strategy important as they battled each other, rather than seeing a growing pie in a season when U.S. retailers can make a third of their annual sales and 40 to 50 percent of their profits.

"Retailers want them to buy now, they want to get that share of wallet early," said Michael Appel, a director at consulting firm AlixPartners. He noticed that the Galleria Mall in White Plains, New York, was busy from midnight to 3 a.m., but that traffic, while still brisk, was less heavy by midmorning.

Shoppers used smartphones and tablets and a lot of research as they hit stores, a mobile phenomenon that started last year and seemed to be more prevalent this year.

Thom Blischok, chief retail strategist and a senior executive adviser with Booz & Company's Retail practice, was waiting on line with one woman in Phoenix, who was shopping for a refrigerator. Using her mobile device, she found the appliance online for the same price and left the store without. She intended to buy it online instead.

"There's a fundamental transformation of shopping," he said.

Mobile devices account for 45 percent walmart.com traffic and online traffic coming from Walmart's mobile app was three times bigger than last year, Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com, said.

Overall, online sales were up 20 percent versus the same period last year, through 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) on Friday, IBM said.

The National Retail Federation said 147 million people would shop Friday through Sunday, when deals are at their most eye-catching - down from 152 million the same weekend last year.

The NRF estimate did not account for Thursday shoppers and anecdotal evidence suggested retailers opening earlier may have cut into traffic on "Black Friday", the traditional start of the holiday season that denotes the point when retailers in the past would turn a profit for the year.

"People seemed to be shopping quite a bit, although in talking to mall management, it seemed that traffic was not as busy as last year," Deloitte retail analyst Ramesh Swamy said.

Retailers were also using technology better, allowing sales staff to match prices customers found online and having them use tablets as mobile "checkout stands" so buyers did not have to wait in line, a service consumers were quickly coming to expect.

"I even heard customers complaining about a retailer that didn't have mobile checkout," he said.

SAVING UP FOR CHRISTMAS SPREE

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, two-thirds of shoppers were planning to spend the same amount of money as last year or were unsure about plans, while 21 percent intended to spend less, and 11 percent planned to spend more.

"I definitely have more money this year," said Amy Balser, 26, at the head of the line outside the Best Buy store in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. "I definitely don't think (the economy) has bounced back anywhere near as much as it needs to, but I see some improvement," she said.

For others, Christmas is the focal point of their annual shopping.

"We cut back spending on birthdays and anniversaries so we'd have more for Christmas. We've adapted," said Cheri Albus, 58, of Papillion, Nebraska, after shopping at J.C. Penney at Westroads Mall in Omaha.

Retail stocks rose in holiday-shortened trading on Friday, in line with gains across the market. Among the leaders, Wal-Mart ended up 1.9 percent and Macy's Inc rose 1.8 percent.

STARTING EARLY

Across the country, store lines were long - in the hundreds or more in many places - with the move toward earlier opening hours appearing to help. By sunrise on Friday, it was commonplace, even at large stores in the major cities, to find many more staffers than shoppers.

While the shift to earlier openings was criticized by store employees and traditionalists because it pulled people away from families on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, many shoppers welcomed the chance to shop before midnight or in the early morning hours.

Some workers used the day to send a message.

OUR Walmart - a coalition of current and former Wal-Mart staff seeking better wages, benefits and working conditions - targeted Black Friday for action across the country after staging protests outside stores for months.

Nine protesters were arrested on misdemeanor charges after blocking a street outside a Walmart near Los Angeles, police said. Three of those arrested were Walmart workers, OUR Walmart said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc's U.S. discount stores, which have been open on Thanksgiving since 1988, offered some Black Friday deals at 8 p.m. on Thursday and special deals on certain electronics, such as Apple Inc iPads, at 10 p.m.

At the Macy's store in Herald Square in Manhattan, the line at the Estee Lauder counter was four deep shortly after its midnight opening. The cosmetics department's "morning specials" included free high-definition headphones with any fragrance purchase of $75 or more, and a set of six eye shadows for $10.

But for some people, cheap wasn't cheap enough - like the Macy's shopper who bought Calvin Klein shoes at 50 percent off but was still not satisfied.

"I was hoping for deeper discounts," said Melissa Glascow, 35, of Brooklyn, New York.

That could actually be an intentional strategy to help retailers' profits.

"It appears that manufacturers and retailers are making concerted efforts to drive margins, which may take some of the sales sizzle out of a traditionally big selling day/period, but should be positive to gross margins," Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter said in a note to clients.

Lines at Best Buy stores were similar to last year but the traffic to its website was "significantly" higher, Shawn Score, head of the company's U.S. retail business, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Martinne Geller and Jochelle Mendonca in New York, Jessica Wohl and Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Chicago, Brad Dorfman in Milwaukee, Paul Ingram in Tucson, Arizona, Jason McLure in Littleton, New Hampshire, and Barbara Liston in Orlando, Florida; Writing by Brad Dorfman and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Nick Macfie, David Holmes, Jeffrey Benkoe, Dale Hudson and Leslie Gevirtz)

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