The Hobbit: Richard Armitage Talks Preparations For Playing Thorin Oakenshield

British actor Richard Armitage admitted it wasn’t a walk in the park to play a J.R.R. Tolkien character in Peter Jackson’s reimagining of “The Hobbit,” the first installment of which is on its way into theaters.

Upon touching down in New Zealand, where the trilogy was shot, the cast had a lot of character preparation to do.

PLAY IT NOW: Martin Freeman Discusses The Hobbit’s ‘Good Chemistry’ & Playing Bilbo Baggins

“We arrived in February 2011 and we went straight into a training program, which was called ‘Dwarf Bootcamp,’ which was literally boots — these huge boots. We learned how to walk, we wrestled with each other, we did archery together, we did sword fighting, hammer fighting, horse riding — everything you could possibly think of,” Richard, who plays Thorin Oakenshield in the film told Access Hollywood at the film’s junket.

In addition, the cast, which includes his former “Cold Feet” co-star James Nesbitt as Bofur, found ways to get to know each other better off set.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — New York City Premiere

“We went round to each other’s houses and we cooked food together, we went to the pub and got drunk together, so there was an incredibly great bonding time between the dwarves,” he said.

Richard had plenty of experience sword fighting and horse riding in the BBC America series “Robin Hood,” but it was something else that came in handy during the long days on set.

“I’d done a number of shows where I’d had to use sword fighting and I’d also done horse riding. I’d also pulled guns out of my pocket. That was less useful,” he laughed, likely referring to his recent role in the PBS-import series “MI-5,” where he played a British spy. “But, yeah, you draw on everything. I’d worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, so the vocal work was really useful to kind of pull that from there. I’d worked in a circus, there were… all sorts of things that were really useful, but the one thing that I do have — for lack of talent — is stamina and that’s the one thing I think everybody needed on this job.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Meet ‘The Hobbit’ Cast!

An imagination was useful also, but Richard said what turned out on the big screen was still wilder – and more beautiful – than he dreamed of.

“So many moments… Actually, apart from the eagles — which every single time I’ve seen this film absolutely blows my mind and I can barely keep the tears back and [it has] nothing to do with the pathos of the scene, just that feeling of flight moves me — is the throne of Aragorn, in the beginning of the prologue,” he told Access of the moment that moved him most. “When it got to [filming] that scene, I walked on and… it was just a green cross on the floor with a tiny green chair… [But in the film], they just made this incredible, almost space aged, sort of suspended seat in the middle of this stalagmite. It just blows my mind when I see that.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Brit Pack: Hot Shots Of Stars From The UK!

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters on December 14, 2012, followed by “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” on December 13, 2013 and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” on July 18, 2014.

– Jolie Lash

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

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Why Netflix’s future is in “House of Cards,” “Arrested Development” – not Disney

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Netflix hailed as a “game-changer” its landmark deal last week to bring Disney movies to the streaming service. But while that deal may be significant, it pales in importance next to another looming development – the February debut of its original series “House of Cards.”

The economic benefits of the Disney deal, which gives the company streaming rights to much of Disney‘s catalog and straight-to-DVD movies as well as the exclusive rights to the studio’s new movies from 2016 to 2018, won’t be felt for years.

But the rollout of new, made-for-Netflix shows, which moves the company into a game owned by broadcast and cable – and follows a model set by everyone from HBO to AMC – will be a near-term bellwether of the company’s future success, analysts and observers say.

“You don’t identify a movie you watch on TV with a channel, but you definitely identify an original series with a channel,” Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, told TheWrap. “What Netflix is doing with its original series is getting something exclusive that makes you have to go to Netflix if you want to see it. It’s branding.”

They include the long-awaited rebirth of cult favorite “Arrested Development” and original pieces like Eli Roth’s “Hemlock Grove,” Jenji Kohan’s “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” from director David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey.

Like “Lilyhammer,” all episodes of the shows’ first seasons will be released at once, allowing for binge viewing by Netflix subscribers.

The Disney deal is momentous in that it marks the first time a digital pay-TV distributor has earned exclusive rights to a major studio’s new releases. Both analysts and studio executives say Netflix will pay more than $ 300 million a year for those rights, a startling sum for a company that has minimized the importance of films. Netflix has declined to discuss any figures.

Some analysts argue the Disney deal is a positive development, but one that will not move the needle when it comes to attracting new members.

“Netflix customers will like it when Disney movies show up, but not many people will want to sign up for Netflix because they have 15 new movies a year I want to see,” Pachter said.

That’s why Netflix bankrolled “Arrested Development,” a show canceled by Fox in 2006 that still has a small but loyal audience, one that will assuredly watch the new season on Netflix. That’s also why it has invested in so many new shows from established artists like Kohan, who created “Weeds,” and Roth, a successful horror filmmaker.

While the company’s first foray into original programming – Steven Van Zandt’s “Lilyhammer” – didn’t make much of a splash, the new shows debuting next year look far more promising.

It also has committed a reported $ 100 million for two seasons of “House of Cards,” as well as offering complete creative freedom to Fincher and his team.

The money the streaming service spends on its own shows is a pittance compared to what it shells out in licensing deals, but that original content will distinguish Netflix from competitors in broadcast, like HBO, and in digital, like Amazon.

“Everybody is trying to get their brand to the top of people’s minds, and sometimes that requires a substantial expenditure and doing something different, like original production,” Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming at Katz Television Group, told TheWrap.

More than any of its competitors in the streaming-video market, Netflix is attempting to transform itself into a digitized form of HBO, which began by airing studio movies.

HBO later added lower-cost programming, such as stand-up comedy shows, and eventually original series and films. Showtime, Starz and others soon followed.

Because it is not locked into a schedule, Netflix can host an unlimited amount of programming and owns a wealth of information about its subscribers to tailor its offerings to specific viewers and track their success.

Figuring out just what constitutes a “hit,” however, will be difficult. As it has with previous original shows like “Lilyhammer,” Netflix will not release viewing numbers for its upcoming shows. The company stresses that immediate viewing is less important than developing a loyal following over time.

As for the Disney deal, Netflix already had rights to films from that studio and Sony under an agreement with Starz, which in September 2011 opted not to renew its deal.

“They got something they used to have and had to pay a lot more money for it,” Seth Willenson, a library-valuation expert, producer and former studio executive told TheWrap.

So what changed? Exclusivity.

Disney’s new releases will appear on Netflix during the same window when they would have been showing on an HBO or another pay channel. It also means that new rivals, such as Amazon and Hulu Plus, won’t be getting the latest “Avengers” sequel at the same time – or the upcoming series of new “Star Wars” films.

“The argument is that what they are getting now from Disney will only be on Netflix,” Vasily Karasyov, an analyst with Susquehanna told TheWrap. “What they were getting before was only on Starz. It’s more exclusive. They are trying to do what Starz did in the ’90s and buy up rights and put it on the map.”

At the UBS conference last week in New York, Chief Creative Officer Ted Sarandos teased the possibility of pursuing exclusive deals with more studios as well.

This new attraction to movies represents a change of tune for the Los Altos, Calif.-based company. After all, Netflix has been publicly dismissive in recent months of film’s importance to its service, stressing its viewers’ penchant for binge-watching television shows, like AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.”

About 60 percent of Netflix viewing time is spent on TV, a number that has only grown in recent years. Exclusivity increasingly motivates its decision-making on the TV side as well, which is one reason it allowed its deal with A&E Networks to expire in September, taking shows like “Storage Wars” and “Hoarders” off Netflix.

And nothing is more exclusive than content you fund yourself.

“It wants content unique to its platform,” Karasyov said. “No one says, ‘Come to my website because we have the same stuff everyone else does.’”

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Germany passes law to protect circumcision after outcry

BERLIN (Reuters) – German politicians passed a law on Wednesday to protect the right to circumcise infant boys in a show of support for Muslims and Jews angered by a local court ban on the practice in May.

The ban – imposed on the grounds that circumcision amounted to “bodily harm” – triggered an emotional debate over the treatment of Jews and other religious minorities, a sensitive subject in a country still haunted by its Nazi past.

The outcry prompted Germany‘s centre-right government and opposition parties to draw up legislation confirming the practice was legal – overruling the decision by a court in the western city of Cologne.

The new law passed by an overwhelming majority in Bundestag lower house said the operation could be carried out, as long as parents were informed about the risks.

Jewish groups welcomed the move.

“This vote and the strong commitment shown … to protect this most integral practice of the Jewish religion is a strong message to our community for the continuation and flourishing of Jewish life in Germany,” said Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress.

Germany’s Catholic Bishops Conference said it hoped the bill would help safeguard religious freedoms. No comment was immediately available from the country’s Central Council of Muslims.

PAIN MINIMISED

The May ruling centered on the case of a Muslim boy who bled after the procedure and the ban only applied to the area around Cologne.

But some doctors in other parts of Germany started refusing to carry out circumcisions, saying it was unclear whether they would face prosecution.

Under the new law, a doctor or trained expert must conduct the operation and children must endure as little pain as possible, which means an anesthetic should be used. The procedure cannot take place if there is any doubt about the child’s health.

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said no other country in the world country had made the religious circumcision of boys an offence.

“In our modern and secular state, it is not the job of the state to interfere in children’s’ upbringing,” she said.

Child welfare group Deutsche Kinderhilfe disagreed, saying the government had “(pushed) through the legalization of the ritual of genital circumcision … against the advice of child right campaigners and the medical profession.”

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Edited by Stephen Brown and Andrew Heavens)

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Police identify Portland mall shooter

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a stolen rifle from someone he knew, authorities said Wednesday.

Jacob Tyler Roberts had armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at a Portland mall on Tuesday, said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.

The sheriff said the rifle jammed during the 22-year-old's attack, but he managed to get it working again. He later shot himself. Authorities don't yet have a motive but don't believe he was targeting specific people.

Two people — a 54-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man — were killed, and another, Kristina Shevchenko, whose age could not be confirmed, was wounded and in serious condition on Wednesday.

Roberts, wearing a hockey-style face mask, parked his 1996 green Volkswagen Jetta in front of the second-floor entrance to Macy's and walked briskly through the store, into the mall and began firing randomly, police said.

He fatally shot Steven Mathew Forsyth of West Linn and Cindy Ann Yuille of Portland, the sheriff said.

Roberts then fled along a mall corridor and into a back hallway, down stairs and into a corner where police found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said.

People at the mall were heroic in helping get shoppers out of the building, including medical personnel who rendered aid, Roberts said.

In response to previous mass shootings elsewhere, the first arriving officers were trained to form teams and go inside instead of waiting for SWAT. Employees at the mall also received training to handle such a situation.

"This could have been much, much worse," Roberts said.

The first 911 call came at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday and officers arrived a minute later. By 3:51 p.m., all the victims and the gunman and rifle had been found. Four SWAT teams spent hours clearing the 1.4 million square-foot mall, leaving shoppers and workers to hide in fear.

Roberts rented a basement room in a modest, single-story Portland home and hadn't lived there long, said a neighbor, Bobbi Bates. Bates said she saw Roberts leave at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday wearing a dark jacket and jeans, carrying a guitar case. An occupant at the house declined to comment.

The mall Santa, Brance Wilson, was waiting for the next child's Christmas wish when shots rang out, causing the mall to erupt into chaos.

About to invite a child to hop onto his lap, Wilson instead dove for the floor and kept his head down as he heard shots being fired upstairs in the mall.

"I heard two shots and got out of the chair. I thought a red suit was a pretty good target," said Wilson, 68. Families waiting for Santa scattered. More shots followed, and Wilson crept away for better cover.

Witnesses heard the gunman saying, "I am the shooter," as he fired rounds from a semi-automatic rifle inside the Clackamas Town Center, a popular suburban mall several miles from downtown Portland.

Some were close enough to the shooter to feel the percussion of his gun.

Kayla Sprint, 18, was interviewing for a job at a clothing store when she heard shots.

"We heard people running back here screaming, yelling '911,'" she told The Associated Press.

Sprint barricaded herself in the store's back room until the coast was clear.

Jason DeCosta, a manager of a window-tinting company that has a display on the mall's ground floor, said when he arrived to relieve his co-worker, he heard shots ring out upstairs.

DeCosta ran up an escalator, past people who had dropped for cover and glass littering the floor.

"I figure if he's shooting a gun, he's gonna run out of bullets," DeCosta said, "and I'm gonna take him."

DeCosta said when he got to the food court, "I saw a gentleman face down, obviously shot in the head."

"A lot of blood," DeCosta said. "You could tell there was nothing you could do for him."

He said he also saw a woman on the floor who had been shot in the chest.

Austin Patty, 20, who works at Macy's, said he saw a man in a white mask carrying a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest. There was a series of rapid-fire shots in short succession as Christmas music played. Patty said he dove for the floor and then ran.

His Macy's co-worker, Pam Moore, told the AP the gunman was short, with dark hair.

Kira Rowland told KGW-TV that she was shopping at Macy's with her infant son when the shots started.

"All of a sudden you hear two shots, which sounded like balloons popping," Rowland told the station. "Everybody got on the ground. I grabbed the baby from the stroller and got on the ground."

Rowland said she heard people screaming and crying.

"I put the baby back in the stroller and ran," Rowland said.

Kaelynn Keelin was working two stores down from Macy's when the gunfire began. She watched windows of another store get shot out. She and her co-workers ran to get customers inside their own store to take shelter.

"If we would have run out, we would have run right into it," she said.

Shaun Wik, 20, was Christmas shopping with his girlfriend and opened a fortune cookie at the food court. Inside was written: "Live for today. Remember yesterday. Think of tomorrow."

As he read it, he heard three shots. He heard a man he believes was the gunman shout, "Get down!" but Wik and his girlfriend ran. He heard seven or eight more shots. He didn't turn around.

"If I had looked back, I might not be standing here," Wik said. "I might have been one of the ones who got hit."

Clackamas Town Center is one of the Portland area's biggest and busiest malls, with 185 stores and a 20-screen movie theater.

Holli Bautista, 28, was shopping at Macy's for a Christmas dress for her daughter when she heard pops that sounded like firecrackers. "I heard people running and screaming and saying 'Get out, there's somebody shooting,'" she told the AP.

She said hundreds of shoppers and mall employees started running, and she and dozens of other people were trying to escape through a department store exit.

Tiffany Turgetto and her husband were leaving Macy's through the first floor when they heard gunshots coming from the second floor of the mall. They were able to leave quickly through a Barnes & Noble bookstore before the police locked down the mall.

"I had left my phone at home. I was telling people to call 911. Surprisingly, people are around me, no one was calling 911. I think people were in shock," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Steven DuBois, Nigel Duara, Anne M. Peterson, Tim Fought and Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Michelle Price in Phoenix, Pete Yost in Washington, Manuel Valdes in Seattle and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

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Police identify Portland mall shooter

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a stolen rifle from someone he knew, authorities said Wednesday.

Jacob Tyler Roberts had armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at a Portland mall on Tuesday, said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.

The sheriff said the rifle jammed during the 22-year-old's attack, but he managed to get it working again. He later shot himself. Authorities don't yet have a motive but don't believe he was targeting specific people.

Two people — a 54-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man — were killed, and another, Kristina Shevchenko, whose age could not be confirmed, was wounded and in serious condition on Wednesday.

Roberts, wearing a hockey-style face mask, parked his 1996 green Volkswagen Jetta in front of the second-floor entrance to Macy's and walked briskly through the store, into the mall and began firing randomly, police said.

He fatally shot Steven Mathew Forsyth of West Linn and Cindy Ann Yuille of Portland, the sheriff said.

Roberts then fled along a mall corridor and into a back hallway, down stairs and into a corner where police found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said.

People at the mall were heroic in helping get shoppers out of the building, including medical personnel who rendered aid, Roberts said.

In response to previous mass shootings elsewhere, the first arriving officers were trained to form teams and go inside instead of waiting for SWAT. Employees at the mall also received training to handle such a situation.

"This could have been much, much worse," Roberts said.

The first 911 call came at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday and officers arrived a minute later. By 3:51 p.m., all the victims and the gunman and rifle had been found. Four SWAT teams spent hours clearing the 1.4 million square-foot mall, leaving shoppers and workers to hide in fear.

Roberts rented a basement room in a modest, single-story Portland home and hadn't lived there long, said a neighbor, Bobbi Bates. Bates said she saw Roberts leave at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday wearing a dark jacket and jeans, carrying a guitar case. An occupant at the house declined to comment.

The mall Santa, Brance Wilson, was waiting for the next child's Christmas wish when shots rang out, causing the mall to erupt into chaos.

About to invite a child to hop onto his lap, Wilson instead dove for the floor and kept his head down as he heard shots being fired upstairs in the mall.

"I heard two shots and got out of the chair. I thought a red suit was a pretty good target," said Wilson, 68. Families waiting for Santa scattered. More shots followed, and Wilson crept away for better cover.

Witnesses heard the gunman saying, "I am the shooter," as he fired rounds from a semi-automatic rifle inside the Clackamas Town Center, a popular suburban mall several miles from downtown Portland.

Some were close enough to the shooter to feel the percussion of his gun.

Kayla Sprint, 18, was interviewing for a job at a clothing store when she heard shots.

"We heard people running back here screaming, yelling '911,'" she told The Associated Press.

Sprint barricaded herself in the store's back room until the coast was clear.

Jason DeCosta, a manager of a window-tinting company that has a display on the mall's ground floor, said when he arrived to relieve his co-worker, he heard shots ring out upstairs.

DeCosta ran up an escalator, past people who had dropped for cover and glass littering the floor.

"I figure if he's shooting a gun, he's gonna run out of bullets," DeCosta said, "and I'm gonna take him."

DeCosta said when he got to the food court, "I saw a gentleman face down, obviously shot in the head."

"A lot of blood," DeCosta said. "You could tell there was nothing you could do for him."

He said he also saw a woman on the floor who had been shot in the chest.

Austin Patty, 20, who works at Macy's, said he saw a man in a white mask carrying a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest. There was a series of rapid-fire shots in short succession as Christmas music played. Patty said he dove for the floor and then ran.

His Macy's co-worker, Pam Moore, told the AP the gunman was short, with dark hair.

Kira Rowland told KGW-TV that she was shopping at Macy's with her infant son when the shots started.

"All of a sudden you hear two shots, which sounded like balloons popping," Rowland told the station. "Everybody got on the ground. I grabbed the baby from the stroller and got on the ground."

Rowland said she heard people screaming and crying.

"I put the baby back in the stroller and ran," Rowland said.

Kaelynn Keelin was working two stores down from Macy's when the gunfire began. She watched windows of another store get shot out. She and her co-workers ran to get customers inside their own store to take shelter.

"If we would have run out, we would have run right into it," she said.

Shaun Wik, 20, was Christmas shopping with his girlfriend and opened a fortune cookie at the food court. Inside was written: "Live for today. Remember yesterday. Think of tomorrow."

As he read it, he heard three shots. He heard a man he believes was the gunman shout, "Get down!" but Wik and his girlfriend ran. He heard seven or eight more shots. He didn't turn around.

"If I had looked back, I might not be standing here," Wik said. "I might have been one of the ones who got hit."

Clackamas Town Center is one of the Portland area's biggest and busiest malls, with 185 stores and a 20-screen movie theater.

Holli Bautista, 28, was shopping at Macy's for a Christmas dress for her daughter when she heard pops that sounded like firecrackers. "I heard people running and screaming and saying 'Get out, there's somebody shooting,'" she told the AP.

She said hundreds of shoppers and mall employees started running, and she and dozens of other people were trying to escape through a department store exit.

Tiffany Turgetto and her husband were leaving Macy's through the first floor when they heard gunshots coming from the second floor of the mall. They were able to leave quickly through a Barnes & Noble bookstore before the police locked down the mall.

"I had left my phone at home. I was telling people to call 911. Surprisingly, people are around me, no one was calling 911. I think people were in shock," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Steven DuBois, Nigel Duara, Anne M. Peterson, Tim Fought and Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Michelle Price in Phoenix, Pete Yost in Washington, Manuel Valdes in Seattle and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States.

“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news-reader clad in traditional Korean garb triumphantly announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says”.

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it “deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit”, the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test.

The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state’s “military first” programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.

North Korea lauded Wednesday’s launch as celebrating the prowess of all three Kims to rule since it was founded in 1948.

“At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung,” its KCNA news agency said.

Washington condemned Wednesday’s launch as a “provocative action” and breach of U.N. rules, while Japan’s U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North’s only major ally, will oppose them.

“The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences,” the White House said in a statement.

Japan’s likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who is known as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution “strongly criticizing” Pyongyang.

BEIJING BLOCK

China had expressed “deep concern” prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Xinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on possible counter-measures, in line with previous policy when it has effectively vetoed tougher sanctions.

“China believes the Security Council’s response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation of the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, told a conference call: “China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we’ll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors.”

A senior adviser to South Korea’s president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the U.N. and that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.

The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler.

Wednesday’s success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

“This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un,” said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.

The 22 million population often needs handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy – per capita income is less than $ 2,000 a year – one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

The North has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.

“A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile,” said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

“But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry.”

Pyongyang says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a “nuclear weapons power”.

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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‘Lincoln,’ ‘Les Mis,’ ‘Playbook’ lead SAG awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Civil War saga “Lincoln,” the musical “Les Miserables” and the comic drama “Silver Linings Playbook” boosted their Academy Awards prospects Wednesday with four nominations apiece for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

All three films were nominated for overall performance by their casts. Also nominated for best ensemble cast were the Iran hostage-crisis thriller “Argo” and the British retiree adventure “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”

Directed by Steven Spielberg, “Lincoln” also scored individual nominations for Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role as best actor, Sally Field for supporting actress as Mary Todd Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones for supporting actor as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

“Les Miserables,” from “The King’s Speech” director Tom Hooper, had nominations for Hugh Jackman for best actor as Victor Hugo’s long-suffering hero Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway for supporting actress as a woman fallen into prostitution, plus a nomination for its stunt ensemble.

“Silver Linings Playbook,” made by “The Fighter” director David O. Russell, also had lead-acting nominations for Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as lost souls who find a second chance at love and Robert De Niro for supporting actor as a football-obsessed dad.

Besides Lawrence, best-actress nominees are Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst pursuing Osama bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty”; Marion Cotillard as a woman who finds romance after tragedy in “Rust and Bone”; Helen Mirren as Alfred Hitchcock’s strong-willed wife in “Hitchcock”; and Naomi Watts as a woman caught in the devastation of a tsunami in “The Impossible.”

Joining Cooper, Day-Lewis and Jackman in the best-actor field are John Hawkes as a polio victim aiming to lose his virginity in “The Sessions” and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in “Flight.”

SAG nominees are almost all familiar names in Hollywood’s awards season. Eighteen of the 20 film acting contenders are past Academy Awards nominees and 13 have won Oscars, among them five two-time winners. Only Cooper and Jackman have never before earned Oscar nominations.

One of the year’s most-acclaimed films, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” earned only one nomination, supporting actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman as a mesmerizing cult leader. The film was snubbed on nominations for ensemble, lead actor Joaquin Phoenix and supporting actress Amy Adams.

Other individual performances overlooked by SAG voters include Anthony Hopkins in the title role of “Hitchcock,” Keira Knightley in the title role of “Anna Karenina,” Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt in “Hyde Park on Hudson” and “Argo” director Ben Affleck, who also starred in the film.

The SAG Awards will be presented Jan. 27. The guild nominations are one of Hollywood’s first major announcements on the long road to the Feb. 24 Oscars Awards, whose nominations will be released Jan. 10.

Nominations for the Golden Globes, the second-biggest film honors after the Oscars, come out Thursday.

Maggie Smith had four individual and ensemble nominations. Along with sharing the ensemble honor for “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” Smith joined the cast of “Downton Abbey” among TV ensemble contenders and had nominations for supporting film actress as a cranky retiree in “Marigold Hotel” and TV drama actress for “Downton Abbey.”

Nicole Kidman earned two individual nominations, as supporting film actress as a woman smitten with a prison inmate in “The Paperboy” and best actress in a TV movie or miniseries as war correspondent Martha Gellhorn in “Hemingway & Gellhorn.”

Bryan Cranston had three overall nominations, as best actor in a TV drama for “Breaking Bad,” an ensemble honor for that show and a film ensemble honor for “Argo.”

Along with “Breaking Bad” and “Downton Abbey,” best TV drama ensemble contenders are “Boardwalk Empire,” ”Homeland” and “Mad Men.” TV comedy ensemble nominees are “30 Rock,” ”The Big Bang Theory,” ”Glee,” ”Modern Family,” ”Nurse Jackie” and “The Office.”

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Online:

http://www.sagawards.org

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Venezuela’s Chavez in “complex” post-operation condition: VP

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in a “complex” and delicate condition after his latest surgery for cancer in Cuba, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday.

Looking grave-faced in an address to the nation, he urged Venezuelans to unite in prayer for their 58-year-old president, and to keep faith that Chavez would return soon.

(Reporting by Caracas newsroom; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Facebook revises privacy controls in effort to make them more accessible, comprehensible

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world’s largest social network into a more discreet place.

The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook Inc.‘s more than 1 billion users in the next few weeks.

The biggest change will be a new “privacy shortcuts” section that will appear as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people’s news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users will be able to get answers to common questions such as “Who can see my stuff?”

Other updates will include a tool that will enable individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook.

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Corruption probe shrouds Quebec in new darkness

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Half a century ago, a new crop of Quebec leaders sparked the so-called Quiet Revolution to eradicate the “Great Darkness” – decades of corruption that kept Canada‘s French-speaking province under the dominance of one party and the Catholic church.

The revolution’s reforms, including cleaning up the way lawmakers were elected and secularizing the education system, seemed to work, paving the way for decades of growth, progress and prominence as Canada emerged as a model of democracy.

Fifty years later, a public inquiry into corruption and government bid-rigging suggests the province’s politics are not as clean as Quebecers had hoped or believed.

Since May, when the inquiry opened in Montreal, Canadians have been getting daily doses of revelations of fraud through live broadcasts on French-language television stations. Corruption involving the Mafia, construction bosses and politicians, the inquiry has shown, drove up the average building cost of municipal contracts by more than 30 percent in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city.

Last month, Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay resigned as did the mayor of nearby Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt. Both denied doing anything wrong, but said they could not govern amid the accusations of corruption involving rigging of municipal contracts, kickbacks from the contracts and illegal financing of elections.

Tremblay has not been charged by police. Vaillancourt’s homes and offices have been raided several times by Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, which operates independently of the inquiry, but no charges have been filed against him either. Police said the raids were part of an investigation but they would not release further details.

“Quebecers lived for several years under the impression that they had found the right formula, that their parties were clean,” said Pierre Martin, political science professor at the University of Montreal. Now, he said, “people at all levels are fed up.”

The inquiry must submit its final report to the Quebec government by next October. It has exposed practices worthy of a Hollywood noir thriller – a mob boss stuffing his socks with money, rigged construction contracts, call girls offered as gifts, and a party fundraiser with so much cash he could not close the door of his safe.

“Even though we are in the early days, what is emerging is a pretty troubling portrait of the way public contracts were awarded,” said Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in Montreal.

Quebec’s Liberals, the force behind the Quiet Revolution, launched the inquiry as rumors of corruption swirled. The government then called an election for September, a year ahead of schedule, in what was seen as an attempt to stop damaging testimony hurting its popularity.

The tactic did not help. Jean Charest’s Liberals lost to the Parti Quebecois, whose ultimate aim is to take the French-speaking province, the size of Western Europe, out of Canada.

‘IT WASN’T COMPLICATED’

According to allegations at the inquiry, the corruption helped three main entities: the construction bosses who colluded to bid on contracts, the Montreal Mafia dons who swooped in for their share, and the municipal politicians who received kickbacks to finance campaigns.

In Quebec, the Mafia has been dominated by the Rizzuto family, with tentacles to the rest of Canada and crime families in New York and abroad. But recently the syndicate has been facing challenges from other crime groups in Montreal, according to the Toronto-based Mafia analyst and author Antonio Nicaso.

The reputed godfather of the syndicate, Vito Rizzuto, has been subpoenaed to appear before the commission, but the date for his testimony has not been set.

The hearings have zeroed in on four construction bosses and how their companies worked with the Mafia, bribed municipal engineers and provided funds for mayoralty campaigns in Montreal, the business capital for Quebec’s 8 million people.

“It’s not good for the economy,” said Martin. “It’s not good for any kind of legitimate business that tries to enter into any kind of long-term relationship with the public sector.”

Quebec’s anti-corruption squad has arrested 35 people so far this year, staging well-publicized raids on mayoral offices and on construction and engineering companies. The squad has arrested civil servants and owners of construction companies, among others.

“I now must suffer an unbearable injustice,” Tremblay said in a somber resignation speech earlier this month after a decade as mayor of Montreal, saying he could not continue in office because the allegations of corruption were causing a paralysis at City Hall.

Some of the most explosive allegations at the inquiry, headed by Quebec Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau, came from Lino Zambito, owner of a now bankrupt construction company, and from a top worker for Tremblay’s political party, Union Montreal.

Zambito, who is seen as one of the smaller players and who also faces fraud charges, described a system of collusion between organized crime, business cartels and corrupt civil servants, with payments made according to a predetermined formula.

“The entrepreneurs made money, and there was an amount that was due to the Mafia,” Zambito told the inquiry. “It wasn’t complicated.”

Zambito said the Mafia got 2.5 percent of the value of a contract, 3 percent went to Union Montreal and 1 percent to the engineer tasked with inflating contract prices.

Tremblay did not respond to emails requesting comment on the allegations of corruption at city hall.

A former party organizer, Martin Dumont, alleged the mayor was aware of double bookkeeping used to hide illegal funding during a 2004 election.

Dumont said the mayor walked out of the room during a meeting that explained the double bookkeeping system, saying he did not want to know anything about it.

Dumont also described how he was called into the office of a fundraiser for Union Montreal to help close the door of a safe because it was too full of money.

“I think it was the largest amount I’d ever seen in my life,” Dumont said at the inquiry.

GOLF, HOCKEY, ESCORTS

The inquiry also saw videos linking construction company players with Mafia bosses. In one police surveillance video, a Mafia boss was seen stuffing cash into his socks.

A retired city of Montreal engineer, Gilles Surprenant, described how he first accepted a bribe in the late 1980s after being “intimidated” by a construction company owner. Over the years he said he accepted over $ 700,000 from the owners in return for inflating the price of the contracts.

Another retired engineer, Luc Leclerc, admitted to bagging half a million dollars for the same service. He said the system was well-known to many at city hall and simply part of the “business culture” in Montreal. He also got gifts and paid golf trips to the Caribbean with other businessmen and Mafia bosses.

Gilles Vezina, who is currently suspended from his job as a city engineer, concurred.

“It was part of our business relationships to get advantages like golf, hockey, Christmas gifts” from construction bosses, he told the inquiry in mid-November.

The gifts didn’t stop there. Vezina said he was twice offered the services of prostitutes from different construction bosses in the 1980s or early 1990s, which he said he refused.

The accusations are jarring for a country that prides itself on being one of the least corrupt places in the world, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International. But experts say corruption in Montreal was something of an open secret.

“The alarm signals have been going off here for 20 years and no one has done anything,” said Andre Cedilot, a former journalist who co-wrote a book on the Canadian Mafia.

Quebec’s new government has introduced legislation tasking the province’s securities regulator with vetting businesses vying for public contracts and allowing it to block companies that do not measure up.

Anti-corruption activist Jonathan Brun was not optimistic.

“You’ve got to use modern technology,” said Brun, a co-founder of Quebec Ouvert, a group that wants to make all information about contracts freely available rather than asking regulators to oversee individual companies. “You’ve got to change the entire system if you really want to fight corruption.”

(Writing by Russ Blinch; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Mary Milliken and Prudence Crowther)

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