Toshiba’s 10-inch Excite 10 SE tablet sells for $349.99, comes with Jelly Bean

While every other company is busy chasing the 7-inch tablet market, Toshiba (TOSBF) is keeping its eye on people interested in 10-inch tablets. Its new Excite 10 SE Android tablet is fairly similar to its Excite 10 LE, sporting a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 resolution display, NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, 3-megapixel rear camera, HD front camera, microSD card slot and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It doesn’t have the iPad’s eye-popping Retina display or the Samsung (005930) Nexus 10′s crisp 2,560 x 1,600 resolution with 300 pixels per inch, but it’s more than adequate for most basic tablet tasks. And at $ 349.99, it’s not a bad deal for a 10-inch tablet. The Excite 10 SE goes on sale December 6th and will be available from ToshibaDirect.com and select retail stores. Toshiba’s press release follows below.

Toshiba expands excite family of tablets with new 10-inch model

New Excite 10 SE Tablet Powered by Android 4.1 Starting at $ 349.99 MSRP

IRVINE, Calif. — Dec. 4, 2012 — Toshiba’s Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the availability of the Excite™ 10 SE tablet, a multimedia-rich tablet with a 10.1-inch touchscreen, powered by Android™ 4.1, Jelly Bean. The Excite 10 SE offers an affordable option for people looking for a powerful and versatile tablet for the home, starting at only $ 349.99 MSRP[i].

“Our Excite family of tablets continues to grow with options to suit a wide range of consumer needs, from portability and gaming to versatility and power,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of marketing of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “We designed the Excite 10 SE to be a full featured tablet that offers a pure Android, Jelly Bean experience, while maintaining an attractive price point.”

The Excite 10 SE features Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, which improves on the simplicity and usability of Android 4.0. Moving between customizable home screens and switching between apps is effortless, while the Chrome™ browser and new Google Now intelligent personal assistant and Voice Search apps makes surfing the web fast and fluid.

Slim and light at only 0.4 inches thick and weighing 22.6 ounces[ii], the Excite 10 SE is encased with a textured Fusion Lattice finish, making it comfortable to hold and easy to carry. The tablet offers a vibrant 10.1-inch diagonal AutoBrite™ HD touchscreen display[iii] plus the NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Super 4-PLUS-1™ quad-core processor[iv] that delivers smooth web browsing and outstanding performance for games, HD movies and more.

Stereo speakers with SRS® Premium Voice Pro create an optimized audio experience for music, video and games, while providing greater clarity for video chatting via the tablet’s HD front-facing camera. The Excite 10 SE also includes a 3 megapixel rear-facing camera with auto-focus and digital zoom for capturing HD video and photos. Featuring a wide range of connectivity, the tablet includes 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth® 3.0, as well as Micro SD and Micro USB ports for expandability. The tablet also charges conveniently via the Micro USB port.

Availability

The Excite 10 SE will be available starting at $ 349.99 MSRP for the 16GB model at select retailers and direct from Toshiba at ToshibaDirect.com on December 6, 2012.

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The Voice Reveals Top Four Contestants

TV Watch

By Julia Haskins

12/04/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

The Voice"'s top six contestants were under double pressure Monday night when they had to sing two songs each. But there was even more stress at Tuesday's elimination.

"It went as well as it could have gone," Team Blake's Terry McDermott said on Monday of his performances of "I Want to Know What Love Is" and Rod Stewart's "Stay with Me." "There was a lot of pressure stripping a song down, but it worked to my advantage."

"I felt good," said Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte, who performed "Walking on Sunshine" and Jennifer Hudson's "And I Am Telling You (I'm Not Going)." "I'm confident. I feel like I've really grown. I'm definitely happy with my performance. I just want to see how America votes."

His chance came Tuesday when he and McDermott stood alongside competitors Nicholas David (Team Cee Lo), Cassadee Pope (Team Blake), Melanie Martinez and Amanda Brown (both Team Adam) to hear host Carson Daly reveal the voting results. Keep reading to find out ...

America saved McDermott, Hunte and Pope, but Martinez said goodbye to the competition for good. "I love all of you who have supported me," she said to her fans. "I'm just so grateful for you."

Brown also met the same fate, making David the final member of the top four.

The semi-final show airs Monday at 8:00 p.m. on NBC.

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.

The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.

Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice.

Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited.

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Online:

Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv

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Wall Street slips as investors seek cliff progress

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished slightly lower in a quiet session on Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the "fiscal cliff" gave investors little reason to act.

Trading volume was light as legislators continue to negotiate a deal to avoid a $600 billion package of tax hikes and federal spending cuts that would begin January 1 and could push the economy into recession.

Just 5.86 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, below the year's daily average of 6.48 billion shares.

A key measure of investor anxiety has remained muted. The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, was at 17.12, up 2.9 percent. It has not traded above 20 since July.

Optimism for progress was dented after remarks by President Barack Obama, who rejected a Republican proposal to resolve the crisis as "out of balance" and said any deal must include a rise in income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.

"People don't know if what's going on is political posturing or real negotiations that represent progress," said Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, New Jersey.

Expectations of higher taxes on dividends beginning in 2013 have pushed many companies to pay special dividends this year or advance their next payback to investors. Coach became the latest to move up the date of its next dividend payment, and the news lifted shares of the upscale leather-goods maker earlier in the session. By the close, though, Coach was down 1.2 percent at $57.52.

One of the S&P 500's top sectors for the day was health care <.gspa>, considered a defensive group.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 13.82 points, or 0.11 percent, to 12,951.78 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dipped 2.41 points, or 0.17 percent, to 1,407.05. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> shed 5.51 points, or 0.18 percent, to close at 2,996.69.

The market has been sensitive to rhetoric from Washington, as a failure to reach an agreement could send the U.S. economy back into recession. Still, many expect a resolution to be found, which could extend the S&P 500's rally of 12 percent so far this year.

Differences within the Republican Party came to the fore on Tuesday as one senator opposed to raising taxes lashed out at Republican House Speaker John Boehner for proposing to increase revenue by closing some tax loopholes.

Congressional Republicans recently proposed steep spending cuts to bring down the budget deficit, but gave no ground on Obama's call to raise tax rates on the rich. The proposal was quickly dismissed by the White House.

"We're on hold trying to figure it out, but investors are stressed since they have to make decisions soon about how to proceed with their investments if taxes are indeed going up. We could see a real pick-up in volume over the next week or so," Baumohl said.

Netflix Inc was the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, advancing 14 percent to $86.65 after Walt Disney Co agreed to give the company exclusive TV distribution rights to its movies, starting in 2016.

Intel Corp shares rose 2.2 percent to $19.97 after the top chipmaker sold $6 billion in bonds to fund stock buybacks and other business activities.

Darden Restaurants Inc shares plunged 9.6 percent to $47.40 as the S&P 500's worst performer after the company warned that its latest quarter would miss expectations after unsuccessful promotions led to a decline in sales at its Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse chains.

In contrast, Big Lots Inc surged 11.5 percent to $31.27 after the close-out retailer posted a smaller-than-expected loss and boosted its full-year adjusted earnings forecast.

MetroPCS Communications shares tumbled 7.5 percent to $9.96 after Sprint Nextel appeared unlikely to make a counter-offer for the wireless service provider.

Almost half of the stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower, while 50 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed in negative territory.

After the closing bell, Pandora Media Inc

shares plunged 23 percent after the company reported its third-quarter results.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Larissa Journal: Greek Brothel Owner Rescues Larissa Soccer Club

Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York Times

Ms. Alevridou's support of Voukefalas has caused an uproar.

LARISSA, Greece — Her soccer club looked ragged. Strikers jumped up for headers only to miss the ball entirely. Players tumbled over one another, shouting out accusations that they had been fouled.

But in the bleachers, Soula Alevridou, or “Madam Soula,” as she is known in these parts, watched intently, a petite woman in a man’s tie smoking ultra thin cigarettes.

“Keep in mind that the home team is very good,” she said, explaining the difficulties that her team, Voukefalas, was having.

Madam Soula, a former prostitute and now, at the age of 67, the owner of two luxury brothels here in Larissa, stepped in this fall to sponsor Voukefalas, a small amateur soccer team that like many others in Greece was having trouble coming up with the cash for uniforms, equipment and playing field fees.

She considers her support a natural thing to do, maybe even a patriotic gesture, because her debt-mired country is in so much trouble that many of life’s extras, like amateur sports, are becoming out of reach.

“A friend asked and I said, ‘I am here,’ ” she said.

But local officials in this once-rich farming area are hardly thanking her for her efforts. In fact, her gift of about $1,300 so far, in part to buy bubble-gum pink training outfits — has caused something of an uproar as officials debate the appropriateness of having a brothel owner step in, even if it is to make up for a bankrupt state and an economy that leaves few businesses with the cash to help young men play sports.

In an interview, Larissa’s mayor, Konstantinos Tzanakoulis, pointedly ignored questions about the matter. And the Larissa soccer league recently informed Voukefalas that team equipment bearing the name of Madam Soula’s brothels — Villa Erotica and House of the Era — would not be tolerated, though brothels are legal in Greece. The league warned that any infraction, not only in games but also during “training, warm-ups, interviews and friendly matches,” would land the team in disciplinary hearings for “defamation of the sport.”

The team’s president, Ioannis Batziolas, 29, a backup goalie, calls the league’s decision hypocritical, and points out that Greece’s professional soccer championship is sponsored by the state-owned lottery and betting company OPAP, which is soon to be privatized. “What is the better idea to promote?” he asks. “Gambling or sex?”

For a time, this city of 200,000 at the foot of Mount Olympus seemed to be weathering the Greek crisis better than most. But the years of recession are piling up and most businesses are suffering. Unemployment is over 20 percent, higher among young people.

Madam Soula said her business had been hurt, too. But not that much. Customers sometimes even fly in from Britain, she said, drawn by Internet ads.

Mr. Batziolas said he looked everywhere for team sponsors, but found nothing until Madam Soula came forward. His own travel agency, L.A. Travel, provided most of the money last year. But it just could not afford to any longer, he said. On top of that, he has not seen the government’s share of support in several years. “They owe me thousands,” he said.

Mr. Tzanakoulis, who has been mayor here for more than a decade, says that the municipality is continuing to support sports, but that the central government has not been delivering, which leaves a great need.

“Sports are important for young men,” he said. “It is a good activity that keeps them out of trouble.” But that is all he will say on the subject of Voukefalas (the team is named after Alexander the Great’s horse) and the team’s new sponsor.

Voukefalas is not the only team to have been creative in looking for sponsors. Another soccer team got a funeral home to act as a sponsor and for a while wore black T-shirts with white crosses. But league officials did not like that either.

Madam Soula tries to shrug off the hullabaloo over her sponsorship. “Do they have anyone else to give them the money?” she asks.

Dimitris Bounias contributed reporting.

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‘The Daily’ doomed by dull content and isolation

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was too expensive. It lacked editorial focus. And for a digital publication, it was strangely cut off from the Internet. That’s the obituary being written in real time through posts, tweets and online chats about The Daily, the first-of-its-kind iPad newspaper that is being shut down this month.

Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. said Monday that The Daily will publish its final issue on Dec. 15, less than two years after its January 2011 launch. The app has already been removed from Apple’s iTunes, where it once received lukewarm ratings.

The Daily had roughly 100,000 subscribers who paid either 99 cents a week or $ 40 a year for its daily download of journalism tailored for touch screens. But that wasn’t enough to sustain some 100 employees and millions of dollars in losses since its launch. At the time of its debut, News Corp. said The Daily’s operating costs would amount to about half a million dollars a week, or around $ 26 million a year.

When News Corp. launched The Daily, it was touted as a bold experiment in new media. The company hired top-name journalists from other publications, such as the New York Post’s former Page Six editor, Richard Johnson, and said it poured $ 30 million into the newspaper’s launch. Now, the company is acknowledging that The Daily no longer has a place at News Corp., which is being split in two to separate its publishing enterprises from its TV and movie businesses.

Murdoch said in a statement that News Corp. “could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term.” Some employees are being hired in other parts of the company.

Critics say The Daily’s day-to-day mix of news, opinion and info-graphics wasn’t that different from content available for free on the Internet. And despite a high-profile launch that drew lots of media attention, the publication failed to build a distinctive brand. There was no ad campaign touting its coverage and stories weren’t accessible to non-subscribers, so it didn’t benefit from buzz that comes from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Trevor Butterworth, who wrote a weekly column for The Daily called “The Information Society,” says the disconnect between the app and the broader Internet curtailed its reach. He was laid off in July when the publication shrank from 170 workers to about 120. As part of the purge, The Daily cut its dedicated opinion section and dropped sports coverage in favor of using a feed from its News Corp. sister outfit, Fox Sports.

“Stories weren’t widely shared or widely known,” says Butterworth. “It felt like I was writing into the void.”

When it launched, The Daily was meant to take advantage of the explosion of tablet computer sales, and the notion that people generally read on them in the morning or evening, like a magazine.

But each issue came in a giant file — sometimes 1 gigabyte large — and took 10 or 15 minutes to download over a broadband connection, which is unheard of for news apps, says Matt Haughey, the founder of MetaFilter.com, one of the first community blogs on the Internet.

Because the stories weren’t linkable, The Daily didn’t benefit from new Internet traffic that would have come from content aggregators like Flipboard and Tumblr.

“They ignored the obvious, which was the Web,” Haughey says. Although many people are foregoing buying a laptop for the lightweight convenience of a tablet, the day hasn’t arrived yet when all online access will come through apps rather than the Web. “Maybe in five or 10 years, the Web will be less important,” he says. “For now it seems like they were missing out.”

It may also have been a problem that News Corp. launched The Daily from scratch into an environment where readers tend to gravitate toward trusted sources and established brands. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, 84 percent of mobile device users said a news app’s brand was a major factor in deciding whether to download it.

One of the intangible challenges The Daily had was standing out in a sea of online journalism, both paid and free. Some national newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, have carved out a niche with informed coverage of sometimes complex topics and have gained paying digital subscribers by limiting the number of free articles they offer online.

Gannett Co., which publishes USA Today and about 80 other newspapers, has succeeded in raising circulation revenue at local papers by putting up so-called online “pay walls,” taking advantage of the fact that there are few alternative sources of coverage for certain communities.

Without a unique coverage niche or a local monopoly, The Daily was caught between two worlds.

By being digital-only, the publication didn’t have a defined coverage area. It was “in competition with everybody and everything,” says Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. Yet it failed to carve out its own niche in that larger universe, he says.

“Its lack of editorial focus played a role,” Benton notes. “It was sort of a pleasant, middle-brow, slightly tabloidy mix of news and features. And there’s lots of that available for free online. I would imagine if ‘The Daily’ were starting again now, they would invest more in establishing their brand identity early on.”

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PHOTO: See Molly Mesnick's Baby Belly

Noah Graham

Happy holidays! Celebrities gathered to celebrate the season Saturday, attending the Second Annual Santa’s Secret Workshop in West Hollywood, Calif. Presented by Bill Horn and Scout Masterson and held at the Andaz Hotel, the event benefitted L.A. Family Housing.

Among the revelers: Bachelor alums Jason and Molly Mesnick — whose first child together is due in March — attending their first event since announcing the happy news.

“I’m just about six months and feeling really good,” Molly tells PEOPLE.

“I’m at a perfect stage now so I’m trying to get as much done around the house as I possibly can while I have the energy.”

Also in attendance? Tori Spelling, Malin Akerman, Tiffani Thiessen, Ali Landry, David Boreanaz, Marla Sokoloff, Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney, Angela Bassett, Ian Ziering, Amanda Righetti, Marshall and Jamie Anne Allman, Kimberly Van Der Beek, Spencer Grammer and more.

Guests enjoyed manicures from Mom.me, cookie decorating with Jenny Cookies, photos with Santa from HP, create-a-card with Snapfish.com, and a craft bar from Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts.

Styled by Sybarite Designs, the event featured companies such as  SodaStream, Corolle, Stokke, Orbit Baby, Ergo Baby, Teddy Needs a Bath, Funktion, Numi Numi Design, Ju-Ju-Be, Innobaby and Joovy showcasing their latest products — be sure to enter this week’s giveaway for a chance to win them all!

Noah Graham

It was a family affair for Tori Spelling, who brought the whole gang for their first public event since 3-month-old Finn‘s birth in August.

Joining the actress, husband Dean McDermott and their newborn are Hattie, 13 months, Stella, 4, and Liam, 5½.

“I’m not going to lie. It’s a little crazy. It’s hard work,” Spelling tells PEOPLE.

“I think three was safe. Four tips you over the edge a little bit. Maybe it’s because they’re 10 months apart — but we’re so blessed. It keeps you on your toes.”

Noah Graham

With her first child on the way in April, Malin Akerman was all smiles at the event, posing with her growing belly.

“I’m feeling great,” the actress tells PEOPLE. “I’m closing in on five months now so it’s getting more and more exciting as time goes by.”

Noah Graham

White Collar star Tiffani Thiessen gave 2-year-old daughter Harper Renn a leg up at the event.

On the Landry-Monteverde family’s list? Meeting Santa! PEOPLE.com blogger Ali Landry held 13-month-old son Marcelo Alejandro while husband Alejandro Monteverde snuggled in behind 5-year-old daughter Estela Ines.

Noah Graham

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Ravishing redhead Amanda Righetti showed off her growing belly at the event — The Mentalist star is due this winter with her first child.

Noah Graham

No Bones about it – David Boreanaz‘s children look like him! The actor and wife Jaime Bergman brought kids Jaden, 10, and Bella, 3, to meet Santa.

Always Sunny in Philadelphia stars Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney brought their elder son Axel, 2, to the event, but little Leo, 7 months, sat this one out.

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Noah Graham

Meeting Santa was twice as nice for Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance, who brought along their 6-year-old twins Bronwyn Golden and Slater Josiah (peace out, dude).

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Who cares about photos — it’s time for a snack! PEOPLE.com blogger Kimberly Van Der Beek gives 2-year-old daughter Olivia (plus her doll!) a lift.

Picture perfect! Ian Ziering gets daughter Mia, 19 months, in the frame while enjoying the craft table. The actor and wife Erin expect their second child in May.

Meagan Reidinger

Meagan Reidinger

With a baby doll in tow, PEOPLE.com blogger Marla Sokoloff and her little lady, 9-month-old Elliotte, check out the event.

Spencer Grammer arrived with her main men — husband James Hesketh and their son, 13-month-old Emmett.

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

Tiffany Rose/WireImage

The event was a baby bump debut for Marshall and Jamie Anne Allman as well — the True Blood and Killing stars just announced that they’re expanding their family — by two. Twins are on the way this spring!

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Fossil fuel subsidies in focus at climate talks

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.

"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."

To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.

Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.

Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.

"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.

He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.

The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.

Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.

"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.

Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.

The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.

When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.

Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.

Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.

"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."

The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.

The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."

In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.

Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.

In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.

"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.

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Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report

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Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

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Asian shares fall from nine-month high on weak U.S. data

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian shares slipped on Tuesday after a plunge in U.S. manufacturing activity hit American stocks and the dollar, while the euro hovered near a six-week high on optimism over Greece's plan to buy back debt.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.3 percent to 450.79, backing away from a nine-month high reached on Monday.

Australian shares <.axjo> eased 0.5 percent, while Japan's benchmark Nikkei share average fell 0.2 percent, declining further from a seven-month intraday high of 9,525.82 struck on Monday.

The losses in Asian stock markets were suggestive of some caution after gains in the past few weeks, with some of the negative bias seeping over from weakness in the American economy and continued gridlock in the U.S. Congress over proposals to avert a fiscal cliff - $600 billion worth of tax increases and spending cuts that will be automatically triggered in early 2013.

"Investors are cautious about the market's sharp rise in the past few weeks, and as soon as the Nikkei hit the 9,500-mark, trading has slowed down. Investors started taking a wait-and-see mode," said Hiroichi Nishi, general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities in Tokyo.

Global share indexes had risen on Monday after manufacturing surveys showed signs of a recovery, albeit an uneven one, in China's economy and a slower contraction in Europe. But sentiment toward equities soured after data revealed U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly contracted in November to its lowest level in more than three years.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Monday that its index of national factory activity fell to 49.5 in November, the weakest since July 2009, as companies worried about whether lawmakers in Washington could reach a budget deal in time to avert a fiscal crisis that may lead to a recession.

Heading into next week, even a hint of progress in the fiscal cliff negotiations could spawn a modest rally, said Vishnu Varathan, regional economist in Singapore for Mizuho Corporate Bank.

"Overall the euro zone noises are coming out positive and I don't see any turning around there. The only real deal-breaker, whatever will send the dollar spiking up and risk really off the table, will be if there is a complete breakdown in the Congress negotiations," he said.

"Right now there is some disappointment here and there, but overall still the consensus is that negotiations will result in some kind of acceptable compromise," Varathan said.

RBA CUTS

The Australian dollar recovered from initial weakness on Tuesday after a widely expected interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). The rate was trimmed by 25 basis points to 3.0 percent, matching an earlier record low.

The RBA said the full impact of rate cuts in the past had yet to be felt, and that recent data confirmed the peak in resource investment was approaching.

The Aussie rose 0.3 percent on the day and last traded at $1.0445, not far from a two-month peak of $1.0491 touched last week.

The euro was flat at $1.3060, hovering near the previous day's high of $1.3076, the single currency's strongest level in about six weeks.

The euro gained as Greek bonds rallied on Monday after Athens announced better-than-expected terms for its planned debt buy-back, boosting chances it will succeed and lead to the release of fresh aid funds.

European stocks and peripheral bonds were also buoyed by news eurozone finance ministers have approved aid to Spanish banks, alleviating the tail risks of a banking crisis in Spain.

The U.S. fiscal cliff issue remained in the minds of many investors.

The White House dismissed a proposal from congressional Republicans on Monday that included tax reforms and spending cuts, saying it did not meet President Barack Obama's pledge to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

The Republicans proposed overhauling the U.S. tax code to raise $800 billion in new revenue over 10 years. Obama's opening bid, outlined last Friday, seeks $1.6 trillion in new revenue by allowing the expiry of tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush for the top two tax brackets.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo and Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

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Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit Record in 2011, Researchers Say

Global emissions of carbon dioxide were at a record high in 2011 and are likely to take a similar jump in 2012, scientists reported Sunday — the latest indication that efforts to limit such emissions are failing.

Emissions continue to grow so rapidly that an international goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, established three years ago, is on the verge of becoming unattainable, said researchers affiliated with the Global Carbon Project.

Josep G. Canadell, a scientist in Australia who leads that tracking program, said Sunday in a statement that salvaging the goal, if it can be done at all, “requires an immediate, large and sustained global mitigation effort.”

Yet nations around the world, despite a formal treaty pledging to limit warming — and 20 years of negotiations aimed at putting it into effect — have shown little appetite for the kinds of controls required to accomplish those stated aims.

Delegates from nearly 200 nations are meeting in Doha, Qatar, for the latest round of talks under the treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Their agenda is modest this year, with no new emissions targets and little progress expected on a protocol that is supposed to be concluded in 2015 and take effect in 2020.

Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the climate convention, said the global negotiations were necessary, but were not sufficient.

“We won’t get an international agreement until enough domestic legislation and action are in place to begin to have an effect,” she said in an interview. “Governments have to find ways in which action on the ground can be accelerated and taken to a higher level, because that is absolutely needed.”

The new figures show that emissions are falling, slowly, in some of the most advanced countries, including the United States. That apparently reflects a combination of economic weakness, the transfer of some manufacturing to developing countries and conscious efforts to limit emissions, like the renewable power targets that many American states have set. The boom in the natural gas supply from hydraulic fracturing is also a factor, since natural gas is supplanting coal at many power stations, leading to lower emissions.

But the decline of emissions in the developed countries is more than matched by continued growth in developing countries like China and India, the new figures show. Coal, the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is growing fastest, with coal-related emissions leaping more than 5 percent in 2011, compared with the previous year.

“If we’re going to run the world on coal, we’re in deep trouble,” said Gregg H. Marland, a scientist at Appalachian State University who has tracked emissions for decades.

Over all, global emissions jumped 3 percent in 2011 and are expected to jump 2.6 percent in 2012, researchers reported in two papers released by scientific journals on Sunday. It has become routine to set new emissions records each year, although the global economic crisis led to a brief decline in 2009.

The level of carbon dioxide, the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, has increased about 41 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and scientists fear it could double or triple before emissions are brought under control. The temperature of the planet has already increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1850.

Further increases in carbon dioxide are likely to have a profound effect on climate, scientists say, leading to higher seas and greater coastal flooding, more intense weather disasters like droughts and heat waves, and an extreme acidification of the ocean. Many experts believe the effects are already being seen, but they are projected to worsen.

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