Bounce House Injuries Ballooning

Bounce house injuries can quickly deflate a party. And according to a new study, they’re on the rise.

More than 11,300 children were treated for bounce house-related injuries in 2010, double the number from 2008 and 16 times the number from 1995, according to the study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

That “equals a child every 46 minutes nationally,” wrote the authors from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “This epidemic increase highlights the urgency of addressing the prevention of inflatable bouncer-related injuries among children.”

More than half of the bounce house injuries were fractures, sprains and strains, according to the study, followed by injuries to the head, neck and face. Falling was the most common cause of injury, followed by collisions with other jumpers.

The types of injuries land the colorful castles next to trampolines in terms of safety concerns, according to the study.

“In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics reaffirmed its recommendation against any home or other recreational usage of trampolines and recommended use only as part of a structured training program with appropriate safety measures employed,” the study authors wrote. “Policy makers must consider whether the similarities observed in bouncer-related injuries warrant a similar response.”

The reason for the rise in bounce house injuries is unclear, but the study authors suggest a jump in popularity, as well as changes to their design might be to blame.

In June 2011, strong winds lifted three bounce houses off the ground at a youth soccer tournament in Oceanside, N.Y., injuring 13 children.

The study authors say rise in injuries “underscores the need for guidelines for safer bouncer usage and improvements in bouncer design to prevent these injuries among children.”

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Hostess CEO: Why I’m Shutting Down Twinkies

I made the decision to liquidate Hostess last night (Nov. 15). A number of factors have contributed to this. Hostess is 93 percent unionized, and it’s been formed by a number of acquisitions over the decades; a lot of old rules were just grandfathered into contracts from companies that no longer exist. There were all these crazy work rules, like one driver can only drive cake and the other can only drive bread. Hostess went through bankruptcy in 2004 and not enough work was done in that filing to deal with these issues.

I hear that the push toward healthier food is what did us in, but that hasn’t affected us at all. Why do you have chocolate companies? How do you explain doughnut shops when doughnuts haven’t changed in 100 years? We were north of $ 2 billion a year in sales. They weren’t the problem, our cost structure was.

I came on board at Hostess in February, and I was stunned by how little had been accomplished. We managed to make a deal with the Teamsters but the bakers didn’t support what they’d agreed to. I told them that if there’s going to be a strike over the negotiations, we won’t be able to withstand it and we have to liquidate. But I don’t think they believed us. We had 36 Hostess plants when the strike started two weeks ago, but we immediately closed three, so we only had 33 left. Bakers were crossing the picket line in some numbers but not enough to keep things going. Last night I got the update: 11 plants still weren’t operating. After that I communicated with my board and made the decision. That was a difficult call to make. I had people on that call who’d been working 20 hours a day at these plants, trying to make enough product to keep them on the shelves.

I look at this as a failure. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why we didn’t make more progress. I’m a turnaround guy, I’m a pretty optimistic guy. I don’t think this was the inevitable end. We had a shot at surviving, but we couldn’t overcome the strike. We have potential buyers for our brands and we’ll contact them, but I haven’t even thought about that yet. We sent everyone home from the plants. That’s 18,500 people out of work. — As told to Claire Suddath

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

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Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video becomes YouTube’s most viewed

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – South Korean rap star Psy‘s music video “Gangnam Style” on Saturday became the most watched item ever posted to YouTube with more than 800 million views, edging past Canadian teen star Justin Bieber‘s 2-year-old video for his song “Baby.”

The milestone was the latest pop culture victory for Psy, 34, a portly rap singer known for his slicked-back hair and comic dance style who has become one of the most unlikely global stars of 2012.

Psy succeeded with a video that generated countless parodies and became a media sensation. He gained more fame outside his native country than the more polished singers in South Korea‘s so-called K-Pop style who have sought to win international audiences.

YouTube, in a post on its Trends blog, said “Gangnam Style” on Saturday surpassed the site’s previous record holder, Bieber’s 2010 music video “Baby,” and by mid-day “Gangnam Style” had reached 805 million views, compared to 803 million for “Baby.” Within a few hours, “Gangnam Style” had gone up to more than 809 million views.

“Gangnam Style” was first posted to YouTube in July, and by the following month it began to show huge popularity on YouTube with audiences outside of South Korea.

“It’s been a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said the YouTube blog.

The blog also said the “velocity” of the video’s popularity has been unprecedented for YouTube.

In his “Gangnam Style” video the outlandishly dressed, sunglass-wearing Psy raps in Korean and dances in the style of an upper-crust person riding an invisible horse.

The song is named after the affluent Gangnam District of Seoul and it mocks the rampant consumerism of that suburb. Psy, whose real name is Park Jai-sang, is no stranger to wealth as his father is chairman of a South Korean semiconductor company.

His parents sent him to business school in the United States but he confesses that he bought musical instruments with his tuition money. He later graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and won fame in South Korea with his 2001 debut album.

The viral success of “Gangnam Style” on YouTube also has translated into strong record sales. In late September, the song jumped to the top of the British pop charts and it also has sold well in other countries.

Popular parodies of the “Gangnam Style” video included one featuring the University of Oregon’s duck mascot, and another done in the “Star Trek” language Klingon.

The official YouTube view count for Gangnam Style represents only the figure for the original video posted to the site, but copycat versions, parodies and videos by people commenting on the song have been posted to the site and elsewhere on the Web.

Counting all those different versions, “Gangnam Style” and its related videos have more than 2.2 billion views across the Internet, said Matt Fiorentino, spokesman for the online video tracking firm Visible Measures.

“Without the dance, I don’t think it would have been as big as it is,” Fiorentino said. “And the other thing is, Psy has a unique sense of humor which comes through in the video. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Bill Trott)

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Experts say Ireland should clarify abortion laws

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland should allow limited access to abortion by clarifying the conditions under which women can terminate pregnancies, experts have concluded in a report that will fuel a debate which has split the country and led to tensions within the coalition.

Abortion was banned in all circumstances in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland by a 1983 constitutional amendment, but when the ban was challenged in 1992 by a 14-year-old rape victim, the Supreme Court ruled a termination was permitted when the woman’s life was at risk, including from suicide.

Successive governments have however failed to clarify the conditions under which the mother’s life could be judged to be at risk.

The issue has been highlighted in the past fortnight by the death of an Indian woman in Ireland who was denied an abortion of her dying fetus and later died of blood poisoning.

The death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar re-ignited the abortion debate in Ireland and highlighted the lack of clarity in Irish law that leaves doctors in the legally risky position to decide when an abortion can be carried out and, critics say, means their personal beliefs can play a role in their decision.

The European Court of Human Rights said in 2010 that Ireland must clarify its law, a ruling which led to the commissioning of the experts’ report well before the death of Halappanavar.

The report, due to be published on Tuesday, but seen by the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Business Post newspapers, emphasized that a woman is still only lawfully entitled to an abortion in Ireland when there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother.

But the panel of experts said an appeal process should be set up for women who have been refused an abortion. The group also says that the minister of health should specify particular centers where terminations can take place.

“Leaving not just medics, but women in a very vulnerable position is no longer an option,” Kathleen Lynch, the Irish republic’s junior minister for disability, equality and mental health told Reuters on Sunday.

“We are going to have to act, and act not just responsibly but as quickly as possible,” she said.

The government has scrambled to stem public criticism of its handling of the Halappanavar case and was forced into an embarrassing u-turn this week when it removed three Galway-based consultants from the health service inquiry following criticism from her husband, Praveen Halappanavar.

A new investigation was opened on Friday, but it was rejected by Halappanavar who wants a public inquiry.

The report comes after a wave of anti-abortion protests and lobbying since the panel of experts was set up in January.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny, whose ruling Fine Gael party made an election pledge not to introduce new laws allowing abortion, said last week he would not be rushed into a decision.

The issue has raised tensions between Fine Gael and the more socially liberal Labour Party, its junior coalition partner, which has campaigned for a clarification of the country’s abortion rules.

“I don’t think that any politician on this particular issue is very overjoyed about any of the options that are available, nevertheless, you have to legislate, that’s your job … we have to make sure this time we get it right,” said Labour’s Lynch.

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Japanese Stocks? Yes, They Really Think So

Less than a quarter-century ago, Japan was the economic envy of the world. In 1989, Tokyo-listed shares represented nearly half the planet’s equity value, while the land beneath the city’s royal palace was worth more than all of California. American nightly news anchors practically misted up when they had to report that Rockefeller Center was turning Japanese.

Two lost decades and massive property- and stock-bubble explosions later, Japan is a one-word cautionary tale. Caught in economic and demographic atrophy—and stewarded by countless false-start prime ministers—the country has become a hub for zombie banks, a generation of disenchanted youth, and fading brands such as Sony (SNE), Sharp (6753:JP), and Panasonic (PC).

Last year, for the first time, sales of adult diapers in Japan exceeded those for babies. Factor in how the strong yen has been making the country’s critical exports more expensive, and you can see why the world’s No. 3 economy (recently pushed into third place by China) has been quicksand for investors; when international markets hit bottom in early 2009, Japan’s Nikkei slumped to levels it hadn’t seen since 1983. A Merrill Lynch survey of global fund managers discovered that their net exposure to Japan is at its lowest in a decade (subscription necessary).

Accordingly, in his Nov. 14 note, “The Sun Also Rises?”, James Hunt, portfolio manager of Tocqueville’s International Value Fund and a rare Japan bull, concedes: “One of the questions we are asked most often by investors is why we would invest in Japan. Normally, there is a slight tone of derision in the question, as if to say: ‘Everyone knows that Japan has poor demographics, a huge public debt and weak growth prospects.’ And of course, all of these things are true.”

Hunt says his case for Japan boils down to its deeply contrarian pull: “Everyone thinks Japan is sinking into obscurity,” he writes, “and this negative sentiment provides us with the opportunity to buy what we consider to be excellent global franchise businesses at attractive valuations.”

Noting that Japanese equities have lagged their U.S. counterparts by 25 percent over the last two years, Hunt writes, “The storm of negative factors affecting Japan combined with the poor market performance is just of the sort of situation that piques our interest.”

Over the last 12 years of economic stagnation, Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index has, in dollar terms, posted zero total return. Meanwhile, aggregate earnings for its profitable companies have gone from ¥438 billion ($ 5.3 billion) to ¥608 billion, while their return on equity has swelled from around 6 percent to nearly 10 percent. At the same time, notes Hunt, the price-to-earnings ratio for these profitable listings has collapsed from 24 to 15, while their dividend yield has tripled to 2.3 percent.

Of course, Japan—Nikkei, Discman, and all—could just be in the middle stages of terminal decline. Zero interest rates be damned: Jobs are scarce, deflation constantly threatens, and China and Korea are not getting any easier to compete with. Japan’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio, now well over 200 percent, is tops in the world.

Not likely, says Hunt. “There will,” he writes, “be a moment when the broad process of [equity] de-rating has run its course. With valuation multiples having compressed to quite reasonable absolute levels, we may be approaching that moment.”

“Our discipline generally is to buy good business franchises at a discount to their intrinsic value,” he adds, “and we are not as focused as many investors on catalysts and timing for the realization of value. That being said, with expectations so low and the market having underperformed, we would not be surprised to see the sun also rise in Japan.”

Hunt isn’t alone in declaring contrarian ardor for Japan. David Herro, Morningstar’s (MORN) international stock fund manager of the decade, also thinks its risk-reward profile is increasingly attractive.

Indeed, the Nikkei has recently sprinted higher on broadening sentiment that the country’s policy makers will act forcefully to lower the yen—a development that would provide a huge boost to Japanese multinationals such as Toyota (TM), Canon (CAJ), and Fuji Heavy Industries (7270:JP). The “yen rout play” is what market bloggers are already calling the trade.

Shinzo Abe, widely viewed as frontrunner to become the next prime minister, has been calling for unlimited monetary easing to incite inflation. The current governor of the (independent) Bank of Japan, who has been criticized for not being loose enough with his monetary purse strings, is expected to step down in April.

“(Shinzo) Abe’s focus is on two things—aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus,” wrote CLSA Japan strategist Nicholas Smith in a report. “He made clear that the Bank of Japan will bend to his will or he will rewrite the BOJ Law to let him fire them.” The replacement governor, he added, will be selected for his “willingness to print money.”

“It has been a fool’s game to guess when the yen would finally weaken,” writes Hunt, “but economic healing in the West and eventually inflation and rising interest rates here could certainly be a catalyst, as could money printing in Japan.”

It should be remembered, however, that the Bank of Japan has already shattered what is widely regarded as the ultimate monetary taboo: printing money to buy equities to boost the chronically moribund economy. To little apparent avail, so far.

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Cricket-Australia v South Africa – second test scoreboard

ADELAIDE, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Scoreboard at the close of the

third day of the second test between Australia and South Africa

at Adelaide Oval on Saturday:

Australia won the toss and chose to bat

Australia first innings 550

South Africa first innings

G. Smith c Wade b Siddle 122

A. Petersen run out 54

H. Amla st Wade b Warner 11

J. Rudolph c Quiney b Lyon 29

AB de Villiers lbw b Siddle 1

F. du Plessis c Clarke b Hilfenhaus 78

D. Steyn c Ponting b Hilfenhaus 1

R. Kleinveldt b Hilfenhaus 0

J. Kallis c Wade b Clarke 58

M. Morkel b Lyon 6

I. Tahir not out 10

Extras (b-7, lb-2, w-3, nb-6) 18

Total: (all out, 124.3 overs) 388

Fall of wickets: 1-138 2-169 3-233 4-233 5-240 6-246 7-250

8-343 9-352 10-388

Bowling: B. Hilfenhaus 19.3-6-49-3, J. Pattinson 9.1-0-41-0

(nb-4, w-1) N. Lyon 44-7-91-2, P. Siddle 30.5-6-130-2 (nb-2), M.

Clarke 7-1-22-1, M. Hussey 1-0-7-0 (w-2), D. Warner 5-0-27-1, R.

Quiney 8-3-12-0

Australia second innings

D. Warner c Du Plessis b Kleinveldt 41

E. Cowan b Kleinveldt 29

R. Quiney c De Villiers b Kleinveldt 0

R. Ponting b Steyn 16

M. Clarke not out 9

P. Siddle c De Villiers b Morkel 1

M. Hussey 5

Extras (lb-7, nb-3) 10

Total (for five wickets, 32 overs) 111

Fall of wickets: 1-77 2-77 3-91 4-98 5-103

Still to bat: M. Wade, B. Hilfenhaus, J. Pattinson, N. Lyon.

Bowling: Steyn 10-4-28-1, Morkel 9-2-24-1, Kleinveldt

6-1-14-3 (nb-2), Tahir 7-1-38-0 (nb-1)

- -

Third test: WACA, Perth Nov. 30-Dec. 4

(Compiled by Ian Ransom; Editing by Alastair Himmer)

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6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job

Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss

Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted: 

SEE MORE: Why popular kids make more money as adults

@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”

After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:

 @HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”

Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:

“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.” 

This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees. 

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The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation. 

Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.

SEE MORE: Facebook’s new jobs board: Is LinkedIn toast?

Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it. 

Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.

The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.

Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:

@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”

He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.” 

Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.

Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:

@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!” 

Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.

Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.

When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.

 — Rob Lammie

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Ang Lee talks about risks, spirituality of “Life of Pi”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gay cowboy drama “Brokeback Mountain” may have been considered a risky film to make, but director Ang Lee said his new movie, “Life of Pi,” a 3D exploration of faith about a boy stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger, is his riskiest yet.

The film, which was released in U.S. theaters this week, is adapted from Yann Martel‘s best-selling novel of the same name and was once considered impossible to make.

Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Lee, 58, took on the laborious task of using computer-generated imagery to bring the sensational plot to the big screen, taking a year and a half just to edit the film together.

The director talked to Reuters about the film’s themes, technical barriers and casting an unknown actor in the lead.

Q. Why was “Life of Pi” considered unfilmable?

A. “Because you cannot make the tiger do everything you want to do, you have to use digital. A digital animal, up until two years ago, was not totally realistic yet, let alone in 3D, and then water is pretty difficult.”

Q. Was this your most difficult filming experience yet?

A. “Oh yes. And it was also the longest…there was the technical difficulty and then it is a big movie. And it was across continents, I finally decided to shoot most of it in Taiwan, but we also had to go to India to shoot for two to three weeks. Because you can’t fake Pondicherry, and Munnar. And then we have scenes in Canada.”

Q. But Brokeback Mountain was a risky film too?

A. “No, that wasn’t for me. At least when I made it, I thought it was strictly arthouse and few people would see it. And it’s a lot cheaper (to make). So I didn’t care…And then I got nervous, ‘Oh they are going to lynch me, making a gay cowboy movie, that will go into a shopping mall.’”

Q. It was only after you made it you realized that?

A. “Yes, I was afraid. I was looking around when I walked, when I would go home, to see if anybody was following me. Once it hit the shopping mall I was nervous, actually. My brother is a distributor in Taiwan and I told him not to buy it. He hates me to this day, he is still babbling about it.”

Q. Why choose unknown Suraj Sharma to play Pi?

A. “I wanted someone authentic, and no bad habits, that means you have to train them from the start. “

Q. Why did you replace Tobey Maguire and reshoot his scenes with the little-known Rafe Spall?

A. “It was a small part, and he is a big movie star. He is a good old friend of mine and he would do this for nothing, for me. But he is not doing anything (in the role), he is just sitting there listening most of the time. It becomes a little distracting I think.”

Q. How does the film explore spirituality?

A. “To me, faith can be elusive, but .. As a Taoist would say, ‘That’s the apple’s truth.’ The source of all the material comes from nothingness, illusion is working more on things you can prove. That’s the principle, the essence of life, it is actually an illusion, not immaterial. That’s worth pursuing. So illusion is not nothing. In a way, that is the truth.”

“Sometimes I feel (illusions) are more of life’s essence, I can trust them more than real life that is full of deceit and covering up.”

Q. Did exploring faith encourage you to make this?

“The book is fascinating, it talks about faith. But it didn’t make me believe in God or anything…I didn’t go to church or a temple after that. When I started making the movie, you do feel faith embody you and carry you through. But when I picked the subject, and chose to do the book, it was actually more storytelling in my mind. The value of storytelling. How people share a story. Because a story has structure, it has a beginning, middle and end. It seems to have meaning, where life has not.”

Q. Do you practice any religion?

A. “No, my mother is a baptized Christian, so she made me go to church every Sunday, and I prayed four times a day until I was 14. And at lunchtime kids at school would giggle at my praying…I stopped praying. And two weeks later, nothing happened to me, so I didn’t pick it up again.”

“I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.”

Q. Do you consider yourself spiritual?

A. “I hate to think life is just facts and laws. And I am a filmmaker, I am a sensitive person, I like to think it is spiritual, so I like people to be more in that way. I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd. Call it illusion or call it faith, whatever you call it, we have emotional attachment to the unknown. We yearn to find out. That is human nature. It can be, in a way, unrequited love, we don’t know. I don’t have a particular God I pray to, except sometimes a movie god.” (laughs)

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

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Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar

LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.

The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.

On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.

“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.

The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.

Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.

Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.

Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.

It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.

Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.

The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.

The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.

“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

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