Amid Euphoria Over U.N. Vote, Palestinians Still Face Familiar Challenges

Majdi Mohammed/Associated Press

Palestinians held pictures of President Mahmoud Abbas  in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday, as they celebrated the recent United Nations vote.

RAMALLAH, West Bank — “Now we have become a state!” Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, announced Sunday to a crowd of thousands in the courtyard of his headquarters in this Palestinian city.

Flags and balloons, a marching band, and a huge poster on the outside wall of the compound proclaiming “You are now in the State of Palestine” added a festive touch as Mr. Abbas returned home triumphant days after the United Nations General Assembly voted to enhance the standing of the Palestinians in the face of heavy Israeli and American opposition.

But an airplane flying high above the compound served as a reminder that the Palestinians have no airport, and they depend on Israeli ports for access to the high seas for shipping. The traffic was as clogged as usual around the Israeli-controlled Qalandia checkpoint, which largely seals off Ramallah from Jerusalem, the eastern part of which has now been widely endorsed as the future Palestinian capital.

At least in the short term, with Israeli elections scheduled for January, things are likely to get tougher for the Palestinians before they get better.

In Jerusalem on Sunday, the Israeli government unanimously rejected the General Assembly’s decision to upgrade the status of Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Palestinian move as “a gross violation of the agreements that have been signed with the State of Israel.”

In its latest response, Israel said it would not transfer tax revenues it collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority last month, instead using the money, about $100 million, to pay off about half the debt run up by the authority to the Israel Electric Corporation.

The Palestinian Authority has already been suffering through a financial crisis, often unable to pay the salaries of its employees on time. Palestinian officials said that Arab countries had promised to donate funds and make up for any losses caused by punitive Israeli actions, though it was a shortfall in donor money, largely from Arab nations, that caused the financial crisis in the first place.

Israel’s financial sanctions followed a government decision to build 3,000 previously planned housing units in contested areas of Jerusalem and in parts of the West Bank that Israel intends to keep under any future arrangement with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have long refused to return to the negotiating table unless Israel halts the construction of settlements.

The government has also decided to continue planning and zoning work for the development of a particularly contentious area of East Jerusalem known as E1, a project long condemned by Washington because it would harm the prospects for a contiguous Palestinian state, though privately, Israeli and Palestinian officials said that this last decision could be easily reversed.

Mr. Abbas, for his part, was expected to hold meetings with the members of his leadership to discuss how to begin to translate the Palestinians’ new status into practical steps.

“We are celebrating our dignity,” said Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian spokesman. “Our small nation withstood a lot of pressure for something that is our right.”

But the way forward may be fraught with legal obstacles as the Palestinians try to balance their diplomatic victory with the demands of their previous, more concrete achievements.

Israel signed its agreements with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which resulted in the creation of an interim self-rule body, the Palestinian Authority. Asked whether the Palestinian Authority would remain the Palestinian Authority in name, Mr. Abu Eid said: “That requires a decision of the leadership. I think it will not be changed in a day.”

Palestinian officials have insisted that they will not give up the option of seeking to join the International Criminal Court and pursuing claims against Israel, and some Palestinians now expect their leaders to take legal action against the Israelis’ settlement building.

Letters of application for membership in various United Nations bodies and international agencies have been signed “The State of Palestine.”

But the Palestinians may not rush to change the name on the front of their passports to Palestine. Even Mr. Abbas is dependent on Israel’s good graces to be allowed to travel through checkpoints and across borders.

Many Palestinians were hoping that Mr. Abbas would now seek genuine reconciliation with his rivals in Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza.

“Unity is the most important step,” said Malik Barghouti, an employee of the authority’s Finance Ministry in Ramallah. “We are one people.”

But if there is no tangible change on the ground, some Palestinians warned, the celebrations could eventually be eclipsed by frustration.

“Most people here think we now have lots of rights,” said Mahmoud Mansour, 22, a student of electrical engineering from Jenin in the northern West Bank, who attended the welcome rally. “When they realize that nothing has changed, they will be angry.”

Khaled Abu Aker contributed reporting.

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Euro zone crisis drags down European ad spending: report

LONDON (Reuters) – The euro zone crisis has left Western Europe the only world region to see a fall in advertising spending this year, market research group ZenithOptimedia said.

The forecasting group said advertising expenditure in Western Europe fell 2.2 percent to $ 106.8 billion this year compared with an average increase of 3.3 percent worldwide.

North American ad spending rose 4.1 percent to $ 171.9 billion and Asia’s expenditure was up 6.1 percent to $ 140.1 billion this year.

“Developing markets, social media and online video are all growing rapidly, supporting continued expansion in global ad expenditure despite stagnation in the eurozone,” said Steve King, global chief executive of ZenithOptimedia Group.

The company, part of advertising agency Publicis, also said European ad spending would be flat next year before growing by about 2 percent in 2014 and 2015.

This leaves Europe lagging faster-growing regions such North America, which will grow by 3.5 percent next year, as well as Asia (5.5 percent) and Latin America (10 percent).

“The euro zone crisis is dragging down economic growth at the moment,” ZenithOptimedia said on Monday.

“Because the eurozone is in recession, its imports from other countries are slowing down or shrinking, and the risk of eurozone collapse adds to global uncertainty, leading companies to hoard cash instead of investing in growth,” the firm said in an emailed statement.

Ad spending generally tracks economic growth, so recessions tend to hit the shares of advertising agencies, including market leaders WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Group and Publicis.

ZenithOptimedia said global ad expenditure would rise 4.1 percent next year to reach $ 518 billion, driven largely by faster growth in the developing markets.

(Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum Are Married

People Exclusive

By Monica Rizzo

12/01/2012 at 06:15 PM EST

J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert

Victor Chavez/Getty

It’s official: Bachelorette star Ashley Hebert and her fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum tied the knot Saturday afternoon in Pasadena, Calif.

Surrounded by family, friends and fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni like Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick, the couple said "I do" in an outdoor ceremony officiated by franchise host Chris Harrison.

"Today is all about our friends and family," Hebert, whose nuptials will air Dec. 16 on a two-hour special on ABC, tells PEOPLE. "It's about standing with J.P., looking around at all the people we love in the same room there to celebrate our love."

The 28-year-old dentist from Madawaska, Maine, met New York construction manager Rosenbaum, 35, on season 7 of The Bachelorette. The couple became engaged on the season finale.

Hebert and Rosenbaum are the second couple in the franchise's 24 seasons to make it from their show finale to the altar, following in the footsteps of Bachelorette Trista Rehn, who married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

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Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

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Cliff fight may knock out December rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In normal times, next week's slew of U.S. economic data could be a springboard for a December rally in the stock market.

December is historically a strong month for markets. The S&P 500 has risen 16 times in the past 20 years during the month.

But the market hasn't been operating under normal circumstances since November 7 when a day after the U.S. election, investors' focus shifted squarely to the looming "fiscal cliff."

Investors are increasingly nervous about the ability of lawmakers to undo the $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin in January; those changes, if they go into effect, could send the U.S. economy into a recession.

A string of economic indicators next week, which includes a key reading of the manufacturing sector on Monday, culminates with the November jobs report on Friday.

But the impact of those economic reports could be muted. Distortions in the data caused by Superstorm Sandy are discounted.

The spotlight will be more firmly on signs from Washington that politicians can settle their differences on how to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"We have a week with a lot of economic data, and obviously most of the economic data is going to reflect the effects of Sandy, and that might be a little bit negative for the market next week, but most of that is already expected - the main focus remains the fiscal cliff," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

Concerns about the cliff sent the S&P 500 <.spx> into a two-week decline after the elections, dropping as much as 5.3 percent, only to rally back nearly 4 percent as the initial tone of talks offered hope that a compromise could be reached and investors snapped up stocks that were viewed as undervalued.

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 gained more than 20 points from its intraday low after House Speaker John Boehner said he was optimistic that a budget deal to avoid big spending cuts and tax hikes could be worked out. The next day, more pessimistic comments from Boehner, an Ohio Republican, briefly wiped out the day's gains in stocks.

On Friday, the sharp divide between the Democrats and the Republicans on taxes and spending was evident in comments from President Barack Obama, who favors raising taxes on the wealthy, and Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, who said Obama's plan was the wrong approach and declared that the talks had reached a stalemate.

"It's unusual to end up with one variable in this industry, it's unusual to have a single bullet that is the causal factor effect, and you are sitting here for the next maybe two weeks or more, on that kind of condition," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago.

"And that is what is grabbing the markets."

BE CONTRARY AND MAKE MERRY

But investor attitudes and seasonality could also help spur a rally for the final month of the year.

The most recent survey by the American Association of Individual Investors reflected investor caution about the cliff. Although bullish sentiment rose above 40 percent for the first time since August 23, bearish sentiment remained above its historical average of 30.5 percent for the 14th straight week.

December is a critical month for retailers such as Target Corp and Macy's Inc . They saw monthly retail sales results dented by Sandy, although the start of the holiday shopping season fared better.

With consumer spending making up roughly 70 percent of the U.S. economy, a solid showing for retailers during the holiday season could help fuel any gains.

Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, believes the recent drop after the election could be a market bottom, with sentiment leaving stocks poised for a December rally.

"The concerns on the fiscal cliff - as valid as they might be - could be overblown. When you look at a lot of the overriding sentiment, that has gotten extremely negative," said Detrick.

"From that contrarian point of view with the historically bullish time frame of December, we once again could be setting ourselves up for a pretty nice end-of-year rally, based on lowered expectations."

SOME FEEL THE BIG CHILL

Others view the fiscal cliff as such an unusual event that any historical comparisons should be thrown out the window, with a rally unlikely because of a lack of confidence in Washington to reach an agreement and the economic hit caused by Sandy.

"History doesn't matter. You're dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances that could very well end up in the U.S. economy going into a recession," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York.

"And the likelihood of that is exclusively in the hands of our elected officials in Washington. They could absolutely drag us into a completely voluntary recession."

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

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Economic Frustration Simmers Again in Tunisia

Moises Saman for The New York Times

People in Tunis and across the country are struggling with high unemployment and inflation.

TUNIS — Tahar Bayahi, who runs Tunisia’s largest grocery store chain, spent the days right after the revolution toting up his losses: one-quarter of his 60 stores nationwide incinerated and another quarter pillaged.

Yet his company, Magasins Général, turned right around to rebuild, pouring $40 million and nine months into the effort. “It’s true that we were badly affected, but it opened up a far larger horizon,” Mr. Bayahi said over lunch on a sunny lakeside terrace. “What was important was that the change would bring us to a new epoch much faster.”

Nearly two years after riots that began over economic frustration and unemployment toppled the Tunisian government and started the Arab Spring, the frustration that people here are not better off is starting to overflow again. The gross domestic product is down, unemployment is up, debt and inflation are growing and social unrest is simmering.

Last week, the government sent troops into Siliana, south of the capital, after four days of violent protests, mainly over demands for jobs and more government investment, turned violent. Thousands participated and hundreds were injured in clashes with the police.

President Moncef Marzouki, acknowledging Friday on television that the government had not “met the expectations of the people,” expressed concern that unrest could spread to other towns in the underdeveloped interior.

“Tunisia today is at a crossroads,” he said. “Tunisia today has an opportunity that it must not miss to be a model because the world is watching us, and we mustn’t disappoint.”

Unemployment remains the biggest economic problem and catalyst for unrest. A vicious circle imperils all the Arab nations with unfinished revolutions: political unrest scares off the investors needed to create jobs.

Since President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January 2011, the unemployment rate has risen to 18 percent from 13 percent, meaning about 750,000 people are out of work.

More troubling, a third of the unemployed are college graduates, said Said Aidi, minister of the economy for much of 2011. By 2015, an estimated 100,000 new graduates will seek jobs annually, while even before the revolution at most 20,000 graduates a year found work matching their degrees.

“Ben Ali ignored the blinking red lights on the economy, and that is what got him thrown out,” said Karim Ben Smail, the owner of a modest publishing company. “The unemployed are an army in a country the size of Tunisia.”

The numbers are not all bad, however. The economy contracted by 1.8 percent in 2011, troubled by problems like a 30 percent drop in the number of tourists, according to the World Bank. It predicts 2.2 percent growth this year, and a close-to-normal 4.6 percent by 2014 should conditions stabilize.

But a new constitution has yet to be written, and elections have been postponed until at least next June. Periodic riots — especially the sacking of the United States Embassy in September in response to a video made in the United States mocking the Prophet Muhammad — have left investors sitting on their wallets and kept tourists at home. A State Department travel advisory warned Americans against visiting Tunisia.

Bracing for further unrest, Magasins Général rebuilt its stores with shatterproof glass, heavy metal shutters and 20-foot walls topped by barbed wire.

Before the revolution, the company felt disadvantaged because its closest competitors, franchises of the giant French retailers Carrefour and Monoprix, enjoyed closer ties to the ruling family, Mr. Bayahi said. Both opened superstores while his applications languished.

After the revolution, he expected permits to sail through, particularly since his two proposed superstores meant more than 1,400 jobs. Instead, officials tell him “it is being studied,” just like before the revolution, he said.

While Mr. Bayahi blamed a combination of government incompetence and foot dragging for the delay, economic experts cited an additional reason. Small neighborhood shops potentially hurt by big chains extend credit to poor customers, helping to maintain social peace.

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App of the Week: Hooked

App Name: Hooked

Price: Free

Available Platforms: Android

What does this app do? Words with Friends, Angry Birds, Mahjong Connect – these are just a few of the popular apps in the Google Play Store for Android devices. For game app lovers, wading through the possibilities can be daunting.

Hooked, a game recommendation app developed by Hooked Media Group, can help.

“There are hundreds of thousands of apps out there people may really enjoy,” says Pita Uppal, CEO of the San Francisco based company.

Uppal, who recognizes people like to play with variety game apps but may have no idea what to try, likens Hooked to Netflix and Pandora rolled into one.

Once you download the app, Hooked analyses more than 40 factors, such as device type, the kinds of games a user has on his or her device, and usage statistics. By looking at what a consumer already has and how he or she is using those games, Hooked aims to offer users intelligent suggestions.

From the homescreen, select the menu button at the top and then search categories such as “Top Picks for You,” which provides a customized, star-rated list of recommendations. Press the tools key in the upper right hand corner and customize your recommendations by category, such as puzzle and racing, or by price.

Select “My Games”, and the app displays a dashboard of icons to help you understand your game activity. A folder icon, for example, shows what and how many games you have installed, and a clock icon tells you the amount of time you’ve spent playing a particular game. I spent an entire minute playing “Stupid Zombies.”

Logging in through Facebook or Google+ allows you to see what your friends and connections are playing, too.

Is it easy to set up? Yes, the 2.1MB app installs quickly. Log in with your account and go.

Should I try it? Hooked is like a personal shopper for game-loving app users, and the more you use it the more it understands what you might like. For the moment, it is only available for Android, but Uppal says the company plans to launch Hooked for iOS in the coming months.

Also Read
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jessica Biel: Married Life with Justin Timberlake 'Feels Incredible'

By Dahvi Shira

11/30/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Jessica Biel and Ellen DeGeneres

Michael Rozman/Warner Bros

It's all about the little things for newlywed Jessica Biel.

The Hitchcock star, 30, who tied the knot last month, says a huge perk of being married to Justin Timberlake is getting to use a certain seven-letter word.

"It's weird because it feels like almost nothing has changed, yet something that you can't really describe, or something that isn't tangible has changed," Biel says on The Ellen DeGeneres Show airing on Monday. "The weirdest and kind of most wonderful thing is that word. That's my husband."

Changing up her voice, the actress adds, "That's the word, and every time I say it, I go really Southern with it. 'Oh, that's my husband. That's him over there.' I touch my hair and I completely go like I'm from the South or something. It's weird."

As for life as Timberlake's wife, Biel says with a smile, "It just feels incredible. It feels like you have this partner who is going to be with you and also change light bulbs and do dishes with you."

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Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.

Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.

"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."

In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.

"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."

As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.

Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.

"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.

Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.

The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.

The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.

"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."

He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.

But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.

For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.

Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.

Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.

"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.

When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.

"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."

___

On the Internet:

http://www.trees4children.org/

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Wall Street ends flat as "fiscal cliff" focus lingers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 wrapped up its fifth positive month in the last six on Friday, although it ended the day flat as politicians remain at odds about how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.

Trading has been choppy in the last two weeks as investors react to statements from policymakers on the state of discussions on how to avert a series of tax hikes and spending cuts that could pull the economy back into recession.

The S&P 500 was up 0.29 percent in November even as it suffered a slide of more than 6 percent from the month's high to its low.

"Given the 'on again, off again' fiscal cliff (negotiations), it's rather surprising how resilient this market has been," said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at St. Louis-based Wedgewood Partners.

"Between now and the end of the year, there's going to be an information vacuum outside the fiscal cliff, and I believe that resiliency will be tested."

In contrast to the apparent calm in equities, the CBOE Volatility Index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, jumped 5.4 percent, its largest daily gain in two weeks.

The VIX also rose for the week, but posted a whopping 14.7 percent decline for November.

On Friday, President Barack Obama accused a "handful of Republicans" in the U.S. House of Representatives of holding up legislation to extend tax cuts for middle-class Americans in order to try to preserve them for the wealthy.

Speaking shortly after the president, House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said: "There is a stalemate; let's not kid ourselves."

Despite the divisive language, many market participants are betting that a deal will be struck - if only at the eleventh hour.

Corporations continue to react to what is expected to be a harsher tax regime next year. Whole Foods Market was the latest to announce a special cash dividend - of $2.00 per share in this case - ahead of expected higher tax rates in 2013.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 3.76 points, or 0.03 percent, to 13,025.58 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained a mere 0.23 of a point, or 0.02 percent, to finish at 1,416.18. But the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dipped 1.79 points, or 0.06 percent, to end at 3,010.24.

For the month of November, the S&P 500 rose 0.29 percent, its smallest monthly variation since March 2011. The Dow fell 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq gained 1.1 percent.

For the week, though, all three major U.S. stock indexes advanced, with the Dow up 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 up 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq up 1.5 percent.

VeriSign shares dropped 13.2 percent to $34.15 after the company said the U.S. Department of Commerce approved its agreement with ICANN to run the .com internet registry, but VeriSign won't be able to raise prices as it did before.

Yum Brands slid 9.9 percent to $67.08 a day after the parent of the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains said it expects a drop in fourth-quarter sales at established restaurants in China.

After a close relationship for several years, Facebook and Zynga revised terms of a partnership agreement, according to regulatory filings on Thursday. Under the new pact, Zynga, creator of the "Farmville" game, will have limited ability to promote its site on Facebook.

Zynga's stock fell 6.1 percent to $2.46. Facebook's stock gained 2.5 percent to $28.

Apple Inc's latest iPhone received final clearance from Chinese regulators, paving the way for a December debut in a highly competitive market where the lack of a new model had severely eroded its share of product sales. Apple's stock fell 0.7 percent to $585.28.

The markets' reaction to data on Friday was muted.

U.S. consumer spending fell in October for the first time in five months and income growth stalled, leading some economists to cut already weak estimates of fourth-quarter economic growth.

Slightly more than 7 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, more than the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares and the largest in two weeks.

On the NYSE, roughly six issues rose for every five that fell, while on Nasdaq, the ratio was nearly 1 to 1.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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