Asia stocks rise over US budget deal optimism

BANGKOK (AP) — Asian stock markets rose Wednesday after U.S. political leaders appeared to be closing in on a budget deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” by the year-end deadline. Economists have been warning the U.S. economy could be thrown back into recession without a deal.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.1 percent to 10,034.45. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.7 percent to 22,640.25. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.3 percent to 4,608.90. Benchmarks in New Zealand, Taiwan, and Malaysia also rose, while those in Singapore and mainland China fell. Stock markets in South Korea were closed for a public holiday during Wednesday’s presidential election.

Stock markets have been on edge for weeks as President Barack Obama and Republican leaders struggle to hammer out an agreement before Jan. 1, when automatic tax hikes and government spending cuts will take effect if no deal is reached.

The two sides appear to be moving closer together, on income taxes at least.

On Monday, Obama offered to freeze income tax rates for taxpayers making $ 400,000 or less and raise them for people making more. Previously, Obama wanted higher taxes for individual income above $ 200,000, or $ 250,000 for couples.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner would allow income tax rates to rise for people making more than $ 1 million per year and would hold rates where they are for everyone making less. The top rate on income exceeding $ 1 million would go from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. Previously, Boehner opposed allowing any tax rates to go up.

“To be honest, the numbers are irrelevant at the moment and will change numerous times before a final deal is settled on,” said Cameron Peacock of IG Markets in Melbourne said in an email commentary. “What is important and what is driving the market higher is that the two parties are now in constructive discussions over specific tax levels and spending programs and working toward a common middle ground.”

Investor sentiment also got a boost after the Standard & Poor’s rating agency said Tuesday that it had raised Greece’s credit grade by six notches to B-, lifting the country out of default. The threat of a Greek default had roiled markets in the first half of this year.

Investors worried that the heavily indebted nation would leave the euro, opening the way for a break-up of the currency block. The ratings firm said the upgrade reflected its view that the other 16 countries using the euro are determined to keep the Greece inside the currency union.

In Japan, the focus remains on the weekend landslide election victory of the Liberal Democratic Party, whose leader, Shinzo Abe, in line to become prime minister, wants to shore up growth with higher public works spending. That was despite concern about the consequences of adding to Japan’s towering public debts and doubts about the effectiveness of looser policy.

Benchmark oil for January delivery rose 2 cents to $ 88.42 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 73 cents Tuesday to finish at $ 87.93 on the Nymex.

In currencies, the euro rose to $ 1.3226 from $ 1.3220 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar rose to 84.36 yen from 84.20 yen.

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NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said Tuesday he and members of his network crew escaped unharmed after five days of captivity in Syria, where more than a dozen pro-regime gunmen dragged them from their car, killed one of their rebel escorts and subjected them to mock executions.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, an unshaven Engel said he and his team escaped during a firefight Monday night between their captors and rebels at a checkpoint. They crossed into Turkey on Tuesday.

NBC did not say how many people were kidnapped with Engel, although two other men, producer Ghazi Balkiz and photographer John Kooistra, appeared with him on the “Today” show. It was not confirmed whether everyone was accounted for.

Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.

“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said the 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.

“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group, but he did not elaborate.

There was no mention of the kidnapping by Syria’s state-run news agency.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, who used military force to crush mostly peaceful protests against his regime. The crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has become a civil war.

Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.

“They captured us in order to carry out this exchange,” he said.

Engel and his crew entered Syria on Thursday and were driving through what they thought was rebel-controlled territory when “a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road.”

“There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car,” he said.

He said the gunmen shot and killed at least one of their rebel escorts on the spot and took the hostages into a waiting truck nearby.

Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.

“And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn’t expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan,” he said. “The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them.”

Engel and his crew crossed back into neighboring Turkey on Tuesday.

The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.

NBC sought to keep the disappearance of Engel and the crew secret for several days while it investigated what happened to them. Major media organizations, including The Associated Press, adhered to a request from the network to refrain from reporting on the issue out of concern it could make the dangers to the captives worse. News of the disappearance did begin to leak out in Turkish media and on some websites on Monday.

Syria has become a danger zone for reporters since the conflict began.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is by far the deadliest country for the press in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces.

Among the journalists killed while covering Syria are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain’s Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers and travel with rebel escorts or drivers.

Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.

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Nielsen to buy Arbitron for about $1.26B

NEW YORK (AP) — Nielsen, the dominant source of TV ratings, on Tuesday said it had agreed to buy Arbitron for about $ 1.26 billion to expand into radio measurement.

Arbitron pays 70,000 people to carry around gadgets that register what stations they’re listening to. Since Nielsen also collects cash register data, CEO David Calhoun said buying Arbitron will let Nielsen be a one-stop shop for advertisers who want to know how the radio advertising they buy affects product sales.

The acquisition will let Nielsen expand the amount of media consumption it tracks by about 2 hours per person per day to 7 hours, Calhoun said in an interview.

“You don’t find many mediums that allow for that kind of increase,” Calhoun said.

Arbitron’s operations are mainly in the U.S., while Nielsen operates globally. Calhoun said another major driver for the deal is that Nielsen wants to spread Arbitron’s tracking technology to other countries.

Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur said Nielsen doesn’t need traditional radio measurement to grow, but Arbitron seemed like a willing seller, and it will be a “nice complementary but not ‘must have’ platform.”

Nielsen Holdings N.V. said it will pay $ 48 per share, which is a 26 percent premium to Arbitron’s Monday closing price of $ 38.04. Shares of Arbitron, which is based in Columbia, Md., jumped $ 8.99, or 23.6 percent, to close at $ 47.03.

Nielsen, which went public in January 2011, has headquarters in the Netherlands and New York. Its stock added $ 1.30, or 4.4 percent, to close at $ 30.92.

Nielsen said it expects the deal to add about 13 cents per share to its adjusted earnings a year after closing and about 19 cents per share to adjusted earnings two years after closing.

Abitron’s chief operating officer, Sean Creamer, is set to take over as CEO from William Kerr on Jan. 1. Calhoun said he hoped Creamer would remain with Nielsen after the deal closes.

Nielsen said it has a financing commitment for the transaction.

Nielsen was the prime source of audience ratings in the early days of radio, thanks to a device similar to Arbitron’s People Meter. The Audimeter was attached to the radio set. The company’s focus shifted to TV measurement in the 1950s.

On Monday, Nielsen announced a deal with Twitter to measure how much U.S. TV watchers tweet about the shows they’re watching. The “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” will debut in the fall.

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Gabby Douglas, Adele among brightest young stars -Forbes magazine

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fashion designer Carly Cushnie, actress Kate McKinnon and videogame creator Kim Swift may not be household names yet, but they are destined to do great things and will be tomorrow’s young stars, Forbes magazine said on Monday.

Along with Olympic Gold medalist gymnast Gabby Douglas, rapper Wiz Khalifa and researcher Josh Sommer, they have been chosen by the magazine for its “30 Under 30″ list of top achievers under 30 years old in their fields.

They are considered the top 30 achievers in 15 categories ranging from education, energy, music, science and healthcare to sports, technology games and apps and marketing.

“This is a celebration of youthful ambition and success. These are really amazing people and they are doing amazing things. It makes you very hopeful about the world,” Michael Noer, the executive editor of Forbes, said in an interview.

Many on the list, including singers Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber, as well as actresses Ashley and May Kate Olsen and fashion designer Alexander Wang, the newly appointed creative director at the French fashion house Balenciaga, are already well known.

Some are returnees to the list that was launched last year – like British singer and new mother Adele, the 24-year-old multiple Grammy Award winner, and American entrepreneur Kevin Systrom.

Noer said there has been a 60 percent turnover since 2011, so there are plenty of new faces on the list drawn up by Forbes staff and industry experts.

“I think there are a lot of interesting names on the list,” he said.

In energy, it is 28-year-old Leslie Dewan, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and co-founder and chief science officer of Transatomic Power.

“They are developing a new type of nuclear reactor that uses nuclear waste,” said Noer.

In music, Pittsburgh-bred Khalifa, 25, topped the list. Swift, the 29-year-old creative director at Airtight Games, was noted for creating hit videogame Portal.

“Kate McKinnon, the actress from ‘Saturday Night Live’ who just joined in April is our Hollywood selection. She is being hailed as the next Tina Fey,” Noer said.

Sommer, the executive director of the Chordoma Foundation which raises funds for research into chordoma, a rare, slow-growing bone cancer most commonly found in the spine, is another young achiever, according to Forbes.

Sommer created the foundation with his mother after being diagnosed with the disease while a student at Duke University in North Carolina.

“He was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer, dropped out of school to find a cure and he has made some progress,” said Noer.

The full list will be published in the January 21 issue of Forbes and can also be found at www.forbes.com/under 30 .

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Paul Casciato and Mohammad Zargham)

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GlaxoSmithKline wins U.S. approval for new flu vaccine

(Reuters) – U.S. health regulators have approved a new four-strain seasonal influenza vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the company said on Monday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Fluarix Quadrivalent to immunize children age 3 and older and adults against flu virus subtypes A and B contained in the vaccine.

It is the first intramuscular vaccine to protect against four influenza strains. Three-strain flu vaccines currently administered help protect against the two most common A virus strains and the B strain expected to be predominant in a given year, the company said.

Since 2000, however, two B virus strains have circulated to varying degrees each season, meaning patients infected with the B virus not contained in the vaccine were not immunized.

Fluarix Quadrivalent helps protect against the two A strains and adds coverage against a second B strain, the company said.

Three-strain vaccines “have helped protect millions of people against flu, but in six of the last 11 flu seasons, the predominant circulating influenza B strain was not the strain that public health authorities selected,” said Dr. Leonard Friedland, head of clinical development and medical affairs for Glaxo’s North American vaccines program.

“Fluarix Quadrivalent will help protect individuals against both B strains and from a public-health standpoint, can help decrease the burden of disease.”

Glaxo said it will make the vaccine available in time for the 2013-14 flu season and plans to fulfill orders for its trivalent, or three-strain, vaccines. Healthcare providers traditionally order flu vaccines about a year in advance of each flu season.

Fluarix Quadrivalent is not currently approved or licensed in any country outside of the United States.

(Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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How the Bar Code Took Over the World

In 1948 a supermarket executive showed up at the Drexel Institute of Technology, in Philadelphia, with a request: He wanted the engineers there to design a technology that could encode information about his products. Two graduate students, Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland, took him up on it. Woodland became obsessed and dropped out of school to concentrate on the problem. That winter he was sitting on Miami Beach, dragging his fingers in the sand, when he had his Eureka moment: a series of lines of different widths could be deciphered like elongated versions of the dots and dashes of Morse Code. In other words, a bar code.

Woodland died last week, at a time when his technology has become so prevalent that it is almost invisible. Boxes of cereal, cans of soup, books, and magazines all have universal product codes. Anything you buy in a supermarket or department store does, too. The next time someone sends you a gift from Amazon.com (AMZN), take a look at the box that UPS (UPS) delivers. The sticker on it has multiple bar codes, all having to do with tracking the package as it makes its way through the bar-coded distribution system. You no longer just scan at the checkout, either. If you still shop for electronics at Best Buy (BBY) stores, chances are you’re “showrooming”—using one of the many smartphone apps that scan codes and check prices against those at other chains, both online and off.

The bar code was a feat of technology, for sure. But it wasn’t a sure thing: The proposed system started off as one option among many in a stand-off among competing interests. So what enabled the bar code to take over the world? How might today’s emerging technologies (we’re looking at you, mobile payments) achieve similar dominance?

Like other successful standards, the bar code had three essential ingredients, all of which are necessary—but not, on their own, sufficient:

A simplicity that overcomes habit. Until the late 1970s, every clerk in every supermarket in America tapped numbers onto a register keypad. The process was rife with errors; Many of us remember our parents poring over grocery receipts before leaving the store. Errors and all, it was the way retail functioned. Only a simple technology with obvious benefits could overcome that inertia. Bar codes are simple and iconic—people have even had them tattooed onto their bodies.

A governing body to knock heads and work out details. If every supermarket and potato-chip maker had chosen its own product-information technology, chaos would have ensued. Instead, a consortium of retailers and manufacturers got together and chose the UPC, an IBM (IBM) design that Woodland, who worked there, helped develop.

An extravagant, surprising, and often expensive effort to “seed the market.” The classic example here comes from the world of credit cards: The Fresno Drop of 1958. Back than, only the wealthy had credit cards. The middle class paid cash, or perhaps paid over time via an installment plan. As Joe Nocera recounts in his classic “A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class”, a manager at Bank of America (BAC), realizing that the only way people would use credit cards is if everyone they knew did, too, had cards sent to every home in Fresno—60,000 in all. For UPC, the seeding of the market was a bit more mundane: the rise of Wal-Mart (WMT), which used the codes to create its legendarily efficient distribution system.

Half a century after the Fresno Drop and Woodland’s epiphany on the beach, there’s a similar battle brewing over mobile payment technologies. Consumers spend trillions of dollars around the world with credit cards. Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), banks, credit-card companies—everyone is scrambling to come up with ways to get a piece of that action.

One of the more interesting is Square, a startup in San Francisco launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Let’s see the ingredients. 
Simplicity? Check: It’s a small plastic square that plugs into an iPhone or iPad. A splashy move to dominate the market? Last month Square announced a deal to be in 7,000 Starbucks (SBUX) across the U.S. Strong consortium or governing body? A tangle of competing alliances is more like it. Two out of three, so far, for Square.

Businessweek.com — Top News

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N. Korea displays Kim Jong Il a year after death

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.

North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week’s launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.

The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology, was portrayed not only as a gift to Kim Jong Il but also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.

The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.

The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday’s launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il’s nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star,” a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.

Cameras were not allowed inside the mausoleum, and state media did not release any images of Kim Jong Il’s body.

With the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.

His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim’s father and grandfather.

There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.

North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumors even in Pyongyang about whether the country’s first couple is expecting.

To honor Kim’s father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.

Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang’s outskirts.

“Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away,” Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. “But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. … We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country.”

Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military’s top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it “a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity.”

Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.

The test, which the U.N. Security Council said violated a ban on launches using ballistic missile technology, underlined Kim Jong Un’s determination to continue carrying out his father’s hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.

Washington said Monday it has no option but to seek to isolate Pyongyang further.

“What’s left to us is to continue to increase pressure on the North Korean regime and we are looking at how to best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward until they (North Korea) get the message. We are going to further isolate this regime,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang’s next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.

Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.

At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea’s top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea’s parliament, called the launch a “shining victory” and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.

The rocket’s success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il’s death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un’s reign.

In a sign of the rocket launch’s importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.

The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader’s death follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the anniversary of his death in 1994.

___

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Matthew Pennington in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Jean Lee, AP’s bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul, at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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What If Nothing or Nobody is to Blame for Adam Lanza? Guns, Video Games, Autism or Authorities

What if there is nobody or nothing to blame for Adam Lanza‘s heinous acts? Other than Lanza, of course.

What if school security and the school psychiatrist kept an eye on Lanza since his freshman year? The Wall Street Journal has a compelling narrative about the red flags addressed.

What if he had a form of autism that has little or no link to violent behavior? Lanza may have had Asperger’s syndrome but, even so, that is not a cause.

(RELATED: How To Make Sense of America’s Confusing Patchwork of Gun Control Laws)

What if it’s too simple to lay the massacre at the feet of the gun lobby? Reader Larry Kelly tweets that shaming Aspies “makes about as much sense at stigmatizing the NRA. Pick an enemy … any enemy. Let outrage and fear rule.”

What if Lanza wasn’t provoked by video games? David Axelrod, a close friend an adviser of President Obama, tweeted last night: “In NFL post-game: an ad for shoot ‘em up video game. All for curbing weapons of war. But shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game.”

When I asked whether he was laying groundwork for a White House initiative, Axelrod said no: “Just one man’s observation.” A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said today that Axelrod was not a stalking horse for Obama on this issue.

What if Lanza’s mother did everything she could, short of keeping her guns out her adult son’s reach? What if he wasn’t bullied?

What if there is nobody or nothing to blame? Would that make this inexplicable horror unbearable?

What if we didn’t rush to judgement? What if we didn’t waste our thoughts, prayers and actions on assigning blame for the sake of mere recrimination? What if we calmly and ruthlessly learned whatever lessons we can from the massacre — and prevented the next one?

What if it wasn’t one thing, but everything, that set off Lanza?

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Jack Hanlon, actor in Our Gang films, dies in NV

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Jack Hanlon, who had roles in the 1926 silent classic “The General” and in two 1927 “Our Gang” comedies, died Thursday in Las Vegas at the age of 96.

His niece, Wendy Putnam Park of Las Vegas, says the precocious, freckle-faced Hanlon was a natural as a child actor from 1926 to 1933.

After a small role with Buster Keaton in “The General,” he played mischievous kids in two of Hal Roach’s “Our Gang/Little Rascals” films: “The Glorious Fourth” and “Olympic Games.”

Hanlon also played an orphan in the 1929 drama “The Shakedown,” and got an on-screen kiss from Greta Garbo in the 1930 film “Romance.”

After leaving Hollywood, Hanlon became a furniture mover and moved to Las Vegas in 1994.

Burial will be in Santa Monica, Calif.

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Warning over growing fuel poverty

16 December 2012 Last updated at 22:03 ET

Around 300,000 extra households could be forced into fuel poverty within weeks, according to a lobby group.

The Fuel Poverty Advisory Group has called on Prime Minister David Cameron to tackle what it describes as a “spiralling” problem.

Energy prices have risen by 7% on average this year, taking the average annual direct debit bill to £1,247.

A household is considered to be in fuel poverty if more than 10% of its income is spent on home heating.

The Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, which is funded by the Department of Energy, estimates that nine million people could meet that criteria by 2016, and that 300,000 additional homes will be added to that figure this winter alone.

Continue reading the main story

The plight of the fuel poor has never been more serious”

End Quote Derek Lickorish FPAG

Consumer groups want the government to use some of the £4bn in annual carbon taxes set to be collected to help tackle this issue – including a more ambitious programme of home insulation.

From next year energy firms will be required to cut the number of different tariffs on offer to four, and place customers on the cheapest available price in their chosen tariff.

The advisory group said the government should create a cross-departmental body to ensure a “joined-up approach” as well as creating a new duty for local authorities to meet fuel poverty targets.

It also said an urgent impact assessment of welfare reforms on fuel poverty was needed.

‘Toxic cocktail’

“With a cold winter, welfare reforms cutting incomes, and all at a time of austerity measures and other rising household costs, the plight of the fuel poor has never been more serious,” said Derek Lickorish, chairman of the FPAG.

“Millions are living in misery due to high energy bills. Yet time is running out for the government to fuel poverty-proof the homes of those on the lowest incomes.

“A toxic cocktail of rising wholesale prices, the high cost of energy reforms and cuts in incomes for many households means fuel poverty levels are set to sky rocket without radical action.”

Last month energy regulator Ofgem and the government outlined proposals for simplifying the energy market.

Under government plans, consumers will be given the chance to choose from one of four types of tariff. These must include a variable rate deal and one with a fixed rate over a certain period of time. Others may include a green tariff or similar, whatever the supplier thinks is competitive.

Suppliers must offer just one price for each of the four tariffs. Customers will be put on the cheapest price of the tariff of their choice.

BBC News – Business

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