Obama and Romney clash in spiky debate

US President Barack Obama has hit out at Republican Mitt Romney during a feisty 90-minute encounter in the second of three pre-election debates.

 

Mr Obama - widely perceived to have lost their first encounter - came out swinging in New York on the economy, tax and foreign policy.
But the former Massachusetts governor accused Mr Obama of broken promises and a record of failure.

Candidates exchange barbs on jobs plans

The pair meet for a final pre-election debate in Florida on 22 October.
As he battles for a second term, the Democratic president has been trying to hold on to dwindling leads in the nine key swing states that are expected to decide the election on 6 November.
In the town hall-style forum at Hofstra University on Long Island, both men freely roamed the stage, circling, interrupting and at times heckling one another as they took questions from an audience of 80 undecided voters.
The moderator, CNN's Candy Crowley, often had to intervene to keep order between the rivals as each fought to make his point. 

 Bickering

Mr Obama set the tone from his first answer, when he contrasted his own bailout of the US car industry with Mr Romney's position that auto-makers should have been allowed to go bankrupt.

The president forcefully accused Mr Romney of inconsistent positions, while claiming that his challenger could only offer a "one-point plan... to make sure the folks at the top play by a different set of rules".
Mr Romney meanwhile hammered away at the president's record on the economy, blaming him for unemployment of 20 million Americans and bloated federal deficits, insisting the country could not afford another four years with Mr Obama at the helm.
In one of the most scathing exchanges, they bickered over last month's attack on the US Libya consulate that left four Americans dead.
Mr Romney suggested the Obama administration may have attempted to mislead Americans over whether it was a terrorist attack.
But the president said it was "offensive" to suggest that he had played politics on such a grave issue.
He countered that it was the Republican who had tried to turn a national tragedy to his advantage by releasing a partisan press release about the deadly assault.
As the debate progressed, both candidates made repeated and impassioned pitches to America's middle class.
Mr Obama said he had cut taxes for middle class families and small businesses over the last four years.

But he said that if America was serious about reducing the deficit, the wealthy would have to pay a little bit more.

"Governor Romney and his allies in Congress have held the 98% hostage because they want tax breaks for the 2%," said Mr Obama.
In his final answer he responded to an assertion by Mr Romney that the Republican would represent "100% of Americans" by bringing up Mr Romney's secretly recorded remarks at a fundraiser in May.
In those remarks the challenger dismissed 47% of Americans as government-dependent tax avoiders who take no responsibility for their lives.
"When he said behind closed doors that 47% of the country considers themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility - think about who he was talking about," the president said.

'Policies haven't worked'

Mr Obama said voters had heard no specifics on Mr Romney's "sketchy" tax plan apart from eliminating Sesame Street's Big Bird and cutting funding for Planned Parenthood, a family planning organisation Republicans say promotes abortion.

Barack Obama: ''I don't look at my pension, it's not as big as yours"

"Of course it adds up," Mr Romney said of his tax plan. He cited his experience balancing budgets in business, while running the 2002 Olympics and as governor of Massachusetts.
Mr Obama ticked off a list of achievements over the last four years: tax cuts for the middle class; ending the war in Iraq, killing Osama Bin Laden; helping the auto industry, as well as healthcare reform.
But Mr Romney said the last four years had not been as rosy as the president would like to portray, saying the the president had made pledges to deliver unemployment of 5.4%, an immigration plan, and to cut in half the deficit, but had met none of them.
"The president's tried, but his policies haven't worked," said Mr Romney.
One of the sharpest exchanges of the debate came when the pair clashed over former private equity chief Mr Romney's wealth.
Mr Romney was defending his investments in China through a blind trust when he asked Mr Obama if he had looked at his own pension. He said Mr Obama would find investments in China in his retirement plan, too.
Mr Obama countered that he did not check his pension that often, adding: "Because it's not as big as yours."
Another fragment of the debate prompted a flurry of social media comment.
Arguing that he supports equal opportunities for women, Mr Romney said he once had "binders full of women" candidates for cabinet jobs when he was Massachusetts governor.
The third and final presidential debate is scheduled for 22 October in Boca Raton, Florida.

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Nobel Peace Prize awarded to European Union

Thorbjoern Jagland, Norwegian Nobel Committee: "Since 1945 reconciliation has become a reality"

The European Union has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for six decades of work in advancing peace in Europe.

The committee said the EU had helped to transform Europe "from a continent of war to a continent of peace".
The award comes as the EU faces the biggest crisis of its history, with recession and social unrest rocking many of its member states.
The last organisation to be given the award outright was Medecins Sans Frontieres, which won in 1999.
Announcing the award, Nobel committee president Thorbjoern Jagland acknowledged the EU's current financial problems and social unrest.
But he said the committee wanted to concentrate on the body's work over six decades of advancing "peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights".
'Biggest peacemaker'

Mr Jagland highlighted the EU's work in sealing the reconciliation between France and Germany in the decades after World War II.

And he praised the organisation for incorporating Spain, Portugal and Greece after their authoritarian regimes collapsed in the 1970s.
The EU's reconciliation work had now moved to Balkan countries, pointing out that Croatia is on the verge of membership.
Senior EU figures were overjoyed with the award.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on his Twitter feed: "It is a great honour for the whole of the EU, all 500 million citizens, to be awarded the 2012 Nobel Peace prize."
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said the award was recognition for the work of "the biggest peacemaker in history".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she regarded the Nobel as a "personal incentive" to build on six decades of peace in Europe.

"We must never forget that in order to keep this peace, democracy and freedom, we have to work hard over and over again," she said.

The BBC's Europe correspondent Matthew Price says the EU's achievements are clear, but the committee has picked a strange time to highlight them.
The eurozone crisis has made the EU look more divided and fragile than it has for decades, he says.
EU 'like Yugoslavia' Alongside the chorus of praise, several eurosceptic politicians were quick to deride the award.
Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) likened the EU project to the former Yugoslavia.
"Rather than bring peace and harmony, the EU will cause insurgency and violence," he said.

Jose Manuel Barroso: "It is justified recognition for a unique project"

Dutch eurosceptic Geert Wilders questioned the timing of the award.
"A Nobel prize for the EU at a time Brussels and all of Europe is collapsing in misery. What next? An Oscar for Van Rompuy," he said.
The Nobel committee has rarely shied away from controversy with its choice of winner.
US President Barack Obama won the award in 2009 despite leading a country that was fighting two separate wars.
And the choice of detained Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010 enraged China, which made an official complaint to Norway.
This year's Nobel Prize for literature winner, Chinese writer Mo Yan, said on Friday he hoped Mr Liu would be freed as soon as possible.

The Inner Six create the European Coal and Steel Community, meant to tie the countries together and make war between them "materially impossible"

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The Big Picture

Australian-born, London-based artist Ralph Heimans' new official portrait of Her Majesty The Queen, has been unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia. The painting depicts Her Majesty in the Sacrarium of Westminster Abbey, also known as The Coronation Theatre. "Through the narrative of the portrait I wanted to produce a work of particular significance for the Diamond Jubilee," said Heimans. "By representing The Queen as she reflects on this incredible milestone in her life, I wanted to explore the dynamic between her public role and the personal, emotional dimension."

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Amy Jackson: From Liverpool to Bollywood

Amy Jackson stars alongside actor Vikram in the Tamil film Thaandavam

 

Liverpool model Amy Jackson had never acted professionally nor visited India when she was spotted online and cast in an Indian film.

Now she has moved to Mumbai, appeared on the cover of Indian Vogue and is making a name for herself on the big screen.

Amy Jackson was not quite your average Liverpool schoolgirl when she received the offer that would take her 4,500 miles and change her life.
She had already been crowned Teen Miss World at the age of 16 - but playing Indian characters in Indian films, requiring her to speak Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, is still not what this all-English beauty queen expected to happen next.
The opportunity arose when director AL Vijay saw her photo and asked Jackson to play an English governor's daughter in his Tamil film Madrasapattinam, set against the backdrop of Indian independence in 1947.
"He said I had a really good look for his movie, for this particular role," says Jackson during a trip home between film shoots, her Liverpool accent now delivered with an Indian rhythm.
"It went on to be one of the biggest hits of 2010 in India so that obviously opened other doors. I never had any expectations of it doing so, but that's what happened."
Amy is Caucasian, but her long dark hair has allowed her to pass for a local in her subsequent films.
The daughter of BBC Radio Merseyside sport presenter Alan Jackson, she won her first lead role as an Indian character in Ekk Deewana Tha - a Bollywood love story that went down less well with audiences.

Jackson has faced a backlash for playing Indian characters

 

Her dialogue in that film was dubbed by a Hindi actress. But Jackson has worked to become fluent enough in three languages to deliver the lines in her next films herself.
"That's going to be a challenge because I really have to get the diction right," she says. "They're very difficult.
"There are no similarities to English whatsoever and the formation of the sentences is very different."
Diving head first into Indian life, Amy has moved to Mumbai, the home of Bollywood.
The Indian industry is split along regional and linguistic lines. As well as making her Bollywood debut, Jackson has also made or is making pictures in Kollywood (Tamil language, based in Chennai in the south-east) and Tollywood (Telugu language, based in the central city of Hyderabad).
Thaandavam, a Tamil action film in which she plays an Indian woman living in London, comes out in India on Friday and she is currently filming lead roles in two more movies.
She is keen to stress she is "a newcomer" and that it is "a privilege" to act with the likes of Thaandavam star Vikram, an established Tamil favourite.
"I'm getting good exposure because of the movies I'm picking and the people I'm working with," Jackson says.
She is also a fixture on red carpets and on the covers of magazines like Indian Vogue Beauty, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan, while she has a modelling deal with Armani in the country.
A romance with her Ekk Deewana Tha co-star Prateik Babbar has also seen her in the gossip columns, meaning she is better known to many as a model and celebrity girlfriend than an actress.

Large parts of Thaandavam were filmed in London

 Her rising fame has led to enthusiastic stories in the British press about being "mobbed in the street", though Jackson, slightly embarassed, says they are wide of the mark.

"You get people coming up to you and asking about movies, especially in Chennai, which is nice," she adds.
Yet Jackson has not been universally accepted.
She is not the first foreign actress to appear in Indian films and the idea of white stars playing Indian roles has led to complaints that native actresses are being sidelined and that Indian audiences are being sold an unrealistic, westernised notion of beauty.
Director Abhishek Kapoor summed up the sentiment when he wrote earlier this year of a "Caucasian invasion".
"I have no prob[lem] with a Caucasian girl playing a Caucasian," he wrote, according to the Times of India.
"But selling her as a Punjabi or an Indian is deluding the audience and also making the Indian naive woman feel inadequate."
Jackson acknowledges there has been a backlash but is keen to shrug off criticism. "I think whenever you're in the public eye you're never going to be loved by everybody," she says.
"It's very hard not to listen to people I suppose, but at the same time there are so many good points compared to the bad points.
"The negativity will always be there. I think that's for any actress or actor. But I think you've got to take it with a pinch of salt."
After establishing herself in India, has Amy had offers to appear in films back in the UK or in Hollywood? She replies that she is "looking at different options" and it would be "nice to be able to maybe in the future".
But she insists she is "really concentrating on India" and her two current films - a non-committal answer worthy of the most media-savvy star.
As well as the languages, it seems that she has also mastered the art of diplomacy.

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Why male Japanese wage-earners have only 'pocket money'

The 15th of each month is a big day for 36-year-old Yoshihiro Nozawa: it is the day he gets paid.

But every month, he hands over his entire salary to his wife Masami.
She controls the household budget and gives him a monthly pocket money of 30,000 yen ($381; £243). Despite being the breadwinner, that is all the money he can spend on himself over the next 30 days.
"The last five days from the 10th of each month are usually the toughest," says Yoshihiro.
To put the amount of his pocket money into context, the Nozawa family of four could easily spend 30,000 yen at Tokyo Disneyland in a day.
Yoshihiro and Masami have two children, Rino aged 6 and Ren aged 8, and they are the reason his wife decided to put him on a fixed allowance.

"I started controlling the household budget when I became a housewife after having children," says Masami.

"Suddenly, there was only one income and their educations and private lessons cost a lot."

Under the thumb

Yoshihiro nods but he says 30,000 yen doesn't go far in the world's most expensive city, Tokyo.
"She makes me a lunch box every morning so that helps a lot," he says as he eats his lunch alone in a nearby park from his office.
His only luxury is cigarettes, which he spends one third of his monthly allowance on.
"I think I may have to quit if the price goes up again," he says.
Yoshihiro may be eating his lunch alone but he is not unique.
According to a survey conducted by research firm Softbrain Field, 74% of Japanese household budgets are controlled by women and it is not just couples with young children.

47-year-old Taisaku Kubo has been getting 50,000 yen a month from his wife Yuriko for the past 15 years.

He has tried to negotiate a pay rise each year but his wife makes a presentation to explain why it cannot be done.
"She draws a pie chart of our household budget to explain why I cannot get more pocket money," says Taisaku.
On the hand drawn chart, his pocket money is stated as 8.8% of the monthly budget.
"The biggest expenditures are home loan and taxes," says his wife Yuriko. "We don't have children so I want to make sure that we'll have enough money after his retirement."
Just like that, Taisaku loses his argument for a pay rise.
"I've given up my car, motorbike and many expensive hobbies," he laughs.

Shrinking budget

But his monthly allowance of 50,000 yen is in fact higher than the national average.
According to Shinsei Bank which has been researching the trend since 1979, the average monthly pocket money was 39,600 yen last year.
And to make things harder for the men, that compares with 76,000 yen in 1990 when people thought that Japan's economy was at its peak. That was one year after the nation's benchmark stock index, the Nikkei 225, reached a record high of 38,916.
But share prices fell sharply in the 1990s and have never since come close to that level.

 

And just as the performance of Japanese companies deteriorated, businessmen's pocket money fell with it.
So today, those whose wives don't make lunch boxes try to cap their daily lunch budget to one coin: 500 yen - about $6.50.
As in most cities, prices vary wildly according to location, decor and the standard of food and drink on offer.

(Many Japanese household budgets are tightly  controlled by housewives)

But in many places 500 yen would barely be enough for a bowl of noodles or a McDonald's burger.
Their drinking budget has also shrunk to a record low.
On average, they only spend 2,860 yen on a night of drinking which is almost half of what they used to spend just three years ago.
That does not allow for a great many half litre bottles of Asahi - the average price is around 700 yen.

Double income

So why don't men start controlling the household budgets themselves?
"I don't think many men hand over their entire salaries happily," says career consultant Takao Maekawa of FeelWorks.
"But they feel it's their obligation to earn money for the family even if it means they have to suffer themselves."
Traditionally, it was a combination of hardworking salarymen, as white-collar businessmen are called in Japan, and stay-at-home mothers or housewives which supported Japan's economic growth after World War II.
"He actually tried to handle the household budget once," says Masami Nozawa whose husband Yoshihiro lives on 30,000 yen a month.
"But he said it was too time consuming so returned the task back to me," she says.
Yoshihiro agrees: "I know how much I make and I now understand how difficult it is to allocate the money".
"Even if I get a pay rise at work, I am not too hopeful that my pocket money will go up."
Today, more families are seeking out a double income simply because they cannot afford not to.
But for now, Yoshihiro and Taisaku look for cheap enough bars where they can still have some drinks without blowing all of their monthly pocket money at once.

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