Syria army quits base on strategic Aleppo road

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army abandoned its last base near the northern town of Saraqeb after a fierce assault by rebels, further isolating the strategically important second city Aleppo from the capital.

But in a political setback to forces battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said the rebels appeared to have committed a war crime after seizing the base.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday government troops had retreated from a post northwest of Saraqeb, leaving the town and surrounding areas “completely outside the control of regime forces”.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reported army withdrawal. Authorities restrict journalists’ access in Syria and state media made no reference to Saraqeb.

The pullout followed coordinated rebel attacks on Thursday against three military posts around Saraqeb, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Aleppo, in which 28 soldiers were killed.

Several were shown in video footage being shot after they had surrendered.

“The allegations are that these were soldiers who were no longer combatants. And therefore, at this point it looks very likely that this is a war crime, another one,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva.

“Unfortunately this could be just the latest in a string of documented summary executions by opposition factions as well as by government forces and groups affiliated with them, such as the shabbiha (pro-government militia),” he said.

Video footage of the killings showed rebels berating the captured men, calling them “Assad’s dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

Rights groups and the United Nations say rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have committed war crimes during the 19-month-old conflict. It began with protests against Assad and has spiraled into a civil war which has killed 32,000 people and threatens to drag in regional powers.

The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Sunni states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and neighboring Turkey. Shi’ite Iran remains the strongest regional supporter of Assad, who is from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

STRATEGIC BLOW

Saraqeb lies at the meeting point of Syria’s main north-south highway, linking Aleppo with Damascus, and another road connecting Aleppo to the Mediterranean port of Latakia.

With areas of rural Aleppo and border crossings to Turkey already under rebel control, the loss of Saraqeb would leave Aleppo city further cut off from Assad’s Damascus powerbase.

Any convoys using the highways from Damascus or the Mediterranean city of Latakia would be vulnerable to rebel attack. This would force the army to use smaller rural roads or send supplies on a dangerous route from Al-Raqqa in the east, according to the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman.

In response to the rebels’ territorial gains, Assad has stepped up air strikes against opposition strongholds, launching some of the heaviest raids so far against working class suburbs east of Damascus over the last week.

The bloodshed has continued unabated despite an attempted ceasefire, proposed by join U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to mark last month’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

In the latest in a string of fruitless international initiatives, China called on Thursday for a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body – an idea which opposition leaders hope to flesh out at a meeting in Qatar next week.

Veteran opposition leader Riad Seif has proposed a structure bringing together the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other rebel forces alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures.

His plan, called the Syrian National Initiative, calls for four bodies to be established: the Initiative Body, including political groups, local councils, national figures and rebel forces; a Supreme Military Council; a Judicial Committee and a transitional government made up of technocrats.

The initiative has the support of Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for an overhaul of the opposition, saying it was time to move beyond the troubled Syrian National Council.

The SNC has failed to win recognition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and Clinton said it was time to bring in “those on the front lines fighting and dying”.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Over 20 million tweets sent as Sandy struck

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter users flocked to the micro-messaging network this week as Hurricane Sandy swept through the eastern U.S. seaboard, sending more than 20 million tweets about the storm between Saturday and Thursday, the company said.

This far exceeds the 13.7 million tweets sent during the Super Bowl in February, typically the largest media event of the year.

Founded in 2006, Twitter has sought to position itself as a “second screen” media product that users can pull up on their smartphones while watching events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics on television.

But the service has shone as a communication channel during major disasters, such as in the wake of the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

Twitter, which has been susceptible to occasional outages, stayed up glitch-free this week, serving at times as a vital source of information for afflicted residents.

The number of times that users in New York City loaded their home timeline from a mobile device peaked around 9 p.m. Monday night, around the time an explosion at a Consolidated Edison transformer knocked out power, more than doubling the total from the previous two days, the company said, without providing details.

The 20 million tweets included the terms “sandy,” “hurricane,” “#sandy,” and “#hurricane,” the company said.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Disney-ABC Adds to Sandy “Day of Giving”

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Disney-ABC is expanding on plans to designate Monday a “Day of Giving” that will fill ABC’s schedule from morning until late night with calls to donate to Hurricane Sandy victims.

Disney has announced a $ 2 million donation to hurricane relief, and from “Good Morning America” until “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Monday, every ABC show will urge viewers to help.

ABC said Friday that ABC Family, SOAPnet, Radio Disney, “General Hospital,” “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” and the Disney Stores will all get into the giving spirit.

ABC Family and SOAPnet will show “Day of Giving” PSAs on air, on their websites and through social media. Radio Disney will feature similar messages on the air and on Facebook. “General Hospital” stars have recorded PSAs that will air during the show and throughout network programming, and “Who Wants a Millionaire” will also include messages and PSAs.

The Disney Store and DisneyStore.com, meanwhile, will spread the word with in-store PSAs, social marketing efforts, emails and messages on the DisneyStore.com home page.

“The response to Monday’s ‘Day of Giving’ has been nothing short of amazing, and I’m thrilled that ABC Family, SOAPnet, Radio Disney, ‘General Hospital,’ ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ and the Disney Stores across the nation have joined the cause,” said Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney-ABC Television Group. “We are going to do everything possible to encourage our viewers and customers to help those who are dealing with Sandy’s devastation.”

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How Computational Models Are Improving Medicine [Video]

Click here to view the video

High-resolution electromechanical model of a heart; courtesy of N. Trayanova

The more we learn about cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, the more vexingly complex they seem–and the more elusive their cures. Even with cutting-edge imaging technology, biomarker tests and genetic data, we are still far from understanding the multifaceted causes and varied developmental stages of these illnesses. With the advent of powerful computing, better modeling programs and a flood of raw biomedical data, researchers have been anticipating a leap forward in their abilities to decipher the intricate dynamics involved human disease. Now, these computational capabilities are starting to arrive, according to a new analysis published online this week in Science Translational Medicine. In fact, “the field has exploded,” Raymond Winslow, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Computational Medicine, and co-author of the review, said in a prepared statement. Medicine and medical research largely have been focused on small specialties and narrow studies. But the body is a whole system–not isolated organ groups–and it is in constant interaction with the wider environment, including pollutants, toxins and other stressors. The resulting interactions do not only work in a single direction; instead, we have learned that there are feed-forward and feedback loops and crosstalk on cellular, molecular and genetic levels. This nexus is where advances in computational medicine are poised to make a large contribution. “Computational medicine can help you see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together to give a more holistic picture,” Winslow said. “We may never have all of the missing pieces, but will wind up with a much clearer view of what causes disease and how to treat it.” Models comparing gene expression in different patients have already successfully helped to determine different grades of prostate cancer, predict how different patients will respond to breast cancer treatment and find different types of stomach cancer. Scientists are also taking advantage of more advanced anatomical data to model whole organs and their function–and dysfunction. Using, for example, diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, researchers can collect detailed information about heart anatomy, fiber and structure. This macro structure can be combined with more cellular-based models for “unprecedented structural and biophysical detail, including cardiac electromechanics,” the researchers noted in their paper. With this information, scientists are learning more about blood-flow dynamics, arrhythmia and heart attacks. These new models are now starting to be translated back to individual patients, to help find better treatments. Computational-medicine algorithms from detailed brain maps have already been used to develop an iPad app that is being used clinically to help doctors decide on deep brain stimulation locations and strengths. These models, however, also need to be checked frequently against real-world data and adjusted accordingly. But researchers who are armed to deal with this once unusual cross-discipline endeavor are growing more common. “There is a whole new community of people being trained in mathematics, computer science and engineering, and they are being cross-trained in biology,” Winslow said. “This allows them to bring a whole new perspective to medical diagnosis and treatment.” The myriad applications for computational medicine approaches are only beginning to be explored, the researchers noted. “As we gain confidence in the ability of computational models to predict human biological processes, they will help guide us through the complex landscape of disease, ultimately leading to more effective and reliable methods for disease diagnosis, risk stratification and therapy,” the researchers wrote. “We are poised at an exciting moment in medicine.”

Video of electromechanical heart model courtesy of N. Trayanova

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

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Factbox: Obama, Romney solutions to stimulating the economy

(Reuters) – The health of the U.S. economy has been central to the campaign for the White House, with both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney seeking to convince voters they have a plan to usher in faster growth and job creation.

The economy has struggled to break above a 2 percent annual growth pace since the 2007-09 recession and unemployment remains uncomfortably high at 7.9 percent. About 23 million Americans are either unemployed, working only part-time although wanting full-time work, or want a job but have given up the search.

Here are Obama’s and Romney‘s key plans for the economy:

JOBS

Obama has said his job plan would strengthen American manufacturing, grow small businesses, improve the quality of education and make the country less dependent on foreign oil.

He envisions 1 million new manufacturing jobs by 2016 and more than 600,000 jobs in the natural gas sector, as well as the recruitment of 100,000 math and science teachers.

Repairing and replacing old roads, bridges, runways and schools are part of his plan to put Americans back to work. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to fund infrastructure projects.

Romney has promised 12 million jobs in his first term, or about 250,000 jobs a month. Economists say the economy would likely generate that amount of jobs anyway.

His plan focuses on tax reform, pushing the economy toward energy independence, cutting regulations and boosting trade, especially by reducing barriers to trade with China.

Romney says Obama has not been aggressive enough in challenging unfair Chinese trade practices and that he would use both the threat of U.S. sanctions and coordinated action with allies to force China to abide by global trade rules.

HOUSING

Even though the housing crisis is at the heart of the economy’s woes, Obama and Romney did not spell out detailed plans for how they would address it.

Obama has promoted efforts to help troubled borrowers refinance and win record low interest rates, but his initiatives have fallen far short of their originally intended market.

He has battled the independent regulator of government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Edward DeMarco, trying to convince him to allow those mortgage finance firms to reduce principal for borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. A quick resolution of the standoff is unlikely after the election.

Romney said at one point in the campaign that the housing market needed to hit bottom on its own without government intervention and he has offered few clues on his likely approach to foreclosures.

Democrats and Republicans agree the government’s heavy hand in the mortgage market should be reduced, but neither candidate has outlined a plan to do that.

THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Obama can be expected to offer Chairman Ben Bernanke a third term should he want it, but Fed watchers believe the former Princeton professor would prefer to depart after a grueling eight years in the job. Bernanke’s term as chairman expires on January 31, 2014.

Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen is viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Bernanke, and would be at least as dovish in terms of being prepared to keep monetary policy ultra-stimulative until the labor market has improved substantially.

Romney has said explicitly he would not reappoint Bernanke to a third term. Fed watchers expect whoever is chosen by Romney to be slightly more hawkish than Bernanke in terms of readiness to raise interest rates to keep inflation at bay.

Romney advisers Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw and John Taylor are all viewed as top contenders to replace Bernanke. Hubbard and Mankiw may be a bit more hawkish than the current chairman, but not much, and neither would likely start an aggressive tightening campaign the moment he arrived. Taylor, however, has criticized the Bernanke Fed’s policy stance as too loose.

FISCAL POLICY

Obama has proposed cutting the government budget deficit by more than $ 4 trillion over the next decade by allowing the Bush tax cuts for upper-income Americans to expire and by eliminating loopholes. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to reduce the deficit.

Romney wants to cut marginal tax rates for individuals by 20 percent and broaden the tax base by closing loopholes. He would keep all the Bush tax cuts in place in a plan he says would be revenue-neutral. Obama has charged the numbers do not add up.

Romney has also said he wants to reduce federal spending to 20 percent of U.S. GDP over four years from its current level of about 24 percent.

Both want to reduce the corporate tax rate, although Romney would reduce it further.

REGULATIONS

Obama is seen keeping on his current path as regulators work to put in place provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. It is not known whether Securities and Exchange Chairman Mary Schapiro will remain, but Obama would likely appoint a replacement who would not roll back investor protections to benefit corporations and financial firms.

Romney has pledged to repeal the entire law. But policy experts see that as a largely hollow campaign pledge because a wholesale repeal would be politically unpopular and Democrats are likely to retain control of the Senate.

Instead, they see Romney working with Congress to craft narrowly tailored bills targeting what Republicans see as the biggest problem spots: the Volcker rule’s ban on proprietary trading, the impact on end-user companies of derivatives reforms and the continued existence of too-big-to-fail financial firms. Romney would also like to curb the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another creature of the legislation.

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani, Alister Bull, Doug Palmer, Margaret Chadbourn and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Peter Cooney)

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Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.

“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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UK: Apple must apologize again over copycat claims

LONDON (AP) — British judges say Apple needs to apologize once more for falsely claiming that South Korea’s Samsung copied its iPad, the latest embarrassing episode in the tech rivals’ world-spanning patent battle.

Apple Inc. was ordered to print an apology on its website after British judges repeatedly rejected its claim that Samsung Electronics Co. ripped off its designs when creating its own tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab.

Apple did post an apology, but judges at London’s High Court ruled Thursday that it didn’t go far enough and ordered a new one posted to its site within 48 hours.

Samsung and Apple are locked in a series of international lawsuits over alleged copyright violations, including a California case which saddled Samsung with a $ 1 billion fine for copying Apple’s design.

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Ralph Nader to Stephen Colbert: Give me your Super PAC cash!

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Stephen Colbert‘s super PAC is sitting on nearly $ 778,000 in cash, and five-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader knows exactly where to spend it.

On Ralph Nader.

If only Colbert would listen.

The longtime consumer advocate told TheWrap in an exclusive interview that he has been trying to get the “Colbert Report” host to donate the money remaining in Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow’s coffers to the nonprofit American Museum of Tort Law he plans to build.

Dedicated to personal injury and other tort cases, the museum will go up in Nader’s hometown of Winsted, Conn. Nader announced the plans, and started fundraising, 14 years ago.

“Since he deals with wrongful injuries and reputations night after night, there must be a little humor here,” Nader told TheWrap. “Tell him we’ll name the courtroom after him.”

There’s just one problem: Nader can’t get to Colbert, even though Nader feels responsible for the Comedy Central host’s success.

In 2004, while Colbert was hosting “The Daily Show” during the birth of Jon Stewart’s first child, Nader was the interviewed guest. A year later, Colbert got his own show.

“He did so well that they gave him his own program,” Nader said. “So you’d think he’d be accessible to me, right?”

Apparently, wrong.

Even as Colbert trolled the Republican presidential campaigns as a possible third-party candidate during the primary earlier this year, Nader – the nation’s perennial third-party runner – couldn’t get in touch with him.

“Forget it, forget it,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to reach celebrity media these days.”

A spokesman for Colbert and Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls from TheWrap requesting comment.

Nader did tell TheWrap that he was happy to see Colbert satirize the growing role of money in electoral politics and draw attention to a candidate outside the two-party nexus.

“Since our elections are for sale at ever-higher auction prices, it’s good that he did this satirical effort to highlight the absurdity of it all,” Nader said.

Colbert first announced the formation of his own super PAC during a March 2011 segment of his show. He set up a company in the regulatory oasis of Delaware called Anonymous Shell Company and began raising funds for a farcical campaign.

After briefly declaring his candidacy for “President of the United States of South Carolina,” Colbert launched a series of ads urging voters to cast ballots for Rick Parry — a spinoff of then-candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Later, he threw his support behind Herman Cain, the pizza mogul who was widely mocked for his candidacy and seemingly far-fetched tax plans.

While he scored around $ 1 million for his PAC, the $ 778,000, according to an SEC filing, is what’s left after advertising and expenses.

So far, Nader seems to be one of the few people gunning for the funds. But Colbert has floated at least one idea about how to spend it.

After real-estate-mogul-cum-reality-star-cum-political-blowhard Donald Trump offered President Obama $ 5 million to a charity of his choice to reveal his college and medical records, Colbert made Trump an offer.

The comedian said he’d donate $ 1 million to a charity of Trump’s choice – if he allows Colbert to dip his testicles in his mouth.

So far, at least, Trump has not accepted the offer.

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Pradaxa bleeding risk appears no worse than warfarin – FDA

(Reuters) – The risk of serious bleeding among new users of Pradaxa, a blood-clot preventer made by Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim, appeared to be no higher than in patients on the widely used standard blood thinner warfarin, U.S. regulators said.

The announcement Friday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may allay some safety concerns about Pradaxa, a pill developed by the privately held drugmaker Boehringer, to prevent strokes among patients with an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

The regulator’s findings were based on an assessment of insurance claims and other data.

Over the past year, the FDA has been analyzing reports of serious bleeding among patients prescribed Pradaxa, including gastrointestinal bleeding and bleeding in the brain.

The agency said on Friday a comparable risk of serious bleeding for Pradaxa and warfarin was suggested by its review of insurance claims and by analyzing electronic healthcare data from multiple other sources.

The FDA said it was also planning other assessments of Pradaxa’s bleeding risks.

The medicine competes with Xarelto, a stroke-prevention pill for atrial fibrillation patients developed by Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG.

A similar pill being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer Inc, Eliquis, is awaiting U.S. approval and is deemed by many Wall Street analysts to be the most impressive of a new generation of oral drugs to replace warfarin.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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US economy adds 171,000 new jobs

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Do ordinary Americans feel their economy is on the road to recovery?

The US economy added 171,000 new jobs in October, which was much more than had been expected.

But the official figures from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate still rose to 7.9%, having fallen to 7.8% in September, as more workers resumed the search for jobs.

Only people who are currently looking for a job count as unemployed.

Unemployment is one of the key issues ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election.

The figures were the last major set of economic data scheduled before the election and the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, has made the state of the jobs market one of the central planks of his campaign.

“Today’s increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill,” he said.

“The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work.”

The number of jobs created in the previous two months was revised upwards, with an extra 34,000 jobs added in September and 50,000 added in August.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

For President Obama, there is good and bad news in these latest jobs figures.

He can breathe a sigh of relief that, when Americans vote next week, there are more of them with jobs than when he took office.

His challenger Mitt Romney can no longer accuse him of presiding over a net loss of jobs.

However, the unemployment rate rose and is now higher than it was when Mr Obama took over at the White House.

Setting out the key figures still leaves another vital political question: who is at fault for the state of the US labour market?

Was it due to a recession already in full swing when he took over or did his policies aggravate the situation?

“We’ve made real progress,” Barack Obama told a crowd in Ohio.

“But we’ve got more work to do.”

Despite the new jobs, Barack Obama will still go to the polls with the highest rate of unemployment of any president seeking re-election since Franklin D Roosevelt.

The unemployment rate edged up slightly because the number of people looking for jobs increased. These were people who had previously given up hope of finding work, but who now think they may have a better chance. As a result, this increase may be seen as a sign of confidence in the economy, analysts say.

The total workforce, which is the number of people either working or looking for jobs, rose 578,000 in October.

Improved direction

The Labor Department said in its release that Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast of the US on 29 October, had had “no discernable effect” on the employment data.

The number of involuntary part-time workers, who would prefer to be working full-time, fell 269,000 to 8.3 million, having risen by 582,000 in September.

Kathy Jones from Charles Schwab said they were good numbers, but warned that: “We’re way short of where we need to be to bring down the unemployment rate to where the Federal Reserve would like to see, closer to 6% than 8%.”

“We would need to see twice as many jobs as we’re seeing, but the direction has improved.”

The average number of jobs added per month so far in 2012 has been 157,000, which is slightly ahead of the average of 153,000 in 2011.

Continue reading the main story

"Remember that butterfly whose wing-beat in the Amazon causes a storm over the Atlantic? I think she is hovering over the election right now”"

The category adding the most jobs in October was professional and business services, followed by healthcare and retailing.

There was also a small increase in employment in the construction sector, which has been helped by a pick-up in house building.

The average working week was 34.4 hours for the fourth month in a row, while the average hourly wage was down one cent at $ 23.58 (£14.69).

Despite there being signs of momentum in the jobs market, there is great concern in the US about what 2013 will bring.

Whoever wins the presidential election will have to reach a budget agreement with legislators by the end of the year, to prevent $ 600bn of tax increases and spending cuts kicking in automatically in 2013.

The measures, known as the fiscal cliff, could take the US back into recession.

There is also some uncertainty about the coming months as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

Many businesses will have their work interrupted by effects of the storms. On the other hand, reconstruction on the East Coast is likely to increase employment in the construction sector.

In New York, the Dow Jones index opened higher but had fallen 40 points, or 0.3%, by late morning trading, while the US dollar was up two-fifths of a cent against the pound.

BBC News – Business

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