Live updates: Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' screenplay is a Golden Globe winner

Maverick filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was a surprise screenplay winner for “Django Unchained,” his controversial spaghetti Western set during the slavery era, beating out such favorites as the writers of “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Lincoln,” “Argo,” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting this,” said an effusive Tarantino. “I'm happy to be surprised.”

Tarantino’s win meant one more loss for Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” which had gone into the ceremony leading with seven nominations. So far, the historical epic has been shut out.

PHOTOS: Nominees & winners | Red carpet

Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway sang her way to a Golden Globe for supporting actress in a movie as the tragic Fantine in the musical “Les Miserables.”

With her pixie haircut and tasteful white gown, Hathaway was reminiscent of a young Audrey Hepburn, charming viewers as she thanked her co-stars, family and friends — and had a special thanks for Sally Field, nominated in the same category for “Lincoln.” She noted that Field forged a career that resisted typecasting — something Hathaway has struggled with as well. Field had played the Flying Nun on TV but went on to play Norma Rae and, more recently, Mary Todd Lincoln

PHOTOS: Golden Globes 2013 red carpet

"Thank you for this lovely blunt object," Hathaway told the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.  “I'll forever use it as a weapon against self-doubt.”

Earlier in the evening, the movers and shakers of Hollywood leaped to their feet Sunday night to welcome former U.S. President Bill Clinton on stage at the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards as he introduced the clip for the best dramatic picture nominee “Lincoln.”

Clinton, whose appearance was a well-kept secret, noted the challenges the 16th president faced as he toiled to end the Civil War and slavery. “We’re all here tonight because he did it,” Clinton said.

GLOBES 2013: Full coverage | Red Carpet | Ballot | Nominees | Snubs

“Wow,” exclaimed co-host Amy Poehler as Clinton left the stage. “That was Hillary Clinton’s husband! That was exciting!”

On the TV side, Showtime’s “Homeland” and HBO’s “Game Change” continued its winning ways.

“Homeland,” the political thriller that counts President Obama as one of its biggest fans, won its second consecutive award for drama series Sunday night at the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. Claire Danes won her second consecutive Globe for the series, and co-star Damian Lewis also took home the lead-actor trophy. The series had dominated the Emmy Awards last September.

“Game Change,” the drama about Sarah Palin’s history-making run for the vice presidency of the United States in 2008, had also performed well at the Emmys. And it was more of the same Sunday. It snapped up three awards, including miniseries or TV movie, supporting actor for Ed Harris, and lead actress in a miniseries or TV movie for Julianne Moore for her uncanny channeling of Palin.

Lena Dunham won best actress in a comedy series for HBO's "Girls" while Don Cheadle won lead actor in a TV comedy series for Showtime’s “House of Lies.” Kevin Costner won lead actor in a miniseries or TV movie for “Hatfields & McCoys.” Maggie Smith, who was not present, also won for supporting actress in a TV series, miniseries or movie for playing the acerbic dowager in PBS' "Downton Abbey.”

In other film honors, Jennifer Lawrence won lead actress in a comedy or musical for “Silver Linings Playbook” for her performance as a widow in the quirky romantic comedy.

Golden Globes 2013: Live updates | List | Red Carpet | Winners | Ballot |  Full coverage

“I beat Meryl!” Lawrence joked as she accepted the trophy. (Meryl Streep was nominated in the same category, for “Hope Springs.”) Among Lawrence’s thank-yous: “Thank you, Harvey Weinstein, for killing whoever you had to kill to get me up here.”

Austria’s “Amour” won foreign language film. "Brave" won for best animated film. Mychael Danna won for writing the score for Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi.” Original song went to pop singer Adele and Paul Epworth for “Skyfall,” the title tune for the latest James Bond installment.

Christoph Waltz also won for supporting actor in a film for playing a bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.” Tarantino is the Austrian actor’s good-luck charm. Waltz won in the same category for Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” three years ago. “My indebtedness to you and my gratitude knows no words,” he told the filmmaker as he accepted the award.

Hosts Poehler and Tina Fey were bringing the funny as the ceremony was being telecast live on NBC from the Beverly Hilton Hotel’s International Ballroom. The pair began by poking fun of pill-popping Hollywood and “rat-faced” TV types and joked about the controversy surrounding Kathryn Bigelow's “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Cracked Poehler: “When it comes to torture, I trust the woman who spent three years married to James Cameron.”

Perhaps the evening will help end the longstanding debate about whether women are funny -- an issue tackled by Fey on "30 Rock."

But a bigger question is looming: Will the Golden Globes bring clarity to this topsy-turvy awards season?

The awards season has been wildly unpredictable, with plenty of outstanding movies to choose from -- but few clear-cut front-runners.

The Directors Guild of America, for example, nominated Bigelow and Ben Affleck for “Argo” and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards named “Argo” as best film and Affleck as best director. Yet neither Affleck nor Bigelow earned a directing nod from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when the nominations were announced last week.

The historical epic “Lincoln” goes into the Globes with a record seven nominations, followed by the spaghetti Western “Django Unchained” and “Argo” with five. Affleck and Bigelow are also in contention for best director.

Other races to watch are the musical “Les Miserables” and romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook,” vying for best film in a comedy or musical.

Don’t look for “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Sunday night. The magical indie drama earned four Oscar nominations, including best film, director and actress, but was snubbed by the Globes.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. also presents Golden Globes in several television categories with HBO’s political drama “Game Change” leading the pack  of nominations with five, followed by PBS’ beloved British drama “Downton Abbey” with four.

After a controversial three-year stint as host, Ricky Gervais turned over the emcee duties to Globe nominees Poehler (“Parks & Recreation”) and Fey (“30 Rock”).  And it seems like the Globe’s show party-like atmosphere will continue with these comic actresses.

During a recent interview, the “Saturday Night Live” alums outlined the rules for a Golden Globes drinking / meatball sub-eating game: Drink any time an actress cries during her speech, and eat a meatball sub any time someone thanks film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

ALSO:

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PHOTOS: Red carpet fashion at the Golden Globes

susan.king@latimes.com and rene.lynch@latimes.com

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HTC seeks Myanmar edge with local font phones

YANGON (Reuters) – Peter Chou, CEO of Taiwan smartphone company HTC Corp, will on Monday launch what he hopes will be a major boost to both a backward tech sector in Myanmar, his country of birth, and to his company’s share of one of the few untapped mobile markets: a phone that locals can use out of the box.

Until now, Chou says, Myanmarese users of mobile phones and computers must install fonts in their own language, a process that is cumbersome, often invalidates the device’s warranty and has, he says, slowed innovation and the embrace of technology.

HTC has instead teamed up with a local distributor and a software developer to customize Google’s Android operating system so its devices display local fonts and sport a dedicated and, Chou says, intuitive, Myanmar language onscreen keyboard.

“You don’t have to spend two months to learn how to type it,” Chou said in an interview ahead of the launch. “You just type it. We want to give people here a computing device they don’t have to learn. They just try it, they just use it, they just get it.”

Myanmar IT experts say that while the country’s alphabet is no more complex than some other Asian scripts, a failure to agree how to apply an international standard for language symbols called Unicode to existing versions of the computer font has made it difficult to bake the language into software.

As a result, web pages and apps will often be unreadable.

BIG CHALLENGES, LITTLE PENETRATION

The issue of fonts may seem a basic one, but reflects the challenges Myanmar faces in catching up with its neighbors as it sheds decades of military control over politics and the economy. Myanmar has one of the lowest mobile penetration rates in the world, with only 3 percent of the population owning a phone in 2011, according to the World Bank. In neighboring Bangladesh, 56 percent of people have a mobile phone.

When IT enthusiasts met last year for a conference on the future of technology called Barcamp Yangon, much of the discussion revolved around such basic issues, participants said. With at least two competing types of font software available, disagreements remain.

The problem is worse on smartphones, says Soe Ngwe Ya, general manager of KMD, HTC’s distribution partner for the new phones. In order to install such fonts on mobile devices users must first “root” the phone, effectively bypassing the manufacturer’s controls on customizing the phone’s operating system. That often invalidates any warranty. “It’s a major issue,” he says.

HTC also hopes it can claw back some ground from its biggest competitor in Android phones, Samsung Electronics, which has established a first mover advantage in Myanmar.

Samsung has at least two distributors for its handsets and its advertisements are visible around the capital. Soe says KMD will act as HTC’s distributor, open a flagship store and service HTC users.

Chou, who was born in Myanmar but left to work and study in Taiwan more than 30 years ago, says that at least for now the Myanmar fonts and keyboard will only be available on HTC devices. He denied that this undermined his claims of contributing to his homeland.

“While sometimes you can be idealistic,” he said, “the first thing you have to show the people is something to get excited about.”

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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Waltz wins supporting-actor Globe for ‘Django’

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Christoph Waltz has won the supporting-actor Golden Globe for his role as a genteel bounty hunter who takes on an ex-slave as apprentice in “Django Unchained.”

Sunday’s win was Waltz’s second supporting-actor prize at the Globes, both of them coming in Quentin Tarantino films. Waltz’s violent but paternal and polite “Django” character is a sharp contrast to the wickedly bloodthirsty Nazi he played in his Globe and Oscar-winning role in Tarantino’s 2009 tale “Inglourious Basterds.”

“Let me gasp,” Waltz said. “Quentin, you know that my indebtedness to you and my gratitude knows no words.”

Show hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who co-starred in the 2008 big-screen comedy “Baby Mama,” had a friendly rivalry at the Globes. Both were nominated for best actress in a TV comedy series, Fey for “30 Rock” and Poehler for “Parks and Recreation.”

“Tina, I just want to say that I very much hope that I win,” Poehler told Fey at the start of the show.

“Thank you. You’re my nemesis. Thank you,” Fey replied.

Poehler also had a quip about television vs. film at the Globes, where the small-screen category typically takes a backseat to the big-screen nominees.

“Only at the Golden Globes do the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people of television,” Poehler said.

An unusually chilly day in southern California left Globe guests looking glamorous but feeling frigid.

Debra Messing from “Smash” came in a strapless black gown and goosebumps. Asked how she was coping with the cold, she replied, “Not well.” Melissa Rauch of “The Big Bang Theory” also shivered in her strapless red gown. “I’m absolutely freezing!” she said.

Claire Danes of “Homeland” in Versace and Zooey Deschanel of “New Girl” in a strapless Oscar de la Renta gown walked near heat lamps as the mercury stayed in the high 50s. “I’m so cold. My legs aren’t cold but my arms are,” said Deschanel.

Not everyone was grousing. “I’m totally comfortable,” Glenn Close, whose Zac Posen dress was paired with matching jacket, told NBC. “Usually, it’s really hot, so I’m having a nice time so far.”

The Globes are in a rare place this season, coming after the Academy Award nominations, which were announced earlier than usual and threw out some shockers that have left the Globes show a little less relevant.

Key Globe contenders lined up largely as expected, with Steven Spielberg‘s Civil War saga “Lincoln” leading with seven nominations and two CIA thrillers — Kathryn Bigelow‘s “Zero Dark Thirty” and Ben Affleck‘s “Argo” — also doing well.

All three films earned Globe nominations for best drama and director. Yet while “Lincoln,” ”Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty” grabbed best-picture slots at Thursday’s Oscar nominations, Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed for directing honors after a season that had seen them in the running for almost every other major award.

The Globe and Oscar directing fields typically match up closely. This time, though, only Spielberg and “Life of Pi” director Ang Lee have nominations for both. Along with Spielberg, Lee, Bigelow and Affleck, Quentin Tarantino is nominated for directing at the Globes. At the Oscars, it’s Spielberg, Lee, “Silver Linings Playbook” director David O. Russell and two surprise picks: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for “Amour” and first-time director Benh Zeitlin for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

That forces some top-name filmmakers to put on brave faces for the Globes. And while a Globe might be a nice consolation prize, it could be a little awkward if Affleck, Bigelow or Tarantino won Sunday and had to make a cheery acceptance speech knowing they don’t have seats at the grown-ups table for the Feb. 24 Oscars.

That could happen. While “Lincoln” has the most nominations, it’s a purely American story that may not have as much appeal to Globe voters — about 90 reporters belonging to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who cover entertainment for overseas outlets.

The Bigelow and Affleck films center on Americans, too, but they are international tales — “Zero Dark Thirty” chronicling the manhunt for Osama bin Laden and “Argo” recounting the rescue of six U.S. embassy workers trapped in Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis.

Globe voters might want to make right on a snub to Bigelow three years ago, when they gave their best-drama and directing prize to ex-husband James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar” over her Iraq war tale “The Hurt Locker.”

Bigelow made history a month later, becoming the first woman to win the directing Oscar for “The Hurt Locker,” which also won best picture.

Globe voters like to be trend-setters, but they missed the boat on that one. Might they feel enough chagrin to hand Bigelow the directing trophy this time?

Spielberg already has won two best-director Globes, so that might be a further inducement for the foreign-press members to favor someone else this time.

Their votes were locked in before the Oscar nominations came out. Globe balloting closed Wednesday, the day before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its awards lineup.

The Globe hosts had a wisecrack at Cameron’s expense. Poehler noted that she had not been following the controversy over “Zero Dark Thirty,” which has drawn criticism for indicating torture was pivotal in producing the tip that led to Bin Laden.

But “when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who was married for three years to James Cameron,” Poehler said.

The Globes feature two best-picture categories — one for drama and one for musical or comedy. Most of the Globe contenders also earned Oscar best-picture nominations, including all of the drama picks: “Argo,” ”Lincoln,” ”Life of Pi,” ”Django Unchained” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Yet only two of the Globe musical or comedy nominees — “Les Miserables” and “Silver Linings Playbook” — are in the running at the Oscars. That’s not unusual, though, since Oscar voters tend to overlook comedy. The other Globe nominees for musical or comedy are “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” ”Moonrise Kingdom” and “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.”

Globe acting recipients usually are a good sneak peek for who will win at the Oscars. All four of last season’s Oscar winners — Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady,” Jean Dujardin for “The Artist,” Octavia Spencer for “The Help” and Christopher Plummer for “Beginners” — took home a Globe first.

Jodie Foster will receive the Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 70th Globes ceremony.

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City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/13/2013, on page A21 of the NewYork edition with the headline: New York Declares Health Emergency.

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Aaron Swartz, a Data Crusader and Now, a Cause

Michael Francis McElroy/The New York Times

Aaron Swartz in 2009. One person remembered him as a “a complicated prodigy.”

At an afternoon vigil at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Sunday, Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old technology wunderkind who killed himself on Friday, was remembered as a great programmer and a provocative thinker by a handful of students who attended.

And he was remembered as something else, a hero of the free culture movement — a broad coalition that can range from Wikipedia contributors, Flickr photographers and online educators to prominent figures like Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and online vigilantes like Anonymous. They share a belief in using the Internet to provide easy, open access to the world’s knowledge.

“He’s something to aspire toward,” said Benjamin Hitov, a 23-year-old Web programmer from Cambridge, who said he had cried when he first learned the news about Mr. Swartz. “I think all of us would like to be a bit more like him. Most of us aren’t quite as idealist as he was. But we still definitely respect that.”

The United States government has a very different view of Mr. Swartz. In 2011, he was arrested and accused of using M.I.T.’s computers to gain illegal access to millions of scholarly papers kept by Jstor, a subscription-only service for distributing scientific and literary journals.

At his trial, which was scheduled to begin in April, he faced the possibility of millions of dollars in fines and up to 35 years in prison, punishments that friends and family say haunted him for two years and led to his decision to take his own life. They blame both the prosecutors and M.I.T. for not offering enough support to Mr. Swartz.

During his short life, Mr. Swartz became a flash point in the debate over whether information should be made widely available. On the one side were activists like Mr. Swartz and advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Students for Free Culture. On the other side were governments and private corporations who argued that some information must be kept private for security or commercial reasons.

In his death, Mr. Swartz has come to symbolize a different debate over how aggressively governments should pursue criminal cases against people like Mr. Swartz who believe in “freeing” information.

In a statement, his family said in part: “Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. attorney’s office and at M.I.T. contributed to his death.”

On Sunday evening, the president of M.I.T., L. Rafael Reif, announced that he had appointed a prominent professor, Hal Abelson, to “lead a thorough analysis of M.I.T.’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present.” He promised to share the report with the M.I.T. community, adding, “It pains me to think that M.I.T. played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.”

While Mr. Swartz viewed his making copies of academic papers as an unadulterated good, spreading knowledge, the prosecutor, who on Sunday declined to comment on Mr. Swartz’s death out of respect for his family’s privacy, compared Mr. Swartz’s actions to using a crowbar to break in and steal someone’s money under the mattress.

The question of how to treat online crimes is still a vexing one, many years into the existence of the Internet.

Prosecutors have great discretion on what to charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the law cited in Mr. Swartz’s case, and how to value the loss. “The question in any given case is whether the prosecutor asked for too much, and properly balanced the harm caused in a particular case with the defendant’s true culpability,” said Marc Zwillinger, a former federal cybercrimes prosecutor.

Jess Bidgood and Ravi Somaiya contributed reporting.

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America's go-to man in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province

TARIN KOWT, Afghanistan — A shy boy with filthy hands and a shabby tunic approached the great man, bowed and tried to kiss his hand.

Gen. Matiullah Khan was seated like a sultan on a cushion in his hojra, his airy receiving room. He barely looked at the boy. He nodded to an aide, who withdrew a thick wad of Pakistani rupees from his pocket and handed it to Matiullah.

The most powerful man in Oruzgan province, a warlord and tribal leader turned police chief, glanced at the cash. Then Matiullah pressed the entire roll into the boy's hand.

"Nobody helps the people; it's up to me," Matiullah said as the boy withdrew.

Thousands of desperately poor Afghans in this remote province rely on Matiullah for charity and protection. And his presence here is equally important to the U.S. military, which views Oruzgan as a linchpin in southern Afghanistan. It relies on Matiullah to support a U.S. special forces team and to secure the crucial supply road from Kandahar to Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital.

Matiullah is America's go-to man in Oruzgan, a mountainous badlands that was a Taliban stronghold before Matiullah beat the insurgents back.

Not much happens in Oruzgan without Matiullah's blessing. He approves government appointments and directs government services. He says he has paid from his own pocket to build 75 mosques, two schools, a hospital and his own modern police headquarters.

Although he has been accused of corruption and drug-running — allegations he denies — Matiullah has made himself indispensable to U.S. interests. Like other Afghan strongmen supported or tolerated by American forces, he has the gunmen and the iron fist to hold off the Taliban, even at the cost of undermining the very government institutions the U.S. is trying to bolster.

Despite attempts to sideline warlords, men like Matiullah remain in power because the weak and corrupt central government has little authority, especially in remote areas, and U.S. forces need strong military allies where the Afghan army is unreliable. President Hamid Karzai formalized Matiullah's control over Oruzgan by naming him police chief in August 2011.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force says its convoys have suffered only three attacks on the Kandahar-Tarin Kowt supply road in the last two years. For the last decade, Matiullah's gunmen have secured the winding dirt road, earning the chief millions of dollars in fees from trucking companies that contract with ISAF to deliver supplies to Tarin Kowt.

He says he pays 1,200 gunmen to protect the convoys, in addition to his cops stationed at posts along the road — meaning he makes a profit from security provided in part by government-paid police.

ISAF spokesmen deflected questions about Matiullah's relationship with coalition forces, referring a reporter to the Afghan Interior Ministry, which directs the Afghan National Police. Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi denied that Matiullah was involved in the opium trade — a claim made by his political rivals — or that he maintained a private militia.

***

Matiullah is literally at the center of the coalition military presence here. A base for U.S. Special Operations Task Force Southeast is just 200 yards from his sprawling compound, which is powered by an enormous generator in a province with no electricity service. An Australian special operations base lies across a muddy field.

The chief's compound overlooks a busy military airport where Apache attack helicopters soar toward the mountains day and night to support Special Forces operations. His reception room is festooned with photos of him posing with U.S. Special Forces soldiers. There are framed certificates of appreciation from a series of Special Forces teams.

One, from a commander in April 2011, reads: "Your superior work ethic, professionalism, expertise and bravery are the epitome of the Special Forces motto: The Quiet Professionals."

U.S. special operations commanders declined to answer questions about Matiullah's role or allow interviews with the U.S. team here.

Matiullah said special operations teams visited his compound often, and that he supplied them with security and intelligence.

"They are my good friends," he said. "They don't know who are our friends in Oruzgan and who are our enemies. I know very well, so they rely on me."

Enemies from rival tribes have portrayed Matiullah as a warlord with his hands on the levers of graft. Matiullah dismisses the accusations with a wry smile. He considers himself a man of the people and his government rivals as thieves who steal salaries, weapons and equipment meant for his 3,160-man police force.

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RIM shares climb as investors bet on new BlackBerry

TORONTO (Reuters) – Shares of Research In Motion rallied on Friday as investors positioned themselves ahead of the launch of its new make-or-break BlackBerry 10 smartphones at the end of the month.

Morningstar analyst Brian Colello did not see any one news story driving the stock, which climbed steadily through much of the day. The new phones are to be formally unveiled on January 30.

“The stock has been extremely volatile, based on BlackBerry 10 rumors and the potential for success in the market,” said Colello.

Several blog posts published on Friday showed purportedly leaked photos of what could be the new phones, and a number of tech sites confirmed that Sprint Nextel Corp would carry BlackBerry 10.

“Sprint plans to bring BlackBerry 10 to our customers later this year. We will share more details soon,” Mark Elliot, a spokesman for the U.S. carrier, said in an email.

Earlier this week, executives at Verizon Communications, AT&T Inc and T-Mobile USA all confirmed they would carry the smartphones, and said they are looking forward to the new devices.

“There are, I think, good indications that they’re going to get a seat at all the tables that matter,” said IDC analyst John Jackson, who called carrier support “necessary, but not sufficient” to ensure the success of BlackBerry 10.

Throughout the autumn of 2012, RIM’s stock rose as investors grew more optimistic about BlackBerry 10. Morningstar’s Colello said the market went from pricing in no chance of success, to betting on at least some chance of success for the new products.

But the rally broke off after RIM reported earnings in December, revealing that it would roll out a new fee structure for its services segment which some fear could put pressure on the high-margin business.

The new line’s success is crucial to the future of RIM, which has lost ground to competitors such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics, and in December reported its first-ever decline in total subscribers.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said the news that all four major U.S. carriers would offer BlackBerry 10 was likely lifting the stock, along with Nokia’s stronger-than-expected quarterly results — a sign that Google Inc’s Android smartphones have not completely taken over its market.

“The smartphone market is one of the most robust, largest markets in the world … it’s also dynamic,” said Gillis. “The winners and losers are going to be shifting. That said, it’s a difficult road the company is facing.”

RIM’s Nasdaq-listed shares were up 13.2 percent at $ 13.49. Shares jumped 12.6 percent to C$ 13.27 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. That more than doubled the price since the low of C$ 6.10 it touched in September. By late afternoon, RIM was the day’s most heavily-traded stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Nicola Leske in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Alden Bentley)

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Sony Pictures executive: “Zero Dark Thirty” “does not advocate torture”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Sony Pictures executive Amy Pascal lashed out on Friday at a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) who accused Osama bin Laden film “Zero Dark Thirty” of promoting torture and urged fellow Academy members not to vote for it in the Oscars race.

In a strongly worded statement, Pascal said the “attempt to censure one of the great films of our time should be opposed.”

“We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda,” said Pascal, who is co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and chairman of its Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group.

“This film should be judged free of partisanship,” she said, adding that the film “does not advocate torture.”

Pascal’s comments came in response to Academy member David Clennon’s remarks at a rally against the torture of terror suspects in Los Angeles on Friday.

“I believe that the film clearly promotes a tolerance for torture,” Clennon told local ABC TV news affiliate KABC, adding “I hope that my fellow members of the Academy will consider the morality of each nominee.”

Clennon, an actor who appeared in 1980s TV series “thirtysomething,” also wrote an opinion piece earlier this week criticizing the film.

“At the risk of being expelled for disclosing my intentions, I will not be voting for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ – in any Academy Awards category,” Clennon wrote on progressive news website Truth-out.org in a January 9 posting.

“‘Zero’ never acknowledges that torture is immoral and criminal. It does portray torture as getting results,” he added.

The 6,000 members of the Academy are urged not to reveal who they cast their votes for. Academy Award winners are revealed at a ceremony in February, the highlight of Hollywood’s award season.

The Academy on Friday declined to comment on Clennon’s remarks.

“Zero Dark Thirty” won five Oscar nominations, including a nod for best picture, despite coming under attack in Washington over its source material and claims by politicians that it depicts torture as helping the United States find and kill the al Qaeda leader in May 2011.

Among the film’s nominees were actress Jessica Chastain and screenwriter Mark Boal, but director Kathyrn Bigelow surprisingly failed to make the Oscar best director shortlist.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is a unit of Sony Corp.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)

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City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

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Treasury Will Not Mint $1 Trillion Coin to Raise Debt Ceiling

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Saturday that it will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to head off an imminent battle with Congress over raising the government’s borrowing limit.

“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” Anthony Coley, a Treasury spokesman, said in a written statement.

The Obama administration has indicated that the only way for the country to avoid a cash-management crisis as soon as next month is for Congress to raise the “debt ceiling,” which is the statutory limit on government borrowing. The cap is $16.4 trillion.

“There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills, or it can fail to act and put the nation into default,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “Congress needs to do its job.”

In recent weeks, some Republicans have indicated that they would not agree to raise the debt limit unless Democrats agreed to make cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security.

The White House has said it would not negotiate spending cuts in exchange for Congressional authority to borrow more, and it has insisted that Congress raise the ceiling as a matter of course, to cover expenses already authorized by Congress. In broader fiscal negotiations, it has said it would not agree to spending cuts without commensurate tax increases.

The idea of minting a trillion-dollar coin drew wide if puzzling attention recently after some bloggers and economic commentators had suggested it as an alternative to involving Congress.

By virtue of an obscure law meant to apply to commemorative coins, the Treasury secretary could order the production of a high-denomination platinum coin and deposit it at the Federal Reserve, where it would count as a government asset and give the country more breathing room under its debt ceiling. Once Congress raised the debt ceiling, the Treasury secretary could then order the coin destroyed.

Mr. Carney, the press secretary, fielded questions about the theoretical tactic at a news conference last week. But the idea is now formally off the table.

The White House has also rejected the idea that it could mount a challenge to the debt ceiling itself, on the strength of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which holds that the “validity of the public debt” of the United States “shall not be questioned.”

The Washington Post earlier published a report that the Obama administration had rejected the platinum-coin idea.

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