1 of 7. Chinese writer Mo Yan gestures during a news conference in his hometown of Gaomi, Shandong province October 12, 2012. Chinese Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan said on Friday that he hoped the jailed 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, can ''achieve freedom soon''.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Lee

GAOMI, China | Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:54am EDT

GAOMI, China (Reuters) - Chinese Nobel Literature Prize winner Mo Yan unexpectedly called for the release of jailed compatriot Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago, having come under fire from rights activists for not speaking up for him.

The author, a portly 57-year-old whose adopted pen name Mo Yan means "don't speak", said he had read some of Liu's literary criticisms in the 1980s, but that he had no understanding of Liu's work once it had turned towards politics.

"I hope he can achieve his freedom as soon as possible," Mo told reporters on Friday in his hometown of Gaomi in the northern province of Shandong, in bold remarks likely to embarrass Beijing which has lauded his victory and denigrated Liu's prize.

Liu should be able to research his "politics and social system", Mo said without elaborating

A number of dissidents and other writers have said Mo was unworthy of winning as he had shied away from commenting on Liu's plight. They have also denounced him for commemorating a speech by former paramount leader Mao Zedong.

But Mo, whose real name is Guan Moye, shot back at those criticisms.

"I believe that the people who have criticized me have not read my books," he said. "If they had read my books they would understand that my writings at that time took on a great deal of risk and were under pressure.

"Many of the people who have criticized me online are Communist Party members themselves. They also work within the system. And some have benefited tremendously within the system," he added.

"I am working in China," he said. "I am writing in a China under Communist Party leaders. But my works cannot be restricted by political parties."

Mo, who was once so destitute he ate tree bark and weeds to survive, is the first Chinese national to win the $1.2 million literature prize, awarded by the Swedish Academy.

He is best known in the West for "Red Sorghum", which portrays the hardships endured by farmers in the early years of communist rule and was made in a film directed by Zhang Yimou. His books also include "Big Breasts and Wide Hips" and "The Republic of Wine".

Prominent dissident Hu Jia, a close friend of Liu's, praised Mo's apparent sudden change of heart.

"What has happened in the last 24 hours has changed him. A Nobel prize, whether for peace or for literature, bestows on one a sense of wrong and right," Hu told Reuters.

China, long used to wringing its hands at perceived snubs or insults by the Nobel organizers, has worked its propaganda machine into overtime to hail Mo's win as a breakthrough for the entire nation, and recognition of its place as a great country.

Senior Communist Party official and China's propaganda chief Li Changchun congratulated Mo, state media reported, saying he hoped "Chinese writers will focus on the country's people in their writing and create more excellent works that will stand the test of history".

But the mention of Liu by Mo, a vice-chairman of the government-backed Chinese Writers' Association, could make things awkward for the Chinese authorities, who jailed Liu for 11 years in 2009 for inciting subversion of state power.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei repeated government criticism of Liu's award, saying it amounted to "grave meddling in China's internal affairs and judicial sovereignty".

COUNTRY BOY

Mo's interest in literature dates back to his childhood in Gaomi. When he was six, he was an avid reader of Chinese classics, said Mo's elder brother Guan Moxin, 62. The youngest of four children, Mo loved telling stories.

But Mo's farmer father and brother, who are still living in the dusty, hardscrabble village in Gaomi where Mo grew up, had no idea they had a Nobel Literature Prize winner in their midst.

"What are the chances that a country boy without anything to his name could become a great author?" Guan Moxin told Reuters.

"He is just a man from this remote land, and this poor family; he is not from some big city."

Mo, already hugely popular in China, has become something of a celebrity in Gaomi. Thrilled residents set off fireworks the night Mo's award was announced. Reporters started streaming into the nondescript town. A hotel put up a digital banner congratulating Mo.

"I couldn't quite believe it. It took me awhile before I could believe it. It seemed so impossible. We were all (the village) celebrating, lighting firecrackers," Guan Moxin said.

Mo's books reflect the tumult of modern China. He has credited his early suffering for inspiring his works, which tackle corruption, decadence in Chinese society and rural life.

"When he was little at school he was very naughty," Mo's 90-year-old father, Guan Yifan, told Reuters. "But afterwards he had to stop and do farm work. At the time we had to eat wild vegetables, and he had to go and dig wild vegetables."

(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Terril Yue Jones and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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France's President Francois Hollande (R), his companion Valerie Trierweiler (2ndL) and Louvre museum's president Henri Loyrette visit the new Department of Islamic Arts galleries during its official opening ceremony at the Louvre museum in Paris September 18, 2012.

PARIS | Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:59pm EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - President Francois Hollande's Socialist government moved on Thursday to halt a push to extend a wealth tax to artworks, eager to head off a new tax row during a belt-tightening drive.

Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said that Hollande and Prime Minister Ayrault shared her opposition to targeting art with the wealth tax, as sought by a fellow Socialist lawmaker.

Following a proposal from MP Christian Eckert, the lower house of parliament's finance committee backed an amendment to the 2013 budget on Wednesday that would apply the tax to art, even though the measure is divisive for both the left and right.

With a long tradition of public support for the arts, France has spared artworks from the wealth tax since former Socialist president Francois Mitterrand introduced the levy in 1982.

People with assets worth more than 1.3 million euros ($1.68 million) are liable for the wealth tax of 0.25 percent on top of their income tax. The rate doubles to 0.5 percent for assets over 3 million euros.

Hollande's cash-strapped government has already come under fire for adding new taxes on the rich, especially for a new 75 percent tax rate on incomes over 1 million euros which is prompting some wealthy French to consider moving abroad.

Eckert said earlier this week that the measure was more about fiscal justice than raising new revenues, which he acknowledged were unlikely to be significant.

Under the amendment, artworks worth more than 50,000 euros would be included in the assets used to calculate a person's fortune. Eckert had originally sought the threshold to be 5,000 euros.

Filippetti said it would be a "grave error" to take away special tax treatment for art at a time of growing competition between the world's major art markets.

"We have made and will make efforts so Paris recovers a top position. That's the best way to help French artists," Filippetti said in an interview on the website of Les Echos newspaper.

ART WORLD UP IN ARMS

The amendment quickly ruffled feathers in the Paris art world just as it is preparing for the opening next week of its annual flagship art show, the FIAC.

"I think we should be extremely careful in France and very vocal against the extreme danger of this bill," said FIAC director Jennifer Flay.

"It would compromise the art market's healthy fundamentals and put at risk the means by which artists make a living," she added.

The amendment is to be voted on by the lower house of parliament next week and then go before the Senate. The Socialists have a majority in both chambers.

The fiscal credibility of President Hollande's government already took a knock last week when high-profile protests by business owners forced the government to retreat from plans to raise taxes on entrepreneurs when they sell their companies.

Hollande is pushing through France's toughest budget in at least three decades, relying heavily on tax increases on the wealthy as it seeks to get its deficit down to 3 percent of national output next year from 4.5 percent this year.

Socialist party veteran Jack Lang, Mitterrand's culture minister when the wealth tax was introduced, urged lawmakers to vote against the measure on art, warning it would harm the art market and France's cultural reputation.

"It would cause a haemorrhage of art, and collectors' exile to more welcoming countries," Lang said in a statement.

Stephane Jacquin, head of wealth management at Lazard Freres Gestion, said he did not expect the amendment to get sufficient backing in parliament.

"This isn't the first time this debate has come up, and each time art continues to be excluded from the wealth tax," he said. ($1 = 0.7751 euros)

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas and Lionel Laurent; Writing by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Susan Fenton, Ron Askew)

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(The author is a Reuters columnist and the opinions expressed are his own)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - There aren't too many places left to look for higher yields these days. The usual go-to baskets of high-yield and foreign bonds, REITs and high-dividend stocks are pretty well picked over.

One little-known vehicle to Main Street investors is Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), publicly traded entities that own assets such as pipelines. Because of their unique structure, partnerships - which can be focused on energy holdings but may also invest in alternatives such as timber and real estate - generate a lot of cash that is distributed to limited partners. Spurred by global and domestic demand for oil, refined petroleum products and natural gas, for example, energy partnerships are constantly expanding. In the last few years, the oil and gas boom in North America has triggered robust growth.

Sparked by a combination of increased exploration and recovery, indexes that track energy MLPs have outperformed individual benchmarks representing utility companies, real estate investment trusts and the S&P 500 index over the past 10 years, according to the Alerian MLP Index. In the decade ending June 29, the MLP index returned 16.7 percent, compared to 5.3 percent for the S&P 500 Index and 10.7 percent for utility stocks.

In the past three years, MLPs have averaged 27 percent, compared to 16.4 percent for the S&P 500. The partnerships have mostly thrived because they have been linked to long-term energy trends and not the global banking, credit and real estate crisis.

For investors interested in diversification, MLPs offer returns that rarely follow in lockstep with big stocks. Since they more closely track energy prices and not stock-market sentiment, their correlation of 0.48 to the S&P 500 is relatively low, compared to 0.74 for real estate investment trusts, publicly traded companies that own properties. A perfect correlation is 1.00. The lower the correlation with common stocks, which tend to dominate most growth portfolios, the more protection you'll obtain from equity sell-offs.

MLP holdings can be desirable if you're heavily invested in common stocks, but there are other trade-offs that make them more volatile and costly.

Here are five tips for getting the most out of your investment:

1. For lower risk, don't buy individual partnerships.

If you buy individual MLPs, you're over-exposed to a single company. And they may be illiquid, meaning if you wanted to sell, you'd be unable to sell quickly. Since you become a partner when you buy them directly, you also have to deal with K-1 tax forms, which make your tax planning more complex and costly.

2. Look for ETFs that package MLPs.

A handful of exchange-traded, mutual and closed-end funds hold MLPs. If you hold partnerships through these vehicles, you're relying upon managers to buy a mix of companies that affords you some diversification and reduces your single-company risk.

3. Get a broad mix of MLPs.

The ALPS Alerian MLP ETF holds big-name energy/pipeline partnerships like Kinder Morgan Energy and Enbridge Energy. The fund is yielding almost 6 percent.

For a more diversified mix, consider the First Trust North American Energy Infrastructure fund, which has 36 percent of its portfolio in long-established utility companies such as Dominion Resources and the Southern Company. The First Trust fund is up 5 percent for the three months through September 29. It opened on June 19 of this year.

4. Understand the Risks.

While MLP funds offer you a variety of partnerships in one package, they are not risk-free. Their values are linked to commodity prices. If there are dips in oil or gas prices or oversupply issues, their prices will suffer. Since they tend to specialize in a small segment of the energy business, MLP funds are concentrated in a small number of companies that will often move in the same direction. They are not guaranteed in any way and their tax treatment can be complicated.

And if oil or natural gas prices collapse, you'll be at even more risk; they are much more volatile than stocks or bonds. The five-year standard deviation, a gauge of volatility, on the Steelpath Select 40 A fund, for example, is 33, compared to 20 for the Vanguard 500 Index fund, which holds the most popular U.S. common stocks, as of October 10. The lower the standard deviation, the lower the price variance. These are not investments for nervous Nellies.

5. Know the costs.

You are also paying for the convenience of owning multiple MLPs. The ALPS product, for example, charges 0.85 percent annually for expenses, compared to 0.57 percent for the industry average.

If you think of MLP funds as limited ways of boosting your income portfolio, don't get too concentrated in them because while you're boosting yield, you're also adding considerably more risk and investment management fees. They are not substitutes for core holdings like broad-based bond and stock funds.

(Follow us @ReutersMoney or here; Editing by Beth Pinsker Gladstone and Claudia Parsons)

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1 of 2. People wait in line to enter a job fair in New York August 15, 2011.

WASHINGTON | Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:36pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits slid last week to the lowest level in more than four and a half years, according to government data that may provide a boost to President Barack Obama a month before voters go to the polls.

The Labor Department report on Thursday was the latest data to suggest improvement in the jobs market, though the surprisingly large 30,000 drop in new claims may have reflected distortions due to seasonal adjustments that are likely to be smoothed out in coming weeks.

"The overall trend seems to be that the labor market is improving," said Brian Kim, a currency strategist at RBS Securities in Stamford, Connecticut.

A Labor Department analyst said seasonal factors had predicted a very large increase in claims last week, which he said would be typical for the first week of the quarter. Unadjusted claims did rise, but far less than expected, resulting in the sharp drop in the seasonally adjusted figure.

He noted that one state reported a decline in claims last week when a rise had been expected. No states had been estimated for the report, he said.

"We will likely see some payback in the claims data reported next week. But through this potential volatility, it does look like the trend in the claims is improving somewhat," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan.

Silver said that California, given its large population and past "massive swings" in its claims data, was probably the state that caused the sharp drop in the seasonally adjusted figure.

But Pam Harris, director of the California Employment Development Department, said the state was not to blame.

Harris said California had reported all its unemployment insurance claims data on time. She said a published report stating it had not was "incorrect and inaccurate."

A second Labor Department official said "a processing issue" resulted in the state, which he did not identify, reporting fewer claims than expected.

"We cannot dictate to a state how they process their claims ... This is one of the years they happened to be behind everyone else," he said, adding the Columbus Day holiday this week may have been one factor.

"This individual state, whenever there are increases in claim, usually range from 15,000 to almost 20,000," he added.

The jobs data was tempered by a second report on Thursday that hinted at weaker U.S. and global demand.

The U.S. trade deficit widened in August to $44.2 billion, as U.S. goods exports fell for the fifth consecutive month and imports declined fractionally.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 339,000, the lowest number of new claims since February 2008, about a year before Obama took office in the midst of the global financial crisis.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims edging up to 370,0000 last week.

Zach Pandl, strategist at Columbia Management in Minneapolis, said "you do have to be cautious about possible distortions. But with that caveat, the jobless claims numbers have been modestly encouraging over the last few weeks."

The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, fell 11,500 to 364,000, the lowest in six months.

U.S. stocks rose in response to the jobs data, while Treasury debt prices slipped and the dollar was lower against a basket of currencies.

A government report on Friday showed employers added a modest 114,000 jobs to payrolls in September but the unemployment rate dropped sharply to 7.8 percent, also the lowest level since Obama took office.

Former General Electric Chief Executive Jack Welch and others suggested last week the payrolls data was fixed to make Obama look better ahead of the election, a charge the Labor Department strongly denied.

Obama's opponent, Republican Mitt Romney, has accused the president of mishandling the economy.

Thursday's claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid fell to 3.27 million in the week ended September 29, the latest data available. It was the lowest since May.

DECLINING TRADE

A Reuters poll on Thursday showed economists were slightly less optimistic about U.S. growth, lowering their median growth forecasts to an annualized 1.6 percent for the first quarter of 2013, compared to 1.7 percent last month.

The group of more than 70 respondents also trimmed their second-quarter forecasts to 2.1 percent from 2.3 percent, suggesting the U.S. economy will continue its slow, steady plod despite a recession in Europe, a slowdown in China and more restrictive fiscal policy at home.

The monthly trade deficit increased to $44.2 billion in August, from an upwardly revised estimate of $42.5 billion in July, the Commerce Department said. Analysts were expecting an August trade gap of about $44.0 billion.

Overall U.S. exports dropped 1.0 percent as troubles in Europe continue to weigh on global growth, while imports fell 0.1 percent in a sign of faltering U.S. demand for consumer products, autos and capital goods.

"It looks like net exports will contribute negatively to GDP (gross domestic product) growth, subtracting as much as half a percentage point," said Michael Moran, chief economist at Daiwa Securities America in New York.

A separate Labor Department report showed that overall U.S. import prices rose 1.1 percent for the second consecutive month in September, while U.S. export prices rose 0.8 percent.

(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfus and Ellen Freilich in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci, James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

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AUSTIN, Texas | Fri Oct 12, 2012 7:48am EDT

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - As tens of thousands of music fans converge on the Texas capital for the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend, one performer will make a stop at the original "Austin City Limits" - the longest-running music show on American television.

Jack White, the former White Stripes rocker who plays the festival on Saturday, is scheduled to tape an "Austin City Limits" TV episode on Sunday. Last year, five ACL festival acts - Coldplay, Arcade Fire, the Head and the Heart, Gomez and Randy Newman - made the same trip.

"The festival is raucous, loud, tons of people, tons of stages," said drummer Tyler Williams of the Seattle sextet the Head and the Heart. "The TV show is a very intimate thing."

What was once a humble TV show focusing on the music of Texas has now become a multi-headed juggernaut that pulls in international artists: TV show, live music venue, and annual outdoor music festival. The ACL brand name has become widely known beyond Austin, which calls itself "the Live Music Capital of the World."

The Public Broadcasting Service show, now in its 38th season, began as a showcase for Texas singers and songwriters, with a 1974 pilot that featured Willie Nelson.

But it later expanded to include a wide variety of genres, from jazz to rock. The current season, which began October 6, features artists as disparate as Radiohead, Bonnie Raitt, Norah Jones, Bon Iver and jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding.

"Austin City Limits" moved into new, bigger digs last year, but still has its signature backdrop of the Austin skyline, which has been updated to reflect the city's changes. The show manages to retain its feeling of intimacy by having the stage jut out into the audience, with the crowd wrapped around on three sides.

The show's new home doubles as a concert venue known as ACL Live at the Moody Theater.

ANYTHING GOES

It is all part of the ACL experience, said the TV show's longtime executive producer, Terry Lickona.

"If you can imagine just taking an artist or a band and giving them a stage and telling them that they can do anything that they want and we're going to record it so that millions of people can enjoy their music," Lickona said. "We try to capture the natural essence of an artist at work."

The outdoor music festival, which began in 2002 and is expanding to two weekends in 2013, this year runs October 12-14 and features the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young and Crazy Horse and the Black Keys. The festival licenses its name from KLRU-TV, which owns the TV show.

The TV show came about in the 1970s when Austin's country music scene was beginning to emerge as a sort of alternative to Nashville. It settled on the name Austin City Limits after considering other options, including River City Country and Travis County Line, Lickona said.

In the gallery of the new downtown building, near a marker designating the show as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame landmark, large photographs of past TV show performances line the walls. Dolly Parton. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. Ray Charles.

"Every time I walk through here, it brings back a flood of memories," said Lickona, who joined the show in 1978 and became producer the following year.

Austin and Texas music remain an important part of the show's mix, and there is an emphasis on emerging artists in addition to big names. Most tickets to the TV tapings are given away in a lottery.

The TV show went through a country music phase and a roots music phase before arriving at where it is today: "Basically, anything goes," Lickona said, "if it's good and original music."

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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n">(Reuters) - James Bond is back and better than ever, according to early reviews on Friday, as the latest movie featuring Britain's smooth-talking, martini-drinking super-spy soared with critics and audiences after an advance screening in London.

Newspaper critics rushed to print and celebrities took to Twitter after seeing "Skyfall," with many calling it the best Bond film in the franchise's 50-year history.

Reviewer Robbie Collin at British newspaper The Telegraph said director Sam Mendes' Bond was comparable to Christopher Nolan's darker, grittier "Batman" from the "Dark Knight" franchise.

"Mendes is unafraid to let the quieter dramatic moments breathe ... and ace cinematographer Roger Deakins makes the wildly ambitious action sequences the most beautiful in Bond's 50-year career," Collin said.

Geoffrey McNab at the Independent gave "Skyfall" four out of five stars, criticizing the film for being "occasionally ... repetitive." But he praised Mendes for "throwing in far greater depth of characterization than we're accustomed to in a series of films that are often proudly superficial."

"Skyfall," the 23rd film in the Bond franchise, opens in UK theaters on October 26 and in the United States on November 9. It is Mendes' first time directing a Bond film. The British filmmaker won a best director Oscar in 2000 for "American Beauty."

The 22 Bond films have to date amassed $5.1 billion at the worldwide box office according to The-Numbers.com, which tracks box office performances. The last film, 2008's "Quantum of Solace," grossed nearly $600 million globally.

"Skyfall," produced by privately held studio MGM, will be distributed in the UK by Sony Pictures Entertainment and in the United States by Columbia Pictures, both units of Sony Corp.

"Skyfall" sees actor Daniel Craig return as the suave agent, on a mission to bring down a dangerous villain, played by Javier Bardem. Judi Dench returns in the role of "M" along with co-stars Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw, while Naomie Harris and Berenice Marlohe became the latest Bond girls.

Baz Bamigboye at the Daily Mail gave "Skyfall" five stars on Friday, calling it "pure classic 007 fare, back on firm footing after the less than memorable 'Quantum of Solace.'"

Reviewers on Twitter praised the explosive action scenes, Mendes' directing, Dench's darker portrayal of "M" and Bardem's turn at playing a Bond villain.

British GQ magazine tweeted: "Just seen #skyfall. Daniel Craig is magnificent - you will not be disappointed." The Times film critic Kate Muir tweeted that she gave "Skyfall" five stars, calling it "a return to classic form and a great British bulldog of a movie."

BBC Radio 1's film critic Rhianna Dhillon tweeted: "WOW! You have a massive treat in store for you! Don't want to review it on air in case I give anything away! It's just so good!"

British comedian Graham Norton, who hosts a TV talk show on BBC 1, tweeted: "Skyfall is perfection!!!!!"

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles, editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Beech)

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