Jackson Five

The Jackson Five, the group that launched the career of pop superstar Michael Jackson, are planning to reunite for a world tour next year, his older brother said, according to Australian media.

Jermaine Jackson said his siblings, including Michael and Janet, were on board as he attended a pay TV launch in Sydney Wednesday, the national AAP news agency reported.

"This has been a long time coming for the Jackson family to get back together," Jermaine Jackson told AAP.

"It is just the timing, so what we've been doing is working on the music and all the logistics."
Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael last toured together in 1984 as The Jacksons -- with six members, including Randy Jackson -- having originally formed the Jackson Five in 1965.

The group stopped touring together as Michael and Janet became international music superstars on their own, and the Jackson Five formally disbanded in 1990.

"It is going to be more like a family affair, Janet's going to open and, of course, the original Jackson 5 ... Michael, Randy and the whole family ... we're in the studio, we're planning on being out there next year," Jermaine was quoted by AAP as saying.

Jermaine was the guest of honour at the Multi Channel Network's 2009 launch to advertisers in Sydney. Other guests included US actor Jenna Elfman, Sarah Murdoch and Olympian Ian Thorpe.

US scientists perfect targeted memory erasure in mice

US researchers said Wednesday they are able to selectively erase memories from mice in a laboratory, raising hopes human memory afflictions like post-traumatic stress syndrome can one day be cured.

"Targeted memory erasure is no longer limited to the realm of science fiction," the research team headed by Joe Tsien, from the Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia, said in Thursday's issue of Cell Press magazine.

The new technique, which the team stress is at a very early stage, could be applied one day to the human brain to erase traumatic memories or deep-set fears, and leave all other memories unaffected.

Memory is generally separated into four different stages: acquisition, consolidation, storage, and retrieval. Earlier research identified specific molecules that appear to play a role in the various phases of the memory process.

But Tsien said his team found a way to quickly manipulate the activity of the "memory molecule," the protein CaMKII (calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II) that plays a key role in brain cell communication, and so is linked to many aspects of learning and memory.

Researchers developed a "chemical genetic strategy," which made it possible to manipulate the protein in transgenic mice, which had been bred to overproduce the molecule.

"Using this technique, we examined the manipulation of transgenic CaMKII activity on the retrieval of short-term and long-term fear memories and novel object recognition memory" in transgenic mice, Tsien said.

The team figured out they could manipulate the protein in the mice's brain as the animal was stimulated, and observe the brain's ability to recall memory of the stimulation.

Through the protein manipulation, researchers then found a way to not just block the mice's memory of the stimulation, but erase them without impacting the brain's ability to recall other memories.

Tsien became famous in 1999 for his creation of Doggie, the smart transgenic mouse with enhanced learning and memory abilities.

In the recent findings, Tsien's team found that transient excessive activity of CaMKII at the time of recall impaired retrieval of short- and long-term fear memories, as well as memories formed as recently as one hour.

They also showed that recall deficits linked to excessive CaMKII activity were not caused by a blockade of the recall process but instead seemed to be due to rapid erasure of the stored memories.

In addition, they found that the erased memories were limited to those being retrieved, while others remained intact.

"The results demonstrate a successful genetic method for rapidly and specifically erasing specific memories, such as new and old fear memories, in a controlled and inducible manner without doing harm to the brain cells," the researchers said.

Tsien said the technique might one day be applied to war veterans who "often suffer from reoccurring traumatic memory replays after returning home."

However, he warned that it was premature to expect a such a miracle cure.

"No one should expect to have a pill do the same in humans any time soon, we are barely at the foot of a very tall mountain," he said.

Financial crisis could cost 20 million jobs by end 2009

The financial crisis could lead to record global unemployment with 20 million more people out of work by the end of 2009, International Labour Organization chief Juan Somavia warned Monday.

Estimates from the ILO indicate that the "number of unemployed could rise from 190 million in 2007 to 210 million in late 2009," said Somavia, marking the "first time in history that we pass 210 million."

The population of working poor living on less than a dollar a day could grow by 40 million and those on two dollars a day by over 100 million, added the ILO.

But Somavia said these projections "could prove to be underestimates if the effects of the current economic contraction and looming recession are not quickly confronted."

Thousands of jobs have already been slashed on Wall Street and other financial centres as banks collapse or are forced to merge due to the credit crunch.

But the ILO said the axe was likely to reach ordinary working people, with sectors including construction, the automotive industry, tourism, services and real estate bearing the brunt of the financial storm.

Somavia, who had earlier urged greater protection for workers in the crisis, said: "This is not simply a crisis on Wall Street, this is a crisis on all streets. We need an economic rescue plan for working families and the real economy, with rules and policies that deliver decent jobs."

Most vulnerable are the poor, stressed the ILO, echoing the results of a report on income inequalities it released last week that warned that the gap between rich and poor could widen due to the financial crisis.

"The gap between richer and poorer households widened since the 1990s," said Raymond Torres, director of the ILO's research arm which produced its "World of Work Report 2008."
"The present global financial crisis is bound to make matters worse unless long-term structural reforms are adopted," he added last Thursday.

Global unemployment stands at 6.1 percent, but many countries are seeing jobless rates nudging up.

Hong Kong earlier Monday said its jobless rate rose to 3.4 percent for the three months to September, compared to 3.2 percent in the three months to August.
Meanwhile, the United States reported earlier this month that it had lost 159,000 jobs in September.

Somavia called for "prompt and coordinated government actions to avert a social crisis" and said he welcomed calls for "better financial regulation and a global surveillance system of checks and balances."

"We must return to the basic function of finance, which is to promote the real economy. To lend so that entrepreneurs can invest, innovate, produce jobs and goods and services," he said.
The crisis offered an "opportunity" to re-balance globalisation which had grown "unfair, unsustainable and unbalanced," he added.

Obama tells 175,000 supporters: change is coming

Democrat Barack Obama said Saturday the winds of change were blowing across America as he roused monster crowds totalling more than 175,000 in the Republican "red" state of Missouri.

Republican John McCain, fighting a rearguard offensive before the November 4 presidential election, insisted that Obama's economic plan would "kill" job creation as the United States weathers its worst financial crisis in decades.

"At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives," he said in his weekly radio address.

But the Democrat, who is riding high in national and state polls, said McCain was positing false arguments including via automated "robo-calls" to voters that portray Obama as a secret radical bent on subverting democracy.

Missouri voted for Republican President George W. Bush in both the last two elections, but Obama said "the winds are blowing for change across America" as he campaigned in the state metropolises of St Louis and Kansas City.

"They're blowing in Kansas, they're blowing in Missouri, they're blowing in North Carolina, they're blowing in Virginia, they're blowing in Ohio," he said, reeling off a list of states that all backed Bush in 2004 and 2000.

Police said the crowd in St Louis numbered at least 100,000 -- Obama's biggest yet in the United States, second overall only to the 200,000 who saw him speak in Berlin in July. The Kansas City crowd was more than 75,000.

The gigantic attendance numbers were testimony to Obama's oratorical pulling power and boded well for his flipping a state, Missouri, from red to Democratic "blue."

At rallies in North Carolina and Virginia, two other red states now very much in play, McCain once again invoked Ohio plumber Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, a new hero of conservatives after challenging Obama on taxes.

"Joe's dream is to own a small business that will create jobs in his community, and the attacks on him are an attack on small businesses all over the country," McCain said as a harsh media spotlight turns on Wurzelbacher.

Joe the Plumber and low taxes have become McCain's latest campaign motifs as the 72-year-old Republican vies to resuscitate his flagging White House hopes on the final stretch to the election.

Obama was ahead of McCain by 50 percent to 42 percent in Saturday's Gallup national tracking poll. In the Rasmussen tracking poll, the Democrat was up 50 percent to 45.

But Obama, 47, reiterated his message of recent days that supporters should not get "cocky."

"Democrats have a way of snatching defeat from the jaws from victory. You can't let up. You can't pay too much attention to the polls. We've got to keep running through that finish line," he said.

The Democrat noted McCain was describing his own plans for middle-class tax relief as government "welfare" that would take money from the rich to give to the poor.

"The only 'welfare' in this campaign is John McCain's plan to give another 200 billion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations in America ... that's who John McCain is fighting for," he said.

"But we can't afford four more years like the last eight. George Bush and John McCain are out of ideas, they are out of touch, and if you stand with me, in 17 days they will be out of time."

McCain is stepping up an offensive on Obama's ties to former 1960s radical William Ayers with "robo" phone calls in swing states that also accuse the Democrat of supporting the killing of babies born alive in abortions.

McCain's opponents unleashed robo-call smears when he was up against Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000, and even party colleagues such as Maine Senator Susan Collins say the tactic smacks of desperation this time.

"It's despicable, especially coming from John McCain," Obama campaign spokeswoman Linda Douglass told AFP.

But the McCain campaign insisted the attack calls were rooted in fact and said Obama was hoodwinking voters over his past.

US offers banks capital infusion, lifting hope in credit crisis

US authorities unveiled plans Tuesday to inject billions of dollars into banks to ease a global credit crisis, as European economies showed signs of recession and a powerful global stock rally stalled.

The government infusion of up to 250 billion dollars into struggling banks and new guarantees to help restore credit flows marked the latest effort in the battle against a loss of global confidence.

Nine large banks including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs agreed to give the government equity stakes in exchange for new capital, officials said on announcing the first program of its kind since the Great Depression.

"This is an essential short-term measure to ensure the viability of America's banking system," President George W. Bush said on unveiling the initiative.

Bush said the measures "are not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it."

Analysts said the effort by Washington on the heels of similar efforts in Britain and elsewhere offered hope that the crippling financial crisis could be tamed.

"It took a while, but US policymakers have finally deployed measures aimed directly at the heart of the problem," said economist Aneta Markowska at Societe Generale.

John Ryding at RDQ Economics said the actions by the United States and other economic powers "finally mark the wider firebreak that will contain the crisis."

But he said the major economies "appear to have already slipped into recession and the aftershocks of the recent intensification of the credit crisis will likely further hurt these economies. Nonetheless, we think that the risk of a catastrophic failure of the financial system has now been significantly reduced."

A powerful global stock rally that began a day earlier in anticipation of the US plan ran out of steam however.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.82 percent to 9,310.99, giving back a portion of a whopping 936-point or 11 percent gain Monday, which was the biggest point gain ever and largest percentage rise in 75 years.

The Nasdaq fell a hefty 3.54 percent reflecting worries about profits in the tech sector and the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index dipped 0.53 percent after surging on Monday.

In London the FTSE 100 index of leading shares rose 3.23 percent while in Paris the CAC 40, which on Monday gained more than 11 percent, added 2.75 percent.

The Frankfurt Dax, which had also eclipsed 11 percent on Monday, finished with a gain of 2.70 percent.

Markets across the globe have been in a state of panic since the middle of last month when Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy after the US government refused to bail it out.

Banks and other financial institutions around the world have been hit by bad debts stemming from the granting of so-called subprime loans to house-buyers in the United States.

The chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned meanwhile that it was too early to sound the all-clear on the financial crisis.

"Despite the positive reaction of the markets in the last two days, there is no reason to declare the end of financial crisis and swing into exaggerated enthusiasm," Juncker told the Luxembourg parliament.

Earlier Tuesday, Japan's Nikkei stock index posted its biggest ever gain, skyrocketing more than 14 percent as investors flocked back to the market on hopes of an easing of the crisis.

The Bank of Japan also announced new steps on Tuesday aimed at thawing frozen bank lending, offering unlimited dollar funds, as it left its super-low interest rates on hold at an extraordinary meeting.

Australia launched a 7.25 billion US dollar economic stimulus package which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said was intended to address concerns that the crisis was moving beyond dramatic losses in share values to pose a threat to economic growth.

France's lower house of parliament approved the country's massive 360-billion-euro (490-billion-dollar) bank rescue package, with the upper house due to consider the proposal on Wednesday.

Some of the shine from the renewed financial market confidence was rubbed off by downbeat data highlighting how the turbulence had affected jobs and growth.

A new Bank of France forecast predicted the economy would contract 0.1 percent in the third quarter, showed the country was heading into recession after a 0.3 percent drop in the previous quarter.

A group of German economic think tanks said Europe's biggest economy was likely to grow at only around 0.2 percent in 2009.

"In the autumn of 2008, the German economy is on the brink of a recession," the six institutes wrote in their latest economic outlook.

Ireland's economy will contract by 0.75 percent next year, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said as he delivered his budget.

In Washington, banks will have an option to join the nine major lenders in the capital infusion program, in which the government gets "senior preferred shares" which would be "non-voting" except to protect investment rights, according to a Treasury statement.

Banks in the program will agree to limits on executive pay and other benefits.

In a related move, the government will also temporarily guarantee bank debt that includes interbank funding and offer unlimited deposit insurance for many accounts as part of a stepped-up global effort to stem a credit crunch.

Officials also said that the Federal Reserve would soon act as the "buyer of last resort" for commercial paper, which is short-term corporate debt that is critical for financial markets and companies needing cash for operating expenses.

The efforts are part of the 700-billion-dollar bank bailout announced last month. European nations announced their own 1.8 trillion euro (2.4 trillion dollar) package on Monday after a weekend pledge by the world's wealthiest nations to use all available tools to save key financial institutions.