Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.


Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.


The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.


The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.


"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."


The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.


The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.


That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.


MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK


All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.


Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.


More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.


"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.


The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.


Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.


"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.


The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.


JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY


In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.


Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.


The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.


"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."


A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .


On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.


Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.


"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."


For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.


(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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The Lede Blog: A 'Black Bloc' Emerges in Egypt

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Last Updated, Saturday, 9:56 a.m. While using Twitter to narrate events in Tahrir Square on Friday, people in Egypt described tires burning in the street, protesters blocking traffic and hurling rocks, and police officers launching tear gas in an effort to break up crowds that had gathered to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood and the country’s new Islamist president.

Many of the actions described on Friday appeared to hew to a script that has become familiar over the past two years, but some in the crowds of protesters appeared to be using new tactics, dressing from head to toe in black, covering their faces with bandannas or kerchiefs and brandishing black flags as they skirmished with security forces.

“Asked one of them who they are they said we don’t talk to media but we are black bloc,” wrote ‏the British-Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr, adding that a member of the group had “mentioned anarchism.”

An article filed on Thursday by The Associated Press reported the presence of a “previously unknown group calling itself the black block.” The article continued, “Wearing black masks and waving black banners, it warned the Muslim Brotherhood of using its ‘military wing’ to put down protests.”

Although largely new in Cairo, the term “black bloc” has been used for years in the United States and Europe to describe a tactic commonly used by anarchists and anticapitalists during large-scale political demonstrations that occasionally devolve into street fights with the authorities.

Participants in the bloc typically dress in black to foster a sense of unity and to make it difficult for witnesses to differentiate between individuals. Members of the bloc often blend in with larger groups of protesters, then break away, linking arms as they rush down streets.

In the United States, at least, black bloc members usually eschew violence against people but have few compunctions about damaging property.

The tactic received attention during the 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, when youths dressed in black broke windows and spray-painted graffiti on buildings.

In St. Paul, during the 2008 Republican National Convention, black bloc members roamed through the city smashing bank windows and using hammers to batter a police car.

It is unclear whether there are any connections between American and Egyptian black bloc participants, but the site anarchistnews.org posted a message about occurrences in Cairo, quoting the blog Even If Your Voice Shakes.

Last night, anarchism left the graffitied walls, small conversations, and online forums of Egypt, and came to life in Cairo, declaring itself a new force in the ongoing social revolution sparked two years ago with multiple firebombings against Muslim Brotherhood offices. Later, the government shutdown the “Black Blocairo” and “Egyptian Black Bloc” Facebook pages, but they were soon re-launched.

The site went on to say that Egyptian anarchists had firebombed the Shura Council.

As my colleague Robert Mackey reports, an Egyptian journalist, Sarah El Sirgany, wrote on Twitter, “Vendors tell me it was the Black Block group that attempted to storm the Ikhwan Online building sparking the fight.”

Later, she added, “Now those who had continued the fight are heading to Tahrir, flag of Black Block flying high.”

This week a man named Ahmed Ibrahim, who has previously posted YouTube videos that appear to be from Egypt, posted a video titled “Black Bloc Egypt.” Accompanied by driving music the video shows masked people marching while holding aloft black banners, a black flag with an anarchy symbol and an Egyptian flag.

Egyptian journalists and bloggers wondered what to make of the black bloc in Egypt. In a place where sexual assaults and gropings remain common, one journalist, Ghazala Irshad, reported from Cairo: “Egypt’s new Black Bloc (self-proclaimed anti-MB militia) has female members too — just saw one running wearing niqab & angle-length skirt.”

The activist bloggers Gigi Ibrahim , Adel Abdel Ghafar, Bassem Sabry and Egyptocracy wrote that they were troubled by the development.

Reporting was contributed by Robert Mackey.

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Facebook Profile May Expose Mental Illness

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A person’s Facebook profile may reveal signs of mental illness that might not necessarily emerge in a session with a psychiatrist, a new study suggests.


“The beauty of social media activity as a tool in psychological diagnosis is that it removes some of the problems associated with patients’ self-reporting,” said study researcher Elizabeth Martin, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Missouri. “For example, questionnaires often depend on a person’s memory, which may or may not be accurate.”






Martin’s team recruited more than 200 college students and had them fill out questionnaires to evaluate their levels of extroversion, paranoia, enjoyment of social interactions, and endorsement of strange beliefs. (For example, they were asked whether they agreed with the statement, “Some people can make me aware of them just by thinking about me.”)


The students also were asked to log onto Facebook. They were told they would have the option to black-out parts of their profile before some of it was printed out for the researchers to examine.


“By asking patients to share their Facebook activity, we were able to see how they expressed themselves naturally,” Martin explained in a statement. “Even the parts of their Facebook activities that they chose to conceal exposed information about their psychological state.”


Participants who showed higher levels of social anhedonia — a condition characterized by lack of pleasure from social interactions — typically had fewer Facebook friends, shared fewer photos, and communicated less frequently on the site, the researchers found.


Meanwhile, those who hid more of their Facebook activity before presenting their profiles to researchers were more likely to hold odd beliefs and show signs of perceptual aberrations, which are irregular experiences of one’s senses. They also exhibited higher levels of paranoia.


“However, it should be noted that participants higher on paranoia did not differ from participants lower in paranoia in terms of the amount of personal information shared,” the researchers wrote in their study detailed Dec. 30, 2012, in the journal Psychiatry Research. That finding suggests this group might be more comfortable sharing information in an online setting than in the face-to-face interactions with the experimenter.


The researchers said information culled from social networking sites potentially could be used to inform diagnostic materials or intervention strategies for people with mental health issues.


Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.


Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Jennifer Lopez: The Twins Want a Rainbow Birthday Party

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01/24/2013 at 01:00 PM ET



Jennifer Lopez Planning Rainbow Birthday Party for Her Twins
Henry Lamb/Photowire/BEImages


Jennifer Lopez may be capable of juggling many activities at once, but her primary responsibility right now is planning the birthday party for her twins, Max and Emme.


“They’re 5 next month, and they want a rainbow party. Lots of rainbow stuff!” Lopez told reporters at Wednesday night’s L’Oreal and Cinema Society New York screening of her new thriller, Parker.


“I don’t know [what that means],” says the singer and actress, 43. “Very colorful?”


Although upbeat for her premiere, Lopez wasn’t shy about discussing her painful split from Marc Anthony – which, it turned out, also influenced her movie role.


“It was very difficult,” she explains, “so in front of kids and at work you have to be so professional and you have to be so up for your children in that moment.”

Her screen character “was going through the worst moment of her life, and I had just gone through divorce literally like a month before, so it was hard to get [up in the morning] — that’s why we added the scene at the beginning when she had trouble getting out of bed.”


Still, she called filming the movie cathartic, saying: “I was lucky to be in front of the cameras and act exactly how I felt, so it was a blessing.”


– Carlos Greer


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Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.


The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.


For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.


Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.


Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.


Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.


Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.


Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.


"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty.


"We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.


Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions.


"If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."


Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.


First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.


Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.


And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.


Here's how the math would work:


Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.


But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.


"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.


In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.


Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.


"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."


___


Online:


Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx


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S&P 500 eyes best winning streak in eight years

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Friday, buoyed by sturdy corporate earnings from Procter & Gamble and Honeywell, with the S&P 500 poised for its longest winning streak in more than eight years.


The strong start for the equity market this year has been attributed to solid corporate results, agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power, encouraging signs from the global economy and seasonal inflows into stocks.


Those factors helped the S&P 500 rally for a seventh day on Thursday to a five-year peak. Still, the index struggled to climb convincingly above 1,500, a level it surpassed briefly Thursday for the first time since December 2007.


If the S&P 500 rises for an eighth day on Friday it will be its longest winning streak since late 2004, when it rallied for nine straight days.


"We are seeing a very broad-based rally and the ingredients are still in place," said Steve Goldman, principal at Goldman Management in Short Hills, New Jersey. "This is the lift-off phase and it's still significant."


Procter & Gamble , the world's top household products maker, said quarterly profit soared past expectations and raised its sales and earnings outlook for the fiscal year. Shares rose 3.5 pct to $72.93.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 27.45 points, or 0.20 percent, to 13,852.78. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 4.19 points, or 0.28 percent, to 1,499.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 8.63 points, or 0.28 percent, to 3,139.01.


Honeywell International Inc posted fourth-quarter earnings just above Wall Street estimates, reflecting the diversified U.S. manufacturer's campaign to boost profit margins in the face of sluggish sales growth. The shares rose 0.9 percent to $68.82.


Pointing to a rotation out of bonds, U.S. 30-year Treasury bonds traded more than a point lower in price on Friday, with yields touching session highs at 3.10 percent.


"You have had more confidence from fund managers to provide more allocations to equity markets," which looked more attractive than bonds or cash, said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management.


Recent company earnings have been encouraging. Thomson Reuters data through early Thursday showed that of the 133 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 66.9 percent exceeded expectations, more than the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.


Microsoft Corp reported lower quarterly profit on Thursday as Office software sales slowed ahead of a new launch, offsetting a solid but unspectacular start for its Windows 8 operating system and sending the company's shares down 0.2 percent to $27.51.


Apple stepped up audits of working conditions at major suppliers last year, discovering multiple cases of underage workers, discrimination and wage problems. The shares, which fell 12 percent Thursday after disappointing earnings, were little changed at around $450.93.


German business morale improved for a third consecutive month in January to its highest in more than half a year, providing further evidence that growth in Europe's largest economy was gathering speed after contracting late last year.


Echoing a more positive tone in Europe, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Friday he expects the euro zone economy to recover later this year, and that financial market improvements had not yet trickled into the general economy.


(Editing by Bernadette Baum)



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IHT Rendezvous: France Is Sweet on 'Sugar Man'

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A love story is developing between the French and Rodriguez, the Detroit-born musician who flopped in the 1970s, was a star without knowing it in apartheid South Africa and was rediscovered last summer in the United States when the documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” was released.

The film tells the extraordinary story of a talented and philosophical musician who spent his life working in construction while struggling to bring up his three daughters, and the mind-boggling mutual discoveries in 1997: for him, that he was more famous than the Rolling Stones in South Africa, and for South African fans (who believed him to be dead), that he was alive.

The Swedish-British film by Malik Bendjelloul which has made more than $3 million at the box office in the United States, has been nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary category. In France the now-70-year-old Rodriguez has created something of a frenzy: The soundtrack album is among Sony France’s top sales on iTunes. Sony had planned on putting fewer than 3,000 CDs in stores, but after calls from vendors who sensed something was up, made 15,000 copies available.

“It is an honor and a pleasure,” said Rodriguez in an e-mail message last week from Detroit about his popularity in France. “I’ve been to France a couple of times now. It feels like I’m on top of the world.”

The French public has had a tradition of adopting American artists that it considers underappreciated in the United States, from Josephine Baker to Woody Allen, from Paul Auster to Ben Harper. Le Figaro newspaper recently dubbed Rodriguez the “unloved” singer.

David Nivesse, from ARP Selection, the film’s French distributor, and Christophe Servel Molvaer, project manager for Sony Music Legacy, France, say that it all started last November when Rodriguez came to Paris for a private concert following a preview of the documentary.

“He played for half an hour and you could hear a pin drop. There were 600 people in the room and he got a standing ovation,” Mr. Servel Molvaer recalled. “I had never heard of him before. But from the beginning I was captivated by this soul-folk. It’s something magical, and people love his music from the moment they hear it.”

“Music is a language all it’s own,” wrote Rodriguez. “I’ve been playing ‘La Vie En Rose’ a lot lately when I’m looking for sounds. It’s the notes and the rhythms — that is what speaks to me. I’m a music lover. I do vocal against guitar. Sometimes it’s like any words will work. A lot of songs out there have fewer words than guttural sounds like oohs and ahhs and grunts. That works for some people too. I’m glad the French like my stuff. It’s had a long life and I feel lucky for that.”

“Searching for Sugar Man” was released Dec. 26 in just two Paris cinemas. It has beaten all records at the Left Bank Saint Germain movie theater where it is playing. It is now playing in other cities in France including Bordeaux, Rennes and Nancy.

“We thought the film would do well but this is exceptional,” Mr. Nivesse said.

Rodriguez is playing concerts around the world now. One gig was scheduled for this June at La Cigale, a major Paris venue. It sold out within 72 hours. Another concert was added at the Zenith (capacity 6,500). He is also expected to play at the major French summer music festivals.

“I’ve been working 25 years in the business and never met anyone like this, with so much charisma, even though he doesn’t say much,” said Mr. Servel Molvaer.

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Nokia CEO closes the door on a potential Android smartphone

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Nokia (NOK) CEO Stephen Elop on Thursday shot down rumors that his company might be interested in developing Android-based smartphones. During Nokia’s fourth-quarter earnings call, the executive reiterated his support for the company’s Asha phones and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Phone platform, while shutting the door on earlier Android rumors.


[More from BGR: Unlocking your smartphone will be illegal starting next week]






“We are clearly innovating with Microsoft around Windows Phone, and are focused on taking that to lower and lower price points,” he said, according to TechCrunch. “You will see that over time [we will] compete with Android. But at the same time we’ve said consistently — and we’re just beginning to see it in the Asha full-touch products — that we will continue to innovate around our Asha smartphone line in order to compete with the very lowest levels of Android.”


[More from BGR: Why the iOS-Android feud is so intense: It’s about core philosophy more than products]


The executive also took shots at Google (GOOG) and the openness of its Android operating system, or lack thereof.


“The situation that Android is facing, where the amount of fragmentation that you’re seeing is increasing as people take it in different directions, is of course offset by Google’s efforts to turn an open ecosystem into something that’s quite a bit more closed as you’ve seen quite recently,” Elop said.


Elop concluded by saying that Nokia is “not in a situation where we are considering something other than Windows Phone combined with what we’re doing with Asha.”


This article was originally published on BGR.com


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Robin Roberts Stages 'Dry-Run' at Good Morning America Studio

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By Stephen M. Silverman





01/24/2013 at 09:50 AM EST







Robin Roberts in the GMA" studio, Jan. 24, 2013


Ida Mae Astute/ABC


Making good on her promise to practice a series of dry-runs at the Good Morning America studio in anticipation of returning to her anchoring chores sometime next month, Robin Roberts – and her alarm clock – got a healthy workout Thursday morning.

Roberts showed up at the studio at 5 a.m. after waking at 3:45 a.m., reports ABC, heralding the visit, which was Roberts's first since undergoing a bone marrow transplant Sept. 20.

Her last appearance at the anchors' desk had been Aug. 30, though she has appeared live from her hospital room and her New York City apartment since.

"What a thrill to be back at GMA's Times Square Studio this morning and see the best folks in the world, my GMA family," said Roberts, 51. "I can't wait to get back to the anchor chair in a few weeks."

In late December, Roberts, a breast cancer survivor, celebrated the crucial 100-day benchmark from her procedure to treat myelodysplastic syndrome or MDS, a rare blood disorder that affects the bone marrow. She has repeatedly thanked GMA viewers for their good thoughts and messages.

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AP Interview: UN wants better family planning

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DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The U.N.'s top population official wants governments to do more to ensure that women have access to family planning.


The U.N. says the world will add a billion people to its current population of some 7 billion within a decade, further straining the planet's resources.


Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, says more than 220 million women in the developing world want family planning but aren't getting it.


Speaking to The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said many women want to have fewer children and that "30 percent of those who die giving birth we can prevent with family planning."


He also called for providing girls with "comprehensive sexuality education."


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