Film trailer: Franco and Portman in 'Your Highness'

A new trailer for the period fantasy comedy, Your Highness, was released December 21. It stars James Franco (127 Hours, Howl), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer), and Danny McBride (Due Date, Up in the Air, Despicable Me) who also co-wrote the story.

A restricted red-band video was release in November. This latest version tells more of the storyline.

Directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express), the story follows Prince Fabious who heads off on a quest to rescue his kidnapped bride-to-be and save his father's kingdom, accompanied by his lazy deadbeat brother Thadeous.

The footage follows the comedic antics of McBride, the valiant Franco slaying dragons, warrior princess Portman, adventures with an evil wizard and horrific creatures as the princes must take this perilous trek to free the princess, stumbling along the way.

Flu kills 27 including nine children

The data, from the Health Protection Agency (HPA), relates to the number of confirmed flu deaths across the UK since October.

Almost half of those who died were in an "at risk" group, such as those suffering from diabetes, heart disease or asthma.

The HPA would not confirm if any of the deaths were among pregnant women because of worries over identification.

Just one of the people who died (and whose vaccination status was known) had received this year's flu vaccine.

A spokeswoman for the HPA said the flu jab was only 70% to 80% effective, meaning somebody could still potentially die from flu if they were vaccinated but had an underlying serious illness.

"It is not a vaccine failure; it means the person's illness is so serious that they are very weak."

Figures out yesterday showed rates of flu infection have more than doubled in the last week.

Cases of flu have risen to 87.1 per 100,000 people, from 32.8 in the previous week, according to England and Wales data from the Royal College of GPs.

Rates of flu are highest in youngsters aged five to 14, followed by those under four, then people aged 15 to 44.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, interim chief medical officer for England, said rates of flu were within the expected range for the time of year.

"Clearly, any death is sad for the family and the patient and we don't like it," she told the BBC.

"But 27 deaths at this stage of seasonal flu is not a large number.

"What we are seeing with the data at the moment is a rise in consultations with GPs around flu which are within the normal range for winter flu."

But she said the difference is that the dominant strain, swine flu, affects younger people.

"They are young, some are pregnant, and it is not only people in at-risk groups."

Overall, the numbers in at-risk groups getting vaccinated "continues to remain low", the HPA said.

Some 43% of at-risk groups under the age of 65 in England have had the jab, compared with 68.5% of over-65s.

The HPA data also showed 19 patients are receiving specialist intensive care treatment, known as extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).

ECMO is for the most severe cases and uses an artificial lung to oxygenate the blood outside the body.

Department of Health figures from earlier in the week showed 302 people are currently in intensive care with flu.

New figures on this group of patients will be released by the Department of Health tomorrow.

Millions affected as Skype goes down

Skype suffered an outage lasting several hours on Wednesday affecting millions of users of the Internet communications service.

"Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal - thanks for your continued patience," Luxembourg-based Skype said in a message on its Twitter feed @Skype.

In a blog post, Skype explained that computers known as "supernodes" had been taken offline by an unspecified problem affecting some versions of Skype.

"Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available," Skype said. "Our engineers are creating new 'mega-supernodes' as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal.

"This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations," Skype said. "Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal."

Skype, which was founded in 2003, bypasses the standard telephone network by channeling voice, video and text conversations over the Internet.

The company announced plans in August to raise up to 100 million dollars in shares by listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The service has millions of users around the world and many took to Twitter to complain about the outage in a variety of languages.

"Holy crap. end of the world... #skype is down," wrote Rafael Otero on his Twitter feed @rotero.

"Ugh. #skype went down when I was in the middle of a call," said Carly-Anne Fairlie on @carlyannedotcom.

Technology blogger Om Malik, writing on his blog GigaOm.com, said the outage was a serious issue for a company that is "starting to ask larger corporations for their business."

"If I am a big business, I would be extremely cautious about adopting Skype for business, especially in the light of this current outage," Malik said, adding that Skype "needs to ensure that it doesn't go down. Even for a few minutes."

Spain's master of haute couture makes final bow

The grandfather of Spanish fashion, 81-year-old Elio Berhanyer, has become the latest victim of the country's ailing economy. The veteran designer, a survivor of Spain's bygone era of haute couture who once dressed Ava Gardner and Cyd Charisse, was forced to close his Madrid atelier this month after a year of sluggish sales. His employees reportedly had not received their wages since September.

Mr Berhanyer's elegant prêt-à-porter line could not survive in these belt-tightening days, especially against competition from large international firms. Until now, the self-taught octogenarian had managed to churn out a collection for the Madrid catwalk each season while also updating his classic line. Just last year, Madrid Fashion Week paid tribute to his 50 years in the business with a special show.

"Without the crisis, the business needed an aspirin; with the crisis, it needed morphine," said Pedro Mansilla, a fashion historian who organised a retrospective of the designer's work at the Museum of Costume in Madrid last year, including his space-age mini-skirts, award-winning Iberia airline hostess uniform and a transparent tunic dress for Spain's first on-stage nude scene.

"Nothing was selling and rent in the area was very expensive. He lost €500,000 (£425,000) last year. What Elio does best is haut couture but what he was selling was prêt-a-porter, and those who can afford it prefer to simply shop at Prada."

In his heyday, Mr Berhanyer's futuristic look with metallic trimmings symbolised modernity and freedom for a generation of well-heeled Spanish women emerging from the enforced sobriety of the Franco dictatorship.

He began his career as a magazine illustrator in his native Cordoba and then stumbled into fashion while working as a window dresser for an Elizabeth Arden salon in Madrid. By the 1970s, he was designing collections for American department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller and Neiman Marcus and dressing the future Spanish queen. His light, yet highly structured, creations, sometimes compared to the avant-garde work of Andre Courreges, appeared in glossies such as Harper's Baazar.

He once rejected an invitation to work with Cristobal Balenciaga in Paris. A mutual client had shown the master couturier Mr Berhanyer's work. But he preferred to forge his own design personality, believing at the time that Spain would eventually rival France as a fashion centre. He skirted ruin when Spain's haut couture houses closed, but rose from the ashes with his prêt-à-porter label.

"Elio is living history and a key figure in Spanish haute couture," said Modesto Lomba, president of the Association of Spanish Fashion Designers. "He has the affection, respect and support of the entire sector."

Mr Lomba blames the atelier's closure on poor management by his financial backer, the clothing firm Artesanos Camiseros. "This is not a failure of Elio Berhanyer, who has had a brilliant career for 50 years," he said.

Despite the closure and rumours of ill health, Mr Berhanyer is not expected to retire. He will continue to work on spin-off businesses, such as furniture, shoes and accessories, sold at a shop in Cordoba. He will also oversee the creation of a museum of his works and perhaps indulge in the occasional made-to-order bridal gown. Mr Mansilla hopes he gets the chance to stage a farewell show at the Madrid Fashion Week. "His financial backers will try to keep him working as much as possible," Mr Mansilla said. "Elio's flame will remain alive."

Arab OPEC ministers to meet as oil price tops $90

CAIRO - Core OPEC ministers began arriving in Cairo on Thursday ahead of talks expected to broach how high an oil price the world economy can stand as the market hovers near two-year peaks above $90 a barrel.

A full conference of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries earlier this month elected to make no change to an output policy it has stuck to since December 2008.

Since then oil has maintained a more than 30 percent rally from this year's low struck in May and this week scaled a high of $90.80, the steepest in two years.

The Organization of Arab Exporting Countries (OAPEC) brings together the Arab members of OPEC, including top exporter Saudi Arabia, which has traditionally been viewed as a price moderate.

Ministers began arriving on Thursday in time for Saturday's meeting when they will not take any formal decision on output, but can still discuss production and price.

Analysts have said the likelihood is OPEC will begin to produce more oil, although first of all by informally pumping in excess of agreed limits rather than through a policy change.

"I think we are going to see more production because oil is above $90," said Patrick Armstrong of London-based Armstrong Investment Managers.

"The market could easily go for $100 because we're starting to see more commodities allocation to preserve the real value of investment portfolios, but I don't think we're going to see scenarios for spikes."

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said at the start of November consumers were looking for prices in a $70-$90 range.

He later reiterated a view the kingdom has held for two years that $70-to-$80 was the best range for producers and consumers, ensuring enough revenue to generate investment in new supply while avoiding the economic damage that could destroy demand.

DIVERGENT PRICE AMBITIONS

But others in the group have pressed for a higher price, arguing quantitative easing and a weakened U.S. dollar that has spurred gains across financial markets mean the oil price strength is partly nominal.

In Quito earlier this month, OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said OPEC would base any change in policy on fundamentals of supply and demand, rather than price alone.

"If it goes to $100 due to speculation, OPEC will not move," Badri said.

OPEC's record output cut of 4.2 million barrels per day agreed in December 2008 leaves plenty of room for informal adjustments.

The group's adhesion to its agreed targets stands at 56 percent, a Reuters survey found.

Output discipline reached record levels in the first part of 2009 when the producer group worked hard to shore up a market that had crashed down to just above $30 a barrel after hitting the July 2008 record of nearly $150.

An anticipated increase in oil demand next year is expected to take absolute consumption to a new high, but analysts are still careful to draw a distinction between the current market and the protracted bull run that began at the start of the decade and culminated in the 2008 record.

The rate of demand growth next year has been pegged at 1.5 million bpd, a Reuters poll showed, only half the 2004 peak, according to data from the International Energy Agency, of 3 million bpd.

At the same time, OPEC spare capacity is ample at several million barrels per day, and crude inventories in the world's biggest oil consumer the United States are still above year-ago levels, even after a sharp drop reported this week.

Bad golfers can ignore etiquette of yelling 'fore' - court

NEW YORK - Bad golfers who shank balls can ignore the proper course etiquette of yelling "fore", according to a ruling by New York's top court.

The case was brought by Dr. Azad Anand, who was struck in the eye by a shanked shot during a 2002 Long Island golf game with his friend Dr. Anoop Kapoor.

Anand claimed his injury was caused by Kapoor failing to yell "fore" or a similar courtesy warning for an oncoming shot.

But the New York State Court of Appeals, upholding lower court rulings, unanimously ruled on Tuesday that Kapoor was not at fault.

"A person who chooses to participate in a sport or recreational activity consents to certain risks that are inherent in and arise out of the nature of the sport generally and flow from such participation," the court wrote.

Anand was looking for his own ball on the golf course when Kapoor teed off without warning, struck him in the left eye and detached his retina, according to the suit. Anand said he suffered a permanent loss of vision.

Earlier this year, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled against a golfer who sued a golf course after he was struck in the eye. The court said the golf course had no duty to protect the golfer against the risks of playing the game.

ICC rule spot-fixing hearing to go ahead in January

LONDON - Pakistan's suspended test captain Salman Butt will attend a hearing into spot-fixing charges in Doha in January after the International Cricket Council rejected his application to adjourn proceedings.

Butt, who faces charges alongside teammates Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, had wanted to defer the ICC's anti-corruption tribunal hearing until after an investigation held by Scotland Yard into the allegations had finished.

An ICC statement on Wednesday read:

"Mr Beloff, the chairman of the ICC anti-corruption tribunal, following a lengthy telephone hearing and having received written submissions, has ruled that Mr Butt's application is denied and as such, the full hearing will take place as scheduled from January 6-11 2011 in Doha, Qatar."

The three cricketers were suspended by the ICC in early September after the News of the World newspaper claimed that Pakistani bookmaker Mazhar Majeed had paid them bribes to bowl no-balls deliberately in the fourth test against England at Lords.

The ICC tribunal will hear evidence from the ICC anti-corruption unit and decide whether to ban the players or remove their suspensions and allow them to resume their careers.

The lawyers representing Amir and Asif had not supported Butt's plea. "We want a decision on the suspensions and allegations against my client soon," Amir's lawyer Shahid Karim told Geo Super channel.

"Asif's lawyer has also not supported this move," he added.

Benitez reign at Inter ends in ignominy

MILAN - Rafael Benitez's reign as Inter Milan coach ended in ignominy on Thursday when he left the European champions after just six months in charge having dared to question club owner Massimo Moratti's authority.

"Inter and Rafael Benitez announce that, mutually and with satisfaction on each side, they have reached an agreement for the early resolution of his contract," said a statement from the Serie A club after days of talks.

"Inter thank Rafael Benitez for his work with the team which led to Italian Super Cup and World Club Cup success. Rafael Benitez thanks Inter for a great professional experience and the victories obtained together."

The Spaniard, appointed in June after treble-winner Jose Mourinho left for Real Madrid, was already on shaky ground with his team slumping to seventh in Serie A and spluttering through the Champions League group stages.

He had appeared to secure his job with Saturday's World Club Cup triumph, only to explode in the post-match news conference and threaten to discuss his future with his agent if signings did not materialise in the January transfer window.

Benitez directly criticised Moratti, saying he was promised buys in the close-season which did not arrive and pointing out that the club recruited five first-teamers last term under Mourinho and yet did not bring any player in for him.

His ultimatum was too much for Moratti, a man not known for his patience, especially as it came when the president thought his side should be celebrating a fifth trophy of a great year rather than pondering his outburst.

Former Liverpool coach Benitez knew when he took the job that Italian soccer worked differently from English with the clubs rather than the coaches buying players.

He even said he saw this as positive element of the move having left Liverpool after six years in which his transfer spending at Anfield was heavily criticised by fans and media.

However, a raft of early injuries at Inter, which some pundits blamed on his new training regime, meant Benitez was down to the bare bones by late October and the lack of signings rankled with him more.

SPALLETTI STAYING?

The former Valencia boss had become increasingly militant at Liverpool after a quiet start, famously lambasting Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson in a news conference before using bizarre Spanish proverbs about milk, sugar mountains and priests to criticise his ex-Anfield bosses when he arrived at Inter.

His blast at Inter was a step too far for the Italians, though, given they were his current employers and he now finds himself out of work while Inter begin the task of replacing him knowing they do not have a game until Serie A resumes on Jan. 6.

Zenit St Petersburg coach Luciano Spalletti was tipped by media and bookmakers to take over but the Russian champions have said the former AS Roma boss is staying.

Former Inter goalkeeping great Walter Zenga is therefore the a new favourite along with ex-AC Milan boss Leonardo, whose former side are now top of Serie A in a galling reminder to their city rivals of how far they have fallen since May's treble.

Their chances of a sixth straight Serie A title look remote whoever takes over as Inter lie 13 points behind Milan.

Israeli settlers building 100 illegal homes

JERUSALEM - Israeli settlers have illegally begun work on at least 100 homes in the occupied West Bank since the end of a freeze on settlement construction, Israel's Peace Now movement said on Thursday.

"Since the end of the settlement freeze at the end of September, at least 100 buildings are now under construction in the West Bank," Peace Now's secretary general Yariv Oppenheimer told.

In November 2009, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implemented a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, but he refused to renew the ban after it expired on September 26, despite intense international pressure.

"The illegal building being carried out without the necessary permits from the authorities is taking place both in existing settlements and outposts," Oppenheimer said.

"If an Israeli built under the same circumstances in Tel Aviv for example, it would all be destroyed on the spot and he would brought to justice."

A military spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, refused to comment on Peace's Now's figures.

"We have applied the law against illegal building in Judea and Samaria all year, and we will continue to do so," he told AFP, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council, a leading settler organisation, told military radio he could neither confirm nor deny Peace Now's figures.

"But we have to keep the big picture in mind, because the real scandal is the failure of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, since he took office in March 2009, to issue a single call for tenders for legal construction of houses in Judea and Samaria," he said.

"The government is strangling the settlements," he added, pointing out that Netanyahu approved at least 4,600 tenders for West Bank settlements during his last term between 1996 and 1999.

And in the two-year government headed by Labour politician Ehud Barak, from 1999 to 2001, some 4,900 homes were approved for construction in West Bank settlements, Dayan said.

But Oppenheimer said the lack of new tender offers was not holding back the expansion of settlements because there were at least 1,700 outstanding building permits for areas where construction has not yet started.

"The settlers who are boosting outpost construction want to benefit from the end of the settlement freeze to expand the facts on the ground," said Hagit Ofran, the director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch project.

"They think that the government won't actually do anything to stop them," she told AFP, adding Peace Now had submitted documents on the illegal building to the attorney general's office, seeking a legal investigation.

Settlement construction on occupied land in the West Bank and Jerusalem remains is one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and sunk the last round of direct talks between the two sides.

The negotiations, the first direct talks in nearly two years, began September 2 in Washington but ground to a halt after Netanyahu's partial settlement freeze expired on September 26.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will not return to talks unless Israel reimposes a building ban, and extends it to east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for the capital of their future state.

Netanyahu resisted strong international pressure to renew the freeze, including a generous US package of incentives, forcing the United States to admit it had failed to secure a new ban.

More than 300,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, and another 200,000 live across east Jerusalem along with some 270,000 Palestinians.

NKorea threatens 'sacred war' amid tension

POCHEON - North Korea threatened Thursday to launch a "sacred" nuclear war against South Korea if it attacks, as Seoul staged military exercises that have raised already high tensions on the peninsula.

The remarks seemed aimed at revving patriotic spirit on the eve of the 19th anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as the supreme military commander.

Defense chief Kim Yong Chun said North Korea is "fully prepared to launch a sacred war" — and would use its nuclear capabilities — if attacked and warned the South against intruding even the smallest amount on its territory, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea's anger has been piqued this week by South Korea's staging of live-fire drills on Yeonpyeong Island, which was shelled by the North's artillery on Nov. 23. Four South Koreans were killed.

North Korea has said it shelled the island because South Korea fired artillery into its territorial waters first. South Korea has countered that it fired artillery away from North Korea as part of routine drills.

Earlier Thursday, South Korea conducted its largest air-and-ground firing drills near the tense land border in a show of force against North Korea. The North's state media has called the drills "provocative" and "offensive."

The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

WikiLeaks to publish 'sensitive' Israel cables: TV

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said his whistleblowing website plans to publish hundreds of "sensitive" US diplomatic cables on Israel, Al-Jazeera television reported on Thursday.

"Sensitive and classified documents" on Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon and January's assassination in Dubai of Hamas militant Mahmud al-Mabhuh would be released, Assange told Al-Jazeera in an interview.

Assange said WikiLeaks had 3,700 US documents on Israel, including 2,700 originating from the Jewish state, but denied the website had any agreement in place to spare the country of leaks.

"We do not have any secret deals with any country," he said according to an Arabic translation of remarks he made in English which were posted on Al-Jazeera's website.

"We do not have any direct or indirect contacts with the Israelis," Assange is quoted as saying, adding no more than two percent of available documents on Israel have been released so far.

Some of Israel's neighbours, most notably Turkey, have expressed unease at the lack of leaks the whistleblowing website has released on the Jewish state.

Israel fought a devastating one-month war with Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers.

Dubai police chief Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan has linked Israel's spy agency Mossad to the January 20 Cold War-style assassination in a Dubai hotel of Mabhuh.