Lens Blog: Lynsey Addario's Photographs of Women in Combat

Lynsey Addario, a  photographer for The New York Times, has extensively covered the war in Afghanistan, often focusing on female soldiers. She spoke with James Estrin about the Pentagon’s recent lifting of the ban on women in combat. The conversation, which took place via Skype from her home in London has been edited.

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When I heard about the lifting of the ban on women in combat, I thought about your coverage of female soldiers for The Times, and also about the interview we did about women covering conflict after you were freed from captivity in Libya. What was your reaction to the announcement?

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Lynsey Addario

Lynsey Addario, who freelances for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine and others, has previously appeared on Lens Blog.

It is a huge step historically, of course, but it’s actually just stating publicly what has been happening little by little over the past decade. Women have been fighting this war more and more, whether we acknowledge it or not.

They’re at bases all across Afghanistan, and they’re playing different roles – from black ops pilots to doing triage in forward-operating medical centers. They’re engaging women in villages of Helmand that are covered with landmines. They are getting shot at. They are dying, and they are getting injured.

Everyone can fight about whether women should be on the front lines, but the fact is that they are out there. So, at some point, you have to acknowledge it and compensate them for it or at least give them the dignity of saying “O.K., you’re out there, and thank you for it.” Instead of saying, “No, they’re not allowed,” but really, they are.

You’ve often focused on female soldiers.

Mostly in 2009 and 2010. Most of the work I shot on assignment for The New York Times when I was doing a series with Elisabeth Bumiller. And then when I was doing the big National Geographic story on women in Afghanistan, I did a few embeds focusing on female soldiers who would meet Afghan women. That work is so dear to me, and I loved shooting it.

Who are these women joining the military and wanting to be in combat?

They’re women who don’t feel inhibited by their sex, by their gender. I mean, they’re women who don’t feel limited by the fact that they were born women. They believe in fighting for their country. They want to be doing something to help fight the wars that we’ve been fighting for over a decade. And they want to be out there.

They’re no different than any of us. They have a goal, and they want to accomplish it. And they don’t want to be told they can’t do it because they’re women.

A lot of them are extremely ambitious, very dedicated. They work out all the time, very intelligent.

What made you want to do this story to pursue it so deeply?

One of the biggest challenges as a photographer is to take a subject that’s been covered for decades and to try to bring something new to it. I’ve been going on these embeds for years, and it’s very hard to make a compelling picture or something new that the reader hasn’t seen before.

When I started seeing women on the front line, I was intrigued.  It felt so strange to me, and I immediately got pulled in. I also had access to them because I was often put in the same tent or made to sleep in the room with all the women. I was always sort of pushed off with the women because on military bases, there’s a real separation. You know, you have to have separate sleeping quarters for women.

What is that you learned as you pursued this story?

I think the longer these wars go on, and the more women are inserted in these nontraditional roles in the military, the more we have to accept the fact that there are actually women on the front lines.

I myself am a woman, and I’ve been embedding for years with the military. And granted, I’m not carrying thousands of rounds of ammunition and the packs that they carry. But I do go on the same patrols that the men go on and I am able to keep up.

There are great differences between men and women in terms of strength and what we can carry and what we can keep up with, but I don’t think it’s necessary for men and women to be equal. I think that women can play a role on the front line without having to hold up the same amount of weight as men.

You said that you don’t have to look at men and women as being equal for women to contribute on the front line. What exactly did you mean?

Well, I think one of the arguments a lot of people have is that women can’t hold their own the way men can. For example, if you have a fellow soldier who’s been shot, can you carry his body alone back to a safe place? And one of the arguments is that a woman couldn’t do that. So therefore, she shouldn’t be out there.

I don’t know how you work around that. I’m not really sure what the answer is. The fact is that women are not as strong as a lot of men. There are some women who are, but I think, over all, it’s going to be a challenge to find women who can keep up with the physical endurance tests that men can. That said, I’m not sure how important that is anymore because the war is changing. The war we fight now is not the same war that was fought 40 years ago.

This is a war on terror, this is a war where the front lines are nebulous.

When we talked about your being on the front lines shortly after you were freed from Libya, you pointed to specific things you thought a woman could bring to the table. A woman may not have the same access to men, but they’re going to have much stronger access to women. And different perspectives. Is there a similar situation for female soldiers on the front line?

This gets back into the discussion about what is the front line. The female engagement teams were created to engage with Afghan women — 50 percent of the population — that we didn’t have access to before. That’s part of the whole counterinsurgency project. So, if you’re trying to win over a population and you don’t have access to 50 percent of the people, it’s going to be very hard.

You can’t do that with men because, traditionally in Afghanistan, men cannot go into a house and sit down with Afghan women. The female engagement teams went in, and they were able to sit down, drink tea and talk to Afghan women.

How much was accomplished is obviously up for discussion. Some people say not that much was accomplished and that they just went and drank tea. Some people say, “Well, they were able to gain trust of families that didn’t before believe that Americans were good people.”

If your doctrine is counterinsurgency, if you’re trying to win over the population, it’s probably worth the effort to go out and try to engage in a country that’s very segregated by the sexes.

I’m older than you, and I remember when there weren’t many women in the military. And there were heated discussions about how women can’t be in the military, how women can’t be captured, how it would harm the other soldiers and it would hurt morale.

Well, I remember when Elizabeth Rubin and I went to the Korengal Valley to embed with the 173rd Airborne. This was for The New York Times Magazine. And Elizabeth wanted to do a story about why, with all the firepower that we had, we weren’t winning the war? And how come there was so much collateral damage? And so basically, we lived on the side of a mountain for two months of the Korengal Outpost.

But when we first asked the press guys with the military to go to that base, they said, “It is not a place fit for women. You cannot go.” And Elizabeth and I said that’s exactly where we want to go. Now we really want to go.

And so finally, we fought so much that they sent us to the Korengal, and we were the only two women there for months. This was before the female engagement teams, and that particular outpost saw heavy fighting all the time. I mean, we were basically shot at or mortared almost on a daily basis.

We kept up with all the patrols. We went on six, seven hour a day patrols. We carried our own stuff. We were out there getting shot at as well. Now, were we carrying guns and ammunition? No. So it’s a very different thing. But we were able to keep up and we were able to live out there.

I think when you start challenging the norms and when you start pushing the boundaries a little, you realize that the boundaries can really be pushed.

Is there anything that you can think of that is a realistic boundary between male and female soldiers?

Yes. I mean, there are times where you need someone who can carry the soldier if he gets shot. Or you need someone who physically can carry a certain amount of rounds of ammunition. I’m not a commander in the military, so there’s a lot I don’t understand.

There are situations where women aren’t really fit to be in certain roles. Special Forces, for example. Do I think women can be in Special Forces? I’m not sure. The demand on the body and spending extended periods of time in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know if that’s O.K. for women.

But I do think there is space for women on the front lines, but it is always going to be defined by what exactly is that front line. Because it’s not Vietnam, we’re in a very different war.  It’s different from 30 years ago, or 20 years ago.

Is the situation of a female foreign correspondent or photojournalist on the front lines similar to that of female soldiers?

It’s different, because the military has layers and layers and layers of command. And so they take decisions as a group.

You know, when you’re dealing with the military, those are decisions that are made at a very high level and passed down. Me, I’m in charge of my own destiny. So I can decide, to a certain extent, how much I want to be in the middle of combat.

One time, we were shot at as I was walking around with one of the female engagement teams. Just because legally, they weren’t allowed to be on the front lines, they were still being shot at on the front lines.

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Follow @lynseyaddario, @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

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Ashley Judd Splits from Husband Dario Franchitti

01/29/2013 at 08:05 PM EST

Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti

Robin Marchant/Wireimage

Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti are splitting after more than a decade of marriage.

"We have mutually decided to end our marriage. We'll always be family and continue to cherish our relationship based on the special love, integrity, and respect we have always enjoyed," Judd, 44, and Franchitti, 39, tell PEOPLE exclusively in a statement on Tuesday.

After being engaged for about two years, the Missing star and the racecar driver tied the knot in a highly private ceremony in Scotland in 2001.

Judd's sister, Wynonna Judd, served as maid of honor, while the groom's brother Mario was the best man. – Julie Jordan

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.

Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.

Wounded by a roadside bomb in 2009, the former soldier said he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.

"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.

That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.

"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could eventually provide much of the same function as his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.

Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."

Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.

Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.

Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.

For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.

The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.

Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.

The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.

"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."

Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.

A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.

"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.

He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.

Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.

And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.

"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.

Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.

Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.

His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."

"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."

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Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.

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Asian shares gain on global recovery outlook, eyes Fed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose to their highest level in nearly 18 months on Wednesday as strong U.S. data further boosted investor confidence in global economic outlook, ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision due later in the session.

Optimism over economic recovery on strong U.S. housing market and China's economic growth forecast for 2013 raised expectations for stronger demand for fuel and industrial commodities, underpinning oil prices and lifting copper.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.6 percent, building on the previous day's 1 percent rally which snapped a four-day losing streak. Gains were led by a 1 percent rise in the energy sector <.miapjen00pus>.

London copper added 0.6 percent to $8,153.25 a tonne while U.S. crude oil held steady around $97.58 a barrel after rising more than 1 percent on Tuesday on expectations of higher demand. Brent also was steady around $114.35.

"Sentiment has changed this year, with signs of stabilization in the euro zone, a U.S. economic recovery and a shift to a new Chinese political regime removing obstacles which had stood in the way of investors taking risks last year," said Xiao Minjie, an independent economist based in Tokyo.

"Domestic demand holds key this year. Beijing's drive to urbanise inner China will boost infrastructure spending while Southeast Asia will also likely see expansion in domestic demand accelerating," he said.

Global stock markets rose on Tuesday as earnings from U.S. companies have generally beaten forecasts so far, with the latest upbeat results from Amazon boosting the company's stock 10 percent, while European equities scaled fresh two-year highs.

Commodity-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> inched up 0.2 percent after hitting a fresh 21-month high as top miners climbed on firmer copper prices.

"Shares are probably the most attractive asset," said Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital. "Despite the rebound over the last year, Australian shares are offering relatively attractive starting-point dividend yields."

Hong Kong shares <.hsi> jumped 1 percent and Shanghai shares <.ssec> rose 0.3 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> advanced 1.1 percent. <.t/>

FED STATEMENT EYED

The Fed ends a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, and few market watchers expect any near-term shift in its current, very accommodative stance.

But investors will focus on the statement for any clues to the Fed's thinking on if and when it might pull back from its aggressive easing stimulus. The minutes from the December meeting, released earlier this month, hinted at uneasiness within the Fed around its asset-buying program and sparked a sell-off in Treasuries and lifted yields up out of ranges.

"We see a prospect for sustained asset-price reflation in coming months, the result of G3 stimulus efforts and structural reallocation flows," said Morgan Stanley said in a research note.

"This has three implications: Reflation would lend support to higher-yielding emerging markets assets, safe-haven assets would continue to weaken, and expectations about emerging markets policy would likely shift."

The yen remained under pressure with the Bank of Japan set to pursue strong monetary easing as the Abe administration pushes for radical reflationary policies to end stubborn deflation.

The dollar rose 0.3 percent to 90.98 yen, near Monday's 91.32, its highest level since June 2010. The euro also gained 0.3 percent to 122.78 yen, not far from 122.91 also touched on Monday, its highest point since April.

The prospect of continued weakness in the yen and rising risk appetite lifted the Australian to four-year highs on the yen on Wednesday, while New Zealand dollars hovered near its highest against the yen in four years.

Aussie rose as high as 95.29 yen while Kiwi rose as high 76.26 yen, close to 76.37 set Friday, its strongest since 2008.

The euro traded at $1.3493, after scaling a 14-month high of $1.3498 on Tuesday.

Spot gold was nearly flat at $1,664.11 an ounce, above the key 200-day moving average at $1,662.92.

(Additional reporting by Miranda Maxwell in Melbourne; Editing by Eric Meijer & Kim Coghill)

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Hiroshi Nakajima, Leader of World Health Organization, Dies at 84

Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, a Japanese physician who as leader of the World Health Organization started campaigns to fight malaria and other infectious diseases but whose tenure, from 1988 to 1998, was marred by repeated accusations of mismanagement, died on Saturday in Poitiers, France. He was 84.

He died after a short illness, the organization said.

Besides his efforts to fight infectious diseases, including AIDS, tuberculosis and dengue fever, Dr. Nakajima enlarged the organization’s focus on preventive medicine and vaccinations for children, and tried to rally international support to end ritual female genital mutilation. In a statement on Monday, Dr. Margaret Chan, the current W.H.O. director general, praised his efforts to defeat polio.

But he came under frequent criticism. The United States and other Western nations twice opposed his election as director general of the agency, which is part of the United Nations. They argued that he had not infused the agency with a clear sense of direction and had let its budget and bureaucracy balloon.

In 1992, when Washington was fighting Dr. Nakajima’s re-election, Louis W. Sullivan, the secretary of health and human services, wrote, “It appears that W.H.O. is losing its reputation as the world’s leader in health matters at a time when serious global health problems present daunting challenges to us all.”

Dr. Nakajima was again cast in a harsh light when Dr. Jonathan Mann, the widely respected commander of the United Nations’s fight against AIDS, resigned in 1990. In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Mann said he resigned over “issues of principle” and “major disagreements” with Dr. Nakajima, who wanted to de-emphasize AIDS prevention and put more effort into other diseases, like malaria.

Dr. June Osborn, chairwoman of the National Commission on AIDS, called the resignation of Dr. Mann, who died in 1998, “a world tragedy.”

In the 1992 director general election, the United States accused Japan of overly aggressive tactics in promoting Dr. Nakajima’s candidacy. The State Department said Japan had threatened to cut off fish imports from the Maldives and coffee imports from Jamaica if those countries did not support Dr. Nakajima. A spokesman for Japan’s Foreign Ministry denied the accusations.

There were also allegations that Japan had awarded research contracts to 23 of the 31 W.H.O executive board members who recommended Dr. Nakajima’s re-election. A W.H.O. audit found that the contracts — the largest of which was $150,000 — were technically legal but presented “a problem of ethics,” in the words of the board chairman, Jean-François Girard of France.

Dr. Nakajima defeated Dr. Mohammed Abdelmoumene of Algeria, who had been his deputy, in a 93-58 vote. It was the first time in the organization’s history that an incumbent director had been challenged by another W.H.O. official.

In 1997, Dr. Nakajima announced that he would not seek a third term, in part because he had lost support from African nations after he had explained the relative scarcity of Africans in executive positions at the agency by suggesting that Africans had difficulty conceptualizing and writing reports.

The Economist magazine said the remark “was particularly odd coming from Dr. Nakajima, who has himself been accused of quasi-incomprehensibility, even when he speaks Japanese.”

Dr. Nakajima was born in Chiba-shi, Japan, on May 16, 1928. He graduated from Tokyo Medical University in 1955, representing the 10th generation of his family to produce a doctor. After studying psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Paris, he returned to Tokyo Medical University to earn a Ph.D. in medical sciences. He then became research director for Nippon Roche, the Japanese subsidiary of Hoffmann-LaRoche.

Dr. Nakajima joined the W.H.O. in 1974, and worked to improve getting medical supplies to the third world. He helped develop the concept of “essential medicines,” drugs that satisfy the health care needs of most of a population. In 1979, the Western Pacific nations elected him regional director, and he served two terms.

Dr. Nakajima is survived by his wife, the former Martha Ann DeWitt, and two sons.

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Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

On Facebook, he describes himself as a "wounded warrior...very wounded."

Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he's received a double-arm transplant.

Those new arms "already move a little," he tweeted a month after the operation.

Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday.

Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos.

"Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little," Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18.

Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: "dude I can't tell you how exciting this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over."

The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

"He was the first quad amputee to survive," and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said.

The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.

Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times. During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service.

"I wouldn't change it in any way. ... I feel great. I'm still the same person," he said.

The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins. It was the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States.

Lee led three of those earlier operations when he worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.

Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms.

"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.

While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the immune-suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand-transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well, and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new immune-suppression approach.

Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been fitted with prosthetic legs and had learned to walk on his own.

He had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from the tube that was in his throat during the long surgery and decided he sounded like Al Pacino. He soon started doing movie lines.

"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.

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Associated Press Writer Stephanie Nano in New York contributed to this report.

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Online:

Army regenerative medicine:

http://www.afirm.mil/index.cfm?pageid=home

and http://www.afirm.mil/assets/documents/annual_report_2011.pdf

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Follow Marilynn Marchione at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

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His cat, his lunch and a high five: Harper’s day chronicled on Twitter

OTTAWA – One of the cardinal rules of social media: no one cares what you had for lunch. Unless, perhaps, you’re the prime minister.

The people behind Stephen Harper‘s Twitter account are using the first day of Parliament’s winter sitting to provide an intimate look at how the prime minister spends his day.

The posts include a video of Harper’s ride to work, photos of breakfast with his cat Stanley and a lunch that included fruit and a Diet Coke at his desk.

The behind-the-scenes look is the latest move by Harper’s team to bolster his presence on social media platforms.

Digital public affairs analyst Mark Blevis says it’s likely an effort to rebrand Harper in the lead-up to the next election, where he’ll face off against politicians far more adept online.

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Asian shares rise, cautious before Fed, U.S. data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Tuesday as recent selling drew bargain hunters, but investors were cautious ahead of more U.S. economic reports and a Federal Reserve policy decision later in the week that may offer clues to the Fed's stimulus plans.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> advanced 0.7 percent to snap a four-day losing streak, led by a 1.1 percent jump in Australian shares <.axjo> to a fresh 21-month high on gains in financials shares.

South Korean shares <.ks11>, which slumped to an 8-week low on Monday, rebounded 0.8 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> reversed earlier declines and rose 0.6 percent, buoyed by optimism over earnings of major banks. It briefly touched a fresh 32-month high above 11,000 on Monday. <.t/>

The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> eased slightly on Monday after an eight-day winning run but held above 1,500 points, after closing above that level on Friday for the first time in more than five years.

Risk appetite has been improving overall with U.S. earnings generally solid. A rise in a gauge of planned U.S. business spending in December added to a recent run of positive global economic data, along with signs of easing financial stress in the euro zone. Euro zone blue chips touched fresh 18-month peaks on Monday.

More solid U.S. growth indicators would, however, fuel speculation the Fed may consider pulling back on aggressive easing stimulus. The Fed ends a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. The first estimate of U.S. fourth-quarter gross domestic product also will be released on Wednesday, followed by non-farm payrolls on Friday.

"Ahead of key events, markets are likely to stay in ranges. But with yields on U.S. Treasury and German government bonds inching higher, one might say investors may be shifting funds to riskier assets from safe-havens," said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.

"That's part of the reason why the euro has stayed firm," he said.

Saito said while a rise in U.S. yields underpins the dollar against the yen, they were likely to be capped with end-month selling from exporters and options lined up between 90.50 and 91.50 yen.

The benchmark U.S. 10-year note yield briefly pierced 2 percent on Monday for the first time since last April, and inched up 1 basis point (bps) in Asia from New York close. The 10-year Japanese government bond yield also rose.

Naka Matsuzawa, fixed income strategist at Nomura Securities, said in a research that 5-year Treasuries have sold off about 10 bps over the last two days and breached 0.80 percent that has served as a support since April 2012, a sell-off which "would not have occurred unless expectations of an economic recovery have gained ground to the extent that the monetary policy outlook begins to change."

"The market is aware that risks are toward more hawkish FOMC statements in the future rather than dovish ones," considering a pick-up in the U.S. economic recovery and stock market rally, as well as the underlying global risk-on trend, he said.

YEN SELLING PAUSES

Yen selling paused, helping to bolster the benchmark South Korean stock index which is vulnerable to exchange rate swings as exporters lead market capitalization.

The dollar fell 0.1 percent to 90.78 yen after touching 91.32 on Monday, its highest level since June 2010, while the euro recouped earlier losses against the yen to steady around 122.14 yen after hitting 122.91 on Monday, its highest point since April.

The euro steadied against the dollar at $1.3456.

The pound fell to $1.5687 GBP=D4, near its lowest since August, in part because of comments from incoming Bank of England Governor Mark Carney that there was still scope for monetary policy to do more in the developed world.

"The prospect of more activist monetary policy is not exactly an encouraging one for GBP, certainly not as it comes on top of a host of other negative developments - an economy that is triple-dipping, a government that is struggling to cut its deficit, and soul-searching about the UK's role within the EU," wrote analysts at JPMorgan in a note.

But a more positive global growth outlook underpinned commodities.

U.S. crude rose 0.2 percent to $96.67 a barrel and Brent inched up 0.1 percent to $113.54.

London copper gained 0.2 percent to $8,065.50 a tonne.

Gold inched up 0.3 percent to $1,659.66 an ounce but was capped by receding investor appetite for safe-haven assets.

(Editing by Eric Meijer & Kim Coghill)

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Pentagon to Beef Up Cybersecurity Force to Counter Attacks

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is moving toward a major expansion of its cybersecurity force to counter increasing attacks on the nation’s computer networks, as well as to expand offensive computer operations on foreign adversaries, defense officials said Sunday.

The expansion would increase the Defense Department’s Cyber Command by more than 4,000 people, up from the current 900, an American official said. Defense officials acknowledged that a formidable challenge in the growth of the command would be finding, training and holding onto such a large number of qualified people.

The Pentagon “is constantly looking to recruit, train and retain world class cyberpersonnel,” a defense official said Sunday.

“The threat is real and we need to react to it,” said William J. Lynn III, a former deputy defense secretary who worked on the Pentagon’s cybersecurity strategy.

As part of the expansion, officials said the Pentagon was planning three different forces under Cyber Command: “national mission forces” to protect computer systems that support the nation’s power grid and critical infrastructure; “combat mission forces” to plan and execute attacks on adversaries; and “cyber protection forces” to secure the Pentagon’s computer systems.

The move, part of a push by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to bolster the Pentagon’s cyberoperations, was first reported on The Washington Post’s Web site.

In October, Mr. Panetta warned in dire terms that the United States was facing the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation’s power grid, transportation system, financial network and government. He said that “an aggressor nation” or extremist group could cause a national catastrophe, and that he was reacting to increasing assertiveness and technological advances by the nation’s adversaries, which officials identified as China, Russia, Iran and militant groups.

Defense officials said that Mr. Panetta was particularly concerned about a computer attack last August on the state oil company Saudi Aramco, which infected and made useless more than 30,000 computers. In October, American intelligence officials said they were increasingly convinced that the Saudi attacks originated in Iran. They described an emerging shadow war of attacks and counterattacks already under way between the United States and Iran in cyberspace.

Among American officials, suspicion has focused on the “cybercorps” created in 2011 by Iran’s military, partly in response to American and Israeli cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment plan at Natanz. There is no hard evidence, however, that the attacks were sanctioned by the Iranian government.

The attacks emanating from Iran have inflicted only modest damage. Iran’s cyberwarfare capabilities are weaker than those of China and Russia, which intelligence officials believe are the sources of a significant number of attacks on American companies and government agencies.

The expansion of Cyber Command comes as the Pentagon is making cuts elsewhere, including in the size of its conventional armed forces.

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How SAG Stars Got Their Start: Sofia Vergara Credits Her 'Hooker Looks'

Today, she's one of the world's sexiest stars. But Sofia Vergara wasn't quite as celebrated for her curves early in her career.

The Modern Family actress was among a handful of actors who kicked off Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards with personal stories about how they got started in the business. Vergara, 40, joked about her famous figure.

"I grew up in Barranquilla, Colombia, in a very traditional Catholic home," she said. "My father told me that if I ever did anything artistic, I was going to look like a hooker. I told him, 'With these huge boobs that I inherited from your mother, I already look like a hooker!' "

30 Rock's Jane Krakowski had a little fun with Hollywood's reputation for having no use for aging women. At 12 years old, she said, she played Chevy Chase's niece in National Lampoon's Vacation. Krakowski, 44, added: "Today, I would be cast as his wife. In two years, I will play his mother."

Helen Hunt detailed the crazy variety of her roles – "I've played a waitress, a cuckoo clock, a quarterback and a sex surrogate" – while Alfre Woodard said she was surprised she became an actor at all, since she always had trouble remembering people's names.

Chris Tucker said he became "fascinated with the art" as a 9-year-old when he saw Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy.

For Hal Holbrook, the inspiration was simpler. He was lazy – and acting class didn't give you homework.

How They Officially Joined the Club

Other stars reflected specifically on the moment they got their SAG cards – a momentous moment for many, including Anne Hathaway, who mentioned it at the beginning of her speech in accepting the best supporting actress honor for her role in Les Misérables.

"I got my SAG card when I was 14," she said. "It felt like the beginning of the world. I have loved every single minute of my life as an actor. And I have been the recipient of so much kindness and support from actors in this room and out of it. ... Thank you for this award."

Jennifer Lawrence also mentioned getting a SAG card in her acceptance speech, when she won best actress for Silver Linings Playbook. Like Hathaway, Lawrence – who is now 22 – was 14 at the time.

"I want to thank MTV," she said. "I did an MTV promo for My Super Sweet 16. And I remember getting [the card] in the mail and it being the best day of my entire life because it officially made me a professional actor. Which put me in a category with all of you."

"And now I have this naked statue that means that some of you even voted for me," she added.

Like many actors, Twilight's Peter Facinelli and Modern Family's Ty Burrell both got their SAG cards working on Law & Order.

Facinelli, talking on the red carpet, said he dropped out of college after that. "I ran into [Law & Order creator] Dick Wolf. ... I said, 'I didn't get my diploma because of you, but I got my SAG card because of you." But, Facinelli doesn't regret not finishing school: "I was majoring in theater. It all worked out."

Burrell says he was "unmemorable" on the crime show, which allowed him to play different roles on different episodes. "Nobody noticed that now I was playing an assassin," he joked.

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