The Pope’s Legacy, a Buddhist Scandal, and the Science of Violent Video Games

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Top Stories: Though his written teachings were praised, Pope Benedict XVI “often appeared to carom from one crisis to the next” when facing real-life challenges. 

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World: Allegations of sexual harassment by Joshu Sasaki, an influential Buddhist teacher, has “upset and obsessed Zen Buddhists across the country, who are part of a close-knit world in which many participants seem to know, or at least know of, the principal teachers.”  

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U.S.: At the State of the Union Washington will also be looking to see the “the state of Barack Obama.”

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New York: In communities still trapped by snow residents turned to plowing the roads themselves and using mass transit. 

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Business: A Japanese television series about a company that “turns to advanced lithium-ion” is all too real for the country. 

Technology: Though the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program is supposed to bring Internet to places private companies deemed too expensive, it is now being characterized as wasteful. 

Science: Benedict Carey takes a look at the research on video games and violence, some of which “has begun to clarify what can and cannot be said about the effects of violent gaming.” 

Sports: Holding the breed judging for Westminster at Piers 92/94 added a new hiccup to the competition: “crosstown dog schlepping on a rainy day.” 

Opinion: James Martin on Benedict XVI’s resignation and legacy. 

Music: An interview with Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music, whose The Jazz Age re-imagines some of his most famous songs “in the style of 1920s jazz.”

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Ryan Reynolds Punches Costar Scott Speedman on Set of New Film

By Maggie Coughlan

02/13/2013 at 01:50 PM EST

Ryan Reynolds and Scott Speedman

AKM-GSI

Don't mess with Ryan Reynolds!

The actor, 36, proved he knows how to pack a punch while filming a scene for Queen of the Night in Sudbury, Canada, on Tuesday.

On the receiving end of Reynolds's fist is his costar, Scott Speedman.

Directed by Atom Egoyan, the thriller is focused around a father trying to locate his kidnapped daughter.

In addition to Reynolds and Speedman, the movie also stars Rosario Dawson.

But it hasn't been all work and no play for Reynolds, who has been filming in frigid temperatures. Wife Blake Lively – donning lots of warm layers – recently joined him in Sudbury for a date at the movies.

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Report: Tracking system needed to fight fake drugs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the problem of fake drugs will require putting medications through a chain of custody like U.S. courts require for evidence in a trial, the Institute of Medicine reported Wednesday.

The call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.

Fake and substandard drugs have become an increasing concern as U.S. pharmaceutical companies move more of their manufacturing overseas. The risk made headlines in 2008 when U.S. patients died from a contaminated blood thinner imported from China.

The Institute of Medicine report made clear that this is a global problem that requires an international response, with developing countries especially at risk from phony medications. Drug-resistant tuberculosis, for example, is fueled in part by watered-down medications sold in many poor countries.

"There can be nothing worse than for a patient to take a medication that either doesn't work or poisons the patient," said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University who led the IOM committee that studied how to combat the growing problem.

A mandatory drug-tracking system could use some form of barcodes or electronic tags to verify that a medication and the ingredients used to make it are authentic at every step, from the manufacturing of the active ingredient all the way to the pharmacy, he said. His committee examined fakes so sophisticated that health experts couldn't tell the difference between the packaging of the FDA-approved product and the look-alike.

"It's unreliable unless you know where it's been and can secure each point in the supply chain," Gostin said.

Patient safety advocates have pushed for that kind of tracking system for years, but attempts to include it in FDA drug-safety legislation last summer failed.

The report also concluded that:

—The World Health Organization should develop an international code of practice that sets guidelines for monitoring, regulation and law enforcement to crack down on fake drugs.

—States should beef up licensing requirements for the wholesalers and distributors who get a drug from its manufacturer to the pharmacy, hospital or doctor's office.

__Internet pharmacies are a particularly weak link, because fraudulent sites can mimic legitimate ones. The report urged wider promotion of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's online accreditation program as a tool to help consumers spot trustworthy sites.

The Institute of Medicine is an independent organization that advises the government on health matters.

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Wall Street rally stalls, S&P 500 skims November 2007 high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday amid investor caution after the S&P 500 index briefly hit its highest intraday level since November 2007.

The benchmark index got a boost from Comcast Corp , which said it will buy the rest of NBC Universal for $16.7 billion from General Electric Co .

Equities have been strong performers until recently, buoyed largely by healthy growth in corporate earnings, which helped the S&P 500 to rise 6.5 percent so far this year. The Dow industrials are about 1 percent away from an all-time intraday high, reached in October 2007.

Those gains have left the market vulnerable to a pullback as investors are likely to take profit amid a dearth of new catalysts. While analysts see an upward bias in stocks, recent daily moves have been small and trading volumes light with indexes at multi-year highs.

"I was expecting a 12-15 percent return on the S&P for the whole year of 2013, and we have done about half of that in just 5-6 weeks," said Jack De Gan, principal at Harbor Advisory in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"We will hit resistance, but the fundamentals and (microeconomic) picture are looking good, so if there is a correction, it's going to be a brief one."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 39.17 points, or 0.28 percent, at 13,979.53. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.80 points, or 0.05 percent, at 1,520.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 7.01 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,193.50.

Investors shrugged off the latest economic data, which showed that retail sales rose just 0.1 percent, as expected, in January as tax increases and higher gasoline prices restrained spending.

The S&P 500 was well above its 50-day moving average of 1,460.92, a sign the market could be overbought.

Comcast agreed late Tuesday to buy General Electric Co's remaining 49 percent stake in NBC Universal for $16.7 billion. Comcast jumped 4.4 percent to $40.70 as the S&P's top percentage gainer while Dow component GE was up 3.3 percent to $23.33.

Deere & Co reported earnings that beat expectations and raised its full-year profit outlook. After initially rallying in premarket trading, the stock fell 3 percent to $91.13.

According to the latest Thomson Reuters data, of the 353 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.3 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Industrial and construction shares fell, though President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address late Tuesday, called for $50 billion in spending to create jobs by rebuilding degraded roads and bridges.

The Dow Jones Home Construction index <.djushb> was off 0.5 percent.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Bernadette Baum)

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Pope confident his resignation will not hurt Church

ROME (Reuters) - A visibly moved Pope Benedict tried to assure his worldwide flock on Wednesday over his stunning decision to become the first pontiff in centuries to resign, saying he was confident that it would not hurt the Church.

The Vatican, meanwhile, announced that a conclave to elect his successor would start sometime between March 15 and March 20, in keeping with Church rules about the timing of such gatherings after the papal see becomes vacant.

"Continue to pray for me, for the Church and for the future pope," he said in unscripted remarks at the start of his weekly general audience, his first public appearance since his shock decision on Monday that he will step down on February 28.

It was the first time Benedict, 85, who will retire to a convent inside the Vatican, exchanging the splendor of his 16th century Apostolic Palace for a sober modern residence, had uttered the words "future pope" in public.

Church officials are still so stunned by the move that the Vatican experts have yet to decide what his title will be and whether he will continue to wear the white of a pope, the red of a cardinal or the black of an ordinary priest.

His voice sounded strong at the audience but he was clearly moved and his eyes appeared to be watering as he reacted to the thunderous applause in the Vatican's vast, modern audience hall, packed with more than 8,000 people.

In brief remarks in Italian that mirrored those he read in Latin to stunned cardinals on Monday he appeared to try to calm Catholics' fears of the unknown.

He message was that God would continue to guide the Church.

EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE

"I took this decision in full freedom for the good of the Church after praying for a long time and examining my conscience before God," he said.

He said he was "well aware of the gravity of such an act," but also aware that he no longer had the strength required to run the 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic Church, which has been beset by a string of scandals both in Rome and round the world.

Benedict said he was sustained by the "certainty that the Church belongs to Christ, who will never stop guiding it and caring for it" and suggested that the faithful should also feel comforted by this.

He said that he had "felt almost physically" the affection and kindness he had received since he announced the decision.

When Benedict resigned on Monday, the Vatican spokesman said the pontiff did not fear schism in the Church after his decision to step down.

Some 115 cardinals under the age of 80 will be eligible to enter a secret conclave to elect his successor.

Cardinals around the world have already begun informal consultations by phone and email to construct a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church in a period of continuing crisis.

The likelihood that the next pope would be a younger man and perhaps a non-Italian, was increasing, particularly because of the many mishaps caused by Benedict's mostly Italian top aides.

Benedict has been faulted for putting too much power in the hands of his friend, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Critics of Bertone, effectively the Vatican's chief administrator, said he should have prevented some papal mishaps and bureaucratic blunders.

ILL-SERVED POPE

"These scandals, these miscommunications, in many cases were caused by Pope Benedict's own top aides and I think a lot of Catholics around the world think that he was perhaps ill-served by some of the cardinals here," said John Thavis, author of a new book The Vatican Diaries.

Benedict's papacy was rocked by crises over sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.

His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was accused of leaking his private papers.

"When cardinals arrive here for the conclave ... they are going to have this on their mind, they're going to take a good hard look at how Pope Benedict was served, and I think many of them feel that the burden of the papacy that finally weighed so heavy on Benedict was caused in part by some of this in-fighting (among his administration)," Thavis told Reuters.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi urged the faithful to remain confident in the Church and its future.

"Those who may feel a bit disorientated or stunned by this, or have a hard time understanding the Holy Father's decision should look at it in the context of faith and the certainty that Christ will support his Church," Lombardi said.

Lombardi said that on his last day in office, Benedict would receive cardinals in a farewell meeting and after February 28 his ring of office, used to seal official documents, would be destroyed just as if he had died.

Later on Wednesday, an Ash Wednesday Mass that was originally scheduled to have taken place in a small church in Rome, has been moved to St Peter's Basilica so more people can attend.

Unless the Vatican changes the pope's schedule, it will be his last public Mass.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Despite numbers, Burton still bullish on boarding

DENVER (AP) — Three decades after snowboarders barged their way onto the mountain, Shaun White is a household name and the sight of an iPod-wearing teenager carving turns down the hills of a family resort doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.

Those are good things, industry leaders say, because snowboarding is now firmly entrenched in the mainstream it once disdained.

Those are bad things, those leaders also say, because snowboarding is susceptible to the same ups-and-downs other snow sports face — especially since the Great Recession hit in late 2007.

Recent studies by industry groups show snowboarding is no longer growing at the relentless pace that defined much of its first 30 years. Sales in 2011-12 fell between 19 and 31 percent, depending on the region of the country studied. Participation fell 7.5 percent nationwide.

Jake Burton, the man who perfected the modern-day snowboard and brought it to the masses back in the 1980s, recently sent a letter to his employees stating his concern about the trends but downplaying the well-circulated idea that snowboarding is losing its edge.

“I take exceptions to some of the comments and people trying to reach conclusions,” Burton said in an interview with The Associated Press at the annual Snowsport Industries America Snow Show. “Last year was an incredibly rough year for snow sports in general. It just didn’t snow anywhere across the country. Skiing took a hit. Snowboarding took a hit. Everyone took a hit.”

Indeed, warm weather and light snowfall around the country caused a big downturn in snow sports; participation in alpine skiing also fell — by 11.4 percent, according to a study by RRC Associates, also known as the Kottke National End of the Season Survey.

Burton, however, also recognizes the need to be more active in bringing people into snowboarding.

“We were relying for so long on just this magnetism of snowboarding,” he said. “Now, we’ve got to work harder to figure out how to get more kids in the products and more women into the sport. It’s a wakeup call.”

The SIA statistics show 65 percent of snowboarders are males, while 72 percent of the boys are between 13 and 34.

Eleven percent of skiers fall in the 6-12 age group, while that group makes up 10 percent of snowboarders.

There are no statistics for kids under 6. Burton wants to see that group on snowboards almost as soon as they can walk.

As the core group of Burton employees have grown older and had kids, they’ve looked for ways to realize that. Among them is a contraption called the riglet — essentially a leash that parents can attach to their young children’s snowboards to keep them close and help them stay upright.

The snowboards themselves are being built smaller, geared for young children. New, kid-sized terrain parks are also being added at some resorts. The main message here: Snowboarding is hard to pick up and the industry has to do more to help kids get involved.

Another factor in snowboarding’s lower numbers is that all the edgy pastimes that used to be exclusively for snowboarders have made their way into the ski world, as well. Skiers ride on halfpipes, go down slopestyle courses. The curvier, sidecut technology that was once unique to snowboards made its way to skis, as has much of the sensible, young-looking gear that used to be exclusively for snowboarders.

While White goes for his third straight gold medal in the halfpipe next year at the Sochi Olympics, he’ll share the halfpipe with skiers, who will make their debut there. Slopestyle is being introduced for both snowboarding and skiing. In short, action sports are, more than ever, the domain of both skiers and snowboarders, not only the latter.

“I think there was a huge wave of popularity for snowboarding, probably a decade ago,” said Chris Stiepock, the vice president of ESPN’s X Games events. “Then, the ski technology changed, so you had twin tips and skiers could start to ski backward and go into jumps backward.”

Tom Wallisch, the 2012 Winter X Games champion in skiing slopestyle, represents the highest level of a growing number of athletes who experimented on skateboards and snowboards as a kid, but eventually found he could enjoy all the same opportunities on skis.

“Skiing is the only thing I’ve ever been truly good at in my life,” Wallisch said. “On skis is where I’m the best I can be. It’s where I feel most comfortable.”

Burton figures there’s no use fighting that trend. Yes, he says, skiing has co-opted some of its advances from snowboarding.

“But what can we complain about?” Burton said. “Skiing gave us all these resorts. They gave us steel edges. We certainly grabbed our share from them.”

The RRC Associates study caught the eye of many in the snowboarding industry and created some angst.

“Today, there is every indication that the growth in snowboarding we took for granted has stalled, and visitation from snowboarding is headed toward a path of substantial decline,” wrote Nate Fristoe, RRC Associates director of operations, in the National Ski Areas Association Journal.

That triggered Burton’s letter to the employees at his company, based in Burlington, Vt. Burton has between 40 percent and 70 percent of a market, depending on the sector, that’s valued at somewhere between $ 500 million and $ 1 billion each year, depending on whether apparel is included in the math.

“We just have to keep nurturing our sport and lifestyle as best we can,” he wrote.

___

AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

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Julianne Hough: Ryan Seacrest Makes Valentine's Day Super Romantic

By Carlos Greer

02/12/2013 at 01:40 PM EST

Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough

Michael Buckner/WireImage

Who knew Ryan Seacrest was such a romantic? His girlfriend, Julianne Hough, tells PEOPLE he likes to go all out for Valentine's Day.

"[He likes] surprising me and ending up at a restaurant and having the place cleared out and rose petals and stuff like that," the actress, 24, said at Monday's Self magazine New York screening of her new movie Safe Haven. The gestures, she added, make her feel "so cute and special."

"Every year is really wonderful. The first two years were super romantic and like, over the top, because it was new," she said.

So, how will the Idol host, 38, who spent a romantic getaway with Hough in St. Barts earlier this year, make this Valentine's Day even more special?

"This year I think it will be more understated, like [celebrating] real joy of what we truly have. I have no idea, but I know there are plans. He likes to do Valentine's Day," she said.

Finally, asked if there will be a ring anytime soon, she responded, "Not yet."

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.

There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.

"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.

Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.

When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."

One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.

The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."

In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."

"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.

Experts on aging agreed.

"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."

Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.

But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.

"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.

"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.

Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.

In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.

Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.

The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.

Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.

Other leaders who are still working:

—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.

—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.

—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.

__

Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Wall Street edges up ahead of Obama speech as housing gains

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 holding near multi-year highs ahead of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, as housing stocks advanced.

The economy will be a major topic of Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress set for 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Wednesday). Investors will listen for any clues on a deal with Republicans to avert automatic spending cuts due to take effect March 1, including the tone of the speech.

The S&P 500 has risen in the past six weeks and is up 6.7 percent so far this year. But gains have been harder to come by since the benchmark S&P index hit a five-year high on February 1. The market has had to consolidate strong gains at the year's start while investors search for reasons to drive stocks higher.

"It is a drift higher here, it certainly seemed like we were stalled out for awhile," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

"There are a lot of people looking for some type of pullback, some type of profit-taking, and often when everybody is looking it simply doesn't happen."

Housing shares helped lift equities in the latter portion of trading, led by a 14.4 percent jump in Masco Corp to $20.35 after the home improvement product maker posted fourth-quarter earnings and said it expects new home construction to show strong growth in 2013. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> rose 4.3 percent.

The White House has signaled Obama, in his speech, will urge U.S. investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education. He is also expected to call for comprehensive trade talks with the European Union.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 47.77 points, or 0.34 percent, to 14,019.01. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 3.95 points, or 0.26 percent, to 1,520.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 0.88 points, or 0.03 percent, to 3,192.88.

Coca-Cola Co shares fell 2.9 percent to $37.51 and were the biggest drag on the Dow after the world's largest soft drink maker reported quarterly revenue slightly below analysts' estimates, hurt by a weaker-than-expected performance in Europe.

With earnings season starting to wind down, Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning shows of the 353 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.3 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Avon Products shares surged 18.6 percent to $20.49 after the beauty products company reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit.

Goodyear Tire & Rubber shares slipped 0.4 percent to $13.86 after it posted a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit but cut its 2013 forecast due to weakness in the European automotive market.

Michael Kors Holdings shares jumped 10.8 percent to $63.18 after the fashion company handily beat Wall Street's estimates and raised its full-year outlook.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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North Korean nuclear test draws anger, including from China

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday in defiance of U.N. resolutions, drawing condemnation from around the world, including from its only major ally, China, which summoned the North Korean ambassador to protest.

Pyongyang said the test was an act of self-defense against "U.S. hostility" and threatened stronger steps if necessary.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting at which its members, including China, "strongly condemned" the test and vowed to start work on appropriate measures in response, the president of the council said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to rule the country, has presided over two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear test during his first year in power, pursuing policies that have propelled his impoverished and malnourished country closer to becoming a nuclear weapons power.

North Korea said the test had "greater explosive force" than those it conducted in 2006 and 2009. Its KCNA news agency said it had used a "miniaturized" and lighter nuclear device, indicating it had again used plutonium, which is suitable for use as a missile warhead.

China, which has shown signs of increasing exasperation with the recent bellicose tone of its reclusive neighbor, summoned the North Korean ambassador in Beijing and protested sternly, the Foreign Ministry said.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said China was "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" to the test and urged North Korea to "stop any rhetoric or acts that could worsen situations and return to the right course of dialogue and consultation as soon as possible".

Analysts said the test was a major embarrassment to China, which is a permanent member of the Security Council and North Korea's sole major economic and diplomatic ally, because it cast doubt on the extent of Beijing's influence over its ally.

U.S. President Barack Obama called the test a "highly provocative act" that hurt regional stability and pressed for new sanctions.

"The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies," Obama said.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Washington and its allies intended to "augment the sanctions regime" already in place due to Pyongyang's previous atomic tests. North Korea is already one of the most heavily sanctioned states in the world and has few external economic links that can be targeted.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the test was a "grave threat" that could not be tolerated. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the test was a "clear and grave violation" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program and return to talks. NATO condemned the test as an "irresponsible act" that posed a grave threat to world peace.

South Korea, still technically at war with North Korea after a 1950-53 civil war ended in a mere truce, also denounced the test.

MAXIMUM RESTRAINT

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said the test was "only the first response we took with maximum restraint".

"If the United States continues to come out with hostility and complicates the situation, we will be forced to take stronger, second and third responses in consecutive steps," it said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

North Korea often threatens the United States and its "puppet", South Korea, with destruction in colorful terms.

North Korea told the U.N. disarmament forum in Geneva that it would never bow to resolutions on its nuclear program and that prospects were "gloomy" for the denuclearization of the divided Korean peninsula because of a "hostile" U.S. policy.

Suzanne DiMaggio, an analyst at the Asia Society in New York, said North Korea had embarrassed China with the test. "China's inability to dissuade North Korea from carrying through with this third nuclear test reveals Beijing's limited influence over Pyongyang's actions in unusually stark terms," she said.

Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said: "The test is hugely insulting to China, which now can be expected to follow through with threats to impose sanctions."

The magnitude of the explosion was roughly twice that of the 2009 test, according to Lassina Zerbo, director of the international data center division of the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization. The U.S. Geological Survey said that a seismic event measuring 5.1 magnitude had occurred.

North Korea trumpeted the announcement on its state television channel to patriotic music against a backdrop of its national flag.

"It was confirmed that the nuclear test that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect manner using a miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment," KCNA said.

North Korea linked the test to its technical prowess in launching a long-range rocket in December, a move that triggered the U.N. sanctions, backed by China, that Pyongyang said prompted it to take Tuesday's action.

The North's ultimate aim, Washington believes, is to design an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that could hit the United States. North Korea says the program is aimed merely at putting satellites in space.

Despite its three nuclear tests and long-range rocket tests, North Korea is not believed to be close to manufacturing a nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States.

It used plutonium in previous nuclear tests and before Tuesday there had been speculation that it would use highly enriched uranium so as to conserve its plutonium stocks, as testing eats into its limited supply of materials to construct a nuclear bomb.

"VICIOUS CYCLE"

When Kim Jong-un, who is 30, took power after his father's death in December 2011, there were hopes that he would bring reforms and end Kim Jong-il's "military first" policies.

Instead, North Korea, whose economy is smaller than it was 20 years ago and where a third of children are believed to be malnourished, appears to be trapped in a cycle of sanctions followed by further provocations.

"The more North Korea shoots missiles, launches satellites or conducts nuclear tests, the more the U.N. Security Council will impose new and more severe sanctions," said Shen Dingli, a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University. "It is an endless, vicious cycle."

Options for the international community appear to be in short supply. Diplomats at the United Nations said negotiations on new sanctions could take weeks since China is likely to resist tough new measures for fear they could lead to further retaliation by the North Korean leadership.

Beijing has also been concerned that tougher sanctions could further weaken North Korea's economy and prompt a flood of refugees into China.

Tuesday's action appeared to have been timed for the run-up to February 16 anniversary celebrations of Kim Jong-il's birthday, as well as to achieve maximum international attention.

Significantly, the test comes at a time of political transition in China, Japan and South Korea, and as Obama begins his second term. The U.S. president will likely have to tweak his State of the Union address due to be given on Tuesday.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is bedding down a new government and South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, is preparing to take office on February 25.

China too is in the midst of a once-in-a-decade leadership transition to Xi Jinping, who takes office in March. Both Abe and Xi are staunch nationalists.

The longer-term game plan from Pyongyang may be to restart international talks aimed at winning food and financial aid. China urged it to return to the stalled "six-party" talks on its nuclear program, hosted by China and including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.

Its puny economy and small diplomatic reach mean that North Korea struggles to win attention on the global stage - other than through nuclear tests and attacks on South Korea, the last of which was made in 2010.

"Now the next step for North Korea will be to offer talks... - any form to start up discussion again to bring things to their advantage," predicted Jeung Young-tae, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Christine Kim and Jumin Park in SEOUL; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS; Fredrik Dahl in VIENNA; Michael Martina and Chen Aizhu in BEIJING; Mette Fraende in COPENHAGEN; Adrian Croft, Charlie Dunmore and Justyna Pawlak in BRUSSELS; Roberta Rampton in WASHINGTON; Editing by Nick Macfie, Claudia Parsons and David Brunnstrom)

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