Burma sees return of private newspapers

Private daily newspapers are being sold in Burma for the first time in almost 50 years, as a state monopoly ends.

Sixteen papers have so far been granted licences, although only four were ready to publish on Monday.

This is another important milestone on Burma's journey away from authoritarian rule, the BBC's Jonathan Head reports from the commercial capital, Rangoon.

Until recently, reporters in Burma faced some of the harshest restrictions in the world.

Private dailies in Burmese, English, Indian and Chinese, which had been commonplace in the former British colony, were forced to close under military rule in 1964.

Subsequently, journalists were frequently subjected to surveillance and phone-tapping, and were often tortured or imprisoned. Newspapers that broke the rules were shut down.

But media controls have been relaxed as part of programme of reforms launched by the government of President Thein Sein that took office in 2011.

'Hurdles'

Last August, the government informed journalists they would no longer have to submit their work routinely to state censors before publication.

Publisher U Win Htay looks at the front page of his new daily, Standard Time

It announced in December that private dailies would be allowed to publish from 1 April.

Some initial print runs will be a modest few thousand, while the papers assess demand, our correspondent reports.

"I foresee several hurdles along the way," Khin Maung Lay, the 81-year-old editor of Golden Fresh Land, told the Associated Press.

"However, I am ready to run the paper in the spirit of freedom and professionalism taught by my peers during the good old days."

The arrival of privately owned papers on the newsstands coincides with the first anniversary of the election of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament.

She has since become an energetic player in the assembly, although, like the government, she is finding it difficult to respond to the complex challenges now confronting her country, our correspondent says.

She has been criticised for failing to speak out over the recent wave of sectarian attacks on Muslim communities, he adds - an issue over which the newly-liberated media is also being censured after some inaccurate and inflammatory reporting.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, is to start printing its own daily newspaper later this month.

Deadly floods hit Mauritius capital Port Louis

At least 11 people have died after sudden rains caused flooding in the Mauritian capital Port Louis on Saturday, officials have said.

At least eight of the victims were caught in underground areas as the flood waters rose rapidly. Another died of a heart attack.

The island's metereologists said 152mm (6in) of rain fell in less than an hour, 70mm less than the March average.

Prime Minister Navin Rangoolam declared 1 April a day of mourning.

Speaking on national radio, he said Mauritius was suffering badly from the effects of climate change.

The floods caused chaos in the city, with a huge traffic jam paralysing its centre, L'Express de Maurice newspaper reported.

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There are fears of further severe flooding in the days to come

A BBC reporter in the city says the bodies of six people were recovered from a pedestrian subway and another two from an underground car park.

Resident Ameeksha Dichand told the BBC she had been unable to go outside because it was raining so heavily, though people did venture out on Sunday to inspect the damage.

"The roads are blocked and there is mud everywhere. Trees have fallen all over the place," she said.

"If people couldn't rely on their neighbours so much to help them, then we would have lost more lives. I am so angry at the authorities."

More rain was expected on Sunday, and people were advised to stay at home.

Cyprus bailout: Feeling unloved in Germany

In Germany, the citizens feel aggrieved. They perceive their country as a generous donor of hard-earned cash to peoples who have let their finances go to ruin.

German taxpayers donate, the argument runs, to help those less industrious than themselves. And what, they wonder, do they get in return? Nothing but ingratitude and insult. So it seems to some Germans.

Outside the country, on the other hand, it does not seem like that at all. Perceptions are inverted. Instead of gratitude for the gifts donated, Germans feel the coldness of ingratitude for the strings attached.

Or the heat of angry insult. The Spanish daily El Pais published (and then apologised for) a piece which said that conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel "like Hitler, has declared war on the rest of the continent".

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We have heard enough lies, the Germans are saying haughtily to the Cypriots, now shut up and do what we want”

Charles MooreWriting in the Daily Telegraph

Anti-austerity protests south of the Alps routinely feature placards depicting swastikas and pictures of German politicians with added moustaches.

In Britain, the Daily Mail newspaper talked of the way the events in Cyprus were handled as "one of the nastiest and most immoral political acts in modern times". It likened Germany to a common criminal because of the way the deposits of savers were initially targeted: "People who rob old ladies in the street, or hold up security vans, are branded as thieves."

The UK's Daily Telegraph alluded to a new German empire - or "Imperium" as it put it. The way Germany dealt with the crisis in Cyprus was "the authentic tone of an imperial power. Today that power is Germany. We have heard enough lies, the Germans are saying haughtily to the Cypriots, now shut up and do what we want."

So how are the Germans taking it? With shock sometimes. They invariably object strongly to the use of Nazi symbols - after all, their display, whether the swastika or the raised arm, is illegal in Germany.

'It hurts'

When the BBC talked to people at the Brandenburg Gate, where tourists from all over Germany gather, many said they were very upset when they saw pictures of such symbols on the streets of Nicosia or Madrid or Athens.

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It hurts, because we think we are giving money and we try to help”

Unnamed German man

One young woman from Bavaria said: "When you see Greek people make that Hitler greeting, it's not good. It isn't allowed in Germany and it shouldn't be allowed in other countries. We are shocked. They are getting a lot of money from Germany so why don't they like us?"

A middle-aged man said: "It's not okay when people say Adolf Hitler and Angela Merkel are the same. We live in 2013 and not in 1945."

An older man said he did not understand why Germany was blamed for trying to help: "It hurts, because we think we are giving money and we try to help. This is something we don't understand."

That sense of hurt is universal. Jan Schaefer, the economics editor of Bild, the most popular newspaper in Germany, told the BBC that pictures comparing Germany to the Nazi state were obnoxious.

"If you go back 70 years to solve a problem today, you can't do that. So for me and for my family, it's just stupid. I look at the pictures and I just have to laugh. They are so dumb. Really, really dumb and stupid."

Greek nationalists say Germany is dictating policy to their country and Cyprus

But he added a sting in the tail of his outrage, by saying that opinion in Germany might harden against further bailouts because of the ingratitude over previous ones.

"The more that protesters compare Mrs Merkel with Adolf Hitler, the more people are going to get angry and they might say 'We might have taxes rising here in Germany because of the bailout of other countries, so why are you mad at us and compare our chancellor to Adolf Hitler?'" he said.

"There's no comparison. And we help you, so why are you yelling and shouting and protesting against us?"

At the moment, this sense of injustice in Germany is unformed - an inchoate feeling from the gut that emerges when you talk to ordinary Germans.

'Political price'

Some politicians are indicating an unease at the reaction - Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, for example, said after the deal over Cyprus was done that it might have been handled differently. He lamented the "shrill slogans in the public arena and the media that were often unjust and hurtful".

Part of Germany's difficulty is that this is an election year, which means that no politician wants to appear soft when it comes to giving away the money of taxpayers who are also voters.

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It's like in school when you get better grades and those having a harder time get a little jealous”

Wolfgang SchaeubleGerman Finance Minister

So when Germany's Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, went on television for a domestic audience, it might have sounded better at home than abroad when he likened those complaining about Germany to children who do not do very well in exams: "It's like in school when you get better grades and those having a harder time get a little jealous."

Similarly, when Chancellor Merkel told a meeting of MPs from her Christian Democrat (CDU) party that Cyprus's business model was broken, that would have played well in the private meeting - but badly beyond Germany's borders (including in neighbouring Luxembourg, where the foreign minister accused Germany of "striving for hegemony").

Some in Germany are aware of the dangers of the country being disliked as its economic power grows. "Careful, careful," said the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "If the country continues to be so cold-hearted it will pay an immeasurable political price."

But toughness pays dividends inside Germany, even as it has its price outside the country. The indications are that Germans remain wedded to the euro by two to one, according to most polls. There is a nostalgia for the Deutschmark, but not a majority in favour of a return to it.

Even the leaders of a new Eurosceptic party concede that. Professor Bernd Lucke, a professor of economics in Hamburg who founded Alternative fuer Deutschland, reckons that about 25% of German voters would vote for an anti-euro party.

"My party fights for the dissolution of the euro area," he told the BBC. He cites the usual suspects (Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal) but also France as being incompatible with a single currency that includes Germany.

"We witness ever-increasing transfer payments to southern European countries, and we see that the problems in these countries are not being solved, but aggravated more and more," he said.

That is a common, though not unanimous, sentiment in Germany - but that does not mean Germans will vote in droves for the new party in the federal elections in September.

Merkel's challenge

Nobody expects them to be a large party in the Bundestag (lower house), and perhaps not even to pass the threshold to get any representation.

What the new party may do, though, is to skim votes from Mrs Merkel's CDU and its allies in government, so making it easier for the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens to form a government.

Mrs Merkel remains head and shoulders above any other German politician in terms of popularity. She bestrides the German political stage.

But she also has an increasingly thin line to tread - between those who are growing sick and tired of what they see as ingratitude outside Germany and, on the other hand, those who remain fully committed to the euro and to German efforts to preserve it.

And behind all this is a bigger question: can an economic giant remain a political light-weight? And if it cannot, how does it cope with any resentment? Maybe Germany has got to get used to not being loved.

India to rule on Novartis patent for cancer drug Glivec

India's Supreme Court is due to rule on a patent case involving Swiss drug company Novartis, which campaigners say could threaten access in poorer countries to cheap generic drugs.

Novartis wants protection for an updated version of cancer drug Glivec.

It is seeking to overturn a decision by Indian officials to refuse a patent on the grounds that the new version was only slightly different from the old.

Medical charities say a Novartis win would set a "dangerous precedent".

Glivec, which is used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia and other cancers, costs about $2,600 (£1,710) a month.

The generic equivalent is currently available in India for just $175.

'Price increases'

Novartis applied for a patent in 2006 for its new version of the drug, arguing that it was easier to absorb and therefore qualified for a fresh patent.

The Indian patent authority rejected the application based on a law aimed at preventing companies from getting fresh patents by making only minor changes to existing drugs, a practice known as "evergreening". Officials also turned down an appeal by the company three years later.

Western pharmaceutical companies say that if the Supreme Court rules against Novartis, it will discourage investment in research and in efforts to improve existing drugs.

"Knowing we can rely on patents in India benefits government, industry and patients because research-based organisations will know if investing in the development of better medicines for India is a viable long-term option," a Novartis statement said.

But critics describe the updated version of Glivec as "an obvious, routine modification".

"You could have drug companies claiming one new drug and then patenting it over and over again for routine improvements," said Medecins sans Frontieres lawyer Leena Menghaney.

"If generic competition on many crucial medicines ends, then prices for these medicines will increase, both in India and across the developing world," she added.

"This would be devastating for millions who rely on India for affordable medicines.

How much gold is there in the world?

Imagine if you were a super-villain who had taken control of all the world's gold, and had decided to melt it down to make a cube. How big would it be? Hundreds of metres cubed, thousands even?

Actually, it's unlikely to be anything like that size.

Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest investors, says the total amount of gold in the world - the gold above ground, that is - could fit into a cube with sides of just 20m (67ft).

But is that all there is? And if so, how do we know?

A figure that is widely used by investors comes from Thompson Reuters GFMS, which produces an annual gold survey.

Their latest figure for all the gold in the world is 171,300 tonnes - which is almost exactly the same as the amount in our super-villain's imaginary cube.

A cube made of 171,300 tonnes would be about 20.7m (68ft) on each side. Or to put it another way, it would reach to 9.8m above ground level if exactly covering Wimbledon Centre Court.

But not everyone agrees with the GFMS figures.

Estimates range from 155,244 tonnes, marginally less than the GFMS figure, to about 16 times that amount - 2.5 million tonnes.

That bigger figure would make a cube of sides 50m (166ft) long, or a column of gold towering 143m above Wimbledon centre court.

So why are the figures so different?

Part of the reason is that gold has been mined for a very long time - more than 6,000 years, according to gold historian Timothy Green.

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All the gold that has been mined throughout history is still in existence ”

James TurkGold Money

The first gold coins were minted in about 550 BC under King Croesus of Lydia - a province in modern-day Turkey - and quickly became accepted payment for merchants and mercenary soldiers around the Mediterranean.

Up until 1492, the year Columbus sailed to America, GFMS estimates that 12,780 tonnes had been extracted.

But one investor who looked at the research done in this area, James Turk, the founder of Gold Money, discovered what he regarded as a series of over-estimates.

He believes that the primitive mining techniques used up to the Middle Ages mean that this figure is much too high, and that a more realistic total is just 297 tonnes.

Tonnes of gold
	GFMS	James Turk
Pre-1492	12,780	297
Post-1492	158520	154947
Total	171,300	155,244

His figure for the overall amount of gold in the world is 155,244 tonnes - 16,056 tonnes, or 10% less, than the assessment by Thompson Reuters GFMS. A relatively small disparity, perhaps, but one that at today's prices comes to more than $950bn.

His conclusions are accepted by some investors but such is the feeling between rival analysts that one competitor described Turk's figures as an alternative to the GFMS's "in the same way that Jedi is an alternative to Christianity".

But there are others who think both sets of figures are too low.

"In Tutankhamen's tomb alone they found that his coffin was made from 1.5 tonnes of gold, so imagine the gold that was found in the other tombs that were ransacked before records were taken of them," says Jan Skoyles of gold investment firm The Real Asset Company.

While James Turk makes only minor adjustments to the GFMS figure for the amount of gold mined after 1492, Skoyles points out that even today China is "not particularly open" about how much gold it is mining.

And in some countries, such as Colombia, "there's a lot of illegal mining going on", she says.

She doesn't have an exact figure to offer, but one organisation that has tried to do some maths is the Gold Standard Institute.

There is much gold still in the ground, like here in Democratic Republic of Congo

Its experts believe that if we emptied our bank vaults and jewellery boxes, we'd find no less than 2.5 million tonnes of gold - though they admit that the evidence is somewhat sparse and the figure is a bit speculative.

Continue reading the main story

More or Less: Behind the stats

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So who's right?

Well, we don't know.

In the end, all these numbers are made up of estimates added to estimates added to yet more estimates. Maybe they're all way off.

The good news is that we are not likely to run out of gold any time soon. The US Geological Survey estimates there are 52,000 tonnes of minable gold still in the ground and more is likely to be discovered.

The bad news is that the way we use gold is starting to change.

Up to now it has never gone away. It has always been recycled.

"All the gold that has been mined throughout history is still in existence in the above-ground stock. That means that if you have a gold watch, some of the gold in that watch could have been mined by the Romans 2,000 years ago," says James Turk.

The way gold is being used in the technology industry, however, is different.

The British Geological Survey states that about 12% of current world gold production finds its way to this sector, where it is often used in such small quantities, in each individual product, that it may no longer be economical to recycle it.

In short, gold may be being "consumed" for the first time.

US sends more jets as North Korea vows nuclear build-up

The US says it sent stealth fighters to South Korea on Sunday, as the North pledged to build up its nuclear arsenal at a meeting of top leaders.

The F-22 fighters were deployed as part of ongoing joint military exercises with South Korea, the US said.

In recent days B-52 bombers and stealth planes have also flown over the area, amid fiery rhetoric from Pyongyang.

North Korea said on Saturday that it was entering a "state of war" with the South.

The communist state has been angered both by UN sanctions imposed after its nuclear test in February and the joint US-South Korea annual military drills.

In recent days it has issued multiple warnings of attacks on US and South Korean targets - to which the US has responded with the various aircraft flights.

The US F-22 planes were flown from Japan to South Korea's Osan Air base on Sunday, officials said.

"[North Korea] will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia," the US military command in South Korea said in a statement reported by Reuters news agency.

In March, the US deployed both B-2 and B-52 planes, which have nuclear capabilities, over South Korea. It said this demonstrated its "capability... to provide extended deterrence to [its] allies in the Asia-Pacific region".

At a rare high-level meeting on Sunday, North Korea's Central Committee described nuclear weapons as "the nation's life" and vowed to further develop its nuclear programme, state-run news agency KCNA said.

Its Supreme People's Assembly - the rubber-stamp parliament - is also due to convene on Monday for a day-long annual session.

Few think the North - which last week cut a military hotline which was the last official direct link with Seoul - would risk full-blown conflict.

But in recent years there have been deadly incidents such as the sinking of a South Korea warship (in which Pyongyang denies any role) and the shelling of a South Korean island.

However the jointly-run Kaesong industrial park, which is located within North Korea's borders, remains in operation.

Workers from South Korea were crossing into the park - which is a key money-maker for North Korea - as normal on Monday, reports said.

Police uses tear gas in row at Brazil World Cup stadium

Police in Brazil have used tear gas and smoke grenades to break up clashes between fans who were trying to buy tickets for the inaugural match in a stadium built for the 2014 World Cup.

The football fans had queued overnight at a ticket office in the north-eastern state of Bahia, but fighting broke out as soon as it opened.

The Arena Fonte Nova stadium cost $330m (£217m) - about $50m over budget.

Meanwhile, a builder was killed in an accident at another world cup venue.

Raimundo Nonato Lima Costa, 49, a construction worker at the Amazon Arena in Manaus, reportedly fell from a height of about 5m (16 feet).

Maracana delays

Nobody was arrested after the clashes at the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, police said.

The company in charge of the new stadium issued a statement saying it would improve on the shortcomings that became apparent on Friday.

Witnesses said there were no barriers to separate the ticket booth queues.

Lately, a series of events have led to criticism of Brazil's planning for the world's biggest football event.

The inauguration date of iconic Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, set to host the final next year, has been delayed repeatedly.

Originally due reopening in December 2012, its first match is now scheduled for 27 April.

Last week, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro added to the embarrassment closing the stadium due to host the athletics events at the 2016 Olympics, which was being used to replace Maracana at major football matches.

The Joao Havelange stadium was serving as the main football venue in Rio

Eduardo Paes told the media that a structural survey revealed a risk of the roof of collapsing at certain circumstances, including winds over 60km/h (40mph).

The stadium built in 2007 – and also massively over budget – is to remain shut as a safety measure until further notice, but the organisers of the Olympic Games say they are confident it will be ready in time for 2016.

Elsewhere, the president of Corinthians, the Brazilian club in charge of building the Itaquera stadium in Sao Paulo, recently admitted its construction could be stopped for lack of cash, which might risk it failing to be ready on time for the competition.

The stadium is due to host the opening match of the World Cup.

The president of the international football body Fifa, Sepp Blatter, recently said he was confident Brazil would finish preparations in time for the World Cup and the Confederations Cup, a smaller tournament that takes place a year before.

Brazil: Foreign tourist raped on Rio de Janeiro minibus

A foreign tourist has been raped and robbed on a minibus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian police say.

Two men have been arrested. They attacked the couple, who had boarded the minibus in the Copacabana area of the city, police say.

The couple's identities and nationalities have not been disclosed.

Curbing violence is a major priority for the authorities in Rio, which is hosting the football World Cup next year and the 2016 Olympics in 2016.

Police say two suspects have been arrested: Jonathan Foudakis de Souza, 20, the bus driver, and Wallace Aparecido de Souza Silva, 22.

Dumped outside Rio

The suspects told other passengers to get off the bus, and drove it to the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, police said,

The woman was raped repeatedly as the minibus crossed the long bridge over the Guanabara Bay in Rio.

Her boyfriend was handcuffed and badly beaten.

The couple was dumped in the nearby city of Itaborai, after being forced to use their credit cards for shopping and to withdraw money from cash machines, the police report says.

The two alleged culprits were arrested hours after the attack.

Police are looking for a third man. He was contacted by mobile phone, boarded the bus outside Rio and also raped the woman, police say.

Robberies are a common occurrence on buses in Rio de Janeiro and other big Brazilian cities, but the violence and audacity of this attack has shocked local media.

Deadly pileup in south-west Virginia

At least three people have been killed and 15 injured in a pile-up involving almost 100 vehicles in the US state of Virginia, police say.

They said there were 17 separate crashes within a distance of one mile (1.6km) on Interstate 77 near the base of Fancy Gap Mountain.

The accidents began shortly after 13:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Sunday, when there was heavy fog in the area.

It was reportedly the most deadly of several similar pile-ups since 1997.

Queues of traffic in southbound lanes near the scene of the crashes stretched for eight miles, police said.

"This mountain is notorious for fog banks," said Glen Sage of the American Red Cross office in the town of Galax.

"They have advance signs warning people. But the problem is, people are seeing well and suddenly they're in a fog bank."

Phil Ramone has died

Phil Ramone, the instinctive music producer whose mixing mastery for Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Paul Simon and Billy Joel helped fashion some of the most sumptuous and top-selling albums of his era, has died. He was 79.

The 14-time Grammy winner and 33-time nominee once dubbed “The Pope of Pop” was hospitalized in late February with an aortic aneurysm in New York and died Saturday morning at New York Presbyterian Hospital, according to Ramone's son Matt.

A native of South Africa who at age 10 performed as a violinist forQueen Elizabeth II, Ramone spent years working as a songwriter, engineer and acoustics expert in New York before charting a path that would make him a trusted studio partner in the eyes (and ears) of the industry’s biggest stars.

STORY: Music Industry Reacts to Death of Producer Phil Ramone

Among the albums on which he worked were Streisand’s 1967 liveA Happening in Central Park; Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram(1971), sandwiched between the Beatles and Wings eras; Dylan’s aching Blood on the Tracks (1975); Simon’s pop classic Still Crazy After All These Years (1975); Joel’s critical and commercial breakthrough The Stranger (1977); Sinatra’s last-gaspDuets (1993), a model of technical wizardry; and Charles’ final album, the mega-selling Genius Loves Company (2004).

Ramone served as a songwriter in New York’s famed Brill Building music factory and worked early on with Quincy Jones, Tom Dowd, Creed Taylor, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller and Burt Bacharach & Hal David, among others. In 1959, he launched the A&R Recording studios on Seventh Avenue in New York, where Blood on the Tracks and so many other classics were recorded.

Asked to describe his philosophy as a producer, Ramone told Sound on Sound magazine in 2005: “I served a long time as an engineer and watched many famous producers work, and I decided on the personality that came most easily to me, which is the more relaxed; to give artists encouragement when needed.

“Players are like prodigies, thoroughbreds," he added. "You have to handle them with care.”

Born on Jan. 5, 1934, Ramone at age 3 began studying the piano and violin, and he attended the Juilliard School in New York as a teenager. Although he was an accomplished performer and composer, he was attracted to the technical side of music and became a wizard working with the dials.

STORY: Phil Ramone Remembered by Billy Joel, Elton John and Other Stars

In 1964, Ramone engineered the classic bossa nova album Getz/Gilberto, from American saxophonistStan Getz and Brazilian guitarist Joao Gilberto. It would become one of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time and earn him his first Grammy, for best engineered recording. It also won the album of the year Grammy.

Later in the decade, he worked with folk superstars Peter, Paul and Mary, then won another Grammy in 1969 as co-producer of the original Broadway cast album of Promises, Promises, with music and lyrics by Bacharach and David.

Ramone’s career reached another level in 1975 when he produced Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years -- which featured the No. 1 single “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” and won Ramone a Grammy for album of the year -- and Blood on the Tracks.

About the Dylan album, Ramone said: “It turned out to be the best four days of what Bob Dylan does, which is he wanders from song to song, sometimes coming back to the first one. Other than changing the roll of tape, you just had to let it all happen.”

In 1977, he produced Kenny Loggins’ Celebrate Me Home, Phoebe Snow’s Never Letting Go and Joel’s The Stranger, which kicked off a seven-album, decade-long relationship with the Long Island-raised singer-songwriter. He and Joel were “both lunatics,” he once said.

PHOTOS: Note Perfect: The 15 Best Portrayals of Musicians in Movies

For the screeching tires on "Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)" from The Stranger, Ramone recorded bassist Doug Stegmeyer’s Corvette peeling out, taping a microphone to the tailpipe. He also added a bit of echo to Joel’s whistling throughout the album.

“There’s nothing like the challenge of devising and reproducing an effect you’re looking for,” Ramone wrote in his 2007 book, Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music. “Sometimes that chase is more exciting than the catch.”

Ramone won the record of the year Grammy for Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” from the album (after removing a “cha-cha-cha” background from the song), captured album of the year for the follow-up52nd Street and was named producer of the year in 1980 after guiding the rock-infused Glass Houses, which featured Joel's first chart-topping single, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me."

On Oct. 1, 1982, 52nd Street became the first commercially released compact disc, and Ramone later received a Technical Grammy for his lifetime of innovative contributions to the industry.

In 1993, Ramone produced Duets, a comeback album for Sinatra. The legendary singer never sang in the same studio with his duet partners, who included Streisand, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin,Tony Bennett, Bono and Kenny G. Ramone used an EDNet fiber-optic system to record the artists in different locations in real time.

The first of two Sinatra Duets albums sold more than 3 million copies in the U.S. and made it to No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart.

STORY: Why Music Biopics Are a Nightmare to Make

For Genius Loves Company, Ramone and fellow producer John Burk provided a clean, retro setting for the pop classics sung by Charles with James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Elton John, Norah Jonesand others. The album, recorded over a period of nine months and released in August 2004 -- two months after Charles’ death -- earned triple-platinum status, made it to No. 1 and raked in eight Grammys.

“If Ray is looking upon us now, he’s just made his career last another 50 years,” Ramone said as he accepted the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Ramone also produced Bennett’s Duets II, the 2011 release famous for the crooner’s collaboration withAmy Winehouse. With that album, Bennett became the oldest living artist to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Other Ramone-produced albums include Lesley Gore’s I’ll Cry If I Want To (1963), Julian Lennon’s debut Valotte (1984), the Broadway cast album for Passion (1994), Liza Minnelli’s live Liza’s Back(2002), Rod Stewart’s It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook (2002) and recent works from George Michael, Dionne Warwick and Glee star Matthew Morrison.

Ramone recorded Streisand and Kris Kristofferson live during filming for A Star Is Born (1976) and co-wrote “Imagination,” sung by Laura Branigan in Flashdance (1983), good for another Grammy. He also contributed to the films Midnight Cowboy (1969), Ghostbusters (1984) and Beyond the Sea(2004), with Kevin Spacey acting and singing as Bobby Darin.

Ramone also recorded Marilyn Monroe’s boozy rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” sung to President John F. Kennedy in 1962 and received an Emmy in 1973 for his work as an audio designer on the NBC special Liza With a Z.

In a Recording Academy statement confirming his passing, the Grammy organization also credited Ramone as "a pioneer of audio technological developments -- creating new innovations for the compact disc and surround sound technologies."

In an interview with Music Radar in November, Ramone credited his ability to seize upon spontaneity as one reason he became such a prolific hitmaker.

“You have to be able to run as fast as the artist, capture the magic early on,” he said. “After a few takes, people start intellectualizing what they’re doing, and it loses something. What’s special happens right away -- so you have to be ready for it.”

In addition to his son Matt, Ramone is survived by wife Karen and sons BJ and Simon.

UPDATE: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Ramone's age as 72.

Hungary has warned over students' rights

Hungarian graduates who receive state grants will be forced to work in Hungary rather than abroad under controversial changes to the country's constitution that have prompted European Union warnings to respect human rights.

Hungary's governing Fidesz party used its two-thirds majority in parliament to push through the changes on Monday despite widespread opposition both in the former communist country and abroad.

Under the new amendments, graduates who receive state funding for their studies will have to pledge to work in Hungary for a number of years after graduation, while those who choose to work abroad will have to pay the money back.

Other changes include limits on the powers of Hungary's constitutional court, a prohibition on people sleeping rough, the restriction of political advertisements to state media, and the introduction of new regulations on family law.

The new legislation has exacerbated EU fears that Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, is using the vote to cement a grip on power that has already seen the government introduce controversial laws governing the media and the national bank.

The European Commission has warned Mr Orban that it will use the EU courts and its control over Brussels funding worth hundreds of millions of euro to uphold "fundamental values".