Bits Blog: Android Malware Creeps Into Cellphone Bills

Smartphones are meant to be headache-free compared with old-school computers. But malicious software written for Android devices can be even sneakier than the malware that invaded PCs.

The most prevalent form of Android malware scrapes small amounts of money from smartphone owners by making secret charges to their phone bills, according to a report published by Lookout, a mobile security company in San Francisco. This type of malware is called toll fraud, and it has the potential to fool plenty of people who don’t pay close attention to their phone bills every month.

But how does toll fraud work if the carriers control our bills? The process is actually very complex, said Derek Halliday, a product manager at Lookout.

First, it helps to understand a legitimate transaction involving text messages. Say, for example, a person wants to send a text message to a service to buy a new ringtone. When this happens, the cellular network forwards the text message to a middleman service, which handles the transaction between the wireless provider and the ringtone provider. The ringtone provider then shoots a message to the cellphone owner asking for confirmation of the order. When the customer confirms the order, he receives the ringtone, his cellphone bill is charged, and the carrier takes a cut and gives the rest of the money to the ringtone provider and the middleman service.

Here’s how toll fraud works: A person downloads a malicious app. The app invisibly sends a text message to a service that uses a middleman service that has a relationship with the malware author. A confirmation message is sent back to the malware, which blocks it from being seen by the customer and confirms the charge. The charge goes to the user’s bill, and the carrier takes its cut and gives the rest of the money to the service and the middleman, and thus the malware author.

In its  report, Lookout estimates that from the beginning of 2012 to the end of 2013, 18 million Android users may encounter malware. About 72 percent of the malware that Lookout detected this year was toll fraud, and the company expects this number to grow, because even though the process is complex, the code isn’t difficult to replicate. The company advised cellphone owners to regularly check their bills for suspicious charges.

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Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Children in Nairobi, Kenya. Sub-Saharan Africa lagged in mortality gains, compared with Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

“The growth of these rich-country diseases, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, is in a strange way good news,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It shows that many parts of the globe have largely overcome infectious and communicable diseases as a pervasive threat, and that people on average are living longer.”

In 2010, 43 percent of deaths in the world occurred at age 70 and older, compared with 33 percent of deaths in 1990, the report said. And fewer child deaths have brought up the mean age of death, which in Brazil and Paraguay jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 30 in 1970, the report said. The measure, an average of all deaths in a given year, is different from life expectancy, and is lower when large numbers of children die.

But while developing countries made big strides the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries’ female populations between 1990 and 2010. American women gained just under two years of life, compared with women in Cyprus, who lived 2.3 years longer and Canadian women who gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. Life expectancy for American women was 80.5 in 2010, up from 78.6 in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said. American men gained in life expectancy, to 75.9 years from 71.7 in 1990.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which provided estimates of disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The World Health Organization issued a statement on Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differed substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others were similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries — representing about 15 percent of the world’s population — produce quality cause-of-death data.

Sub-Saharan Africa was an exception to the trend. Infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternity-related causes of death still account for about 70 percent of the region’s disease burden, a measure of years of life lost due to premature death and to time lived in less than full health. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

Globally, AIDS was an exception to the shift of deaths from infectious to noncommunicable diseases. The epidemic is believed to have peaked, but still results in 1.5 million deaths each year.

Over all, the change means people are living longer, but it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is a rising threat, especially in developing countries, and is responsible for almost six million deaths a year globally. Illnesses like diabetes are also spreading fast.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting.

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Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Children in Nairobi, Kenya. Sub-Saharan Africa lagged in mortality gains, compared with Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

“The growth of these rich-country diseases, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, is in a strange way good news,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It shows that many parts of the globe have largely overcome infectious and communicable diseases as a pervasive threat, and that people on average are living longer.”

In 2010, 43 percent of deaths in the world occurred at age 70 and older, compared with 33 percent of deaths in 1990, the report said. And fewer child deaths have brought up the mean age of death, which in Brazil and Paraguay jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 30 in 1970, the report said. The measure, an average of all deaths in a given year, is different from life expectancy, and is lower when large numbers of children die.

But while developing countries made big strides the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries’ female populations between 1990 and 2010. American women gained just under two years of life, compared with women in Cyprus, who lived 2.3 years longer and Canadian women who gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. Life expectancy for American women was 80.5 in 2010, up from 78.6 in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said. American men gained in life expectancy, to 75.9 years from 71.7 in 1990.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which provided estimates of disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The World Health Organization issued a statement on Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differed substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others were similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries — representing about 15 percent of the world’s population — produce quality cause-of-death data.

Sub-Saharan Africa was an exception to the trend. Infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternity-related causes of death still account for about 70 percent of the region’s disease burden, a measure of years of life lost due to premature death and to time lived in less than full health. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

Globally, AIDS was an exception to the shift of deaths from infectious to noncommunicable diseases. The epidemic is believed to have peaked, but still results in 1.5 million deaths each year.

Over all, the change means people are living longer, but it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is a rising threat, especially in developing countries, and is responsible for almost six million deaths a year globally. Illnesses like diabetes are also spreading fast.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting.

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Wealth Matters: As End of Gift Tax Exemption Nears, Ways to Use It Proliferate

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Mark E. Haranzo, a partner at the law firm Withers Bergman, helps clients use the so-called power of substitution, by setting up a trust that allows someone to put in cash now and exchange it for other assets in the future.

HOLIDAY shoppers and tax filers are known for procrastinating. This year, they’re joined by the wealthy who have still not decided whether to make a gift under a generous gift tax exemption that may soon disappear.

Back in December 2010 President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner reached an agreement to raise the exemption levels on estate and gift taxes to $5 million a person as part of a deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. (This year, that rate was adjusted upward for inflation to $5.12 million.)

As I have often written, this was an amazing giveaway to the superrich. But it also provoked anxiety among those at the next level down — the merely very rich — for whom giving away as much as $10 million a couple, to avoid higher taxes when they die, was not as simple a matter. The gifts represented a larger percentage of their net worth.

Now, with a little more than two weeks left in the year, tax lawyers and advisers say the wealthy are scrambling to make gifts before the exemption expires.

“We are having this come up daily,” said Mitchell A. Drossman, national director of wealth planning strategies for U.S. Trust. “One of the first things I’m asking is, ‘Why are they warming up to this idea now? Is it that they didn’t want to make the gift? They didn’t know how? They didn’t get around to it?’ ”

With so little time left, advisers have come up with quick and easy ways to get the gift done for tax purposes this year.

A simple solution is to forgive any loans made to family members. This is a fairly painless way to use up some of the gift tax exemption because most parents never expected their children to repay those loans and would have forgiven those loans at death anyway.

While giving cash outright is easy, few wealthy people want to do that. The exemption may be at a historically high level, but the wealthy still want to give assets that will continue to grow.

Leiha Macauley, a partner and head of the Boston office at Day Pitney, says one solution is to set up a trust that allows someone to put in cash now and exchange it for other assets in the future, when the person has had enough time to have the assets properly appraised. Using the so-called power of substitution means that cash can become just about anything else next year.

“The power of substitution is key when we’re so pinched for time,” she said. “Appraisals are not coming out quickly enough. And people giving right up to the limit makes us nervous, because what if the appraisal says something is worth $6.2 million and then the I.R.S. says you owe tax?”

Typical assets that people swap in later include a home, which they then rent back from the trust, or a large life insurance policy, which can be purchased with the cash. But Andy Katzenstein, a partner in the personal planning department at the law firm Proskauer Rose, said he had clients ready to swap more nontraditional assets into trusts. One has a collection of Ferrari sports cars, while another couple has art that is valuable but that they no longer like displaying in their house.

These assets also have the virtue of being relatively painless to part with. The man with the Ferraris can pay the trust rent when he drives one of the cars. (The rent further reduces the estate’s value.) The couple with the art already had it in storage.

But Mr. Katzenstein cautioned those choosing this option to know the law, particularly if they plan to keep using these assets. “The devil is in the details,” he said. “If you don’t follow the rules you get into trouble. Make sure you have a real lease, you pay the rent every month and it also has to be fair market rent.”

Mark E. Haranzo, a partner at the law firm Withers Bergman, said he had suggested to clients with private companies that they use the cash as essentially a down payment on a loan to put all or part of their company into a trust for their children. He said the general rule of thumb was to put down 10 percent of the value of the company and then use the company’s profits to pay off the loan.

For the really rushed, Mr. Katzenstein said, another option is to include the power to rewrite the terms of the trust next year if their lawyer does not have time to customize a trust for them before the end of the year. This is done by naming someone to the role of “trust protector” and allowing that person to rewrite the trust at a later date.

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Rice Drops Bid for Secretary of State, Citing Opposition

WASHINGTON — Susan E. Rice, the Obama administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, has withdrawn her name from consideration for secretary of state, in the face of relentless opposition from Republicans in Congress over her role in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya.

In a letter to President Obama, Ms. Rice said she concluded that “the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly — to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities. The tradeoff is simply not worth it to our country.”

Mr. Obama, who spoke with Ms. Rice on Thursday, said he accepted her request with regret, describing her as “an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant.”

He said she “will continue to serve as our ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my cabinet and national security team.”

“While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first,” Mr. Obama’s statement said.

The president had steadfastly defended Ms. Rice from attacks that she misled the American public in televised appearances after the attack in Benghazi, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. And until Thursday, Mr. Obama seemed ready to face down Ms. Rice’s critics on Capitol Hill.

The most vociferous of them was Senator John McCain of Arizona, but several other Republicans had joined in sharply questioning her suitability for the job.

One defender, Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is often mentioned as another candidate to become secretary of state, was among the first on Thursday to issue a statement reacting to Ms. Rice’s withdrawal.

“I’ve defended her publicly and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again because I know her character and I know her commitment,” Mr. Kerry said. “She’s an extraordinarily capable and dedicated public servant. Today’s announcement doesn’t change any of that. We should all be grateful that she will continue to serve and contribute at the highest level.

“As someone who has weathered my share of political attacks and understands on a personal level just how difficult politics can be, I’ve felt for her throughout these last difficult weeks, but I also know that she will continue to serve with great passion and distinction,” he added.

The debate over Ms. Rice had been a significant distraction during the Obama administration’s transition between its first and second terms, as many changes in top positions are expected, and difficult negotiations over resolving the nation’s fiscal crisis are dominating the domestic agenda.

It was unusual for so much attention to be focused on a potential nominee to a cabinet post before any selection had been announced, and for the administration to put on a full-court press on behalf of the contender.

And it was unorthodox, too, for her to be sent to Capitol Hill to defend herself in meetings with her critics, who only extended and even broadened their attack on her credentials.

Some officials said they feared that Mr. Obama was limiting his own maneuvering room by engaging the critics so vehemently.

“For them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous,” the president said at a news conference shortly after the election.

“When they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me,” he continued. “And should I choose — if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity — the State Department, then I will nominate her.”

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World’s Population Living Longer, New Report Suggests

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life, and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said.

The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health publication.

The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can address as easily.”

Read More..

World’s Population Living Longer, New Report Suggests

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life, and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said.

The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health publication.

The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can address as easily.”

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European Leaders Hail Accord on Banking Supervision

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders gathering here Thursday for their year-end summit meeting hailed an agreement to place euro zone banks under a single supervisor, calling it a concrete measure to maintain the viability of the currency as well as a step in laying the groundwork for a broader economic union.

Pool photograph by Michael Euler

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and François Hollande, the French president, conferring on Thursday at a summit meeting of European leaders. "It's a good day for Europe," Mr. Hollande said.

The pact was hashed out in an all-night session of finance ministers that ended Thursday morning after France and Germany made significant compromises. Under the agreement, between 100 and 200 large banks in the euro zone will fall under the direct supervision of the European Central Bank.

A round of talks a week earlier broke up amid French-German discord over how many banks in the currency union should be covered by the new system.

In a concession to Germany, the finance ministers agreed that thousands of smaller banks would be primarily overseen by national regulators. But to satisfy the French, who wanted all euro zone banks to be held accountable, the E.C.B. would be able to take over supervision of any bank in the region at any time.

The agreement by the finance ministers, which still requires the approval of the European Parliament and some national parliaments including the German Bundestag, made it possible for E.U. leaders arriving here later Thursday to gather in a spirit unity.

“It’s a good day for Europe,” said François Hollande, the French president. “The crisis came from the banks, and mechanisms have been put in place that will mean nothing is as it was before.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the agreement was “a big step toward more trust and confidence in the euro zone.” The summit meeting could now focus “on strengthening economic coordination” and “set out a road map for the coming months,” she added.

In another measure to shore up the euro, the finance ministers approved the release of nearly €50 billion, or $65 billion, in further aid to Greece, including long-delayed payments, support that is crucial for the government to avoid defaulting on its debts.

“Today is not only a new day for Greece, it is indeed a new day for Europe,” Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, said ahead of the summit meeting.

But threatening to spoil the upbeat atmosphere were questions over the future leadership of Italy, where the economy is contracting, debt levels are rising, and Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, has threatened to try to reclaim the office in an election next year.

It remained unclear Thursday whether Mr. Berlusconi would run and, if that were to happen, whether he would campaign on promises to reverse reforms put in place by Mario Monti, the current prime minister. Even so, the re-emergence of Mr. Berlusconi — who attended a summit meeting of center-right parties in Brussels on Thursday — could destabilize markets and even rekindle the financial crisis.

The bank supervision plan was first discussed in June and wrapped up in a matter of months — record time by the glacial standards of E.U. rulemaking. The agreement should serve as a springboard for leaders to weigh further steps toward economic integration during their meeting.

Such measures could include a unified system, and perhaps shared euro area resources, to ensure failing banks are closed in an orderly fashion. This could be followed, in time, by measures intended to reinforce economic and monetary union, including, possibly, the creation of a shared fund that could be used to shore up the economies of vulnerable members of the euro zone.

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said the agreement on banking supervision “marks an important step towards a stable economic and monetary union, and toward further European integration.” But he noted that governments and the European Commission still had to work on the details of the supervision mechanism.

The new system should be fully operational by March 2014, but ministers left the door open for the E.C.B. to push that date back if the central bank would “not be ready for exercising in full its tasks.”

A series of compromises were needed for finance ministers to reach agreement on banking supervision.

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IHT Rendezvous: In China, Fears Ours Would Be a 'One-Week Puppy'

BEIJING — China has many genuine pet lovers who care well for their dogs, but also many owners who don’t. The dog trade is virtually unsupervised and selling sick animals to unsuspecting customers is common. Animal shelters are full. The pet scene is tough. Buying a dog, which I write about in my latest Letter from China, can be a risky business.

“Some breeders just want to make money. Some are real animal lovers,” said Xing Xiaosi, an editor and marketer at goumin.com, a Web site for dog lovers in China that offers an interactive education and information platform.

“But in general, the situation isn’t that positive or optimistic,” she said.

A week after we bought our boxer puppy, Xiao Tongzhi, or Little Comrade, he fell ill.

Knowing the horror stories, I took him to the vet, feeling queasy.

Here’s how Ms. Xing described an all-too common scenario: “Many dogs are not well treated in kennels and if the owners feel the dog looks sick, they may give it an injection to stimulate it, and make it more active. It usually lasts for about a week. They hope to sell the dog within a week to make their money, but the dog may die very soon after the week. If the buyer takes it to an animal hospital for treatment it may live. But if he doesn’t want to spend the money, it won’t.”

The serious — possibly deadly — illnesses include puppy distemper, canine parvovirus and canine coronavirus, usually contracted in dirty and crowded conditions at kennels.

Was Little Comrade a “one-week puppy,” as they are called?

Thankfully, the vet said he had only caught a cold. He tested negative for parvovirus and distemper, though he had been exposed to coronavirus, she said. Beijing’s cold had turned even harsher the weekend we bought him in early December, with temperatures dropping below freezing.

Still, the vet didn’t take any chances, administering anti-distemper serum and large amounts of antibiotics. The bottom line was — all puppies are vulnerable to serious disease because of the conditions they are often kept in before sale.

Overall, animal rights awareness here is low, said Ms. Xing.

“Many people are not responsible towards their pets,” she said. “They buy them as if they were toys. Then, once they have them back home, they feel they are difficult to care for because they urinate and defecate and they feel that’s dirty.”

“Some people throw their pets away when the family gets a baby,” she added. “When they’re abandoned some people do try to look for a new home. But many just throw them into the streets.”

As a result, animal shelters in Beijing and other cities are full.

“People’s consciousness about keeping pets needs to be raised,” Ms. Xing said. “They need to feel responsible for their lives.”

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App Smart: Apps Help Extend the Battery Life of Devices

As you jet off on a winter vacation or a holiday season trip to see family, chances are you’ll face a 21st-century problem: mobile device battery angst. It’s a never-ending itch at the back of your thoughts. Though we all love to use our smartphones to stave off boredom, or to navigate a new city, every moment of use eats precious battery time. And, particularly during a journey, you never know when you will find power next.

Thanks to my job, I experience more battery angst than most people, so I have tried some battery life apps. You may too. But unlike other types of apps, you need to be wary with these.

Apple’s tight control of iOS means battery apps on the App Store, even popular ones like Battery Life Pro All-in-One (free on iTunes), cannot automatically control an iPhone or iPad’s real-time battery consumption. This is because of Apple’s own systems for protecting battery life and app security. That said, there are some supposed best practices you can follow to keep your iDevice’s battery healthy. And there are ways you can manually adjust your phone.

Battery Doctor Pro is one of the best-designed battery advice apps ($1 on iTunes). Its main page has a graph showing current battery charge and a grid of icons that activate submenus. The “status” submenu lists estimates of how much talk time your battery offers at that moment, how much video playback and so on. The “inspection” submenu offers a list of actions to help extend battery life — like disabling Wi-Fi. Some of these actions are accompanied with tips on how to carry them out. These are the really useful parts of the app, which teach you about your phone.

Another useful feature is the “maintain” submenu, which guides you through a process said to increase the performance of lithium batteries. This involves letting the battery run down to less than 20 percent charge, then charging it to 100 percent and letting it remain on charge for a while.

Battery Doctor Pro has a long list of other options, like a selection of themes — monitoring the device, keeping track of charges — but really these are just useless frills. For example, it may be interesting to use the “monitor” to see what code your phone is running, but it will not be of immediate use in extending battery life.

Battery Boost Magic (free on iTunes) is a very similar app, with a slightly flashier interface, and its battery life tips section may be more easily accessible for iDevice beginners. Essentially, however, this app works in the same way as Battery Doctor Pro. If you are really into these apps, Battery Life Pro All-in-One has a very flashy interface, although it too works the same way.

Android device owners face a different situation. Android apps can get access directly to some settings in the device to help preserve battery life without the user’s having to dive into them manually. But the more open design of Android itself presents a problem, because some apps can run in ways that really do eat up battery life.

The 2X Battery — Battery Saver app (free) is perhaps one of the more straightforward battery life apps for Android. It indicates how long a battery has left until it runs out and also offers alerts about whether power-hungry systems like GPS are turned on. Tapping these alerts takes you directly to Android’s settings so you can turn off services to save battery life. The app also has different modes, so it can automatically control a device’s behavior — turning Wi-Fi off for long intervals at night, for example, on the premise that you are not using the device while asleep.

Easy Battery Saver (free) is another good battery app. Its best feature is its main dashboard, which reports on current battery status and allows one-tap access to turn off or adjust Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, mobile data and screen brightness. Like 2X Battery, this app has different power-saving modes that try to minimize power-gulping activities like getting access to wireless networks. The app also shows graphically which apps seem to be using the most power. This data may prompt you to turn off an especially power-hungry app you may have forgotten is running, like a live wallpaper app.

The problem with these apps is that the next time you pick up your Android device, you might find you have turned off the very function you need. For example, you may have selected low screen brightness to save battery life, but suddenly find you need to read the screen in a brightly lighted room. Thus you may have to jump in and out of your battery saver apps to adjust their settings.

My advice would be to concentrate on free versions of these different apps on iOS or Android. Try them for a while to see if they help, or at least teach you good habits. But do not panic about battery apps; you bought your phone to use it, after all.

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