TOKYO (Reuters) - Abenomics' massive monetary stimulus was supposed to depress long-term interest rates to spur economic activity, but the Japanese government bond market has other ideas.

Banks, unable to make money on their Japanese government bonds (JGBs) anymore, have begun sloughing off their holdings, putting upward pressure on yields. Major banks sold off about 11 percent of their holdings in April alone.

Large lenders have hiked their prime rates to make up for the loss of earnings on JGBs, which threatens to price potential borrowers out of the mortgage market, while higher long-term rates could sap corporate Japan's already anaemic demand for loans.

That puts at risk the very activity Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had intended to spark with the Bank of Japan's massive quantitative easing (QE) on April 4, when it promised to inject $1.4 trillion into the economy over two years.

"QE policy doesn't mean just buying more government bonds. Buying more bonds is just a tool, a means to achieve lower interest rates," said Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors.

"QE is also convincing the market that yields will stay low, and the Bank of Japan is not doing the latter," he said.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year JGB is still very low both historically and compared with other sovereign debt.

But it has jumped about half a percentage point from the record-low 0.315 percent reached the day after the BOJ unveiled its radical plan to double the monetary base over two years to achieve 2 percent inflation. At one stage in recent frenetic trading, it reached 1 percent.

The plan's rationale was that the intense burst of monetary stimulus would drive down interest rates, as the central bank bought an amount equivalent to about 70 percent of new issuance each month.

Instead, after a brief tumble, rates began to rise as banks and other investors sold JGBs, worried they were holding assets that would lose value as the promised inflation emerged.

"There is a conflict of the logic in terms of the higher inflation rate and lower nominal interest rate," said Tadashi Matsukawa, head of fixed-income at Pinebridge Investments in Tokyo.

The worst-case scenario for Japan would be a bond market caught in a vicious circle of selling, which could happen some economists suggest if investors start to worry about the impact of rising long-term rates on the country's public debt.

That will make it increasingly costly for the Japanese government to service the debt, which at 230 percent of gross domestic product is already the heaviest among industrialised countries.

"The Bank of Japan cannot control the JGB market. They have already used every method to control JGBs, so the JGB yield will go up sharply," said Takeshi Fujimaki, a former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros and now president of investment advisory firm Fujimaki Japan.

"A 'good' interest rate rise is when yields rise because of expected inflation," Fujimaki said.

But if that inflation is not the result of a healthy pick up in economic growth, it would lead to what Fujimaki called a "bad" interest rate rise, as investors sell more JGBs to reduce their financial exposure to Japan's increasing fiscal burden.

Japan's cabinet on Friday rubber-stamped measures aimed at boosting sustained growth in consumption, output and incomes, with more steps promised after next month's upper house elections.

But measures announced so far have left markets unconvinced, despite a drumbeat of reassurance from government and BOJ officials. Reflecting some doubts, the yen rose to a 10-week high last week, while the Nikkei stock averageis more than 20 percent below its 5-1/2 peak hit on May 23.

"Japan's economy is on a steady path of recovery and it will gradually gather strength," and financial markets will calm down, BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told reporters on Thursday after a meeting with Abe.

In a sign that Japanese are also worried interest rates will continue to head higher, homebuyers are rushing to secure fixed-rate mortgages.

Japan's top three banks, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ , Mizuho Bankand Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corpall raised 10-year fixed rates for most qualified borrowers to 1.6 percent in June, from 1.4 percent in May and 1.35 percent in April, to reflect the rise in benchmark long-term interest rates.

Banks themselves contributed to some of that rise as they shed JGBs. The total balance of Japanese government bonds held by the country's major banks plunged in April to 96.27 trillion yen, down 10.8 percent from March, dropping below the 100 trillion yen threshold for the first time since June 2011, BOJ data shows.

To be sure, falling bond prices and a corollary rise in interest rates is also much more widespread as investors grow concerned about the direction of U.S. and Japanese monetary policy. They are worried that the U.S. Federal Reserve, which meets this week, is preparing to taper off its own stimulus programme and investors were upset last week that the Bank of Japan decided against introducing new money market methods to calm volatile prices.

The risk for the Japanese government is that the broader market turbulence, partly the result of investors selling off their riskier assets, continues as investors fret over the direction of monetary policy.

"That will make the situation difficult for Mr. Abe's policymaking," said Naomi Muguruma, senior strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.

"I think it's too early to determine whether or not Abenomics is a success or failure, but as far as the JGB market is concerned, Abenomics and the BOJ's new policy framework actually increased market volatility and also confused market participants," she said.

The lack of clarity on Japanese policy, combined with less market liquidity as the central bank snaps up so many bonds, has prompted investors to brace for large price swings.

Implied volatilities on JGB futures have been above 5 percent for most of the past month, hovering around their highest levels since they spiked following Japan's March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and up sharply from around 2 percent before the BOJ unveiled its radical monetary policy.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau; Editing by Neil Fullick)

The star of HBO's "Behind the Candelabra" spoke about his throat cancer that was diagnosed in 2010 and its sometime association with the ubiquitous human papillomavirus, or HPV, and oral sex.

"Because without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV [human papillomavirus], which actually comes about from cunnilingus," today's edition of The Guardian newspaper .

But the actor's publicist, Allen Burry, told ABCNews.com today that his client "never said it was the cause of his particular cancer. They did discuss it. He did say oral sex is a suspected cause of certain oral cancers. He did not say it was his specifically."

About 63 percent of the estimated 11,726 cases of oropharyngeal cancers diagnosed each year in the United States are thought to be caused by HPV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 3,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with HPV-associated anal cancer and the rate of infection appears to be increasing.

"Right now in the United States only 2 percent of boys are vaccinated, which is shocking because by the time they are adults, these boys will be more likely to get cancer from HPV than girls," said , director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center.

"By the time they become adults, throat cancer from HPV in men is four times more likely than cervical cancer in women."

HPV spreads via oral, vaginal and anal intimacy, as well as through cunnilingus and fellatio. The virus does not live in the blood, semen or vaginal secretions. It takes about 20 years for exposure to the virus to develop into cancer.

Doctors say that-- earlier sex, more partners and especially oral sex -- are contributing to a new epidemic of orpharyngeal squamous cell cancers, those of the throat, tonsils and base of the tongue.

Similarly high rates have also been seen in Europe, where a 2010showed a strong correlation between oral cancers and oral sex.

About 50 percent of all girls are vaccinated against HPV-related cervical cancer, a number which is slowly increasing because of strong CDC recommendations, Dr. Cullen said. Women do get HPV-related throat cancer, but at a much lower rate than men.

"The take home message is this virus is out there and virtually everyone is exposed as they become sexually active ... no matter what point in life," he said. "And boys are at greater risk than girls."

The CDC recommends two licensed vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, to protect against cervical, anal and oral cancers, but those guidelines have never been fully embraced by parents or young adults.

"Why not prevent what's preventable? HPV infects both sexes," Austin, Texas, pediatrician Dr. Ari Brown said. "And, while the biggest benefit for boys to get this shot is prevention against spreading it to girls, boys are at risk for other types of HPV-related cancers as well as genital warts."

But even as HPV-related head, neck and throat cancers are on the rise -- by more than 225 percent between 1988 and 2004, according to one study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology -- vaccination rates remain low.

"I think the public was spooked and once people are scared, it is hard to unscare them," Brown said. "However, the vaccine has been out for seven years now. Over 40 million doses have been given. Hopefully, people will become more accepting of the vaccine over time and we will be able to reduce the number of illnesses caused by HPV."

Aboutand about 14 million become newly infected each year, according to the CDC. The virus is so common that nearly all sexually active men and women will get at least one kind of HPV in their lifetimes.

Cervarix is recommended for females 10 through 25 years of age. . It is also for 9- through 26-year-old males.

Some parents have objected to giving their sons and daughters a vaccine that presumes they will be sexually active.

"What I always tell parents is that you don't have to have intercourse to get HPV," Dr. Brown said. "There are other forms of intimacy that can spread this virus. So, just because you believe your child will not have sex until they are 30 or married, etc., it is possible that having a physical relationship with a partner will lead to HPV infection."

The virus can be spread via skin-to-skin contact with an infected partner, although thin genital skin is the most easily infected.

Others have expressed safety concerns about the vaccine.

A government report released in 2009 , as well as incidents of blood clots and neurological disorders.

Cullen said looking back at reports, researchers have concluded that there were "no excess deaths" directly attributed to the vaccine.

"The vaccine has been given to hundreds of thousands, if not millions worldwide," oncologist Cullen said. "We have more than 10 years experience and it has been looked at carefully. We can now say with complete confidence that it is very safe and the reactions we have seen are usually very mild, as you would see with any injection."

Because of the growing acceptance of vaccination among girls, cervical cancer rates among women are beginning to decline, Cullen said. "All this is very good news," he added.

But HPV rectal and anal cancers are "going up significantly."

Each year, more than 30,000 new cases of cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx are diagnosed, and more than 8,000 people die from oral cancer, according to the CDC.

There are more than 100 strains of the virus. Some cause genital warts, but others can result in cell changes that decades later can become cancerous. Each strain is identified by a number; oral and cervical cancers are caused by HPV sub-types 16 and 18.

HPV can also cause cancers of the vulva, vagina and penis, and there is some evidence it is associated with lung cancers.

Obama's efforts to press Xi to halt China's alleged hacking against the U.S. could be overshadowed by revelations that Obama's own administration has been secretly seizing phone records from millions of Americans.

There are significant differences between China's reported cyberattacks against U.S. interests and the Obama administration's court-approved domestic surveillance program. But both underscore the vast technological and in some cases, legal powers that governments have to access information covertly from individuals, companies and other governments.

The setting for the talks that begin Friday is the 200-acre Sunnylands estate just outside Palm Springs, Calif., marking a departure from the formality that typically greets Chinese leaders during state visits at the White House. U.S. officials hope the relaxed atmosphere will facilitate a more candid and free-flowing discussion between the leaders of the world's two largest economies.

Obama was due to arrive Friday afternoon following a health-care event and a Democratic fundraiser in Northern California. He and Xi will hold a bilateral meeting Friday evening, then take questions from reporters. They'll also have discussions during a working dinner Friday night and hold additional talks Saturday morning.

The media availability with reporters will likely mark Obama's first public comments on the revelation that the National Security Agency, under the cover of a top-secret court order, is accessing the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that the NSA phone record program is a "critical tool" in keeping Americans safe.

"The top priority of the president of the United States is the national security of the United States and protecting this homeland," Earnest said. "And we need to make sure that we have the tools we need to confront the threat posed by terrorists, to disrupt plots that may exist and to otherwise protect the homeland."

The debate over U.S. government-sanctioned surveillance will be juxtaposed with Obama's warnings to Xi against Chinese spying on the American government and businesses.

China has publicly denied that it is using computer network technology to spy on the U.S. But Obama administration officials say they've seen some signals in private meetings with Chinese counterparts that Beijing may be ready to address the issue.

The economy is also expected to be a major topic during the talks, with Xi likely to press China's claims of business discrimination in U.S. markets. The leaders are also certain to discuss North Korea's provocative nuclear threats.

Obama and Xi first met before the Chinese leader took office in March. They weren't slated to meet again until September, on the margins of an international economic summit in Russia, but both countries saw a need to move up their first meeting of the year, given the myriad issues that define their relationship.

The China summit kicks off a heavy foreign policy-focused stretch for Obama that includes trips to Europe and Africa later this month. It also comes as the White House grapples not only with the NSA disclosure, but also controversies over the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups, the Justice Department's seizure of phone records from Associated Press journalists, and the resurgent investigation into the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress Jean Stapleton, best known for her Emmy-winning role as the good-hearted housewife Edith Bunker in the groundbreaking 1970s television comedy "All in the Family," has died at age 90, her family said on Saturday.

Stapleton died on Friday of natural causes at her home in New York City, her son, film and television director John Putch, said in a statement.

"It is with great love and heavy hearts that we say farewell to our collective Mother, with a capital M," Putch and his sister, Pamela Putch, said in a joint statement. "Her devotion to her craft and her family taught us all great life lessons."

The actress won three Emmys, U.S. TV's highest honor, for her role as Edith, the long-suffering, unsophisticated but understanding wife of the reactionary and often racist Archie Bunker, played by the late Carroll O'Connor, in the hit TV sitcom.

"All in the Family," inspired by the British program "Till Death Us Do Part," was a success with audiences even as it helped usher in a new era for U.S. television by confronting contentious topics such as racism, the Vietnam War and the feminist movement.

Archie, a working-class New Yorker, often clashed over politics and social issues with his adult daughter, Gloria, and his liberal son-in-law, Michael Stivic, whom he called "Meathead."

Edith spoke in a nasal, high-pitched voice, and seemed confused at times by the social changes going on around her. Her gentle nature contrasted with her husband's mean streak. Although Archie often called her a "dingbat," she patiently stood by him.

In a nod to the generational conflict on display in the show, the program, aired on CBS, began with Archie and Edith at a piano singing the nostalgic "Those Were the Days."

"No one gave more profound 'How to be a Human Being' lessons than Jean Stapleton," Norman Lear, the producer of "All in the Family," said in a written statement released to Reuters.

Film director Rob Reiner, who played Edith's son-in-law, said in a statement to CBS News that Stapleton was "a brilliant comedienne with exquisite timing."

Stapleton appeared in "All in the Family" from 1971 to 1979, and continued her role for a time in the 1979 spinoff show "Archie Bunker's Place."

MAKING EDITH FUNNY

Stapleton was born Jeanne Murray in New York in 1923 to an opera singer mother and a businessman father. She would later use her mother's maiden name, Stapleton, as her stage name.

She worked during World War Two as a typist for the British War Ministry Office in New York and made her professional stage debut in 1941. In the 1950s and 1960s, she acted in a number of Broadway productions, including a part in "Damn Yankees" that got Lear's attention and her role in "All in the Family."

Sitting alongside O'Connor for a 2000 interview on the talk show "Donny & Marie," Stapleton said she developed her nasal voice to play an oddball in "Damn Yankees" and decided to use it again in "All in the Family," after behind-the-scenes work that saw Edith go from abrasive to daffy.

"As we developed and found the characters, which was in the rehearsal process and which was very stimulating, very exciting and a learning process, as these elements came to us, something else developed," Stapleton said. "And one was, I think I'll use that nasal voice because it's funny."

O'Connor, who died in 2001, said in the same interview that if Stapleton had followed the British version of the show and played Edith as sharp-tongued, the program would have been less successful. "She had to be what she created in order to make Archie work," he said.

After "All in the Family," Stapleton played former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in a 1982 television movie, and had a supporting role in the 1998 romantic comedy "You've Got Mail."

She maintained a lifelong love of the theater, and in 1990, received the Village Voice newspaper's Obie Award for her performances in Harold Pinter's Off-Broadway plays "Mountain Language" and "The Birthday Party."

She spent a number of years living and working in Los Angeles, but returned to her native New York in 2002 to live permanently.

Stapleton is survived by her son and daughter. Her husband, William Putch, died in 1983.

(Writing and additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Peter Cooney)

[More from BGR: ]

This article was

Crewmembers flying toand back using traditional chemical thrusters would be exposed to the high radiation levels of deep space for 12 to 17 months. That's simply too long to keep astronauts' radiation doses from fast-moving particles known as galactic cosmic rays within currently acceptable limits, researchers said.

At the same time, they added, improved shielding is needed to help protect deep-space explorers from charged particles blasted out by the sun. (Traditional shielding does little good against cosmic rays.) []

"We need to get there faster to reduce the , but we need to have shielding, local shielding, on board to eliminate the effects of solar particle events," Eddie Semones, spaceflight radiation health officer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, told reporters Thursday (May 30). "So it's hand in hand."

Experts aren't sure what's behind the increase. Could it be that children are growing up in households so clean that it leaves them more sensitive to things that can trigger allergies?Or are mom and dad paying closer attention to rashes and reactions, and more likely to call it an allergy?

"We don't really have the answer," said Dr. Lara Akinbami of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the senior author of the new report released Thursday.

The CDC survey suggests that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies. That's a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s. For eczema and other skin allergies, it's 1 in 8 children, an increase of 69 percent. It found no increase, however, in hay fever or other respiratory allergies.

Already familiar with the trend in food allergies are school nurses, who have grown busier with allergy-related duties, like banishing peanuts at school parties or stocking emergency allergy medicine.

Sally Schoessler started as school nurse in 1992 in New York state, and didn't encounter a child with a food allergy for a few years. But by the time she left school nursing in 2005, "there were children in the majority of classrooms" with the disorder, said Schoessler, who now works at the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md.

Food allergies tend to be most feared; severe cases may cause anaphylactic shock or even death from eating, say, a peanut. But many food allergies are milder and something children grow out of. Skin conditions like eczema, too, can be mild and temporary.

It's been difficult getting exact numbers for children's allergies, and the new report isn't precise. It uses annual surveys of thousands of adults interviewed in person. The report compares answers from 1997-1999 to those from 2009-2011.

Parents were asked if in the previous year their child had any kind of food or digestive allergy, any eczema or skin allergy, or any kind of respiratory allergy like hay fever.

The researchers did not ask if a doctor had made the diagnosis or check medical records. So some parents may have been stating a personal opinion, and not necessarily a correct one.

"We see a lot of kids in clinic that really aren't" allergic to the foods their parents worry about, said Dr. Morton Galina, a pediatric allergist at Atlanta's Emory School of Medicine.

For example, hives are sometimes blamed on a certain food when a virus was the actual cause, he added.

But experts also said they believe there is a real and unexplained increase going on, too.

One of the more popular theories is "the hygiene hypothesis," which says that exposure to germs and parasites in early childhood somehow prevents the body from developing certain allergies.

The hypothesis argues that there is a downside to America's culture of disinfection and overuse of antibiotics. The argument has been bolstered by a range of laboratory and observational studies, including some that have found lower rates of eczema and food allergies in foreign-born children in the U.S.

There could be other explanations, though. Big cities have higher childhood allergy rates, so maybe some air pollutant is the unrecognized trigger, said Dr. Peter Lio, a Northwestern University pediatric dermatologist who specializes in eczema.

Some suspect the change has something to do with the evolution in how foods are grown and produced, like the crossbreeding of wheat or the use of antibiotics in cattle. But Lio said tests haven't supported that.

Emory's Galina said the new CDC statistics may reflect a recent "sea change" in the recommendations for when young children should first eat certain foods.

In families with a history of eczema or food allergies, parents were advised to wait for years before introducing their young children to foods tied to severe allergies, like peanuts, milks and eggs. But professional associations changed that advice a few years ago after research suggested that allergies were more likely in those kids when the foods were delayed.

The old advice "was exactly the wrong thing to do," and could have contributed to some of the increased cases, Galina said.

The CDC report also found:

Food and respiratory allergies are more common in higher-income families than the poor,

Eczema and skin allergies are most common among the poor.

More black children have the skin problems, 17 percent, compared to 12 percent of white children and about 10 percent of Hispanic children.

The mother of a 13-year-old girl, who is black, runs an eczema support group in suburban Washington, D.C. Renee Dantzler says roughly half the families in her group are African-American. Eczema is an itchy skin condition, which often occurs on the arms or behind the knees. The cause isn't always clear.

Her daughter, Jasmine, started getting rashes at 6 months and got much worse when she was 4.

"Her whole body would flare. If she ate something, you would kind of hold your breath," Dantzler said. "And she's allergic to every grass and tree God made."

Her daughter took to wearing long sleeves and pants, even in hot weather, so people wouldn't see her skin scarred and whitened in spots from scratching. She began to improve about four years ago with steroid creams and other treatments and has gradually become less self-conscious about her skin, Dantzler said.

She's now on a school track team, which means wearing shorts.

"She's the only one on the team with long socks," her mom said.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

DUBLIN, Ohio (Reuters) - Rejuvenated by the recent birth of his first child, American Bill Haas rebounded from successive missed cuts on the PGA Tour to grab a three-shot lead in Friday's weather-hit second round at the Memorial Tournament.

While five-times champion and last year's winner Tiger Woods battled to a two-over-par 74 in gusting winds at Muirfield Village Golf Club to sit 10 strokes off the pace, Haas putted superbly on lightning-fast greens to fire a five-under-par 67.

Though Haas bogeyed his final hole, the par-four 18th, after hitting his approach over the back of the green, he was delighted to take control of the popular PGA Tour event hosted by Jack Nicklaus with a nine-under total of 135.

"I've been very fortunate," Haas told reporters after a round which included five birdies, an eagle at the par-five fifth and two bogeys to finish three ahead of compatriot Matt Kuchar (70).

"I hit a couple of loose shots. On number 11, the wind was right-to-left and I hit a provisional, I thought it was out of bounds there.

"We got out there and it (his first tee shot) must have hit a tree and it was fine. I ended up making birdie. That was probably a three-shot swing there. A huge hole for me there."

Swede Robert Karlsson was at four under after shooting a 71, with Americans Pat Perez (69), Hunter Mahan (68) and Australian Matt Jones (72) a further stroke back.

Play was suspended for the day at 7:07 p.m. EDT due to the threat of lightning, after two previous weather delays which totaled just under two hours.

Forty-two players were still out on the course and will have to complete the second round on Saturday morning, resuming at 7:30 a.m.

Among those were overnight leader Charl Schwartzel of South Africa, after 15 holes, and 2012 Masters champion Bubba Watson, after 14, who were both at six under for the tournament.

Haas, who had missed the cut on his previous two starts before spending time with his wife at home following the May 13 birth of their son William, had bitter-sweet feelings over his bogey at the last.

"Obviously disappointing but it was probably my best iron shot of the day," the four-times PGA Tour winner said of his approach on 18. "It carried a little farther than I wanted and stayed up over the green, which is really no good. I hit two nice quality shots on 18."

WEATHER CONDITIONS

Asked how the weather conditions on Friday morning had matched up to the strengthening winds he had to negotiate during his opening 68, Haas replied: "It was pretty similar, actually.

"Maybe even a hair more difficult today, but those greens are lightning fast, I think that's the biggest deal.

"With that kind of wind and that fast of greens, it's very difficult to make putts, and I've just been fortunate to see a few go in," added Haas.

Woods, widely regarded as one of the best putters of all time, did not watch as many putts drop on Friday as he labored to a one-over total of 145, two shots inside the projected cutline.

"Tough conditions out there and I didn't exactly play my best either," said the American world number one who three-putted from just five feet to double-bogey the par-five 15th.

"It's not that hard to make bogeys and doubles on this golf course. You miss it in the wrong spot, get the wrong gust, it's tough."

Woods, who has triumphed four times in just seven starts on the 2013 PGA Tour, ended up with two birdies, two bogeys and a double on his card, but it was the putting he found most frustrating.

"They (putts) were moving all over the place," the 37-year-old said after have to cope on the slick greens as winds gusted up to 25mph.

"It's tough. You try and stay below the hole as best you can, but sometimes you have to get the ball on the green."

The cut was projected to fall at three-over 147 with U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, three-times major winner Vijay Singh and 14-year-old Chinese Guan Tianlang among those likely to miss out.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes; Editing by Frank Pingue)

BERLIN (Reuters) - Puerto Rican banker Richard Carrion launched his bid for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday, with his long financial experience a powerful pitch in his quest for the world's top sports job.

The 60-year-old Carrion, who is chairman of Puerto Rican lender Popular Inc, heads the IOC's finance commission and is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, becomes the third official candidate in the race to be decided on September 10.

"We have a lot at stake in this election," Carrion, an IOC member since 1990, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Our place in the world is not guaranteed. We must have a leader that knows how not just to manage the coming change but also make it work for the IOC and the movement," said the soft-spoken Carrion.

IOC Vice Presidents Thomas Bach from Germany and Singapore's Ng Ser Miang have already launched their campaigns while the head of the International Boxing Federation (AIBA) C.K. Wu is set to announce his bid on Thursday.

Several more could decide to run, with Swiss sports administrator Denis Oswald and former pole vault champion Sergei Bubka seen as likely candidates.

As head of the IOC's finance commission since 2002, Carrion, who is also responsible for negotiating broadcasting rights for the IOC, has overseen major revenue growth over the past decade despite the global economic downturn.

He also helped to negotiate a four-Games deal to 2020 with U.S. broadcaster NBC worth $4.38 billion.

Sponsorship revenues for the IOC through its TOP program for the 2013-16 period are set to exceed $1 billion for the first time, compared with $663 million for 2001-4.

"(IOC) President (Jacques) Rogge has entrusted me with a lot of responsibility, financial and television. It was his vision that we should grow the foundation to have enough money at hand in case Games were cancelled," said Carrion.

MOUNTING REVENUES

Broadcasting revenues, the biggest source of income for the IOC, are seen topping $4 billion until 2016, with revenues for the 2002-4 period at almost half that.

"If you look at the IOC, it has a great standing but by nature when things are going well I think about what could go wrong. This is a great standing but it is not something that is guaranteed," said Carrion.

He said he wanted to see the IOC branching out to other organizations to become stronger.

"We cannot do everything on our own. We have tremendous resources in the work our members do. We can create associations with other organizations around the world, learn from best practices."

In turn, Carrion said he wanted to see Olympic Games expertise brought back into the IOC as the Games became more complex.

"We developed an expertise and need to bring this core of people in-house. There are areas in staging Olympics where we would benefit if we had a core of people permanently engaged in host cities," he said.

The IOC will elect the winning candidate at their session in Buenos Aires, with all 100-plus IOC members voting. Rogge is stepping down after his two-term presidency comes to a mandatory end.

Asked to comment on how he viewed campaigning against close colleagues for one of the most powerful sports jobs in the world that has come up only twice since 1980, Carrion said he thought there would be at least two more candidates appearing before the June 10 deadline.

"I think there will probably six candidates and this is a good thing. The more candidates, the more opportunity for members to make the decision who is the most capable person.

"Every IOC member is responsible for that legacy and I am convinced the number of candidates is a good thing. We should all have opportunity to share our ideas."

(Editing by Clare Fallon)

LONDON (Reuters) - The new strain of bird flu that has killed 17 people in China has been circulating widely "under the radar" and has acquired significant genetic diversity that makes it more of a threat, scientists said on Friday.

Dutch and Chinese researchers who analyzed genetic data from seven samples of the new H7N9 strain say it has already acquired similar levels of genetic diversity as much larger outbreaks of other H7 strains of flu seen previously in birds.

"The diversity we see in these first few samples from China is as great as the diversity we have seen with a large outbreak in the Netherlands several years ago and one in Italy," said Marion Koopmans, head of virology at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who worked on the study as part of a nine-member team.

"This means it (the H7N9 strain in China) has been spreading quite a bit and it's important to understand where exactly that is going on."

Its genetic diversity shows the virus has an ability to mutate repeatedly and is likely to continue doing so, raising the risk that it may become transmissible among humans.

Koopmans, whose research was published in the online journal Eurosurveillance, said the circulation would probably have taken place in either birds or mammals, but said exactly which animals were involved was not yet clear.

"Simply the fact that this virus is spreading under the radar - because that is what this data confirms - is of concern," she told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The H7N9 virus is so far known to have infected 87 people in China, killing 17 of them. Health officials raised further questions on Friday about the source of the new strain after data indicated that more than half of patients had had no contact with poultry.

MUTATIONS

A scientific study published last week showed the H7N9 strain was a so-called "triple reassortant" virus with a mixture of genes from three other flu strains found in birds in Asia. One of those three strains is thought to have come from a brambling, a type of small wild bird.

For their study, Koopmans and her team compared some data from the first two weeks of the China H7N9 outbreak with data from a large H7N7 flu outbreak in birds and people the Netherlands in 2003 and an H7N1 epidemic in birds in Italy in 1999 and 2000.

The Dutch outbreak resulted in infection of poultry on 255 farms and led to the culling of about 30 million chickens. Some 89 people were also diagnosed as having the H7N7 virus and one person, a vet, died as a result of the infection.

The comparison suggested that "widespread circulation (of the H7N9 strain in China) must have occurred, resulting in major genetic diversification", the researchers wrote in their study.

They added: "Such diversification is of concern, given that several markers associated with increased risk for public health are already present."

Flu experts in China and at the World Health Organization say there is no evidence so far that H7N9 is passing easily between people.

But scientists who analyzed the genetic sequence data from three early samples from China say the virus has already acquired some mutations that might make it more likely to be able to do so in the future, raising the risk of a human pandemic.

"Although human infections with H7 influenza viruses have occurred repeatedly over the last decades without evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, the absence of sustained human-to-human transmission of H7N9 viruses does not come with any guarantee," Koopmans' team wrote in their study.

(Editing by Ben Hirschler and Alison Williams)