Legislator Odalis Monzon said the proposal would "prohibit all types of baby bottles" as a way to improve children's health.

"We want to increase the love (between mother and child) because this has been lost as a result of these transnational companies selling formula," Monzon said on state television on Thursday.

She said the Law for the Promotion and Support for Breast-Feeding, passed in 2007, did not establish any sanctions for using formula. However, she did not say what the sanctions might be if the proposed change to prohibit bottle feeding is passed by Congress, where the Socialist Party has a majority.

Monzon said, however, that exceptions would be allowed, such as in the case of the death of a mother, or for women with limited breast milk production, as determined by the health ministry.

She did not respond to phone calls seeking details, including how long babies would be breast-fed.

Such legislation would likely raise the ire of opposition sympathizers who say the government of the late President Hugo Chavez excessively extended the reach of the state into the lives of private citizens.

"People are free to feed their children as they see fit," said Ingrid Rivero, a 27-year-old mother in Caracas. "My daughter stopped breast feeding after seven months. What can I do? Force her?"

Chavez ally Nicolas Maduro, who was elected in April after his mentor's death from cancer, has vowed to extend his predecessor's 14-year self-styled revolution that enjoyed strong support among the country's poor.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Eyanir Chinea; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jackie Frank)

LONDON (Reuters) - Neither a revved up Jo-Wilfried Tsonga nor the awful British weather could prevent Andy Murray reaching a third Queen's Club final on Saturday as the world number two battled back from a set down to win 4-6 6-3 6-2.

Local favourite Murray now faces champion Marin Cilic in Sunday's final after the fifth-seeded Croat triumphed 6-4 4-6 6-2 against Lleyton Hewitt who was bidding to roll back the years by winning a fifth Queen's title.

After persistent showers kept the players off court for most of the day, Britain's twice champion Murray emerged into the evening gloom to find fourth seed Tsonga playing aggressive tennis of the highest calibre.

The U.S. Open champion was outclassed in the opening set and faced two break points in the seventh game of the second as the big-hitting Frenchman tightened the screw.

Murray, however, managed to get a handle on the Tsonga serve that had bamboozled him in the early stages and turned the encounter on its head, quickly gaining the psychological edge to extend his winning run over his opponent to seven matches.

Having missed the French Open with a back injury, Murray is still easing his way back to full fitness and will be pleased to have come through a testing workout against a player who battled to the semi-finals at Roland Garros this month, beating Roger Federer on the way.

"I'm much happier," the Scot told reporters. "I said yesterday you don't always come into this tournament with high expectations because you haven't had that long to prepare and it's always a tough draw here.

"With the situation I was in, this week has gone well. I have had a good win today against a top player and, providing I get some good practice next week and don't take my eye off the ball and just be content, I have had a good week here."

Cilic finally overcame unseeded Australian Hewitt in a match that began on Centre Court but was shunted to neighbouring Court One when organisers realised there was little hope of finishing both semi-finals on the main arena.

HEWITT FRUSTRATION

With rain forecast for Sunday, the prospect of a Monday finish is looming but the court switch still frustrated Hewitt.

"It was all weird," he said. "I think the ATP Tour guy panicked under pressure.

"I think he has to take a lot of the blame because there has not been another drop of rain since."

The 32-year-old Hewitt was attempting to become the oldest player to win at Queen's but Cilic proved an awkward opponent.

The Croat's steepling serve bounced high off the skiddy turf, pushing Hewitt out of his comfort zone, and his low slice prevented the veteran attacking with his usual gusto.

Yet after losing the first set, Hewitt scrapped his way back into the match in the second.

While some of the old dynamism has gone, the fiery competitive streak that led the Australian to world number one and two grand slam titles in his heyday was still on show as he frequently queried calls and pointed accusing fingers at linesmen.

Tempers flared in the second set when Cilic felt Hewitt's persistent jibes were beginning to have some influence.

The normally placid Croat shouted 'he's putting pressure on your calls' when umpire James Keothavong overruled a linesman in Hewitt's favour.

Cilic kept his head and then piled on some pressure of his own, racing away with the deciding set.

The fifth seed has an 8-1 losing record to Murray including a straight-sets defeat at Wimbledon last year.

"He plays well here," Murray said. "He's won nine matches in a row and he's beaten some top grasscourt players this week.

"He's one of the top 10 grasscourt players in the world, I would say."

Microsoft also isn't selling Office Mobile for iPhone separately. Instead, it comes as part of a $100-a-year Office 365 subscription, which also lets you use Office on up to five Mac and Windows computers. Microsoft made the app available through Apple's app store Friday.

Microsoft Corp. is treading a fine line as it tries to make its subscription more compelling, without removing an advantage that tablet computers running Microsoft's Windows system now have the ability to run popular Office programs such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Microsoft has been pushing subscriptions as a way to get customers to keep paying for a product that has historically been sold in a single purchase. The company touts such benefits as the ability to run the package on multiple computers and get updates for free on a regular basis.

A subscription can be more expensive than buying the package outright for just one or two computers, but those wanting the iPhone app won't be able to avoid the recurring fees. Microsoft said it wants to give customers yet another reason to embrace subscriptions by offering Office on the iPhone only with a subscription.

The iPhone app will let people read and edit their text documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations at the doctor's office or at a soccer game. But many people will prefer doing those tasks on a tablet's larger screen. Office is available on those devices through a Web browser, but that requires a constant Internet connection, something many tablets don't have.

"The nature of the Office suite, being productivity-focused, makes it better-suited for a larger mobile screen," said Josh Olson, an analyst with Edward Jones. "The issue then becomes, 'How do you provide the Office offering in its best-suited mobile environment without negating a distinguishing characteristic of the Windows 8 tablets?'"

He said Microsoft isn't likely to offer Office on the iPad and other tablets until it sees sufficient adoption of Windows tablets first. Because of that, the new mobile app is likely to increase consumer awareness, but it won't significantly increase subscriptions.

Another analyst, Rick Sherlund of Nomura Securities, warned that delaying a tablet version on non-Windows devices will merely help competitors.

"Office is a bigger business for Microsoft than Windows, so we see more urgency to preserve and extend the Office franchise cross platform," he said.

Apple, for one, is refreshing its iWork package this fall, while Google bought Quickoffice last year. The two offerings are among several that are capable of working with Office files on mobile devices, though people using them may lose formatting and other details.

Chris Schneider, a marketing manager with Microsoft's Office team, would not comment on any plans for the iPad or Android.

The regular version of Office works on Windows 8 tablets, and most of the features are available on a version designed for tablets running a lightweight version of Windows called RT. Customers needing to use Office on a larger screen than a phone might be drawn to the Windows tablets, which have lagged behind in sales and cachet compared with Apple's iPad and various devices running Google's Android system.

The iPhone app comes with Word, Excel and PowerPoint and will sync with Microsoft's SkyDrive online storage service. Microsoft said people will be able to pick up a Word document exactly where they left off on another computer tied to the same account, while comments they add to a Word or Excel file will appear when they open it up on another machine.

Although documents will be reformatted to fit the phone's screen, the company said the iPhone app will preserve charts, animation, comments and other key properties. That's not always the case with programs offered by Google and other companies to work with Office files on mobile devices.

But the app doesn't offer the same range of features available on regular computers.

It's meant for lightweight editing, not complex calculations or heavy graphical work, Schneider said. Someone about to give a speech can review a PowerPoint presentation and fix a typo, for instance. Someone getting a Word or Excel document as an email attachment can add comments or make changes, then send it back, either as an email attachment or through a sharing feature on SkyDrive.

Rather than have it do everything, Schneider said, "we designed the Office Mobile for iPhone to meet the scenarios that make the most sense."

The iPhone app also won't have Outlook for email, Publisher for desktop publishing and Access for databases. Microsoft's OneNote software for note-taking has been available for free separately for iPhones and iPads.

People with Office 365 subscriptions will be able to run the new app on up to five iPhones, in addition to the five Mac or Windows computers. People in the United States were able to get it from Apple's app store Friday. Availability in other countries will follow in the coming days. Downloading is free, but a subscription is needed for the app to work.

It's possible to use the iPhone app on an iPad, but the documents are merely blown up to fit the size of the screen. You won't get to see more of a document despite the larger screen, and text and graphics won't look as sharp when enlarged.

Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., already makes a version for phones running its Windows Phone 8 operating system. An Office 365 subscription isn't required for that, and those apps do not count toward the five mobile devices permitted for each subscription.

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Online:

Microsoft Office: http://office.microsoft.com

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Aspiring food entrepreneurs, mark your calendars: Your favorite new reality series will premiere on July 22.

"Supermarket Superstar," hosted by former WWE star Stacy Keibler, will feature contestants pitching their food ideas to food-industry professionals, with the ultimate goal of getting their product onto supermarket shelves.

In addition to Keibler, the series will feature a panel of mentors that includes chef Michael Chiarello, Mrs. Fields Bakeries founder Debbi Fields and branding expert Chris Cornyn.

After contestants are whittled down, they'll present their products to A&P supermarket buyer Tom Dahlen, who will determine each episode's winner. The finale will see three winners return to compete for the opportunity of a nationwide product launch in A&P supermarkets and their affiliated chains.

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - AwesomenessTV has added teen pop idol Austin Mahone and popular Austrialian band The Janoskians to its network of YouTube channels, the company announced on Thursday. With the addition of those two and a few other YouTube personalities, AwesomenessTV now has more than 1 billion views in its network.

Some of the biggest networks on YouTube reach that figure every month, but they have been around for much longer than Awesomeness.

"We're building a community around creating, curating and consuming content that is a talent discovery platform and social network powered by YouTube," AwesomenessTV founder Brian Robbins said in a statement. "YouTube super stars and stars of tomorrow benefit from our ability to help them find and grow their audience on YouTube and beyond by leveraging our marketing, brand and production expertise."

Mahone is a singer who has toured with Taylor Swift and is about to release a new album. He already made a couple series for Awesomeness called Austin Mahone Takeover and Mahomie Madness.

The Janoskians is a band of Aussie pranksters that has more than 1.4 million subscribers. Awesomeness just launched a new series with them, Janoskian Takeover, that will show their world tour.

The largest floods in over a decade swept through the central European country after days of heavy rain, killing 10 people. Austria, Germany, Slovakia and Poland have also been hit.

The ministry said it would pardon 2013 taxes on personal or corporate income for the self-employed and companies up to the amount of flood damage they suffered.

Several chemical plants and power stations have been damaged or had to shut down due to the floods, and a large number of small businesses were hit. The ministry gave no estimate of how much the pardoned taxes would be worth.

The government has already pledged to free up over 200 million euros ($263.89 million) for flood damage repairs.

Prime Minister Petr Necas said on Friday total damage could reach a double-digit figure in billions of crowns.

The country's insurance industry association said on Thursday that insured damage was estimated at 7.5 billion crowns ($384.48 million).

Water levels have been receding on all rivers but many of the 19,000 people who had to be evacuated have not been able to return to their homes to survey the damage.

Authorities have been leaving flood barriers in place as a precaution because of forecasts of more rain in the coming days.

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka)

Asahikawa, JAPAN (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan expects bond yields to stabilize over time with its flexible market operations and massive asset purchases, a central bank policymaker said, signaling that it has no immediate plans to take fresh steps to calm volatile markets.

Sayuri Shirai, a former IMF economist who is among the BOJ's nine board members, said it was natural and desirable for bond yields to gradually rise in the next two to three years on prospects of an economic recovery and rising prices.

She also said the central bank already has sufficient tools in place to deal with the market volatility, suggesting that she saw no need to extend the maximum duration of funds the BOJ offers in market operations from the current one year - an idea that was debated but not approved at a rate review on Tuesday.

"The BOJ will continue to closely monitor market developments. With flexible market operations, taking into account discussions with market participants, the BOJ expects both short and long-term interest rates to move stably as a whole," she told business leaders in Asahikawa, northern Japan.

The BOJ kept monetary policy steady on Tuesday and held off on new measures to quell bond market turbulence, judging that its massive monetary stimulus in April was sufficient to revive the stagnant economy and pull it out of chronic deflation.

The decision contributed to a sharp sell-off in global equities, including Japanese shares, as the prospect of less stimulus from central banks - particularly from the U.S. Federal Reserve - depressed sentiment.

Shirai sounded unfazed by the yen's rebound and sharp falls in Japanese equities on Thursday, saying that while the BOJ will keep an eye on market moves, the effect of its massive asset purchases will heighten over time.

"It's true volatility is heightening in the stock market ... and I hope stock prices will stabilize," Shirai told a news conference after meeting business leaders.

"We'll proceed with the monetary easing steps already decided, which should offer support (to the economy)."

The dollar fell more than 2 percent to below 94 yen on Thursday, giving up most of its gains after the BOJ's aggressive monetary easing campaign announced on April 4, on uncertainty over when the U.S. Federal Reserve will taper its bond-buying program.

The Nikkei share average also dived more than 6 percent, wiping out gains since the BOJ's April easing, a potentially unwelcome development for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bold monetary and fiscal stimulus that relies heavily on boosting consumer sentiment to revive the world's third-biggest economy.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY INTACT

Japan's economy grew an annualized 4.1 percent in the first quarter thanks to Abe's bold stimulus policies and the weak yen, which boosts the competitive advantage of the country's goods.

The recent market volatility may cloud Japan's growth prospects, although Shirai stuck to the BOJ's view that the economy will resume a moderate recovery around mid-year.

Expectations of future price rises and an economic recovery will work to push up bond yields, although the BOJ's huge bond buying and its strong commitment to ultra-easy policy will offset some of the upward pressure, she said.

On prices, Shirai warned that it will take considerable time to achieve the BOJ's 2 percent inflation target in a country mired in deflation for 15 years.

"As for prices, I personally feel we need to focus somewhat more on downside risks," she said, adding that an expected sales tax hike next year may hurt household spending and discourage companies from passing on the rising costs to consumers.

The BOJ launched an intense burst of monetary stimulus in April, pledging to double its bond holdings in two years to meet its inflation goal in roughly two years.

(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Shinichi Saoshiro & Kim Coghill)

President Enrique Pena Nieto plans to send measures aimed at boosting Mexico's paltry tax take and overhauling ailing state-oil monopoly Pemex to Congress during the second regular session of Congress, which begins in September.

But an overhang of outstanding initiatives from the first congressional session, which ended in April, threatened to push back the much anticipated reforms.

The two extraordinary sessions agreed to on Wednesday would be held in the second halves of July and August respectively, said Emilio Gamboa, who heads the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the Senate.

Representatives of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the conservative National Action Part (PAN) also agreed to the plan.

In the July session, lawmakers will discuss measures that would give more power to the transparency institute, regulate state debt, appoint a new leader for the election authority and create a new anti-corruption body.

In August, the legislators plan to draw up secondary laws to implement recently approved measures aimed at improving education and boosting competition in the telecoms sector, which is dominated by billionaire Carlos Slim.

Both special sessions are due to take place after charged regional elections in 14 states slated for July 7.

Opposition parties have accused the PRI of misusing state funds to win votes in states they govern, which has shaken the so-called "Pact for Mexico," signed by the government and major parties to push through reforms.

A financial reform aimed at boosting credit was also unveiled by the president in May but has not yet been approved.

(Reporting by Miguel Gutierrez; Editing by Alexandra Alper and David Brunnstrom)

Republicans were so concerned about the party's dismal courtship of Latino voters in the 2012 election — Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Latino vote — that theya need to do better in the future, or face irrelevance.

Yet a new Pew Researchsuggests the shifting electoral landscape may not be as perilous as previously thought. Though Latinos continued to increase their overall share of the electorate in 2012, they still lagged significantly behind other demographics in their rate of voter participation.

While a record 11.2 million Latinos voted in the 2012 presidential election, 12.1 million eligible Latino voters didn't bother to cast ballots, also a record-high.

While the number of eligible Latino voters grew 19 percent since 2008, from 19.5 million to 23.3 million, voter participation rose at a slower rate of 15 percent. In the end, less than half of all eligible Latino voters cast ballots — far less than the 66.6 percent and 64.1 percent turnout rates for black and white voters, respectively.

In fact, Latino voter participation actually decreased from the last presidential election.

To look at it another way, while Latinos made up 17.2 percent of the nation's population in 2012, they comprised just 8.4 percent of all voters.

"The Hispanic vote is like a raw prospect in the NBA Draft," . "The potential is quite clearly there but the record of accomplishment doesn’t come close to matching that potential."

As , an uptick in the Latino voting rate could have profoundly changed the 2012 election results. Given President Obama's huge edge with that demographic, a surge of Latino voters would have made battleground states into cakewalks, and possibly added more states to the president's win column.

If the percentage of Hispanics who cast ballots had grown to match the percentage of whites who voted, the presidential map would have changed dramatically. Those higher rates would have meant more than 1 million additional votes in California and Texas; Arizona, which voted for Romney by a 208,000-vote margin, would have added an additional 217,000 Hispanic voters. And in key battleground states such as Colorado and Nevada, close races could have turned into runaway wins for Obama. A greater emphasis on Hispanic turnout in Wisconsin, where just 44 percent of Hispanics voted and where Obama won by seven points, would have given the president a much more comfortable victory there. []

Back in November, Pew's Mark Lopezto one possible reason for the declining Latino voter rate, noting that nearly half of all Latino voters live in two states: California and Texas. Neither state, he explained, was at all competitive this year, especially given the lack of a Democratic primary to boost engagement.

However, a separate Pew report noted that Latinos are the nation's youngest ethnic group, and could therefore become far more of an active bloc down the road.

"Their median age is 27 years — and just 18 years among native-born Hispanics — compared with 42 years for that of white non-Hispanics," Lopez and his colleagues . "In the coming decades, their share of the age-eligible electorate will rise markedly through generational replacement alone."

Even if the Latino voter participation rate continues to lag, the Latino share of the overall electorate will likely keep rising. In that respect, Republicans may want to take another shot at their big rebranding effort, which hassome

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There had been expectations that the Bank of Japan, which started a big monetary stimulus this year to get the world's number 3 economy out of a two-decade stagnation, would announce new measures to ease volatility in the Japanese bond market. Instead the bank's policy board merely upgraded its economic assessment.

The disappointment was enough to send Japan's Nikkei stock index down 1.5 percent to close at 13,317.62. However, the retreat was modest in light of the previous day's 4.9 percent advance following an upward revision of first-quarter economic data. In tandem with the fall in equities, the yen made big gains the dollar was down 2 percent to 96.88 yen.

"The decision to hold steady prompted a sharp jump in the yen, and is also one factor contributing to weakness in global equities," said Nick Bennenbroek, head of currency strategy at Wells Fargo Bank.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares fell 0.9 percent to close at 6,340.08 while Germany's DAX fell 1 percent to 8,222.46. The CAC-40 in France dropped 1.4 percent to 3,810.56.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.2 percent at 15,213.11 while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.4 percent to 1,636.04.

Trading this week has been lackluster outside of Japan, with investors uncertain which way the markets are going. The uncertainty follows a volatile period that's seen many of the world's major stock indexes come off multiyear or even record highs.

As well as focusing on whether Japan's monetary experiment will work, investors have been keenly monitoring developments in the U.S. and whether the economic picture has improved enough for the Federal Reserve to reduce the amount of financial assets it buys in the markets so-called tapering. Speculation that it will has eased somewhat after last week's slightly better-than-expected U.S. jobs report for May.

Many financial assets, including stock markets and emerging market currencies, have been propped up somewhat by the Fed's money-creation measures over the past few years and any talk that it will change policy has been met with some concern by some investors even though it would indicate that the U.S. economy has improved following the financial crisis.

Again, following last week's bumper data week, there's little scheduled economic news Tuesday for traders to get their teeth into so markets may well drift for the rest of the session.

"The major equity markets remain hesitant and investors are still focusing on what the Federal Reserve might do in 'tapering' its monthly bond purchases," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.

The debate over the Fed has been the main driver for the dollar, too. An easing in the expectations of tighter U.S. monetary policy has seen the euro recover some ground over the past week despite concerns over the economy of the 17 EU countries that use the currency it was trading 0.2 percent higher at $1.3282.

In Europe, the main point of interest was the start of a two-day hearing by Germany's constitutional court on the legality of the European Central Bank's approach to the euro crisis.

Uncertainty over mainland China's resilience further has also weighed on sentiment following the weekend release of discouraging data for the world's second-largest economy.

With China's markets closed until Thursday for a national holiday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index has traded in a limited range, falling 1.2 percent Tuesday to 21,354.66. Elsewhere, South Korea's KOSPI dropped 0.6 percent, to 1,920.68.

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Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.