(Reuters) ? U.S. authorities are preparing to charge four former Credit Suisse Group AG employees with criminal and civil fraud related to write-downs on subprime mortgage derivatives at the height of the financial crisis, sources familiar with the matter said.
Credit Suisse will not be charged in the matter, which is being investigated by federal prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the sources said.
The four people to be charged were former Credit Suisse traders who were fired, another source said, but it was unclear when and for what reason. The suspected illegal conduct took place roughly four years ago, the source said, adding that the bank had been cooperating with officials.
The investigation stems from $2.85 billion in write-downs that Credit Suisse took on collateralized debt obligations in 2008, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Credit Suisse revealed those CDO losses in early 2008, and blamed them on a group of rogue traders - who the bank said had deliberately mispriced securities - and on a failure of internal controls.
Credit Suisse, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the SEC and Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara declined to comment on the matter.
Charges could come as early as Wednesday, people familiar with the matter said, but the timing was uncertain.
The planned charges come as the Obama administration is stepping up efforts to prosecutes Wall Street bankers and others for misconduct related to the financial crisis. Last week during his State of the Union address, President Obama announced the formation of a mortgage-fraud task force to pursue subprime-related cases.
The collapse of the subprime housing market was one of the triggers of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
(Additional reporting by Matthew Goldstein, Basil Katz and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Gary Hill)
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan?? An Afghan man killed his wife for giving birth to a third daughter rather than the son he'd hoped for, police said Monday.
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The 28-year-old victim, who was known by the one name of Storai, was strangled by her husband ? a local militia member ? and his mother on Saturday, authorities said.
Storai had given birth to the couple's third daughter three months ago in Mohasili village in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province.
Police said they arrested the victim's mother-in-law in connection with her death, but Storai's husband was still at large, likely sheltered by heavily-armed militia colleagues.
"The existence of militiamen is a huge problem and therefore we face difficulty in arresting him," Kunduz police chief Sufi Habib said.
Nadera Geya, head of the Kunduz women's affairs department, called the killing one of the worst examples of violence against women she had encountered.
Acid attack
Violence against women is common in Afghanistan. In late November in the same province, an Afghan family that refused to give their daughter in marriage to a man they considered irresponsible was attacked at home by assailants who poured acid over both parents and three children.
Police later arrested the rejected suitor and his three brothers for the attack.
With foreign combat troops set to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and moves ongoing to kickstart a peace process involving the ultra-conservative Taliban, rights watchdogs inside and outside Afghanistan fear women's rights may be sacrificed.
NBC News reported that President Hamid Karzai announced over the weekend that he will hold a conference in February focused on eliminating violence against women.
"The rights of women cannot be relegated to the margins of international affairs, as this issue is at the core of our national security and the security of people everywhere," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement released on Monday.
Reuters, NBC News' Atia Abawi and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavicius was named the year's best feature film director by the Directors Guild of America on Saturday, further positioning the silent movie-era romance as a frontrunner for Oscars.
The movie about a fading star whose career is eclipsed by the woman he loves just as talkies are putting an end to silent pictures has been a critical darling throughout the Hollywood's current awards season.
"This is really touching and moving for me," said French director Hazanavicius upon accepting his award at the Grand Ballroom adjacent to the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars, the film industry's highest honors, will be given out on February 26.
"It's maybe the highest recognition I could hope for," he said.
The DGA Awards are a key indicator of who may win Academy Awards next month because only six times since the DGA began handing out annual honors in 1948 has the its winner failed to also be named best director by Oscar voters.
More important, there is a long history among members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars, to give their Academy Award for best film to the movie made by the winner of best director.
The next stop in the race for Oscars is Sunday's Screen Actors Guild awards in Los Angeles where "The Artist" will look to extend its streak of victories, including a Golden Globe for best film musical or comedy and honors from critics groups.
The DGA also gives out other awards, including one for best film documentary, which went to James Marsh for "Project Nim."
Among TV award winners, Patty Jenkins was given the DGA trophy for best drama series for the pilot episode of "The Killing" and Robert B. Weide took home the DGA award for best comedy series for an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Bill Trott)
Sarah Jessica Parker will replace Demi Moore in Lovelace, Entertainment Weekly reports.
Parker will take over the role of feminist Gloria Steinheim in the biopic, which stars Amanda Seyfried as the titular character, pornstar Linda Lovelace.
Demi Moore's 911 Call released
Moore dropped out of the film earlier this week after being hospitalized.
LONDON ? Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Britain for talks with Prime Minister David Cameron, a day after France announced it would withdraw its troops a year earlier than the 2014 date agreed by NATO.
Cameron is due to meet Karzai at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat outside London. Britain's Foreign Office said the meeting "is about long-term partnership and commitment beyond 2014 and the need for progress on the political track."
It is also sure to include the effects of the announcement by President Nicolas Sarkozy that French troops would speed up their withdrawal plans and leave the country by the end of next year, instead of by 2014.
Britain has about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan and says it plans to withdraw almost all of them by the end of 2014.
? Lederman Presents Measured Tax Enforcement Today at Miami | Main
January 27, 2012
The Legal Whiteboard
I am thrilled to welcome The Legal Whiteboard: Trends, Facts and Ideas on Law and Legal Education, edited by Bill Henderson (Indiana) and Andy Morriss (Alabama), to our Law Professor Blogs Network. From Bill's inaugural post:
According to a lot of reputable media outlets, the sky is falling for both legal education and legal services. I understand the basis for this conclusion. A lot of lawyers, young and old, are unemployed or underemployed. The debt loads of graduating students are staggering. The established ?brand? law firms are doing something they have never done before?shrink, or at least not grow. This puts lawyers on edge and has a tendeny to spawn unhealthy, short-sighted behavior. The federal government, through the direct lending of the Department of Education, continues to fuel the lawyer production machine. So things may get worse before they get better.
Despite the fact that I am one of the go-to people on the speaker circuit when it comes time to talk about structural change, I am not in the sky-is-falling camp. Instead, I see a lot of opportunities for lawyers, law students and legal educators to do very important and creative work. What is most exciting about this work is that it will make society better off?law will become better, faster and cheaper. Many legal services will become more standardized, productized and commoditized. I realize that these words will rankle some of the old guard, particularly those still making a good living. But clients?including corporations, government and ordinary citizens?will love it. Professional ideals will remain the cornerstone of successful legal enterprises, but denying the exigencies of the marketplace is, to my mind, unprofessional.
Because clients and society want better, faster and cheaper law, I believe lawyers (including legal educators) have a professional duty to ardently pursue this goal. The hardest part of this assignment?and the most vexing and interesting?is how to parlay this transformation into a decent living.?
Many people assume that the new paradigm means lawyers working longer hours for lower wages. That is one future business model. But I think it utterly lacks imagination. Lawyers are problem solvers. To my mind, the growing price elasticity for legal services and legal education is just a very difficult problem. And whenever I am faced with a very difficult problem, I typically start writing out my thoughts on a massive whiteboard. (I am told it is quite a spectacle to behold.) I am also someone who loves to collaborate. With an outward facing Legal Whiteboard, I am hoping to elicit the genius of my fellow travelers.
January 27, 2012 in Legal Education | Permalink
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LONDON ? Rihanna has found a unique way of getting some new stage outfits.
The musical superstar from Barbados will be hunting for undiscovered design talent in Britain on a new TV show ? as yet unnamed ? in which she will be the executive producer and the star.
Sky Living HD announced Thursday it has commissioned media company Twenty Twenty to make the series and say Rihanna will be working mainly behind the scenes.
Hosting duties will go to another pop name, Nicola Roberts from the U.K. group Girls Aloud.
Together they will challenge fashion newcomers to create stage gear for musicians and celebrities ? with the final task to dress Rihanna for her July 8 performance at the Wireless music festival in London's Hyde Park.
MOSCOW (AP) ? A former senior Russian archive official says he saw a file that could shed light on Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg's fate ? challenging the insistence of Russia's KGB successor agency that it has no documents regarding the man who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary before disappearing into the hands of Soviet secret police.
Anatoly Prokopenko, 78, told The Associated Press that in 1991 he saw a thick dossier containing numerous references to Wallenberg that suggested he was being spied upon by a Russian aristocrat working for Soviet intelligence. Russian officials later said the file didn't exist, in line with blanket denials of having information on Wallenberg.
"That file is extremely interesting, because it could allow us to determine the reasons behind his arrest," Prokopenko said, while acknowledging he had only a few minutes to flip through hundreds of pages of documents.
As Sweden's envoy to Nazi-occupied Hungary, Wallenberg saved 20,000 Jews by giving them Swedish travel documents or moving them to safe houses, and managed to dissuade Nazi officers from massacring the 70,000 inhabitants of the city's ghetto. The 32-year-old diplomat was arrested by the Soviets in January 1945 when the Red Army stormed Budapest, and imprisoned in Moscow.
The Soviets had stubbornly denied that Wallenberg was in their custody before issuing a 1957 announcement that he had died on July 17, 1947, in his prison cell of a sudden heart attack. They stonewalled international demands for information about his fate, and rejected allegations that Wallenberg could have lived as a prisoner under a different identify as late as the 1980s.
Prokopenko said that in the fall of 1991, on an inspection tour of the main KGB archive in a tightly guarded facility outside Moscow, he came across a hefty dossier on Count Mikhail Tolstoy-Kutuzov, a Russian aristocrat who left Russia after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and worked alongside Wallenberg in Budapest.
Prokopenko said that he only had a few minutes to peek at the dossier, but he saw Wallenberg's name mentioned repeatedly in what appeared to be Tolstoy-Kutuzov's reports to his handlers in Soviet intelligence.
"I realized that he was following every step Wallenberg made," Prokopenko said.
Prokopenko was fired just over a year later and deprived of his access to the archives ? a move Prokopenko attributes to his efforts to reveal secret Soviet archives to the public.
He said he advised Guy von Dardel, Wallenberg's half-brother who spent years searching for clues to his fate, to ask the KGB successor agency for permission to see the files on Tolstoy-Kutuzov. They turned him down, saying that no such files existed.
When von Dardel said that he knew from Prokopenko that this wasn't true, officials asked him to come back in a few days and handed him a dossier that contained only a few pages lacking any reference to Wallenberg.
Prokopenko said that Stalin's secret police possibly suspected Wallenberg of being involved in secret contacts between the Western allies and the Nazis and were eager to learn about his connections.
Wallenberg had been recruited for his rescue mission in Budapest by a U.S. intelligence agent, with Swedish government approval, on behalf of the War Refugee Board created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But he is not known to have been engaged in intelligence-gathering.
Susanne Berger, a German researcher who advised a Swedish-Russian working group that conducted a 10-year investigation that ended in 2001, backs Prokopenko's view that the Soviets likely saw Wallenberg as a valuable source of intelligence.
"The Soviet leadership was particularly paranoid about what it perceived as a possible Anglo-American conspiracy against Soviet interests," she said in e-mailed comments.
Berger added that Stalin might have hoped to use Wallenberg for future bargaining with the West.
"The most likely reason for Stalin to arrest Raoul Wallenberg would have been to use him as some kind of 'asset,' to bargain or negotiate for," Berger said. "Stalin may have felt that with Raoul Wallenberg, scion of a powerful Western business family, he held a rather interesting bargaining chip."
The former archivist said KGB officers privately told him that Wallenberg was killed because his refusal to cooperate made him a liability. "They couldn't have set him free, they would have needed to liquidate him," Prokopenko said.
The chief of the archives of the FSB, the main KGB successor agency, admitted in a rare interview with the AP in September that the Soviet version that Wallenberg died of a heart attack could have been fabricated and that his captors may have "helped him die." Lt. Gen. Vasily Khristoforov said that all documents related to Wallenberg likely had been destroyed back in the 1950s and denied that his agency was withholding any information related to his case.
Prokopenko, who headed the Special Archive containing documents from 20 European countries in the waning years of the Soviet Union, allowed researchers working for an international commission investigating Wallenberg's fate to search for clues to Wallenberg's fate amid Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's openness campaign.
They quickly found a document on Wallenberg's transfer from one Soviet prison to another, but the KGB immediately learned of the effort and ordered them out.
Prokopenko lost his job soon afterward, but continued his work to open the archives under the government of Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia until he lost his post of the deputy chief of the Russian state archive agency in early 1993.
Iowa State engineer wants to 'sculpt' more powerful electric motors and generatorsPublic release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dionysios Aliprantis dali@iastate.edu 515-294-7387 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa Dionysios Aliprantis took up an imaginary hammer and chisel and pounded away at the air.
"Think of the ancient Greeks and their sculptures," said the Iowa State University assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Now apply the idea of a sculptor precisely chipping away at stone to the electric motors that run our machines and generate our electricity. Aliprantis is working to develop computer modeling technology that will show engineers how to chip away at the surfaces of electric motors to create new designs and shapes that can increase power generation.
"The goal is to get more power out of the same size motor," he said. "Or, that could mean getting the same power with a smaller motor."
Aliprantis is quick to say he's not looking for a huge improvement in a motor's performance.
"I'm looking for a little bit of increase, maybe 5 percent or 1 percent," he said. "But multiply that number by the number of hybrid cars, let's say, and you could get savings in the billions of dollars. The potential here could be huge."
Aliprantis' project is supported by a five-year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Program. The grants support junior faculty identified as teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.
Assisting with the motor design project is Yanni Li, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering.
Aliprantis and Li want to take advantage of the fact that most electric motors and generators operate in just one direction in most applications there's no real need for them to go into reverse. The motors, however, have long been designed to offer equal performance no matter which way they're rotating.
And so the engineers are exploring how electric motors can be improved by optimizing performance in a preferred direction of rotation. To do that, they've written a computer modeling program that incrementally changes the design of the motors just like a sculptor chipping away and calculates when the surface shape is just right.
The teeth that hold coils of wire within an electric motor, for example, have typically been built with a symmetrical shape that maintains performance in either direction. By making the teeth asymmetrical, the engineers hope the motor can pick up some power when rotating in the preferred direction.
"We are trying to develop a systematic way of getting to the right shape," Aliprantis said. "This idea is very simple, but motors are still being designed using techniques that are essentially one hundred years old."
Aliprantis is also busy with other projects to improve electric motors, advance alternative energy systems and improve engineering education:
Another project is aiming to improve the models used to predict the dynamic performance of electric motors as engineers experiment with different power electronics and control technologies. The idea is to develop more sophisticated control systems that capture more of a motor's performance characteristics. The project is supported by Iowa State's department of electrical and computer engineering and includes Yuanzhen Xu, a master's student in electrical and computer engineering.
Aliprantis is also collecting data on how much solar energy is available throughout a day. The idea is to improve power forecasts by developing better models of cloud cover. That would help utilities make better estimates of the power they can expect from solar panels on a given day. Chengrui Cai, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering, is assisting with the project.
Aliprantis is part of an Iowa State faculty team that's developing a new, multidisciplinary doctoral program in Wind Energy Science, Engineering and Policy. He's also using a National Science Foundation grant to work with Purdue University faculty to improve undergraduate education in power electronics and motor drives by modernizing student lab equipment and course content.
Because electric motors are all around us in vehicles, wind turbines, power plants and all kinds of machinery Aliprantis said finding new ways to improve their performance can make a real difference in the development of sustainable energy resources.
###
Contacts:
Dionysios Aliprantis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 515-294-7387, dali@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Iowa State engineer wants to 'sculpt' more powerful electric motors and generatorsPublic release date: 26-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dionysios Aliprantis dali@iastate.edu 515-294-7387 Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa Dionysios Aliprantis took up an imaginary hammer and chisel and pounded away at the air.
"Think of the ancient Greeks and their sculptures," said the Iowa State University assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Now apply the idea of a sculptor precisely chipping away at stone to the electric motors that run our machines and generate our electricity. Aliprantis is working to develop computer modeling technology that will show engineers how to chip away at the surfaces of electric motors to create new designs and shapes that can increase power generation.
"The goal is to get more power out of the same size motor," he said. "Or, that could mean getting the same power with a smaller motor."
Aliprantis is quick to say he's not looking for a huge improvement in a motor's performance.
"I'm looking for a little bit of increase, maybe 5 percent or 1 percent," he said. "But multiply that number by the number of hybrid cars, let's say, and you could get savings in the billions of dollars. The potential here could be huge."
Aliprantis' project is supported by a five-year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Program. The grants support junior faculty identified as teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.
Assisting with the motor design project is Yanni Li, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering.
Aliprantis and Li want to take advantage of the fact that most electric motors and generators operate in just one direction in most applications there's no real need for them to go into reverse. The motors, however, have long been designed to offer equal performance no matter which way they're rotating.
And so the engineers are exploring how electric motors can be improved by optimizing performance in a preferred direction of rotation. To do that, they've written a computer modeling program that incrementally changes the design of the motors just like a sculptor chipping away and calculates when the surface shape is just right.
The teeth that hold coils of wire within an electric motor, for example, have typically been built with a symmetrical shape that maintains performance in either direction. By making the teeth asymmetrical, the engineers hope the motor can pick up some power when rotating in the preferred direction.
"We are trying to develop a systematic way of getting to the right shape," Aliprantis said. "This idea is very simple, but motors are still being designed using techniques that are essentially one hundred years old."
Aliprantis is also busy with other projects to improve electric motors, advance alternative energy systems and improve engineering education:
Another project is aiming to improve the models used to predict the dynamic performance of electric motors as engineers experiment with different power electronics and control technologies. The idea is to develop more sophisticated control systems that capture more of a motor's performance characteristics. The project is supported by Iowa State's department of electrical and computer engineering and includes Yuanzhen Xu, a master's student in electrical and computer engineering.
Aliprantis is also collecting data on how much solar energy is available throughout a day. The idea is to improve power forecasts by developing better models of cloud cover. That would help utilities make better estimates of the power they can expect from solar panels on a given day. Chengrui Cai, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering, is assisting with the project.
Aliprantis is part of an Iowa State faculty team that's developing a new, multidisciplinary doctoral program in Wind Energy Science, Engineering and Policy. He's also using a National Science Foundation grant to work with Purdue University faculty to improve undergraduate education in power electronics and motor drives by modernizing student lab equipment and course content.
Because electric motors are all around us in vehicles, wind turbines, power plants and all kinds of machinery Aliprantis said finding new ways to improve their performance can make a real difference in the development of sustainable energy resources.
###
Contacts:
Dionysios Aliprantis, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 515-294-7387, dali@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LONDON (Reuters) ? The euro zone is inching closer to breaking its long-held taboo against a Greek default, but can still escape financial market mayhem and a body blow to the euro.
It all comes down to whether the default is controlled or chaotic.
Officials have been talking to private bondholders for nearly seven months to get them to share the burden of a second international bailout of Greece with taxpayers, who have so far shouldered all the cost.
But there is still no result, and the threat of a forced default - something that politicians have long been adamant must never happen - drew closer on Monday, when euro zone finance ministers rejected what the banks had billed as their final offer.
Last year, the very prospect filled policymakers with dread but sentiment has changed a little.
Bond markets have thus far exhibited little sense of panic at the slow progress towards a deal, while the European Central Bank wiped out fears over a bank collapse by pumping massive amounts of cash to fund banks into the system in December, an offer it will repeat next month.
The other important shift has come from Paris and Berlin who late last year softened their insistence that private creditors should always take a hit in any future euro zone bailouts. They now say the Greek case is unique and will not be repeated.
Safe-haven German debt futures fell to a one-month low, while Italian bonds - used as a bellwether of sentiment towards the region's lower-rated debt - have rallied, driving yields away from levels deemed unsustainable.
Rating agency Standard & Poor's said on Tuesday it did not see any reason for a "domino effect" in the euro zone, if as expected it downgraded Greece's ratings to "selective default" when it concludes its debt restructuring.
Not all types of default need to upset the market, and some would simply say Greece - which has more than 350 billion euros ($460 billion) in debt, or 162 percent of its Gross Domestic Product - is already in default.
"If you ask me whether (the help of the banks) is already a restructuring, it's hard to argue against it," said one market participant, asking not to be named.
"You had an unwind of several financial institutions in the United States, but only Lehman had a negative impact," this person said, referring to the collapse of the U.S. bank in 2008, now seen as the nadir of the credit crisis.
Time is fast running out for Greece, which cannot repay a 14.5 billion euro bond falling due on March 20 without its second bailout. A deal with bondholders needs to come well before that, because the paperwork alone takes weeks.
BENIGN IS PLAUSIBLE
The scenario to be avoided is having no plan in place at all by that time, which would lead to a "hard default" that could see Greece expelled from the euro zone and set a dangerous precedent for other weak euro zone countries.
"The fallout of this is too horrible to contemplate. It would set a precedent that the authorities would struggle to contain," said David Lloyd, head of institutional portfolio management at M&G Investments.
Letting Greece go would show politicians were no longer in control of the single currency, and financial markets would immediately start betting against other weak euro zone members such as Portugal and the far bigger Italy which, if it succumbed, would threaten the currency bloc's very existence.
But other, more likely, default scenarios are more benign even if they are not entirely voluntary.
"A more plausible scenario is a messy default but with Greece remaining in the euro zone. And more plausible still is a deal enabling Greece to refinance," said Lloyd.
A pay-out of credit default swaps (CDS) - instruments to insure against governments not paying back their debts - is another bone of contention for politicians, who have long been keen not to trigger these instruments.
Lehman Brothers triggered widespread market panic on fears that up to $400 billion in CDS would be payable when it collapsed in 2008. But the amounts actually paid out were relatively small, and would be smaller still for Greece.
The maximum that could change hands from a Greek default is $3.34 billion, according to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a clearing and settlement company.
It is becoming ever more likely that Athens will force at least some creditors into the bond swap deal that it is negotiating with banks, by writing provisions known as collective action clauses (CACs) into contracts.
These would force the conditions of the bond swap on all other creditors, regardless of whether they sign up for the deal or not. Using such clauses to squeeze out bondholders would almost certainly trigger CDS pay-outs.
DICTATE, NOT NEGOTIATE
A third option - far better than a chaotic default but more coercive than a "voluntary" deal - would be a take-it-or-leave-it offer from the troika of international lenders advising Greece in its discussions with the banks.
The mood in Brussels is now leaning more towards such a deal that would dictate the terms on the private creditors rather than negotiate them, two euro zone sources said. But the latter was still the preferred option, they added.
"We are still in Plan A mode," one of the euro zone sources said, requesting anonymity.
Banks agreed in October to cut their Greek debt holdings by 100 billion euros, or a 50 percent loss on the face value of the bonds. The actual accounting losses are around 70 percent -- though most banks have sharply reduced their exposure.
Fears that a euro zone bank could collapse have receded in the past few weeks because of the ECB's long-term liquidity tenders last year, making it less likely that a default would spark a market rout among bank stocks.
"The ECB has made plenty of money available, and the thought that banks may go under just because there's not cash in the till have now subsided," said one investment banker who advises other banks, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
($1 = 0.7665 euros)
(Reporting by Douwe Miedema. Additional reporting by William James, Sinead Cruise and Jan Strupczewski. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)
One look in the mirror was all it took for ex-Beatle Ringo Starr to find the best producer for his 17th solo record, "Ringo 2012," Starr claims. Unfortunately, looks can be deceiving and Starr might have done better shopping around someone to make this release more interesting.
As it stands, "Ringo 2012" is equal parts reflection and rehash. The subject matter, mostly composed by others, is mostly fond memories of days gone by for Starr, with a bit a make-love-not-war ethos sprinkled in for good measure. When presented with Starr's dry vocal approach, most tracks lack the required luster to make this album stand out.
"Ringo 2012" is blues, rock and a touch of honky-tonk. The melodies aren't bad. They're just too well-traveled. From the first track "Anthem" to the final salute in "Slow Down," there's not much here to show us that Starr has challenged himself beyond a formulaic delivery. "Wings" is a nice song, but he's already recorded it years ago on his sixth album.
There are some moments when the fit is fine, as on "Rock Island Line." This bluesy standard made its way to Starr by way of Lead Belly and so-called skiffle bands in Liverpool, England, where Starr paid his early dues in the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. The song gets a nice boost from blues guitar standout Kenny Wayne Shepard, who sizzles throughout.
CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: On "In Liverpool," Starr gives us a glimpse of his life in the town of his youth, walking to the Iron Door club to play with Rory Storm. You can feel his voice warm as he reminisces about his pre-Beatles days. Truth be told, there's very little on this album to reference his breathless, chart-topping Fab Four time. Seems like Starr appreciates an earlier time in his career a little more, and it seems earnest here.
___
Ron Harris can be reached at http://twitter.com/Journorati
(Reuters) ? Vampires and werewolves lured moviegoers to theaters this weekend as the fourth "Underworld" film topped domestic box office charts and brought in an estimated $38.8 million around the world.
"Underworld: Awakening" stars Kate Beckinsale as a vampire leading the charge in a battle against humans trying to drive her species and the werewolves to extinction.
The fourth movie opened stronger than two of the three earlier films in the franchise, which opened in 2003. "Awakening" pulled in $25.4 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters from Friday through Sunday, plus $13.4 million from 36 international markets, distributor Sony said on Sunday.
Playing in 3,078 domestic locations, the film's weekend sales finished "at the high end of where we hoped," said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution for Sony Pictures. Audiences were eager to see Beckinsale return to the lead role, he said. She had starred in the first two films but skipped the third.
"Awakening" is the first "Underworld" movie in 3D and cost about $70 million to produce. The movie fell flat with critics as just 24 percent gave a positive review on aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. But audiences polled by survey firm CinemaScore awarded the movie an A-.
In second place, World War Two story "Red Tails" far exceeded studio forecasts with $19.1 million domestically.
"Red Tails" stars Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr. in a drama about Tuskegee Airmen -- a black pilot group in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War Two. Producer George Lucas paid the film's $58 million production cost plus marketing expenses, and distributor 20th Century Fox had forecast $8 million to $10 million in domestic ticket sales for weekend.
"Never in our wildest dreams did we think we could pull off a number like this," said Chris Aronson, senior vice president for domestic distribution at 20th Century Fox. He said audiences clearly enjoyed the film, giving it an A grade in polling by CinemaScore. Critics' reviews on Rotten Tomatoes came in at 34 percent positive.
WAHLBERG MOVIE DROPS TO THIRD
Last weekend's winner, thriller "Contraband" starring Mark Wahlberg, finished its second weekend in theaters in third place, grabbing $12.2 million domestically.
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," a drama about a boy trying to make sense of his father's death on 9/11, landed in fourth place with $10.5 million. The movie had opened in a small number of theaters on Christmas but expanded nationwide this weekend. The film stars Thomas Horn as the boy and Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock as his parents.
In fifth place, Steven Soderbergh-directed spy tale "Haywire" took in $9 million domestically, just beating distributor Relativity Media's projection of about $8 million.
"Haywire" features mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano as an operative who is double-crossed and becomes the target of assassins. While critics praised the film with an 82 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences were not impressed. The film earned a D+ rating from CinemaScore.
Elsewhere this weekend, two movies that won Golden Globe awards last week expanded to more theaters.
Silent film "The Artist," winner for best musical or comedy film, doubled last weekend's sales with $2.4 million after moving into in 662 theaters from 446 last week.
"The Iron Lady," which won Meryl Streep best actress at the Globes for her role as Margaret Thatcher, dropped 32 percent from a week ago despite expanding by more than 800 theaters to 1,076 locations. The movie took in $3.7 million over the weekend.
The movie division of Sony Corp distributed "Underworld." Time Warner Inc unit Warner Bros. released "Extremely Loud." News Corp unit 20th Century Fox distributed "Red Tails." The privately held Weinstein Co. released "The Artist" and "The Iron Lady." Privately held Relativity Media released "Haywire" in the United States, and Alliance Films distributed the movie in Canada.
(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bill Trott)
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic ? Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta says the pitcher known as Fausto Carmona is an important part of the rotation and the team is doing what it can to speed up his arrival.
Acta told The Associated Press late Monday that the team is making the necessary moves to get Carmona to the United States for the coming season but also will be prepared to go without him.
Says Acta: "It doesn't matter that he was a little inconsistent last year. Fausto is an important part of our rotation."
Carmona is accused of using a false identity to play baseball in the U.S. and faces a judicial process in the Dominican Republic. He was released from jail on Friday.
Carmona's real name is Roberto Hernandez Heredia. He's 31, three years older than he had claimed.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) ? The Cleveland Indians manager says the pitcher known as Fausto Carmona won't be making it to spring training.
Indians manager Manny Acta told The Associated Press late Monday that the team is trying to speed up Carmona's arrival.
Carmona is accused of using a false identity to play baseball in the U.S. and faces a judicial process in the Dominican Republic. He was released from jail on Friday.
Carmona's real name is Roberto Hernandez Heredia. He's 31, three years older than he had claimed.
Acta says it's likely Kevin Slowey may replace Carmona, who won 13 games in 2010 and went 7-15 last season.
(This version CORRECTS the first paragraph, headlines to delete reference to spring training because of translation error. Acta says team working to get Carmona to States for coming season.)
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KHASAB, Oman ? By dawn, the unmarked speedboats from Iran pull into port. By dusk, they are racing back across the Strait of Hormuz loaded with smuggled consumer goods ranging from Chinese-made shoes to cut flowers from Holland.
Even as sanctions squeeze Iran ever tighter, there's one clandestine route that remains open for business: A short sea corridor across the Persian Gulf connecting a rocky nub of Oman and the Iranian coast about 35 miles (60 kilometers) away.
Yet even this established smugglers' path is now feeling the bite from the pressures on Iran over its nuclear program.
Business is sharply down, the middlemen and boat crews say, as the slumping Iranian currency leaves fewer customers for the smuggled wares. At the same time, the risks of interception are higher as Iranian authorities step up patrols near the strategic oil tanker lanes at the mouth of the Gulf.
The strait, which is the only access in and out of the Gulf, has been the scene of Cold War-style brinksmanship between Iran and the West after Tehran last month threatened to block the passageway for about one-sixth of the world's oil in retaliation for new U.S. sanctions.
"We used to make two or three trips across every day. Now, it's maybe one," said an Iranian middleman, who gave only his first name Agheel to protect his identity from authorities in his homeland.
He watched crews load up a pickup truck with bolts of fabric from Pakistan and table-size boxes of cut flowers from the Netherlands, before the trucks headed off through the treeless mountains to Khasab port.
The operation smuggles in merchandise to avoid Iranian tariffs and to bring in American and European products that have disappeared from Iranian markets because of international sanctions. Experts note that the consumer items post no real challenge to efforts to block material with military or nuclear uses.
"Still, it shows you can't close off all channels into Iran no matter how hard you try," said Paul Rogers, who follows security affairs at Bradford University in Britain. "People will find a way."
On this side of the Gulf, the smugglers operate under a tacit tolerance from authorities, even though Oman and the United Arab Emirates are close U.S. allies and have pledged to enforce sanctions. The port lies in a sparsely populated peninsula enclave belonging to Oman but encircled on land by the UAE, a legacy of how the area was carved up in the final days of British rule here in the last century that resulted in Oman holding joint control with Iran over the strait.
The goods are legally imported into the UAE and truck drivers take them across the border, paying the customary 50 dirham ($13.50) entry fee, according to the smugglers interviewed by The Associated Press. In Khasab, the merchandise is taken to warehouses and then piled on the docks less than 100 yards (100 meters) from the port police headquarters.
Omani authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the traffic.
The Khasab speedboats are far from the only back channel into Iran. Drug traffickers easily cross the hinterland borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and black market networks stretch across the frontiers with Iraq and Turkey. Authorities in Iraq's Kurdish region have been under pressure for years to crack down on fuel trucks heading into Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
But Khasab stands out for its openness and for lying on the highly sensitive Strait.
A shipment arranged by the Iranian smuggler Agheel this week was done with practiced efficiency.
A pickup truck backed into a wood-floored warehouse with hundreds of cases of cigarettes bundled three together and wrapped tightly in gray plastic weave ? in total 3,000 cigarettes under south Asian brands such as Ruby Menthol. The truck was soon sagging under the weight of boxes piled five high.
Agheel did some quick calculations: Each three-case load cost him about $1,200 and he could sell them to merchants in Iran for the equivalent of about $1,350 under current exchange rates. The truck pulling out of the warehouse represented a potential return of about $4,500.
"If we don't get caught," he added.
The smugglers have their ways of avoiding Iranian authorities.
Spotters off the coast ? on the island of Qeshm and near the port of Bandar Abbas ? call in coast guard movements to Khasab. The speedboat drivers keep close attention to the water conditions on the Strait and try to approach the Iranian coast just after sunset. The trip can take as little as 90 minutes in calm seas and up to four hours in rough water in the stripped down stripped-down 16-foot (five-meter) fiberglass boats.
Agheel's truck passed through the Khasab customs station at midday and then down a strip of hardscrabble road.
At the port ? almost in the shadow of a Costa cruise ship making a day stop ? dozens of boats were being packed and secured for the trip. There were no names or markings on the speedboats. But the items loaded on carried familiar logos: LG 42-inch flatscreen TVs, Discovery Channel DVDs, Panasonic microwaves, Yamaha motorcycle parts. Also in the stacks were textiles, satellite dishes and Chinese-made clothes and shoes.
One boat driver, who gave his name only as Aziz, had a breakfast of eggs, beans and Mountain Dew as he waited for the day's shipment to be loaded for the return run to Qeshm, a long arrow-shaped island near the Iranian coast and a main waystation for the smugglers.
Months ago, he could make as many trips as possible because the merchants in Iran were demanding goods.
But now the struggling Iranian rial ? dragged down partly by U.S.-led sanctions that could target Iran's Central Bank ? has put many things out of reach for Iranians, he said.
"No one wants to buy because the (rial) rate is not stable," he said.
He also said the Iranian coastal patrols have been boosted amid the escalating tensions over the Strait.
On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the American military is "fully prepared" to deal with any Iranian effort to close the waterway. Next month, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard plans naval exercises in the area.
If spotted by patrols, Aziz said the two-man boat crews try to heave the goods overboard. They then must pay back the smuggling network, which can amount to thousands of dollars.
But it's worth the risk, he said.
"The situation is getting worse now," he said. "All the prices are up and Qeshm has nothing else" except smuggling.
Investors are yanking millions out of the hedge fund industry, fourth quarter data shows. The trend will continue unless hedge funds start performing more effectively.
Man, has this game gotten tough.? Anyone who tells you it's easy is a charlatan.
Skip to next paragraph Joshua M. Brown
Joshua has been managing money for high net worth clients, charitable foundations, corporations and retirement plans for more than a decade.
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Even the supposed "best and brightest" in the hedge fund industry are struggling - and the investors are saying hasta la vista.
Here's Steve Eder at the Wall Street Journal:
Hedge-fund investors, rattled by lackluster performance, yanked more money from the industry than they added during the final months of 2011, data released Thursday showed.
The $2 trillion hedge-fund industry saw net investor withdrawals of about $127 million in the fourth quarter, according to data by Hedge Fund Research Inc. It was the first time investors had collectively pulled out more money than they put in since the second quarter of 2009, when the markets were still digging out of the worst of the financial crisis.
While the net withdrawals amounted to a tiny portion, 0.007%, of the industry's total assets, the pullback signals that some investors are losing patience. In each of the past three years, hedge funds' average returns have trailed the benchmark stock indexes, including the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.
The amounts are small, but the chasm between large funds and small is widening.
It's not enough to just be a hedge fund anymore.? Now you have to actually perform.? Big shift.
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Since cancer cells grow indefinitely, it is commonly believed that senescence could act as a barrier against tumor growth and potentially be used as a way to treat cancer. A collaboration between a cancer biologist from the University of Milano, Italy, and two physicists, from the National Research Council of Italy and from Cornell University, has shown that cell senescence occurs spontaneously in melanoma cells, but does not stop their growth, which is sustained by a small population of cancer stem cells. The results, published in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology on January 19 explain why it is difficult to treat cancer cells by inducing senescence alone.
The work explores the relationship between melanoma and senescence, the normal process where cells decline and eventually stop duplicating after reaching maturity. The investigators followed the long-term evolution of melanoma cell populations, monitoring the number of senescent cells. After three months, growth slowed and most of the cells turned senescent, however growth did not stop and eventually resumed its initial rate until the senescent cells had almost disappeared.
The authors mathematically modeled the experimental data using the cancer stem cell hypothesis, where a sub-group of cancer cells replicate indefinitely, and are thus unaffected by senescence. These cancer stem cells give rise to a larger population of cancer cells that can duplicate only a finite number of times. The model yielded an indirect confirmation of the presence of cancer stem cells in melanoma, an issue that is still controversial in the cancer research community.
Although a large fraction of cancer cells are susceptible to senescence, the researchers conclude that inducing senescence is unlikely to provide a successful therapeutic strategy because these cells are irrelevant for tumor growth. However, the indirect evidence of cancer stem cells in melanoma may enable the development of new methods to treat specific kinds of cancer. The challenge will be in the strong resistance to drug induced senescence that would be found in the cancer stem cells. Along this line of research, treatment of tumors would focus on targeting only these cancer stem cells, rather than every single cancerous cell.
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La Porta CAM, Zapperi S, Sethna JP (2012) Senescent Cells in Growing Tumors: Population Dynamics and Cancer Stem Cells. PLoS Comput Biol 8(1): e1002316. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002316
Public Library of Science: http://www.plos.org
Thanks to Public Library of Science for this article.
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Jan. 20, 2012: The United States women score a record 14 goals in a rout of the Dominican Republic in CONCACAF Olympic qualifying.
VANCOUVER, British
Columbia (AP) - Determined to avoid another slip-up in a qualifying
tournament, the U.S. women's soccer team set records by posting an
NFL-like score.
The players would happily give a few of those goals back for a healthy Ali Krieger.
Krieger's
right knee injury tempered the United States' 14-0 rout of the
Dominican Republic on Friday night in the Americans' opening game of the
CONCACAF qualifying tournament for the Olympic Games in London.
"It's probably a serious injury," U.S. coach Pia Sundhage said. "By tomorrow we'll know exactly what it is."
Amy
Rodriguez tied a U.S. record with five goals in a game - all in a
30-minute span after she came on as a substitute at the start of the
second half. The 14 goals are the most the Americans have ever scored in
a game in their 27-year history, topping a pair of 12-0 wins in World
Cup qualifying in 1991.
Abby Wambach scored 37 seconds into the
match, the first of two goals before she left at halftime, having taken a
knock on her left knee that was exacerbated by the artificial surface
at the indoor BC Place. Heather O'Reilly added a hat trick for the
Americans, who improved to 32-1-1 all-time in qualifying for World Cups
and Olympics.
In such a no-contest, Sundhage's first and foremost
concern was escaping without a serious injury, but Krieger, a
27-year-old right back who started every game in last year's World Cup,
went down on a hard tackle late in the first half. Her teammates
gathered around her, putting hands to mouths in obvious concern as
trainers ran onto the field.
Krieger was stretchered off, and a
large ice pack was wrapped around her knee. She was given crutches,
which she used to walk to the locker room at halftime. She was scheduled
to have an MRI.
"It's a huge disappointment," O'Reilly said.
"Obviously she's been a massive part of this team. I've really loved
playing with her on the right side, but it doesn't seem like it's worst
case scenario, so that's good. I'm sure she'll be back soon. She's a
tough person. I'm confident we'll have her back."
The injury had
no impact on the game at hand. The U.S. scored three times in the first
seven minutes and led 7-0 at halftime, having taken 20 shots on goal to
their opponents' one.
Yet, at halftime, Wambach implored her
teammates to keep scoring, having remembered the disappointment a year
ago when the Americans were upset in a qualifying match and nearly
missed the World Cup.
"We want to win our group stage," Wambach
said. "And in order to win our group stage, it might come down to goal
differential, so we needed to take care of business."
Even the
U.S. fans began to feel sympathy for the overmatched Dominicans,
cheering loudly when goalkeeper Heidy Salazar would make a save instead
of bobbling the rebound to give up another scoring chance. The
Americans, who are trying to master Sundhage's new 4-2-3-1 formation,
didn't want to let up.
"Obviously the score makes people feel like
it wasn't even a competition," Wambach said. "But we as a team feel
like we have so many things we need to work on. This is a game that gave
us an opportunity to work on some things."
As the goals kept coming, the U.S. kept celebrating. Sundhage had no qualms with that.
"I'm
telling you this: When we score a goal, I'm happy," the coach said.
"And I use my body language to tell everybody that I'm happy and I'm
proud. It doesn't matter who we play. It doesn't matter how many goals
we score. And I think that's contagious, and I want to share my
happiness."
While a victory over a developing team like the
Dominican Republic (ranked No. 88 in the world) is still a formality for
the U.S. team, getting to the Olympics is not. The Americans had to win
a backdoor playoff against Italy to get into last year's World Cup
after the loss to Mexico in a qualifying match.
This tournament
has a similar format. Two automatic berths will come out of the
eight-team field, and Canada, Costa Rica and, of course, Mexico all have
the potential to upset the Americans on a given day. And, this time,
there is no backdoor playoff.
Sundhage will get to experiment
again with her lineup and formation on Sunday in the Americans' second
group game against Guatemala. The Guatemalans were overpowered in their
opening group game, losing 5-0 to Mexico.
Then comes the
much-anticipated rematch with Mexico in the final group game on Tuesday.
The winner is expected to finish atop the group and get a more
favorable match in the all-important, London-or-bust semifinals.
For
now, though, there are lots of goals to celebrate. Rodriguez tied the
record held by Wambach, Brandi Chastain, Michelle Akers and Tiffeny
Milbrett. Her reaction when she heard that her five-spot had tied a
record: "Darn. Now I wish I would have scored one more," she said with a
laugh.
"Just kidding. I'm happy," she said. "I'm glad we could open this tournament with a big bang."
? 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
One month now stands between the Phillies and the beginning of spring training. It?s around this time of year that I begin to jot down story ideas and major plot lines that will require coverage during my time in Clearwater. The one idea that constantly catches my eye, because I know it will be garner attention this season, is the team's approach at the plate.
General Manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. played doctor after the 2011 season and diagnosed his ailing lineup with a bad case of swingitis. Too many players were jumping at bad pitches and not working counts, leading to fewer hits and non-productive outs. The remedy: not being afraid to hit with two strikes, cutting down on strikeouts and taking more walks.
That all seems simple in theory. Yet in practice, where this actually counts, it?s hard to imagine this veteran group of players dramatically changing their outlook on hitting. Professional athletes, almost across the board, are obstinate. That is meant as praise. Stubborn behavior and adherence to routine are typically what makes them successful.
Furthermore, baseball players are human, a fact that is too often forgotten. Let?s imagine this situation from Ryan Howard?s perspective. He?s been an MVP-caliber player in his career. He has been rewarded with a $125 million deal that begins this season. And he played hurt for the past two postseasons. If I were Howard, my mindset would be to resist any change to an approach that netted me a nine-figure contract. Furthermore, any athlete would look at the impact of playing hurt and convince himself that the only issue is health.
Of course, those that have watched Howard consistently know he?s been trending in a downward direction since his MVP season, with the exception of the 2009 season. His pitch recognition, especially off left-handed pitchers, leaves much to be desired.
Howard?s situation is not unique. Chase Utley?s tale is a similar one, just with one fewer zero in his salary. Jimmy Rollins was just rewarded with a new contract, so what is the impetus for him to change and become the prototypical lead-off hitter that spoils a pitcher?s pitch and works a count?
When someone has success, they usually stick to the formula that initially created it. That?s why this plate discipline concept seems somewhat far-fetched. Unfortunately for Amaro and the front office, the club?s failure to capture another title has very little to do with approach.
The Phillies? main problem is one that has no internal remedy. As players age, their production decreases and their likelihood of injury increases. There is no cure for Father Time (no legal remedy anyway) and it is ticking against this core?s chances at a second championship more furiously than it ever has before.
Casey Feeney is the producer of Phillies Clubhouse on Comcast SportsNet. E-mail Casey at kfeeney@comcastsportsnet.com.
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Public release date: 26-Jan-2012
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