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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paris-police-notre-dame-cathedral-evacuated-suicide-inside-145457993.html
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By Dinesh Nair
DUBAI (Reuters) - Chevron Corp is in advanced talks to sell its downstream assets in Egypt and Pakistan, three sources said, with the planned disposals seen raising around $300 million for the U.S. oil major.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, is conducting a separate sale process for its assets in both countries, the banking sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the matter is not public.
Downstream operations of oil companies include refining and processing of crude oil, as well as the marketing and distribution of products.
The energy firm has received at least three non-binding bids for the assets from interested parties, which include regional and international energy companies, one of the sources said, declining to provide details of the bidders.
Some of the bidders are eyeing assets in both the countries, the source said. Chevron declined to comment.
"They are small assets but are profitable and gaining a lot of interest in the auction process. There are lots of buyers for whom owning these businesses makes perfect sense," the source said.
Large oil companies are shrinking their downstream operations to focus more on high-margin exploration and production activities.
Royal Dutch Shell said in April that it was considering selling some of its Italian downstream assets including its retail, aviation and supply and distribution businesses. The company agreed to sell its Egyptian downstream assets to French energy firm Total, earlier in May.
New York-based oil and gas producer Hess Corp has announced plans to exit its retail gasoline, marketing and trading businesses after pressure from activist investors.
Chevron operates under the Caltex brand in Pakistan and has more than 500 petrol outlets in the country. It is also active in the lubricants business.
The oil giant's first-quarter net income fell 4.5 percent to $6.18 billion due to lower oil prices, refinery downtime and high operating costs, it reported in April.
Citigroup Inc is advising Chevron on the sale process, according to the sources.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chevron-nears-sale-egypt-pakistan-downstream-assets-sources-100206714.html
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Devastating earthquakes occur every 100 to 200 years in the Nankai Trough off the coast of southeast Japan. To prepare for the next big one, scientists use the Dense Oceanfloor Network System for Earthquakes and Tsunamis (DONET), a network of 20 subsea observatories that captures data on crustal movements in real time. The information also helps scientists develop simulations to improve earthquake forecasting and early-warning systems. By 2015, 31 new stations will provide even greater coverage.
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Social Media Insights?is a daily newsletter from?Business Insider?that collects and delivers the top social media news first thing every morning. You can?sign up?to receive?Social Media Insights?here?or at the bottom of this post.
?
Brands Are Interacting With Users More On Twitter, But Taking Longer?(Marketing?Charts)?
Socialbakers found that brands don't even respond to 38% of questions asked on Twitter, and are taking 10% longer to get to the questions they answer than in the previous quarter. The report, which covers "Social Care" practices, shows that brands in finance are the most adept at customer service on social media, followed by airlines and telecom companies. Among the fastest to respond in the U.S. are Jet Blue, American Airlines, and Texas-based cloud computing company Rackspace.?Read >
Pinterest Enriches Pins Allowing More Actions In Effort To Lure Brands (Marketing Land)
Product pins, for example, will show data on pricing and availability and where to buy the item. Retailers, brands, and movie studios will be early adopters of the new pins. Read > ?
A Round-Up Of Coverage Of The Tumblr-Yahoo Deal?(Business Insider)
It's expected that?Yahoo?will announce its acquisition of?Tumblr?at a press conference today in Times Square.?Tumblr, the blogging platform and social network would be the crown jewel in Yahoo's efforts to revamp and, in the words of its CFO, become "cool again." Tumblr would bring Yahoo the young audience it so desperately craves; it is especially popular among teens and young adults, as we discussed in our recent?report?on teens' mobile habits. It also has a mobile footprint, opting to release its first major ad initiative on mobile, as we outlined in?our social media ad report, which included a primer on Tumblr as an ad platform. However, Tumblr may also bring some headaches: it is full of racy content, to put it mildly.?Read >?
More Coverage Of The Tumblr-Yahoo Plans?
The Future Of Mobile And Social Could Challenge Legacy Social Networks (TechCrunch)
Mobile is changing the way we use social media, not just providing another screen for it. Are the legacy social media players ready? Read > ?
Google: 3 Apps We Want To See Made For Glass (The Next Web)?
The team behind Google Glass is dreaming up what apps they'd like to see made for the yet-to-be publicly released product.?
Eslewhere, Drew Olanoff offers a Google Glass "Year-in-Review."?Read >
Americans Share Less On Social Networks Than Other Nationalities?(Marketing Charts)
In a recent survey by Ipsos OTX, 15% of Americans said they share "everything" or "most things" on social networks compared to 61% of citizens in Saudi Arabia and 53% in India. This is important to brands, because the more information someone shares, the more effective targeting becomes.?Read >
How Facebook Stock Has Performed In Its First Year (MarketWatch)
Friday marked the one-year mark since Facebook went public. It was the largest initial public offering for a technology company ever. Facebook's stock has had its ups and downs throughout the year. After going public at $38 per share, it hit a low at $17.55 in September 2012, before hovering around $25-27 over the past few months. Read >
Financial Times Twitter Accounts Hacked (New York Times)?
Several Twitter accounts as well as the website belonging to The Financial Times were hacked on Friday by the Syrian Electronic Army. The hackers defaced a few of the FT's headlines and linked to a YouTube video of an execution. The Syrian Electronic Army has attacked the social media accounts of dozens of media outlets, including The Guardian, BBC, NPR, Reuters, and the AP. Read >
Allowing Users To Be Themselves On Social Networks (LinkedIn)
In recent years, some social networks such as Facebook and Google+ have implemented features that allow users to hand-select who in their network they want to share certain posts with. Google+ is built around that whole idea. In doing so it lets us "be free to be different, to get out of the box we are in because of our history in one community," writes Jules Polonetsky, director at The Future Of Privacy Forum. Read >?
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/brands-delay-responding-to-twitter-customers-2013-5
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The day I returned from inpatient therapy, my Lab-Chow mix cuddled up to me on the bed as I cried. She looked into my defeated gaze and licked my tears.
I was astounded that this creature was capable of the empathy that I so craved in my closest friends and relatives. It was like she could read the pathetic and sad thoughts that disabled me and wanted me to know I was lovable in the midst of my suffering.
She continues to be a supportive presence in my life, especially on the days that I grow weary of trying on ? and throwing out ? every mindful exercise and cognitive behavioral strategy? the hours where staying positive seems impossible. She gets it. I know she does.
Every week I hear tales of four-legged creatures becoming angels in times of terrifying darkness. Indeed, a substantial body of research indicates that pets improve our mental health.
How? Here are a few ways.
1. Pets offer a soothing presence.
Studies indicate that merely watching fish lowers blood pressure and muscle tension in people about to undergo oral surgery. That?s why all the aquariums in dentists? offices! Think of the behavior Darla in Disney Pixar?s ?Finding Nemo? would have exhibited without the fish tank.
Other research shows that pet owners have significantly lower blood pressure and heart rate both before and while performing stressful mental tasks ? like, say, performing a family intervention or supervising kids? homework. Finally, persons recovering from heart attacks recover more quickly and survive longer when there is a pet at home. It seems as though their mere presence is beneficial.
2. Pets offer unconditional love and acceptance.
As far as we know, pets are without opinions, critiques, and verdicts. Even if you smell like their poop, they will snuggle up next to you. In a Johns Hopkins Depression & Anxiety Bulletin, Karen Swartz, M.D. mentions a recent study where nursing home residents in St. Louis felt less lonely with some quiet time with a dog alone than a visit with both a dog and other residents.
The study enrolled 37 nursing home residents who scored high on a loneliness scale and who were interested in receiving weekly half-hour visits from dogs. Half of the residents had quiet time alone with the pooches. The other half shared the dog with other nursing home residents. Both groups said they felt less lonely after the visit, but the decrease in loneliness was much more significant among the residents that had the dogs all to themselves. In other words, at times we prefer our four-legged friends to our mouthy pals because we can divulge our innermost thoughts and not be judged.
3. Pets alter our behavior.
Here?s a typical scenario. I come through the door in the evening and I?m annoyed. At what, I don?t know. A million little snafus that happened throughout the day. I am dangerously close to taking it out on someone. However, before I can do that, my Lab-Chow walks up to me and pats me, wanting some attention. So I kneel down and pet her. She licks my face, and I smile. Voila! She altered my behavior. I am only agitated a little now and chances are much better that someone will not become a casualty of my frustrations. We calm down when we are with our dogs, cats, lizards, and pigs. We slow our breath, our speech, our minds. We don?t hit as many people or use as many four-lettered words.
4. Pets distract.
Pets are like riveting movies and books. They take us out of our heads and into another reality ? one that only involves food, water, affection, and maybe an animal butt ? for as long as we can allow. I?ve found distraction to be the only effective therapy when you?ve hit a point where there is no getting your head back. It?s tough to ruminate about how awful you feel and will feel forever when your dog is breathing in your face.
5. Pets promote touch.
The healing power of touch is undisputed. Research indicates a 45-minute massage can decrease levels of the stress hormone cortisol and optimize your immune system by building white blood cells. Hugging floods our bodies with oxytocin, a hormone that reduces stress, and lowers blood pressure and heart rates. And, according to a University of Virginia study, holding hands can reduce the stress-related activity in the hypothalamus region of the brain, part of our emotional center. The touch can actually stop certain regions of the brain from responding to threat clues. It?s not surprising, then, that stroking a dog or cat can lower blood pressure and heart rate and boost levels of serotonin and dopamine.
6. Pets make us responsible.
With pets come great responsibility, and responsibility ? according to depression research ? promotes mental health. Positive psychologists assert that we build our self-esteem by taking ownership of a task, by applying our skills to a job. When we succeed ? i.e., the pet is still alive the next day ? we reinforce to ourselves that we are capable of caring for another creature as well as ourselves. That?s why chores are so important in teaching adolescents self-mastery and independence.
Taking care of a pet also brings structure to our day. Sleeping until noon is no longer a possibility unless you want to spend an hour cleaning up the next day. Staying out all night needs some preparation and forethought.
????Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 17 May 2013
????Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
APA Reference
Borchard, T. (2013). 6 Ways Pets Relieve Depression. Psych Central. Retrieved on May 20, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/05/19/6-ways-pets-relieve-depression/
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Source: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/05/19/6-ways-pets-relieve-depression/
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Americans who snickered at the tea party movement?s warnings about the slow creep of tyranny may have paused this week after the IRS apologized for inappropriately giving special scrutiny to conservative groups.
?I told you so,? says Larry Nordvig, whose organization, the Richmond Tea Party, complained for two years about over-the-top scrutiny by the IRS. ?It?s time to put the monster back in its cage.?
Attorney General Eric Holder has begun a probe into whether IRS employees criminally misused their power by unfairly targeting so-called ?constitutional conservative? groups, and President Obama has called the practice ?inexcusable.?
RECOMMENDED: Briefing IRS 101: Seven questions about the tea party scandal
At the same time, the circumstances have breathed new life into the tea party, whose national support had dropped from 41 to 21 percent since 2011. The scandal has presented the movement in a largely sympathetic light, raising serious questions about the ?tyranny? of Big Government and firing up a national debate about what The Boston Globe termed the ?core principles? of a democracy.
More broadly, the IRS backlash also presents a unique moment, tea party activists say, to revive the brand and renew their current goals of educating Americans about the Constitution while working for a conservative majority in the Senate in order to defeat Obamacare.
?This is galvanizing; we?re sharpening our spears,? says Ron Hei, a tea party activist in Alabama whose organization has not sought tax-exempt status.
Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.
Most immediately, some groups targeted by the IRS have threatened to sue, and congressional testimony starting Friday is bound to raise the personal and political stakes for those involved, as well as keep the story on the evening news.
But the broader question tea party activists are asking is why groups arguing against Big Government were then targeted by said Big Government. The question of whether the IRS?s behavior constituted political bullying or not, activists say, could form the basis for a broader revival of the tea party?s antitax ideals, especially if the scandal can be used to raise more questions about the nature of Democratic leadership in Washington.
The IRS has denied that the special scrutiny was politically motivated. The problem, according to an Inspector General report issued Tuesday, is that groups espousing progressive causes were not targeted in the same way, creating at least the appearance of political motivation or direction.
?I think that Obama denying the whole thing and expressing feigned outrage is one more thing that makes me feel ill down to my shoes,? says Mr. Hei. ?I don?t look at it as anything different than if some military organization took it upon themselves to go root out the people that weren?t agreeing with the current commander in chief, and taking them to FEMA camps ? that?s the next step of what I?m seeing.?
In seeking 501(c)4 status, a group is asking to be exempt from taxes as a social welfare organization. Because some political activity is allowed, many so-called super PACs use the designation. The line of how much politics is too much politics is drawn by IRS agents.
According to the IRS Inspector General report, agents were concerned about a large number of applications and were mindful of warnings from Democratic Congressmen about some conservative groups being too political to qualify as tax exempt under 501(c) 4.
So from late-2009 to May 2012, IRS agents began to specifically target applications by flagging words like ?patriot? and ?tea party,? even the phrase ?making America a better place to live.? The applicants were asked up to 53 ?penalty of perjury? questions about Facebook posts, names of associates, books read, and even about their thoughts.
Ultimately, none of the applications were denied, but some are still pending. But the message to tea party activists was chilling, raising the specter of what Nordvig called an ?enemies list.?
The agency blamed ?low-level? employees in Cincinnati for the overreach, but according to the American Center for Law and Justice, internal IRS letters indicate that other offices were involved.
Meanwhile, some officials in Washington knew about the practice but did not alert Congress, despite having opportunities in hearings to do so, according to Republican aides briefed by the IRS and the Treasury inspector general for Tax Administration. Before last year?s election, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman also insisted that there was ?no targeting,? though senior IRS officials had been aware of the practice for over a year, the GOP aides reportedly said.
?Knowing what we know now,? Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah said in a statement, ?the IRS was at best being far from forthcoming, or at worst, being deliberately dishonest with Congress.?
Whether the tea party will ultimately be revived by the IRS scandal is still an open question, but tea party activists say they hope that the flap has at the very least caused Americans to more seriously consider Thomas Jefferson?s warning that even the best government can be ?perverted ? into tyranny.?
?Right now the tea party is the conscience of the nation, that small still voice saying, ?You?re off track, and this is the way back,? ? says Nordvig.
RECOMMENDED: Briefing IRS 101: Seven questions about the tea party scandal
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irs-scandal-reinvigorated-tea-party-eager-seize-moment-222634322.html
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May 15, 2013 ? Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques aimed at mental and neurological conditions include transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for depression, and transcranial direct current (electrical) stimulation (tDCS), shown to improve memory. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) has also shown promise.
Ultrasound consists of mechanical vibrations, like sound, but with frequencies far greater than the upper limit of human hearing, around 20 thousand to 20 million cycles per second (20 kilohertz to 20 megahertz). Ultrasound vibrations penetrate bodily tissue including bone, and are widely used to image anatomical structures via echo effects, e.g. visualizing unborn babies in mothers' wombs, and organs, blood vessels, nerves and other structures in medical procedures. Virtually every part of the body, including the brain, has been safely imaged with low to moderate intensity ultrasound.
High intensity, focused ultrasound can damage tissue by heating and cavitation, and has been used to ablate tumors and other lesions. 'Sub-thermal' ultrasound can safely stimulate neural tissue. In 2002 a UCLA group led by Alexander Bystritsky noticed beneficial side effects in psychiatric patients whose brains were imaged by TUS. A team led by Virginia Tech's W. Jamie Tyler has shown TUS-induced behavioral and electrophysiological changes in animals. A Harvard group led by S-S Yoo has used focused ultrasound aimed at mouse motor cortex to wag the mouse's tail. But clinical trials of TUS aimed at human mental states have been lacking.
Now, in an article in the journal Brain Stimulation, a group from the Departments of Anesthesiology and Radiology at the University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona has investigated TUS for modulating mental states in a pilot study in human volunteers suffering from chronic pain. A clinical ultrasound imaging device (General Electric LOGIQe) was used, with the ultrasound probe applied at the scalp overlying the brain's temporal and frontal cortex (visible on the imaging screen). In random order, each subject received two 15 second exposures: sham/placebo, and 8 megahertz ultrasound (undetectable to subjects). Following exposure, subjects reported (by visual analog scales) significant improvement in mood both 10 minutes and 40 minutes after TUS, but not after sham/placebo. In a followup study (led by University of Arizona psychologists Jay Sanguineti and John JB Allen) preliminary results suggest 2 megahertz TUS (which traverses skull more readily) may be more effective in mood enhancement than 8 megahertz TUS.
The mechanism by which TUS can affect mental states is unknown (as is the mechanism by which the brain produces mental states). Tyler proposed TUS acts by vibrational stretching of neuronal membranes and/or extracellular matrix, but two recent papers from the group of Anirban Bandyopadhyay at National Institute of Material Sciences (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan (Sahu et al. [2013] Appl. Phys. Letts. 102, 123701; Sahu et al [2013] Biosensors and Bioelectronics 47:141) have suggested another possibility. The NIMS group used nanotechnology to study conductive properties of individual microtubules, protein polymers of tubulin (the brain's most prevalent protein). Major components of the neuronal cytoskeleton, microtubules grow and extend neurons, form and regulate synapses, are disrupted in Alzheimer's disease, and theoretically linked to information processing, memory encoding and mental states. Bandyopadhyay's NIMS group found that microtubules have remarkable electronic conductive properties when excited at certain specific resonant frequencies, e.g. in the low megahertz, precisely the range of TUS.
Dr. Stuart Hameroff, lead author on the new TUS study, said: "This suggests TUS may stimulate natural megahertz resonances in brain microtubules, enhancing not only mood and conscious mental states, but perhaps also microtubule functions in synaptic plasticity, nerve growth and repair. We plan further studies of TUS on traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease and post-traumatic stress disorders. 'Tuning the tubules' may help a variety of mental states and cognitive disorders."
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/UYv25BgQEuE/130515094825.htm
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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey says its state-run petroleum company has reached a deal with U.S. company Exxon Mobil to explore for oil in northern Iraq.?
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that the deal was a "step toward exploring for oil" in Iraq's Kurdish region.
He said details of the deal would be revealed after his visit to the United States on Thursday.
Both the United States and the Iraqi central government oppose allowing Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government to sign oil deals without Baghdad's approval. They fear that could threaten Iraq's unity and stability.
It was unclear whether Baghdad had approved Turkey's deal.
Turkey, which is eager to expand its energy supply, backs the Kurds' position that the Iraqi constitution gives its regions some power to sign oil and gas deals independently.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-oil-search-deal-reached-160326473.html
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LONDON (AP) ? Clint Dempsey scored the tying goal on a sliding shot into an empty net from 30 yards, then crossed to Emmanuel Adebayor for the a goal-ahead in the 83rd minute to lead Tottenham over Stoke 2-1 Sunday and into fourth place in the Premier League.
Steven Nzonzi gave Stoke the lead in the third minute, and Dempsey put the ball in the net in the 15th, only to have it disallowed for offside.
Five minutes later, goalkeeper Asmir Begovic rushed out for a long ball into the penalty area by Scott Parker as defender Mark Wilson cleared it near Dempsey. The American midfielder, seeing Begovic off his line, chipped the ball into the net for his seventh league goal of the season and 12th overall.
Stoke midfielder Charlie Adam was ejected in the 47th after earning a second yellow card for a foul on Jan Vertonghen. American defender Geoff Cameron entered in the 75th minute for host Stoke.
In the race for the Premier League's final two berths for next season's Champions League, Chelsea (21-7-9) is third with 72 points, followed by Tottenham (20-8-9) with 69 and Arsenal (19-7-10) with 67.
Arsenal hosts FA Cup champion and relegation-threatened Wigan on Tuesday night. The season ends next Sunday, when Chelsea hosts Everton, Tottenham is home against Sunderland and Arsenal is at Newcastle. Because of a superior goal difference, Chelsea likely needs at most a draw.
Newcastle and Norwich secured their Premier League survival with victories. Newcastle won 2-1 at already relegated Queens Park Rangers and Norwich won 4-0 at home over West Bromwich Albion.
Wigan, which is 18th, probably will need to win its last two games to have any chance to avoid relegation. Sunderland opened a four-point gap for 17th by tying visiting Southampton 1-1. Phil Bardsley scored on a deflected shot in the 68th but Jason Puncheon tied it in the 74th.
Manchester United beat Swansea 2-1, giving manager Alex Ferguson a winning sendoff in his final game at Old Trafford. Rio Ferdinand scored in the 86th minute, his first Premier League goal since January 2008.
David Moyes won his final home game as Everton manager, with Kevin Mirallas scoring twice in a 2-0 victory over West Ham. Moyes is taking over from Ferguson at Manchester United at the end of the season after leading the Toffees for 11 years.
In the League Championship, Watford will play Crystal Palace or Brighton in the promotion playoff final on May 27 at Wembley after a thrilling 3-1 win over Leicester for a 3-2 aggregate win. Manuel Almunia saved Anthony Knockaert's penalty kick in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time and Knockaert's shot off the rebound. Troy Deeney scored the decisive goal for Watford about 30 seconds later.
___
PARIS (AP) ? Paris-Saint German clinched its first French league title since 1994, winning 1-0 at Lyon on Jeremy Menez's goal in the 53rd minute.
PSG (22-5-8), which has spent about $329 million to acquire players during the past two years, holds a seven-point lead over second-place Marseille (21-8-7) with two games remaining.
PSG's Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Beckham have won league titles in four different countries.
"It wasn't easy to win here," PSG manager Carlo Ancelotti said after winning his third league title to go along with championships at AC Milan and Chelsea. "It's been difficult in a league with a lot of intensity and speed. But the team has been solid and compact since December. We've fulfilled the objective of winning Ligue 1 and going far in the Champions League."
___
MADRID (AP) ? Barcelona celebrated its 22nd Spanish league title and fourth in five year, by rallying for a 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid after Lionel Messi reinjured his right hamstring.
Messi left in the 68th minute, after Barcelona used its three substitutes, and his record league scoring streak ended at 21 matches, more than double the previous record of 10.
Barcelona (29-2-4) clinched the title Saturday when second-place Real Madrid (25-5-6) tied Espanyol 1-1. Radamel Falcao put Atletico ahead in the 52nd minute, but Alexis Sanchez scored in the 72nd and Gabi Fernandez had an own goal in the 80th.
___
MILAN (AP) ? Fiorentina closed within two points of AC Milan for third place ? the final Champions League berth ? with a 1-0 win over Palermo that relegated the visitors to Serie B next season. Luca Toni scored against his former team in the 41st minute.
Milan missed a chance to clinch third, playing a 0-0 tie against Roma in a match briefly suspended in the second half because of racist chanting directed at Italian forward Mario Balotelli by the visiting Roma fans.
Genoa tied 0-0 at home against Inter Milan, a result that relegated Siena before its 2-1 loss at second-place Napoli.
Milan (20-8-9) closes next Sunday at Siena (9-19-9), while Fiorentina (20-10-7) finishes at last-place Pescara (6-27-4) already was assured of relegation. Genoa (8-16-13), which is 17th, cannot be overtaken by Palermo (6-17-14).
___
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ? Kaiserslautern won 3-1 at Regensburg to clinch third place in Germany's second division, securing a slot in the home-and-home playoff for a place in the Bundesliga next season.
Kaiserslautern's opponent will be the 16th-place team from the Bundesliga: Fortuna Duesseldorf, Augsburg or Hoffenheim. The playoff will be May 23 and May 27.
Hertha Berlin and Eintracht Braunschweig have earned promotion, and Greuther Fuerth has been relegated from the Bundesliga.
___
American defender Clarence Goodson scored the opening goal in the 37th minute, helping Brondy to a 1-1 tie at Aalborg in Denmark's Superliga.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dempsey-goal-assist-lift-spurs-epl-4th-place-164147911.html
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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? Bangladesh's government plans to raise the minimum wage for garment workers, a Cabinet minister said Sunday, after the deaths of more than 1,100 people in the collapse of a factory building focused international attention on the textile industry's dismal pay and hazardous working conditions.
A new minimum wage board will issue recommendations for pay raises within three months, Textiles Minister Abdul Latif Siddiky said. The Cabinet will then decide whether to accept those proposals.
The wage board will include representatives of factory owners, workers and the government, he said.
The April 24 building collapse, the world's worst garment industry disaster, has raised alarm about conditions in Bangladesh's powerful textile industry, which makes clothing for major retailers around the world.
Working conditions in the $20 billion industry are grim, a result of government corruption, desperation for jobs, and industry indifference. Minimum wages for garment workers were last raised by 80 percent to 3,000 takas ($38) a month in 2010 following protests by workers.
Rescue workers said 1,125 bodies had been recovered by late Sunday from the ruins of the fallen Rana Plaza building, which housed five garment factories employing thousands of workers.
Overnight rainstorms had halted the recovery efforts, but by midday the teams were back at work using hydraulic cranes, bulldozers, shovels and iron cutters as they continued looking for bodies more than two weeks after the eight-story building collapsed.
"We are still removing the rubble very carefully as dead bodies are still coming up," said Maj. Moazzem Hossain, a rescue team leader. "The dead bodies are decomposed and beyond recognition."
Hossain said they are trying to identify the bodies by their identity cards. "If we get the ID cards with the bodies then we are lucky," he said.
On Friday, the search teams received a much-needed boost when they found a young seamstress who had managed to survive for 17 days on dried food and bottled and rain water.
More than 2,500 people were rescued shortly after the April 24 disaster, but until 19-year-old Reshma Begum was found the crews had gone nearly two weeks without discovering anyone alive.
Doctors said Begum's condition was improving after treatment for dehydration, insomnia, stress and weakness.
Before Begum's rescue, the last survivor was found April 28, but her story ended in tragedy. As workers tried to free Shahina Akter, a fire broke out and she died of smoke inhalation.
Officials say the owner of Rana Plaza illegally added three floors and allowed five garment factories in the building to install heavy machines and generators, even though the structure was not designed to support such equipment.
The owner and eight other people, including the owners of the garment factories, have been detained.
The Textiles Ministry has also begun a series of factory inspections and has ordered about 22 closed temporarily for violating safety and working standards.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bangladesh-raise-wages-garment-workers-160002939.html
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This image provided by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's office shows the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center booking photo of Ariel Castro, 52, after he was ordered to be held on $8 million bail Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. Castro, a former school bus driver, is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a decade in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Cuyahoga County)
This image provided by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's office shows the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center booking photo of Ariel Castro, 52, after he was ordered to be held on $8 million bail Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. Castro, a former school bus driver, is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a decade in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Cuyahoga County)
A sign rests in front of a home Saturday, May 11, 2013, in Cleveland. Ariel Castro, who allegedly held three women captive for nearly a decade, is charged with rape and kidnapping. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
A missing poster still hangs on a tree at the home where Amanda Berry is staying in Cleveland on Saturday, May 11, 2013. Suspect Ariel Castro who allegedly held Berry and two other women captive for nearly a decade is charged with rape and kidnapping. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
CLEVELAND (AP) ? The three women allegedly imprisoned and sexually abused for years inside a padlocked Cleveland house asked for privacy Sunday, saying through an attorney that while they are grateful for overwhelming support, they also need time to heal.
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight remain in seclusion, releasing their first statements since they were found May 6 when Berry escaped and told a 911 dispatcher, "I'm free now."
They thanked law enforcement and said they were grateful for the support of family and the community.
"I am so happy to be home, and I want to thank everybody for all your prayers," DeJesus said in a statement read by an attorney. "I just want time now to be with my family."
The women, now in their 20s and 30s, vanished separately between 2002 and 2004. At the time, they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.
Investigators say they spent the last nine years or more inside the home of Ariel Castro where they were repeatedly raped and only allowed outside a handful of times. Castro, 52, is being held on $8 million bond. The former school bus driver was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.
Prosecutors said last week they may seek aggravated murder charges ? punishable by death ? for allegedly impregnating one of his captives at least five times and forcing her miscarry by starving her and punching her in the belly.
The allegations were contained in a police report that also said Berry was forced to give birth in a plastic kiddie pool inside the home. A DNA test confirmed that Castro fathered the 6-year-old girl, who escaped the house with Berry.
After nearly a decade of being away, the three women need time to reconnect with their families, said attorney Jim Wooley.
Knight, who was the first to disappear and the last of the three released from the hospital, thanked everyone for their support and good wishes in her statement.
"I am healthy, happy and safe and will reach out to family, friends and supporters in good time."
Berry added: "Thank you so much for everything you're doing and continue to do. I am so happy to be home with my family."
The attorney said none of the women will do any media interviews until the criminal case against Castro is over. He also asked that they be given privacy.
"Give them the time, the space, and the privacy so that they can continue to get stronger," Wooley said.
The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but the women's names were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearances and after they were found.
Donations are pouring into funds set up for the women. City Councilman Brian Cummins said $50,000 has been raised with the goal of creating a trust fund for each in hopes of making them financially independent.
Castro was represented at his first court appearance Thursday by public defender Kathleen Demetz, who said she can't speak to his guilt or innocence and advised him not to give any media interviews that might jeopardize his case.
Castro's two brothers, who were initially taken into custody but released Thursday after investigators said there was no evidence against them, told CNN that they fear people still believe they had something to do with the three missing women.
Onil and Pedro Castro said they've been getting death threats even after police decided to release them. Pedro Castro said he would have turned in his brother if he had known he was involved in the women's disappearance.
"Brother or no brother," he told CNN.
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SAO PAULO (AP) ? The cars roll endlessly off the local assembly lines of the industry's biggest automakers, more than 10,000 a day, into the eager hands of Brazil's new middle class. The shiny new Fords, Fiats, and Chevrolets tell the tale of an economy in full bloom that now boasts the fourth largest auto market in the world.
What happens once those vehicles hit the streets, however, is shaping up as a national tragedy, experts say, with thousands of Brazilians dying every year in auto accidents that in many cases shouldn't have proven fatal.
The culprits are the cars themselves, produced with weaker welds, scant safety features and inferior materials compared to similar models manufactured for U.S. and European consumers, say experts and engineers inside the industry. Four of Brazil's five bestselling cars failed their independent crash tests.
Unsafe cars, coupled with the South American nation's often dangerous driving conditions, have resulted in a Brazilian death rate from passenger car accidents that is nearly four times that of the United States, according to an Associated Press analysis of Brazilian Health Ministry data on deaths compared to the size of each country's car fleet. In fact, the two countries are moving in opposite directions on survival rates ? the U.S. recorded 40 percent fewer fatalities from car wrecks in 2010 compared with a decade before. In Brazil, the number killed rose 72 percent, according to the latest available data.
Dr. Dirceu Alves, of Abramet, a Brazilian association of doctors that specializes in treating traffic accident victims, said poorly built cars take an unnecessary toll.
"The gravity of the injuries arriving at the hospitals is just ugly," he said, "injuries that should not be occurring."
Automakers in Brazil point out that their cars meet the nation's safety laws. Some said they build even tougher cars for the country because of its poorly maintained roadways and rejected any notion that cost-cutting in production leads to fatalities.
But the country's few safety activists perceive a deadly double standard, with automakers earning more money from selling cars that offer drivers fewer safeguards ? a worrisome gap for new middle-class households, whose surging spending power has outpaced consumer protections taken for granted in more developed countries. The problem extends beyond Brazil, with economic forecasts showing the majority of global growth in auto sales taking place in emerging-market nations as the world's auto fleet doubles to 1.5 billion by 2020.
"Entry-level cars in Brazil are incredibly dangerous, it can't be denied. The death rate from accidents is far too high," said Maria Ines Dolci, coordinator of the Rio de Janeiro-based consumer defense group Proteste. "The manufacturers do this because the cars are a little cheaper to make and the demands of the Brazilian consumers are less; their knowledge of safety issues is lower than in Europe or the U.S."
Manufacturers earn a 10 percent profit on Brazilian-made cars, compared with 3 percent in the U.S. and a global average of 5 percent, according to IHS Automotive, an industry consulting firm.
Only next year will laws require frontal air bags and antilock braking systems on all cars, safety features that have been standard in industrial countries for years. The country will also have new impact regulations on paper, at least; Brazilian regulators don't have their own crash-test facility to verify automakers' claims about vehicle performance, nor are there independent labs in the country.
Experts say those requirements alone are not sufficient to meet basic safety standards. Some models sold in Brazil, like the Chinese-made JAC J3, scored only one star in a recent crash test despite having air bags and antilock brakes.
An independent pilot effort known as the Latin New Car Assessment Program has run initial tests of Brazil's most popular car models, and the results are bleak.
The cheapest models of four of the five top-selling cars, made by General Motors, Volkswagen and Fiat, received a one-star rating, out of five stars, while other top sellers also scored poorly. Such a rating means cars provide little protection in serious head-on wrecks, compared to four- or five-star rated cars, which are virtually the minimum that consumers in the U.S. and Europe buy.
"The difference is you're talking about somebody dead in the vehicle or dying very quickly, or somebody being able to get out of the vehicle themselves," said David Ward, director general of the London-based FIA Foundation for auto safety, which supports the Euro and Latin NCAP programs. "It's definitely a difference between life and death."
The squat Ford Ka hatchback sold in Europe scored four stars when it was tested by Euro NCAP in 2008; its Latin American version scored one star.
Ford acknowledged that particular Ka is built on an outdated platform, and said it cannot be compared with the European version of the same name ? it's that different. The company said it aims to have all its cars produced in Brazil built on updated, global platforms by 2015.
The Mexico-produced Nissan March compact sold in Latin America received a two-star rating from Latin NCAP, while the version sold for about the same price in Europe, called the Micra, scored four stars. The crash tests found the Latin American model had a weak, unstable body structure that offered occupants little protection in even non-serious wrecks.
In an emailed statement, Nissan said the March sold in Brazil is "practically the same model" offered in Europe. "The difference in the results achieved in Europe and Latin America is due to variations in the NCAP tests applied in different parts of the world."
Not so, said Alejandro Furas, technical director for the Global NCAP crash test programs.
"We perform the frontal crash test exactly in the same way as the Euro NCAP," he said. "The March and Micra were tested in the same lab, with the same type of crash test dummies, under the same conditions with the same people running the laboratory."
The Euro NCAP tests are more complete. They include side-impact and other tests, while the Latin American version only records front-impacts. Each type of impact test is individually scored on a 16-point scale.
The March sold in Brazil obtained a 7.62 rating in its frontal-impact test. The Micra fared much better, 12.7 points.
Italian automaker Fiat said in an emailed statement that "in general, Brazilian projects receive more reinforcements" within the cars' bodies to fortify them against the nation's "harsher roads and terrain."
However, NCAP tests found that Fiat's best-selling car in Brazil, called the Novo Uno, had an unstable body structure and scored it just one star.
Crash-test footage shows the front of the car folding up like an accordion, giving it a 2.0 point rating, the second lowest of the 28 cars NCAP has examined. Consumers purchased nearly 256,000 Novo Uno's last year ? the second-most popular car in the country.
Renault's safety standards also vary. The French company builds its Sandero in Brazil, selling 98,400 cars last year. That car scored one star on the Latin NCAP test, but the model sold in Europe, made by Renault's Romanian subsidiary Dacia, scored three stars.
Renault said the safety record of the Sandero and its other cars were on par with autos of the same class in Brazil.
One of those is the VW Gol, Brazil's best-selling car for the last decade.
Volkswagen said it strives to maintain a global standard for body strength, putting the same number of welds on the same models regardless of where they're produced, and using high-strength steel in Brazilian cars. It added that since 1998 it's given Brazilian consumers the option of buying a car with air bags ? its Gol Trend model with two frontal air bags scored three stars, while the same model without air bags scored one star.
The company didn't respond to requests for figures on how many consumers requested air bags.
"Structural integrity during a crash is a global standard for Volkswagen," the company said in an emailed statement. "The passenger compartment for the Gol remained stable and thus guarantees survival space for occupants."
Latin NCAP has tested three VW models. The Gol and the Polo had stable bodies. The Bora sedan, however, was rated as unstable, though other factors helped it score three stars.
And then there are the cars the companies do not market outside Latin America, such as the Celta by GM. Celta is Brazil's No. 5 car in terms of sales, with 137,615 sold last year. It received one star after its door unhinged and the passenger cabin roof bent into an inverted V shape during its crash test.
General Motors had no comment other than to say that its cars in Brazil are legal.
An engineer for a major U.S. automaker, speaking only on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said he has watched for years as his company failed to implement more advanced safety features in Brazil, simply because the law did not require them.
""The automakers are pleased to make more profitable cars for countries where the demands, whatever they may be, are less rigorous," he said. "It happens everywhere ? India, China and Russia, for example."
___
About 40 million Brazilians moved into the middle class during the past decade with more income than ever to buy their first car. The growth potential is enormous: One out of every seven Brazilians owns a car, while the U.S. vehicle fleet covers nearly every American.
But as auto sales boom in Brazil, so have the number of accidents and deaths.
An analysis of Health Ministry data shows that 9,059 car occupants died in vehicle crashes in Brazil in 2010, according to the most recent statistics available. That same year, 12,435 people in the U.S. were killed in car crashes, though the U.S. passenger car fleet is five times larger than Brazil's. The result: Brazilian automobile crash victims died at four times the rate as those in the U.S.
The dangers come down to basics, engineers said: the lack of body reinforcements, lower-quality steel in car bodies, weaker or fewer weld spots to hold the vehicles together and car platforms designed decades before modern safety advances.
"The electricity used in building a car is about 20 percent of the cost of the structure," said Marcilio Alves, an engineering professor at Brazil's premier University of Sao Paulo and one of the few independent researchers in the nation looking at car safety.
"If you save on electricity, you save on cost. One way to save electricity is either reducing the number of spot welds or using less energy for each spot weld made. This affects structural performance in the event of a crash."
In a car with no air bags and an unstable body structure, a driver's biggest danger is the steering wheel.
A weak body structure and fragile steering column make it easier for the wheel to slam into the driver's chest and abdomen in frontal crashes, the deadliest and most common, causing serious damage to vital organs.
Ward talks of steering wheels that break off and "float" during wrecks in poorly made cars ? moving around the cabin in the driver's area. That means that even if an air bag is deployed, the steering wheel may go around or under it and directly hit the driver.
Many Brazilian car bodies also don't contain crumple zones, areas that absorb energy during wrecks. The omission endangers occupants' lower limbs, as foot wells rip off and expose feet and legs to car parts slamming into them from the front.
"If a car's body cannot absorb the energy of a crash, it will logically result in more damage, more injuries to passengers," said Alves, the doctor who specializes in traffic accident victims.
One auto engineer described the situation by sketching two car body designs with identical perimeters, but one depicted internal gaps ? missing body reinforcements.
He worked three decades for Volkswagen and spent the last 10 years as an independent engineering consultant for big automakers. He asked that his name not be published for fear of losing contracts and benefits.
"The secret of a car's body being able to withstand the crash test are the weld spots," he said.
"Let's say this is a German car," he pointed to the gapless sketch. "It's really sophisticated. Nothing is missing."
Then he pointed at the car made in Brazil, full of incomplete ink strokes.
"The Brazilian version looks the same from the outside, but it's missing pieces," he said. "In one version they include the reinforcement, in the other they don't. What's of interest is the final shape. What's inside, nobody can see."
___
In 2008, Carlos Alberto Lopes, then a 23-year-old waiter, was riding in a one-star car traveling about 50 mph on a rainy highway in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais when the road curved smoothly left. The car hydroplaned, skidded into an embankment and rolled several times down a long incline. Of the four occupants, Lopes was the only one with serious injuries, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Lopes says the three-point seatbelt he was wearing didn't lock his body in place, allowing him to repeatedly hit the collapsing roof as the car rolled. He suffered a crushed vertebra.
"If the seatbelt had locked when the car rolled I wouldn't have hit my back. None of this would have happened," Lopes said.
A study by a chain of Brazilian rehabilitation centers where Lopes is being treated found that in 2011, 40 percent of the patients it worked with in Sao Paulo with serious spinal injuries were hurt in traffic accidents.
Lopes never considered a lawsuit. In fact, in more than a dozen interviews with accident victims left paralyzed after crashes, not one considered taking legal action against vehicle manufacturers.
That's in part a reflection of the lack of police investigations into car accidents, the majority of which, like Lopes', only result in simple "occurrence bulletins" that include minimal information.
But it's also indicative of the deference Brazil's new middle class consumers show to automakers and most other industries.
"We're 20 years behind the U.S. and Europe in terms of consumer awareness," said Dolci, coordinator of the Proteste consumer defense group. "The new, emerging middle class entering the market has little information on car safety. They think little of automobile security. It's this very class of consumer the automakers are targeting and to whom they're selling a mountain of cars."
Accidents like Lopes' involve more than a poorly built car.
Drivers fail to obey traffic laws, which many of the region's governments notoriously don't enforce. Cars must navigate crumbling roads and poorly designed highway systems that all but make gridlock and accidents unavoidable. And many drivers simply value perks such as alloy wheels and sound systems over unseen crumple zones.
In 1965, there were 47,089 motor vehicle fatalities in the U.S. That same year, consumer activist Ralph Nader's famous indictment of the auto industry was published, Unsafe at Any Speed. The book ignited a national discussion on auto safety and ultimately led to reforms that dramatically refashioned the industry's standards, helping lead to a 32 percent drop in deaths by 2011.
Nader said halting the growing number of auto deaths in Brazil would take "a public uproar, product liability lawsuits, selective boycotts by motorists or by mandatory Brazilian law equalizing safety standards with the safest engineering required in other countries."
"These responses in the past have worked in other countries confronted by auto industry double standards for protecting lives on the highway. Such actions are long overdue but now Brazilians know the truth in more detail," he said.
The Brazilian government says its new laws mandating frontal air bags and anti-lock brakes will dramatically improve safety, as will new impact standards. But because there are no independent crash-test centers in Brazil, companies will not face the same scrutiny as elsewhere. They will run the impact tests themselves and present the results to the government for approval. Because there is no "conformity of production" clause in the Brazilian legislation, cars won't be spot-checked to ensure they meet safety laws.
Alexandre Cordeiro, the top government minister overseeing auto safety laws, acknowledged that the government doesn't have its own crash-test center ? but said Brazil will monitor crash tests conducted outside the country.
"Regarding front- and rear-end crash tests, our cars are as secure as European or American cars," Cordeiro said.
However, when asked about the stark differences in performance that the NCAP tests document between Brazilian and European cars, Cordeiro acknowledged improvements need to be made, saying "we need to evolve and we're working on it."
Over the years Ward said he has watched the same battles play out over auto safety ? the only thing that changes is the location.
"The sad thing is, this has been the experience in the 1960s in the U.S., in the 1990s in Europe and now in Latin America," Ward said. "The industry does the least it can get away with until they're forced to do something different. It's maddening."
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? New York Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain scolded teammate Mariano Rivera before Saturday night's game, telling the star closer never to "shush" him.
New York media reports said the brief rebuke occurred before the Yankees beat Kansas City 3-2.
Rivera was talking to reporters in the dugout about his "emotional" meeting with local fans earlier in the day, while Chamberlain was standing just outside the bench chatting with his family.
At one point, Rivera told Chamberlain to lower his voice. Once Rivera's interview was done, Chamberlain told Rivera in front of reporters: "Don't ever shush me."
Chamberlain then reiterated his message, saying he was serious about it. After the game, the players said the issue was between them to handle.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chamberlain-scolds-rivera-yankees-game-061806706.html
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By Soyoung Kim and Olivia Oran
NEW YORK (Reuters) - SoftBank Corp is playing it rough in its attempt to keep Dish Network Corp from breaking up its $20.1 billion deal to take control of Sprint Nextel Corp.
The Japanese telecom company, which owns 33 percent of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has told banks that their financing of Dish's $25.5 billion rival offer for Sprint could hurt their chances of landing a role in a highly anticipated public offering of the Chinese e-commerce giant, two sources familiar with the situation said.
SoftBank, Dish and Sprint declined to comment. A source close to Alibaba said on Friday that while SoftBank is a major investor, it does not make decisions for Alibaba's management. Alibaba has no timetable for an IPO yet and has not hired underwriters.
Softbank's unusual move is the latest sign that the battle for the control of Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, is fast turning into a no-holds-barred brawl between Softbank founder Masayoshi Son and Dish's Charlie Ergen.
SoftBank agreed in October last year to buy 70 percent of Sprint for $20.1 billion. In December, Sprint also made an offer to buy out the stake in Clearwire Corp it didn't already own. But Softbank's plans have run into trouble, thanks in large part to Dish. In January, Dish made a counterbid for Clearwire, and followed up in April with the bid for Sprint.
Softbank's latest move could make it more difficult for Dish to firm up financing for its Sprint bid. At least one major bank has withdrawn from financing the Dish bid after Softbank's move, the sources said.
Dish has said it would need to raise $9 billion in debt to finance the offer, and Softbank has criticized its rival for not having committed financing in place.
In an interview last month, Son described the U.S. media veteran as an "amateur" in mobile. "Charlie has no expertise in the mobile industry," the executive told Reuters.
For his part, Ergen has fought back against the criticism. Earlier this month, he said acquiring Sprint was so important to Dish that he could consider selling the company altogether if he loses a bidding war.
Softbank's move, though unusual, is legal, the sources said.
So-called anti-tying rules prohibit banks from offering a product to a company on the condition that it gets a role in another transaction. For example, a bank cannot say it will only give a loan to a company if the bank is chosen as an adviser on the company's next M&A transaction.
But banks' corporate clients are not subject to these restrictions. A company, for example, may select underwriters for an IPO on the condition that these banks not participate in a competitor's future public offering.
Alibaba's IPO, which could come as early as this year, is one of the most highly anticipated technology deals after Facebook Inc's $16 billion offering last year and would generate lofty fees for Wall Street banks. In Facebook's case, underwriters split about $176 million in fees.
BANKS TIED UP
Dish is in the process of lining up financing, but is encountering challenges in part because of Softbank's move, the sources said.
Barclays Plc, which is advising Dish, and Jefferies Group LLC, are lined up to provide financing, with Dish speaking to more banks to join the financing, one of the sources said. Jefferies and Barclays declined to comment.
Many Wall Street banks including Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank are already conflicted and cannot provide financing to Dish because of their roles in other aspects of the bidding war.
Bank of America is advising Sprint's special committee, while Citigroup, UBS and Rothschild are advising Sprint. Deutsche Bank is financing SoftBank's proposal.
Meanwhile, Softbank has already removed Barclays from a role in financing its bid for Sprint after the British bank was revealed to be advising Dish on a rival offer, sources have said previously.
FINANCING ISSUES
Dish's lack of committed financing is a concern for the special committee of Sprint's board that is reviewing Dish's offer to determine whether it could lead to a better deal than Softbank's, the sources said.
Ergen said on Thursday that Sprint's special committee has not yet given Dish access to its data room to gain a closer look at Sprint's books. The committee is taking its time in part because Dish does not have committed financing, the sources said.
In a letter to Sprint's board of directors on April 15, Dish said it intended to fund the $17.3 billion cash portion of the deal using $8.2 billion in balance sheet cash and raising $9 billion in additional debt financing.
"We have a proven track record in raising capital to fund strategic initiatives and have received a Highly Confident Letter from our financial advisor, Barclays, confirming our ability to raise the required financing," the letter said.
(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, Olivia Oran and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Matthew Lewis and Paul Simao)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-softbank-asks-banks-not-finance-dishs-sprint-005450661.html
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By Soyoung Kim and Olivia Oran
NEW YORK (Reuters) - SoftBank Corp is playing it rough in its attempt to keep Dish Network Corp from breaking up its $20.1 billion deal to take control of Sprint Nextel Corp.
The Japanese telecom company, which owns 33 percent of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has told banks that their financing of Dish's $25.5 billion rival offer for Sprint could hurt their chances of landing a role in a highly anticipated public offering of the Chinese e-commerce giant, two sources familiar with the situation said.
SoftBank, Dish and Sprint declined to comment. A source close to Alibaba said on Friday that while SoftBank is a major investor, it does not make decisions for Alibaba's management. Alibaba has no timetable for an IPO yet and has not hired underwriters.
Softbank's unusual move is the latest sign that the battle for the control of Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, is fast turning into a no-holds-barred brawl between Softbank founder Masayoshi Son and Dish's Charlie Ergen.
SoftBank agreed in October last year to buy 70 percent of Sprint for $20.1 billion. In December, Sprint also made an offer to buy out the stake in Clearwire Corp it didn't already own. But Softbank's plans have run into trouble, thanks in large part to Dish. In January, Dish made a counterbid for Clearwire, and followed up in April with the bid for Sprint.
Softbank's latest move could make it more difficult for Dish to firm up financing for its Sprint bid. At least one major bank has withdrawn from financing the Dish bid after Softbank's move, the sources said.
Dish has said it would need to raise $9 billion in debt to finance the offer, and Softbank has criticized its rival for not having committed financing in place.
In an interview last month, Son described the U.S. media veteran as an "amateur" in mobile. "Charlie has no expertise in the mobile industry," the executive told Reuters.
For his part, Ergen has fought back against the criticism. Earlier this month, he said acquiring Sprint was so important to Dish that he could consider selling the company altogether if he loses a bidding war.
Softbank's move, though unusual, is legal, the sources said.
So-called anti-tying rules prohibit banks from offering a product to a company on the condition that it gets a role in another transaction. For example, a bank cannot say it will only give a loan to a company if the bank is chosen as an adviser on the company's next M&A transaction.
But banks' corporate clients are not subject to these restrictions. A company, for example, may select underwriters for an IPO on the condition that these banks not participate in a competitor's future public offering.
Alibaba's IPO, which could come as early as this year, is one of the most highly anticipated technology deals after Facebook Inc's $16 billion offering last year and would generate lofty fees for Wall Street banks. In Facebook's case, underwriters split about $176 million in fees.
BANKS TIED UP
Dish is in the process of lining up financing, but is encountering challenges in part because of Softbank's move, the sources said.
Barclays Plc, which is advising Dish, and Jefferies Group LLC, are lined up to provide financing, with Dish speaking to more banks to join the financing, one of the sources said. Jefferies and Barclays declined to comment.
Many Wall Street banks including Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank are already conflicted and cannot provide financing to Dish because of their roles in other aspects of the bidding war.
Bank of America is advising Sprint's special committee, while Citigroup, UBS and Rothschild are advising Sprint. Deutsche Bank is financing SoftBank's proposal.
Meanwhile, Softbank has already removed Barclays from a role in financing its bid for Sprint after the British bank was revealed to be advising Dish on a rival offer, sources have said previously.
FINANCING ISSUES
Dish's lack of committed financing is a concern for the special committee of Sprint's board that is reviewing Dish's offer to determine whether it could lead to a better deal than Softbank's, the sources said.
Ergen said on Thursday that Sprint's special committee has not yet given Dish access to its data room to gain a closer look at Sprint's books. The committee is taking its time in part because Dish does not have committed financing, the sources said.
In a letter to Sprint's board of directors on April 15, Dish said it intended to fund the $17.3 billion cash portion of the deal using $8.2 billion in balance sheet cash and raising $9 billion in additional debt financing.
"We have a proven track record in raising capital to fund strategic initiatives and have received a Highly Confident Letter from our financial advisor, Barclays, confirming our ability to raise the required financing," the letter said.
(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, Olivia Oran and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Matthew Lewis and Paul Simao)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-softbank-asks-banks-not-finance-dishs-sprint-005450661.html
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Is cooking for the family meals that one chore that you have begun to dread? Do not let your lack of creating great meals lead you to frustration. This article provides many tips that can make cooking meals less stressful and more enjoyable. After you put the information from this article to good use, you will wonder where it was all of your life!
TIP! Do not add food to the oil until it is hot. Using this method will help ensure your food is as tasty as possible.
If you are working on creating more home-cooked meals, take a trip to a local library or bookstore where you can find many cookbooks with recipes you can enjoy making at home. Try different recipes and be patient as you develop your skills.
Slice meats into thin strips on the bias when prepping for stir-fry dishes. This can get a little tricky and be hard to do.
TIP! Fresh foods are always a better choice than frozen or dried ones regardless of what type of food you are cooking. Use fresh ingredients whenever possible, as they make the food more flavorful, and they may cost less over the long run.Partially frozen meat so it becomes easier to slice it into thin strips. This is best for oriental meals such as Thai or Chinese dishes. However, to make sure that the meat cooks evenly, make sure that the meat is thawed before you cook it.
TIP! It can be difficult to figure out how long you need to keep meat on the grill. You may want to consider investing in a meat thermometer so that you know when your food is properly cooked.Boiling your vegetables can drain the vitamins and nutrients to be found in vegetables. To maintain their healthy reputation, cook them quickly with methods like steaming or sauteing, or even serving them raw.
You should never attempt to cook new or extravagant recipes and food you enjoy. You will enjoy cooking if you have greater peace of mind.
TIP! If you are preparing pumpkins for a meal, position the pumpkin so it is sitting upright, then cut it into two equal halves. Put each half on a baking sheet, with the cut side facing downward.
Ice trays can be a great tool for freezing and storing leftover sauce.This makes it easier for you to make a quick meal which you can reheat at a saute pan. The frozen sauce will be very edible after it comes out of the trays.
This will help to keep your fruits fresh for long periods of time. This also gives you easy access to seasonal fruits during their off seasons.
Don?t use a type of wine in your meal that is a kind you wouldn?t drink. There is wine available that was made specifically for cooking purposes.
TIP! Make sure that you never use a wine in your food that you would not normally drink. If you mix random wines into your food, you may find that the wine you have chosen spoils the dish.
It will be very helpful to have all cooking supplies organized when cooking. If your kitchen supplies are not organized, you will wind up rummaging around to find what you need. Try keeping similar items in proximity to one area. For example, place parsley and basil in one cabinet, since both are spices.
TIP! Keep your herbs and spices in a cool, dark place where they will stay fresh. Storing spices and herbs in cabinets above the stove or in other warmer locations will result in a loss of flavor and a loss of money.You should consider replacing your spices biannually and buy new ones. The flavor of spices fade just a few months after opening the container.If you know you can?t use as much as is in the package, give some of it to someone you know.
You should establish a habit of washing the dishes as they are used.
TIP! Make preparing a complicated meal easier by doing some preparation the night before. Make sure you have all your ingredients before you start cooking, and that you shop and measure them so they are ready to go.The salt helps to keep the herbs on the cutting board and add extra flavor as well. Do not over-salt by making sure you don?t directly add more salt as you are cutting the herbs. The salt you put on this board will stick to the herbs and add a bit of flavor.
This allows you to economize on the amount of gas or electricity used when cooking, including flare-ups from overheated oil or choosing the wrong temperatures for your needs.
TIP! When chopping fresh herbs, you should shake some salt on a cutting board. This adds flavor to the herbs and helps to keep them from sliding off the cutting board.Trussing refers to the method of tying a turkey up with string. Trussing will cook your bird more evenly when you tie the legs and wings to the body so that cooking is done evenly. If the legs and wings aren?t tied down properly, the wings or legs will burn easier.
TIP! When you cook a simple meal, use fresh seasonings and herbs. Basil and oregano are great additions to any type of dish for their zesty flavors and aesthetically pleasing appearance.
There are a number of delicious ways to prepare fresh oysters. You can prepare oysters in other ways than raw with lemon juice. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pepper over them and broil until they begin to bubble. Another quick and fantastic way to cook the oysters is to saute them. Bake the oysters with shells still in their shells. Put them in a standard casserole dish, and put a little of butter with fresh breadcrumbs on top of each; preheat oven to 425 degrees, then bake four or five minutes at 425 degrees. Serve your oysters once the butter is bubbling.
TIP! Brining is a fabulous cooking method. Soak chicken, turkey and game poultry in salt water for an hour to create a more flavorful dish.
Use a stackable cooling rack that you can stack things on. Stackable racks help make the most of your space. Stacking cooling goodies up the space you need to work in.
TIP! Use beef or chicken stock in place of water in recipes to make food tastier. It is quick and easy to add a bouillon cube in water to a recipe.The very high temperature in a microwave causes oil to separate from other food ingredients. Baking slowly and consistently can reheat your whole dish and keep the ingredients more cohesive.
TIP! Using a baked potato instead of a small one can help you to have nice thick skins to use to make twice baked potatoes. Red potatoes contain skins that are too thin to hold very much filling.Use softened butter instead of melted butter when creaming sugar and butter for cookies. If the butter is melted, stick it in the freezer for several minutes, or when you are done mixing the ingredients together refrigerate the dough. Dough that has been chilled first will spread less in the oven.
TIP! Prepare components of a dish the evening before in order to save some prep time the next day. With some forethought and effort ahead of time, you can have stress-free meal preparation.Add some spices to meals after they are cooked. Pepper, cayenne, salt, and salt are excellent spices. Many people like different tastes when it comes to spice. This allows each person to make their meal in accordance with his or her own personal preferences.
TIP! If you are on a diet or perhaps just health-conscious, you can easily make a flavorful, low-fat soup or stew. First, you will need to purchase a fat-free stock or broth.Cooking dinner for a large number of people might mean added stress on your plate. Rather than succumbing to the urge to completely freak out, you should complete all of the preparations on the night before. Set out your ingredients, ingredients, and assemble ingredients.
TIP! Many of the most popular fruits become brown when exposed to air: apples, bananas and pears, for example. If you sprinkle some lemon juice or salt water on them it might slow down the process, but dipping the fresh fruit in pineapple juice is a tastier alternative.
Shake things up if your family is tired of the same old frozen corn on the table at dinner each night. Add some coconut to sweet corn to provide a Thai flavored zing.
TIP! You should only buy meat and fish that are still on the bone. Put cooked or raw bones in a heavier Ziploc bag and keep them in your freezer until you need to use them.
Microwave citrus fruits before juicing it to get their maximum yield. Heat your fruits for about ten seconds. Once you remove them from the microwave, roll the fruit on a hard surface before you begin juicing.
Learn how to use color in your cooking. Colorful foods appeal to your eyes and visual appeal. Be creative with color, and watch your food get eaten up quickly.
Cooking for an entire family can be overwhelming. Fortunately, many different things can be done for making meals easy. When you go back into your kitchen, you can relax.
By: Cooking Tips Central
Source: http://cookingtipscentral.com/food-can-be-easier-to-prepare-than-you-think/
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Source: http://comely-personalize.blogspot.com/2013/05/food-can-be-easier-to-prepare-than-you.html
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