David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York, May 16, 2012.

NEW YORK | Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:14pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Einhorn reiterated his arguments Friday that a judge should block a shareholder vote on Apple Inc's proposal to eliminate its ability to issue preferred shares without investor approval, days before a court hearing.

In court filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Einhorn's Greenlight Capital attempted to rebut Apple's arguments that the company's proposal was "pro-shareholder."

"Apple should not be allowed to substitute its judgment for its shareholders' judgment, and should be enjoined" from letting the vote proceed, Greenlight said in a motion.

A hearing on Einhorn's motion for an injunction against the February 27 vote on the proxy proposal is set for Tuesday. A spokesman for Apple declined comment.

Greenlight sued Apple last week as part of Einhorn's larger effort to have the iPhone maker share more of its $137 billion in cash with investors.

As part of that goal, Einhorn has pushed for Apple to issue to its shareholders perpetual preferred stock with a 4 percent dividend.

Among the Apple proxy proposals up for a vote February 27 is Proposal No. 2, which would remove the company's current system of issuing preferred stock at its discretion without a shareholder vote.

Greenlight's lawsuit contends Apple violated U.S. Securities and Exchange rules by "bundling" three separate amendments to its charter into Proposal No. 2. While Greenlight supports two of the amendments, it does not back the one related to preferred stock.

Apple in a Wednesday filing argued the proposal was not bundled and that it had not forced shareholders into an unfair choice. It also noted Proposal No. 2 was supported by proxy advisory services Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis & Co.

But Einhorn argued on Friday that ISS and Glass Lewis's support is premised on the belief that eliminating so-called "blank check" preferred stock powers enables a company to defend itself against a takeover.

"In my view, Apple is not a realistic take-over candidate because of, among other things, its enormous market capitalization," Einhorn wrote.

At Tuesday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan will also hear a separate challenge by an Apple investor from Pennsylvania to block not just the Proposal No. 2 vote, but also an advisory "say-on-pay" vote on executives compensation.

The investor, Brian Gralnick, contends Apple has not disclose enough details about how it made its decisions in awarding restricted stock units to certain executives.

Apple responded that its disclosures were adequate and appropriate.

The case is Greenlight Capital LP, et al., v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-900.

(Reporting By Nate Raymond; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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LONDON | Fri Feb 8, 2013 9:14am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - They may have had accolades and a knighthood in common, but veteran British thespian Alec Guinness found his fellow actor and former mentor Laurence Olivier tiresome and vindictive, newly released extracts from his diary show.

Writing just a day after Olivier's death, Guinness praised his contemporary as a "giant" of the theatre, but said he was unmoved by Olivier's performance in "Oedipus Rex".

"His 'I defy you, stars' in Romeo was memorable. And so was his Poor naked wretches etc in Lear. But his famous howl in Oedipus I thought just tiresome," Guinness wrote in a diary entry dated July 12, 1989.

"Like so many people whose ambition drive them to great eminence, he had a cruel and destructive streak. Side by side with his generosity, he could be unpleasant, possibly even vindictive," he wrote.

Born seven years apart, Guinness and Olivier first met on stage in 1935 in a performance of "Romeo and Juliet".

Guinness went on to win an Oscar for his performance in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" in 1957 and star as Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas's "Star Wars" franchise.

Guinness wrote that Olivier "knew every trick of the trade", including brightening and dimming lighting when he entered and exited the stage.

"He was always very conscious of the audience - and his own powers over them. I'm not sure he was an artist but he was total actor - a giant among actors," Guinness wrote.

The entries are part of a collection of 100 diary volumes and 900 letters which will be available for research at London's British Library next year and chronicle Guinness's career from the late 1930s until his death in 2000.

The library purchased the documents for 320,000 pounds ($502,500) from the Alec Guinness Estate, which still holds the copyright.

($1 = 0.6368 British pounds)

(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian, editing by Paul Casciato)

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SYDNEY | Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:12am EST

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A strike from a big asteroid more than 300 million years ago left a huge impact zone buried in Australia and changed the face of the earth, researchers said on Friday.

"The dust and greenhouse gases released from the crater, the seismic shock and the initial fireball would have incinerated large parts of the earth," said Andrew Glikson, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.

The asteroid was bigger than 10 km (6 miles) in diameter, while the impact zone itself was larger than 200 km (120 miles) - the third largest impact zone in the world.

"The greenhouse gases would stay in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years," Glikson told Reuters.

The discovery was made after another researcher alerted Glikson to some unusual mineral deposits in the East Warburton Basin in South Australia.

Glikson and colleagues analyzed quartz grains drawn from deep beneath the earth's surface in research starting in 2010 and the crater itself was recently identified, he added.

The strike may have been part of an asteroid impact cluster which caused an era of mass extinction, wiping out primitive coral reefs and other species, added Glikson, co-author of a study published in the journal Tectonophysics.

The impact happened before the dinosaurs, he said.

The announcement of the discovery came just before a newly discovered asteroid about half the size of a football field was set to pass some 27,520 km (17,200 miles) from Earth.

(Reporting by Michael Sin; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Elaine Lies)

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1 of 2. A 25-year-old female loggerhead turtle named Yu swims after receiving her 27th pair of prosthetic flippers at the Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe, western Japan February 11, 2013.

KOBE, Japan | Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:12am EST

KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - Life looked grim for Yu, a loggerhead turtle, when she washed up in a Japanese fishing net five years ago, her front flippers shredded after a brutal encounter with a shark.

Now keepers at an aquarium in the western Japanese city of Kobe are looking for a high-tech solution that will allow the 25-year-old turtle to swim normally again after years of labor and 27 models of prosthetic fins behind them without achieving their goal.

Yu, weighing 103 kg (227 pounds) and 82 cm (32 inches) long, first came to the attention of keepers at the Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe after she was rushed there from a port on the southern island of Shikoku in 2008.

"She was in a really bad way. More than half her fins were gone and she was bleeding, her body covered with shark bites," said Naoki Kamezaki, the park's director general.

After nursing the loggerhead - an endangered species - back to health, keepers enlisted the help of researchers and a local prosthetics-maker to get her swimming again.

Early versions of prosthetic flippers caused her pain or fell off quickly, and with money short, Kamezaki said he sometimes felt like packing it in.

"There have been times I wanted to give up and just fix her up the best we can and throw her back in," he told Reuters. "Then if luck's on her side she'll be fine, if not, she'll get eaten and that's just life. The way of nature, I suppose."

The latest version - made of rubber and fixed together with a material used in diving wetsuits - was unveiled on February 11 and proclaimed a success, with Yu swimming smoothly around her tank.

But on Friday, one flipper slipped out as soon as she hit the water, forcing keepers back to the laboratory again.

Though Kamezaki admits that it's unlikely Yu will ever live a normal turtle life, he still has hopes.

"My dream for her is that one day she can use her prosthetic fins to swim to the surface, walk about, and dig a proper hole to lay her eggs in," Kamezaki said.

"When her children hatch, well, I just feel that would make all the trauma in her life worthwhile."

(Reporting by Ruairidh Villar, writing by Elaine Lies, editing by Paul Casciato)

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House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R-MI) questions U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in Washington February 15, 2012.

WASHINGTON | Fri Feb 15, 2013 6:43pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Republican lawmaker has challenged the widely respected congressional forecaster on budget issues, the Congressional Budget Office, accusing it of a slanted report on taxing corporate profits, according to documents released on Friday.

A 36-page January CBO report concluded that tens of billions of dollars in new government revenue could be raised over a decade by limiting corporations' ability to defer taxes on foreign profits, a tax change favored by President Barack Obama.

The change, which would raise companies' tax bills, would boost efficiency and raise about $114 billion over 10 years, CBO estimated.

The prediction didn't sit well with Dave Camp, the Republican chairman for the U.S. House of Representatives' tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, who backs moving to a territorial tax system and is working on legislation to overhaul the entire U.S. tax code.

Under the territorial approach companies could bring foreign profits home with little or no corporate income tax imposed on a permanent basis, not just during a temporary, one-year holiday.

In an unusual move, Camp wrote to non-partisan CBO requesting an explanation of the report's methods, calling it "heavily slanted and biased in favor of one particular approach," according to a copy of the letter dated January 24 and released by Camp's office on Friday.

The Michigan lawmaker released his original letter after the CBO released an official response on Friday.

CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said he believes the report presents "key issues fairly and objectively and that its findings are well grounded in economic theory and are consistent with empirical studies in this area."

Still, the CBO director said that "because of the complexity of the subject and the diverse views of experts in the field, we agree that it would have been desirable to seek comments from more outside reviewers."

One of the experts cited by CBO was a former Obama administration official. Another academic has written critically of corporations skirting taxes abroad.

CBO said new revenues generated by the White House's approach would exceed new revenues available under the territorial system, favored by many corporations.

The territorial system, as promoted by corporate lobbyists and Republicans in Congress, would raise $76 billion over a decade, under one estimate cited by the CBO.

(Reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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NEW YORK | Thu Feb 14, 2013 7:24pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A nearly complete 70-million-year-old tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton will be returned to Mongolia following the high-profile prosecution of a Florida paleontologist by federal authorities in New York, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

A New York federal judge ordered the skeleton and other fossils forfeited to the U.S. government this week after the paleontologist pled guilty in December to fraud and conspiracy.

Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said his office would return the 8-foot-tall (2.4 meter), 24-foot-long (7.3 meter), mostly reconstructed cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

Mongolian officials demanded the skeleton's return after paleontologist Eric Prokopi sold it at a Manhattan auction last spring for $1.05 million. Mongolia suspected the skeleton had been smuggled out of its fossil-rich Gobi desert

U.S. authorities filed charges against Prokopi and seized the skeleton, which is fossilized bones welded to a metal frame. In announcing the seizure, Bharara called Prokopi a "one man black market in prehistoric fossils."

Authorities accused Prokopi of having lied on U.S. customs forms when he declared the fossilized bones were worth $19,000.

In a New York courtroom in September, Prokopi's defense attorney challenged the charge that his client had lied on the forms, saying the reconstruction was not a single creature but bones from multiple dinosaurs. Mongolian authorities and U.S. government paleontological experts believed it was a single creature.

A federal judge suggested the skeleton might be a "Frankenstein model of dinosaur parts" and asked a prosecutor why government experts had not recognized that the skeleton was from several sources.

"It was marketed as one dinosaur," the prosecutor said. "A 75 percent complete, but one dinosaur."

In December, Prokopi pleaded guilty to conspiracy, entry of goods by means of false statements, and the interstate and foreign transportation of goods taken by fraud.

He faces at least 10 years in prison if convicted on the fraud charge when he is sentenced in April.

(Reporting By Chris Francescani; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Toni Reinhold)

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