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)

View the original article here

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)

View the original article here

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)

View the original article here

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)

View the original article here

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)

View the original article here

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)

View the original article here

A security guard stands next to an Apple retail store during the release of the iPhone 5 in Shanghai December 14, 2012.

SAN JOSE, California | Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:10pm EST

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday asked Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd whether an Apple patent lawsuit over search technology should be put on hold for several months until after an appeals court resolves a separate lawsuit between the two companies.

Apple won a $1.05 billion verdict last year against Samsung in a California trial court, but U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected Apple's request for a permanent sales ban against several Samsung phones. Apple has appealed and a ruling is not expected until September at the earliest.

Apple also accused Samsung in a second lawsuit of violating a separate batch of patents, including the rights to search technology that is part of the iPhone Siri voice feature. That case is scheduled for trial in March 2014.

At a hearing on Thursday in a San Jose, California, federal court, Koh told attorneys for both companies that a potential resolution of the Apple versus Samsung legal war would cover both lawsuits. Koh asked if the second case should be suspended until after the appeals court ruled on the first.

"I just don't know if we really need two cases on this," Koh said.

Apple attorney William Lee said the cases should proceed in parallel as they involve different patents. However, Samsung attorney Victoria Maroulis said there was substantial "overlap" between the two proceedings.

Koh ordered attorneys for both sides to discuss the idea and report back on their positions by March 7.

"I assume there have been no further settlement discussions," Koh asked, "or at least none that have gone anywhere?"

"The answer to the last question is, that's correct," Lee said.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc. vs Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 12-630.

(Reporting By Dan Levine)

View the original article here

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks from the briefing room of the White House in Washington February 5, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Sun Feb 17, 2013 5:55pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is drafting a backup immigration reform plan in case a bipartisan congressional committee working on a bill fails, an Obama Administration official said on Sunday, though a key Republican said the president's plan would be "dead on arrival" on Capitol Hill.

White House Chief of staff Denis McDonough said the administration hoped that bipartisan efforts would deliver a broadly acceptable package, but wanted a plan B.

"We're doing exactly what the president said we would do last month ... which is we're preparing. We're going to be ready," he said on ABC's "This Week' program, confirming a published report on Saturday disclosing the White House effort.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are anxious to tackle immigration reform, after the increasingly influential Latino vote turned out heavily in favor of President Barack Obama and his Democrats in the November 2012 election.

USA Today said on Saturday that a draft of a White House immigration proposal would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years.

The plan, obtained by the newspaper, also would provide for more security funding and require businesses to check the immigration status of new hires within four years.

McDonough gave no details of White House's plan, but said it was important that immigration reform passed this year and made clear the administration hoped bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill bore fruit.

"So let's make sure they get this thing done, and they're up there working on it right now. We have to make progress on immigration reform, we should enact it this year and the president will continue to work with the team to make sure that happens."

Obama emphasized in last week's State of the Union address the importance of creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally. Many Republicans stress that the nation's borders must be secured first.

Latinos favored Obama over Republican Mitt Romney in the November 6 election by 71 percent to 27 percent, helping tilt politically divided states to the Democratic incumbent.

Republicans want to show Latinos they understand their concerns on immigration, but must also be mindful of conservative members of their own party who worry about encouraging even more illegal immigration in the future.

Senator Marco Rubio, the key Republican on the issue and one of the eight senators on the committee crafting the legislation, dismissed the White House draft as a seriously flawed rehash of failed immigration policies that would make the country's immigration problems worse.

"If actually proposed, the president's bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come," Rubio, who is a Cuban-American from Florida, said in a statement on Saturday.

SECURE BORDERS FIRST

According to USA Today, illegal immigrants could also apply for a newly created "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa, under the White House's draft bill. If approved, they could apply for the same provisional legal status for spouses or children living outside the country, according to the draft.

Conservative Republicans like Senator Rand Paul want borders to be first secured before they can endorse any immigration reform.

"I will support it on one condition: That we have a report that says the borders are being secured ... (it has to be) a report and comes back and is voted on in Congress," Paul said on "Fox News Sunday."

"I won't do it on a promise from President Obama, that he will secure the borders," Paul, from Kentucky, added.

Paul Ryan, the Republican vice president candidate in last year's elections, suggested the White House plan was leaked intentionally.

"By putting these details out ... that tells us he is looking for partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution. This particular move is counter productive," Ryan said on ABC's "This Week" program.

A White House official denied it was leaked.

"This was not the administration floating anything. ... We were surprised to learn what appeared to be draft language had been given to the press, thought it was unfortunate, and reached out to senate offices on both sides of the aisle on Saturday evening to make that clear."

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull, Steve Holland and Paul Simao; Editing by Philip Barbara)

View the original article here

1 of 30. A man uses cross-country skis to make his way across the snow-covered Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower in Paris January 20, 2013. Several inches of snow fell in the French capital halting some transportation and closing some public parks.

LONDON/PARIS | Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:36pm EST

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - London's Heathrow Airport canceled a fifth of flights on Sunday and airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights to Paris's main airports as snow blanketed parts of Europe, with more forecast.

Air France predicted more cancellations on a similar scale for Monday.

Heathrow Ltd, owned by Spain's Ferrovial, said the reduced schedule - amounting to around 250 fewer flights - would help it cope with the snowfall without making further cancellations.

As snow continued to fall through Sunday, the airport operator said Monday's flight schedule would be cut by 10 percent. That number could rise, depending on conditions at other European airports, Heathrow said.

The Paris airport operator, ADP, said airlines scrapped 40 percent of flights in and out of the two main airports on the outskirts of Paris, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, primarily reducing short-haul services.

London's smaller Stansted and Gatwick airports said they were operating as normal on Sunday morning but that delays and some flight cancellations were likely.

Weather forecaster the British Met Office said snow was likely to continue into Monday. As much as eight centimeters was expected in southeast England on Sunday, it said.

On average, some 1,300 flights leave Heathrow daily. The airport, Europe's busiest, operates at close to full capacity after Britain's coalition government blocked development of a third runway in 2010.

"Many airports have plenty of spare runway capacity so aircraft can be spaced out more during low visibility without causing delays and cancellations," said Heathrow, whose owners have campaigned hard for more capacity at the London hub.

"Because Heathrow operates at almost full capacity, there is simply no room to reschedule the delayed flights," it said.

Heathrow has spent 36 million pounds ($57 million) on upgrading its winter weather equipment since 2010 - a year that saw it face heavy criticism after it almost shut down when snow hit just before Christmas. It now has 130 snow-clearing vehicles.

More than 400 flights were canceled on Friday, while on Saturday 111 flights, most of them operated by IAG's British Airways, were canceled and hundreds of passengers spent the night in Heathrow's terminals.

BA said there had been a knock-on effect because many of its planes were in the wrong place after Friday's snow.

"Like other airlines at Heathrow we have complied with a request to reduce our schedule by 20 percent on Sunday and we continue to work with Heathrow Airport to help keep the airport running as smoothly as possible," BA said in a statement.

"We are doing everything we can to help customers whose flights have been disrupted by severe weather."

Services by Air France-KLM, Ireland's Aer Lingus and Germany's Lufthansa have also been affected.

France's SNCF rail firm announced delays of up to 40 minutes on many lines as drivers cut speed in a safety measure.

Some 25,000 homes lost power supply in southwestern France.

Emergency services were drafted in to rescue around 100 people from an urban train carriage that got stuck on a track which passes in open air over the Seine river in Paris, said Frederic Grosjean, a spokesman for city's emergency services.

(Additional reporting by Rosalba O'Brien in London, and Brian Love and Gerard Bon in Paris; Editing by Louise Heavens and Myra MacDonald)

View the original article here

1 of 2. The China Central Television (CCTV) building is seen next to a construction site in heavy haze in Beijing's central business district in this January 14, 2013 file photo.

BEIJING | Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:11am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing is to unveil unprecedented new rules governing how China's capital reacts to hazardous air pollution, the official Xinhua news agency said, as deteriorating air quality threatens to become a rallying point for wider political dissatisfaction.

The rules will formalize previous ad-hoc measures, including shutting down factories, cutting back on burning coal and taking certain vehicle classes off the roads on days when pollution hits unacceptable levels.

Air quality in Beijing, on many days degrees of magnitude below minimum international health standards for breathability, is of increasing concern to China's leadership because it plays into popular resentment over political privilege and rising inequality in the world's second-largest economy.

Domestic media have run stories describing the expensive air purifiers government officials enjoy in their homes and offices, alongside reports of special organic farms so cadres need not risk suffering from recurring food safety scandals.

Smog blanketed most of the city from late Friday, prompting the government to warn people to reduce outdoor activities.

On Saturday, an index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), rose as high as 400 in some parts in the city. A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organization recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

The reading was still lower than last weekend, when it hit a staggering 755.

Lung cancer rates in the city have shot upward by 60 percent in the last decade, according to a report by the state-run China Daily in 2011, even as smoking rates have flattened out.

The pollution has also deterred foreigners from living and working in "Greyjing". Now it appears that the government has adopted a more transparent approach to addressing the problem than in the past.

Officials once tried to spin the city's poor air quality by not including PM2.5 readings in reports and referring to smog as "fog" in weather reports. One official accused the U.S. embassy in Beijing of meddling in China's internal affairs for publishing its own PM2.5 readings online.

But this time around, state media appears to have been cleared to cover pollution as a major problem.

Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is expected to take over as premier in March, said earlier this week that tackling pollution would be a long-term process.

(Reporting by Kevin Yao; Writing by Pete Sweeney; Editing by Nick Macfie)

View the original article here