Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295606313?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Saturday, March 30, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Stumbles of S. Korean leader distract month into job
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? South Korean President Park Geun-hye's honeymoon was over before it even began.
Only a month on the job, Park has stumbled repeatedly in the face of bitter opposition to policy proposals and her choices for top government posts.
Half a dozen Cabinet appointees have quit under clouds. The latest is Han Man-soo, who withdrew his nomination for antitrust chief Monday amid allegations he stashed millions of dollars overseas to avoid taxes. Other claims that have brought down Park appointees include real estate speculation, a sex-for-influence scandal, bribery and links to an arms broker.
"A couple of flops would've been acceptable, but having a total of six failures in the first few months means that the problem lies with her style," said Lee Cheol-hee, head of the Dumon Political Strategy Institute think tank. "She seems to think she can just hand down a list of people she prefers, without thinking hard about whether those people's credentials and ethical records fit the jobs they will be handling."
Critics also complain that she's still short on specifics about how to deal with pressing issues including an increasingly belligerent North Korea and serious domestic anxiety about fewer stable jobs, heavy household debt and a wide income gap. Compounding her trouble was a long deadlock that ended just last week over her ambitious proposal to overhaul government structure.
"Because the launch of the new government has been delayed by one month, we should work harder to fulfill our vision," Park said Monday.
Presidential spokeswoman Lee Mi-yeon defended Park's candidates as fresh and different choices, highlighting nominee Jeong H. Kim, a Korean American who was the former head of Bell Labs in the United States, for head of a new science and technology ministry.
Kim resigned earlier this month, citing political wrangling over the responsibilities of the science and technology ministry. Opponents questioned Kim's links to the Central Intelligence Agency as an external advisory board member for four years until 2011.
"The president has chosen people based on their expertise and competence, and she has acquainted herself with them through various activities," Park's spokeswoman said. Lee said the failed appointments have to do with each nominee's credentials rather than with Park's style. Lee also said many key appointments have now been made and the government believes it has turned a corner.
The troubles of the country's first female president have a lot to do with the fiercely divided political and social landscape in this still relatively young and rambunctious democracy. She also carries the heavy historical baggage of being the daughter of a dictator whose legacy still divides South Koreans.
The 61-year-old president, who was elected in December and inaugurated Feb. 25, has long faced claims of being aloof and an "imperial" decision-maker. The genesis of this criticism comes from her upbringing.
She is the eldest child of late President Park Chung-hee, who led South Korea for 18 years in the 1960s and '70s and is both denounced for human rights abuses and praised as a strong leader. She grew up in the Blue House and served as her father's first lady for the last five years of his rule, after her mother was killed in 1974 by an assassin who said he was sent by North Korea.
"When her father ruled, no one questioned the president's picks," Lee, the analyst, said. "But things have changed since. ... It's like Park is driving a car with a navigator system that has only decades-old maps."
Even Park's own ruling Saenuri Party has been critical. A spokesman called for a better system of screening appointees, and said whoever vetted the failed candidates should be held responsible.
Park spent much of her first month in office negotiating with opposition lawmakers over an ambitious government reorganization plan that aims to focus on science and economic growth. An agreement was reached only last week, more than 50 days after Park's party floated the proposal.
Her economic team met for the first time since her inauguration only on Monday, and critics said there was little other than promises of major policy goals and specific plans in coming days and weeks. Her economic policies include buzzwords like "economic democratization" and "creative economy."
"These are slogans more rhetorical than real, and few seem to know exactly what they mean, let alone how to realize them," the Korea Times said in an editorial Wednesday.
Park has made some progress, including an announcement this week of the start of a $1.35 billion fund to provide debt relief for more than half a million people unable to repay loans. The fund, however, is less than one-tenth the size of the one she promised during her campaign.
Despite North Korean threats that have followed new U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang's recent nuclear test, Park has pressed forward with a vow to create trust and renew dialogue after five years of tension and animosity under her hard-line predecessor. She approved a shipment of anti-tuberculosis medicine to North Korea last week.
Things, however, may get worse if political gridlock and bickering continues.
Park faces an opposition with a strengthened veto power, and the possibility of organized resistance to her foreign policy initiatives by prominent liberal groups, Park Ihn-hwi, a professor at Ewha Womans University in South Korea, wrote on the Council on Foreign Relations' website.
Some also see growing cynicism with Park among young South Koreans, many of whom voted for her liberal opponent.
"If a political issue emerges to turn apathy into opposition, there is a real possibility that street demonstrations similar to those that occurred in the early days of the Lee Myung-bak administration could further hamper Park's ability to get things done," Scott Snyder, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a blog posting Wednesday.
Lee, Park's conservative predecessor, saw tens of thousands take to the streets in 2008 to protest what opponents called a hasty government decision to allow U.S. beef imports to resume.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stumbles-skorean-leader-distract-month-job-015503480.html
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Justin Timberlake Tells Fans He's 'Speechless' About First Week Sales
'Shocked ... I just hope this album makes your summer,' he tweets.
By Gil Kaufman
Justin Timberlake
Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704482/justin-timberlake-20-20-album-sales.jhtml
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Friday, March 22, 2013
Exclusive: Southeastern had eyed joining Dell buyout group-sources
By Nadia Damouni and Aaron Pressman
NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - Dell Inc is set to disclose next week that its largest independent investor, Southeastern Asset Management, originally expressed interest in joining the proposed leveraged buyout deal that it now opposes, according to two people familiar with the matter.
On January 29, a week before the technology company's founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners announced their $24.4 billion buyout bid, Southeastern and its lawyers met with one of Dell's independent directors, Alex Mandl, who was part of a special committee reviewing the company's strategic options. Also at the meeting was the committee's legal adviser, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.
Southeastern said at the meeting that it was interested in joining the leveraged buyout and retaining a stake in Dell, said the sources who had knowledge of the Dell filing on the proposed merger, which is expected to be published as soon as next Monday. Southeastern owns 8.5 percent of Dell, which made its name as a personal computer maker, but now also sells business software and technology services.
Southeastern also said it would oppose any buyout in the range of $14 to $15 per share (a range that had been mentioned in some media articles) that did not permit participation by large shareholders, one of the two sources said. The proposed deal, announced on February 5, is for $13.65 per share.
Representatives for Dell and Southeastern declined to comment. Southeastern has said publicly since the proposed buyout was announced that Dell is worth at least $24 per share, and the asset management company has been trying to persuade other shareholders to oppose the buyout.
It is unclear what Mandl's response was to Southeastern's request to join the buyout or whether Southeastern's proposal was communicated to Michael Dell and Silver Lake.
People close to the Dell camp say the merger document will show that Southeastern is now trying to kill a deal that it had wanted to participate in. But a person close to Southeastern said there is no inconsistency in their private discussions and public statements.
The person close to Southeastern pointed to the money manager's February 8 public letter to Dell's board, which stated that Southeastern would have endorsed "a go-private type sale where current shareholders could elect to continue to participate in a new company with a public stub...Unfortunately, the proposed Silver Lake transaction falls significantly short of that."
It is unclear whether the buyout group's insistence that the company be taken private was critical in Southeastern's eventual opposition to a takeover by the Michael Dell-led group.
Managers at Alpine Capital Research in St Louis, who have said they would vote their 2 million shares against the buyout, praised Southeastern, which manages the Longleaf family of funds, for sticking up for shareholders in the January talks.
"Looks positive to me," said Willem Schilpzand, an associate portfolio manager. "Sounds like Longleaf is fighting for the public leverage recap (where all shareholders stay in) or the option for shareholders to opt in to a going private deal."
"Either way, it looks like we would have the option of participating or not. That is all we can really ask for," Schilpzand said.
Dell's board has approved the Silver Lake buyout and also set a 45-day "go shop" period to see if better alternatives emerge. The period ends early Saturday morning.
Memphis-based Southeastern, led by fund managers Mason Hawkins and Staley Cates, has a lot of money riding on Dell. The fund accumulated its Dell stake - worth about $2 billion - at an average cost of $16.88 per share. That adds up to a loss of almost $400 million at the current buyout price.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has also thrown his weight against the buyout, arguing that Dell should borrow money to pay shareholders a special dividend of $9 per share instead. He has not disclosed the size of his stake, but CNBC reported on March 6 that he owned about 100 million shares, or 6 percent of Dell.
The buyout requires approval from a majority of shareholders excluding Michael Dell, who controls about 16 percent. Southeastern and several publicly declared allies, such as fund manager T. Rowe Price, control at least 14 percent.
SOUTHEASTERN, UNDER THE GUN
Some analysts and rival fund managers say Southeastern's activism is a sign the fund is feeling pressure to perform, after losses in the aftermath of the financial crisis marred an otherwise strong track record.
Hawkins and Cates often say they succeed by being right 60 percent of the time. Now they have to convince other Dell shareholders that this particular case does not count among the other 40 percent -- when they're wrong.
Longleaf boasts a strong record, helped by outperformance in the first bear market of the 2000s. It gained an average of 6.55 percent a year over the past 15, beating the Standard & Poor's 500 Index by more than two percentage points a year and coming in ahead of 91 percent of similar funds, according to data from Lipper, a unit of Thomson Reuters.
But it stumbled through the financial crisis, losing over 50 percent of its value in 2008 versus S&P's 37 percent decline.
When Southeastern first bought into Dell in 2005 in the mid-$30s range, the firm crowed to investors in an annual report that it was paying "fire-sale prices." Dell is now trading at less than half that.
The firm has used activism rarely and only as the last resort after an initial investment has gone wrong. It has gotten involved as an activist 25 times in 23 U.S. companies since 1996. Dell is the largest company it has so far taken on, nearly double the value of second-ranked Chesapeake Energy Corp, according to FactSet's SharkRepellent research service.
Last year, it lobbied for changes at Chesapeake after a series of Reuters reports that CEO Aubrey McClendon had been borrowing from a lender who was also a big source of funding to the company. McClendon left the company this year but Southeastern was left with an estimated loss of $300 million to $400 million on its $2.3 billion original investment.
Financial adviser Peter Gellman in Highland Park, New Jersey, who has for years invested in Longleaf, said all value investors "have some black spots on their record."
"No one is perfect," said Gellman, who supports the firm's stance with Dell. "They will get active when they judge it appropriate - they're not hyper-active."
(Reporting by Nadia Damouni in New York and Aaron Pressman in Boston; additional reporting by Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Soyoung Kim, Tiffany Wu and Ken Wills)
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Thursday, March 21, 2013
Galaxy S 4 to help Samsung double its lead over rivals in 2013
By Steve Keating ORLANDO, Florida, March 20 (Reuters) - Rory McIlroy's decision to skip the Arnold Palmer Invitational surprised the tournament host, who expressed his disappointment on Wednesday that the world number one was not at Bay Hill this week. The 83-year-old Palmer said he had jokingly suggested he might break McIlroy's arm if he did not show up but did not try to force the young Northern Irishman into making an appearance. "Frankly, I thought he was going to play, and I was as surprised as a lot of people when he decided he was not going to play," said Palmer. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/galaxy-4-help-samsung-double-lead-over-rivals-150537017.html
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Winter weather event expected Thursday ? Sedalia News Journal
?Here we are looking at another winter weather event. What makes this one a little bit different is that I am only speaking about the weather we could have tomorrow. It looks as if the snow may start around noon on Thursday, and Pettis is still in line to get 1-2 inches of snow. We have been pretty sunny and have had some warm temperatures, and with the expected amount I don?t at least on Thursday see issues with snow covered roads.
?There is a 60 percent possibility that we could get more snow on Saturday/Sunday. Right now there isn?t a track on that, so we could be sending out more information in the next day or so.
?It is Spring, so no matter what, this will be behind us soon!? said Dave Clippert, Sedalia-Pettis County Emergency Management Agency manager.
Source: http://sedalianewsjournal.com/2013/03/20/winter-weather-event-expected-thursday/
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ScienceDaily: Child Development News
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/mind_brain/child_development.xml
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Double fun! Aurora adds to comet's glow
Pasi Hakala
Comet PanSTARRS twinkles amid the glow of the northern lights over Lempaala in central Finland on March 17.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
The skies were lit up with glowing auroral displays as well as the twinkle of Comet PanSTARRS over the weekend, and a few skywatchers could see both celestial phenomena at once. One of those lucky few happened to be Pasi Hakala, an astronomer at the University of Turku's Tuorla Observatory in Finland.
"I was preparing to take some pictures of Comet PanSTARRS (just as a hobby, even if I'm a professional astronomer) with my camera ... as the aurora appeared right next to it," Hakala said in an email. He said this picture was taken with "an old Olympus E-330 plus a legacy, fast Konica 57mm f/1.2 lens" ??which just goes to show that you don't need the latest, greatest camera to take a great picture of the night sky.
It's also true that you don't need to be in Finland to get a great view of the aurora. This weekend's geomagnetic storm was so strong and sweeping that the northern lights were seen as far south as Colorado. "We generally only get to see auroras this far south of the Arctic Circle a few times a decade, when the sun is near the peak of its 11-year sunspot cycle," Jimmy Westlake, an astronomy professor at Colorado Mountain College, wrote in a column for the Steamboat Pilot & Today.
Check out Westlake's photo and more views of the northern lights and Comet PanSTARRS below.
Jimmy Westlake
Colorado Mountain College's Jimmy Westlake captured this view of the aurora behind the twin stone monoliths of Rabbit Ears Peak near Steamboat Springs, Colo. The picture was taken early March 17, "during the wee hours of St. Patrick's Day morning," using a Nikon D700 camera with 50mm lens at f/3.8, 30-second exposure at ISO 6400. As for Comet PanSTARRS: "Colorado has had one storm after another" over the past week, Westlake said, but he has seen the comet through holes in the clouds on three different nights. Check out Westlake's comet shot on SpaceWeather.com.
Aurora Borealis in Abisko National Park, March 17, 2013, from Lights Over Lapland on Vimeo. "The combination of the auroras and a beautiful moon halo created a spectacular scene in the sky above Abisko National Park," Chad Blakley, the photographer behind Lights Over Lapland, wrote in an email. "If I am lucky we will get a few more nice displays before the midnight sun returns and steals the stage from the northern lights until they return in September. It has been an incredible season, and I am hopeful that the predictions about a double-peaked solar maximum will continue to provide us with powerful displays."
Chris Cook
Photographer Chris Cook and his son watch Comet PanSTARRS from First Encounter Beach in Eastham, Mass., on the evening of March 13. The photograph was taken via remote shutter release, using a Canon 5D and a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L lens. The image served as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for Monday. Even though PanSTARRS has passed its peak brightness, the comet can still be seen by Northern Hemisphere observers after sunset in the western sky.
Submitted by Christoph Malin / FirstPerson
Christoph Malin sent in this picture of Comet PanSTARRS via NBC News' FirstPerson photo upload page. The comet was seen during the Imaging Expedition of the Institute of Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck, which went to the 10,000-foot-high (3,050-meter-high) Gaislachkogel Mountain in ?tztal, Austria. Check out this Vimeo clip, and look down below for links to more night-sky views submitted via FirstPerson and Twitter,
More photos of the aurora and the comet:
More about auroras and comets:
Tip o' the Log to @dorisig and @imycomic.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log and the rest of NBCNews.com's science and space coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Retirement Crisis: Impoverished Seniors on the Horizon
And private savings? Let me quote from the EBRI survey: 57 report having less than $25,000 in household savings and investments (excluding their home and pension benefits). This is for all workers, so older workers would have more money, but other surveys show the results are equally paltry.
This is just the tip of the iceberg: American households are so strapped that only half could come up with $2,000 in cash if an unexpected need arose in the next month.
(Read More: Choice for Tight Times: Save More or More Risk)
You would think that savings levels would increase, but no: The percentage reporting saving anything for retirement is at 66 percent, down from 75 percent in 2009.
People are also living much longer than their parents: A male reaching retirement age in 2013 is expected to live to an average of 85, a woman to 87.
What this means: A retirement crisis is looming. In a little more than a decade, there will be a lot of older people who will run out of money. There will be stories written in the year 2025 about Joe Smith, 82, a retired auto worker, living in a flophouse on $2,100 a month in Social Security after his pension was cut off and his personal savings ran out, while his children, in their 60s themselves, moved 2,000 miles away.
(Read More: Want a Secure Retirement? Move to Slovenia)
Elsewhere:
1) Housing recovery keeps chugging along: February housing starts came in above estimates. Single-family starts were up 31 percent compared to February of last year, multi-family was up 21 percent. Permits were at the highest levels since 2008, up 34 percent in the last year. January starts were also revised upward.
Bottom line on housing: All the indicators you should care about are trending up?not just starts, but household formations are trending up, consumer confidence is improving, and inventories of new and existing homes are near record lows. Home builder stocks are up one to three percent.
2) Cyprus: Your guess is as good as mine, but I'll bet that at the end of the day the Cypriots will end up exempting the first 100,000 euros (about $130,000) from taxation, and then tax those with deposits of more than 100,000 euros at some increment above 10 percent?whatever it takes to get to 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) in taxes. Yes, it will risk the ire of the Russian oligarchs and criminal class, and yes there will be a hit to the financial services sector and some capital flight. This ruling, should it happen, will further curb fears of contagion.
(Read More: Cyprus Bank Levy Unlikely to Pass Parliament)
3) Copper is at a seven-month low, but that's not a big surprise: Copper tends to track perceptions on China. This year, the SPDR S&P China is down 7 percent, copper futures are down 7.1 percent.
4) Thanks for the advice: With the market at historic highs, does it not amaze you how many analysts have suddenly turned bullish? I know this is a cliche?everyone turns bullish at a top?but really: In the past couple days, analysts at Goldman Sachs, ISI, and Morgan Stanley have all upped their 2013 S&P 500 targets to 1,600 and above. Yesterday, Meredith Whitney said this was the most bullish on equities she has been in her entire career.
5) AmerisourceBergen is set to open at an historic high, while Walgreen is poised to open at a 52-week high after the two companies signed a 10-year distribution deal. Under the pact, Walgreen will buy its branded and generic drugs from wholesaler ABC, delivering a blow to Cardinal Health?down 8.7 percent pre-market?which used to provide branded drugs to Walgreen. This is the second time in two years ABC has stolen business from Cardinal Health: ABC replaced Cardinal Health as Express Scripts' wholesale drug provider last year.
Walgreen reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings of 96 cents, beating analysts' estimates by two cents. Same-store sales and traffic declined, but the pharmacy filled more prescriptions, while customers upped their basket.
?By CNBC's Bob Pisani
Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100568246
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