Sony CEO asks for patience as shareholders press on spinoff plan

By Mari Saito

TOKYO | Thu Jun 20, 2013 8:00am BST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp shareholders pressed its chief executive for a response to hedge fund Third Point's proposal for a partial spinoff of its profitable entertainment arm but Kazuo Hirai pleaded for patience as management reviews the bold plan.

Daniel Loeb, the billionaire hedge fund manager of Third Point and Sony's top shareholder, wants the electronics empire to sell to the public as much as one-fifth of its entertainment units and use the proceeds to bolster its struggling hardware divisions.

"This is a very big proposal aimed at Sony's important business," Hirai told more than 10,000 shareholders who gathered for Thursday's annual general meeting in Tokyo. "I understand this to be a very important proposal ... It not only involves what Sony is today but also what Sony should be in the future."

Loeb's suggestion, likely to stay on the radar for months, strikes at the heart of whether Sony remains both a consumer electronics maker and a provider of music, movies and TV programmes.

"Our entertainment division will remain an important part of Sony's business," Hirai said. "The board will continue to discuss Third Point's proposals and we will reach an appropriate decision."

Hirai, 53, maintained his trademark cool throughout Thursday's gathering, suppressing a laugh when a woman complimented his good looks, but left shareholders resigned that there will likely be no quick action by the company.

"He didn't answer the question of what the thinking is inside management towards Third Point's proposal," said Sony shareholder Jiro Sugiyama after the meeting.

"I understand the American shareholder's perspective but I don't think Sony's stance will change. With the electronics business the way it is, the entertainment business is a money-maker and they would fear letting go of that."

YAHOO PRECEDENT

Hirai said it was important for Sony's board to carefully consider the proposal and to seek outside input, without rushing for the sake of reaching a decision quickly.

Sony has long been a pillar of Japan Inc and a pioneer in the electronics industry. But it has lost market share - and its innovative edge - to aggressive foreign rivals such as South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc as they churn out blockbuster products.

Although Loeb's proposal was not on the agenda for a vote at Thursday's gathering, he is expected to keep pressing his case with Sony's board and, if no action is taken, will have the right as a major shareholder to eventually call an extraordinary shareholders' meeting.

Loeb has said he wants to repeat his success last year at Yahoo Inc, which he took on in a lengthy and eventually bitter proxy fight that triggered a boardroom shakeout.

"When Loeb went after Yahoo he was pretty persistent. With Sony he's actually doing it in a rather friendly manner," said Yasuo Sakuma, portfolio manager at Bayview Asset Management in Tokyo.

"Even if Sony doesn't separate its businesses, if its share price rises he still wins as a major stakeholder."

Loeb's $13 billion fund said this week it had increased its stake in Sony to 70 million shares, or about 7 percent.

Sony's share price was little changed after on Thursday, compared with a 1.8 percent slip in Tokyo's Nikkei benchmark. Sony's stock has gained more than 7 percent since Loeb sent his first letter to Hirai with his proposals on May 14, surging to a two-year high of 2,300 yen in the week that followed the proposals.

While a recent slide has pared the Nikkei's year-to-date gains to just 25 percent, Sony shares have more than doubled since January.

(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai and Sophie Knight; Editing by Dean Yates and Edmund Klamann)

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/20/uk-sony-thirdpoint-agm-idUKBRE95I0R320130620?feedType=RSS&feedName=internetNews

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Flooding forces 75,000 from west Canada homes

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) ? Calgary's mayor said Friday the flooding situation in his city is as under control as it can be ? for now. Officials estimated 75,000 people have been displaced in the western Canadian city.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the Elbow River, one of two rivers that flow through the southern Alberta city, has peaked.

And if things don't change, officials expect that the flow on the Bow River ? which, in his words, looks like "an ocean at the moment" ? will remain steady for the next 12 hours.

No deaths have been reported, but many roads and underpasses have been washed. In the downtown, water is lapping at the doors of the Saddledome, home to the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames, and inundating homes and businesses in the shadow of skyscrapers.

Water has swamped cars and train tracks

An estimated 75,000 residents in 25 neighborhoods lying along the rivers have been ordered out of their homes in Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics. About 1,500 have gone to emergency shelters while the rest have found shelter with family or friends, Nenshi said.

Nenshi said earlier he's never seen the rivers that high or that fast.

Police urged people to stay away from downtown and not go to work.

Officials said lions and tigers from the Calgary Zoo may need to be transferred to prisoner holding cells at the downtown courthouse.

Schools have been cancelled and residents urged to avoid downtown. Transit service through the downtown has been shut down.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford promised the province will help flood victims put their lives back together and provide financial aid to communities that need to rebuild The premier said at a briefing that she has spoken to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is heading to Calgary and has promised disaster relief. She urged people to heed evacuation orders, so authorities could do their jobs. She called the flooding that has hit most of southern Alberta an "absolutely tragic situation.

The premier warned that communities downstream of Calgary have not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters.

It had been a rainy week throughout much of Alberta, but on Thursday the Bow River Basin was battered with up to 100 millimeters (four inches) of rain. Environment Canada's forecast calls for more rain in the area, but in much smaller amounts.

Calgary is not alone in its weather-related woes. There have been flashpoints of chaos from Banff and Canmore and Crowsnest Pass in the Rockies and south to Lethbridge.

More than a dozen towns have declared states of emergency. Entire communities, including High River and Bragg Creek, near Calgary are under mandatory evacuation orders.

Some of the worst flooding hit High River, where it's estimated half of the people in the town have experienced flooding in their homes.

Military helicopters plucked about 30 people off rooftops in the area. Others were rescued by boat or in buckets of heavy machinery. Some even swam for their lives from stranded cars.

A spokesperson for Defense Minister Peter MacKay said 354 soldiers are being deployed to the entire flood zone.

Pictures from inside the mountain town of Canmore show a raging river ripping at the foundations of homes.

Near Black Diamond on Thursday, the Highwood River swept away two people in a mobile home. One person, a man, was found, but the second ? a woman ? is still missing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/flooding-forces-75-000-west-canada-homes-163024507.html

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New Jersey court clears the way for U.S. Senate special election

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey's special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Frank Lautenberg will go ahead this year as scheduled, after the state Supreme Court declined on Thursday to hear a legal challenge.

Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, ordered a special primary election on August 13 and a special general election to be held October 16 - three weeks before the regularly scheduled November election, when Christie himself is up for re-election.

Democrats accused Christie of making a political calculation, ensuring he would not appear on the same ballot as a race that might energize Democratic voters by authorizing a special election that will leave taxpayers with a $24 million tab.

In a one-page decision, Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner denied the application by Somerset Democratic Chairwoman Peg Schaffer, who argued that Christie lacked the authority to set the October election.

Schaffer could not be reached immediately for comment.

Christie, a popular governor whose no-nonsense, in-your-face style has catapulted him to national prominence, is widely seen as a strong contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

The governor appointed Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, also a Republican, to fill the seat in the interim. Chiesa promised not to compete in the special election.

Lautenberg, a Democrat who was first elected senator in 1982, died on June 3 at age 89 of complications from viral pneumonia.

Cory Booker, the Democratic mayor of Newark, leads early polls. His Democratic challengers include U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone, U.S. Congressman Rush Holt, State Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver.

Steve Lonegan, a conservative activist who four years ago lost to Christie in the Republican primary for governor, is running for the Republican nomination against Dr. Alieta Eck, a physician in private practice.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jersey-court-clears-way-u-senate-special-election-195300394.html

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Fantasia, Phoenix And Will.I.Am Score Top 10 Debuts

Pink bumped from the top spot on the Digital Songs chart by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
By Gil Kaufman

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706622/billboard-charts-fantasia-michael-buble.jhtml

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Obama: North Korea can?t put nukes on ballistic missile

Military officials applaud together with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, during the Unhasu concert in Pyongyang,??President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that North Korea likely does not have the ability to arm a ballistic missile with nuclear warheads. He also compared the Stalinist regime?s recent belligerent rhetoric to a child?s temper tantrum.

NBC News? Savannah Guthrie asked Obama to clarify whether Pyongyang?which has tested nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles before?could combine the two.

?Based on our current intelligence assessments we do not think that they have that capacity,? the president said. ?But we have to make sure that we are dealing with every contingency out there. That?s why I repositioned missile defense systems: to guard against any miscalculation on their part.?

Asked whether North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un is unstable, Obama told NBC: ?I?m not a psychiatrist. And I don?t know the leader of North Korea.?

But he described Pyonyang?s escalating rhetoric over the past six weeks as ?provocative? and ?unnecessary? and vowed not to reward it.

?You don?t get to bang your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way,? the president said. Still, the volatile standoff isn?t over, Obama said.

?All of us would anticipate that North Korea will probably make more provocative moves over the next several weeks,? he said. ?But our hope is, is that we can contain it and that we can move into a different phase in which they try to work through diplomatically some of these issues.?

?This is the same kind of pattern that we saw his father engage in, and his grandfather before that," Obama said. ?If they want to rejoin the community of nations, that path is available to them."

The interview was conducted Monday, shortly before the tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-north-korea-t-put-nukes-ballistic-missile-133056723--politics.html

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Goal of nuclear-free NKorea tests US, China ties

BEIJING (AP) ? Bound by threats from North Korea, the U.S. and China agreed Saturday to rid the bellicose nation of nuclear weapons in a test of whether the world powers can shelve years of rivalry and discord, and unite in fostering global stability.

Beyond this latest attempt to restrain North Korea, the burgeoning nuclear crisis has so frustrated the U.S. and China that they are forming a new and tentative bond with the potential to carry over into areas that have vexed them for decades.

But they will need to overcome the longstanding prickly relations between Beijing's communist government and Washington's free-market democracy. The two are economic competitors, and China is far more reluctant than the U.S. to intervene in international military conflicts.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday described a "synergy" between the two countries to achieve worldwide security and economic stability.

"We have a stake in China's success. And frankly, China has a stake in the success of the United States," Kerry told reporters in the Chinese capital. "And that became clear in all of our conversations here today. A constructive partnership that is based on mutual interest benefits everybody in the world."

Kerry met with the new Chinese leaders to discuss a range of issues, most notably the persistent and increasingly pitched threats that North Korea has issued against the U.S., South Korea and Japan the over the past several months.

North Korea appears to be readying a missile test, in what the U.S. says would be its third since December, and there are varying opinions in Washington as to whether the North is able to develop and launch nuclear-tipped missiles.

One U.S. intelligence assessment suggested North Korea had the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a missile, even if any such weapon would have low reliability.

Kerry and the Chinese foreign policy chief, State Councilor Yang Jiechi, said the two nations would work together to create a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, effectively forcing North Korea to give up its arsenal.

The reclusive North Korean government and its young leader, Kim Jong Un, are more likely to listen to China, its main economic and diplomatic partner and lifeline to the outside world, than anyone else.

Yang, through an interpreter, described China's stance on North Korea as "clear cut" and called for resuming the six-nation talks that fell apart four years ago and are aimed at ending the nuclear threat.

"China is firmly committed to upholding peace and stability and advancing the denuclearization process on the Korean peninsula," Yang told reporters. "We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue. ... To properly address the Korean nuclear issue serves the interests of all parties."

But Kerry made clear that the U.S. would keep close watch on how China continues to deal with North Korea to "make sure this is not rhetoric but that this is real policy."

North Korea was but one issue that was high on the priority list of discussions, Kerry said.

China and the U.S. have the two most powerful economies and are two of the largest energy users. They agreed to hold high-level talks on climate change and to ease business investment cooperation.

Kerry also raised the possibility of scaling back America's military presence in the Asia-Pacific region once the Korean nuclear crisis is resolved. Beijing has been disgruntled about U.S. missile defense systems in China's backyard.

"Obviously, if the threat disappears," meaning a nuclear-free North Korea, "the same imperative does not exist at that point in time for us to have that kind of robust, forward-leaning posture of defense," Kerry said. "And it is our hope in the short run that we can address that."

Western experts predict that China will move slowly and cautiously, if at all, toward becoming a more reliable U.S. ally. China remains deeply skeptical of President Barack Obama's policy shift to Asia, which Beijing views as U.S. attempts to contain its economic might.

It's also unlikely that China will sever its long ties with North Korea. The Chinese dramatically have boosted trade with their neighbors and maintain close military relations some six decades after they fought side by side in the Korean War. They provide North Korea with most of its fuel and much of its food aid.

China has a history of quickly reversing course after talking tougher with North Korea. In late 2010, as American officials were praising Beijing for constructive efforts after the North shelled a South Korean island, a Chinese company agreed to invest $2 billion in a North Korean industrial zone.

"The U.S. has to be cautious in expecting a major breakthrough on North Korea out of the new Chinese leadership," said Christopher Johnson, a former CIA analyst who is now a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There's a risk of too much exuberance on the U.S. side. ... The Chinese just can't turn the battleship as quickly as we might like."

But Johnson said even minor progress on North Korea could translate into a warming between Washington and Beijing, which appears now to be "at least willing to talk."

"If we can talk on an issue that is as sensitive as an issue as North Korea, we can talk about other issues," Johnson said. "It speaks very well for other touchy issues in the relationship at the moment."

___

Jakes reported from Washington.

___

Follow Bradley Klapper on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bklapperAP and Lara Jakes at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/goal-nuclear-free-nkorea-tests-us-china-ties-200746904--politics.html

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Yahoo interview: Lawyer for Audrie Pott?s family to press for homicide charges against alleged attackers

This undated photo provided by her family via attorney Robert Allard shows Audrie Pot. (AP/Family photo provided??

The attorney for the family of Audrie Pott, the 15-year-old California girl who took her own life after an alleged sexual assault last September, told Yahoo News Friday that prosecutors will attempt to try the three accused teenage boys as adults.

"This is not your typical juvenile crime," said Bob Allard, who is representing the Pott family. "We're talking about an orchestrated crime. Right up next to murder would be an assault like this. An adult-like crime with an adult-like mentality."

Allard said he is advocating for a homicide charge on behalf of the family against the three alleged assailants who were schoolmates of Pott. The boys, all age 16, were arrested Thursday and charged with sexual battery. Their names were not released because they are minors.

Yahoo News generally does not release the name of alleged sexual assault victims, but the Pott family wanted Audrie's name known.

"This family has lost a sister and daughter to death," Allard said. "The penalty should be commensurate."

Reached by phone Friday, Jaron Shipp of the Santa Clara County district attorney's office said it is "unlikely" a suicide could become a homicide case. Shipp would not comment specifically on the Pott case, as it is a juvenile matter.

Pott was allegedly assaulted after passing out at a party in a house near San Jose last fall. Eight days later, after cell phone photos of the assault were passed around, she posted on Facebook that her life was ruined. "Worst day ever," she wrote. She then hanged herself.

"There's no doubt that the combination of the assault and the torture by cyberbullying caused Audrie to end her life," Allard said.

The use of social media has played a prominent role in several high-profile high sexual assault cases in recent months, including the rape of a 16-year old girl in Steubenville, Ohio last August. Two high school football players were convicted last month of assaulting the girl after photos exchanged on social media implicated them in the attack.

Eight months passed between the alleged assault on Audrie Pott and the arrests of the three boys. Allard said Audrie's parents are "temporarily rejoicing" at the news that they may be tried as adults.

Allard said the family will also be pushing for legislative action in the form of "Audrie's Law," which would call for harsher penalties for cyberbullying.

Matthew Galluzzo, a New York attorney who represents rape victims, said the fear of social media can keep victims from coming forward after an assault.

"A lot of victims don't want to tell their parents, their boyfriend," Galluzzo said. "God forbid the whole school knows. That's your world. You almost get victimized a second time."

According to Allard, the humiliation was too much for Pott to bear.

"It's the ultimate betrayal," he said. "The whole school knew. It's the worst way imaginable to be violated. That's something to be reserved for your husband. It's savage. It's just savage."

The Pott family is planning a press conference Tuesday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/yahoo-news-interview-lawyer-audrie-pott-family-press-211805711.html

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