Hacking claims hit Mirror shares

26 October 2012 Last updated at 15:36 ET

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Shares in Trinity Mirror slid 16% on Friday as the media group’s newspapers face allegations of phone hacking.

Ex-England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson is among four people taking legal action against the group’s print business, Mirror Group Newspapers.

The claims against the publisher of the Daily and Sunday Mirror and the People were filed at the High Court on Monday.

Mr Eriksson’s claim relates to a time when Piers Morgan edited the Daily Mirror. Mr Morgan denies phone hacking.

Trinity Mirror, which owns Mirror Group, has declined to comment.

Trinity Mirror’s shares have fallen a total of 30% in the last week and a half.

It reverses half of the stock market gains enjoyed by the media group since announcing the departure of its controversial chief executive Sly Bailey and a surprise bounce in profits over the summer.

Ms Bailey has since been replaced by the former HMV boss Simon Fox.

Friday’s share price drop came after High Court judge Mr Justice Vos, who has presided over similar cases brought against News International, said that he would handle all four of the cases against Trinity Mirror, according to reports in the Guardian and Independent newspapers.

The three other claimants are Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati, who plays Sunita Alahan; Abbie Gibson, a former nanny for the Beckham family; and Garry Flitcroft, the former captain of Blackburn Rovers football team.

Piers Morgan at the Leveson Inquiry: December 2011

Until now, the UK phone-hacking scandal has centred on Rupert Murdoch’s News International and the now defunct Sunday tabloid the News of the World.

This is the first legal action in the scandal against another newspaper group.

Mr Morgan, who is now a chat show host for US broadcaster CNN, was questioned about phone hacking during his appearance at the Leveson Inquiry – the independent probe set up by the government into the culture and ethics of the UK newspaper industry.

During his appearance, he repeated his denials of any knowledge or involvement in the illegal practice.

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Amnesty Int: Ivory Coast torturing detainees

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast security officials are torturing dozens of detainees by administering electric shocks and other forms of abuse, Amnesty International alleged Friday.

The victims include people charged with endangering state security in the wake of a recent spate of attacks targeting military installations. Since early August, unknown gunmen have carried out roughly 10 attacks at checkpoints, military bases and other installations throughout the country, including in the commercial capital of Abidjan.

United Nations officials have said that more than 200 people have been detained on suspicion of involvement in the attacks, and that torture has been documented at multiple detention facilities.

Gaetan Mootoo, West Africa researcher for Amnesty, said an investigation team received reports of a range of abuses during a recent month-long visit.

“We were able to meet dozens of detainees who told us how they have been tortured by electricity or had molten plastic poured on their bodies,” Mootoo said. “Two of them have been sexually abused. Some have been held for many months denied contact with their families and access to lawyers.”

Army spokesman Cherif Moussa denied the torture allegations Friday. “Our camps are not concentration camps,” he said.

However, he acknowledged the possibility that individual soldiers may occasionally “go beyond what they are allowed to do” when dealing with inmates.

He added that the government tried to ensure that inmates’ rights were respected. “We want to prove that we are not abusing people’s rights,” he said. “We’re working for the state’s security. We’re working for the people’s security.”

Earlier this month, the Associated Press interviewed former detainees at a military camp in the southwestern port town of San Pedro who described widespread beatings as well as the use of electric shocks. A guard at the camp corroborated most of the claims, though camp commanders denied them.

In its statement Friday, Amnesty described how one detainee, a police officer, had died as a result of the torture he endured at the San Pedro camp.

“Serge Herve Kribie was arrested in San Pedro on August 21 by the national army and interrogated about recent attacks,” Amnesty said. “He was stripped naked, tied to a pole, had water poured on his body, and was then subjected to electric shocks. He died a few hours later.”

Amnesty said that some detainees were only released after ransoms were paid. One detainee told the rights group: “My parents first paid 50,000 CFA (a little under US $ 100) and then after my release, my jailers went at my house and demanded a higher sum. I told them that I couldn’t pay such an amount and they agreed to receive 20,000 CFA more (about US$ 40).”

The government has blamed the attacks on allies of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who was arrested in April 2011. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office after losing the November 2010 election to now-President Alassane Ouattara sparked six months of violence in which at least 3,000 were killed.

Amnesty researchers also met with some of the more than 100 Gbagbo allies – including his wife, Simone – who are being detained on charges stemming from the post-election violence.

“Some of them told us that despite the fact that they have been held since April 2011, they only saw an investigating judge twice for less than a few hours,” Mootoo said.

Despite widespread evidence that forces loyal to Ouattara also committed atrocities during the violence, none have been arrested or credibly investigated, sparking allegations of victor’s justice.

Also Friday, in Amsterdam, judges at the International Criminal Court rejected a request for release by former president Gbagbo, who is being detained on suspicion of crimes against humanity.

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Star Silicon Valley analyst felled by Facebook IPO fallout

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The firing of Citigroup stock analyst Mark Mahaney on Friday in the regulatory fallout from Facebook Inc’s initial public offering was greeted with shock and dismay in Silicon Valley, where Mahaney was a well-known and well-liked figure.

“Pretty shocked,” was the reaction of Jacob Funds Chief Executive Ryan Jacob, who described Mahaney as one of the most respected financial analysts covering the Internet industry.

“I’d put him at the top. If not at the top, then near the top,” said Jacob. “He really knew what to look for.”

In addition to firing Mahaney, Citigroup paid a $ 2 million fine to Massachusetts regulators to settle charges that the bank improperly disclosed research on Facebook ahead of its $ 16 billion IPO in May.

The settlement agreement said Mahaney failed to supervise a junior analyst who improperly shared Facebook research with the TechCrunch news website. (Settlement agreement: http://r.reuters.com/pyj63t)

The settlement agreement also outlined an incident in which Mahaney failed to get approval before responding to a journalist’s questions about Google Inc — and told a Citigroup compliance staffer that the conversation had not occurred — even after being warned about unauthorized conversations with the media.

Mahaney declined to comment.

Mahaney got his start in the late 1990s, during the first dot-com boom where he worked at Morgan Stanley for Mary Meeker, one of the star analysts of the time. He went on to work at hedge fund Galleon Group before moving to Citigroup in 2005. Unlike most of his New York-based peers in the analyst world, Mahaney worked in San Francisco’s financial district, close to the companies and personalities at the heart of the tech industry.

Earlier this month, Mahaney was named the top Internet analyst for the fifth straight year by Institutional Investor. The review cited fans of Mahaney who praised a “systematic” investment approach that allows him to avoid the “waffling” often evidenced by other analysts.

Mahaney’s Buy rating on IAC/InteractiveCorp in April 2011, when the stock traded at $ 33.32, allowed investors to lock in a 51 percent gain before he downgraded the stock to a Hold at $ 50.31 a few months later, according to Institutional Investor.

But it wasn’t only his stock picks that put him in good stead. He earned kudos for simply being a nice guy.

“He’s a kind and thoughtful person and that’s evident in the way he deals with people,” said Jason Jones of Internet investment firm HighStep Capital. “He’s very well liked on Wall Street because of that.”

A CAUTIOUS VIEW ON FACEBOOK

Mahaney was only indirectly involved in the incident involving the Facebook research, according to the settlement agreement by Massachusetts regulators released on Friday. But the actions of the junior analyst who worked for him provide an unusual glimpse into the type of behind-the-scenes information trading that regulators are attempting to rein in.

While the Massachusetts regulators did not identify any of the individuals by name, Reuters has learned that the incident involved TechCrunch reporters Josh Constine and Kim-Mai Cutler as well as Citi junior analyst Eric Jacobs.

Jacobs, Constine and Cutler all did not respond to requests for comments.

In early May, shortly before Facebook’s IPO, Jacobs sent an email to Cutler and Constine. Constine attended Stanford University at the same time as Jacobs.

Constine, who studied social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for his 2009 Master’s degree in cybersociology at Stanford, had a close friendship with Jacobs, according to the settlement agreement.

“I am ramping up coverage on FB and thought you guys might like to see how the street is thinking about it (and our estimates),” Jacobs wrote in the email. The email included an “outline” that Jacobs said would eventually become the firm’s 30-40 page initiation report on Facebook.

He also included a “Facebook One Pager” document, which contained confidential, non-public information that Citigroup obtained in order to help begin covering Facebook after the IPO.

Asked by Constine if the information could be published and attributed to an anonymous source, Jacobs responded that “my boss would eat me alive,” the agreement said.

A spokeswoman for AOL Inc, which owns TechCrunch, declined to answer questions on the matter, saying only that “We are looking into the matter and have no comment at this time.”

Ironically, Mahaney was one of a small group of analysts at the many banks underwriting Facebook’s IPO who had cautious views of the richly valued offering. Mahaney initiated coverage of the company with a neutral rating.

Analysts at the top three underwriters on Facebook’s IPO – Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan – started the stock with overweight or buy recommendations.

Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Facebook had pre-briefed analysts for its underwriters ahead of its IPO, advising them to reduce their profit and revenue forecasts.

Facebook, whose stock was priced at $ 38 a share in the IPO, closed Friday’s regular session at $ 21.94 and has traded as low as $ 17.55.

“There were tens of billions of dollars in losses based on hyping the name, a lack of skeptical information and misunderstanding the company,” said Max Wolff, chief economist and senior analyst at research firm GreenCrest Capital.

“It’s highly unfortunate and darkly ironic that one of the signature regulatory actions from this IPO so far involves punishing analysts for disseminating cautious information about Facebook,” he added.

(Editing by Jonathan Weber, Mary Milliken and Lisa Shumaker)

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Rolling Stones play $20 surprise gig in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones performed an energetic warm-up gig in Paris on Thursday for a few hundred fans after announcing on Twitter that tickets would go on sale for 15 euros ($ 19.45) just hours in advance.

“I can’t believe we’re all still standing up, you’d think by now one or two of us would be sitting down, but we’re not,” lead singer Mick Jagger, 69, told fans at the Trabendo, a 700-capacity venue in northern Paris, during the 75 minute surprise show.

Fans said the small space created an optimal setting for the show which kicked off with “Route 66″ and ended with “Brown Sugar”.

“We were right next to them, we could see them perfectly,” said one French fan who gave his name as Gianni. “It was a very small room and they were running all over the stage…they seemed really happy.”

Some got an additional perk after the show, as Jagger signed autographs before being whisked away in a black Mercedes sedan.

Earlier this month, the band announced they would perform four concerts at large arenas – two in London and two near New York – to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Their last world tour ended in 2007.

But fans have complained about high ticket prices, which range from 95 pounds ($ 150) to as much as 950 pounds for a “VIP hospitality” seat. Tickets have been offered online for several thousands pounds each, British media has reported.

The Paris music scene has been awash with rumours that the Stones will also play to bankers invited by Paris-based investment house Carmignac Gestion at a theatre in the heart of Paris on Monday.

In recent years, Carmignac has recruited former Velvet Underground frontman Lou Reed and British rocker Rod Stewart to play similar gigs, usually to an exclusive audience.

Carmignac sent out mystery invitations giving the date and location of what it called “the biggest secret event of the year” without identifying the performer. The investment house has declined to comment.

On Thursday, the band banned mobile phones, cameras, video equipment and recording devices from those going into the gig.

Some fans drove to Paris from as far away as Germany.

Sebastian Baaske said he set off in his car from Hanover, Germany on Wednesday afternoon in hopes of securing a ticket.

“My girlfriend said I’d regret it if I didn’t… It’s all worth it,” the 35-year-old Baaske said.

The Rolling Stones will play the O2 Arena in the British capital on November 25 and 29 before crossing the Atlantic to perform at the Prudential Center, Newark, on December 13 and 15.

($ 1 = 0.7711 euros)

(Writing by Mike Collett-White and Alexandria Sage, Additional Reporting by Anca Ulea. Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Trans fats raise cholesterol, not blood sugar

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Although trans fats raise your levels of “bad” cholesterol, they don’t appear to have lasting impacts on your blood sugar, according to a new review of the medical evidence.

Researchers found that both blood sugar and insulin, the hormone that keeps blood sugar levels in check, were similar regardless of how much trans fat people ate.

The link between trans fats and high cholesterol levels is widely accepted, but there have been conflicting results on the effect on blood sugar control, which is involved in diabetes.

Trans fats, technically known as trans fatty acids, are found in animal products and chemically processed vegetable oils.

In response to studies linking high consumption of the substances to an increased risk of heart disease, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has required food makers to disclose trans fats on nutrition labels, and some cities and states have banned them in restaurants or schools (see Reuters Health report of July 16, 2012).

To get a better sense of trans fats’ influence on blood sugar and insulin, Dr. Christos Mantzoros of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues pooled the results from seven experiments including 208 people.

In five of the studies, the participants’ blood sugar, insulin and cholesterol levels were monitored for several weeks under a diet of high trans fat consumption, and again for a few weeks when the trans fats were substituted for other fats, such as palm or soybean oil.

Two of the studies compared people who ate a diet that included trans fats to others who ate a diet without trans fats.

There were no changes in blood sugar or insulin levels during the times when people ate trans fats, compared to when they ate the other fats, Mantzoros’s group reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

However, the researchers found that during the trans fat-eating weeks, “good,” or HDL, cholesterol went down and “bad,” or LDL, cholesterol went up.

“They saw what you would expect to see” regarding cholesterol, which shows that the studies were well done, said Mark Pereira, an expert in public health and nutrition at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Pereira, who was not involved in the study, said it isn’t definitive proof that trans fats can’t influence blood sugar levels.

Although several weeks is enough time to see an effect on cholesterol, he said, a potential impact on metabolism might not show up until later.

“If you’re going to control weight and switch around fats in the diet it might take a lot longer, because these fatty acids are being gradually incorporated over time into tissues in to the body,” Pereira told Reuters Health.

One of the studies in Mantzoros’s analysis lasted for 16 weeks, but it too found no difference in blood sugar and insulin changes between people who ate trans fats and those who ate other fats.

Even if trans fats do have an effect on blood sugar control, Pereira said, it’s becoming a moot point as the amount of trans fats that people eat in the U.S. has diminished considerably.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, trans fat levels in the blood of white adults dropped by 58 percent from 2000 to 2009.

A large national study found that cholesterol levels have also been declining since the 1980s.

Part of this is due to the popularity of cholesterol-lowering drugs, but researchers suspect that cutting back on trans fats has also made a difference (see Reuters Health report of October 16, 2012).

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Rky6va The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online October 3, 2012.

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Justin Timberlake apologizes for “distasteful” homeless video

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Singer Justin Timberlake apologized on Friday for what he called a “distasteful” video that features homeless people in Los Angeles congratulating him and new wife Jessica Biel on their wedding.

The video was made by a friend of Timberlake’s and intended as a humorous gift for the couple’s lavish wedding in Italy last week. The joke backfired when gossip website Gawker got hold of the video and celebrity news site TMZ.com tracked down one of the homeless men, who said he had been paid $ 40 for appearing in it.

In an open letter on his website, Timberlake said he had no knowledge of the video and “had absolutely ZERO contribution to it” but agreed that it was “distasteful” and was “made as a joke and not in any way in mockery”.

“My friends are good people. This was clearly a lapse in judgment which I’m sure no one who is reading this is exempt from. But, I don’t believe it was made to be insensitive. More so, I think it was made as a joke on me not having that many friends attending my own wedding (which IS kind of funny if you think about it),” the “Sexyback” singer said.

“Like many silly rumors that I have been made aware of about the week: It was NOT shown at my wedding…I think we can all agree that it was distasteful, even though that was not its intention.”

Timberlake signed off lightheartedly, saying “I’m having my friend do at least 100 hours of community service… Boom.”

Gawker was forced to remove the video from their site earlier this week when they were threatened with a lawsuit from attorneys representing Timberlake’s friend, Justin Huchel, who said the film was stolen and was made “to be used and exhibited privately at Justin Timberlake’s wedding as a private joke without Mr. Timberlake’s knowledge”.

Timberlake, 31, a former member of 1990s boy band N’Sync who has forged a Hollywood acting career, married “Total Recall” actress Biel, 30, in southern Italy last week with close friends and family in attendance.

People magazine secured the rights to exclusive pictures and details of the three days of festivities, where Biel wore a flowing pink designer wedding dress and Timberlake performed a song he had written for his new wife.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Andrew Hay)

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Katy Perry wears her ballot at Obama rally

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Katy Perry‘s doing her best get-out-the vote effort: At a rally for President Barack Obama, she wore a tight white dress imprinted like a ballot, and a square box on her right hip filled in the names of Obama and Joe Biden.

Perry gave a free concert at a park in a historically minority neighborhood just northwest of downtown Las Vegas to screaming fans at about 9 p.m., the same time Air Force One landed at McCarran International Airport across town.

Obama later told the crowd, “I believe in you. I need you to keep believing in me.”

The Las Vegas campaign event drew more than 10,000 people, according to fire officials and organizers, with long lines still on sidewalks during Perry’s 30-minute performance before Obama arrived.

The singer opened with a rendition of Al Green’s soul hit, “Let’s Stay Together,” and played five songs, including “Teenage Dream,” before ending with a thumping bass drum version of “Firework.”

Perry, who recently also played a free concert at an Obama event in Los Angeles, paused before the last song Wednesday to exhort people in the Las Vegas crowd to vote early.

“Don’t wait. Go tomorrow,” she said. “How many of you are 18 here? It’s going to be your first time, right?”

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Tax gains lift Merck, but sales disappoint

(Reuters) – Merck & Co Inc reported a higher-than-expected third-quarter profit, as a favorable tax rate and lower merger costs helped offset plunging sales of its former flagship product, Singulair, an asthma drug that began facing cheaper generics in August.

But overall company sales came in slightly below Wall Street expectations, as Singulair’s decline outpaced already grim predictions for it.

Merck, the No. 2 U.S. drugmaker, said on Friday it earned $ 1.73 billion, or 56 cents per share, compared with $ 1.69 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items, Merck earned 95 cents per share. Analysts, on average, expected 92 cents.

The better-than-expected profit was largely due to the favorable impact of an overseas tax settlement as well as realization of foreign tax benefits, Merck said.

Jefferies & Co analyst Jeffrey Holford had predicted a tax rate of 26 percent, but it came in at 20.3 percent. He called the profit beat “low quality” because it was mostly due to the one-time tax gains.

“Gross margins were also weaker than expected,” Holford said, and noted that Singulair sales were about $ 75 million below what he had expected.

Merck spokesman Ron Rogers said the tax gains are not expected to carry over into the fourth quarter and that the drugmaker continues to expect a full-year tax rate of about 25 percent.

Global company revenue fell 4 percent to $ 11.49 billion in the quarter, below Wall Street expectations of $ 11.57 billion.

Merck tightened its full-year profit forecast to between $ 3.78 and $ 3.82 per share, from its earlier view of $ 3.75 to $ 3.85 per share.

Sales of Singulair tumbled 55 percent to $ 602 million. But a number of its newer products – including treatments for diabetes, hepatitis C and HIV – generated double-digit sales gains that helped cushion Singulair’s free fall.

And revenue from Gardasil, the company’s vaccine against cervical cancer, jumped 31 percent to $ 581 million.

But Merck will need to launch new drugs to withstand looming generic competition for other important medicines. Its Maxalt migraine drug, with $ 600 million in annual sales, goes generic in December, followed next year by its Temodar brain cancer medicine, which has near-blockbuster sales of $ 900 million.

Over the next 18 months, the company aims to seek six drug approvals, including marketing applications for new types of therapies for insomnia and osteoporosis.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Jeffrey Benkoe and Steve Orlofsky)

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Oil rebounds to over $86 a barrel on US growth

Faster-than-expected economic growth in the United States helped the price of oil reverse early losses on Friday and climb back above $ 86 a barrel.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for December delivery was up 22 cents to $ 86.27 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 32 cents to finish at $ 86.05 a barrel in New York on Thursday.

In London, Brent Crude was up 45 cents to $ 108.94 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The U.S. Commerce Department said gross domestic product grew by an annual 2 percent in the third quarter. That was in contrast to 1.3 percent annual growth in the second quarter and analysts’ expectations of a 1.8 percent rise for July-September.

Earlier in the session, the Nymex contract fell to $ 85, its lowest point since July, driven down by ample supplies and concerns about growth prospects in Europe.

Analysts said the recent fall in oil prices can be partly attributed to ample supplies. Oil has dropped more than 7 percent in the past week.

The Energy Department said Thursday that U.S. oil supplies grew last week by 5.9 million barrels, or 1.6 percent. At 375.1 million barrels, the nation’s oil inventory is 11.1 percent above year-ago levels.

“Crude oil prices continue to remain under pressure, following the recent disappointing U.S. earnings results and the tentative economic conditions in Greece and Spain,” said a report from Sucden Financial Research in London.

In other energy futures trading in New York:

— Wholesale gasoline added 2.89 cent to $ 2.6612 a gallon.

— Natural gas lost 4.9 cents to $ 3.385 per 1,000 cubic feet.

— Heating oil added 1.86 cents to $ 3.0638 a gallon.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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