Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192632412?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
US Embassy: US citizen kidnapped in Nigeria freed (AP)
LAGOS, Nigeria ? A U.S. citizen kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has been freed after a week in captivity, the U.S. Embassy said Friday.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Deb MacLean told The Associated Press that the man had been released after being kidnapped in Warri in Delta state on Jan. 20. MacLean declined to offer any other details, citing privacy rules. Delta state police spokesman Charles Muka said he had not been informed about the man's release, as his company refused to cooperate with local authorities.
The freed hostage was identified as William Gregory Ock, 50, of Bowdon, Ga., by his sister, Dee Dee Patterson.
Patterson told the AP on Friday that the family had no details of his release.
"The only thing we know is that he is safe and he is in a secure location," Patterson said by telephone.
She had no information on when Ock would return home to Georgia.
It was not immediately clear whether a ransom had been paid to secure his release, though many companies working in the region carry kidnap insurance and simply pay a negotiated price to see their employees freed. Kidnappers had made contact with authorities previously and demanded a $333,000 ransom.
The attack Jan. 20 occurred outside a bank branch in Warri, one of the main cities in nation's Niger Delta, a region of mangroves and swamps where foreign oil companies pump 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day. The gunmen attacked Ock as he came outside, shooting his police escort to death before abducting him, Muka said.
Investigators believe the gunmen trailed him for some time before the attack, Muka said.
Foreign firms have pumped oil out of the delta for more than 50 years. Despite the billions flowing into Nigeria's government, many in the delta remain desperately poor, living in polluted waters without access to proper medical care, education or work.
In 2006, militants started a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies, including bombing their pipelines, kidnapping their workers and fighting with security forces. That violence waned in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program promising ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and criminal gangs still roam the region, increasingly targeting middle-class Nigerians.
In 2011, there were five reported kidnappings of U.S. citizens in Nigeria, according to a recent U.S. State Department travel warning about the country. The most recent occurred in November when two U.S. citizens and a Mexican were kidnapped from a Chevron Corp. offshore oil field and held for about two weeks, the State Department said.
A German working in the city of Kano in north Nigeria was abducted Thursday by unknown gunmen, authorities have said.
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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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Debunking Rashad Evans? claims about Phil Davis? wrestling
CHICAGO -- Rashad Evans and Phil Davis both wrestled in the Big Ten in college, a fact that has been discussed several times over in the build-up to their UFC on Fox 2 bout on Saturday. Davis has questioned Evans' credentials, while Evans called Davis' technique trash.
During Thursday's press conference, Evans even went as far to call competition Davis faced during his tenure weak.
"You wrestled in a year that was kind of soft," Evans said. "Your technique is trash."
Unfortunately, the facts don't support Evans' claims.
Davis was a four-time All-American at Penn State, which means he placed in the top eight of the country in every year he wrestled. It's a difficult feat, no matter the competition. But the wrestlers Davis faced every year that he earned All-American status are names that are familiar to MMA fans.
Davis won the national title as a senior, beating three-time All-American Wynn Michalak from Central Michigan along the way. Max Askren, Ben's brother who won the title in 2010, also placed in the top eight that year.
In 2007, he shared the podium with the same man he shared the dais with today: UFC middleweight Chris Weidman, who beat future world team member J.D. Bergman on the way to a third-place finish. Davis lost in the finals in 2006 to Jake Rosholt, a UFC and WEC veteran and a three-time NCAA champion. When Davis took seventh his freshman year, he beat UFC light heavyweight Ryan Bader in the second round of the tournament.
Evans has talked about how he is better at MMA wrestling than Davis, and he'll get to test out that theory on Saturday. However, questioning his wrestling credentials is a waste of trash talk. A man with a national title, four All-Americans and two Big Ten titles has already proven himself on the mat.
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Friday, January 27, 2012
AP Interview: Chris Isaak makes Memphis album (AP)
LONDON ? Chris Isaak is returning to the roots of rock 'n' roll and doing it old-school: All in one take.
The U.S. soul singer headed back to the original Sun Studios in Memphis to record a collection that includes cover versions of hits by Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. The album, "Beyond the Sun," was released this week and Isaak will soon embark on a string of U.S. concert dates.
The 56-year-old, well known for his mesmerizing vocals on the now-classic 1989 hit "Wicked Game," says the decision to make the new album was easy.
"I just went 'I'll sing a bunch of those songs I like singing. I got a band, I'll just call them up and tell them to come over,'" he told the Associated Press in an interview in London.
To make it truly authentic, Isaak and his band recorded with no headphones, no separate takes, just everyone listening to each other and going with the flow.
"It scared the hell out of the band because they go, you know, 'If I screw up the guitar solo then everybody is going to look at me,'" Isaak said.
Sun Studios, the record label owned by Sam Phillips, launched the careers of some of the greatest U.S. singer/songwriters ? including Elvis, Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison.
Influenced by those big names while growing up as a child in California, Isaak delivers his interpretations of "Ring of Fire," "Great Balls of Fire," "Can't Help Falling In Love," "Oh, Pretty Woman," while also penning his own original songs.
The first single to be released is one of Isaak's own, "Live It Up."
Fortunately for the band, the old-school approach to recording meant they ended up producing more songs than they had bargained for. Even Isaak's manager was surprised at the speed of production.
"She goes '38 songs? You finished 38 songs?' I said 'Yeah.' She said 'Well, you have to mix all those, that's going to cost a fortune.' I said 'No, they're all done. We just did it all at one time in a room.'"
The singer says he's never missed a show and neither has his drummer Kenney Dale Johnson or his bass player Rowland Salley in the 27 years they've been playing together.
"I'm very proud of them," he said.
Before forging a career in music, Isaak tried his hand at many different occupations: roofing, truck-driving, being a bouncer and even a boxer. He claims he was "lousy" at all of them, it was only with music that he finally found a job he can do well.
"Singing is something that I'm always happy to do it and going in the studio I never felt any pressure. I just feel like I get to sing, you know. It's fun," he said.
While many musicians decry the strain of touring, Isaak says he's lucky to be able to travel the world doing what he loves.
"I come from a small town and I come from a background where we didn't have money to travel," he said. "I thought I'd have to join the military to get to Europe. So I'm thrilled to travel."
U.S. fans will get a chance to see Isaak in action starting in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 13 and ending in Napa, California, on April 27.
But, despite the stereotypes about rockers, don't expect him to be raising hell on tour.
"I liked the rock n' roll, I never wanted the drugs and I never saw the sex because ...nobody ever suggested anything wild to me!" he said. "I think I look too much like a cop."
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Roche offers $5.7 billion to buy gene firm Illumina (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Roche Holding AG is offering $5.7 billion in cash to buy U.S. gene sequencing company Illumina Inc in an unfriendly takeover bid that marks a major play by the Swiss drugmaker into the gene technology field.
Gene sequencing is central to personalized medicine, which allows scientists to predict a patient's response to a particular drug, both during clinical practice and in drug trials.
Roche is already the world's largest maker of cancer drugs, where gene analysis is progressing fastest, as well as a major maker of diagnostic tests.
"This ... will help Roche sustain its leadership position in targeted therapies, which we consider as highly promising," said Bryan Garnier analysts in a research note.
But they added a deal would probably be neutral to earnings in the first year of ownership at the current offer price, which is 18 percent above Illumina's closing price on Tuesday and over 60 percent above the level before rumors of a bid started, and that Roche might have to raise its offer to secure a deal.
Roche Chief Executive Severin Schwan said the company had no intention of raising its offer for the San Diego-based group that was founded in 1998 and employs just over 2,000 people.
At 4:55 a.m. ET, Roche stock was down 2.2 percent at 161 Swiss francs, lagging a 1.3 percent drop in the European healthcare index as some investors fretted over the cost of a deal.
UNWILLING TO TALK
Basel-based Roche said it would offer to buy Illumina's shares for $44.50 each in cash. Roche currently owns a very small number of Illumina shares, finance chief Alan Hippe said.
It plans to commence a tender offer because Illumina was not willing to negotiate a transaction.
"Roche has made multiple efforts to engage with Illumina in order to reach a negotiated transaction, but Illumina has been unwilling to participate in substantive discussions," it said.
Oddo Securities analysts described the offer as "very generous," saying it equated to 22 times Illumina's forecast operating profit for 2011 at a time when diagnostics sector peers are trading at around 10 times forecast earnings.
However, Deutsche Bank analysts said Illumina's earnings were forecast to grow strongly in the coming years.
A deal, which would be Roche's largest since it bought the remaining stake in U.S. biotech group Genentech for nearly $47 billion, would be financed from available cash and borrowings under its credit facilities and would not require a financing condition, Roche said.
The company also said it would nominate a slate of independent candidates for election to Illumina's board.
"It is our strong preference to enter into a negotiated transaction with Illumina," Roche's Schwan said.
Illumina urged shareholders take no action pending a recommendation from the board.
In 2008, Roche, with Schwan as its diagnostics head, overcame resistance from testmaker Ventana Medical Systems to snap it up for $3.4 billion, a deal that was deemed as expensive at the time, but a good strategic fit.
SHARES WEAK
Capital Research Global Investors, Baillie Gifford & Co, Sands Capital Management, Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Jennison Associates are the five biggest shareholders of Illumina, who, according to Reuters data based on filings, own about 44 percent of its outstanding shares.
Companies such as Illumina, Affymetrix and Life Technologies get 20-40 percent of their revenue from U.S. government-backed research and may take a hit from any government funding cut.
Shares of Illumina, which receives a significant portion of its revenue from research institutes that depend on government funding, have halved over the past six months after the company warned it expects the uncertainty in research funding to continue through at least the fourth quarter.
In the longer term, however, many analysts believe gene sequencing technology has the potential to revolutionize some areas of medicine, especially as the cost of the technology tumbles.
Earlier this month Ion Torrent, a division of Life Technologies, said it would sell a tabletop machine that is able
to sequence a person's whole genome for just $1,000.
Mapping the complete genome sequence of people with cancer or autism, for instance, may elucidate a disease's underlying genetic causes as well as possible ways to treat it.
Fourth-quarter figures are due from Illumina on January 31 and from Roche on February 1.
Roche said it has hired Greenhill & Co and Citigroup as financial advisers. Goldman, Sachs & Co and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are acting for Illumina.
(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler, Deena Beasley and Katie Reid; Editing by Muralikum Anantharaman and Mark Potter)
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Obama pushes manufacturing in swing state tour
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)
President Barack Obama steps off Marine One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Barack Obama walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) ? President Barack Obama is arguing that manufacturing must be the foundation for a renewed American economy, as he takes his State of the Union economic message on a tour of politically crucial states.
Obama toured a plant that makes giant conveyor belt screws Wednesday before addressing a crowd about the importance of bringing manufacturing back to American shores.
Running for re-election against Republicans who've questioned his economic stewardship, the president said he wants to restore the basic promise of America, "and it starts with manufacturing."
Obama's remarks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, came on the first stop of a three-day tour the morning after his State of the Union address. Obama stops later Wednesday in Arizona before traveling Thursday to Nevada and Colorado and wrapping up Friday in Michigan.
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Box-office numbers for Oscar best-picture nominees (AP)
U.S. and Canadian box-office performance as of Sunday for Oscar best-picture nominees, in order of gross receipts to date:
? "The Help," Disney, four nominations, $169.5 million, released Aug. 10.
? "Moneyball," Sony Pictures, six nominations, $75.5 million, released Sept. 23.
? "War Horse," Disney, six nominations, $72.2 million, released Dec. 25.
? "Midnight in Paris," Sony Pictures Classics, four nominations, $56.4 million, released May 20.
? "Hugo," Paramount, 11 nominations, $55.8 million, released Nov. 23.
? "The Descendants," Fox Searchlight, five nominations, $51.2 million, released Nov. 16.
? "The Tree of Life," Fox Searchlight, three nominations, $13.3 million, released May 27.
? "The Artist," Weinstein Co., 10 nominations, $12.1 million, released Nov. 25.
? "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," Warner Bros., two nominations, $10.7 million, released Dec. 25.
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Online:
http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice/
___
Sony and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Fox Searchlight is owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc.
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