Russia backs down on proposals to regulate the Internet

A Russia-led coalition on Monday withdrew a proposal to give governments new powers over the Internet, a plan opposed by Western countries in talks on a new global telecom treaty.
Negotiations on the treaty mark the most sustained effort so far by governments from around the world to agree on how - or whether - to regulate cyberspace.
The United States, Europe, Canada and other advocates of a hands-off approach to Internet regulation want to limit the new treaty's scope to telecom companies.
But Russia, China and many Arab states, which want greater governmental control, have been pushing to expand the treaty beyond traditional telecom operators.
Representatives from about 150 countries - members of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - have been negotiating for the past eight days in Dubai on the new treaty, which was last revised in 1988, before the advent of the World Wide Web.
The Russia-led proposal could have allowed countries to block some Internet locations and take control of the allocation of Internet addresses currently overseen by ICANN, a self-governing organization under contract to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
An ITU spokesman said this plan had now been scrapped.
"It looks like the Russians and Chinese overplayed their hand," said American cyber security expert Jim Lewis of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
U.S. ambassador Terry Kramer welcomed the decision to withdraw the Russia-led plan. But he also said: "These issues will continue to be on the table for discussion in other forms during the remainder of the conference."
China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had co-signed the aborted proposal. The UAE insisted the document had not been withdrawn.
"It may come down to the wire," said a Western delegate on condition of anonymity. "There are a lot of other (similar) proposals so I don't think this represents a substantial conclusion and could be just maneuvering."
The ITU usually takes decisions by consensus, but the intransigence of both sides means it could come to a vote in which the United States and its allies might be in the minority.
The United States' position is that the Internet has flourished with minimal state interference. It wants this to continue, arguing that many of the proposed treaty changes could allow governments to stifle free speech, reduce online anonymity and censor Internet content.
Russia and its allies have insisted they need new powers to fight cyber crime and protect networks.
Countries can opt out of parts of the revised treaty when it is finalized or even refuse to sign it
The talks are due to end on Friday.

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UK prosecutors consider charges over royal hoax call

LONDON (Reuters) - British detectives investigating the death of a nurse found hanged after she took a prank phone call at a hospital treating Prince William's pregnant wife Kate have passed an evidence file to prosecutors, police said on Saturday.
Public prosecutors must decide whether the case is strong enough to bring charges over a stunt that was condemned around the world and fuelled concerns about media ethics.
Indian-born Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was found hanging in her hospital lodgings in London, days after she answered the hoax call from an Australian radio station, an inquest heard.
She put the call through to a colleague who disclosed details of the Duchess of Cambridge's condition during treatment for an extreme form of morning sickness in the early stages of pregnancy.
"Officers submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for them to consider whether any potential offences may have been committed by making the hoax call," London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
A CPS spokesman confirmed it had received the file, but declined to comment on the timing or nature of possible charges.
"That is what we will be considering," he said.
Prime Minister David Cameron has described the case as a "complete tragedy" and has said many lessons will have to be learned from the nurse's death.
Australia's media regulator has launched an investigation into the phone call. Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of radio station 2Day FM, has apologised for the stunt.
Britain's own media is already under pressure to agree a new system of self-regulation and avoid state intervention following a damning inquiry into reporting practices.
The presenters who made the call, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, have apologised for their actions.

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Prince William to spend Christmas with the in-laws

LONDON (AP) — Prince William will spend Christmas with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury, royal officials said Saturday.
That means a family Christmas for the Duchess of Cambridge, who was recently hospitalized after suffering from severe morning sickness.
A statement from St. James' Palace, William's official residence, didn't go into much detail, saying only that the prince and Kate would spend their time in Bucklebury "privately." But a recent article penned by Kate's sister, Pippa Middleton, gave some insight into what a Bucklebury holiday might look like for the royal pair.
"The Middletons' Christmas should be blissfully calm. We're good at keeping each other's spirits up," Pippa wrote in the most recent edition of Britain's Spectator magazine. She added that her father, Michael, liked to surprise the family with bizarre costumes.
"He buys a new costume each year and typically gets a bit carried away — a couple of Christmases ago, he appeared in an inflatable sumo outfit," she wrote.
British royals traditionally spend the holidays at Sandringham, a vast estate in eastern England, and a spokesman for William said that royal couple would pay a visit at some point over the festive season. He noted that William's absence from Sandringham had been approved by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and her husband, Prince Philip.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because palace rules forbid his identification in the press.

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Pope pardons ex-butler who stole, leaked documents

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI granted his former butler a Christmas pardon Saturday, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking his private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
After the 15-minute meeting, Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lives with his wife and three children. The Vatican said he couldn't continue living or working in the Vatican, but said it would find him housing and a job elsewhere soon.
"This is a paternal gesture toward someone with whom the pope for many years shared daily life," according to a statement from the Vatican secretariat of state.
The pardon closes a painful and embarrassing chapter for the Vatican, capping a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Gabriele, 46, was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found what they called an "enormous" stash of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal on Oct. 6 and has been serving his 18-month sentence in the Vatican police barracks.
He told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the 85-year-old pope wasn't being informed of the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican and thought that exposing it publicly would put the church back on the right track.
During the trial, Gabriele testified that he loved the pope "as a son loves his father" and said he never meant to hurt the pontiff or the church. A photograph taken during the meeting Saturday — the first between Benedict and his once trusted butler since his arrest — showed Gabriele dressed in his typical dark gray suit, smiling.
The publication of the leaked documents, first on Italian television then in Nuzzi's book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" convulsed the Vatican all year, a devastating betrayal of the pope from within his papal family that exposed the unseemly side of the Catholic Church's governance.
The papal pardon had been widely expected before Christmas, and the jailhouse meeting Benedict used to personally deliver it recalled the image of Pope John Paul II visiting Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981, while he served his sentence in an Italian prison.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "intense" and "personal" and said that during it Benedict "communicated to him in person that he had accepted his request for pardon, commuting his sentence."
Lombardi said the Vatican hoped the Benedict's pardon and Gabriele's freedom would allow the Holy See to return to work "in an atmosphere of serenity."
None of the leaked documents threatened the papacy. Most were of interest only to Italians, as they concerned relations between Italy and the Vatican and a few local scandals and personalities. Their main aim appeared to be to discredit Benedict's trusted No. 2, the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Vatican officials have said the theft, though, shattered the confidentiality that typically governs correspondence with the pope. Cardinals, bishops and everyday laymen write to him about spiritual and practical matters assuming that their words will be treated with the discretion for which the Holy See is known.
As a result, the leaks prompted a remarkable reaction, with the pope naming a commission of three cardinals to investigate alongside Vatican prosecutors. Italian news reports have said new security measures and personnel checks have been put in place to prevent a repeat offense.
Gabriele insisted he acted alone, with no accomplices, but it remains an open question whether any other heads will roll. Technically the criminal investigation remains open, and few in the Vatican believe Gabriele could have construed such a plot without at least the endorsement if not the outright help of others. But Lombardi said he had no new information to release about any new investigative leads, saying the pardon "closed a sad and painful chapter" for the Holy See.
Nuzzi, who has supported Gabriele as a hero for having exposed corruption in the Vatican, tweeted Saturday that it appeared the butler was thrilled to speak with the pope and go home. "Unending joy for him, but the problems of the curia and power remain," he wrote, referring to the Vatican bureaucracy.
A Vatican computer expert, Claudio Sciarpelletti, was convicted Nov. 10 of aiding and abetting Gabriele by changing his testimony to Vatican investigators about the origins of an envelope with Gabriele's name on it that was found in his desk. His two-month sentence was suspended. Lombardi said a pardon was expected for him as well. He recently returned to work in the Vatican.
Benedict met this past week with the cardinals who investigated the origins of the leaks, but it wasn't known if they provided him with any further updates or were merely meeting ahead of the expected pardon for Gabriele.
As supreme executive, legislator and judge in Vatican City, the pope had the power to pardon Gabriele at any time. The only question was when.

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Abducted German aid worker seen alive in video

BERLIN (AP) — A German aid worker abducted in Pakistan 11 months ago was seen alive in a video broadcast Saturday urging authorities to fully meet his captors' demands, warning that otherwise they could kill him within days.
The undated video — probably recorded under duress by his captors — was broadcast Saturday by Pakistan's Dunya TV. The German Foreign Ministry in Berlin said it "knows the case" and is aware of the video. A duty spokeswoman declined to elaborate.
Aid organization German Agro Action declined to confirm whether the video indeed showed one of its two staffers abducted in the central Pakistan city of Multan in January. Spokeswoman Simone Pott only acknowledged "we know the video."
The aid worker, identifying himself in the video as 59-year-old Bernd Muehlenbeck, said he was captured by mujahedeen — a generic term for militant Islamic extremists — but didn't specify who they were or what their demands were.
In the message — whose content is likely to have been dictated by the captors — he said he was kidnapped "by mujahedeen because of the bad policies of the German government."
In January, gunmen seized the two foreign aid workers, Muehlenbeck and an Italian colleague, from just outside their office in Multan and bundled them into a car, according to Pakistan security officials. The men were working for a development project helping victims of the 2010 floods, the officials said.
Muehlenbeck did not name or explicitly mention his Italian colleague, but repeatedly used the plural when speaking about his situation.
He appealed to authorities not to attempt freeing them by force. "I would like to live and I would like to see back my family alive," he said, speaking in English with a slight German accent.
In the video lasting just less than a minute, Muehlenbeck is heard speaking calmly in front of a white wall, wearing glasses and a dark hoody.
He said he could be killed by his captors at any time. "We don't know when. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in three days."
Pakistan, a poor predominantly Muslim nation of about 180 million, is struggling to fend off an insurgency fueled by Islamic extremists, many of whom are believed to hide in the lawless provinces bordering Afghanistan.
Kidnappings for ransom are common in Pakistan. Islamist militants have also abducted people. Several aid workers have been targeted over the past years.
This week saw a gruesome series of deadly attacks on Pakistanis working on a polio vaccination campaign. Six of the aid workers gunned down were women, three of whom were teenagers. Two other workers were critically wounded.

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Russia says it won't host Assad but others welcome

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's foreign minister says Moscow would welcome any country's offer of a safe haven to Syrian President Bashar Assad, but underlined that Moscow itself has no intention of giving him shelter if he steps down.
Russia has repeatedly used its veto right along with China at the U.N. Security Council to protect its old ally from international sanctions, but it has increasingly sought to distance itself from Assad.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters late Friday that countries in the region he wouldn't name publicly had asked Russia to convey their offer of a safe passage to Assad. He said that Russia responded by telling them to go directly to Assad: "We replied: 'What do we have to do with it? If you have such plans, you go straight to him.'"
Asked if Moscow could offer a refuge to Assad, Lavrov responded that "Russia has publicly said that it doesn't invite President Assad."
"If there is anyone willing to provide him guarantees, they are welcome!" Lavrov told reporters on board a plane returning from Brussels where he attended a Russia-EU summit. "We would be the first to cross ourselves and say: "Thank God, the carnage is over! If it indeed ends the carnage, which is far from certain."
Lavrov also said the Syrian government has pulled its chemical weapons together to one or two locations from several arsenals across the country to keep them safe amid the rebel onslaught.
"According to the information we have, as well as the data of the U.S. and European special services, the government is doing everything to secure it," he said. "The Syrian government has concentrated the stockpiles in one or two centers, unlike the past when they were scattered across the country."
U.S. intelligence says the regime may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the U.S. have also expressed concerns they could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.
Lavrov gave no indication that Moscow could change its opposition to sanctions against Assad. He assailed the West for failing to persuade the opposition to sit down for peace talks with the government, saying that "the Syrian president's head is more important for them than saving human lives."
Lavrov added that U.N. peace envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, would visit Moscow for talks before the year's end.
He said that Moscow has also invited the revamped Syrian opposition leadership to visit.
"We are ready to honestly explain that the emphasis on a military solution and the dismantling of the state institutions is disastrous for the country," he said. "Listen, there will be no winner in this war."

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Top UBS shareholder pins rebound hopes on private wealth

LONDON (Reuters) - UBS's wealth management business will help it bounce back from a $1.5 billion rap for rigging interest rates, one of its largest investors said, although fears of costly civil lawsuits could cast a pall over its shares for some time.
Paras Anand, European equities head at Fidelity Worldwide Investment, said legal action sparked by the Libor scandal posed an unpredictable threat to the bank's near-term earnings, even if its core private banking franchise escaped permanent harm.
"The big unknown factor is the civil litigation that could follow on as a result of this...That is one thing at the back of our minds that we have to be cognizant of," Anand said in an interview with Reuters.
"The issue for shareholders is the challenge of pricing that risk in. The potential costs are too unquantifiable and indeed, it's unclear as to whether they will actually manifest or not."
Switzerland's largest bank was hit with the fine on Wednesday after admitting to fraud, paying bribes to brokers and "pervasive" manipulation of global benchmark interest rates by dozens of its staff.
UBS shares were trading 1.3 percent higher at 9:01 a.m. ET, as investors looked forward to the end of a scandal-filled chapter in the bank's history and a renewed focus on managing cash on behalf of rich clients, rather than so-called 'casino' investment banking.
"There's clearly been a backlash against big faceless financial entities but a private bank has big personal relationships with its customers ... These kinds of institutions are surprisingly resilient," Anand said.
"We have seen some awful scandals in businesses much weaker than UBS and they manage to survive," he added.
Fidelity owns around 45 million shares in UBS, equivalent to around 1.2 percent of the bank, and is its fifth largest institutional owner excluding sovereign wealth funds, according to Thomson Reuters data.

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Top UBS shareholder pins rebound hopes on private wealth

LONDON (Reuters) - UBS's wealth management business will help it bounce back from a $1.5 billion rap for rigging interest rates, one of its largest investors said, although fears of costly civil lawsuits could cast a pall over its shares for some time.
Paras Anand, European equities head at Fidelity Worldwide Investment, said legal action sparked by the Libor scandal posed an unpredictable threat to the bank's near-term earnings, even if its core private banking franchise escaped permanent harm.
"The big unknown factor is the civil litigation that could follow on as a result of this...That is one thing at the back of our minds that we have to be cognizant of," Anand said in an interview with Reuters.
"The issue for shareholders is the challenge of pricing that risk in. The potential costs are too unquantifiable and indeed, it's unclear as to whether they will actually manifest or not."
Switzerland's largest bank was hit with the fine on Wednesday after admitting to fraud, paying bribes to brokers and "pervasive" manipulation of global benchmark interest rates by dozens of its staff.
UBS shares were trading 1.3 percent higher at 9:01 a.m. ET, as investors looked forward to the end of a scandal-filled chapter in the bank's history and a renewed focus on managing cash on behalf of rich clients, rather than so-called 'casino' investment banking.
"There's clearly been a backlash against big faceless financial entities but a private bank has big personal relationships with its customers ... These kinds of institutions are surprisingly resilient," Anand said.
"We have seen some awful scandals in businesses much weaker than UBS and they manage to survive," he added.
Fidelity owns around 45 million shares in UBS, equivalent to around 1.2 percent of the bank, and is its fifth largest institutional owner excluding sovereign wealth funds, according to Thomson Reuters data.

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Drugs group Lundbeck's shares hit by profit warning

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Shares in Danish drugs firm Lundbeck fell to their lowest level in over 12 years on Wednesday after it cut its profits forecast for the next two years as European sales slow and spending on new products rise to combat generic competition.
The company has already warned that earnings would stall until 2015 due to cheap generic competition for its existing drugs, meaning new products will be vital for future earnings.
But Chief Executive Ulf Wiinberg said on Wednesday that the negative impact on revenue from healthcare reforms in Europe had also been bigger than expected in the last two years and that slowing European sales and generic competition were hurting.
As a result the company said operating profits would fall further than previously forecast in 2014 as it increases investments in its late-stage drugs development pipeline and product launches.
Lundbeck is working to find new drugs to replace lost revenue from products coming off patent protection such as its antidepressant Cipralex, which is sold as Lexapro in the United States and Japan, and Alzheimer's drug Ebixa.
Wiinberg said 2014 would be the company's peak investment year for the new products pipeline, offering it a solid foundation for growth starting in 2015.
"You only get one chance to launch a product and we have to do it well," Wiinberg said at a briefing for investors.
He was commenting after the company warned in a statement that it now expects revenue in 2014 of about 14 billion Danish crowns ($2.5 billion) and an operating profit of between just 0.5 billion and 1 billion crowns.
Analysts have on average been forecasting a profit of over 2.5 billion crowns for 2014 on turnover of over 14.7 billion crowns, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S Estimates.
Two years ago Lundbeck predicted its annual revenues over the period 2012-2014 would exceed 14 billion crowns a year while earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) would exceed 2 billion crowns a year.
Next years' revenue is now forecast to be in the range of 14.1 billion and 14.7 billion crowns to produce an operating profit of 1.6 billion to 2.1 billion crowns, with no change to the company's forecast for 2012.
Analysts' forecasts for this year are for operating profit to drop 41 percent to 1.99 billion crowns on revenue down 8 percent at 14.7 billion crowns, while for 2013 they predict a profit of 2.26 billion crowns on revenue of 14.5 billion crowns.
Lundbeck's shares were trading down 17 percent at 79.90 crowns at 12.44 p.m. British time, dropping below 80 crowns for the first time since April 2000.
"In the short term, earnings are under pressure," Sydbank analyst Soren Hansen said.
Lundbeck said that it expects a dividend payout ratio of about 35 percent of net profits in the 2012-14 period. Last year it paid 3.49 crowns on basic earnings per share of 11.64 crowns, a payout ratio of 30 percent.
Analysts have been predicting a 27-30 percent cut this year to 2.53-2.28 crowns, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data.
But a number of analysts doubt that revenue from new products will be enough to secure revenue growth in 2015, compensating for lost revenue from Cipralex, Lexapro and Ebixa which together accounted for about 70 percent of group revenue in 2011.
Lundbeck is working on new products such as antidepressant Brintellix in Europe and the United States for launch at the end of next year or start of 2014, as well as alcohol dependency treatment Selincro in Europe in mid 2013.
"It is difficult to see revenue from the smaller products compensating for the large products," said Hansen.

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New Mauritius Hotels posts 25 pct drop in full-year profit

PORT LOUIS (Reuters) - Luxury hotels group New Mauritius Hotels (NMH) reported a 25 percent fall in full-year pretax profit, citing higher finance costs and fewer tourists, and forecast a 15 percent drop in first-quarter earnings.
Ranked among the Indian Ocean island's most-traded stocks, NMH said on Wednesday that pretax profit for the year to September 30 fell to 603 million Indian rupees, with earnings per share down 20 percent at 3.60 rupees.
The hotels group said that it won't pay a dividend this year, given the difficult conditions in the local tourism industry. Last year it paid a dividend of 2.50 rupees per share.
Shares in the group, which owns eight hotels in Mauritius and one in the Seychelles, closed unchanged at 52 rupees before its results were released.
Tourism, a traditional cornerstone of the Mauritius economy, has been forecast to account for 7.9 percent of domestic product in 2012, down from 8.4 percent last year. The downturn in tourism has been caused largely by economic turmoil in the euro zone - the sector's key source market.

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