Myanmar says Obama to visit later this month

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — President Barack Obama will make a groundbreaking visit later this month to Myanmar, an official said Thursday, following through with his policy of rapprochement to encourage democracy in the Southeast Asian nation.

The Myanmar official speaking from the capital, Naypyitaw, said Thursday that security for a visit on Nov. 18 or 19 had been prepared, but the schedule was not final. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to give information to the media.

The official said Obama would meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as government officials including reformist President Thein Sein.

It would be the first-ever visit to Myanmar by an American president. U.S. officials have not yet announced any plans for a visit, which would come less than two weeks after Obama’s election to a second term.

Obama’s administration has sought to encourage the recent democratic progress under Thein Sein by easing sanctions applied against Myanmar’s previous military regime.

Officials in nearby Thailand and Cambodia have already informally announced plans for visits by Obama that same week. Cambodia is hosting a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Thailand is a longtime close U.S. ally.

The visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, would be the culmination of a dramatic turnaround in relations with Washington as the country has shifted from five decades of ruinous military rule and shaken off the pariah status it had earned through its bloody suppression of democracy.

Obama’s ending of the long-standing U.S. isolation of Myanmar’s generals has played a part in coaxing them into political reforms that have unfolded with surprising speed in the past year. The U.S. has appointed a full ambassador and suspended sanctions to reward Myanmar for political prisoner releases and the election of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi to parliament.

From Myanmar’s point of view, the lifting of sanctions is essential for boosting a lagging economy that was hurt not only by sanctions that curbed exports and foreign investment, but also by what had been a protectionist, centralized approach. Thein Sein’s government has initiated major economic reforms in addition to political ones.

A procession of senior diplomats and world leaders have traveled to Myanmar, stopping both in the remote, opulent capital city, which was built by the former ruling junta, and at Suu Kyi’s dilapidated lakeside villa in the main city of Yangon, where she spent 15 years under house arrest. New Zealand announced Thursday that Prime Minister John Key would visit Myanmar after attending the regional meetings in Cambodia.

The most senior U.S. official to visit was Hillary Rodham Clinton, who last December became the first U.S. secretary of state to travel to Myanmar in 56 years.

The Obama administration regards the political changes in Myanmar as a marquee achievement in its foreign policy, and one that could dilute the influence of China in a country that has a strategic location between South and Southeast Asia, regions of growing economic importance.

But exiled Myanmar activists and human rights groups are likely to criticize an Obama visit as premature, rewarding Thein Sein before his political and economic reforms have truly taken root. The military — still dominant and implicated in rights abuses — has failed to prevent vicious outbreaks of communal violence in the west of the country that have left scores dead.

Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.

Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more per investor.

It puts the firm on the same footing as more established corporate venture funds such as Intel's Intel Capital, which typically invests $300-$500 million a year.

"It puts a lot more wood behind the arrow if we need it," said Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures.

Part of the rationale behind the increase is that Google Ventures is a relatively young firm, founded in 2009. Some of the companies it backed two or three years ago are now at later stages, potentially requiring larger cash infusions to grow further.

Google Ventures has taken an eclectic approach, investing in a broad spectrum of companies ranging from medicine to clean power to coupon companies.

Every year, it typically funds 40-50 "seed-stage" deals where it invests $250,000 or less in a company, and perhaps around 15 deals where it invests up to $10 million, Maris said. It aims to complete one or two deals annually in the $20-$50 million range, Maris said.

LACKING SUPERSTARS

Some of its investments include Nest, a smart-thermostat company; Foundation Medicine, which applies genomic analysis to cancer care; Relay Rides, a carsharing service; and smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks. Last year, its portfolio company HomeAway raised $216 million in an initial public offering.

Still, Google Ventures lacks superstar companies such as microblogging service Twitter or online bulletin-board company Pinterest. The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals.

Soon it could have even more cash to play around with. "Larry has repeatedly asked me: 'What do you think you could do with a billion a year?'" said Maris, referring to Google chief executive Larry Page.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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War Widow’s Lawsuit Says Nat Geo, Fox Depicted Dead Husband’s Body, Aired Family Photo

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – An Army staff sergeant‘s widow says in a lawsuit against National Geographic and Fox that a documentary from the companies depicted her husband’s dead body and showed a private family photo she believes was taken from his laptop after he died.

The suit seeks unspecified damages and to ban Nat Geo and Fox from using military family members’ images, names or likenesses for commercial purposes without their permission.

Nat Geo declined to comment.

Donnice Roberts, of Carthage, Texas, has two children with Staff Sergeant Kevin Casey Roberts. He was killed by an IED in 2008 during what was to be his last mission in Afghanistan, after two tours in Iraq. He enlisted two months after the September 11 2001 attacks, and received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

A year after he died, according to the lawsuit, she learned from another service member that he had seen a documentary called “Inside: Afghan ER” on the Armed Forces Network, broadcast in German, that depicted her husband’s dead body. It also featured a family photo from a trip to Disney World that she believes was taken from his laptop.

“Mrs. Roberts was very disturbed that her image, and more importantly, her children’s image would be broadcast around the world without their knowledge or permission,” the lawsuit said. “This is particularly true given the fanaticism associated with jihadist determined to kill Americans, including American women and children.”

“Moreover, Mrs. Roberts has fears and concerns that her minor children are depicted as the children of a warrior in the war on terror, which is fought by fanatic, radical individuals who have shown a propensity and desire to kill Americans, including women and children,” the lawsuit adds.

The lawsuit said the lawsuit was produced and distributed by the National Geographic Society and further promoted and distributed by Fox Cable Networks, Inc. and Fox Entertainment Group, Inc. through the cable network NatGeo and affiliated websites. The suit said it aired worldwide.

Roberts said when she contacted National Geographic Society seeking a copy of the photo, she was told she would need to sign a waiver. She refused.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this story)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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WellPoint keeps outlook despite profit rise; shares off

(Reuters) – Health insurer WellPoint Inc reported forecast-beating third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, but investors were disappointed that the company did not raise its guidance and said the higher earnings had a weak underside.

Shares of WellPoint, the second-largest U.S. health insurer by market value, slumped more than 5 percent, even as the company’s chief financial officer tried to reassure investors over the outlook for the year.

The CFO, Wayne DeVeydt, told analysts on a conference call that the company’s decision not to increase its full-year forecast, despite what it described as strong results, stemmed from a simple desire to maintain a “conservative and cautious outlook.”

Analysts, however, remained unconvinced.

“Earnings per share beat consensus by 13 percent and was ‘favorable’ to management’s expectations,” said David Windley, an analyst at Jefferies & Company. “However, this benefit did not flow through to the year-end.”

Jason Gurda, of Leerink Swann, said the results were not as compelling as those of most WellPoint peers.

“Earnings were ahead of expectations, but it was largely due to a lower-than-expected tax rate and share count,” Gurda said. “On the operating side, they were largely in line with expectations; however, most of their peers came in well ahead this quarter.”

Net income rose 1.17 percent to $ 691.2 million, or $ 2.15 per share, helped by cost-cutting as well as a lower tax rate and share count. Excluding items, the company earned $ 2.09 a share, above the average estimate of $ 1.84 forecast by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

WellPoint’s effective income tax rate was 32.6 percent in the quarter, down from 34.6 percent a year ago.

The company repurchased 11.3 million shares during the third quarter. It said it bought back another 10.3 million shares during October.

Operating revenue topped $ 15.1 billion, little changed from a year ago. Premium revenue declined 1 percent, and the health benefit-to-expense ratio was 85.4 percent, up from 85.1 percent a year earlier.

WellPoint said enrollment totaled 33.5 million members at the end of September, down 2.5 percent from a year earlier.

Shares of WellPoint, which has a market value of about $ 19.9 billion, fell 5.3 percent to $ 57.94 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

WellPoint is currently being run by an interim chief executive, John Cannon, who took over following the abrupt resignation of Angela Braly in August. Cannon said it would be “inappropriate” to comment in detail on the company’s search for a new CEO, but he said the search could extend into the first quarter of 2013.

PREPARING FOR HEALTHCARE REFORM

Following the re-election of President Barack Obama on Tuesday, which puts Obama’s healthcare reform act on course to be fully implemented, WellPoint said it expects to spend an incremental $ 200 million to $ 300 million in 2013 to get ready.

The law aims to provide coverage for 16 million more Americans through privately run health insurance exchanges. It will expand eligibility for Medicaid, the government’s insurance program for the poor, to an additional 16 million people by raising limits on household income.

WellPoint said about half of its planned spending will go toward preparing for the exchanges, which are scheduled to be operational by January 1, 2014. The other half of the planned spending will cover, among other things, ensuring WellPoint it is able to provide coverage for so-called dual-eligibles, or some 9 million Americans who meet the criteria to receive both Medicaid and Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly.

Care for dual-eligibles is moving to the private sector and could generate billions of dollars in profit for insurance companies.

The reforms, which will give insurers millions of new customers, also imposes conditions under which patients may not be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

On the conference call, Cannon congratulated Obama on his re-election.

“We look forward to continue to work with his administration on ways to improve our nation’s healthcare system,” he said. “Clearly, the need to improve access to, and affordability of, healthcare remains a critical issue.”

The shifting health insurance market place, which is also characterized by a desire by government to curb reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid, has spurred a number of deals in the sector as companies rush to gain scale and market share.

WellPoint in July announced a deal to buy rival Amerigroup Corp for $ 4.46 billion to focus on its Medicaid business. This was closely followed by Aetna announcing the $ 5.6 billion purchase of Coventry Health Care Inc.

(Additional reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore, Caroline Humer in New York and Debra Sherman in Chicago; Editing by John Wallace, Dan Grebler and Leslie Adler)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Boehner: House GOP will work with Obama

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Merkel says Germany, Britain must work together on EU

LONDON (Reuters) – Germany and Britain must cooperate to work round their differences on the European Union‘s long-term spending plans, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

“Despite differences that we have it is very important for me that the UK and Germany work together,” Merkel said through a translator before a meeting in London with Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss the EU‘s 2014-2020 budget.

“We always have to do something that will stand up to public opinion back home. Not all of the expenditure that has been earmarked has been used with great efficiency … We need to address that,” she said.

EU leaders meet in Brussels on November 22-23 to try to secure a seven-year budget for the 27-nation bloc amid signs of differences of opinion over what action should be taken.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple shares slide to five-month low, competition grows

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Broadway takes a big hit from Superstorm Sandy

NEW YORK (AP) — Superstorm Sandy, which darkened Broadway for four days, predictably ravaged the box offices around Times Square, with shows losing more than $ 8.5 million from the previous week.

The Broadway League, the national trade association for the Broadway industry, released data Tuesday that showed, as expected, all shows took a hit. One of the hardest hurt was the Matthew Broderick musical “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” which lost $ 538,853.

Since the storm actually affected two weeks of data, the League estimates that grosses managed just $ 33.66 million for that period, a drastic fall from the same time frame last year, where the box offices earned $ 42.2 million. Attendance also plunged 19 percent from the 10-year average.

The storm, which struck last Monday, forced all 40 Broadway theaters to shutter the night before. All shows were up and running by Thursday night, but the damage had been done, though few expect the pain to last.

“It will come back to its former life, there’s no question about it. Broadway is New York and everyone celebrates the theater in this city,” said Barry Weissler, who has been producing work on Broadway since 1982. “It’s catch-up time.”

Most shows on Broadway have eight performances a week, but Sandy forced many, including “The Phantom of the Opera,” ”The Heiress,” ”Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Chicago” to put on just six shows. “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “Evita” only managed five shows. Altogether, 48 individual performances were canceled.

Other shows that took a beating include “Wicked,” which lost $ 490,996, though it still managed to pull in $ 1,166,275. The least hurt was “Rock of Ages,” which lost just $ 59,209.

Sandy joins other recent shocks to have rocked Broadway finances, including the Sept. 11 attacks, which shuttered theaters for two days, and Hurricane Irene in 2011 that wiped away a weekend’s revenue.

“Storms will not stop us, the terrible tragedy of 9/11 will not stop us. Theater will continue. It’s one of the oldest art forms known to man and it will continue,” said Weissler, who together with his wife, Fran, has produced such shows as “Grease,” ”Chicago” and “Annie Get Your Gun.”

The League said that the losses from Hurricane Irene were actually larger than for Sandy. Not only were 66 individual performances scrapped for Irene, but the storm struck during the busy summer, not the slower fall.

But Sandy may have hurt off-Broadway theaters more. The SoHo Rep and The Bank Street Theater lost power and had some flooding, while many other downtown theaters lost power, including the MCC Theatre and SoHo Playhouse. The Canal Park Playhouse canceled all November and December performances.

The infectious drumming show “Blue Man Group” was quieted, the immersive, genre-bending show “Sleep No More” was stilled, and The Public Theater was shut down for almost a week. The lobby at its home at Astor Place is now a collection site for post-Sandy supplies.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Early sales of Vivus’s diet pill disappoint, shares slide

(Reuters) – Vivus Inc reported lackluster initial sales of its weight-loss pill Qsymia as a lack of reimbursement coverage prompted concerns about the drug’s adoption and dragged down shares of diet-drug makers.

Shares of Vivus were down 24 percent at $ 11.38 on Tuesday afternoon on the Nasdaq after recovering from an earlier low of $ 11.00.

Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc‘s shares were down 6 percent at $ 7.51, while those of Orexigen Therapeutics Inc were off 5 percent at $ 4.99.

Arena’s diet pill Belviq is set to launch early next year and Orexigen is planning a re-submission of the marketing application for its competing product, Contrave.

Earlier this year, Belviq and Qsymia became the first new diet pills to receive marketing in 13 years as pressure mounts on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve obesity treatments for some two-thirds of Americans who are considered overweight or obese.

Vivus recorded $ 41,000 in Qsymia sales since its launch on September 17 through the end of the month. Analysts on average had expected about $ 310,000, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company’s chief commercial officer Mike Miller flagged concerns over the drug’s lack of insurance coverage and said “about 30 percent of patients chose not to fill after receiving a (Qsymia) prescription due to cash outlay.”

“The average retail price for the patient for 30 days or the recommended dose is approximately $ 160,” Miller said on a post-earnings call.

“Currently, we are seeing one out of five (patients) being covered by third-party insurance with an average co-pay of $ 62.”

Robert Hazlett of Roth Capital Partners, who maintained his “neutral” rating on the stock, said reimbursement was an obstacle, but given that the company is in the very early stages of selling the drug, it can overcome these hurdles over time.

A total of 656 Qsymia prescriptions were shipped from certified network pharmacies in September. That number rose to 5,560 through the week of October 26.

Cowen & Co analyst Simos Simeonidis also said insurers will slowly start reimbursing obesity drugs over the next few months, following the example set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which has started reimbursing weight-loss counseling.

“We continue to believe that in order for Qsymia to become a blockbuster, Vivus needs the help of a big pharma partner,” Simeonidis said in a note to clients, highlighting the importance of a large sales force.

Vivus’s shares saw much investor love during the period leading up to Qsymia approval in July, but have slid 30 percent since European health regulators rejected the drug in October, citing the potential for heart risks and birth defects related to its long-term use.

The company plans to appeal the decision and expects a fresh verdict in the first half of 2013.

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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If Obama wins, will he finally tell us his second-term agenda?

By Walter Shapiro

LIMA, Ohio—Speaking at a rally here last Friday afternoon, Barack Obama stressed his old-shoe familiarity: “After four years as president, you know me.” That’s a standard stump speech line, but the more than 3,000 Democrats in local high-school gym burst into cheers, brimming with confidence that they knew the Real Obama.

But does anyone outside his family and the inner sanctum of the White House staff really know Obama—or have a clear handle on what he would do with a second term? This question is not designed to feed any off-the-wall conspiracy theories about a secret second-term agenda. Rather, it’s designed to underscore the perception that Obama remains more opaque than most presidents.

During his speech in this blue-collar pocket of Ohio, the shirt-sleeved Obama waxed populist as he decried the way that the voices of the American people have “been shut out of our democracy for way too long by the lobbyists and the special interests.”

Referring to this us-versus-them rhetoric after the speech, a reporter friend, traveling with the president’s press corps, said, “That’s the real Obama.” But was it? Or was this just a president in a tight race harking back to the citizens-versus-lobbyists language that propelled him into the White House?

In his speeches, including the one in Lima, Obama talks about his second-term vision as he says, “I want to recruit 100,000 math and science teachers. I want to train two-million Americans at our community colleges.” Obama echoes this theme in a 60-second closing argument commercial heavily broadcast on Ohio television. In the ad, Obama implies that the money could come “from ending the war in Afghanistan so we can do some nation-building here at home.”

But there’s a major roadblock: The odds are very high that the Republicans will retain control of the House, even if Obama is reelected.

If that occurs, the Tea Party naysayers of 2010 almost certainly would feel emboldened by their personal electoral successes—and become even more obstinate in their resistance to new domestic spending. With the “fiscal cliff” end-of-the-year budget negotiations looming, a reelected President Obama will be hard-pressed to maintain even the current levels of educational spending let alone create new programs.

It’s politically telling that the president never mentions health care in his final TV ad and only flicked at the topic in his stump speech in Lima. But with the Democrats likely to hold the Senate, the reelection of Obama would all but guarantee that his signature domestic achievement will be fully implemented. As a result, tens of millions of Americans would never have to agonize about health insurance coverage again.

Reelected presidents, stymied by Congress, often turn their full attention to foreign affairs. While this single-mindedness can lead to unexpected breakthroughs (Richard Nixon and China), often it ends in the kind of frustration that Bill Clinton experienced over his failure to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement at Camp David in the waning days of his presidency.

The most likely flashpoint for the next president (whether Obama or Mitt Romney) is, of course, Iran. All occupants of the Oval Office and all who aspire to that job have unequivocally declared that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable.

But what would that mean, in practice, in an Obama second term? Any temptation to categorize the president as a peacenik has to be squared against Obama’s enormous expansion of drone attacks against suspected terrorists. Even without a hawkish, even by Israeli standards, government in Jerusalem, the precise American response to a nuclear Iran would be hard for foreign-policy experts to game out in advance. For ordinary voters to do so at the frenzied end of a presidential campaign is well nigh impossible.

Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect a president running for reelection to be overly specific about his plans for a second term. Bill Clinton campaigned in 1996 on little more than the vague promise to build “a bridge to the 21st century.” And George W. Bush gave voters—and his fellow Republicans in Congress—little warning in 2004 that he intended to attempt to privatize Social Security in 2005.

Still, if Obama prevails on Tuesday (or survives a long count that stretches into Wednesday and beyond), I would be eager to read what he says in his post-election interviews. After a stealth reelection campaign, that might be the moment when we finally learn if Obama has fresh ideas for curbing the reign of special interest in Washington. Or how the soon-to-be two-term president intends to bridge the inevitably bitter stalemate in Congress.

In the end, it comes down to the elusive qualities of trust and character. Americans have had four years to make their own judgment about President Barack Obama. So, in fact, maybe we do know him as well as we ever will. Not as a friend or (in that awful cliché) a guy to have a beer with. But as a leader, who has sometimes stumbled but has mostly prevailed during four of the most arduous economic years in American history.

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