Mission Impossible?: Can Tom Cruise Launch a Box-Office Franchise with ‘Jack Reacher’?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Paramount hopes it’s launching a franchise with “Jack Reacher,” the Tom Cruise action thriller that hits theaters Friday.

It will be tricky in a crowded holiday marketplace, and Cruise isn’t the box-office bonanza he once was. But one need only look back to last year’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” to see how it might work. That film opened to $ 12 million on December 16 and went on to make $ 209 million and nearly $ 700 million worldwide for Paramount.

“Jack Reacher” will be in about 3,200 theaters, and it will have plenty of competition. Universal’s Judd Apatow comedy “This Is 40″ opens wide Friday, and Paramount‘s ‘Guilt Trip” and Disney’s 3D re-release of “Monsters Inc.” opened Wednesday.

A slew of limited releases, led by Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” along with this year’s winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes “Amour,” and tsunami survival tale “The Impossible” are also competing for moviegoers’ attention, along with a number of holdover hits.

No movie, though, will come close to catching reigning box-office champ “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” which remains in more than 4,000 theaters. Peter Jackson’s latest Middle-earth epic will take in north of $ 40 million, industry analysts say, with “Jack Reacher” and “This Is 40″ battling for second with less than half of that.

Warner Bros.’ “Hobbit” has rolled to $ 106 million in the U.S. since opening to $ 85 million last weekend. Its international total – $ 188 million as of Thursday – is even bigger.

In “Jack Reacher,” Cruise plays an ex-military investigator; the film is based on bestselling author Lee Child’s novel “One Shot” and written for the screen and directed by Christopher McQuarrie. It’s from David Ellison’s Paramount-based Skydance Productions and was produced for about $ 60 million by Cruise, Don Granger, Paula Wagner and Gary Levinsohn.

Robert Duvall and Richard Jenkins co-star in the PG-13 crime thriller, which has a 53 percent positive rating at Movie Review Intelligence.

No is expecting “Jack Reacher” to match “MI:4″ at the box office. The Reacher novels have a following, but nowhere near that of the “Mission Impossible” franchise. Cruise’s recent box-office record has been uneven, and the film’s Facebook and Twitter activity is not particularly strong.

“Jack Reacher” could wind up playing more like Cruise’s “Knight and Day,” which opened to $ 20 million and went on to make $ 76 million for Fox in 2010, or “Valkyrie,” which did $ 83 million in 2008 after opening to $ 21 million. Cruise was critically lauded for his foray earlier this year as an aging rock icon in the musical “Rock of Ages,” but that was one of the year’s bigger box-office duds.

“Jack Reacher” should play strongly with action fans, but Cruise’s personal problems could limit its broader appeal.

“I can’t imagine his divorce from Katie Holmes and the custody battle hasn’t hurt him some with women,” BoxOffice.com vice president and chief analyst Phil Contrino told TheWrap Thursday. “Actions fans will come out, but going beyond that demographic is going to be tough for him.”

On the other hand, Universal says that it tracking suggests “This Is 40″ will do quite well with women — and women over 25 in particular.

“This Is 40,” is, as the marketing campaign points out, a “sort of sequel” to Apatow’s “Knocked Up,” which opened to $ 30 million and went on to make nearly $ 150 million five years ago. Like “This Is 40,” that one was written and directed by Apatow and starred Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.

“40″ is the fourth film Apatow has directed, all for Universal (“Funny People” and “40-Year-Old Virgin” are the other two). The ensemble cast also features Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, Chris O’Dowd, Jason Segel, Melissa McCarthy and Lena Dunham.

It’s R-rated and has a 62 percent positive rating at Movie Review Intelligence. The production budget was $ 35 million.

“This looks like the strongest comedy of the season,” Jeff Bock, senior analyst at Exhibitor Relations told TheWrap, “but it’s still a bit of a wild card. It’s going to connect with the New York and L.A. crowds; the key will be whether the Heartland audiences embrace it or see it as a little too hip. It will take time to tell, because of the season.”

Films released at this time of year tend to open lower because the marketplace is so crowded – by Friday, 11 new films will have hit opened this week – and the fact that many potential moviegoers are districted by shopping and other holiday preps. On the other hand, they often show lasting power and make up what they don’t take in on the weekend with stronger showings on the weekdays.

“Things could well come in lower than people are expecting across the board this weekend,” Bock said, “but look for many of these movies to make it up over the holidays.”

Summit will be looking for that kind of slow build on “The Impossible,” the English-language film from Spain based on a true story about a family’s fight to survive the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, who received a Best Actress nomination from SAG recently, star.

Summit is releasing it Friday in 15 theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Toronto. The plan is to go nationwide early next year.

“The Impossible” already has taken in $ 52 million in Spain, the home of the real-life couple upon whom the story is based as well as director Juan Antonio Bayona (“The Orphanage”) and screenwriter Sergio Sanchez.

Other limited rollouts set for Friday include Paramount‘s 3D concert film “Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away,” in 800 theaters; “On the Road,” IFC Films’ adaptation of the Jack Kerouac’s beat generation novel, in four theaters; and “Not Fade Away,” the Paramount Vantage tale of a group of 1960 New Jersey friends launching a rock band, written and directed by “Sopranos” creator David Chase, in three locations.

Sony’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden, got off to a terrific start Wednesday. It racked up $ 124,848 from five theaters in its first day of release. That’s an average of $ 24,969, making it one of the biggest limited mid-week openings in history.

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Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis: Introducing a Specialized Center Treating Pelvic Pain, Painful Intercourse, and Painful Menstrual Periods in Oakland County, MI

Endometriosis is a painful, sometimes disabling disease that attacks a woman’s reproductive tract and other pelvic organs and can ultimately lead to infertility and chronic pelvic pain (CPP). Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is a one-of-a-kind, specialty center for woman suffering with the disease and its painful sequelae.

Oakland County, MI (PRWEB) December 20, 2012

Women with chronic pelvic pain (CPP) may likely have a condition called “Endometriosis.” Endometriosis is a disease affecting the female reproductive tract in which the endometrial lining of the uterus spreads into the pelvic cavity, implanting itself on the pelvic structures, causing inflammation and pain. Symptoms of endometriosis include painful menstrual periods (dysmenorrhea) which cannot be relieved with typical over-the-counter pain medications such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen, irregular periods, pelvic pain, painful sexual intercourse, and/or difficulty conceiving a pregnancy. Untreated, endometriosis can lead to chronic pelvic pain (CPP), infertility, and disability in women.

Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is a specialty center designed to treat women with this chronic condition in a multidisciplinary fashion. Dr. Jonathan Zaidan has established himself as an expert in diagnosing and treating endometriosis. Dr. Zaidan is trained and credentialed in minimally invasive robotic surgery to treat endometriosis. Working primarily out of McLaren Oakland hospital in Pontiac, MI, Dr. Zaidan can remove most and sometimes all disease through this procedure. According to Dr. Zaidan, “Robotic resection of endometriosis is the most advanced treatment for the disease and can even provide a surgical cure for some individuals. The procedure is minimally invasive, which means no large incisions, patient goes home the same day in most cases, and recovery is much easier and faster”.

Endometriosis can only be definitively diagnosed with laparoscopy, which is a minimally invasive surgical procedure that allows the surgeon to view the pelvic cavity with a small scope and visualize the disease. “Once diagnosis has been confirmed, in most cases we start the patient on a six-month regimen of Lupron or Zoladex therapy. A monthly dose of either of these medications halts the production of estrogen and puts the patient into a temporary medical menopause, which gives the body’s natural immune system a chance clear as much of the endometriosis as possible, before going back into surgery for the robotic resection”, states Debbie Henry, NP-C, nurse practitioner at Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis. “We have found this protocol to be highly successful for most patients, especially since endometriosis appears to be an estrogen dependent disease”, adds Henry. After the robotic resection of endometriosis, hormonal suppression of estrogen is prescribed, usually in the form of a birth control option such as Depo Provera or a combined oral contraceptive pill (COCPS), in order to retard a resurgence of the disease.

“Women with endometriosis are dealing with a chronic illness and need specialized care. We just felt that we could not give these patients adequate time and the quality of care that they really needed in a busy OB/GYN setting, sandwiched between routine OB visits and annual exams”, states Zaidan. “We provide an inviting, calming atmosphere here at Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis; these patients are dealing with a stressful, chronic condition and the last thing they need is a long wait or a quick visit. We are able to provide longer patient visits at this center. Our patients really become like family to us”, Henry offered.

For women who are knowingly dealing with endometriosis or dealing with chronic symptoms that could likely be endometriosis, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis offers a comprehensive, specialized treatment with a compassionate touch. From the reception staff, to the medical assistants, to the providers, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis’ mission is to provide timely, evidenced-based care, in a compassionate way. “We have helped hundreds of patients are we are eager to help hundreds more”, concludes Henry.

Founded by Dr. Jonathan Zaidan, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is a comprehensive center for women that have either been diagnosed with endometriosis or have the symptoms of endometriosis. Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis utilizes the latest and best treatment protocols to effectively treat the symptoms and sequelae of endometriosis. Whether a woman has known endometriosis or seeking a diagnosis for symptoms of painful sexual intercourse, painful periods, chronic pelvic pain or irregular bleeding, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is designed to diagnose, treat and improve the symptoms of endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain (CPP). Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis treats all women with these symptoms including those women in the teenage years, women who are desiring to conceive a pregnancy, as well as women who are done childbearing. The knowledgeable, well trained, compassionate physicians and healthcare providers of Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis are now accepting new patients. Call for an appointment today (248) 693-1630 or visit http://www.centerofendometriosis.com.

Jonathan Zaidan, MD
Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis
248 693 1630
Email Information

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Worries grow in east Congo with fighter buildup

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Aid workers warned Wednesday that armed groups are setting up new front lines in and around the city of Goma in eastern Congo, where the U.N. said it now has documented at least 126 rape cases last month.

Thousands of fighters from the M23 rebel group withdrew several weeks ago from Goma, and the fighters have since taken steps toward negotiating with the Congolese government.

However, residents in Goma say M23 and other armed fighters are now positioning themselves in an around the city — including inside camps for people displaced by the violence.

The arrival of several thousand fighters within the last week is prompting fear among civilians, who already have experienced years of fighting and rebellions, said Tariq Riebl, Oxfam’s humanitarian coordinator there.

“They are very concerned — people are seeing this and they don’t know what it means,” he said. “I think what everyone is scared about is that it seems like people are ramping up, ramping up but for what purpose?”

Oxfam warns that more than 1 million people could come under attack if violence again flares in Goma, where more than 100,000 people already have fled from elsewhere in the region.

“Goma is typically the last refuge safe haven and now it’s being directly called into question. If Goma falls in a big battle, where are people going to go?” Riebl said.

“This is very, very disconcerting because you have a population of over 1 million people and if war were to break out, we’re looking at a horrific situation.”

The M23 rebel group, which is believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, is made up of hundreds of soldiers who deserted the Congolese army in April.

They took control of many villages and towns in the mineral-rich east over the last seven months, culminating in the seizure of Goma on Nov. 20. It took days of negotiations and intense international pressure, including from the U.N., for the thousands of fighters from M23 to finally withdraw from the regional capital.

The U.N. mission says it’s received allegations of serious rights violations, including killings and wounding of civilians, rape, looting, and forced recruitment of children, by elements of the M23 rebels in Goma and neighboring areas.

Congo’s armed forces are also blamed for a series of attacks as they fled Goma in retreat in late November.

The U.N. said Tuesday it now has been able to document at least 126 rapes during that period in the Minova area, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Goma.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said that two Congolese soldiers so far have been arrested in connection with the rapes, while seven others had been implicated in looting in the area.

“The Congolese Armed Forces have started investigating those human rights violations,” he said. “The U.N. Mission is supporting the military justice procedure in conducting thorough investigations into these allegations to ensure that the perpetrators are identified and held accountable.”

Rape has long been used as a brutal weapon of war in eastern Congo, where both soldiers and various armed groups use sexual violence to intimidate, punish and control the population.

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Worries grow in east Congo with fighter buildup

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Aid workers warned Wednesday that armed groups are setting up new front lines in and around the city of Goma in eastern Congo, where the U.N. said it now has documented at least 126 rape cases last month.

Thousands of fighters from the M23 rebel group withdrew several weeks ago from Goma, and the fighters have since taken steps toward negotiating with the Congolese government.

However, residents in Goma say M23 and other armed fighters are now positioning themselves in an around the city — including inside camps for people displaced by the violence.

The arrival of several thousand fighters within the last week is prompting fear among civilians, who already have experienced years of fighting and rebellions, said Tariq Riebl, Oxfam’s humanitarian coordinator there.

“They are very concerned — people are seeing this and they don’t know what it means,” he said. “I think what everyone is scared about is that it seems like people are ramping up, ramping up but for what purpose?”

Oxfam warns that more than 1 million people could come under attack if violence again flares in Goma, where more than 100,000 people already have fled from elsewhere in the region.

“Goma is typically the last refuge safe haven and now it’s being directly called into question. If Goma falls in a big battle, where are people going to go?” Riebl said.

“This is very, very disconcerting because you have a population of over 1 million people and if war were to break out, we’re looking at a horrific situation.”

The M23 rebel group, which is believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, is made up of hundreds of soldiers who deserted the Congolese army in April.

They took control of many villages and towns in the mineral-rich east over the last seven months, culminating in the seizure of Goma on Nov. 20. It took days of negotiations and intense international pressure, including from the U.N., for the thousands of fighters from M23 to finally withdraw from the regional capital.

The U.N. mission says it’s received allegations of serious rights violations, including killings and wounding of civilians, rape, looting, and forced recruitment of children, by elements of the M23 rebels in Goma and neighboring areas.

Congo’s armed forces are also blamed for a series of attacks as they fled Goma in retreat in late November.

The U.N. said Tuesday it now has been able to document at least 126 rapes during that period in the Minova area, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Goma.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said that two Congolese soldiers so far have been arrested in connection with the rapes, while seven others had been implicated in looting in the area.

“The Congolese Armed Forces have started investigating those human rights violations,” he said. “The U.N. Mission is supporting the military justice procedure in conducting thorough investigations into these allegations to ensure that the perpetrators are identified and held accountable.”

Rape has long been used as a brutal weapon of war in eastern Congo, where both soldiers and various armed groups use sexual violence to intimidate, punish and control the population.

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New Online Privacy Loophole Lets Facebook Advertise to Kids

Mark Zuckerberg‘s been eager to find a way to get more kids on Facebook for years, and on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission handed it to him on a platter. That might be overstating it a little bit. It’s more like the FTC served it to him on a platter covered in plastic wrap with a note attached that says “Do not open.” Nevertheless, should Facebook decided to see what’s inside, experts in online privacy for children say the social network could legally start peddling everything from kids’ bicycles to that new gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven.

RELATED: German Official Urges Citizens to Stop Using Facebook

After months of deliberating and plenty of lobbying on both sides of the issue, the FTC updated the controversial Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) this week. The changes were absolutely designed to better protect children in the privacy-invading era of social media, especially from the data-hungry advertisers who want to sell them things. Websites like Facebook don’t allow kids to sign up without their parents permission, generally because COPPA has prohibited them from collecting the kinds of information they need to serve them ads. And why would they want a user to whom they couldn’t serve ads? Under the new FTC rules, parental permission is required for just about anything a kid would do on Facebook, including uploading photos, videos and geolocational information. Tracking tools like cookies are also verboten without a parent’s permission.

RELATED: What Police Learn About You When They Subpoena Your Facebook Account

But there’s a loophole. The new rules say very plainly that no parental permission is needed “for the sole purpose of supporting the website or online service’s internal operations, such as contextual advertising, frequency capping, legal compliance, site analysis, and network communications.” The key phrase there is “contextual advertising,” which is an ad product Facebook has been working on for a while. Facebook’s version basically reads your News Feed and shows you ads that are relevant, or contextual, to what you’re reading. As a few people have pointed out, this opens a door for Facebook to start exploring the idea of ad-supported profiles for kids. Alan Simpson, the vice president of child privacy advocacy group Common Sense, isn’t happy about this idea. “Common Sense doesn’t like this part, and the industry lobbyists probably do,” he told TechCrunch Monday evening.

RELATED: What Facebook Does to Kids’ Brains

Now, there are a lot of ifs in this scenario. Based on the magnitude and sensitivity of the issue, Facebook probably doesn’t want to go scaring a bunch of parents by sneaking through loopholes to show their kids Easy Bake Oven ads. It has been nearly a decade and a half since COPPA got an update, though, and Mark Zuckerberg isn’t really known for his patience. Of course, Facebook could do what they’ve been doing for ages, which is look over their shoulder while kids lie about having permission and sign up anyways.

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Miss USA Olivia Culpo is crowned Miss Universe

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A 20-year-old Boston University sophomore and a self-described “cellist-nerd” brought the Miss Universe crown back to the United States for the first time in more than a decade when she won the televised contest Wednesday.

Olivia Culpo beat out 88 other beauty queens to take the title from Leila Lopes of Angola during the two-hour competition at the Planet Hollywood casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Culpo wore a tight navy blue mini-dress with a sequined bodice as she walked on stage for the competition’s opening number. Later in the night, she strutted in a purple and blue bikini, and donned a wintery red velvet gown with a plunging neckline.

Culpo’s coronation ends a long losing spell for the U.S. in the competition co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC. An American had not won the right to be called Miss Universe since Brook Lee won the title in 1997.

Culpo was good enough during preliminary competitions to be chosen as one of 16 semifinalists who moved on to compete in the pageant’s finale. Her bid lasted through swimsuit, evening wear, and interview competitions that saw cuts after each round.

She won over the judges, even after tripping slightly during the evening gown competition. Telecasters pointed it out but also noted her poised recovery.

Minutes before the middle child of five was crowned, she was asked whether she had she had ever done something she regretted.

“I’d like to start off by saying that every experience no matter what it is, good or bad, you’ll learn from it. That’s just life,” she said. “But something I’ve done I’ve regretted is probably picking on my siblings growing up, because you appreciate them so much more as you grow older.”

Miss Philippines, Janine Tugonon, came in second, while Miss Venezuela, Irene Sofia Esser Quintero, placed third.

All the contestants spent the past two weeks in Sin City, where they posed in hardhats at a hotel groundbreaking, took a painting lesson, and pranked hotel guests by hiding in their rooms.

Culpo was the first Miss USA winner from Rhode Island when she took the national crown in Las Vegas in June.

She grew up in Cranston with two professional musicians for parents and has played the cello alongside world-renowned classical musician Yo-Yo Ma. On her Miss Universe page, she said she hopes to pursue a career in film or television, and cites Audrey Hepburn as a role model because of her “generosity, intelligence and grace.”

With Culpo’s promotion, Miss Maryland Nana Meriwether becomes the new Miss USA.

The Miss Universe pageant was back in Las Vegas this year after being held in Sao Paulo in 2011. It aired live on NBC and was streamed to more than 100 countries.

Organizers had considered holding the 61st annual Miss Universe in the popular Dominican Republic tourist city of Punta Cana, but Miss Universe Organization President Paula Shugart said that country’s financial crisis proved to be too much of an obstacle.

The panel of 10 judges included singer Cee Lo Green, “Iron Chef” star Masaharu Morimoto and Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants.

Asked on the red carpet whether he found playing in the World Series or judging the beauty pageant to be more difficult, Sandoval said both were hard.

Sharply dressed women and men, including a large contingent from South America, held banners and cheered on their favorite contestants.

The pageant started as a local revue in Long Beach, Calif., organized by Catalina Swimwear. It is not affiliated with the Miss America pageant and unlike that contest, does not include a talent section.

Contestants in the pageant cannot have been married or have children. They must be younger than 27 and older than 18 by Feb. 1 of the competition year.

As Miss Universe, Culpo will receive an undisclosed salary, a wardrobe fit for a queen, a limitless supply of beauty products, and a luxury apartment in New York City.

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HIV cases decline for black women, increase for gay men: CDC

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Fewer black women in the United States are being infected with HIV, but the number of young gay and bisexual men infected is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

Between 2008 and 2010, the number of newly infected black women dropped 21 percent, according to the CDC report. Yet despite the decline, they still accounted for 70 percent of all new HIV cases among women, the federal health agency said.

The rate of new infections for black women was 20 times higher than the rate for white women, the CDC said.

The number of new infections among young gay and bisexual men increased by 22 percent during that same two-year period, the CDC said.

The number of new HIV infections diagnosed annually in the overall U.S. population remained unchanged between 2008 and 2010 at about 47,500, according to health officials.

Public information campaigns on HIV prevention and testing seem to be working in lowering the number of new infections among African-American women, said Joseph Prejean, chief of the Behavioral and Clinical Surveillance Branch in the CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS Prevention in Atlanta.

“We are encouraged to see some declines among African-American women,” Prejean told Reuters. “They’ve been one of the most severely affected populations. We’re cautiously optimistic that this could be part of a longer-term trend.”

Among young gay and bisexual men, efforts to fight HIV have not been as effective, possibly because of advances in treatment for AIDS, the immune disorder caused by HIV, Prejean said.

“We do realize that many men who have sex with men do probably underestimate their personal risk and believe that treatment advances minimize the health threat,” Prejean said.

Even though treatment can prolong the life of an AIDS patient, Prejean cautioned that “their life really does change. They then begin to take medication and will take medication for the rest of their lives,” he said.

HIV is an incurable infection that costs $ 400,000 to treat over a lifetime, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said last month after another government report showed more than half of young Americans infected with HIV were not aware they had it.

Young people ages 13 to 24 account for 26 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States, the earlier CDC report said.

The report released on Wednesday said nearly two-thirds of new HIV infections in 2010 resulted from men having sex with other men. Young black men who have sex with men account for more new infections than any other subgroup, government health officials said.

“Because gay men account for 66 percent of all new infections, we must increase the focus of our prevention programs for gay men, particularly young and black gay men,” said Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Dan Grebler)

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UBS traders charged, bank fined $1.5 billion in Libor scandal

ZURICH/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors charged two former UBS traders on with taking part in a multi-year scheme to manipulate Libor and other benchmark interest rates, making them the first individuals to be criminally accused in the international scandal.

The charges against the two traders, Tom Hayes and Roger Darin, resulted from a broad investigation into the activities of more than a dozen banks in the setting of prices for Libor and related rates.

A day after UBS agreed to pay $ 1.5 billion to regulators in the United States, UK and Switzerland, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said the bank was being probed over its submissions of interbank rates there, raising the risk it could face more fines.

In settling with U.S., UK and Swiss authorities, UBS not only paid one of the largest fines ever imposed on a bank, its Japanese subsidiary pleaded guilty to one U.S. criminal count of fraud relating to manipulation of benchmark rates, including the yen Libor.

The Japanese subsidiary is where authorities allege much of the manipulation of interest rates occurred, as employees of the bank looked to profit on derivatives trades linked to the rates.

The bank could have more trouble in store in Asia. HKMA, Hong Kong‘s de facto central bank, said in a statement early Thursday in Asia that it had received information from overseas regulatory authorities about possible misconduct by UBS involving submissions for the Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate (Hibor) and other reference rates in the region.

UBS is the second large international bank to reach a settlement with U.S. and UK authorities, and other settlements are expected to follow in the next few months. In June Barclays Plc agreed to pay $ 453 million in fines to settle allegations its employees attempted to manipulate Libor rates.

The investigation and it findings – that attempts to manipulate Libor were fairly widespread in the banking industry – have cast doubts on the reliability of Libor as a benchmark for setting interest rates. The probe has also raised questions about why bank regulators were slow to uncover the manipulation, which Reuters previously reported dated back to at least the late 1990s.

“The bank’s conduct was simply astonishing,” Lanny Breuer, who heads the U.S. Justice Department‘s criminal division, said in announcing the settlement.

“Make no mistake – for UBS traders, the manipulation of Libor was about getting rich.”

While the bank will hope that the $ 1.5 billion settlement with regulators in the U.S., UK and Switzerland will draw a line under its penalties for its role in Libor manipulation, it remains at risk of action from regulators elsewhere for possible rate rigging.

As well as Hong Kong, there is an ongoing investigation in Singapore into the possible manipulation of benchmark lending and foreign exchange rates.

“We continue to work closely with various regulatory authorities to resolve issues relating to the setting of certain global benchmark interest rates. As we are currently in active discussions with these authorities, we cannot comment further,” said a spokesman for UBS in Hong Kong.

CRIMINAL CHARGES

The Justice Department charged Hayes and Darin with conspiracy, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. district court in Manhattan on Wednesday. Hayes was also charged with wire fraud and an antitrust violation.

U.S. and UK investigators portrayed Hayes as a ringleader of sorts for UBS’ manipulation of rates.

The two men are both believed to be in Europe, according to a U.S. official. Last week, British police arrested Hayes and two other men in connection with the Libor probe. The two others were Terry Farr and James Gilmour, both of whom worked at interdealer broker RP Martin.

The $ 1.5 billion UBS penalty is the second largest ever imposed on a bank, exceeded only by the $ 1.9 billion that HSBC agreed to pay to settle U.S. charges in connection with the laundering of drug cartel money.

“We deeply regret this inappropriate and unethical behavior. No amount of profit is more important than the reputation of this firm,” said UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti.

The criminal complaint against Hayes and Darin also detailed how some former UBS employees are cooperating in the probe, in exchange for a promise that they won’t be prosecuted.

The cooperation agreements forged in the UBS case could prove useful to U.S. and UK authorities as they move against other individuals and other big banks.

U.S. prosecutors, for instance, are continuing to investigate the activities of a number of former Barclays derivatives traders based in New York who were dismissed from the bank following an internal investigation into Libor manipulation. So far, none of those former Barclays employees in the United States have been charged with wrongdoing.

Libor and related benchmarks are used to set interest rates for trillions of dollars worth of loans around the world, ranging from home loans to credit cards to complex derivatives.

Authorities said traders could benefit on their derivatives positions by nudging the prices for Libor up just small amounts, as over time the payoffs added up. Already a number of civil lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. by institutional investors claiming they were harmed on trades because of the interest rate rigging.

‘NORMAL BUSINESS PRACTICE’

In legal filings, Britain’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) said UBS staff made “corrupt” payments to reward brokers for helping to manipulate rates – expanding the scandal to include bribery.

It said attempts to manipulate Libor and Euribor, its European equivalent, were so widespread that every submission UBS made over a six-year period from 2005 to 2010 was suspect.

At least 45 people at UBS were involved in the rigging, which was discussed in internal chat forums and group emails but never detected by compliance staff, despite five audits.

The FSA said a wide pool of people within UBS considered the manipulation to be a “normal business practice.”

In addition to traders trying to move the Libor rate up or down to make money for themselves, senior managers at the Swiss bank directed dealers to keep Libor submissions low during the financial crisis to make the bank look stronger.

Documents filed by the FSA did not reveal the names of individual participants, but a source familiar with the matter identified Hayes as the FSA’s “Trader A,” who the regulator said “embarked on a coordinated campaign” to influence the yen Libor rate.

In 2006 Hayes told a junior submitter at UBS that he “generally coordinate” with Darin and “skew the libors a bit.”

In early 2007, Darin trained another junior submitter and told him the primary consideration for UBS’s yen Libor submissions was the requests from Hayes and other UBS traders.

The extent of the wrongdoing was highlighted in a series of emails released by the FSA. The exchanges may indicate how traders and brokers conspired to rig the rate while adopting nicknames such as “Captain Caos,” (sic) and calling each other “superman,” “hero” or “the three muscateers (sic).”

In one email, Trader A (Hayes) wrote to a broker, urging him to keep the six-month yen Libor rate unchanged on the day.

Traders paid brokers as much as 15,000 pounds ($ 24,000) a quarter for their help in rigging the rates.

It is the first time that brokers have been accused of taking bribes to aid the manipulation. ICAP, the world’s largest interdealer broker, and rival RP Martin have suspended employees in connection with the probe.

Until the rate-rigging scandal broke, Libor had been ignored by regulators and left to the banks to police. From next year, Britain’s FSA will oversee it as part of a major overhaul.

The steep fine for UBS comes even as the bank has cooperated with law-enforcement agencies. The bank said it received conditional immunity from some regulators.

The investigation into UBS’s trading shows that the manipulation of the benchmark rates and illicit trading took place over a much longer time period than previously thought with the improper requests extending into June 2010, according to the UBS settlement with the Justice Department.

‘UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR’

UBS will pay $ 1.2 billion to the Justice Department and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 160 million pounds to the FSA, and 59 million Swiss francs from its estimated profit to Swiss regulator Finma.

The UK penalty is the largest in the history of the FSA and more than double the 59 million pounds paid by Barclays.

UBS said the fines would widen its fourth-quarter net loss but that it would not need to raise new capital.

UBS shares fell 0.3 percent in trading on Wednesday after earlier hitting a 17-month high.

The reputational impact of the controversy may only emerge next year.

“The only thing shareholders can do is keep a very close eye on the money flows on the wealth management side,” said Neil Wilkinson, portfolio manager at Royal London Asset Management. ($ 1 = 0.9133 Swiss francs)

(Additional reporting by the Zurich bureau and London bureau and Carrick Mollenkamp in New York, Aruna Viswanatha in Washington,Vikram Subhedar in Hong Kong and Rachel Armstrong in SINGAPORE; writing by Carmel Crimmins, Alex Smith and Michael Erman; Editing by Anna Willard, Janet McBride, Jeffrey Benkoe, Matthew Goldstein and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said Tuesday he and members of his network crew escaped unharmed after five days of captivity in Syria, where more than a dozen pro-regime gunmen dragged them from their car, killed one of their rebel escorts and subjected them to mock executions.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, an unshaven Engel said he and his team escaped during a firefight Monday night between their captors and rebels at a checkpoint. They crossed into Turkey on Tuesday.

NBC did not say how many people were kidnapped with Engel, although two other men, producer Ghazi Balkiz and photographer John Kooistra, appeared with him on the “Today” show. It was not confirmed whether everyone was accounted for.

Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.

“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said the 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.

“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group, but he did not elaborate.

There was no mention of the kidnapping by Syria’s state-run news agency.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, who used military force to crush mostly peaceful protests against his regime. The crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has become a civil war.

Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.

“They captured us in order to carry out this exchange,” he said.

Engel and his crew entered Syria on Thursday and were driving through what they thought was rebel-controlled territory when “a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road.”

“There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car,” he said.

He said the gunmen shot and killed at least one of their rebel escorts on the spot and took the hostages into a waiting truck nearby.

Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.

“And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn’t expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan,” he said. “The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them.”

Engel and his crew crossed back into neighboring Turkey on Tuesday.

The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.

NBC sought to keep the disappearance of Engel and the crew secret for several days while it investigated what happened to them. Major media organizations, including The Associated Press, adhered to a request from the network to refrain from reporting on the issue out of concern it could make the dangers to the captives worse. News of the disappearance did begin to leak out in Turkish media and on some websites on Monday.

Syria has become a danger zone for reporters since the conflict began.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is by far the deadliest country for the press in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces.

Among the journalists killed while covering Syria are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain’s Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers and travel with rebel escorts or drivers.

Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria
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NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said Tuesday he and members of his network crew escaped unharmed after five days of captivity in Syria, where more than a dozen pro-regime gunmen dragged them from their car, killed one of their rebel escorts and subjected them to mock executions.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, an unshaven Engel said he and his team escaped during a firefight Monday night between their captors and rebels at a checkpoint. They crossed into Turkey on Tuesday.

NBC did not say how many people were kidnapped with Engel, although two other men, producer Ghazi Balkiz and photographer John Kooistra, appeared with him on the “Today” show. It was not confirmed whether everyone was accounted for.

Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.

“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said the 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.

“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group, but he did not elaborate.

There was no mention of the kidnapping by Syria’s state-run news agency.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, who used military force to crush mostly peaceful protests against his regime. The crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has become a civil war.

Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.

“They captured us in order to carry out this exchange,” he said.

Engel and his crew entered Syria on Thursday and were driving through what they thought was rebel-controlled territory when “a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road.”

“There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car,” he said.

He said the gunmen shot and killed at least one of their rebel escorts on the spot and took the hostages into a waiting truck nearby.

Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.

“And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn’t expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan,” he said. “The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them.”

Engel and his crew crossed back into neighboring Turkey on Tuesday.

The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.

NBC sought to keep the disappearance of Engel and the crew secret for several days while it investigated what happened to them. Major media organizations, including The Associated Press, adhered to a request from the network to refrain from reporting on the issue out of concern it could make the dangers to the captives worse. News of the disappearance did begin to leak out in Turkish media and on some websites on Monday.

Syria has become a danger zone for reporters since the conflict began.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is by far the deadliest country for the press in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces.

Among the journalists killed while covering Syria are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain’s Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.

The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers and travel with rebel escorts or drivers.

Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria
Rating:
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5 user reviews.
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