RBS ditches investment bank in fresh jobs cull (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Royal Bank of Scotland abandoned ambitions to be a top global investment bank and said it would cut another 4,450 jobs as it bows to pressure from the UK government to shut down risky operations and prepare for tougher international regulations.

Britain owns 83 percent of Britain's fifth biggest bank after pumping in 46 billion pounds to keep it from going under during the financial crisis and the country's taxpayers are currently sitting on a 24 billion pound loss.

The government has demanded that RBS shrink its investment bank further, despite the bank already halving that part of its business over the last three years.

RBS will now stop trading shares and advising companies on takeovers, both loss-making businesses, in arguably the starkest retreat by a big investment bank as the financial crisis and tough new rules hit profits across the industry.

RBS said it is cutting 3,500 jobs in its investment bank and will exit cash equities, corporate broking, equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions businesses. The cuts come on top of 2,000 at the investment bank in the second half of 2011 and account for more than a quarter of the unit's staff.

In total the bank has cut 34,000 jobs since Chief Executive Stephen Hester was brought in to turn the bank around when it was bailed out in 2008. The Unite trade union said that 22,000 of those jobs were in the UK alone.

RBS aims to cut the balance sheet of its former global banking and markets business by 120 billion pounds ($184 billion) to 300 billion in the next three years.

Its plan equates to shedding 75 billion pounds in risk-weighted assets and is being mirrored by other banks attempting to become leaner and more focused.

But RBS now faces strong criticism that the cost of the latest overhaul is being borne by the lower ranks of its staff, while Hester and the head of the investment banking operations John Hourican could be in line for multi-million bonus payouts.

"Enough is enough. It is a disgrace that while on a daily basis stories are emerging about the massive bonuses at the top of the bank, increasing numbers of jobs are being cut from amongst the hard-working staff," said David Fleming, Unite union national officer.

CEO Hester said in a memo to staff seen by Reuters: "This is a part of business I hate; making decisions that adversely affect people. But I truly believe that the best result for the most people can only lie in us making RBS a business success, sustainable for the long-term."

He said without changes, profitability in the bank's wholesale business would be "at unacceptable levels".

RBS rose to become one of the world's biggest banks thanks to a string of takeovers and aggressive expansion. But it overstretched and was brought to its knees by the purchase of ABN Amro's investment bank in 2007.

Its new plan will leave its investment bank focused on its areas of strength: fixed income -- notably bond trading, debt capital raising, securitization, risk management and rates -- and foreign exchange.

SHARES RISE

RBS shares were up 8.6 percent at a two-month high of 23.7 pence by 1220 GMT, leading a 3.7 percent rise by the European bank sector.

"The closure of equities has been well flagged, what's more encouraging is the downsizing of the balance sheet. It's taking more risk out of the business, taking more capital dependency and wholesale funding requirements out," said Mike Trippitt, analyst at Oriel Securities.

RBS said it was adapting to "significant new pressures" in its wholesale banking business, and the changes would make it more conservatively funded, more focused on customers and better able to deliver stable returns.

Analysts at Mediobanca said the bank had been only a second-tier firm in equities and its retreat showed it was "the wrong size in an industry that increasingly appears to favor scale or niche players."

IRISH CULL

RBS separately said it was cutting 950 jobs at its troubled Irish business Ulster Bank to save costs. The losses represent a fifth of its Irish staff and mark a second round of cuts after 1,000 jobs went in 2009.

RBS bought Ulster in 2000 and expanded its Irish operations three years later through the acquisition of building society First Active. It lent aggressively during Ireland's ill-fated property boom and has been saddled with big losses on the loans, including impairments of 1.1 billion pounds in the first nine months of last year.

It said it was in discussions with a number of potential buyers for the businesses to be sold, which had income of about 220 million pounds in the nine months to the end of September, but are currently unprofitable.

Lazard is conducting the sale of the equities units, and Bank of China, Japan's Mizuho Financial and Britain's Oriel Securities are among those casting an eye on them.

Australia and New Zealand Banking group and Commonwealth Bank of Australia are considering bidding for parts of its Australian unit, two sources with knowledge of the issue said on Thursday.

RBS said it will reorganize its wholesale business into "markets" and "international banking", to be led by Hourican.

International banking will include the international parts of global transaction services (GTS), its stable and profitable payments business.

They will target a return on equity in the medium-term above the cost of capital, currently about 12 percent.

($1 = 0.6513 British pounds)

(Additional reporting by Lawrence White and Denny Thomas in Hong Kong and Narayanan Somasundaram in Sydney; Editing by Sophie Walker)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120112/bs_nm/us_rbs

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13 bodies found at gas station in western Mexico

Police in western Mexico have found 13 bodies at a gas station in the state of Michoacan.

Michoacan state prosecutors' spokesman Jonathan Arredondo says the bodies were dumped Monday near a convenience store on the gas station lot in the town of Zitacuaro.

Arredondo said threatening messages were found with the bodies, but he wouldn't comment on their content or give any other details.

Michoacan is home base to The Knights Templar cartel, a pseudo-religious gang specializing in methamphetamine production, drug smuggling, extortion and other crimes.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/09/2580806/13-bodies-found-at-gas-station.html

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NY judge drops Binladen Group as 9/11 defendant (AP)

NEW YORK ? A construction company founded by Osama bin Laden's father cannot be sued to recover money for survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks, a judge has ruled, because no evidence has emerged to show the company provided a "financial lifeline" to the terrorist leader after he was removed as a shareholder following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Judge George B. Daniels in Manhattan released a decision Wednesday dismissing the Saudi Binladen Group as a defendant in six lawsuits brought by more than 3,000 survivors of the attacks, relatives, victims' representatives and insurance carriers. They allege more than 200 defendants provided material support to terrorists.

The defendants include al-Qaida, its members and associates. The suit also names charities, banks, front organizations, terrorist organizations and financiers.

Lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit alleged that proceeds used to support terrorism came from a successor to a construction company founded by bin Laden's father that is now one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the Arab world.

It said the group maintained a close relationship to bin Laden leading up to the attacks and cited business activities by a now-defunct subsidiary and by an employee who worked from his North Carolina residence as evidence that a U.S. court should have jurisdiction.

It said the company provided "significant support to bin Laden before he was removed as a shareholder in 1993 with knowledge that he was targeting the United States" and continued to provide a "financial lifeline" to him afterwards.

The Feb. 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has claimed a role behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, who is serving life in prison after he was convicted in the 1993 bombing.

Another judge in 2005 allowed the lawsuits to proceed against the Saudi Binladen Group, saying lawyers needed to find out whether the company purposefully directed its activities against the United States. The cases were transferred to Daniels.

Daniels said the business activities of the subsidiary were irrelevant since it had closed by 2000 and other business activities by the group in the United States were sporadic or casual.

At the time of the attacks, the company "had no operations of any kind in the United States, had not undertaken any construction or engineering projects in the United States and had no office in the United States," the judge said.

He said no evidence had been produced to support claims by the plaintiffs that the Saudi Binladen Group maintained a financial lifeline to bin Laden or that discrepancies in the company's accounting suggest that a third party provided bin Laden with direct material support via Saudi Binladen Group funds.

Last year, a magistrate judge recommended that al-Qaida be assessed $9.3 billion for the damage done to properties and businesses in the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Qaida, the organization founded by bin Laden, never responded to the lawsuit and was found in default in 2006. The organization is blamed for orchestrating the attacks.

Bin Laden was killed last May in Pakistan during a raid by U.S. special operations forces.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120111/ap_on_re_us/us_sept11_lawsuits

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Plight of the Condors

Advances | More Science Cover Image: January 2012 Scientific American MagazineSee Inside

Once on the verge of extinction, North America's largest land birds have made a dramatic comeback. To ensure their continued survival, biologists are relying on high-tech gadgets and unusual interventions


California Condor Image: Konrad Wothe/Minden Pictures

The first California condors to enter the wild in five years took a few hesitant hops on a sandstone cliff, craned pinkish necks over the pre?c?ipice and tentatively tested their nine-foot-plus wings. Since that landmark launch in 1992, wildlife biologists have released nearly 200 condors that were born and raised in captivity, and they?ve prospered. The world population has rebounded from 22 in 1987 to 396 birds, with wild populations concentrated in Baja California, Arizona, and southern and central California. As these giant scavengers move to reoccupy their full seven-million-square-mile range, scientists are using state-of-the-art technology to guide the Pleistocene-period survivors toward full self-sustainability. They are counting on this and other unusual inventions, such as swapping infertile for fertile eggs, to ensure their full recovery.

From his office in Ventura, Calif., Jesse Grantham, coordinator of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?s condor recovery program, can track each free-flying California condor to within a few feet of its location. He and his colleagues have fitted every 17-pound-plus bird with a radio trans?mitter and a solar-powered GPS device that sends more than 1,000 daily locator points per bird a day. Too many waypoints in one place for too long signal that a bird is in trouble. Crews then trek through remote canyons to check on the sick or dead condor and run tests on it and the carrion it was eating. The GPS data also help scientists find breeding caves, where they verify the viability of each egg and even switch infertile eggs laid in the wild with fertile ones laid by captive birds.

Scientists are finding that condors face many of the same dangers that stalked the birds 25 years ago, with the main one being lead bullet fragments that lodge in the flesh of carrion. Some nine out of 10 con?dors have elevated lead levels, a problem that persists despite a ban on the use of lead bullets within condor habitat in California. Bottle caps, DDT, high-voltage power lines and the occasional shooting also con?tribute, which means the environment still presents ?all the mortality factors that nearly caused their extinction,? Grantham says.

Using condor telemetry records, however, scientists are removing whatever dangers they can. Near Big Sur, Calif., GPS tracking docu?mented a condor corridor from Anderson Peak to the Pacific Ocean in a canyon where Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) maintains a three-mile power line. After three condor electrocutions, flight data helped to convince PG&E to begin burying the power line in August. Else?where, scientists are working with solar- and wind-energy developers to avoid condor flight paths when they site projects. They have made headway on the lead issue, too, calling for extending the lead bullet ban and enforcing it more vigorously. ?

And there are more data to come. Plans include installing tiny digital devices to record condors? heart rate and wing-flapping intensity to learn how wind speed and direction affect their energy usage. By linking flight information to meteorological data, scientists are learning precisely how condors move across the landscape and what places are most important to protect, says Mike Wallace of the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conser?vation Research.

The $5-million-a-year condor recovery program has proved that California condors can be coaxed back into successfully reproducing and raising their young in the wild. Grantham and Wallace are opti?mistic that the telemetric information will help ensure that future populations become self-sufficient?if only something can be done about the lead.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=930d19fafa4b56776d4ffe63b87b3542

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Broncos 'wanted to fight' in OT win vs. Steelers

Thomas' 80-yard TD caps Denver's 29-23 win; Tebow accounts for 366 total yards

Image: Demaryius Thomas, Ryan MundyAP

Denver receiver Demaryius Thomas breaks away from Pittsburgh defensive back Ryan Mundy. Thomas' 80-yard touchdown was the game-winning score in a 29-23 win on Sunday.

By ARNIE STAPLETON

updated 8:10 p.m. ET Jan. 8, 2012

DENVER - One of the most storied NFL playoff teams ran into a rejuvenated Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos.

Sorry, Pittsburgh Steelers.

The magic is back.

Tebow connected with Demaryius Thomas on an electrifying 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime and the Broncos defeated the stunned Steelers 29-23 in the AFC wild-card game on Sunday. Wild doesn't begin to describe it. The play took 11 seconds and was the quickest ending to an overtime in NFL history.

Thomas hauled in a high play-action pass at the Denver 38, stiff-armed Ike Taylor and then outraced Ryan Mundy to the end zone. Tebow, who looked as startled as everyone else, chased down Thomas and knelt on one knee - a gesture known far and wide these days as Tebowing. Then he pounded a fist in triumph and took a victory lap.

"When I saw him scoring, first of all, I just thought, `Thank you, Lord,"' Tebow said. "Then, I was running pretty fast, chasing him - Like I can catch up to D.T! Then I just jumped into the stands, first time I've done that. That was fun. Then, got on a knee and thanked the Lord again and tried to celebrate with my teammates and the fans."

Prodded by John Elway to let the ball fly, Tebow acted as if the last three weeks never happened, lifting the Broncos to their first playoff win in six years.

Behind Tebow's 316 yards passing, the Broncos (9-8) are heading to New England for a second-round game against the top-seeded Patriots on Saturday night. And, unlike Elway, who lost his first postseason start - to the Steelers at home in 1984 - Tebow is 1-0 in the playoffs.

"We're just a fighting team. A lot of resilience," Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey said. "In any adverse situation, we'll find a way to get out of it. Everybody says we backed into the playoffs, we're in. We did something right along the way. We're in it. We won a game. Now, we've got to go try to win another one."

The Steelers (12-5) lost despite Ben Roethlisberger rallying injury-depleted Pittsburgh from a two-touchdown halftime deficit with 10 points in the final 10 minutes.

Pittsburgh called tails for the overtime coin toss, and it came up heads.

Tebow, who engineered five fourth-quarter comebacks and three OT wins in the regular season, wasted no time in finding Thomas to end the game. Mundy was playing in place of Ryan Clark, the Steelers' leading tackler who sat this one out because of a blood condition that's exacerbated at altitude.

Clark was one of several Steelers sidelined or injured. Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey was out, replaced by Doug Legursky, who had a bad snap right before halftime that moved Pittsburgh out of field goal range.

Thomas raced down the Broncos sideline, sending the crowd, including Elway, the Broncos executive vice president, into a frenzy at Sports Authority Field, which was rocking like the old Mile High Stadium back in the 1990s.

And Elway, the architect of so many those magical moments at the old place, jumped for joy on the field like he used to when he was the one throwing the winning pass.

The Patriots walloped the Broncos 41-23 last month, sending Tebow into a funk that included seven turnovers and a 40 percent completion clip - and prompting Elway to implore him to "pull the trigger" in the playoffs.

Did he ever.

Tebow completed 10 of 21 passes but Thomas hauled in four of them for 204 yards after his top target, Eric Decker, was lost to a left knee injury on the first play of the second quarter when he was hit by linebacker James Harrison.

Tebow also ran 10 times for 50 yards.

"I think we executed a little bit better. We tried to step up," Tebow said. "We knew it was win or go home. This team wanted to fight. We wanted to play another game."

These two teams had played the first ever regular season overtime game on Sept. 22, 1974, in Denver. Now, they played the first non-sudden death playoff game in history. The new rules called for both teams to get the ball in the extra period providing there wasn't a touchdown by either the offense or defense.

Tebow took care of that in a hurry.

Making his first appearance in the playoffs after going 7-4 as Denver's starter, Tebow outdueled Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner who fell to 10-4 in the playoffs.

The Broncos snapped a three-game losing streak that had many wondering if they were even worthy of their first playoff in six seasons, and it kept the Steelers from their 34th playoff win, which would have broken a tie with the Cowboys for the most ever.

Tebow led Denver to 20 second-quarter points - they had scored just 13 in the quarter in his 11 starts - but a 20-6 halftime lead didn't last long.


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Divisional round now a fan's dream

??Rosenthal: Heavyweight matchups, dynamite offenses and great storylines -- including more of that Tim Tebow -- make for a fantastic divisional round.

Broncos 'wanted to fight' in OT win vs. Steelers

Tim Tebow connected with Demaryius Thomas on an electrifying 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime and the Broncos defeated the stunned Steelers 29-23 in the AFC wild-card game on Sunday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45921316/ns/sports-nfl/

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Argentinine President Cristina Fernandez 'Did Not Have Cancer'

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in December. She has now been given the all-clear. (REUTERS)

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in December. She has now been given the all-clear. (Reuters)

New tests have revealed that Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner did not have cancer after all, despite undergoing surgery to remove her thyroid gland, a presidential spokesman has revealed.

Fernandez, 58, underwent an operation last week after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in December.

"Tissue studies ruled out the presence of cancerous cells in the thyroid, thus modifying the initial diagnosis," presidential spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro said at the weekend.

The news was warmly received by supporters, who had been holding a vigil outside Austral University Hospital in Pilar.

Scoccimarro added that the president was grateful to the medical team who treated her at the hospital, as well as for all the support that she received from the public.

"Now from Olivos, we thank all the people, citizens, activists and personalities, for the signs of affection and concern,"? Fernandez tweeted from the presidential residence, where she is due to remain on leave until 24 January.

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Fernandez was re-elected with a landslide 54 percent of the vote in October.

While she was suspected of having a papillary thyroid carcinoma, doctors said it can be difficult to make a definitive diagnosis without removing the thyroid gland in its entirety.

It will no longer be necessary to her to take radioactive iodine, as is customary for thyroid cancer patients after surgery, though she will require hormone replacement medicine for the rest of her life.

She was one of several Latin American leaders who have recently been diagnosed with cancer.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Paraguayan leader Fernando Lugo and former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have all been operated on over the past year.

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail:
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Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/278654/20120109/argentinine-president-cristina-fernandez-cancer.htm

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Column: Title game brings closure to long season (AP)

NEW ORLEANS ? The moment was about as stilted as it could get, though Les Miles and Nick Saban certainly knew the routine. They posed stiffly for the photographers, smiles fixed on their faces and the BCS trophy between them, even though everyone in the room except the BCS bigwigs who crowded into the photo op knew they would both rather be somewhere ? make that anywhere ? else.

The title game between No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama was little more than a day away, 32 hours as Miles kept reminding everyone, yet there was still work to be done. There always is for football coaches and, mercifully enough, the last public appearance before the game by the two coaching heavyweights was finally over.

Mercifully enough, soon the college football season will be, too.

It comes to an end in a dome just a short drive down Interstate 10 from Baton Rouge, making it almost a home game for the team almost everyone outside Alabama believes is the best in the country. It comes to an end in a yet another game between two SEC heavyweights, the third time in 14 months that LSU and Alabama have played each other.

That it may not end with a clear national champion isn't surprising because the system is deeply flawed. Always will be until a team like Oklahoma State or even Boise State has a chance to battle its way through a playoff to get into the title game.

The people who run the BCS will tell you otherwise, arguing that the cartel has done more to elevate the college game than Knute Rockne ever did while prowling the sidelines at Notre Dame. They claim interest in the postseason has never been higher, even while they match teams like West Virginia and Clemson and run a system that makes the BCS title game little more than a second SEC championship game.

Fans, though, seem to be catching on.

They're tired of a bloated bowl season, fed up with mismatches dictated not by records but by conference affiliation. They're voting against the BCS series the only way they know how ? by staying home and watching something else on television.

Bowl attendance was down this season, and that's not the biggest story. The Rose Bowl had its lowest television ratings in history, Orange Bowl ratings dropped 37 percent from last year, and Sugar Bowl viewership was almost nonexistent. Even the Fiesta Bowl ? won by Oklahoma State over Stanford in an overtime thriller ? was the third-least viewed of the past decade.

And to cap it all off we get a title game that feels so yesterday. Not only are LSU and Alabama in the same SEC division, a game between them went into overtime in November without either school scoring a touchdown. It's a little tough for fans to get excited about a rematch that requires a deep appreciation of defensive line play and the kicking game.

It's on Jan. 9 to boot, long after New Year's hangovers are forgotten, and ? more importantly ? after the NFL playoffs have already begun. The biggest show in college football wasn't even the biggest show in town over an extended weekend, when it seemed every other person was wearing a Drew Brees jersey and the Superdome was rocking as the Saints beat Detroit to open the playoffs.

Maybe that's why Miles felt the need to hype the game just a bit before posing for photographers.

"I expect it to be big-boy football," the LSU coach said. "It will be a game representative of two quality football teams."

That's a given, considering these are the two best teams in the best football conference there is. This will be the sixth time in a row a SEC team has won the BCS title game, leading some to joke that the only way an SEC team will lose the title game is to play another SEC team.

Not hard to see why. The SEC has $5 million a year coaches, and programs that bring in $100 million a year. It has football traditions that run deep into the fabric of society throughout the South, and it has its way whenever decisions are made in the BCS cartel.

It also has athletes that other conferences can only dream about, linebackers with speed who are the size of defensive ends on other teams.

"I feel like the players are a little bit more versatile and athletic," said Alabama linebacker Dont'a Hightower, who is one of those players. "We don't find too many guys that weigh 260 pounds that can run a 4.6 or 4.5 in any other conference or a guy that weighs 200 pounds that can bench press 500."

Whether that translates into a good football game remains to be seen. Unlike last year, there's no Cam Newton, no LaMichael James to stir offensive excitement. The quarterbacks on both sides are suspect, and the fact both teams know each other so well could limit the offense even more.

In an era of spread offenses and teams scoring 62 points in a game, this figures to be a throwback to the hard-nosed defenses of earlier times. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to turn off the casual fan who tunes in to see touchdown celebrations.

Don't blame Alabama or LSU for that. They play a style, and it's main the reason they play so often in the title game.

Blame the BCS, though, for dragging the whole thing out so long that nothing about this championship game feels special.

____

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or follow at http://twitter.com/timdahlberg

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120109/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_tim_dahlberg010912

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