DealBook: More European Bank Loan Sales Expected

11:45 a.m. | Updated

LONDON – At the start of 2013, European banks are cleaning out their closets.

The Continent’s largest financial institutions, including HSBC and Deutsche Bank, are expected to sell a combined 60 billion euros, or $78 billion, of so-called noncore loans this year, a 33 percent rise compared with 2012, according to estimates from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers released on Friday.

The renewed effort to offload unwanted assets comes as European banks are eager to reduce costs and shrink their balance sheets to comply with tougher capital requirements demanded by regulators. Europe’s persistent financial problems also have altered the industry’s economics, leaving many banks with bloated balance sheets and reduced profitability.

A string of recent scandals, including multibillion-dollar fines for the British bank Barclays and its Swiss counterpart UBS related to the manipulation of benchmark interest rates, have placed increased pressure of firms to pull back from underperforming and risky business units.

Many of Europe’s largest banks also have announced wholesale jobs cuts, particularly in their investment banking divisions, while the number of people working in financial services in London, Europe’s financial capital, has fallen to its lowest level since the mid-1990s, according to the British research organization Center for Economics and Business Research.

The fire sale has already included the Royal Bank of Scotland‘s sale of property loans to the private equity firm Blackstone Group and its aviation leasing business to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, the Japanese bank, for $7.3 billion. HSBC also is considering the sale of United States real estate and personal loans worth a combined $6 billion after it already offloaded a number of operations in emerging markets like Pakistan and Colombia to local competitors.

“Banks have been doing the right thing by selling off loan portfolios,” said Richard Thompson, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London. “Some of stronger firms also may now be looking to pick up assets on the cheap.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers said that it expected that European banks would focus on corporate and real estate loan disposals, particularly in countries like Spain where prices in the local housing market fell 15 percent annually in the third quarter of last year, according to the latest available government figures.

The creation in Spain of a so-called bad bank that will oversee the sale of up to 60 billion euros of unwanted assets like delinquent mortgages and unsold real estate on behalf of local banks is also expected to draw interest from potential buyers.

European banks are keen to sell, but bankers and lawyers say financial institutions continue to demand high prices for assets despite the glut of loan portfolios up for sale. So far, analysts add that differences over price have kept potential buyers, including private equity firms that specialize in distressed assets, from picking up more underperforming loan assets because the firms believe they remain overvalued.

Last year, the average discount on loans for a range of unwanted European bank assets was 20 percent to 50 percent, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. That percentage is expected to rise this year, though analysts say the banks’ access to cheap short-term financing from the European Central Bank has given them some breathing room to demand higher prices for their unwanted assets.

“In 2012, we saw a large number of different banks bringing their portfolios to market,” Mr. Thompson said. “The issue of price will clearly remain a key challenge in future for sellers.”

European banks still have a lot of work to do.

PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that firms still have more than 2.5 trillion euros of noncore loans that they are looking to sell. As the 60 billion euro estimate for loan portfolio sales in 2013 represents just 2.4 percent of that total, Europe’s banks are likely to remain eager sellers for many years to come.

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Media Decoder Blog: Al Jazeera Seeks a U.S. Voice Where Gore Failed

9:16 p.m. | Updated Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant, has long tried to convince Americans that it is a legitimate news organization, not a parrot of Middle Eastern propaganda or something more sinister.

It just bought itself 40 million more chances to make its case.

Al Jazeera on Wednesday announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore, a former vice president, and his business partners seven years ago. Al Jazeera plans to shut Current and start an English-language channel, which will be available in more than 40 million homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar.

For Al Jazeera, which is financed by the government of Qatar, the acquisition is a coming of age moment. A decade ago, Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic-language channel was reviled by American politicians for showing videotapes from Al Qaeda members and sympathizers. Now the news operation is buying an American channel, having convinced Mr. Gore and the other owners of Current that it has the journalistic muscle and the money to compete head-to-head with CNN and other news channels in the United States.

Al Jazeera did not disclose the purchase price, but people with direct knowledge of the deal pegged it at around $500 million, indicating a $100 million payout for Mr. Gore, who owned 20 percent of Current. Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the deal was not signed until Wednesday.

A spokesman for Al Jazeera said that antitrust regulators had not expressed any objections to the deal.

Going forward, the challenge will be persuading Americans to watch — an extremely tough proposition given the crowded television marketplace and the stereotypes about the channel that persist to this day.

“There are still people who will not watch it, who will say that it’s a ‘terrorist network,’ ” said Philip Seib, the author of “The Al Jazeera Effect.” “Al Jazeera has to override that by providing quality news.”

With a handful of exceptions (including New York City and Washington), American cable and satellite distributors have mostly refused to carry Al Jazeera English since its inception in 2006. While the television sets of White House officials and lawmakers were tuned to the channel during the Arab Spring in 2011, ordinary Americans who wanted to watch had to find a live stream on the Internet.

To change that, Al Jazeera lobbied distributors and asked supporters to write letters to the distributors — but accomplished next to nothing.

Some activists accused distributors like Comcast and DirecTV of blacklisting a channel that is widely respected elsewhere in the world. But the distributors said there was scant evidence that many American viewers wanted to watch.

Current, similarly, has suffered from paltry ratings. “Nobody’s watching,” one of the channel’s prime-time hosts, Eliot Spitzer, quipped to a reporter last month.

Current was conceived in 2005 after Mr. Gore and another co-founder, Joel Hyatt, bought the small cable news channel Newsworld International. After several years in obscurity showing viewer-submitted videos and documentaries, Current tacked to the left in 2011 with the hiring of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. A year later, Mr. Olbermann was fired, but a channel made in his image remained, with Mr. Spitzer, Jennifer Granholm and other liberal pundits as hosts. But on a typical night last year, just 42,000 people watched their shows, according to Nielsen.

By selling Current, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt are giving up their vision for an alternative to MSNBC, which has much higher-rated liberal hosts.

On Wednesday, Mr. Hyatt praised Al Jazeera for “bringing large-scale resources to journalism — something which we have not been able to do.” In a letter to Current employees, some of whom are expected to lose their jobs, he said he and Mr. Gore would join the advisory board of the newly rebranded channel.

“We look forward to helping build an important news network,” Mr. Hyatt wrote.

Rather than simply use Current to distribute its existing English-language channel, Al Jazeera said it plans to create a channel based in New York. Tentatively titled Al Jazeera America, roughly 60 percent of the programming will be produced in the United States, while the remaining 40 percent will come from Al Jazeera English.

Al Jazeera, which has bureaus in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, intends to open several more in other American cities.

“There’s a major hole right now that Al Jazeera can fill. And that is providing an alternative viewpoint to domestic news, which is very parochial,” said Cathy Rasenberger, a cable consultant who has worked with Al Jazeera on distribution issues in the past. However, she warned, “there is a limited amount of interest in international news in the United States.”

And others are trying to elbow their way in. News channels financed by Britain, China and Russia are especially hungry for American cable deals. To date, the BBC has had the most success; its BBC World News channel is now available in about 25 million homes thanks to a deal struck last month with Time Warner Cable.

But the takeover of Current brings Al Jazeera to the front of the line. In recent weeks, Mr. Gore personally lobbied the distributors that carry Current on the importance of Al Jazeera, according to people briefed on the talks who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Distributors can sometimes wiggle out of their carriage deals when channels change hands. Most consented to the sale, but Time Warner Cable did not, Mr. Hyatt told employees.

Time Warner Cable had previously warned that it might drop Current because of its low ratings. It took advantage of a change-in-ownership clause and said in a terse statement Wednesday night, “We are removing the service as quickly as possible.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/03/2013, on page A1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Al Jazeera Seeks a U.S. Voice Where Gore Failed.

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The Most and Least Influential Social Media Celebs

While he isn’t currently available for promotional work, businesses would have the most success on social media with President Barack Obama endorsing their goods and services, new research shows.

A study by social marketing platform SocialToaster revealed that Obama is considered the most influential celebrity on social media. Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ashton Kutcher and Anderson Cooper followed the president on the rankings of social influencers.

On the flip side, the research found that former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was the least influential celebrity on social media, finishing just below Madonna, Kanye West and Sean Hannity.

While celebrities might be influential on social media in some aspects, it’s those closest to us who make the largest impact when it comes to the important issues. Nearly all of the social media users surveyed agreed that a social media post from a close friend or family member was most likely to influence them on important subjects, with politicians and athletes the least likely to influence them.

“While it was no surprise that in this election year Barack Obama would be ranked the most influential person in social media, it was surprising to us that Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga would beat Madonna and Kanye West,” said Brian Razzaque, CEO of SocialToaster. “We were also surprised to see that friends had more pull than family when it came to influencing the sharing of social media content.”

Regardless of whom it comes from, there are some posts that will quickly result in an unfollowing, the study discovered. Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said a racist post would cause them to immediately unfollow someone on social media. Other types of posts that result in a loss of followers include sexism, pornography, repetitive, overly personal posts and those that use poor grammar.

The researcher was based on surveys of 3,000 SocialToaster Super Fans, which consist of social media experts and professionals, many of whom work with some of the nation’s leading brands. The experts range from those who work in the entertainment industry who represent numerous television shows and movies to those who work in professional sports, including the Baltimore Ravens and the Detroit Pistons.

This story was provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow Chad Brooks on Twitter @cbrooks76 or BusinessNewsDaily @BNDarticles. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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NHL negotiations go late. No union disclaimer

NEW YORK (AP) — Hockey players are sticking together as a union for now and are working long and late hours with the NHL to try to reach a new collective bargaining agreement to get the game back on the ice.

The sides met in small groups throughout the day Wednesday and then held a full-scale bargaining session with a federal mediator at night that lasted nearly five hours and didn't wrap up until about 1 a.m. Thursday.

They planned to get back at it less than 10 hours later.

The biggest detail to emerge from Wednesday night's marathon talks was that Donald Fehr is still the executive director of the players' association, which passed on its first chance to declare a disclaimer that would dissolve the union and turn it into a trade association.

Last month, players voted overwhelmingly in favor of giving the union executive board the right to declare the disclaimer, but that permission expired at midnight Wednesday. The disclaimer would allow individual players to file antitrust lawsuits against the NHL.

Fehr wouldn't address the issue at all, calling it an "internal matter," but NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said all the union would need to do is inform the league that it was taking the action for it to happen.

"The word disclaimer has yet to be uttered to us by the players' association," Bettman said. "It's not that it gets filed anywhere with a court or the NLRB. When you disclaim interest as a union, you notify the other side. We have not been notified and it's never been discussed, so there has been no disclaimer."

Even though the deadline expired, a new vote by players can be held anytime to restore the authorization.

"All I can tell you about that is the players retain all the legal options they have always had and we don't talk about legal matters," Fehr said.

The thought was that the union wouldn't take action Wednesday if it saw progress was being made. Neither side would characterize the talks or address what, if any, movement toward common ground was reached.

Both the league and the players were tightlipped about how many things still need to be worked out and what topics are keeping them apart. But the discussions went well enough for the NHL and the union to agree to the mediator's request to start talking again at 10 a.m. Thursday.

"I'm not going to get into the details," Bettman said. "There's been some progress but we're still apart on a number of issues. As long as the process continues I am hopeful."

Bettman has told the union that a deal must be in place by Jan. 11 in order for a 48-game season to be played beginning eight days later.

The night session Wednesday began shortly after 8 p.m. EST. The sides also met for about an hour during the afternoon when the union gave its latest proposal to the league, a response to the NHL's counteroffer on Tuesday.

Neither side said much regarding Wednesday's discussions, but it is believed that the pension issue has become a major stumbling block.

"The pension plan is a very complicated issue," Bettman said. "The number of variables and the number of issues that have to be addressed by people who carry the title actuary or pension lawyer are pretty numerous and it's pretty easy to get off track.

"That is something we understand is important to the players."

The union's proposal Wednesday makes four offers between the sides since the NHL restarted negotiations Thursday with a proposal.

A small group meeting on the pension issue was held Wednesday morning before the players' association presented its offer. A deal can't be done without a resolution on pensions.

The league presented the players with a counteroffer Tuesday night in response to one the union made Monday.

The lockout reached its 109th day Wednesday, and Bettman has said that the league told the union a deal needs to be in place by next week so a 48-game season can begin on Jan. 19. All games through Jan. 14 along with the All-Star game have been canceled, claiming more than 50 percent of the original schedule.

Fehr believed an agreement on a players-funded pension had been reached before talks blew up in early December. That apparently wasn't the case, or the NHL has changed its offer regarding the pension in exchange for agreeing to other things the union wanted.

The salary-cap number for the second year of the deal — the 2013-14 season — hasn't been established, and it is another point of contention. The league is pushing for a $60 million cap, while the union wants it to be $65 million.

In return for the higher cap number players would be willing to forgo a cap on escrow.

"We talk about lots of things and we even had some philosophical discussions about why particular issues were important to each of us," Bettman said. "That is part of the process."

The NHL proposed in its first offer Thursday that pension contributions come out of the players' share of revenues, and $50 million of the league's make-whole payment of $300 million will be allocated and set aside to fund potential underfunding liabilities of the plan at the end of the collective bargaining agreement.

Last month, the NHL agreed to raise its make-whole offer of deferred payments from $211 million to $300 million as part of a proposed package that required the union to agree on three nonnegotiable points. Instead, the players' association accepted the raise in funds, but then made counterproposals on the issues the league stated had no wiggle room.

"As you might expect, the differences between us relate to the core economic issues which don't involve the share," Fehr said of hockey-related revenue, which will likely be split 50-50.

The NHL is the only North American professional sports league to cancel a season because of a labor dispute, losing the 2004-05 campaign to a lockout. A 48-game season was played in 1995 after a lockout stretched into January.

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5-Hour Energy’s ‘No Crash Later’ Claim Is Disputed

The distributor of the top-selling energy “shot,” 5-Hour Energy, has long claimed on product labels, in promotions and in television advertisements that the concentrated caffeine drink produced “no crash later” — the type of letdown that consumers of energy drinks often feel when the beverages’ effects wear off.

But an advertising watchdog group said on Wednesday that it had told the company five years ago that the claim was unfounded and had urged it then to stop making it.

An executive of the group, the National Advertising Division, also said that 5-Hour Energy’s distributor, Living Essentials, had publicly misrepresented the organization’s position about the claim and that it planned to start a review that could lead to action against the company by the Federal Trade Commission.

“We recommended that the ‘no crash’ claim be discontinued because their own evidence showed there was a crash from the product,” said Andrea C. Levine, director the National Advertising Division. The organization, which is affiliated with the Council of Better Business Bureaus, reviews ad claims for accuracy.

The emerging dispute between Living Essentials and the National Advertising Division is unusual because the $10 billion energy drink industry is rife with questionable marketing. And Living Essentials, which recently cited the advertising group’s support in seeking to defend the “no crash” claim, may have opened the door to greater scrutiny.

Major producers like 5-Hour Energy, Red Bull, Monster Energy and Rockstar Energy all say their products contain proprietary blends of ingredients that provide a range of mental and physical benefits. But the companies have conducted few studies to show that the costly products provide anything more than a blast of caffeine, a stimulant found in beverages like coffee, tea or cola-flavored sodas.

The dispute over 5-Hour Energy’s claim also comes as regulatory review of the high-caffeine drinks is increasing. The Food and Drug Administration recently disclosed that it had received reports over the last four years citing the possible role of 5-Hour Energy in 13 deaths. The mention of a product in an F.D.A. report does not mean it caused a death or injury. Living Essentials says it knows of no problems related to its products.

The issue surrounding the company’s “no crash” claim dates to 2007, when National Advertising Division began reviewing all of 5-Hour Energy’s marketing claims. That same year, the company conducted a clinical trial of the energy shot that compared it to Red Bull and Monster Energy.

At the time, Living Essentials was already using the “No crash later” claim. An article on Wednesday in The New York Times reported that the study had shown that 24 percent of those who used 5-Hour Energy suffered a “moderately severe” crash hours after consuming it. The study reported higher crash rates for Red Bull and Monster Energy.

When asked how those findings squared with the company’s “no crash” claim, Elaine Lutz, a spokeswoman for Living Essentials, said the company had amended the claim after the 2007 review by the National Advertising Division. In doing so, it added an asterisklike mark after the claim on product labels and in promotions. The mark referred to additional labeling language stating that “no crash means no sugar crash.” Unlike Red Bull and Monster Energy, 5-Hour Energy does not contain sugar.

Ms. Lutz said that based on the modification, the advertising accuracy group “found all of our claims to be substantiated.”

However, Ms. Levine, the advertising group’s director, took sharp exception to that assertion, saying it mischaracterized the group’s decision. And a review of the reports suggested that Living Essentials had simply added language of its choosing to its label rather than doing what the group had recommended — drop the “no crash” claim altogether.

That review concluded that the company’s 2007 study had shown there was evidence to support a “qualified claim that 5-Hour Energy results in less of a crash than Red Bull and Monster” Energy. But it added the study, which showed that 5-Hour Energy users experienced caffeine-related crashes, was inadequate to support a “no crash” claim.

Ms. Levine said Living Essentials had apparently decided to use the parts of the group’s report that it liked and ignore others.

Companies “are not permitted to mischaracterize our decisions or misuse them for commercial purposes,” she said.

She said the group planned to notify Living Essentials that it was reopening its review of the “no crash later” claim. If the company fails to respond or provides an inadequate response, the National Advertising Division will probably refer the matter to the F.T.C., she said.

A Democratic lawmaker, Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, has asked that the agency review energy drink marketing claims.

Asked about the position of the National Advertising Division, Ms. Lutz, the 5-Hour Energy spokeswoman, stated in an e-mail that the “no sugar crash” language had been added to address the group’s concern.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 2, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of deaths in which the Food and Drug Administration said 5-Hour Energy possibly played a role. The number was 13, not 15.

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U.S. Auto Sales End 2012 on Strong Note

DETROIT (AP) — Strong U.S. sales in December capped a remarkable year for the auto industry — especially Japanese brands — and 2013 should be even better.

Sales of new cars and trucks are expected to total around 14.5 million after all carmakers announce figures on Thursday. That is 13 percent better than 2011 and the best performance in five years.

In 2012, Americans had plenty of incentive to buy new cars and trucks. Unemployment eased. Home sales and prices rose. And the average age of a car topped 11 years in the United States, a record that spurred people to trade in. Banks made that easier by offering low interest rates and greater access to loans, even for those with poor credit.

“The U.S. light vehicle sales market continues to be a bright spot in the tremulous global environment,” said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for LMC Automotive, a Detroit-area industry forecasting firm.

Year-end deals on pickup trucks and the usual round of sparkling holiday ads helped December sales jump 10 percent to more than 1.3 million, auto pricing site TrueCar.com predicted. That would translate to an annual rate of more than 15.6 million, making December the strongest month of 2012.

Toyota, which has recovered from an earthquake and tsunami in Japan that crimped its factories two years ago, said Thursday that sales jumped 27 percent for 2012. Its December sales were up 9 percent. Unlike 2011, the company had plenty of new models stocked in showrooms for most of last year.

Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit carmakers, had the best year among American companies. Its sales jumped 21 percent. December sales rose 10 percent. Demand was led by the Jeep Grand Cherokee S.U.V., Ram pickup and Chrysler 300 luxury car.

Among European carmakers, Volkswagen dominated, with annual sales up a staggering 35 percent.

But full-year sales at Ford and General Motors lagged. G.M.’s rose only 3.7 percent for the year, while Ford edged up 5 percent. For December, G.M. sales rose 5 percent, while Ford was up 2 percent.

December featured year-end deals on big pickup trucks; G.M. offered discounts of up to $9,000 to help clear growing inventory. The move worked. G.M. cut its full-size pickup supply from almost 246,000 at the end of November to just under 222,000 as the year came to a close.

Over all, though, analysts said the industry eased up on promotions such as rebates and low-interest financing. Car and truck buyers paid an average of $31,228 per vehicle last month, up 1.8 percent from December 2011.

The Polk auto research firm predicted even stronger American sales for 2013, forecasting 15.3 million as the economy continues to improve. Polk, based in Southfield, Mich., expected 43 new models to be introduced, up 50 percent from last year. New models usually help sales.

The firm also predicted a rebound in sales of large pickups and midsize cars. All eight of the top manufacturers are strong and introducing new vehicles, and that should bring competition and lower prices in those segments, according to Tom Libby, lead North American analyst for Polk.

But the firm’s optimistic forecasts hinge on Washington reaching an agreement on government debt limits and spending cuts.

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Philippines May Curb Pursuit of Marcos WealthPhilippines May Curb Pursuit of Marcos Wealth

MANILA — A commission that has been pursuing the wealth of the former dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos should be abolished, despite the fact that much of his allegedly ill-gotten wealth has not been recovered, the agency’s head said on Wednesday.

Andres Bautista, the chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, told reporters on Wednesday that he has recommended to President Benigno S. Aquino III that the special commission be phased out.

“Our recommendation was to wind down work,” said Mr. Bautista, noting that it is more efficient, and less costly for the government, if the Department of Justice handles the hunt for assets and any future cases against Marcos associates. In an earlier interview with Agence France-Presse, Mr. Bautista said, “It has become a law of diminishing returns at this point.”

Mr. Marcos led the Philippines from 1965 to until 1986, when he was overthrown by the bloodless popular revolt known as “People Power.” He declared martial law for part of his time in office and empowered his flamboyant wife, Imelda, to help rule the country.

Investigators have accused the Marcos family and their associates a of plundering an estimated $10 billion from the Philippines while millions of Filipinos suffered in grinding poverty. In particular, Mr. Marcos’s wife, Imelda R. Marcos, was noted for extravagant displays of wealth that included lavish shopping trips to New York City with a huge entourage, spending millions on jewelry and art.

But in recent years, members of the Marcos family, including Mrs. Marcos, have taken prominent political posts, complicating the commission’s efforts.

The commission was created after the pro-democracy leader Corazon C. Aquino, the current president’s mother, came to power in 1986, and it was charged with the worldwide pursuit of the ill-gotten assets of the Marcos family and their associates.

According to one analyst, the abolition of the commission will effectively end the pursuit of that wealth — much of which, by all accounts, remains unrecovered.

“If a special body with extraordinary powers specifically tasked with finding the hidden wealth of Marcos cannot do it, then who else is going to?” asked Edre U. Olalia, the secretary general of the human rights organization National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers. “The government is giving up the fight.”

Mr. Olalia said a special commission was still needed because the Marcos family and their associates had the resources to hire top defense lawyers who could thwart or delay government cases. He said the family was expert at hiding wealth overseas and at using influence within the government to obstruct the investigations.

Mrs. Marcos, 83, is now a member of the House of Representatives, while her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is a senator. Her daughter, Imee Marcos, is the governor of a northern province where the family is still well regarded.

Former President Marcos died in exile in the United States in 1989.

Some of the largest companies in the Philippines are controlled by people who were his close associates, and have been accused by investigators of helping the family plunder billions from the country.

No member of the Marcos family, who all deny wrongdoing, has been convicted in connection with plundered wealth, nor have any of their associates.

“The Marcos family is back in power, and they have no fear of conviction,” Mr. Olalia said. “They are prancing around with their wealth, saying they are a poor family being prosecuted by the government.”

Mr. Bautista, the head of the commission, noted that the agency had recovered 164 billion pesos (about $4 billion) since its creation, including a 150-carat ruby and a diamond tiara, hundreds of millions of dollars hidden in Swiss bank accounts and prime real estate in New York City. It worked recently with New York authorities to indict Vilma Bautista, Mrs. Marcos’s former social secretary, and to recover several valuable paintings, including one from the water lily series by Claude Monet.

President Aquino and both houses of the Philippine congress would have to agree for the commission to be abolished. On Wednesday, lawmakers disagreed about its fate.

“Everybody agrees that the hunt and recovery was not going to be a walk in the park,” said Senator Francis Escudero. “But it’s disappointing that they are throwing in the towel.”

But another senator, Joker Arroyo, noted that the agency was intended from the beginning to have a limited mandate.

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Apple testing new iPhone, iOS 7: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc has started testing a new iPhone and the next version of its iOS software, news website The Next Web reported.

Apple shares were up 2.6 percent at $ 546.06 in premarket trading. The stock closed at $ 532.17 on the Nasdaq on Monday.

Application developers have found in their app usage logs references to a new iPhone identifier, iPhone 6.1, running iOS 7 operating system, the website reported. (http://r.reuters.com/fyd94t)

Apple‘s iPhone 5 bears the identifiers “iPhone 5.1″ and “iPhone 5.2″ and is powered by iOS 6 operating system.

Developer logs show that the app requests originate from an internet address on Apple’s Cupertino campus, suggesting that Apple engineers are testing compatibility for some of the popular apps, the website said.

“Although OS and device data can be faked, the unique IP footprint leading back to Apple’s Cupertino campus leads us to believe this is not one of those attempts,” the website said.

Apple launched iPhone 5 in September and it has been reported that the new iPhone will be released in the middle of 2013.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore)

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Stanford holds off Wisconsin 20-14 in Rose Bowl

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Andrew Luck, Toby Gerhart and coach Jim Harbaugh started Stanford's improbable football renaissance, yet they never stood in the center of the Rose Bowl with the West Coast's most coveted trophy raised above their heads.

In fact, the last Stanford team to do what the Cardinal did Tuesday night had a defense known as the Thunderchickens.

Forty years after Stanford's last Rose Bowl victory, the favored Cardinal lived up to the legacy created by Luck, Harbaugh and every Thunderchicken that came before them by winning the bowl game that matters most to any Pac-12 team.

Stepfan Taylor rushed for an early touchdown, Kevin Hogan passed for 123 yards and No. 8 Stanford's defense shut out the Badgers in the second half of a 20-14 victory in the 99th Rose Bowl.

"I had heard that 1972 was our last win," said Hogan, the freshman quarterback who won Stanford's last five games. "It's been too long since we've had one at The Farm. It's a great feeling."

Instead of slipping back off the college football map when their biggest names graduate to NFL glory, the Cardinal (12-2) have just kept getting better under coach David Shaw. After winning the Orange Bowl two years ago and losing the Fiesta Bowl in overtime last season, Stanford followed up with its first conference title and its first trip to the Granddaddy of Them All in 13 years.

Stanford's unique combination of brains and brawn was too much for its opponents during eight straight wins to close the season.

"We've been in BCS games the past two years, but neither of those mean as much as this one did," said Zach Ertz, the tight end who had three catches for 61 yards. "This is the one we play for every year. It shows Stanford is here to stay."

Usua Amanam capped the defensive performance with an interception that stopped Wisconsin's final drive at midfield with 2:30 to play in a grind-it-out game. Stanford allowed the Badgers just 82 yards and four first downs after halftime.

"There's a sense of accomplishment, because we got somewhere we hadn't been yet," said linebacker Shayne Skov, who made eight tackles while leading Stanford's second-half shutout. "If you looked at our goals at the beginning of the season, this was on top of the list, and we got it done. We're extremely satisfied."

The Cardinal finished with 12 victories for just the second time in school history — and the second time in the last three years.

Stanford clamped down on the Big Ten champion Badgers (8-6), who lost the Rose Bowl in heartbreaking fashion for the third consecutive season. Montee Ball rushed for 100 yards and his FBS-record 83rd touchdown, but Wisconsin couldn't score after the final seconds of the first half.

With an impressive defense of its own, Wisconsin stayed in position for an upset in the one-game return of Hall of Fame coach Barry Alvarez, who was back on the Badgers' sideline in his red sweater-vest seven years after hanging up his whistle.

"This group of kids has been through a lot, and they competed extremely hard against a very high-quality team," said Alvarez, who nearly pulled off a stunner while bridging the gap between coaches Bret Bielema and Gary Andersen. "We've played three very good football games (at the Rose Bowl). These guys played hard. In fact, most people would like to get here once. But we just didn't get it done."

Kelsey Young took his only carry 16 yards for a score on Stanford's opening possession, and Taylor scored on the second drive after a big catch by Ertz. Wisconsin kept the Cardinal out of the end zone for the final 51 minutes, holding them to three points in the second half, but Stanford's defense didn't need any more help.

When Bielema abruptly left Wisconsin for Arkansas after winning the Big Ten title game, Alvarez agreed to coach his fourth Rose Bowl before handing off his program to Andersen, who met with Alvarez on the field before the game. But the Badgers' third consecutive January in Pasadena ended in much the same way as the last two: With the offense failing to get the late score the Badgers desperately needed.

"This stings just as much, because we fell extremely short when we had the opportunity to win," Ball said. "We had numerous opportunities to capitalize on big plays, and we fell short. ... This is not the way we want to be remembered. Speaking for the entire senior group, this is not the way we wanted to go out."

Curt Phillips went 10 for 16 for 83 yards passing and that crucial interception for Wisconsin, doing more with 64 yards on the ground. Jordan Fredrick caught his first career TD pass right before halftime, but no Badgers receiver had more than Jared Abbrederis' three catches.

And though Ball became the first player to score touchdowns in three Rose Bowls, the powerful back fell short of Ron Dayne's career Rose Bowl rushing record, swarmed under by waves of tacklers from one of the toughest defenses in the nation — a defense that shut down the top-ranked Ducks in mid-November to pave Stanford's path to Pasadena.

Wisconsin became the first five-loss team to make the Rose Bowl by steamrolling Nebraska in the conference title game, becoming the first Big Ten team in three straight Rose Bowls since Michigan in the late 1970s.

With the Rose Bowl filled with fans wearing the schools' near-identical cardinal-and-white gear, Stanford went up 14-0 on Taylor's 3-yard TD run just 8½ minutes in. Wisconsin briefly got rolling behind Ball, who rushed for 296 yards in his first two Rose Bowls.

Stanford stopped James White inside the 1 on fourth down early in the second quarter, but Ball scored on the next drive. The Badgers then mounted an 85-yard drive in the waning minutes of the first half ending with Fredrick's short TD catch.

After a scoreless third quarter, Wisconsin's personal foul on a fair-catch punt return finally sparked the Cardinal early in the fourth. Stanford got inside the Wisconsin 5 before stalling, and Jordan Williamson's short field goal put the Cardinal up by six points with 4:23 to go.

The Badgers got to midfield, but Phillips threw behind Jacob Pedersen, and Amanam easily made the pick.

"I just happened to be at the right place at the right time," Amanam said. "We were able to kind of seal the game on that one."

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Safed Journal: New Insights on Marijuana in Israel, Where It’s Illegal

Baz Ratner/Reuters

Tikkun Olam, a medical marijuana farm in Israel, blends the high-tech and the spiritual.

SAFED, Israel — Among the rows of plants growing at a government-approved medical marijuana farm in the Galilee hills in northern Israel, one strain is said to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all.

Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but farms like this one, at a secret location near the city of Safed, are at the cutting edge of the debate on the legality, benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis. Its staff members wear white lab coats, its growing facilities are fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for controlling light and humidity, and its grounds are protected by security cameras and guards.

But in addition to the high-tech atmosphere, there is a spiritual one. The plantation, Israel’s largest and most established medical marijuana farm — and now a thriving commercial enterprise — is imbued with a higher sense of purpose, reflected by the aura of Safed, an age-old center of Jewish mysticism, as well as by its name, Tikkun Olam, a reference to the Jewish concept of repairing or healing the world.

There is an on-site synagogue in a trailer, a sweet aroma of freshly harvested cannabis that infuses the atmosphere and, halfway up a wooded hillside overlooking the farm, a blue-domed tomb of a rabbinic sage and his wife.

In the United States, medical marijuana programs exist in 18 states but remain illegal under federal law. In Israel, the law defines marijuana as an illegal and dangerous drug, and there is still no legislation regulating its use for medicinal purposes.

Yet Israel’s Ministry of Health issues special licenses that allow thousands of patients to receive medical marijuana, and some government officials are now promoting the country’s advances in the field as an example of its pioneering and innovation.

“I hope we will overcome the legal obstacles for Tikkun Olam and other companies,” Yuli Edelstein, the minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs, told journalists during a recent government-sponsored tour of the farm, part of Israel’s effort to brand itself as something beyond a conflict zone. In addition to helping the sick, he said, the effort “could be helpful for explaining what we are about in this country.”

Israelis have been at the vanguard of research into the medicinal properties of cannabis for decades.

In the 1960s, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni at the Weizmann Institute of Science isolated, analyzed and synthesized the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Later, Professor Mechoulam deciphered the cannabinoids native to the brain. Ruth Gallily, a professor emerita of immunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied another main constituent of cannabis — cannabidiol, or CBD — considered a powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety agent.

When Zach Klein, a former filmmaker, made a documentary on medical marijuana that was broadcast on Israeli television in 2009, about 400 Israelis were licensed to receive the substance. Today, the number has risen to about 11,000.

Mr. Klein became devoted to the subject and went to work for Tikkun Olam in research and development. “Cannabis was used as medicine for centuries,” he said. “Now science is telling us how it works.”

Israeli researchers say cannabis can be beneficial for a variety of illnesses and conditions, from helping cancer patients relieve pain and ease loss of appetite to improving the quality of life for people with post-traumatic stress disorder and neuropsychological conditions. The natural ingredients in the plant, they say, can help with digestive function, infections and recovery after a heart attack.

The marijuana harvest, from plants that can grow over six feet tall, is processed into bags of flowers and ready-rolled cigarettes. There are also cannabis-laced cakes, cookies, candy, gum, honey, ointments and oil drops. The strain known as Eran Almog, which has the highest concentration of THC, is recommended for severe pain. Avidekel, a strain rich in CBD and with hardly any psychoactive ingredient, allows patients to benefit from the drug while being able to drive and to function at work.

Working with Hebrew University researchers, the farm has also developed a version in capsule form, which would make exporting the drug more practical, should the law allow it.

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