news LV

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• ANSA: Borsa Milano: accelera, Ftse Mib +2,1%
• ANSA: Borsa: Wall Street apre positiva, +0,41%
• ANSA: Crisi: Krugman, Draghi mi entusiasma
• ANSA: Aiuti per giovani e donne in arrivo 235 milioni
• Financial Times: EU braced for budget fight with UK
• Financial Times: Pope’s butler found guilty of Vatican leaks
• Aljazeera: Bosnia local polls marred by ethnic disputes
• Aljazeera: Kuwaiti Emir dissolves parliament
• Aljazeera: Sudanese military plane crashes near Khartoum
• Financial Times: Iran acts to strengthen rial
• Financial Times: Etihad set to announce code share tie-up
• Huffington Post: ZNGA: Zynga Stock Drops On Weak Pivot To Mobile; Loss Of Casual Gamers Turns Serious
• Huffington Post: Jessica Ridgeway, 10, Has Been Missing Since Friday, Police Using Bloodhounds To Help Search
• Huffington Post: Amazon Once Offered To Buy Netflix For $12 Million, Book Says
• Huffington Post: Chris Murphy, Linda McMahon Face Off In Testy Connecticut Senate Debate
• Aljazeera: West Indies dance to Twenty20 glory

ANSA: Borsa Milano: accelera, Ftse Mib +2,1% Posted: 05 Oct 2012 07:47 AM PDT Wall Street apre in rialzo, acquisti su Parmalat ed Stm (+4%)

ANSA: Borsa: Wall Street apre positiva, +0,41% Posted: 05 Oct 2012 07:53 AM PDT S&p 500 sale dello 0,38%

ANSA: Crisi: Krugman, Draghi mi entusiasma Posted: 05 Oct 2012 07:53 AM PDT Politici tedeschi mi deprimono

ANSA: Aiuti per giovani e donne in arrivo 235 milioni Posted: 05 Oct 2012 10:56 AM PDT Annuncio della Fornero: 'Incentivi alle imprese'

Financial Times: EU braced for budget fight with UK Posted: 05 Oct 2012 01:31 PM PDT European diplomats are growing increasingly concerned that David Cameron is serious about demanding a freeze in the budget at next month's summit

Financial Times: Pope’s butler found guilty of Vatican leaks Posted: 06 Oct 2012 07:24 AM PDT Paolo Gabriele admitted leaking private documents to the press, revealing internal conflicts, corruption and financial mismanagement

Aljazeera: Bosnia local polls marred by ethnic disputes Posted: 07 Oct 2012 02:54 AM PDT New electoral rules mean a Serb could win office in Srebrenica, fuelling tensions at the site of the 1995 massacre.

Aljazeera: Kuwaiti Emir dissolves parliament Posted: 07 Oct 2012 04:16 AM PDT Following cabinet request, Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah issues decree to annul 2009 court-reinstated parliament.

Aljazeera: Sudanese military plane crashes near Khartoum Posted: 07 Oct 2012 07:48 AM PDT At least 13 military personnel killed and nine others injured in crash in a rural area west of the capital.

Financial Times: Iran acts to strengthen rial Posted: 07 Oct 2012 08:45 AM PDT The open currency market is forcibly closed and dozens of traders arrested after the deteriorating economy triggered street protests last week

Financial Times: Etihad set to announce code share tie-up Posted: 07 Oct 2012 08:56 AM PDT Agreement signals a thawing of relations between Europe's flag carriers and the younger Gulf airlines, which are aggressively expanding their reach

Huffington Post: ZNGA: Zynga Stock Drops On Weak Pivot To Mobile; Loss Of Casual Gamers Turns Serious Posted: 07 Oct 2012 09:45 AM PDT By Malathi Nayak and Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Zynga Inc's inexorable decline over the past six months, capped by a sharp reduction in its 2012 outlook on Thursday, has sharpened interest in what Chief Executive Mark Pincus will do next. Wall Street's excitement over a game publisher once counted among the stars of the new social Internet has cooled since its December initial public offering. On Friday, analysts slashed their price targets on a stock that dived as much as 22 percent, to $2.21 - more than three-quarters off its $10 debut. The fate of the company now rests with Pincus, the 46-year-old co-founder who controls a majority voting stake. Analysts say he needs to downsize its current 3,000-strong global workforce and come up with a hit that can captivate the growing number of players now moving to mobile devices, where its presence is relatively weak. Zynga did launch several such games this year, including "The Ville" and "ChefVille," and is working on several more. On Thursday, Pincus emphasized to employees in a company-wide memo that Zynga would be "continuing to invest in its mobile games business." But he warned that the company will make "targeted cost reductions," which analysts interpreted to mean layoffs as Pincus shifts Zynga away from the "casual" Facebook games, like "FarmVille," that were the company's bread-and-butter for years. "They have banked on the casual gaming segment, and to readjust the business to more core gaming, some casual heads probably have to roll," said P.J. McNealy, CEO of Digital World Research. The transition will be jarring for a company that moved early to build a formidable business almost completely on top of Facebook's burgeoning platform. "FarmVille," "FrontierVille," "Zynga Poker," "Mafia Wars" and "CityVille" took off primarily as Facebook games on personal computers. They accounted for 83 percent of total revenue last year. Zynga has not been able to reverse the tide of users abandoning its previously lucrative Web-based games for offerings on smartphones or games from competing publishers. Monthly-paying players rose to 4.1 million in the second quarter from 3.5 million. That number would have declined had it not been for new players attracted to "Draw Something," which Zynga purchased in March. The company said on Thursday it will write off about half the game's $183 million price tag. One saving grace for Pincus may be Zynga's large cash holdings, which amount to roughly $1.6 billion and will stave off any talk of bankruptcy. And Zynga's revenues, while shrinking, remain substantial. "This is an expectation game," McNealy said. "If people are looking for a possible turnaround in three months it's probably unlikely. If people are looking at the next 12 to 18 months, then it's possible." KEY DEPARTURES Pincus' attempt to revive his company has been undermined by an accelerating employee exodus. On Friday, the two creators of "Words with Friends," one of Zynga's most popular mobile games, announced that they had departed, following more than a dozen key employees who have left in the past six months. "The departures underscore our skepticism about ZNGA and its ability to address the challenges it faces as it pivots towards mobile and its in-house gaming platforms," Brian Pitz from Jefferies & Co wrote in a research note on Friday. "Yesterday, CEO Mark Pincus asked employees to not lose sight of the bigger picture, but this may not be enough." Besides betting big on mobile, Pincus hopes to capture growth in online gambling games, an effort that could take years to pay off. It could take 18 to 24 months for U.S. authorities to legalize it, McNealy said. Zynga Poker, where players win virtual currency as opposed to real cash, is the world's largest online poker game. The game constituted 18 percent of Zynga's $332.4 million revenue last quarter, behind "FarmVille," which brought in about 29 percent. Zynga plans to seek out overseas markets such as the United Kingdom and France, where online gambling is partially legal. Pincus told analysts on an earnings call last quarter that these first real-money gaming products would launch in the first half of 2013. TAKEOVER CHATTER Some on Wall Street now speculate about the possible takeover of a company whose stock has fallen more than 80 percent from its high earlier this year. For most of Friday, Zynga traded below the company's book value of $2.30 a share according to Thomson Reuters data - the sum value of its assets including real estate holdings and roughly $1.6 billion in cash. Tom Taulli, an editor at IPOPlaybook.com, said the names of potential acquirers being bandied about have included Amazon, Yahoo and Activision, the game publisher that has a small presence on Facebook and smartphones, two platforms where Zynga has invested heavily. Even at such a discount, analysts warn that Zynga, valued at $1.88 billion, may not be a natural acquisition target for interactive media companies, given the uncertainty about Zynga's business and the mixed results of major social gaming deals generally. Last July, Electronic Arts acquired PopCap Games for $650 million in cash plus stock but recently laid off employees and shuttered a PopCap studio. And analysts have continued to second-guess Walt Disney Co's $763 million deal for Playdom in 2010. "Disney and EA have a pretty sour taste in their mouth," said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG. "Everyone who has tried to make a purchases in this sector is losing money." Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said most acquirers would probably wait a while longer to see how Zynga fares. "In a situation where you have fundamental problems and the business is deteriorating, it's going to be tough" to negotiate a sale, Bhatia said. "What's needed is swift action to right-size the company." (Editing by Prudence Crowther) Read More... More on Video

Huffington Post: Jessica Ridgeway, 10, Has Been Missing Since Friday, Police Using Bloodhounds To Help Search Posted: 07 Oct 2012 09:46 AM PDT Sunday marks the third day authorities have been searching for missing Westminster, Colo. 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway. Jessica was last seen on Friday, Oct. 5th around 8:30 a.m. making the three-block-walk to Chelsea Park where she usually meets a group of friends to walk to school with. Authorities say she never made it that far. An Amber Alert went out late Friday night and the Westminster Police Department said that the FBI joined search efforts that same night. Read More... More on FBI

Huffington Post: Amazon Once Offered To Buy Netflix For $12 Million, Book Says Posted: 07 Oct 2012 09:51 AM PDT In late 1990s, Netflix was still a struggling start-up when CEO Reed Hastings flatly rejected Amazon's acquisition offer, according to an upcoming book. Read More... More on Amazon

Huffington Post: Chris Murphy, Linda McMahon Face Off In Testy Connecticut Senate Debate Posted: 07 Oct 2012 10:04 AM PDT Linda McMahon and Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) met in their first debate on Sunday, a crucial test in a heavily contested Senate race that has taken on national implications in recent weeks. McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has spent months flooding Connecticut's airwaves in millions of dollars' worth of negative advertisements against her opponent. Between those ads and Murphy's continuing woes over a 2007 mortgage default, the race has evolved into a dead heat: HuffPost's Pollster average currently gives McMahon a 46.4 to 46.1 percent advantage over Murphy. The eyes of the nation are on the race. Its outcome could decide the control of the Senate next term -- and thus the course of the first two years of President Obama's second term, if he is reelected. Read More... More on Senate Races

Aljazeera: West Indies dance to Twenty20 glory Posted: 07 Oct 2012 10:34 AM PDT The Windies come from behind to defeat the hosts Sri Lanka in the Twenty20 final and lift trophy in jubilant fashion.

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