Tomorrow's Newspapers online. 10-26-2013 | S

"Nary a tweet," says William Baldwin, president of Pillar Financial Advisors in Waltham, Massachusetts, when asked about client interest in the deal.

Out of 29 broker-dealers and independent advisers contacted by Reuters, 23 said they are not recommending Twitter shares. Only one said he would recommend it - and only to certain clients. Five others said they would wait to snap up the stock if it plunges after it begins to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

While retail interest might be low, tech industry analysts say there is expected to be a good appetite for Twitter stock from institutional investors at the current valuation. Actual institutional investor sentiment still remains unclear. Retail investors typically account for 10 to 15 percent of IPOs.

Twitter said on Thursday it will sell 70 million shares at between $17 and $20 apiece, valuing the online messaging company at up to about $11 billion, less than the $15 billion that some analysts had been expecting. If underwriters choose to sell an additional allotment of 10.5 million shares, the IPO could raise as much as $1.6 billion.

Blame last year's botched Facebook Inc IPO for the diminished interest from Mom and Pop in Twitter.

When the social networking giant's stock hit the market in May 2012, it encountered allocation problems, trading glitches and a selloff - shares did not recover their IPO price until a year later.

"People are still smarting from that experience," says René Nourse, a financial adviser at Urban Wealth Management in El Segundo, California. Part of the problem is that investors do not understand Twitter the way they "got" Facebook, Nourse and other advisers say.

NO CALLS ON TWITTER

Three brokers with Morgan Stanley, which was lead underwriter on the Facebook IPO, said clients are showing little or no interest in Twitter.

"With the debacle over Facebook, I haven't had one client ask about it," said one of the brokers, based in the southeast. The broker asked not be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The revisions increase consumer powers, add rules for the booming Internet shopping sector and stiffen punishments for businesses that mislead shoppers.

Chinese regulators have been cracking down on real or perceived corporate wrongdoing, with domestic and international infant formula makers and drugmakers particularly coming under the spotlight this year.

Global firms like Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) have also been getting caught in the glare, while South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), the world's largest smartphone maker, had to apologize to Chinese customers on Thursday after a broadcast on China Central Television criticized company repair policies.

China is also trying to stimulate domestic consumer spending as it attempts to transition from an investment-led economy to a more consumption-driven model. But domestic consumers are often wary of product safety and quality, with 3.8 billion yuan ($624.79 million) worth of poor quality goods sold in China between 2010 and 2012, according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC).

"Strengthening consumer confidence will benefit the whole nation's economic development and boost domestic demand," Jia Dongming, director of the civil law working committee under China's Standing Committee, said at a press briefing to announce the changes to the law.

The amendments to the 1993 law include increasing compensation for consumers and raising fines for retailers who violate the law, including in cases where faulty products lead to consumers being harmed or killed. Compensation rose from equaling the amount of damages to three times the amount.

China will also strengthen the role of the China Consumers' Association, which will be able to represent groups of consumers in any wider class actions against retailers.

Officials also stressed the growing importance of protecting consumers in China's booming online shopping sector, which has expanded rapidly with the rise of market leader Alibaba's Taobao, Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N) Yihaodian and 360Buy.com.

Internet sales have risen almost 50-fold since 2006 to hit 1.3 trillion yuan ($213.75 billion) in 2012, according to Jia, while analysts predict e-commerce will account for a fifth of total retail sales in China within five years.

The law will make it easier for consumers to return goods bought online, while sellers will bear the burden of proof in any disputes. Online retailers will also have to meet strict privacy requirements, including requesting users' permission to use any personal data.

The claims figure, which was calculated by Wall Street's industry-funded watchdog the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, falls short of the $62 million that Nasdaq had initially set aside to repay brokerages that lost money.

Nasdaq said the figure is lower in part because some claims did not qualify for compensation under its plan.

The main reason for the lower figure, however, was because one firm opted to try to recover funds through arbitration.

The announcement did not name the brokerage, which was UBS AG.

UBS has pegged its losses from the glitch-ridden IPO at $350 million and was vocal in its decision to file an arbitration demand which claimed Nasdaq had violated a contract agreement.

U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet, however, blocked the bank's arbitration proceeding over the summer on several grounds, including a determination that the bank's claims did not fall within the scope of the arbitration provision in their services agreement.

"Nasdaq has demonstrated that the arbitration should be enjoined because it is likely to succeed on the merits and will suffer irreparable harm," Sweet wrote.

"Given the substantial federal issues posed by UBS claims, the threat of an arbitration panel issuing a decision that may conflict with the decision of a federal court in a parallel litigation also weighs strongly against permitting UBS to proceed with its arbitration proceeding," he added.

Megan Stinson, a spokeswoman for UBS, told Reuters on Friday that the bank has since appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She could not comment further, as the case is currently under seal.

Facebook's problematic debut on the Nasdaq exchange on May 18, 2012, resulted from a systems failure that prevented the timely delivery of order confirmations and left more than 30,000 Facebook orders stuck in Nasdaq's system for more than two hours.

Many brokerages were left in the dark wondering if their trades went through. Major market makers estimated they lost collectively up to $500 million in the IPO.

Nasdaq devised a plan to compensate firms up to $62 million, and laid out the criteria for how firms can be eligible to file claims.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the compensation plan in March, and FINRA was put in charge of processing the claims for restitution.

Several months after approving the plan, the SEC in May filed civil charges against Nasdaq, saying the exchange's "ill-fated decisions" on the day of the Facebook IPO led to a series of regulatory violations.

If we continue along our current path, the majority of humans will face chronic water shortages within two generations, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. City managers worldwide will be forced to decide how water should be deployed; and there will not be enough to go round. Nations will become even more vulnerable in the face of drought and extreme weather. And the pursuit of ever-dwindling resources will trigger land-grabbing and conflict, pitting nation against nation, and neighbour against neighbour.

It doesn't have to be this way. If we can focus on strategies that reduce demand and waste, establish practical policies, and apply smart technology for efficient use and monitoring, humankind can more sustainably manage this precious resource. But we must recognise that there can be no one-size-fits-all approach.

History can provide inspiration. Consider the ancient aqueduct system built in the 4th Century that supplied Constantinople with water from 250km away; or the great water systems of the early industrial era, such as the watersheds, tunnels, aqueducts and reservoirs that fed – and continue to feed – New York City. Built between the 1890s and 1940s, this infrastructure still sustains some nine million people with over 1.2 billion gallons of drinking water every day.

At around the same time, in the Netherlands, a massive earth dam project called the Zuiderzee and Delta Works transformed a shallow inland sea of 1,350 sq miles (3,500 sq km) into both fertile agricultural land and a coastal buffer that reduced flooding and provided fresh water. In that ambitious project, pumping stations were able to drain the enclosed land, or polder, within six months.

Jeffrey Zients told reporters in a conference call that Quality Software Services Inc, or QSSI, will serve as a general contractor to oversee the repairs.

The administration has not had a technology company overseeing the entire project. Instead, the government decided early on that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, would serve as the system integrator.

The company, a unit of health insurer UnitedHealth Group, already has a technology contract related to the website and testified on Thursday to a congressional panel about problems with the system.

QSSI produced the federal data hub and a software tool for creating online consumer accounts, which was at the center of early logjam problems.

Online insurance exchanges were launched on October 1 under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, often called "Obamacare," to offer health insurance plans to millions of uninsured Americans. But many Americans have experienced error messages and long waits in trying to sign on to Healthcare.gov, which has become a political embarrassment for Obama.

"By the end of November, the vast majority of consumers will be able to successfully and smoothly enroll through Healthcare.gov," Zients said.

'A LOT OF PROBLEMS'

Zients said he had brought in technology experts to establish the problems with the website and to prioritize the repairs. Based on that assessment, he described Healthcare.gov as being "fixable."

"It will take a lot of work and there are a lot of problems that will need to be addressed, but the bottom line is that it is fixable," he said.

He said experts had identified "dozens of items" to be fixed in terms of both performance and functionality, and said a problem related to communications with insurers was on the top of the list. He did not provide further details about the nature of the glitches.

Rockstar's controversial game - where players commit crime in the fictional city of Los Santos - was presented with the Game of the Year gong at a ceremony in central London.

Sony's The Last of Us also scooped two awards.

Ken Levine - the man behind Bioshock and System Shock 2 - was honoured with a lifetime achievement award.

The Golden Joysticks are the largest publicly-voted video game awards in the world, with this year more than 10 million people casting a vote.

The Lifetime Achievement is a new addition to the ceremony.

Mr Levine has been a high profile figure in the industry ever since he worked with designer Doug Church, on the first-person shooter, Thief: The Dark Project, credited with being one of the first titles to introduce the concept of stealth into video games.

"The great thing about the still-maturing nature of video games is you get to be inspired by the work of novices and veterans alike," he said. "We're all figuring out day by day exactly what the medium is capable of."

Gaming diversity Now in its 31st year, the awards were first given out back in 1983, with the first Game of the Year award going to Jet Pac on the ZX Spectrum.

Andy Robinson, editor of Computer and Videogames, said that three decades on, the awards still "represent the voice of gamers worldwide".

"We've revamped the categories to reflect the diversity of modern gaming and also added the inaugural Lifetime Achievement award, which has made this year's ceremony the most thrilling for us yet," he said.

The Golden Joysticks are not the only big awards for the video games industry.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts hands out its Video Game Baftas in the spring each year, although the majority of their awards are selected by a panel of experts, rather than a public vote.

"There is no question that the disclosure of classified information has posed a moment of tensions with some of our allies," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.

"We are having discussions with those allies," she said referring to a visit next week by German intelligence chiefs to Washington to seek answers.

She said Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the accusations, based on allegations by fugitive ex-U.S. intelligence operative Edward Snowden, with officials in France and Italy during a recent visit to Europe.

Psaki said the leaks about U.S. intelligence activities had "created significant challenges in our relationships" with allied nations and a "public distraction."

"He (Kerry) certainly recognizes that as we look to pursue a range of diplomatic priorities, whether that is working on global issues like Syria, or Iran, or (trade negotiations), it will really be a mistake to let these disclosures get in the way of that," Psaki said.

Merkel has demanded that President Barack Obama address the issue following the accusations that the U.S. National Security Agency accessed tens of thousands of French phone records as well as monitoring her private phone.

Berlin plans to send officials from its intelligence agency BND to Washington, while members of the European Parliament have said they will fly to the United States on Monday to explore "possible legal remedies for EU citizens."

Reza Olangian, a dual citizen of the United States and Iran, was charged with four counts, including trying to acquire and transfer anti-aircraft missiles, violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and two conspiracy counts.

The defendant was arrested at an airport in Tallinn, Estonia, on October 10, 2012, and extradited to the United States on March 26, 2013, according to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in New York, who announced the charges.

"We are prepared to defend Mr. Olangian against the charges in the indictment," his lawyer Lee Ginsberg said in an email. Olangian remains in federal custody, Ginsberg added.

Prosecutors said Olangian, also known as Raymond Avancian, dealt over several months last year with an undercover official working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who he believed was a weapons and aircraft broker, to arrange for goods to be acquired and illegally sent to the Iranian government.

They said this followed a failed effort by Olangian in 2007 to obtain about 100 missiles for Iran.

Prosecutors said evidence against him included emails and recorded conversations in which he expressed interest in obtaining at least 200 missiles, as well as equipment such as Bell 412 helicopters.

According to the complaint, Olangian intended for the goods to enter Iran by land from Afghanistan or another neighboring country, and in an August 28, 2012, email to the undercover official provided initial payment details.

"I want to be at the exchange location for no MISHAPS," the email said, according to the complaint.

Olangian faces up to life in prison if convicted.

"After having been thwarted in his first attempt, Reza Olangian seized on a second opportunity to help arm the Iranian military with surface-to-air missiles and airline parts in violation of international trade sanctions and other laws," Bharara said in a statement. "Olangian struck out."

The case was assigned to Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.