News Online. 07-06-2013 | ScienceTechnology Bits

Sales of BlackBerry's make-or-break new line of smartphones in the quarter ended June 1 came in well below analysts' expectations and offered little evidence that the company can quickly win back market share from Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone, Samsung's (005930.KS) Galaxy devices, and other phones powered by Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Android operating system.

"The results were a quasi death knell for BlackBerry," said John Goldsmith, the deputy head of equities at Montrusco Bolton, which owns more than 1.5 million BlackBerry shares. "The share move last week was very violent. I think you are going to get people standing up and making their voices heard at the AGM."

BlackBerry has forecast another operating loss for the current quarter, but Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said the company is on the right track and just needs more time.

"This is a year of investment. We have managed our cash carefully and prudently, and we now have the funds to invest, so this is the 'create the future' year," Heins told Reuters.

Some investors say BlackBerry must now look at all its options, from a sale of the whole company to a sale of parts. Its valuable patent portfolio and high-margin services business could draw interest from technology companies, according to bankers and investors.

Interest from private equity is seen to be weak, however, and some investors said they fear that BlackBerry will only lose more value if it keeps posting losses, burning through cash and bleeding subscribers.

"I think the pieces were worth more than the whole a year or two ago, but that's becoming less of a convincing argument and I am not sure it is true," said one fund manager, whose firm is one of BlackBerry's top 20 shareholders. The manager declined to be identified, citing to his firm's policy.

Ottawa reviews any big takeover of a Canadian company for competitive and national security reasons. Government officials have often said they want BlackBerry to succeed as a Canadian company, but concede they do not know how things will play out.

Given the uncertainty about its turnaround prospects, a foreign bid for BlackBerry could be palatable to Canadian regulators, some shareholders say.

PROSPECTS THINNING

Heins said BlackBerry is determined to stick to its strategy, and will unveil more devices that run on its new BlackBerry 10 operating system over the next eight months.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which advises its mainly rich nation members on economic and tax policies, has been charged by the G20 group of countries with formulating measures to stop big companies shifting profits into tax havens.

Corporate tax avoidance has become a hot political issue following public outrage over revelations in the past year that companies such as Apple and Google had used structures U.S. and European politicians said were designed to minimize the amount of taxes paid.

The OECD is now due to present an "action plan" highlighting broad areas where changes will be discussed to a G20 meeting later in July.

A preliminary draft of the plan, dated May 27, seen by Reuters, shows the organization has already identified a number of specific profit shifting schemes.

"Domestic and international tax rules should be modified in order to more closely align the allocation of income with the economic activity that generates that income," the draft said, echoing comments from politicians in the United States and Europe in the past year.

Business lobby groups have questioned whether companies do engage in activities to shift profits to units in tax havens and whether there is a need for rule changes.

But as governments struggle with large deficits following the financial crisis, lawmakers have said enough is enough.

The draft plan aims for OECD members and non-OECD G20 members to agree on specific changes to international tax rules in one to two years -- fast by the standards of international tax diplomacy.

Among the areas the draft said the OECD would seek to address are situations where companies avoid creating a taxable residence in a market where they have major activities.

British lawmakers have accused Google of using certain arrangements to avoid creating a tax residence in the UK. [ID:nL5N0EO2HF]

Its low tax bill is a result of channeling revenues through Ireland, from where most revenue is sent to Bermuda, with next to taxes being paid anywhere in the chain.

The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved a second miracle attributed to John Paul, a Pole who was elected in 1978 as the first non-Italian pope in 450 years and died in 2005. His progression to sainthood is the fastest in modern times.

The Vatican also said Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963 and called the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council - which enacted sweeping reforms to modernize the Church - would be made a saint even though he has only been credited with one miracle since his death.

The canonization ceremonies, which are likely to bring hundreds of thousands to people to Rome, are expected this year.

John Paul had already been credited with asking God to cure a French nun of Parkinson's disease, the same malady he had, before he was beatified in 2011.

Two confirmed miracles are usually required under Vatican rules for the declaration of a saint.

The second miracle attributed to his intercession is the inexplicable curing of a Costa Rican woman who prayed to him for help with her medical condition on the day of his beatification.

In the case of Pope John XXIII, who was known as the "good pope", Francis waived the customary rules requiring a second miracle after beatification, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said. John XXIII was beatified in 2000.

Francis, who has tried to instill a spirit of simplicity and reform in the Church since his election in March, is known to have great admiration for the reforming Pope John, who was born of peasant stock in northern Italy.

John Paul went down in history as the "globe-trotting pope," visiting every inhabited continent in more than 100 trips outside Italy.

LAST DAYS WATCHED BY WORLD

His struggle with ill health was watched by millions around the world on television towards the end of his life.

He was also credited with being instrumental in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 because of his steadfast defense of the Solidarity trade union in his native Poland.

After martial law was declared in Poland in 1981, he is believed to have told then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that if Russia invaded Poland, he would return home.

John Paul was nearly killed by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot him in St Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. Two trials failed to prove Italian magistrates' accusations that the Bulgarian secret services had carried out the plot with Agca on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Now, as his lawyers prepare to kick off their case, they will seek to convince the judge deciding the trial that Manning has been miscast by prosecutors. They are likely to argue, said legal experts, that he is a naive, well-intentioned 25-year-old who wanted to alert Americans to the reality of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Court-martial prosecutors have spent the last five weeks in a courtroom at Fort Meade, Maryland - home of the ultra-secret National Security Agency - building their case that Manning committed espionage in leaking more than 700,000 classified files, combat videos and diplomatic cables while a junior intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010. They rested on Tuesday.

When Manning's lead attorney David Coombs opens the defense on Monday, experts interviewed by Reuters said his best option was to show that Manning thought he was doing the right thing and never intended to damage the United States.

Geoffrey Corn, a professor at the South Texas School of Law in Houston, said the judge may be swayed by the "misguided motive" strategy based on the argument that Manning meant no harm to the nation.

"He didn't have a subjective illicit motive. Subjectively, he convinced himself he was doing right," he said.

Corn added that Manning was likely to be convicted and said the real fight could come at a separate sentencing proceeding where the defense could try to get the shortest prison term possible.

The charges against Manning include espionage, computer fraud and, most seriously, aiding the enemy by giving al Qaeda access to U.S. intelligence through the Internet.

Manning was arrested in 2010 and could face life in prison without parole if convicted of aiding the enemy. He pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges in February but prosecutors rejected the pleas.

Judge Colonel Denise Lind, who is presiding over the case and will decide it, has ruled that on the aiding-the-enemy charge, prosecutors have to prove Manning knowingly gave intelligence to al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and another unidentified extremist group.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Jeffrey Addicott, a law professor at St. Mary's University Law School in San Antonio, said he expected the defense to stress that the Crescent, Oklahoma, native did not intend to harm the United States but that its argument would not succeed.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, accuses China of flooding Europe with billions of euros of cheap solar panels sold at below the cost of production, and has imposed duties that will jump up to punitive levels in August.

Brussels and Beijing have until then to find a solution in their biggest ever trade dispute. Europe's free trade-advocates Britain and Germany want to avoid angering China and risk business with Europe's second largest trading partner.

However, the impact of overcapacity and plunging prices on European solar firms was underscored on Friday as German group Conergy (CGYGk.DE) filed for insolvency.

Officials from Europe and China said more than two weeks of negotiations in Beijing were going well and they aimed to agree a minimum price for Chinese importers above their production costs, although numbers are still fluid.

"We remain highly optimistic about the direction we are moving in," said Sun Guangbin, head of a government-industry association authorized to represent Chinese solar companies in the talks.

The European Commission, which handles trade cases for EU governments, declined to comment, but four officials close to the negotiations told Reuters they were also very positive.

"The architecture of the deal is there," said one person who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the talks. "The atmosphere in the talks is very business-like, there's a good chance of a deal before the August deadline." Punitive tariffs have the potential to affect 21 billion euros ($27.1 billion) of imported Chinese solar panels, cells and wafers from manufacturers such as Trina Solar (TSL.N), Yingli Green Energy (YGE.N) and Suntech Power Holdings (STP.N).

The EU accounts for about half of China's solar exports, which have already been affected by the euro zone public debt crisis that forced major European countries such as Germany to slash subsidies for renewable power.

DEAL ON THE TABLE

The proposed deal involves an annual quota for Chinese panels that cannot be sold at less than the cost of production in China. Analysts say that was around $0.59 per watt in 2012, but could go down to as low as $0.48 this year. That compares with about $0.65 per watt in Europe.

The Briton, 26, was furious when play was stopped after the third set because of fading light, but he returned to complete a 6-7 (2-7) 6-4 6-4 6-3 victory. Murray will play Novak Djokovic for the title on Sunday, when he will hope to make up for last year's final defeat by Roger Federer and end Britain's 77-year wait for a men's singles champion.

Djokovic took nearly five hours to beat Juan Martin del Potro in the first semi-final, meaning Murray had to wait until 18:19 BST to fire down the first serve of his match. The late start would prove significant a little over two hours later, after Murray raced through five straight games to win the third set and take control of a match that had been slipping away.

Janowicz, 22, was playing in his first Grand Slam semi-final, but the 6ft 8in Pole showed no sign of nerves early on as he saved one break point and two set points with huge second serves.

There was little Murray could do to avoid the lottery of a tie-break, and Janowicz hammered his way to four set points with his forehand before the under-pressure Briton conceded the first with a double fault.

If Janowicz had looked remarkably composed in the opening 50 minutes, the occasion appeared to finally take some toll at the start of the second when two double faults helped give Murray the perfect start.

It was far from plain sailing for the Scot as he teetered on the brink of handing back his advantage several times, but he held on to level after one hour and 33 minutes. With the time approaching 20:00 BST and the prospect of the light becoming an issue, Janowicz demanded umpire Jake Garner "tell me exactly the time" of when the roof might be closed.

Despite his annoyance, it was the Pole who pressed hard early in the third set and, after Murray saved two break points with aces, Janowicz finally converted at the seventh time of asking with a deadly drop shot.

Murray needed help from somewhere at 4-1 down in the third, and it came via a net cord that offered up a break point he grabbed with a flashing winner. Belief coursed through the player and the crowd of 15,000 on Centre Court, along with thousands watching the nearby big screen, and Murray reeled off five games to take a two sets to one lead.

The time had now moved past 20:30 and when tournament referee Andrew Jarrett arrived on court to announce the roof would be brought across because of fading light, Murray reacted angrily.

The vote leaves Snowden - believed to be staying in a transit area at a Moscow airport - with one option fewer as he seeks a country to shelter him from U.S. espionage charges.

Following the news in Iceland, WikiLeaks announced that Snowden had applied to another six countries for asylum, adding to a list of more than a dozen countries which he has already asked for protection.

The anti-secrecy organization, which has been supporting Snowden's efforts to find a safe haven since his exit from Hong Kong 12 days ago, said on Twitter it could not reveal the names the countries due to "attempted U.S. interference".

Six members of Iceland's parliament tabled a proposal late on Thursday to grant Snowden citizenship after they received a request from him via WikiLeaks, opposition parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir said.

But a majority of parliamentarians voted late on Thursday against allowing the proposal to be put on the agenda, a day before parliament went into summer recess. It does not reconvene until September.

"Snowden has formally requested citizenship. But nothing is now going to happen. We could not even vote on it," Jonsdottir told Reuters.

In a letter dated July 4, posted on Jonsdottir's blog, Snowden wrote that he had been left "de facto-stateless" by his government, which revoked his passport after he fled the country and leaked information about U.S. surveillance operations.

Most of the countries he has already sought asylum in, including Iceland, say he must be on their soil for his application to be accepted.

His request for citizenship was a different tack, hoping that Iceland would give him a passport, as it has done in at least one similar case in the past.

"I appreciate that Iceland, a small but significant country in the world community, shows such courage and commitment to its higher laws and ideals," he wrote in the letter.

Under Icelandic law, parliament can grant citizenship to foreigners, which can otherwise usually only be gained through naturalization after a period of residence.

"We told him it has to be short, respond to opposition demands to form a coalition government, amend the constitution and set a timeframe for the two actions," an officer present in the room told Reuters. "Yet he came out with a very long speech that said nothing. That is when we knew he had no intention of fixing the situation, and we had to prepare for Plan B."

The officer added: "We had prepared for all scenarios, from street violence to mass clashes, and had troops ready to handle both situations." Like other serving officers interviewed for this report, the person requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

As tensions rose over the following days, Mursi remained defiant. In a final telephone conversation with armed forces commander General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday, the president laughed and made light of mass demonstrations against him, a military source said.

"He just didn't believe what was going on," the source familiar with Sisi's contacts said. Any hope that the bearded, bespectacled Mursi would call a referendum on his own future or go quietly, had evaporated.

Soon afterwards, as millions took to the streets, the military executed their plan, confining Mursi as a prisoner in his own Republican Guard compound, arresting key supporters in his Muslim Brotherhood and seizing control of parts of the media. Thus ended the first attempt to graft political Islam and democracy onto the Arab world's most populous and historically powerful state, two and a half years after a popular uprising ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The ease and abruptness of Mursi's overthrow underlines the fragility of the Arab Spring that toppled a string of Middle East autocrats. Hopes that popular rebellions might lead to democracy taking root remain largely unfulfilled, although the experiment is still in progress in Tunisia.