Tomorrow's Newspapers online. 08-08-2013 | S

Kieran Youngman, 17, beat more than 344,000 competitors from 90 countries to win $5,000 (£3,000) and a trophy.

Exam-testing company Certiport set online challenges featuring the 2007 or 2010 versions of Microsoft Office programs Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

The best 100 contestants were invited to the final in Washington DC - next year's will be in Anaheim, California.

Mr Youngman said: "Career-wise I think it will show any employers I know how to use a Microsoft Office product

"There's no other way to prove you know exactly what you're talking about, without certification.

"Certification is validation you know what you're doing.

"With school, I'll be able to write reports and essays and stuff and make it a bit more fancy, to hopefully get a few extra marks.

He is suspected of offences against two women, who reported the allegations on 25 and 29 July.

The BBC understands it relates to threats made against Labour MP Stella Creasy and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez.

They are among a number of prominent women recently targeted online by anonymous abusers, so-called "trolls".

It is the third such arrest since allegations surfaced two weeks ago.

The man is being held under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and is due to be taken to a Bristol police station, the Metropolitan Police said.

Extra staff

There have been calls for Twitter to do more to prevent abuse after anonymous users of the site sent messages to well-known women threatening bomb and rape attacks.

Female journalists, columnists and the historian Mary Beard were all targeted.

Last weekend some users boycotted the site to protest against trolling - the practice of insulting or intimidating others, usually under a pseudonym, to provoke a reaction.

Twitter attracted media and police attention after campaigner Ms Criado-Perez was targeted by trolls when she successfully lobbied for a woman's face to be pictured once more on UK banknotes.

A 21-year-old man was arrested in Manchester on 28 July after Ms Criado-Perez reported the abuse to police, while a 25-year-old man was held by Northumbria Police on 30 July in connection with the allegations as well as those against Ms Creasy.

Twitter has drafted in extra staff to deal with the levels of abuse and has moved to clarify its reporting procedures.

The Iter project at Cadarache in Provence is receiving the first of about one million components for its experimental reactor.

Dogged by massive cost rises and long delays, building work is currently nearly two years behind schedule.

The construction of the key building has even been altered to allow for the late delivery of key components.

"We're not hiding anything - it's incredibly frustrating," David Campbell, a deputy director, told BBC News.

"Now we're doing everything we can to recover as much time as possible.

"The project is inspiring enough to give you the energy to carry on - we'd all like to see fusion energy as soon as possible." After initial design problems and early difficulties co-ordinating this unique international project, there is now more confidence about the timetable.

Since the 1950s, fusion has offered the dream of almost limitless energy - copying the fireball process that powers the Sun - fuelled by two readily available forms of hydrogen.

The attraction is a combination of cheap fuel, relatively little radioactive waste and no emissions of greenhouse gases.

But the technical challenges of not only handling such an extreme process but also designing ways of extracting energy from it have always been immense.

In fact, fusion has long been described as so difficult to achieve that it's always been touted as being "30 years away".

Now the Iter reactor will put that to the test. Known as a "tokamak", it is based on the design of Jet, a European pilot project at Culham in Oxfordshire.

It will involve creating a plasma of superheated gas reaching temperatures of more than 200 million C - conditions hot enough to force deuterium and tritium atoms to fuse together and release energy.

The whole process will take place inside a giant magnetic field in the shape of a ring - the only way such extreme heat can be contained.

The plant at JET has managed to achieve fusion reactions in very short bursts but required the use of more power than it was able to produce.

In recent months, AOL has turned its attention to video advertising as it tries to get more sales from marketers and reduce its reliance on lucrative but dwindling revenue from its dial-up subscription service.

To that end, AOL also reported higher-than-expected revenue for the second quarter on an increase in display, search and ads from third-party networks.

Shares of AOL were up 3.6 percent at $37.50 in trading before the market opened.

Revenue rose almost 1 percent to $541.3 million, compared with the analysts' average estimate of $539.6 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income fell to $28.5 million, or 35 cents per share, compared with $970.8 million, or $10.17 per share, a year earlier, when AOL sold a group of patents to Microsoft Corp for more than $1 billion.

The revelation amounted to an acknowledgement that plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) has yet to come to grips with the scale of the catastrophe, 2 1/2 years after the plant was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami. Tepco only recently admitted water had leaked at all.

Calling water containment at the Fukushima Daiichi station an "urgent issue," Abe ordered the government for the first time to get involved to help struggling Tepco handle the crisis.

The leak from the plant 220 km (130 miles) northeast of Tokyo is enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool in a week. The water is spilling into the Pacific Ocean, but it was not immediately clear how much of a threat it poses.

As early as January this year, Tepco found fish contaminated with high levels of radiation inside a port at the plant. Local fishermen and independent researchers had already suspected a leak of radioactive water, but Tepco denied the claims.

Tetsu Nozaki, the chairman of the Fukushima fisheries federation said he had only heard of the latest estimates of the magnitude of the seepage from media reports.

Environmental group Greenpeace said Tepco had "anxiously hid the leaks" and urged Japan to seek international expertise.

"Greenpeace calls for the Japanese authorities to do all in their power to solve this situation, and that includes increased transparancy...and getting international expertise in to help find solutions," Dr. Rianne Teule of Greenpeace International said in an emailed statement.

In the weeks after the disaster, the government allowed Tepco to dump tens of thousands of tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific in an emergency move.

But the escalation of the crisis raises the risk of an even longer and more expensive clean-up, already forecast to take more than 40 years and cost $11 billion.

The admission further dents the credibility of Tepco, criticised for its failure to prepare for the tsunami and earthquake, for a confused response to the disaster and for covering up shortcomings.

"We think that the volume of water (leaking into the Pacific) is about 300 tonnes a day," said Yushi Yoneyama, an official with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees energy policy.

Tatsuya Shinkawa, a director in METI's Nuclear Accident Response Office, told reporters the government believed water had been leaking for two years, but Yoneyama told Reuters it was unclear how long the water had been leaking at the current rate.

The multibillionaire founder of online retailer Amazon.com Inc may have paid more than four times the price that the financial results of the Washington Post suggests it is worth.

In Monday's deal, Bezos agreed to buy the Post and a handful of other newspaper assets from the Washington Post Co for $250 million. Going by the valuations of other newspaper deals and publicly traded media companies, though, the Washington Post would have been worth closer to $60 million.

The average sale of a metro U.S. newspaper has commanded a valuation of 3.5 to 4.5 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), according to Reed Phillips, managing partner of the media investment bank DeSilva and Phillips.

Morningstar analyst Liang Feng estimated that the Washington Post's newspaper division posted EBITDA of $15 million last year, not including pension liabilities. Washington Post CEO Donald Graham said the newspaper division was profitable last year but declined to give a figure.

Based on those estimates, Bezos paid about 17 times 2012 EBITDA.

Washington Post Co's shares rose more than 4 percent on Tuesday.

Such a large premium, which essentially pays for intangible assets like the brand name, may mean that any future sellers of prestigious newspapers will raise their price expectations. Other major newspapers that are in the sights of potential buyers include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Analysts and bankers said that when it came to newspapers such as the Washington Post, the usual financial metrics did not apply. The price, as in the case of other trophy assets like sports teams, depended on what a buyer was willing to pay.

"The reality for newspapers like the Washington Post is it's impossible to use traditional financial metrics," said Paul Zwillenberg, a partner at The Boston Consulting Group. "These are trophy assets whose value is in the eye of the beholder."

The deal could be one bright spot in an otherwise dour outlook for the newspaper industry, which faces declining advertising revenue and subscribers as people increasingly get their news online and on handheld devices. Over the past five years advertising revenue - still the major vein of revenue for most newspapers - fell by half to $22.3 billion.

The New York Times Co, for example, faces many of the same headwinds as the Washington Post.

In a statement, interim President Adly Mansour's office said the period of international efforts that began more than 10 days ago had "ended today".

Envoys from the United States, European Union, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been trying to defuse the crisis and prevent further bloodshed.

The breakdown raised the prospect of heightened instability and bloodshed in the most populous Arab state which has a peace treaty with Israel and controls the strategic Suez Canal. Egypt's crisis also has a wider impact on other countries, such as Tunisia, which saw similar Arab Spring uprisings in 2001.

The state held the Muslim Brotherhood completely responsible for "the failure of these efforts and the later events and developments that might result from this failure related to breaches of the law and endangering civil peace", the presidency statement added.

Thousands of supporters of Mursi, who was toppled by the army on July 3, have been staging protest sit-ins in two areas of Cairo for the last five weeks to demand his reinstatement.

Egyptian authorities had warned they were losing patience with the sit-ins, which can swell to tens of thousands. The presidency's declaration suggests security forces could soon use force to break up the gatherings.

Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since the overthrow, including 80 shot dead by security forces in a single incident on July 27.

Underscoring concerns over deeper turmoil, Egypt's leading Islamic authority Al-Azhar plans to host talks on the crisis next week, the state news agency MENA reported.

Al-Azhar would call people who had proposed initiatives to end the standoff for "an important meeting" after the Eid el-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, MENA said. The holiday lasts from Thursday to Sunday.

"There are some initiatives that can be built upon to start national reconciliation," an al-Azhar official told MENA.

The meeting would be held in the presence of Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Sheikh of the 1,000-year old institution, who endorsed the military takeover last month.

The presidency statement said the government had allowed the envoys "to visit and discuss" the situation, including with jailed Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

The aim was to urge the Brotherhood to "respect the will of the people" who had protested to demand an end to Mursi's rule.

Obama's basic message across the country, most recently sounded on Tuesday in Arizona, is that while he has made great strides in improving the economy, further progress is being thwarted by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

By obstructing his proposals, Republicans are hurting the nation's "most vulnerable children," Obama said, along with farmers, the military, home-buyers, middle-class job seekers, immigrants and businesses seeking to hire immigrants.

From Galesburg, Illinois, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Phoenix, Arizona, Obama has been unrelenting in tone, attacking "slash-and-burn partisanship," "phony scandals," and the "gutted" farm bill - all the work of Republicans now spoiling for a fight that "could plunge us back in financial crisis."

Offering what he considers a moderate position on overhauling policies governing the housing industry, Obama said in Phoenix on Tuesday: "First, private capital should take a bigger role in the mortgage market. I know that's confusing to folks who call me a socialist." [ID:nL1N0G71IR]

Republicans, equally combative, began their counterattack even before Obama hit the road on July 24. "He ought to stop threatening to shut down the government unless we raise taxes," House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said. "Americans aren't asking the question 'where are the speeches?' They're asking 'where are the jobs?'"

The barbs are likely to continue for some time.

The president and Republicans in Congress confront two major spending showdowns this fall: the first over a bill in September to continue funding the government and the second, probably in October, to raise the government's borrowing power so it can keep paying its bills.

CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING WELL UNDER WAY

The midterm elections, held in years when a president is not being selected, are in November 2014 and fundraising by Democrats and Republicans is well under way. Both parties need issues to inspire contributions.

It is normal for a president to join the fray on behalf of his party in a midterm election, though White House officials insist that beyond fundraising for Democrats, Obama is not focused at all on the 2014 races.

"The president is focused on using every day in office to try to advance his agenda and when it comes to affecting the outcome of the midterms, the Republicans appear to be taking the lead on that," said a senior White House official.

Sony said it could still squeeze synergies from its decades-old marriage of content and hardware and promised more disclosure in its entertainment operations.

Loeb's Third Point LLC hedge fund has waged a three-month campaign to convince the company to sell as much as one-fifth of its money-making entertainment arm - movies, TV and music - to free up cash to revive the electronics business.

"Sony's board of directors has unanimously concluded that continuing to own 100 percent of our entertainment business is the best path forward and is integral to Sony's strategy," Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai said in a letter to Loeb, which was released by the company.

Loeb had cast his proposal for a public offering of part of Sony's entertainment business as consistent with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to boost economic growth through structural reform in Japan.

But a source familiar with the discussions said Sony's decision reflected worries about listing a subsidiary, not resistance to corporate reform in Japan.

The company did not need the cash from a subsidiary IPO, which would have created possible conflicts and cumbersome requirements from such a listing, he added.

"I can't believe this is a statement on Japanese companies not being willing to be flexible," said the source.

FURTHER OPTIONS

Loeb, who owns around 7 percent of Sony through shares and cash-settled swaps, said he was disappointed with the decision, even while acknowledging that Sony was showing a greater commitment to transparency.

He also made it clear the saga was not over.

"Third Point looks forward to an ongoing dialogue with management and intends to explore further options to create value for Sony shareholders," Third Point said in a statement.

Sources familiar with the situation were skeptical, however, about the prospects for a proxy fight taken directly to shareholders, given the history of failures of such efforts in Japan.

Sony's shares fell 4.6 percent on Tuesday but are still more than double their value at the start of the year, boosted by Loeb's calls for reform at the company and by the prime minister's reflationary "Abenomics" policies.

The company's promise of improved transparency in its entertainment business includes quarterly updates on revenue in its music and pictures segments, as well as other metrics.

Since starting Amazon in 1994, he has frequently upset investors by spending heavily on long-term investments, even if it means missing analysts' financial targets and sending the e-commerce giant's stock price plunging.

Bezos' approach makes him well-suited to own a storied but deeply troubled newspaper business like the Washington Post. Away from the harsh glare of Wall Street, Post employees can expect an intense boss, but one who will likely not demand to see immediate financial returns from his $250 million acquisition.

"The Post has got itself a patient, exacting and imaginative owner which are attributes its journalists should welcome with open arms," Mike Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital and a former journalist, said in an email.

Bezos, 49, who is buying the Washington Post as a personal investment for $250 million, has funded an eclectic array of ventures through an entity called Bezos Expeditions, including the business news website Business Insider and Twitter, the messaging service.

He has not previously expressed deep interest in newspapers or journalism, though Amazon's forays into electronic books, tablet computers and television programming have placed it squarely in the media business. By his own description, he is a voracious reader of newspapers.

"He's long valued the written word and authors," said Tom Alberg, a managing director of the Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group and a board member of Amazon.com. "There's a danger of long-form journalism being on the decline. He takes a long-term view."

RETAIL REVOLUTION

Bezos' journey, both literal and figurative, from a successful stint on Wall Street to the suburban Seattle garage where he launched Amazon.com is one of the famous founding stories of the dot-com era.

From modest beginnings as an online bookseller, Bezos and Amazon branched out into almost every product category available, ending up taking on established retail giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Under Bezos, Amazon launched the Kindle e-reader and revolutionized the way books are distributed and read. The company has also been a pioneer in cloud computing - a trend that has begun to turn the traditional IT business on its head.

The initiative comes after reports that a Chinese woman was electrocuted by a non-Apple charger.

Apple said it would swap third-party chargers for an official replacement on payment of $10 or the equivalent in local currency.

The programme begins on 16 August and will run to 18 October.

In mid-July, Apple said it was investigating reports that a Chinese woman, Ma Ailun, was killed when she answered her iPhone 5 while it was plugged into a wall charger. The third-party charger was later blamed as the cause.

No mention was made of Ms Ma's death in the blogpost announcing the trade-in programme but Apple said that the initiative was prompted by "safety issues".

Give serial number In a related move, Apple has recently updated its Chinese website with information to help people identify fake USB chargers.

Those who want to get an official charger must hand over the third-party device and give the serial number of the iPhone, iPod or iPad it is being used to charge. The $10 or equivalent fee is a discount on the usual price of a charger. In the UK an Apple charger costs about £15.

Owners will only be able to trade in one adapter for each relevant Apple gadget they own. Trade-ins can be made at Apple stores or via authorised service providers.

Rouhani, seen in the West as a relatively moderate leader, said he was "seriously determined" to resolve the dispute and was ready to enter "serious and substantive" negotiations in order to do so.

Iran's critics say that it has used previous nuclear talks as a delaying tactic while continuing to develop nuclear weapons-related technology - something Tehran denies. Iran says it needs atomic power for energy and medical needs.

Rouhani said Iran would not abandon its nuclear programme, which it would uphold "on the basis of international law".

"We will not do away with the right of the nation," the 64-year-old said. "However, we are for negotiations and interaction. We are prepared, seriously and without wasting time, to enter negotiations which are serious and substantive with the other side."

"If the other party is also prepared like we are, then I am confident that the concerns of both sides will be removed through negotiations within a period which will not be very long."

Hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue have risen with Rouhani's victory over conservative rivals in June, when voters chose him to replace hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A cleric whose watchword is "moderation", Rouhani is however still very much an Islamic Republic insider.

LAST TALKS DEADLOCKED

His words on Tuesday are likely to reinforce that view, although talks over Iran's nuclear programme have long had a habit of frustrating both sides.

The last high-level talks between Iran and world powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - were held in April and failed to break the deadlock.

Since Rouhani's victory at the polls, the United States has said it would be a "willing partner" if Iran was serious about finding a peaceful solution to the issue.

Adding to a sense of urgency and opportunity, Russia on Tuesday said fresh talks between Iran and world powers must not be delayed and should take place by mid-September.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking during a visit to Italy, said Russia "absolutely agreed" with Rouhani, and criticized moves to tighten sanctions against Iran, saying it was a time for dialogue, not ultimatums.

"Now it is critical to support the constructive approach of the Iranian leadership," he said in comments carried on Russian news agencies.