Deeper eurozone union ‘agreed’

14 December 2012 Last updated at 08:55 ET

EU leaders have agreed on a roadmap for eurozone integration beyond the deal on centralised banking supervision, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Specific dates have not yet been agreed for the phases of integration.

But the EU summit chairman, Herman Van Rompuy, said a deal should be reached next year on a joint resolution scheme for winding up failed banks.

Mr Van Rompuy’s far-reaching roadmap was the main topic of the two-day Brussels summit.

Speaking after the summit talks, French President Francois Hollande said: “There is no doubt today about the integrity of the eurozone – Europe cannot now be taken by surprise.”

But beyond the banking reforms, he said, Europe must address the problems of unemployment and feeble growth.

The deal to make the European Central Bank (ECB) the chief regulator should pave the way for direct recapitalisation of struggling eurozone banks by the main bailout fund, the 500bn-euro (£406bn; $ 654bn) European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Spain is especially anxious to get that help for its debt-laden banks.

Direct recapitalisation would help break the “vicious circle” in which bank debts have put a crippling burden on national budgets and led to massive taxpayer-funded bailouts.

However, Germany insists that the ESM should not be used to write off the existing “legacy” debts that have burdened Spain, Greece and the Republic of Ireland. Any ESM loans will be accompanied by tough rules on budget discipline.

June deadline

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Eurozone integration – next steps

• ECB takes charge of bank supervision no later than March 2014


• Joint scheme to wind down broken banks, planned for launch in mid-2014


• Joint deposit guarantee scheme, to prevent bank runs


• Main bailout fund – ESM – gets power to recapitalise banks, under strict conditions


• More centralised economic governance, including enforceable “contracts” between governments and EU Commission


• Tighter co-ordination of national budget targets

At a late-night news conference, Mrs Merkel said “we agreed a roadmap for the future development of the currency union and talked about different aspects of this that are important.

“Above all, it was important to define when we do what.”

Mr Van Rompuy aims to present detailed plans for deeper economic integration in time for the June 2013 EU summit. They would include “mutually agreed contracts for competitiveness and growth between governments and EU institutions”.

Much closer EU scrutiny of national budgets is envisaged, including penalties if governments rack up unsustainable debts.

Contractual agreements on things such as taxation and labour market policy are likely to require changes to the EU treaties – so these are likely to be put off until after the European elections in mid-2014.

The UK, along with Denmark, has a formal opt-out from joining the euro, and will not be part of the new banking union. But the UK’s banking pre-eminence in Europe means it is taking an intense interest in the negotiations.

UK ‘at heart’ of EU

At a news conference after the summit, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said a “multi-faceted” Europe, with countries going at different speeds, did not leave the UK in an uncomfortable position.

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Eurozone banking deal

• ECB to act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks and lenders


• ECB to co-operate closely with national supervisory authorities


• Direct oversight of banks with assets greater than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) or with 20% of national GDP


• National supervisors to remain in charge of other tasks


• Non-eurozone countries that wish to take part can make close co-operation arrangements

He stressed that the UK had been “at the heart of decision making” on important issues like sanctions and EU enlargement, and “we wrote the rules of the single market and benefit from it today”.

He said the eurozone countries were committed to protecting the euro, but deeper integration involved big sovereignty issues. “I personally believe Britain won’t ever join, certainly not while I’m prime minister,” he said.

Referring to the EU’s crisis response, he said that “as this plays out it’s changing the European Union… so I believe there are opportunities for others, like Britain, to make changes themselves”.

‘Good example’

New rules on prudent banking are seen as vital to bolster the euro, as bank failures triggered the financial crash.

Under the deal expected to take effect in March 2014, banks with more than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) in assets will be placed under ECB oversight.

The ECB would also be able to intervene with smaller lenders and borrowers at the first sign of trouble.

Speaking after the summit, Mr Hollande said Europe had been unprepared for the financial crisis but now had a “crisis management authority” which allowed for the “return of confidence and growth”.

The agreement on a financial transactions tax was, he told reporters, a good example of how countries could be brought into eurozone integration through closer co-operation, signing up to agreements at a later stage.

A non-eurozone country, Lithuania, joined the group adopting a financial transaction tax.

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet – but something went wrong.

Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn’t work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent right away. So, he needed a little help from his friends.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli of the Vatican‘s communications department showed the pontiff how to do it, but the pope hesitated. Celli touched the screen lightly himself and off went the papal tweet.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart,” he said in his introduction to the brave new world of Twitter.

The tweet was sent at the end of weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The pope already had just over a million followers in all of the languages combined minutes before he sent his first tweet and the number was growing.

PAPAL Q AND A

Later on Wednesday after the audience was over and the television cameras turned off, the pontiff answered the first of three questions sent to him at #askpontifex.

The first question answered by the pope was: “How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?”

His answer: “By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need.”

The pope, who, as leader of the Roman Catholic Church already has 1.2 billion followers in the standard sense of the word, won’t be following anyone else, the Vatican has said.

After his first splash into the brave new world of Twitter on Wednesday, the contents of future tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays.

They are also expected to include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

The Vatican says papal tweets will be little “pearls of wisdom”, which is understandable since his thoughts will have to be condensed to 140 characters, while papal documents often top 140 pages.

The Vatican said precautions had been taken to make sure the pope’s certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican’s secretariat of state will be used for the tweets.

After Wednesday, Benedict won’t be pushing the button on his tweets himself. They will be sent by aides but he will sign off on them.

The pope’s Twitter page is designed in yellow and white – the colors of the Vatican, with a backdrop of the Vatican and his picture. It may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

The pope has given a qualified welcome to social media.

In a document issued last year, he said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity”, but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

In 2009, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called “The pope meets you on Facebook”, and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff’s speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

The Vatican famously got egg on its face in 2009 when it was forced to admit that, if it had surfed the web more, it might have known that a traditionalist bishop whose excommunication was lifted had for years been a Holocaust denier.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Roll Up! “Magical Mystery Tour” gets U.S. TV debut

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Give four pop stars turned hippies a movie camera in 1967 and what do you get? The Beatles‘ “Magical Mystery Tour” film, which will receive its long-awaited U.S. broadcast television debut on Friday on PBS.

Long a curiosity in the United States, the film will be accompanied by a new documentary about its making. A restored version was released on DVD and blu-ray in October.

The third film for The Fab Four, after a “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964 and “Help!” a year later, “Magical Mystery Tour” is a shambolic trip through the English countryside on a bus filled with odd characters, but thin on plot. It first aired on BBC television the day after Christmas 1967.

Although it was initially panned by British critics, time has delivered some justice to the project, Jonathan Clyde, the producer of the documentary, told Reuters.

“‘Magical Mystery Tour‘ has always been the black sheep of the Beatles family, but I think it’s been rehabilitated into the Beatles canon,” Clyde said. “It’s no longer the ‘mad uncle in the attic’ that nobody wants to talk about. It’s been let out.”

In the United States, little was known about the film at the time of its release.

Beatles fans only had the album of music, or saw a poor print of the film in a double-feature midnight showing with “Reefer Madness,” a 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film often screened decades later for comedic effect.

“I first saw it in 1974 at a university,” Bill King, the longtime publisher of Beatles fanzine Beatlefan, said of “Magical Mystery Tour.” “By then, though, it had taken on mythic status. I loved it.”

At the time of its making, The Beatles were arguably at their creative peak on the heels of a seminal album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and their summer of love anthem “All You Need Is Love,” which debuted on global TV.

SCRIPT WANTED

But even before “Sgt. Pepper’s” release in June 1967, Paul McCartney had already conceived of the film project. The only thing he was missing: a script.

“Paul had drawn out a pie chart,” said Clyde, also a longtime consultant for The Beatles‘ company, Apple Corps. “It just said things like ‘Get on coach,’ ‘Dreams,’ ‘End Song.’ They really had no idea what it was going to be like.”

The group hired a bus, a film crew, and a handful of extras and set out around England, creating scenes with everything from magicians to Ringo Starr’s oversized Aunt Jessie being stuffed with spaghetti by waiter John Lennon.

McCartney did most of the directing.

“It really had something for everyone, which is something I like about it,” Clyde said. “It was really a nod not only to the younger people watching, but to their parents’ generation, as well.”

The film also was loaded with six new Beatles songs, presented as what now would be considered music videos.

The music itself, including songs “I Am the Walrus” and “The Fool on the Hill,” was as innovative as any of the band’s music that year – and mostly recorded just before filming started.

“The Beatles were driven and inspired by having a deadline,” said Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin. The younger Martin remixed the songs at the legendary Abbey Road studios for the DVD and broadcast.

“And songs like ‘Walrus’ are a brilliant mix of both The Beatles as a rock and roll band and as masters of groundbreaking experimental recording,” Martin added.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Nick Zieminski)

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Bayer seeks FDA approval for cancer drug radium-223

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugmaker Bayer said on Friday it requested approval from U.S. regulators for an experimental prostate cancer drug that could eventually generate more than 1 billion euros ($ 1.31 billion) in annual sales.

Radium-223 dichloride, which Bayer used to call Alpharadin, is designed to target bone metastases from prostate cancer that cannot be treated by standard hormone therapy.

Bayer licensed radium-223 from Algeta in 2009, and if approved in the United States, radium-223 will be co-promoted by Bayer and Algeta, the Oslo-based company said on Friday.

Bayer, which on Wednesday said it was requesting EU approval for the drug, will market radium-223 alone in Europe if the treatment is approved there.

Bayer said last year that Radium-223 dichloride could become a “blockbuster” product with annual sales of least 1 billion euros.

The drug has some properties of calcium, which makes it cling to cancerous bone cells and then destroy them via alpha rays, which is more targeted that the shotgun approach of conventional radiotherapy.

(Reporting by Jonathan Gould; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

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Eurozone bank deal boosts summit

13 December 2012 Last updated at 12:55 ET

EU leaders have gone into a Brussels summit buoyed by a landmark deal on centralised supervision of eurozone banks, seen as a key integration step.

The European Commission said the leaders must “keep the same sense of urgency” despite an easing of market pressure on the eurozone recently.

The UK government says the new agreement does not threaten the City of London, the EU’s main financial centre.

The leaders will discuss a far-reaching roadmap for eurozone integration.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the deal reached by EU finance ministers after all-night talks “protected our interests in the single market”. He praised UK Chancellor George Osborne for “an excellent job”.

The UK, along with Denmark, has a formal opt-out from joining the euro, and will not be part of the new banking union. But the UK’s banking pre-eminence in Europe means it is taking an intense interest in the negotiations.

Mr Cameron said “this change does give us a chance to get a better deal in Europe”.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

This deal is a further example of how the eurozone crisis is carving out a new Europe less from choice but more by the need to survive”

End Quote

Sweden is also outside the euro, and its prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said the deal would still enable non-eurozone countries to have influence in European banking decisions.

“To start with Sweden will stay outside… Swedish taxpayers don’t want to cover losses in other countries,” he told reporters on arrival at the summit.

Around 200 of the biggest banks will come under the direct oversight of the European Central Bank, which will act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks.

New rules on prudent banking are seen as vital to bolster the euro, as bank failures triggered the financial crash.

The measures are also aimed at preventing banking failures, of the type that happened in Greece and Spain, ending up on the books of eurozone governments.

Eurozone finance ministers also agreed formally to release a long-delayed instalment of 34bn euros (£27bn; $ 44bn) to Greece over the next few days, with a further 15bn later on. Athens has been waiting for the bailout funding since June.

Heavily indebted Italy has also been a worry for investors, and political uncertainty has increased since former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confirmed that he would run again in a general election expected in February.

At a pre-summit meeting in Brussels conservative leaders voiced support for Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti, some urging him to run for election against Mr Berlusconi, sources who were there said.

Mr Monti, an unelected technocrat, has pushed through some unpopular but long-delayed reforms, including big public service cuts, since taking over from Mr Berlusconi a year ago with the EU’s approval.

‘Core demands’

EU finance ministers finally clinched the banking deal just before dawn on Thursday after 14 hours of talks.

Continue reading the main story

Eurozone banking deal

• ECB to act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks and lenders


• ECB to co-operate closely with national supervisory authorities


• Direct oversight of banks with assets greater than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) or with 20% of national GDP


• National supervisors to remain in charge of other tasks


• Non-eurozone countries that wish to take part can make close co-operation arrangements

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the agreement, telling the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) that Germany’s “core demands” had been secured. “It cannot be praised too highly.”

She has previously warned against rushing into banking union out of concern that Germany would face further financial demands.

Significantly, a large number of French banks will be supervised by the ECB but rather few institutions in Germany will, because of its fragmented banking industry, says the BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Peston.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hailed the deal as “a crucial and very substantive step towards completion of the banking union”.

‘Significant transfer’

For months, the threshold at which the ECB would act as chief supervisor has been the subject of strained negotiations.

Under the deal expected to take effect in March 2014, banks with more than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) in assets will be placed under the oversight of the European Central Bank.

The ECB would also be able to intervene with smaller lenders and borrowers at the first sign of trouble, the BBC’s Europe Editor Gavin Hewitt says.

Europe’s finance ministers have taken another major step towards closer integration, with a significant transfer of authority from national governments to the ECB, he says.

The deal gives the ECB powers to close down eurozone banks that do not follow the rules. It also paves the way for the EU’s main rescue fund to come to the direct aid of struggling banks.

It represents the first stage of a banking union – known as a Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) – which EU leaders believe can be put in place without having to change EU treaties.

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Angry Birds beats Samsung in viral marketing as mobile interest surged in 2012

This past year has shown us how effective leading smartphone and mobile app companies have become at leveraging viral videos. In Ad Age’s top-10 viral videos list for 2012, Samsung (005930) and Rovio each hog two spots. The Angry Birds Space video racked up 109 million views and the Angry Birds Star Wars hit the 41 million view mark. Meanwhile, Samsung managed to get 79 million views for its Galaxy S III video and 42 million views for the LeBron’s Day clip. It’s notable that Rovio’s Angry Birds clips were far cheaper to produce, with no major stars or lavish video production gimmickry.

The smartphone/mobile app industry thus held four of the top-10 viral video slots in 2012 — the rest of the list is a motley crew of names ranging from Invisible Children and Red Bull to Intel and M&M. It is telling that the smartphone/mobile app cluster is the only industry or cultural phenomenon that generated more than one spot on the list. Popular interest in mobile content continues surging.

It might also be a sign of the times that Apple (AAPL) did not hit the top-10. Samsung’s ultra-aggressive promotional efforts have started bearing fruit. What was once a boring, stale copycat brand in 2008 has suddenly started gripping the imaginations of consumers in a completely new way.

But perhaps even more interesting is that a mobile app company with less than 100 million euros in sales in 2011 managed to beat the mighty Samsung marketing machine in 2012. Rovio is in the vanguard of spreading mobile gaming into demographic niches that have never been all that interested in technology or gaming.

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Obama, Boehner hold “frank” meeting amid ‘fiscal cliff’ frustration

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a “frank” face-to-face meeting on Thursday in an effort to break an impasse in talks to avert the “fiscal cliff” of steep tax increases and spending cuts.

With an end-of-year deadline looming, the two leaders talked at the White House as frustration mounted over the recent lack of progress in negotiations that had become bogged down in a daily round of finger-pointing.

Aides on both sides used similar language to describe the 50-minute meeting, calling it “frank” and repeating that lines of communication remained open.

The meeting, also attended by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was announced after frustration broke out on both sides at a lack of progress and U.S. stocks turned negative due to fears the economy could dip into recession again if politicians fail to break the gridlock in Washington.

At times raising his voice, Boehner criticized Obama earlier in the day for putting jobs and the economic recovery at risk by insisting on raising tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent.

White House spokesman Jay Carney responded by reaffirming Obama’s commitment to raising the top rates and complaining there had been no movement from Republicans on that crucial topic.

“What we have not seen from the Republicans is any movement at all on the fundamental issue,” Carney told reporters. “Republicans need to accept the fact that rates will go up on the top 2 percent.”

In an interview with a Minnesota CBS television affiliate, Obama said he was hopeful of getting a deal and willing to make more spending cuts as long as revenue from higher tax rates for the rich was part of the deal.

“I’m willing to do a lot more cuts in spending. We also need to pair it up with a little more revenue,” he told WCCO television.

At a meeting earlier on Thursday, Obama’s top economic adviser, Gene Sperling, delivered a downbeat message to Democratic senators about the status of the fiscal cliff talks.

A Democratic aide described the presentation as “bleak,” saying Sperling told the group of senators that “we don’t have anywhere to go until Republicans move on (income tax) rates.”

RECESSION FEARS

Economists say failure to reach an agreement before January 1 could push the country back into recession. The main hurdle is the expiring tax cuts, which Obama wants extended for all but the rich and Boehner wants extended for everyone.

But with positions seeming to harden, both sides also emphasized their differences on Obama’s request for permanent authority to increase U.S. borrowing as part of a fiscal-cliff agreement and on Republican calls for an increase in the eligibility age for recipients of the Medicare healthcare program.

At a news conference, Boehner occasionally raised his voice in criticism of Obama’s bottom-line insistence on raising tax rates on the rich.

“Raising tax rates will hurt small businesses at a time when we’re expecting small businesses to be the engine of job creation in America,” said Boehner, who used a chart to illustrate his point that curbing spending increases was the key to deficit reduction.

If Obama persisted on a path of higher spending and higher taxes, he said, “this chart is going to look a lot worse.”

Afterward, his spokesman said Boehner would return to his home state of Ohio on Friday for the weekend, but was available if there were more talks. “Ohio has both cell phone service and airports,” spokesman Michael Steel said. “It won’t be a problem.”

A seven-day rally in world shares came to a halt and commodity prices slipped on Thursday after negotiations over the fiscal cliff appeared to stall.

Today there’s a certain sense that both sides are still apart,” said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, describing trading as “tweaking” while investors watch Washington’s back-and-forth drama.

While Republicans fumed, Obama planned to continue his public-relations offensive with a round of interviews with anchors from local television stations. He was interviewed by ABC’s Barbara Walters two days ago.

A flurry of new polls showed strong support for Obama’s position. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey, three-quarters of Americans said they would accept raising taxes on the wealthy to avoid the cliff. Even among Republicans, some 61 percent said they would accept tax increases on high earners.

‘REALITY SHOULD SET IN’

A Pew Research Center poll showed Obama’s approval rating rising and 55 percent saying he was making a serious effort to engage in the fiscal talks, while just 32 percent said Republicans were serious about a deal.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, citing the polls, said Boehner “can’t ignore the people forever” on the tax issue. “At some point, reality should set in,” he told reporters.

The polls have put Republicans in a difficult negotiating position, and pressure has grown on Boehner in recent weeks from the right and left. Some Republicans have expressed a willingness to give in on higher tax rates in exchange for deeper spending cuts, while conservatives have demanded that Boehner stand firm.

“I’m not concerned about my job as speaker,” Boehner, who faces re-election to the leadership post in January, told reporters.

Boehner also dismissed any notion that Republicans would agree to giving Obama more authority on the debt ceiling.

“Congress is never going to give up our ability to control the purse,” Boehner said. “The debt limit ought to be used to bring fiscal sanity to Washington.”

A group of 72 House Democrats urged Obama to reject Republican calls to raise the Medicare eligibility age.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, told reporters he was told by the White House that raising the eligibility age for qualifying for Medicare benefits was not in the mix anymore.

“My understanding is that is no longer one of the items being considered by the White House,” Durbin told reporters.

He said that raising the eligibility age “creates some serious issues for a lot of people who may be caught in the gap between retirement and eligibility. Where are they going to get health insurance? Many of them are sick people.”

(Additional reporting by Kim Dixon and Rachelle Younglai; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

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Rebekah Brooks gets £10.8m payoff

12 December 2012 Last updated at 13:48 ET

Rebekah Brooks, the former head of News International, was paid £10.8m after she resigned, it has emerged.

The figure, compensation for loss of office, appeared in the company’s accounts, released on Wednesday.

Mrs Brooks resigned in July 2011 shortly after the News of the World closed because of phone hacking allegations.

The accounts for the year to July 2012 also show the group set aside £17.5m to cover legal fees and damages.

That figure relates to existing claims only, and could rise in the future if it receives more, News International said.

Individuals who have received payments from the company include the parents of the murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler and the singer Charlotte Church.

Mrs Brooks, who has been charged over alleged payments to police and public officials, was a former editor of the News of the World and the Sun newspaper, and later rose to chief executive of News International.

She appeared at the Old Bailey last week and is due to face trial in September next year over alleged illegal payments to public officials.

Losses

The company said this financial year contained a “high level of uncertainty” due to potential damages and legal costs which may be payable as result of the legal action by those alleging their private messages were intercepted by the News of the World in search of stories.

News International Group is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and owns both the Times titles as well as the Sun newspaper.

Its accounts show it lost £153m in the year to July 2012 compared with a profit of £113m a year earlier.

The group said one of the main causes of the loss, £46.6m, was the closure of the News of the World, which published its last edition in July last year.

More than half of this is legal fees, it said. In addition to that there is the £10.8m loss of office payment and £2.9m in charitable donations from the sale of the last News of the World.

The Times

Separately, the editor of the Times, James Harding, has announced his resignation.

He will leave within a month and is expected to be replaced by Sunday Times editor John Witherow. .

In an address to staff, Mr Harding implied that the decision was not entirely his: “It has been made clear to me that News Corporation would like to appoint a new editor of the Times.

“I have, therefore, agreed to stand down. I called Rupert this morning to offer my resignation and he accepted it,” he said.

Mr Harding could move to Mr Murdoch’s publishing firm, Harper Collins, BBC business editor Robert Peston says.

Rupert Murdoch said: “James has been a distinguished editor for the Times, attracting talented staff to the paper and leading it through difficult times.

“I have great respect for him as a colleague and friend, and truly hope we can work together again.”

Mr Harding, who is 43, was one of the youngest journalists to take charge of the paper.

Split

The change at the Times newspaper comes hard on the heels of another move at the top of Mr Murdoch’s company.

Last week, the chief executive of News International, Tom Mockridge, who had taken over from Mrs Brooks in July 2011, said he would leave his role before the end of the month.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, said that Mr Mockridge’s decision was “absolutely and entirely his own”.

News Corp plans to split into two businesses, separating its newspaper and book publishing interests from its now dominant and much more profitable TV and film enterprises.

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‘Dishonored’ tops a diverse year in video games

The video game universe in 2012 is a study in extremes.

At one end, you have the old guard striving to produce mass-appeal blockbusters. At the other end, you have a thriving community of independent game developers scrambling to find an audience for their idiosyncratic visions. Can’t we all just get along?

Turns out, we can. For while some industry leaders are worried (and not without cause) about “disruptive” trends — social-media games, free-to-play models, the switch from disc-based media to digital delivery — video games are blossoming creatively. This fall, during the height of the pre-holiday game release calendar, I found myself bouncing among games as diverse as the bombastic “Halo 4,” the artsy “The Unfinished Swan” and the quick-hit trivia game “SongPop.”

Some of my favorite games this year have benefited from both sides working together. The smaller studios get exposure on huge platforms like Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. The big publishers seem more willing to invite a little quirkiness into their big-budget behemoths. Gamers win.

1. “Dishonored” (Bethesda Softworks, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): Arkane Studios’ revenge drama combined a witty plot, crisp gameplay and an uncommonly distinctive milieu, setting a supernaturally gifted assassin loose in a gloriously decadent, steampunk-influenced city.

2. “Mass Effect 3″ (Electronic Arts, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC): No 2012 game was more ambitious than BioWare’s sweeping space opera. Yes, the ending was a little bumpy, but the fearless Commander Shepard’s last journey across the cosmos provided dozens of thrilling moments.

3. “The Walking Dead” (Telltale Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, iOS): This moving adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comics dodged the predictable zombie bloodbath in favor of a finely tuned character study of two survivors: Lee, an escaped convict, and Clementine, the 8-year-old girl he’s committed to protect.

4. “Journey” (Thatgamecompany, for the PlayStation 3): A nameless figure trudges across a desert toward a glowing light. Simple enough, but gorgeous visuals, haunting music and the need to communicate, wordlessly, with companions you meet along the way translate into something that’s almost profound.

5. “Borderlands 2″ (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): Gearbox Software’s gleeful mash-up of first-person shooting, role-playing and loot-collecting conventions gets bigger and badder, but what stuck with me most were the often hilarious encounters with the damaged citizens of the godforsaken planet Pandora.

6. “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): A strategy classic returns, as the forces of Earth fight back against an extraterrestrial invasion. It’s a battle of wits rather than reflexes, a stimulating change of pace from the typical alien gorefest.

7. “Fez” (Polytron, for the Xbox 360): A two-dimensional dude named Gomez finds his world has suddenly burst into a third dimension in this gem from indie developer Phil Fish. As Gomez explores, the world of “Fez” continually deepens, opening up mysteries that only the most dedicated players will be able to solve.

8. “Spec Ops: The Line” (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): This harrowing tale from German studio Yager Development transplants “Apocalypse Now” to a war-torn Dubai. It’s a bracing critique, not just of war but of the rah-rah jingoism of contemporary military shooters.

9. “Assassin’s Creed III” (Ubisoft, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC): A centuries-old conspiracy takes root in Colonial America in this beautifully realized, refreshingly irreverent installment of Ubisoft’s alternate history franchise.

10. “ZombiU” (Ubisoft, for the Wii U): The best launch game for Nintendo’s new console turns the Wii U’s GamePad into an effective tool for finding and hunting down the undead.

Runners-up: “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” ”Darksiders II,” ”Dust: An Elysian Tail,” ”Far Cry 3,” ”Halo 4,” ”Mark of the Ninja,” ”Need for Speed: Most Wanted,” ”Paper Mario: Sticker Star,” ”Papo & Yo,” ”The Unfinished Swan.”

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Taylor Swift reclaims top spot on Billboard 200

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country-pop star Taylor Swift reclaimed the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with her hit album “Red,” keeping three new entries from the No.1 position.

“Red” landed back at No. 1 for the fourth time after selling 167,000 copies last week according to Nielsen SoundScan, ousting Alicia Keys‘ “Girl on Fire,” which fell to No. 7 this week.

New entries this week include rapper Wiz Khalifa‘s sophomore record “O.N.I.F.C.,” which debuted at No. 2 after selling 141,00 copies. Pop star Ke$ ha’s new album “Warrior” landed at No. 6 with sales of 85,000 while country band Florida Georgia Line‘s debut album “Here’s To the Good Times” came in at No. 10.

Ahead of the holidays, festive albums featured heavily in the top 10, with Rod Stewart‘s “Merry Christmas, Baby” at No. 3, Michael Buble‘s “Christmas” at No. 5 and Blake Shelton‘s “Cheers, It’s Christmas” at No. 8.

Bruno Mars’ latest single “Locked Out of Heaven” topped the Billboard Digital Songs chart for the first time with 197,000 copies sold, coming in ahead of Rihanna’s “Diamonds” at No. 2 and will.i.am and Britney Spears‘ “Scream & Shout” at No. 3.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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