Four year bans proposed under new WADA Code

(Reuters) – Athletes guilty of serious doping offenses will be suspended for four years from 2015 under proposals being considered by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), but there are no plans for a specific rule to ban offenders from the Olympics.

Currently, athletes found guilty of a first major doping offense are handed a two-year ban with any subsequent positive test incurring a life-ban.

The longer ban would be introduced for offenses that include the use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, masking agents and trafficking, according to a second draft of the 2015 WADA code which was reviewed over the weekend.

“It is clear … there is a strong desire in the world of sport, from governments and within the anti-doping community to strengthen the sanction articles in the code,” WADA President John Fahey said in a statement.

“This second draft has done that, doubling the length of suspension for serious offenders and widening the scope for anti-doping organizations to impose lifetime bans.”

The draft does not, however, consider a former International Olympic Committee (IOC) rule regarding Olympic participation, which was ruled in non-compliance with the WADA Code in 2011 by sport’s highest court, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The IOC rule, introduced in 2008, banned athletes from participating at the next Olympic Games if they had been suspended for six months or longer.

After the rule was ruled non-compliant, Britain was forced to overturn lifetime Olympic bans on their drug cheats.

“The rational is if more four-year sanctions are delivered, then there won’t be any need for (the IOC rule) because the athletes will be missing the next Olympics,” WADA spokesman Terence O’Rorke said by telephone from Montreal.

The new WADA Code draft also includes a proposal that to be prohibited, substances or methods must be performance enhancing, contrary to the spirit of sport or contrary to the health of athletes.

The proposed code will undergo further review between now and March 2013, when it will be presented to the WADA Foundation Board before a final draft is prepared for ratification at the world anti-doping conference in Johannesburg next November.

“Athletes must know that there is a heavy price to pay for intentional doping,” Fahey said. “I am confident this draft will deliver that message loud and clear.”

WADA also said its funding would be frozen for a second successive year at approximately $ 28 million in 2013.

“This freeze is not ideal for the fight against doping in sport,” Fahey said. “It is widely accepted that doping is a major issue no longer restricted to the sporting world, and that it must be addressed by society as a whole.”

(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina, editing by Nick Mulvenney)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Cameron pledges to lower hurdles to growth

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron promised on Monday to slash legal and regulatory obstacles to economic growth, seeking to ward off criticism that the government is doing too little to help companies and revive an ailing economy.

Cameron said he was determined to cut through officialdom and change a risk-averse government culture of consultation, review and audit that hindered enterprise.

“When this country was at war in the 1940s, Whitehall underwent a revolution,” he said, referring to the British government. “Normal rules were circumvented. Convention was thrown out,” Cameron said in advance extracts of a speech to business leaders.

“As one historian put it, everything was thrown at ‘the overriding purpose’ of beating Hitler. Well, this country is in the economic equivalent of war today – and we need the same spirit,” he added.

Cameron’s Conservative-led government has pledged to tackle its budget deficit and has little room to boost Britain’s stagnant growth with extra state spending.

It has instead been seeking to promote a private-sector-led recovery, identifying a series of job-creating infrastructure projects, but has since been frustrated by the slow pace of progress.

Cameron said the government would impose restrictions on the use of a legal process known as judicial review, used increasingly by opponents to delay big infrastructure schemes.

A planned high-speed rail line from London to Birmingham faces five such reviews in court hearings next month from residents and others affected by its construction.

In addition, officials would be barred from introducing costly business regulations unless they withdrew two other bureaucratic rules at the same time, in a doubling of an existing “one-in, one-out” procedure.

Cameron was due to make the remarks to the country’s main business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry, which has demanded more action to boost the economy.

CBI head John Cridland called on Sunday for Chancellor George Osborne to inject a further 1.5 billion pounds into the economy to stimulate growth when he makes a budget statement in December.

Cridland said London’s successful 2012 Olympics were a model for an infrastructure-led recovery.

“I’d like to see the government bottle what worked with the Olympics, which is we did something on time, on spec – a fabulous construction project,” he told Sky News.

“And do that with a motorway, a big power station, a big offshore wind farm, maybe a tunnel under the Thames (River) for our waste sewerage. Let’s get these things happening,” Cridland added.

($ 1 = 0.6311 British pounds)

(Reporting by Tim Castle, editing by Gary Crosse)

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Rebels in Congo reach door of Goma

GOMA, Congo (AP) — A Rwandan-backed rebel group advanced to within 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo, marking the first time that rebels have come this close since 2008.

Congolese army spokesman Col. Olivier Hamuli said the fighting has been going on since 6 a.m. Sunday and the front line has moved to just a few kilometers (miles) outside the city. After more than nine hours of violent clashes the two sides took a break, with M23 rebels establishing a checkpoint just 100 meters (yards) away from one held by the military in the village of Munigi, exactly 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) outside the Goma city line.

Contacted by telephone on the front line, M23 rebel spokesman Col. Vianney Kazarama said the group will spend the night in Goma.

“We are about to take the town. We will spend the night in Goma tonight,” said Kazarama. “We are confident that we can take Goma and then our next step will be to take Bukavu,” he said mentioning the capital of the next province to the south.

The M23 rebel group is made up of soldiers from a now-defunct rebel army, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, a group made-up primarily of fighters from the Tutsi ethnic group, the ethnicity that was targeted in Rwanda‘s 1994 genocide. In 2008, the CNDP led by Rwandan commando Gen. Laurent Nkunda marched his soldiers to the doorstep of Goma, abruptly stopping just before taking the city.

In the negotiations that followed and which culminated in a March 23, 2009 peace deal, the CNDP agreed to disband and their fighters joined the national army of Congo. They did not pick up their arms again until this spring, when hundreds of ex-CNDP fighters defected from the army in April, claiming that the Congolese government had failed to uphold their end of the 2009 agreement.

Reports, including one by the United Nations Group of Experts, have shown that M23 is actively being backed by Rwanda and the new rebellion is likely linked to the fight to control Congo’s rich mineral wealth.

The latest fighting broke out Thursday and led to the deaths of 151 rebels and two soldiers. On Saturday U.N. attack helicopters targeted M23 positions in eastern Congo.

Also on Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had called Rwandan President Paul Kagame “to request that he use his influence on the M23 to help calm the situation and restrain M23 from continuing their attack,” according to peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous who spoke at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Saturday.

North Kivu governor Julien Paluku said Saturday that the Congolese army had earlier retreated from Kibumba, which is 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Goma, after thousands of Rwandans, who he says were backing the rebels, attacked early Saturday.

“Rwandan forces bombarded our positions in Kibumba since early this morning and an estimated 3,500 crossed the border to attack us,” he said Saturday.

In downtown Goma, panicked residents had come out to try to get more information on what was happening. A 45-year-old mother of five said that she has nowhere to go.

“I don’t really know what is happening, I’ve seen soldiers and tanks in the streets and that scares me,” said Imaculee Kahindo. Asked if she planned to leave the city, she said: “What can we do? I will probably hide in my house with my children.”

Hamuli, the spokesman for the Congolese army, denied reports that soldiers were fleeing.

In 2008 as Nkunda’s CNDP rebels amassed at the gates of Goma, reporters inside the city were able to see Congolese soldiers running in the opposite direction, after having abandoned their posts. The Congolese army is notoriously dysfunctional with soldiers paid only small amounts, making it difficult to secure their loyalties during heavy fighting.

“We are fighting 3 kilometers from Goma, just past the airport. And our troops are strong enough to resist the rebels,” said Hamuli. “We won’t let the M23 march into our town,” he said. Asked if his troops were fleeing, he added: “These are false rumors. We are not going anywhere.”

U.N. peacekeeping chief Ladsous said that the rebels were very well-equipped, including with night vision equipment allowing them to fight at night.

Reports by United Nations experts have accused Rwanda, as well as Uganda, of supporting the rebels. Both countries strongly deny any involvement and Uganda said if the charges continue it will pull its peacekeeping troops out of Somalia, where they are playing an important role in pushing out the Islamist extremist rebels.

The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate stop to the violence following a two-hour, closed-door emergency meeting. The council said it would add sanctions against M23 rebels and demanded that rebels immediately stop their advance toward the provincial capital of Goma.

“We must stop the M23″ because Goma’s fall “would, inevitably, turn into a humanitarian crisis,” said France‘s U.N. Ambassador, Gerard Araud. He added that U.N. officials would decide in the coming days which M23 leaders to target for additional sanctions.

___

Associated Press writer Maria Sanminiatelli at the United Nations and Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Android de Google resta cada vez más mercado a Apple

Los teléfonos inteligentes y tabletas informáticas con el sistema operativo Android de Google están acaparando el mercado de dispositivos móviles y robando espacio a Apple al saciar el apetito por la innovación y los bajos precios, estiman analistas.

El sistema operativo Android funciona en casi tres de cada cuatro teléfonos inteligentes vendidos en el mundo en el trimestre que acaba de finalizar en momentos en que la plataforma móvil domina el mercado, de acuerdo con los analistas de la industria de la firma IDC.

“Android ha sido uno de los principales motores de crecimiento del mercado de teléfonos inteligentes desde su lanzamiento en 2008″, dice el gerente de investigación de teléfonos móviles de IDC, Ramon Llamas.

“Cada año desde entonces, Android ha desbordado el mercado y robado participación en el mercado de la competencia”, agrega.

En las tabletas, la cuota de mercado de Apple cayó a poco más del 50%, desde el 65% que registró en el segundo trimestre, mientras Android ha ganado terreno, de acuerdo con cifras de IDC.

“Tener una gran cantidad de personas que construyen un montón de cosas que cubren una gran cantidad de rangos de precio con múltiples marcas en varios lugares hace una gran diferencia”, dice el analista de NPD Group Stephen Baker.

“La variedad es la fuerza cuando se trata de artefactos móviles”, estima.

Los pedidos de teléfonos inteligentes Android aumentaron a 136 millones de dólares, superando los del mismo trimestre del año pasado por un poco más del 90%, de acuerdo con informes de IDC.

Galaxy S3 de Samsung superó al iPhone 4S de Apple en el tercer trimestre para dar a la empresa de Corea del Sur el modelo de teléfono inteligente más vendido del mundo por primera vez, según la firma de investigación Strategy Analytics.

“El ritmo de la innovación en Android es más rápido que el de Apple”, dice el vicepresidente de computación móvil de Gartner, Ken Dulaney. “Ellos están tratando de hacerlo más fuerte, Apple está muy por detrás en esa área”.

Android se está beneficiando de ser una plataforma “open-source” que los fabricantes de aplicaciones usan gratuitamente y mejoran a medida que lo estiman conveniente, proporcionando a Google conocimientos en el camino.

Apple, por su parte, supervisa muy de cerca sus productos desde el software al hardware, e inclusive la tienda online de música, libros, juegos u otro contenido.

“Lo que se obtiene con Android es este increíble circuito de retroalimentación con los desarrolladores, fabricantes de equipos, clientes y diseñadores”, dice Dulaney.

“En Apple, si bien tienen una gran visión interna que está bien, no tienen la retroalimentación que Android tiene”, añade.

Tener miles de diferentes dispositivos Android disputándose el dinero de los consumidores es un fuerte estímulo cuando se trata de participación de mercado pero pone a los fabricantes de hardware en un escenario altamente competitivo, según Baker.

“Aparte de Samsung, no sé si otros chicos (vinculados a) Android están haciendo dinero”, estima el analista.

Google ofrece Android de forma gratuita, pero la plataforma está diseñada para hacer que sea más fácil para la gente usar servicios de Google, como el de búsqueda o de mapas, entre otros, y hallar contenido en sus tiendas en línea Google Play.

El analista de Forrester Charles Golvin estimó que parte importante del éxito coyuntural de Android tiene que ver con cambios demográficos de los compradores de teléfonos inteligentes.

Los primeros usuarios de teléfonos multifunciones apreciaban más las nuevas tecnologías que el precio, pero los dispositivos se han vuelto imprescindibles y con un costo cada vez más importante para los compradores, según Golvin.

“La gente está más inclinada hacia la plataforma Android, porque hay más posibilidades de elección y la mayoría de las opciones que da es de bajo precio”, dice.

La naturaleza abierta de Android y la variedad de modelos ofrecidos por los fabricantes de dispositivos funcionan como un “arma de doble filo”, señala no obstante el analista.

Apple lanza anualmente actualizaciones del sistema operativo móvil iOS a sus dispositivos, mientras que las nuevas versiones de Android, aunque lo hacen más a menudo, deben obtenerse a través de los fabricantes de hardware y servicios de telecomunicaciones para llegar hasta los teléfonos.

“Tú tienes esta lenta cadena de intermediarios que están retrasando la instalación del nuevo software y sus innovaciones en los dispositivos existentes en el mercado”, advierte Golvin.

Los teléfonos inteligentes y tabletas informáticas con el sistema operativo Android de Google están acaparando el mercado de dispositivos móviles y robando espacio a Apple al saciar el apetito por la innovación y los bajos precios, estiman analistas.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Liam Neeson in negotiations for crime thriller “The All Nighter”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Liam Neeson is in negotiations to star in the crime thriller “The All Nighter (AKA Run All Night)” a person familiar with the situation has told TheWrap.

The story follows an aging hit man who, in order to protect his wife and son, must take on his former boss in a single night. He then winds up on the run from the mob and the authorities with his estranged son.

The film is being produced by Vertigo Entertainment‘s Roy Lee, along with Brooklyn Weaver for Warner Bros. which declined to comment. The studio acquired Brad Ingelsby‘s spec script “The All Nighter” in January for a reported six figure sum.

Neeson’s upcoming films include “Non-Stop” and “A Walk Among The Tombstones.” He will also be featured in a voice role in the upcoming film “Lego: The Piece of Resistance.”

Lee is working on a long-list of projects including Spike Lee’s remake of the South Korean thriller, “Oldboy,” which is currently filming. He is also producing the upcoming thriller “The Double Hour”; a feature film based on the hit video game “Deus-Ex Human Revolution”; “Lego: The Piece of Resistance,” and the action thriller “Sleepless Night,” which is also set up at Warner Bros. Weaver’s credits include “Thirteen” and “Picture Book.”

Ingelsby’s upcoming projects as a writer include “The Raid.” In 2008, he made another major spec deal for his revenge thriller “The Low Dweller,” which went to Relativity Media.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Roche’s Avastin misses key data point in brain cancer study

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche’s cancer drug Avastin failed to make a statistically significant difference to survival rates of patients with a common form of brain cancer in a late-stage study, the company said on Saturday.

The Phase III AVAglio study presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology congress in Washington on Saturday showed Avastin, combined with radiation and chemotherapy, reduced the risk of cancer worsening or death, the Basel-based drugmaker said in a news release.

But the drug did not reach statistical significance in overall survival, a key data point. Further data are expected next year, Roche said.

“The interim results for overall survival (OS), the other co-primary endpoint, did not reach statistical significance,” the company said in the statement.

Earlier data from the study published in August showed Avastin significantly extended progression-free survival of people with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Avastin is Roche’s third-biggest seller and is approved to treat several types of cancer, including breast, kidney, colorectal and ovarian cancers.

(Reporting by Katharina Bart and Caroline Copley; editing by Jason Webb)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Polish deputy PM to resign after losing party election

WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak said he would resign from the government after unexpectedly losing a battle for the leadership of the junior coalition partner on Saturday, but there was no threat to the stability of the coalition.

Janusz Piechocinski, a 52-year-old member of parliament who beat Pawlak by 547 to 530 votes in the election at the PSL congress, said he wanted to keep the coalition with the Civic Platform (PO) intact.

Pawlak, who is also the economy minister in Prime Minister Donald Tusk‘s government, had led the PSL for seven years. Serving twice as a prime minister in the past two decades, he has been PSL’s most prominent politician. He said he would hand his resignation to Tusk on Monday.

“PSL will be a rational coalition partner, a rational and wise participant of the parliamentary debate,” Piechocinski told reporters after the vote, adding he wanted Pawlak to retain his position in government.

“Nothing that happened is a challenge to the government, to the coalition.”

The party hit the headlines in July after media released recordings that showed suspected corruption among its party members. It led to the resignation of Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki.

PSL members quoted by local media said Piechocinski won largely because of a campaign that targeted delegates from outside Warsaw and other larger cities.

(Reporting by Maciej Onoszko; Editing by Alison Williams)

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Israel hits Hamas buildings, shoots down Tel Aviv-bound rocket

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, and the “Iron Dome” defense system shot down a Tel Aviv-bound rocket on Saturday as Israel geared up for a possible ground invasion.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh – where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister – and struck a police headquarters.

Along the Tel Aviv beachfront, volleyball games came to an abrupt halt and people crouched as sirens sounded. Two interceptor rockets streaked into the sky. A flash and an explosion followed as Iron Dome, deployed only hours earlier near the city, destroyed the incoming projectile in mid-air.

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia’s foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo unraveled over the past few weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Officials in Gaza said 43 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared goal of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh’s office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister’s office and pledged: “We will declare victory from here.”

Hamas‘s armed wing claimed responsibility for Saturday’s rocket attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

“Well that wasn’t such a big deal,” said one woman, who had watched the interception while clinging for protection to the trunk of a baby palm tree on a traffic island.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Among those killed in airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding on motorcycles.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, along with appeals to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

RESERVIST CALL-UP

At a late night session on Friday, Israeli cabinet ministers decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said, in a signal Israel was edging closer to an invasion.

Around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan … it will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, favorite to win a January national election.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

“Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river,” Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he surveyed the wreckage from a bomb-blast site in central Gaza.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s manoeuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

“DE-ESCALATION”

Netanyahu spoke late on Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama for the second time since the offensive began, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“(Netanyahu) expressed his deep appreciation for the U.S. position that Israel has a right to defend itself and thanked him for American aid in purchasing Iron Dome batteries,” the statement added.

The two leaders have had a testy relationship and have been at odds over how to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

A White House official said on Saturday Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to discuss how the two countries could help bring an end to the Gaza conflict.

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Washington “wants the same thing as the Israelis want”, an end to rocket attacks from Gaza. He said the United States is emphasizing diplomacy and “de-escalation”.

In Berlin, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had spoken to Netanyahu and Egypt’s Mursi, stressing to the Israeli leader that Israel had a right to self-defense and that a ceasefire must be agreed as soon as possible to avoid more bloodshed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

The Israeli military said 492 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since the operation began. Iron Dome intercepted another 245.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in 42 years, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

Some families in Gaza have abandoned their homes – some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets – and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Douglas Hamilton in Tel Aviv, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Crispian Balmer)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Wii U Will Launch With 24 Games This Sunday

Assassin’s Creed III

A version of the latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga, a week after it was released on other console.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Xbox Live Celebrates 10 Years of Connecting Gamers]

Nintendo’s newest console is out this Sunday, and there are already people lining up outside retailers to get one.

There are 24 games available for the Wii U at launch. Some are highly anticipated Nintendo staples, like New Super Mario Brothers U, and some are interesting and creative titles from third-party developers, like Scribblenauts Unlimited and ZombiU. Many games already out on other systems are being released for the Wii U as well, including Assassin’s Creed III and NBA 2K13; some of these games even have extra functionality that’s been added to take advantage of the Wii U GamePad.

[More from Mashable: Competitive Gaming Seeing TV-Levels of Viewership in 2012]

If you don’t see a game in the gallery above that you thought was coming to the Wii U, it’s because many announced games will be available in the “launch window”, a broad period from now until March. That’s when games like Pikmin 3 and LEGO City Undercover will come out.

If you haven’t preordered a Wii U from a large retailer, many places will still have them available at launch day. Expect long lines at larger retailers though.

Are you planning on purchasing a Wii U this weekend, and what games do you most want to buy? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

New Variety owner Jay Penske slashes one-quarter staff

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Jay Penske, the new owner of Variety, laid off nearly a quarter of the company’s staff on Thursday.

Between 20 and 25 employees from the struggling Hollywood trade’s circulation, database and conference departments were laid off. The editorial staff was not affected. Variety had about 120 employees before Thursday’s cuts.

“Without a doubt, this is a challenging day, and I particularly wanted to notify and acknowledge those of you who will be saying goodbye to valued colleagues and friends,” Penske, the CEO of Penske Media Corporation wrote in a memo obtained by the industry blog Deadline, which he also owns. “As we look ahead, Variety’s business holds almost limitless potential and I will remain available to answer any questions you might have regarding today’s changes and our future.”

Penske bought the paper last month at the fire-sale price of $ 25 million. In his memo, Penske said that he planned to invest in the editorial and digital departments while trimming the database services and business branch.

The jobs eliminated came from the LA411 and NY411 units – directories for production resources – and its administration and conference units, according to the memo. Deadline said that the cuts totaled 20 to 25 employees.

He also cut circulation staff, in what may presage a move to cut back on the paper’s printing schedule. Variety currently prints daily during the week and a weekly edition on Friday.

TheWrap previously reported that Penske planned to maintain the print edition and drop the paywall that blocked non-subscribers from reading Variety’s site, placing it in direct competition with competitors like the Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap and its corporate sister Deadline. The paywall has since been torn down.

Neither Penske nor Variety returned calls or emails from TheWrap requesting comment.

Here’s the full memo:

Dear Team

For the past six months, we have diligently reviewed every aspect of the Variety business. And in more recent weeks, we have outlined to Variety senior management an exciting and also aggressive trajectory for the brand’s resurgence. These steps will include substantial further investment in editorial and digital, but will unfortunately require some immediate eliminations in the following business units: LA411/NY411, Circ, Systems, Conferences, and Admin.

Without a doubt, this is a challenging day, and I particularly wanted to notify and acknowledge those of you who will be saying goodbye to valued colleagues and friends. As we look ahead, Variety’s business holds almost limitless potential and I will remain available to answer any questions you might have regarding today’s changes and our future. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, or see Tammy Chase to arrange an appointment.

Sincerely,

Jay Penske

CEO

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..