Factbox: Japan's 2022 World Cup bid - Sci Fi

(Reuters) - Facts and figures relating to Japan's bid to stage the 2022 World Cup finals:
Bid motto: 208 Smiles! Inspired by the fact that FIFA has 208 member countries.
Why are they bidding?
Co-hosting the 2002 World Cup with South Korea was viewed as a compromise solution by both countries, who have made no secret of their wish to go it alone next time and Japan's stadiums and infrastructure are second to none.
Best soccer moment: Qualifying for their first World Cup finals in 1998.
Best-known footballers: Scudetto-winning Hidetoshi Nakata was Japan's most recognizable footballer until his shock retirement after the 2006 World Cup. Former Celtic midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura and Moscow-based Keisuke Honda have since filled that role.
Previous World Cup performances: Co-hosts in 2002 and have appeared in the last four tournaments. Reached the last 16 in 2002 and this year.
Main stadium for 2022: Plans are underway for a new 80,000-seater main stadium on the outskirts of Japan's second city Osaka.
Best points: Most of the stadiums are already in place and still in mint condition from the 2002 tournament. Japan is widely seen as having the world's best rail and road networks, and is a world leader in technology.
Possible drawbacks: Having successfully staged the World Cup finals as recently as 2002, Japan may be overlooked if FIFA opts against triggering friction with Asian rivals and 2002 co-hosts South Korea by diplomatically overlooking both.
Legacy point: Japan will have to build only one stadium and plans to beam matches on to giant, 3-D, hologram-style screens as one of many sci-fi projects during the tournament.
What they say: Junji Ogura, president of the Japan Football Association (JFA): "It's very difficult to predict who will win the vote. It will be a real scramble."
Bookies' odds: 33-1.
Population: 127 million
Number of clubs: The JFA has 28,818 clubs registered at all levels, 37 of which are professional teams in the J-League first and second divisions.
FIFA World Ranking (November 2010): 30th
Trivia fact: JFA president Junji Ogura said a World Cup bid would be unlikely if Tokyo failed to land the 2016 Olympics. The city lost out to Rio de Janeiro but made a bid for the World Cup anyway. The country will also host the 2019 rugby World Cup.
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Due Date stays top of box office - Sci Fi

LONDON (Reuters) - Pregnancy-themed road movie "Due Date" held on to top spot at the box office for a second quiet week as cinemas braced for the imminent release of the new Harry Potter blockbuster.
"Due Date" stars Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis added another 1.9 million pounds to the film's take, keeping it ahead of sci-fi newcomer "Skyline" which could only manage 1.2 million pounds, according to Screen International on Tuesday.
The three orphan girls of family movie "Despicable Me" stayed at three, just above "Jackass 3D" which slipped two spots to four.
Horror movie "Saw 3D" was down one at five while Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren as former CIA agents on the run in "RED" stayed at six.
Facebook biopic "The Social Network" was unchanged at seven while "Paranormal Activity 2" slipped three places to eight.
The two wolves of "Alpha and Omega" were back up four places in ninth and director Mike Leigh's study of a middle class suburban couple "Another Year" slipped one spot to 10th.
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Tudors, Elvis Costello, triumph at Canada TV awards - Comedy

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - British actors and shows were the big winners at the Geminis, Canada's TV awards, on Saturday night.
Scotsman Robert Carlyle was named the best actor for his star turn in Syfy's "Stargate Universe".
"I feel like a stranger in the ranks here tonight. But thank you so much, I really value this dearly," said Carlyle, who plays Dr. Nicholas Rush in the sci-fi drama shot in Vancouver.
Musician Elvis Costello, took home the Gemini for best Canadian talk series for "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With..."
And the night of British triumphs also saw Showtime's "The Tudors", a Canadian-Irish TV co-production about English monarch Henry VIII, named best Canadian drama.
The HBO Canada comedy "Less Than Kind", a more recognizably Canadian series about a dysfunctional family in Winnipeg, won for best comedy, best series writing and best comedy acting for Benjamin Arthur.
In other acting categories, Caroline Cave won for her performance in the home-grown drama "Crash and Burn", Cle Bennett won for best supporting actor in "The Line", and Catherine Disher took home best supporting actress honors for her star-turn in the action drama "The Border".
The ceremony was hosted by "Glee" star Cory Monteith, who was born in Calgary and who plays football player and choir member Finn in the popular American TV musical comedy.
(Editing by Jill Serjeant)
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Japan goes sci-fi in bid to snare World Cup - Sci Fi

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is banking on sci-fi technology and the country's 'wow factor' to win the race to host the 2022 World Cup.
After all, only in Japan can you hire a cat for an hour and stroke it while you have a coffee -- or better still, while a robot boils your noodles for you.
Japan, successful co-hosts of the 2002 World Cup with Asian neighbors South Korea, is an outside bet to win the vote on December 2 when FIFA's executive committee meets in Zurich.
South Korea are also bidding again, along with the United States, Qatar and Australia.
Japan's credentials are second to none, with all but the main stadiums already in place and still in pristine condition, while the country's infrastructure ranks among the world's best.
Since the Japanese government unveiled the Bullet Train to mark the country's emergence as an economic power before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Japan has been at the forefront of technology.
The world's third largest economy, Japan still retains a great deal of its traditional charm, with shrines and quaint old shops tucked beside gleaming, new skyscrapers.
Modern Japan, with its crackling neon lights and crowded trains and shops, has turned convenience into an art with its automated wizardry.
Vending machines dispense everything from umbrellas to underwear. Japan boasts the highest number of machines per capita in the world and even has them at the top of Mount Fuji.
World Cup bidders plan to beam matches on to giant 3-D hologram-style screens in one of many hi-tech projects designed to amaze fans around the world during the 2022 tournament.
Translation earpieces will allow fans from different countries to interact, aided by devices to allow viewers to gather information by pointing to players on the pitch.
CAUTIOUS NOTE
"Japan has always been at the center of technological excellence," said bid director Yuichiro Nakajima. "Can we do it? Yes we can!"
Bold, presidential-style statements of intent come with the territory of bidding for major sporting events, but Japanese bid leaders have also struck a note of caution.
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Bruce Lee biopic tracks action hero's early life - Arts

HONG KONG (Hollywood Reporter) - Authenticity is the heart and soul of the new biopic "Bruce Lee, My Brother," the early life story of the man who put Hong Kong action films on the map, its director told The Hollywood Reporter.
As its title declares, the film pieces together the superstar's childhood -- Lee would have turned 70 on Sunday -- and young adulthood from the memories of his four surviving siblings, Phoebe, Agnes, Peter (who died in 2008) and Robert.
"The Lee family supplied us with all the details and the tidbits of their family life," director Raymond Yip said. "So we took great care to be loyal to the truth and avoid anything that felt fake, which made it rather difficult for us in terms of creating the structure of the script. But the Lee family was very pleased with the result, especially with how close it was to what actually happened."
The biopic took years to put on the screen, not least because of the difficult task of finding a young actor to play the role of the iconic megastar. "We've been on the lookout for a possible candidate all over China since 2008, but no one could capture the Hong Kong spirit of the young Bruce Lee," Yip explained.
But when writer-director team of Alex Law and Mabel Cheung, invited the film's producer, Manfred Wong, to a screening of their opus "Echoes of the Rainbow," the search was over. Aarif Rahman, a 23-year-old singer-songwriter who made his acting debut (and stole the show) in "Echoes," was locked in as the young Bruce Lee.
"Including Lee's brother Robert, we were quite amazed by how much Aarif resembles Bruce. No one can say for sure whether an actor really embodies Bruce's spirit except for his family. So it was a go from then on," Yip recalled.
The film began pre-production in March to push for a November 25 release in Hong Kong. The HK$36 million ($4.6 million) project has been snapped up by distributors in over 10 territories.
The Hong Kong-born Rahman, of Malay-Arab-Chinese ancestry, will have to shoulder any potential sequels for the Bruce Lee life story, said Yip.
"We certainly hope to continue telling Bruce Lee's story, but it depends on how this one is received, especially on the public reception of Aarif as Bruce Lee. Lee was a legendary figure. Who plays him in the film is the biggest issue for us as filmmakers. But I have faith in Aarif," Yip said.
Although the biopic tracks the early life of the kungfu master from his birth in San Francisco, old Hong Kong plays a key role. The film shows Lee and his friends as fixtures in the mid-century Hong Kong film industry, allowing the filmmakers to reenact scenes from famous movies of the age.
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UPDATE 1-Buyout firms plan bids for Takko - sources - Fashion

* Apax, Bain, EQT, TPG eyeing fashion chain Takko-sources
* Takko owner Advent still considering IPO - source
* Business seen valued at about 1.25 bln eur
(Adds background, adds Bain)
LONDON/FRANKFURT, Nov 17 (Reuters) - At least four private
equity firms were expected to place first round offers this week
for leading German budget fashion retailer Takko, people
familiar with the matter said.
Apax Partners, Bain Capital, EQT and TPG [TPG.UL] are
preparing bids for the business, owned by rival buyout firm
Advent International, two of the people said. An initial public
offering is also under consideration, a third source said.
Bankers said discount retailers were typically valued at 10
times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation (EBITDA), valuing Takko at about 1.25 billion euros
($1.75 billion).
A growing number of price-conscious Germans have been
turning to discount clothing stores, helping to boost sales at
Takko, one of the country's largest and fastest-growing clothing
chains, to 900 million euros in the year to end-April.
An estimated 25 percent of German adults have purchased its
products in the last year, according to Advent's website.
Takko is the latest in a series of European companies owned
by private equity firms that are close to changing hands in a
so-called secondary buyout, or a return to the public market, as
owners look to cash out of their best performing investments.
Advent, which bought the business in 2007 from Permira
[PERM.UL] for 770 million euros, plans to sell or spin off the
business by early next year, a source said in August.

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Documentaries aim to make Oscar history - Documentary

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In the 82-year history of the Academy Awards, no documentary has been nominated for best picture.
Instead, since 1942, documentary features have been recognized in their own category, separate from the balloons and confetti showered on the best picture contenders. Technically, any doc that completes a one-week qualifying run in a Los Angeles County theater also is eligible to compete for the big prize, but somehow, when it comes to best picture, Oscar voters have consistently tuned documentaries out.
This year, though, several documentaries -- among them "Inside Job," Charles Ferguson's autopsy of the 2008 financial crisis, and "Waiting for Superman," Davis Guggenheim's failing report card on the nation's school system -- are positioning themselves to make a run at the big prize. Their camps are preparing to send out screeners, arguing that their respective films are worthy best picture contenders.
Good luck. Any documentary hoping to score a best picture nom still faces a daunting, uphill battle. Six years ago, Michael Moore decided to challenge the odds. Having already won a feature documentary Oscar for his anti-gun diatribe "Bowling for Columbine," he was riding high on the firestorm surrounding "Fahrenheit 9/11," his blistering attack on George W. Bush's post-9/11 march toward the invasion of Iraq.
The movie had won the Palme d'Or, the top prize at Cannes -- the first documentary to take home that honor in 48 years. It was on its way to grossing $119.2 million domestically, making it the top-grossing documentary of all time.
So Moore decided not to submit in the documentary category -- he was eager to air the film on TV in hope of influencing the 2006 election, and the proposed broadcast ran up against documentary-category rules. But while Moore claimed, "For me, the real Oscar would be Bush's defeat on November 2," he also reminded Academy voters that they still could nominate his movie for best picture.
Moore struck out on both counts: Bush was re-elected, and "Fahrenheit" didn't turn up among that year's best picture nominees.
This year, though, the chances of a documentary breaking through are better -- though still slight. By widening the best picture race to 10 nominees, the Academy opened a door, however narrow. And the genre is ripe for recognition. Documentary filmmakers have been busy, turning out an eclectic array of movies, training their cameras on everything from infants ("Babies") to Facebook friendships ("Catfish"), from showbiz survivors ("Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work") to political scandals ("Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer").
While the studios have retreated into escapism, documentary filmmakers have been tackling hot-button issues that often resonate with the more politically engaged members of the Academy. "Waiting for Superman" and "Inside Job," two of the year's highest-profile titles, have gotten the kind of outsize attention that belies their modest box-office returns ($6 million and $1.6 million, respectively).
Both documentaries, while relying heavily on standard interview techniques, also inject plenty of drama into the mix. And both movies made the shortlist of 15 films being considered for best documentary feature honors. But they could go beyond just that category.
"Superman," backed by one of Participant Media's trademark social-action campaigns, premiered in Washington, where it injected itself directly into a heated debate over the city's sweeping efforts at school reform. It also drew a sharp rebuke from the American Federation of Teachers -- the film treats the teachers union as something of a villain -- whose president, Randi Weingarten complained, "It is insulting and counterproductive to suggest, as the film does, that the deplorable behavior of one or two teachers is representative of all public-school teachers."
Meanwhile, New York Times columnist Frank Rich has championed "Inside Job" -- with its rogues' gallery of reckless financial executives, feckless academic economists and their government enablers -- saying, "It's hard to imagine a movie more serious, and more urgent."
Those type of attacks and endorsements should be enough to attract the attention of Academy voters. And if there's an added reason to invite a documentary into the best picture circle, it's that documentary filmmakers have, on more than one occasion, provided the Oscars with some of their most contentious moments.
When Moore won in 2003, just days after the beginning of the Iraq War, he launched into an attack on the president for starting a "war for fictitious reasons" that met with applause and boos from the Oscar audience.
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Factbox: Main events in creation of Harry Potter phenomenon - Arts

(Reuters) - Following are the events in the Harry Potter saga, leading up to the release of the seventh film - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" which opens in Britain, the United States and much of the world on November 19.
1995 - In Edinburgh, Joanne Rowling completes the manuscript of her first Harry Potter story, called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."
1996 - Bloomsbury accepts the manuscript for publication. The Scottish Arts Council gives J.K. Rowling a grant to work on her books.
1997 - "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is published in July and in the United States as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in October 1998.
July 1998 - "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is published by Bloomsbury and goes straight into the no.1 slot in BookTrack bestseller list.
October 1998 - Warner Bros. secures film rights to the first two books for a seven-figure sum.
July 1999 - "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is published by Bloomsbury.
July 2000 - "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is published. Some 372,775 hardback copies of the book are sold in British bookshops and Internet sites when it is released on July 8, dwarfing previous records.
November 2001 - The film of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is released in Britain and the United States.
November 2002 - "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" film version is released in Britain and U.S. In Britain, the film earned $15.7 million in its first weekend, edging past the original's record by about $300,000.
June 2003 - "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is published in Britain and the United States. The fifth book in the series, sells more than 5 million copies in its first day.
June 2004 - Film of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is released taking $92.7 million in the United States. The three-day haul for the new film surpasses the $90.3 million for "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (as the movie was called in North America) in November 2001, and the $88.4 million launch for "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" a year later.
July 2005 - "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth volume of the Harry Potter saga, sells more than 8.9 million copies in its first 24 hours in the United States and Britain.
November 2005 - The film of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" opens with new additions to the cast including Ralph Fiennes as the evil Lord Voldemort, who helped give the film a darker tone than its predecessors.
July 2007 - "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth movie in the series has the wizard Harry flummoxed by his mates at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft who doubt his near-death battle with the evil Lord Voldemort.
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- Board Games

Almeria held an emergency board meeting immediately after the match and Lillo was informed he had been fired before he left their Mediterranean Games stadium.
"The reason is purely sporting and comes after the bad results Almeria have suffered in recent weeks that have seen the side slip into the relegation places," said a club statement.
Lillo, 45, was under mounting pressure after a poor start to the campaign and the embarrassing loss to Barca left Almeria 18th in the 20-team standings with nine points from 12 matches.
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- Board Games

Almeria held an emergency board meeting immediately after the match and Lillo was informed he had been fired before he left their Mediterranean Games stadium.
"The reason is purely sporting and comes after the bad results Almeria have suffered in recent weeks that have seen the side slip into the relegation places," said a club statement.
Lillo, 45, was under mounting pressure after a poor start to the campaign and the embarrassing loss to Barca left Almeria 18th in the 20-team standings with nine points from 12 matches.
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Bruce Springsteen to rock on Jimmy Fallon - Documentary

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Bruce Springsteen will play songs from his new boxed set, "The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story," on the November 16 episode of NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon."
The appearance, which the network announced on Wednesday, will be Springsteen's only scheduled TV performance this year.
On the show, Springsteen will also discuss the six-disc project, due out the same day. It rounds up 21 previously unreleased tracks from the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" era.
"Promise" additionally includes hours of unseen behind-the-scenes and concert footage. A documentary about the sessions, also dubbed "The Promise," debuted last month on U.S. cable network HBO.
Fallon is a devout Springsteen fan. In August, he chose the artist's classic song "Born to Run" for a "Glee"-style all-star sing-along as the opening number of the Primetime Emmy Awards, which he hosted.
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UPDATE 1-Eros H1 profit up 34 pct; positive on outlook - Sci Fi

* Pretax profit $27.9 mln vs 20.8 mln stg
* Turnover up 20.3 pct to $68 million
(Adds details)
Nov 12 (Reuters) - Indian movie distributor Eros
International Plc (EROS.L) posted a 33.8 percent rise in
first-half profit as revenue from its theatrical division grew,
helped by the box office success of Bollywood film "Housefull".
With the success of "Golmaal 3" (Chaos - Part 3), which had
grossed $15.5 million globally in the first week, the company
saw a promising start to its second half.
Eros, whose Indian unit recently listed on the Bombay Stock
Exchange , said it was positive about its
outlook, thanks to a vibrant pipeline of projects.
The company's slate includes sci-fi movie "RA.One",
starring Indian A-listers Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor, and
"No Problem," featuring "Slumdog Millionaire" actor Anil
Kapoor.
Pretax profit for the six months ended Sept. 30 was $27.9
million, compared with $20.8 million in the year-ago period.
Turnover rose 20.3 percent to $68 million.
Watch Sci Fi Online

Tudors, Elvis Costello, triumph at Canada TV awards - Sci Fi

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - British actors and shows were the big winners at the Geminis, Canada's TV awards, on Saturday night.
Scotsman Robert Carlyle was named the best actor for his star turn in Syfy's "Stargate Universe".
"I feel like a stranger in the ranks here tonight. But thank you so much, I really value this dearly," said Carlyle, who plays Dr. Nicholas Rush in the sci-fi drama shot in Vancouver.
Musician Elvis Costello, took home the Gemini for best Canadian talk series for "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With..."
And the night of British triumphs also saw Showtime's "The Tudors", a Canadian-Irish TV co-production about English monarch Henry VIII, named best Canadian drama.
The HBO Canada comedy "Less Than Kind", a more recognizably Canadian series about a dysfunctional family in Winnipeg, won for best comedy, best series writing and best comedy acting for Benjamin Arthur.
In other acting categories, Caroline Cave won for her performance in the home-grown drama "Crash and Burn", Cle Bennett won for best supporting actor in "The Line", and Catherine Disher took home best supporting actress honors for her star-turn in the action drama "The Border".
The ceremony was hosted by "Glee" star Cory Monteith, who was born in Calgary and who plays football player and choir member Finn in the popular American TV musical comedy.
(Editing by Jill Serjeant)
Watch Sci Fi Online

Tudors, Elvis Costello, triumph at Canada TV awards - Sci Fi

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - British actors and shows were the big winners at the Geminis, Canada's TV awards, on Saturday night.
Scotsman Robert Carlyle was named the best actor for his star turn in Syfy's "Stargate Universe".
"I feel like a stranger in the ranks here tonight. But thank you so much, I really value this dearly," said Carlyle, who plays Dr. Nicholas Rush in the sci-fi drama shot in Vancouver.
Musician Elvis Costello, took home the Gemini for best Canadian talk series for "Spectacle: Elvis Costello With..."
And the night of British triumphs also saw Showtime's "The Tudors", a Canadian-Irish TV co-production about English monarch Henry VIII, named best Canadian drama.
The HBO Canada comedy "Less Than Kind", a more recognizably Canadian series about a dysfunctional family in Winnipeg, won for best comedy, best series writing and best comedy acting for Benjamin Arthur.
In other acting categories, Caroline Cave won for her performance in the home-grown drama "Crash and Burn", Cle Bennett won for best supporting actor in "The Line", and Catherine Disher took home best supporting actress honors for her star-turn in the action drama "The Border".
The ceremony was hosted by "Glee" star Cory Monteith, who was born in Calgary and who plays football player and choir member Finn in the popular American TV musical comedy.
(Editing by Jill Serjeant)
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Cineplex Entertainment to rent, sell movies online - Movies

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Far away from the local multiplex, Cineplex Entertainment is selling Hollywood movie titles to Canadians.
The Canuck exhibition giant has joined the movie download business, allowing Canadians to rent or buy movies from its own website, Cineplex.com, day and date with DVDs and Blu-ray releases.
Most new release rentals are priced at $4.99 each, with older titles costing $2.99 or $3.99.
To own, around 2,600 titles sell from $5 to $24.99 each, with an average new release costing $19.99.
The movies can then be played on a PC computer or other digital devices, and even stored in Cineplex's online digital locker.
The move aims to allow Canadians to view a Hollywood movie title at one of Cineplex's theatres, buy a physical DVD or Blu-ray disc at a multiplex store, and now download movies so that consumers think of Cineplex when they think of movie-viewing.
The digital download offering extends Cineplex's roots as a bricks and mortar multiplex destination, and allows the exhibitor to keep pace with new digital technologies, including VOD, new video formats, including release of titles in high-definition Blu-Ray format, and online video downloading and streaming.
The movie download service also allows Cineplex to keep pace with new competition from iTunes, Netflix Canada service and other foreign video portals.

� Continued...
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Superman powers Magic to win over Hawks - Magic

The Magic, who bullied Atlanta during a 4-0 best-of-seven sweep in last season's playoffs, had to dig deep for a win in the first meeting this season between two of the top teams in the NBA's Eastern Conference.
Orlando won by an average of 25.3 points in eliminating Atlanta during the second round of the 2010 post-season, but the rematch saw a competitive contest throughout with the visitors taking a one-point lead with close to five minutes left.
"We wanted to show the Orlando Magic that we could come in and make a game of it, and not just hand them the game," Hawks forward Josh Smith told reporters despite his team losing for the 11th time in 12 meetings with Orlando.
Jason Williams, playing in place of injured starting point guard Jameer Nelson (ankle), drained a go-ahead three-pointer with 4:15 remaining and Rashard Lewis scored less than a minute later to put Orlando (5-1) on top 86-82 en route to their fourth straight victory.
Vince Carter added 19 points including five points in the final 1:12 to secure the win.
"If we're going to continue to fight that hard even when the shots aren't falling, then we have a chance to be really good," said Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy. "I know we're going to shoot the ball well at some point."
Joe Johnson scored a team-high 23 points while Smith put up 13 points and 13 rebounds for Atlanta (6-2) which lost for the second straight night after beginning the season 6-0.
The Hawks fell 118-114 to the Phoenix Suns on Sunday but seemed to rebound early when they raced to a 13-point first quarter advantage.
However, Orlando recovered with a 19-2 run between the first and second quarters.
(Reporting by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Alastair Himmer)
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Why The Beatles' arrival on iTunes matters - Music

NEW YORK (Billboard) - It's tempting to dismiss the Beatles' long-delayed arrival on iTunes as a non-event. After all, it's been more than seven years since iTunes began selling music. And EMI Music reissued the band's entire discography on CD barely a year ago.
Still, here are five reasons why the Beatles-iTunes deal is important:
1. Digital marketing boost for the Beatles catalog
Yes, unauthorized copies of the Fabs' music have been available for free on file-sharing networks for more than a decade. But during that time, as CD sales entered into a tailspin, iTunes emerged as the largest music retailer in the United States, topping even former market leader Walmart.
Although file-sharing continues to thrive, music retailing isn't dead. Eminem's chart-topping album "Recovery" is available everywhere on peer-to-peer networks. And yet since the album came out in June, about 728,000 U.S. consumers still chose to visit a digital retailer like iTunes and pay for it, accounting for about 25% of the album's total U.S. sales of 2.9 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
ITunes will extend the Beatles catalog's reach to a sizable new audience of online shoppers, who for the first time will be able to click, purchase and download "She Loves You," "Ticket To Ride," and other cherished titles. Troubled EMI parent Terra Firma will appreciate the new revenue stream.
2. Apple Corps drops its resistance to digital distribution
Apple Corps, which manages the Beatles' catalog, finally dipped its toe into the digital music market in late October with a reissue campaign that included a multi-artist compilation "Come And Get It" and classic albums by Badfinger, James Taylor, Billy Preston and other artists. Remarkably, they were the first Apple Records titles to be sold as both CDs and digital downloads.
Now that Apple Corps has reached a deal with iTunes on the Beatles catalog, it will hopefully pave the way for other digital products incorporating the band's music.
3. iTunes reinforces its market dominance
New, on-demand streaming music services like Spotify, Rdio and MOG have generated lots of buzz during the past year. But the Beatles-iTunes deal, which gives the digital retailer a period of exclusivity on one of the most storied catalogs in recorded music, provides a timely reminder of who really dominates digital music.
The deal also shows that even though the major labels have expressed a desire to foster greater competition in digital retailing, their urgent, short-term need to maximize sales still leaves them eager to cut exclusive deals with the No. 1 U.S. music retailer. And that, of course, only strengthens iTunes' leverage vis-a-vis the recording industry.
4. iTunes LP scores a big win
Ever since iTunes launched its "iTunes LP" album format in September 2009, the enhanced artwork, lyrics and videos it offered have failed to excite the mainstream digital music market.
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Sky Deutschland, D.Telekom in talks over TV-sources - Tv Series

FRANKFURT Nov 19 (Reuters) - Loss-making pay TV broadcaster
Sky Deutschland (SKYDn.DE) and Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) are
in talks to renew their TV cooperation, two people close to the
negotiations said on Friday.
Deutsche Telekom is considering adding some of Sky
Deutschland's channels to its TV platform Entertain, one of the
people told Reuters.
The German incumbent was especially interested in Sky
Deutschland's movie channels in HD quality of which Sky has
four, the person said, but added Deutsche Telekom was in no
hurry and was in talks with other providers as well.
Sky Deutschland would be interested in an even closer tie-up
with Deutsche Telekom so its complete pay-TV programme including
premier league soccer broadcasts would be available on the
Entertain platform, a person familiar with Sky Deutschland's
thinking said.
In an ideal world the two would agree on a marketing
partnership as well, that person said.
Deutsche Telekom and Sky Deutschland have cooperated in the
past but the partnership was terminated when the telecom group
launched its own Bundesliga soccer broadcasts in mid-2009.
Sky Deutschland, which is 49.9 percent owned by News Corp
(NWSA.O), is keen to increase customer figures by entering
alliances with cable companies and others who offer TV packages.
It recently announced an alliance with German cable company
Kabel Baden Wuerttemberg.
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UPDATE 1-Eros H1 profit up 34 pct; positive on outlook - Sci Fi

* Pretax profit $27.9 mln vs 20.8 mln stg
* Turnover up 20.3 pct to $68 million
(Adds details)
Nov 12 (Reuters) - Indian movie distributor Eros
International Plc (EROS.L) posted a 33.8 percent rise in
first-half profit as revenue from its theatrical division grew,
helped by the box office success of Bollywood film "Housefull".
With the success of "Golmaal 3" (Chaos - Part 3), which had
grossed $15.5 million globally in the first week, the company
saw a promising start to its second half.
Eros, whose Indian unit recently listed on the Bombay Stock
Exchange , said it was positive about its
outlook, thanks to a vibrant pipeline of projects.
The company's slate includes sci-fi movie "RA.One",
starring Indian A-listers Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor, and
"No Problem," featuring "Slumdog Millionaire" actor Anil
Kapoor.
Pretax profit for the six months ended Sept. 30 was $27.9
million, compared with $20.8 million in the year-ago period.
Turnover rose 20.3 percent to $68 million.
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Asia shows dominance at Geneva piano competition - Music

GENEVA (Reuters) - Two young pianists from Japan and South Korea demonstrated the dominance of young Asians in the world of classical music at the Geneva International Music Competition on Thursday night.
Japan's Mami Hagiwara took the jury's first prize, worth 20,000 Swiss francs, with her performance of Maurice Ravel's Concerto for Piano in G major.
The jury awarded South Korea's Hyo Joo Lee a second prize worth 12,000 francs for her playing of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto in C minor.
But Lee, 25, delighted the public more with her sensitive but masterly rendition of one of the great works of late Romanticism, and she took the audience prize voted on by the public in the hall as well as winning a contract to record a portrait CD with orchestra sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Breguet, part of the Swatch Group.
The Geneva contest, launched in 1939, is one of the most prestigious on the international circuit, with pianists such as Martha Argerich and Maurizio Pollini among its laureates.
In this year's piano section, by far the biggest number of the 41 entrants came from East Asian countries, with Russia forming the next biggest group.
With the Ravel concerto, Hagiwara, 23, chose a demanding piece, where the piano is matched against swelling jazz references in the first movement and the military gallop of the last.
But she handled the apparently artless slow second movement with a firm delicacy, never allowing the piano to be submerged by the orchestra.
The jury awarded the third finalist, Russia's Maria Masycheva, another second prize.
Masycheva, 28, chose to display her technical mastery with the fiendishly difficult third piano concerto in C major by Sergei Prokofiev. She seemed to handle Prokofiev's rippling scales effortlessly but was often hard to hear above the orchestra, raised almost to an equal partner by Prokofiev.
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Casino to buy Carrefour's Thai assets for $1.2 billion - Casino

PARIS (Reuters) - French retailer Casino (CASP.PA) is buying the Thai stores of rival Carrefour for 868 million euros ($1.2 billion), including debt, to step up the challenge to Britain's Tesco in the fast-growing southeast Asian country.
Casino said on Monday the 42-store acquisition would help Big C Supercenter (BIGC.BK), in which Casino owns a 63 percent stake, to become co-market leader in Thailand, with an estimated turnover of about 2.4 billion euros for 2010.
International retailers are jockeying for position in emerging markets as they look for sources of growth outside maturing U.S. and western European markets, though the cost of competing is often too much to justify widespread expansion.
Carrefour, which has exited eight countries over the past seven years, was the fifth-biggest operator in Thailand and said its growth prospects there did not fit in with its goal of focusing on countries where it can have a leading position.
Bernstein analyst Chris Hogbin said the price, at about 1.2 times net sales, appeared a little high, although that would depend on the value of the real estate assets being acquired.
Casino chief financial officer Antoine Giscard D'Estaing told analysts the price of the deal was consistent with equivalent transactions in the region.
GOING FOR GROWTH
Hogbin also said the price on Casino's deal suggested Tesco's (TSCO.L) international businesses were not being valued highly enough by analysts.
"I think it looks an OK deal for Casino," he said.
"Tesco have shown good capital discipline by walking away," he added, after sources close to the matter said the British group had also been among the bidders for the stores.
Carrefour (CARR.PA), the world's No.2 retailer after U.S. group Wal-Mart (WMT.N), has been looking to sell its shops in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand to focus on markets where it holds leading positions.
A source with knowledge of the matter said a deal for the Malaysia and Singapore stores was two or three weeks away.
People close to the matter have said bidders for these stores include Singapore's Dairy Farm (DAIR.SI), which is backed by Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd (JARD.SI), Tesco, Japan's Aeon (8267.T) and Malaysian private equity fund Navis Capital.
Casino, France's No.5 food retailer which has businesses in Latin America and Asia, is also in the midst of selling 1 billion euros of non-core assets to cut its debts.
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'Megamind' tops box offices for second week - Comedy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Animated comedy 'Megamind' proved to be the best of the movie class for a second week, claiming the No. 1 spot at North American box offices with $30 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
The family-oriented comedy saw its ticket sales drop 35 percent in its second weekend in theaters, pushing its two-week total to $89.8 million and showing solid staying power for its maker DreamWorks Animation and distributor Paramount Pictures.
In second place was 20th Century Fox's runaway train movie "Unstoppable," starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. It pulled in $23.5 million and was the top-grossing new release over the weekend.
Among other major new movies, thriller "Skyline" was No. 4 with $11.7 million, while comedy "Morning Glory" was just behind in the fifth spot with $9.6 million.
Buddy comedy "Due Date" from Warner Bros. was No. 3 at $15.5 million, pushing its two-week total to $59 million.
"Skyline" was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric's NBC Universal media division, and "Morning Glory" was distributed by Paramount Pictures, part of Viacom Inc 20th Century Fox is a division of News Corp.
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Who destroyed Epic Records - Music

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - It started out like any label showcase at October's CMJ, the five-night music conference that's been held every year since 1980. The event draws hundreds of industry professionals, influencers, fans and upstart bands to New York City's clubs, all looking to find -- or become -- the next big thing.
A few dozen T-shirt-and-jeans-clad college reps gathered on the Bowery, next to the space that used to house legendary punk club CBGB.
Augustana, the latest pop-rock priority on Epic Records, prepared to take the stage. The San Diego-based five-piece, which had achieved a modicum of success with its 2008 album "Can't Love, Can't Hurt," had a lot riding on this performance -- and so did the label.
Epic has had declining sales and a dearth of hits at a moment when the entire industry is struggling to adapt to a new model -- one in which monetizing physical product is secondary to marketing and branding.
The 57-year-old label was fighting for its life. It was a long way from the Sony-owned company's heyday in the '80s and '90s, when such artists as Michael Jackson, George Michael, Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine were racking up combined sales in the hundreds of millions worldwide.
Epic's current roster still features a superstar or two (namely Shakira), but they're far outnumbered by developing acts like Augustana, who knew this performance was crucial as an opportunity to motivate the people who would be representing their new music to radio, retail, press and the online world.
One song in, singer Dan Layus' microphone experienced some feedback -- a technical glitch about as common as a guitarist breaking a string. But what happened next was anything but.
According to eyewitnesses in the crowd, Epic Records president Amanda Ghost, 36, a career songwriter who had held the top spot at the label for 20 months, stepped onto the stage, grabbed the microphone and, with her native North London accent, spoke her mind.
Among a string of expletives, said a source, "she was screaming: 'Who booked this fucking place? It sounds like shit! We don't treat our artists this way at Epic. I'm not letting them play another minute!' " -- and pulled the plug on the show. "The room just got silent."
Six days later, a memo issued by Sony Music Label Group chairman Rob Stringer -- brother of Howard, CEO of Sony Entertainment -- announced that Ghost would be leaving the company at year's end.
"Amanda has been an important creative force at Epic in the past two years," it read. "In returning to the natural focus of her artistic career, I look forward to us working together in the future."
For a woman who had a penchant for profanity and a reputation for unpredictable, sometimes violent outbursts, it was a surprisingly quiet firing -- and with it, the latest trial in unconventional management was over.
The result? Sad and seemingly conclusive: that Epic Records most likely will become an imprint of Sony Music's flagship label Columbia. If so, departments will likely be forced to merge, its artist roster cut by two-thirds along with the president position.
"I owe the people at Epic, some who've worked for me for many years, to get it right," said Stringer. "I have a responsibility to balance the ship, so we're going to sit down, not make any rash decisions, shore up the roster and hopefully make some progress in the next six months. ... It would be wonderful to start again, but I have a responsibility to the artists to do the right thing, and I'm really going to try."
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Analysis: Rural youth offer next frontier for China Web darlings - Game Shows

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese Internet giants such as Tencent and Baidu are looking to cyber-savvy but cash-poor rural youth in China's smaller cities as the next frontier to keep up their explosive growth.
Compared with Japan and South Korea, two of Asia's most wired countries with more than 70 percent Internet penetration, China has a modest national penetration rate of 30 percent, despite its status as the world's biggest Internet market with 420 million users.
Internet use is particularly low, around 20-40 percent, in the country's populous but relatively low-income central and western provinces such as Henan, Sichuan and Hubei, where analysts see the biggest chances for huge growth.
Companies such as Tencent, Baidu and Perfect World, whose products use less bandwidth and cater to simpler tastes of users in smaller markets, could be best placed to cash in on the spread of Internet access to those areas, analysts said.
"If you look at absolute dollars (current Internet revenue) is coming from coastal cities," said Jin Yoon, a Hong Kong based analyst with Nomura. "But if you look at central and western China ... that's where the growth is coming from."
Official data show about 30 percent of China's current Internet users, or about 126 million, live in rural areas, or about half the penetration rates for big cities including Shanghai.
In the third quarter, China's Internet economy was worth 41.4 billion yuan ($6.2 billion), a third of which was e-commerce, data from iResearch shows.
Lower incomes aside, another major factor limiting Internet growth in the countryside is less developed telecommunications, with broadband relatively scarce.
That could start to change, however, as China promotes a "triple play" project starting in 2013, aimed at delivering TV, telephone and Internet networks over sophisticated broadband networks to reach more homes faster.
"Once the infrastructure is in place, we will see competition in broadband heat up," said Mirae Asset analyst Eric Wen.
GETTING CONNECTED
Niki Xie, 22, a migrant to Shanghai from interior Hubei province, is typical of the youth that China's Internet titans would like to tap.
Having recently lost her sales job, she sat at an Internet bar on a recent afternoon, idling away her time by playing Tian Long Ba Bu, a hit game from Changyou, for up to eight hours a day.
"I have nothing to do, so I spend my time online and playing my boyfriend's character," said Xie, navigating her purple clad avatar onto a fluffy white rabbit.
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Wynn meets 3rd-quarter estimates, sets $8 dividend - Casino

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd's (WYNN.O) quarterly profit met Wall Street estimates as revenue in Macau rose 50 percent and it made money on nightclubs in Las Vegas.
The company also said it would pay a cash dividend of $8 per share on December 7. Its shares, which have nearly doubled so far this year, fell about 1.8 percent.
"I think there was a lot of talk in the market that the special dividend was coming," said Hudson Securities analyst Robert LaFleur. "Folks maybe thought it would be higher."
Gambling revenue has soared this year in Macau, the only place in China where gambling is legal, while the Las Vegas Strip has grappled with lackluster demand and a glut of new hotel rooms and casinos.
"I believe we've seen the bottom in Las Vegas," Chief Executive Officer Steve Wynn said on a conference call. "I don't know when it's going to get better, but I don't think it's going to get worse."
He also said October, which includes China's Golden Week holiday, was Wynn's best month ever in Macau. "We made over $90 million," Wynn said.
The company, which operates two casino-resorts in Macau and two in Las Vegas, reported a third-quarter net loss of $33.5 million, or 27 cents per share, compared with net income of $34.2 million, or 28 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items such as a $64.2 million charge for early repayment of debt, Wynn earned 39 cents a share, matching the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
"The results were solid," LaFleur said. "Vegas was a bit stronger than we were looking for on the strength of their nightclubs, of all things."
Net revenue rose 29 percent to $1 billion. Analysts had expected $990.8 million.
Wynn's revenue in Las Vegas rose 3 percent, while adjusted property earnings rose 9.3 percent due mainly to higher non-gambling revenue.
Property earnings in Macau rose 54.5 percent.
"The slow, gradual improvement that we expected in Vegas is playing out," said Morningstar analyst Michelle Chang. "And growth in Macau is exceeding our expectations."
Wynn said the company is close to completing design work on a third Macau resort, which he said could begin construction next year and be up and running by 2015. He said the project would likely have a budget between $2 billion and $3 billion.
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UPDATE 1-Cineworld 42-week sales up as 3D movies lure audiences - Movies

* Sees FY at least in line with market view
* Box office sales for 42 weeks to Oct 21 up 8.3 pct
(Adds details)
Oct 26 (Reuters) - Cineworld Group Plc (CINE.L) said on
Tuesday its total revenue grew 8.5 percent in the 42 weeks to
Oct. 21 as 3D movies attracted audiences despite pressure on
consumer spending.
The British cinema chain said the second half had a number
of successful releases, including "Shrek Forever After (3D)",
"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" and "Toy Story 3" (3D), which was
the biggest film release of the year to date according to
research firm Rentrak.
"The higher number of admissions since the half year end
(June 30) has helped to increase retail revenues in what
remains a challenging consumer environment," Cineworld said in
a statement.
The company also said it was confident of continued growth
for the full year at least in line with market expectations on
a promising line up, including "Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows
1".
In August, Cineworld had posted a nearly flat first-half
pretax profit as it lost some audience to the soccer World Cup,
but said it started the second half strongly with a string of
blockbusters and 3D films.
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'Megamind' tops box offices for second week - Comedy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Animated comedy 'Megamind' proved to be the best of the movie class for a second week, claiming the No. 1 spot at North American box offices with $30 million, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
The family-oriented comedy saw its ticket sales drop 35 percent in its second weekend in theaters, pushing its two-week total to $89.8 million and showing solid staying power for its maker DreamWorks Animation and distributor Paramount Pictures.
In second place was 20th Century Fox's runaway train movie "Unstoppable," starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. It pulled in $23.5 million and was the top-grossing new release over the weekend.
Among other major new movies, thriller "Skyline" was No. 4 with $11.7 million, while comedy "Morning Glory" was just behind in the fifth spot with $9.6 million.
Buddy comedy "Due Date" from Warner Bros. was No. 3 at $15.5 million, pushing its two-week total to $59 million.
"Skyline" was released by Universal Pictures, a unit of General Electric's NBC Universal media division, and "Morning Glory" was distributed by Paramount Pictures, part of Viacom Inc 20th Century Fox is a division of News Corp.
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Orlando Bloom, Beth Ditto win German Bambi awards - Celebrities

BERLIN (Reuters) - National and international celebrities including actor Orlando Bloom, soccer player Mesut Ozil and singer Beth Ditto took home Germany's most coveted media prizes, known as the "Bambi Awards."
A UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2009, "Lord of the Rings" star Bloom won the Bambi Charity Award on Thursday night for his humanitarian work with children in some of the world's poorest regions.
"He always makes time to travel to distant countries so he can draw attention to the destitution faced by children and the work done by charities," the jury said, explaining its decision.
The Bambi Awards are Germany's most important media prizes and have been awarded every year since 1948 to "people with vision and creativity, whose outstanding successes and achievements have been reported in the media."
But it was Germany's soccer heroes who stole the show hosted by "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker near Berlin on Thursday evening.
Turkish-born Real Madrid footballer Ozil was hailed as a prime example of successful integration into German society and won the prize in the "Integration" category.
"This is a great honor for me and I'm very happy," he said. "Integration creates something new and makes for a more colorful Germany."
Singer Shakira presented the German national soccer team coach Joachim Loew and his team with the jury's "Special Prize" for their performance at the World Cup in South Africa earlier this year, where Germany claimed third place.
Explaining its decision the jury said: "German football has never been so young -- and it has seldom been as passionate and innovative as it was during the World Cup in South Africa."
National trainer Andreas Koepke said the award was a "lucky charm" for the German national side's next big challenge -- winning the European soccer Championship.
Other members of the star-studded audience to be awarded a prize included U.S. singer Beth Ditto, who bagged the prize for "Pop International," and British environmental activist Jane Goodall, who picked up the "Our Earth" award for her ongoing campaigns to protect the environment and endangered species.
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UPDATE 1-Eros H1 profit up 34 pct; positive on outlook - Sci Fi

* Pretax profit $27.9 mln vs 20.8 mln stg
* Turnover up 20.3 pct to $68 million
(Adds details)
Nov 12 (Reuters) - Indian movie distributor Eros
International Plc (EROS.L) posted a 33.8 percent rise in
first-half profit as revenue from its theatrical division grew,
helped by the box office success of Bollywood film "Housefull".
With the success of "Golmaal 3" (Chaos - Part 3), which had
grossed $15.5 million globally in the first week, the company
saw a promising start to its second half.
Eros, whose Indian unit recently listed on the Bombay Stock
Exchange , said it was positive about its
outlook, thanks to a vibrant pipeline of projects.
The company's slate includes sci-fi movie "RA.One",
starring Indian A-listers Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor, and
"No Problem," featuring "Slumdog Millionaire" actor Anil
Kapoor.
Pretax profit for the six months ended Sept. 30 was $27.9
million, compared with $20.8 million in the year-ago period.
Turnover rose 20.3 percent to $68 million.
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Rijkaard leaves Galatasaray after poor start - Board Games

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Frank Rijkaard's contract as coach of Galatasaray has been terminated by mutual agreement, the club said on Wednesday, ending his spell in charge after a terrible start to the season.
The former UEFA Cup winners are ninth in the Turkish championship after eight games, eight points adrift of leaders Bursaspor. Galatasaray also failed to reach the group stage of this season's Champions League or Europa League.
It was not immediately clear who would take over from Dutchman Rijkaard but local media said the 17-times Turkish champions had made an official proposal to former Galatasaray and Turkey coach Fatih Terim.
Galatasaray held a management board meeting this week after Saturday's 4-2 home defeat by Ankaragucu to discuss the situation and said at the time it would announce decisions during the week.
"As a result of mutual talks with technical director Frank Rijkaard... we have decided to part ways as of October 20," the club said in a statement on its website (www.galatasaray.org).
Trainer Johan Neeskens and their assistants had also left the club, the statement said.
"We have a debt of gratitude to the esteemed Frank Rijkaard for his work and efforts for Galatasaray," it added, without disclosing a reason for the decision.
The Dutchman took the helm at the Istanbul club in 2009 after five seasons in charge of Barcelona.

� Continued...
The relations between First Quantum and the Democratic Republic of Congo have gone from bad to worse in recent months, after the country expropriated the miner’s $765 million Kolwezi copper tailings project in September. � Blog�
When some of the most influential figures in emerging markets finance spoke to a group of Reuters editors, they were asked about top picks for growth beyond the so-called BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China.� Blog�
The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam.� Blog�
It has debt levels to die for and huge amounts of oil, but economically it’s lagging and political concerns remain. Speakers at a Libyan trade and investment forum this week saw the North African country as a mixed bag.� Blog�
If Guinea can pull off free and fair elections this weekend, it will lay the foundations for what could be one of Africa’s most unexpected and significant good news stories.� Blog�
Africa is providing a lot of fine material for the London theatre these days.� Blog�
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UK defense boss calls for Harry drama to be dropped - Documentary

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - The head of Britain's armed forces has written to broadcaster Channel 4 to urge it not to show a "dramatized documentary" examining what might happen if Prince Harry were kidnapped on military duty in Afghanistan.
The 90-minute program called "The Taking of Prince Harry" is due to be aired Thursday, and recreates a helicopter crash in the south of Afghanistan and the subsequent capture of Queen Elizabeth's grandson, who is third in line to the throne.
Harry served with British forces in Afghanistan in 2008, becoming the first member of the royal family to see action since his uncle Prince Andrew flew helicopters in the Falklands War in 1982.
"We can confirm that (Air Chief Marshal) Jock (Stirrup) sent a letter to the chairman of Channel 4," a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said. "It was a private letter and it would be inappropriate to comment on its contents."
The letter was partly motivated by what Stirrup viewed as a lack of respect by program makers for troops serving in Afghanistan and their families back home, a defense source said.
Reports have said that the film includes a scene in which the actor playing Harry is made to appear in Taliban and al Qaeda propaganda. It also features contributions from intelligence analysts and people who have been taken hostage.
Channel 4 came under fire when it announced the film earlier this month, with The Sun newspaper's in-house security expert Andy McNab saying it was "in bad taste."
Harry, 26, has spoken of his desire to return to Afghanistan, which he was forced to leave prematurely after news of his presence there was leaked.
Channel 4 said earlier this month that it contacted the royal family about the film, but had received no response.
When asked about Stirrup's letter, a spokeswoman for the broadcaster replied:
"We have written to ... Stirrup replying to his concerns. The film is rooted in expert testimony and is a serious journalistic examination of a current issue. It treats the subject matter sensitively.
"It is a legitimate subject for documentary to explore the risks that Prince Harry faces as a high value target, and to seek to understand the full nature of the dangers to a royal in the modern theater of war as well as the political implications of a high profile kidnap."
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Kabam acquires social game developer WonderHill - Game Shows

Kabamis hoping to build the next dynamite company in social games. Today, Kabam is announcing it has acquired social game developer WonderHill as part of a quest to build a powerhouse in next-generation social gaming.
The price wasn’t disclosed. Redwood City, Calif.-based Kabam is trying to build a high-end social game firm that could join the ranks of top companies such as Zynga, Disney-Playdom, EA-Playfish and CrowdStar. It has a ways to go in that respect, but the acquisition shows that Kabam has become a player in the space. The deal also shows that smaller developers are under pressure to get big fast as rivals such as Zynga grow bigger and bigger.
WonderHill was founded in 2008by James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky. The company raised $7.75 million from Charles River Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Ooga Labs. The company created hit titles on MySpace such as Green Spot and it more recently moved to Facebook with titles such as Dragons of Atlantis.
WonderHill has 2 million monthly active users for its free-to-play games, where players can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods.
With the addition of 25 employees from San Francisco-based WonderHill, Kabam will now have about 200 employees, said Kaban chief executive Kevin Chou. Kabam was founded in 2007 as Watercooler. The company raised$9.5 million in two rounds of funding. Investors include Betfair and Canaan Partners.
At the beginning of the year, Kabam had just 20 employees, but it has grown quickly on the strength of games such as Kingdoms of Camelot,which has 8.2 million monthly active usersacross dozens of games on Facebook. The company got its start with online sports fan sites on Facebook.
WonderHill drew some attention earlier this yearwhen CrowdStar sued it for allegedly copying the “fish mating dance” and other features of CrowdStar’s Happy Aquarium game in WonderHill’s own Aquarium Life game.
But WonderHill caught Chou’s eye because it was focused on high-quality Flash strategy games. Under the deal, WonderHill will become Kabam’s San Francisco office.
WonderHill founders Currier and Chudnovsky will stay on as advisors, and WonderHill’s the development team of approximately 25 will now work as Kabam employees. The new Kabam San Francisco will continue to build titles like Dragons of Atlantis while also creating new, yet to be announced projects that will aid in further building out Kabam’s portfolio of real social games. Kabam recently added executives with experience at Blizzard, PlayFirst and PayPal.
Companies:Kabam,Wonderhill
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Comedy Central cooks up Waiting TV series - Comedy

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Cable network Comedy Central has given a pilot order to "Waiting," a show based on the 2005 indie film about the food service industry.
"Waiting" follows the employees at Shenaniganz chain restaurant as they gossip, make fun of customers, and avert boredom and adulthood with their antics.
The original film featured an all-star cast including Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Justin Long, Luis Guzman, Chi McBride and Dane Cook among others.
The $3 million film grossed $16 million for Lionsgate.
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Harry Potter fans brave wind and rain for premiere - Movies

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of fans descended on Leicester Square in central London on Thursday, braving wind and rain to catch a glimpse of the stars on the red carpet for the new Harry Potter film's world premiere.
Young British actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who have played the central roles for the last decade, appeared with J.K. Rowling, the author behind the hugely successful boy wizard books on which the movies are based.
Watson, 20, grabbed the limelight, sporting her new short haircut and wearing a short black dress.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1," the seventh and penultimate Potter picture, hits U.S. theatres on November 19 and looks set to provide another big pay day for Warner Bros.
The Hollywood studio decided to split the final book about Harry and his wand-wielding pals into two films after the first six movies amassed $5.4 billion at the global box office.
In Deathly Hallows Part 1, Harry, Ron and Hermione set out on a mission to track down and destroy the secret to evil Lord Voldemort's immortality and destruction -- the Horcruxes.
The three are forced to fend for themselves outside the comfort of Hogwarts school, and the pressure to fight the forces of evil sees best friends Harry and Ron come to blows.
The actors have spoken of mixed feelings about a franchise that has turned them into A-list stars and multi-millionaires.
Grint, 22, felt a sense of relief that a decade of filming had finally ended.
"It's just really great, it's a sense of real freedom because filming on Harry Potter...it does take over your life and it is really long shoots and it's just nice to be out and do your own thing for a change," he told Reuters.
BILLION DOLLAR TARGET
Robert Conner, a dead ringer for actor Grint who plays Ron in the series, was near the front of the queue of fans, having pitched his tent on Tuesday evening.
"I'm a big fan," he said. "I've actually got a Harry Potter tattoo, which I've shown to quite a few members of the cast. I just love Harry Potter. I love the books, I love the films, love the cast."
Paul Taylor, 46, travelled from Sheffield, England, in the early hours of the morning to book his spot.
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TV networks seek to stop FilmOn - Tv Series

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Four top television networks have asked a federal court to stop the Internet video service FilmOn.com from offering TV channels over the web and on Apple Inc's iPad for free.
FilmOn.com Plc, which claims to be the first high definition Internet television network, launched in September 2010 and was founded by British billionaire entrepreneur Alki David, who recently offered to pay $1 million for someone to strip naked in front of U.S. President Barack Obama.
"I'm not a thief," David said in a phone interview on Tuesday. "We're a bona fide business. We're not pirates."
The network's suit comes as start-ups have sought to bypass traditional media companies by offering programing to Internet users without paying fees to free-to-air channels.
The networks, eager to control the way their programs are distributed, in September sued ivi Inc, a service that offers TV channels over the Web. Some TV networks have also blocked videos on their websites from Google Inc's Google TV.
FilmOn, a Berlin-listed company, initially charged users $9.95 per month, to access "over 30 premium free-to-air television channels." But it began offering the service for free after the networks sued FilmOn days after its September 27 launch, according to a copy of the restraining order seen by Reuters.
"It's against the law to steal a broadcast signal and stream it to wireless devices and over the Internet, without the copyright owner's permission," the networks said in a joint statement. "FilmOn.com is the latest in a short line of companies that has robbed our broadcast signals and distributed them illegally for their own commercial gain."
David, whose biography on the website said he "stars in major Hollywood films and mini series as well as writing, directing and starring in his own independent movies" and who is "experienced in commerce and banking", said FilmOn was well within its rights to rebroadcast networks offered for free over the air.
"The (US copyright) rules does not require the consent of the broadcast owner," David said, according to his reading of U.S. copyright law.
David added he was in negotiations with two of the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit, but declined to name the companies.
"We'll see if we can avoid lawyers getting paid more money," David said. But, "I'm not shy of a fight ... If we're making money, we're prepared to pay. If we're not making money , we're not prepared to pay."
The plaintiffs in the case are CBS Corp, Walt Disney Co's ABC, General Electric Co-controlled NBC and News Corp's Fox, and CBS Corp.
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Steven Spielberg to direct Robopocalypse - Sci Fi

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Steven Spielberg has lazered in on the project he will direct after he completes his World War I drama "War Horse": an adaptation of post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel "Robopocalypse."
DreamWorks and Disney, which releases DreamWorks' movies, said Friday that production will begin in January 2012 for a release the following year through Disney's Touchstone label. "War Horse" will open December 28, 2011.
It was almost a year ago that DreamWorks picked up the book by Wilson, who has a Ph.D. in robotics, and who has made a name for himself writing robot-centered doomsday scenarios (his "How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion" is set up at Paramount). The book will be published next year.
"Robopocalypse" was on the list of projects Spielberg was considering earlier this year before he ultimately buckled down and chose "War Horse" in the summer. What got the notoriously choosy Spielberg excited about "Robopocalypse" was the script by "Cloverfield" writer Drew Goddard; Goddard's latest draft began making waves when it was submitted to the studio in September.
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Electronic Arts to buy mobile game publisher - Arts

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Electronic Arts said it plans to buy the publisher of "Angry Birds," one of the most popular games on Apple's iPhone, pushing the second largest U.S. video game publisher deeper into the hot mobile games market.
A source close to the deal told Reuters EA will pay under $20 million in cash plus other undisclosed considerations.
An EA spokeswoman confirmed the deal, but did not disclose the financial terms. Under the deal, EA will not receive the intellectual property rights to "Angry Birds," which will remain under Rovio, the Finnish company that developed the game, the company said.
Some analysts were surprised that EA would not acquire "Angry Birds". Neither company commented on what games or intellectual property would be included in the terms.
"I'm kind of wondering what they bought," said Todd Mitchell, a Kaufman Bros analyst. "But in light of EA not getting the IP, they're buying the development platform to put their own IP on it in hopes of driving social networking and customers back to their own properties."
Electronic Arts, which owns Medal of Honor and Madden NFL franchises, can push its established brands through new social games in the same way that Disney, which bought social gaming company Playdom for $563.2 million in July, has used with its ESPN brand in the ESPNU College Town game for Facebook.
Chillingo publishes other mobile games but none have been quite as successful as "Angry Birds," which allows players to help angry birds destroy pigs with a huge slingshot in various game stages.
The company also publishes "iDracula", a shooter game where players are vampire hunters and Predators, a sci-fi game.

� Continued...
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How the unions lost the Hobbit war - Movies

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As more and more Hollywood productions are made in other countries, the studios are determined to limit union influence as much as possible.
Will entertainment workers of the world unite? Probably not any time soon. They just tried, and it blew up in their faces.
The two-month Hobbit affair in New Zealand began with local actors attempting to organize the film and ended with a smackdown from U.S.-based Warner Bros., which extracted an additional $25 million in incentives from the island nation and secured passage of antiunion legislation, apparently negotiated directly between the government and key Warners executives including New Line president Toby Emmerich and Warners Home Entertainment president Kevin Tsujihara.
As labor leaders (including the Screen Actors Guild, which boycotted in solidarity) withdrew under a barrage of negative publicity and even death threats, they were left to wonder: what went wrong?
Just about everything:
- The local union, New Zealand Actors Equity (NZAE), never made clear to the public why it was trying to organize the production. Were working conditions the issue? Pay rates? Residuals? There was never a detailed or consistent answer.
- Early on, a key legal issue arose: Could actors be engaged as employees rather than independent contractors? The union never developed a clear response to this question, instead focusing on odd stopgaps for protecting actors engaged as independent contractors.
- NZAE failed to develop significant support from local actors. A planned meeting -- canceled due to a counter-demonstration -- was expected to draw only about 90 attendees. Meanwhile, meetings and rallies of industry workers, including actors, who opposed the union's actions attracted thousands.
- In what seems an unusual arrangement, NZAE is a unit of an Australian union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). The initial spokesperson for labor in the dispute was an Australian, Simon Whipp. Those facts alone incited charges in New Zealand that union activists from its larger neighbor were endangering a $500 million two-film production vital to the New Zealand economy.
- The unions took little account of the public reverence for director-producer Peter Jackson, who was knighted less than a year ago for services to the arts. Jackson's role in the affair was complex: at times he reiterated the studio message that the project might move to another country, while at other times he vowed to "fight like hell" to retain the project in-country.
- In any case, MEAA/NZAE seemed unprepared for the media firestorm that its organizing attempt generated. And the unions had little political support within New Zealand. When the center-right government weighed in against the unions, the Labour party was silent.
In the end, the entire fracas redounded to the benefit of the government and Warner Bros. Under an "urgency" procedure, the legislature passed in a single day laws that put all Kiwi film (and videogame) workers effectively beyond the reach of the unions. That conforms to the ruling National party's political agenda. Government ministers at various times acknowledged that the legislation was being introduced and fast-tracked at the behest of the studio, and at other times denied this, but without explaining in that case why urgency was required.
Meanwhile, Warners secured an extra $25 million in production incentives on top of tens of millions of dollars the project already qualified for. That seemed like a power grab by the studio. However, New Zealand did receive a valuable benefit: an agreement by the studio to include on Hobbit DVDs and electronic copies a video promoting the country as a tourist destination.
That's no small move, considering how much New Zealand tourism benefited from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Kiwi actors on the films will now receive residuals. That seems like a win for the union, but a studio-side source claims that a residuals proposal was made before the NZAE organizing campaign kicked in. The facts are unclear.
Ultimately, the country retained the production it could ill-afford to lose. New Zealand has become a popular filming location because of its scenery, and skilled (and obviously English-speaking) crews -- but also because of its lower wage rates and lack of unions. Keeping the project in-country was do or die for the local industry: as Prime Minister John Key put it, "If you can't make The Hobbit here, frankly, what movies are you going to make here?"
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German police arrest 22 in neo-Nazi internet raid - Radio Stations

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police said on Wednesday they had arrested 22 people suspected of spreading neo-Nazi ideology in a major swoop against far-right internet radio station Widerstand-Radio (Resistance Radio).
In an operation involving some 270 officers, police raided 22 premises across 10 of Germany's 16 states, confiscating numerous computers and telephones, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said in a statement.
The station could be heard worldwide around the clock, and operated from a server based in the United States, the BKA said. Listeners to the site would register via a false name and address in the western German city of Dortmund, it added.
"(The) investigations are a strong hint to people running other extreme-right internet radio stations that dissemination of songs with extreme-right wing and xenophobic lyrics, even on the internet, will be pursued," said BKA head Joerg Ziercke.
A further person, who was not arrested on Wednesday, brought the number of suspects to 23, a BKA spokeswoman said. Aged between 20 and 37, the suspects were all German, she added.
State prosecutors in the western city of Koblenz are investigating the 23 on suspicion of forming a criminal organization, inciting racial hatred and other crimes, the BKA said.
The website of the radio station had apparently had around 135,000 hits since last year, Ziercke said.
In October, the BKA said the number of people in Germany with the potential to carry out far-right violence had almost doubled since the 1990s to around 9,000 in 2009.
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Cameron, Fox team up for Avatar sequels - Sci Fi

LOS ANGELES Oct 27 (Reuters) - Twentieth Century Fox film
studio and director James Cameron on Wednesday unveiled plans
for two new "Avatar" movies, erasing any lingering doubt over
whether they would again team up for sequels to the biggest
blockbuster movie of all time.
Cameron promised fans of the $2.8 billion global box office
bonanza that he would "not back off the throttle" of the
original movie's visual and emotional sci-fi story about the
tall, blue Na'vi people who dwell on the lush moon, Pandora.
"Avatar 2" is projected to land in theaters in December
2014 with a third film coming one year later.
"'Avatar' was conceived as an epic work of fantasy -- a
world that audiences could visit, across all media platforms,
and this moment marks the launch of the next phase of that
world," Cameron said in a statement.
The "Titanic" director unleashed "Avatar" on audiences last
year with new 3D technology and an emotional tale that mixed
Hollywood-style action with a tale of humans trying to exploit
the natural resources on Pandora.
The combination of adventure and environmentalism thrilled
audiences. Along with the massive box office -- "Avatar" dwarfs
the No. 2 film ever, "Titanic," with $1.8 billion in ticket
sales -- "Avatar" also became the best-selling Blu-ray DVD of
all time.
The movie earned nine Oscar nominations and won three, and
it was named the year's best movie at the Golden Globe Awards.
"We had no higher priority, and can feel no greater joy,
than enabling Jim to continue and expand his vision of the
world of 'Avatar.' Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim
Gianopulos and Tom Rothman said in a joint statement.
Cameron promised that the second and third movies would
have "self contained" stories that are part of the greater
story arc of the Na'vi struggling against humans.
Back in August, he told Reuters he wanted to direct a
sequel and a third film, and that when writing the screenplay,
he would write two different movies at the same time.
Production is scheduled to begin in 2011. [nN25158555]
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Web startup Bln.kr helps artists, fans interact - Radio Stations

DENVER (Billboard) - Artists these days no longer wonder whether they should be using the social Web to interact with their fans. It's now a matter of how.
Using Facebook or Twitter or MySpace as a one-way megaphone is no longer enough. The power of online social networks is in establishing a two-way conversation. But when there are thousands of voices on the other end of that discussion, staying engaged can be a daunting task.
Thankfully, a host of new companies are emerging to help make sense of it all, offering services like digital content distribution, feedback aggregation and traffic reports. One of the more recent startups catching the industry's eye is Chicago-based Bln.kr.
The company launched in May 2009 as a link-shortening service for Twitter similar to Bit.ly, but for music files. Since then, the service has reoriented its focus toward helping artists, particularly amateur and emerging acts, to harness the value of fan feedback.
Participating artists who establish a Bln.kr account can connect it to such online profiles as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and YouTube, and manage them all from one place. That enables them to upload a track through Bln.kr to embed the song into all of their other social network profiles.
Bln.kr then aggregates the feedback and comments about that track into a real-time stream it calls "the loop," which displays the total streams, downloads, retweets and other data the track generates. Today, the loop feature is limited to Twitter, but by the end of October, Bln.kr will expand it to include Facebook, YouTube, RSS feeds and other sources, aggregating user ratings, "likes," sharing activity and comments.
Bln.kr also offers artists the ability to deliver dynamic prompts to fans to solicit specific feedback, such as "How do the lyrics make you feel?" or "What one thing should be changed?"
All of these services are free, but a Pro account for $5 per month adds other capabilities, such as automatically creating a YouTube video using artists' album art and other visual assets, holding remix contests and generating unique QR bar codes that artists can place on flyers for fans to scan with their mobile phones to launch a website or stream a track. Additional Pro features will be rolled out in late October, such as Foursquare badge-like "buttons" that reward artists for achievements like reaching 100 plays or having the most popular track on Twitter for a given day.
Bln.kr was one of four startups pitching attendees of Billboard's Mobile Entertainment Live: The Music App Summit during the "Innovators Showcase" panel, emerging as the clear favorite. Panelist Tim Chang, a principal at Norwest Venture Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., said he was impressed with the service.
"I would potentially fund this," Chang told Bln.kr CEO Justin DeLay at the event. "I think you've tapped into the key notion of what I've been gunning for all along, which is that the Internet has fragmented the audience all to hell. What we're all fighting for is attention."
So far, some 12,000 artists have opened Bln.kr accounts. About half are purely amateurs or hobbyists, with the other half split between journeyman professional artists and more established acts like the Streets, Band of Skulls and DJ Teenwolf. More than 32,000 tracks have been uploaded to date, generating an average of 10 shares and six plays per minute across the site.
About 1% of participating artists have Pro accounts. But Bln.kr plans to add other revenue streams in the near future, such as adding coupons from advertisers for users who achieve "buttons" milestones.
It's also working on licensing its music to Internet radio stations and other digital outlets. Looking further ahead, Bln.kr may offer any combination of these services to music labels as a white-label solution for promotional campaigns.
The startup is now seeking additional funding. Currently, Bln.kr consists of only co-founders DeLay, COO Andrew Cronk and chief technology officer Mike Yagley -- all in their mid- to late 20s and amateur musicians themselves.
DeLay quit his job in product marketing at Kraft Foods to launch the company, and has gone back to school to study human-computer interaction. DeLay and Yagley are also songwriters and guitarists for a band called Almost Gone, whose album "Autonomy" is available on iTunes. This mix of technological know-how, business savvy and passion for music is typical of today's digital media entrepreneur, one that blends the perceived roles of "music people" and "tech people" that are too often at odds.
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MySpace launching new version of website - Entertainment News

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - MySpace launched a new version of its website centered around music and entertainment, as the social networking company attempts to regain its former appeal in a market it helped create.
MySpace Chief Executive Mike Jones said that News Corp-owned MySpace is no longer seeking to compete head-on with social networking company Facebook, and is recasting itself as a complimentary service that he hopes the 35-year-old-and-under crowd will flock to stay abreast of the hottest music and videos.
With traffic to MySpace declining and the company rocked by succession of management changes and layoffs during the past two years, the re-launch of the website represents a critical step in efforts to rejuvenate an asset once considered central to News Corp's online business.
"Most investors have written off MySpace now," said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG said on Tuesday. Whether MySpace can rebuild its buzz in the highly competitive and fast-changing Web market is an open question, he said.
News Corp bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, at a time when the social networking service was at the height of its popularity.
But MySpace, which says it has between 125 million and 130 million active monthly users, has been eclipsed by Facebook, which has more than 500 million users. News Corp does not disclose financial information about MySpace.
There have been media reports that News Corp is interested in selling MySpace, though executives at News Corp have repeatedly maintained that that is not the case.
MySpace's new incarnation leans heavily on the company's strong heritage in music -- the company already has partnerships with the four major record labels -- and seeks to supplement it with content about movies, television and video games. Visitors to the site can subscribe to news feeds about favorite bands and actors, as well as follow other MySpace users that the service recommends as authorities about particular types of music or other topics.

� Continued...
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UK defense boss calls for Harry drama to be dropped - Documentary

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - The head of Britain's armed forces has written to broadcaster Channel 4 to urge it not to show a "dramatized documentary" examining what might happen if Prince Harry were kidnapped on military duty in Afghanistan.
The 90-minute program called "The Taking of Prince Harry" is due to be aired Thursday, and recreates a helicopter crash in the south of Afghanistan and the subsequent capture of Queen Elizabeth's grandson, who is third in line to the throne.
Harry served with British forces in Afghanistan in 2008, becoming the first member of the royal family to see action since his uncle Prince Andrew flew helicopters in the Falklands War in 1982.
"We can confirm that (Air Chief Marshal) Jock (Stirrup) sent a letter to the chairman of Channel 4," a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said. "It was a private letter and it would be inappropriate to comment on its contents."
The letter was partly motivated by what Stirrup viewed as a lack of respect by program makers for troops serving in Afghanistan and their families back home, a defense source said.
Reports have said that the film includes a scene in which the actor playing Harry is made to appear in Taliban and al Qaeda propaganda. It also features contributions from intelligence analysts and people who have been taken hostage.
Channel 4 came under fire when it announced the film earlier this month, with The Sun newspaper's in-house security expert Andy McNab saying it was "in bad taste."
Harry, 26, has spoken of his desire to return to Afghanistan, which he was forced to leave prematurely after news of his presence there was leaked.
Channel 4 said earlier this month that it contacted the royal family about the film, but had received no response.
When asked about Stirrup's letter, a spokeswoman for the broadcaster replied:
"We have written to ... Stirrup replying to his concerns. The film is rooted in expert testimony and is a serious journalistic examination of a current issue. It treats the subject matter sensitively.
"It is a legitimate subject for documentary to explore the risks that Prince Harry faces as a high value target, and to seek to understand the full nature of the dangers to a royal in the modern theater of war as well as the political implications of a high profile kidnap."
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SPECIAL REPORT - Tea Party candidates only a Democrat could love - Radio Stations

DELAWARE COUNTY, Pa. (Reuters) - Jim Schneller is not the type of congressional candidate a political progressive or liberal Democrat would ordinarily support.
A self-avowed Tea Party activist, he opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. He wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, labeling it "unconstitutional." He vows to "guarantee constitutional rights for home-schooling." And he is still calling for President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate or face deportation.
Yet Schneller quite possibly might never have become a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania's seventh congressional district were it not for a helping hand from his opponents. As it happens, a dozen Delaware County Democratic Party activists obtained nearly all of the necessary signatures for him to qualify for the ballot, records of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State show.
Some of these activists work or have worked in one capacity or another for the campaign of Schneller's opponent, Bryan Lentz, a two-term Democratic state legislator. At least five of the people associated with Lentz's campaign who gathered signatures for him also did so for Schneller, according to records and interviews.
Last spring, the Lentz loyalists signed up potential voters by citing his long experience in government and underscoring his pro-choice record. Then this summer, they went door to door extolling the virtues of Jim Schneller by saying that he was a regular guy who had absolutely no previous involvement with politics or government and would be uncompromising in his opposition to abortion.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Even by the standards of the testiest and most tempestuous U.S. midterm elections in memory, such machinations stand out -- and they are by no means limited to Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
Elsewhere, Democratic congressional candidates and party activists and operatives have worked behind the scenes to support Tea Party activists to run as third party candidates. The calculation is simple: by siphoning off just enough votes from their Republican opponents, they hope to swing the outcome of a tight election in their favor.
In Nevada, for example, advertisements on conservative radio stations attack the Republican nominee Sharron Angle, the actual Tea Party candidate, for not being conservative enough. Those spots were paid for by casinos and unions backing Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.
And in the race for New Jersey's third congressional district, the Camden Courier Post has reported, Democrats recruited a third party candidate, Peter DeStefano, who is running as a Tea Party candidate. It was a bid to help re-elect Democratic congressman John Adler, say supporters of Adler's Republican opponent, John Runyan.
Adler has denied that anyone in his campaign played a role in recruiting or encouraging DeStefano's candidacy. In the meantime, the race is considered too close to call, suggesting that DeStefano might indeed prove to be a spoiler.
Then there is Michigan. Two Oakland County Democratic officials recently resigned their positions after it was disclosed that they had helped run candidates for several states offices, including two highly competitive congressional seats on a Tea Party ballot line. The effort failed after election officials threw out the ballot line.
Similar scenes are also playing out in California, Florida, Texas and other parts of the country, according to records, interviews with party activists and press accounts.
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Young designers invade Brussels with fashion trail - Fashion

BRUSSELS Oct 26 (Reuters Life!) - Brussels might not have the couture cachet of London, Paris or Milan, but a small group of avant-garde fashionistas is giving the Belgian capital an underground designer edge.
Using unusual and even surreal spaces such as thrift shops, a bakery, a bicycle repair shop and a former electricity power plant to show their work, the young designers and design students are giving Brussels a fashion buzz.
"In Brussels, what is unique is Brussels itself," said Veronique Heene, the coordinator of Modo Brussels Fashion Designers Trail, a bi-annual fashion and art exhibition.
"It's a small town. It's not a big, big town. It's a mix of culture, really an international city even if it's a small city, and many people are coming from elsewhere."
La Centrale Electrique, the first electricity plant in Brussels, is the starting point of the trail, which leads throughout the city's downtown and the funky Rue Dansaert district, taking in 60 exhibition spaces.
In the vast Centrale Electrique, at the end of a neon-yellow hall, a single mannequin stands decked out in electric-bright yellow neon. In an adjoining room, a crowd of mannequins are dolled up like sea creatures, one like a jellyfish, another a seahorse, still others like cascades of water and fire.
An ensemble near the entrance looks like a sequined dragon. It only uses two colours, green and gold, but the light reflecting off the sequins gives off a rainbow of colours.
Scattered along the route are boutiques and galleries displaying art, photographs, paintings, graphic designs and even studios for DJs to "show" their audio work, making the fashion trail a multimedia design experience.
Some exhibits and art spaces will be open just for a few days, while others will remain open for several weeks.
"The students try to go out of what you expect, and after that, they find a sort of liberty. After that, they can find their own style. They can find what they like, how they will work," Heene said of one design school's exhibit.
Stores along the route stay open late for the duration of the exhibition, receiving visitors who pay 8 euros for a ticket to follow the trail in whatever order they want.
"It's very special that this shop is open on a Sunday," said Kitty Sokal of Brussels, who picked her way through a flurry of venues.
Her first stop was the workshop of Christophe Coppens, which sells hats and other accessories, where Sokal picked up a funky black knitted hat.
"It's like something you put on a teapot," she said. "It's very warm -- it's creative -- and the textures are very nice. You see three layers, and if you feel, it's very soft."
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Injured Gates gives Chargers late jolt in losing cause - Game Shows

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Injured tight end Antonio Gates missed the entire week of practice but gave the San Diego Chargers a late boost on Sunday before falling 23-20 to the New England Patriots.
Struggling with a toe injury, three-time All-Pro Gates was only listed as active shortly before the opening kickoff to help the Chargers snap two-game losing streak.
Trailing 23-6, Gates helped his team mount a spirited rally when he finally broke clear of the New England defense with a four-yard touchdown with 7:25 left.
"It's hard not to be 100 percent and still play well against a team like the Patriots," Gates told reporters after San Diego slipped to 2-5 for the season.
"For a minute, I got lost on coverage and I was able to make some plays. You come out and you fight and scratch as a player and do what you can to win. But today wasn't enough."
Six-time Pro Bowler Gates, heavily defended by New England, did not connect with a single throw from Rivers in the first half but San Diego coach Norv Turner was unperturbed.
"Antonio is one of the great team players ever," Turner said. "I don't think he had any concern about if he had the ball thrown to him or not. (The Patriots) had two or three guys on him.
New England head coach Bill Belichick applauded the gutsy display by Gates, especially in the second half.
"Gates is a tough player, he hasn't missed any games. He always shows up to play and always plays well. He is a tough guy to handle," said Belichick.
Although the Chargers held the Patriots to 179 yards of offense while gaining 363 yards themselves, they committed four turnovers in the first half.
"This is something we've talked about since the season started, since training camp, and that's the turnover ratio," Gates said after moving into sixth place in the all-time standings for tight ends with 6,763 career yards.
"You continue to turn the ball over and you continue do the same things, it decreases your chance of winning football games. Getting it to translate to the game on Sunday is probably our biggest challenge at this point."
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