6 Russians die in snowmobile crash in Italy

ROME (AP) — Six Russians were killed and two seriously injured when the snowmobile and sled they were riding veered off an Italian Alpine ski slope at night, slammed into a barrier and flew through the air into a ravine.
The accident occurred Friday, and when rescuers arrived at the scene six of the victims were found dead on the slope of Mount Cermis, in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast Italy, said Cavalese Fire Department Cmdr. Roberto Marchi.
"It is clear that the fundamental cause is recklessness and imprudence," Marchi told Sky TG24 TV in an interview on the slope Saturday. It is labeled "pista nera" or the black ski run, indicating a level of steepness and other difficult conditions suitable only for the most experienced skiers.
Six of the people involved in the accident were Russian tourists and the other two were Russians who worked in Italy in the tourist industry.
Cavalese Mayor Silvano Welponer said that putting a driver and passenger in the snowmobile and having it pull six passengers in the sled "made for a very heavy load. You have to know what you are doing and have the experience" to safely handle that, he said.
The ANSA news agency said authorities were performing tests to determine if the snowmobile's driver — who survived the crash — was drunk.
The sled-towing snowmobile cut a spectacular trajectory after it veered off the slope on a curve, hit the manmade barrier, flew through the air while shearing the tips off tree branches, then landed in the ravine, Italian news reports said.
RAI state radio said the slope was unlit, and other Italian news reports quoted local officials as saying it had been closed for the day and that the only vehicles allowed on it when it is open are staff or rescue ones. The Russians were believed to have dined at the top of the slopes and were heading back to their hotel when they crashed, the reports said.
The Russian consul general in Milan, Alexei Parmonov, said on Russian state television that he was in contact with Italian investigators, who he said suspect the crash was caused by excessive speed. They also were checking the possibility of a mechanical malfunction.
Italian prosecutors formally opened a probe to see if manslaughter charges should be filed, Italian news reports said.
Parmonov identified the four men and two women who died in the crash. Five of them and also one of the injured men were tourists from Krasnodar, a region in southern Russia that includes Sochi, which is preparing to hold the 2014 Winter Olympics. One of the dead women and the other injured man worked in Italy in the tourist industry.
The Russian diplomat identified the dead as Denis Kravchenko, Irina Kravchenko, Vyacheslav Sleptsov, Yulia Yudina, Lyudmila Yudina and Rafilya Pshenichnaya. The injured, he said, were Boris Yudin and Azat Agafarov. All except Pshenichnaya and Agafarov were tourists from Krasnodar. Yudin's 17-year-old son, who stayed behind in the hotel, lost his mother and sister in the accident, while his father was hospitalized with multiple fractures, Parmonov said.
A day of entertainment had been planned for the Val di Fiemme ski resort area Saturday, ahead of the World Cup cross-country ski competition, but the festivities were canceled because of the accident.
Two high-profile deadly accidents have occurred on Mount Cermis.
In 1998, a U.S. Marine jet, flying low on a training run from a nearby air base, sliced a ski gondola's cable, sending the cable car crashing to the ground and claiming 20 lives. The accident triggered months of tension between Italy and the United States, two traditionally good allies.
In 1976, a ski gondola broke off from its cable and plunged to the slope, killing 42 people.

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Eli Lilly banks on cost controls for higher 2013 profit

(Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co said on Friday it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.
Lilly, whose shares were up nearly 4 percent on Friday, said 2013 sales will be flat to a bit higher, despite the loss of patent on its $5 billion-a-year antidepressant, Cymbalta, in December.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker is coming off a particularly difficult 2012 when sales declined sharply because of competition from cheaper generics.
It expects 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share excluding items, from a forecast of $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012. In 2011, its adjusted earnings were $4.41 per share.
Analysts on average forecast earnings of $3.71 for 2013 and $3.36 per share for 2012, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
"Overall, it was better than anyone expected," said Barclays Capital analyst Tony Butler. "From an earnings perspective, no one believed that operating expenses would be kept in check."
Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said, "They're cutting costs at a pace that's maybe a little quicker than people were anticipating, and that was one of the reasons for the outperformance in their guidance."
The company said 2013 net profit would benefit from a tax credit that had been pushed into this year because of the late signing of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 - the legislation that prevented the so-called fiscal cliff.
The company said it is not sure yet of the amount of the tax credit, which is related to research and development accounting, and said it would provide more information during its January 29 earnings conference call. Lilly said it excluded the impact from all of its financial guidance.
Similar uncertainty could face other drugmakers, as well as other corporate sectors with extensive research budgets, such as technology and defense. However, "It could be resolved by the time everybody else reports," Butler said of the pharmaceutical industry. "We've got another three weeks before anyone reports."
Lilly said the adjusted earnings forecast also excludes payment and income for revenue sharing with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's Amylin unit on Byetta, a diabetes drug, and restructuring charges. Lilly severed ties with Amylin when it agreed to collaborate with Boehringer Ingelheim on diabetes drug development.
HELP ON THE WAY
Lilly forecast 2013 revenue of $22.6 billion to $23.4 billion, driven by sales of its drugs for diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, erectile dysfunction and animal health. The company said it also expects significant revenue growth from Japan and emerging markets, such as China.
Analysts are looking for 2013 revenue of $22.82 billion.
While Cymbalta is not expected to start facing generic competition until the end of the year, the company cautioned that sales declines could begin sooner if wholesalers start to reduce inventory supplies prior to the patent expiration.
As a result, it said, the fourth quarter could look significantly different than the first three.
Lilly has already been battered by generic competition for its once top-selling schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa, and will face generic competition for its $1 billion-a-year Evista osteoporosis drug in early 2014.
But help is on the way. Lilly said it now has 13 drugs in late-stage testing, the most at any one time in its history. It could seek approvals this year for drugs for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, gastric cancer and for a type of lymphoma.
Chief Financial Officer Derica Rice told analysts on a conference call that the company was firmly focused on replenishing the developmental pipeline. "This is our future and it's our first priority."
The company also vowed to maintain its dividend payout and complete its share repurchase plan.
"Lilly has financially done a really good job. Obviously, you need the pipeline to come through," said Barclay's Butler, adding that positive late-stage data on ramucirumab in breast cancer could signal an important new product for Lilly. The drug is also in late-stage testing for the smaller gastric cancer market.
Other key events for Lilly in 2013 include the start of a new Phase III trial of solanezumab in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease after an earlier study failed but showed some signs of hope for the memory-robbing condition, and an August trial challenging a method of use patent on the $3 billion-a-year lung cancer drug Alimta.
Should Lilly prevail in court, the company could have patent protection on the medicine into 2022 even though the basic patent lapses in 2016.
Asked if the company would consider settling the case before it comes to trial, Phil Johnson, Lilly's vice president for investor relations, said: "Nothing is off the table, but we have not historically entered into those kinds of agreements."
Eli Lilly shares were up 3.8 percent at $51.60 on Friday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Lilly 2013 profit forecast tops expectations

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Eli Lilly and Co. unveiled a better-than-expected 2013 earnings forecast Friday, in part because the pharmaceutical company expects growth from several established drugs to help make up for revenue lost to generic competition.
The Indianapolis drug developer saw sales for its all-time best-selling drug, the antipsychotics Zyprexa, crater in 2012 after it lost U.S. patent protection. Lilly will take another hit next December when it loses patent protection for its current top seller, the antidepressant Cymbalta.
But company executives told analysts Friday they still expect Cymbalta and another product that loses patent protection in 2013, the insulin Humalog, to help drive revenue growth along with products like the cancer treatment Alimta and the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis.
Lilly also expects more growth from Japan, developing countries and its animal health business.
All told, the drugmaker forecast 2013 adjusted earnings of between $3.75 and $3.90 per share on $22.6 billion to $23.4 billion in revenue.
That topped analyst expectations, on average, for per-share earnings of $3.72, according to FactSet. Analysts also expected $22.87 billion in revenue.
Company shares climbed $1.84, or 3.7 percent, to close at $51.56 Friday, while broader indexes rose less than 1 percent.
Lilly said it expects operating expenses will be flat or drop slightly compared with 2012, and that was slightly better than what Edward Jones analyst Judson Clark expected.
He called Lilly's 2013 forecast "a pleasant surprise," but he also noted that plenty of long-term concerns remain. Lilly won't feel the brunt of the Cymbalta patent loss until 2014, and Clark expects the company's earnings to shrink then. What remains to be seen, he said, is whether the drugmaker is willing to preserve its dividend and cut expenses enough to tame that loss.
"We think the real question marks are in 2014," he said.
Lilly also expects to counter the patent expirations by developing new drugs, and the company said Friday it has 13 experimental drugs in late-stage testing, the last phase before a company seeks regulatory approval.
Lilly reiterated on Friday that it expects at least $3 billion in net income and revenue of at least $20 billion through 2014. It also expects to keep paying its dividend and to buy back $1.5 billion in shares this year.
Zyprexa once brought in more than $5 billion in annual revenue for Lilly, but its sales sank 66 percent through the first nine months of 2012 after generic competition entered the market. The company expects revenue from Cymbalta, which topped $4 billion in 2011, to start falling in this year's fourth quarter.
Humalog, Lilly's best-selling insulin, brought in about $1.4 billion in U.S. revenue in 2011. That product may take less of a sales hit after it loses U.S. patent protection in May because it's a biologic drug made from living cells instead of a chemical formula. Those are harder for generic drugmakers to replicate.
Lilly should not expect to replace blockbuster drug revenue with another round of blockbusters, said WBB Securities analyst Steve Brozak. He said the company's success will depend on a combination of drug development, partnerships with other companies and acquisitions that help stoke its product pipeline.
But that approach will be difficult because other drugmakers also are facing patent expirations and will be competing with Lilly on those deals.
"If (Lilly executives) think that business as usual applies, their shareholders are going to vote with their sell orders," he said.

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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.
Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.
That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.
Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.
In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.
"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.
Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.
U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.
Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.
"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.
REVENUE WORRIES
One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.
S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.
On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.
For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.
Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.
In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.
"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.
Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.
Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.

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For Egypt's satirists, Morsi's power is no joke

There are few things dictators hate more than satirists, with their uncomfortable habit of piercing hypocrisy and self-importance with just a few well-placed verbal or written barbs.
Under Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian public's rich horde of satirical memes was an underground phenomenon, the province of cafe talk and SMS messages. That former President Mubarak was commonly called La Vache qui rit ("The Laughing Cow") after the processed cheese brand's mascot, which Egyptian wags insisted Mubarak bore a resemblance to, was something you would never learn from turning on local television and rarely, if ever, from newspapers. You picked it up from friends or acquaintances.
All that changed overnight with the Egyptian uprising against Mubarak in early 2011. The posters of protesters at Tahrir Square relentlessly mocked the president, the themes were quickly taken up on television and newspapers, and it was at this point that Bassem Youssef, a relentlessly genial cardiologist and ardent fan of Jon Stewart's Daily Show, smelled his opportunity.
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Working on a shoestring budget, he began posting a satirical news program on YouTube that quickly caught fire with its irreverent willingness to skewer all comers, members of the old authoritarian regime and emerging political factions like the Muslim Brotherhood alike.
A TV contract soon followed, and his success was in many ways a symbol of the best promises of the Egyptian revolution: A country where freedom of expression was tolerated, energizing local politics and culture after decades of being shut in by a military-backed dictatorship. Mr. Youssef, who I knew years ago when he was focused on his medical career, quickly established a major following. It was clear on the ride in from the airport the other day: Over one of Cairo's busiest highways is a billboard plastered with Youssef's face in a spot where just a few years ago advertisements for the low-quality slapstick comedies of the Mubarak era would have been placed. Recently Youssef even got to meet his hero Jon Stewart (video of Youssef and Stewart above).
But while Egypt remains far more open than it was before the revolution, President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood that propelled him to power have shown a worrying willingness to try to silence citizens like Youssef with means similar to those used in the past. Yesterday local media reported that Egypt Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah recommended that Youssef be investigated for the crime of insulting President Morsi and other government figures.
He's just the latest public figure to be targeted, with Islamist lawyers bringing a string of lawsuits against government critics for the crime of "defamation" or threatening national "stability." Ramadan Abdel Hamid al-Oksory, the Islamist lawyer who filed the initial complaint against Youssef, also started proceedings against Coptic Christian tycoon Naquib Sawiris last year for "insulting Islam."
In Egypt, almost anyone can make a legal complaint against private and public figures for insulting religion or individuals, whether or not they have personal standing in the matter. The new Egyptian constitution outlaws, specifically, both defaming religion and "insulting" individuals. But it's up to the general prosecutor to decide whether investigations will go forward. Mr. Abdallah, a Morsi appointee, has been inclined to accept such cases. With the broad, vaguely defined articles in the constitution, convictions that stick are a real threat for the targets.
Over the weekend, Morsi filed a complaint against leading newspaper al-Masry al-Youm for "circulating false news likely to disturb public peace and public security" after the paper reported, apparently incorrectly, that Morsi was planning to visit a military hospital in a Cairo suburb where Mubarak is currently undergoing treatment. Journalist Yousry al-Badry was summoned for interrogation over the incident by the prosecutor's office.
In November, an Egyptian court sentenced seven Egyptian Copts and Florida preacher Terry Jones to death in absentia for their involvement with a YouTube clip that was deemed insulting to Islam and the prophet Mohammed. Such death sentences were unheard of in Mubarak's day. In October, controversial and conspiratorial talk show host Tawfiq Okasha, often described as the Glenn Beck of Egypt, was sentenced to four months in prison for defaming Morsi after a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party filed a lawsuit against him. Mr. Okasha is appealing.
The growing use of the courts to silence critics, comedians, and dissenters is a clear trend in Egypt, and Egypt's new constitution will make such prosecutions easier than they were under the old one. President Morsi has shown little willingness to stop the suits.
One of the clear gains of Egypt's revolution is under threat. And many of those in power now seem quite comfortable with that.

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Taiwan undersea oil plans raise neighbors' eyebrows

Taiwan, a normally quiet claimant to portions of the disputed South China Sea, plans to explore for undersea oil there, a move likely to test fragile relations with China and upset major Southeast Asian nations.
Ringed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and others, the waters are believed to hold as many as 213 billion barrels of oil but competing claims from the six bordering nations have fueled tensions, prompting US officials to step in last year to urge calm.
Taiwan’s Bureau of Mines and its top energy company plan to explore this year for some of that oil near an islet that the government holds in the Spratly archipelago, a spokesman for the company said.
Taiwan’s search for oil would remind five competing nations that it still has clout, despite old foe China. The more powerful Beijing forbids its allies around Asia from talking to Taipei and has its own ambitions in the disputed 3.5 million-square-kilometer (1.4 million-square-mile) sea.
“Taiwan seems to be seeking ways to remind other nations of its sovereignty claims,” says Bonnie Glaser, senior Asia adviser with the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Taiwan doesn’t want to be ignored or forgotten.”
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China has considered self-ruled Taiwan part of its territory since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, chilling ties until 2008 when the two sides put aside political differences to discuss trade and economic links.
But new incidents have challenged the fragile détente, and Taiwan is already angry about last year’s Chinese passports that claim two Taiwanese landmarks. Oil could be next, as Taiwan says it has no plans to share its search with China.
Vietnam and the Philippines also staked claims in the sea. Vessels from China and the Philippines were locked in a standoff last year, and 70 Vietnamese sailors died in a clash in 1988.
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But even as both countries periodically make what's thought of as aggressive moves in the region, both would stop short of forcing Taiwan out from the waters near Spratly where it already has an airstrip, analysts say. Too much bluster might push Taiwan closer to China, which wants more economic ties with Taiwan and which Southeast Asian claimants see as a bigger threat to their maritime interests.
“Lacking much naval power, Manila would have a hard time actually physically preventing any oil exploration by Taiwan,” says Scott Harold, associate political scientist at the RAND Corp., a policy research nonprofit in the United States.
“Hanoi would have a better prospect of reacting militarily, but any stand-off would potentially put them on the wrong side of both Washington and Beijing,” he says.
But much of the oil is already spoken for. China’s state-owned CNOOC Ltd. began drilling undersea last year, and its peer in Hanoi, PetroVietnam, has started surveying. The Philippines is also contracting out other exploration tracts.
Fellow claimant Malaysia currently produces about half the South China Sea’s oil, which is estimated at 1.3 million barrels per day. Brunei also claims parts of the ocean.
Taiwan’s Bureau of Mines will draw up a budget this year and hire CPC Corp. Taiwan to look for oil, CPC spokesman Chen Ming-hui says. Officials told parliament that exploration would cost at least $562,000.
Taiwan needs the oil as 99 percent of energy sources are now imported, Mr. Chen says. “The South China Sea is a place where Vietnam and others have sighted oil, so we think the opportunities there are good,” he says.

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US drone strike in Pakistan kills influential Taliban commander

Key Pakistani Taliban commander Maulvi Nazir – considered a "good" Taliban by some among the Pakistani military – died in a US drone strike that left at least six dead on Thursday, according to local reports.
According to Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Taliban and local government officials confirm that Mr. Nazir and at least two of his deputies were killed when a US drone hit their vehicle in South Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border. The commander's truck had reportedly broken down at the time.
The Guardian notes that neither the Pakistani government nor the Taliban has made an official statement on the reports, and that details remain murky.
Because journalists are usually prevented by militants from visiting places hit by drones, the exact details of what happened and who was killed in such attacks are often extremely hard to verify.
Residents and an intelligence official in South Waziristan who spoke to a local journalist said the total number of people killed in the first attack was either six or 10. The intelligence source said all the men killed were "top leaders" of the Mullah Nazir group, the leading militant group in South Waziristan.
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Maulvi Nazir was the primary militant commander in South Waziristan and a key figure in Pakistan's Taliban, having maintained a complex set of relationships among the region's players.
Unlike some of Pakistan's domestic militants, Nazir chose to focus his efforts fully on Afghanistan and the NATO and US forces stationed there, and according to the US “had a clear collaboration” with Afghanistan's powerful Haqqani network, a primary foe of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The Washington Post notes that he was accused of regularly sending troops into Afghanistan to fight alongside the country's own Taliban against the US-led forces there.
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His Afghan focus on targeting foreign troops earned him a reputation with parts of the Pakistani military as a "good" Taliban, and he negotiated a deal with the Islamabad to stay out of its battle with domestic militants in the region. His militants have also aided Pakistani troops in attacking members of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an anti-Islamabad faction of the Taliban.
But that also earned him the hostility of some of his domestic Taliban peers. Nazir was wounded in November during a suicide attack on his convoy. Rival Taliban commanders were believed to have been behind the attack, which was said to have caused some fracturing of the Pakistani Taliban in the region.
Security analyst Imtiaz Gul told the Guardian that Nazir's death will likely be welcomed by both the US and Pakistan – despite the latter's peace deal with the late militant.
"Both the US and Pakistan will be happy because they now have one less enemy," he said. "Although he was in an undeclared peace deal with the government, he was also subverting the stated goals of that agreement by providing support and shelter to al-Qaida people whose leaders have pleaded with the rank and file of the Pakistani army to rebel against the state.

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