Monday, August 22, 2005

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Israeli forces began evacuating the last Gaza Strip settlement, clearing the way for a military pullout and a handover of the territory held since 1967 to the Palestinians.
- China National Petroleum, the nation’s biggest oil company, agreed to buy PetroKazakhstan for $4.8 billion, topping a bid by an Indian producer and securing supplies for the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
- Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Permira Advisers Ltd. agreed to buy SBS Broadcasting SA, Europe’s second-largest television broadcaster, for about $2.1 billion to tap growth in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.
- Shares of OSI Pharmaceuticals fell 12% after the company agreed to pay $935 million for Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, acquiring an eye treatment that may have a more potent rival by 2007.
- Google introduced a tool that automatically displays Web content such as news and weather on users’ computer screens, posing a threat to products from Microsoft and Yahoo!.
- Crude oil is rising above $66/bbl. in NY after a power failure across Iraq forced the suspension of exports from the country’s southern terminals.
- Maytag accepted a sweetened $1.68 billion offer from Whirlpool, ending a bidding contest with Ripplewood Holdings LLC and creating the world’s largest appliance maker.
- The US dollar is falling against the yen after opinion polls showed increasing approval for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi before next month’s election and as Japanese stock indices climbed to a four-year high.

Wall Street Journal:
- Reformists at China’s state-run Central Huijin Investment Co. and the central bank are in a struggle for control of the country’s financial system with the agencies that have traditionally controlled the banks.
- The jury ruling Friday that Merck must pay $253 million for the death of a Vioxx user may prompt the drug industry to fundamentally rethink when and how it brings new drugs to market.
- The NY Merc, the world’s largest energy-futures exchange, may shift most of its electronic-trading operations to the Chicago Merc.
- Titanium Metals vice chairman Harold Simmons has been buying stock in the company even as short-sellers maintain bets that the stock will drop.
- US mutual funds that specialize in small-cap stocks are increasingly turning away would-be investors.

NY Times:
- Iraqi leaders were near a constitutional charter agreement yesterday.

Washington Post:
- The US Veterans Affairs Department has improved its health care system over the last decade and now some see it as a model.

NY Post:
- Motorola wireless phones produce the most potentially cancer-causing emissions when used without headsets among 381 models researched by NY City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

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