Russia vows 'painful' response to new U.S. sanctions over Ukraine

                                         

The United States expanded its sanctions against Russia on Monday, targeting members of President Vladimir Putin's "inner circle" and technology that could be useful to Russia's military.
President Barack Obama said the "targeted" sanctions are in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine.

"The United States has taken further action today in response to Russia's continued illegal intervention in Ukraine and provocative acts that undermine Ukraine's democracy and threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity," the White House said in a statement. Since a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 17, Russia "has done nothing" to meet its commitments "and in fact has further escalated the crisis," the White House said in a statement.

"The Department of the Treasury is imposing sanctions on seven Russian government officials, including two members of President Putin's inner circle, who will be subject to an asset freeze and a U.S. visa ban, and 17 companies linked to Putin's inner circle, which will be subject to an asset freeze.

"In addition, the Department of Commerce has imposed additional restrictions on 13 of those companies by imposing a license requirement with a presumption of denial for the export, re-export or other foreign transfer of U.S.-origin items to the companies."

Also, the departments of Commerce and State are tightening their "policy to deny export license applications for any high-technology items that could contribute to Russia's military capabilities. Those Departments also will revoke any existing export licenses that meet these conditions," the White House said.

Google: Self-driving cars are mastering city streets!

Long a veteran of the highways of rural California, Google's self-driving car is working on becoming safer in the city.

Over the past year or so, Google has been fine-tuning how the software running its fleet of automated vehicles handles the complexities of stop-and-go driving in heavily populated areas."A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area," Chris Urmson, the head of Google's self-driving-car project, said Monday in a blog post.

Urmson said engineers have improved the cars' software to recognize situations like pedestrian traffic, buses, stop signs held by crossing guards and hand signals made by cyclists.

And, he says, self-driving cars have the potential to handle all of that even better than we do.

"A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can't -- and it never gets tired or distracted," Urmson wrote. "As it turns out, what looks chaotic and random on a city street to the human eye is actually fairly predictable to a computer."

Etisalat Borrows $4.4 Billion to Fund Takeover of Maroc Telecom

                                          

UAE based Etisalat has announced that it has secured a multi currency loan worth EUR3.15 billion (USD4.4 billion) with a group of 17 banks.

The company said that the loan is to finance its previously announced acquisition of Vivendi's 52% stake in Maroc Telecom.

Etisalat has previously indicated that it aims to complete the long running purchase of a majority stake in Morocco's Maroc Telecom by the end of May.

Etisalat agreed to buy the 53% stake in the Moroccan mobile network from France's Vivendi last November following a protracted bidding process for EUR4.2 billion (USD5.8 billion), but completion has taken longer than expected.

The loan is made up of a EUR2.1 billion bridging loan that needs to be repaid in 12 months time, and a EUR1.05 billion loan that needs to be repaid in three years.

Vivendi owns 53% of Maroc Telecom, with 17% listed on a local stock market. The remaining 30% is owned by the government which also has a veto over any change in ownership.

Maroc Telecom has operations in Gabon, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali.

Angry Birds Creator's Profits Fall By Half!!

Angry Birds led the headlong, catapult-propelled charge into mobile games, but other Scandinavian rivals have overtaken Rovio.

Rovio – the makers of the Angry Birds series of mobile games – has seen its profits fall by more than half.

The Finnish games company had profits of £22m in 2013 on revenues of £128m, compared to £45.6m in 2012 on £125m.

It was Angry Birds that lead the headlong, catapult-propelled charge into mobile games, but other Scandinavian rivals have overtaken Rovio.

Finland's Supercell, which makes Clash of Clans, had annual revenue of £529m last year and Sweden’s King, which is now based in London and recently floated on the New York Stock Exchange, had revenues of £112bn.

Mojang, the independent Stockholm-based independent studio behind Minecraft, had 2013 revenues of £195m.

Rovio has branched out into merchandise and theme parks

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By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent

Rovio – the makers of the Angry Birds series of mobile games – has seen its profits fall by more than half.

The Finnish games company had profits of £22m in 2013 on revenues of £128m, compared to £45.6m in 2012 on £125m.

It was Angry Birds that lead the headlong, catapult-propelled charge into mobile games, but other Scandinavian rivals have overtaken Rovio.

Finland's Supercell, which makes Clash of Clans, had annual revenue of £529m last year and Sweden’s King, which is now based in London and recently floated on the New York Stock Exchange, had revenues of £112bn.

Mojang, the independent Stockholm-based independent studio behind Minecraft, had 2013 revenues of £195m.

Rovio's officers in Espoo, Finland

Rovio is repositioning itself as an entertainment company, rather than a pure games maker and the company has previously said it wants to be bigger than Disney.

Some 47% of its revenues are from consumer products, including an Angry Birds soft drink.

The company also bought an animation studio and has been launching Angry Birds theme parks in Europe and China.

Rovio CFO Herkko Soininen said: "After three years of very strong growth, 2013 was a foundation-building year.

"We invested in new business areas, such as animation and video distribution, ventured into new business models in games, and consolidated our strong market position in consumer products licensing.

"With these investments we have been gearing up for the future growing markets."

Rovio came to prominence as US developer Zynga – the maker of Facebook games like Farmville - started its rise.

Zynga relied heavily on digital goods sold through blockbuster games for its revenues. King and Supercell rely on a similar 'freemium' model.

Rovio is hoping that a more diversified – if less spectacular – revenue stream will help the company stay the long-run.

Whitbread raises its dividend by almost a fifth as its core brands see strong annual growth, particularly in the UK.

Solid sales growth at Whitbread's Premier Inn and Costa coffee brands has helped the company's annual pre-tax profit rise 1.1% to £347m.

The performance over the year to February 27 prompted the company to confirm a 19.9% increase in its dividend to 68.8p-per-share.

The results highlighted a 20% rise in total sales at Costa - with like for like sales at its own stores in the UK going up 5.7% in the period.

This contrasts with figures posted last week by rival Starbucks, which confirmed its first decline in UK sales for 16 years.

Total sales at Premier Inn rose 13.4%.

Whitbread, which is Britain's biggest hotel and coffee shop operator, said it had created 3,000 net new jobs over the period.

Chief executive Andy Harrison said: "We continue to invest in improving our customer propositions and international expansion.

"This includes the rollout of our “best ever bed” in Premier Inn, the launch of “hub by Premier Inn” and rejuvenating our restaurant brands.

"In Costa we are focussed on international growth in China and France and our rebranding in Poland, together with the continuing growth of Costa Express.

We had a strong finish to last year, with all our brands performing well, boosted by good Christmas and New Year campaigns and helpful weather comparatives.

"The first two months of the new financial year have started positively, with good trading again helped by relatively soft comparatives which will become tougher as we move into the second half of this year".

Nokia names Rajeev Suri as new chief executive (Now Microsoft)

Nokia has named Rajeev Suri as its new chief executive officer.

The 46-year old has until now led Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN), the network equipment unit of the firm.

The unit is set to become its key business after Nokia finalised the sale of its mobile phone division to Microsoft last week.

The sale saw Nokia's former chief executive Stephen Elop leave the firm to become executive vice president of the Microsoft devices group.

Risto Siilasmaa, chairman of Nokia, said Mr Suri "has a proven ability to create strategic clarity, drive innovation and growth, ensure disciplined execution, and deliver results".

Indian-born, Mr Suri has been working at Nokia for the past 20 years and has lead the firm's network equipment unit since October 2009, helping to make it profitable.

Samsung's mobile phone sales decline

Samsung Electronics has reported a 4% fall in sales at its mobile phone unit.

Revenues in the sector fell to 33.4 trillion won ($32.3bn; £23.3bn) in the January-to-March period.

But the South Korean company said operating profit for its mobile phone unit rose 18% from the previous three months, in part due to "positive impact from adjustments of one-off expenses".

Samsung is the world's biggest mobile phone maker and handsets account for the bulk of the firm's profits.

The figures came as the electronics giant reported a net profit of 7.57 trillion won (£4.4bn; $7.5bn) for the first quarter, up from 7.3 trillion won (£4.2bn; $7bn) in the previous three months.

Maturing market?

The success of its Galaxy range of smartphones has been one of the biggest drivers of Samsung's growth in recent years.

It helped the company dislodge Nokia as the world's biggest phone maker in 2012.

However, competition in the sector has been increasing, forcing manufacturers to lower their prices and hurting their profitability.

At the same time, demand for smartphones in developed markets - which have been key drivers of growth of the sector so far - has also begun to slow.

"This is further evidence that the global market for smartphones is maturing and as the pace of growth which firms such as Samsung have enjoyed in recent years is slowing," said Andrew Milroy, an analyst with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

He added that "the company will have to look at introducing lower cost models in emerging markets to sustain the business."

For its part, Samsung has been looking to tap into the emerging markets by launching low cost handsets there.

However, it has been facing increased competition on that front as well, especially from Chinese firms such as Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE.