CNOOC-Nexen deal wins U.S. approval, its last hurdle

WASHINGTON/CALGARY (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have approved the $15.1 billion takeover of Canadian oil and gas company Nexen Inc by China's state-owned CNOOC Ltd, removing the final obstacle to the Asian country's largest-ever foreign takeover.

The deal to buy Calgary, Alberta-based Nexen had already passed regulatory muster in Canada and Europe. But approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was also needed because Nexen has U.S. interests.

Nexen said on Tuesday that CFIUS had given the green light and that it expects the deal to close the week of February 25, seven months after China's top offshore oil and gas producer made its bid of $27.50 a share.

The Nexen statement did not indicate whether CFIUS had imposed conditions on the approval, and company officials were not available for comment.

Nexen's shares climbed 2 percent to just below the offer price on Tuesday, closing at $27.43, their highest level since CNOOC made its bid for Nexen on July 23 last year.

The U.S. approval came even though widespread distrust of U.S. investments by Chinese companies has lingered since CNOOC's 2005 attempt to buy Unocal Corp for $18.5 billion, a deal that foundered on U.S. national security concerns.

Late last month, CFIUS cleared a bid by the U.S. unit of China's Wanxiang Group to buy bankrupt A123 Systems Inc, a maker of electric car batteries, although some lawmakers warned the deal would lead to the transfer of sensitive technology developed with U.S. government funding.

CNOOC's success in navigating the CFIUS approval process "is likely to be viewed as a positive development," said Joshua Zive, senior counsel at Bracewell & Guiliani, a Washington law and lobbying firm. "That, in the current climate, is a moment of significance."

But a U.S. legislator said he planned to introduce legislation to block any future transactions that, like the Nexen deal, involve the transfer of royalty-free leases.

"Chinese government-owned oil corporations should not be allowed to drill for American oil in the Gulf of Mexico without paying a dime in royalties to U.S. taxpayers," said Representative Edward Markey, the ranking Democrat of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Senator John Hoeven, a Republican from North Dakota, said the CFIUS approval did not surprise him. But he was disappointed the Obama administration has not moved to secure Canadian oil supplies by approving TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline.

"It shows that time doesn't stand still," he said in an interview, noting that Canadian oil resources will go to other parts of the world if the United States keeps dragging its heels on pipelines. "We've got to move on projects like Keystone."

The Canadian government declined to comment on the U.S. approval. "That's a U.S. decision," Energy Minister Joe Oliver told reporters. "That company will, I'm sure, conduct themselves as good corporate citizens in Canada."

OIL SANDS RESERVES

The Nexen acquisition gives CNOOC new offshore production in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and off western Africa, as well as producing properties in the Middle East and Canada.

In Canada, CNOOC gains control of Nexen's Long Lake oil sands project in the oil-rich province of Alberta, as well as billions of barrels of reserves in the world's third-largest crude storehouse.

Canada approved the takeover late last year even though some members of the governing Conservative Party had misgivings about China's human rights record.

But the federal government also insisted that CNOOC-Nexen was the last deal of its kind that it would approve, drawing a line in the sand against state-controlled companies taking majority stakes in Alberta's strategic oil sands.

U.S. approvals took longer as legislators examined whether the deal would threaten U.S. national security.

The United States has traditionally been more wary than Canada of Chinese investment, prompting some speculation that Washington might want Nexen to dispose of the U.S. assets.

Nexen released the news on a day when Washington was focused on President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, a nuclear test by North Korea, and deliberations in the Senate Armed Service Committee about a vote on Obama's pick for Secretary of Defense. In China, lunar New Year celebrations were in full swing.

(Additional reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Dale Hudson, Peter Galloway and David Gregorio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cnooc-nexen-deal-wins-key-u-regulatory-approval-133100644--finance.html

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/pNgTlSOR_O4/story01.htm

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6 dead, villages destroyed in Solomons tsunami

SYDNEY (AP) ? Six bodies, including a child's, have been found in the sodden wreckage left by a tsunami that smashed into villages in the Solomon Islands, flattening dozens of homes in the South Pacific island chain.

The 1.5-meter (4 foot, 11-inch) waves that roared inland on Santa Cruz Island, in the eastern Solomons, on Wednesday were too fast to outrun for five elderly villagers and one child, who died after being sucked under the rushing water, George Herming, a spokesman for the prime minister, said Thursday. Several other people were still missing and dozens of strong aftershocks were keeping frightened villagers from returning to the coast, Herming said.

"People are still scared of going back to their homes because there's nothing left, so they are residing in temporary shelters on higher ground," Herming said.

The tsunami was generated by a powerful 8.0-magnitude earthquake that struck near the town of Lata, on Santa Cruz in Temotu, the easternmost province in the Solomons. Temotu has a population of around 30,000.

Smaller waves were recorded in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

The damage appeared to be concentrated to the west side of Santa Cruz, with five villages wiped out, Herming said. Authorities were still struggling to reach the remote area but an estimated 100 homes had been damaged or destroyed, he said.

The tsunami flooded the airstrip at the nearest airport and left it littered with debris, preventing relief workers from reaching the region by air. Smaller islands may also have sustained some damage, but workers had also not yet reached those areas, Herming said.

More than 50 people were killed and thousands lost their homes in April 2007 when a magnitude-8.1 quake hit the western Solomon Islands, sending waves crashing into coastal villages.

The Solomons comprise more than 200 islands with a population of about 552,000 people. They lie on the "Ring of Fire" ? an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim and where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/6-dead-villages-destroyed-solomons-tsunami-002345593.html

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Patty Andrews of Andrews Sisters rallied troops

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Patty Andrews never served in the military, but she and her singing sisters certainly supported the troops.

During World War II, they hawked war bonds, entertained soldiers overseas and boosted morale on the home-front with tunes like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" and "I Can Dream, Can't I?"

Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio, died Wednesday at 94 of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement.

"When I was a kid, I only had two records and one of them was the Andrews Sisters. They were remarkable. Their sound, so pure," said Bette Midler, who had a hit cover of "Bugle Boy" in 1973. "Everything they did for our nation was more than we could have asked for. This is the last of the trio, and I hope the trumpets ushering (Patty) into heaven with her sisters are playing 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.'"

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like "I'll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time" with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" in 1937 and continuing with "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar," ''Rum and Coca-Cola" and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records.

Other sisters, notably the Boswells, had become famous as singing acts, but mostly they huddled before a microphone in close harmony. The Andrews Sisters ? LaVerne, Maxene and Patty ? added a new dimension. During breaks in their singing, they cavorted about the stage in rhythm to the music.

Their voices combined with perfect synergy. As Patty remarked in 1971: "There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene's was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts."

Kathy Daris of the singing Lennon Sisters recalled on Facebook late Wednesday that the Andrews Sisters "were the first singing sister act that we tried to copy. We loved their rendition of songs, their high spirit, their fabulous harmony."

The Andrews Sisters' rise coincided with the advent of swing music, and their style fit perfectly into the new craze. They aimed at reproducing the sound of three harmonizing trumpets.

Unlike other singing acts, the sisters recorded with popular bands of the 1940s, fitting neatly into the styles of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Guy Lombardo, Desi Arnaz and Russ Morgan. They sang dozens of songs on records with Bing Crosby, including the million-seller "Don't Fence Me In." They also recorded with Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Danny Kaye, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Red Foley.

The Andrews' popularity led to a contract with Universal Pictures, where they made a dozen low-budget musical comedies between 1940 and 1944. In 1947, they appeared in "The Road to Rio" with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

The trio continued until LaVerne's death in 1967. By that time the close harmony had turned to discord, and the sisters had been openly feuding.

Midler's cover of "Bugle Boy" revived interest in the trio. The two survivors joined in 1974 for a Broadway show, "Over Here!" It ran for more than a year, but disputes with the producers led to the cancellation of the national tour of the show, and the sisters did not perform together again.

Patty continued on her own, finding success in Las Vegas and on TV variety shows. Her sister also toured solo until her death in 1995.

Her father, Peter Andrews, was a Greek immigrant who Anglicized his name of Andreus when he arrived in America; his wife, Olga, was a Norwegian with a love of music. LaVerne was born in 1911, Maxine (later Maxene) in 1916, Patricia (later Patty, sometimes Patti) in 1918.

All three sisters were born and raised in the Minneapolis area.

Listening to the Boswell Sisters on radio, LaVerne played the piano and taught her sisters to sing in harmony; neither Maxene nor Patty ever learned to read music. All three studied singers at the vaudeville house near their father's restaurant. As their skills developed, they moved from amateur shows to vaudeville and singing with bands.

After Peter Andrews moved the family to New York in 1937, his wife, Olga, sought singing dates for the girls. They were often turned down with comments such as: "They sing too loud and they move too much." Olga persisted, and the sisters sang on radio with a hotel band at $15 a week. The broadcasts landed them a contract with Decca Records.

They recorded a few songs, and then came "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," an old Yiddish song for which Sammy Cahn and Saul Kaplan wrote English lyrics. (The title means, "To Me You Are Beautiful.") It was a smash hit, and the Andrews Sisters were launched into the big-time.

In 1947, Patty married Martin Melcher, an agent who represented the sisters as well as Doris Day, then at the beginning of her film career. Patty divorced Melcher in 1949 and soon he became Day's husband, manager and producer.

Patty married Walter Weschler, pianist for the sisters, in 1952. He became their manager and demanded more pay for himself and for Patty. The two other sisters rebelled, and their differences with Patty became public. Lawsuits were filed between the two camps.

Patty Andrews is survived by her foster daughter, Pam DuBois, a niece and several cousins. Weschler died in 2010.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/patty-andrews-andrews-sisters-rallied-troops-053935422.html

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