Money men: Who are top 5 donors to Romney?

WASHINGTON - For a casino mogul worth an estimated $25 billion, $34.2 million may sound like chump change. Yet that's how much money Sheldon Adelson has donated so far to aid Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and organizations supporting Romney this election, making him the donor of donors for the GOP.

Other top donors giving millions of dollars to aid Romney's campaign include a trio of Texas money moguls and the head of a south Florida-based energy conglomerate. Those donors and others are funding a presidential election on track to cost nearly $2 billion, with money going toward individual Democratic and Republican campaigns as well as independent, "super" political committees working on the campaigns' behalf.

Political donations can open doors that are closed to most people. Big-dollar donors are often invited to state dinners at the White House and other events with the president. They also may be asked to weigh in on public policy, especially if it affects their own financial interests. And the ranks of ambassadors, advisory panels and other government jobs traditionally are filled with those who have been unusually generous during the campaign.

Based on an examination of more than 2.3 million campaign contributions — the methodology is below — The Associated Press has ranked the top five financial supporters bankrolling the Republican presidential run:

No. 1: Sheldon Adelson, 79, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire.

Total: $34.2 million

Adelson is the largest declared donor to the Romney campaign and supporting political committees, providing more than $34.2 million this election season. He and his wife, Miriam, a physician who heads the Nevada-based Adelson Drug Clinic, have given $10 million to the Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Romney. Adelson also joined relatives to give $24 million to committees backing former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. And he has made public pledges vowing to give $10 million to Karl Rove's American Crossroads super PAC and as much as $100 million this election more broadly to the GOP. Worth an estimated $25 billion, Adelson oversees the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which runs casino and resort interests in Las Vegas, Singapore and Bethlehem, Pa., and Sands China Ltd., a cluster of casinos in the Chinese territory of Macau. He would benefit from loosened trade restrictions and a rise in the Chinese currency rate against the dollar. His company devoted $60,000 this year to lobby on tax issues, foreign tourist visas, travel and Internet gambling issues — and has spent $1.86 million lobbying on legislation dealing with China trade, gambling and travel since 2002. A staunch supporter of Israel, he also is a contributor to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which spent $920,000 since 2002 backing bills aimed at pressuring Iran and enhancing U.S. security cooperation with Israel. Adelson's casino company has advised shareholders that it was under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investigators were said to be focusing on the Macau casinos and reports of missing money and possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

No. 2: Harold Simmons, 81, owner of Contran Corp., a Dallas-based conglomerate worth an estimated $9 billion that specializes in metals and chemical production and waste management.

Total: $16 million

Simmons is a longtime backer of GOP and conservative causes. He has donated $16 million to the party's efforts this year, including more than $11 million to American Crossroads and $800,000 to Restore Our Future. Simmons and his wife, Annette, also gave $2.2 million to Super PACs backing former GOP presidential candidates Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Simmons has been active in political fundraising since the 1990s and in 2004 was a $4 million backer of the Swift Vets campaign, the GOP-backed effort to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's military record in the Vietnam War. Simmons' Titanium Metals Corp. reportedly is a top producer of titanium for weapons and other industrial uses. He also owns a majority stake in Valhi Inc., a Texas-based waste management company, and could benefit from a proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule change that would allow the company's Texas facility to store spent uranium from nuclear power and weapons plants. Contran's subsidiaries have spent $200,000 this year lobbying the NRC, Energy Department, the Senate and House on metals and waste issues, and $4.3 over the past decade, including efforts to protect a Pentagon rule limiting titanium purchases to U.S. producers. Simmons was fined $19,800 by the Federal Election Commission in 1993 for exceeding the then-annual $25,000 limit on individual campaign contributions, which has since been lowered.

No. 3: Bob J. Perry, 80, head of a Houston real estate empire worth an estimated $650 million.

Total: $15.3 million

Perry has given about $15.3 million to aid the Romney campaign and allied causes so far this election season. Long active in Texas and national GOP politics, Perry donated nearly $9 million to Restore Our Future and a total of $6.5 million to American Crossroads. Before backing Romney this year, Perry gave $100,000 to the super PAC backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry (no relation). Bob Perry has been a fixture of GOP fundraising in Texas and nationally dating back to former President George W. Bush's Texas gubernatorial races in the mid-1990s. Perry was a top Bush presidential "bundler" and also gave big to the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth campaign in 2004, donating $4.4 million to the effort to discredit Kerry.

No. 4: Robert Rowling, 58, head of Dallas-based TRT Holdings.

Total: $4.1 million

Rowling has given at least $4.1 million to Republican Party and candidates this election. Most of his donations, $4 million, went to Rove's American Crossroads, both through personal donations and through his firm. Rowling also has given $100,000 to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC. Rowling's holdings are worth an estimated $4.8 billion and include Omni Hotels, Gold's Gym and Tana Exploration, his family's oil company. Rowling once told the Texas Tribune he prefers political donations to lobbying efforts. Rowling has been a big donor in Texas political circles, winning a role for Omni as operator of Dallas' convention center hotel after a 2009 city referendum fight.

No. 5: William Koch, 72, an industrialist whose South Florida-based energy and mining conglomerate is worth an estimated $4 billion.

Total: $3 million

Koch has given $3 million to the Restore Our Future, including a $250,000 personal donation and $2.75 million through his corporation, Oxbow Carbon LLC, and a subsidiary, Huron Carbon. Unlike his brothers, Charles and David Koch, who are longtime supporters of Republican and conservative causes, Bill Koch has funded both GOP and Democratic Party candidates in the past. Koch's corporate interests have repeatedly battled against what company officials have decried as government interference. Oxbow spent $570,000 last year on lobbying in Washington, mostly aimed at mining, safety issues and climate change. The company has complained in federal filings about government delays on permits and has raised concerns about administration changes in regulations that would aid collective bargaining. Koch also has pushed for approval of the Central Rockies Land Exchange, a proposed swap of land tracts in Colorado and Utah to enlarge his 4,500-acre Bear Ranch. The proposal, which requires congressional approval, has sparked local opposition.

METHODOLOGY

These rankings by The Associated Press, based on campaign financial reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission, include contributions to super PACs, presidential campaigns, political parties and joint-fundraising committees. Federal law limits maximum contributions to campaigns, parties and affiliated committees, but federal court rulings have stripped away such limits to super PACs. This analysis excludes secret-but-legal contributions that might have been made to nonprofit groups, which can pay for so-called issue ads that don't explicitly advocate for or against a candidate. Such groups are not required to identify their donors.

Where available, the analysis considered donations "bundled," or raised, from other wealthy donors for Romney and President Barack Obama. Obama periodically identifies his bundlers, although Romney has resisted calls to do the same.

Achebe writes of Nigeria civil war's horrors

JOHN GAMBRELL

"There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra" (The Penguin Press), by Chinua Achebe

Before Nigerian author Chinua Achebe became a famous writer, he was a journalist first, rewriting radio scripts for the state-run broadcaster. That terse, reportorial style of writing fills many of his novels, including his acclaimed debut novel, "Things Fall Apart," about the clash of cultures between traditional Africans and the arrival of European colonialists.

Now, Achebe has turned a reporter's eye toward the conflict that consumed years of his life, seeing his home bombed, his poet friend killed in battle and his Igbo people decimated by starvation brought on by civil war. While titled "There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra," Achebe's long-awaited memoir about a civil war that killed at least a million people at times feels purposefully restrained, as if he sought to write a history book that downplays his own emotions and experiences.

Yet haunting images of war still appear in the book's long passages. Achebe saves perhaps his greatest anger for the way oil-rich Nigeria runs now, its elections often dominated by "those infamous rent-a-crowd hooligans at the beck and call of corrupt politicians with plenty of money and very low IQs."

"As we reached the brink of full-blown war it became clear to me that the chaos enveloping all of us in Nigeria was due to the incompetence of the Nigerian ruling class," Achebe writes. "This clique, stunted by ineptitude, distracted by power games and the pursuit of material comforts, was unwilling, if not incapable, of saving our fledging new nation."

Nigeria, which gained its independence from Britain in 1960, had hopes that it would become a powerful democracy fueled by oil revenues and free of colonial influence. But a 1966 coup led primarily by army officers from the Igbo ethnic group from Nigeria's southeast shot and killed Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a northerner, as well as the premier of northern Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello.

The coup failed, but the country still fell under military control. Northerners, angry about the death of its leaders, attacked Igbos living there. As many as 10,000 people died in resulting riots. Many Igbos fled back to Nigeria's southeast, their traditional home. As mediation efforts failed and more Igbos worried about being slaughtered, then-military Gov. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the region had seceded from Nigeria and become the Republic of Biafra. The civil war began soon after.

In the book, published by The Penguin Press, Achebe describes how he, his wife and children faced repeated threats in the war years, fleeing their Lagos home as the military sought to kill him and later just missing being inside their apartment when an airplane bombed it. Yet Achebe deals with these episodes quickly, never deeply exploring his emotions or those of his loved ones. The death of his friend, the poet Christopher Okigbo, wrings the most emotion from Achebe's young son, who shouts: "Daddy, don't let him die!"

The glossing over of those memories might be what Achebe later describes as a different language employed by those who suffered through the war's waning days, "the language and memory of death and despair, suffering and bitterness." The horrors of the mass starvation suffered by Igbo civilians, the first televised images of African children with distended bellies ever seen by the West, led to many of the deaths in the war.

Achebe sidesteps answering the question he poses late in his book, whether Nigeria's government carried out a genocide against the Igbo, yet weights his books with others suggesting one took place. He also doesn't explore whether Ojukwu's use of starvation as a publicity tool and refusal to surrender led to more deaths, something English journalist John de St. Jorre suggests in his influential book on Biafra titled, "The Brothers' War."

Biafra remains almost a culture and historical black hole in Nigeria. Its dilapidated schools don't teach much about it, and those from the war generation, including Ojukwu, have begun to succumb to old age. However, Biafra has received new literary attention after the success of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's civil war novel, "Half of a Yellow Sun." Achebe's book adds to that revival and revision of a war that nearly tore Nigeria apart – and whose strains can still be seen today in its corrupt government.

As Achebe writes: "What has consistently escaped most Nigerians in this entire travesty is the fact that mediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country as surely as a war – ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption and debauchery."

News Summary: Google to sell low-priced Chromebook

UNDERCUTTING THE COMPETITION: Google and Samsung Electronics are selling a laptop computer for $249. The machine unveiled Thursday is aimed at siphoning sales from the latest products from Microsoft and Apple.

THE CATCH: The low-priced laptop lacks a hard drive for storage and runs on a relatively new operating system revolving around Google Inc.'s Chrome Web browser. That means an Internet connection is essential.

CROWDED MARKET: An array of higher-priced machines running on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 8 operating system will go on sale next week. Apple Inc. is widely expected to introduce a smaller version of its iPad on Tuesday.

Nigeria S&P Upgrade Hindered by Wealth Fund Tension With States

BY CHRIS KAY/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Nigeria’s chance of a rating upgrade is being hindered by a lack of clarity over how its sovereign wealth fund will grow amid tensions with regional governments over revenue allocation, Standard & Poor’s said.

Increasing the size of the fund from its initial $1 billion is key to building up external buffers that are needed for an upgrade in the B+ rating of Africa’s biggest oil producer, Christian Esters, a sovereign analyst at S&P, said in a phone interview yesterday from Frankfurt.

President Goodluck Jonathan signed the sovereign wealth fund into law in May last year. Nigeria’s 36 states say they plan to file a lawsuit challenging transfers by the federal government, including those to the wealth fund. The constitution requires government revenue to be shared among local, state and federal authorities.

“I don’t think currently we have visibility about how quickly this new sovereign wealth fund will grow,” Esters said. “It continues to be a challenge for the federal government to convince the states to get them on board and to convince them what the advantages would be.”

The suit by the state governors won’t affect the $1 billion already set aside for the wealth fund, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Sept. 21.

Okonjo-Iweala named a management team for the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Investment Authority on Aug. 28, headed by Uche Orji, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker. ‘More Independent’

Nigeria currently saves oil revenue above a benchmark budgeted price in an excess crude account. The governors agreed in June to boost savings in the account to $10 billion. Its balance last month was 1.32 trillion naira ($8.4 billion), Minister of State for Finance Yerima Ngama said Oct. 12.

“They’re trying to set up something that is more independent from the day-to-day vagaries of politics and more independent from the regional states wanting to tap the fund, which is the case for the excess crude account,” said Esters.

The sovereign wealth fund law requires it to allocate money to infrastructure, the future generation and budget stabilization, with each representing at least 20 percent of the total. Savings through the fund will provide a buffer against volatility in oil prices, according to Okonjo-Iweala.

S&P raised its outlook on Nigeria’s credit rating, four steps below investment grade, to positive from stable on Dec. 29, indicating a possible upgrade if the government follows through with plans to boost the economy and savings. The ratings company typically considers an upgrade between 12 and 24 months after an outlook is raised or lowered, said Esters. Oil Dependence.

The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves have increased 28 percent this year to $42 billion. Nigerian benchmark Bonny Light crude has risen 27 percent from a June low to $114.52 a barrel.

“One of the triggers for an upgrade is fiscal and external buffers in the form of reserves against the dependence on oil revenue,” said Esters. “Reserves have increased, but we still need to see some track record in the light of high oil prices and why haven’t they been increasing even more?”

The West African country relies on crude exports for about 95 percent of its foreign-currency earnings and about 80 percent of government revenue.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Kay in Abuja at ckay5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vernon Wessels at vwessels@bloomberg.net

Rwanda Wins security Council Seat

In this photograph provided by the United Nations, a UN conference officer is accompanied by a supervising delegate as she collects ballots on the floor of the UN General Assembly after they voted to elect five new non-permanent members of the Security Council in New York.

New York - Rwanda, along with Australia, Argentina, Luxembourg and South Korea, won a seat on the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, despite accusations by a UN panel that Rwanda's defence minister commands a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rwanda was unopposed in its bid for the African seat on the council that South Africa will vacate at the end of December, but still needed approval from two-thirds of the UN General Assembly members present to secure the two-year term. It won 148 votes in the 193-nation assembly.

Argentina also was elected to the council unopposed, winning 182 votes. Australia won a seat with 140 votes, Luxembourg with 131 votes and South Korea with 149.

Cambodia, Bhutan and Finland failed to secure two-year seats on the council.

There are five veto-holding permanent members of the council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - and 10 temporary members without veto power. Thursday's election was for the term from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2014.

Rwanda's government said that it would work with all members of the council to ensure “it is responsive and reflective of the views and aspirations of the developing world”.

“Rwanda's troubling and tragic past allows it to bring to the UNSC a unique perspective on matters of war and peace,” it posted on a Twitter account created for its Security Council term (@RwandaUNSC).

Before the vote, the Congolese delegation told the General Assembly it objected to Rwanda joining the Security Council, accusing its neighbour of harbouring “war criminals operating in the eastern part of the DRC and who are being sought by international justice”.

A confidential UN report, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, cast a shadow over Rwanda's election to the 15-member UN power centre - which has the ability to impose sanctions and authorise military interventions.

The Security Council's “Group of Experts” said that Rwanda and Uganda - despite their strong denials - continued to support M23 rebels in their six-month fight against Congolese government troops in the east of the country.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame posted a declaration on Twitter welcoming the result: “No matter what haters say... Justice and truth will prevail!!! Sometimes it just requires a bit of good fight for all that!!!”

Speaking to reporters in New York, Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo complained about the timing of the leak of the experts report to Reuters two days ahead of the Security Council vote, but added that the leak was “predictable”.

She also sought to assure Congo that Rwanda would be a responsible council member. “I believe the Democratic Republic of Congo should see Rwanda on the Security Council as value addition,” she said after the vote.

Philippe Bolopion of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch criticised the inclusion of Rwanda on the Security Council

“After blatantly violating the Security Council's arms embargo and undermining the work of the UN by propping up the abusive M23 rebels, Rwanda is rewarded with a seat at the table,” he said.

“Kigali is now in a position to try to shield its own officials implicated in abuses from UN sanctions, which is a flagrant conflict of interest,” Bolopion said in a statement. “Other Security Council members now have an even greater responsibility to hold Rwanda to account.”

Britain's Deputy UN Ambassador Philip Parham put a more positive spin on Rwanda's election, saying: “We look forward to working with them on issues of international peace and security including the efforts to try to end the cycle of violence in the eastern DRC.”

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr described Australia's election as a “big juicy, decisive win” that endorsed the country as a good global citizen.

“For us as a middle power a long way from the centres of clout in the world, the centres of power in the world, this is a lovely moment,” Carr told reporters after the vote.

South Africa, Colombia, Germany, India and Portugal are leaving the Security Council in December. Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Pakistan, Togo and Morocco will remain until the end of 2013.

The last time Rwanda was on the council was in 1994-95. That coincided with a genocide in which 800 000 people were killed when Rwanda's Hutu-led government and ethnic militias went on a 100-day killing spree, massacring Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The Congolese government on Wednesday demanded targeted sanctions against Rwandan and Ugandan officials named in the UN experts report.

According to the UN experts, who monitor compliance with sanctions and an arms embargo on the Congo, Rwandan Defence Minister General James Kabarebe was ultimately commanding the rebellion and both Rwanda and Uganda were providing weapons, troops and military and political aid to the insurgency.

--------- Reuters

Double Whammy: Google Jars Investors, Releasing Disappointing 3rd-Quarter Report Prematurely

Michael Liedtke,

In this Monday, Sept 17, 2012, file photo an unidentified man's shadow reflects on a commercial bus with an advertisement for Google Mail, in Lagos, Nigeria. Google Inc.'s stock plunged suddenly on Thursday Oct. 18, 2012, after a contractor prematurely released the search company's third-quarter earnings report. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

SAN FRANCISCO - As far as unpleasant surprises go, Google hit Wall Street with a double whammy Thursday.

The Internet search leader that prides itself of organizing the world's information lost control of its own data when a contractor released its third-quarter earnings report more than three hours before the numbers were supposed to come out.

As if that wasn't jarring enough, the results alarmed investors because the company's earnings and revenue fell well below analyst projections. The disappointment triggered an 8 per cent drop in Google's stock price that erased about $20 billion in shareholder wealth.

"This is a monumental failure of epic proportions," said Michael Robinson, an executive vice-president for the Levick Strategic Communications, which specializes in financial crisis management. "This was bad news compounded by bad process. It came out in the worst way possible."

Google Inc. blamed printer R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. for filing the company's quarterly statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission more than three hours ahead of schedule.

"We are fully engaged in an investigation to determine how this event took place and are pursuing our first obligation, which is to serve our valued customer," R.R. Donnelley said in a statement.

The embarrassing mix-up prompted Google CEO Larry Page to preface his review of the quarter with an apology during a conference call with analysts.

"I am sorry for the scramble earlier today," Page said, still sounding hoarse from a mysterious throat ailment. The problem left Page unable to speak during the summer, causing him to skip Google's second-quarter earnings call three months ago.

Page went on to paint a bright picture, not only of the most recent quarter, but for the next few years. "Every day, I wake up and I am delighted about our opportunities to keep growing," he said.

The pep talk didn't immediately resonate with investors.

Google's stock initially plunged more than 9 per cent after the early release of the results. Trading was then suspended to allow more time for the information to be digested. After a nearly three-hour break, investors decided the results weren't quite as bad as they initially appeared, and the shares recovered slightly.

Even so, the stock wound up dropping $60.49, or 8 per cent, to close at $695.

The sell-off reflects a reversal of the optimistic sentiment that had propelled Google's stock to an all-time high earlier this month. The stock had surged 27 per cent in the three months before Thursday's unsettling developments.

Google earned $2.18 billion, or $6.53 per share, during the three months ending in September. That compared with net income of $2.73 billion, or $8.33 per share, last year.

The earnings would have been $9.03 per share, if not for Google's accounting costs for employee stock compensation and the Motorola charges. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting $10.63 per share, on average.

Revenue climbed 45 per cent from last year to $14.1 billion. Excluding compensation for websites that generate traffic for Google's ads, revenue was $11.33 billion. Analysts were expecting $11.86 billion

Most of the trouble appeared to be concentrated in Motorola Mobility, a troubled cellphone maker that Google bought for $12.4 billion in May. Analysts have been fretting that Motorola Mobility would turn into a financial albatross, and some of those fears appeared to be realized in the latest quarter spanning from July through September.

The device maker suffered an operating loss of $527 million, more than tripling from the same time last year when it was still an independent company.

Google is trying to improve Motorola Mobility's performance by laying off about 20 per cent of its workforce — about 4,000 employees — and closing one-third of its 90 plants and office. Those cost-cutting measures resulted in $349 million in charges during the quarter. But it still could take a few years for Google to turn around Motorola Mobility, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette said on the conference call.

The stronger dollar also hurt Google, just as it has many other U.S. companies that do a lot of business in other countries. That's because overseas sales are now translating into fewer dollars than a year ago, resulting in less revenue. Excluding Motorola Mobility, Google said its revenue for the latest quarter would have been $557 million, or 5 per cent higher, if currencies had remained at the same levels as a year ago.

But there were also some worrisome signs in Google's main business of selling online advertising.

Google's ad revenue rose 16 per cent from the same time last year, the slowest pace in three years. The company's ad revenue had climbed by at least 21 per cent in each of the previous 10 quarters.

Advertising accounts for 77 per cent of Google's revenue. The rest comes from Motorola Mobility and other products, such as Google's recently released Nexus 7 tablet computer.

As has been the case for the past year, the average prices companies pay Google for ads appearing alongside search results also fell. The year-over-year decline for advertiser's "cost-per-click" on Google's ads declined 15 per cent from the same time last year.

The decelerating growth in ad revenue is likely being driven by the growing use of smartphones and tablet computers to access the Internet.

The ads are more difficult to see on smartphones, in particular, so marketers aren't willing to pay as much for those commercial messages as they do for ads that are seen by people on personal computers. And people relying on mobile devices tend to use specially designed applications that so far haven't been set up to show as many ads as can be seen in Web browsers. People using mobile apps also have less reason to conduct searches on Google, depriving the company of opportunities to show ads.

"I am not at all worried about this because I think we are better position than most companies," Page assured analysts.

Google is reaping more revenue from the rapidly growing mobile market, largely because of its Android software than now powers more than 500 million devices. The company gives away Android to device makers, but the software is fruitful for Google because it's designed to drive up more traffic to its search engine and other services that show ads.

Page said the mobile market is now generating about $8 billion in annual revenue, including sales of applications, video, books and music in its Play store. Not all of those, sales, though, are recorded in Google's books because most of the money goes to developers, studios and publishers. A year ago, Google said the mobile market was generating about $2.5 billion in annual revenue, but that figure consisted entirely of ads, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison to the $8 billion.

Los Angeles Deputy shoots suspect in hospital emergency room

A jail inmate suspected of drug use was shot and killed Thursday by a Los Angeles County deputy after the man grabbed a gun from another deputy in a hospital emergency room, authorities said.

The 27-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released, was pronounced dead at Centinela Hospital Medical Center. No one else was hurt.

The man had one wrist handcuffed to a gurney in a private triage room with two deputies when he suddenly grabbed the gun from one officer's belt and "tried to gain possession of it," sheriff's Lt. Holly Francisco said. The other deputy fired the shot that killed the inmate, she said.

The man had been arrested Wednesday for investigation of possessing a controlled substance. While jailed at the South Los Angeles station, the man complained of feeling ill and responding firefighters took him to the hospital.

It was unclear if the man was under the influence at the time of the shooting.

Ken Cobb, who was in a wheelchair, said he heard one of the deputies tell the man he was going take off the handcuff to sign some paperwork.

"It happened so fast it was like a quick flash reaction," Cobb said.

There were roughly 20 hospital employees working at the time of the shooting, but no one was in the area where the shooting occurred, hospital spokesman Steven Brand said.

Centinela Hospital, which had about 60,000 emergency room visits last year, does not have an inmate ward like some other medical facilities but routinely treats suspected criminals who have injuries or illnesses, Brand said.

In addition, the hospital provides safety training for its staff and employs security guards who are not armed, he said.

"We treat the safety of the public and our staff with the utmost importance," Brand said. "We believe this facility is as secure as can be."

Officer-involved shootings at hospitals are rare, although a San Diego County deputy fatally shot an inmate at UC San Diego Medical Center last month.

That inmate was taken to the hospital after allegedly attacking deputies at a San Diego jail. He broke free of his restraints as he was about to undergo a medical scan and hit one deputy with a chair before he was shot and killed, officials said.

.......JOURNAL STAR

U.S. Army General Nominated to Africa Command

BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/DEFENSE NEWS

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta nominated on Oct. 18 a former senior commander in Afghanistan as the new head of the military’s Africa Command, which oversees U.S. security efforts on the continent.

The change in leadership comes amid growing concerns over al-Qaida’s affiliates in the region, particularly in Mali, and a deadly attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya linked to Islamist extremists.

Panetta said Gen. David Rodriguez, who served as the deputy American commander in Afghanistan and helped plan the “surge” of additional troops in the war, was well-suited to the post.

As chief of the NATO-led force’s joint command, Rodriguez “oversaw the coalition and Afghan forces during the surge, and was a key architect of the successful campaign plan that we are now implementing,” Panetta told a news conference.

Rodriguez, known by troops as “General Rod” and who currently serves as head of U.S. Army Forces command, was touted as a possible chief commander for Afghanistan last year. The job however went to a Marine, Gen. John Allen, who after a year in Kabul is due to hand over soon to another Marine, Gen. Joseph Dunford.

If his nomination is confirmed by the Senate as expected, Rodriguez will succeed Gen. Carter Ham, who played a key role in the NATO air war in Libya.,br />
As head of Africa Command, Rodriguez would help oversee counter-terrorism missions in Somalia, Yemen, Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere, as well as training and other efforts designed to bolster U.S. military ties across the region.

The command’s headquarters is based in Stuttgart, Germany. Panetta also named Gen. John Paxton as the new number two of the U.S. Marine Corps, as the outgoing assistant to the commandant, Dunford, will soon be taking over as the top U.S. and NATO military chief in Afghanistan.

High Life Music Mixer Flavour Nabania Opens 2Nite Club In Enugu

The Coal City (Enugu) joins cats-run-pub nightlife when highlife music mixer Flavour Nabania (Chinedu Okoli) opens his private club "2Nite Club" to the public on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, joining his fellow newbreed mixers 2Face Idibia a nd Basketmouth who first ran underground digital music and the Improv. Fellow mixers Tiwa savage, Kcee, Wizkid and others will be showing up.

Death of actor sparks protest in Benin

Atienwhen died because he could not pay the N150k demanded by doctors before treating him

The death of a Benin-based actor and staff of the State Ministry of Arts, Culture Tourism, Brown Atienwhen, has sparked protest as hundreds of actors took to the streets Tuesday.

Mr Brown died last Sunday at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH).

The actors and actresses protested on major streets in Benin City, the Edo state capital, alleging that he died because he could not pay the N150,000 demanded by the doctors treating him.

Colleagues and the leaders of the workers’ union in the Edo Arts Council, a unit under the State Ministry of Arts, Culture and Tourism, also alleged that the artiste died because of negligence on the part of the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Caroline Edo-Osagie, who did not release money for the treatment of the deceased.

Reacting to the allegations, Chairman of the Edo Arts Council chapter of the Radio, Television and Theatre Workers’ Union (RATTAWU), Mr. Mike Kadiri, said although the commissioner in charge of the ministry approved the release of the sum of N150,000 to the family of the late actor last week, the Permanent Secretary refused to release the money, because according to her, the late artiste owed her N7,000.

Kadiri, who said he personally took the deceased to the hospital where he was diagnosed, noted that the doctor requested for the sum of N150,000 to carry out a major operation and he immediately informed the ministry.

He said that the man eventually died on Sunday, just two days after the money was eventually released to the family.

“The commissioner confirmed that she approved the money immediately the request was made and that we should see the Permanent secretary, Edo-Osagie. But she sent us out of her office and said she had no business with us and when we persisted she walked out of the office,” Kadiri said.

The state Commissioner for Arts, Culture and Tourism, Miss Aanena Jimitola, confirmed that the money was released to the family of the actor before he passed on, adding that though there was dearth of funds, she expected that with various income sources available to the ministry the money should have been released earlier.

..........IYOBOSA OMOREGIE/DAILY TIMES NIGERIA

Los Angeles County assessor arrested for corruption

BY LINDA DEUTSCH/ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles County assessor John Noguez, a top aide and a campaign contributor were arrested Wednesday as part of an investigation into influence peddling and slashing of property taxes for political allies.

District Attorney Steve Cooley called it the most significant case of public corruption he has seen in his four decades in the district attorney's office.

"Instead of acting in the best interest of the citizens of Los Angeles County, he turned his back on them," Cooley said.

Noguez was arrested along with his chief appraiser Mark McNeil and Arizona tax consultant Ramin Salari after being accused of conspiring to slash property values and save millions in property taxes for clients of Salari, a campaign contributor to Noquez.

At a news conference, Cooley declined to comment on whether owners of the properties, primarily located on the west side of Los Angeles, knew of the conspiracy. However, he said the investigation is ongoing and there could be further arrests.

Charges against Noguez include conspiracy, bribery and corruption. The others were charged with conspiracy and misappropriation of public funds. They were arrested at their homes.

Asked about Noguez' motive, Cooley said, "greed."

Defense attorney Michael J. Proctor said Noguez had been assured he would be able to give his side of the story before any charges were filed. He said Cooley was engaged in a one-sided investigation aimed at "getting" Noguez.

Proctor added that Noguez has a history of professionalism and cares deeply about the job and the people at the assessor's office.

Cooley said his office would talk to Noguez if he waived his Miranda rights.

Bail was set for each man at $1.36 million -- the estimated amount the county lost because of their alleged misdeeds. They were expected to be arraigned later in the week.

The complaint alleged that Noguez accepted $185,000 in bribes from Salari between February and September, 2010.

Noguez was a longtime county appraiser before being elected to the top job in 2010. Cooley said the investigation uncovered that Noguez' real name is Juan Renaldo Rodriguez.

Investigators looked into improper tax breaks granted to more than 100 wealthy property owners since Noguez's election.

Assessor's office employees complained they were pressured to lower property taxes for clients of prominent Noguez campaign contributors, authorities said.