Stars join Songwriters Hall of Fame - BBC News
Ne-Yo, Bette Midler, Ben E. King and Bob Seger give their reaction to their awards
Multi-platinum artist Bob Seger, Bette Midler and R&B star Ne-Yo have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The team behind enduring hit Stand By Me - Ben E. King and songwriting duo Mike Stoller and the late Jerry Leiber - were given The Towering Song Award.
King was also presented with a special award for his performance on the track.
Ne-Yo, who was given the Hal David Starlight Award for young songwriters, credited music with saving him.
"I was a pretty riled up little kid," he explained, on the red carpet. "If not for my mom giving me the pad and the pen and telling me to take my emotions and put them there, there's no telling. I might I have been sticking you up or something."
Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks presented Bette Midler with the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award. It honours industry veterans who are "pioneers in their craft" and have "inspired the music community".
Midler has enjoyed success on stage, screen and as a recording artist, winning three Grammys - including for her 1989 hit, Wind Beneath My Wings.
"Any award is a great honour," said Midler. "I mean people think of you and it is very sweet. It is all very sweet."
Seger kicked off the ceremony in New York with a performance of 1973 track, Turn the Page.
The Detroit rocker achieved commercial success with 1976 album Night Moves. He called songwriting the hardest but most rewarding thing he does.
The Songwriters Hall of Fame was founded in 1969 by Johnny Mercer to recognise the best in the field.
Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones, the writers of long-running musical, The Fantastick's, were also honoured in the ceremony's 43rd year.
Other inductees include Jim Steinman, who wrote Bat Out of Hell and Total Eclipse of the Heart, Canadian folk rocker Gordon Lightfoot, and Don Schlitz, who penned country hits including When You Say Nothing at All.
Among those taking to the stage to hand out awards or perform were Meatloaf, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Steve Miller and Kenny Rogers.
Call app could lift Facebook sales -VoIP firm Rebtel - Reuters
PARIS, June 15 |
PARIS, June 15 (Reuters) - Instead of just "liking" - why don't you call?
A simple proposition like this could lift Facebook's annual revenue by $800 million and give the social network a direct-billing relation with millions of users, the chief of mobile calling firm Rebtel told Reuters.
Andreas Bernstrom said a Facebook voice service charging for calls going into traditional telephones could in theory create the world's second largest telecoms network by customers, after China Mobile and ahead of Vodafone.
"A serious step from Facebook could have a significant effect on operators," Bernstrom said.
The CEO of Rebtel, the world's second largest Internet calling app after Skype, said his calculations are based on Skype-like pricing and uptake of the service, that would give Facebook more than 8 million credit cards.
Europe's traditional phone companies are facing intensifying competition from Internet-based services like Microsoft Corp's Skype, Rebtel, Viber and Tango.
"Facebook has great opportunity to build an app for calling functionality in much the same way they have one for messaging and photos," said Bernstrom, who added that he is not currently in talks to sell his service to Facebook.
"Not only does this generate a very large revenue potential ..., but it also allows Facebook to start building a giant database of credit cards, which will be hugely important for future cross selling opportunities."
UPDATE 1-Japan lower house passes bill to insure Iran oil imports - Reuters UK
* Bill needs to pass opposition-controlled upper house
* Expected to become law around June 27
* Japan is first country to try to bypass EU ban (Adds detail)
By Risa Maeda
TOKYO, June 15 (Reuters) - Japan's lower house passed a bill on Friday to provide government guarantees on insurance for Iranian crude cargoes, a key step towards it becoming the first of Iran's big Asian oil buyers to get round new European Union sanctions.
The bill will now be sent to the upper house, where opposition parties have the majority but have signaled their support. It will become law by around June 27 if passed before the current parliamentary session ends next Thursday, said a government official who requested anonymity.
The Japanese government, which has succeeded in getting a waiver from U.S. financial sanctions, wants to provide coverage of up to $7.6 billion for each tanker carrying Iranian crude bound for Japan in the event of accidents.
An EU ban on member countries importing Iranian oil takes effect on July 1 and includes a ban on EU insurance firms from covering Iran's exports. That is a headache for Japan, South Korea, China and India, which together buy two thirds of Iran's oil exports and rely on EU companies to insure them.
EU and U.S. sanctions aim to cut the oil revenues on which Tehran depends to force the Islamic Republic to curb its nuclear programme. The West suspects Iran aims to develop weapons, while Tehran says it needs reactors for electricity supplies.
Iranian oil accounted for nearly 9 percent of Japan's crude imports last year. Japan has reduced the flow already to comply with U.S. sanctions requiring buyers to make sizeable cuts, but wants to avoid more drastic reductions that may drive up energy import costs and hurt the world's third-largest economy.
Refiners cut their purchases even as the country has needed more oil to fire power stations after last year's Fukushima disaster shut down the country's nuclear power capacity.
INDIA, CHINA FACE SAME ISSUE
India's government, which won an exemption to U.S. sanctions this week, has also been trying to figure out how it will get around the EU sanctions.
"We are struggling to find solutions," Oil Minister S. Jaipal Reddy told reporters in Vienna, where crude producers from OPEC are meeting. The government was studying sovereign guarantees, he added.
Iran's top buyer China has yet to detail how it plans to resolve the insurance problem, but industry sources there have said they will find a way to keep imports flowing.
South Korea will reduce imports to zero in July due to the insurance ban, industry sources have said. Seoul, like Tokyo, has lobbied the EU to delay or get a waiver on implementing the ban on insurers, but is not considering state guarantees, according to government sources there.
Those lobbying efforts have so far failed. The European Union will not cancel or delay the embargo on Iranian oil tankers, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said at an industry conference on Wednesday.
The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that Iran's crude exports in April and May have fallen by 1 million bpd since the end of 2011 to 1.5 million bpd and that Tehran may need to shut in production.
China, Japan, India and South Korea have cut purchases by about a fifth from the 1.45 million bpd they were buying a year ago ahead of the imposition of the sanctions.
It is the first time Japan has sought to provide guarantees on marine shipments, said an official in the country's transport ministry, which is sponsoring the legislation. The official, who helped draft the bill, said he didn't know when the law will be passed by parliament. (Reporting by Risa Maeda; Editing by Aaron Sheldrick and Ed Davies)
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