UPDATE 4-New deal restores Viacom shows to DirecTV subscribers - Reuters UK
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Rangers accept transfer ban from September - Football
Published: 20 Jul 2012 - 19:47:00
Fallen giants Rangers have accepted a one-year transfer ban, beginning on September 1, to ensure their membership of the Scottish Football Association (SFA).
The transfer embargo and a £160,000 ($249,950) fine were initially handed down to Rangers for a range of offences including the club's failure to pay tax under former owner Craig Whyte.
Rangers successfully challenged the ban in the Court of Session before Charles Green's Sevco bought their assets when the Glasgow club were consigned to liquidation.
But the change to a new company meant the SFA were able to insist that Rangers serve the ban or face rejection from the Scottish Football League.
The Rangers new company were voted into the Third Division by the country's Football League clubs after failing in their bid to get back into the Scottish Premier League.
A statement from the SFA read: "The Scottish FA can clarify the position surrounding the outstanding Appellate Tribunal related to Rangers FC Oldco.
"It has been agreed with Sevco Scotland Ltd that the registration embargo will be accepted as a primary condition of a transfer of membership.
"The Scottish FA indicated to Sevco Scotland Ltd that they had to accept responsibility for any sanctions arising out of this case as a condition of transfer of membership.
"Rather than convening the Appellate Tribunal to determine from the sanctions available to it, the company directors of Sevco Scotland Ltd have chosen to accept the 12-month registration embargo."
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Original Sugababes regroup as Mutya Keisha Siobhan - BBC News
The original line-up of girl band Sugababes have regrouped and launched under a new name called Mutya Keisha Siobhan.
A spokesperson for the trio confirmed they have signed a recording deal with Polydor and that they are writing songs for an album.
Formed in 1998 the original line-up released singles like Overload, New Year and Soul Sound.
The final original member to leave Sugababes was Keisha Buchanan in 2009.
Line-up changes
The current line-up of the Sugababes is Heidi Range, Amelle Berrabah and Jade Ewen.
The announcement comes after months of rumours that a possible reunion could be on the cards.
Sugababes formed in 1998 and released their debut album in 2000
They have reportedly collaborated on songs with Emeli Sande and producer Naughty Boy.
In their first interview as their new outfit Keisha Buchanan told website Popjustice that she couldn't talk about the use of the Sugababes name.
"Basically, I can't say too much about it," she said. "Legally I've been told I can't speak about it."
Siobhan Donaghy was the first member of the first line-up to leave the band in 2001.
She was replaced by ex-Atomic Kitten singer Heidi Range.
Mutya Buena followed her in December 2005 saying she was leaving the band for "personal reasons" before starting a family.
Both Siobhan and Mutya subsequently went on to release solo material.
Keisha Buchanan left Sugababes in 2009.
In 2011 she told Newsbeat that she still "can't talk" about the reasons for her split from the band which left them with no original members.
"Legally I can't go into too much detail," she said. "I've got no hard feelings towards anyone and I understand that life has to go on."
FIFA rubber-stamp Ness deal - Football
Published: 20 Jul 2012 - 19:17:07
Jamie Ness has been been given the go-ahead by FIFA to start his career with Stoke.
International clearance for the transfers of Ness, Steve Davis, Kyle Lafferty, Steven Whittaker and Steven Naismith from Rangers was put on hold after Rangers newco disputed the players' status.
A number of Ibrox players, following advice from their union, PFA Scotland, rejected the chance to transfer their contracts from Rangers to Charles Green's Sevco consortium.
Green rejects the claim that the players are free agents and the former Sheffield United chief executive sent letters to clubs across the UK warning them that the players who objected to the switch to Sevco were in breach of contract.
However, 21-year-old midfielder Ness joined Stoke, Naismith moved to Everton and Whittaker signed for Norwich. Northern Irish duo Davis and Lafferty are at Southampton and Swiss side Sion respectively.
The association to which the players are affiliated can request temporary registration from FIFA to allow the player to play during the period of arbitration - which happened with Ness who has been given the green light.
PFA Scotland solicitor, Margaret Gribbon, of Bridge Litigation, told Press Association Sport: "I can confirm that Jamie Ness has been granted provisional clearance from FIFA.
"I am delighted about that and expect all other applications pending before FIFA to take the same course."
The Scottish Football Association procedurally cannot complete the international transfer clearance as it has to be signed by all parties.
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European regulators back first gene therapy drug - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - European regulators have recommended approval of the Western world's first gene therapy drug -- after rejecting it on three previous occasions -- in a significant advance for the novel medical technology.
More than 20 years since the first experiments with the ground-breaking method for fixing faulty genes, scientists and drug companies are still struggling to apply gene therapy in practice.
Friday's decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is a win for the drug's maker, the small Dutch biotech company uniQure, and a potential lifeline for patients with the ultra rare genetic disorder lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD).
It comes too late, however, for investors in the previous listed firm Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT).
After the earlier rebuffs for its Glybera medicine, AMT was taken private by newly created uniQure in April because it could no longer fund itself in the public markets.
Patients with LPLD are unable to handle fat particles in their blood plasma and are afraid of eating a normal meal because it can lead to acute inflammation of the pancreas.
The disorder -- estimated to affect no more than one or two people per million -- can cause acute pancreatitis and death.
Winning approval for Glybera proved particularly challenging because the company was only able to test it on 27 patients in clinical trials, due to the rarity of the condition.
That thin evidence base made the European agency reluctant to approve the drug initially.
But the London-based watchdog said it now accepted there was sufficient benefit to justify a green light for the worst-affected patients, on condition that those receiving the one-off therapy continued to be followed.
UNLOCKING POTENTIAL
"This approval unlocks the potential of gene therapy because it is a first at either the EMA or FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) for gene therapy," uniQure's chief executive Jorn Aldag said in an interview.
"People have been skeptical as to whether the regulators would buy into this concept, which they have now done."
The idea of treating disease by replacing a defective gene with a working copy gained credence in 1990 with the success of the world's first gene therapy clinical tests against a rare condition called severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID).
People with SCID -- also known as "bubble boy disease" -- cannot cope with infections and usually die in childhood.
The field then suffered a major setback when an Arizona teenager died in a gene therapy experiment in 1999 and two French boys with SCID developed leukemia in 2002.
In China, Shenzhen SiBiono GeneTech won approval for a gene therapy drug for head and neck cancer in 2003 but no products have been approved until now in Europe or the United States.
More recently, some large pharmaceutical companies have also been exploring gene therapy. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, signed a deal in 2010 with Italian researchers to develop a SCID therapy.
CHALLENGE FOR REGULATORS
Tomas Salmonson, acting chairman of the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, said evaluating Glybera had not been easy and experts had decided it should be recommended only for those patients with the greatest need for treatment.
"Our established ways of assessing the benefits and risks of Glybera were challenged by the extreme rarity of the condition and also by uncertainties associated with data provided," he said.
Recommendations for drug approvals by the EMA are normally formally endorsed by the European Commission within a couple of months.
UniQure is now also preparing to apply for regulatory approval for Glybera in the United States, Canada and other markets.
Aldag said it was too early to say what the medicine cost but the price would be "comparable" to that for other orphan drugs made by companies like Genzyme, a division of Sanofi, and Shire. These can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
UniQure's largest shareholders are Forbion Capital Partners and Gilde Healthcare, two leading life sciences venture capital firms in the Netherlands.
(Editing by Keith Weir and David Cowell)
How long until Google integrates Sparrow into Gmail? - Techradar.com
Tired of a less than stellar experience with Gmail on iOS or Apple's Mac Mail application?
You're in luck.
Sparrow – the third-party creators of a delightful email client for both iOS and OS X – announced today that it has been acquired by Google.
Sparrow's Future
The Paris-based company was picked up for under $25 million and, according to The Verge's Thomas Houston, there wasn't any kind of bidding war for the five-person company.
"We'd like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application," wrote CEO Dom Leca in a message posted to Sparrow's website. "While we'll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users."
What's next for Sparrow?
For the people, it's likely that Google will move the team out to its Mountain View, California headquarters and integrate their talents into Gmail as a whole.
Sparrow, the app, isn't getting its plug pulled, but don't expect to see a ton of resources being shoveled its way going forward.
"We will continue to make available our existing products, and we will provide support and critical updates to our users," Leca wrote in an email to Sparrow users. "However, as we'll be busy with new projects at Google, we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps."
Just what that means for Gmail itself – especially in relation to stronger desktop and mobile clients for the service – remains to be seen.
There's no timeline for how long it might take Google to integrate Sparrow's skill with desktop email clients into Gmail itself, and no projections as to what this kind of an integration might even look like.
Unhappy Users
Some Sparrow fans, like Ars Technica's Sean Gallagher, are less than thrilled by Google's purchase.
"I guess Sparrow users can take cold comfort in knowing that at least the software will continue to be patched for a while, and it won't become just the funding model for the next version of Facebook Messenger," Gallagher writes.
"But it's still bad customer service on Google's part. Whether or not Sparrow lives on in some future GMail client that is recognizable as a Sparrow descendant, Google has made it a too-frequent habit to turn off or shut down the products it acquires and leave users with a bad taste in their mouths," he adds.
Google has acquired more than 100 different companies since 2001, picking up more than 15 in the past 12 months alone.
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