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Fairfax Media appears extremely close to being declared 'on the market'as a new bidder,Hellman & Friedman, entered the auction room on Wednesday night with an indicative offer thattrumped the TPG offer already on the table.

This could easily mark the start of a bidding war between two US private equity groups, likely to move the 176-year-old media group into foreign hands.

In a strange historic twist,Hellman&Friedman -which lobbed a prospective price of between $1.225 and $1.25 a share - is no ordinary bidder: It was part of Tourang - a consortium of investors including Canadian media baron Conrad Black andthe late Kerry Packer, whichbought Fairfax out of receivership in 1992.

Hellman's current Emeritus chairman, Brian Powers, was once thechairman of Fairfax and later became Kerry Packer's right-hand man.

The private equity firm's emergence this week is no accident.

Since the board became aware of TPG's interest in Fairfax, it hadbeen actively canvassing other potential bidders - among them Hellman & Friedman. TPG, which is currently offering $1.20 per share for Fairfax, and Hellman & Friedman have now both been given the green light to undertake a close look at Fairfax's books.

Both Fairfax chairman, Nick Falloon and its chief executive Greg Hywood are considered close to Powers.

During Powers' chairmanship of Fairfax, Hywood was editor in chief of the Sydney Morning Herald.Falloon was the head of Kerry Packer's television group then called PBL, while Powers was head of the Packer's Consolidated Press.

Back in 2010, Falloon also (but unsuccessfully) approached Hellman & Friedman as a potential buyer for Canwest's stake in Ten Network.

The Fairfax board had been aware for a while that Hellman & Friedman had been sniffing around, but did not know of its intention to bid until it received notification on Wednesday evening.

While Powers will be taking an active interest in the current bid for Fairfax, the executive running the process for Hellman & Friedman is itsdeputy chief executive, Patrick Healy.

The private equity firm has plenty of experience in the digital classified property arena as part owners ofGermane-commerce group Scout24, which is led by Greg Ellis - who himself was instrumental in setting up and running REA Group, the arch competitor to Fairfax's property website Domain.

TPG, on the other hand, has Domain boss Antony Catalano in its corner. He appears to have tied his fortunes to TPG, having already been nominated to run Fairfax under TPG's ownership.

If TPG issuccessful, it plans to keep the major newspaper titlesalong with Domain and sell off the remaining assets, including radio, Fairfax's New Zealand newspapers and its 50 per cent stake in video streaming business Stan.

Despite Hellman & Friedman's connections with Fairfax, the board will need to decide whether either offer will be enough to satisfy its major shareholders, who at this stage have mixed opinionsabout the price.

For some shareholders, a price of $1.25 a sharewould be enough to garner support, while others would prefer more and would rather take their chances with Fairfax's own proposal to spin off 30 per cent of Domain into a separately listed company.

But the Domain spin-off is increasingly looking like a fall-back position. If Falloon can extract a fair offer price, the Foreign Investment Review Board would be the only thing standing in private equity's way.

With the Fairfax share price punching above $1.23 on Thursday morning, the punters are calling it 'game on'.

Read more here:
It's 'game on' in the battle for control of Fairfax - The Sydney Morning Herald

Fox News host Sean Hannity is urging the Trump administration to "restructure" the daily White House press briefings and restrict the topics raised by reporters.

First, the White House press team should regularly develop a list of the top and most important 15, 20, 25 issues of the day," Hannity said late Monday.

"Next, the media, well, they should be able to submit questions about these issues in writing, give the White House time to respond with clarity and specificity, and if Sean Spicer then wants to take a couple of questions from the briefing room podium, thats fine. But only on those specific topics."

Hannity suggested that White House press secretary Sean Spicer could choose whether or not to respond to written questions that deviate from a list of pre-approved topics.

Just last week, Hannity suggested doing away with the press briefings entirely.

Why waste the energy trying to appease people who obviously hate his guts and want to destroy him?" Hannity asked viewers.

The Fox News host said Trump should just tweet out his accomplishments instead.

President Trump has signaled he may take Hannity's advice.

Last Friday, Trump tweeted that he may "cancel" the longstanding tradition.

Excerpt from:
Hannity calls for White House control of media at press briefings - The Hill (blog)

The dean of a school system in the Gaza Strip who was appointed to his post byPalestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to spread classic anti-Semitic libels on official PA television, Palestinian Media Watch reported Tuesday.

Imad Hamato, who has long given classes on Islam on PA television, was appointed by Abbas to head the Gaza-based Al-Azhar school system, which prepares students for Gazas Al-Azhar University. Hamato now has the opportunity to transmit his venomous anti-Semitism to Palestinian youth, PMW observed.

In a lesson broadcast last week, Hamato said, They [the Jews] are usurers. See, the usury money and usurer banks, those who control the money in the world can be counted on one hand a few individuals and all of them belong to the Jewish world. They control the media, the money, the press, the resources, the plans.

Hamato also blasted Arab nations that recognize Israel, which he described as a cancerous tumor.

In April, Hamato accused Israel on PA television of using sex mania to attack Arabs and Muslims. Israels global media has expanded, and its war against the Arabs and Muslims is through sex mania which it distributes globally. Israel had to use this sex mania, as we mentioned in a previous lesson, in order to destroy the spirit of Arabs and Muslims, he claimed.

Humanity will never live in comfort as long as the Jews are causing devastating corruption throughout the land., Hamato said in an earlier lesson in February. An old man told me: If a fish in the sea fights with another fish, I am sure the Jews are behind it.

[Photo: Palwatch / YouTube ]

Continue reading here:
Abbas Appointee: Jews Control the Media, the Money, the Press, the Resources, the Plans - TheTower.org

Social networking for the proteome, upgraded: New study maps ... Science Daily Researchers have mapped the interaction partners for proteins encoded by more than 5800 genes, representing over a quarter of the human genome, ... and more »

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Social networking for the proteome, upgraded: New study maps ... - Science Daily

Ukraine will block access to the country's most popular social networking sites and other Russian-based web businessesundernew sanctions against Russia for itsannexation of Crimea and war in east Ukraine.

Access to Yandex, a Russian equivalent of google that provides search engines, maps, and other popular tools,and social media sites Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, will be banned under a decree signed by Petro Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine, on Tuesday.

The decree bans Ukrainian web hosts from linking to the Russian websites from May 15.

The decision was described in a decree posted on the presidential website as part of economic sanctions against Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has sent weapons, equipment, and troops to support a fuel the separatist side in a war in eastern Ukraine.

However, some Ukrainian officials have also described it as a national security measure.

"The servers of these Russian social networks ... store the personal data of Ukrainian users and information on their movements, contacts, communications," Volodymyr Ariev, an MP from President Petro Poroshenko's political faction, said on Facebook.

Other websites blocked under the order include those of the cyber security firms Kaspersky Lab and DrWeb.

The decrees also imposes asset freezes and broadcast bans on Russian television channels TV Tsentr, RBK, VGTRK, NTV-Plus, Zvezda, TNT, REN and ORT.

It is not clear how Ukraine will enforce the ban.

About 60 percent of Ukrainian internet users are active on Vkontakte, a survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology found last year.

The rest is here:
Ukraine bans Russian social networks in sweeping expansion of sanctions - Telegraph.co.uk