Bird’s eye view video shows installation of One World Trade Center spire

May 13 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $5,849,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,388,064 3. Kevin Streelman $2,572,989 4. Billy Horschel $2,567,891 5. Matt Kuchar $2,493,387 6. Phil Mickelson $2,220,280 7. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,207,683 8. D.A. Points $2,019,702 9. Steve Stricker $1,977,140 10. Graeme McDowell $1,910,654 11. Jason Day $1,802,797 12. Webb Simpson $1,759,015 13. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 14. Hunter Mahan $1,682,939 15. Charles Howell III $1,561,988 16. Russell Henley $1,546,638 17. Martin Laird $1,531,950 18. ...

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Venezuela's Maduro gets firm Brazilian backing, trade

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro got strong backing from regional heavyweight Brazil on Thursday on a tour of South American allies to cement his legitimacy as political heir to the late Hugo Chavez.

The clear endorsement from the largest and most influential Latin American nation will strengthen Maduro's grip on power following his contested election in the oil-producing nation last month.

"We wish you great success with your presidential mandate and your government," Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said after a meeting in which she promised Venezuela food supplies, expanded trade and cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

Maduro announced that Brazilian construction and engineering conglomerate Odebrecht will build a 1.5-million-tonne-a-year urea plant in Venezuela. He said Brazil and Venezuela agreed to strengthen military ties.

Maduro met earlier with former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose moderate leftist government backed Chavez's socialist revolution but did not share his anti-U.S. policies and rhetoric.

Rousseff said she offered Maduro the same level of close relations that she and Lula had with Chavez.

In private, though, Rousseff was expected to advise Maduro to tone down his aggressive rhetoric against his opponents for the sake of political stability, said a diplomat who was briefed ahead of the meeting.

Rousseff delivered a similar message to Maduro on the need to treat the opposition better at a regional meeting on the eve of his April 19 inauguration, the diplomat said. Following that meeting, Venezuela's electoral authority announced that it would conduct an audit of the election results, which is still underway.

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost the April 14 vote to Maduro by less than two percentage points, insists the election was stolen and has demanded a full recount. He is now contesting the result in the nation's top court.

If there were any doubts about Maduro's legitimacy in Brasilia, they were not evident in public during his visit. Only four protesters stood outside the Planalto presidential palace, one carrying a sign that said: "Maduro: Presidente ilegitimo."

Maduro arrived in Brasilia from visiting the leaders of Uruguay and Argentina, which along with Brazil are members of the South American trade bloc that Venezuela joined last year.

While almost every nation in the Americas has recognized Maduro's election as Chavez's successor following the leftist leader's death from cancer in March, the region's nations are anxious to avoid Venezuela sinking into chaos.

Brazil has a commercial stake in the political and economic stability of its neighbor to the north: Venezuela is the second largest market after Argentina for Brazilian manufactured goods.

Industrial goods make up two-thirds of Brazilian exports to the Venezuelan market, handing Brazil a sizeable surplus in its trade with Venezuela that has expanded seven-fold in the last decade to $6 billion last year.

(Reporting by Peter Murphy, Brian Winter and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Paul Simao)

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NAWBO® Applauds President For His Selection Of Penny Pritzker As Commerce Secretary And Michael Froman To Be The Next U.S. Trade Representative

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "NAWBO applauds the President for his selection of two highly-qualified and capable individuals to lead such prominent posts within his Administration," said Diane Tomb, President & CEO of the National Association of Women Business Owners. "Both have the vision and expertise necessary to play integral roles in our nation's government and continue to get our economy on track."

From the White House Rose Garden, President Obama nominated Penny Pritzker as his new Commerce Secretary and Michael Froman to be the next U.S. Trade Representative.  

"Women business owners are the fastest-growing segment of the country's economy," said Tomb. "In his selection of Penny Pritzker to lead the Commerce Department, President Obama shows he is committed to harnessing that economic driver. We agree with the President that Penny Pritzker is one of the most accomplished and respected women business owners and are confident she will translate her skills developed as a business owner to the public sector as she leads the Department of Commerce to promote job creation and economic growth."

About NAWBO®
Founded in 1975, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) propels women entrepreneurs into economic, social and political spheres of power worldwide by: strengthening the wealth creating capacity of our members and promoting economic development within the entrepreneurial community; creating innovative and effective change in the business culture; building strategic alliances, coalitions and affiliations; and transforming public policy and influencing opinion makers. Learn more at www.nawbo.org.

Media Contact:
Christina Jorgensen
NAWBO Communications
(818) 772-9555, ext. 103

SOURCE National Association of Women Business Owners

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AAPS Sues the American Board of Medical Specialties for Restraining Trade through Its Burdensome Recertification Program

TUCSON, Ariz., April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS) has filed suit today in federal court against the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) for restraining trade and causing a reduction in access by patients to their physicians. The ABMS has entered into agreements with 24 other corporations to impose enormous "recertification" burdens on physicians, which are not justified by any significant improvements in patient care.

ABMS has a proprietary, trademarked program of recertification, called the "ABMS Maintenance of Certification®" or "ABMS MOC®," which brings in many tens of millions of dollars in revenue to ABMS and the 24 allied corporations. Though ostensibly non-profit, these corporations then pay prodigious salaries to their executives, often in excess of $700,000 per year. But their recertification demands take physicians away from their patients, and result in hospitals denying access by patients to their physicians.

In a case cited in this lawsuit, a first-rate physician in New Jersey was excluded from the medical staff at a hospital in New Jersey simply because he had not paid for and spent time on recertification with one of these private corporations. He runs a charity clinic that has logged more than 30,000 visits, but now none of those patients can see him at the local hospital because of the money-making scheme of recertification.

There is a worsening doctor shortage in the United States, such that the average physician has the time to spend only 7 minutes with each patient. Roughly half the counties in our nation lack a single OB/GYN physician to care for women. There are long delays to see primary care physicians in Massachusetts, and about half of them are not even taking new patients.

Money-making schemes that reduce access by patients to patients, as "maintenance of certification" does, are against public policy and harmful to the timely delivery of medical care. AAPS's lawsuit states, "There is no justification for requiring the purchase of Defendant's product as a condition of practicing medicine or being on hospital medical staffs, yet ABMS has agreed with others to cause exclusion of physicians who do not purchase or comply with Defendant's program." AAPS adds that ABMS's "program is a moneymaking, self-enrichment scheme that reduces the supply of hospital-based physicians and decreases the time physicians have available for patients, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act."

ABMS does the public an additional disservice by inviting patients to search on which physicians have "recertified" and which ones have not, despite the lack of evidence that there is any difference in malpractice rates between the two categories. ABMS should try to make money by helping patients, rather than disparaging the many thousands of good physicians who spend their time caring for patients rather than on ABMS's self-serving recertification scheme.

A recent survey by AAPS showed that only 9.5% of 167 respondents thought that "maintenance of certification is good; we should support it." In an earlier survey, only 22% of physicians who had been through the process said they would voluntarily do it again.

AAPS's lawsuit, which was filed today in Trenton, New Jersey, seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin ABMS's continuing violations of antitrust law and misrepresentations about the medical skills of physicians who decline to purchase and spend time on its program. AAPS also seeks a refund of fees paid by its members to ABMS and its 24 other corporations as a result of ABMS's conduct.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

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Two congressmen urge USTR designate China for trade secret theft

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior Democrats in the House of Representatives on Thursday urged the Obama administration to formally target China for the theft of U.S. trade secrets, a move they said could lead to duties on Chinese goods if U.S. concerns are not addressed.

"As evidence mounts that the Government of China actively engages in the cyber theft of the trade secrets of American businesses, we write to request that you consider designating China as a Priority Foreign Country under Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974," the lawmakers said.

The letter from Representatives Sander Levin and Charles Rangel urged the Trade Representative's office to take the action when it issues the annual report on intellectual property protection on April 30.

Their recommendation is the latest sign of congressional frustration with alleged widespread theft of U.S. company trade secrets by competitors in China through both cyber attacks and more conventional means of economic espionage.

"It looks very much as though the Chinese government is stealing our companies' trade secrets and passing them along to their SOEs (state-owned enterprises), and possibly other Chinese companies," Levin and Rangel, the top two Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a letter to acting Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis.

"It is difficult enough for our companies to compete with the endless massive subsidies and other industrial policies of the Chinese government, but add trade secret theft into the mix and it is miraculous that our companies are able to compete at all," they added.

The White House last month rolled out a new strategy to tackle to trade-secret theft included greater use of existing U.S. trade tools, like the U.S. Trade Representative's annual report on countries with the worst records of protecting U.S. intellectual property rights.

USTR rarely designates any "priority foreign country" in that report. The category is reserved for those nations with the most onerous and egregious acts, policies or practices that threaten U.S. intellectual property and which have the greatest adverse impact on the United States.

Under the statute, USTR generally must initiate what is known as a "Special 301" investigation within 30 days of designating a priority foreign country, which could lead to the White House imposing import duties if U.S. concerns are not satisfactorily addressed, the lawmakers said.

"We have received the letter and are reviewing it," USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said.

USTR also could file a case at the World Trade Organization if it determines that the priority foreign country is violating international trade rules.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Ex-Im Bank Signs City/State Partnership With California Trade Association, Supporting Thousands of Jobs

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) announced a new marketing partnership for the Monterey Bay International Trade Association (MBITA), a non-profit organization in northern California.  The City/State Partners program contract will accelerate export business by connecting Bank products and services to MBITA's network of entrepreneurs and financial institutions in the counties around San Francisco and its ports.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110414/MM83673LOGO )

Members of MBITA represent small and mid-sized businesses throughout the tri-county region of the Monterey Bay and Silicon Valley.  This association helped start the BAYTRADE program in 1995, which generated more than six thousand new jobs during its first five years.  MBITA also manages the TradePort Collaborator, an intranet of more than 140 trade promotion service professionals who represent more than 60,000 exporters, importers, trade promotion service providers, and private investors.

"By entering this partnership with MBITA, Ex-Im Bank joins forces with thousands of experienced businesses that share our aim of expanding U.S. exports and creating jobs," said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg.  "For eighteen years, MBITA has linked business resources with clients throughout the world.  Now through our partnership, the Bank adds expanded access to its services and products to help accelerate export sales and job growth."

Tony Livoti, president of MBITA, explained why Ex-Im Bank's City/State Partnership is a boon to high-tech exporters:  "MBITA's and TradePort's clients and members tend to be on the cutting edge of technologies," he said.  "Sometimes they feel an export-financed transaction into a new foreign marketplace gives them a better footing to grow their companies, as opposed to using their own financing to break into our very competitive domestic markets."

The Monterey Bay trade association started in 1984 as a volunteer-run business, and upgraded to a 501 C-6 corporation in 1995 when it became a founding member of a public-private sector export promotion program called BAYTRADE.  The U.S. Department of Commerce helped to support the program, which researched the international trade needs of employers across sixteen Congressional districts.  BAYTRADE consolidated its large service and knowledge network into an established global trade website managed by MBITA as TradePort.org for the past six years.  MBITA now is a self-sustaining organization funded by memberships, corporate sponsorship, events, and fee-based trade promotion services.  It is developing new services such as the California Industrial Cluster Tour and MBITA Strategic Alliance Service.

The purpose of the City/State Partners program is to ensure that the Bank's export finance programs are more accessible to small and medium-sized business through the help of local, state, and regional economic development and business support organizations.

Ex-Im Bank offers to Bay-area enterprises expanded access to products such as its Global Credit Express, which helps exporters acquire low-cost working capital up to $500,000, as well as Express Insurance, which simplifies small business access to export credit risk insurance on their foreign accounts receivable.  The Bank has designed an array of low-cost loans, guarantees, export credit insurance, and supply-chain financing structures to enable both small and large businesses to export globally without fear of nonpayment.

ABOUT EX-IM BANK:

Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that helps to create and maintain U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers. In the past five years (from Fiscal Year 2008), Ex-Im Bank has earned for U.S. taxpayers nearly $1.6 billion above the cost of operations. The Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees, export-credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services.

Ex-Im Bank approved a total of $35.8 billion in authorizations in FY 2012 – an all-time Ex-Im record. This total includes more than $6.1 billion directly supporting small-business export sales – also an Ex-Im record. The Bank's authorizations in FY 2012 are supporting an estimated $50 billion in U.S. export sales and about 255,000 American jobs in communities across the country.  For more information, visit www.exim.gov.

SOURCE Export-Import Bank of the United States

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