The CBS logo is seen outside the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City, April 29, 2016. Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters
CBS Corp., the owner of the most-watched U.S.
TV network, reported a 10 percent rise in quarterly revenue, beating
Wall Street estimates, as the U.S. presidential campaign and Super Bowl
broadcast boosted spending on advertising.
The New York-based company, whose earnings
also handily beat expectations, said on Tuesday that advertising revenue
jumped 31.3 percent in the first quarter ended March 31.
"Advertising is poised for even more growth in
the back half of the year as political spending ramps up," Chief
Executive Les Moonves said in a statement.
Shares of the company, which also owns cable
channel Showtime, radio stations and the Simon & Schuster publishing
house, were up 2 percent in after-hours trading.
Moonves said in an investor conference in
March that the presidential campaign was expected to bump up political
spending to record levels in 2016.
He has also said that the "circus" the campaign has become "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
The company, which also benefited from an
extra NFL playoff game, said its net income rose to $473 million, or
$1.02 per share, in the quarter from $394 million, or 78 cents per
share, a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected earnings of 94 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
CBS, home to shows such as "NCIS", "The Late
Show with Stephen Colbert" and "The Big Bang Theory", said its revenue
rose to $3.85 billion from $3.5 billion a year earlier. Analysts on
average had expected $3.83 billion.
Uncertainty about the health and mental health
of media mogul Sumner Redstone, CBS's 92-year-old controlling
shareholder, has weighed on the company's shares for months.
CBS executives have been talking to investment
bankers about how Moonves, who is also chairman, can gain more control
over the company after Redstone dies or if he is declared mentally
incompetent, sources familiar with the matter said last week.
Brazil's embattled leftist President Dilma Rousseff vowed at a protest
Sunday to go down fighting ahead of what could be her final full week in
power before impeachment.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff waves at the crowd during a
demonstration to mark International Workers' Day, in Sao Paulo, Brazil,
on May 1, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Nelson Almeida)
Supporters of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff take part in a
demonstration to mark International Workers' Day, in Sao Paulo, Brazil,
on May 1, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Nelson Almeida)
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (C) delivers a speech during a
demonstration to mark International Workers' Day, in Sao Paulo, Brazil,
on May 1, 2016. (Photo: AFP/Nelson Almeida)
SAO PAULO: Brazil's embattled leftist President Dilma
Rousseff vowed at a protest Sunday (May 1) to go down fighting ahead of
what could be her final full week in power before impeachment.
Thousands of people attended May Day rallies organized by labour
unions in cities across Latin America's biggest country, with Rousseff
telling a crowd in the financial powerhouse Sao Paulo that she would
"fight to the end."
The traditional Labour Day celebrations were dominated by anger at
the impeachment drive, described by Rousseff as a coup based on trumped
up charges aimed at returning Brazil's centre-right to power.
Rousseff, whose Workers' Party has held the presidency since 2003,
told the Sao Paulo rally that opponents are "ripping up the
constitution" and plotting to undo policies that seek to lift tens of
millions of people from grinding poverty.
"If they can do this to me, what will they do to working people?" she
asked, announcing a new increase to the family allowance program called
Bolsa Familia. The crowd chanted: "There won't be a coup, there'll be a
struggle!"
Supporters of Brazilian President Dilma
Rousseff take part in a demonstration to mark International Workers'
Day, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo: AFP/Nelson Almeida)
Rousseff, in the second year of her second term, could be suspended
from office as soon as May 10 or 11 when the Senate is expected to vote
to open a trial on charges of illegal government accounting.
If so she'd be replaced by her vice president, Michel Temer, the
leader of Brazil's biggest center-right party and a former coalition
partner in Rouseff's government.
A final vote in the Senate later this year, possibly in September,
could remove her office definitively and keep Temer in power until
elections in 2018.
Although Rousseff appears nearly certain to be suspended, she and her
allies, including charismatic former president Luis Ignacio Lula da
Silva, hope the case will collapse when it comes to the final vote,
where a two- thirds majority of senators is needed to pass impeachment. 'CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
In the meantime, Rousseff supporters are vowing to make life
difficult for Temer, who would inherit Brazil's worst recession in
decades and a deeply divided country.
Gilmar Mauro from the group Landless Rural Workers' Movement vowed
"civil disobedience" against Temer's government, which the vice
president is already in the process of forming ahead of Rousseff's
probable suspension.
"We do not recognize a government that no one elected,"
Vagner Freitas, president of the Unified Workers' Central or CUT,
Brazil's main labor federation, was quoted as saying by Globo news site.
"The fight goes on, there will be no coup," echoed Rui Falcao,
national leader of the Workers' Party. "We will not discuss with a
putschist."
Temer has rejected accusations from the Rousseff camp that
he would dismantle the social programs promoted since Lula came to power
in 2003. However, he says he will have majority support in Congress to
begin reforms needed to put Brazil's floundering economy back on track.
Although Rousseff has little personal popularity among her
own base, demonstrators said they feared what would happen to Brazil
without her.
"If we don't take to the streets, we will have to put up
with this right wing coup which will bring terrible unemployment, mess
up the economy and return millions of people to poverty," said retiree
Edna Delanina, 65, at the Sao Paulo rally.
Syria's President Bashar Assad (center) casts his vote next to his wife
Asma (centre left) inside a polling station during parliamentary
elections in Damascus, Syria, April 13, 2016.
Photo: REUTERS/SANA
The Syrian government's chief negotiator said his team was pushing
for an expanded government led by President Bashar Assad at U.N.-led
peace talks, and Assad's own future was not up for negotiation.
Bashar Ja'afari told Lebanese TV news channel al Maydeen the larger
government they wanted would preserve all the country's existing
institutions.
"In Geneva we have one mandate only to arrive at an expanded national
government only, this is our mandate ... this is the goal we strive to
achieve in the Geneva peace talks," Ja'afari said in comments broadcast
overnight.
The Western-backed Syrian mainstream opposition decided on
Monday to take a pause in peace talks saying the Syrian government was
not serious about moving towards a U.N.-backed political process they
say would bring a transitional governing body with full executive powers
without Assad.
BRASÃLIA - Brazil's lower house of Congress
will hold its decisive vote on impeaching President Dilma Rousseff on
Sunday, officials said.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrives at Planalto Palace on April 12, 2016
"Voting will begin on Sunday at 2:00 pm (1700 GMT) and we
calculate that the result will be in that evening," a spokesman for the
speaker's office told AFP. Debates will start early Friday and run
through the weekend.
Brazil lower house to vote on impeachment Sunday: official
UNITED NATIONS - Candidates vying to become the
next UN secretary-general fielded questions Tuesday on global crises --
from climate change to achieving Middle East peace -- during the
first-ever hearings to choose the world's top diplomat.
Irina Bokova speaks with reporters on the selection of the
next UN Secretary-General, at UN headquarters in New York on April 12,
2016
The United Nations opened the three days of public hearings
in a packed chamber, breaking from the secrecy that surrounded the
choice of Ban Ki-moon and his predecessors at the helm of the world
body.
Eight contenders will take turns at the podium before the
General Assembly's 193 nations to lay out their vision for the top job
after Ban steps down on December 31.
For decades, the choice of the UN chief has been firmly in
the hands of the Security Council and its five permanent members --
Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States -- in a process
largely kept behind closed doors.
But the General Assembly last year voted to shake up the
process, asking candidates to send a formal application letter, present
their resumes and appear at hearings.
The final decision to nominate a candidate still rests with
the Security Council, but the new openness could put some pressure on
big powers to pick a nominee with broader appeal.
"This is a potentially game-changing exercise," General Assembly president Mogens Lykketoft told reporters.
"If there is a critical mass of countries supporting one
single candidate, I don't think we will see the Security Council coming
up with quite a different name."
Montenegro's Foreign Minister Igor Luksic -- at 39, the
youngest of the candidates -- was up first, switching from English to
French in an address that touched on his Balkan roots and ways to
improve the UN bureaucracy.
Bokova at the podium
Bulgaria's Irina Bokova, who heads the UN cultural agency
UNESCO, said the United Nations should do more to combat violence
against women and stressed the importance of gender equality.
Seen as Moscow's preferred candidate, the 63-year-old
ex-foreign minister is considered a strong contender in the race that
has could see the first woman chosen as secretary-general and the first
eastern European.
Russia has said that the next UN chief should come from
eastern Europe, the only region that has yet to be represented in the
top post.
During the two-hour session, Bokova managed to steer clear
of controversy and sought to portray herself as a candidate of
continuity who would "serve" UN member-states.
On the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, Bokova said she would work
to "build trust and confidence" between the parties but stressed that on
many complex issues she did not have "the magic bullet."
"You will see the new secretary-general serving you," Bokova said in her message to member-states.
In July, the Security Council will hold a first round of straw polls to measure support for the candidates.
Final polling is expected to take place in September, when
the 15-member council will submit one nominee to the General Assembly,
which is expected to endorse the choice.
Later Tuesday, former high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres of Portugal will take part in the hearings.
On Wednesday, the assembly will hear Slovenia's former
president Danilo Turk, Croatia's former foreign minister Vesna Pusic and
Natalia Gherman, the former foreign minister of Moldova.
The head of the UN Development Programme and New Zealand's
former prime minister Helen Clark will speak on Thursday, as will
Macedonia's former foreign minister Srgjan Kerim.
More candidates are expected to come forward, including two
women seen as potential frontrunners -- EU Commissioner Kristalina
Georgieva of Bulgaria and Argentina's Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra.
UN secretary-general candidates testify in open hearings
BRASÃLIA - Brazil's lower house of Congress
will hold its decisive vote on impeaching President Dilma Rousseff on
Sunday, officials said.
UNITED NATIONS - Candidates vying to become the
next UN secretary-general fielded questions Tuesday on global crises --
from climate change to achieving Middle East peace -- during the
first-ever hearings to choose the world's top diplomat.