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bjbjVwVw HARI SREENIVASAN: Rebels in Syria claimed a major victory today. They seized
control of a large army base on the outskirts of Aleppo. The rebels captured tanks, armored
vehicles, and truckloads of munitions after four days of intense fighting with government
forces. It was one of their biggest hauls of weapons since the uprising began. Meanwhile,
Syrian troops battled to dislodge rebels from a stronghold just outside Damascus. France's
combat mission in Afghanistan is coming to an end, well ahead of a 2014 deadline to withdraw;
500 French soldiers pulled out of a base in a region northeast of Kabul today. Some 1,500
other French troops will remain to pack up equipment and train Afghan forces. France
had 4,000 soldiers in Afghanistan at the height of the war. At least 88 died in the conflict.
Rebels in Eastern Congo have taken the key city of Goma, forcing Congolese government
forces to withdraw. Thousands of refugees fled today as the rebels pushed into the city.
Some 1,500 U.N. peacekeepers and armor stood aside, and didn't try to block the advance.
Congo has accused neighboring Rwanda of backing the rebels in an effort to control the region's
mineral wealth. Federal prosecutors in New York announced charges today in what could
be the single biggest insider trading payoff ever. Mathew Martoma allegedly used confidential
information about an Alzheimer's drug to make more than a quarter-billion dollars for a
hedge fund in 2006. For more, we turn to David Voreacos of Bloomberg News. Thanks for being
with us. DAVID VOREACOS, Bloomberg News: Thank you for having me. HARI SREENIVASAN: So, first
off, how did this alleged scheme work? What kind of information was being traded? DAVID
VOREACOS: Well, the prosecutors today in New York alleged that a hedge fund adviser SAC
Capital Advisors in Connecticut, which is run by billionaire Steve Cohen, gathered inside
information about an Alzheimer's clinical drug trial that was being conducted and that,
based on that information, he built a position of $700 million in the two drug companies
that were running the trial, Wyeth and Elan, and through his connections with a neurologist
at the University of Michigan, he gathered inside information about the progress of that
clinical drug trial, first building the position in the stock when he thought the trial was
going well. And then when he affirmatively learned that it wasn't going so well, he had
the fund sell all of its shares and stock options. And it gained or avoided losses of
$276 million. HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so what do we know about this firm and this
individual? Some of his employees have been in the cross hairs before. DAVID VOREACOS:
Cohen has had one of the best track records on Wall Street in terms of running his hedge
fund. He's had returns averaging 30 percent a year since 1992. He is personally worth
about $8 billion. Six of his employees have been criminally charged in the last three
years in the Wall Street crackdown on insider trading by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. And
that's out of about 70 or 75 people who have been charged. So far, Cohen himself has not
been charged by the U.S. Justice Department or by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, David Voreacos of Bloomberg News, thanks so much. The day's
other major business story involved Hewlett-Packard. The company announced that a British firm
acquired last year had lied about its finances. As a result, H.P. said it's taking a charge
of $8.8 billion against earnings. H.P. stock fell 12 percent in daily trading today. Wall
Street as a whole also struggled to make any headway. The Dow Jones industrial average
lost more than seven points to close at 12,788. The Nasdaq rose more than half-a-point to
close above 2,916. In Britain, two former editors at the News of the World tabloid were
hit with new charges today in the country's phone hacking scandal. Prosecutors say Andy
Coulson and Rebekah Brooks bribed public officials for stories and information. It emerged last
year that journalists at the now-defunct News of the World routinely hacked voice-mails
of celebrities, politicians and other figures in the news. An end to the AIDS epidemic is
now in sight. The U.N. nations AIDS program held out that hope today in its annual report.
The report said some 34 million people worldwide were living with ***, the AIDS virus, at the
end of 2011. There were two-and-a-half million new infections, but that was down 20 percent
from 2001. And deaths from AIDS fell to 1.7 million, more than half a million below the
peak year of 2005. The puppeteer who gave life to Elmo on Sesame Street resigned today
amid allegations that he sexually abused young boys. The latest came in a lawsuit charging
that Kevin Clash engaged in *** behavior with a college student who was underage at
the time. Clash then resigned, saying the issue was diverting attention from "Sesame
Street." He joined the PBS program 28 years ago and made Elmo one of its most popular
characters. Former New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman has died due to complications of lymphoma.
Rudman served in the U.S. Senate from 1980 to 1993 and co-authored the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings
Act in 1985. It was designed to balance the federal budget by 1991, but Congress kept
rolling back the timetable. After leaving the Senate, Rudman co-founded the Concord
Coalition, which still advocates a balanced budget. Warren Rudman was 82 years old. Those
are some of the day's major stories. ph""" ph""" ph""" urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
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