Arizona's referendum drives targeting new law dropped

PHOENIX The two proposed referendum drives challenging Arizona’s new sweeping law targeting illegal immigration are being abandoned, organizers said Monday. Andrew Chavez, a professional petition circulator involved in one of the efforts, said its backers pulled the plug after concluding they might not be able to time their petition filings in such a way as to put the law on hold pending a 2012 public vote.Jon Garrido, the chief organizer of the other drive, attributed its end to a belief that the law would have been subject to legal protections under Arizona’s Constitution if approved by Arizona voters.

The law takes effect July 29 unless implementation is blocked by court injunctions requested under at least three of the four pending legal challenges already filed by an Hispanic clergy group, police officers and other individuals.Its provisions include requiring that police enforcing another law must question a person about his or her immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the United States illegally. It also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

Critics have said the law will result in racial profiling of Hispanics. Supporters deny that and say the law will pressure illegal immigrants to leave the country on their own.

Chavez said his clients, whom he would not identify, launched the effort in the belief that they could put the law on hold until 2012 by not filing petition signatures until it was too late for state elections officials to place a referendum on the November ballot.

However, the backers decided over the weekend to end the referendum campaign when they concluded there still might be a November vote, not giving them enough time to be confident about being able to wage a successful campaign against the law, Chavez said.

The normal deadline for ballot questions is July 1, after which the printing of November ballots and other election preparations typically get under way. The Secretary of State’s Office previously acknowledged that a down-to-the-wire referendum filing by this year’s July 28 deadline might not give officials enough time to get it on the November ballot. However, the office also said it would depend on circumstances at the time.

Garrido, the chief organizer of the second referendum drive, said its backers abandoned it after getting legal advice that Arizona’s constitutional protections for voter-approved ballot measures would have applied to the law if approved by voters.Secretary of State’s spokesman Matt Benson said Monday the office also believes that the constitutional limitations on possible legislative action would have applied to the law if voters approved it.

The constitutional provisions bar the Legislature from repealing a voter-approved law and only allow legislative changes that further the intent of the original law. Also, any changes must be approved by three-quarters votes of both the House and Senate.

The four legal challenges filed so far in U.S. District Court in Phoenix have been randomly assigned to different judges. Several major civil-rights groups are expected to file another challenge as early as this week.No hearings have been set yet on the lawsuits, which likely will be consolidated into one case before a single judge. That judge would then set a schedule for consideration of the plaintiffs’ requests for injunctions and rulings to strike down the law.(AP)

Japan's Canon Inc said its tender offer for shares in Oce NV has raised

Japan’s Canon Inc (7751.T) said its tender offer for shares in Oce NV (OCEN.AS) has raised its stake in the Dutch printer maker to 84 percent, moving closer to its target of turning Oce into a wholly owned subsidiary.The company plans to continue acquiring Oce shares it has not already owned in the market, a Canon spokesman said.Canon, which competes with Ricoh Co Ltd (7752.T) and Xerox Corp (XRX.N) in copiers and printers, announced its plan last November to buy Oce for 730 million euros to strengthen its product lineup and broaden distribution channels.

It offered 8.6 euros for each Oce share in its tender offer, which ran from January 29 to March 1, bringing Canon’s stake in Oce to 71 percent.Following an additional two-week tender offer period that ended on Friday, Canon’s stake now stands at 84 percent.

Canon’s move comes amid a flurry of acquisitions in the office machine sector, including Ricoh’s purchase of U.S. office gear distributor Ikon Office Solutions and Xerox’s takeover of Global Imaging, as industry consolidation gathers momentum.Oce makes an ideal takeover target as the two companies’ products have little overlap, with the Japanese manufacturer strong in regular office machines and mid- to lower-end production printers while Oce excels in high-end and advertisement-use large-sized printers, Canon has said.Production printers, or digital commercial printers, are used to print large documents such as product manuals and direct mail items quickly and in bulk, and are a fast-growing segment of the global office equipment market.(Reuters)

Washington Post will closing remaining U.S. bureaus

NEW YORK, Nov 24  – The Washington Post (WPO.N) is closing its last U.S. bureaus outside the nation’s capital as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news.”At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it’s necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country’s politics, policies and government,” the newspaper’s top editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters.

The Post will close its bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, effective Dec. 31.

The news comes after the Post told several employees at its website that they would be laid off, and follows several rounds of buyouts in recent years.The Post, like nearly every other U.S. newspaper, has been battered by falling advertising revenue and circulation as readers get more news online for free.With a circulation of more than 582,000 copies, the Post is the fifth most read daily newspaper on weekdays, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It is the third most read Sunday paper, with paid circulation of more than 822,000 copies.

During the past four to five decades, it has made a franchise of covering national politics and government from the White House to Capitol Hill.Unlike other big national papers including News Corp’s (NWSA.O) Wall Street Journal, The New York Times (NYT.N) and Gannett’s (GCI.N) USA Today, it limits most of its distribution to the Washington metropolitan area.For a time, the Post and many U.S. newspapers relied on big profits at their parent companies to send reporters on coveted assignments overseas and throughout the United States.

More recently, it has been trying to cut costs as ad sales shrink. It also is facing more competition from new news outlets, most notably Politico.com, run by two former Washington Post reporters, and staffed by plenty of other ex-Post workers.Many U.S. newspapers from The Boston Globe to Tribune Co’s (TRBCQ.PK) Baltimore Sun have closed bureaus around the country and around the world as they try to save money. Many experts say newspapers have a better chance of surviving if they stop trying to cover the world and report more local news.

“We are not a national news organization of record serving a general audience. Nor are we a wire service or a cable channel,” Brauchli told the Post’s media columnist and reporter Howard Kurtz.While none of the Post’s six national reporters at those bureaus will be laid off, three news aides lost their jobs, the memo said.Still, Brauchli wrote, the Post will cover the nation.”We will continue to cover events around the country as we have for decades, by sending reporters into the field,” he wrote.(Reuters)