The sisal producer said it expected prices and sales to remain at "satisfactory levels" in the remainder of its financial year ending September.

It blamed rising costs at its Tanzanian estates for driving its cost of sales for the six months ended March to 667 million shillings from 637 million the year before.

Earnings per share dropped to 3.18 shillings from 3.47 shillings, it added.

"The continued unreliable grid power supply situation continues to contribute to higher energy costs as we are forced to use diesel generators for extended periods," the company said in a statement.

(Reuters) - GameStop Corp raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday after beating fourth-quarter estimates, counting on a boost from new gaming consoles due later this year and further growth in digital and mobile sales.

The videogame industry, which has struggled with declining sales as gamers migrate to mobile and social media platforms, is hoping for a strong finish to 2013 with the release of new titles like Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto V" and Electronic Arts Inc's "Battlefield 4."

New gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony Corp's Playstation4 are expected to launch in coming months. Investors hope the advent of new gaming hardware will give the video game industry a shot in the arm.

GameStop raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast to $2.90 to $3.15 per share, from $2.75 to $3.15 per share previously.

"The expectations are that we're going to have a tough first half until we see titles like Grand Theft Auto and new consoles," Chief Financial Officer Robert Lloyd told Reuters.

Sony Corp said in February it would release its next-generation PlayStation this year, its first videogame console in seven years. And on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, its first new gaming console in eight years, making its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media and video game content.

GameStop shares, which have risen about 46 percent in the last three months, were trading flat at $36.20 in the afternoon.

Analysts say there remained confusion over whether Microsoft planned to take a cut on revenue for used games played on the Xbox One, following news reports that suggested the software company may charge used-game users a fee.

"It appears that Microsoft will assign a unique ID to each game disk loaded onto the Xbox, which could require a second user to pay Microsoft a fee to access Xbox services," R. w. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note on Tuesday.

GameStop executives said they would wait for the software company to communicate that.

"The majority of how the stock is going to trade is going to be the market interpretation of how "Xbox One" is going to handle used-game sales," National Alliance Securities analyst Mike Hickey told Reuters.

Total U.S. sales of videogame hardware and software in April saw a 25 percent drop, following a downward trend that has continued month over month since last year, according to a report by market research firm NPD.

Quarterly profit of the world's largest video games retailer fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

The company, which said its year-to-date market share of PS3 and Xbox 360 software in the United States was 47.7 percent, reported first-quarter revenue of $1.87 billion. Mobile sales rose 290 percent to $46.8 million.

Analysts on average were expecting sales of $1.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly profit fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

For the second quarter, GameStop expects earnings of 1 cent per share to 7 cents per share. Analysts are expecting a profit of 8 cents per share.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Roshni Menon and Alden Bentley)

"Photograph," which will be released as an e-book on Apple's iBookstore on June 12, will coincide with a Grammy Museum exhibit on Starr, entitled "Ringo: Peace & Love," the book's publishers said on Wednesday.

A limited-edition hand-bound book signed by Starr will be available for purchase in December.

The book will include photographs from the musician's childhood in Liverpool, England, to his road to fame as part of the Fab Four, with Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison.

"These are shots that no one else could have," Starr, 72, said in a statement.

Highlights from the collection include behind-the-scenes candids of the Beatles in their daily lives and Starr's travel photography as the band toured the world.

Starr has also recorded videos featuring commentary to accompany the e-book.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

NBC and Notre Dame said the extension would begin in 2016 and run through the 2025 season. Terms were not disclosed, though the current five-year contract is reportedly worth an average of $15 million annually.

NBC will have global media rights on all platforms to a minimum of seven Notre Dame home football games each year, with most airing on NBC. The deal also allows for games to be carried on the NBC Sports Network cable channel.

NBC has held Notre Dame football TV rights since 1991.

"Coming off one of Notre Dame's best and most dramatic seasons in decades, we could not be more proud to extend this historic partnership, which continues to be one of the most innovative in sports-media history," NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus said. "We are particularly excited that this extension offers enhanced rights that allow us to bring Notre Dame football to fans on more platforms than ever before."

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the addition of the NBC Sports Network will allow for greater exposure for the football team and other Notre Dame sports programs.

"We look forward to collaborating on additional projects and distribution strategies in seasons to come," Swarbrick said in a statement.

David Bank, a New York-based equity research analyst who specializes in sports rights fees for RBC Capital Markets, said the new contract probably will generate "meaningfully more" revenue for Notre Dame than the previous deal. He said he couldn't estimate how much more.

College sports TV rights fees have been going up and will continue to do so with the start of the Fox Sports 1 cable network in August, Bank said. He said he wasn't surprised at the announcement of the NBC-Notre Dame extension.

"Fox Sports 1 has NBC Sports playing defense," Bank said. "It's imperative to lock down content that is left."

Notre Dame's football team finished the regular season 12-0 last season and lost to Alabama in the BCS championship game.According to NBC Sports Group, the Irish averaged 4.4 million viewers and a 2.8 household rating for its seven games on NBC in 2012. That marked a 69 percent increase in viewers and 67 percent increase in household rating compared with 2011.

Notre Dame plans to continue using revenue from the contract to fund the school's financial-aid endowment for the general student body, not including athletes. The school said that since 1991, about 6,300 undergraduates have received nearly $80 million in aid from revenue generated through the NBC contract.

Notre Dame also uses NBC revenues to endow doctoral fellowships in its graduate school and MBA scholarships in its Mendoza College of Business.

A federal jury reached the verdict in the case against real estate developer and once powerful lobbyist Harvey Whittemore.

The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on charges of making excessive campaign contributions, making contributions in the name of another and causing a false statement to be made to the Federal Election Commission.

Whittemore faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.

The jury was deadlocked on a fourth charge of making a false statement to the FBI.

U.S. District Court Judge Larry Hicks instructed the jurors to resume deliberating to try to reach a unanimous decision on the fourth charge. But when Hicks polled the jurors on whether they might come to an agreement on that charge, each indicated they didn't think it was possible.

Whittemore stood with arms behind his back and shook his head slightly after the verdicts were read.

Prosecutors said Whittemore gave nearly $150,000 to family members and employees in 2007 to make contributions he had promised to Reid while concealing himself as the true source to skirt campaign finance laws.

Defense attorneys argued Whittemore broke no laws by giving $5,000 checks as gifts to family members and as gifts or bonuses to 29 employees and their spouses, who then each wrote checks for the maximum allowable $4,600 to the Senate majority leader's campaign fund, Friends of Harry Reid.

Reid was not accused of any wrongdoing. He has said he was unaware of any potential problems with the money he received.

"I received $25 million. He raised $150,000," Reid previously told the Las Vegas Sun. "I had money coming in from other places."

During the trial, lawyers on both sides posed different versions of Whittemore's campaign finance saga to the jury, alluding to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the magical tale of the "Wizard of Oz" during closing arguments on Tuesday.

The defense acknowledged Whittemore suggested contributions be made to Reid, but made it clear it was voluntary and most importantly didn't try to cover up the political fundraising he had been doing for nearly three decades.

"Adam and Eve had a wonderful life, but when they do something wrong, they knew. Because when they did something wrong, they hid," Dominic Gentile, Whittemore's lead lawyer, said in his closing argument. "It's important to remember in this case because Harvey Whittemore did nothing to conceal, did nothing to hide."

Gentile said one of the prosecution's key pieces of evidence is a document pulled from Whittemore's files detailing the contributions he bundled and had shipped off to Reid in March 2007.

"If Harvey Whittemore is as smart and as clever as the government says, if he was a schemer, that folder would have been deep-sixed a long time ago," the lawyer said.

Defense witnesses testified that Whittemore, former chief of the Wingfield Nevada Group, was a man of integrity who was generous with his money and routinely gave large sums to charities.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre countered that the focus on Whittemore's character was a "smoke screen" reminiscent of the wizard in the 1939 motion picture who helped Dorothy and Toto find their way home from the Land of Oz.

"The witnesses honestly expressed their impressions, but they have not seen all the evidence," Myhre said. "They see one thing the facade on the wall and the smoke and mirrors, not the man behind the curtain with the levers funneling money into the Reid campaign."

Myhre said Whittemore used his power and well-connected friends to carry out his scheme but the paper trail of his financial transactions finally caught up with him.

"This is not the board room at Wingfield Nevada Group. It's not the cloakroom at the Nevada Legislature or the Verandah Room at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas," Myhre said.

"Out there money talks. Who your friends are matter. This is a courtroom. All that matters here is the evidence. The only thing that matters is the truth."

The jury deliberated for more than four hours on Tuesday and for most of the morning Wednesday before returning with its verdicts.

The FDA said on Monday it was taking a "fresh look" at the issue in response to the launch of a caffeinated gum, "and if necessary, will take appropriate action."

While the FDA did not name the gum in its statement, Wrigley launched the product this month. One piece of the gum contains 40 milligrams of caffeine, about as much as a half-cup of coffee, according to Wrigley, which is owned by privately held Mars Inc.

The company said it markets the gum as an energy product for adults aged 25 and older, and that it exceeds current regulatory requirements on labeling and disclosure. The gum has a more bitter taste that does not appeal to children, a higher price, and packaging that clearly separates it from other gums, she said.

"As the FDA refines its approach to caffeine, we welcome the opportunity to work with them on this important topic," a Wrigley spokeswoman said in an email.

The FDA seeks to protect consumers from unsafe foods. In addition to research and inspections, the agency has the power to recall and seize unsafe products and stop companies from producing them.

"The only time that FDA explicitly approved the added use of caffeine in a food was for cola and that was in the 1950s," Michael Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in a statement on its website on Monday.

"Today, the environment has changed. Children and adolescents may be exposed to caffeine beyond those foods in which caffeine is naturally found and beyond anything the FDA envisioned when it made the determination regarding caffeine in cola," he said.

Wrigley is not the first to market gum with energizing properties. Mondelez International Inc sells a line of Trident Vitality gums, with ingredients like ginseng, green tea and Vitamin C, and Stride Spark gum in "Kinetic Mint" and "Kinetic Fruit" flavors that have Vitamins B6 and B12 added.

A Mondelez spokesman said none of the company's gums contain caffeine.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago, Toni Clarke in Washington D.C. and Martinne Geller in New York; Editing by John Wallace and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Sales of the book, which sees the return of fictional symbologist Robert Langdon, have already reached the highest level of customer pre-orders at retailer Waterstones since the release of Harry Potter author JK Rowling's adult fiction "The Casual Vacancy" last year.

"We think it's going to be the fastest and biggest-selling book of the year because Dan Brown is in a league of his own," Waterstones spokesman Jon Howells told Reuters.

"The early word is that it's darker, which will whet the appetite for everyone because this is the fourth appearance of Robert Langdon and I think giving it that sort of twist, freshens it up for long-term readers," Howells added.

Brown, who is famous for his love of puzzling codes, conspiracies and other symbols, said the subject matter for the book was so vibrant and horrifying that it helped do a lot of the work for him.

"I'm not writing about the masons and ancient histories, which is kind of ethereal. I'm writing about Dante's vision of hell," he told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.

"It wasn't until the 1300s and this version of Inferno that it became terrifying. Dante has had enormous influence on the Christian view of hell."

The author, who said he tries not to read reviews of his books, also spoke of his unique way of dealing with writer's block, by suspending himself upside down to help get his creative juices flowing.

"It does help. You've just got to relax and let go. The more you do it the more you let go. And then soon it's just, wow," he said.

Brown's religion-themed mystery novel "The Da Vinci Code," was published in 2003 and was made into a hit film starring Tom Hanks. It spent more than a year atop the New York Times bestseller list.

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang, editing by Paul Casciato)

Carter was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2006. He started experiencing hand and eye tremors, which caused him to lose his ability to play the guitar. Doctors atperformed a deep brain-stimulation surgery, which involves implanting an electrode emitter to affected areas of Carter's brain. Surgeons had to awaken Carter during the surgery to make sure they were implanting the electrode emitter in the right part of his brain.

The surgery turned social when doctors in the operating room tweeted six-second Vine videos of the procedure. We watch as doctors prep his head. Once the electrodes were in place, Carter was able to write and hold a cup of water without shaking. He even sent a message to his family: "Hi mom. Hi dad. Hi Kristie."

As if by magic, Carter is also seen strumming the guitar and singing a song while doctors are still operating on him. His surgery was the 500th of its kind performed at a hospital. Doctors insist that placing the electrode emitters in Carter's brain is not a cure, but a way to control the patient's tremors and stiffness. Carter seems especially grateful to have music back in his life.

Thanks to the power of social media, now we all get to share in his experience, too.

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SYDNEY (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei index slid 3.0 percent in early trade on Monday, following on from a 3.5 percent slide last week in breath-taking volatility that no doubt left many investors shaken.

"Last week's shock will probably last throughout this week," said Kenichi Hirano, a strategist at Tachibana Securities. "But the Japanese market's fundamentals in the mid-to-long term have not changed, so there still is upside in the longer term."

Other Asian stock markets got off to a cautious start on Monday, having suffered their biggest weekly drop in around a year as investors fretted about the possibility of the Federal Reserve dialing down its stimulus program as well as a slowing Chinese economy.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged down 0.3 percent. It skidded 2.6 percent last week to one-month lows, posting its biggest fall since May 2012.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index slipped 0.5 percent, but South Korea's KOSPI managed to eke out a 0.1 percent gain.

"Markets are starting to price the removal of unprecedented policy stimulus provided by the Federal Reserve following the global financial crisis," analysts at Barclays Capital wrote in a note.

"Investors have faced this situation several times in recent years, but... the edginess of markets to ebbs and flows in the data and Fed communications in recent months suggests this time is different. Market movements are saying the Fed's exit is now more 'when' than 'if'."

Supporting the view that the Fed may soon scale down its massive stimulus program, data on Friday showed orders for US-made durable goods rose more than expected in April, a hopeful sign that a sharp slowdown in factory output could soon run its course.

That should be music to the ears of dollar bulls. Indeed, figures on Friday showed currency speculators increased bets in favor of the greenback to the highest since at least June 2008.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback's performance against a currency basket, hit a three-year high last week before succumbing to a bit of pressure. It was last down 0.1 percent at 83.633.

Much of the excitement in currency markets last week centered on the yen as turbulence in the Nikkei prompted investors to book profits on bearish yen positions.

That saw the dollar recoil from a 4-1/2 year high of 103.74 yen set on May 22. It was last down 0.1 percent at 101.13, not far off a two-week trough of 100.66 plumbed Friday.

Still, traders expect the yen's downtrend to remain intact after the Bank of Japan (BOJ) last month unleashed the world's most intense burst of stimulus.

On Sunday, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the bank will be vigilant to any signs of overheating of asset prices or excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, adding that there were no signs of that now.

Commodity markets were subdued with UK and U.S. financial markets closed on Monday for public holidays. There is also little in the way of major economic news due out of Asia.

(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo; Editing by Eric Meijer)

The advisory, posted on the city's website on Wednesday, covers much of the south and east of the city of 1.65 million.

The order followed reports of brown-tinged water in parts of the city, and Montreal Fire Department division chief Gordon Routley told CTV News that the advisory was likely to be in effect for at least 24 hours.

He said unsatisfactory tests at a filtration plant had prompted the advisory, but the problem appeared to be one of sediment in the water rather than bacterial contamination.

People should boil water for 60 seconds before drinking it, give bottled water to babies and children and throw out any water stored since last night, the city said.

Water is not safe to drink in parts of rural Canada, especially in remote aboriginal communities. But it is rare for a boil water advisory to be called in a big city like Montreal, the largest city in French-speaking Quebec.

(Reporting by Cameron French; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Cynthia Osterman)