On Monday, online gaming empire Zynga — maker of the puzzlingly popular FarmVille series — announced that it was slashing its workforce by 18 percent. That means 520 people are losing their jobs.

The layoffs are being cast as a necessary cost-cutting measure by the company, and will shrink Zynga's staff to pre-IPO numbers while saving about $70 million to $80 million per year, . As part of the downsizing initiative, Zynga's New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles offices are all shuttering.

Zynga — whose roster of games also includes Zynga Poker and Words With Friends — has struggled to prove that selling digital currency to millions of gamers accustomed to playing for free is a viable business. At the time of its initial public offering in late 2011, the company wasfrom both Wall Street and the media, earning Zynga an overall value of $9 billion.

Now a year-and-a-half later, the gaming titan is a shadow of its former self with a valuation of . Its stock plummeted another 12 percent after news of the staff cuts broke Monday before stabilizing... at least somewhat.

"None of us ever expected to face a day like today, especially when so much of our culture has been about growth," Zynga CEO Mark Pincus . "But I think we all know this is necessary to move forward."

The cuts caught most of the employees based outside of Zynga's San Francisco offices by "by complete surprise," . Just a few weeks ago, "it wasn't immediately obvious that Zynga's New York office was about to be terminated. At that time, Zynga New York was pitching new ideas for games and business was operating as usual."

Among the New York layoffs is the entirety of OMGPOP, the studio behind the hit iOS and Android game Draw Something. Zynga acquired the small studio .

— Ali Nicolas (@ali_nicolas)

Think of this as a "right-sizing" of Zynga, , "to reflect a more somber reality that these mobile businesses are not as large as its web-based one that rode the startup to glory on the explosive growth of social networks, primarily Facebook."

Zynga is reportedly "winnowing down its games pipeline to focus on churning out a lower number of high-quality games," . One of those high-quality titles, at least , taps the star power of Food Revolution host Jamie Oliver, who will "infuse his passion for sustainable, unprocessed, and fresh cuisine" into a game called . Inside, players "learn the importance of sustainability by growing fresh ingredients in recycled garden containers that they build from scratch using discarded materials like an old boot and broken pot."

Zynga isfor $3 a share.

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"Naturally, that will happen only if the regional powers show interest in our proposal and if the U.N. secretary-general asks us to do that," Putin said, adding that Ban Ki-moon had personally asked him to increase Russia's participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations during a visit to Russia last month.

Putin's offer was quickly turned down, however, by Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the U.N. peacekeeping department. She said that while the offer was appreciated, the disengagement agreement does not allow the participation of troops from a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

Austria announced Thursday that it is withdrawing 377 U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights after Syrian rebels briefly overran a crossing point near the border with Israel.

The United Nations is urgently looking for troops to replace the Austrians, who made up a sizeable portion of the 911-member peacekeeping force. The Philippines and India also contribute troops.

Israel has expressed concern about the security of the crossing point on the demilitarized area on the plateau that Israel captured from Syria in 1967.

The Kremlin said Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed Syria during a telephone conversation on Friday. No details were given.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke with Ban about Syria, including the escalation of tensions on the Golan Heights, the ministry said.

The U.N. Security Council planned to discuss the peacekeeping mission later Friday.

EU home affairs ministers said they plan to increase surveillance of social media, intensify cooperation with nations that border Syria like Turkey and urge the European Parliament to approve legislation to make suspicious travel to the region more traceable.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls says the number of EU citizens fighting abroad with potential links to terror groups "has never been seen at this scale." He said it by far outstripped recent wars and conflicts in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Sahel region.

Valls said a survey of the eight nations most concerned about citizens fighting with the opposition in Syria showed that some 500 had left for Syria, and said the total for the EU's 27 member nations would be higher than 600.

He refused to divulge specific numbers for other nations but said some 120 Frenchmen had already gone to Syria.

"In less than two years, the mass in Syria is bigger than that what we have known" in other recent conflicts combined, he said.

Even though the EU nations, like many of the fighters, oppose the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, there are fears many have joined extremist groups, sometimes with links to al-Qaida.

Once fully trained, radicalized or traumatized in the Syria conflict, these fighters could form an acute danger for their home nations upon their return. Valls' fears are shared by many countries, such as Britain, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and the Nordic nations.

"We will proceed with a package of measures," said Irish Interior Minister Alan Shatter.

When it comes to social media like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the nations want the Europol police agency to investigate radical sites that propagate violence and terror. They also want to cooperate with the United States in approaching the major Internet providers to see how they can take suspicious sites off the web and eliminate dangerous content.

Terror fears have increased recently after a British soldier was slain on a London street in broad daylight and a French soldier was stabbed while patrolling a crowded area just outside Paris, even though neither was linked to returning Syria fighters.

Anti-terror measures are still largely the domain of the individual EU nations but the ministers hope the EU can pool some resources to make them more effective.

Now they'll go head to head.

Both advanced to Friday's semifinals with victories in straight sets, finishing less than 10 minutes apart. Nadal drubbed Stanislas Wawrinka 6-2, 6-3, 6-1, and shortly thereafter Djokovic eliminated 35-year-old Tommy Haas 6-3, 7-6 (5), 7-5.

So much for the preliminaries to set up a much-anticipated rematch of last year's final, which Nadal won for a record seventh French Open title. He's bidding to become the first man to win eight titles at the same Grand Slam event.

Djokovic, ranked No. 1 and the owner of six Grand Slam titles, seeks the only major championship he has yet to win. With two more victories he would become the eighth man to complete a career Grand Slam.

The other semifinal pits Spaniard David Ferrer against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who's trying to become the first Frenchman in 30 years to win Roland Garros.

Advancing on the women's side were defending champion Maria Sharapova and two-time Australian Open winner Victoria Azarenka, and they'll meet Thursday. The other semifinal will match No. 1 Serena Williams against 2012 runner-up Sara Errani.

Nadal leads Djokovic 19-15 but lost their most recent meeting in the Monte Carlo final on clay in April. Nadal leads 6-3 in Grand Slam meetings.

Because Nadal's ranking slipped during a seven-month layoff because of a knee injury, he and Djokovic wound up in the same half of the draw. As a result, they'll meet before the final at a major event for the first time since 2008.

Both were near top form in the quarterfinals.

Djokovic wore down Haas, winning 40 of his first 43 service points. Haas found himself on the verge of pulling even at 5-all in the tiebreaker, but Djokovic smacked a backhand winner to end a 24-stroke rally longest of the match and won the next point as well for a two-set lead.

Djokovic reached his 12th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal. He improved to 33-4 this year.

Nadal, seeded No. 3, turned in his finest performance of the tournament yet. After dropping the first set in each of the first two rounds, he has won 12 sets in a row, looking better and better at Roland Garros, where he now is 57-1.

Nadal improved to 10-0 against Wawrinka and has won all 22 sets they've played.

Sharapova needed a comeback unlike any other in her career to reach the semifinals, rallying past Jelena Jankovic, 0-6, 6-4, 6-3. It was Sharapova's first win after losing an opening set 6-0.

The No. 2-seeded Sharapova earned her first French Open title a year ago to complete a career Grand Slam. She has won 12 matches in a row at Roland Garros, where her 42-9 record is the best among active women.

"Obviously it only gets tougher from here," Sharapova said, "but I'm really happy I'm at this stage again."

She's 5-7 against No. 3 Azarenka, who reached her first Roland Garros semifinal by beating Maria Kirilenko 7-6 (3), 6-2.

The warmest weather of the tournament greeted the last of the quarterfinalists, and Jankovic quickly had Sharapova sweating. In the first set the Russian repeatedly missed the lines by narrow margins or clipped the net cord, and the match was 35 minutes old before she won a game and only then because Jankovic double-faulted on break point.

Jankovic won 27 points in the first set, 20 on unforced errors by her opponent.

"I still felt like I was in the match," Sharapova said. "And I was."

She then began to find her range while hitting even harder than before, while Jankovic did her best to withstand the barrage. In contrast to Sharapova's metronomic shrieking, Jankovic went about her business in silence until she started muttering to herself as her lead disappeared.

"It was a big fight," Jankovic said. "It was great tennis out there. We battled."

Sharapova earned the first break of the final set to take her first lead at 4-3. Toward the end the rallies became longer, and she won the majority, often by hitting shots at improbable angles.

Twice Sharapova yanked lunging backhand returns cross-court for winners. She finished off another point with a forehand struck so violently her necklace flew into her face.

"It was certainly nice to change things around," Sharapova said, "because I wasn't doing much in the first six games."

When Jankovic's final shot sailed wide, Sharapova responded with a slack-jawed smile, as though she couldn't quite believe her comeback. She had dropped a first set 6-0 five other times in her career and went on to lose each match.

Sanchez emerged from the airport in the evening, hugged her husband and son and greeted about a dozen relatives and friends who were on hand.

"It has been a marvelous trip," she told reporters gathered at the terminal. "A trip that is going to change my life in many ways ... and I have returned with lots of projects."

Pleading exhaustion after a trans-oceanic flight capping a journey that lasted more than 100 days, she asked for time alone with her family and said she would speak more of her future plans after resting.

Sanchez has been on the road since Feb. 17, when she took advantage of a new reform ending a longtime requirement that all Cubans obtain permission to travel abroad. Under the old rules, government critics who are branded as "counterrevolutionary" sellouts were routinely denied exit visas.

Sanchez visited more than a dozen countries in Europe and the Americas and gave speeches criticizing President Raul Castro's Communist-led government. She also met with human rights activists and foreign lawmakers, and cultivated relationships with journalists at leading Western newspapers.

In the process she picked up more than 100,000 new Twitter followers to top the half-million mark.

She is less well-known at home, however. Of 20 Cubans surveyed informally by The Associated Press this week in Havana, just seven said they had heard her name, and several of those were unclear on exactly who she was. Only three were aware of her global tour.

Her challenge now is to try to change that.

Sanchez has said a main goal of the trip was to prepare herself to launch an independent online newspaper in Cuba, something will surely rankle local authorities.

The government, for its part, will be closely scrutinized abroad for how it treats her. At the same time, by allowing her to travel it has undercut accusations from foreign capitals and human rights groups that it essentially held its citizens hostage through the now-scrapped exit visa requirement.

A number of other dissidents have also tested authorities' patience since the January migration reform by going overseas and publicly bashing their government, and some have reported various levels of harassment upon their return.

Eliecer Avila said he was taken aside at the airport and subjected to an exhaustive search in which agents examined every item in his luggage and confiscated 26 books.

"They pulled me out of the line and had me in there for four hours and 15 minutes," Avila said. "They took pictures of everything."

Sanchez, however, said she sailed through immigration and customs.

Analysts say Sanchez's rising international fame likely insulates her physically from arrest. She has told people close to her she expects to be the target of less detention but more propaganda offensives by the government and its allies.

A twitter account with the handle Yohandry Fontana, which fiercely defends Castro's government and is harshly critical of Sanchez and other dissidents, went on the attack even before her plane was wheels-down.

"Today (is) the arrival of Yoani Sanchez to (hashtag)Cuba, the vacationer who received 90 days of training to topple the island's government," Fontana tweeted.

Earlier Thursday, Sanchez sent out a stream of messages recalling high- and lowlights of the tour, from hugging her sister in Florida and visiting the site of the fallen Berlin Wall to raucous protests by pro-Castro demonstrators who razzed her at several stops. She also thanked those who lent material and emotional support for the trip.

Before boarding her plane in Madrid, she posted a photo of herself at the airport lugging a small blue suitcase emblazoned with the logo of her Generation Y blog.

"Ready to leave for Cuba," she tweeted, accompanied by a smiley-face emoticon matching her own expression in the picture.

James, the NBA's reigning most valuable player, was fined along with David West and Lance Stephenson of the Indiana Pacers for exaggerating contact during Tuesday's Game Four of the best-of-seven series, which is tied at two games apiece.

With the intense series set to resume on Thursday in Miami, the league decided to crack down on the theatrics displayed in Game Four, where the players involved tried to trick referees into calling fouls off limited contact.

James and West were cited for flopping on the same play during Indiana's 99-92 home victory.

West, guarded by James, was backing in toward the basket in anticipation of receiving a pass when the nine-time Miami All Star spun and sprawled onto the floor as West stumbled awkwardly toward the baseline after minimal contact.

Stephenson earned his fine for exaggerating contact after a slight elbow push from Ray Allen following an Indiana basket.

The NBA instituted an anti-flopping policy this season to cut down on the practice. (Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Electronic publishing is allowing authors to be more creative and the best ones are successfully blending video and online content with traditional text, says cult writer Irvine Welsh.

The author of "Trainspotting" and "The Acid House", who has also written short stories and plays, said e-publishing meant writers had to work harder to grab readers' attention in an age when wireless devices are rapidly replacing paperback books.

Welsh, 54, said he struggled to combine marketing of his books with writing, but that a combination of the two was needed if writers were going to break into the e-book world while also writing for TV, movies and traditional readers.

"You can't just be into one thing, you have to be into TV adaptations, movie adaptations," Welsh, whose "Trainspotting" was turned into a hit movie by director Danny Boyle, told Reuters at a conference in Brussels on digital media trends.

"It will come out in book format, it will be shot and come out in film format, and at the same time it will come out in series format. And that will happen instantaneously."

The Scotsman, who burst onto the literary scene when "Trainspotting" was published in his mid-30s, heaped praise on fellow Scot Ewan Morrison, who has wooed the book world by including web links to short films as part of his novel "Tales from the Mall", which examines the seedy allure of capitalism.

Morrison had established an innovative niche between a book and a game, said Welsh, predicting that such a multimedia style would become common practice for tomorrow's e-book producers.

E-book sales have grown rapidly in recent years with the popularity of tablets and e-readers. Industry group BookStats reported that sales were up 44 percent in the United States during 2012, rising to a little over $3 billion.

Sales of regular books remain far larger and have also climbed, although far more slowly, gaining around 7 percent to $15 billion, thanks in large part to blockbusters such as "Fifty Shades of Grey", a book first published online.

CREATIVITY FIRST

In his latest novel, which is not yet named, Welsh explores the relationship between two women living in Miami, a personal trainer and an artist, who are obsessed with each other. The book is due out in April next year and a screenplay, currently under discussion, may follow in November.

"It's a very self-centered narcissistic process. That is why it runs the risk of being crap," said Welsh, acknowledging that a focus on female characters was a departure from his favored gritty, drug-addicted male protagonists.

"You can't really put strong women characters into that world because any strong woman would go nowhere near these guys," he said by way of explanation.

While Welsh is an advocate of digital publishing, his own works are more difficult to translate into e-book form as he frequently plays with font sizes and other techniques which digital readers cannot easily capture.

Whether traditional publishing or e-publishing is the way forward, one thing authors should rigidly adhere to is creative license, Welsh said. Some books start online, others are published traditionally. The only winning ingredient is originality and creativity.

"The success of self-publishing shows that publishers and agents and editors don't always know (what works)," he said.

(Reporting By Claire Davenport; editing by Luke Baker)

The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oregon seeks $30 million and several injunctions against the U.S. government concerning its treatment of citizens overseas.

Yonas Fikre said he was held for 106 days in the United Arab Emirates after refusing to cooperate with Portland, Ore.,-based FBI agents in an interview in Sudan. The State Department has confirmed previously that Fikre was held in Abu Dhabi "on unspecified charges," but said he was visited by State Department officials and showed no signs of mistreatment.

Fikre said the FBI agents named in the suit wanted him to become an informant at Portland's largest mosque, Masjid As-Saber, and were angered when he refused. He said interrogators in Abu Dhabi later used information Fikre had given to the FBI agents in his interrogation.

Fikre said he told his interrogators that many of their questions were the same ones he had been asked during his FBI interview.

"(Fikre) thus inquired whether his confinement and mistreatment was at the request of the FBI," according to the lawsuit. "On each such occasion, the interrogators responded by beating plaintiff severely."

Two other Oregon Muslims who worship at the mosque have also alleged they were held overseas and were asked to become informants by Portland-based FBI agents. Both men have returned to Oregon.

The mosque has come under scrutiny before. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali American convicted of plotting to set off a bomb in downtown Portland in 2010, occasionally worshipped there. A decade ago, seven Muslims with ties to the mosque were arrested following a failed effort to enter Afghanistan and fight U.S. forces.

Named in Fikre's suit are Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, FBI Director Robert Mueller, FBI Terrorism Screening Center director Timothy Healy and the two Portland-based agents, David Noordeloos and Jason Dundas.

Fikre, a Sudanese man of Eritrean descent, came to Portland in 2006 and worked for a cellphone company for a period. In 2009, he decided to open an electronics retail business in Sudan. His wife remained in Portland.

In April 2010, a man claiming to be a U.S. embassy official in Sudan asked Fikre to come to "a luncheon the following day in order to discuss how Americans might stay safe during a period of political turmoil in Sudan," according to the suit.

Instead, Fikre said he went through embassy security and was met by the FBI agents, Dundas and Noordeloos, in a small room. Fikre said he was denied representation by an attorney. He believed he was not permitted to leave, though he didn't actually try to stand and leave.

The suit includes a text copy of a letter that Fikre claims was sent to him by Noordeloos.

"While we hope to get your side of issues we keep hearing about, the choice is yours to make. The time to help yourself is now." The letter, as represented by Fikre, is signed "Dave Noordeloos."

Fikre believed he was being followed by Sudanese secret police, and acquaintances told him they had been questioned about his activities. He left Sudan in June 2010 and arrived in the United Arab Emirates in September 2010, where he obtained a residency permit.

Less than a year later, in June 2011, men "invaded" his house in Abu Dhabi, blindfolded him and took him to a windowless cell.

He was questioned for hours every day in English, only able to see the shoes and pants of his captors. The questions focused on who had a "jihad mentality" at the mosque, what its imam discussed in public and private and how the mosque conducted fundraising.

Attorney Tom Nelson, who filed the suit Thursday, said he learned of Fikre's detention in late June 2011 and contacted the offices of U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who passed on his concerns to the State Department.

In late July 2011, two months into his detention, Fikre said he was visited by a member of the State Department. Before the meeting, Fikre said he was instructed not to talk about his treatment to the visiting consular official, "lest he be beaten still more severely."

Despite efforts to alert the visiting State Department official Fikre said he used facial expressions, but they were either misunderstood or ignored Fikre said he remained imprisoned for another month.

His release came on Sept. 4, 2011. He had been placed on the U.S. no-fly list, and could not return to Oregon, so went instead to Sweden.

He gave a news conference on April 18, 2012, about his detention. On May 1, 2012, he was indicted in federal court in California for "conspiracy to structure" 2010 monetary transfers from his family to him in the United Arab Emirates money transfers the government says were set up to avoid U.S. reporting requirements.

Fikre believes the indictment was a response to his decision to go public.

___

Contact reporter Nigel Duara at https://twitter.com/nigelduara

The Parti Quebecois (PQ), which wants the resource-rich mainly French-speaking province to break away from Canada, vows to protect Quebec companies from takeovers and make foreign mining companies pay more in fees and royalties.

A CROP poll done for La Presse newspaper between May 15 and 20 found the PQ had the support of only 24 percent of voters, down from the 32 percent it won in last September's election.

The opposition Liberals - who governed Quebec for almost 10 years before losing the election - had 38 percent support, up from 31 percent in September. The right-leaning Coalition Avenir Quebec was on 22 percent, down from 27 percent.

The PQ holds only 54 of the 125 seats in the Quebec legislature and must rely on opposition support to push through legislation, meaning it has had to dilute its agenda and backtrack on some promises.

Earlier this month it laid out a new tax and royalty plan for the mining industry that was more moderate than it initially proposed.

The party has also shied away from campaign vows to abolish an unpopular health tax, curb admission to colleges for English-speaking students and freeze tuition fees for university students.

The PQ's lack of popularity strongly suggests the question of independence is off the agenda for now, especially since the party would need a majority in the legislature to act.

Previous PQ governments held referendums in 1980 and 1995 on whether to break away from Canada. Both failed. PQ hard-liners want another vote as soon as possible, but party leader Pauline Marois says she will wait until the moment is right.

The CROP Internet poll surveyed 1,000 adults.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway)

The U.S. health regulator raised questions about manufacturing and controls related to the drug's container in a complete response letter to the company.

Valeant said the FDA did not raise any questions regarding the efficacy or safety of the drug efinaconazole.

The company said it was working on a timely response to the FDA.

Onychomycosis causes nails to deform, discolor, thicken, become brittle and split and separate from the nail bed.

Quebec-based Valeant said on Monday it would buy Bausch & Lomb Holdings Inc from Warburg Pincus LLC for $8.7 billion, a deal set to vault the Canadian company into the upper ranks of the global pharmaceutical sector.

(Reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)