Yahoo battling 7 shareholder suits

Yahoo Inc. is facing seven shareholder lawsuits alleging the slumping Internet pioneer bungled its response to Microsoft Corp.'s unsolicited takeover bid.


The Sunnyvale-based company provided a breakdown of the suits in an annual report filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange. The documents didn't provide any new information about Yahoo's attempts to shoo away Microsoft, which is threatening to pursue a hostile takeover unless a friendly deal can be negotiated.

Yahoo's board believes Microsoft's offer, originally valued at $44.6 billion, is insufficient. Microsoft, though, has stood firm and is now preparing to overthrow Yahoo's 10-member board, which includes the company's co-founder and chief executive, Jerry Yang. Microsoft faces a March 14 deadline to nominate an alternate slate of directors.

The impasse has triggered four shareholder suits in California's Santa Clara County Superior Court. Three other complaints have been filed in Delaware by pension funds that own Yahoo's stock.

Five of the suits allege Yahoo's board breached its duty by spurning Microsoft without trying to negotiate a better deal, according to the annual report. The two other suits allege Yahoo unfairly favored Microsoft's "inadequate" bid even though the board eventually turned down the original cash-and-stock offer of $31 per share.

Because Microsoft's stock price has declined by 13 percent since the pursuit of Yahoo began, the bid is now worth $28.94 per share, or about $40 billion.

Since its Feb. 11 rebuff of Microsoft, Yahoo has been exploring other options that would provide its shareholders with a better payoff than Microsoft's proposed takeover.

The other possibilities have included combining forces with News Corp.'s online hangout MySpace.com, or forming an advertising alliance with Internet search leader Google Inc., whose success spurred Microsoft's takeover bid.

Most analysts still believe Microsoft will end up buying Yahoo.

While trying to escape Microsoft, Yahoo also has been laying off workers in an effort to boosts its sliding profits. The annual report didn't provide any further specifics about the purge, which began Feb. 11. Management has previously estimated Yahoo will eliminate 1,000 jobs, or about 7 percent of its work force.

Clinton raises $35 million in 1 month

Rebounding from weak fundraising in January, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to raise $35 million in February, a figure rival Sen. Barack Obama's campaign said it would surpass, a campaign official said Thursday.
The $35 million would be Clinton'sbiggest fundraising mark yet and represents a remarkable recovery for her campaign.

Obama's campaign reacted promptly, promising an even higher number, but divulging no totals.

"We've raised considerably more than that," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

That would make February an astounding fundraising month for the Democrats. At that rate, both candidates would break records for contestants in a primary fight.

Clinton has been struggling to recover from weak fundraising in January. She raised nearly $14 million in January to Obama's $36 million.

The Clinton official spoke on condition of anonymity because the figure was to be formally announced later in the day. The official said almost all the money raised in February was for the primary election. The campaign averaged about a $1 million a day online alone.

Despite her increased fundraising, Obama is still outspending her in the crucial March 4 primary states of Ohio and Texas. As of Tuesday, Obama had spent a total of $7.5 million in advertising in the two states. Clinton had spent $4.6 million.

Obama also was getting help from labor unions. The Service Employees International Union began spending $1.4 million in ads in support of Obama in Ohio and Texas. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union was spending nearly $200,000 in ads in Ohio.

Visa's IPO

Judging by the number of questions I'm getting about Visa, it's clear that many of you are interested in buying into the credit card processing company.

A past Ask Matt column, which you can read here, explains the all the background about the Visa IPO and puts it into perspective.

What some readers want to know, however, is how to keep up with developments on Visa's road to going public. The nitty-gritty details, such as the price per share and timing, are yet to be determined. But if you want to get the latest information, Visa has a Media Center, where it puts out details about the IPO. You can find it here.

You can also get the updates by reading the regulatory filings. You can access these, free, at www.sec.gov, which is the Securities and Exchange Commission's site. To make things easier for you, here's a link that takes to directly to the part of the SEC's website that contains information about Visa's IPO.


According to its latest 8K filing with the SEC, Visa is having a special shareholder meeting Feb. 7 to approve an increase in its total authorized capital stock by 360,000,000 shares of common stock in preparation for the IPO.

Keep checking the link and look for 8-K and S-1/a filings. They will contain the latest on Visa's IPO.

Visa IPO

Visa Inc. hopes to cash in on its massive credit and debit card network by raising up to $10 billion in what would be the second largest initial public offering of stock in U.S. history.

The San Francisco-based company disclosed its target amount late Friday in documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a significant step in a hotly anticipated IPO expected to take place early next year.

Visa didn't specify how much stock would be sold or at what price per share. A proposed ticker symbol wasn't listed either. All that information will emerge in future filings leading up to the IPO.


If Visa realizes its $10 billion goal, it would be raising the second most ever generated in an IPO by a U.S. company, according to data maintained by the research firm Renaissance Capital. AT&T Wireless Group raised $10.6 billion in an IPO completed in April 2000 near the height of the dot-com boom.

MasterCard Inc., Visa's next largest rival, went public 18 months ago, raising $2.4 billion in the 17th largest IPO in U.S history, according to Renaissance Capital. MasterCard's shares have climbed by nearly fivefold from their IPO price of $39, closing Friday at $193.

The demand for Visa's stock is expected to be high because the company's revenue figures to steadily grow as consumers increasingly pay for merchandise with credit or debit cards instead of checks or cash.

Visa's payment processing network is by far the largest in the United States. Last year, the company processed 44 billion transactions totaling $3.2 trillion, according to Friday's SEC filing. MasterCard processed 23.4 billion transactions totaling $1.9 trillion.

Visa makes most of its money from the fees it charges card issuers and merchants for using its network. During the first nine months of this year, the company earned $771 million on $3.7 billion in revenue.

Because it acts as an intermediary, Visa doesn't sustain losses when consumers don't repay the debts run up on credit cards bearing its brand. Those liabilities instead fall to the banks that issue the cards and set the terms of repayment.

Most of Visa's major stockholders are banks. They include: J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which owns 23.3 percent of the company's Class B Stock; Bank of America Corp., 11.5 percent; National City Corp., 8 percent; Citigroup Inc., 5.5 percent; U.S. Bancorp, 5.1 percent; and Wells Fargo & Co., 5.1 percent.

Besides being a major stockholder, J.P. Morgan also is Visa's largest customer. The New York-based company accounted for 10 percent of Visa's revenue during the first nine months of this year.

The SEC documents didn't indicate whether any of Visa's major stockholders intend to sell portions of their stakes in the company.

Visa's filing came just two days after the company rid itself of a potential albatross by agreeing to pay up to $2.25 billion to American Express Co. to settle a 3-year-old lawsuit alleging Visa engaged in illegal practices to stifle competition. Visa is responsible for $2.07 billion and another $185 million will be contributed by five member banks named in lawsuit, according to the SEC filing.

All the costs of the American Express settlement ultimately will be covered Visa's member banks.

Visa is still fighting a similar antitrust lawsuit filed by Discover Financial Services. That case is scheduled to go to trial next September.

The filing also disclosed that Visa has already paid its chief executive, Joseph Saunders, $10.2 million in bonuses this year on top of his annual salary of $950,000. Saunders, who was named CEO six months ago, has promised to remain on the job until May 15, 2009.

Ancient ceremonial plaza

LIMA, Peru - A team of German and Peruvian archaeologists say they have discovered the oldest known monument in Peru: a 5,500-year-old ceremonial plaza near Peru's north-central coast.


Carbon dating of material from the site revealed it was built between 3500 B.C. and 3000 B.C., Peter Fuchs, a German archaeologist who headed the excavation team, told The Associated Press by telephone Monday.

The discovery is further evidence that civilization thrived in Peru at the same time as it did in what is now the Middle East and South Asia, said Ruth Shady, a prominent Peruvian archaeologist who led the team that discovered the ancient city of Caral in 2001. Shady serves as a senior adviser to Peru's National Culture Institute and was not involved in the project.

The find also raises questions about what prompted "civilizations to form throughout the planet at more or less the same time," Shady said.

The circular, sunken plaza, built of stones and adobe, is part of the Sechin Bajo archaeological complex in Andes foothills, 206 miles northwest of Lima, where Fuchs and fellow German archaeologist Renate Patzschke have been working since 1992.

It predates similar monuments and plazas found in Caral, which nonetheless remains the oldest known city in the Americas dating back to 2627 B.C.

The plaza served as a social and ritual space where ancient peoples celebrated their "thoughts about the world, their place within it, and images of their world and themselves," Fuchs said.

In an adjacent structure, built around 1800 B.C., Fuchs' team uncovered a 3,600-year-old adobe frieze — six feet tall — depicting the iconic image of a human sacrificer "standing with open arms, holding a ritual knife in one hand and a human head in the other," Fuchs said.

The mythic image was also found in the celebrated Moche Lords of Sipan tombs, discovered on Peru's northern coast in the late 1980s.

Walter Alva, the Peruvian archaeologist who uncovered the Lords of Sipan tombs, said the plaza found in Fuchs' dig was probably utilized by an advanced civilization with economic stability, a necessary condition to construct such a ceremonial site.

The excavation was the fourth in a series of digs at the Sechin Bajo complex that Fuchs and Patzschke began on behalf of the University of Berlin in 1992. Deutsche Forschung Gemeinschaft, a German state agency created to sponsor scientific investigations, has financed the most recent three digs.

The find "shows the world that in America too, human beings of the New World had the same capacity to create civilization as those in the Old World," Shady said.

Her discovery, Caral, made headlines in 2001 when researchers carbon-dated material from the city back to 2627 B.C., proving that a complex urban center in the Americas thrived as a contemporary to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt — 1,500 years earlier than previously believed.

NASA Takes Aim at Moon with Double Sledgehammer

Scientists are priming two spacecraft to slam into the moon's South Pole to see if the lunar double whammy reveals hidden water ice.




The Earth-on-moon violence may raise eyebrows, but NASA's history shows that such missions can yield extremely useful scientific observations.

"I think that people are apprehensive about it because it seems violent or crude, but it's very economical," said Tony Colaprete, the principal investigator for the mission at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

NASA's previous Lunar Prospector mission detected large amounts of hydrogen at the moon's poles before crashing itself into a crater at the lunar South Pole. Now the much larger Lunar Crater and Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, set for a February 2009 moon crash, will take aim and discover whether some of that hydrogen is locked away in the form of frozen water.

LCROSS will piggyback on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission for an Oct. 28 launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket equipped with a Centaur upper stage. While the launch will ferry LRO to the moon in about four days, LCROSS is in for a three-month journey to reach its proper moon smashing position. Once within range, the Centaur upper stage doubles as the main 4,400 pound (2,000 kg) impactor spacecraft for LCROSS.

The smaller Shepherding Spacecraft will guide Centaur towards its target crater, before dropping back to watch - and later fly through - the plume of moon dust and debris kicked up by Centaur's impact. The shepherding vehicle is packed with a light photometer, a visible light camera and four infrared cameras to study the Centaur's lunar plume before it turns itself into a second impactor and strikes a different crater about four minutes later.

"This payload delivery represents a new way of doing business for the center and the agency in general," said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames, in a statement. "LCROSS primarily is using commercial-off-the-shelf instruments on this mission to meet the mission's accelerated development schedule and cost restraints."

Figuring out the final destinations for the $79 million LCROSS mission is "like trying to drive to San Francisco and not knowing where it is on the map," Colaprete said. He and other mission scientists hope to use observations from LRO and the Japanese Kaguya (Selene) lunar orbiter to map crater locations before LCROSS dives in.

"Nobody has ever been to the poles of the moon, and there are very unique craters - similar to Mercury - where sunlight doesn't reach the bottom," Colaprete said. Earth-based radar has also helped illuminate some permanently shadowed craters. By the time LCROSS arrives, it can zero in on its 19 mile (30 km) wide targets within 328 feet (100 meters).

Scientists want the impactor spacecraft to hit smooth, flat areas away from large rocks, which would ideally allow the impact plume to rise up out of the crater shadows into sunlight. That in turn lets LRO and Earth-based telescopes see the results.

"By understanding what's in these craters, we're examining a fossil record of the early solar system and would occurred at Earth 3 billion years ago," Colaprete said. LCROSS is currently aiming at target craters Faustini and Shoemaker, which Colaprete likened to "fantastic time capsules" at 3 billion and 3.5 billion years old.

LCROSS researchers anticipate a more than a 90 percent chance that the impactors will find some form of hydrogen at the poles. The off-chance exists that the impactors will hit a newer crater that lacks water - yet scientists can learn about the distribution of hydrogen either way.

"We take to the next step, whether it's rovers or more impactors," Colaprete said.

This comes as the latest mission to apply brute force to science.

The Deep Impact mission made history in 2005 by sending a probe crashing into comet Tempel 1. Besides Lunar Prospector's grazing strike on the moon in 1999, the European Space Agency's Smart-1 satellite dove more recently into the lunar surface in 2006.

LCROSS will take a much more head-on approach than either Lunar Prospector or Smart-1, slamming into the moon's craters at a steep angle while traveling with greater mass at 1.6 miles per second (2.5 km/s). The overall energy of the impact will equal 100 times that of Lunar Prospector and kick up 1,102 tons of debris and dust.

"It's a cost-effective, relatively low-risk way of doing initial exploration," Colaprete said, comparing the mission's approach to mountain prospectors who used crude sticks of dynamite to blow up gully walls and sift for gold. Scientists are discussing similar missions for exploring asteroids and planets such as Mars.

The European Union fined Microsoft a record $1.3 billion on Wednesday for charging rivals too much for software information.

EU regulators said the company charged "unreasonable prices" until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.

Microsoft immediately said that these fines were about past issues that have been resolved and the company was now working under new principles to make its products more open.

The fine is the largest ever for a single company and the first time the EU has penalized a business for failing to obey an antitrust order.

The penalty far outweighs a a March 2004 decision that fined Microsoft $613 million and ordered it to share communications information with rivals within 120 days, taking an appeal to an EU court that it lost last September.

The European Union alleged that Microsoft withheld crucial interoperability information for desktop PC software -- where it is the world's leading supplier -- to squeeze into a new market and damage rivals that make programs for workgroup servers that help office computers connect to each other and to printers and faxes.


The company delayed complying with the EU order for three years, the EU said, only making changes on October 22 to the patent licenses it charges companies that need data to help them make software that works with Microsoft.

Microsoft had initially set a royalty rate of 3.87 percent of a licensee's product revenues for patents and demanded that companies looking for communication information -- which it said was highly secret -- pay 2.98 percent of their products' revenues.

The EU complained last March that these rates were unfair. Under threat of fines, Microsoft two months later reduced the patent rate to 0.7 percent and the information license to 0.5 percent -- but only in Europe, leaving the worldwide rates unchanged.

The EU's Court of First Instance ruling that upheld regulators' views changed the company's mind again in October when it offered a new license for interoperability information for a flat fee of $14,000 and an optional worldwide patent license for a reduced royalty of 0.4 percent.

60 Minutes

60 Minutes is an investigative television newsmagazine on United States television, which has run on CBS News since 1968. The program was created by long time producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation. It has been among the top-rated TV programs for much of its life, and has garnered numerous awards over the years. It is considered by many to be the preeminent investigative television program in the United States. The fall of 2008 will see the program's 40th anniversary, and it currently holds the record for the longest running program of any genre scheduled during American network prime time; the longer-running Meet the Press has also aired in prime time, but not continually as 60 Minutes has done.


The inspiration of the show came from the controversial Canadian news program This Hour Has Seven Days, which ran from 1964 to 1966.

Initially, 60 Minutes aired as a bi-weekly show hosted by Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace, debuting on September 24, 1968 and alternating weeks with other CBS News productions on Tuesday evenings. Don Hewitt, who had been a producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, sought out Wallace as a stylistic contrast to Reasoner (Madsen, 14). According to one historian of the show, the idea of the format was to make the hosts the reporters, to always feature stories that were of national import but focused upon individuals involved with, or in conflict with, those issues, and to limit the reports' airtime to around thirteen minutes (Madsen 14). However, the initial season was troubled by lack of network confidence.

Morley Safer joined the team in 1970, and he took over the task of reporting less aggressive stories. However, when Richard Nixon began targeting press access and reporting, even Safer began to do "hard" investigative reports, and that year alone 60 Minutes reported on cluster bombs, the South Vietnamese Army, Canada's amnesty for American draft dodgers, Nigeria, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland (Madsen 15). In 1983, Safer's report, "Lenell Geter's in Jail," single-handedly freed from prison the Texan who was wrongly convicted of armed robbery, and is, to this day, one of the program's crowning achievements.

In 1971, the "Point/Counterpoint" segment was introduced, featuring James J. Kilpatrick and Nicholas von Hoffman (later Shana Alexander), a three-minute debate between spokespeople for the political right and left, respectively. This segment pioneered a format that would later be adapted by CNN for its Crossfire show. This ran until 1979, when Andy Rooney, whose commentaries were already alternating with the debate segment since the fall of 1978, replaced it; Rooney remains with the program today.

By 1971, the FCC introduced the Prime Time Access Rule, which freed local network affiliates in the top 50 markets (in practice, the entire network) to take a half hour of prime time from the networks on Mondays through Saturdays and one full hour on Sundays. Because nearly all affiliates found production costs for the FCC's intended goal of increased public affairs programming very high and the ratings (thus advertising revenues) low, making it mostly unprofitable, the FCC created an exception for network-authored news and public affairs. After a six-month hiatus in late 1971, CBS thus found a prime place for 60 Minutes in a portion of that displaced time, 6-7 p.m. (Eastern time) on Sundays, in January 1972 (Madsen 15).

This proved somewhat less than satisfactory, however, as, especially during the fall when CBS broadcast late National Football League games, 60 Minutes got preempted fairly frequently; football telecasts were protected contractually from interruptions in the wake of the infamous "Heidi Game" incident on NBC in November 1968. Other sporting events such as golf tournaments occasionally caused this problem also. Nonetheless, the program's hard-hitting reports attracted a steadily growing audience, particularly during the waning days of the Vietnam War and the gripping events of the Watergate scandal; at that time, few if any other major-network news shows did in-depth investigative reporting to the degree carried out by 60 Minutes. Eventually, during the summers of 1973 through 1975, CBS did allow the show back onto the prime time schedule proper, on Fridays in 1973 and Sundays the two years thereafter.

It was only when the FCC returned an hour to the networks on Sundays (for children's/family or news programming), taken away from them four years earlier, in a 1975 amendment to the Access Rule that CBS finally found a viable permanent timeslot for 60 Minutes. When a family-oriented drama, Three for the Road, ended after a 13-week run in the fall, the newsmagazine took its place at 7/6 p.m. in December. It has aired at that time since, for over 32 years, making 60 Minutes not only the longest-running prime time program currently in production, but also the television program broadcasting for the longest length of time at a single time period each week in U.S. television history.

This move made the program into a strong ratings hit and, eventually, a general cultural phenomenon. Within the first season, 60 Minutes became the top-rated show on Sunday nights in the U.S. By 1979, it had achieved the number-one Nielsen rating for all television programs. This success translated into great profits for CBS; advertising rates went from $17,000 per thirty seconds in 1975 to $175,000 in 1982 (Madsen 17).

In 1979, Channel 9 in Australia licensed a spin-off of 60 Minutes, complete with ticking clock and format, and, later, New Zealand followed suit with its own 60 Minutes.

At 88 years old, Mike Wallace is not only the oldest television personality today (being four months older than Helen Wagner), but one who has lasted the longest with one news show continuously, having been a part of 60 Minutes since its inception in 1968. On March 14, 2006, Wallace announced his retirement from 60 Minutes after 37 years with the program. He continues to work for CBS News as a "Correspondent Emeritus".

As of 2008, 60 Minutes is the only regularly scheduled television program in American television history not to have used any type of theme music. The only theme sound is from the signature Aristo stopwatch in the opening title credits, before each commercial break, and at the tail-end of the closing credits.

60 Minutes is also aired via CBS Radio on several of their radio stations at the same time as the television broadcast, such as WCBS-AM, KNX, WBBM-AM, WWJ, and several other stations across the country owned by CBS. An audio version of the full show is also distributed via podcast and the iTunes Store, beginning with the September 23, 2007 progam .

Inflation And Investments

When it comes to inflation, the question on many investors' minds is: "How will it affect my investments?" This is an especially important issue for people living on a fixed income, such as retirees.


The impact of inflation on your portfolio depends on the type of securities you hold. If you invest only in stocks, worrying about inflation shouldn't keep you up at night. Over the long run, a company's revenue and earnings should increase at the same pace as inflation. The exception to this is stagflation. The combination of a bad economy with an increase in costs is bad for stocks. Also, a company is in the same situation as a normal consumer - the more cash it carries, the more its purchasing power decreases with increases in inflation.

The main problem with stocks and inflation is that a company's returns tend to be overstated. In times of high inflation, a company may look like it's prospering, when really inflation is the reason behind the growth. When analyzing financial statements, it's also important to remember that inflation can wreak havoc on earnings depending on what technique the company is using to value inventory.

Fixed-income investors are the hardest hit by inflation. Suppose that a year ago you invested $1,000 in a Treasury bill with a 10% yield. Now that you are about to collect the $1,100 owed to you, is your $100 (10%) return real? Of course not! Assuming inflation was positive for the year, your purchasing power has fallen and, therefore, so has your real return. We have to take into account the chunk inflation has taken out of your return. If inflation was 4%, then your return is really 6%.

This example highlights the difference between nominal interest rates and real interest rates. The nominal interest rate is the growth rate of your money, while the real interest rate is the growth of your purchasing power. In other words, the real rate of interest is the nominal rate reduced by the rate of inflation. In our example, the nominal rate is 10% and the real rate is 6% (10% - 4% = 6%).

As an investor, you must look at your real rate of return. Unfortunately, investors often look only at the nominal return and forget about their purchasing power altogether.

Inflation: Introduction

During World War II, you could buy a loaf of bread for $0.15, a new car for less than $1,000 and an average house for around $5,000. In the twenty-first century, bread, cars, houses and just about everything else cost more. A lot more. Clearly, we've experienced a significant amount of inflation over the last 60 years.


When inflation surged to double-digit levels in the mid- to late-1970s, Americans declared it public enemy No.1. Since then, public anxiety has abated along with inflation, but people remain fearful of inflation, even at the minimal levels we've seen over the past few years. Although it's common knowledge that prices go up over time, the general population doesn't understand the forces behind inflation.

What causes inflation? How does it affect your standard of living? This tutorial will shed some light on these questions and consider other aspects of inflation.

What Is Inflation?

Inflation is defined as a sustained increase in the general level of prices for goods and services. It is measured as an annual percentage increase. As inflation rises, every dollar you own buys a smaller percentage of a good or service.


The value of a dollar does not stay constant when there is inflation. The value of a dollar is observed in terms of purchasing power, which is the real, tangible goods that money can buy. When inflation goes up, there is a decline in the purchasing power of money. For example, if the inflation rate is 2% annually, then theoretically a $1 pack of gum will cost $1.02 in a year. After inflation, your dollar can't buy the same goods it could beforehand.

There are several variations on inflation:
Deflation is when the general level of prices is falling. This is the opposite of inflation.
Hyperinflation is unusually rapid inflation. In extreme cases, this can lead to the breakdown of a nation's monetary system. One of the most notable examples of hyperinflation occurred in Germany in 1923, when prices rose 2,500% in one month!
Stagflation is the combination of high unemployment and economic stagnation with inflation. This happened in industrialized countries during the 1970s, when a bad economy was combined with OPEC raising oil prices.

In recent years, most developed countries have attempted to sustain an inflation rate of 2-3%.

Causes of Inflation

Economists wake up in the morning hoping for a chance to debate the causes of inflation. There is no one cause that's universally agreed upon, but at least two theories are generally accepted:

Demand-Pull Inflation - This theory can be summarized as "too much money chasing too few goods". In other words, if demand is growing faster than supply, prices will increase. This usually occurs in growing economies.

Cost-Push Inflation - When companies' costs go up, they need to increase prices to maintain their profit margins. Increased costs can include things such as wages, taxes, or increased costs of imports.

Costs of Inflation
Almost everyone thinks inflation is evil, but it isn't necessarily so. Inflation affects different people in different ways. It also depends on whether inflation is anticipated or unanticipated. If the inflation rate corresponds to what the majority of people are expecting (anticipated inflation), then we can compensate and the cost isn't high. For example, banks can vary their interest rates and workers can negotiate contracts that include automatic wage hikes as the price level goes up.

Problems arise when there is unanticipated inflation:
Creditors lose and debtors gain if the lender does not anticipate inflation correctly. For those who borrow, this is similar to getting an interest-free loan.
Uncertainty about what will happen next makes corporations and consumers less likely to spend. This hurts economic output in the long run.
People living off a fixed-income, such as retirees, see a decline in their purchasing power and, consequently, their standard of living.
The entire economy must absorb repricing costs ("menu costs") as price lists, labels, menus and more have to be updated.
If the inflation rate is greater than that of other countries, domestic products become less competitive.

Fine for Microsoft

The European Union is fining Microsoft Corp. $1.3 billion for charging rivals too much for software information.


EU regulators say the company charged "unreasonable prices" to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows operating system. The fine is the largest ever for a single company and the first time the EU has penalized a business for failing to obey an antitrust order.

Inflation

Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in a given economy over a period of time. It may also refer to the rise in the prices of some more specific set of goods or services. In either case, it is measured as the percentage rate of change of a price index.

Mainstream economists overwhelmingly agree that high rates of inflation are caused by high rates of growth of the money supply. Views on the factors that determine moderate rates of inflation, especially in the short run, are more varied: changes in inflation are sometimes attributed mostly to changes in real demand for goods and services or fluctuations in available supplies (i.e. changes in scarcity), and sometimes to changes in the supply or demand for money. In the mid-twentieth century, two camps disagreed strongly on the main causes of inflation (at moderate rates): the "monetarists" argued that money supply dominated all other factors in determining inflation, while "Keynesians" argued that real demand was often more important than changes in the money supply.

A variety of inflation measures are in use, because there are many different price indices, designed to measure different sets of prices that affect different people. Two widely known indices for which inflation rates are commonly reported are the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures nominal consumer prices, and the GDP deflator, which measures the nominal prices of goods and services produced by a given country or region.

Related economic concepts include: deflation, a general falling level of prices; disinflation, a decrease in the rate of inflation; hyperinflation, an out-of-control inflationary spiral; stagflation, a combination of inflation and rising unemployment; and reflation, which is an attempt to raise prices to counteract deflationary pressures.

In classical political economy, inflation meant increasing the money supply, while deflation meant decreasing it. Economists from some schools of economic thought still retain this usage. In contemporary economic terminology, these would usually be referred to as expansionary and contractionary monetary policies.

T.R. Knight

Theodore Raymond “T.R.” Knight (born March 26, 1973) is an Emmy Award-nominated and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning American actor. Knight's most high-profile role to date is his current role as Dr. George O'Malley on ABC's top-rated, hit medical drama Grey's Anatomy.

Knight was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he became involved with the Guthrie Theater at the age of five. After finishing high school at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Knight enrolled at the University of Minnesota for a brief period of time. He dropped out and soon landed leading roles at the Guthrie Theater.

Knight moved to New York City and has appeared on Broadway; his most notable role was playing opposite Patti LuPone in the 2001 revival of Noises Off. Knight's most recent stage appearance was in the 2004 drama, Boy. He also gained notice performing in 2003 as Damis in Tartuffe and received a Drama Desk Award nomination in 2003 for his role in the off-Broadway production of Scattergood.

On television, Knight was a regular cast member of the short-lived Nathan Lane series, Charlie Lawrence, with Laurie Metcalf. In 2005, he was cast as the sweet, bumbling intern George O'Malley on the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy. His role earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series in 2007.

Rumors over Knight's sexuality gained momentum when news reports surfaced in October 2006 that Grey's Anatomy co-stars Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington were involved in an argument during which, Knight and others allege, Washington used an anti-gay slur directed at an unnamed co-star. Washington later apologized, stating "I sincerely regret my actions and the unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set".

Knight, who is gay, did not disclose his sexuality to the public until October 19, 2006 — after the scuffle — when he released a statement through People magazine stating, in part, “I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I'd like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me.”

The controversy over the verbal exchange gained additional momentum on January 15, 2007 immediately following the Golden Globe Awards. When asked by E! Online reporter Ted Casablanca about the incident, Washington said, "I never called T.R. a faggot. It never happened."

Knight appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on January 17, 2007 and stated that Washington in fact had referred to him as a faggot on the Grey's Anatomy set on October 9, 2006.[4]

In June 2007, Knight's role was secured for an additional season of Grey's Anatomy, while Isaiah Washington's contract was not renewed.

T. R. Knight is inside People's Top 50 Sexiest Man Alive of 2007.

"Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic

One thing Microsoft founder Bill Gates can’t be accused of is sloth. He was already programming at 14, founded Microsoft at age 20 while still a student at Harvard. By 1995 he had been listed by Forbes as the world’s richest man from being the largest shareholder in his Microsoft, a company which his relentless drive built into a de facto monopoly in software systems for personal computers.

In 2006 when most people in such a situation might think of retiring to a quiet Pacific island, Bill Gates decided to devote his energies to his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest ‘transparent’ private foundation as it says, with a whopping $34.6 billion endowment and a legal necessity to spend $1.5 billion a year on charitable projects around the world to maintain its tax free charitable status. A gift from friend and business associate, mega-investor Warren Buffett in 2006, of some $30 billion worth of shares in Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway put the Gates’ foundation into the league where it spends almost the amount of the entire annual budget of the United Nations’ World Health Organization.

So when Bill Gates decides through the Gates Foundation to invest some $30 million of their hard earned money in a project, it is worth looking at.

No project is more interesting at the moment than a curious project in one of the world’s most remote spots, Svalbard. Bill Gates is investing millions in a seed bank on the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean, some 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole. Svalbard is a barren piece of rock claimed by Norway and ceded in 1925 by international treaty.

On this God-forsaken island Bill Gates is investing tens of his millions along with the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto Corporation, Syngenta Foundation and the Government of Norway, among others, in what is called the ‘doomsday seed bank.’ Officially the project is named the Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard island group.


Doomsday Seed Vault


The seed bank is being built inside a mountain on Spitsbergen Island near the small village of Longyearbyen. It’s almost ready for ‘business’ according to their releases. The bank will have dual blast-proof doors with motion sensors, two airlocks, and walls of steel-reinforced concrete one meter thick. It will contain up to three million different varieties of seeds from the entire world, ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future,’ according to the Norwegian government. Seeds will be specially wrapped to exclude moisture. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault's relative inaccessibility will facilitate monitoring any possible human activity.

Did we miss something here? Their press release stated, ‘so that crop diversity can be conserved for the future.’ What future do the seed bank’s sponsors foresee, that would threaten the global availability of current seeds, almost all of which are already well protected in designated seed banks around the world?

Anytime Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto and Syngenta get together on a common project, it’s worth digging a bit deeper behind the rocks on Spitsbergen. When we do we find some fascinating things.

The first notable point is who is sponsoring the doomsday seed vault. Here joining the Norwegians are, as noted, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the US agribusiness giant DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, one of the world’s largest owners of patented genetically-modified (GMO) plant seeds and related agrichemicals; Syngenta, the Swiss-based major GMO seed and agrichemicals company through its Syngenta Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation, the private group who created the “gene revolution with over $100 million of seed money since the 1970’s; CGIAR, the global network created by the Rockefeller Foundation to promote its ideal of genetic purity through agriculture change.

Pakistan lifts curbs on YouTube

 Pakistan's telecoms regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on the YouTube Web site that led to the knocking out of access to the popular video-sharing site in many other countries for a few hours over the weekend.


The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 domestic Internet service providers to restore access to the site after removal of what government officials had deemed a "blasphemous" video clip.

Pakistan ordered YouTube blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence. As a result, most of the world's Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours on Sunday.

An Internet expert said Sunday's problems came after a Pakistani telecommunications company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos to a "black hole." So instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

The problem was that the company also accidentally identified itself to Internet computers as the world's fastest route to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc. That led requests from across the Internet to the black hole.

The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet's vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

Mars News and Facts About Mars

Crusty, dusty and rusty describes the Mars of today.

Surface features of the Red Planet, however, hint at a watery past where torrents of groundwater carved out deep canyons, formed sweeping fans of sediment and cemented together huge fault lines.

"Groundwater probably played a major role in shaping many of the things we see on the Martian surface," said George Postma, a sedimentologist at UtrechtUniversity in the Netherlands.

Postma collaborated with Virginia Tech's Erin Kraal and others to recreate Mars' fan-like sediment deposits with a scale model. The group detailed their findings in a recent issue of the journal Nature.

A separate new study by Allan Treiman, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, details the role of groundwater in depositing minerals in rocky Martian crevices.

Rapid release


Scientists think a massive ocean once covered one-third of Mars, and recent photographs suggest that pockets of water may still be hidden beneath the planet's surface. Water is crucial for life as we know it, so signs of underground water now — and more extensive amounts of water in the past — both suggest Mars was or might still be habitable, at least to microorganisms.

Postma said such reservoirs of water probably carved out canyons, rapidly depositing step-like layers of sediment in Martian impact craters across the planet.

"When we examined photographs of Mars, we saw that some deltas had steps of material," Postma told SPACE.com. He noted that such formations are seen on Earth only where water rapidly deposits delta sediment, such as parts of the Sahara Desert's Lake Chad.

"Based on our models, these structures might have been caused by catastrophic events that filled the craters in one go," he said. Instead of taking millions of years to form, Postma said the fans probably formed in decades.

Ancient torrents of water spilling out of Martian ground with the output of the Mississippi River, for example, could have formed some of the dozen step-like sediment fans the researchers observed in about 13 years.

"Another puzzling feature is that you don't see a drainage network along the crater's side," Postma said — yet another clue that fans' formations were rapid and not the product of rainy runoff. "Craters are thought to be very porous, so the water can sink through. Another possibility is that the water just evaporated into the Martian atmosphere."

Mineral cement


In Valles Marineris, where about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) of 6-mile-deep (10-kilometers) chasms dwarfing the Grand Canyon stretch over Mars, Treiman thinks he has located more evidence of groundwater at work.

"Groundwater is a crucial reservoir in Mars's global water cycle and plays an important role in ... alteration of bedrock," Treiman writes in his study, detailed yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The Valles Marineris canyons formed when massive slabs of rock both lifted up and sunk, creating fault lines in the process. Spacecraft imagery of the landscape shows the crevices as ridges, which Treiman thinks were filled with mineral-rich groundwater between 3.5 billion and 1.8 billion years ago.

"This interpretation implies that liquid water was stable at or near Mars's surface when the fault zones were cemented," Treiman said, noting that only a "warm wet" climate on Mars could have made the deposits possible.

"The presence of liquid water is important in current ideas of Mars's history," Treiman said, "and central to Mars's potential for life."

Arctic Seed Vault

Saving Seeds at Svalbard

The Seed Vault has a capacity of 4.5 million seed samples, equivalent to about 2 billion seeds. Samples eligible for conservation at Svalbard must already be housed in two conventional long-term genebanks elsewhere, in keeping with current international standards. The facility will start with a collection from the CGIAR and certain key national genebanks. As the collection expands, the focus will be on safeguarding as much of the world’s unique genetic material as possible and avoiding duplication.

Seed would be stored under what is known as “black box” arrangements, meaning that seed packages and boxes sent for storage would not be opened. The responsibility for testing material or for subsequent regeneration and multiplication will remain with the genebanks sending their seeds to Svalbard. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will not operate like a regular genebank, making material available to breeders, and in fact samples held in “black boxes” will only be released in the event that all other seed sources have been destroyed or exhausted.

Packaging, shipment and information management



Genebanks sending seed would be required to place the seed in specified, standard-size foil packages inside a standard-size box.

The Trust expects to provide support for the ongoing operations of the Seed Vault, and to provide funding for the preparation and shipment of seeds from developing countries to the facility. Provision of assistance from the Trust would only be granted for those collections that satisfy the Trust’s normal funding criteria, and relevant policies established by the Seed Vault.

The Nordic Gene Bank will establish and maintain a public on-line database of samples stored in Svalbard. In addition, a hardcopy would be kept inside each box in the facility. All records would indicate both a Svalbard and a depositor identification number. Depositors of seed will provide a complete electronic inventory of the samples with generally recognized passport, characterization, and evaluation data when available.

Arctic Seed Vault

The Structure
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the ultimate protection for the world’s agricultural biodiversity, and will therefore be built to stand the test of time. Put simply, a tunnel will be excavated in the side of a mountain. The facility will have one entrance and a robust security door and airlock will separate the entrance area from the seed vault itself.

In order to maintain the temperature at a constant -10°C to -20°C, the cold Arctic air will be drawn into the vault during the winter, automatically and without human intervention. The surrounding rock will maintain the temperature requirements during the extremely cold season and during warmer periods refrigeration equipment will engage. However, in the event of an equipment failure, temperatures in the vault would not rise above approximately -3.5°C, and would, in fact, take months to warm even to that level which would be perfectly adequate for seed conservation for some years. The inside of the seed storage vault will be lined with insulated panels (in addition to the thick concrete wall) to help maintain the cold temperatures. Electronic transmitters linked to a satellite system will monitor temperature, etc., and send this information back to the appropriate authorities at Longyearbyen and at the Nordic Gene Bank, which will provide the technical expertise for managing the Seed Vault.

The remote location, as well as the rugged structure, provide unparalleled security for the world’s agricultural heritage, and the facility will also be equipped with motion detectors and possibly even CCTV. The presence of polar bears, which prowl the area, may be seen by some as providing an added layer of security.

The Seed Vault, with its combination of natural and mechanical cooling systems and remote location, is designed to provide a service that no genebank or even consortium of genebanks can offer, and which will function effectively centuries into the future.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Svalbard Global Seed Vault is being established on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen (population 1900) in the remote arctic Svalbard archipelago. The island is about 1120 km from the north pole.

The Seed Vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic Gene Bank (a cooperative effort of the Nordic countries under the Nordic Council of Ministers). The Norwegian government has funded all of the approximately $8 million construction cost. The Global Crop Diversity Trust has played a key role in the planning of the Seed Vault and is coordinating shipments of seed samples to the Vault in conjunction with the Nordic Gene Bank. The Trust will provide most of the annual operating costs for the facility, and has set aside endowment funds to do so, while the Norwegian government will finance upkeep of the structure itself. The Gates Foundation has provided approximately $750,000 to assist developing countries and international agricultural research centers to package and ship seeds to the Seed Vault. An International Advisory Council is being established to provide guidance and advice. It will include representatives from FAO, the CGIAR, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources and other institutions.

The prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland participated in a ceremonial "laying of the first stone" on 19 June 2006.

The seedbank is being constructed 393 feet inside a sandstone mountain at Svalbard on Spitsbergen Island.[2] The bank will employ a number of robust security systems. Seeds will be packaged in special 4-ply packets and heat sealed to exclude moisture. The facility will be managed by the Nordic Gene Bank, though there will be no permanent staff on-site. Spitsbergen was considered ideal due to its lack of tectonic activity and its permafrost, which will aid preservation. The location 426 feet above sea level will ensure that the site remains dry even if the icecaps melt.Locally mined coal will provide power for refrigeration units which will further cool the seeds to the internationally-recommended standard −20 to −30 C. Even if the equipment fails, at least several weeks will elapse before the temperature rises to the −3 C of the surrounding sandstone bedrock. Prior to construction, a feasibility study determined that the vault could preserve seeds from most major food crops for hundreds of years. Some seeds, including those of important grains, could survive far longer, possibly thousands of years.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault will open officially on 26 February 2008. Approximately 1.5 million distinct seed samples of agricultural crops are thought to exist. The variety and volume of seeds stored will depend on the number of countries participating. But the facility has a capacity to conserve 4.5 million. The first seeds arrived in January 2008.


The Svalbard Global Seed Vault's mission is to provide a safety net against accident loss of diversity in traditional genebanks. While the popular press has emphasized its possible utility in the event of a major regional or global catastrophe, it will certainly be more frequently accessed when genebanks lose samples due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts and natural disasters. Such events occur with some regularity. In recent years, some national genebanks have also been destroyed by war and civil strife. There are some 1400 crop diversity collections around the world, but many are in politically unstable or environmentally threatened nations.

The Nordic Gene Bank has stored a backup of Nordic plant germplasm as frozen seeds at Svalbard since 1984 in an abandoned coal mine. The Nordic Gene Bank (NGB) has deposited more than 10 000 seed samples of more than 2 000 cultivars of 300 different species over the years. In addition, seed samples from southern Africa (SADC) have been safety duplicated with the Nordic collection for some years. Both the Nordic and African collections will be transfered to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault when it opens.

Pakistan Election News

Future of the president, a U.S. ally, in question after parliamentary results.

conceded defeat Tuesday after opposition parties routed allies of President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections that could threaten the rule of America’s close ally in the war on terror.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told AP Television News that “we accept the results with an open heart” and “will sit on opposition benches” in the new parliament.”

“All the King’s men, gone!” proclaimed a banner headline in the Daily Times. “Heavyweights knocked out,” read the Dawn newspaper.

The results cast doubt on the political future of Musharraf, who was re-elected to a five year term last October in a controversial parliamentary ballot.

With the support of smaller groups and independent candidates, the opposition could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf, who has angered many Pakistanis by allying the country with Washington in 2001 to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Final results were not expected before Tuesday evening, but the election’s outcome appeared to be a stinging public verdict on Musharraf’s rule after his popularity plummeted following his decisions late last year to impose emergency rule, purge the judiciary, jail political opponents and curtail press freedoms.

The private Geo TV network said the party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and another group led by ex-premier Nawaz Sharif had so far won 149 seats, more than half of the 272-seat National Assembly.

The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q party was a distant third with 33 seats. A ream of party stalwarts and former Cabinet ministers lost in their constituencies.

Musharraf has promised to work with whatever government emerges from the election. But the former general is hugely unpopular among the public and opposition parties that have been catapulted into power are likely to find little reason to work with him — particularly since he no longer controls the powerful army.


Sharif has been especially outspoken in demanding that Musharraf be removed and that the Supreme Court justices whom the president sacked late last year be returned to their posts. Those judges were fired as they prepared to rule on whether Musharraf’s re-election last October was constitutional.

If the opposition falls short of enough votes to remove Musharraf, the new government could reinstate the Supreme Court justices and ask them to declare the October election invalid.

The spokesman for Sharif’s party, Sadiq ul-Farooq, told reporters Tuesday that Musharraf “should go.” But he added that if the restored justices validate Musharraf’s October election to a new term, the opposition would accept the decision.

“We want to put Pakistan back on the track of democracy, constitution and rule of law, and the restoration of sacked judges is a must to achieve this goal,” he said.

Diminished powers
Musharraf, at best, faces the prospect of remaining in power with sharply diminished powers and facing a public hostile to him. Last year he stepped down as army chief, and his successor has pledged to remove the military from politics.

History of Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire, also known as the Mongolian Empire (Mongolian: Монголын Эзэнт Гүрэн, Mongolyn Ezent Güren; 1206–1405) was the largest contiguous empire in world history and for some time was the most feared in Eurasia. It was the product of Mongol unification and Mongol invasions, which began with Temujin being proclaimed ruler in 1206, eventually sparking the conquests.

By 1279, the Mongol Empire covered over 33,000,000 km² up to 22% of Earth's total land area. It held sway over a population of over 100 million people. However, by that time the empire had already fragmented, with the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate being de facto independent and refusing to accept Kublai Khan as Khagan. By the time of Kublai Khan's death, with no accepted Khagan in existence, the Mongol Empire had already split up into four separate khanates.

During the beginning of the 14th century, most of the khanates of the Empire gradually broke off. They went on to be absorbed and defeated.


Genghis Khan through political manipulation and military might, united the nomadic, previously ever-rivaling Mongol-Turkic tribes under his rule by 1206. He quickly came into conflict with the Jin Dynasty empire of the Jurchens and the Western Xia of the Tanguts in northern China. Under the provocation of the Muslim Khwarezmid Empire, he moved into Central Asia as well, devastating Transoxiana and eastern Persia, then raiding into Kievan Rus' (a predecessor state of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and the Caucasus. Before dying, Genghis Khan divided his empire among his sons and immediate family, but as custom made clear, it remained the joint property of the entire imperial family who, along with the Mongol aristocracy, constituted the ruling class.

Mongols

The name Mongols (Mongolian: Монгол Mongol) specifies one or several ethnic groups largely located now in Mongolia, China, and Russia.

A narrow definition includes the Mongols proper (self-designation Monggol), which can be roughly divided into eastern and western Mongols. In a wider sense, the Mongol peoples includes all people who speak a Mongolic language, such as the Kalmyks of eastern Europe.

The name Monggol appeared first in 8th century records of the Chinese Tang dynasty, but then only resurfaced in the 11th century during the rule of the Khitan. At first it was applied to some small and still insignificant tribes in the area of the Onon River. In the 13th century, it grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic and Turkic tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan.

The specific origin of the Mongolic languages and associated tribes is unclear. Some researchers have proposed that they developed from a Tungusic splinter group; others suspect Paleosiberian influences.


Mongolians are revered around the world for their ability to get around large barriers namely the Great Wall of China.



Mongolia

The population of Mongolia consists of 85% Mongols, numbering approximately 2.7 million. Among those, the Khalkha, Uriankhai and Buryats are counted as eastern Mongols. The Oirats, living mainly in the Altay region, belong to the western Mongols.

The Chinese census of 2000 counted 5.8 million Mongols (according to the narrow definition above). Most of them live in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, followed by Liaoning province. Small numbers can also be found in provinces near those two.

Other peoples speaking Mongolic languages are the Daur, Monguor, Dongxiang, Bonan, and parts of the Yugur. Those do not officially count as part of the Mongol nationality, but are recognized as nationalities of their own.

In Russia, the Buryats belong to the eastern Mongols. The western Mongols include the Oirats in the Russian Altay and the Kalmyks at the northern side of the Caspian Sea. Together they amount to roughly half a million people.

Gates:Microsoft isn't raising Yahoo bid

SEATTLE - Microsoft is not privately haggling with Yahoo over the software maker's rejected $31-per-share buyout offer for the slumping Internet pioneer, Bill Gates said in an interview.


"We sent them a letter and said we think that's a fair offer. There's nothing that's gone on other than us stating that we think it's a fair offer," the Microsoft chairman said Monday. "They should take a hard look at it."

Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo Inc. just over two weeks ago. At the time, the deal was valued at $44.6 billion, but since then, Microsoft's share price has tumbled 12.8 percent, pushing the value of the cash-and-stock offer closer to $41 billion.

Yahoo spurned the offer and said it "substantially undervalues" the company's assets. The Web portal business was said to be in talks late last week with News Corp. about a complex deal to push its market value toward $50 billion. Yahoo also was reportedly discussing an advertising partnership with Google Inc.

Most analysts believe Microsoft will do whatever it takes to buy Yahoo. Redmond-based Microsoft has invested heavily in honing its own search engine and advertising technology, but neither it nor Yahoo have helped close the gap with Google, which dominates Microsoft and Yahoo in U.S. search queries and related advertising revenue.

Yahoo is believed to want at least $40 per share, but Microsoft has held firm so far, calling its original bid "full and fair." Microsoft's next move could be to take the offer directly to Yahoo's shareholders, or to attempt a hostile takeover of Yahoo's board.

Yahoo shares closed at $29.66 Friday. Markets were closed Monday for Presidents Day.

Gates' comment Monday was in response to a question during a phone interview about an unrelated effort to give students free access to certain Microsoft software.

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Brief History of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte) (August 15, 1769 – May 5, 1821) was a general and Emperor of France.

Napoleon was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Ajaccio, Corsica to Carlo Buonaparte, a lawyer and politician, and his wife, Marie-Letizia Buonaparte. The Buonapartes were a wealthy family from the Corsican nobility. Napoleon changed his name so it sounded more French.

Napoleon was able to enter the military academy at Brienne in 1779. He moved to the Parisian École Royale Militaire in 1784 and graduated a year later as a second lieutenant of artillery.

Napoleon was able to spend much of the next eight years in Corsica. There he played an active part in political and military matters. Napoleon was promoted in the military.

The French Revolution caused much fighting and disorder in France. At times, Napoleon was connected to those in power. Other times, he was in jail. He helped the French Republic from those who supported the former king of France. He became a general in the French army. He led troops in Italy and he began to gain fame and power.

Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais on March 9, 1796.

In May 1798, Napoleon left for a campaign in Egypt and Syria. The French needed to threaten Britain's empire in India and the French Directory's concerns that Napoleon would take control of France. The Egyptian campaign was a military failure. Napoleon went back to France because of a change in the French government. Some believe that Napoleon should not have left his soldiers in Egypt. Napoleon helped lead the Brumaire coup of November 1799.


By February 1800, Napoleon was the First Consul of France. France was still at war with most of Europe. Peace was gained for a short time after the Battle of Marengo.

Bonaparte changed many ways of life in France. His changes to the legal system, the Napoleonic Code, are considered to be a good change. Napoleon became First Consul for Life in 1802 and Emperor of France in 1804. This means that he was essentially a dictator.

Europe was not at peace for long. Fighting resumed. Napoleon and France won many battles against a range of alliances between Austria, Great Britain, Russia, and Prussia. Early on, Napoleon won many battles like the Battle of Austerlitz. Napoleon made his relatives rulers of some of the countries he beat.

Napoleon also made mistakes and suffered setbacks. The French navy was kept firmly in check by British navy. The British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar let the British control the ocean and sea.

Napoleon made his brother the ruler of Spain. This caused some in Spain to begin guerilla warfare against the French.

On March 11, 1810, Napoleon married his second wife, Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma. Many people were upset that he divorced Josephine.

In 1812, Napoleon went to war with Russia. They defeated many Russian cities and villages, but by the time they reached Moscow it was winter and his army did not have enough food. Napoleon's army was unable to defeat the Russians. The Russians began to attack. Napoleon and his army had to go back to France. Only 10,000 soldiers were able to fight at the end of the retreat.

On March 30, 1814, Paris surrendered. Napoleon gave up rule of France on April 11, 1814. He went into exile on the small island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea.

Napoleon was sent to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa. He died on May 5 1821, of stomach cancer.

Struggle in Europe, rise to emperor - History of Napoleon Bonaparte
In June 1800, the Austrians were routed at Marengo. Napoleon returned to Paris to disprove the rumors about his defeat and death. Joseph, Napoleons's brother leading the peace negotiations in Lunéville, reported that due to British backing for Austria, Austria would not recognize France's newly gained territory. As negotiations developed more and more into a farce, Napoleon gave orders to his general Moreau to strike Austria once more. Moreau led France to victory at Hohenlinden 1800. As a result the Treaty of Lunéville was signed in February 1801, under which the French gains of the Campo Formio treaty were reaffirmed and increased; the British also committed themselves to sign a peace treaty and finally signed the treaty of Amiens in March 1802, in which Malta was to be handed over to France. It was during this period that Napoleon tried to ensure peace in Europe. However his enemies had difficulties in recognizing a republic, as all the countries bordering France were kingdoms and were horrified that the ideas of the revolution might be exported to them. In Britain the brother of Louis XVI was welcomed as a state guest although officially Britain recognized France as republic. Although France complied with some of the provisions of the treaty, for strategic reasons Britain did not cede Malta to France.

In 1803, Napoleon sold a large part of North America to the United States — the Louisiana Purchase — for less than three cents per acre; he had just faced a major setback when an army he sent to conquer Santo Domingo and establish a base was destroyed by a combination of yellow fever and fierce resistance led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. With his western forces diminished, Napoleon knew he would be unable to defend Louisiana and decided to sell it to finance the war against Britain, which at that time was more or less inevitable.

Coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte, memorialized by Jacques-Louis DavidThe dispute over Malta provided the pretext for Britain to declare war on France in 1803 to support French royalists. Napoleon, however, crowned himself Emperor on 2 December 1804 (illustration, right) at Notre-Dame Cathedral. Claims that he seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony in order to avoid subjecting himself to the authority of the pontiff are apocryphal; after the Imperial regalia had been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon crowned himself before crowning his wife Joséphine as Empress. Then at Milan's cathedral on 26 May 1805, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

History of Napoleon Bonaparte

A plan by the French, along with the Spanish, to defeat the Royal Navy failed dramatically at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), and Britain gained lasting control of the seas.

By 1805 the Third Coalition against Napoleon had formed in Europe; Napoleon attacked and secured a major victory against Austria and Russia at Austerlitz (2 December) and, in the following year, humbled Prussia at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806). As a result, Napoleon became the de facto ruler over most of Germany. Napoleon marched on through Poland and then signed a treaty with the Russian tsar Alexander I, dividing Europe between the two powers. In the French part of Poland, he established the restored Polish state of Grand Duchy de Varsovie with the Saxonian King as a ruler.

Then on 17 May 1809 Napoleon ordered the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire.

History of Napoleon Bonaparte

Battles in Spain, Austria, and Russia - History of Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to enforce a Europe-wide commercial boycott of Britain called the "Continental System". He invaded Spain and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as king there. The Spanish rose in revolt, which Napoleon was unable to suppress. The British invaded Spain through Portugal in 1808 and, with the aid of the Spanish nationalists, slowly drove out the French. While France was engaged in Spain, Austria attacked in Germany, but after initial success suffered defeat at the Battle of Wagram (6 July 1809).

Alexander I of Russia had become distrustful of Napoleon and refused to co-operate with him against the British. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia. Napoleon ignored the advice of the Poles, who predicted long-term war rather than a quick victorious campaign. They proposed to retrieve former Polish areas from Russian hands gradually and build a base for further war there. As the Poles predicted, the Russians under Kutuzov, who declared a Patriotic War, retreated instead of giving battle. Outside Moscow on 12 September, the Battle of Borodino took place. The Russians retreated and Napoleon was able to enter Moscow, assuming that Alexander I would negotiate peace. Moscow began to burn and within the month, fearing loss of control in France, Napoleon left Moscow. The French Grand Army suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat; the Army had begun as over 600,000 men, but in the end fewer than 10,000 crossed the Berezina River (November 1812) to escape. Encouraged by this dramatic reversal, several nations again took up arms against France. The decisive defeat of the French came at the Battle of Leipzig, also called "The Battle of the Nations" (16-19 October 1813).

Otto Von Bismarck Biography

After Otto von Bismarck provoked France, which at this time was ruled by Napoleon III, the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870 and the southern German states, viewing France as the aggressor, joined the North German Confederation. France suffered a humiliating defeat, and Wilhelm I was crowned German Emperor in the Galerie des Glaces (Spiegelsaal) in Versailles, which served as the headquarter of the Prussian army, on January 18, 1871. Bismarck thus largely created the Prussian led 1871 German Empire, at the exclusion of Austria.

The Chancellor - Otto von Bismarck Biography
Celebrated as a national hero, Otto von Bismarck became the first Reichskanzler (Chancellor) of the new Empire. In foreign policy, he now devoted himself to keeping peace among the European powers of France, Austria, Germany and Russia. Bismarck's belief was that Germany's central location in Europe would cause it to be devastated in case of any war.

Internally, he was concerned about the emergence of two new parties: the Catholic Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party. The campaign against Catholicism that started in 1872, called Kulturkampf, was largely a failure. He attacked the Social Democrats in two ways: the party and its organizations were outlawed, while the working class was appeased with (very progressive) legislation guaranteeing accident and health insurance as well as old-age pensions.

In the elections of 1890, both the Catholic Centre and the Social Democrats made great gains, and Otto von Bismarck resigned at the insistence of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had risen to the throne in 1888. Otto von Bismarck spent his last years gathering his memoirs (Gedanken und Erinnerungen; "Thoughts and Memories"), and died at 83 years of age in 1898, in Friedrichsruh. He is buried in the Bismarck-Mausoleum there.

Both the WWII-era Kriegsmarine battleship Bismarck as well as two ships of the Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine), and Bismarck, North Dakota, were named in his honor, as was the Bismarck Archipelago and Bismarck Sea outside the former German colony of New Guinea, and several streets and schools in Germany.

Did you know about these JEWS

Allah Says in Holy Quran, Surah Al-Ma'idah (The Table Spread) Ch.5 Verse.82
"Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, "We are Christians": because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant."


And it is evident, Jews happen to be the biggest enemies to Muslims.


* Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in the Zionist entity?

* Did you know that Palestinian license plates in Zionist entity are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?

* Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron's 120,000 Palestinians?

* Did you know the United States awards the Israel $5 billion in aid each year?

* Did you know that yearly US aid to Israel exceeds the aid the US grants to the whole African continent?

* Did you know that the Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?

* Did you know that the Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?

* Did you know that Israel currently occupies territories of two sovereign nations (Lebanon and Syria) in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

* Did you know that Israel has for decades routinely sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies?

* Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defense Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed by the IDF?

* Did you know that Israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?


* Did you know that Israel routinely confiscates bank accounts, businesses, and land and refuses to pay compensation to those who suffer the confiscation?

* Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?

* Did you know that the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders, is the Jewish AIPAC?

* Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?

* Did you know that today's Israel sits on the former sites of more than 400 now-vanished Palestinian villages, and that the Israeli's re- named almost every physical site in the country to cover up the traces?

* Did you know that it was not until 1988 that Israelis were barred from running "Jews Only" job ads?

* Did you know that four prime ministers of Israel (Begin, Shamir, Rabin, and Sharon) have taken part in either bomb attacks on civilians, massacres of civilians, or forced expulsions of civilians from their villages?

* Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays two American public relations firms to promote Israel to Americans?

* Did you know that Sharon's coalition government includes a party -- Molodet -- which advocates expelling all Palestinians from the occupied territories?


* Did you know that Israel's settlement-building increased in the eight years since Oslo?

* Did you know that settlement building under Barrack doubled compared to settlement building under Netanyahu?

* Did you know that Israel once dedicated a postage stamp to a man who attacked a civilian bus and killed several people?

* Did you know that recently-declassifi ed documents indicate that David Ben-Gurion in at least some instances approved of the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948?

* Did you know that despite a ban on torture by Israel's High Court of Justice, torture has continued by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

* Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?

*** And finally These are the Terrorists ***

Al-Fayed: Royals wanted to ‘get rid’ of Diana

LONDON - Luxury storeowner Mohamed al-Fayed accused the British royal family on Monday of wanting to "get rid" of Princess Diana, who died in a 1997 Paris car crash along with his son.

Giving evidence at an inquest into Dodi's and Diana's death, the owner of London's Harrods store, al-Fayed directed accusations at the princess's former husband Prince Charles, and at her former father-in-law and husband to Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip.

"(Princess Diana) told me personally both before and during the holiday we shared in July 1997 of her fears," al-Fayed said in a written statement to the court. "She told me that she knew Philip and Prince Charles wanted to get rid of her."

Diana, 36, Dodi, 42, and driver Henri Paul, an al-Fayed employee, were killed when their Mercedes limousine crashed in a road tunnel in August 1997 as they sped away from the Ritz Hotel in Paris with paparazzi in hot pursuit.

Under British law, an inquest is needed to determine the cause of death when someone dies unnaturally.

Official probes: Deaths were accidents
French and British police investigations both concluded the deaths were tragic accidents caused by their speeding chauffeur who was found to be drunk. Both police probes rejected al-Fayed's conspiracy theories.

But al-Fayed insisted in his statement that French and British security and intelligence services had colluded in the killing of his son and Diana, and in a subsequent coverup.

"French intelligence helped the British intelligence to execute their murder," he said. "Princess Diana told me she had proof her life was in danger."


Strong words
Al-Fayed has said in the past he believes Diana's killing was ordered because the royal family did not want the mother of the future king having a child with his son.

He told the inquest on Monday that Diana had confided in him that she was pregnant, and that she and his son were about to announce their engagement.

The Kosovars are now independent

PRISTINA, Kosovo - The United States formally recognized Kosovo's independence Monday, and Europe's major powers said they would do the same, setting up a confrontation with Serbia and its key ally, Russia.

Kosovo's leaders had sent letters to 192 countries Monday seeking formal recognition of independence, and suspense gripped the capital as its citizens awaited backing from the key powers.

But later Monday, President Bush said, “The Kosovars are now independent,” and the United States formally recognized Kosovo's independence in a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.


"We congratulate the people of Kosovo on this historic occasion," Rice said.

The foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy said those nations also would recognize Kosovo.

"A majority of (European Union) member states will recognise a democratic, multi-ethnic Kosovo founded on the rule of law," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after talks among EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Tension as Serbs protest
A day after Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership made its historic declaration of independence from Serbia, tensions flared in northern Kosovo, home to most of the territory's 100,000 minority Serbs. An explosion damaged a U.N. vehicle outside the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, where thousands of Serbs demonstrated, chanting "this is Serbia!"

The crowds marched to a bridge spanning a river dividing the town between the ethnic Albanian and Serbian sides. They were confronted by NATO peacekeepers guarding the bridge, but there was no violence.

Another 800 Serbs staged a noisy demonstration in the Serb-dominated enclave of Gracanica outside Pristina, waving Serbian flags and singing patriotic songs.


yesterday," protester Goran Arsic said.

In a first sign that Serbia was attempting to retake authority in the north of Kosovo, some Serb policemen started leaving the multiethnic Kosovo police force on Monday and placed themselves under the authority of the Serbian government in Belgrade, a senior Kosovo Serb police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

There were about 320 Serb policemen in the U.N.-established force. The departure of Serb policemen in the force would likely trigger a confrontation with the U.N. administration.

‘It will be a big day’
President Fatmir Sejdiu played down the fears of renewed unrest, saying the government needed to set about the business of building a democratic country.

"It will be a big day today because we have lots of things that we need to start and finish," Sejdiu said Monday. "We need continuous work and commitment, and we are fully dedicated to fulfilling the promises to better our state."

On Sunday, lawmakers achieved what a bloody 1998-99 separatist war with Serbian forces could not: They pronounced the disputed province the Republic of Kosovo, and pledged to make it a "democratic, multiethnic state."

The proclamation sent thousands of jubilant ethnic Albanians into the streets overnight, where they waved red-and-black Albanian flags, fired guns and fireworks into the air and danced. One couple named their newborn daughter Pavarsie — Albanian for "independence."

Passersby stopped to scribble names and messages on a sculpture spelling out "NEWBORN" in giant iron letters across from the U.N. headquarters in central Pristina.

And the republic's new flag — a blue field featuring a yellow silhouette of Kosovo and six white stars, one for each of the main ethnic groups — fluttered from homes and offices.

"This is the happiest day in my life," said Mehdi Shehu, 68. "Now we're free and we can celebrate without fear."

Fasting Budha

According to tradition, the historical Buddha lived from 563 to 483 B.C., although scholars postulate that he may have lived as much as a century later. He was born to the rulers of the Shakya clan, hence his appellation Shakyamuni, which means "sage of the Shakya clan." The legends that grew up around him hold that both his conception and birth were miraculous. His mother, Maya, conceived him when she dreamed that a white elephant entered her right side (The Dream of Queen Maya, 1976.402). She gave birth to him in a standing position while grasping a tree in a garden (Birth of the Buddha, 1987.417.1). The child emerged from Maya's right side fully formed and proceeded to take seven steps. Once back in the palace, he was presented to an astrologer who predicted that he would become either a great king or a great religious teacher and he was given the name Siddhartha ("He who achieves His Goal"). His father, evidently thinking that any contact with unpleasantness might prompt Siddhartha to seek a life of renunciation as a religious teacher, and not wanting to lose his son to such a future, protected him from the realities of life.

The ravages of poverty, disease, and even old age were therefore unknown to Siddhartha, who grew up surrounded by every comfort in a sumptuous palace. At age twenty-nine, he made three successive chariot rides outside the palace grounds and saw an old person, a sick person, and a corpse, all for the first time. On the fourth trip, he saw a wandering holy man whose asceticism inspired Siddhartha to follow a similar path in search of freedom from the suffering caused by the infinite cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Because he knew his father would try to stop him, Siddhartha secretly left the palace in the middle of the night (The Great Departure and the Temptation of the Buddha, 28.105) and sent all his belongings and jewelry back with his servant and horse. Completely abandoning his luxurious existence, he spent six years as an ascetic (Fasting Siddhartha, 1987.218.5), attempting to conquer the innate appetites for food, sex, and comfort by engaging in various yogic disciplines. Eventually near death from his vigilant fasting, he accepted a bowl of rice from a young girl. Once he had eaten, he had a realization that physical austerities were not the means to achieve spiritual liberation. At a place now known as Bodh Gaya ("enlightenment place"), he sat and meditated all night beneath a pipal tree. After defeating the forces of the demon Mara, Siddhartha reached enlightenment (Plaque with scenes from the life of the Buddha, 1982.233) and became a Buddha ("enlightened one") at the age of thirty-five.

The Buddha continued to sit after his enlightenment, meditating beneath the tree and then standing beside it for a number of weeks. During the fifth or sixth week, he was beset by heavy rains while meditating but was protected by the hood of the serpent king Muchilinda (Buddha sheltered by a naga, 1987.424.19ab). Seven weeks after his enlightenment, he left his seat under the tree and decided to teach others what he had learned, encouraging people to follow a path he called "The Middle Way," which is one of balance rather than extremism. He gave his first sermon (Buddha's First Sermon at Sarnath, 1980.527.4) in a deer park in Sarnath, on the outskirts of the city of Benares. He soon had many disciples and spent the next forty-five years walking around northeastern India spreading his teachings. Although the Buddha presented himself only as a teacher and not as a god or object of worship, he is said to have performed many miracles during his lifetime (Bookcover with scenes from the life of the Buddha, 1979.511). Traditional accounts relate that he died at the age of eighty (The Death of the Buddha, L.1993.69.4) in Kushinagara, after ingesting a tainted piece of either mushroom or pork. His body was cremated and the remains distributed among groups of his followers. These holy relics were enshrined in large hemispherical burial mounds (stupa, 1985.387), a number of which became important pilgrimage sites.

In India, by the Pala period (ca. 700–1200), the Buddha's life was codified into a series of "Eight Great Events" (1982.233). These eight events are, in order of their occurrence in the Buddha's life: his birth (1976.402), his defeat over Mara and consequent enlightenment (1982.233; 1985.392.1), his first sermon at Sarnath (1980.527.4), the miracles he performed at Shravasti (1979.511), his descent from the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods (Buddha's Descent from the Trayastrimsha Heaven, 28.31), his taming of a wild elephant (1979.511), the monkey's gift of honey, and his death (L.1993.69.4).