An Internet cafe in New Delhi. Facebook is booming in Turkey and Indonesia. YouTube’s audience has nearly doubled in India and Brazil. That may seem like good news. But it is also a major reason these and other Web companies with big global audiences and renowned brands struggle to turn even a tiny profit. Call [...]
Archive for April, 2009
One Internet Village, Divided: In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit
Posted in Computers, Economy and business on April 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Yemen tanker seized from pirates
Posted in Law, tagged Piracy, Somalia, Yemen on April 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Pirates have continued raids despite warship patrols off Somalia Yemeni special forces have freed an oil tanker captured by Somali pirates, Yemeni officials say. Eleven pirates were arrested in the operation, they said. The Qana was seized on Sunday but was not carrying cargo at the time. It was one of four tankers attacked off [...]
Clinton’s Mideast Pirouette
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Hamas, Iran, Israel, United States on April 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The sparring between the United States and Israel has begun, and that’s a good thing. Israel’s interests are not served by an uncritical American administration. The Jewish state emerged less secure and less loved from Washington’s post-9/11 Israel-can-do-no-wrong policy. The criticism of the center-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come from an unlikely [...]
60 Miles From Islamabad
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Pakistan, Swat Valley, Taliban, United States on April 27, 2009 | Comments Off
If the Indian Army advanced within 60 miles of Islamabad, you can bet Pakistan’s army would be fully mobilized and defending the country in pitched battles. Yet when the Taliban got that close to the capital on Friday, pushing into the key district of Buner, Pakistani authorities sent only several hundred poorly equipped and underpaid [...]
Money for Nothing
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on April 27, 2009 | Comments Off
On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.” The most prominently featured of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had earned their [...]
Europe Urges Citizens to Avoid U.S. and Mexico Travel – Flu Advisory Unwarranted, C.D.C. Says
Posted in Health, Practical advice, tagged Swine flu on April 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Hoping to head off a global pandemic of swine flu that has surfaced in North America, the European Union’s health commissioner on Monday urged Europeans to avoid traveling to the United States or Mexico if doing so is not essential. The warning came as health officials in Spain confirmed early Monday that a man hospitalized [...]
Computer Program to Take On ‘Jeopardy!’
Posted in Computers, tagged Jeopardy on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
This highly successful television quiz show is the latest challenge for artificial intelligence. What is “Jeopardy”? That is correct. I.B.M. plans to announce Monday that it is in the final stages of completing a computer program to compete against human “Jeopardy!” contestants. If the program beats the humans, the field of artificial intelligence will have [...]
Chrysler and Union Agree to Deal Before Federal Deadline
Posted in Economy and business, tagged Chrysler, Fiat, Unions on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Union leaders said Sunday that they had reached an agreement with Chrysler that meets the federal government’s requirements for the automaker to receive more financing. The deal also includes Fiat, the Italian automaker with which Chrysler was ordered by the government to form an alliance before Thursday. Neither the United Automobile Workers union nor the [...]
Inside the baby brain
Posted in Health, Living, Natural sciences on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
It’s unfocused, random, and extremely good at what it does. How we can learn from a baby’s brain. WHAT IS IT like to be a baby? For centuries, this question would have seemed absurd: behind that adorable facade was a mostly empty head. A baby, after all, is missing most of the capabilities that define [...]
The CIA Will Pay the Price
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, History, Law, Politics, tagged Torture memos on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
“We knew that, like almost everything else in Washington, the program would eventually be leaked and our Agency and its people would be inaccurately portrayed in the worst possible light.” Those words were written by former CIA director George Tenet. Two years ago, in his book “At the Center of the Storm,” Tenet predicted the [...]
If Everyone Knew, Who’s to Blame?
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Law, tagged Torture memos on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Here’s a question: When was the last time American officials waterboarded a detainee? Well, that would be 2003 — six years ago. Here’s another: When did Americans first find out about it? That would be 2004 — five years ago. May 13, 2004, to be precise, in an article in the New York Times that [...]
Is It Torture?
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, tagged Torture memos on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The Answer Lies in What We Want to Be Several years ago, I asked a veteran journalist for advice. “I’m trying to figure out if I have an ethical conflict,” I began. “If you have to ask, you do,” he said. Simple as that. In posing a question, we often reveal the answer. Apply the [...]
Say It’s Osama. What If He Won’t Talk?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, tagged Torture memos on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
In surprisingly good English, the captive quietly answers: ‘Yes, all thanks to God, I do know when the mujaheddin will, with God’s permission, detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States, and I also know how many and in which cities.” Startled, the CIA interrogators quickly demand more detail. Smiling his trademark shy smile, the [...]
Drug-Sub Culture
Posted in Law, tagged Colombia, Drugs on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Bigfoot, a drug-smuggling submarine, is now on display at Truman Annex, Naval Air Station Key West in Florida. THE CRAFT FIRST surfaced like something out of a science-fiction movie. It was November 2006, and a Coast Guard cutter spotted a strange blur on the ocean 100 miles off Costa Rica. As the cutter approached, what [...]
Iraq says US raid violated pact
Posted in Conflicts and wars, tagged Iraq on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The deaths sparked angry protests in Kut and calls for an investigation A US raid in the south of Iraq, in which two people died, was a crime and those responsible should be tried, says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. He said the raid in the town of Kut was a breach of the security [...]
Slouching Towards Oblivion
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Media on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Maybe it’s because I’m staying at the Sunset Tower on Sunset Boulevard, but I keep thinking of newspapers as Norma Desmond. Papers are still big. It’s the screens that got small. Now that everybody can check their iPhones and laptops for news that personally interests them, now that they can Google, blog and tweet, as [...]
Sixty-five years ago this month, the first Canadian freedom train sped through New York State heading for Montreal. On board were Jewish men, women and children — some of the very few who would escape the war in Europe and start life anew in Canada. There were 107 families on board, and some of them [...]
Memos Foiled Plan to Avoid Revisiting Past
Posted in Law, Politics, tagged Torture memos on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Aiming to Move On, Administration Instead Faced Calls for Prosecutions and Probes of CIA Interrogations Until last week, President Barack Obama had made it clear he intended to “look forward,” rather than insist on punishment of Bush-era officials who approved harsh interrogation practices. But a series of missteps by the White House threatened to undermine [...]
Clinton Offers Support for Lebanon
Posted in Politics, tagged Lebanon on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped in Beirut Sunday, meeting with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman in a sign of American support ahead of polls that will pit the country’s Western-leaning political establishment against a newly invigorated Hezbollah. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a letter from President Barack Obama to Lebanese [...]
U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency
Posted in Health, tagged Swine flu, United States on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The Obama administration declared a “public health emergency,” as U.S. health officials warned that further cases of swine flu are likely to emerge in the U.S. “We expect to see more cases of swine flu,” Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a White House briefing. Besser, who [...]
Great and Terrible Truths
Posted in Arts on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
In the autumn of 2005, an e-mail message with the unpromising subject header “Thought you’d like this!!!” landed in my in-box. The sender, a family friend, was an incurable forwarder of two-year-old John Kerry jokes, alerts for nonexistent computer viruses and poetry about strangers who turn out to be Jesus. This latest offering contained not [...]
Swiss Heartland Voters Ban Nude Hiking
Posted in Law, Living, tagged FKK, Free body culture on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Voters in the heart of the Swiss Alps on Sunday passed legislation banning naked hiking after dozens of mostly German nudists started rambling through their picturesque region. By a show of hands citizens of the tiny canton (state) of Appenzell Inner Rhodes voted overwhelmingly at their traditional open-air annual assembly to impose a 200 Swiss [...]
The doctor examines Kandace Colwell, 22, a waitress at Tiny’s Giant Sandwich Shop. He is able to manage financially, he said, because the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association, which runs the buildings where his office and apartment are located, offers reduced rents. DR. DAVID ORES pays $700 a month for an apartment in [...]
As Nations Try to Contain Flu, N.Y. Cases Are Confirmed
Posted in Health, tagged Swine flu on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Officials around the world raced to contain an outbreak of swine flu as cases were confirmed in New York on Sunday and potential ones were reported from New Zealand to Hong Kong to Spain, raising concerns about the potential for a global pandemic. Governments issued travel advisories urging people not to visit Mexico, the apparent [...]
‘Israeli oranges’ in Iran faked in China
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Economy and business, tagged China, Iran, Israel on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Photos from Tehran showed fruit marked “Israel” A twist has emerged in the story of Israeli citrus fruit reportedly sold in Iran in defiance of a ban on commercial dealings between the two enemy states. It has now been revealed the fruit, a type of orange-grapefruit hybrid marketed as Jaffa Sweetie, were not Israeli [...]
China and Taiwan investment deal
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Economy and business, Politics, tagged China, Taiwan on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The agreements were signed in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing China and Taiwan have agreed to allow investment across the Taiwan Strait in the latest sign of improving relations between them. Chiang Pin-kung of the Straits Exchange Foundation signed agreements with Chen Yunlin of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits. In [...]
‘Suicide bid’ in Italy cafe
Posted in Law on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
The couple have said they fled because they had no money A German man has attempted to kill himself days after he and his girlfriend abandoned her three children at a restaurant in Italy, reports say. Sascha Schmidt, 24, had allegedly tried to hang himself with a belt in his cell in northern Italy [...]
Tough Choices at Korengal Outpost
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics, tagged Afghanistan on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
A Black Hawk helicopter landing at the Korengal Outpost. Recently the New York Times carried vivid war reporting from Afghanistan. C.J. Chivers described the “bloody standoff” in the Korengal Valley between American troops and die-hard tribal warriors. Photographer Tyler Hicks snapped an unforgettable front-page picture of a U.S. soldier in a mad dash to escape [...]
Stop Scapegoating
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion, Law, Politics on April 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Obama Should Stand Against Prosecutions If ever there were a time for President Obama to trust his instincts and stick to his guns, that time is now, when he is being pressured to change his mind about closing the books on the “torture” policies of the past. Obama, to his credit, has ended one of [...]
