1/31/2010
[BUSINESS] Macmillan Says Amazon Removes All Macmillan E-Books
Macmillan Says Amazon Removes All Macmillan E-Books
Amazon.com Inc. stopped selling print and e-book titles published by Macmillan in a battle over e-book pricing, according to a statement issued by Macmillan late Saturday.
The move follows last week's launch of Apple Inc.'s iPad device, which is expected to shake up the publishing industry by competing directly with Amazon's Kindle e-reader and by enabling publishers to set their own retail prices on their books.
Macmillan Chief Executive John Sargent said he visited Amazon on Thursday in Seattle to discuss "new terms of sales for e-books" and that by the time he returned to New York, he had been informed that Macmillan's e-books would only be for sale on Amazon.com "through third parties," according to the statement, which appeared as an advertisement on publishing-industry Web site PublishersMarketplace.com.
An Amazon spokesman didn't respond immediately to a request for comment regarding Mr. Sargent's statement.
Amazon, the leading e-book seller in the world, now faces the prospect of publishers demanding the same terms they receive from Apple. People familiar with Amazon's action said the move by the online retailer, which targets not only e-books but hardcover and paperback titles, signals its unhappiness with the prospect that e-book prices may rise in coming months as a result of Apple's e-book debut.
Macmillan, a unit of Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and one of the largest publishers in the U.S., boasts such top sellers as "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay and "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel. Neither was available for purchase on Amazon's Kindle e-reader on Sunday.
How long Amazon will continue not to sell Macmillan titles—and whether the move will spread to other publishers who also want Amazon to charge more for e-books—remains unclear. The move could be only temporary. Amazon has marketed its Kindle e-reader by trumpeting its wide selection of books.
Macmillan was one of five major publishers that said they would begin selling their e-books on Apple's new iBooks store, a key feature of the iPad. Publishers have agreed to a new pricing model with Apple, under which they will set their own e-book prices, with Apple taking 30% of the revenue. They are expected to price many e-book titles at $12.99 and $14.99, with fewer carrying the $9.99 price that Amazon currently charges on most best-sellers.
It is expected that publishers will now seek to do business with Amazon and other e-book retailers on the same terms as with Apple. By setting their own prices, publishers would be able to eliminate discounting on Amazon and elsewhere that they believe threatens the long-term business model of publishing.
Macmillan e-books were still available for sale on Sunday at the e-bookstore at Barnes & Noble.com, a unit of Barnes & Noble Inc. Kobo Inc., a Toronto-based e-book retailer, also said that it is continuing to sell Macmillan's e-book titles. Added Bob LiVolsi, the founder and CEO of independent e-book retailer BooksOnBoard.com, based in Austin, Texas: "As a matter of policy We won't do anything to shut down a publisher because of pricing."
Amazon on Thursday brushed aside questions about competition with the iPad, as the online retailer reported profit and sales that paint it as a big winner in snagging consumer dollars.
Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said Amazon "millions of people" now own one of the Kindle devices. Responding to a question about competition from the iPad, he said, "We believe that readers deserve a dedicated device."
Amazon's fourth-quarter profit rose 71% to $384 million, or 85 cents a share, from $225 million, or 52 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue increased 42% to $9.52 billion from $6.7 billion.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704491604575035763513529030.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
Amazon.com Inc. stopped selling print and e-book titles published by Macmillan in a battle over e-book pricing, according to a statement issued by Macmillan late Saturday.
The move follows last week's launch of Apple Inc.'s iPad device, which is expected to shake up the publishing industry by competing directly with Amazon's Kindle e-reader and by enabling publishers to set their own retail prices on their books.
Macmillan Chief Executive John Sargent said he visited Amazon on Thursday in Seattle to discuss "new terms of sales for e-books" and that by the time he returned to New York, he had been informed that Macmillan's e-books would only be for sale on Amazon.com "through third parties," according to the statement, which appeared as an advertisement on publishing-industry Web site PublishersMarketplace.com.
An Amazon spokesman didn't respond immediately to a request for comment regarding Mr. Sargent's statement.
Amazon, the leading e-book seller in the world, now faces the prospect of publishers demanding the same terms they receive from Apple. People familiar with Amazon's action said the move by the online retailer, which targets not only e-books but hardcover and paperback titles, signals its unhappiness with the prospect that e-book prices may rise in coming months as a result of Apple's e-book debut.
Macmillan, a unit of Germany's Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and one of the largest publishers in the U.S., boasts such top sellers as "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay and "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel. Neither was available for purchase on Amazon's Kindle e-reader on Sunday.
How long Amazon will continue not to sell Macmillan titles—and whether the move will spread to other publishers who also want Amazon to charge more for e-books—remains unclear. The move could be only temporary. Amazon has marketed its Kindle e-reader by trumpeting its wide selection of books.
Macmillan was one of five major publishers that said they would begin selling their e-books on Apple's new iBooks store, a key feature of the iPad. Publishers have agreed to a new pricing model with Apple, under which they will set their own e-book prices, with Apple taking 30% of the revenue. They are expected to price many e-book titles at $12.99 and $14.99, with fewer carrying the $9.99 price that Amazon currently charges on most best-sellers.
It is expected that publishers will now seek to do business with Amazon and other e-book retailers on the same terms as with Apple. By setting their own prices, publishers would be able to eliminate discounting on Amazon and elsewhere that they believe threatens the long-term business model of publishing.
Macmillan e-books were still available for sale on Sunday at the e-bookstore at Barnes & Noble.com, a unit of Barnes & Noble Inc. Kobo Inc., a Toronto-based e-book retailer, also said that it is continuing to sell Macmillan's e-book titles. Added Bob LiVolsi, the founder and CEO of independent e-book retailer BooksOnBoard.com, based in Austin, Texas: "As a matter of policy We won't do anything to shut down a publisher because of pricing."
Amazon on Thursday brushed aside questions about competition with the iPad, as the online retailer reported profit and sales that paint it as a big winner in snagging consumer dollars.
Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said Amazon "millions of people" now own one of the Kindle devices. Responding to a question about competition from the iPad, he said, "We believe that readers deserve a dedicated device."
Amazon's fourth-quarter profit rose 71% to $384 million, or 85 cents a share, from $225 million, or 52 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue increased 42% to $9.52 billion from $6.7 billion.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704491604575035763513529030.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
[ENERGY] China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy
January 31, 2010
China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy
By KEITH BRADSHER
TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.
China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.
President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,” he told Congress.
The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race.
Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators.
“You have to move fast with the market,” said Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. “Nobody has ever seen such fast development in a wind market.”
Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
Yet renewable energy may be doing more for China’s economy than for the environment. Total power generation in China is on track to pass the United States in 2012 — and most of the added capacity will still be from coal.
China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States. Coal will still represent two-thirds of China’s capacity in 2020, and nuclear and hydropower most of the rest.
As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the advantage of being the world’s largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing.
China’s top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.
Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China.
China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year. To meet demand in the coming decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to add nearly nine times as much electricity generation capacity as the United States will.
So while Americans are used to thinking of themselves as having the world’s largest market in many industries, China’s market for power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, even though the American market is more mature. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production.
In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively.
Interest rates as low as 2 percent for bank loans — the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy — have also made a big difference.
As in many other industries, China’s low labor costs are an advantage in energy. Although Chinese wages have risen sharply in the last five years, Vestas still pays assembly line workers here only $4,100 a year.
China’s commitment to renewable energy is expensive. Although costs are falling steeply through mass production, wind energy is still 20 to 40 percent more expensive than coal-fired power. Solar power is still at least twice as expensive as coal.
The Chinese government charges a renewable energy fee to all electricity users. The fee increases residential electricity bills by 0.25 percent to 0.4 percent. For industrial users of electricity, the fee doubled in November to roughly 0.8 percent of the electricity bill.
The fee revenue goes to companies that operate the electricity grid, to make up the cost difference between renewable energy and coal-fired power.
Renewable energy fees are not yet high enough to affect China’s competitiveness even in energy-intensive industries, said the chairman of a Chinese industrial company, who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of electricity rates in China.
Grid operators are unhappy. They are reimbursed for the extra cost of buying renewable energy instead of coal-fired power, but not for the formidable cost of building power lines to wind turbines and other renewable energy producers, many of them in remote, windswept areas. Transmission losses are high for sending power over long distances to cities, and nearly a third of China’s wind turbines are not yet connected to the national grid.
Most of these turbines were built only in the last year, however, and grid construction has not caught up. Under legislation passed by the Chinese legislature on Dec. 26, a grid operator that does not connect a renewable energy operation to the grid must pay that operation twice the value of the electricity that cannot be distributed.
With prices tumbling, China’s wind and solar industries are increasingly looking to sell equipment abroad — and facing complaints by Western companies that they have unfair advantages. When a Chinese company reached a deal in November to supply turbines for a big wind farm in Texas, there were calls in Congress to halt federal spending on imported equipment.
“Every country, including the United States and in Europe, wants a low cost of renewable energy,” said Ma Lingjuan, deputy managing director of China’s renewable energy association. “Now China has reached that level, but it gets criticized by the rest of the world.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world
China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy
By KEITH BRADSHER
TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.
China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.
President Obama, in his State of the Union speech last week, sounded an alarm that the United States was falling behind other countries, especially China, on energy. “I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders — and I know you don’t either,” he told Congress.
The United States and other countries are offering incentives to develop their own renewable energy industries, and Mr. Obama called for redoubling American efforts. Yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race.
Multinational corporations are responding to the rapid growth of China’s market by building big, state-of-the-art factories in China. Vestas of Denmark has just erected the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturing complex here in northeastern China, and transferred the technology to build the latest electronic controls and generators.
“You have to move fast with the market,” said Jens Tommerup, the president of Vestas China. “Nobody has ever seen such fast development in a wind market.”
Renewable energy industries here are adding jobs rapidly, reaching 1.12 million in 2008 and climbing by 100,000 a year, according to the government-backed Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
Yet renewable energy may be doing more for China’s economy than for the environment. Total power generation in China is on track to pass the United States in 2012 — and most of the added capacity will still be from coal.
China intends for wind, solar and biomass energy to represent 8 percent of its electricity generation capacity by 2020. That compares with less than 4 percent now in China and the United States. Coal will still represent two-thirds of China’s capacity in 2020, and nuclear and hydropower most of the rest.
As China seeks to dominate energy-equipment exports, it has the advantage of being the world’s largest market for power equipment. The government spends heavily to upgrade the electricity grid, committing $45 billion in 2009 alone. State-owned banks provide generous financing.
China’s top leaders are intensely focused on energy policy: on Wednesday, the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission composed of cabinet ministers as a “superministry” led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.
Regulators have set mandates for power generation companies to use more renewable energy. Generous subsidies for consumers to install their own solar panels or solar water heaters have produced flurries of activity on rooftops across China.
China’s biggest advantage may be its domestic demand for electricity, rising 15 percent a year. To meet demand in the coming decade, according to statistics from the International Energy Agency, China will need to add nearly nine times as much electricity generation capacity as the United States will.
So while Americans are used to thinking of themselves as having the world’s largest market in many industries, China’s market for power equipment dwarfs that of the United States, even though the American market is more mature. That means Chinese producers enjoy enormous efficiencies from large-scale production.
In the United States, power companies frequently face a choice between buying renewable energy equipment or continuing to operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants that have already been built and paid for. In China, power companies have to buy lots of new equipment anyway, and alternative energy, particularly wind and nuclear, is increasingly priced competitively.
Interest rates as low as 2 percent for bank loans — the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy — have also made a big difference.
As in many other industries, China’s low labor costs are an advantage in energy. Although Chinese wages have risen sharply in the last five years, Vestas still pays assembly line workers here only $4,100 a year.
China’s commitment to renewable energy is expensive. Although costs are falling steeply through mass production, wind energy is still 20 to 40 percent more expensive than coal-fired power. Solar power is still at least twice as expensive as coal.
The Chinese government charges a renewable energy fee to all electricity users. The fee increases residential electricity bills by 0.25 percent to 0.4 percent. For industrial users of electricity, the fee doubled in November to roughly 0.8 percent of the electricity bill.
The fee revenue goes to companies that operate the electricity grid, to make up the cost difference between renewable energy and coal-fired power.
Renewable energy fees are not yet high enough to affect China’s competitiveness even in energy-intensive industries, said the chairman of a Chinese industrial company, who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of electricity rates in China.
Grid operators are unhappy. They are reimbursed for the extra cost of buying renewable energy instead of coal-fired power, but not for the formidable cost of building power lines to wind turbines and other renewable energy producers, many of them in remote, windswept areas. Transmission losses are high for sending power over long distances to cities, and nearly a third of China’s wind turbines are not yet connected to the national grid.
Most of these turbines were built only in the last year, however, and grid construction has not caught up. Under legislation passed by the Chinese legislature on Dec. 26, a grid operator that does not connect a renewable energy operation to the grid must pay that operation twice the value of the electricity that cannot be distributed.
With prices tumbling, China’s wind and solar industries are increasingly looking to sell equipment abroad — and facing complaints by Western companies that they have unfair advantages. When a Chinese company reached a deal in November to supply turbines for a big wind farm in Texas, there were calls in Congress to halt federal spending on imported equipment.
“Every country, including the United States and in Europe, wants a low cost of renewable energy,” said Ma Lingjuan, deputy managing director of China’s renewable energy association. “Now China has reached that level, but it gets criticized by the rest of the world.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html?pagewanted=2&ref=world
1/30/2010
[My Interest] The World of Newsweek
COVER STORY: Julio Cobos: Do the Vice President's "Peronist" Tendencies Help or Hurt His Presidential Ambitions?
COVER STORY: Prisoner of the Caucasus: Alexander Kholponin, New Head of the North Caucasus Federal District
TURKEY: Newsweek Türkiye (dated 02.03.10)
COVER STORY: Beware: Toxins at Your Fingertips
POLAND: Newsweek Polska (dated 02.06.10)
COVER STORY: Celebrities and Charity
COVER STORY: Obama and the Inspiration Gap: The Trailblazer's Lost ALSO FEATURED: Iran: the Case for Regime Change
COVER STORY: Davos 2010: Economics Are Having an Identity Crisis
COVER STORY: Haiti: The Worst Humanitarian Crisis in History
[HEALTH] An Unquiet Nation
An Unquiet Nation
Audio ecologist Gordon Hempton talks about America's vanishing quiet spaces, and how our lives can be helped by listening to the silence.
By Julia Baird
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 28, 2010
"There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm." —Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
"The day will come when man will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera and the plague." —Nobel Prize–winning bacteriologist Robert Koch, 1905
Silence is something you assume you will always be able to find if you need it. All you have to do is drive far enough in the right direction, trek through quiet fields or woods, or dive into the sea's belly. For true silence is not noiselessness. As audio ecologist Gordon Hempton defines it, silence is "the complete absence of all audible mechanical vibrations, leaving only the sounds of nature at her most natural. Silence is the presence of everything, undisturbed."
And silence, Hempton believes, is rapidly disappearing, even in the most remote places. He says there are fewer than a dozen places of silence—areas "where natural silence reigns over many square miles"—remaining in America, and none in Europe. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, written with John Grossman, Hempton argues that silence—a precious, underrated commodity—is facing extinction. Over the past three decades Hempton has circled the earth three times, recording sound on every continent except Antarctica: butterfly wings fluttering, coyotes singing, snow melting, waterfalls crashing, traffic clanging, birds singing. His work has been used in film soundtracks, videogames, and museums.
He has also trekked through both remote and urban landscapes, measuring decibels and rude interruptions to the noises of nature. In 1983 he found 21 places in Washington state with noise-free intervals of 15 minutes or more. By 2007 there were three. (One of them is Olympic National Park, which he is trying to save, and he will not reveal the names of the others, arguing that they are protected by their anonymity.) Whom can we blame? People, and planes. Hempton claims that, during daytime, the average noise-free interval in wilderness areas has shrunk to less than five minutes. Think of the snowmobiles roaring through Yellowstone, helicopters flying over Hawaii volcanoes, and air tours over the Grand Canyon. It is air traffic that Hempton seems to resent the most: in his book, he travels across the United States in a 1964 VW bus, recording sound as he goes, from Washington state to Washington, D.C., where he meets with politicians and officials to press his case for the preservation of natural silence.
I spoke to Hempton about his work, his mission, and whether he is just a cranky leaf-blower-hating hippie.
Why should we care about silence?
It has become an increasingly rare experience to be in nature as our distant ancestors were. Even in our national parks today, despite laws to protect them, you are much more likely to be hearing noise pollution, particularly overhead aircraft, than you are to be hearing only the native sounds of the land. Yet to be in a naturally silent place is as essential today as it was to our distant ancestors. Besides spending time away from the damaging noise impacts present at our workplace, neighborhoods, and homes, we are given the opportunity not only to heal but discover something incredible—the presence of life, interwoven! Do you know what it sounds like to listen for 20 miles in every direction? That is more than 1,000 square miles. When I listen to a naturally silent place and hear nature at its most natural, it is no longer merely sound; it is music. And like all music, good or bad, it affects us deeply.
Have you always been interested in silence? Were you a child with acutely sensitive hearing?
As a young child, I was very close to the natural environment. For my first four years, we lived in Hawaii and all my friends could fit in my pockets—they were bugs. My brother, sister, and I ran wild. We moved back to the mainland eventually, but I clearly remember sliding to the bottom of a swimming pool and loving it. It was such an unusual silence, it was like I was suspended in time as I was holding my breath.
At college I majored in botany, and I was outdoors in vegetation all the time. But I did not really start thinking of silence until I was a graduate student in plant pathology, when I was driving from Seattle to Madison, Wis., and decided to sleep in a cornfield for the night. I didn't want to pay for a hotel. As I lay there I heard crickets, and rolling thunder in the background, which captivated me. The thunderstorm came, and I truly listened. The storm passed on, and as I lay there, drenched, the only thought in my mind was, how could I be 27 years old and never have truly listened before? I then took my microphone and tape recorder and went everywhere, obsessively listening—freight trains, hobos—it was a flood of sensation. I realized how we need to hear to survive—in evolution, earlids never developed, but eyelids did. And to those who know that true listening is worship, silence is one of nature's most transformative sermons. I am filled with gratitude to have heard it. Max Ehrmann was right-on when he wrote: "Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence."
Could too much silence make you mad?
Yes, too much silence will drive you mad in no time at all if you are talking about spending time alone in an anechoic chamber. That fact is well established. But in nature, experiencing too much natural silence will not drive you mad—in fact, it might make you sane. Recent studies have shown that nature experience can be as effective as medication in the treatment of autism, for example.
What can we do to save natural silence?
First, go and experience it. Second, contact members of Congress and tell them to support your right to quiet—specifically, that the FAA needs to route aircraft around our most pristine national parks unless it is a rescue operation or other reasons to preserve life. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service to manage our national parks to remain "unimpaired" for present and future generations. Yet while natural quiet is listed as a protected natural resource, 90,000 air tours flew over Grand Canyon National Park in 2009, and another 90,000 air tours will fly again in 2010!
What has been the response to this campaign to reroute aircraft, which you outline in your book?
Airline response has been good but limited. Alaska, American, and Hawaiian Airlines have all volunteered not to fly over Olympic National Park for some flights but not all. The catch is that the FAA has placed four jetways directly over Olympic park: three that crisscross the heart of the park and one that follows the Olympic National Seashore. These jetways are like interstates in the sky, but unlike the interstates that we drive on, there is no pavement to remove or expensive relocation construction cost. These jetways should be moved to protect Olympic park. This area is currently the least polluted by noise when compared to any of the other approximately 390 units managed by the National Park Service. Even more significantly, Olympic park has the greatest diversity of natural soundscapes: glacier-capped peaks, the best example of temperate rainforests in the Western Hemisphere, and the longest uninterrupted stretch of wilderness seashore in the Lower 48.
How do we find silence?
The way to find silence is to go to onesquareinch.org and get directions. The way to begin to find the other 11 places in the U.S. is to look at a NASA view of the United States at night. Light pollution is the evil cousin of noise pollution. Then find a black space that is not between major cities (hint: look to the faraway corners of this country and the northern boundary with Canada).
What would you say to people who might dismiss you as a mad hippie?
I'd laugh. I can totally see how they might think this just by reading quickly. But if they met me, visited my home, sit at the dinner table with my two kids—they would not think so. I am an American, like them, but one who has through unusual circumstances recognized something of unusual value.
Find this article at
http://www.newsweek.com/id/232668
Audio ecologist Gordon Hempton talks about America's vanishing quiet spaces, and how our lives can be helped by listening to the silence.
By Julia Baird
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 28, 2010
"There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm." —Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
"The day will come when man will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera and the plague." —Nobel Prize–winning bacteriologist Robert Koch, 1905
Silence is something you assume you will always be able to find if you need it. All you have to do is drive far enough in the right direction, trek through quiet fields or woods, or dive into the sea's belly. For true silence is not noiselessness. As audio ecologist Gordon Hempton defines it, silence is "the complete absence of all audible mechanical vibrations, leaving only the sounds of nature at her most natural. Silence is the presence of everything, undisturbed."
And silence, Hempton believes, is rapidly disappearing, even in the most remote places. He says there are fewer than a dozen places of silence—areas "where natural silence reigns over many square miles"—remaining in America, and none in Europe. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, written with John Grossman, Hempton argues that silence—a precious, underrated commodity—is facing extinction. Over the past three decades Hempton has circled the earth three times, recording sound on every continent except Antarctica: butterfly wings fluttering, coyotes singing, snow melting, waterfalls crashing, traffic clanging, birds singing. His work has been used in film soundtracks, videogames, and museums.
He has also trekked through both remote and urban landscapes, measuring decibels and rude interruptions to the noises of nature. In 1983 he found 21 places in Washington state with noise-free intervals of 15 minutes or more. By 2007 there were three. (One of them is Olympic National Park, which he is trying to save, and he will not reveal the names of the others, arguing that they are protected by their anonymity.) Whom can we blame? People, and planes. Hempton claims that, during daytime, the average noise-free interval in wilderness areas has shrunk to less than five minutes. Think of the snowmobiles roaring through Yellowstone, helicopters flying over Hawaii volcanoes, and air tours over the Grand Canyon. It is air traffic that Hempton seems to resent the most: in his book, he travels across the United States in a 1964 VW bus, recording sound as he goes, from Washington state to Washington, D.C., where he meets with politicians and officials to press his case for the preservation of natural silence.
I spoke to Hempton about his work, his mission, and whether he is just a cranky leaf-blower-hating hippie.
Why should we care about silence?
It has become an increasingly rare experience to be in nature as our distant ancestors were. Even in our national parks today, despite laws to protect them, you are much more likely to be hearing noise pollution, particularly overhead aircraft, than you are to be hearing only the native sounds of the land. Yet to be in a naturally silent place is as essential today as it was to our distant ancestors. Besides spending time away from the damaging noise impacts present at our workplace, neighborhoods, and homes, we are given the opportunity not only to heal but discover something incredible—the presence of life, interwoven! Do you know what it sounds like to listen for 20 miles in every direction? That is more than 1,000 square miles. When I listen to a naturally silent place and hear nature at its most natural, it is no longer merely sound; it is music. And like all music, good or bad, it affects us deeply.
Have you always been interested in silence? Were you a child with acutely sensitive hearing?
As a young child, I was very close to the natural environment. For my first four years, we lived in Hawaii and all my friends could fit in my pockets—they were bugs. My brother, sister, and I ran wild. We moved back to the mainland eventually, but I clearly remember sliding to the bottom of a swimming pool and loving it. It was such an unusual silence, it was like I was suspended in time as I was holding my breath.
At college I majored in botany, and I was outdoors in vegetation all the time. But I did not really start thinking of silence until I was a graduate student in plant pathology, when I was driving from Seattle to Madison, Wis., and decided to sleep in a cornfield for the night. I didn't want to pay for a hotel. As I lay there I heard crickets, and rolling thunder in the background, which captivated me. The thunderstorm came, and I truly listened. The storm passed on, and as I lay there, drenched, the only thought in my mind was, how could I be 27 years old and never have truly listened before? I then took my microphone and tape recorder and went everywhere, obsessively listening—freight trains, hobos—it was a flood of sensation. I realized how we need to hear to survive—in evolution, earlids never developed, but eyelids did. And to those who know that true listening is worship, silence is one of nature's most transformative sermons. I am filled with gratitude to have heard it. Max Ehrmann was right-on when he wrote: "Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence."
Could too much silence make you mad?
Yes, too much silence will drive you mad in no time at all if you are talking about spending time alone in an anechoic chamber. That fact is well established. But in nature, experiencing too much natural silence will not drive you mad—in fact, it might make you sane. Recent studies have shown that nature experience can be as effective as medication in the treatment of autism, for example.
What can we do to save natural silence?
First, go and experience it. Second, contact members of Congress and tell them to support your right to quiet—specifically, that the FAA needs to route aircraft around our most pristine national parks unless it is a rescue operation or other reasons to preserve life. The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service to manage our national parks to remain "unimpaired" for present and future generations. Yet while natural quiet is listed as a protected natural resource, 90,000 air tours flew over Grand Canyon National Park in 2009, and another 90,000 air tours will fly again in 2010!
What has been the response to this campaign to reroute aircraft, which you outline in your book?
Airline response has been good but limited. Alaska, American, and Hawaiian Airlines have all volunteered not to fly over Olympic National Park for some flights but not all. The catch is that the FAA has placed four jetways directly over Olympic park: three that crisscross the heart of the park and one that follows the Olympic National Seashore. These jetways are like interstates in the sky, but unlike the interstates that we drive on, there is no pavement to remove or expensive relocation construction cost. These jetways should be moved to protect Olympic park. This area is currently the least polluted by noise when compared to any of the other approximately 390 units managed by the National Park Service. Even more significantly, Olympic park has the greatest diversity of natural soundscapes: glacier-capped peaks, the best example of temperate rainforests in the Western Hemisphere, and the longest uninterrupted stretch of wilderness seashore in the Lower 48.
How do we find silence?
The way to find silence is to go to onesquareinch.org and get directions. The way to begin to find the other 11 places in the U.S. is to look at a NASA view of the United States at night. Light pollution is the evil cousin of noise pollution. Then find a black space that is not between major cities (hint: look to the faraway corners of this country and the northern boundary with Canada).
What would you say to people who might dismiss you as a mad hippie?
I'd laugh. I can totally see how they might think this just by reading quickly. But if they met me, visited my home, sit at the dinner table with my two kids—they would not think so. I am an American, like them, but one who has through unusual circumstances recognized something of unusual value.
Find this article at
http://www.newsweek.com/id/232668
1/29/2010
[NEWS] Gates Foundation to Double Spending on Vaccines
January 30, 2010
Gates Foundation to Double Spending on Vaccines
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective public health measure, Bill and Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the next decade, to at least $10 billion.
The change could save the lives of as many as eight million children by 2020, Mr. Gates calculated. He said he hoped his gift would inspire other charities and donor nations to do the same.
“Vaccines are a real success story,” Mr. Gates said in an interview before the announcement, which he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The cost is tiny, and yet it saves more lives than any other component of a health care system.”
Julian Lob-Levyt, the executive secretary of the GAVI Alliance, a partnership among drug companies, health agencies and charities bringing vaccines to poor countries, said he “hugely welcomed” the announcement.
“If other donors follow the lead of the Gates Foundation and step up their funding for vaccines,” Dr. Lob-Levyt said, “GAVI has the ability to immunize millions of children against the world’s two biggest childhood killers, pneumonia and diarrhea.”
Vaccines already get more financing from the Gates Foundation than any other cause, and Mr. Gates said no money would be shifted away from other projects, like improved crops, assistance to small businesses and, on the domestic front, schools and libraries. Instead, he and Warren Buffett will increase their annual gifts to the foundation, and about 30 percent of all spending, up from 20 percent, will be for vaccines.
In calculating that eight million lives could be saved, Mr. Gates cited a computer model developed for the foundation by public health specialists at Johns Hopkins University.
Whether such an optimistic prediction comes true depends on several factors that are still uncertain.
For starters, Mr. Gates wants to make sure that 90 percent of the world’s children get shots for routine childhood diseases like measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and polio. Right now, almost 80 percent do. But with 134 million children born each year, it is a constant struggle to keep up, and efforts can be interrupted by factors like war, natural disasters, bad roads and corrupt officials.
Then he assumes that two new vaccines against rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, which are major killers of malnourished children, are adopted as routine immunizations in most poor countries and reach 80 percent of all children by 2020. Even in wealthy countries, the introduction of any new vaccine can be tricky because of bureaucratic and logistical delays and because unexpected rumors can spring up, like the persistent one that polio vaccine is a plot to sterilize Muslim girls.
Mr. Gates’s model also assumes that a malaria vaccine now in development by GlaxoSmithKline will be approved and will by 2014 reach at least some of the one million children, mostly in Africa, who die annually of the disease.
Yet the vaccine, known as RTS,S, is still in the testing phase. And as Mr. Gates acknowledged, “you can always be surprised” during clinical trials.
On the pessimistic side, his model assumes that no vaccine against AIDS or tuberculosis will be licensed during the decade — something that virtually all public health specialists ruefully agree with because progress on those has been very slow.
from new york times
Gates Foundation to Double Spending on Vaccines
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective public health measure, Bill and Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the next decade, to at least $10 billion.
The change could save the lives of as many as eight million children by 2020, Mr. Gates calculated. He said he hoped his gift would inspire other charities and donor nations to do the same.
“Vaccines are a real success story,” Mr. Gates said in an interview before the announcement, which he made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The cost is tiny, and yet it saves more lives than any other component of a health care system.”
Julian Lob-Levyt, the executive secretary of the GAVI Alliance, a partnership among drug companies, health agencies and charities bringing vaccines to poor countries, said he “hugely welcomed” the announcement.
“If other donors follow the lead of the Gates Foundation and step up their funding for vaccines,” Dr. Lob-Levyt said, “GAVI has the ability to immunize millions of children against the world’s two biggest childhood killers, pneumonia and diarrhea.”
Vaccines already get more financing from the Gates Foundation than any other cause, and Mr. Gates said no money would be shifted away from other projects, like improved crops, assistance to small businesses and, on the domestic front, schools and libraries. Instead, he and Warren Buffett will increase their annual gifts to the foundation, and about 30 percent of all spending, up from 20 percent, will be for vaccines.
In calculating that eight million lives could be saved, Mr. Gates cited a computer model developed for the foundation by public health specialists at Johns Hopkins University.
Whether such an optimistic prediction comes true depends on several factors that are still uncertain.
For starters, Mr. Gates wants to make sure that 90 percent of the world’s children get shots for routine childhood diseases like measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and polio. Right now, almost 80 percent do. But with 134 million children born each year, it is a constant struggle to keep up, and efforts can be interrupted by factors like war, natural disasters, bad roads and corrupt officials.
Then he assumes that two new vaccines against rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, which are major killers of malnourished children, are adopted as routine immunizations in most poor countries and reach 80 percent of all children by 2020. Even in wealthy countries, the introduction of any new vaccine can be tricky because of bureaucratic and logistical delays and because unexpected rumors can spring up, like the persistent one that polio vaccine is a plot to sterilize Muslim girls.
Mr. Gates’s model also assumes that a malaria vaccine now in development by GlaxoSmithKline will be approved and will by 2014 reach at least some of the one million children, mostly in Africa, who die annually of the disease.
Yet the vaccine, known as RTS,S, is still in the testing phase. And as Mr. Gates acknowledged, “you can always be surprised” during clinical trials.
On the pessimistic side, his model assumes that no vaccine against AIDS or tuberculosis will be licensed during the decade — something that virtually all public health specialists ruefully agree with because progress on those has been very slow.
from new york times
[BIOGRAPHY] Andrew Ross Sorkin
Too Big to Fail: How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — and Themselves is Sorkin’s first book.
Sorkin, who has appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and on “Charlie Rose” on PBS, is a frequent guest host of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” He won a Gerald Loeb Award, one of the highest honors in business journalism, in 2004 for breaking news. He also won a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award for breaking news in 2005 and again in 2006. In 2007, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader. In 2008 and 2009, Vanity Fair named him to its “Next Establishment” list. He was also named to the Directorship 100, a list of the most influential people on the nation’s board of directors. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Sorkin is a graduate of Cornell University.
Sorkin began writing for The Times in 1995 under unusual circumstances: he hadn’t yet graduated from high school.
Sorkin and his wife, Pilar, live in Manhattan.
from http://www.adrewrosssorkin.com/
[NEWS] Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry – the key points
UKBP via Reuters TV Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry – the key pointsWhat the former prime minister told the Chilcot panel in brief
What the former prime minister told the Chilcot panel in brief
• Tony Blair told the inquiry he believed Saddam Hussein was a "monster" before 9/11 but accepted that he would have to make the best of the situation.
At his first meeting with George Bush, in February 2001, Blair discussed Iraq. But it was in the context of trying to get a better sanctions regime. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, this view changed dramatically.
"I would fairly describe our policy up to September 11 as doing our best ... but with a different calculus of risk assessment ... The crucial thing after September 11 was that the calculus of risk changed."
• He said "nothing was decided" when he had a one-to-one dinner with Bush in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. It it is important for leaders to establish a "close and strong relationship", he said.
"As I recall that discussion it was less to do with specifics ... the principle part of my conversation was really to try and say in the end we have got to deal with the various different dimensions of this whole issue."
• He said he was quite open about his determination to deal with Saddam and had made this point publicly in the press conference he held with Bush. "What I was saying – I was not saying this privately, incidentally; I was saying it in public – was: 'We are going to be with you in confronting and dealing with this threat' ... The position was not a covert position; it was an open position. We would be with them in dealing with this threat and how we did that was an open question, and even at that stage I was raising the issue of going to the UN."
• He said that telling Bush that he would support him in his drive to deal with Iraq did not set conditions because the US-UK relationship was "an alliance, not a contract".
• Blair said that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he firmly believed that he could not run the risk that Saddam would reconstitute his banned weapons programmes. "The decision I took – and frankly would take again – was if there was any possibility that he could develop weapons of mass destruction [WMD] we should stop him. That was my view then and that is my view now."
• He suggested that there was no real difference between wanting regime change and wanting Iraq to disarm: regime change was US policy because Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations. "It's more a different way of expressing the same proposition."
• On the "beyond doubt" line written he wrote in the foreword of the September 2002 dossier to describe the strength of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, he said: "What I actually said in the foreword was that I believed it beyond doubt ... and I did believe it."
He said if anyone read the summary of the document produced by the joint intelligence committee as a result of the evidence presented to them at the time, he could not see how they could produce a different interpretation.
"All the intelligence we received was to the same effect. There were people perfectly justifiably and sensibly also saying that you cannot sit around and wait ... you have got to take action clearly and definitively."
• He accepted that the September 2002 dossier should have made clear that the now-notorious claim that Iraq had WMD that could be launched in 45 minutes referred to battlefield weapons and not long-range missiles. "It would have been better to have corrected it in the light of the significance it later took on," he said.
• He said that Bush's view was that a second UN resolution was not necessary, but that he was prepared to work for one. Blair had drafted a resolution with Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector. He rejected suggestions that his attempt to get a second resolution was to try to curtail the inspections process because of the needs of the military planning.
•Blair said America would have offered Britain a way out if he had decided against going to war.
"I think the Americans would have done that. I think President Bush at one point said, before the debate: 'Look, if it's too difficult for Britain, we understand.' I took the view very strongly then – and do now – that it was right for us to be with America, since we believed in this too."
• Blair describes the run-up to the war as a "tough situation" due to the international divide.
• Blair accepted he felt "considerable relief" when the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, said there was no need for a second resolution. He said Britain could not have taken part in the military action if Goldsmith had not finally come to a definitive view – a week before the invasion – that it was legal.
"If Peter [Goldsmith] had said: 'This would not be justified lawfully,' we would have been unable to take action. A lot hung on that decision. Therefore it was important that it was done by the attorney general and done in a way which we were satisfied was right and correct."
• Blair said he thought he could have got the nine votes necessary for a security council vote in favour of a second resolution if it had not been for the French and the Russians making it clear that they were vehemently opposed.
• On his recent interview with Fern Britton, he admitted he made a mistake when he said that he would have wanted to get rid of Saddam even if he had known Iraq had no WMD.
"I did not use the word 'regime change' in that interview and I did not mean to change the basis for the justification for war," he said. It was in no sense a change in the position, which was the breach of UN resolutions on WMD, he went on. "That was the cause. It was so and it remains."
• Blair said he did not want to make the planning "visible" until he had to. But in October Geoff Hoon – then the defence secretary – said they had to start planning at this level. At that point it happened.
• Blair says he did not refuse a request "for money or equipment" from the Ministry of Defence at any time when he was prime minister. He says the army regarded themselves as "ready". And they performed as "ready".
If anyone at any stage had said it was not safe to go ahead because of lack of military preparation, "I would have taken that very, very seriously indeed".
• Blair insisted there was an immense amount of post-war planning, which centred on the possibility of a humanitarian catastrophe. "The real problem was that our focus was on the issues that in the end did not cause us difficulty." Everyone assumed there would be a functioning Iraqi civil service, but when the British went into Basra, they found a "completely broken system".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/29/tony-blair-iraq-inquiry-key-points
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2010/jan/29/tony-blair-iraq-inquiry-evidence
1/28/2010
[NEWS] Soros Endorses Obama’s Plan on Banks
January 28, 2010
Soros Endorses Obama’s Plan on Banks By JULIA WERDIGIER
DAVOS, Switzerland — The billionaire investor George Soros said on Wednesday that he supported President Obama’s proposal to limit the size of banks. But he warned that it was too early to put such a plan in place and that it did not go far enough.
Mr. Soros’s comments at the World Economic Forum here clashed with those made earlier in the day by the president of Barclays, Robert E. Diamond Jr., who said that the effects of shrinking banks “on jobs and the economy would be very negative.”
“There is no evidence that shrinking banks is the answer,” Mr. Diamond said during a panel discussion.
Mr. Obama’s plan is becoming a focus of discussion among conference participants. Among the measures Mr. Obama presented last week was one to prohibit banks that hold deposits from owning or investing in hedge funds or private equity funds.
While some banking executives fear that such rules would hamper earnings and liquidity in the market, supporters say the plan would reduce the risk of governments having to step in again to bail out banks because their size and interconnections posed a risk to the rest of the economy.
Mr. Soros said he was “very supportive” of Mr. Obama’s plan but added that it “does not go far enough.”
“Some banks will spin off investment banks and those will be substantial,” he said at a lunch in Davos. “They then have to be controlled so that they don’t fail.”
But he also said that such rules should not be put in place until “banks earn their way” out of the financial crisis.
Jonathan M. Nelson, chief executive of the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, also raised doubts that smaller banks made for a more stable financial market.
“Some say less diversified banks are weaker banks,” he said. “As customers, we like big banks because they can provide us with a variety of products.”
Instead of splitting up banks, Mr. Diamond said, stricter capital requirements and rules requiring banks to use less leverage and hold bigger pools of liquidity would help make the financial system more stable
As an example, he mentioned how Barclays had abandoned a plan to buy Lehman Brothers after realizing that had it done so, the bank would not be able to fulfill its own capital requirements.
Mr. Soros warned that now, with the financial crisis largely passed, banks had a desire to “carry on as before,” and that it was up to regulators to keep that from happening. But he added that regulation — like markets — would never be perfect. “You need to keep regulation to a minimum because it’s worse than markets,” he said, “but you can’t do without it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/business/28soros.html?scp=2&sq=george%20soros&st=cse
Soros Endorses Obama’s Plan on Banks By JULIA WERDIGIER
DAVOS, Switzerland — The billionaire investor George Soros said on Wednesday that he supported President Obama’s proposal to limit the size of banks. But he warned that it was too early to put such a plan in place and that it did not go far enough.
Mr. Soros’s comments at the World Economic Forum here clashed with those made earlier in the day by the president of Barclays, Robert E. Diamond Jr., who said that the effects of shrinking banks “on jobs and the economy would be very negative.”
“There is no evidence that shrinking banks is the answer,” Mr. Diamond said during a panel discussion.
Mr. Obama’s plan is becoming a focus of discussion among conference participants. Among the measures Mr. Obama presented last week was one to prohibit banks that hold deposits from owning or investing in hedge funds or private equity funds.
While some banking executives fear that such rules would hamper earnings and liquidity in the market, supporters say the plan would reduce the risk of governments having to step in again to bail out banks because their size and interconnections posed a risk to the rest of the economy.
Mr. Soros said he was “very supportive” of Mr. Obama’s plan but added that it “does not go far enough.”
“Some banks will spin off investment banks and those will be substantial,” he said at a lunch in Davos. “They then have to be controlled so that they don’t fail.”
But he also said that such rules should not be put in place until “banks earn their way” out of the financial crisis.
Jonathan M. Nelson, chief executive of the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, also raised doubts that smaller banks made for a more stable financial market.
“Some say less diversified banks are weaker banks,” he said. “As customers, we like big banks because they can provide us with a variety of products.”
Instead of splitting up banks, Mr. Diamond said, stricter capital requirements and rules requiring banks to use less leverage and hold bigger pools of liquidity would help make the financial system more stable
As an example, he mentioned how Barclays had abandoned a plan to buy Lehman Brothers after realizing that had it done so, the bank would not be able to fulfill its own capital requirements.
Mr. Soros warned that now, with the financial crisis largely passed, banks had a desire to “carry on as before,” and that it was up to regulators to keep that from happening. But he added that regulation — like markets — would never be perfect. “You need to keep regulation to a minimum because it’s worse than markets,” he said, “but you can’t do without it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/business/28soros.html?scp=2&sq=george%20soros&st=cse
[NEWS] Senate confirms Bernanke
[NEWS] Argentine Leader
Pork better for sex than Viagra - Argentine leader
Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra on Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork, according to Reuters.
"I've just been told something I didn't know; that eating pork improves your sex life ... I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry, according to the report.
She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2010/01/28/201001280078.asp
Argentina's president recommended pork as an alternative to Viagra on Wednesday, saying she spent a satisfying weekend with her husband after eating barbecued pork, according to Reuters.
"I've just been told something I didn't know; that eating pork improves your sex life ... I'd say it's a lot nicer to eat a bit of grilled pork than take Viagra," President Cristina Fernandez said to leaders of the pig farming industry, according to the report.
She said she recently ate pork and "things went very well that weekend, so it could well be true."
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2010/01/28/201001280078.asp
1/27/2010
[TECHNOLOGY] Apple
Apple unveils $499 iPad, bets on new device class
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off the highly anticipated "iPad" tablet and pitched it at a surprisingly low price, aiming to bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops.
[My Opinion] TOYOTA
Toyota temporarily halts sales of eight models
The carmaker took the unprecedented action because the vehicles' gas pedals can get stuck and cause unwanted acceleration. Toyota will also stop making the cars and trucks Monday.
According to press reports, the German automobile company, Volkswagen is likely to take an opportunity which may conquer the automobile field. In the bottom line, TOYOTA company seems to be frustrated by the makeshift way of management.
In my personal view, I feel so sorry and sad. Whatever else might be said, TOYOTA is the main company in terms of automobile business. Success comes and gone. I hope TOYOTA will be reformed by this bitter lesson.
[INTERNATIONAL RELATION] The U.S. and Russia
President Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and daughters, Sasha and Malia, disembark from Air Force One in Moscow on July 6.
President Barack Obama watches two Russian honor guards lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow on July 6.
President Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, walk through the Kremlin after arriving in Moscow.
President Barack Obama, center left, speaks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, center right, during a meeting at the Kremlin
Catering workers take a photograph of President Barack Obama on a TV screen inside the Kremlin.
First lady Michelle Obama meets with Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedeva at the Kremlin.
President Barack Obama greets members of the Russian delegation prior to his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Kremlin.
Souvenir matryoshka dolls, or Russian nesting dolls, painted with portraits of President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are displayed near Red Square on July 5 in Moscow.
Obama and Russian President Medvedev shake hands after speaking during a joint press conference at the Kremlin on Monday, July 6. Obama said he believed the dispute between the United States and Russia over missile defense can be solved over time.
President Barack Obama and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, hold a breakfast meeting Tuesday, July 7. Obama and Putin shared concerns about terrorism and nuclear proliferation, with U.S. officials calling the talks "very successful."
President Barack Obama greets students after delivering a commencement address at Moscow's New Economic School on July 7. The speech was not widely televised in Russia.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was in the audience for President Barack Obama's address at the New Economic School in Moscow on July 7. Gorbachev and Obama later met and had a "big philosophical discussion," a senior U.S. official said.
First lady Michelle Obama greets nurses during her visit to St. Dmitriy Nursing College of Sisters of Mercy in Moscow on July 7.
from msnbc.com
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