The Korean telecom regulator awarded IPTV licenses to KT (mega TV), Hanarotelecom (HanaTV), and LG Dacom (myLGTV). Trials start next week, and negociations with broadcasters are still raging. Up to now*, the trio mostly competed on VOD exclusivities (price for myLGTV), but after an intensive summer of lobbying, they expect to propose real-time TV from major broadcasters from October on.Korean auth
A Greedy Caste of THUGS: Kenyan members of parliament, ministers and assistant ministers earn upto $120,000 a year — in a country where the majority live on a dollar a day
Opposition leader Raila Odinga, left, was named Kenya’s prime minister in a power-sharing arrangement announced in April by President Mwai Kibaki.
Nearly eight months after a [...]
He famously accused her of lip-synching, but last night Sir Elton John had nothing but cheers for his former nemesis Madonna as she took to the stage in France.
Sir Elton, accompanied by David Furnish, was spotted among the crowd as the 50-year-old singer’s Sticky & Sweet tour rolled into Nice.
Important lesson: don't underestimate Russia, and don't underestimate Putin either. They've resumed their onslaught:
OUTSIDE GORI, Georgia (AP) - Russian troops and paramilitaries thrust deep into Georgia on Wednesday, rolling into the strategic city of Gori and violating the truce designed to end the six-day war that has uprooted 100,000 people and scarred the Georgian landscape.
Georgian
Like I said there:
A Kassam rocket fired from northern Gaza landed in the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council on Saturday evening, causing no injuries or damage.
The rocket triggered the Red Alert air raid system throughout Gaza-border communities.
The incident continues a pattern of erratic cross-border shelling and rocket launches since the cease-fire was declared in June. The last such attack
The fragile cease fire agreement in Gaza raises questions as to whether or not Israel and Hamas can succeed in resolving a problem without causing violence in the region. The Israel government agreed to reopen Gaza crossings due to the urging of the Egyptian government. An Israel Defence Ministry statement said: “In response to a [...]
Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston have called a love truce. The actresses - who are both dating each other's ex-boyfriends - decided to put their differences aside and talk about the awkward situation they have found themselves in.
I put truce in quotes because we all know the only reason the gazan jihadists ask for a truce is so they can restock their rocket supplies.
Rocket hits Israel, second violation of Gaza truce
JERUSALEM - Gaza militants fired two rockets into southern Israel on Thursday, further straining a shaky, week-old truce as Israel kept vital [...]
Again, an alleged "truce" by Hamas has been broken when they fire rocket number 99,999 against Israelis (Hat tip: Jihad Watch).
Let's be clear. Olmert, for as long as he's still prime minister, can try all he wants, but it will do no good in attempting to secure a deal with them. They will always break it very soon afterwards.
The parents of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas-allied militants petitioned Israel's supreme court Saturday to block a truce deal with the militant group so long as their son remains in captivity.Noam and Aviva Schalit petitioned the court on behalf of their son Gilad, claiming that part of the deal included opening the Gaza Strip's crossings. They said this would allow their son's captors to smug
Author: DR.ABDUL RUFF Colachal
Nuclear Israel and the Islamist Palestinians (Hamas), once again, have agreed in principle on 18 June to a truce in and around the Gaza Strip, capping months of...
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GAZA - PalestineNews : At least three Israeli violations of the fresh truce that was sponsored by Egypt in the Gaza Strip were recoded few hours after that truce started on Thursday as IOF troops opened their machinegun fire at Palestinian fishermen, and farmers.
Local Palestinian sources said that Israeli gunboats fired at Palestinian fishermen trying to earn a living, no casualties were recorde
GAZA CITY: Hamas said it would respect a truce with Israel starting Thursday, but stressed that Egyptian-mediated negotiations had not yet been concluded.A Gaza Strip truce between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement will last six months, the Palestinian group said at a news conference in the impoverished territory.Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza [...]
It looks like there may be another truce between the Palestinians and Israelis. Supposedly the truce will gointo effect on Thursday, but I am not going to hold my breathe. It seems that the Israeli military has targeted and killed...
Considering the events of past “truces” (Hamas uses them to bring in more rockets during the lull in IDF raids) I am skeptical, but hopeful.
Pact due to begin Thursday; 5 militants also killed in Gaza airstrike
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Tuesday said they have reached a long-awaited cease-fire with Israel meant [...]
CNN today reported that high-level Hamas officials are stating that an imminent cease-fire with Israel is in the works, and could happen within three days.
Now, I’m torn on this. First of all, we all know that Hamas can use open-roads, and a cease-fire, simply to rearm and regroup forces. Then again, any move toward peace [...]
GAZA - PalestineNews : Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya said on Thursday that truce was a Zio-American requirement after the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip has failed to achieve its ends.He also said that the constant Israeli threats of a large scale invasion of the Gaza Strip aim to cover for the daily aggressions and crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinians in the Gaza S
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defense Minister said it was time for Israel to make an effort towards reaching some form of agreement with Hamas over the situation in the Gaza Strip. He expressed his concerns that Israel’s government was not able to make decisions without considering political factors and this hindered efforts to move decisively on [...]
An Israel delegation arrived in Cairo today to pursue further discussions with Egyptian mediators and Hamas officials for a long term cease fire in Gaza. The Israel Cabinet has decided to call off plans for a full blown invasion of Gaza and will work with Hamas in order to end violence in the Gaza area. [...]
TEHRAN - PalestineInfo : Khaled Mishaal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, stated that the Palestinian resistance factions would not abide by the truce as long as the Israeli occupation rejects the Egyptian initiative and lays down conditions for implementing it. "Hamas responded to the Egyptian efforts and crystallized a unified Palestinian position that mainly displayed that the Palestinia
PESHAWAR: NWFP government and local Taliban have agreed to a peace agreement under which
iBeginShare.attachButton('share-tool-633488414', {title: 'NWFP government, local Taliban ratify peace truce', link: '-government-local-taliban-ratify-peace-truce/', content: '
Hamas has threatened an "unprecedented escalation" against Israel if it does not agree soon to the Egyptian-mediated cease-fire offer, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday.
Hamas has been attempting, unsuccessfully, to eradicate Israel. That is their intended goal. Now they claim to want a "truce" with Israel. Not peace. A "truce". They want it bad enough to threaten more violence
Israel may have 200 nuclear warheads, but Hamas has 200,000 people who want to blow themselves up inside Israel, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said Tuesday.
Here's a simple answer. Take a couple of those nuclear warheads and drop them in Gaza. There go the 200,000 homicide bombers. I know this is unlikely to happen but it was just a thought. Actually, 200,000 dead "palestinians" would relieve Hamas
Not Guilty in Bell Case: Three New York City police officers have just been found innocent of all charges in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell, who was killed by 50 bullets on his wedding day. Bell, 23, was shot along with two friends, after a bachelor party at a strip club in November 2006. The case has generated outrage in New York's black community. A New York State Supreme Court judge cleared two officers of manslaughter and other charges and a third of reckless endangerment in the death. Syria Secret Nuclear Program: The United States has accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that "was not intended for peaceful purposes." The US released photographs it said linked North Korea to a plutonium-producing reactor under constr
As Jews throughout the world celebrate the Passover holidays, Egtpitan Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman will soon be arriving in Israel with an offer from Hamas for a truce. The Egyptian government has been actively engaged in peace discussions with Hamas for many reasons including a desire to avoid its own confrontation with Gazans if Hamas [...]
Top headlines all over the world are proclaiming an end to fighting in Iraq, with the Mahdi army calling a truce of some sort. From the New York Times:
The substance of Mr. Sadr’s statement, released Sunday afternoon, was hammered out in elaborate negotiations over the past few days with senior Iraqi officials, some of whom traveled to Iran to meet with Mr. Sadr, according to several officials involved in the discussions.
…
Last week, Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul Kadir al-Obeidi, conceded that the government’s military efforts in Basra have met with far more resistance than was expected. Many Iraqi politicians say that Mr. Maliki’s political capital has been severely depleted by the Basra campaign and that he is in the curious position of having to turn to Mr. Sadr, a longt
Despite a stronger than expected showing by the Mahdi Army, the government forces supported by US troops are winning and showing no signs of backing down. Following classic Islamist strategy al-Sadr now seeks a truce. Will the Maliki government take the opportunity to destroy them or force them to disarm and disband once and for all?
Israel and Egypt are conducting intensive negotiations in an effort to reach a long term cease fire agreement in the gaza Strip wich would include reopening the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Israel Defense Ministry officials visited Cairo to discuss possible peace arrangements with Egyptian officials. In exchange for a cease fire, [...]
Many people applauded the so-called “truce” agreed upon last week between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the culmination of a week-long argument battle royal over who played the race card. The presidential candidates pledged to shy away from injecting race into their campaigns, from making race (and gender) a platform upon which to make claims about who is better fit to hold the office of president. But this pledge is as misguided and misplaced as some of the comments flying around over the past few weeks (e.g., BET founder Bob Johnson’s winking nod toward Barack’s drug use, Clinton’s refusal to acknowledge it for what it was, or Obama’s mis-characterization of Clinton’s comments about Marin Luther King, Jr.).The pledge, however, simply denies the realities of racial appea
Hamas is reported to have delivered proposals for a truce to end the violence in and around Gaza.Two Israeli cabinet ministers have said that Israel should be willing to talk to Hamas regarding any potential ceasefire proposal."If a serious offer for a truce from Hamas reached us, I think we should examine it seriously," Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli transport minister, said.Israel and Hamas do not enjoy good relations with each other. Hamas does not recognise Israel as a sovereign state, and Israel will not negotiate with Hamas until this position changes. This is in addition to renouncing violence and accepting past peace accords.Moving forward from Annapolis?"If Hamas comes to us with a serious proposal for a long-term truce, in my opinion Israel should not reject it." Benjamin Ben-Eliezer,
The supplies of Russia’s natural gas to Belarus will not be reduced so far. Gazprom received on Friday the first $190 million out of the $456.16 million which Minsk owes for gas। The remaining sum is to be transferred to Gazprom next week. Meanwhile, Washington expressed deep concern over the Moscow-Minsk gas standoff. At 10:25 a.m. on Friday, $190 million came to Gazprom’s account in Gazprombank. It is the first tranche of Belarus’ debt of $456.16 million. The remaining sum is to be transferred to Gazprom next week. Gazprom confirmed on Friday that the supplies of Russia’s natural gas to Belarus will not be reduced so far. However, Gazprom’s spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said that if the remaining money fails to come next week, the Russian monopoly will reduce gas supplies to Belarus by 30 percent. Meanwhile, Washington expressed deep concern over the Moscow-Minsk gas standoff. Tom Casey, deputy spokesman of the U.S. Department of State, said: “What we'd like to see
Right now, both sides of the sex education debate still insist that education can change sexual activity. As best as we can tell, they're both wrong.New York - Hey, check it out: Abstinence education doesn't work!It's fun to be right, that's for sure. So my fellow liberals have been gloating since last April, when an exhaustive five-year study showed what we always suspected: Kids receiving "abstinence education" are no more likely to delay sexual intercourse than their peers. Politicians are starting to notice, too. Although the federal government continues to finance abstinence education, 11 state health departments rejected it this year. Even more, three states are considering laws that would ban any sex education program that isn't supported by "science" or "research." But here's what most liberals won't admit: We don't have solid evidence for our own favored forms of sex education, either. So if the law requires science-based sex ed, we might have to change our entire app
After about 8 dealers and numerous salespeople, we finally got what we wanted - at the price we wanted.
It was a very rich learning experience in the field of used-car buying; and hopefully I will summarize a few key points next week.
Our final choice (war trophy) was a lease-returned 2005 Toyota Corolla CE with about 21K miles - still has a fraction of the original warranty on it. I won’t disclose the actual drive-out price, but people who read this blog are smart enough to fish that out from online sources.
In our little psychological battles with car salesmen, we defeated about 10 salespeople (and a few managers) before finally making a truce with a down-to-earth guy (in terms of the prices).
The summary of the proceedings (divided over two days) was as follows:
Day 1: Dealers were taking us for a ride - this was our learning phase.
Day 2: We set the pace of the negotiation and the price - here we were implementing what we learned on the previous day.
We could have reduced t
Another clash between Hamas and Fatah gangs took place. They say here that four gunmen were left dead but on Israeli TV the report said ten were. Following this, one member of their mock government cabinet quit:According to the sources, the gunbattle broke out near the Fatah intelligence headquarters in northern Gaza City. The dead were the bodyguards of a local Fatah leader.In protest of the ongoing violence in Gaza, Palestinian Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi resigned Monday, one of his assistants told CNN. [...]His resignation was a blow to the Palestinian unity government, formed earlier this year in an effort to end the deadly factional fighting concentrated in Gaza.Clearly, even that doesn't work when you have rival gangs and Islam involved.
There is no leadership in Israel. In the face of knowledge that Hamas has no intention of keeping the truce, and intends to wipe out Israel, our “leaders” will not act. Jewish Press
Hamas is using a cease-fire forged with Israel three months ago to stockpile weapons and prepare for an...
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Suprisingly, today Cisco and Apple announced that they have resolved their dispute involving the "iPhone" trademark. A few weeks before Apple announced the iPhone we found out that the name was already taken by Cisco Systems, however Apple still announced the iPhone. Under the agreement, both companies are free to use the "iPhone" trademark on their products throughout the world. Cisco has always maintained since the start of the dispute that it was not about money, even though it stood to profit generously from any settlement.In a joint statement, both companies stated they are free to use the iPhone trademark on their products throughout the world, and each side will dismiss any pending actions regarding the trademark. Additionally, both companies will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.
Anheuser-Busch Cos. of the United States and Budejovicky Budvar of the Czech Republic have agreed to put aside one of the world's longest running trademark disputes in the name of selling more Czech pilsner in America.
The two companies have fought over the Budweiser trademark, running up millions of dollars in legal bills around the world. Anheuser-Busch cannot sell its flagship beer under the Budweiser name in most of Europe, using the name Bud instead. In the U.S., the Czech company cannot use the Budvar brand name, instead selling its beer as Czechvar.
Under the agreement announced by the two brewing firms this morning, Czechvar, currently sold in 30 states, will go nationwide using A-B's marketing, sales and distribution clout. The move further expands the St. Louis based brewery's alliances with imported brands. Czechvar joins Grolsch, Tiger, Kirin, Stella Artois, Beck's, Bass Pale Ale, Leffe and other beers in A-B's import portfolio.
The two companies are calling the ag
Stocks: (AMD)(INTC)
Part of Intel's earnings reports was the news that its price war with AMD seemed to be over.
The problem with the statement is that Intel also said it was gaining back share from AMD, especially in the high end server markets where AMD had made considerable in-roads.
But, what if someone forgot to tell AMD.
AMD has gained share from Intel, especially in the server market In August, AMD even said that it would eventually have 40% of the market for server chips. It has just north of 20% now.
And, Intel's new Core 2 Duo has been well reviewed and may be beginning to beat back the advances made by AMD.
AMD may not have a lot of options to keep its market share growing. It is much smaller than Intel and if it does not protect its gains, Intel's new chipset may set AMD's growth back several years.
The market has become skeptical about whether AMD's gains are permanent. Its shares have dropped nearly 20% over the last six months while Intel's are up about 10%.
The 2006-7 Toy Action Guide is up from TRUCE. Go check it out! Always an excellent resource.Interesting (in a mild use of the word) that Sesame Street's Sesame Beginnings DVD Series is on the 'Toys to Avoid' list. (See the previous post I did about Sesame Street recently)Happy to see, too, that Bratz product is on that list as well as LeapFrog and Baby Einstein.I must say, though, Baby Einstein seemed like a good idea in the beginning, but it seems to be going the way of Disney. Not to mention, it got a little bit creepier as time went on, and the fact that there is something terribly wrong with marketing to babies (under a year, 18 months) that sort of stuff.They also have the updated Media Violence and Children Guide.
Members of a committee of the European Parliament meeting in Brussels have come up with a compromise that may avert a simmering vodka war between traditional producers and new products on the market.The European Commission made a proposal in 2005 that would have split the vodka category into several subsets based on ingredients and flavor. This caused a battle between the old guard and new producers entering the fast growing category. Countries such as Poland and Sweden were aligned in a bloc that said true vodka used only potatoes or barley in the distilling process. Other countries such as Sweden argued that other grains and sugar were traditional ingredients. Still another group, including France and Ireland made the case that any raw ingredient, including grapes, could be used to ferment vodka.Under the proposed new rules that have gained support in the EU, vodka made with potatoes or grain will be allowed to be labeled simply as "vodka." Products using other raw ingredients can s
Two of the most legendary men's college basketball programs have squared off countless times, and when they are not hosting one another their respective fans take over the role of 'one-upping' the other's school, city, history, golf courses and mamas.Heck, they even argue who has the nicer shade of blue. Or what's better for lunch, a Kentucky Hot Brown or a Carolina barbeque sandwich. It's a tit for tat that has gone on for years, and will no doubt continue for years to come. Bottom line, the two don't agree on much. That is until now. There is one occurance that has suddenly brought the University of Kentucky and University of North Carolina fans together -- Reveling in the sight of watching college basketball's evil empire topple to the ground. That's right, the collapse of the Duke Blue Devils this season has given UK and UNC fans a reason to pat each other on the back and jest at their powerless foe.Yes, there are a lot of smiles in Lexington and Chapel Hill right now i
