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May 18 2007
Microsoft is paying $6bn to buy digital
marketing firm Aquantive in its biggest ever acquisition.
The all-cash takeover will allow Microsoft to expand into the highly
lucrative internet advertising market, that Google and Yahoo have
targeted.
Aquantive advises agencies and website publishers on putting adverts
online, connecting buyers and sellers.
The $66.50 per share offer is 85% higher than Aquantive's Thursday
closing price of $35.87.
'New level'
"This deal takes our advertising business to a new level," said Kevin
Johnson, head of Microsoft's platforms and services division.
"We are committed to earn a bigger slice of the 40 bn pie that's
growing."
There had to have been some desperation for Microsoft to pay the price
that it did
Tan Tran, Morningstar analyst
Microsoft is the latest technology firm to pounce on the shrinking
independent online advertising sector.
Last month, search engine giant Google agreed to buy Double-Click for
$3.1bn, while Yahoo snatched the 80% of Right Media Exchange it did not
already own for $680m.
Price justified?
Microsoft justified the expensive price tag - which represents 2% of its
market value - by arguing the complementary technology of Aquantive was
worth it.
But analysts are skeptical.
"There had to have been some desperation for Microsoft to pay the price
that it did," said Morningstar analyst Tan Tran.
"Sometimes, I am worried that Microsoft has Google-tunnel vision. It's
so worried what Google is doing that it becomes way too reactionary," he
added.
Aquantive, which has about 2,600 employees, will continue to operate
from Seattle as part of Microsoft's online operations.
It will help the software giant broaden the scope of services its MSN
consumer internet unit can offer.
The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2008, subject
to regulation.
Shares in Aquantive shot up 78% to $63.79 in Friday trading on the
technology-dominated NASDAQ index, while Microsoft shares fell 0.5% to
$30.83.
It was the decisive moment of the South Carolina debate.
Hearing Rep. Ron Paul recite the reasons for Arab and Islamic resentment
of the United States, including 10 years of bombing and sanctions that
brought death to thousands of Iraqis after the
Gulf War, Rudy Giuliani broke format and exploded:
"That's really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through
the attack of 9-11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking
Iraq. I don't think I have ever heard that before, and I have heard some
pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.
"I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us what
he really meant by it."
The applause for Rudy's rebuke was thunderous — the sound bite of the
night and best moment of Rudy's campaign.
After the debate, on Fox News' "Sanity and Comes," came one of those
delicious moments on live television. As Michael Steele, GOP spokesman,
was saying that Paul should probably be cut out of future debates, the
running tally of votes by Fox News viewers was showing Ron Paul, with 30
percent, the winner of the debate.
Brother Sanity seemed startled and perplexed by the votes being
text-messaged in the thousands to Fox News saying Paul won, Romney was
second, Rudy third and McCain far down the track at 4 percent.
"I would ask the congressman to ... tell us what he meant," said Rudy.
A fair question and a crucial question.
When Ron Paul said the 9-11 killers were "over here because we are over
there," he was not excusing the mass murderers of 3,000 Americans. He
was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers
came.
Lest we forget,
Osama bin Laden was among the mujahideen whom we, in the Reagan decade,
were aiding when they were fighting to expel the Red Army from
Afghanistan. We sent them Stinger missiles, Spanish mortars, sniper
rifles. And they helped drive the Russians out.
What Ron Paul was addressing was the question of what turned the allies
we aided into haters of the United States. Was it the fact that they
discovered we have freedom of speech or separation of church and state?
Do they hate us because of who we are? Or do they hate us because of
what we do?
Osama bin Laden in his declaration of war in the 1990s said it was U.S.
troops on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, U.S. bombing and sanctions of
a crushed Iraqi people, and U.S. support of Israel's persecution of the
Palestinians that were the reasons he and his mujahideen were declaring
war on us.
Elsewhere, he has mentioned Sykes-Picot, the secret British-French deal
that double-crossed the Arabs who had fought for their freedom alongside
Lawrence of Arabia and were rewarded with a quarter century of
British-French imperial domination and humiliation.
Almost all agree that, horrible as 9-11 was, it was not anarchic terror.
It was political terror, done with a political motive and a political
objective.
What does Rudy Giuliani think the political motive was for 9-11?
Was it because we are good and they are evil? Is it because they hate
our freedom? Is it that simple?
Ron Paul says Osama bin Laden is delighted we invaded Iraq.
Does the man not have a point? The United States is now tied down in a
bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East and increasingly hated in Arab
and Islamic countries where we were once hugely admired as the first and
greatest of the anti-colonial nations. Does anyone think that Osama is
unhappy with what is happening to us in Iraq?
Of the 10 candidates on stage in South Carolina, Dr. Paul alone opposed
the war. He alone voted against the war. Have not the last five years
vindicated him, when two-thirds of the nation now agrees with him that
the war was a mistake, and journalists and politicians left and right
are babbling in confession, "If I had only known then what I know now
..."
Rudy implied that Ron Paul was unpatriotic to suggest the violence
against us out of the Middle East may be in reaction to U.S. policy in
the Middle East. Was President Hoover unpatriotic when, the day after
Pearl Harbor, he wrote to friends, "You and I know that this continuous
putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bitten."
Pearl Harbor came out of the blue, but it also came out of the troubled
history of U.S.-Japanese relations going back 40 years. Hitler's attack
on Poland was naked aggression. But to understand it, we must understand
what was done at Versailles — after the Germans laid down their arms
based on Wilson's 14 Points. We do not excuse — but we must understand.
Ron Paul is no TV debater. But up on that stage in Columbia, he was
speaking intolerable truths. Understandably, Republicans do not want him
back, telling the country how the party blundered into this misbegotten
war.
By all means, throw out of the debate the only man who was right from
the beginning on Iraq.
Former President Carter says
President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in
international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of
pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.
The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for
the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and
the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding.
"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world,
this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's
Saturday editions. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as
expressed by previous administrations, including those of George HOW.
Bush and
Ronald Reagan and
Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me."
Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congeal confirmed his comments to The
Associated Press on Saturday and declined to elaborate. He spoke while
promoting his new audio book series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a
collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga.
"Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter
includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber
Wilkerson,
Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said it was hard to take
Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy
for the Cold War."
Carter came down hard on the
Iraq war.
"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war
with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not
directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear
that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said.
"But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration
policies."
Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having
"zero peace talks" in
Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly
refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as
environmental efforts by other presidents.
Carter also offered a harsh assessment for the White House's Office of
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities
receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone.
"The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious
institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their
own particular group of believers in a particular religion," Carter
said. "As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of
church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so
have all other presidents, I might say, except this one."
Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter
biographer, described Carter's comments as unprecedented.
"This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made
about an American president," Brinkley said. "When you call somebody the
worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words."
Carter also lashed out Saturday at British prime minister
Tony Blair. Asked how he would judge Blair's support of Bush, the former
president said: "Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient."
"And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the
ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy
for the world," Carter told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Diethylene glycol, a poisonous ingredient in some
antifreeze, has been found in 6,000 tubes of toothpaste in Panama, and
customs officials there said yesterday that the product appeared to have
originated in China.
“Our preliminary information is that it came from China, but we don’t
know that with certainty yet,” said Daniel Delgado Diamante, Panama’s
director of customs. “We are still checking all the possible imports to
see if there could be other shipments.”
Some of the toothpaste, which arrived several months ago in the free
trade zone next to the Panama Canal, was re-exported to the Dominican
Republic in seven shipments, customs officials said. A newspaper in
Australia reported yesterday that one brand of the toothpaste had been
found on supermarket shelves there and had been recalled.
Diethylene glycol is the same poison that the Panamanian government
inadvertently mixed into cold medicine last year, killing at least 100
people. Records show that in that episode the poison, falsely labeled as
glycerin, a harmless syrup, also originated in China.
There is no evidence that the tainted toothpaste is in the United
States, according to American government officials.
Panamanian health officials said diethylene glycol had been found in two
brands of toothpaste, labeled in English as Excel and Mr. Cool. The
tubes contained diethylene glycol concentrations of between 1.7 percent
and 4.6 percent, said Luis Martinez, a prosecutor who is looking into
the shipments.
Health officials say they do not believe the toothpaste is harmful,
because users spit it out after brushing, but they nonetheless took it
out of circulation.
Mr. Martinez said at a recent news conference that the toothpaste lacked
the required health certificates and had entered the market mixed in
with products intended for animal consumption.
He said laboratory tests had found up to 4.6 percent diethylene glycol
in tubes of Mr. Cool toothpaste. The Excel brand had 2.5 percent.
Miriam Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, said she knew
of no one who had become sick from using the toothpaste.
Doug Arrested, a spokesman for the United States Food and Drug
Administration, said diethylene glycol was not approved for use in
toothpaste. Though the F.D.A. has no evidence that the tainted
toothpaste slipped into the United States, he added, “We are looking
into the situation in Panama.”
Mr. Delgado, the director of Panamanian customs, said the Dominican
authorities had been notified to be on the lookout for the suspect
toothpaste.
In Panama City, a consumer notified the pharmacy and drugs section of
the Health Ministry after seeing that diethylene glycol was listed as an
ingredient in toothpaste at a store.
The ministry fined the store $25,000 and ordered it closed for not
following proper procedures in putting products up for sale.
The Northern Star, a newspaper in the southeastern Australian city of
Lissome, reported yesterday on its Web site that the Excel brand of
toothpaste had been found in a chain of supermarkets and taken off the
shelves immediately.
Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that a Chinese factory not
certified to make pharmaceutical ingredients had sold 46 barrels of
syrup containing diethylene glycol that had been falsely labeled as 99.5
percent pure glycerin. That syrup passed through several trading
companies before ending up in Panama, where it was mixed into 260,000
bottles of cold medicine.
At least 100 people died as a direct result, according to Dimes Guevara,
a Panamanian prosecutor who is leading the investigation into the
deaths.
Over the years, counterfeiters have found it financially advantageous to
substitute diethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting syrup, for its chemical
cousin glycerin, which is usually much more expensive.
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have rallied in the
streets of Caracas to protest against President Hugo Chavez's plans to
close a private TV station.
The head of the RCTV station addressed the marchers, urging them to
defend freedom and "free independent media".
President Chavez has said he will not renew a license for the RCTV
network which is due to expire on 27 May.
He accuses the opposition-allied TV station of supporting a failed coup
against him in 2002.
He has referred to opposition television stations in general as
"horsemen of the apocalypse" and has blamed RCTV in particular for
spreading immorality with its steamy soap operas.
Mr. Chavez plans to replace RCTV with a government-funded TV station.
Bolivar citation
Marcel Garner, RCTV's managing director, told a crowd of cheering
protesters in Caracas that Mr. Chavez was trying to "topple the country
over the precipice of totalitarianism where not even his own supporters
can express their opinions".
He said the president should pay more attention to the words of Simon
Bolivar, a hero of Mr. Chavez famed for leading South Americans in the
fight against colonialism.
"He who rules must listen, the people are speaking," Mr. Garner said,
quoting Bolivar.
President Chavez was re-elected by a landslide last year.
His welfare spending programmed has won him massive support among the
poor but his opponents accuse him of turning the country into an
increasingly authoritarian socialist state, modeled on Fidel Castro's
Cuba.
China has confirmed a new outbreak of the deadly H5N1
strain of the bird flu virus in the central province of Hunan, state
media has reported.
More than 11,000 poultry died of the virus in Skijoring village near
Kiang city, the Agriculture Ministry said.
Some 53,000 birds have since been culled and officials say that the
outbreak is now under control.
China's last reported case was in March, when chickens died at a poultry
market near the Tibetan capital, Lassa.
There were no reports of human infection in the latest outbreak.
A total of 15 people have died in China from the H5N1 virus and millions
of birds have been culled.
Officials are working to vaccinate billions of domestic poultry by the
end of May in preparation for the northward migration of wild birds in
the summer, Inhaul news agency has said.
Since the H5N1 virus emerged in South East Asia in late 2003, it has
claimed more than 180 lives around the world. Indonesia has been hardest
hit, with more than 70 deaths.
Scientists fear the virus could mutate to a form which could be easily
passed from human to human, triggering a pandemic and potentially
putting millions of lives at risk.
A senior police officer has said he fears the spread of
CCTV cameras is leading to "an Orwellian situation".
Deputy chief constable of Hampshire Ian Redhead said Britain could
become a surveillance society with cameras on every street corner.
He told the BBC's Politics Show that CCTV was being used in small towns
and villages where crime rates were low.
Mr. Redhead also called for the retention of some DNA evidence and the
use of speed cameras to be reviewed.
His force area includes the small town of Stockbridge, where parish
councilors have spent £10,000 installing CCTV.
Mr. Redhead questioned whether the relatively low crime levels justified
the expense and intrusion.
'Every street corner?'
"I'm really concerned about what happens to the product of these
cameras, and what comes next?" he said.
"If it's in our villages, are we really moving towards an Orwellian
situation where cameras are at every street corner?
"And I really don't think that's the kind of country that I want to live
in."
There are up to 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain - about one for
every 14 people.
The UK also has the world's biggest DNA database, with 3.6 million DNA
samples on file.
Taylor can keep 'looted' Van Gogh
Dame Elizabeth Taylor celebrated her 75th birthday in February
Dame Elizabeth Taylor can keep a Van Gogh painting that may have been
seized by the Nazis during World War II, a US appeals court has ruled.
The actress bought Vie de labile et de la Chappell de Saint-Remy,
estimated to be worth $10-15m (£5-8m), in 1963.
But the family of a previous owner said it had been looted and wanted it
back.
The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a decision
made by a lower court in 2005 that the heirs waited too long to take
action.
"This affirms my great belief in the American judicial process. I am
very grateful," Dame Elizabeth, 75, said in a statement.
Richard Burton as Marc Antony and Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in the
1963 film Cleopatra
The actress bought the art in the same year she starred in Cleopatra
"It's wonderful to have Monsieur Vincent Van Gogh in my living room."
The star paid 92,000 for the artwork at Sotheby's in London 44 years
ago.
It had previously been owned by the late Margaret Mouthier, a Jewish
woman whose possessions were seized by the Nazis after she fled Germany
in 1939.
Her descendents sued Dame Elizabeth in 2004, saying she failed to review
the ownership history and that the 1963 auction brochure said it was
likely to have been looted by the Nazis.
No proof
But the appeals court upheld the decision that the three-year window for
taking action under state law had expired.
It also agreed that the Holocaust Victims Redress Act did not establish
a right to sue for the return of confiscated property.
Dame Elizabeth and her lawyers said there was no proof the Nazis forced
Ms Mouthier to give up the 1889 painting.
Her defense said it had passed through two Jewish art dealers without
any sign of Nazi coercion and there was evidence that it was sold in the
late 1920s.
The environmental problems facing the world in the 21st
Century are the legacy of human activities, argues Sir David King. But
he says, in this week's Green Room, we also hold the key to solving
these problems by attracting the brightest young minds into the world of
science.
Woman covering her mouth in polluted street
It is easy in our day-to-day lives to believe we are detached from the
wider environment, but that is an illusion
Mankind has never had a greater need for science, and for the spark of
human ingenuity to apply this to tackling today's great global
challenges.
Built on centuries of tradition and Endeavour, the UK is second to none
in the diversity and excellence of its scientific heritage.
Our nation punches well above its weight in the quality and number of
academic papers and citations, above Germany, France and Japan, and
trailing only the far bigger economy of the US.
It is vital therefore that we pay equal regard to ensuring that the UK's
outstanding scientific outputs flow through to enhance the quality of
life and prosperity for people in the UK, and beyond.
The challenges facing science, and humanity, as we move through the 21st
Century are manifold. I would place none higher than the test we face in
our stewardship of planet Earth.
Even with our best efforts, we must be prepared for further global
temperature rise as a result of past emissions
It is a stern test, as demonstrated by a few stark facts. From around
three billion people on the planet in 1950, global population has risen
to over six billion today. By the middle of this century, it will exceed
nine billion.
Most future population growth will be in the developing world, where
people quite reasonably aspire to the living standards enjoyed today by
"western societies", such as our own.
Yet it is estimated that, even with today's population, we would need
the resources of three planets for people across the world to imitate
western lifestyles.
Climate signals
I do not advocate a hair shirt future, but clearly we need to find new
ways to develop both our lifestyles and the planet we share.
A flooded road
Negative impacts will dominate in all regions, says Sir David
It is easy in our day-to-day lives to believe we are detached from the
wider environment, but that is an illusion.
Climate change presents us with a particular stringent test, which
unmitigated will magnify many of the existing scourges of mankind:
famine, drought, flood, disease and conflict.
The scientific evidence is compelling beyond any reasonable doubt that
unless we very radically transform our economies to reduce greenhouse
emissions to a fraction of current levels then future generations will
reap a heavy price.
Indeed, the signals are already with us of the sort of changes that we
can expect to continue and accelerate, as land ice melts, sea levels
rise and extreme weather events become more severe.
Even with our best efforts, we must be prepared for further global
temperature rise as a result of past emissions, and the climate impacts
associated with this. The outcome will initially be mixed, with positive
and negative effects depending where in the world you live and on other
factors.
But in time the negative impacts will dominate in all regions, and will
fall earliest and heaviest on the poorest countries, which are least
able to adapt and which have contributed least to the problem.
Carbon levels in the atmosphere continue to rise
It will take an unprecedented international effort if we are to avoid
the most dangerous climate changes that are predicted, and for
individual countries to adapt to those impacts it is already too late
for us to avoid.
From climate change I move to another linked challenge - energy. Since
the industrial revolution, fossil fuels have powered our economies and
brought new levels of prosperity.
But by releasing into the atmosphere carbon, as carbon dioxide, that has
been naturally sequestered underground over tens to hundreds of millions
of years, we have raised concentration levels in the atmosphere in just
150 years beyond anything seen for at least one million years, and
probably far longer.
At the same time, world energy demand is expected to rise by half as
much again by 2030.
Even with a major push on energy efficiency, there is a critical need
for step changes in the pace at which we deploy current low-carbon
technologies in developed and developing countries alike; and we must
quickly advance the more innovative technologies such as carbon capture
and storage, wave and tidal power, and solar photovoltaic.
No quick fix
There are no simple solutions and there is certainly no single "silver
bullet" technological fix. The pathway for advancing new energy
technologies to technical and economic viability at scale is complex,
difficult and inevitably takes time, even with major efforts to
accelerate progress.
The 1bn public/private Energy Technology Institute, launched by the UK
Government, is an important new initiative in this area, providing good
starting levels of investment, focus and ambition, and I hope in time
will develop as part of a global network of similar centers of
excellence.
Students in a laboratory
There has never been a greater need for inquisitive and determined young
minds to develop the solutions needed for the 21st Century
Nor can we tackle the problem by focusing on one sector alone. It is not
a question of whether we should reduce emissions from our vehicles, or
our houses, or industry, or in aviation or shipping, or through curbing
deforestation.
The scale of the challenge is such that we must do all of these things,
whilst using our actions as a stimulus to galvanize the wider
international response.
And we must continue to prosper, not just for our own sakes but because
those we seek to influence will not follow our lead if they perceive
that environmental sustainability means economic decline.
It is a powerful demonstration that in the UK we have been able to grow
our economy in real terms by around half since 1990, whilst greenhouse
gas emissions have fallen by 15%. Action is affordable and is the
pro-growth strategy. It is inaction that we cannot afford.
Returning to where I began, science and technological innovation must be
at the heart of the UK's approach as we tackle these and other of the
great national and global challenges we face in the century ahead. But
science does need to be redirected to meet these challenges.
My message to any young person today mulling over their future career
path is this: there has never been a better time to consider a future in
scientific discovery; or in engineering to bring innovative technologies
to real world application.
And there has never been a greater need for inquisitive and determined
young minds to develop the solutions needed for the 21st Century.
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