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- Warnings Not Enough for Gaza Families
The New York Times |
gaza
- Gaza?s civilians ? particularly those in militant strongholds ? are finding it difficult to evacuate their homes before Israeli attacks begin.
- Gas row flares as supplies to Europe cut
CNN |
europe
- Several European countries said Tuesday their supply of natural gas from Russia had been cut or reduced amid a dispute over payments between Russia and Ukraine.
- US First Cat 'India' dies
Yahoo - Most Viewed |
india
- AFP - The Bush family's 18-year-old cat, India, has died at the White House, First Lady Laura Bush's office announced Monday.
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- Dan Kennedy: The New York Times's decision to print ads on its front page is long overdue
Guardian |
front page new york times
- Back in the mid-1970s I worked as a student reporter for the Woonsocket Call, a family-owned daily in northern Rhode Island. Among my tasks was to pore through the microfilm once a month for the purpose of compiling a column of items from the previous five, 10, 25 and 50 years.It was in the course of carrying out this assignment that I learned a shocking fact: in the early 50s, the Call ran (gasp) front-page advertisements. Indeed, such was the extent of its depravity that, on Wednesdays, it published a half-page ad on page one from a local store called McCarthy's under the headline McCarthy's Front Page. Somehow the paper, and the citizens of Woonsocket, had survived.So forgive me if I can't bring myself to join those expressing outrage over the New York Times's decision to start running display ads on its own front page. Actually, strike that. Forgive me if I can't even find anyone expressing outrage over the Times' long-overdue move. As best as I can tell, the commentary has mainly been of the what took them so long variety, spiced with a bit of when will the Washington Post follow suit?Taking a particularly snarky view is Peter Kafka of the Wall Street Journal, whose owner, Rupert Murdoch, would dearly love to buy the Times from the Sulzberger family. Kafka writes that this is only historic because the Times management has been so stubborn about keeping its front page pristine. It's hard to imagine that any reader will care.The ads are certainly lucrative. According to the New York Post, the Times is getting $75,000 per ad on weekdays and $100,000 on Sundays. Here is Boston, it surely won't be long before the Times Company-owned Boston Globe ? which may be losing as much as $1m a week ? makes the same move. (The tabloid Boston Herald has published front-page ads for several years.) The Globe had advertising-related news of its own on Monday: the paper will no longer publish a daily classified-ad section, relegating them to the web except for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday editions.As several observers have already pointed out, front-page ads were common in American newspapers during the first half of the 20th century. But thanks to prosperity and the rise of journalism as a would-be profession, newspapers banished front-page ads because (1) they could and (2) the few that didn't came to be seen as parochial backwaters of dubious quality and even more dubious ethical standards.My stint at the Call coincided precisely with the transition of newspapering from craft to profession. Our newsroom was balanced between hometown reporters who'd started writing for the paper right out of high school and college-educated careerists just passing through.You might think that we careerists sneered at the townies, but we really didn't. I think we had a certain respect for their dedication to the Call and to the small city in which they'd grown up. But we all understood that we had different opportunities, and that we'd be moving on.The Call eventually passed from the Palmer family to the debt-laden Journal Register Company to, today, a small regional group. A friend who lives in Woonsocket tells me there are still no ads on page one, but should that change, I would find it neither surprising nor offensive.Of course, the New York Times is not the Woonsocket Call, and there are certain peculiarities to the Times that make its embrace of front-page display ads noteworthy. For better or worse, the Times remains the flagship of American journalism. This is simply a bigger deal than it was when national papers such as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today began running ads on their fronts.Weirdly enough, though, until a few years ago the Times was one of the few quality papers to run front-page ads of any kind. For instance, on Fridays the paper has often run a small classified ad from a Lubavitch group reminding Jewish women and girls to light Shabbat candles ? an odd, charming touch, but one that contradicts any notion that the Sulzbergers kept their front page pristine until now, as the Journal's Kafka suggests.But perhaps the most important reason none of this really matters is that the Times' principal front page ? the homepage of NYTimes.com ? has, like virtually every news website, run as many ads as it can sell from the moment it flickered into view. To argue that there is something sacrosanct about the Times' print edition is to argue for a world that's not just fading, but that's already gone.The newspaper business is being battered by the shift to online and by what may turn out to be the worst recession since the 1930s. Publishers must do whatever they can to pay for the journalism on which we all depend, as long as those steps don't compromise the integrity of that journalism. That there's been so little, if any, criticism of the Times for breaking the page-one advertising barrier is a sign of maturity.NewspapersAdvertisingUnited Statesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Hasina sworn-in as new Bangladesh PM
NDTV | bangladesh
- Awami League Chief Sheikh Hasina Wajed was on Tuesday sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Bangladesh, a week after her party led grand alliance swept the general elections winning three fourths of 300 parliamentary seats.
- Rice Heads to U.N. for Talks on Gaza Cease-Fire
cease fire gaza
- The U.S. is backing a cease-fire based on three pillars: ending the rocket attacks; opening border crossings into Gaza; and dealing with arms smuggling in border tunnels.
- Barack Obama refrains from making detailed comment on Gaza conflict
- President-elect said he was postponing further comment on the conflict until after his inauguration
- European Peace Efforts on Gaza Hit Roadblocks
Time
- European efforts to broker a truce are hobbled by factors ranging from Israel's goals to the EU's own positions on Hamas
- Analysis: In Gaza fight, Iran lurks in background
iran gaza
- AP - Israel's fight with Hamas in Gaza, like the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon two years ago, is not just a struggle over the Palestinian issue but a broader proxy battle between Western allies and Iran for the very future of the Middle East.
- Billionaire Adolf Merckle left 'broken' by credit crunch kills himself
- A German billionaire industrialist plagued by financial mayhem and struggling to rescue his business empire has killed himself, his family announced today.Adolf Merckle, who was Germany's fifth richest man and the world's 98th richest, reportedly died on railway tracks close to his family villa in Blaubeuern, near Ulm in south-west Germany, after being struck by a train on Monday night.In an emotional statement his family said the 74-year-old had been broken by the financial crisis.The desperate situation of his companies caused by the financial crisis and the uncertainties of the last few weeks along with his powerlessness to act, broke the passionate family entrepreneur and he ended his life, the statement said.Merckle, whose companies employed 100,000 people across Europe, had been in the headlines frequently over the past weeks after he made wrong-way bets on shares in Volkswagen. His family lost hundreds of millions of euros, including ?400m (£200m) on Volkswagen shares alone. It is not known how much of his personal fortune, which was estimated at 12.8bn in March 2008 by Forbes, had been lost.Merckle, whose companies included cement maker Heidelberger Cement, the pharmaceutical maker Ratiopharm and Phoenix, a drugs wholesaler, had been in talks with banks for weeks in the hope of renegotiating the loans.Shares in all his companies dropped as the news of his death reached the markets.According to reports in the German media, he left a suicide note in which he apologised to his family, but offered no concrete reasons or motives. Prosecutors said they did not believe anyone else was involved in his death.A railway worker found the businessman's body on the track 300 metres from the family home, and his family confirmed the identity of the body. As a matter of course DNA tests would be carried out on his remains this next week, the police said.Merckle was born in Dresden in 1934 into a family of entrepreneurs and built on the family fortune by developing his grandfather's chemical company into the country's largest pharmaceutical wholesaler. He also developed other arms of the family business empire, including a ski lift business. He trained as a lawyer but spent most of his working life as an investor. He was married to Ruth Holland, who was born into the Ulm cement dynasty Schwenk/Schleicher.Like many German industrialists Merckle, who was a keen skier and mountain climber, kept a low profile and was little known to all but business insiders until the recent scandal to have hit his business empire. He had honorary doctorates from several German universities and was awarded the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, First Class, in 2005.Among the many properties he owned was a castle near Rostock in northern Germany which hosted the participants of the G8 Summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm in 2007.GermanyEntrepreneursPharmaceuticals industryCredit crunchguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- U.S. seeks immediate Gaza ceasefire with conditions
gaza ceasefire
- Reuters - The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it wanted an immediate ceasefire in Gaza but U.S. officials quickly stressed they would not budge from their stance that it must be durable, sustainable and indefinite.
- 6-year-old misses bus, takes family car, crashes
misses car crashes
- AP - A 6-year-old Virginia boy who missed his bus tried to drive to school in his family's sedan - and crashed.
- Simon Tisdall: Behind the bluster, Israel needs a bail-out. Could Gaza become an international protectorate?
- Israel's defiance of international opinion in refusing to countenance a ceasefire in Gaza contrasts sharply with its growing need for international assistance to extricate itself. Even if the Israeli forces break Hamas's grip on power, officials admit any such victory may be temporary and will bring more difficulties in its wake. Behind the bombs and bitter-end bluster, Israel's private message is: help wanted.Previous Israeli governments resisted internationalisation of the country's disputes but that stance is changing. The current prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was glad to accept a strengthened UN force in southern Lebanon after his punitive expedition against Hezbollah in 2006 ran into the sand.Israeli diplomats argue endlessly that the Iranian leadership's threats, weapons programmes, and spreading regional influence are an international, not solely an Israeli problem. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni pressed home the point, face to face with Arab leaders, at a Qatar conference in April.Now Israeli officials are pressing for an international presence along the Egyptian-Gaza border to ensure supply tunnels used by Hamas are not reopened. In short, they require foreign help to reduce the chances that Islamists will politically regroup and militarily re-arm. They cannot do it alone.Israel is in a bind, said Aluf Benn, a Ha'aretz newspaper columnist. It cannot leave Gaza without first decisively defeating Hamas; on the other hand, if it goes to a full occupation of the Strip, it may pay a heavy economic and political price without achieving its political goals, he said.As a result, Israel, like an over-extended merchant bank, is looking to the international community for the diplomatic equivalent of a financial bailout ? without actually saying so. Likewise, the unspoken consequences of a UN, EU or Egyptian refusal to play along would be more mayhem in Gaza and more politically embarrassing demonstrations of western and Arab impotence.Israel is trying to put together a complex manoeuvre based on an international mechanism that will prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, Benn said. Egypt is expected to back this effort but the actual work on Egyptian soil will be assigned to US and other foreign forces.Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, underlined the key importance to Israel of settling future border arrangements ahead of any ceasefire. Preventing a Hamas arms buildup is the necessary foundation of any new calm arrangement. That is the make-or-break issue, he said yesterday.We welcome the idea of an international force if it can help turn things around. We are positive about the international community's role, an Israeli diplomat said. The question is what sort of powers will a force have? How will it operate? What will it do if a missile is fired? It would have to be something concrete.For would-be international mediators, running around in circles for the past 10 days with no clear objective other than a halt to the violence, Israel's acknowledgement of its need for help looks like the opportunity they have been waiting for.Crucially, moves are now afoot to create an international monitoring force covering all of Gaza's borders, not just its land frontier with Egypt. If this scheme were realised, Gaza could in effect be turned into an international protectorate. Israel would be protected from Hamas; and Gazan Palestinians would be protected from Israel.Although Livni this week appeared to reject a Gaza-wide border force, European diplomats at the UN believe Israel might be persuaded. The Arab League and the Palestinian Authority are already behind the idea, calling on Monday for a swift deployment. Even Washington is now involved amid suggestions that US engineers may be deployed. We are trying to figure out what the right mix of monitors should be, a state department official said.A new report by the independent International Crisis Group says it is time for the international community to assertively step in. Once the shooting stops, efforts led by Egypt in concert with regional actors should be made to end arms smuggling into Gaza, it said; and all Gaza's crossings with Egypt and Israel should be opened and placed under direct EU and Palestinian supervision.But the ICG also backed the dispatch of a multinational monitoring presence to verify adherence to the ceasefire, serve as liaison between the two sides, and defuse potential crises. It suggests countries such as France, Turkey and Qatar could play an important part (as France did in Lebanon in 2006), possibly in a new UN-mandated force.Beating their breasts noisily over Gaza, and to no avail, Britain and other European and Arab countries now have an opportunity to make a practical, long-term difference on the ground. Gordon Brown says the international community must try harder. A Gaza protectorate may be the way forward.GazaIsrael and the Palestinian territoriesMiddle EastLebanonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Pakistan Calls for Foreign Support, Not Troops
pakistan
- Two gunmen shot a Muslim cleric to death inside a mosque in southern Afghanistan, the second such incident in the area in less than two weeks, an official said Tuesday.
- U.S. troops adapt to new rules in Iraq
MSNBC |
iraq
- A new year brings a new set of rules for American troops in Iraq. Among other things, the U.S. now has to obtain Iraqi warrants for any search or detention other than when they are in direct combat.
- Fears mount of Gaza conflict spill over in Europe
- AP - Government officials and Jewish leaders are concerned the conflict in Gaza may spill over into violence in Europe, with attacks reported against Jews and synagogues in France, Sweden and Britain.
- Gunmen kidnap Nigerian novelist
BBC World |
novelist gunmen
- Renowned Nigerian writer and novelist Elechi Amadi has been kidnapped by gunmen in the Niger Delta region, say officials.
- Live text - Carling Cup
carling cup
- Holders Tottenham host Championship side Burnley in the first leg of their Carling Cup semi-final.
- Afghans, Pakistan fight militants together-Zardari
pakistan afghans
- Reuters - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari met his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Tuesday, pledged cooperation in the fight against militants in both countries and called for wider regional understanding.
- Video: Israeli shelling kills dozens at UN school in Gaza
- More than 40 Palestinians are believed to have died when Israeli missiles exploded outside a UN school being used as a shelter from the ongoing Gaza offensive
- Guardian Weekly podcast: Israel's tactics in Gaza, and Minnesota's new senator
- Middle east editor Ian Black analyses the conflict in Gaza. Plus, Daniel Nasaw reports on Minnesota's new senator, Al Franken. And Deborah Hargreaves on the economic propects for 2009
- US, Iraqi troops get the picture (not their man)
iraqi troops
- AP - Army Capt. Christopher Loftis took in the scene: Iraqi soldiers raiding the home of a suspected insurgent wanted for participating in deadly attacks against U.S. and Iraqi troops.
- Obama says trillion-dollar deficits may last years
trillion
- AP - President-elect Barack Obama says the nation probably faces huge deficits for years to come, but heavy spending is needed now to spur the economy.
- The Stooges guitarist found dead
guitarist stooges
- Guitarist Ron Asheton, who helped found Iggy Pop's band The Stooges, is found dead at his home in Michigan.
- Japan Seeks Australia?s Help to Thwart Anti-Whalers
- Japan said Tuesday that it would formally ask Australia to keep anti-whaling activists and their ship, the Steve Irwin, from refueling at Australian ports.
- Ian Williams: It's a shame mere allegations can derail Bill Richardson as commerce secretary
- Personally, I thought New Mexico governor Bill Richardson should have been Barack Obama's secretary of state, so it is even more galling that his appointment as commerce secretary should be derailed by an investigation into an alleged pay-for-play scandal in his state.When the owners of building site hoardings put up signs saying Bill Stickers will be prosecuted, wags used to add the declaration Bill Stickers is innocent! Frankly, I would not be quite so declaratively definitive about Richardson. He is, after all, an American politician. But Bill Richardson is innocent(ish) I could happily put on my placard, and I still think he would be an asset to Obama's cabinet.Being investigated, even with the investigators leaking like a drunk after two six-packs of Bud, is not the same as being guilty. Richardson himself has not been charged, or so far even implicated, in the alleged influence-peddling under his New Mexico administration. But is it Pollyannish or Casablanca-ish that everyone should be shocked, shocked that those who provide billions of dollars of campaign financing often seem to benefit from subsequent government action?Hence my instinctive sympathies for Illinois governor Rod Blagojevic. Here he is, his official decisions threatened with overturning, facing possible impeachment, and yet how many elected politicians in the US could put their hand on their heart and without risk of their pants catching fire, declare that their decisions had been totally uninfluenced by campaign contributions? That they had never, ever, ever made a deal on voting in return for favours from their colleagues? Blagojevich was indeed indiscreet, and if he had any sense he should have realised that the FBI was tapping his telephone, but if he simply concluded his business with a wink and nudge in the country club or over a dinner table no one would have even noticed the revolving door as he or his wife took up a sinecure after appointing a senator.Governmental policy in the US is notoriously cheap. A few hundred thousand to Bill Clinton bought a tightening of the embargo on Cuba and a trade war over bananas at the World Trade Organisation. We could allow for ideological rectitude, but does anyone really think that George Bush and the Republican party's opposition to the concept of climate change is totally unrelated to contributions from Jurassic oil like Exxon-Mobil? Having a former CEO of Halliburton in the vice-presidency would seem to have bought them lots of no-bid Iraq war contracts.Stuart Bowen, Bush's appointee as special inspector general for Iraq, has been investigating the billions of dollars that went astray in Iraqi reconstruction contracts. No one in the administration resigned, there have been very few prosecutions and the FBI's Clouseauish response to the revelations from his reports has been to investigate him! And of course to ensure that the investigation was leaked to the media as soon as Bowen's reports pricked the bubble of the alleged success of the Iraq reconstruction effort.Richardson has done the right thing by standing down for possible improprieties on his watch, sure to be seized upon in any confirmation hearings by a revanchist Republican party and indeed probably quietly supported by vengeful Clintonistas who have never forgiven the New Mexico governor for defecting to Obama at an early stage of the campaign.Even so, it does seem worrying that all it takes to derail a competent elected official is the announcement of investigations. In a litigious society with law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and even judges elected or under direct political influence, it seems at times as if everyone is under investigation. Indeed, the FBI probably does have anyone of any political prominence under investigation in the time it can spare from sending paid informants and provocateurs to set up terrorist plots it can then forestall in a blaze of publicity. Effectively, Bernard Madoff handed himself in without a peep from the bureau.Obama's team had better get some spine quickly and realise that bipartisanship is supposed to be a two-way affair. Otherwise there will be more investigations and allegations against his appointees from embittered Republicans and their allies in places like J Edgar Hoover's old shop. He could also return to his earlier calls about cleaning up campaign financing, since assuredly money is the root of so much evil in American politics.But on the bright side, when he and Hillary Clinton fall out, Obama now has an immediate and competent substitute to call on.Barack ObamaUnited StatesRod BlagojevichBernard Madoffguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- Digital archive of papers saved from novelist Hemingway's Cuban home is released
- Students of the work of Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel prize-winning novelist with a powerful literal and literary punch, have been granted an important boon this week with the opening of a digital archive of papers that he left from his Cuban days.The documents, photographs and books sat for decades in the dank, mouldy basement of Hemingway's home seven miles outside Havana. Among the gems are an unpublished epilogue to his novel For Whom the Bell Tolls and a screenplay for The Old Man and the Sea.The entire collection of Hemingway's draft writings and letters from the 21 years he spent in his literary retreat in Cuba had been in danger of disintegrating amid the heat, damp and insect infestations of the basement of Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm.Preservationists were for years hampered by the US embargo of the island which prevented the exchange of expertise and resources.But a renovation project was launched in 2002 after a US anthropologist was horrified to find the house crumbling under a leaky roof with mould spreading across its walls. Special US government permission was obtained for a joint Cuban-American rescue mission that has resulted in this week's release of documents.The papers have been meticulously restored and preserved and then scanned for digital use. Scholars can now apply for access to specific documents to the Museo Ernest Hemingway in Havana that is responsible for the treasure trove, or to the John F Kennedy library in Boston which holds the rest of the Hemingway archive and which has received a set of CDs and microfilms from Finca Vigia.There are no plans to allow open public access to the documents on the internet, although the Cuban authorities say that may happen at an unspecified future date.The digitalised collection already includes about 2,000 documents, with a further 1,000 to follow. A lot of people ask: 'What was Hemingway's life in Cuba like?' This answers some of those questions, Ada Rosa Alfonso, who heads the Finca Vigia museum, told Associated Press.Hemingway lived in Cuba from 1939 until he returned to the US in 1960. The passions and the torment of the writer are still visible at the home-turned-museum, including his heavy drinking in the form of half-full bottles of Old Forester bourbon and Cinzano scattered through the house; his love of bullfighting and hunting with paintings of fights and antelope heads hanging on the walls; and pets, with his four beloved dogs buried in marked graves in the garden.In the dining room the table is set for entertaining: Errol Flynn and Cary Grant were visitors to Finca Vigia and Ava Gardner swam naked in the now-empty pool.Hemingway's 40ft fishing boat El Pilar is also preserved in a dry dock. It was on this vessel that he scoured the seas north of Cuba during the second world war in search of evidence of what he believed to be refuelling by German U-boats in the area. Texts from those trips, written by Hemingway in code, are among the newly digitalised documents.There are understood to be no unpublished literary works among the stash, to the inevitable disappointment of Hemingway fans. After the writer killed himself in 1961, a year after his return to America, his widow, Mary Welsh, enlisted the help of US president John Kennedy to breach the Cuban embargo and make one last visit to Finca Vigia. She took most of the unpublished work in progress back with her to the US.But researchers are likely to be interested in correspondence Hemingway received from his US editors and other writers, as well as letters relating to his relationship with the Italian countess Adriana Ivancich, who has been identified as a possible model for the heroine in his novel Across the River and Into the Trees, published in 1950.Hemingway was an inveterate hoarder. Welsh once said that he never discarded anything but magazine wrappers and three-year-old newspapers.His voracious and wide literary appetite is also on display at Finca Vigia, which houses 9,000 books, many of them marked with his comments in the margins.Ernest HemingwayArtUnited StatesCubaCary Grantguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
- German Billionaire Kills Self Over Economic Crisis
FOX News |
billionaire economic crisis
- German billionaire Adolf Merckle killed himself after his business empire fell victim to the global financial crisis, his family said.
