Investment vultures increase pressure on Yahoo CEO

With buyout vultures circling the Internet company, Yahoo Inc. CEO Carol Bartz may have to accelerate her timetable for engineering a turnaround if she wants to save her job.
Bartz has said it could take a couple more years to revive Yahoo after a long period of listlessness, but it appears the company could become a takeover target if its financial performance doesn't improve within the next few months.
That urgency was underscored late Wednesday as The Wall Street Journal reported that another falling Internet icon, AOL Inc., is in preliminary discussions with a group of leveraged buyout firms, including Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group LP, about making a joint bid for Yahoo because its stock has been slumping for so long. The Journal story cited unnamed people familiar with the talks and said two or three other firms could also be interested in the deal, which could bring AOL's charismatic CEO, Tim Armstrong, to Yahoo.
It's likely an opportunistic suitor would emerge if Yahoo's revenue keeps growing at a turtle's pace while rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook sprint further ahead as advertisers shift more of their spending to the Internet.
Although Yahoo's market value has fallen dramatically in the past few years, buying the company would still be expensive and quite complicated. That's the main reason most analysts believe it would take a while to put together a deal, even if Yahoo disappoints investors yet again next Tuesday when it reports its third-quarter earnings.
With no bid on the immediate horizon, Yahoo shares cooled from the heated reaction to the Journal's initial report. The stock rose 68 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $15.93 on Thursday. It had soared by nearly 13 percent in extended trading Wednesday following the Journal's report.
Yahoo hired Bartz, a tough-talking Silicon Valley veteran, in January 2009, convinced that she would prove the company is worth more than the $47.5 billion that Microsoft Corp. was offering to take over the company, a bid that Yahoo snubbed in May 2008. Microsoft has since forged an Internet search partnership with Yahoo in a joint challenge to Google's dominance of the Web's most lucrative ad market.
Although Bartz has won praise for negotiating the Microsoft alliance and cutting costs to boost Yahoo's profits, the company's revenue through the first half of the year edged up by less than 2 percent. By comparison, Google's rose 23 percent during the same period. That letdown has left Yahoo's stock far below Microsoft's final offer of $33 per share, turning that bid into a millstone.
"Given everything that Yahoo shareholders have been through since then, there is a limited amount of patience left," said Ryan Jacob, portfolio manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns more than 100,000 shares. "It's not necessarily Bartz's fault, but she had to know what she was getting into coming in."
The recent defections of several top Yahoo executives have stirred speculation that Bartz is wearing out her welcome as she approaches the midway point of her four-year contract.
If that's true, it could open the door for Armstrong, 39, who could be seen as a more media-friendly, suave leader than the sometimes-cranky, profanity-spewing Bartz, 62. What's more, Armstrong's Internet background could be seen as a better fit, given that he built up Google's highly prosperous North American advertising business before leaving to become AOL's CEO last year. Bartz is more of a technologist, having previously been CEO of software maker Autodesk Inc. and a top executive at Sun Microsystems Inc.
But Armstrong's reign at AOL so far has largely mirrored Bartz's time at Yahoo. Like his counterpart, Armstrong has spent much of his time weeding out the company's unprofitable operations while focusing on bringing in more unique content in an effort to lure more Web surfers and bring in more advertisers.
Those changes haven't been enough to lift AOL's yet, making it look like a "mini-Yahoo," Jacob said.
AOL's market value is just $2.7 billion, about 13 percent of Yahoo's $21.5 billion. That gap means AOL would need plenty of help to buy Yahoo.
Yahoo declined a request to interview Bartz Thursday. The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., also declined to comment on the reports of a possible takeover bid. The Journal said Yahoo hasn't been involved in the talks yet.
But the board appears to be taking the talk seriously enough to have hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to advise directors on a possible defense, according to Bloomberg News, which also cited unnamed people. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
AOL and Blackstone also declined to comment Thursday. Silver Lake didn't return calls.
Despite Yahoo's struggles, there are several reasons why the company remains a takeover target.
For starters, Yahoo still boasts one of the world's best-known brands. Its website remains alluring enough to attract an audience of nearly 600 million, although people have been spending less time there as they hang out more frequently at trendier spots such as Facebook.
Yahoo also owns a 39 percent stake in one of China's fastest growing companies, the Alibaba Group. That stake presumably would be sold if leveraged buyout firms were to attempt a takeover to make the bid easier to finance. Analysts have estimated that selling Yahoo's Alibaba holdings and other Asian assets could fetch anywhere from $8 billion to $13 billion, depending on market conditions. That's a large chunk of Yahoo's current market value of $21.5 billion.
Bartz has argued that selling the Alibaba stake right now doesn't make sense because it will likely be worth even more in the years ahead as China's Internet market continues to grow. That's a notion some shareholders support.
If AOL and the buyout firms decide to pursue Yahoo, a successful bid would first hinge on whether the offer was high enough. Analysts seem to believe Yahoo's board would be hard pressed to turn down an offer ranging from $21 to $23 per share after spurning Microsoft two years ago. That would still be 32 percent to 44 percent above Thursday's closing price, though far less than Microsoft's final offer of $33.
Analysts aren't convinced a combination between AOL and Yahoo even makes sense. "I don't believe putting together two weak, stumbling companies would make the sum greater than its parts," Wedge Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen said.
He believes another possible scenario might make more sense: Microsoft pouncing on Yahoo with another takeover bid at a price far below its offer of 2 1/2 years ago.

Hackers in China steal S.Korean secrets: Seoul

Hackers in China have stolen secrets on South Korea's defence and foreign affairs by using bogus emails claiming to come from Seoul officials and diplomats, the intelligence agency said Friday.
The National Intelligence Service uncovered the hacking early this year and warned government offices about the danger of such emails, a spokesman told AFP.
Hackers sent emails in the names of South Korean diplomats, presidential aides and other people familiar to Seoul officials.
Attached files containing viruses were disguised as important documents, such as analyses on North Korea's economy.
When a recipient clicked on the attachment, the virus started downloading documents in his or her computer, the spokesman said.
Lawmaker Lee Jung-Hyun of the ruling Grand National Party told parliament Thursday that a "considerable volume of classified documents" was feared to have been leaked from the defence ministry and the foreign ministry.
The foreign ministry said it had asked overseas diplomatic missions to be extra alert to such hacking attempts.
The South's intelligence service in June investigated a major "distributed denial of service" cyber attack on the main government website by hackers traced to China.
The security ministry said at the time its cyber security team had been on alert for such attacks as tensions rose with North Korea.
The South's spy chief blamed North Korea for cyber attacks from China-based servers that briefly crippled US and South Korean government and commercial websites in July 2009. US officials were uncertain of the origin.
Seoul military officials say the North has an army unit of elite hackers.

Online job search dos and don'ts

Persistent high levels of unemployment affect everyone, whether you've been jobless for months or are happily and securely employed but worry about the dwindling prospects for out-of-work friends and loved ones. Plenty of Web sites offer to help people find a new or better job. The challenge is distinguishing the legitimate online employment services from the many job scams cluttering the Web.
The preliminaries: Cover letters and resumes
Job-search counselors highlight the importance of well-crafted resumes and cover letters. Jobweb offers plenty of resume advice geared mostly to recent college graduates but applicable for nearly every job seeker. It includes information on video resumes, tips for navigating the online-application process, and dozens of sample resumes, again intended for students but adaptable for more experienced workers.

Google posts strong Q3 financial results

 Google continues to pile up the money, beating analyst estimates today for revenue and earnings for its third quarter.

Third-quarter revenue, excluding the traffic acquisition costs Google pays to its partners, was $5.48 billion, exceeding estimates from analysts polled by Yahoo Finance of $5.25 billion for the quarter. Overall revenue of $7.29 billion increased by 23 percent, compared to last year's third quarter, on the back of a 16 percent jump in paid clicks across Google's network of Web sites.
"We're very pleased with our Q3 results, and it's clear that the digital economy continues to grow rapidly," Google's Patrick Pichette, chief financial officer, said on a conference call following Google's announcement.
Net income was $2.17 billion, a 32 percent increase compared to net income of $1.64 billion a year ago. Earnings per share, excluding the effects of certain one-time costs and stock option compensation costs, were $7.64, as compared to analyst estimates of $6.67.
Revenue from both Google-owned sites, powered by AdWords ads, and Google network sites, powered by AdSense ads, grew 22 percent, compared to the prior year. Google's own sites account for 67 percent of its revenue, while partner sites chip in 30 percent of the overall total.
Google provided a few details that it has kept under wraps until this point, when it comes to metrics that don't involve search ads. Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president for product managers, told financial analysts on the earnings call that Google has reached three milestones: it's on pace to gain $2.5 billion a year in revenue from display ads and $1 billion a year in revenue from mobile devices, and it's monetizing 2 billion views of YouTube videos a week.
Display ads have long been a target for Google, which is trying to get the companies and agencies that spend billions of dollars on its text search ads to use Google as their display ad broker as well. In addition, YouTube's financial contribution has been long in the making. Google still refused to say whether YouTube is profitable, which would seem to imply that it's not, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt has previously said the company expects YouTube to become profitable this year.
Rosenberg also disclosed that Google Instant, launched in September, has made a very minimal contribution to Google's revenue and is more expensive to run than the regular old search results process. He was hoping to counter arguments that Google launched Google Instant simply to generate more searches--and therefore more clicks on ads--saying flat-out, "we didn't launch Instant to make more money."
Cash is king at Google: it now has $33.4 billion on hand in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. The company hired about 1,500 new employees during the quarter, raising its total head count to 23,331 at the end of the quarter, or the three-month period ending September 30.
Pichette spent a great deal of his prepared remarks reminding the financial community that Google still thinks of itself as a growth company, at a time when many in Silicon Valley are looking at places like Facebook and Twitter as the next big sources of growth on the Internet. "We are on this growth agenda at full throttle," he said, noting that Google was "continuing to explore" how it could hire the right people it needs, and retain the good ones it already has, amid "a war for talent" in the Valley.

Teens crazy for texting, but losing interest in voice calls

Turns out the average teen exchanges more than six text messages an hour—every hour—during waking hours, according to a new survey. At the same time, the average number of minutes that teens spend talking on their phones is on the decline. Why? Because texting is faster and easier than making a voice call, teens said.
The Nielsen Co. survey of more than 60,000 wireless subscribers confirmed what you probably already knew: When it comes to texting, no one beats teens.
What's surprising about the Nielsen study, however, is the margin of victory. While the average U.S. teen (defined by Nielsen as someone between the ages of 13 and 17) sends and receives a whopping 3,229 text messages a month—more than 100 a day—young adults 18 to 24 managed a measly 1,630 monthly text messages.
As for everyone else, well ... as you can see in the chart below, the numbers trail off from there.

Student in Jobs spat sours on Apple, not journalism

Chelsea Kate Isaacs hasn't graduated from college yet. But she's already learned one of the tough lessons of tech journalism: some companies are easier to deal with than others.
Isaacs, a 22-year-old journalism major at Long Island University, came to prominence several weeks ago after a well-publicized e-mail spat with Apple CEO Steve Jobs as she tried to complete a class assignment.
Isaacs turned to Jobs after failing to get answers from Apple's PR department. The e-mails got increasingly terse, ending with Jobs telling Isaacs: "Please leave us alone," according to the e-mail thread posted on Gawker.
This week she had a different sort of experience, turning up at a Microsoft event, of all places.
Isaacs just happened to be among eight students who won a contest run by Microsoft to win a trip to cover the launch of Windows Phone 7. Microsoft picked up the travel expenses, but Isaacs said the group's adviser told them to be tough and hold Microsoft's feet to the fire while meeting with various company executives and learning about the company's products.
As for how she got her chance to cover the Microsoft event, Isaacs applied and submitted a 140-character statement about why she should be one of the students picked. A Microsoft representative said the company was aware of her exchange with Apple, but maintains it played no part in her selection.
Despite two radically different experiences, Isaacs said she has no plans to cover either company any differently.
"It's been a really great challenge and exercise for me to just stay totally in the middle and not be totally biased toward Microsoft because I hate Apple, but I don't hate Apple," she said "I just had one bad experience...It's one person at the company and I still appreciate their products and am still going to look at things objectively."
If anything, Isaacs said the experiences have made her more interested in technology.
"I have always loved technology, but I'm not a tech-obsessed person," she said. "I appreciate it and I use it every day. I've never been the kind of person who is the first (in) line for the new device...But after all this I'm getting much more into technology."
What Apple has lost, though, is a potential customer.
"I have very strict values," she said. "I really felt that was unethical and I wouldn't be comfortable giving a dime. If that's the way you treat consumers, that's not right."
Isaacs said the event did make her more interested in phones, including Windows Phone.
"I think it looks way cooler than Android, honestly," she said. "It just looks much more personal and it has something new to offer. iPhone and Android are very much alike."
So, what phone does she carry?
"I have a BlackBerry, which a lot of tech people say is like, prehistoric, at this point," Isaacs said.

A fifth of U.S. adults have engaged in video chats

Nearly 20 percent of all American adults have participated in a video call either online or on their mobile phone, according to a study released today by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
The study, which surveyed 3,001 people over the summer, found that 74 percent of American adults use the Internet. And out of that group, 23 percent of folks have tried video calls, chats, or teleconferences over the Web. Approximately 85 percent of adults use a mobile phone, Pew said, and out of that group, 7 percent of respondents said that they have chatted over video on their handsets. That comes out to about 19 percent of adults having placed at least one video call.
Although Pew didn't provide specifics, it indicated that many of the people it surveyed said that they have used both mobile phones and the Web for video chats. In the study it was the first time that the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project asked about the use of video calling online and via cell phones.
Pew's findings follow another study released recently by Juniper Research, which estimated that 29 million adults worldwide will be using a smartphone to video chat by 2015. The research firm said that widespread video-calling adoption in the mobile space could be "held back by a lack of interoperability between different devices."

Facebook rebuffs W3C's HTML5 caution

The new frontier of emerging Web standards is populated by a hodge-podge of acronyms.

(Credit: Bruce Lawson)

Is HTML5, the next version of the standard used to describe Web pages, ready for real-world use now or isn't it?
One of its biggest allies, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that's working hard to create the standard, thinks not. But Facebook, one of the world's most popular Web sites, begs to differ. Indeed, on Tuesday, David Recordon, Facebook's senior open programs manager, published a description of how Facebook is using HTML5 right now.
The ruckus began with an InfoWorld interview last week. In it, Philippe Le Hegaret, who oversees HTML5 standardization, was quoted as saying, "The problem we're facing right now is there is already a lot of excitement for HTML5, but it's a little too early to deploy it because we're running into interoperability issues." In other words, what a programmer writes won't show up the same on different browsers.
Le Hegaret's words triggered derision from some quarters. HTML5 book co-author Remy Sharp ranted about Le Hegaret's position, and Palm director of developer relations Dion Almaer added, "I utterly disagree with Philippe, and instead implore you to think about what your site or app can be in 2010 with the new capabilities."
Le Hegaret stuck to his guns. "It's fine to experiment with HTML5 and existing implementations, but don't expect stability," he told Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's vice president engineering, on Twitter." And to Brad Neuberg, a former Google Web programmer who plans to launch a start-up basing products on HTML5, he had this response: "There are interop issues with HTML5 and recommend to use hacks isn't the right approach."

Microsoft's Office event: Think online, not iPad

As I noted in a tweet yesterday, Microsoft's Office unit has scheduled an event for Tuesday in San Francisco. But folks hoping that the company is ready to move its productivity software to the iPad may be disappointed.
Instead, I'm hearing that the event will likely be focused on Microsoft's hosted online services, which today center around the awkwardly named Business Productivity Online Suite, a bundle of hosted Exchange and SharePoint. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says the next version is in testing and may also be getting a less cumbersome name--possibly the moniker "Union." (Update: I'm hearing the new name won't be Union, but still working to find out what it is. Yes, tipsters, that's a hint.)

Microsoft has been making an effort to improve its names of late, opting for things like Silverlight and Bing as opposed to its past tradition of unpronounceable mouthfuls. That said, the company still has things like MDOP, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.
A Microsoft representative declined to comment on a potential name change or on the event, which is slated for bright and early on Tuesday. Newly named Microsoft Office division president Kurt DelBene will be heading up the event, along with product management chief Chris Capossela.

India win 31 golds, tally highest in CWG

Indian shooters won their 14th gold Tuesday at the Commonwealth Games, taking the gold count to 31, the country's highest in the history of the Games that started 80 years back as British Empire Games, became British Empire andCommonwealth Games in 1954 and Commonwealth Games in 1978.

Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh had the honour of taking India past its highest gold tally of 30, earned eight years ago at Manchester, by winning the gold in the 10-metre air pistol pair event at the Karni Singh Shooting Range here.

World champion Tejaswini Sawant won the silver in the women's 50-metre prone event and 'Goldfinger' Samresh Jung and Chandrasekhar Kumar Chaudhary got the silver in the men's 25-metre standard pistol pairs' event.

At 18 hours Tuesday India's medal tally read: 31 gold, 25 silver and 28 bronze for a total of 84. With 64 gold, 42 silver and 40 bronze Australia remained table toppers. England were third with 28:49:36.

On Tuesday, 20 gold will be decided in aquatics diving (3), athletics (9), gymnastics rhythmic (1), rugby sevens (1), shooting (4) and weightlifting (2) events.

Among the top Indian stars in action will be Saina Nehwal in women's badminton singles finals, Chetan Ananad and Parupalli Kashyap in men's singles semis and Aparna Balan and Jwala Gutta in women's doubles.

In table tennis, Soumyadeep Roy upset fancied Cai Xiaoli of Singapore 4-1 to enter the semi-finals of the men's singles.

In the women's 10-metre air pistol, India, Australia and Canada were tied for the gold with 759 points each. Canada got the bronze on the basis of lesser number of perfect 10s - they shot 14. India and Australia had 21 each. India bagged the gold on the basis of count-back.

A second dope case, also involving a Nigerian athlete, has been found, Commonwealth Games Federation Mike Fennell told reporters.

"We have had a second anti-doping code violation. Nigeria's Samuel Okon, a 110-metre hurdler, has tested positive for the same Methylhexaneamine substance," Fennell said.

Fennell announced Monday that Nigerian athlete Osayemi Oludamola, who was awarded gold in 100 metres race after Australian Sally Pearson was disqualified for false start, had tested positive for Methylhexaneamine substance.

She has been provisionally suspended. A decision on withdrawing her gold medal will be taken after the results of test of her B sample are received.

Host India scores its most medals

29-22-22. Read in the sequence of gold-silver-bronze, India’s vital stats represent its highest haul in CWG history. With a total of 73 medals on the scoreboard and four days of play remaining in Delhi 2010, the previous record 69-medal tally of Manchester 2002 has been relegated to a footnote. Burdened by complaints against the organisers, even as the host nation finds itself put to the test, its athletes have delivered their best.

On a day that has been India’s most profitable yet at this CWG, with 15 medals accruing, nowhere was the atmosphere more electric than at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium where, cheered lustily by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi seated in a gallery for the general public, the home team scored against Pakistan a 7-4 victory that is being celebrated as a resounding retort for the 1-7 insult suffered in the 1982 Asiad final. A ticket scam might well have forced empty stands elsewhere, but this venue was bursting at the seams.

Similarly for India’s bag of medals. The gold count is up courtesy Harpreet Singh (shooting), Sushil Kumar (wrestling), Somdev Devvarman (tennis), Deepika Kumari and Rahul Banerjee (archery). More silver is ours thanks to Vikas Gowda (discus), MA Prajusha (long jump), Vijay Kumar (shooting), Joginder Kumar and Anuj Kumar (wrestling). And bronze gains have been enhanced by Manavjit Singh Sandhu (shooting), Sania Mirza-Rushmi Chakravarthy (tennis), Anil Kumar (wrestling), Dola Banerjee and Jayant Talukdar (archery).

After a 5-5-5 harvest on 10-10-10, comes the preview for Monday: keep counting.

Chinese-made n-reactors for Pakistan worry India

India is concerned over China's supplies of nuclear reactors to Pakistan which has a poor record as a nuclear power, Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan said here Sunday.

"We have expressed our concerns at the appropriate place. If China and Pakistan do that within the exiting international regime, they can. We have protested citing the previous exchanges of nuclear technology illegally particularly through Abdul Qadeer Khan (Pakistan's rogue nuclear scientist). Nobody has addressed that," Chavan told reporters here, around 50 km from Chennai,

Speaking on the sidelines of silver jubilee celebrations of the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) and Radio Metallurgy Laboratory (RML), he said India had serious concerns about something like that - transfer of nuclear technology illegally - happening.

He said India had established a good track record in the nuclear field whereas Pakistan does not have such a record.

Queried about India allowing private domestic or foreign companies to operate nuclear power stations, amending the Atomic Energy Act, he said: "At the moment the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government does not find any need to change the law.

"Right now money is not an issue for allowing foreign companies as nuclear power plant operators. We are inviting domestic government owned companies as minority partners for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India."

He said the government does not want anybody to walk out of the plant by simply shutting it down one day as there are issues like proper handling of nuclear waste.

He said the government was also looking at providing more autonomy to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).

"There is an internal debate going on as to the shape of additional autonomy that the AERB should be given," he said.

He said India was certainly interested in buying uranium mines overseas so as to overcome the shortage.

"We are looking at African countries to buy uranium mines adopting the ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corp) model," he said. ONGC has set up subsidiary ONGC Videsh to acquire oil fields abroad.

According to Chavan, the government was in the process of drafting the rules for the recently passed Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act.

On the reservations expressed by the US on the act, he said: "Americans expressed concern about right to recourse. But it has been adequately explained. We explained what our position is. After the rules get framed, it should get settled down."

Queried about the import of nuclear reactors and India's three phased nuclear power programme, Chavan said: "The government is committed to the three phased nuclear power programme. The import of light water reactors are proposed to meet the power and fuel demand."

The utilisation of large reserves of thorium available in India requires fast breeder reactors, Chavan added.

Queried about importing nuclear reactors from one or two vendors at a cheaper rate by assuring volumes instead of buying from multiple vendors, he said: "In the first phase of imports four companies will be supplying to India.

"During the second round of imports we will look at other commercial considerations (localisation of components) and reactor systems which are more fuel economical and safer like the ones having multiple redundancies.

"All imported reactors should get the approval of the national regulatory authority," he added.

Two Indians die in Afghanistan terror attack

Two Indians were killed in a missile attack launched by the Taliban on an Indian NGO's office in Afghanistan's Kunar province, a media report said Monday.

Qari Omar Haqqani, a spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban, told reporters from an undisclosed location that the rebels had attacked the office of the Indian NGO with missiles in which three people, including two Indian workers, were killed, the News International reported. He did not name the NGO.

The nationality of the third person who died in the attack is yet to be ascertained.

Haqqani said the Taliban also fired missiles at the US airbase in Kunar province, injuring seven soldiers of the Afghan National Army.

He said at least 10 missiles were fired at the US airbase and the Indian NGO's office.

The NGO's office was located close to the airbase.

The spokesperson claimed that they had also attacked the US airbase at Ghakhi Pass near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border Saturday.

10/10/10: Lucky day for Chinese to get married

Thousands of Chinese couples are rushing to tie the knot Sunday, believing the " lucky number day" - 10/10/10 - will give them a perfect marriage.

With the number 10 implying "perfection" in China, the lucky day has been selected by a lot of young people to exchange vows, just as days in previous years - 08/08/08 and 09/09/09 - which were also believed to be lucky, the China Daily reported Sunday.

"I tried to book a fancy hotel in March, more than six months ahead, but I found that all the good wedding banquets on Oct 10 were already sold out," said Liu Mengmeng, 29, from Shanghai.

Tables for wedding parties in most hotels in China's major cities were hard to book even half a year ago.

"We charge 3,588 yuan ($540) for each table, which is 20 percent higher on Oct 10 than usual days. In spite of that, the banquet halls had been fully booked in April," said Ma Chuan, marketing manager of the Chang An Grand Hotel in Beijing.

In Shenzhen, wedding service agent Yang Yi said: "Some couples came to me so late that I couldn't get everything ready in time. After all, everybody wants to marry on that day, and the earlier you start, the better wedding you get."

Officials in marriage registration offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Jinan, Dalian and Zhengzhou decided to work extra hours Sunday to register new couples.

Local authorities in Shanghai said the city had 7,189 marriage registrations Aug 8, 2008 and 8,852 Sep 9, 2009.

"Nearly 700 couples had come to the registration office for reservations," said an official with the marriage office in Dongcheng area in Beijing.

"That number is almost tenfold the everyday registration number. So we have arranged extra staff to ensure all the couples can get registered on that day," he said.

Racism scandal: Australian cops joke about Indian's electrocution

In a shocking incident, top Australian police officers have been caught in a racist e-mail scandal joking about the electrocution of an Indian train passenger and suggesting that it could be "a way to fix the Indian student problem" in Melbourne.

The police officers of the Australian state of Victoria circulated sickening video footage showing the death of the man, who was travelling on the roof of a crowded train in India, 'The Herald Sun' reported on Saturday.

When the train stopped at a station the man stood up and touched an overhead power cable. Onlookers screamed as he was electrocuted, showed the clip contained in one of the offending e-mails.

The e-mail containing the shocking video began circulating in the Victoria Police computer system and racist comments were added, suggesting "this might be a way to fix the Indian student problem".

The paper said it has discovered some of the force's highest-ranked officers have been implicated in the scandal, which also involves pornographic material.

Three superintendents were nabbed during an investigation into the circulation of inappropriate e-mails through the police computer system and several inspectors have also been caught, the report said.

E-mails probed by the Ethical Standards Department's (ESD's) Operation Barrot contain pornographic, homophobic, racist and violent material.

Reacting to the scandal, Chief Commissioner Simon Overland described the e-mails as "disturbing, offensive and gross". 

Indian appointed professor in Harvard School of Design

America's prestigious Harvard University has appointed renowned Indian urban designer and educator Rahul Mehrotra as tenured professor and Chair of its Department of Urban Planning and Design.

As professor of Urban Design and Planning, Mehrotra will teach studios and seminars on architecture and urbanisation in India, besides working with students on research projects related to infrastructure, historic preservation and questions of rapid growth and extreme urban conditions in South Asia.

Graduate School of Design (GSD) Dean Mohsen Mostafavi said Mehrotra's work as a teacher, practitioner, researcher and community advocate makes him "exceptionally qualified to contribute to the GSD's growing involvement with the challenges of urbanism around the world."

An alumnus of the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, he graduated with a master's degree in Urban Design from the GSD. He has taught at the University of Michigan and at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT (2007-2010). 

North Korea heir Kim Jong Un appears in public

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his son, heir apparent Kim Jong Un, appeared together a massive military parade on Sunday held amid celebrations marking the foundation of the country's ruling party.

State television in a rare live broadcast showed the two Kims standing on a reviewing stand at Pyongyang's central Kim Il Sung Square, named after the country's national founder, where goose-stepping military personnel marched by and military hardware, including tanks, passed below.

It's the first time Kim Jong Un has appeared with his father on live television, giving the North Korean people their first good look at their future leader.

The elder Kim entered the venue to huge cheers from the crowd. He was accompanied by his son and other top officials including Kim Yong Nam, the president of the country's parliament.

The parade is part of celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the Workers' Party of Korea. The party last month held a landmark political convention, its most significant gathering in 30 years, at which Kim Jong Un was promoted to vice chairman of the organization's central military commission.

State TV showed goose-stepping military personnel marching past the reviewing stand and being saluted by Kim Jong Il and later Kim Jong Un, who was not dressed in military uniform as some analysts had expected. He wore the same dark, communist-style outfit he has been seen photographed in recently since making his public debit late last month.

Earlier, a North Korean flag was raised and military officers in full dress uniform watching as a band played rousing music and the large crowd looked on.

"If the US imperialists and their followers infringe on our sovereignty and dignity even slightly, we will blow up the stronghold of their aggression with a merciless and righteous retaliatory strike by mobilizing all physical means, including self-defensive nuclear deterrent force, and achieve the historic task of unification," Ri Yong Ho, chief of the General Staff of the North Korean army, said before troops began marching.

Doordarshan apologises to Malawi for 'derogatory' comments at CWG opening

Doordarshan has conveyed its "unconditional apology" to African country Malawai for certain "derogatory" remarks made by one of its commentators during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on October 3.

In a letter to Malawi's High Commissioner to India Chrissie Chawanje Mughogho, Doordarshan Director General Aruna Sharma said the remarks of the commentator were "unintentional" and "inadvertent".

"Allow me to tender an unconditional apology for the remarks made on Malawi during the opening ceremony on DD-Sports Channel," Sharma said in the letter to the envoy.

Sharma's apology came after Mughogho sent a letter to her voicing concern over the commentator's remark that Malawi was "among the world's least developed countries".

"I have checked with my team and let me assure you that these comments were never made deliberately," the DD chief said, adding the commentator had made the comment while describing history, culture, population and other information taken from data published in newspapers.

"I have already instructed my team and the commentator to be most careful while including information about any Commonwealth country so that we do not hurt anybody's feelings by such inadvertent comments," Sharma's letter said.

Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa. Formerly known as Nyasaland, the country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi.

Finally, local don's Headley link found

The Mumbai underworld's involvement in the 26/11 plot was always suspected but never proved. With no leads, this line of line of inquiry was going cold. But a startling finding in the course of an unrelated investigation could prove to be that piece of elusive evidence.

It appears that Chand Madar, the alleged diesel smuggler who was shot dead close to the land mark CST station last month, may have helped Pakistan-born jihadi David Coleman Headley to carry out a recee of the Mumbai coastline to identify the point at which to disembark.

Chand, it's now believed, was more than mere diesel smuggler. He was also a close associate and business partner of Mohammed Ali Shaikh, allegedly an ally of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim. But their relationship is said to have soured over profit-sharing and Chand was murdered. Sources said Chand's Headley connection cropped up during 24x7 surveillance of diesel gangs operating on the high seas.

The diesel smugglers operated off the Mumbai coast. Mohammed Ali Shaikh, who was arrested in connection with Chand's killing, has now been detained by Mumbai Police under MCOCA, and for the first time, the police has publicly acknowledged his links with the underworld. These agencies were not so much concerned about diesel smuggling as they were with the possibility of arms and ammunitions being smuggled in along with the other contraband.

The surveillance officers handling the listening devices were taken aback when they heard Chand telling some of his associates about having taken Headley on his boat. What struck them was that the slain diesel smuggler was not boasting, but expressing his fear of being being picked up for detailed questioning by various agencies on how Headley had reached him. 

How to get free traffic to your blog

You might have tried to cheat Google Adsense but let me forewarn you that it might lead to your account being disabled. Whether you ask your friends to click,   use click software, proxies you are surely going to get banned.

But the Chinese have found a way to cheat Google Adsense’ s brilliant engineers. This software is available at Virtualvisit.cn . All you have to do is keep your internet connection on and run this software. You will get visits from all over the world and random clicks.

Several of my friends are using this software and have already received
their first payout from adsense.However, I warn you that your earning potential is limited i.e. less than $150.It will be better that you start a good website and generate genuine traffic. You will earn more than by cheating like this. This post is only for informative purpose.I am writing this because you may have read in many places that it is next to impossible to cheat Google and I was surprised when the Chinese developed this software and my friends actually got their payout.I am merely writing this post to prove that Google’s engineers and their algorithm is not invincible.

Your site must be less than 100kb. To check that, save your website on your computer by using your browsers File->gt;Save page option and save it with .htm extension. Check that saved files properties for the size. If it is above 100kb then remove unnecessary things like images and site meter, etc.

When on the homepage click on the highlighted link.

Then register by following this steps

Click on the word highlighted by orange and than download the software.

It will be a Rar file extract it

Run the exe file you will find after extracting.(Logo is grey arrows in cycle)

Set the software like this.

In order to add your site to their index

and then

For the referral links, search Google using any keyword of your choice (preferably related to your site) and copy and paste the complete url of the result page.

It would look like this

This is how I think this system works. When you run the software you will see in your task manager a internet browser is running but it will not be visible to you. Also, you will see two more things running like privoxy.exe and vvisit.exe.

You are actually visiting other members site. Depending upon the time you have run the software you will get credits and visits accordingly.
The software is so intelligent that all visitors do not click. Keeping the CTR below 8%.

But remember, Honesty isthe best policy.

Punjab Kings XI , Rajastan Royals axed

Kings XI Punjab and Rajastan Royals have had their franchise agreements with the IPL terminated. The decision to terminate the agreements of the two teams was made at an emergency meeting of the IPL Governing Council in Mumbai. 

Meanwhile, the new IPL team from Kochi was issued with a notice, asking the franchise to resolve their disputes and form a joint venture company to hold the rights.