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FISHRGAME
_____________
Feature
Stories -
"This
Weeks News -- Dec.
8-21
2004"
01
Internet Websites Do Not Need A Broker's License To
Sell Real
Estate
-----CALIFORNIA - The state
has decided not to appeal a federal court ruling
that found that a California real estate law
violated the 1st
Amendment.
-----Judge Morrison C.
England Jr. of the U.S. District Court in
Sacramento ruled last month that the Department of
Real Estate was wrong to insist that a website had
to obtain a broker's license in order to publish
paid property
listings.
-----The court found that
ForSaleByOwner.com acted essentially the same as
newspapers and other publications that publish
similar ads. Those periodicals are exempt from
being licensed by the
state.
-----Tom Pool, a spokesman
for the Department of Real Estate, said Friday that
the state would not appeal the ruling, and that
ForSaleByOwner.com would be allowed the same
exemption as
newspapers.
-----The case was being
closely watched by the real estate industry, which
has seen many of its traditional ways of doing
business challenged by upstart firms exploiting
consumers' mushrooming use of the
Internet.
-----ForSaleByOwner.com
charges customers an upfront fee to list their
properties on its website, which also publishes
other real estate-related information but does not
act as a broker in transactions / December 18,
2004
///
Turkey
Delays Talks With U.S. Ambasador -- until Arminian
Question is Resolved
See
Also Story 08 - Turkey
Fails to co-operate with U.S. Companies doing
business with U.S. occupied Iraq
----Pressure
is mounting on the Turkish government in Ankara to
recognize its longtime enemy and EU member, Cyprus.
France is pressing Turkey to acknowledge genocide
in the killing and deportation of as many as 1.5
million Armenians during World War I. Some European
politicians have hinted that membership talks would
fail and Ankara would be granted a "privileged
partnership" -- an idea that infuriates Turks and
has led to calls that negotiations end only in full
membership.
----The European Parliament
passed a nonbinding resolution Wednesday urging the
EU to open accession talks "without undue delay."
EU leaders meeting in Brussels are expected to
inform Turkey today on a date for negotiations to
begin. A formal announcement is set for
Friday.
----
Today's
Puzzle is: Since when
did a Turk become an European? Europe will ask that
centuries-old riddle again today, when Turkey is
expected to take a big step in its troubled quest
to join the European Union. If all goes according
to plan, EU leaders will set a date for Turkey to
begin membership talks, a prospect certain to
intensify doubts that a Muslim nation can be
embraced by a Europe anxious about the rise of
Islam across the
continent.
---- The historic
negotiations could last 15 years. There is no
guarantee of membership. A din of caveats and
protests has already erupted over economic and
human rights concerns. But, in the end, the
question is identity: Are Turkey's history,
religion and borders compatible with the geographic
and cultural landscape of Europe? And, perhaps more
important, does a predominantly Christian Europe
want them to
be?
----"No, it's not a natural
fit," said Hans-Ulrich Klose, a Social Democrat and
deputy chairman of the German Parliament's foreign
affairs committee. "It's going to be very
difficult. But we should give it a good, fair try.
If it's a success and Turkey turns European, it
could be good for security regarding all our
concerns from the Middle
East."
----Big-shouldered and
chaotic Turkey wants to nudge itself into a
continent that is perplexed about its own identity
and future. The EU admitted 10 new, mostly East
European members in May and is still awaiting
approval of a contentious constitution. Economic
problems and high unemployment across much of the
continent are hurting the middle class and eroding
the welfare
state.
----Some leading European
officials contend that admitting a moderate Muslim
democracy to the EU would calm the tremendous
strain between East and West over terrorism and the
war in Iraq. The belief is that Turkey, a North
Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, could help
stifle Islamic fanaticism around the world and
enhance Europe's diplomatic leverage in Central
Asia and the Middle
East.
----The clamor against
Turkey, whose per capita gross domestic product is
only 28% of the EU average, has energized
right-wing political parties and much of the
continent's population. Turkey's entry would mean
the EU's Muslim population would soar from 12
million to 81 million. Skeptics envision Europe
opening itself to a flood of religious extremists
and migrant workers, with minarets cluttering
skylines from Madrid to
Krakow.
----Many Europeans, most
notably the French, argue that admitting Turkey
would threaten European secularism and tip the EU's
balance of power. Former French President Valery
Giscard D'Estaing warned that Turkey's accession
would mark the end of Europe. Conservative German
politician Edmund Stoiber has vowed to do
everything he can to derail Turkey's chances if
elected chancellor in
2006.
----Writing in Le Figaro
this week, Robert Badinter, a former justice
minister in France's Socialist Party, said of
Turkey, "Ninety-five percent of the territory and
92% of the population are in Asia. We'll have, we
Europeans, common borders with Georgia, Armenia,
Iran, Iraq and Syria. I am asking you: What
justifies our common borders with these countries?
What justifies that we'd get involved in the most
dangerous areas of the
world?"
----Such sentiments have led
to qualifications and demands that seem to daily
raise the bar for Turkish
membership.
----Pressure is mounting on
the Turkish government in Ankara to recognize its
longtime enemy and EU member, Cyprus. France is
pressing Turkey to acknowledge genocide in the
killing and deportation of as many as 1.5 million
Armenians during World War I. Some European
politicians have hinted that membership talks would
fail and Ankara would be granted a "privileged
partnership" -- an idea that infuriates Turks and
has led to calls that negotiations end only in full
membership.
----The European Parliament
passed a nonbinding resolution Wednesday urging the
EU to open accession talks "without undue delay."
EU leaders meeting in Brussels are expected to
inform Turkey today on a date for negotiations to
begin. A formal announcement is set for
Friday.
----"Enough is enough," said
Mehmet Ali Birand, a columnist, in Turkey's leading
Hurriyet daily. "EU officials may not be aware of
this, but they are pushing the Turkish people. When
our patience runs out, we will be out for revenge.
The EU ambassadors are playing with
fire."
----Since it first asked to
be stitched into Europe in 1963, Turkey has grown
accustomed to being treated like a guest invited
for cocktails but not a seat at the dinner table.
Ankara has urged Europe to better understand
Turkey's strategic importance and not push it
toward an alliance with Russia and China. Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that
Europe would lose an ideal counterpoint to
terrorism if it rejects a country that has merged
Islam and
democracy.
---Irritated that his nation
is still perceived as a backwater of village women
in head scarves and farmers in baggy pants, Erdogan
told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, "No
other country had to wait 41 years at the door of
the European Union. We have done all that was
demanded of us, and the Europeans are still
hesitating. That can only be called
discrimination."
---But
no other country is Turkey,
either.
----Once
the seat of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is 99.8%
Muslim. Its borders stretch from the Mediterranean
Sea to the fringes of Mesopotamia. Its restless
dream to join Europe was born early last century
when Kemal Ataturk formed a secular government,
banned the traditional fez and encouraged his
people to enjoy the music of Beethoven and
Mozart.
----The military that has
long guarded the country's secularism from Islamic
designs remains powerful but has retracted under
pressure from the EU, leading to political
stability and a stronger civilian government.
Turkey's desire to join Europe also has led to its
abolishing the death penalty, reforming the courts
and curbing torture and human rights abuses,
especially against the Kurds in the southeast,
where a war with separatists has grown largely
quiet.
----But significant problems
exist. A poor farming country recovering from a
recession, Turkey has huge debt. Its EU membership
could cost the continent $40 billion a year.
Europeans also are uneasy about Erdogan, who
recently supported a failed legislative attempt to
criminalize adultery. A former Islamist party
member, Erdogan says he's committed to separation
of church and state, but German intelligence in
2001 described him as a religious
hard-liner.
----"I am slightly
suspicious of the man," said one senior European
official, who asked not to be
named.
----Europe's doubts about
Erdogan mirror the continent's struggle with a
burgeoning immigrant Muslim population it views as
wanting to recast the Rights of Man in the image of
the Koran. France has outlawed head scarves in
schools. Germany has made it easier to deport
militant imams. Recent extremist attacks, including
the Madrid train bombings and the killing of a
Dutch filmmaker, have increased suspicion of the
continent's
Muslims.
----Polls show that
majorities in the EU's most influential countries
&emdash; France and Germany &emdash; are uneasy
over Turkey. Sixty-seven percent of French voters
and 55% of German voters are opposed to Turkish
membership. French President Jacques Chirac and
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder face potential
political backlashes for supporting Turkey.
Countries most in favor of Turkey include Spain,
where 65% of voters approve, and Italy, where 49%
approve.
----One need only visit
Germany to understand the EU's apprehension over
Turkey. Germany's 2.5 million Turks account for the
largest such population in Europe. They arrived as
guest workers more than 40 years ago and formed a
parallel society that only recently has begun to
integrate. Lack of assimilation, mainly because
Germans expected Turks to leave, has created
discouraging statistics: 45% of Turks in Berlin are
unemployed and 30% drop out of high
school.
----Ozcan Mutlu, an ethnic
Turk and Greens deputy in Berlin's city parliament,
said the EU would send an alarming message to
immigrants if Turkey's membership bid were
rejected.
----"They keep talking about
how Turkey is a foreign policy question, but it's a
question of interior European politics," Mutlu
said. "There are 3.5 million Turks in Europe. What
kind of message do you send these people if you
tell them, 'No, you and Turkey are not part of us.'
My dream is that instead of Turks sitting on their
luggage in Europe, they will be able to open their
luggage, put their clothes in drawers and feel
welcome."
----Such a notion is
unsettling for a continent that in some ways is
growing more nationalistic. Populist and right-wing
parties in the Netherlands, Germany, France and
Austria don't want any more Muslim suitcases
unpacked. This trend may merge with what some
analysts see as a rekindling of European
Christianity, which has been in decline for
generations.
----"There is widespread
fear of immigration coming from Turkey," said
Klose, the German federal lawmaker. "This is a
touch dynamic and could be misused in the public.
Since Sept. 11 and the murder in the Netherlands,
the atmosphere around the Turkish debate has
changed."
----Chirac said the matter
was full of opportunity and risk. "If Turkey
subscribes to all our values, it is an
extraordinary chance for Europe to strengthen and
have a more important position in the world,
regarding economy, moral values and peacekeeping,"
he said. "If we reject … we could create a
situation that could be of
confrontations.
Report:
TV Content Shows No Respect for Religion
9:59
AM PST,December 16,
2004
Leaders of The Parents
Television Council today released a study of prime
time programming that they say shows that Hollywood
"has virtually no respect for
religion."
-----The study, put out in
conjunction with the National Religious
Broadcasters, counted 2,344 treatments of religion
&emdash; such as the mention of prayer or the
presence of God &emdash; from September 2003 to
September 2004 and deemed 24.4% of them negative.
Most were neutral, and 22.1% were
positive.
----- Even so, Frank
Wright, president of the NRB, called the negative
portrayals "dehumanizing" and compared them to
representations of Jews prior to the Holocaust, and
blacks in the era of slavery. "Systematic negative
portrayals of groups of people are always
disturbing," he said.
----- "They produce the
potting soil that leads to
persecution."
-----The study calls NBC "by
far the most anti-religious network" with 9.5
negative treatments for every positive one. Fox had
2.4 negatives for each positive. At the other end
of the spectrum was Pax, which the Parents Council
said had 90.7% positive depictions of religion. CBS
was deemed more positive than negative by a margin
of 2 to
1.
-----NBC was expected to
issue a statement today. An ABC spokesman was
unavailable and CBS declined to comment on the
study.
-----A positive example
cited was an episode of CBS' "JAG," in which a
woman prayed for a man's safety and also asked God
to say hello to her deceased mother and tell her
that she loves
her.
-----A negative example was
ABC's "31st American Music Awards" when host Jimmy
Kimmel gave the audience a brief list of rules.
"And finally," he said, "and this is a personal
thing, no thanking God. God does not watch
television. And if He did, He would not be watching
this show. He would be watching 'Tarzan' on the
WB."
-----In another negative
example, from NBC's "Will and Grace," the character
Karen tries to cheer up Grace by saying, "Let's go
buy that historic church and turn it into a gay
bar."
-----In 2003, the PTC, which
aims to protect children from indecency on
television, filed a mountainous number of online
complaints to the Federal Communications
Commission, a figure that has become the subject of
heated
controversy.
-----PTC President L. Brent
Bozell said the group had no similar activity in
mind for the religion issue, but promised to take
the findings to advertisers. "We will encourage
advertisers to get behind those in the industry who
want to do more positive story lines than what
they've been doing. That won't be new," he said.
----- The report, "Faith in
a Box: Entertainment Television and Religion," is
the sixth PTC study to look at religion on TV. The
last one, from 1997, showed fewer, but more
positive treatments of
religion.
-----In a press conference,
Wright blamed the negative portrayals on
Hollywood's creative community which he said is
unfamiliar with the subject of faith. "It's a long
standing issue with Hollywood. I think the issue
has to do with the makeup of persons in Hollywood
and their own personal convictions. I believe a low
percentage of people in Hollywood consider
themselves to be people of
faith."
-----Bozell, a Catholic,
said, "Is it because Hollywood is Jewish and taking
care of its own? No, I don't think that. In the
popular culture of America, 99% of the public, and
also in Hollywood, there is an understanding that
respect is owed to Jews. It's as simple as that.
That same respect ought to be paid to other faiths
as
well."
-----He said Hollywood is
missing out on a marketing opportunity by ignoring
the majority of Americans who, according to a 2003
Harris poll cited by the study, believe in God
(90%) and the resurrection of Jesus Christ
(80%).
-----"They're blinding
themselves, not seeing the forest for the trees
when they dismiss the fact that this country is fed
up with Hollywood's assault on families," Bozell
said. "Nobody, but nobody, saw the success of 'The
Passion of the Christ' coming. They don't
understand there's a hunger for positive messages."
----- To obtain the data,
PTC analysts reviewed prime-time programming on the
seven commercial broadcast networks. Religious
subject matter was divided into one of five
categories: faith, institution and doctrine, laity,
clergy and miscellaneous. The analysts entered each
instance into a computerized Entertainment Tracking
System.
-----Some academics have
criticized previous PTC data, saying the group's
definitions are imprecise and they need more coders
to check one another's
judgments.
-----While the PTC focused
on the individual networks in television
programming and religion, the study also showed
that overall religious content on prime time
television was balanced with most of it being
neither positive nor negative. PTC director of
research Melissa Caldwell said the more specific
the religious reference, the more negative it
became. The 8 p.m. hour was the most "pro-religion"
time slot, followed by increasingly negative
treatments into the
evening.
-----The study drew
immediate response from Jeff Jarvis, an internet
executive and blogger who, earlier this month, was
the first to uncover data showing that nearly all
online complaints received by the FCC in 2003 had
been filed by a small number of PTC members. The
figures reflected so-called "formal complaints"
submitted to the FCC's web site as opposed to
letters, phone calls and faxes to the commission
from listeners or viewers generally complaining
about TV and radio
programming.
-----Of the PTC study,
Jarvis said, "Who are they to say what the public
wants? They don't speak for America. Second, what
if a lot of entertainment is negative about
religion? So what? We have free speech here
"
-----The group's findings
come at a time when Hollywood executives are
feeling an increasingly chilly climate for edgy
television. Based largely on PTC complaints, the
FCC has levied record fines against media
corporations.
-----However, Jonathan
Rintels, president and executive director of the
Center for Creative Voices in Media, said the PTC
is losing its perception as an influential
institution as a result of the complaint data
revelations.
-----"The real statistics
that matter to the networks come from the biggest
hit of the season- 'Desperate Housewives,' "
Rintels said. "It's not on the Parents Television
Council's approved list. (Yet) it doesn't seem to
have any great impact on the public watching
it.
-----"So what is the true
measure of public opinion?"
///
04
- Google Wins Trademark Ruling in Geico
Suit
05
Sprint Agrees to Buy
Nextel
SAN FRANCISCO -- Search engine
giant Google Inc. won a key ruling Wednesday in a
case that had put an important chunk of its
multibillion-dollar online advertising business in
jeopardy.
-----A federal judge in
Alexandria, Va., dismissed the heart of a lawsuit
brought by auto insurer Geico that had sought to
bar Google from selling the ads from rival insurers
that appear when Web surfers type "Geico" into the
search
engine.
-----After 2 1/2 days of
argument, Judge Leonie Brinkema granted Google's
request to dismiss much of the trademark
infringement case. She said Geico, a subsidiary of
Warren E. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., had
failed to prove that consumers were tricked into
doing business with the
advertisers.
-----With the victory,
Google survived the first major legal challenge to
its lucrative practice of letting advertisers lure
customers to their sites by buying small text ads
linked to their competitors' brand
names.
-----About 98% of Google's
revenue, forecast at more than $3 billion this
year, comes from targeted advertising. Although the
company won't say how much of that comes from ads
tied to trademarked words, analysts believe it is
significant.
-----"It's pretty
fundamental to what Google does," said Scott
Kessler, an analyst at Standard & Poor's. "If
the company were not allowed to sell copyrighted
words, that would remove from its inventory a very
large number of prized
keywords."
-----Google shares gained
$1.09 to $179.78 on
Nasdaq.
-----The Mountain View,
Calif., company hailed the decision as a broad
validation of its advertising practices. But Geico
and other companies suing Google on similar grounds
said Brinkema's ruling set no precedent for the
Internet
industry.
-----Google collects revenue
every time someone clicks on one of the text ads
&emdash; known as "sponsored links" &emdash; that
are delivered alongside normal search results. Many
of the links are generated by searches using
generic terms, such as "car insurance." But
advertisers also buy links based on brand-name
keywords.
-----In court, Google argued
that targeting advertisements at people looking to
buy a competitor's product isn't trademark
infringement &emdash; it's competition. Company
lawyers likened the situation to a pizza-shop owner
handing fliers to customers as they walk into a
rival
pizzeria.
-----The judge agreed.
"There is no evidence that that activity alone
causes confusion," Brinkema
said.
-----Trademark law is
designed to prevent consumers from being confused
about the source of products, said Jennifer Urban,
an intellectual property law professor at USC who
praised the judge's
ruling.
-----"People know when they
put a word into a search engine that they get a
list of results," she said. "What they get out of
it is more
choice."
-----David Drummond,
Google's vice president and general counsel, called
the decision "a clear signal to other litigants
that our keyword policy is lawful."
----- Google's adversaries
said they weren't
deterred.
-----"It is by no means a
sweeping declaration that Google can profit by
selling other people's marks," said David Rammelt,
a Chicago lawyer representing American Blind &
Wallpaper Factory Inc. in a case awaiting trial in
San Jose. Although the facts of that case are
similar, the outcome could be different with a
different judge, he
said.
-----Sheldon H. Klein, an
intellectual property lawyer in Washington, called
the Geico decision "a very significant victory for
Google." Yet he noted that other judges will not be
obligated to go along with
Brinkema.
-----Geico also sued Yahoo
Inc. over a similar practice of selling ads tied to
trademarked names. Those companies settled their
lawsuit out of court two weeks ago without
disclosing the terms. Yahoo had no comment on the
Google
ruling.
-----Geico did prevail in
one argument. Brinkema ruled that the sponsored
links the insurer introduced as evidence confused
consumers when they included "Geico" in the text.
She did not decide whether Google is liable in
those situations and urged the two sides to reach a
settlement while she works on her written decision
during the next few
weeks.
-----Geico lawyers said they
would await that written verdict before deciding
whether to appeal.
///
05
1908 WIRELESS TELEPHONE TRADEMARKS AND PATENT
UPDATES: CLICK TO GO TO:
Sprint
Agrees to Buy
Nextel -
The
$33.8-billion proposed deal would create a company
with 38.5 million customers
//;
06
Google's Stock Jumps on Library-Book Plan after
announcing that it is going to offer it's own type
of Your Easy Search internet news reporting
service, developed by Tvi Magazine and its
Subsidiary companies.
-----It
was just two years ago, Smart90s', tvinews and it
Your Easy Search90 internet news reporting service
commenced its grant research program for the
digitizing of its own books and magazines published
by Television International Magazine, then sharing
the results with Google, Yahoo and other portals to
the web. It was a first for Smart90 users. Seeing
the actual scanned digitized page of a drawing of a
radio signal created by Nathan B. Stubblefield
drawing, was a thrill for many
students.
-----"Now, Google's plans to
do the same thing, but in a big way", says Troy
Cory. Shares of Google Inc. jumped nearly 5% this
week, after the search-engine company announced
ambitious plans to digitize books in some of the
world's most important
libraries.
-----The effort, an
expansion of the company's Google Print program,
involves scanning millions of books from Stanford
University, Harvard University, the University of
Michigan, Oxford University and the New York Public
Library. Once the books are digitized, Google could
profit by attracting more viewers -- and ads -- to
its
site..
-----Shares of the Mountain
View, Calif., company rose $8.24, or 4.8%, to
$178.69 on
Nasdaq.
-----The payoff will come,
analysts said, if Web searchers are drawn to Google
because it is perceived to have more information
than rival search
sites.
-----"It's too early to tell
how well they will monetize this, but already it
generates lots of great feelings about the
company," said Forrester Research analyst Charlene
Li. "They could certainly get more users out of
this, and the more users, the more
advertising."
-----Google said it would
finance the roughly decade-long project, but
declined to say how much it would cost. The company
will scan the books at each of the partner
libraries using its own technology and
people.
-----Librarians and
nonprofits already involved in scanning books for
other projects say it costs about $20 to do a
300-page book, but that the cost should soon fall
to about $10 per
book.
-----Nonprofit efforts such
as Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive have
been placing public-domain materials online for
years; the Google initiative includes copyrighted
works as well. Though searchers will have full
access to books in the public domain, only excerpts
of copyrighted material will be
available.
-----Google said it had no
plans to display ads next to search results from
library books, but it would show links to
booksellers and local libraries. Nearly all of
Google's revenue comes from ads.
///
07
Today's Puzzle: CLICK TO GO TO: Should Suviing
Family Members of Government Wartime or For
Security Actions - Be Repaid for
Losses?
Surviving
family members of Jewish Hungarian Nazi war
victims, destroyed by several Governments during
war time, seeks payment from U.S.A. -- for loss of
tangible property. For the Art work and property
lost and stolen during the end of the World War II
era, SEE VRAs, LOST WOMEN OF
ITALY.
-///
08Yes90
- xingtv/ December 14, 2004 ANKARA, Turkey
&emdash;
Turkey Fails to co-operate
with U.S. Companies doing business with U.S.
occupied Iraq
-----Delays
in getting exports out of Kurkirk and the delays
for the U.S. in getting an audience with Erdogan,
was another sign of the deepening rift between
Turkey and its most powerful ally. The split
reflects anger among Turks over the war in Iraq and
their growing pressure on their government to stand
up to the United States.
----- Using
exceptionally harsh language, Turkish officials and
politicians in recent weeks have attacked the Bush
administration, with much of their invective
reserved for U.S. policy on
Iraq.
-----The
opening salvo came from Erdogan, who last month
referred to Iraqi insurgents killed in a U.S.-led
assault on the city of Fallouja as "martyrs" and
exhorted the Muslim world to unite behind Turkey
"against powers that are seeking to assert their
hegemony."
-----Tensions
shot up when Mehmet Elkatmis, a lawmaker from
Erdogan's conservative Justice and Development
Party, which has Islamist roots, likened the U.S.
occupation of Iraq to genocide and said the
American military might have used atomic weapons
against Turkey's neighbor.
-----
"Never in human history have
such genocide and cruelty been witnessed," Elkatmis
said. "Such a genocide was never seen in the time
of the pharaoh, nor of Hitler nor of [Italy's
fascist leader Benito]
Mussolini."
-----Angered
by the Turkish government's halfhearted rebuttal of
Elkatmis' remarks, several U.S. officials have
warned that the next time Congress considers
legislation labeling the mass killings of Armenians
by Turkish forces during World War I as genocide,
the Bush administration might not quash the
bill.
-----The
latest spat comes before a summit Friday of
European Union leaders, who will decide whether to
open talks aimed at admitting Turkey to the
alliance. The U.S. has long lobbied for its
membership, and Washington's influence over seven
former Soviet Bloc nations that joined the EU last
year so far has bolstered the Turks'
case.
-----Emerging
from a 90-minute meeting with Erdogan on Monday,
U.S. Ambassador Eric S. Edelman sought to downplay
the chill, describing the talks as "constructive,
thorough and frank." Turkish Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul called the tensions a
misunderstanding.
-----"Why
would we want to weaken ties with a superpower?" he
asked in an interview with the daily newspaper
Hurriyet.
-----But
for all the upbeat talk, analysts predict more
turbulence.
-----"Despite
50 years [of partnership], it is clear that
Turkish-American relations will remain fragile and
replete with mini-crises," said Asli Aydintasbas, a
longtime observer of ties between the two
nations.
-----The
government reflects its constituents' outrage over
the war in Iraq, but still wants Washington's help
on joining the European Union. Turkey, the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization's sole majority-Muslim
member, served as a bulwark against communism
during the Cold War. Beginning in the early 1990s,
the Turks allowed U.S. warplanes to use bases in
their nation to patrol a "no-fly" zone over
northern Iraq.
-----
With the threats of
communism removed and Iraqi strongman Saddam
Hussein deposed, Turkey's support is no longer
crucial, Aydintasbas noted. That is one reason, she
said, the Turks want to join the
EU.
-----U.S.
officials acknowledge that the most immediate cause
of mounting anti-American sentiment here is the
military occupation of
Iraq.
-----Fierce
public opposition to the war prompted Turkish
lawmakers to reject a resolution in March 2003 that
would have allowed thousands of U.S. troops to use
Turkey to open a second front against Hussein's
forces.
-----The
rebuff came as a surprise to many U.S. officials,
long used to the Turkish military's pro-Western
views prevailing.
-----"What
the Americans didn't fully understand then, and
perhaps still don't today, is that Turkey has
matured as a democracy," said Fehmi Koru, a
columnist for the pro-Islamic daily Yeni Safak.
"Politicians need to take account of the public if
they want to be reelected, and Erdogan is no
exception."
-----The
prime minister is under intense pressure from his
conservative flank over his government's quiet
support for the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
U.S. warplanes en route to Iraq are refueled by
tanker planes taking off from the Incirlik air base
in southern Turkey. In addition, Western officials
estimate that as much as 40% of all noncombat
supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq are produced in
and shipped from this
nation.
-----"The
U.S. sees [Turkey] not as a strategic
partner, but as a logistical partner," said
Abdullah Caliskan, a lawmaker from Adana province,
where Incirlik is. "We must suspend our ties with
the United States. If we remain silent, we will be
tainted by America's
tyranny."
-----Officials
here say about 70 Turkish truck drivers have been
killed carrying supplies to U.S. troops. Some
critics charge that the Americans do not provide
adequate protection for the convoys and speculate
that this is punishment for Turkey's refusal to
allow U.S. troops to pass through the country last
year.
-----The
same theory is often used to explain why the U.S.
has not driven separatist Kurdish rebels out of
bases in northern Iraq and to speculate that the
Americans want to establish an independent Kurdish
state in northern Iraq, which could reignite
separatism among Turkey's own ethnic
Kurds.
-----U.S.
officials say they remain committed to rooting out
the rebels but cannot open a second front when
American troops are fighting Iraqi
insurgents.
-----Turkey's
Kurdish separatists broke their five-year truce in
September and have resumed attacks against Turkish
forces.
-----"We
keep telling the Americans that they need to keep
their promise," said Gul, the foreign minister, in
a recent interview.
-----
"So far they have done
nothing, and sometimes it seems like they never
will."
09Google to Offer
Content of Five Major Libraries
-----SAN
FRANCISCO &emdash; Taking a trip to the library may
take little more than a computer's Web browser.
Working with major libraries, Google is hoping to
scan millions of books and periodicals into its
popular Internet search engine during the next
several years as part of an effort to bring more of
the world's collective knowledge online.
-----Material
from the New York public library as well as
libraries at four universities -- Harvard,
Stanford, Michigan and Oxford -- will be indexed on
Mountain View, Calif.-based Google under the
ambitious initiative announced late Monday.
-----The
Michigan and Stanford libraries are the only two so
far to agree to submit all their material to
Google's scanners.
-----The
New York library is allowing Google to include a
small portion of its books no longer covered by
copyright while Harvard is confining its
participation to 40,000 volumes so it can gauge how
well the process works. Oxford wants Google Inc. to
scan all its books originally published before
1901.
-----Google
eventually hopes other major libraries will
participate in the project.
-----Scanning
books so they can be read through computers isn't
new. Both Google and Amazon.com already have
programs that offer online glimpses of new books
while an assortment of other sites for several
years have provide digital access to some material
in libraries scattered around the country.
-----But
Google's latest commitment could have the biggest
impact yet, given the breadth of material that the
company hopes to put into its search engine, which
has become renowned for its processing speed, ease
of use and accuracy.
-----"It's
a significant opportunity to bring our material to
the rest of the world," said Paul LeClerc,
president of the New York Public Library. "It could
solve an old problem: If people can't get to us,
how can we get to them?"
-----Librarians
are also excited about the prospect of creating a
digital record for the reams of valuable material
written long before computers were conceived.
-----"This
is the day the world changes," said John Wilkin, a
University of Michigan librarian working with
Google. "It will be disruptive because some people
will worry that this is the beginning of the end of
libraries. But this is something we have to do to
revitalize the profession and make it more
meaningful."
-----The
project gives Google's search engine another
potential drawing card as it faces stiffening
competition for Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s
MSN. Attracting visitor traffic is crucial to
Google's financial health because the company
depends on revenue generated by people clicking on
advertising links posted next to the main body of
search results.
-----Scanning
the library books figures to be a daunting task,
even for a cutting edge company such as Google,
whose online index of 8 billion Web pages already
has revolutionized the way people look for
information.
-----Michigan's
library alone contains 7 million of its library
volumes -- about 132 miles of books. Google hopes
to get the job done at Michigan within six years,
Wilkin said.
-----Harvard's
library is even larger with 15 million volumes.
Virtually all of that material will be off limits
unless Google shows it can scan the material
without losing or damaging anything, said Harvard
professor Sidney Verba, who also is director of the
university's library.
-----"The
librarians at Harvard are very punctilious about
protecting their great treasures," Verba said.
-----The
project also poses other prickly issues, such as
how to convert material written in foreign
languages, and the issue of protecting copyrighted
books.
-----As
it does with new books already included in its
search engine, Google will only allow its users to
view the bibliographies or other snippets of
copyrighted books scanned from the libraries. The
search engine will provide unrestricted access to
all material in the public domain -- work no longer
covered by copyrights.
-----The
books scanned from libraries will be included in
the same Google index the spans the Web. By
throwing everything into the same pot, Google risks
burying the library book results far below the Web
documents containing the same search terms term,
reducing the usefulness of the feature, said Danny
Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, an
industry newsletter.
///
Center
Page / Biography
TIMELINE:
High Court to Consider
Halting File
Sharing
-----The
Supreme Court, heeding the pleas of Hollywood
studios and the record industry, agreed to consider
calling a halt to file sharing on the Internet that
allows millions of computer users to obtain free
copies of music and
movies.
-----Legal experts say the
case, due to be decided in the spring, could prove
to be the most important test of copyright law in
the computer era. If the court decides to impose
new restrictions on computer and electronics firms,
it could crimp the innovation that has expanded the
public's control over music, film and other forms
of
entertainment.
-----At issue is whether
owners of copyrighted works can stop software
makers from giving computer users the means to make
their own copies of those
works.
-----Owners of the Grokster
and Morpheus file-sharing networks say they are not
liable for the actions of those who use their
software to download movies or music. That argument
prevailed before a federal judge in L.A. and the
9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
-----///
OPEC agreed to reduce its
daily oil output by 1 million barrels
and reserved the right
to cut deeper early next year if crude gets
cheaper. But skeptical traders pushed oil prices
below $41 a barrel for the first time since
July.
-----The move by the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
is intended to prevent further revenue losses amid
falling prices, without creating the kind of
volatility that have lifted prices. If effective,
the reduction would scale back output to 27 million
barrels a day, the group's official production
ceiling.
-----Saudi Oil Minister Ali
Ibrahim Naimi said the cut would be implemented
Jan. 1.
-----In trading Friday,
light sweet crude for January delivery dropped
$1.82, or 4.3%, to $40.71 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange.
-----///
China's Lenovo Group said it was
buying
the personal computer
business of IBM Corp., an American icon that
pioneered the PC market. The $1.25-billion purchase
would catapult Lenovo into the world's
third-largest seller of PCs, giving it an
internationally recognized brand and access to
IBM's technical and management
capabilities.
-----Lenovo would pay IBM
$600 million in cash and $650 million in stock, IBM
Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge
said.
-----Lenovo agreed to keep
the business based in the U.S. and run by the
current management team. IBM would keep an 18.9%
stake in the
business.
-----The move away from PCs
would reduce IBM's revenue, Loughridge said, but
the sale would "also eliminate the volatility
associated with the cyclical PC business
-----///
Shell Oil has buyer for its
Bakersfield plant, at least that's
what New York investment firm Kelso & Co.
says,
as they emerged as the
leading bidder for Shell Oil Co.'s Bakersfield
refinery, people familiar with the situation
said.
-----Kelso and others have
been talking to Shell about buying the facility for
several months. Shell signed an agreement pledging
to negotiate exclusively with the equity firm, the
sources said. A Shell spokesman declined to
comment. Kelso executives didn't return a call for
comment.
-----It was unclear what
price and terms were under discussion, though one
person said Shell continued to insist on keeping
ownership of a few assets integral to operating the
refinery.
///
ByLines:
Editors Note
Donald
Trump
Bylines
TVI
Magazine ONLINE / IS YOUR INDUSTRY WEB SITE Ready
for the future?
-----
TVI
Magazine introduces here a new marketing forum for
the international television industry: a dynamic
online service on its web site. TVI Magazine will
now effectively serve the new marketing needs of
all entertainment companies with a tool that offers
almost instantaneous promotion updates. Company
promotional material that appears on TVI Magazine's
Web site can be hyperlinked with the company's own
URL. TVI Magazine can also link the ads to a
special Web page for the advertiser and then link
that page to the advertiser's
URL.
-----
To
ensure that visitors find their way to promotion
information and product updates, TVI Magazine is
listing TVI Magazine Online on more than 250 of the
world's most popular search engines and electronic
directories.
-----
Online
ad space can be purchased in monthly increments
(with a one-month minimum). At renewal time,
advertisers can change their ad and/or move it to
another space if one is available. The TVI Magazine
Web site will indicate the total number of hits on
the home page per month and per day, enabling
advertisers to monitor their reach and billings
regularly.
-----
TVI
Magazine has two key pages for ad placement: the
index page (home page) and the main page (main page
of articles). Less expensive ad space is available
on article pages. Advertisers can provide the
artwork and/or logo, either by submitting the file
electronically or via an existing graphic on the
Web that TVI Magazine's online team can
grab.
-----
Most
ads can be posted on the TVI Magazine site within a
few hours. However, in the event that any graphic
manipulation is required, one must allow more time
before the ad is posted, usually two to seven
business days for a static banner and up to 10
business days for an animated banner ad.
-----It
just goes to show you, says Troy about the TV and
Film industry -- "NOTHING IN THIS WORLD IS
PERMANENT" . . . so follow the
money -
- and
take some advice from a dinner-time chat with
"Stonehead" --
Disappointments Are Great! Follow
the Money . . . the Internet and the Smart- Daaf
Boys.
///
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Submitted
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
Magazine, tviNews.net, Associated Press, Reuters,
BBC, LA Times, NY Times, VRA's D-Diaries, Press
Releases, They Said It Tracking Model, and
SmartSearch were used in compiling and ascertaining
this Yes90 news report.
©2004-2006. Copyright. All
rights reserved by: TVI Publications, VRA TelePlay
Pictures and Big Six Media Entertainments. Tel/Fax:
323 462.1099.
LookRadio.com
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it with movies, slide shows and
music!
-----
Smart90's
24-hour, 365 days-a-year Broadband S90tv
WebMagic
web page is the simplest way to add the WebMagic to
your existing web pages. It's an Exciting New Way
to Advertise.
-----
Advertise
Now on Smart90.com and utilize S90tv's Web Magic on
your own domain. Email
your insertion order and advertising copy or banner
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- -----To
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Email, your logo, slides, transparencies,
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graphics. The materials will be forwarded directly
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- -----
Advertising
material must be received by the 10th of every
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tviNews.net edition, your banner, logo, web movie,
slide show or 60x500 animated banner, that is to be
headlined at the top of our featured news page, as
a linkonad or smartkudoad,
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better yet, tell us where to go to fetch the
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