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Iran president to talk at Columbia University; denied visit to WTC site.

TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that the American people are eager for different opinions about the world, and he is looking forward to providing them with “correct and clear information,” state media reported.

The hardline Iranian leader left Sunday for New York to address the U.N. General Assembly and speak to students and teachers during a forum at Columbia University.

Tensions are high between Washington and Tehran over U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and helping Shiite militias in Iraq that target U.S. troops — claims Iran denies.

Ahmadinejad said his visit will give Americans a chance to hear a different voice, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“The United States is a big and important country with a population of 300 million. Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions,” Ahmadinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying.

State-run television also quoted Ahmadinejad before boarding his presidential plane Sunday as saying that the General Assembly was an “important podium” to express Iran’s views on regional and global issues.

Speaking at Columbia University
He is scheduled to address the Assembly on Tuesday — his third time attending the New York meeting in three years. He is also set to speak at a Columbia University question-and-answer forum on Monday in New York.

His request to lay a wreath at ground zero, site of the World Trade Center 2001 terror attacks, was denied by city officials and condemned by politicians. After the Sept. 11 attacks, hundreds of young Iranians held a series of candlelight vigils in Tehran.

Police rejected Ahmadinejad’s request, citing construction and security concerns. In an interview to air Sunday on “60 Minutes,” Ahmadinejad indicated he would not press the issue but expressed disbelief that the visit would offend Americans.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini also appeared dismayed that the request was rejected.

“What kind of damage will the U.S. face” by Ahmadinejad visiting the site, Hosseini asked at his weekly press conference Sunday.

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger has resisted requests to cancel the event but promised to introduce the talk himself with a series of tough questions on topics including Ahmadinejad’s views on the Holocaust, his call for the destruction of the state of Israel and his government’s alleged support of terrorism.

Columbia canceled a planned visit by the Iranian president last year, citing security and logistical reasons. Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust “a myth” and called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

Hosseini said there “are efforts to cancel” the Columbia speech, but the Iranian government is continuing to pursue the program. He did not elaborate other than saying a lot of pressure was being placed on the program’s sponsors.

Iranians also questioning trip
Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York is also being debated back home. Some in Iran think his trip is a publicity stint that hurts Iran’s image in the world.

Political analyst Iraj Jamshidi said Ahmadinejad looks at the General Assembly as a publicity forum simply to surprise world leaders with his unpredictable rhetoric.

“The world has not welcomed Ahmadinejad’s hardline approach. His previous address to the Assembly didn’t resolve any of Iran’s foreign policy issues. And no one expects anything better this time,” he said.

Independent Iranian analysts also criticized Ahmadinejad for making the trip, saying his anti-Western rhetoric makes life for Iran more difficult.

“Many experts believe Ahmadinejad’s previous two visits brought no achievement … rather, it heightened tensions,” the reformist daily Etemad-e-Melli, or National Confidence, said in an editorial Sunday.

But conservative lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said it was a good chance for Iran to air its position.

“This trip gives the president a good chance to meet world leaders and inform them of Iran’s rightful position,” IRNA quoted Boroujerdi as saying.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran were heightened in recent days after U.S. forces detained an Iranian official in northern Iraq.

Washington has said it is addressing the Iran situation diplomatically, rather than militarily, but U.S. officials also say that all options are open. The commander of the U.S. military forces in the Middle East said he does not believe tension will lead to war.

“This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful,” Adm. William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, told Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.

BAGHDAD — With many Iraqi journalists slain since 2003, the Iraqi Journalists Union is planning to offer martial arts and survival courses to help its members cope with the risks of life in this country.

Union chief Shihab al-Timimi said reporters, photographers and television crews will also be taught how to lower their profile and conceal their equipment when they are traveling. any journalists are believed to have been killed when they were stopped at militia and insurgent checkpoints.

The latest journalist death occurred Sunday, when gunmen killed Jawad Saadoun al-Daami, who worked for the Iraqi television station al-Baghdadiyah. Al-Dammi, a Shiite, was gunned down in Baghdad’s western Qadisiyah neighborhood.

He was the second slain journalist who worked for the station, which broadcasts from Cairo, Egypt, and is often critical of the Iraqi government and the U.S. military presence. It is perceived as pro-Sunni.

Al-Timimi said the courses will be offered in Baghdad, Basra in the south and Irbil in the north.

“We feel that it’s our duty to protect the remaining Iraqi journalists who are constantly facing the danger of assassination and kidnapping,” al-Timimi told The Associated Press.

He acknowledged that the courses could produce only modest results given the level of threat posed against Iraqi journalists “but doing something is better than doing nothing.”

He also called on the Interior Ministry to relax firearms regulations so that journalists can carry weapons to defend themselves.

The move by the Iraqi Journalists Union reflects the depth of the crisis facing Iraqi journalists.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization for the protection of journalists, says a total of 200 journalists have been killed in Iraq since 2003, mostly Iraqis who died in Baghdad, Mosul and the volatile and oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 112 journalists and 40 media support workers — translators, drivers, fixers and guards — have been killed in Iraq since 2003. Most of the victims were Iraqis — many of them believed targeted by extremists because they worked for foreigners.

The CPJ count does not include al-Dammi.

Yasser al-Hamadani, a correspondent for the Kurdish al-Ittihad newspaper in Mosul was upbeat about the prospect of journalists being able to defend themselves.

“We have the fear of being killed any minute in this lawless city. I hope that such courses will make us feel safer,” he said. “It’s a first good step.”

But Sabah al-Timimi, a reporter in the city of Najaf south of Baghdad was not optimistic.

“Most of the gunmen seem to be organized, professional and determined in their attacks against civilians and journalists,” said, al-Timimi, who writes for Iran’s news agency.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two Italian military personnel on a weekend patrol have disappeared in western Afghanistan, and police said Sunday they were searching for the pair and their two Afghan staff.

In northeastern Afghanistan, meanwhile, NATO helicopters fired on a group of suspected insurgents in response to a rocket attack. Four Afghans died and 12 were wounded, the alliance said, and officials were investigating whether the dead and wounded were Afghan police or civilians targeted mistakenly.

An official from the Italian embassy in Kabul said the two missing Italians last spoke with officials at their base on Saturday night during “routine contact.” The Italian military in Herat was trying to reach them again.

The two Italians, with their Afghan driver and translator, drove through a police checkpoint in the Shindand district of Herat province on Saturday, and they have not had any contact with anyone since, said Gen. Ali Khan Hassanzada, chief of police criminal investigations in western Afghanistan.

Hassanzada said it was not yet known if the four were kidnapped: “We have launched an investigation in the area.”

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press that he did not immediately know if Taliban militants kidnapped the four. Kidnappings by independent criminal gangs have increased around Afghanistan in recent months following reports that foreign governments have paid large ransons to free kidnapped citizens.

In March, five Taliban prisoners were freed in exchange for the release of a kidnapped Italian journalist. The head of the Italian aid agency Emergency has said the Rome government also paid a $2 million ransom last year for a kidnapped Italian photographer — a claim Italian officials did not deny.

Though the embassy official said the two Italians were soldiers, Italy’s Defense Ministry called them “military personnel” and the country’s foreign minister called them “Italian functionaries,” raising the possibility the two work as intelligence agents.

Conventional military patrols in Afghanistan are typically comprised of several vehicles and many soldiers in case they came under attack. Italian news reports also suggested the two might be intelligence agents or members of special forces.

The embassy official said: “They have patrols like that, weekend patrols. They just disappeared after awhile.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of embassy policy.

The official said the two are warrant officers who were traveling “with a government interpreter on a military mission.”

He said they were based in the city of Herat and were last seen in Shindand.

Last May, Shindand was the site of a major battle in which the U.S.-led coalition said its troops had killed 136 Taliban fighters, though Afghan officials at the time said scores of civilians also had died. The Afghan Ministry of Defense has since said that eight civilians were killed in that battle.

Herat police chief Juma Adil said the Italians were working with a reconstruction team associated with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

The NATO strike in the northeast was in response to a rocket attack at an Afghan army base in the area.

Initial reports indicated they were Afghan police and road construction security guards “dressed in civilian attire and carrying weapons on an uncoordinated patrol,” NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

“The 12 wounded are civilians, we know that for sure,” Afghan army commander Gen. Qadam Shah said.

Shah said it was not clear from preliminary reports if those killed were insurgents or civilians.

More than 4,400 people — mostly militants — have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials.

At least 600 civilians have died in the fighting, many of them mistakenly hit in airstrikes by Western forces. Afghan officials have pleaded repeatedly with international troops to coordinate closely with their Afghan counterparts to prevent civilian casualties.

In southern Zabul province, meanwhile, the Taliban kidnapped three Afghan men accused of spying for the U.S. and executed them, beheading one and shooting the other two, said Shamulzayi district chief Wazir Khan. Khan said the men were innocent.

The average price of gasoline in the U.S. dropped about 2 cents over the last two weeks, according to a survey released Sunday.The average price of regular gasoline on Friday was $2.79 a gallon, mid-grade was $2.91 and premium was $3.03, oil industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said.

The nation’s lowest average price was in Newark, N.J., where a gallon of regular cost $2.51. The highest was in Chicago at $3.16, according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide.

Dhaka, Bangladesh - Potential investors have expressed an interest in purchasing shares of the troubled Oriental Bank Limited, officials said on Sunday.

The Oriental Bank Limited, a private commercial bank, started its operation on May 20, 1987 under the name of Al Baraka Bank Bangladesh Limited. The bank is now running its business through 30 branches across the country with 713 employees.

It has been centauries since the countries of the world understood the interdependence of each on the other. The phenomena of globalization are one of the reasons of this interdependence. The countries are trading among each other through economic zones. Also the business in the stock market has gone Trans national. All the stock markets of the world make an impact on each other’s trading patterns. Thus stock exchanges are strong indicators of the international business. Another advantage, as it may be called to the business, is the difference in the labor costs in the different countries. The booming business of outsourcing is an offshoot of this concept. The outsourcing business is now moving from the business processes to the manufacturing too. The practices like interdependence of the stock exchanges and the phenomena of outsourcing are causing great concerns to the domestic companies. The impact of outsourcing on the domestic labor is drastic.

The stock exchange index is generally confined to one country. However there are some indices, which are found in many other countries of the world too. America’s Dow Jones and S&P 500 are some of the indices. Industry specific index can also be found. The Moran Stanley Biotech index is one such. They are referred to as specialty exchanges.

The NASDAQ in New York is the world’s first electronic exchange. Set up in 1971, it has approximately 3200 companies listed with it. There are several indexes in the NASDAQ with separate base numbers and for different companies listed in them. For example there is a NASDAQ 100 index. It has base number 125 and has been traded on since 1994. Then there is NASDAQ Composite where most of the companies do business.

London too is one of the business hubs of the world. The stock exchange is one of the most influential ones. The kings of international businesses have their home ground sin London and they operate their world business from there. Being one of the biggest human settlements in the United Kingdom, London has a business of over 117,000 million pounds. The London stock exchange has been in existence since 1698 when commodity trade was rampant in the country.

Nikkei 225 is the index of the Tokyo’s Stock Exchange. The markets can boast of being the technologically most advanced in Asia if not the world. Japan after the wrath of the war of 1945 has emerged out to become one of the controllers of world trade. The work culture in the country is unmatched by any country of the world. Probably this is the reason why it is has been the world business leader for a long time. Most blue-chip companies are listed on this market.

The hazards of speculative businesses are all around. The companies have created the tricks to trade out the non-productive scrip. Insider trading, for example, means floating false information in the market by those who are at the helm of affairs. The same misguides the traders. This has to be curbed by adding a deterrent to such practices.

Interestingly enough, two innocuous prunes claim to be accepted as one of the secret weapons of World War II period.

Spink, an auction house in London, is selling two graying prunes that it claims were chosen to be stuffed with documents or other maps to be passed on to prisoners of war secretly. As part of the memorabilia sheltered by a British spy the prunes had been preserved.

According to Emily Jackson, the Spink spokeswoman, the prunes are extremely dry and hard and it is really astonishing that they have survived.

The late Doreen Mulot, a previous member of Special Operations Executive of Britain, which was started to steer operations behind enemy lines, had collected World War II memorabilia such as these http://www.a2armory.com/ww2-weapons.html of which the prunes formed a part.

The then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton had established the executive to carry on warfare by means other than direct military engagement and it was referred to as ‘the Baker Street Irregulars’ after Sherlock Holmes’ fictional group of spies.

In a telephonic interview Marshall informed that his great-aunt prepared the prunes in a large bathroom of her large house in Hampstead in north London neighborhood.

In water the dried fruits were softened and then de-pitted to allow insertion of carefully rolled documents covered in waxed paper into cavities. Next those were re-dried and packed in Red Cross food parcels for the prisoners who utilized the information to flee away. Quite an ingenious idea it was, Marshall said, but not at all a thing normally connected with fighting when war rages.

Marshall added that she had told him how she along with an associate would be seated over the bathtub that was filled with prunes.

Confirmation came out from the auction house that in any operation these prunes were never used.

There are about a million things worth knowing when it comes to World of Warcraft, but lets all face the truth; you must get gold in World of Warcraft! For those of you that are new or relatively new to World of Warcraft there are two main questions that are floating through your mind right now: Why do you need to get gold in World of Warcraft? If you do get gold in World of Warcraft, what do you do with it? Lucky for you, the answers are right below!
Why do you need to get gold in World of Warcraft?
Think of it this way, if you don t get gold in World of Warcraft, you don t really get to do anything! Your training, your bartering, basically your entire World of Warcraft identity is based on what you can get with gold. Think of it this way, your ability to get gold in World of Warcraft is similar to your ability to get a high paying job in the real world, the more you make the more is available to you therefore allowing you to grow.
If you do get gold in World of Warcraft, what do you do with it?
Once you do get gold in World of Warcraft you use it to improve your own personal situation whether that means trading with other players or pay your trainer to get better. When it really boils down to it World of Warcraft is like any other game, the object is to get better and more powerful to overcome your opponent. To do this in World of Warcraft, you must get gold!
Let s look back at what it means to get gold in World of Warcraft or do you need to? Remember this (it really is this easy) your entire existence and possibility for success relies on your ability to get gold in World of Warcraft.

To know the unknown and see the unseen has had been an eternal urge of man since the beginning of history and it is probably this desire that has led to the discovery of new lands and the development of new countries. Each country in this world is unique with its history, its culture and traditions and its people. Allwonderscountries provides you with the best opportunity to gather comprehensive information on the various countries in the different continents of the world. From information about the currencies, the capitals, the major spots of tourists’ attractions, and shopping or the major places of stay, you will get to know it all from this site. Just browse through the different links on this site for knowing more about the specific countries.

Whether you want to know about the different countries in Asia or Africa or you are in the look out for the best tourists’ spots in the counties in North America and Europe, Allwonderscountries is the ultimate site for you to know all that you need to about the different Countries of the world.

Continents of world, Information about countries of World, Information about world countries, World Countries, Information about countries of Africa, History of Countries, Population, Cheap flights to different countries, About countries in the world.

With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods. Let’s examine the current situation and how we got here, then look at three possible alternatives for the future.

To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC. iPod users can and do acquire their music from many sources, including CDs they own. Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats.

The rub comes from the music Apple sells on its online iTunes Store. Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world’s music. When Apple approached these companies to license their music to distribute legally over the Internet, they were extremely cautious and required Apple to protect their music from being illegally copied. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music. If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device. To achieve this, a DRM system employs secrets. There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music. They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets. It is a cat-and-mouse game. Apple’s DRM system is called FairPlay. While we have had a few breaches in FairPlay, we have been able to successfully repair them through updating the iTunes store software, the iTunes jukebox software and software in the iPods themselves. So far we have met our commitments to the music companies to protect their music, and we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.

With this background, let’s now explore three different alternatives for the future.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full.  This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.  It’s hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future.  And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores. On the surface, this seems like a good idea since it might offer customers increased choice now and in the future. And Apple might benefit by charging a small licensing fee for its FairPlay DRM. However, when we look a bit deeper, problems begin to emerge. The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak. The Internet has made such leaks far more damaging, since a single leak can be spread worldwide in less than a minute. Such leaks can rapidly result in software programs available as free downloads on the Internet which will disable the DRM protection so that formerly protected songs can be played on unauthorized players.

An equally serious problem is how to quickly repair the damage caused by such a leak. A successful repair will likely involve enhancing the music store software, the music jukebox software, and the software in the players with new secrets, then transferring this updated software into the tens (or hundreds) of millions of Macs, Windows PCs and players already in use. This must all be done quickly and in a very coordinated way. Such an undertaking is very difficult when just one company controls all of the pieces. It is near impossible if multiple companies control separate pieces of the puzzle, and all of them must quickly act in concert to repair the damage from a leak.

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.

In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free  and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system.

So if the music companies are selling over 90 percent of their music DRM-free, what benefits do they get from selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies.

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries.  Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free.  For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard.  The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company.  EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company.  Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace.  Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.