How to find out whether your tyre has expired?

There is a 4-year expiry (from the year of manufacture).

Thereafter, the tyre may burst whilst in use

Check for this sign: ( *2603* )

There is an asterisk at the beginning and at the end of this

serial number.

The first two numbers 2 6 will tell which week of the year has

it been manufactured.

NB: One year has 52 weeks. The last two numbers represent the

year of make.

Therefore, *2603* shows that the said tyre is manufactured in

the 26th week of the year 2003.

*2699* This shows that the tyre is made in the 26th week of

1999.

Check all your tyres for safety purposes. Do not use expired tyres.

They are likely to burst (especially when running in hot weather)

because the rubber component may have hardened and cracked.

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Trip Travel Journey

Trip: travelling from one place to another

and usually back

To the place where you started, and it takes you a shorter

Time than journey.

Travel: moving from one place to
another, usually over a

Long distance.

Journey: going from one place to another,
often one-way,

Usually when the two places are far apart and when it

Takes you a long time and is often difficult. It implies

Moving on land rather than by sea. It also refers to a

person's life from birth to death. Well, life is but a dream

Because 'journey' comes from a Latin word that means

'one day' !

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MAS to go ticketless for domestic travel from May 1

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) will go ticketless for domestic transactions beginning May 1, 2006.

The move will help save 15 per cent in distribution costs annually, the national carrier said in a statement.

Also, the move is in line with "Flying to Win Customers", which is one of the five thrusts of its business turnaround plan.

MAS said transactions via this facility are expected to increase from the current annual average of 5 per cent to 30 per cent over the next one year.

The airline will cease all conventional ticketing at its offices for domestic travel.

Customers have the options of booking and payment via the airline's corporate website www.malaysiaairlines.com, its 24-hours call centre (1-300-88-3000) and at both airport and city ticketing offices in Malaysia.

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Text when you can’t talk

PETALING JAYA: For some, SMS-ing has become a part of life. For others, it’s merely a convenience.

“I’d rate SMS a nine out of 10 in terms of importance,” said Maureen Tan, 26, a brand planner in advertising.

“It’s cheap and convenient, especially since I need to keep in touch with people overseas all the time in my job.”

Tan started using SMS almost 10 years ago, while she was still a college student.

Engineer Ho Wei Chong, 28, admitted to starting late.

“I only started SMS-ing after I got a phone capable of T9 predictive text input, which made it a lot easier.

“Now I SMS very often, but only for personal matters. I don’t use it for work because it’s faster to just call a person, especially if it’s urgent.”

Ho said the only time he ever sent a work-related SMS was when he did not really want to talk to the person.

“Sometimes, it’s better to SMS your boss if you want to call in sick. I’d rather not have him interrogate me about why I’m unable to come to work,” he said with a grin.

Generally, Ho did not think much about SMS-based information services but liked the one offered by his bank, which sent him text notifications if cheques had cleared.

“I don’t really believe in other SMS-based information services because some of them are expensive while others don’t provide clear instructions on how to unsubscribe.”

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China GDP grows 10.2 percent - Fantastic

China's gross domestic product grew by 10.2 percent in the first quarter of this year on the back of fast-paced trade growth, Chinese President Hu Jintao said in a televised speech.
"The mainland economy maintained good developmental momentum with our GDP in the first quarter rising by 10.2 percent and import and export trade up by 25 percent," Hu said in a meeting with Taiwan's former Kuomintang opposition leader Lien Chan.
"Frankly speaking, we do not hope to pursue extreme high speed (growth), we are paying more attention to the efficiency and quality of development," Hu said.

"We are paying more attention to the transformation of the mode of growth, resource conservation, environmental protection and more importantly the improvement of the lives of the people."

The robust first quarter GDP figure comes ahead of Hu's visit to the United States this week where a growing US trade deficit that hit 202 billion dollars last year is likely to be at the top of the talks agenda.

Washington has also become increasingly impatient with Beijing for allegedly seeking to boost exports by keeping the yuan at artificially low levels, and for failing to adequately open its markets and protect intellectual property rights.

On Tuesday, the commerce ministry announced that China's trade surplus had surged 98.5 percent in March from a year earlier to 11.19 billion dollars.

The trade surplus for the first three months of the year was up 41.4 percent from the same period in 2005 to 23.31 billion dollars, it said.

This came on the back of booming foreign trade in March with exports rising 28.3 percent year-on-year to 78.05 billion dollars and imports growing by 21 percent to 66.86 billion dollars.

First quarter exports grew by 26.6 percent to 197.3 billion dollars, while imports were up 24.8 percent year-on-year to 174 billion dollars, the ministry said.

China has not yet released the full range of first quarter economic statistics including the latest numbers on booming fixed asset investment and growing consumer spending.

"The 10.2 percent GDP growth in the first quarter is realistic because we saw that electricity consumption grew by 11 percent in the first quarter," Andy Xie, Hong Kong-based chief economist for Asia Pacific for Morgan Stanley, said.

"China's GDP growth in previous years has been understated substantially so this is a reflection of what is going on," he said. "China's economy is growing fast and there will be a lot of demand from China."

In December, China overtook Italy as the world's sixth biggest economy when Beijing said it had massively underestimated the size of its own economy, mainly due to miscalculations in the services sector.

The government found that the economy at the end of 2004 was worth 16.8 percent or 284 billion dollars more than previously assessed.

By January, China's economy had become the world's fourth biggest, overtaking France and Britain, after the government announced economic growth of 9.9 percent in 2005.

The 2005 growth rate followed the revised growth rates of 10.1 percent in 2004 and 10 percent in 2003 that came with the new economic reassessment.

In his annual work report to parliament last month, Premier Wen Jiabao said the economy would grow by around 8.0 percent for the year, a forecast widely seen as overly cautious.
China's gross domestic product grew by 10.2 percent in the first quarter of this year on the back of fast-paced trade growth, Chinese President Hu Jintao said in a televised speech.
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Hopes for cheaper malaria drug

The malaria parasite is spread by mosquitoesScientists are perfecting a cheap way to synthesise a highly effective malaria drug.
Artemisinin is currently expensive to manufacture, and so is denied to many in the developing world.
US researchers have created a yeast which can churn out large quantities of a related chemical, which can be easily converted into the drug.
Writing in Nature, they say their work may eventually help slash the cost of artemisinin, and improve access.
It would be very valuable if the cost of manufacturing the drug could be cut
Professor David Warhurst
Malaria infects as many as 500 million people a year, and kills more than 1.5 million, mainly in Africa and Asia.
Artemisinin is the drug of choice for treating those infected with multi-drug-resistant strains of the parasite. In combination with other drugs it has proved to be nearly 100% effective.
Sweet wormwood
It is currently extracted from a plant called Artemisia annua (commonly known as sweet wormwood), grown by farmers in Asia.
But natural supplies are limited, and synthesizing the drug is very expensive.
A team from the University of California, Berkeley, succeeded two years ago in engineering bacteria to make a chemical precursor of artemisinin.
They have now gone one step further by developing a strain of yeast that can churn out large quantities of artemisinic acid - a chemical just one tiny change away from the drug itself.
They did this by adding two genes from A. annua to the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Other researchers have shown that this precursor can be converted into artemisinin in a handful of chemical steps.
So in theory, it should be now be possible to manufacture the drug much more cheaply.
Bacteria factory
The Berkeley team now hope eventually to drive down costs still further by using a similar process to stimulate bacteria to produce artemisinic acid.
Bacteria grow much more quickly than yeast, and so could potentially offer a much more productive source of the chemical.
The researchers say it could still be several years before a microbe-produced version of artemisinin will be widely available.
Lead researcher Professor Jay Keasling said: "While we have made a lot of progress in the past two years, there still are a lot of unknowns."
But he added: "Now that we've got all the parts, I feel it's just a matter of time before we have a microbe ready for scale-up to production."
Professor David Warhurst, an expert in malaria at the Health Protection Agency, told the BBC News website the research was "very interesting and significant".
He said: "Artemisinin and its derivatives are the best available drugs we have got for treating malaria, particularly resistant strains.
"However, the cost is too high for many African governments to cope with, and to get it down to grassroots the price is going to have to be reduced.
"It would be very valuable if the cost of manufacturing the drug could be cut."
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Just Sayin' That elusive thing called Asian values

SOMETIMES I have to wonder at how weird things can get. A couple has been charged for kissing and hugging in public? It’s outrageous that they were even confronted by City Hall officers, but now they’re in court, and in the national — and, most likely, international — news.


Let’s not make it seem as if this is a legitimate debate about our values and mores, because it isn’t. It’s simply a case of those in power over- reaching their authority. After all, is their "indecent behaviour" an issue even if the general public doesn’t think it is?

Again, the concept of Asian values is brought up, because Asians constantly need to be told what values are important to them. To be frank, I loathe that term. Like bad traffic, "Asian values" has too often been used as an excuse for bad behaviour. To be Asian, it seems, means being meek, unassertive and for the most part, tremendously dull.

I don’t remember anyone going on about Asian values when they should matter, like in relation to justice, corruption and poverty eradication.

Likewise, the invasion of foreign, usually Western, cultural elements raises alarm bells from time to time, though those usually doing the raising seem more concerned with projecting themselves as some sort of guardian of all that’s sacred.

Yet there are few qualms about building something as clearly foreign as the Arab Square in the middle of KL.

But this whole concept of foreignness is, well, foreign to me. What exactly is foreign, really?

Is it Indonesia, with their Playboy-allowing liberalism? Sure, they might be the world’s most populous Muslim state, but their pop stars dress sexily, they have local beers, and, apparently, religiously mixed marriages are tolerated.

Or is it Amber Chia who subscribes to foreign values, for posing in that very issue of Playboy? Then again, the photo spread looks very much like what you’d find in magazines here anyway. So why all the fuss over a brand name?

Is it Singapore with its blatantly consumerist society, where citizens are mall rats who shop, eat and drink their time away, spending to fill all that’s missing from their lives? Then again, I could’ve just been describing KL. Or virtually any metropolitan city in the world.

Is it Brokeback Mountain, with its empathetic portrayal of the love between two gay men? From what I’ve heard, the pirated DVDs are doing very brisk sales. So many people obviously don’t have a problem with that film or its Asian values-forgetting director Ang Lee.

Or maybe it is socialism that’s foreign, making the for- mation of Parti Sosialis Mala- ysia "a threat to our national security"? Perhaps. After all, it’s been eight years since PSM applied for registration, which continues to be denied. But that begs the question: If socialism is as foreign as kimchi, then how would the party appeal to enough people to be deemed a threat?

Is it the English language, once widely and well spoken here, but is now like bitter medicine that needs to be forced down students’ throats? No, not really, considering it’s the language of choice for most middle-class KL-ites. And that includes everyone from ministers to businessmen of all races.

Or is it the national language, with its Roman characters and imported words like motorsikal, kompromi and yes, roti? I’m still not quite sure what inforia is, though.

Or is it Mak Yong, once local, but now deemed foreign and unacceptable in Kelantan? How easily our heritage can be erased, and how easily we let them erase it. What’s next? The rewriting of history?

Was P. Ramlee foreign, too? The legendary actor-director did feature cabaret girls and drinking in his movies.

Is it freedom of speech and assembly? Even though without speaking up and organising against British colonialism we might not have the KLCC towers today?

Is it the imported Korean cars that Malaysians are preferring to local ones? Those Koreans sure have a plan to sap Malaysia’s economic strength.

Flood the country with affordable cars so traffic will become so bad that people will spend more time cursing in traffic jams, and less time being productive.

Or, finally, is it the concept of a secular democracy, even though that’s what our Constitution states this country is? As we creep towards what I think is a permeation of religious morality into every aspect of our lives, from law to uniforms to discourse, perhaps even the document Malaysia is founded on is foreign.

This isn’t too surprising, actually. After all, those hugging and kissing English had a hand in it.

The columnist is a writer at a monthly Klang Valley magazine, KLue. E-mail him at brianyap@mac.com.
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New Red, Blue Rings Found Around Uranus

Two outer rings, one red the other blue, have been observed around the distant planet Uranus. While Uranus had been known to have inner rings of neutral color, the newly discovered outer rings show color contrasts that researchers think are caused by light reflected off particles that differ in size from one ring to the other.

And the outermost ring is only the second blue ring to have been observed, a team led by Imke de Pater of the University of California, Berkeley, reports in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Also blue is Saturn's outermost ring, the researchers said. And they noted that both of the known blue rings have a moon embedded within them, while the red rings do not.

They speculated that the moons swept up larger pieces of debris, leaving only dust and tiny items that reflected more blue light than the red ring which could have larger pieces of debris.

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Garmin BMW Motorrad Navigator III

Garmin appears to be getting ready to release the Garmin BMW Motorrad Navigator III, a GPS navigation system designed for BMW motorcycles in the USA. The Garmin BWM Motorrad Navigator III features turn by turn directions, voice prompting, and uses Bluetooth to transmit audio to Bluetooth receivers.

Previously the Navigator II was available in the USA and the Navigator III was available in parts of Europe. We have seen indications the BMW Motorrad Navigator III will soon be available in the USA.

The Navigator III features Bluetooth connectivity that will allow simultaneous connections to both a helmet with integrated Bluetooth audio as well as a cellular phone to offer hands-free communication.

Traffic information can also be obtained through an optional service and FM traffic receiver. There is also an optional remote control which works via IR. No word yet on exactly when the Garmin BMW Motorrad Navigator III might be released in the USA.

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Singapore attacked over blog gag

The Singapore government has been condemned for gagging political discussion on the web in the run up to the country's parliamentary elections.

The government has extended censorship laws to ban podcasts and videocasts that carry political content.

Websites and blogs are already under strict control and must be registered with the government.

Media watchdog Reporters without Borders said the ban would prevent democratic debate on the net.

The ban was outlined by Communications and Arts minister, Balaji Sadasivan of the People's Action Party (PAP) in a parliamentary speech.

It is enforced under a 2001 law that seeks to prevent overt advertising by political parties.

New technology

The ban will come as a blow to PAP opponents, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).

It has used both podcasts and videocasts in an attempt to get round traditional media censorship laws in their campaign.

The party said on their website that the latest announcement was aimed "squarely at the SDP's efforts to harness the new technology to advance its platform in the upcoming general elections".

For its part, Reporters without Borders said: "Once again the Singapore authorities are showing their determination to prevent the holding of a genuinely democratic debate on the internet."

No date has yet been announced for the election.

Outside of election periods, bloggers and website managers have to register with the Media Development Authority (MDA) if they want to write about party politics.

However during elections even registered users are prohibited from open political discussion.

The government said that anyone breaking the ban faces legal action.

The announcement is an extension of the Singapore government's strict censorship policy that applies to all media.

Recently the government relaxed some of its laws in an attempt to market the country as a hub for arts and culture.

The film, Brokeback Mountain, passed film censors this year, in spite of the country's stringent laws against homosexuality.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4882746.stm
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Disney offers teen-tracker mobile

The childrens' mobile phone market is growing rapidly

Disney is launching a US service that will enable parents to monitor how their children use their mobile phones.

They will be able to track voice, text, video and picture messages and set limits on their children's calls.

The phone will also allow parents to locate where their children are via a global positioning system.

The entertainment giant hopes to target what is a niche but rapidly expanding market of mobile phone using children between 10 and 15 years old.

"This is still a growth stage market," said George Grobar, general manager of Disney Mobile.

Disney is targeting 20 to 30 million children with the new service.

There is certainly a big market for teenagers and parents adding them to their [mobile] phone plan Julie Ask, analyst at Jupiter Research

The decision follows market research showing that parents wanted to be able to find out where their children are at specific moments and to talk to them.

'Big market for teenagers'

While the US mobile phone market is well established with 70% of the population already owning a phone, this figure is lower among teenagers.

About 45% to 50% of 13 year olds have a mobile phone, according to technology analysts Jupiter Research.

Just under two thirds of parents pay for their teenagers mobile phones.

"There is certainly a big market for teenagers and parents adding them to their [mobile] phone plan," said Jupiter analyst Julie Ask.

The new phones for parents, which will be sold over the internet, are expected to be available from June.

Disney has not yet revealed what it will charge for this service, but monthly fees from other providers are as little as $10 per month for each new family member.

This is the second specialised mobile phone service Disney is developing. The company launched a sports-based service in February at the annual American football extravaganza, the Super Bowl.

Mobile phone company Nokia predicted that the global mobile phone market will increase by 15% this year.
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Chocolate

Chocolate has been said to cause acne and tooth decay, and has a reputation for being a fattening, nutritionless food. On the other hand, chocolate is also known for being everything from an anti-depressant to an aphrodisiac. While there's still much we don't know about chocolate, recent research is helping us better understand how chocolate consumption affects our health.

The good news is that most of the bad effects of eating chocolate are either overstated or entirely false. Eating chocolate neither causes nor aggravates acne. Two studies -- one by the Pennsylvania School of Medicine and another by the U.S. Naval Academy -- showed that eating chocolate (or not eating it) did not produce any significant changes in the acne conditions of the study's participants. These results are further backed by research which shows that acne is not primarily linked to diet.

Chocolate also has not been proven to cause cavities or tooth decay. In fact, there are indications that the cocoa butter in the chocolate coats the teeth and may help protect them by preventing plaque from forming. The sugar in chocolate does contribute to cavities, but no more than the sugar in any other food.

Obviously, eating too much of any food may cause health problems. The cocoa butter in chocolate does contain saturated fat, which can increase blood cholesterol levels, and high cholesterol can contribute to heart disease. However, recent research at the University of California, Davis, has found that chocolate carries high levels of chemicals known as phenolics, some of which may help lower the risk of heart disease. Plants such as chocolate, coffee, tea, and others contain high levels of phenolics.

Andrew Waterhouse, the lead researcher from U.C. Davis, is a wine chemist. For several years he has been studying the possible health benefits of antioxidant phenolics found in red wine. Waterhouse told us that phenolic compounds are found in all plant products, and that the plants "probably make them as protective agents and for improving their success at reproduction." The bitter, astringent taste that these plants have is an indication of the phenolics found within.

So how might phenolics prevent heart disease? Apparently, phenolics prevent fat-like substances in the bloodstream from oxidizing and clogging the arteries. Said Waterhouse: "It's now believed that atherosclerosis, or the formation of plaque in the arteries, is caused by oxidation of LDL (low-density lipoproteins) -- that's one of the cholesterol particles. At first, this leads to subtle damage, and then eventually to the formation of advanced plaque." The buildup of plaque can lead to clogging of the arteries, a major cause of heart attacks.

While phenolics have chemically been proven to reduce oxidation, Waterhouse cautioned that: "It's not known if the phenolic compounds, like the flavenoids that are present in chocolate, can reduce disease. It's well known that these substances are antioxidants in a chemical sense. But we don't have strong, large-scale, controlled human studies." More research still needs to be done, but certainly the initial research is encouraging.
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Merged stars whip up magnetic super fields

Corpses of massive stars that have collapsed and exploded Typical masses little more than our Sun; radii about 10 km Superdense objects - more dense than atomic nuclei Neutron star binaries are focus of intense scientific study Now being observed for their gravitational waves Colliding binaries thought to be source of short GRBs Neutron star collisions with black holes also a possibility GRBs signal the most violent events in the Universe.

The collision of two superdense stars would produce the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe, scientists say.

These would be more than a thousand million-million times the strength of Earth's magnetic field, the UK-German team reports in Science magazine.

Its computer simulations fit with the theory that mergers of neutron stars drive some of the bursts of high-energy radiation that sweep across space.

However, the group says more work is needed to explain the link in detail.

Dr Daniel Price from the University of Exeter, UK, and Professor Stephan Rosswog from the International University Bremen, Germany, carried out their modelling on a supercomputer.

The simulations required many months of programming. (Follow the internet links for the team's simulation movies).

The study gives fresh insight into the mechanisms that could lie behind extremely powerful, split-second flashes of light called short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).

Quick start

The space-borne telescopes Swift and Hete-2 have indicated the source of at least some of these 100-millisecond bursts could result from two compact, magnetised objects falling on to each other.

Theory suggests these objects could be two neutron stars, the remnant cores of massive stars that have imploded after running out of nuclear fuel.

Although about the same mass as our Sun, neutron stars would be little more than 10km across.

Some such objects known as magnetars are expected to have intense magnetic fields anyway but the new simulations show that a collision between a pair of them could produce something altogether more spectacular - and sufficiently intense to launch a GRB.

Key to this link is the very rapid speed with which the giant magnetic fields are seen to develop in the modelled collisions.

This has to be so if neutron star mergers are to explain the short gamma-ray bursts.

"Our simulations are of the first 12 milliseconds but all the action goes on in the first couple of milliseconds the stars hit each other. You get this very strong shear that rotates and winds the magnetic field up," Dr Price told the BBC News website.

Professor Rosswog added: "This is an incredible result. Magnetic fields that we are familiar with, say from a magnet at your refrigerator, have a strength of about 100 Gauss. Such a collision produces fields that are an incredible 10-million-million times stronger."

In tandem

GRBs have been one of the great unexplained phenomena in astronomy since they were first detected in the 1960s.

It is only in recent years, with the launch of new space telescopes, that scientists have had the tools capable of studying in detail these very bright, but fleeting, events.

Computer modelling of the type carried out by the UK-German team is essential companion work to the observations, as it helps to unravel the extreme physics involved.

"There were certain speculations about how you could grow the magnetic fields, but now we know they develop very quickly. This means we have a firm theoretical basis on which to push forward with this model of how binary neutron stars produce gamma-ray bursts," Dr Price said.

The results of the simulations are being presented this week at the UK Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Leicester, and at the Nuclear Astrophysics conference at Ringberg Castle, Tegernsee.

By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter, in Leicester

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'Good' food provided in childcare

Most childcare providers offer a nutritious, balanced diet to those in their care and are knowledgeable about healthy eating, inspectors say.

Education inspectors Ofsted visited 110 day childcare providers in England including nurseries, crèches and childminders.

Almost 70% were good or outstanding - no childminders and 4% of day care providers were judged inadequate.

Most offered food low in sugar and fat, but 11 often served sweets and crisps.

Such foods should be available in moderation, or as an occasional reward, Ofsted recommends.

Rosy picture

Ofsted's director of Early Years, Dorian Bradley, said that amid the debate around the standard of school meals, little had been said about the food offered to very young children.

"I'm pleased to say the picture looks rosy," she said. "Child carers, in the main, have embraced the concept of healthy eating and the wider benefits gained from it."

The best providers found out about children's likes and dislikes, presented food well and worked with parents to encourage children to try new foods, Ofsted said.

However, some carers were reluctant to question parents when they gave children fatty or sugary foods in their lunchboxes, inspectors found.

Childcare providers already have to adhere to national standards on the quality of food they provide. They stipulate that every day, at least one item from the following groups of foods should be available:

• Bread, potatoes, rice or pasta
• Fruit and vegetables
• Milk and dairy products
• Meat, fish and other non-dairy sources of protein

Schools will have to meet standards provided by the Department for Education and Skills from this September.

Cultural issues

Ana Palenciano is co-director of Polkadot Day Nursery in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is rated outstanding in the quality of food it provides.

She said teaching children to eat a balanced diet was about more than just offering them healthy choices.

"Children need to know how to respect and value food," she said.

"We teach them that some children don't have food and then they can learn to appreciate it.

"Here children learn how to behave at the table, to use cutlery and to have good table manners. If they don't learn these things, their food will just end up on the floor."

But Ms Palenciano, who is from Spain, added that food was "a cultural issue".

"A lot of people in this country miss out on learning to eat properly, but the children here become used to eating at the table with us as a family."

She aims to introduce children to healthy food from day one, and the menu for weaning babies includes lamb, apricots and pulses.

Menus for all their children, from babies up to five-year-olds, include lots of fish, meat, vegetarian food and pulses, and dessert is usually fruit.

Sweets and biscuits are not completely banned, but are given sparingly.

"There is no point in depriving children, but they get enough of that type of thing at home," she said.

"It is nonsense that children just don't like some foods. If they have been eating it from day one, they don't know any different, do they?

"But you have to use common sense and moderation."

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Power-strip with hidden GSM phone-hardware

This power-strip is actually a listening device that can be monitored from anywhere in the world. It contains a concealed GSM cell-phone and a mic; insert the SIM card from a mobile phone, plug the strip in somewhere with mobile coverage, and call the phone number for the SIM -- it will transmit the conversation over the phone-link. It's 950 Euros though: surely it's not all that hard to build one of these out of the guts of an old phone and a power-strip... To monitor, simply dial the number of the SIM card inserted in GSM transmitter from your phone and you are immediately and clearly listening to all of the audio activity in the area of our professional concealed GSM monitor AGS-01.
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Jill Carroll Released

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 30 — Jill Carroll, the reporter who was kidnapped in Baghdad in early January and whose case generated widespread international attention, was freed today, according to a correspondent for her newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.

Delphine Minoui/EPA

Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor.

"We can confirm that she has been released," said Scott Peterson, a correspondent for the paper in Baghdad. He offered no information about the circumstances of her release or her well-being.

Ms. Carroll, 28, was abducted Jan. 7 in western Baghdad and appeared in three videotapes released by her captors. The kidnappers issued a statement through a Kuwaiti television station in February demanding that the Americans and Iraqis release all imprisoned women by Feb. 26 or she would be killed. That date passed without the governments’ compliance, and there was no further word of Ms. Carroll.

On Feb. 28, Iraq’s interior minister told ABC News that the kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll was still alive and that he knew who had kidnapped her and believed she would be released soon.

Ms. Carroll was kidnapped less than 300 yards from the office of Adnan Dulaimy, a prominent Sunni Arab politician, whom Ms. Carroll had been intending to interview that morning. Her interpreter, Allan Enwiyah, 32, was shot dead at the scene.

In an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr. Dulaimy repeatedly expressed his concerns about Ms. Carroll. In recent months, he made public appeals for her release.

Though many other Americans have been kidnapped in Iraq since the invasion, and some remain in captivity, Ms. Carroll’s kidnapping garnered unusually widespread international attention, not least because her plight hit close to home for the journalists in Iraq who covered it.

Ms. Carroll, who grew up in Michigan and speaks some Arabic, had been reporting in the Middle East since late 2002, mostly in Iraq.

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Google Deletes Its Own BlogSpot Blog

Oops! Google Deletes Its Own BlogSpot Blog

SearchEngineWatch reported yesterday that Google's BlogSpot blog at googleblog.blogspot.com had vanished. Later a blogger named Trey Philips managed to register the googleblog name and posted a brief message than began with "Google, fix your blog pleeasssee!" Trey Philips has more about how he grabbed the googleblog name on his lazykarma.com blog. He also has list of links to blogs and sites that are covering the story.

Google has since reclaimed the blog. A graphic of the Google blog before Google reclaimed it can be found here, here and here. Google also admits that they are the ones who accidentally deleted the blog.

Update: We've determined the cause of tonight's outage. The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d'oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad.

The good news is that Google says there is "no systemwide vulnerability for Blogger." Apparently, it was just a silly mistake that has Google red-faced today. We can all learn from this by remembering to keep a back up of our blogs. If Google can accidentally delete a blog then anyone can.


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What is myspaceWatch.com?

myspaceWatch.com is a service that allows you to monitor login activity, track profile changes, and keep a running history of up to 5 myspace.com profiles. Are you a parent who banned your child from myspace only to see that they keep logging on, or keeping multiple accounts? Is your significant other living a double life? We keep track and monitor activity so you don't have to. We also don't ask for any of your personal information.

What does it cost?
We have two account levels:
Free Account Sign Up Now
Monitor 1 profile
Profile is crawled twice daily
View up to 25 of a profile's friends
Ad-Supported
Pro Account ($6/month via PayPal) Sign Up Now
Monitor up to 5 profiles
Profile is crawled every 6 hours
View up to 100 of a profile's friends
No Ads
For a limited time we are also offering 30 day trial of our Pro service for $5 through TextPayMe. (You can send us $5 for free, because TextPayMe will credit your account with $5 when you sign up.)

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eBay's Rhine Gold

Thousands of German startups are using the auction site to sell goods

In the U.S., ground zero of modern capitalism, it is almost an article of faith: Europeans have grown risk-averse and lack entrepreneurial zeal. But don't tell that to the thousands of folks who use eBay Inc. (EBAY) to do an end run around decades of state-imposed regulations and old ways of thinking. One of them is German businessman Norbert Otto, who recalls the exact moment he realized selling ski gear over eBay had become far more than a hobby for him.

When Otto printed out his checking account statement at a local bank's automated teller machine, the statement had so many pages that the branch manager scolded Otto for tying up the ATM for so long. Soon after, Otto opened a commercial account for Sport Otto, his online business, which last year sold $1.8 million worth of skates, skis, snowboards, and other sporting goods exclusively over eBay.

Not bad for an operation that began three years ago as a way for Otto's son to earn extra cash. Today, Sport Otto has 25 part-time employees, a large truck to haul merchandise from Dutch ports, and operations that occupy much of Rabenkirchen, a hamlet of just 60 inhabitants two hours north of Hamburg. In this region close to Denmark, where old-timers speak a dialect incomprehensible to outsiders and unemployment is 12%, Sport Otto is one of the few local employers creating new jobs. "We're very thankful that this online platform exists," says Otto, 58, a sports instructor by profession who manages the business with his 20-year-old son, Jan. "In this region, it's the only chance we have."

The Ottos' small-but-thriving operation provides a window into one of Europe's fastest growing entrepreneurial sectors: the eBay store. According to a survey by ACNielsen International Research, the Ottos are among 64,000 Germans who earn at least 25% of their income from eBay, selling all manner of collectibles, furniture, electronics, and more. Germans snatched up $6 billion in merchandise on eBay in 2004, the most recent year for which such data are available.

Germany's eBay market is second only to the U.S. A decade of slow growth and stagnant wages has turned Europe's largest economy into a nation of bargain hunters, with 20 million registered eBay users. That's close to 25% of the population, a greater share than in any other country in which eBay operates. With eBay gaining momentum, its success in Germany could portend a similar boom in France, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe.

In red tape-bound Germany, starting an eBay business is a relative snap for anyone with broadband and inventory and shipping software, which is readily available for a few thousand dollars. And logistics companies such as German post office Deutsche Post offer services tailored to small e-commerce operations. Compare that with the difficulties of finding startup financing in a country where banks are reluctant to lend and relatively few people own houses that can serve as collateral. Even those who scrape together funds are constrained by myriad regulations. Shops, for instance, must close on Sundays and by 8 p.m. on weekdays.

GIANT CUSTOMER
Some experienced businesspeople see eBay as a growth opportunity in an otherwise slack economy. In 2003, Sven Asböck and Frank Hoffmann, who had worked for a mail-order company that went bankrupt, launched DTG Dynamic-Trade in Neumünster, an hour north of Hamburg. The business snatches up all sorts of surplus merchandise, then sells the stuff on eBay. Sales have doubled every year, to $6 million in 2005, and the company employs 22 full-time workers. "We sell everything you can imagine," says Asböck. No kidding: Current offerings include bedroom sets, toasters, and telescopic rifle sights.

The business of supporting German e-merchants has also grown into a thriving industry. More package deliveries are generated by eBay for Deutsche Post and its DHL unit than the biggest catalog retailers. One customer is Bielefeld-based SE.LL Marketing, which helps customers such as toy train maker Brio unload excess merchandise on eBay. SE.LL rarely even sees the goods it auctions off, having outsourced the warehousing, packing, and shipping to DHL. "We want to focus on services. Fulfillment is not our core business," says SE.LL co-founder Christof Sander, 29, a former manager at German media company Bertelsmann.

In Rabenkirchen, eBay -- combined with the easy availability of logistics services and software -- has created a hotbed of e-commerce. For two decades Otto coached basketball, track, and other sports at municipal sports clubs and ran a ski shop on the side. But then the financially strapped local government cut his hours in half, and a recession devastated his shop's sales. In 2002, when son Jan, then 17, asked for money for driving lessons, Norbert told him he would have to earn it by selling off some of the ski shop's excess inventory. The skis sold quickly on eBay -- at twice their wholesale price.

Soon Jan found himself behind the wheel of a battered blue cargo van, ferrying Chinese-made parkas and plastic sleds from the port of Rotterdam. Sport Otto began hiring staff, using part-timers to avoid paying health and pension contributions that can nearly equal an employee's take-home pay. The fledgling company also took over a cluster of small buildings in Rabenkirchen that had been vacant ever since the former tenant, a construction company, shut down.

BUYING A BENZ
At first glance, the Ottos don't appear to run an especially tight ship. Swim goggles, baseball bats, and mosquito nets are arranged haphazardly on wooden shelves. Yet every item is bar-coded and scanned. From a desk equipped with two flat screens and littered with wholesale sporting goods catalogs, Jan knows when to redeploy snowboarding trousers from the barn to the packing shed. As customers bid, software tallies the average price and profit on each sale.

The business hasn't made the Ottos rich. Their one luxury is a Mercedes-Benz (DCX ) SUV. Jan lives in the same building used to pack orders, while Norbert occupies a modest apartment above Sport Otto's offices. Both start work at 7 a.m. and often don't finish until late in the evening. They dream of building a modern, computer-driven warehouse and buying products directly from Asian suppliers. For now, Norbert says, "we're investing everything back into the business." Spoken like a true entrepreneur.

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