http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

'The Hiroshima bomb saved more lives in the long run by ending the war more quickly.'

Fact or very clever American whitewashing?

Hypothetical: The nazis drop a bomb on America, America becomes demoralized and lose their desire to continue the war (lol), and hence surrender. The nazis end the war and justify the Bombing of New York as the "bomb that saved more lives in the long run by ending the war more quickly".

Question: Would Americans agree with that statement?

Answer: No.

Why? America - "It's okay when WE do it."

Pr0ve me wrong and/or discuss.

China has been making persistent efforts to help resolve the Darfur crisis, Chinese ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen said on Saturday.

Li's statement was in response to Steven Spielberg's decision to withdraw as the Beijing Olympics' artistic advisor by linking it to China's ties with Sudan.

China is very concerned over the Darfur issue, Li said, and has been trying to help resolve it.

The Chinese government has been working closely with the UN to end the crisis in Sudan's western region of Darfur through political means, he said.

On July 31 last year, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1769, authorizing the deployment of a UN and African Union (AU) "hybrid peacekeeping force" in Darfur, which was a breakthrough in the efforts to restore peace in the region.

China helped the Sudanese government, the UN and the AU reach a consensus on the "hybrid force", he said. The negotiations were tough and "our efforts have been applauded by the international community".

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-02/18/content_6461925.htm

The New York Post, a paper whose business section has a special flair for getting the story wrong, may finally have gotten one right.

In its Friday edition, the Post writes that an independent group of Yahoo board members believes Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang may be letting emotions trump his better judgment and that's why he's opposed to accepting Microsoft's buyout offer.

When it comes to big acquisitions, so much of what gets put forward as informed analysis is likely to be off the mark. But among people familiar with his thinking, Yang's distaste for Microsoft is an open secret.

"Jerry would rather give up his left pinky than see Microsoft wind up running this company," said a former Yahoo employee who knows Yang.

I can understand Yang's reluctance to do this deal. Along with David Filo, he built Yahoo from scratch. Now an increasingly noisy chorus of shareholders is pressuring him to turn over the keys to the "Monkey Boy" and his cohorts. That has Yahoo scrambling to come up with alternatives. One day Google pops up as the leak du jour, the next day it's News Corp. At this rate, it won't be long before we hear rumors of Warren Buffett sightings.

Would one of those scenarios result in a better denouement? The answer depends on who you're asking.

http://www.news.com/Yahoos-Jerry-Yang-is-no-Bill-Gates/2010-1030_3-6230902.html?tag=nefd.top

www.MPP.org

www.prohibitioncosts.org

GET INVOLVED!

Yahoo is calling on Microsoft to bump up its buyout bid, but the trouble is a number of the Internet giant's largest investors own shares in both stocks.

And, in a number of cases, Microsoft accounts for a larger slice between the two, which could dampen Yahoo's efforts to generate strong investor momentum in calling for a substantially higher price, according to a report released Friday by RiskMetrics Group. In effect, it's like asking these large investors to bid against themselves.

"This is the pressure that Yahoo is under," said Chris Young, RiskMetrics director of M&A research. "If the Yahoo investors owned fewer Microsoft shares than Yahoo, then the pressure would be different."

For example, Yahoo's largest investor, Capital Group's Capital Research Global Investors and Capital World Investors, managed 523.6 million shares of Microsoft, compared with 154.8 million shares of Yahoo, as of December 31.

And T. Rowe Price, which ranks among Yahoo's top-10 investors, owned 136.5 million shares of Microsoft compared with 22.8 million shares of Yahoo, during the same time period.

According to RiskMetrics, 90 percent of all Yahoo institutional investors also own shares in Microsoft. And of this group, 15 of the top 20 Yahoo institutional investors own more Microsoft than Yahoo.

http://www.news.com/Top-Yahoo-shareholders-could-support-Microsoft/2100-1014_3-6230878.html?tag=nefd
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China Railway Construction Corp Ltd (SHA 601186) has won contracts to build two railroads in Libya, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing company sources.

The contracts, worth a combined 2.6 bln usd, involve a coastal and a north-south line in Libya, it said.

Construction on both projects will start in June, it added.

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/02/17/afx4664836.html

As many as 400,000 unlocked iPhones were running on China Mobile's cellular network at the end of last year, according to market research firm In-Stat.

Apple sold 3.7 million iPhones in 2007, and more than 10 percent of them are in China, In-Stat said, attributing that information to China Mobile. That helps explain part of the "iPhone gap" created by the difference between Apple's shipping totals for 2007 and the activations reported by its carrier partners in the U.S. and Europe.

Despite Apple's attempts to keep iPhone unlocking under wraps with new software and changes to the iPhone's bootloader, enterprising entrepreneurs are apparently giving the people what they want. This is a bit of an opportunity lost for Apple, since the company has signed lucrative revenue-sharing deals with its carrier partners that don't apply if an iPhone is unlocked from its respective network.

But, as In-Stat noted in a report, at least it shows people want the iPhone. The firm said Chinese consumers want smartphones with multimedia features and Web browsing, and the iPhone fills that need nicely. And they're willing to pay for it: 20 percent of smartphones sold in China last year went for 4,000RMB ($533) or more.

Apple had at one point discussed the iPhone with China Mobile, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs downplayed the significance of those talks, saying the companies just had a single meeting. The iPhone is set to make its official debut in Asia at some point in 2008, probably sooner rather than later, but it's clearly a hot item in China already.

http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9873327-37.html?tag=nefd.top

Republican candidate's statement marks turnabout

WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain says there will be no new taxes during his administration if he is elected president.

"No new taxes," the likely GOP presidential nominee said during a taped interview broadcast Sunday.

McCain told ABC's "This Week" that under no circumstances would he increase taxes, and added that he could "see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates, and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates," as well as giving people the ability to write off depreciation and eliminating the alternative minimum tax.

McCain was defending his support for an extension of tax cuts sought by President Bush, which McCain voted against. The Arizona senator now says allowing the tax breaks to expire would amount to an unacceptable tax increase.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23212854/

U.S. officials call action on S. Calif. slaughterhouse largest beef recall ever

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday recalled 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a California slaughterhouse, the subject of an animal-abuse investigation, that provided meat to school lunch programs.

Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. No illnesses have been linked to the newly recalled meat, and officials said the health threat was likely small.

The recall will affect beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, that came from Chino, California-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the federal agency said.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said his department has evidence that Westland did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection, violating health regulations.

"Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection, Food Safety and Inspection Service has determined them to be unfit for human food and the company is conducting a recall," Schafer said in a statement.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23212514/

On a hot summer day in 2006, an African-American woman walked into the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta complaining of a large sore on her breast. Her family had urged her to go to the hospital, she said, because the stench from the infected wound had become intolerable. Doctors discovered a cancerous tumor so large it had burst through her skin.

When Otis Brawley, then medical director of the hospital's cancer center, asked the woman when she had first noticed a lump in her breast, she recalled that her son had been in second grade. He was now a high school junior. Even after the tumor first broke through her skin, she admitted waiting nearly two more years to seek treatment. She had no health insurance, she explained. Apparently she hadn't realized that, as a public hospital, Grady accepts and treats the uninsured. Despite the intense treatment that followed—a mastectomy, along with radiation and chemotherapy—her cancer was already so advanced that she was dead within a year.

Her case might seem extreme, but Brawley says at Grady's cancer center, where the majority of patients are minorities and many are uninsured, "that sort of thing happens several times a year." When he examined hospital records, he found that, on average, about 40 percent of the breast cancer patients treated there have already reached stage IV, for which the five-year survival rate is just 20 percent (versus nearly 100 percent for those diagnosed at stage 1). By comparison, only a small percentage of the patients he saw at Emory University's cancer institute, which serves a largely white, middle-class population, had progressed to a late stage when they were diagnosed.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/112952