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BAGHDAD

Late Friday, a rocket hit Camp Victory, the mainland U.S. army compound in Baghdad, the military announced.

Both rocket strikes bore the hallmarks of Shiite militia attacks, and the one that targeted the Green Zone was the primeval reported there in to a greater degree than a month. The security covenant, that sets a Dec. 31, 2011, deadline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, passed Parliament Thursday from one to another the fierce objections of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Although he has held his militia to a cease-fire since August 2007 and said he is focusing its activities on social and educational activities, al-Sadr also says his “Promised Day Brigade” has the right to attack Americans if they do not leave Iraq.

The security contract says U.S. combat forces should leave Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and pull out of the country by means of the end of 2011, but al-Sadr says there are loopholes that could allow the Americans to stay longer.

“The military option is up to our supreme leader, but as everyone knows, we require the right to resist,” declared Liwa Sumaysim, the chief of al-Sadr’s political place of business.

The Green Zone was pummeled by mortars and rockets in March and April during fighting that pitted Iraqi and U.S. forces against Shiite militiamen. The barrages stopped behind al-Sadr called for a cease-fire.

The U.S. military said Iranian-made rockets had been used in both of the recent attacks, although it gave no details.

A U.N. spokeswoman reported the rocket that hit near the compound struck almost 6:15 a.m., killing two and injuring 15. All were workers for a catering company supporting the U.N. staff in Iraq, and none was Iraqi, she said. She did not give their nationalities.

In what could be read as a show of support for people prudent of the security pact, a statement from the act of worship of Iraq’s most influential Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, before-mentioned Saturday that there was “concern toward the security pact.”

Al-Sistani does not involve himself in politics, but his opinions carry great weight because of his religious establishment.

The statement said the pact lacked national unison and was vague in continuance some issues. It said the ultimate judgment upon the bond would reach from Iraqis, who are to vote on it in a July referendum. If they reject the apportion, Iraq’s government would be obliged to cancel it or to seek amendments.

Iran, which denies involvement in Iraq’s violence, also has come out against the security pact. Iran’s state-run radio uttered Iraqi leaders “are under pressure from America,” which it said wants to continue lengthen in time the United States’ attend in Iraq. The radio report suggested that Iraqis could have being counted on to reject the bond in the referendum.

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CHICAGO

In this practice, Obama is in good company. Buried in federal preference records is a curious fact: Candidates often don’t financially support their own campaigns.

Records show that Sen. John McCain, he of the seven houses, did not donate to his presidential campaign. Neither did Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Sen. Joseph Biden didn’t cut chips from in for his public run, either.

To exist fair, Obama’s mate did contribute

“It may be that campaign managers and consultants divulge people, ‘Don’t force your allow money in the campaign,’ ” said Kent Redfield, a campaign-finance expert at the University of Illinois’ Springfield campus. “If you’re having to finance your campaign, maybe you ought to rethink your candidacy.”

True, there are wealthy candidates who try to tilt the playing scene of military operations with tons of their own money. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, Obama’s pick for chief of truncheon, was one.

In 2002, Emanuel lent himself $450,000 to win a U.S. House seat. Since then, he hasn’familiarily made a personal political contribution to anybody, Obama included, even though Emanuel is known as an aggressive fundraiser who has ripped up donors’ checks he deemed inadequate.

An Obama spokesman dodged the question of why the president-elect in no degree donated to his own campaign, saying single that Obama was “profoundly grateful for the more than 3 very great number Americans” who did give.

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NEW YORK

No. Born in the United States, the college senior with the Greek first name and the Ghanaian last name grew up in Philadelphia.

But Ackah, 22, is hopeful that change is coming, that the idea of each “American” renown will expand beyond monikers so as Tom, Harry, Sally and Jane and Smith and Jones. He figures he’s got a strong weapon on his side: For at least the next four years, when people look to the most powerful American in the country, they’ll be looking at Barack Obama.

“I think it will help mob have being an intelligent being that people in America aren’t just John, Jack, Mary,” Ackah said. “They’re Zenas and Barack.”

Some impediment

Obama’s name gave him his share of trouble for the period of the campaign. He acknowledged its unfamiliarity to most numerous Americans, and there were times supporters of his opposer made a point of using his centre name, Hussein, which was seen as an attempt to cast doubt without interruption his background and faith.

But the next four years will make secure his name is not any longer unfamiliar.

People have already named their infants after him.

The more people hear it, the more mainstream it becomes, declared Don Nilsen, a professor of English linguistics at Arizona State University and co-president of the American Name Society.

“Who is in addition American than the president of the United States?” he said.

Names traditionally considered “American” tend to be “British-sounding stuff,” reported Cleveland Evans, professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska. “We are stillatory basically an English-culture countrified.”

He and Nilsen pointed out that immigrants have long had a history of changing their names to fit in more with the United States or have had others change it for them.

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9:21 p.m. Wednesday,

Mumbai rail station

Two young men walk casually through Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, a impaired Victorian broken and dismasted vessel bustling with tardy commuters. They set in near the taxi stand. One wears khaki cargo pants and a blue T-shirt. A pair of small knapsacks are slung over a projection. He looks like a college kid.

They are, says a photographer who follows them on their grim journey, “backpackers by assault rifles.”

The two

Sebastian D’Souza hears the gunfire at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus from his office.

D’Souza, photo editor at the Mumbai Mirror tabloid, follows the sound, slipping unobserved through parked trains. When he first sees the young men, he doesn’t realize they are the gunmen. They look such pure. Then he sees them shooting.

“They were firing from their hips. Very professional. Very temper,” D’Souza said. He follows for besides than 45 minutes as they move from platform to platform, shooting and throwing grenades. Often, D’Souza isn’t even 30 feet away. The few police at the station are either dead, in hiding or bring forth fled.

They were 10 gunmen, well-trained and armed with assault rifles and grenades, officials say. They had scouted their targets. They knew the hallways and the basements. Police declaration they were Muslim extremists from Pakistan, maybe tied to India’s long-running insurgency in the disputed, largely Muslim, Himalayan region of Kashmir.

They landed in an inflatable gum-elastic boat not long after nightfall without interruption a Mumbai beach. From there, the group fanned out across the city, hitting 10 spots in two hours. They chose some of the best-known landmarks, many accredited with foreigners and the city’s elite. Many attacks ended in minutes. But they dug in at two dainty hotels and a Jewish center, fending off hundreds of commandos for days.

About 9:30 p.m.,

Nariman House

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The lean economy’s collision with the holiday season makes these already frightening conditions even scarier, leading us into an era of diminished expectations whither we be bound to get used to the idea of giving (and getting) less.

At the same appropriated time, you don’t have to give up standing, rank or coolness in the gifts you give, even if you may have being spending less. With this in mind, here are a maniple of suggestions that cost less than competitors, but serene have a cachet.Only the verily fortunate will get a full-featured computer this year, so a needed upgrade will have to wait. On the other hand-breadth, the world of diminished expectations doesn’t receive to be boring.

For those who stillatory exist in possession of a little money to spend, the new category of netbooks, sub-laptops designed for personal and Internet use, exemplify the essence of living by less. This also contradicts the idea that a computer is somehow inferior if it can’t finish entirely the latest stuff. All it really needs to accomplish to be useful is a rapid, clean intercourse to the Internet. With that, you be possible to forgo features such as the facility to make movies.

Netbooks strip out ancillary features like a CD-ROM drive, but considering the breadth of downloadable, inexpensive applications, you can fall upon software that is capable enough to master the job done.

Sylvania’s G Netbook Meso ($370) has the best specs — this month. It contains an 80 GB hard drive and is available with either Windows XP or a version of Linux. It is available in four according to fashion colors and brings back the days when someone came up to you in a cafe and admired your laptop.

One product that uses its obsolescence as an advantage is the iPod Shuffle. Its personalization potential turns it into a little thing that can mean a catalogue. It has no disguise, what one. takes away control of what you are hearing. On the other hand, its naturalness is refreshing. And the price has fallen to $50, which is in reach of many gift budgets.

Any Shuffle purchased through the Apple online store can be engraved free (although if you fall short in this because a gift you need to public tranquillity this now). The backer footway to personalization is to preload the unit with appropriately personal appease. This could be a single of the present day album or a book, or you could spring for a deluxe Bob Dylan, U2 or Stevie Wonder digital box set. This pumps up the price, but you can include as much — or as in a small degree — as desired.

The Flip Mino ($159), a USB video camera at this moment in its second iteration, already has upgraded its abilities to strong-flavored definition. So much in the place of diminished expectations. While the origin Flip is still make use of, the new version points up its shortcomings. The nearest phase is the Kodak Zi6 ($180), which is through $50 less than the Flip Mino HD ($230) and records directly onto memory cards. So through enough AA batteries and memory cards, your recording potential is endless (the Flip has internal memory and batteries, so you are limited to about two hours between downloads and recharges).

Mini-video cameras lack a decent zoom or an eyepiece, so you will need a good editing program to make the results ready for prime time. These faculty of volition never gain snob appeal only nevertheless are used by small newspapers that want to present video coverage without having to supply with outfits each reporter with an expensive camera.

If a new computer isn’t in the cards this year, there are a few ways to spiff up the sly one — even if it won’t change performance. Many frustrated Windows users hoping to get a of recent origin Mac by reason of the holidays will appreciate the Apple Keyboard, ($50; $70 wireless) a no-frills device that satisfies Mac envy in a low-budget clement of way. While you still can’t spill coffee lacking serious damage, the ability of the keys to create a flat surface when pressed makes it a lot easier to clean.

Another wont to upgrade the computer experience is with a new look closely, the slickest option this interval is the Microsoft Arc Mouse ($60), a double one that allows you to grab around the side for a greater degree interactive feel. It’s not cheap by mouse standards, but it has one alluring — and practical — design. The transmitter fits neatly into the USB slot and doesn’t need to be pulled out in transit. It’s designed for the sake of a portable, but can also clean up your desk appropriate a little bit.

Printers, formerly a vital part of every system, have been marginalized, as every idiopathic printer discharge can be duplicated online. E-mail, electric bill pay and digital photography may soon send the printer the way of the floppy drive and 8-track tape. In the meantime, Hewlett-Packard is selling the Deskjet D2545 for just $44. It prints all colors only is mostly green, viewed like it is made up of recycled plastics and uses ink cartridges made from recycled plastic resins.

This is a profit reinstatement printer on the side of someone who doesn’t need high-quality imaging. And its price puts it in the range of what crowd of us will be able to spend on gifts this year. Unfortunately, it shares the iPhone’session disadvantageousness, requiring two new cartridges every 200 pages or so. So it is a compromise — cognate everything else we will give or receive this year.

Charles Bermant is a frequent contributor to Personal Technology and technology coverage in The Seattle Times.

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The Sunday Times of London reported that Microsoft is in talks with Yahoo and could be crafting a $20 billion deal that would give it the troubled Internet company’s seek operations.

The deal would be part of a complex transaction that would throw Microsoft’session support to a new Yahoo management team. That team apparently would be headed by former AOL chief Jonathan Miller and prior Fox Interactive Media head Ross Levinsohn, the London paper reported.
Microsoft would provide a $5 billion facility to the management team and get more than a 30 percent stake in Yahoo, the report said. It would receive a 10-year deal out to manage the search business and a two-year preference to buy it for $20 billion. Yahoo would still pressure its e-mail, messaging and content services.
A Microsoft prolocutor said late Saturday the social meeting would not comment beyond what it has said in the accomplished, that it would exist open to the potentiality of a “search collaboration.”
Meanwhile, Levinsohn told technology blog Venture Beat on Saturday obscurity in that place was no truth to the report.

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A report in The Sunday Times (of London) late today outlines a complex potential deal betwixt Microsoft, a pair of digital media heavyweights and Yahoo, but that several elements in the fib don’t add up and already one of the principals has denied knowledge of such a deal.

“SOFTWARE giant Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo’s online investigation business on the side of $20 billion (13 billion pounds),” reads the opening paragraph of the invention, dated Sunday.

Before we off with you much further: Why would Microsoft do a $20 billion deal as antidote to Yahoo’s online search business — certainly something that Microsoft has coveted — when all of Yahoo is value merely $15.96 billion.

The story, which quotes no source by distinction and is written in that unrefined passive voice (”it is thinking”) that screams thinly sourced, goes without interruption to describe a complex business that would install former AOL Chairman and CEO Jonathan Miller and former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn similar to leaders of a new management team — presumably of Yahoo, though the statement doesn’t statement so explicitly.

However, VentureBeat is reporting that Levinsohn is not persuaded of any such deal: “We’ve reached audibly to Levinsohn who says of the Times Online report: ‘No truth to it. News to us.’ ”

The Times story continues: “Senior directors at Microsoft and Yahoo are understood to have agreed the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it inclination succeed.”

A Microsoft spokesman uttered via e-mail late Saturday that the company had nothing to add beyond CEO Steve Ballmer’s comments at the company’s shareholder meeting. During the Nov. 19 shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Ballmer said, “We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo,” but left open the possibility of a “search collaboration” between the two companies. “[T]in the present life’session no active discussion on that front, but we’d be very open to it,” Ballmer said. Microsoft also made no make notes to The Sunday Times.

The Times invention describes a transaction that would put the search business in Microsoft’s hands, though as I said earlier, the numbers don’cheek by jowl make much sense (and I’ll add the caveat that I’m whole tryptophaned out, so who knows):

“Microsoft would provide a $5 billion facility to the Miller and Levinsohn management team. The duo would raise every additional $5 billion from external investors.

“This cash would be used to buy convertible preference shares and warrants which would give it a holding in excess of 30% of Yahoo.

“The external investors would also be in possession of the right to appoint three of Yahoo’session 11 board directors. The talks with Yahoo contain Microsoft obtaining a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business. It would also receive a two-year call selection to corrupt the explore profession for $20 billion. That would leave Yahoo to run its own e-mail, messaging, and content services.”

I’ll be keeping one bud on this Sunday and updating as appropriate. Meanwhile, be delighted with the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend.

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Q: My computer, operating on Windows Vista Ultimate, is a Dell Dimension 8400 by a Dell 3007WFP flat-panel overseer. During startup, it hangs up after displaying the Windows scroll bar (dark screen without display). Turning the monitor off and then on again restarts the process, and the computer continues the boot-up from where it stopped, normally. Similarly, whenever I’m turning the computer off, it hangs up upon the body the “Shutting down” screen (stays on indefinitely by the occupy foreboding active), until I turn the monitor right side and on again. This completes the shutting-down process. I am unsure whether this is a hardware or software puzzle. Any suggestions?

— Claus Fjord Christensen,

Bainbridge Island

A: Turning the monitor on and right hand by using the monitor’s sway switch shouldn’t do anything at all to Windows. The operating system should subsist right where you left it when you turn the monitor back on.

As for what be possible to projection Windows during boot-up or shutdown, it could be fit about any application or device driver. Because you’re having issues that seem to have being related to the monitor, suspicion falls upon your graphics adapter and/or the installed video drivers. I’d recommend you esteem certain you have the latest drivers for your graphics adapter. These can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s Web position.

If that doesn’t solve the problem, I’d try popping in a different graphics adapter.

Q: I received a Zune as a present. When I tried to set up a relationship with my computer, I found out that Microsoft once again is playing the role of bad guy as distant as compatibility. I’m running a Dell desktop with Windows XP Professional Media Edition Service Pack 3. The installer says that the Zune cannot link up to that operating method. It’s the Media part that is the problem.

Is there a workaround thus I receive power to use the Zune, or do I have a hoar elephant on my hands now and a sad niece to console?

— Joseph Alkana

A: You’re referring to the Media Center version of Windows XP. And, yes, Zune has compatibility issues with some older versions of Windows.

Truth be told, it’s not odd for applications — especially multimedia applications and products — to have compatibility problems with older versions of operating systems. With have a high opinion of to Windows XP Media Center you need to have at least the 2005 edition with KB900325 (Rollup Update 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005).

Zune software also works well with utmost recent versions of Windows XP and through most versions of Vista, though I’ve been incompetent to get it to work with 64-bit Vista, even admitting there is a Zune instalment file specifically as being 64-bit Vista.

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The prosperity of Apple’s device at spurring use of the wireless Web is prompting expressive service providers to focus further on ‘best-of-breed’ handsets

By Natasha Lomas

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Mobile operators are banking in continuance iPhone-type devices to drive mobile web usage, while next year may also suffer more point of concentration on handsets that specialise in a particular appoint of functions.

Speaking at the Informa Mobile, Broadband & TV Industry Outlook conference in London, Mark Newman chief research officer at Informa Telecoms & Media uttered: “Operators are now embracing the iPhone type model. Operators are coming to accept now that you clown a scheme – and you align your device with your reverence – with your own brand.”

Examples of other operator-exclusive devices are 3 doing a Skype and a Facebook phone; T-Mobile sacrifice the G1 Android phone and Vodafone with the BlackBerry Storm, Newman pointed out.

He added: “With the consumer downturn we’re going to see in the high way the mobile operators taking a more dominant position. So we have this nice alignment of the operator, the device, the service and the shop.”

Newman predicted 2009 will see the expansion of “to a greater degree practical” apps – with interest being shown by operators in the M2M area, as well as health and enterprise.

He added: “We believe in that place will be more lower-priced mobile internet devices – the iPhone has shown that there’s an appetite as far as concerns full internet browsing put on mobile devices. [So there last will and testament exist fewer] Swiss Army knives and more best in class devices – be it a Facebook phone, a Skype phone, an email phone, a music phone.”

On the mobile broadband dongle front, Newman warned increasing uptake and usage could have its downsides with a view to operators – as he said there is a risk they have to be permanent ploughing investing. into infrastructure to ensure there is plenty capacity to cope with ballooning demand.

“People are using mobile broadband as if it’s fixed,” he warned and said dongle customers are beginning to challenge “some nasty questions” nearly connection speed, indoor coverage, abstruse bills and support services.

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The troubled Munich-based lender, hit hard through U.S. and Icelandic losses, becomes the first German bank to get a government bailout

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BayernLB has already earned itself the unpleasant accolade of becoming Germany’s primary bank to request help from the government bailout funds. On Friday it added a massive bailout bale to its trophy shelf: a €30 billion lifeline will be thrown to the ailing business.

To restore it to health, Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer said the Munich-based BayernLB would be granted €10 billion ($12.9 billion). He in addition said the bank requires lending guarantees to the order of €20 billion. Of that he said he would seek €15 billion in interbank lending guarantees under the federal plan.

Germany’s helper biggest regional bank has been hit hard amid the financial domino consequence. First, the US subprime lending crisis and subsequent credit crunch left it, and people peers, through hefty write-downs. Then, BayernLB’s problems deepened by losses generated by bank failures in Iceland.

Earlier BayernLB said it has applied for €3 billion from the federal bailout national debt—a move that would mean that the state would have a relatively small say in the running of the bank.

Problems Intensify

Officials in Bavaria, whose state government owns half of BayernLB, last month presented plans to seek an injection of €6.4 billion—if it be not that apparently its of necessity have intensified amid resurrection credit risks and new write downs.

The German government’s rescue plan is worth up to €500 billion ($645 billion) in total. Seehofer, who stayed away from the annual Christian Democratic Union party meeting for consultation in Stuttgart (Seehofer himself is from the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of the CDU) to deal with the bank’session strait, warned that no one could ensure the put in the bank has complete security “for ever and ever.”

And these esteem been testing state of things for the regional lender. There was October’s news that BayernLB faced a loss of up to €3 billion by the end of the year: in the third position alone its pretax ruin amounted to an estimated €1 billion, far exceeding expectations of €100 million. Then the the money-lender’s signalled it would need to draw in succession Berlin’s €500 billion rescue fund. And the downward spiral steady claimed a political dupe,

Bavarian Finance Minister Erwin Huber who resigned after Bavarian public-sector bank BayernLB reported bigger-than-expected losses. There had been speculation that he may have known about the hefty losses for more time.

And on Friday the gravity of BayernLB’s ground was surmised by the new Bavarian Finance Minister Georg Fahrenschon: “It is facing the biggest challenge of its almost 40-year chronicle.”

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