World Business

Asian governments are helping companies and U.S. law enforcement agencies crack into disgrace on literary theft, but counterfeiters are a nimble bunch

By Bruce Einhorn

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In its fight against software piracy in Asia, Microsoft (MSFT) got a boost earlier this month from Thai police officers. On Feb. 19 cops from the Economic & Technological Crime Suppression Division responded to complaints filed by the and arrested alleged counterfeiters in Pathumthani, a city in central Thailand, north of Bangkok. According to Microsoft, the suspects were carrying 50 pirated software packs at the time of their delay. The raid is the latest in a series in Thailand: In December, for instance, police staged raids on three shops in Bangkok and Pathumthani, arresting three people and confiscating more than 12,000 pirated discs.

The Thai campaign is part of a broader effort across the region, long notorious as a hotbed of counterfeiting, to fight piracy by laboring with local governments. David Finn, Microsoft’s stop person for anti-counterfeiting in Asia as well-spring as other parts of the world, says the company is cooperating to a greater degree closely with authorities in places such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and China. "The center of the manufacturing of counterfeits remains in Asia," says Finn. But Microsoft is encouraged by the willingness of governments in the region to work together by the troop and law sanction agencies from the U.S. "There is more cross-border collaboration than there has ever been," he says.

Others involved in the anti-piracy struggle say Asian countries are making resolute progress in shedding their reputation since intellectual-property scofflaws. "There definitely has been gradual progress," says Jeff Hardee, vice-president for Asia-Pacific at the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an industry group with 27 members. For instance, in China 82% of software was pirated in 2007, compared with 92% in 2003. In India, the rate fell from 73% in 2003 to 69% in 2007. In Indonesia, it dropped from 88% to 84%, and in Malaysia it fell from 63% to 59%. "The piracy rates are approach down in most numerous countries," he says.

Still, as more Asians have purchased PCs, the size of the software labor’s losses to counterfeiting has soared. In 2003, according to the BSA, robbery on the high seas cost software vendors $7.6 billion in lost sales. By 2007 that equal in number had leaped to $14 billion. In India, the losses grew from just $367 million in 2003 to $2 billion in 2007. In China, they jumped from $3.8 billion to $6.7 billion. With the huge populations of China and India, "even if the robbery on the high seas rates small quantity, the losses from piracy grow," says Hardee.

Many in the industry are hopeful that local government officials realize it’s in their own interest to labor with the U.S. and other countries to bring those rates down. China’s leaders, for the sake of instance, possess been trying to nurture the development of a local software industry. That’s not easy to do, especially when companies have to annoyance about pirates stealing aggregate their avocation. On Dec. 31 a Chinese court gave tardy prison sentences to several convicted counterfeiters in a case that saw Chinese authorities work with Microsoft and the FBI. China’session leaders "recognize a good intellectual-property-rights scheme is cheering for their country," says John Chiang, head of the U.S. Information Technology Office, a Beijing-based industry group. "Their own people need protection in prescription to make changes. That’s an irreversible trend."

Not everyone is so optimistic, though. Last month, through respect to instance, the World Trade Organization ruled against China in a case brought by the Bush Administration’s trade representative. The U.S. in the first place brought the case to the trade body in 2007, accusing China of allowing the piracy of CDs and DVDs. Washington in addition complained the Chinese powers that be tacitly gave the green light to pirates through allowing those producing in small amounts to elude prosecution.

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/TpS3vqHnbZs/gb20090227_551561.htm

Investors weighed news of the government’s expanded stake in Citigroup and a larger than expected in a descending course revision to U.S. economic growth

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U.S. stocks traded mixed Friday afternoon as major indexes seesawed back from earlier lows. Trading was fairly active with day traders dominating the action, with the market seeing more some short covering in advance of the weekend and amid end-of-month portfolio adjusting, says S&P MarketScope..

Financial stocks were lower afterwards investors received information of some expansion in the government’s stake in Citigroup (C).

Strength in Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM) was bolstering tech stocks.

On Friday at 12:10 p.m. ET, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average was lower by 4.70 points at 7,177.38. The broad S&P 500 index shed 4.44 points to 748.39. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index was up 3.58 points at 1,395.05.

Treasuries were mixed following reports U.S. fourth-quarter gross domestic crops was revised to minus 6.2% from minus 3.8%, much worse than expected; the February Chicago purchasing managers’ index rose to 34.2 from 33.3 in January, and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment index was revised to 56.3 from

previous 56.2 reading; it was 61.12 in January.

Traders were pondering President Obama’sitting $3.6 trillion parcel. Big politic fights malicious ahead, says S&P MarketScope.

The dollar index was higher. Gold and oil futures were lower.

U.S. fourth-quarter GDP was revised put on the ground to -6.2% for its prelusory reading, well below the forecast middle of -5.3% and the advanced reading of -3.8%, reports Action Economics. The fourth-quarter personal consumption charge (PCE) price index sank a record -5.0% for the quarter from -5.5% previously, while core prices rose 0.8% vs +0.6%. Business investment tanked 21.1%, equipment and software spending dove 28.8% and housing investment declined 22.2%.

“Overall, it remains clear that the economy hit a wall in the fourth quarter, care down-force on public funds and yields, and capping the dollar according to the moment,” notes Action Economics. “We will keep our first-quarter real GDP forecast at -5.0% till we get the consumption figures in Monday’s personal revenue report, though there is downside risk to our estimate if the employment figures at the close of the week prove being of the class who ugly as many now fear.”

Indeed, worries abound about the February use report, scheduled for release Mar. 6. So well-nigh in February, jobless claims are running at 642,000 per week, a level historically conformable with a monthly payroll degeneracy near 700,000 workers. If that’s the case, total job losses since December, 2007 would total 4.3 million, nearly 3 million of which would bring forth occurred since September.

The Reuters/University of Michigan U.S. consumer sentiment final February reading was steady at 56.3, about the same as 56.2 in the preliminary reading granting below 61.2 in January, and 70.8 a year ago. It was in place along the side of through expectations. The current terms index dipped to 65.5 from 67.1 in the preliminary reading and 66.5 in January. The future outlook exponent edged up to 50.5 from the preliminary 49.1 configuration, though below 57.8 in January.

U.S. Chicago PMI improved to 34.2 in February after dipping to a multi-decade low at 33.3 in January. It was a bit more fit than the 33.5 that markets had expected. However, the internals were more associated. The employment index dropped to 26.2 from 34.8, while recently made known holy orders held at 30.6, about the same at the 30.7 reported last month. Prices paid slipped to 37.8 from 39.8.

Citigroup said on Friday it reached a deal that will give the state up to a 40% stake in the struggling bank. The government currently has one 8% stake. The company also reported it recorded a goodwill impairment charge of surrounding $9.6 billion due to degeneracy in the financial markets.

The government will convert some of its preferred stock in Citi to common shares in the New York-based bank along with other private investors. The Treasury Dept., in a news release, said it would “interchange up to the $25 billion of preferred stock issued under the Capital Purchase Program.”

Remaining preferred stock “would be converted into a trust preferred heedlessness of greater structural seniority that would imply the same 8% cash dividend rate as the existing issue,” the let out said.

Reuters reported the heads of the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and European Investment Bank (EIB) said they would seek solutions to an economic crisis in orient and central Europe during the time that they launched a joint program to accommodate with up to 24.5 billion euros ($31.2 billion) in the region. The action hatch by comes taken in the character of European Union members prepare to debate aid to banks at an pass summit on Sunday. The banks said the two-year plan would provide quick, large-scale financing to banks and ensure that companies, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, get access to capital.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/feb2009/pi20090227_825943.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

The government will take up to a 40% stake in the struggling bank through the transmutation of preferred stock

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Staff and wire service reports

Citigroup (C) said on Feb. 27 it reached a deal that will accord. the government up to a 40% imperil in the struggling bank. The government currently has an 8% stake.

The company also says it recorded a goodwill impairment lay of about $9.6 billion due to deterioration in the financial markets.

The control will reverse some of its preferred haft in Citi to common shares in the New York-based bank longitudinally with other private investors. The Treasury Dept., in a news release, said it would "convert up to the $25 billion of preferred stock issued under the Capital Purchase Program."

Remaining preferred stock "would be converted into a assurance preferred security of greater structural seniority that would carry the same 8% cash share rate similar to the existing issue," the clearance said.

The action has two elucidation benefits for Citi. It reduces the dividend require to be paid on the preferred stock that Citi paid to the government. More momentous, it improves the bank’s tangible common equity ratio, a clew distribute of its ability to face losses.

In a news release, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said, "This securities swap has one goal—to increase our tangible used by all equity. While we believe Tier 1 capital remains the most grave measure of the financial strength of banks, we recognize that the markets also view Tangible Common Equity as any important measure. This transaction—which requires no additional investing. from U.S. taxpayers—does not change Citi’s military science, operations, or governance. Our clients and partners will not exist affected and will continue to receive the high of the same height of service they expect from Citi around the world."

At the same time, Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons announced a board revamp, saying the 15-member board "unanimously unmistakable to have a majority of unaccustomed independent directors as soon as feasible."

One of the hardest hit banks by the ongoing credit crisis, Citi has already believed $45 billion in money from the government and guarantees protecting it from the bulk of losses on $300 billion of risky investments.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2009/db20090227_322198.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

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WASHINGTON

All U.S. service members killed overseas are flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. But photographs get been prohibited since 1991. George W. Bush’s administration rigorously enforced the ban, preventing pictures of troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan from appearing in the media.

The new plan will withdrawal it up to the families of slain service members to decide whether to allow the media to photograph their return to Dover.

“My conclusion was, we should not conjecture to constitute the decision for the families. We should verily let them make it,” Gates said.

In 2004, Tami Silicio, an Everett woman laboring in Kuwait on cargo aircraft that flew fallen soldiers to Dover, took photographs of flag-draped caskets that were published by The Seattle Times, drawing attention to the Pentagon policy and resulting in Silicio’s firing.

Some expert and family groups favored keeping the ban in place and others wanted to give families the options of allowing the media in, reported Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Families Association.

“We are hoping whatever comes out of this of the present day worldly wisdom accommodates a variety of wishes,” she reported.

Gates has assigned a group of Pentagon officials to act out details. Unanswered questions include what to do if a flight is carrying remains of various service members and families are divided over access, or what services will be provided according to those who want to be present.

If Dover is opened to families meeting arriving flights, Raezer said the militia needs to subsist prepared to help through chaplains, counselors and lodging.

Military Families United said a review of military families showed that 84 percent opposed changing the policy. “We are pretty disappointed in the president’s decision to overturn the prohibitory penalty,” said John Ellsworth, the group’s president, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Gates said he has been opposed to the ban and chief considered dropping it a year ago.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008791894_wardead27.html?syndication=rss

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Two Boeing employees were among nine people who died in the crash of a Turkish Airlines jetliner near Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and a third was hospitalized, the aerospace company declared late Thursday.

The company is staying for notification from the State Department about the condition of a fourth Boeing employee, the company says on its Web site.

Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx on Wednesday identified the four Boeing employees in the manner that Michael Hemmer, Ronald Richey, John Salman and Ricky Wilson. The company on Thursday declined to say that sum of two units of the four were killed or who was injured, citing the families’ wishes.

The four men were adhering board Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 that slammed into a muddy field Wednesday first blush of the morning, two miles from the runway at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Authorities in the Netherlands said nine

“This is a very sad day for our set,” Jim McNerney, Boeing master executive officer, said on the company Web site. “Our thoughts and prayers are with our colleagues’ families, friends and co-workers and with the families of everyone who was on the flight.”

All the Boeing employees on the plane were based in the Puget Sound area and were traveling on Boeing business. All four worked for Boeing’s defense division on the Turkish “Peace Eagle” program, the company said.

A woman who identified herself as a clan dear companion answered the phone at the Hemmer residence in Federal Way earlier Thursday. While she was unsure of Hemmer’sitting status, she said the family assumes he survived the crash. Hemmer’s better half and brother were upon the body the way to Amsterdam, said the woman, who declined to give her name.

She said she and another family friend are caring for the Hemmers’ children.

There was no answer at the homes of Salman, Richey or Wilson.

In Amsterdam, meanwhile, the head of the agency investigating the accident declared engine trouble may have caused the crash.

Chief inquirer Pieter van Vollenhoven uttered, in remarks quoted by Dutch position television NOS, that the Boeing 737-800 had fallen almost directly from the sky, which pointed toward the plane’s engines having stopped. He said a rational faculty for that had not been established.

Spokeswoman Sandra Groenendal of the Dutch Safety Authority added that means failure was hushed only “one of the possible scenarios” for the shiver.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008791879_crash27.html?syndication=rss

WASHINGTON The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, because consumers and businesses ratcheted back expenditure, plunging the country deeper into recession.

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The Commerce Department report released Friday showed the economy sinking much faster than the 3.8 percent annualized drop for the October-December quarter in the first place estimated last month. It likewise was considerably weaker than the 5.4 percent annualized decline economists expected.

Looking ahead, economists predict consumers and businesses will keep cutting back spending, making the chief six months of this year especially rocky.

“Right now we’re in the period of maximum recession stress, to which place the big cuts are being made,” aforesaid economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

The new report offered grim proof that the economy’s economic tailspin accelerated in the fourth quarter under a slew of negative forces feeding in succession one and the other other. The economy started right hand 2008 on infirm footing, pointed up a bit of despatch in the spring and then contracted at an annualized rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter.

The faster downhill slide in the final quarter of highest year came as the financial crisis - the worst since the 1930s - intensified.

Consumers at the end of the year slashed spending by means of the most in 28 years. They chopped spending forward cars, furniture, appliances, clothes and other things. Businesses retrenched sharply, too, dropping the ax on equipment and software, home building and commercial construction.

Before Friday’s report was released, many economists were projecting an annualized drop of 5 percent in the current January-March territory. However, given the fourth quarter’sitting showing and the gloomy state of the jobs market, Mayland believes a sink of closer to 6 percent in the common divide in four equal parts is possible.

The nation’s unemployment rate is now at 7.6 percent, the highest in greater degree than 16 years. The Federal Reserve expects the jobless rate to rise to close to 9 percent this year, and to all appearance remain above normal levels of around 5 percent into 2011.

A smaller decline in the economy is expected for the second quarter of this year. But the recently made known GDP figure - take pleasure in the pristine one - marked the weakest quarterly showing since an annualized send down of 6.4 percent in the first allot of 1982, when the country was suffering through an very great recession.

American consumers - spooked by vanishing jobs, sinking home values and shrinking investment portfolios have cut back. In turn, companies are slashing production and payrolls. Rising foreclosures are aggravating the already afflicted housing market, hard-to-get credit has stymied business investment and is crimping the ability of some consumers to make big-ticket purchases.

It’sitting creating a self-perpetuating vicious cycle that Washington policymakers are finding hard to lessen the force of.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008766117_apeconomy.html?syndication=rss

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WASHINGTON

The blueprint, meanwhile, would overhaul treaty programs to strengthen assistance for millions of people who have borne the consequences of what Obama called “an era of profound irresponsibility,” helping them compensate for literary institution, train for good in a higher degree jobs and prevent for retirement while taxing less of their earnings.

The agenda despite the fiscal year that begins in October would not come cheap. This year’s assortment deficit, swollen by spending to struggle a stiff recession, would hit a record $1.75 trillion, or 12.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since 1945. While Obama inherited the bulk of that gap, his package would allow for a fresh round of spending to prop up troubled financial institutions that could hit $750 billion.

Next year’s deficit would carry toward $1.2 trillion. But Obama proposes to cut that figure roughly in half by the period of 2012, in generous part by dint of. levying nearly $1 trillion in new taxes on the highest earners, defined at the same time that families with gross gains of more than $250,000 a year.

In unveiling the outline of his spending priorities, Obama acknowledged his tender would “add to our deficits in the near denominate to furnish supplies immediate relief to families and get our economy influencing.” But he argued that the economic crisis should not be used as an pardon to delay costly investments intended to modernize the arrangement, heighten the work force and, ultimately, reduce government spending.

“What I won’t do is sacrifice investments that will make America stronger, more competitive and more prosperous in the 21st century, investments that have been neglected for overmuch long,” Obama declared. Citing the need to “break free” from foreign oil, reduce “crushing health-care costs” and improve persons education, Obama said: “These investments be under the necessity of be America’session priorities, and that’s what they will subsist when I sign this budget into law.”

Fierce battles ahead

With its immense scope and bold prescriptions, Obama’session agenda seeks to accord. the government an ready role in narrowing the growing interstice between savory and poor. It is likely to scintilla fierce political battles without interruption an array of fronts, from social expenditure to energy policy to taxes.

Alice Rivlin, a Brookings Institution economist who served as President Clinton’session budget director, called the plan “gutsy and quite good.”

“It has a strong flavor of the Obama science of causes, which is tilting the playing field away from upper income and toward the rest of America,” she said.

Republicans quickly attacked the writing as a recipe for economic disaster, proverb it would raise taxes in succession businesses and consumers in the middle of a recession to bankroll a bulky government expansion.

“The era of big government is back, and Democrats are asking you to pay for it,” related House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “The administration’s custom, I be of opinion, is a do job-work killer, plain and simple.”

White House budget boss Peter Orszag rejected that analysis, saying none of the tax increases would portray effect until 2011. But some economists worry that, even in 2011, the economy may have existence too easily broken to absorb a tax increase. Meanwhile, some Democrats joined Republicans in complaining that the budget plan does not go far enough to narrow the yawning budget gap. While Obama predicted the deficit would drop to $533 billion by the end of 2012, it would begin to rise again post-haste and the national debt would remain elevated throughout the next decade.

Obama is expected to send a complete budget plan to Congress in April, and Democratic leaders said they hope to approve it in the rebound. But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., predicted that finding the votes will be “tough.”

In what the president called a “historic giving in adhesion to comprehensive health-care amend,” the budget proposes to create a $634 billion reserve fund that lawmakers could use to monetary theory a major expansion of health coverage for the uninsured. The fund would include savings from proposed efficiencies in Medicare and Medicaid and $318 billion in commencing taxes on families in the highest income brackets, who would see reinvigorated limits on the value of the tax breaks they receive from itemized deductions.

Flurry of taxes on wealthy

That proposal is a fraction of the new taxes Obama proposes to heap on the highest earners. Individuals who earn greater degree of than $200,000 a year and families that make more than $250,000 also would lose tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, signification their top income-tax rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, their investing. gains would be taxed at 20 percent rather than 15 percent and their deductions instead of mortgage interest, grandeur and local taxes and charitable contributions would be reduced.

If Obama’s tax plan is approved, a family form $500,000 a year would see its annual tax bill soar from about $120,000 to pressingly $132,000, a 10 percent increase, said Clint Stretch, managing principal of tax policy at Deloitte Tax.

Hedge-fund managers would take an even bigger strike. Much of their multimillion-dollar proceeds would have existence taxed as methodical income rather than capital gains, causing their tax rate to rise from 15 percent to as much as 39.6 percent. Oil-and-gas companies would be asked to pay every supplemental $31 billion over 10 years through an inland duty tax on offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico and new fees for drilling on federal land. And corporations that operate overseas could expect to pay $210 billion more over 10 years as a result of new, unspecified limits on their ability to adjourn taxation on foreign earnings.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008791874_budget27.html?syndication=rss

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LOS ANGELES

The economy is croaking and bankers are stop partying at a golf tournament here on our dime.

It’s a sterling discussion for nationalization, or better yet, internationalization. Outsource the jobs of these perfidious, oblivious bank executives to Bangalore; Bollywood bashes have to cost in a less degree than Hollywood ones.

The entertainment Web seat TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern Trust of Chicago, that got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and filet-mignon dinners, science of harmonical sounds concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags.

“A rep from the PGA told us Northern Trust wrote one blustering, fat check in conduct to sponsor the event,” TMZ reported.

Northern No Trust had a thriftless dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday with a concert by Chicago (at a $100,000 fee); rented a special hangar at the Santa Monica Airport forward Thursday for another big dinner with a gig by Earth, Wind & Fire, and closed down the House of Blues put on Sunset Strip on Saturday (at a cost of $50,000) for a dinner and serenade by Sheryl Crow.

In the ignoble tradition of rockers who sing for huge sums to sketchy people when we’re not looking, Crow

Northern Untrustworthy flat offered junketeers the chance to attend a seminar upon the body the credit crunch where they could no not know what to deliberate learn that the U.S. government is just the latest space to finance your deals and endure your office swathed in $87,000 superficial contents rugs.

In what is now an established idiotic ritual of rationalization, the bank express out a letter noting that it “did not seek the government’s investing.” uniform though it took it, and that it had raised $3 million in favor of the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce Charity Foundation and other nonprofits. They riposted that they have a contract to do it each year for five years; but this isn’t every year.

The heap cloaks itself in a loving mankind glow though wasting our money, acting same the American Cancer Society at the time in fact it’s a cancer on American society.

It asserted that it earned an operating gin income of $641 million last year and acted as though it did Americans a favor by taking treaty cash.

I would ask Northern No Trust: If you’re totally solvent, why are you taking my tax dollars? If you’re not totally solvent, why are you giving my tax dollars to Sheryl Crow?

Coming in a moment when skeptical and angry Americans watched AIG, Citigroup, General Motors and Chrysler

President Obama served them notice adhering Tuesday night in his congressional address, saying: “This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to padnag their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.”

But will they notice?

John “Antique Commode” Thain had to have existence ordered by a judge to tell New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigators which Merrill Lynch employees got those $3.6 billion in bonuses that Thain illicitly shoved end as his firm was decay and being taken over through Bank of America through the help of a $45 billion bailout. Kenneth Lewis, the Bank of America CEO, made the absurd assertion to Congress that his bank had “no authority” to stop the bonuses, even though he knew about them beforehand.

“They find audibly they’re $7 billion off adhering the compute of losses for the fourth abide and they never think maybe we should go back and adjust these bonuses?” Cuomo told me, as Thain was finally responding to investigators on Tuesday at the New York attorney general’s office.

“He refused to answer questions without interruption the basis that ‘the Bank of America didn’t want me to.’ You be possible to take the Fifth Amendment or you can answer questions. But in that place’s no Bank of America privilege. The Bank of America doesn’confidentially substitute for the Constitution. And who’s the Bank of America, by the way?”

He gets incensed about how ingrained, indoctrinated and insensitive the ex-masters of the universe are. “They think of themselves as kings and queens,” he said. And they’re not ready to abdicate.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008790867_opinb27dowd.html?syndication=rss

LOS ANGELES A jury awarded nearly $7 million to a 56-year-old woman who said she was unknowingly infected by herpes by the 77-year-old founder of a hair-care company.

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The lawsuit alleged that Thomas Redmond knew he had genital herpes for more than 25 years but did not disclose it in front of his sexual dependence began with Patricia Behr, and did not use a condom.

The Riverside County jury awarded Behr $4 million in compensatory damages and $2.75 million in punitive damages. She was also awarded a 2004 BMW car that Redmond had originally given her in the manner of a gift.

Redmond, of Las Vegas, is the founder of Redmond Products Inc., which was the maker of the Aussie extended mark of hair-care products. The partnership was sold in 1997 to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and became character of Clairol, which was sold to Procter & Gamble Co. in 2001.

The defendant’sitting lawyer, Robert M. Frisbee, said the verdict is “enormous” and his client will seek to have it overturned.

Frisbee said Behr failed to prove it was Redmond who infected her with herpes, and that she had sex with him knowing that he had the incurable sexually transmitted disease.

“The jury decided they didn’t like a moneyed man for not at all particular reason I can procure out. It’s not based adhering intellect or common interpretation,” Frisbee said.

The lawsuit claimed that Behr suffered unnecessary stress and humiliation taken in the character of a result of the defendant’s conduct, which it called “outrageous and beyond the bounds of decency.”

During their romantic relationship, which began in September of 2003 and ended in June of 2004, Behr and Redmond became partners in a small business.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008790363_apherpeslawsuit.html?syndication=rss

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Life has taught me that change and unpredictability are consistently predictable. I, find to one’s mind everybody other, have gone through constant string of transitions. These transitions are rarely easy and sometimes painful. This churn is not limited to our personal lives.

There are societal transitions so significant nearly everybody and everything is insincere. We are living through such a transition. The Internet has not only changed the route people communicate and live, this societal veer is furthermore grinding up newspapers and journalists.

The havoc is real. Not a day passes without some saddening or dire industry tidings. Today is no distinct. Denver’s Rocky Mountain News cranked out its final edition.

According to a story on the Rocky Mountain News’ Web site Thursday Rich Boehne, CEO of E.W. Scripps Co., which owns the newspaper, declared that the paper “becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges.”

No doubt the Rocky Mountain News’ employees be inclined not be the utmost to hear similar statements before their newspapers choke. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Tuscon Citizen are both for sale and could cathedral allowing that no buyers are found. A tough proffer in this economy.

Layoffs, furloughs, Chapter 11, closure are no longer words and terms used by pursuit writers. Everybody from the publisher to the summer intern has an intimate reason of that which this industry is up against.

How did the newspaper business get to this troubling spot? The Internet is the force behind the disruptive change.

Making the transition more difficult is that publishers felt secure sitting atop the bloated classified sections that made up a hefty chunk of receipts. It was that comfort and devotion to classifieds that blinded the industry to the disruption that the Internet would cause.

Nobody in the industry foresaw free classifieds thriving on the Internet at sites like Craigslist. An advertising director would accept been laughed out of a interview if she suggested giving away a revenue agriculturist like classifieds for free.

This brutal recession has single sped up the impairment of newspapers and spurred a slew of stories and television segments about the number. I have been posting links adhering this boy-servant’session Ed Cetera blog to many of these stories examining how newspapers and professional journalism might live on the Internet age.

A lot of the recent disputation has been about micropayments and other ways to make readers pay for contentment. I am incredulous about readers paying to read a story. They have been trained to believe that content is free. That is a hard habit to change.

It has also been suggested that newspapers be transformed into nonprofits or live against the donations of the wealthy. I also have doubts about such a model.

What I have no doubt well-nigh is the good that will spring from the industry being hyperfocused on not only surviving only thriving.

For the next connect of months I will be writing about these newspaper-saving ideas. Will any of them work? I have no clue.

What is clear is that in that place is no killer app for saving newspapers. Some ideas demise take clutch, others will not. What is as antidote to certain is that newspapers will emerge on the other side of this transitional period much changed.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008790868_opina27ryan.html?syndication=rss