Kyrgyzstan's Ex-President Responds to Ultimatum

(April 13) -- Responding to a demand from Kyrgyzstan's new self-declared leaders that he surrender, ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said he would relinquish his post only if the new interim government guarantees his safety and that of his family.

For almost a week, Bakiyev has been hiding out in his home region in Kyrgyzstan's south, after a brief but bloody revolution ousted his regime from the capital Bishkek last week. At least 83 people died in fierce clashes between protesters and police. Parliament was dissolved and a new opposition-led government now claims control of the Central Asian nation, promising elections within six months.

Sergei Grits, AP
Kyrgyzstan's ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev gestures to his supporters before a rally in southern Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday. The country's self-declared government says Bakiyev must return to the capital or face arrest.

Leaders of the new interim regime, who claim the allegiance of the country's police and military and of Russia, have demanded that Bakiyev return to the capital or face arrest. The interim security minister, Azimbek Beknazarov, said today that the new government has issued a decree revoking Bakiyev's presidential immunity.

"We can see that the president does not want to step down voluntarily and instead is issuing calls for actions against the people," Beknazarov told reporters in the capital. "We have opened a criminal case against the former president. If he does not show up today... we will hold an operation to detain him."

Bakiyev responded to that ultimatum from his home in the southern village of Teyyit. "I am not afraid of any special operation because I know what my people are capable of," he said, flanked by armed guards in camouflage. "Any operation against me can create fury."

Bakiyev was elected in 2005, promising greater democracy and transparency in the poor former Soviet state. But since then he's been dogged by the same corruption he vowed to eradicate. Opponents accuse him of gross human rights violations, repression and of filling key government posts with his relatives.

So far he's remained defiant after last week's revolt, which also cast doubts over the future of a key U.S. air base supporting the fight in neighboring Afghanistan. The interim government has so far said it will honor the previous regime's agreements and leave the American base on Bishkek's outskirts intact.

About 5,000 supporters of Bakiyev turned out today in his southern power base Jalalabad to urge him to return to power. The demonstration followed a similar but smaller one Monday in his home village, where Bakiyev challenged the new government to try to arrest him.

"My power is in the people, not in me," Bakiyev told today's crowd.

At first, interim leaders offered Bakiyev safe passage out of Kyrgyzstan if he agreed to resign and hand over power peacefully. But their position seems to have hardened in recent days, as the beleaguered president gathered supporters around him in the country's south.

It's unclear what interim leaders have in store for Bakiyev if he does decide to surrender to them in Bishkek. But he dismissed their demand, telling The Associated Press, "I don't recognize such actions."

He also said he was willing to negotiate with the government's new leaders, but didn't elaborate on which issues might be included. Still, the atmosphere among his supporters in Jalalabad was peaceful, and Bakiyev urged them to avoid violence.

"The whole world is looking at us. We must preserve stability," he said in a half-hour speech.

The standoff raises concerns of more violence in Kyrgyzstan -- the only country in the world to host both U.S. and Russian military bases. Both Cold War rivals are monitoring the situation closely.

Washington is sending a high-ranking diplomat to the region this week to assess the situation. Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, said Monday that he would meet representatives with of the new Kyrgyz government. The U.S. is offering Kyrgyz leaders support to "stabilize their political and economic situation," he said.

The U.S. air base at Manas, near Bishkek's airport, is a vital cog in the supply chain for NATO's mission in Afghanistan. Around-the-clock flights to and from the base carry troops and supplies for the 120,000-strong foreign force there. About 50,000 troops passed through Manas last month alone

Tiger Woods's wife, Elin, makes first public appearance since scandal broke

MIAMI — Tiger Woods's wife, Elin, made her first appearance at a public event Friday since scandal engulfed her husband in late November, visiting the Sony Ericsson Open tennis outside Miami with her son Charlie.

Woods sat with her one-year-old son and watched the game between American Andy Roddick and Spain's Rafael Nadal in club seating wearing large sunglasses, a black top and white trousers.

A witness said she had entered the Key Biscayne tennis centre with two bodyguards and had also watched the late-night women's match on Thursday between Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.

Tiger Woods is due to return to competitive golf next week at the Masters in Augusta

Mickelson's victory classic Phil

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The man he still calls "coach" was doing his best not to jump out of his chair and scream at the television.

Steve Loy, Phil Mickelson's long-time agent, tried to remain calm. After all, a bit of decorum is required inside the Augusta National clubhouse. But how do you hold it in?

The player he recruited as a teenager to play golf at Arizona State, then later went to work for, was involved in a riveting back nine Sunday, a major championship at stake.

And then, like the rest of the world, Loy could not believe his eyes. There was Mickelson in the pine straw on Augusta's par-5 13th hole, thinking about firing a shot through an opening in the trees.

As caddie Jim "Bones" Mackay tried to talk Lefty out of it, Loy gulped. There was nothing left to do but watch and hope as Mickelson rifled his 6-iron, nearly catching one tree with his follow through, and the ball landed on the green and came to rest 3 feet from the cup.

After winning his third Masters and fourth major championship overall on Sunday at Augusta National, Phil Mickelson stopped by for a hug with wife Amy, who's been undergoing breast cancer treatment.
Fans surrounding the green went crazy, Mickelson pumped his fist and Loy could only sit back in his chair in disbelief.

"This hair used to be blond, not gray," Loy quipped as he held his hand over his heart, shaking his head.

It was the shot of the tournament, of the year, and maybe of Mickelson's career.

And doesn't that define Phil the Thrill?

He won his third Masters, this one by 3 strokes over Lee Westwood, shooting a 5-under-par 67 with a series of great par saves and clutch shots.

But none was better than the 207-yard 6-iron that set up a birdie -- and should have been an eagle -- at the 13th.

Nobody would have blamed him had he laid up to a manageable yardage and tried to make a birdie with a phenomenal short game. We can all think of a few instances in which such a play didn't work out. But this time it did, and there were grins all around.

"You can't print it," laughed Butch Harmon, Mickelson's coach, when asked what he was thinking as the decision unfolded. "I was praying he would lay up. I'm sure Bones was doing the same thing.

"But he made a great explanation. He had to go through the same gap to go for the green as he did to lay up. So why not go for the green? With all the birdies they were making in front of him, he figured he needed to make birdie. You know how confident he is on those kind of shots."

Had Mickelson converted the eagle putt, the shot to set it up would have gone down as one of the greatest of all time.

Somehow, Mickelson missed the hole with the 3-footer, giving himself a longer birdie putt coming back. He made it, a crucial development as he kept a 2-shot advantage over Westwood that he never relinquished.

"It's one of the few shots, really, that only Phil could pull off," said Westwood, who was also playing his second shot from the trees. "I think most people would have just chipped that one out. That's what great players do ... pull off great shots at the right time."

Asked for a better shot he's seen, Westwood was stumped.

"Not around here," he said. "It was something special."

And it helped seal an emotional victory that had tears flowing from the 18th green all the way down to Rae's Creek. Mackay, for one, basically lost it when he saw Mickelson's cancer-stricken wife, Amy, emerge just from behind the green, the first time she has attended a tournament since last year's Players Championship just weeks before the Mickelsons announced her diagnosis.

Somewhere in the crowd were both Mickelson's and Amy's parents, their three children and of course an adoring audience that cheered golf's feel-good story of the year.

"I was a bit of a mess there at the end," Mackay said. "It was an incredible week, obviously. I have to think down the road, at least for me, it will mean way more than any other victory he's had."

Mackay has been there since the beginning, since before Mickelson turned pro in 1992. He has been on the bag for all 38 PGA Tour victories, all four major championships. And he knows the reputation Mickelson has acquired, one of a player who gambled too much on the golf course for his own good.

"The biggest reason he won this golf tournament was because of how aggressive he played," Mackay said. "He played incredibly aggressive all week. You can make the argument that over the years a couple of things haven't worked out for him when he played aggressive, but he would not have won this tournament if he had not done some of the things he did."

The 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot is a good starting point for the second guessing. Mickelson was on the verge of winning his third straight major title when he stepped to the 18th green with a 1-stroke lead and peeled a poor drive off into the left rough.

He was universally assailed for his decision to hit driver, but the second-shot decision to go for the green was far worse. Mickelson thought he could cut a shot around a big tree and get it up on the green. He could have laid up and tried to win by getting up and down for par -- at the very least been in a playoff -- but he went for it and paid the ultimate price. The ball found a tree and the result was a double-bogey and a crushing 1-shot defeat to Geoff Ogilvy.

Mickelson's famous quote afterward: "I am such an idiot."

Aside from last year's U.S. Open, where Mickelson tied for second, he had not given himself many chances in majors since that debacle.

And if that shot catches the tree on Sunday, who knows?

But it worked beautifully, despite Bones' pleas for the safe play.

"I tried to talk him into laying it up," he admitted. "And he said no. Then we found out [K.J.] Choi had made [bogey] 6 [playing the hole ahead]. I went at it again with him. I tried again. He said definitely no.

"All he basically said is there's an opening in the trees and it's a 6-iron. 'All I have to do is execute. It's not like I have to hit a big hook or a big cut on a big ol' green.' Fair enough. So I got out of the way and you guys saw what he did."

Mackay noted that Mickelson's aggressiveness actually helped him the day prior, when he fired a 7-iron onto the same green to set up an eagle.

"That turned his tournament around," he said. "That eagle on 13 gave him so much momentum. It's a pin you can't really get to. He makes eagle there and then the ball goes in on 14 [for an eagle] and then in a sense you're feeling like, gosh, this could be our week."

Of course, for the longest time Sunday, it wasn't looking that way at all. A stamen somehow fell from the sky and landed right in Mickelson's line as he putted for birdie on the second hole. Sure enough, the ball hit it and went off line.

He didn't make his first birdie until the eighth hole, then had to get up and down for pars at the ninth, 10th and 11th holes. It wasn't like Mickelson was knocking down flagsticks, which is why the play at No. 13 will long be remembered.

"The gap wasn't huge, but it was big enough, you know, for a ball to fit through," Mickelson said to laughter. "I just felt like at that time, I needed to trust my swing and hit a shot, and it came off perfect.

The impact of blogs on the news industry

The topics in limited to blog and news industry. News industry publish various subject in newspaper and news media - similarly blogger publish on web various subjects.

News industry is not only newspaper and magazine. News in TV, Satellite TV Channel and Blogs site are also a news industry. Newspaper, magazine and TV channel can be said a Primary source storage or source of news. Blogs writer get knowledge and information from primary source and then write blog in his own manner. So, there is no much harmful impact on news industry, moreover, news industry is getting wide circulation through blog if written from news sources either newspaper or TV.


To write blog there must have a source. Newspaper or TV news is that source. Blog reader may not read the newspaper or see the TV from where blog writer getting the first knowledge of his/her blog. But blog reader he is getting the news reading blog. So, Blogger can be considered as one type of journalist or newsman. Websites or organization bringing the opportunity to write for the Blog writer can be defined one kind of news industry.

Besides news based blogs, many other subjective blogs writer getting knowledge reading also newspaper, magazine and watching TV programs.

So there should not be a debate that "BLOGS site not a news industry" or it can be said that BLOGS site can be said a news industry. Similarly blogs writer can be said as "Freelance Journalist"

News Media Vs Internet Media

National and local newspapers across the world are facing their most radical restructuring in history; scores are folding as advertisers migrate to online advertising. Cutbacks have led to hundreds of journalists being invited to clear their desks. Falling circulation and higher production costs are making matters worse whilst increasing numbers of readers save time and money by reading their favourite newspaper online.

Very little news content today is gathered by reporters; most of what we read is downloaded free from court and local authority reports. Much is editorial-advertising and product reviews. Why pay a journalist when you can charge an advertiser? Another threat to traditional reporting is posed by citizen journalists; freelances who offer their services in return for lead gathering opportunities.

Few doubt the superiority of online newspapers compared to hard copy. The online edition of the average daily newspaper carries so much information and advertising; a builder's labourer could not hope to carry it in a wheelbarrow if it went to print. It is not the Internet that threatens journalists' careers; it is the nature of the change. They too are learning to adapt.

The Internet News Revolution
News organisations are still profitable but their proprietors have seen the writing on the wall. As High Street retailers morph into Internet shopping the newspaper industry knows that street vendor and newsagent distributed newspapers, subsidised by online profits, will follow typewriters into obscurity. The dilemma facing the industry is how best to profit by charging browsers who access their online editions.

Print and distribution costs are crippling news print editions; costs for online copy are comparatively low. Online newspapers do not have a space problem and deadlines are not an issue. The news is almost immediate and rolled out 24/7. However, in a click-driven competitive market online news media increasingly rely on challenging and investigative journalists, columnists and event analysts.

Rupert Murdoch
If a charge is imposed the trick will be to prevent each newspaper's readership migrating to free online editions. Under the radar discussions are already taking place. Heading the agenda is the quest to discover the most practical means of getting readers to pay for their PC screen content without losing them. News magnate Rupert Murdoch already charges a subscription to access the Wall Street Journal's insider information copy. He says: "People reading news for free on the web; that's got to change."

Recently it was announced that the tycoon has won a concession from Google to limit access to free news reports. It is called slamming the stable door before the horse bolts. Head of Associated Press, Tom Curley agrees: "The readers and viewers are going to have to pay more." Others argue that viewers will simple not pay. The truth is no one knows as no one has been there before.

A Spanish Journalist Shows the Way
One online media hopeful is Arcadi Espada, a Catalan journalist. He is certain that print journalism does not have a future. His online Factual will be accessed by a 50EUR annual subscription. With characteristic forthrightness Espada says: "A journalist's work is not free; nothing in life is free. We have to re-invent the business."

According to one poll 60 percent of newspaper proprietors are considering ways to charge for online access. A quarter of them are ready to take the plunge. Those who gather their daily news and information from online newspapers now stand at 30 percent.

Hot off the Press
Of the UK Times and Sunday Times 20 million plus users, 500,000 are now dependent upon their online edition and the gap will close further. Plans are already in place to charge for the privilege of reading the Times online editions. Freelance journalist, Sandy Collins, doesn't see a problem or fear for his job. "Some of my best stories have been blue pencilled out by hard copy newspapers because with limited space available the advertiser is king. Online publishing is a no-brainer. Everyone wins."

He adds: "Newspaper proprietors' costs are cut and their readership reaches a worldwide audience potential. As a journalist I now send my stuff to my online editors, knowing that if it is not published, it was not a space problem. If work is accepted according to merit then of course this must improve news quality. It must also improve opportunities for writers."

Telecom receives more bad news

Telecom may have to pay back millions of dollars it received from rival telecommunications firms including Vodafone after receiving a double whammy from the High Court in Wellington.

The court upheld a claim by Vodafone that the Commerce Commission made a mistake when it calculated the reasonable costs Telecom incurred providing phone services to uneconomic customers, by not considering the impact of new technologies on its modelling.

The High Court set aside the commission's calculations of the Telecommunications Services Obligation (TSO) levy in 2004-05 and 2005-06 and ordered the commission to reconsider them. Vodafone said the commission might have to revise down the charges in other years also.

Vodafone corporate affairs manager Tom Chignell said it was willing to work with the commission and Telecom to "agree a commercial solution".

In a separate judgment, the High Court threw out an appeal by Telecom, which claimed the commission had underestimated the costs Telecom faced providing phone services to uneconomic customers by applying an appropriate return on capital in its calculations that was too low. Had its appeal been successful, the TSO levy could have been revised upwards.

Telecom group general counsel Tristan Gilbertson said it was surprised by both rulings and believed the issues could be looked at again by the Supreme Court. "The judgment in favour of Vodafone appears to be inconsistent with the recent Court of Appeal decision in a related TSO case on efficient past investments."

That case was being appealed to the Supreme Court and Gilbertson said there was merit in having "all TSO matters heard together in the Supreme Court at the same time".

The TSO levy is set to be abolished in June and replaced with a new industry levy to pay for rural broadband. Craigs Investment Partners analyst Geoff Zame said Vodafone had paid Telecom about a $100 million under the TSO and would be hoping to claw back some of that money.