Microsoft CEO sets deadline for Yahoo deal

SEATTLE/SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 6: Yahoo Inc has three weeks to accept Microsoft Corp's $31-a-share cash-and-stock offer or Microsoft may lower its bid and take its offer to Yahoo investors, Microsoft said on Saturday.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a letter dated April 5 and addressed to Yahoo's board of directors that ''now is the time'' to negotiate final terms of a deal, which, valued at more than $40 billion would mark the biggest-ever takeover in the high-tech industry.

''If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors,'' Ballmer wrote.

Then he threatened to reduce Microsoft's offer if Yahoo failed to meet the deadline: ''That action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal.''

The letter marks the tightening of the noose in a classic Wall Street bear-hug merger strategy, wherein Microsoft aims to convince Yahoo directors to negotiate a friendly deal or else face a battle for their jobs at Yahoo's next annual meeting.

Yahoo's board is reviewing the letter, said a person close to the company. Directors of the Sunnyvale, California-based company have rebuffed Microsoft's original offer, saying the bid undervalues Yahoo and that it is seeking alternatives.

Ballmer said Microsoft was growing impatient more than two months after the Redmond, Washington-based software powerhouse made its unsolicited takeover offer for Yahoo. At the time, the bid represented a 62 percent premium to Yahoo's share price.

''Steve Ballmer is an emotional guy and the emotion comes through and it's frustration,'' said Kim Caughey, senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group, a Microsoft shareholder. ''I really don't think it's going higher than $31. That ship has sailed.''

NOT LOOKING ANY YOUNGER

The Microsoft letter argues the economy and the market for Internet stocks have deteriorated in the intervening period, and that Yahoo's share of Web search and advertising business has declined, referring to industry market reports.

''During these two months of inactivity, the Internet has continued to march on, while the public equity markets and overall economic conditions have weakened considerably.''

The deadline falls on April 26, four days after Yahoo and two days after Microsoft report their quarterly results.

Ballmer said Yahoo's board, despite its efforts, had failed to woo a competing offer from ''others in the industry.''

Yahoo has held talks with News Corp and Time Warner Inc'sAOL division about possible deals, but those discussions appear to have yielded nothing yet.

A Yahoo investor, whose firm met with Yahoo management earlier this week and declined to be identified, said the company emphasized the deal with Microsoft involved regulatory risks that would undercut a merger's potential value.

The management, according to the investor, presented alliances with AOL and Google as possibly better options.

Brendan Barnicle, who follows Microsoft for Pacific Crest Securities, said that by removing the hope of a higher bid, Microsoft had given Yahoo directors the legal cover to accept Microsoft's existing offer and fend off shareholder lawsuits.

It's part of a highly choreographed dance and parallels the take-it-or-leave-it bidding strategy Oracle Corp has used to win a string of deals to consolidate the software industry.

''The big overhang on Microsoft stock has been that they would have to raise their bid,'' Barnicle said.

SINKING VALUE

Yahoo has adopted measures that make a merger with Microsoft more costly, Ballmer complained.

A few weeks after Microsoft's offer, Yahoo's board put in place a generous severance plan, commonly known as a ''golden parachute,'' to all employees if the company was sold.

The original 62 percent premium to Yahoo's share price on the day the offer was announced has declined.

Yahoo shares closed on Friday at $28.36 each, while Microsoft ended the week at $29.16. Both trade on Nasdaq.

Based on Friday's closing price, the premium to Yahoo's stock is about 45 percent, while the current total value of Microsoft's offer is $42.2 billion in cash and stock.

Microsoft has argued that the offer's premium to Yahoo's stock has, in fact, increased, because the Web pioneer's stock would have fallen in lock-step with its online rivals. Shares of Google Inc, Yahoo's most direct competitor, have fallen more than 16 percent since Microsoft's offer.

Microsoft's view of business conditions at Yahoo runs contrary to Yahoo's own outlook for itself. Last month, the company went public with a rosy revenue outlook for the next two years and appealed directly to shareholders during a road show that Microsoft's offer was not enough. (AGENCIES)

Russia's embattled opposition seeks to unite

ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, Apr 6: Russia's struggling and splintered liberal opposition agreed to explore forming a coalition to mount a stronger challenge to the Kremlin.

The liberal opposition, which accuses President Vladimir Putin of crushing democracy, has no seats in parliament and has failed to connect with the majority of voters who credit Putin with improved living standards.

Putin steps down next month but his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, will take over as president.

Some of the Kremlin's leading liberal opponents agreed to work towards forming a coalition at a conference in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.

''We confirmed our intention to create a united democratic opposition by the end of 2008 and that is extremely important,'' Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and staunch Putin opponent, told Ekho Moskvy radio station yesterday.

The liberal opposition has tried and failed several times to form a coalition. The previous attempt was led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

In the latest effort yesterday, Kasparov was joined by leading figures from the Yabloko and Union of Rightist Forces, the biggest liberal opposition parties which have stymied previous coalitions by refusing to take part.

The Communists make up Russia's biggest opposition force. But the liberal opposition says it is feared most by the Kremlin because it refuses to temper its criticism.

The Kremlin's liberal opponents say their voice has been stifled by Kremlin persecution which includes the arrests of activists, and police crackdowns on street protests. Officials deny trying to suppress dissent.

(AGENCIES)

Not just global warming, microbes also killing coral reefs

WASHINGTON, Apr 6: Its not only the rise in temperature due to global warming that are killing the coral reefs but also the microbes that live in them, claims scientists.

''The deaths of the reefs may be as a result of changes in the microbes which live in and around the reefs,'' a biologist from Newcastle University Dr John Bythell said, Science Daily reported.

''These microbes can be thought of as being similar to the bacteria that normally live in our guts and help us digest our food,'' said a researcher.

Changes in sea temperature caused by climate change and global warming affect corals, but they also affect the types of bacteria and other microflora that live with them.

When the water warms up, some disease-causing bacteria are more successful and can attack the corals. The corals themselves suffer from heat, which reduces their defences.

Also, some of the friendly bacteria that normally live in the corals' guts become weakened, allowing other harmful bacteria to multiply and cause diseases or other problems.

Corals in coral reefs, which are made up of animals called polyps that secrete hard external skeletons of calcium carbonate, are living perilously close to their upper temperature limits.

This makes them very vulnerable to even small temperature rises of 1-2 degree Celsius above the normal summer maximum.

''Many of the deaths we see in the coral reefs, which occur following coral bleaching events, when huge areas of reef die off like in 1998 when 17% of the world's reefs were killed,'' said a researcher.(UNI)

Young Indians to link up with youth

SINGAPORE, Apr 6: Following the footsteps of the rapidly accelerating economic cooperation between India and Singapore, Young Indians (YI), a wing of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), is set to link up with the youth of the city-state.

Both countries have their own strengths and there are various ways that the youth from the two nations can collaborate, Rajan Navani, YI’s national chairman told reporters on the sidelines of the incredibleindia@60 <mailto:incredibleindia@60> campaign currently underway here.

Singapore’s Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has nominated the CEO of real estate firm Ascendas, Asia’s leading business space provider, to be the nodal point for the Singapore side.

"Probably we will come up with a common agenda that will engage young people across cross sections," Navani said.

The India-Singapore youth forum is the first international tie up by YI whose aim is to harness youth power worldwide.

"We are looking at creating a mass movement and the vision is to change the life of the youth and make them contribute back to the society," Navani said, adding the motive was to engage young people from all walks of life.

Navani said the world needs a global body to address youth issues like the IMF which deals with global monetary issues.

Currently the YI is looking at engaging 100,000 young Indians by 2010. Referring to the India-Singapore youth forum, Navani said nothing had been formalised yet "but we propose to keep it on an ongoing basis that will really start the dialogue between the young people of both countries."

"The initial dialogue would come out of the young business leaders from both sides then we will extend it to engage other young people of both countries," he added. (PTI)

Environmentalists to Latam bank -end biofuel loans

MIAMI, Apr 6: Environmental groups urged the Inter-American Development Bank to stop lending money to big companies piling into the booming ethanol business that some critics say is partly to blame for soaring food prices.

As riots over the cost of living broke out in impoverished Haiti, the IADB prepared to announce increased funding of ports, sugarcane mills and other biofuel ventures throughout Latin America, citing plant-based fuels as a crucial counterweight to climate change and rising energy prices.

''The bank's aggressive promotion of biofuels may be good for corporations, but it's a bad deal for farmers, indigenous people and the environment in Latin America,'' Kate Horner of Friends of the Earth-US, said at the bank's annual meeting in Miami yesterday.

World food prices have jumped due to what the UN's World Food Program says is a mixture of high energy prices, which are boosting transportation costs, increased demand for food by developing countries, erratic weather and competition between biofuels and food for land and investment.

The cost of food is threatening millions of people with hunger and raising the risk of political instability.

Four people were killed when crowds ransacked and burned stores in the southwestern Haitian town of Les Cayes on Thursday night and looted food containers at a UN compound.

DIETARY SHIFT CITED

Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups say a US law that aims to almost quintuple the amount of biofuel used in the United States by 2022 has led to a spike in production and investment in the Americas.

Some grains production in the United States has been diverted into ethanol and the United States is also importing large amounts of sugarcane ethanol from the world's biggest and most efficient producer, Brazil, despite steep tariffs.

Gregory Manuel, an adviser to the US government on alternative energy, said biofuels were a marginal contributor to rising food prices.

''The No. 1 issue is the emerging market's dietary shift towards higher protein diets. That is the No. 1 issue,'' he said at the IADB meeting.

High fertilizer and transportation costs and ''a crash in wheat stocks'' due to a two-year drought in Australia are also to blame, Manuel said.

Environmentalists, however, say there is a measurable impact on food supply in places like Brazil.

Spurred by the possibility of a rich market for ethanol in the United States, investors -- many of them foreign -- have been buying tracts of land in Brazil, pushing up prices and driving away the small-scale family-based farms that supply up to 60 percent of the country's food, said Lucia Schild Ortiz of Friends of the Earth Brazil.

Doubts have also arisen about how environmentally friendly ethanol really is if it results in forests or savannah being cleared for sugarcane or palm oil and does nothing to reduce the world's dependency on the internal combustion engine.

''There was a time when the environmental movement took for granted that anything that came from a plant was good. So (ethanol) got lumped with renewables,'' said Horner.

Not any more.

CULTIVATING JATROPHA

IADB President Luis Alberto Moreno said he believes Latin America has a bright future in ''green energy,'' or biofuels. The bank has around 3 billion dollars in private-sector loan projects under consideration.

Critics say the vast majority do not promote rural development in Latin America but are aimed at supporting large exporters satisfying U.S. Demands for energy.

In Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, organizations like the IADB are eager to promote projects that cultivate jatropha, a plant capable of surviving in the country's denuded wastelands and also of producing an oil in its nuts that can be used as fuel.

The projects would involve some irrigation.

''Why don't they use it to produce more food?'' said Aldrin Calixte of the activist group Haiti Survie. (AGENCIES)

Immigration causing unemployment for Britons

LONDON, Apr 6: Mass immigration has led to a fall in the number of Britons with jobs, according to official figures.

Since 2004, when citizens of eight central and eastern European countries were given the right to work in Britain, the number of UK-born people working here has fallen by 500,000, from 24.4 million to 23.9 million, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed

Over the period, the number of migrants in work, including people born abroad but now naturalised as British citizens, rose by 1.1 million to 3.3 million. They now make up one in eight of the workforce, it said.

The figures provide the strongest evidence yet that Britons have lost their jobs to immigrants, a leading expert on immigration said.

The Daily Telegraph quoted Robert Rowthorn, a Cambridge University professor who uncovered the findings, as saying, ''It seems hard to deny that immigration from the new EU member states has had a negative impact on the employment of UK natives.''

The ONS figures showed that between 2001 and 2007 the number of UK-born British nationals in employment fell by 495,000.

Prof Rowthorn said the most likely victims were British-born school-leavers who had never had a job, having failed to find the kind of casual work they might have walked into a few years ago.

''We are looking at the most vulnerable, least skilled and in some ways least motivated members of the local workforce. The problem that eastern European migrants pose is that they are good workers,'' he added.(UNI)

Mean girls 'are most popular'

LONDON, Apr 6: If you think that indulging in gossip, spreading vicious rumours and keeping others away from your exclusive clique of friends may make you a social pariah, you are absolutely wrong.

A new study has found that mean girls are the most popular particularly in schools, despite making life miserable for some of their other mates.

"A lot of popular kids may not be well liked, but they are relationally aggressive and their peers think that they're popular," lead researcher Prof Casey Borch was quoted by 'The Sunday Telegraph' as saying.

In fact, according to Prof Borch of the University of Alabama, girls are more likely to use this bullying behaviour than boys in schools as they think that being nasty can boost their "social visibility".

In their study, the researchers surveyed more than 600 boys and girls, aged between nine and 18. The respondents were asked to rate their school's cliques on popularity.

They found that bullying and physical aggression in the school helped in gaining popularity in the earlier grades but membership in physically aggressive cliques declined as the children got older.

However, membership in groups where students gossipped, spread nasty rumours and excluded others remained constant and even increased the perceived popularity and social visibility of the students in cliques.

Prof Borch said that "the mean girls' effect" suggested girls behaved in that way more than boys and it may remain unchecked until they "leave school". (PTI)

Rich, emerging nations discuss poverty reduction in Africa

TOKYO, Apr 6: Ministers from the richest nations and the fastest growing economies started talks today on developing specific measures to reduce poverty in Africa and other areas under a 2000 UN agreement.

The talks are the second day of meetings between development ministers from the Group of Eight industrialised nations and emerging donor nations -- Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa.

G8 nations are to issue a summary later today on how to bolster their efforts in foreign development aid. African development is expected to be high on the agenda at the next G8 summit in July in northern Japan.

Late yesterday, the ministers agreed on "increasing the credibility and transparency of aid policy," officials said.

Officials have privately admitted that G8 countries hope to coax China and other emerging donors to place greater emphasis on human rights when awarding aid.

China has recently made major diplomatic and economic inroads in mostly resource-rich nations in Africa and Latin America by giving aid without imposing any conditions.

This strategy contrasts with that of the United States, European Union and Japan as well as the World Bank and the IMF, which usually use aid as leverage to improve human rights and implement other reforms in recipient nations.

The ministers have pledged in Tokyo to further work to achieve the Millennium Development Goals -- halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing primary education in poor countries by the target year of 2015.

The talks early today are focusing on concrete measures for achieving the goals, officials said. (AGENCIES)

Common chemical in household items 'risk to breast cells'

NEW YORK, Apr 6: Bisphenol A, an organic compound found in a number of household products, may pose health risk to our breast cells, a new study has revealed.

Researchers have found the chemical Bisphenol A, that leaches into food and drinks from many consumer items, causes normal and non-cancerous human breast cells to express genes characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells.

Bisphenol A is found in many plastic water bottles, in plastic baby bottles, in the lining in food cans as well as in sealants used by dentists to protect teeth.

According to lead researcher William Goodson of the California Pacific Medical Centre Research Institute, "This is a very common compound that most of us are exposed to on a regular basis, often without even being aware of it.

"If it's true that exposure to BPA can cause normal, non-cancerous human breast cells to behave in ways that are more characteristic of aggressive breast cancer cells, this is very worrying."

In their study, the researchers did needle aspirations on eight consented women at high risk of breast cancer, or its recurrence, to remove a small sample of non-cancerous cells. The cells were exposed to BPA in the lab and then analysed to see if the exposure had altered the gene expression of cells.

"We screened 40,000 genes in normal human cells that had been exposed to BPA and found a striking increase in the sets of genes that promote cell division, increase cell metabolism, and increase resistance to drugs that usually kill cancer cells, and prevent cells from developing to their normal mature forms.

"(In fact) breast cancer patients with this kind of gene expression tend to have a higher recurrence than other patients, and they have a worse survival rate," co-researcher Shanaz Dairkee said.

Added Prof Goodson: "Our use of fresh cells for short term cultures in this research is unusual in medical research which makes the results especially useful because this is the closest we can ethically get to studying the effects of giving BPA directly to living people."

The results of the study have been published in the latest edition of the 'Cancer Research' journal. (PTI)

Microsoft threatens Yahoo! To take bid to shareholders

SILICON VALLEY, Apr 6: Taking its bid to buy Yahoo! to a new level, Microsoft has threatened to take its offer directly to the shareholders of the Internet giant and hinted even at a proxy contest for a new board, if an agreement is not reached within the next three weeks.

In a letter to the Yahoo! board of directors, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said by choosing not to enter into substantive negotiations with us, you have failed to give due consideration to a transaction that has tremendous benefits for Yahoo!'s shareholders and employees.

"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board," he said.

Meanwhile, a source said Yahoo's board is expected to discuss Ballmer's letter next week, as well as provide a briefing on how talks between the two firms went last week.

"The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal." *(PTI)

Indonesian teenager dies of suspected bird flu: Doctor

JAKARTA, Apr 6: A 16-year-old Indonesian girl has died of suspected bird flu, a doctor said today.

The girl, Sumiarsih, died yesterday afternoon, three days after being admitted for treatment at the Sulianti Saroso bird flu referral hospital in the Indonesian capital, hospital spokesman Ilham Patu told AFP.

"She showed all the symptoms of bird flu infection such as high fever, coughing and low blood cell count," Patu said.

"But we have not yet received the results of tests of samples taken from her. She remains a suspected bird flu case," Patu said.

Health Minister Spokesperson Lili Sulistiawati confirmed officials were still awaiting the results before confirming the case as a bird flu death.

Two positive results are needed before Indonesian authorities confirm a human infection of bird flu.

The Tempo newspaper quoted the girl's father as saying that officials conducted a check of poultry in their neighbourhood in Sawangan, south-east of Jakarta, and found some were positive for the deadly virus.

Sumiarsih fell sick on Monday and was taken to a private hospital two days later, before being referred to Sulianti Saroso on Thursday.

Indonesia has the world's highest number of human bird flu victims, with 107 known fatal cases, 13 of them this year.

Experts fear the virus, which is usually spread directly from birds to humans, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people, sparking a deadly global pandemic. (AGENCIES)

Rushdie admits bid to ‘embrace Islam’
in 1990 was a ‘pretence’

LONDON, Apr 6: Controversial Indian-origin writer Salman Rushdie has said that he pretended to "embrace Islam", the religion of his birth, almost 18 years ago in the hope that it would lessen the threat to kill him.

In an interview to be broadcast on a TV programme ‘Shrink Rap’ on channel ‘More4’ in May, Rushdie claimed his reversion to the religion of his birth was all a "pretence".

"It was deranged thinking. I was more off-balance than I ever had been, but you can’t imagine the pressure I was under. I simply thought I was making a statement of fellowship. As soon as I said it, I felt as if I had ripped my own tongue out," he was quoted having told to the programme by ‘The Sunday Times’.

In 1990, Rushdie had issued a statement in order to defuse the row about his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’, which was published two years from then and had provoked Muslims across the world.

The author had claimed that he had renewed his Muslim faith, had repudiated the attacks on Islam in his novel and was committed to working for better understanding of the religion across the world.

"It became the moment I hit rock bottom. I realised that my only survival mechanism was my own integrity. People, my friends, were angry with me, and that was the reaction I cared about," the author said in the interview.

Born a Shi’ite Muslim in Mumbai, Rushdie never considered himself religious.

‘The Satanic Verses’, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, was banned in India and burnt in demonstrations in the UK.

In 1989, Iran religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini had even put a bounty on Rushdie’s head and the author was forced to go into hiding.

Rushdie claimed that the criticism of the book made him more upset than the fatwa.

"I had spent five years writing this book. It was my best effort. To have it hated and dismissed, and for me to be considered a person of no worth and value, was terrible. I thought that if this is what you get, then why write? I might as well become a bus conductor," he said.

Rushdie virtually broke down in tears recalling the reaction to his first public reading of "Midnight’s Children" - the book which got him Booker’s prize in 1981 - organised by the magazine ‘Granta’ in Cambridge.

"The room was full of Indians from the university and the town. After I finished reading, one woman got up and said: ‘Thank you so much Mr Rushdie, you have told my story." (PTI)