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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Google 'may quit China'


Google has said it may shut down its China operations in protest against government censorship of its search results. If Google leaves China, the country will suddenly become even more dependent on its main homegrown search engine, Baidu.com. And while that is likely to benefit the Chinese company in the near term, analysts say it could bode poorly for the long-term development of the Internet in China. Baidu is hardly an upstart. The company has 300 million users and a stock valued at more than $13 billion, and it is the market leader in China, by a wide margin, with a commanding 63 percent share to Google’s 33 percent, according to iResearch, a consulting firm. “It’s a duopoly in China,” says Richard Ji, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. “There’s just Baidu and Google. And Baidu’s way ahead.” Baidu did not comment Wednesday on Google’s announcement. One reason for Baidu’s dominance is its close compliance with the nation’s tight Internet regulations and its censorship of Internet content. Baidu played along and Google did not like to, experts say. Google has previously said it would obey Chinese internet laws requiring politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results, but now says that policy will be dropped.

Pakistani Terror Suspect Set to Go on Trial in New York



A U.S.-trained scientist accused of shooting at FBI agents in Afghanistan and being an Al Qaeda sympathizer is set to go on trial in New York. Jury selection for the case against Aafia Siddiqui is to begin Wednesday morning in federal court. Opening statements are scheduled for next week. Prosecutors accuse the 37-year-old Siddiqui of grabbing a U.S. Army officer's rifle in 2008 and exchanging fire with U.S. soldiers and FBI agents. She was shot in the abdomen and denies she fired the weapon. She says she won't participate in the trial. A judge has said she'll be brought to the courthouse every day and given a choice whether to attend. Her previous court appearance have included outbursts in which she has said she doesn't hate America.

Yemen kills 'al-Qaeda cell leader'



Yemeni soldiers have killed the head of an al-Qaeda cell in the eastern province of Shabwa, the governor of the province says. Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi, said on Wednesday that Abdullah Mehdar was killed overnight by security forces after being besieged in a house where he had been hiding. Mehdar was reportedly the leader of an al-Qaeda cell in al-Houta region, 600km east of Sanaa, the capital. Security forces were hunting for the remaining members of the cell, Ahmadi said. "It happened after a day of clashes between government soldiers and the al-Qaeda cell they said was made up of 10 armed men," Mohamed Vall, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Sanaa, said. "The government confirmed Mehdar was killed along with another fighter, and that three others escaped." Al-Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the failed attack on a US airliner on December 25, and the US accused the group of training Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged perpetrator of the planned attack.

Russian President meets Turkish PM in Moscow



Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, on an official visit to Russia, met President Dmitry Medvedev in his residence outside Moscow on Wednesday.  Gas pipelines and a project to build the first nuclear power plant in Turkey, will dominate talks between the Russian president and the visiting Turkish premier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said. "Major projects like the South Stream and Blue Stream [natural gas] pipelines and the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant are on the agenda of the talks between Dmitry Medvedev and Tayyip Erdogan," the Kremlin said on Tuesday.  Turkey, which seeks to strengthen its position as a transit hub for oil and gas, issued its approval last August for Russia's Gazprom to use its sector of the Black Sea for the $11 billion South Stream pipeline to pump Russian and Central Asian gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine. In July, it signed a deal on the EU-backed rival pipeline Nabucco. Russia and Turkey also plan to build the second leg of the Blue Stream pipeline, linking the two countries via the Black Sea, to export Russian gas to Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus via Turkey.

Haiti quake relief effort under way



The United Nations and international humanitarian agencies are preparing to begin aid efforts in Haiti, after an earthquake in which many people are feared to have been killed. Thousands of people living in and around Port au-Prince, the Haitian capital, are thought to have been trapped in the rubble of buildings that collapsed during the earthquake on Tuesday evening. Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that search and rescue teams were "working against the clock" to save lives. About 37 search and rescue teams from a global network have been mobilised by the UN. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Wednesday that its relief plans are based on a "maximum of three million people". Jean-Luc Martinage, a Federation spokesman, said that "a massive international aid operation was needed" in the wake of the quake, which was centred about 15km inland, west of the capital. Aid agencies said that access to trapped people has restricted by debris, while electricity, water and phone services were down.