Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang leaving company

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2008 file photo of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang gestures in the Yahoo booth after he gave his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Yang announced Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, that he is leaving Yahoo. The surprise departure comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson as its CEO. Yang expressed his support of Thompson in his resignation from Yahoo's board of directors. He had been on Yahoo's board since the company's 1995 inception. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 2008 file photo of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang gestures in the Yahoo booth after he gave his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Yang announced Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, that he is leaving Yahoo. The surprise departure comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson as its CEO. Yang expressed his support of Thompson in his resignation from Yahoo's board of directors. He had been on Yahoo's board since the company's 1995 inception. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE- In this Nov. 5, 2008 file photo, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang ponders a question during a talk at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Yang announced Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, that he is leaving Yahoo. The surprise departure comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson as its CEO. Yang expressed his support of Thompson in his resignation from Yahoo's board of directors. He had been on Yahoo's board since the company's 1995 inception. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - in this Nov. 26, 2011 file photo, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang takes pictures at an NCAA college football game in Stanford, Calif. Yang on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 announced that he is leaving Yahoo. The surprise departure comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson as its CEO. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is leaving the struggling Internet company, as it tries to revive its revenue growth and win over disgruntled shareholders under a new leader.

The departure, announced Tuesday, punctuates the end of an era at Yahoo, a tarnished Internet icon that has spent much of the last decade scrambling to catch up to Internet search leader Google Inc. ? a company that got early encouragement and advice from Yang. It comes just two weeks after Yahoo Inc. hired former PayPal executive Scott Thompson as its CEO.

Thompson is the fourth CEO in less than five years to try to turn around Yahoo. It's a daunting assignment that Yang was unable to pull off during his own tumultuous 18-month reign as the company's CEO in 2007 and 2008.

Yang, 43, endorsed Thompson in his resignation from Yahoo's board of directors. He had been on Yahoo's board since the company's 1995 inception.

"My time at Yahoo, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life," Yang wrote in a letter to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock. "However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo."

The letter didn't say what Yang plans to do next. He doesn't need to work, thanks to the fortune he has amassed since he began working on Yahoo in a trailer at Stanford University with fellow graduate student David Filo. Yang is worth about $1.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine's latest estimates.

Yang is also stepping down from the boards of China's Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. Yahoo is negotiating to sell its stakes in both of the Asian companies as part of its efforts to placate investors. The deal could be worth as much as $17 billion, but it still faces a series of potential stumbling blocks.

Besides surrendering the board seats, Yang is giving up his position as "Chief Yahoo," an honorary title he held as he mingled among workers, while keeping tabs on various company projects.

Thompson could have an easier time overhauling Yahoo without Yang looking over his shoulder and possibly second guessing his decisions, said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis.

"This has the fingerprints of frustration on it," Gillis said. "It's one of those situations where it looks like (Yang) is losing the battle to control the company's direction and now he is saying, 'That's it, I'm out.'"

Although a popular figure among Yahoo employees, Yang had alienated the company's shareholders by turning down a chance to sell Yahoo in its entirety to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, in May 2008. Yahoo shares haven't topped $20 for more than three years. The stock gained 44 cents to $15.87 in extended trading after Yang's decision was announced.

The slump in Yahoo's stock has diminished Yang's wealth. He still owns a 3.6 percent stake in the company.

Yang conceivably could leverage those holdings to attempt to buy Yahoo's U.S. business after the Asian investments are sold. That is, if he can line up additional financing, Macquarie Securities analyst Ben Schachter wrote in a research note late Tuesday. Several buyout firms have already expressed interest in buying a substantial stake in Yahoo, spurring speculation that Yang might work with them to acquire a controlling interest in what remains of the company if the Asian assets are sold.

When he announced Thompson's hiring earlier this month, Bostock stressed that Yahoo intended to remain an independent, publicly traded company.

Yang had been someone more interested in preserving the company than he created than dismantling parts of its to boost the stock price, analysts said. "Investors tend to want to keep trying to fix the company than carve it apart," Gillis said.

Now that he is out of the way, investors are likely to conclude the sale of the Asian investments will eventually be completed, Schachter wrote.

Investor anger over Yang's handling of the Microsoft negotiations led to his resignation as CEO in late 2008 and the hiring of Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz to replace him. Bartz and Yang had gotten to know each other as part of Cisco Systems Inc.'s board of directors.

After initially hailing Bartz as the solution to Yahoo's problems, Yang and the rest of Yahoo's board fired her as CEO in September.

Yahoo's revenue has been falling in recent years even as advertisers have poured more money into the Internet. Much of the money, though, has been going to Google and Facebook's online social network, as Yahoo has fallen further behind in the race to innovate and develop products that attract Web traffic.

Despite its struggles, Yahoo remains profitable and still boasts a worldwide audience of 700 million people.

But visitors aren't sticking around Yahoo's services as much as they once did, depriving the company of more opportunities to sell ads ? the main source of its revenue.

It has been a jarring comedown for Yahoo, which emerged as one of the Internet's first stars after Yang and Filo expanded the service beyond its roots as a hand-picked directory of websites.

Yahoo's early success turned it into a Wall Street darling and landed Yang on the covers of leading business magazines. At the height of the dot-com bubble 12 years ago, Yahoo's stock was trading above a split-adjusted $100 amid talk that the company might eventually try to buy a long-established media franchise such as the Walt Disney Co.

But now investors widely regard Yahoo as a misguided company that can't come up with a cohesive plan to define itself for Web surfers and advertisers.

Yang and Bostock have been the focal point for much of the criticism, partly because of their key roles in the Microsoft talks in 2008. After buying a 5.2 percent stake in Yahoo last autumn, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb demanded that both Bostock and Yang step down from the company's board. If they refused, Loeb indicated he would finance a shareholder rebellion to oust both men from the board.

Loeb's fund, Third Point LLC, didn't immediately return phone calls seeking comment late Tuesday.

Bostock, Yahoo's chairman for the past four years, has given no indication that he plans to step down.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-17-US-Yahoo-Founder-Resigns/id-2a3efa809f7742c39d4cee8c5397f22d

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Why I Won't Hire You [Hiring]

If you've ever hired anyone for a job, you understand a whole new perspective on what makes an applicant stand out?and what makes you toss an application to the bin. Fair or not, blogger, consultant, and hirer Charlie Balmer discusses honestly the mistakes that can ruin your chances with a potential employer.

Photo by StockLite (Shutterstock).

I will be very honest with you in this post. Most interview articles only show obvious mistakes, as if most people don't know showing up late is bad form. I will tell you the things I didn't really know about until I was the one interviewing, and interviewing for a variety of positions and person-types. No interview prep article ever prepared me in the right way for how interviewers really think. That is what I will be sharing with you today.

When you first walk in to my office, I am expecting you to be one of the 99%+ people who I know I won't hire in the first 5 minutes. I am hoping I will be proven wrong, because I really want to hire you and be done interviewing. Unfortunately, most people looking for jobs don't deserve them. Here are the most common ways I know you don't deserve any job I have to offer.

You send me a stupidly long resume

If I have to spend more than 30 seconds finding out what you have accomplished, forget it. You have annoyed me. Somehow, since resumes went digital, people feel like they can cram in 10 pages of boring essays talking about this achievement or that role, and expect me to read every juicy word. More likely, I will ignore the whole thing, write down in my notes "poor communicator", and move on. If you have a good set of skills or something catches my eye, you might still get an interview, but I'll still never read the resume. And you had better be a better communicator on the phone or in person.

Think about it this way ? the resume items communicate to me your past successes in a (supposedly) succinct manner. If you can't nail it in one sentence, do I really want to look forward to your rambling emails every day? If I can't read your resume, it doesn't bode well for your emails, and I get enough of those in my inbox as it is.

To craft a great resume, tailor it to my job posting. If I have a skill set in there like "Windows Administration", make sure you have at least one bullet point talking about success in a project where you used that skill. Make the bullet no longer than three sentences. One is better. I am likely to read one sentence. I might read three. More than that and I won't even know what you wrote there. You wasted my time and your own.

You can't tell me why you like your current job

I always ask people what they like most about their current job before I get into any details about a role. Why? I want to see if you'll be happy working in this new job. If you can't tell me anything you like, or you tell me something you like but it sounds really generic? Then forget it, I have no idea what you want to do in life and you probably don't either. Come see me when you know what you want to do. I would even be happy with something like "Well, this job doesn't enliven me, but my last job, I loved doing XXX every day, and man, I miss that. It looks like this role will let me get back to that." Let me know you're passionate or don't waste my time.

The worst answers? "Well I like the challenge" or some other BS. Don't BS me. I have a super BS detector, and most other interviewers do too. The worst BS is the kind where more than 50% of candidates say the same thing. If you can't be original about what you like about your unique job how can I expect you to be creative working for me?

If you have a generic answer like you enjoy learning, the challenge, helping customers, that can be alright. Just sound excited when you talk about it. Give me an example of a time when you got really fired up about it. I don't mind if it doesn't relate to the job I am interviewing you for, though that helps. Just expect me to ask why you think this job will give you the same passion ? and have a good answer ready. Really, why else are you applying if you don't know this?

No career plans or vision

When I ask you what your next role is going to be after the one you're interviewing for, you had better have a good answer. Everyone should have a story about why you want to come work for me, in this specific role. If you can tell me how this role helps you accomplish your long term goals, I'm much more likely to think you'll be happy here and work hard in the job. If you just want a job, why should I care? Someone else will come to me with their vision. Eventually.

A good answer is a well thought out vision. You should have that anyway. Here is a good example: "I am looking to move away from working in my current small company to a bigger company with more career growth and opportunities. I want to rise to an executive level in the next 10 years, but my current company is too small to allow me to stretch effectively in that way. [This role] builds on my strengths in communication and project management, and will help me grow as a leader and improve my influencing skills. In a few years, I would look to becoming a senior manager?" and on with how this role fits into your life vision.

No Skills

Please, don't bother applying if you don't have the required skills. I will know. If you'll be programming, expect to program in the interview. And program well. If you'll be project managing, you had better be able to tell me about the right way to build a project plan and project vision. I'll probably even describe a project and ask you to build a plan right there, with me. Just because the title has something in it you vaguely think you can do, if you don't meet the requirements, please don't waste my time. I might be ok if you are up front with me and tell me you want a career change and are willing to take a more junior position to learn. I might take a chance on you if everything else is solid. But tell me that in your resume so we don't waste time. Yes, telling me that in your resume improves your chances of getting hired, even if not necessarily for this job or winning an interview. I won't claim this is true for all interviewers, but it is true for me.

It's about setting expectations. If you come in, and my expectation is, for instance, that you know Unix administration, and then you tell me "Well, I read a book and I really want to learn it", no, I won't like that. If instead you put in your resume an objective line "Looking to grow skills in Unix administration from a project background", now we are on the same page. If I don't need an expert right now, maybe I will invest in training you since you have the vision and self-motivation. Oh, and describing what you are doing to prepare is also good, even if you don't have on the job experience. See how the expectation can change my perspective? Give me happy surprises, not unhappy surprises.

Answer my questions with conjecture

I will test you in a lot of ways. I will ask you to describe a lot of situations ? where you failed, where you succeeded, what you would change, what you hate and what you love. Don't sit there and tell me what you would do in the future. I didn't ask what you would do, I asked what you did. If I have to wait for you to finish talking, then say "Could you give me a specific example where you did something like that?" Then you have failed to answer my question. If I ask for an example, please give me one. If you don't have one, that's ok, tell me you have never been in that situation, but you have some ideas if I would like to hear them. Yes, I probably would like to hear them, but I might also have another question with different examples I would rather know about.

If you don't think well on your feet, spend some time reading through and practicing situational interview questions. I won't ever use one I see online, but it will help train your mind to answer, and give you fresh memories to draw from. I also don't mind when a candidate pauses to think. I will wait. I know everyone has different styles of thinking and responding.

How to Win the interview

I think it's pretty simple. I look for a few traits in people I am going to hire. If you are missing even one, I'm probably going to pass you up for someone who doesn't. Do your best to show off these traits and you'll win. This is true in every case, from hiring a janitor to an executive.

• Show me you can get things done. This means you can accomplish challenging tasks quickly, come up to speed when necessary, go the extra mile if you have to, influence peers. You must be self-motivated.
• Show me you are intelligent. I will ask you questions that are designed to make you think. Show me you can. Don't confuse intelligence with education. I don't care what kind of schooling you had, if you can't think, no job. If you can think, and aren't educated, no problem in my book, though I'll probably look for more experience instead.
• Show me how I fit into your vision. Truthfully, we'll work best together if you think this job is the best place for you to be right now. I want to help you succeed in your career, let me.
• Be highly skilled. Unfortunately, I don't hire awesome people who don't have the right skill mix. But I do keep their information around for when I need their skill mix. I also tend to recommend these people to others who are hiring as strong candidates. The skill level required to be hired depends on the job and expectations. Entry level can get away with rough skill sets or classwork. Senior needs to be top of the field, regardless of years in the workforce.
• Be Passionate. If you are bored working in a similar job somewhere else, you'll be bored with me. Period. I don't want any of that.

• The End

  Most of the stuff I am talking about here has nothing to do with Golem Technologies, but more about what it is like to hire in the first place. There are so many articles out there with bad advice for both those hiring and those trying to be hired, I wanted to inject some raw honesty into the equation. If you are looking to hire people, then I would recommend you use my 5 points above to screen people. As for me hiring, no, I am not currently hiring, so please don't ask me. When I am hiring though, and if you happen to apply, the above is the criteria I will use to decide.

  This is true across business functions and across companies. The people who have the stuff I listed to win the interview will get jobs they want consistently. If you are lacking something, then figure out a way to get there. Just having a plan puts you ahead of 99% of job candidates. I also like giving people a chance whenever they let me, as long as I have the flexibility to do so. So far, I haven't been disappointed.

  Do you have hiring war stories (interviewer or interviewee)? Share them in the comments!

  Why I Won't Hire You | Golem Technologies

  Charlie Balmer is an entrepreneur, technology blogger, and website consultant. He has worked for multiple fortune 500 companies in IT management, marketing, and application design. His latest company, Golem Technologies, is a cloud based website security scanning application for IT departments and security professionals.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/89uWW1M-kdQ/why-i-wont-hire-you

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Mitt Romney Highlights Timeless Capitalism vs. Populism Battle (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | According to ABC News, the political party of staunch capitalist principles is, ironically, forced to debate those principles during this 2012 election cycle.

This is because the Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, is a wealthy former CEO whose gaffes have made him appear out-of-touch with ordinary Americans. His fellow conservatives, therefore, are going where they smell blood in the water: Romney's biggest weakness is his past as a venture capitalist, seen by many voters as a Wall Street stooge in a fancy suit.

Capitalism and free enterprise are diverse concepts, ranging from lone entrepreneurs to vast corporations. As a high-school social studies teacher, I am currently teaching a batch of sophomores about the Industrial Revolution and the development of Industrial Capitalism. Back then, capitalism wasn't so rosy: Free enterprise primarily benefited only those who were lucky enough to get into industrialization first. For decades everyone else toiled with few workers' rights and protections. The most vociferous capitalists today would have a hard time defending the "Lord of the Flies" capitalism of the 19th century.

While it's easy to hate big corporations and link them to Industrial Revolution and Gilded Age excesses, particularly the "robber barons" who controlled monopolies, it's hard to be down on small businesses. Everyone is supposed to love small businesses and entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are the link between free market capitalism and liberal populism: The entrepreneur is championed as the common man who uses the principles and lessons from the wealthy and established to make his own way and become successful.

By arguing conservatism through the lens of entrepreneurship and supporting small businesses Republicans can avoid looking like fat cat capitalists. Which explains why, right now, Mitt Romney's fellow Republican candidates are attacking his big-money past at Bain Capital. Romney is a true capitalist but, according to competitors like Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, is one of the wrong variety.

A small business that operate ruthlessly and is draconian in its pursuit of profit is smiled upon by society, but a big corporation that does the same is not. Unfair? Yes. Unexpected? No. Socially, we must support the common man. Appearing elitist is considered taboo, even for conservatives with Ivy League backgrounds. Though attacking a fellow Republican for being a capitalist success story may seem ironic, it's not against social norms...so expect the practice to continue.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120113/pl_ac/10830355_mitt_romney_highlights_timeless_capitalism_vs_populism_battle

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This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]

Jan 14, 2012 5:00 PM 13,574 0

• Unlock Root Roots Nearly 250 Android Devices in One Click [UPDATED] (Android) If you're looking to root your phone but don't want to pore over complicated instructions, a new program called Unlock Root claims to root a ton of different phones with ease.
• Gym-Pact Rewards You for Going to the Gym with Cash, Charges You when You Skip Out (iOS) If you just signed up for a gym membership, completely convinced that you'll go every day this year, keep in mind you're essentially throwing money away when you don't go. If you need a little more motivation to make the trip and work out, Gym-Pact is a new iOS app and webapp that lets you put your money where your mouth is. Go to the gym and check in with your phone and you'll be rewarded with cash payouts. Skip your workouts, and the service penalizes you and your bank account.
• OldChromeRemover Frees Up Disk Space Used by Old Versions of Chrome (Windows) We've mentioned before that Chrome stores old versions on your hard drive, which can eventually take up lots of space. OldChromeRemover is a simple app that will free that space back up for you.
• Movie Explorer Compiles Details for All Those Movies on Your Hard Drive (Windows) If you have lots of movies ripped or downloaded to your hard drive it can be difficult to keep track of the details. Movie Explorer is a self-executable program for Windows 2000 and up that will scan your hard drive and pull movie posters and details from iMDB. You can use Movie explorer to browse your movies and when you've made a selection you can launch the file directly from the program.
• Void Lock Secures Your Android Phone by Making It Appear Turned Off (Android) Void Lock keeps your phone secure by turning off your screen, as if the phone weren't on at all, and letting you unlock with a gesture.
• Get Linux Compiles Information, Screenshots, and more for Tons of Linux Distributions for Easy Reference (Windows) So you've gotten started with Linux, maybe tried Ubuntu or Mint, but you're ready to move on to another distro. Get Linux is a simple app that helps you browse information on tons of other distros available.
• Dragon Go! Brings Dragon's Superior Voice Search to Android (Android) While Android has a pretty great voice search system built-in, Dragon Go kicks it up a notch, with impeccable speech recognition skills and by automatically detecting what you're searching for and taking you to the correct web page.
• Sparkbox Is a Repository for Your Creative Inspiration (Mac) When you find an image you find particularly inspiring, you often want to save it. If you save a lot of these images, they can be hard to sort through and find as needed. That's where Sparkbox can help. It's a repository for your creative inspiration.
• Mindful Displays iCal Events and Reminders on Your Desktop (Mac) If you use iCal to manage your to-do list you may want to consider Mindful. This app creates a desktop view of your events and reminders for the day similar to the daily view function of most calendars.
• Boycott SOPA for Android Scans Products, Warns You If the Manufacturer Supports SOPA (Android) We've discussed several ways you can stay on top of the fight against SOPA, and ways you can get around it, but Boycott SOPA is an Android app that turns your smartphone into a powerful tool to speak with your dollars, and avoid financially supporting companies that support the bill.

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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/DlQSo5QJWzA/this-weeks-top-downloads

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Pakistan: president, army chief meet amid crisis (AP)

ISLAMABAD ? Pakistan's army chief paid a visit to the country's president Saturday in a meeting that may signal a willingness for reconciliation between the military and the civilian government after a week of escalating tensions and rumors of an impending coup.

Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and President Asif Ali Zardari discussed the "current security situation," according to the state-run news agency.

Friction between the military and the government has spiked after an unsigned memo was sent to Washington last year asking for its help in heading off a supposed coup. The note enraged the army, which was still smarting from the humiliation of last year's covert U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden north of Islamabad.

Zardari's office welcomed the meeting with Kayani and said it should help relations.

The president's Pakistan People's Party's Information Secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira said the meeting was not routine, "given Pakistan's situation, the heat that is being felt."

He told Pakistani television that "certainly this meeting will make things better. ... It will improve the tense situation."

The army has staged at least three coups in Pakistan's six-decade history and still considers itself the true custodian of the country's interests. On Wednesday, it warned of "grievous consequences" for the country in an unusual statement, raising fear it might try again to oust the government.

Analysts say Gen. Kayani has little appetite for a coup, but they say the generals may be happy to allow the Supreme Court to dismiss the government by "constitutional means." The court has legitimized earlier coups.

The nuclear-armed country is facing a host of problems, among them near economic collapse, a virulent al-Qaida- and Taliban-led insurgency, and a crisis in its relations with its key ally, the United States, following NATO airstrikes in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border.

That attack has prompted Islamabad to review its coordination with U.S. and NATO forces, and on Saturday Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani vowed to protect Pakistani sovereignty in new rules being drawn up to regulate such coordination.

"Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity are not negotiable," Gilani said at the opening of a special committee to discuss the fallout over the airstrikes. "We would reject any approach that would tend to compromise our sovereignty, honor and national dignity."

Islamabad shut NATO and U.S. supply routes running into Afghanistan through Pakistan in response to the airstrikes.

Parliamentarians have recommended that Islamabad seek "guarantees" that Washington will respect the country's sovereignty and avoid any future violations of the country's borders, said Khursheed Ahmed, a member of parliament's national security committee. He declined to elaborate.

A U.S. investigation into the incident found that Pakistani forces fired first and that American troops acted in self-defense. But U.S. efforts to determine whether there were Pakistani forces in the area were foiled by bad maps, poor coordination and Islamabad's failure to provide the locations of its border posts, according to the report..

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas has rejected the U.S. findings and insisted that Pakistani forces retaliated only after coalition helicopters "started engagement." He also denied that Pakistan failed to notify NATO of the location of the two border posts that were attacked.

Gilani said the committee planned to consider the U.S. report on the border incident, without elaborating.

The prime minister has called for a "show of confidence" vote in parliament Monday to support of the government. In the latest violence in the northwest, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a police station, sparking a firefight that killed one officer and three civilians, said Bahawal Khan, a local police official. The militants struck about midday Saturday in Dera Ismail Khan district and fighting continued for hours afterward.

About eight or 10 attackers wearing police uniforms besieged the station, and three suicide bombers detonated their explosives during the battle, police said. Another attacker was killed in the fighting.

The district sits at the edge of South Waziristan tribal region that served as Pakistani Taliban headquarters before the Pakistani army launched an offensive in late 2009.

___

Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Asif Shahzad and Heidi Vogt in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120114/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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Tensions high, US warns Iran not to block shipping (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Tensions rising by the day, the Obama administration said Friday it is warning Iran through public and private channels against any action that threatens the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. The Navy revealed that two U.S. ships in and near the Gulf were harassed by Iranian speedboats last week.

Spokesmen were vague on what the United States would do about Iran's threat to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but military officials have been clear that the U.S. is readying for a possible naval clash.

That prospect is the latest flashpoint with Iran, and one of the most serious. Although it currently overshadows the threat of war over Iran's disputed nuclear program, perhaps beginning with an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear structure, both simmering crises raise the possibility of a shooting war this year.

"We have to make sure we are ready for any situation and have all options on the table," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, addressing a soldier's question Thursday about the overall risk of war with Iran.

Navy officials said that in separate incidents Jan. 6, three Iranian speedboats ? each armed with a mounted gun ? briefly chased after a U.S. Navy ship just outside the Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter in the northern Gulf. No shots were fired and the speedboats backed off.

For several reasons, the risk of open conflict with Tehran appears higher in this election year than at any point since President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to try to bridge 30 years of enmity. A clash would represent a failure of U.S. policy on several fronts and vault now-dormant national security concerns into the presidential election contest.

The U.S. still hopes that international pressure will persuade Iran to back down on its disputed nuclear program, but the Islamic regime shows no sign it would willingly give up a project has become a point of national pride. A nuclear bomb, or the ability to quickly make one, could also be worth much more to Iran as a bargaining chip down the road.

Time is short, with Iran making several leaps toward the ability to manufacture a nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so. Iran claims its nuclear development is intended for the peaceful production of energy. Meanwhile, several longstanding assumptions about U.S. influence and the value of a targeted strike to stymie Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon have changed. For one, the White House is no longer confident it could prevail on Israel not to launch such a strike.

An escalating covert campaign of sabotage and targeted assassinations highlighted by this week's killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist may not be enough to head off a larger shooting war and could prod Iran to strike first.

The brazen killing of a young scientist by motorcycle-riding bombers is seen as almost surely the work of Israel, according to U.S. and other officials speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. The killing on a Tehran street followed the deaths of several other Iranians involved in the nuclear program, a mysterious explosion at an Iranian nuclear site that may have been sabotage and the apparent targeting of the program with an efficient computer virus.

Iranian officials accuse both Israel and the U.S. of carrying out the assassination as part of a secret operation to stop Iran's nuclear program. The killing came a day after Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a "critical year" for Iran ? in part because of "things that happen to it unnaturally."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Panetta made a point of publicly denying any U.S. involvement, but the administration tied itself in knots this week over how far to go in condemning an action that could further the U.S. goal of stalling Iranian nuclear progress.

The U.S. position remains that a military strike on Iran's known nuclear facilities is undesirable because it would have unintended consequences and would probably only stall, not end, the Iranian nuclear drive. That has been the consensus view among military leaders and policy makers for roughly five years, spanning a Republican and Democratic administration.

But during that time Iran has gotten ever closer to a potential bomb, Israel has gotten more brazen in its threats to stop an Iranian bomb by nearly any means, and the U.S. administration's influence over Israel has declined.

Israel considers Iran its mortal enemy and takes seriously the Iranian threat to wipe the Jewish state from the map. The United States is Israel's strongest ally and international defender, but the allies differ over how imminent the Iranian threat has become and how to stop it.

The strained relationship between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plays a role, as does the rise in influence of conservative political parties in Israel. U.S. officials have concluded that Israel will go its own way on Iran, despite U.S. objections, and may not give the U.S. much notice if it decides to launch a strike, U.S. and other officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The Obama administration is concerned that Iran's claim this week that it is expanding nuclear operations with more advanced equipment may push Israel closer to a strike.

Obama last month approved new sanctions against Iran that would target its central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad. The U.S. has delayed implementing the sanctions for at least six months, worried about sending the price of oil higher at a time when the global economy is struggling.

A senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard force was recently quoted as saying Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the Strait of Hormuz if the country's petroleum exports are blocked due to sanctions.

Panetta linked the two crises Thursday, saying an Iranian nuclear weapon is one "red line" the U.S. will not allow Iran to cross and a closure of the strait is another.

"We must keep all capabilities ready in the event those lines are crossed," Panetta told soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas.

He did not elaborate, but the nation's top military officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, has said the U.S. would take action to reopen the strategic waterway. That could only mean military action, and there are U.S. warships stationed nearby.

"The United States and the international community have a strong interest in the free flow of commerce and freedom of navigation in all national waterways," White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday, adding that Iran is well aware of that position. "Our views are clear, we're expressing them publicly and privately, and I'll leave it at that."

International talks to barter Iran out of building a nuclear weapon are nearly collapsed, the United States and several partners are on the verge of applying the toughest sanctions yet on Iran's lifeblood oil sector, an increasingly cornered Iranian leadership is lashing out in unpredictable ways and faces additional internal pressures with a parliamentary election approaching.

All that adds up to a new equation, U.S. and Western diplomats said. A unilateral U.S. military strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure remains unlikely but no longer unthinkable, while the likelihood of an Israeli military strike has increased.

Immediate consequences would probably include an unpredictable spike in oil prices, ripple effects in troubled European economies and a setback for the fragile U.S. economic recovery. Longer term, a strike or a full-on war would almost surely ignite anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and beyond and empower hardline political movements in newly democratic Egypt and elsewhere.

Although the Obama administration wants to avoid conflict, it is locked in a cycle of provocation and reaction that feeds Iranian fears and may make war more likely, said Suzanne Maloney, a former State Department Iran expert now at the Brookings Institution.

"The tactics the administration has been taking means conflict becomes more likely because of the potential for miscalculation and the level of tensions and frustrations on both sides," she said.

___

AP National Security Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120113/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iran

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Baseball: Ichiro welcomes Iwakuma to Seattle

Monday, Jan. 9, 2012

Kobe ? Ichiro Suzuki welcomed Hisashi Iwakuma to the Seattle Mariners with open arms Sunday, saying the right-hander's addition to the team was a "pleasant surprise."

"Playing behind him in right (field) at the WBC, I thought he was the easiest pitcher to play defense for," Ichiro said after working out for two hours as the 38-year-old Seattle veteran tries to rebound from his worst season in the majors.

"I never thought I'd be playing on the same team with him so this has been a pleasant surprise."

Ichiro and Iwakuma, whose one-year contract with the Mariners was announced Friday, played together on Japan's World Baseball Classic-winning team in 2009.

Free agent shortstop Munenori Kawasaki, who was also member of the 2009 WBC team, could be joining Iwakuma and Ichiro, having been invited by the Mariners to spring training.

"I look forward to the day that the three of us including (Kawasaki) can be on the field together," Ichiro said.

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/sb20120109a2.html

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