XIN_ENG_20061129.0098

DOHA, Nov. 29 , 2006 (Xinhua)

Factbox: Athletics in Asian Games

Athletic events represent sport at its purest and are often the centerpiece of major international sporting games. They are the embodiment of the Olympic motto, Citius, Altuis, Fortius - or Faster, Higher, Stronger - with athletes pushing themselves to the limit against their opponents and the record books.

Athletic events can be split into four main categories: track events, field events, road events and combined events.

Track events are running races that take place on a 400m outdoor track in the main stadium. The sprint races provide instant excitement, but look out for clever tactics and fast finishing in the longer races.

Field events are throwing and jumping competitions that usually take place inside the track. Strength, speed and agility are key, while tactics also come in to play in the jumping events.

Road events are long running and walking races that take place on public roads, although they often finish on the track inside the stadium. The men's and women's marathon races will take place along Doha's city streets and Corniche.

Combined events feature a selection of track and field events that take place over two days and are designed to find the best all-round athlete. As such, the decathlon and heptathlon are two of the most respected gold medals.

Track and field athletes are often the main stars of any major Games, and the 15th Asian Games.

History

The word athletics comes from the Greek "athlos" meaning " contest". A track running race, known as the "stade", was the first and only event at the first ancient Olympics in 776BC.

Later, more running distances were added, along with the long jump and a pentathlon event which introduced the discus and javelin.

The end of the ancient Olympics in AD393 also saw the end of organized athletics for more than 1,400 years. Running, jumping and throwing competitions continued, however, on an informal basis in most civilized cultures, often as a part of military training.

Interest in the Olympics was revived when archaeologists excavated ancient Olympia towards the end of the 19th century. Baron Pierre de Coubertain founded the International Olympic Committee in Paris in 1894, and the first modern Olympics followed in Athens two years later.

Track and field athletics was a major part of Athens 1896, although women did not compete until the 1928 Amsterdam Games, and then only in five events. The men's program has varied, but has become relatively standardized at all major games since 1928. Women's events, however, have gradually increased in number to almost match the men's.

The recent addition of women's pole vault, triple jump and 3, 000m steeplechase means the only exclusively male event is now the 50km race walk, although the women run over a shorter distance in the sprint hurdles, over lower hurdles in both events, and take part in a seven-event heptathlon rather than a 10-event decathlon.

The International Amateur Athletics Federation was formed in 1912 as a world governing body. IAAF has staged its own World Championships since 1983, allowing prize money from 1982. In 2001, it changed its name to the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Athletics has been a part of every Asian Games, starting at New Delhi, India, in 1951.

Sources: Doha Asian Games Organizing Committee, International Association of Athletics Federations, Xinhua Database

Nov. 29 , 2006

two days

more than 1,400 years

the end of the 19th century

two years later

the 1928


XIN_ENG_20061129.0486

AMMAN, Nov. 29 , 2006 (Xinhua)

Jordanian king, U.S. president probe regional situation

Jordanian King Abdullah II on Wednesday held talks with visiting U.S. President George W. Bush at Raghadan Palace Wednesday night to discuss regional conflicts and the situation in Iraq.

During the talks, the king explained Jordan's position, "namely underlining the need to make real progress on the Palestinian issue because regional complications and challenges are due to the Palestinian problem," Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib said.

A just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will help stem violence in the region, and Palestinian-Israeli peace could be a catalyst for achieving a lasting peace between Arabs and Israelis, Khatib quoted the king as saying.

During the talks, the king urged Bush to work on moving the peace process forward by bringing together Palestinian and Israeli points of views in a bid to resume negotiations as soon as possible.

The establishment of a viable, independent Palestinian state on Palestinian soil living alongside a secure Israel is the only logical and internationally acceptable solution to the conflict, the king said.

He urged the international community and the U.S. administration to help alleviate the Palestinians' suffering and ease economic pressure on the Palestinians to enable Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to maintain national unity and reinforce security.

For his part, Bush said that the United States was committed to a two-state solution to the conflict, adding that it is necessary to create appropriate circumstances to move the peace process forward.

The two leaders also discussed sectarian violence in Iraq, Khatib said.

"The Iraqi matter was also a central issue during the discussions and the talks focused on the importance of working to rebuild stability in Iraq," he said.

The two leaders agreed that the Lebanese should be allowed to resolve political tension in their country without outside influence. They also discussed Iran's nuclear standoff.

Nov. 29 , 2006

Wednesday

Wednesday night


XIN_ENG_20051105.0158

BRASILIA, Nov. 5 , 2005 (Xinhua)

Roundup: US faces daunting challenges in Latin America

by Li Xuejun

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- The United States, having long regarded Latin America as its backyard, had huge difficulty in getting its message through concerning free trade, fight against corruption and democracy to the region at the 4th Summit of the Americas.

Moreover, the country is facing gloomy prospects as its policies are failing and its influence further declining in the region, once Washington's close political and economic partner.

In a big setback to US President George W. Bush, the summit concluded on Saturday after adopting a final declaration that failed to clearly support the resumption of stalled talks on establishing a hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which Washington had demanded.

This is regarded as an ominous signal to Washington that the US ambition to set up the FTAA might eventually end up in failure.

What is worse, Bush is suffering an image crisis as his presence here drew tens of thousands of protesters and violent clashes erupted between demonstrators and police here and across the country on Friday. Polls in many Latin American nations show Bush as the least popular US leader in decades.

President Bush's father, former President George Bush, first proposed the establishment of the FTAA in the 1990s and at the first Summit of the Americas in the United States in 1994, leaders from 34 countries who attended the summit agreed to set up such a free trade zone, setting January 2005 as the deadline.

However, talks on such a zone have bogged down because of sharp disagreement between the United States and countries like Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

President Bush has insisted that free trade is the best way to reduce poverty and create employment and he pushed for resuming such trade talks at the summit. However, Bush's call fell on deaf ears.

Argentina and Brazil, both major food exporters in Latin America, have made it clear that they do not want to join the FTAA as long as the United States does not remove agricultural subsidies. They complain that Washington's agricultural subsidies would eliminate the competitiveness of farm products from other American countries and increase poverty in Latin America.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of the United States, has said the FTAA is "dead" as it only helps large US companies at the expense of Latin American workers.

Historically speaking, Latin America, especially South America, has been cool to the US proposal of free trade and economic privatization as those Latin American governments that endorsed the Washington-backed policies were toppled one after another. To the dismay of Washington, key Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela have been shifting toward the left since then.

Likewise, Bush's call for fighting corruption and strengthening democracy, a central theme in his second term, has drawn lukewarm response from his Latin American counterparts at the Summit of the Americas.

Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, in a joint press appearance with President Bush on Friday, warned that any US involvement in Latin America should be "positive and constructive, " a demand that Bush might find hard to accept.

Bush's call for strengthening democracy and fighting corruption has little market in Latin America where poverty reduction is more urgent than corruption and democracy.

Moreover, Latin America has been complaining that the United States neglected the region due to the Iraq war and the war on terrorism.

Observers point out that the United States, to restore its image and influence in its traditional backyard, must first make genuine efforts to help Latin America fight poverty as nearly 40 percent of the 500 million people in the region are living in poverty and some 100 million of them are living on only 1 US dollar a day.

Nov. 5 , 2005

Nov. 5

Saturday

Friday

the 1990s

January 2005

Friday

a day


XIN_ENG_20061107.0113

JAKARTA, Nov. 7 , 2006 (Xinhua)

Indonesian shares extend gain

Share prices on the Jakarta Stock Exchange ended higher Tuesday after the central bank announced further cut of the benchmark rate to continue making record.

The index rose by 13.3 points to close at 1,654.15 points.

Turnovers totaled 2.3 billion shares worth 2.5 trillion rupiah (274.6 million U.S. dollars).

Losers led gainers 69 to 55, with 91 other issues left unchanged.

Nov. 7 , 2006

Tuesday


XIN_ENG_20051108.0091

BEIJING, Nov. 8 , 2005 (Xinhua)

Press center for six-party talks ready for reporters

The press center for the fifth round of the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue will be open to reporters from 8:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.

The new round of talks, involving China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the United States, Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan, is to start on Wednesday morning at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, the venue of previous rounds of talks.

The press center, located at the Diaoyutai Hotel, will be available to reporters from home and abroad from 8:00 to 21:00 everyday. It is equipped with ten desktop computers and four wires for broadband Internet, as well as facilities such as telephones, printers, duplicating machines and fax machines.

More than 100 overseas correspondents have registered to report the talks, sources said.

Nov. 8 , 2005

8:00 a.m.

Wednesday morning

Wednesday morning

8:00 to 21:00 everyday


XIN_ENG_20051125.0065

SINGAPORE, Nov. 25 , 2005 (Xinhua)

Singapore shares end lower

The shares prices in Singapore ended lower on Friday with the benchmark Strait Times Index (STI) falling 10.6 points to close at 2,295.7 points.

The overall volume stood at 615 million shares worth 456.3 million Singapore dollars (about 269.6 million US dollars).

Losers led gainers by 236 to 194 with another 715 remaining unchanged.

On Thursday, the benchmark Strait Times Index rose 9.8 points to end at 2,306.3 points.

Nov. 25 , 2005

Friday

Thursday


AFP_ENG_20061205.0349

HELSINKI, Dec 5 , 2006, 2006

=(GRAPHIC)=

The world's richest two percent of adults own more than half of global household wealth, while half the world's population own only one percent, a UN report published on Tuesday showed.

"The study finds wealth to be more unequally distributed than income across countries," Anthony Shorrocks, director of the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) that published the report, said at a press conference.

The report, entitled "The World Distribution of Household Wealth", found that assets of 2,200 dollars (1,650 euros) or more placed a household in the top half of world wealth distribution in 2000.

To be among the most affluent 10 percent of adults required 61,000 dollars in assets, while more than 500,000 dollars was needed to belong to the richest one percent. This group of the most well off was made up of 37 million people.

The study said it was the first of its kind to include major components of household wealth, including financial assets and debts, land, buildings and other tangible property, and to cover all the world's countries.

The report did not measure income, in the form of salaries, pensions and benefit payments.

A quarter of the world's wealthiest 10 percent of adults lived in the United States while a fifth resided in Japan, the study showed.

Eight percent of the world's wealthiest 10 percent of adults lived in Germany, seven percent in Italy, six percent in Britain and four percent each in France and Spain.

The concentration of wealth within countries was also found to vary significantly.

"The share of the top 10 percent (of wealth) ranges from around 40 percent in China to 70 percent in the United States, and higher still in other countries," the report authors said.

In 2000, the year data for the survey was collected, there were 499 dollar-billionaires and 13 million millionaires throughout the world. These numbers were set to "rise fast in the next decade," the report said.

Dec 5 , 2006

Tuesday

the year

the next decade


WSJ891030-0115
 = 891030
 891030-0115.
 BellSouth, LIN
@  Sweeten Plan
@  To Merge Lines
@  ---
@  Accord Involves Huge Debt
@  And May Fail to Thwart
@  Rival Suitor McCaw
@  ----
@  By Julie Amparano Lopez
@  Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
 10/30/89
 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J)
 BLS LINB MCAWA
 TENDER OFFERS, MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS (TNM)
TELEPHONE SYSTEMS (TLS)
MEDIA, PUBLISHING, BROADCASTING, ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING (MED)

   The bolstered cellular agreement between BellSouth Corp. and LIN Broadcasting Corp. carries heightened risks and could fail to fend off McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., the rival suitor for LIN.

   Moreover, the amended pact shows how McCaw's persistence has pushed LIN and BellSouth into a corner, forcing huge debt on the proposed new company.
The debt, estimated at $4.7 billion, could mortgage the cellular company's future earning power in order to placate some LIN holders in the short term.

   The plan still calls for LIN to combine its cellular telephone properties with BellSouth's and to spin off its broadcasting operations.
But under new terms of the agreement, announced Friday, LIN holders would receive a special cash dividend of $42 a share, representing a payout of about $2.23 billion, shortly before the proposed merger.
LIN said it expects to borrow the money to pay the dividend, but commitments from banks still have n't been obtained.
Under previous terms, holders would have received a dividend of only $20 a share.

   In addition, New York-based LIN would exercise its right to buy out for $1.9 billion the 55% equity interest of its partner, Metromedia Co., in a New York cellular franchise.
That money also would have to be borrowed.
In effect, McCaw has forced LIN's hand by bidding $1.9 billion for the stake earlier this month.

   "We're taking on more debt than we would have liked to," acknowledged Michael Plouf, LIN's vice president and treasurer.
Although he expressed confidence that the proposed new company's cash flow would be sufficient to cover interest payments on the debt, he estimated that the company would n't be profitable until 1994 or later.

   Analyst estimate the value of the BellSouth proposal at about $115 to $125 a share.
They value McCaw's bid at $112 to $118 a share.
The previous BellSouth pact was valued at about $98 to $110 a share.

   McCaw, the largest provider of cellular telephone service in the U.S., already owns about 9.4% of LIN's stock.
In response to BellSouth's amended pact, the Kirkland, Wash., company extended its own offer to buy 22 million LIN shares for $125 apiece, which would give McCaw a 50.3% controlling interest.
Over the weekend, McCaw continued to call for an auction of LIN. Analysts said they expect McCaw to escalate the bidding again.

   "This game is n't  over yet , " said Joel D. Gross, a vice president at Donaldson, Lufkin amp Jenrette Securities Corp.
"At some point, it will become non-economical for one company.
But I do n't think we're at that point yet."

   Under its revised proposal, Atlanta-based BellSouth would have a 50% interest in the new cellular company and would be responsible for half of its debt.
To sweeten the pact further -- and to ease concerns of institutional investors -- BellSouth added a provision designed to give extra protection to holders if the regional Bell company ever decides to buy the rest of the new cellular company.
The provision, described as "back-end" protection, would require BellSouth to pay a price equivalent to what an outside party might have to pay.

   McCaw's bid also has a similar clause.
Only McCaw's proposal requires the company to begin an auction process in June 1994 for remaining shares at third-party prices.

   To mollify shareholders concerned about the long-term value of the company under the BellSouth-LIN agreement, BellSouth also agreed to pay as much as $10 a share, or $540 million, if, after five years, the trading value of the new cellular company isn't as high as the value that shareholders would have realized from the McCaw offer.

   "We're very pleased with the new deal.
We did n't expect BellSouth to be so responsive," said Frederick A. Moran, president of Moran Asset Management Inc., which holds 500,000 LIN shares.
BellSouth's "back-end protection was flawed previously.
We think this is a superior deal to McCaw's.
We're surprised.
We did n't think a sleeping {Bell} mentality would be willing to take on dilution."

   But Kenneth Leon, a telecommunications analyst with Bear, Stearns amp Co., finds the BellSouth proposal still flawed because the company does n't have to wait five years to begin buying more LIN shares.
"How many shares will be around in 1995?" he asked.
"There's nothing preventing BellSouth from buying up shares in the meanwhile."

   BellSouth's revised proposal surprised many industry analysts, especially because of the company's willingness to accept some dilution of future earnings.
William O. McCoy, president of the company's BellSouth Enterprises Inc. unit, said the revised agreement with LIN would dilute BellSouth earnings by about 9% in both 1990 and 1991 and by significantly less thereafter.
Indeed, BellSouth's cellular operations were among the first in the country to become profitable.

   For 1988, BellSouth earned $1.7 billion, or $3.51 a share, on revenue of $13.6 billion.
Analysts were predicting 1990 BellSouth earnings in the range of $3.90 a share, or $1.9 billion, but now those estimates are being scaled back.

   In composite trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, BellSouth shares fell 87.5 cents to $52.125.

   In national over-the-counter trading, LIN shares soared $4.625 to closed at $112.625, while McCaw fell $2.50 a share to $37.75.

   The proposed BellSouth-LIN cellular company, including the newly acquired Metromedia stake, would give the new entity 55 million potential customers, including about 35 million in the nation's top 10 markets.

   Mr. Leon of Bear Stearns speculated that McCaw, in an attempt to buy time, might consider filing an antitrust suit against BellSouth with the Justice Department and U.S. District Judge Harold Greene, who oversees enforcement of the consent decree that broke up the Bell system in 1984.

   Indeed, McCaw seemed to hint at that option in a brief statement.
Urging LIN directors to conduct "a fair auction on a level playing field," McCaw asked how well the public interest would be served "with the Bell operating companies controlling over 94% of all cellular {potential customers} in the nation's top 10 markets."

the short term

Friday

earlier this month

1994 or later

the weekend

June 1994

five years

now

Friday