The America's Intelligence Wire articles from December 2003

The America's Intelligence Wire archives from December 2003

HOW ROBOTS LOST THEIR WAY.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) The father of robotics is disappointed. Back in 1961, at a General Motors Corp. plant in Ternstedt, N.J., Joe Engelberger switched on his invention. It was a squat, boxy machine called Unimate, with a telescoping,...

Look Who's Building Bimmers.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) WHEN BMW CUT A deal in 2000 to outsource the engineering and production of its new X3 compact sport-utility vehicle, it was no simple handshake agreement. The complex technical and commercial details swelled the...

TWO FLIGHT PLANS FOR AIR TRAVEL.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) A MEGA PLANE with the possibility of luxury lounges and sleeping quarters is nothing new (``Mega Plane,'' Cover Story, Nov. 10). We did it almost 60 years ago. The plane was (under its World War II military designation,...

RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY NEEDS A STRONG HAND.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) I BELIEVE Vladimir V. Putin wants to continue a good relationship with the West, but he has realized that attempting to retrofit a democracy on top of a deeply corrupt underbelly is never going to work (``A big chill...

WILL THE REAL DELL PLEASE STAND UP?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) THE MANAGEMENT OF Dell Inc. has made it one of the best info-tech companies in world (``What you don't know about Dell,'' Cover Story, Nov. 3). With its global sales market, it has almost the ultimate business model....

LOOKING FOR SMOKE AFTER THE FIRES Edited by Ira Sager.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) John Garamendi is the master of disaster. As California's first elected State Insurance Commissioner, he helped oversee recovery efforts after the Oakland Hills fires and the Northridge earthquake in the early '90s....

ALL I WANT FOR XMAS IS A SATELLITE Edited by Ira Sager.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) IF YOU'RE A SPACE buff with a few million bucks to spare, you might want to check out an unprecedented auction on eBay. A Poway (Calif.) company, SpaceDev, is offering to build and launch your very own low-orbit...

CAMPAIGN CASH FROM DOWN THE HALL Edited by Ira Sager.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) SOME DEMOCRATIC Presidential hopefuls aren't just leaning on their rich pals for campaign money. They're tapping their staffs for campaign cash -- especially when it's time to meet quarterly fundraising goals. About 40%...

IN PRAISE OF THE FAMILY BUSINESS.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) IT IS NOT SURPRISING that superior performance occurs when the founding families remain involved (``Family Inc.,'' Cover Story, Nov. 10). Some of the most spectacular episodes of business growth have occurred not only...

IN THE AIR, BIGGER IS NOT BETTER.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) AS FOR THE IDEA of the Airbus A380 (``Mega Plane,'' The Corporation, Nov. 10): I am a frequent flier on long-haul routes -- and I don't want to clear boarding security with 500 people on one flight. I don't want to have...

WHERE DIGITAL CAN'T BEAT GOOD OL' FILM.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) AS SOMEONE WHO has worked in the electronic media for close to 30 years, I tell my clients that if you want instant gratification, go digital (``You don't own a digital camera yet?'' Tech Buying Guide, Nov. 10). If you...

Korean Road Map?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) CRISIS ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA How to Deal with a Nuclear North Korea By Michael O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki McGraw-Hill -- 230 pp -- $19.95 NORTH KOREA Another Country By Bruce Cumings New Press -- 241 pp -- $24.95...

Cotton Colossus.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) THE KING OF CALIFORNIA J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire By Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman Public Affairs -- 558 pages -- $30 That California is a top producer of cotton -- along with prunes, nuts,...

A Little German Reform Would Go a Long Way.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) The major economies of the European Union have performed poorly since the early 1990s. They suffer from high unemployment and slow growth in productivity. Still, most governments, intellectuals, and economists until...

Windows on a Phone: Not Bad for a First Foray.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Microsoft has finally made it into the wireless handset business. The Motorola MPx200 ($300, with service from AT&T Wireless is the first product based on Windows Mobile Software for Smartphones to hit the U.S. market....

'Security Moms': An Edge for Bush?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) JENNIFER WALLACE GARNER, a 32-year-old graphic designer and social liberal, didn't hesitate before voting for Al Gore in 2000. But the shock of the September 11 attacks and the birth of her first child earlier this year...

Of Lice and Sleeping pills.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) -- Scientists have identified the genes in blood-sucking body and hair lice that control how they break down human blood into energy and waste. After screening 1,152 louse genes, researchers from Purdue and Harvard...

GUAM'S FLYING FOX BAT: A DEADLY DELICACY?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) SCIENTISTS HAVE LONG tried to learn why the Chamorro people of Guam develop a brain disorder called ALS-PDC -- closely linked to Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Lou Gehrig's disease -- at 50 to 100 times the incidence...

A NEW WAY TO FIGHT HEPATITIS C.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) MORE THAN 170 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis C, a virus that can cause liver cancer. Patients are commonly treated with a drug called ribavirin. But it's less than ideal, triggering anemia in more...

RAPID PROTOTYPING GETS FASTER AND CHEAPER.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) SINCE THE LATE 1980s, rapid prototyping (RP) has evolved from a tool for making factory molds and dies to a low-volume technique for making finished parts, and even consumer product prototypes. One type of RP machine...

Can Cingular Leap into the Lead?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) ON A WINDY NOVEMBER day in New York, SBC Communications Inc. Chief Executive Edward E. Whitacre Jr. settles into the stillness of a conference room at the Millennium Broadway hotel to chat about Cingular Wireless LLC,...

Steve Ballmer on Microsoft's Future.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) WHILE WILLIAM H. GATES III'S NAME IS ALMOST synonymous with Microsoft Corp., his longtime friend, Steven A. Ballmer, has been CEO of the software giant for more than three years. BusinessWeek Editor-in-Chief Stephen B....

New Help With Your Nest Egg.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) YOUR DAYS AS THE CHIEF INVESTment officer of your 401(k) retirement account may be drawing to a close. A small but rapidly growing number of 401(k) plans are offering a new service that lets employees hand the...

A Mixed Bag That Works.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) IN MOST BALANCED FUNDS, blue-chip stocks and high-quality bonds are the staples. Not so at Steven Romick's FPA Crescent Fund. The 40-year-old portfolio manager blends small- and mid-cap stocks with junk bonds and...

So You Want to Be Your Own Contractor.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) EVERYONE HAS heard of the renovation job from hell that took far more time and money than the homeowner expected -- and the general contractor usually gets the blame. If you're thinking about a remodeling job, maybe you...

Send the Kids Downhill.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) LAST WINTER, WHEN Emma, my daughter, was 31/2, I wondered if she was ready to learn to ski. The year before, I had begun getting her used to the mountains by carrying her on lifts and skiing down gentle slopes, holding...

Green-and Red-Hot, Too.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) IT'S THE HOTTEST CAR ON THE road, Toyota's hard-to-get 2004 Prius. By the time the fuel-stingy, gasoline-electric hybrid went on sale in mid-October, dealers had already pocketed more than 10,000 orders, many from...

THE RICH ARE LISTENING LESS TO BROKERS.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) More bad news for brokerage firms. A study by Chicago consultant Spectrem Group shows rich investors moving away from full-service brokers. Instead, households with $5 million or more in assets -- which hold about...

What's That Mean?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Readers of the fine print are sifting through a lot more of it these days. The number of pages devoted to footnotes in filings by major corporations has doubled in the past five years, to an average of nearly 30, as...

ART.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) For an enlightening break from the corporate and financial scandals, head to the Renaissance art exhibit at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The Gardner, housed in a gorgeous Venetian palazzo, provides the...

For Putnam's Parent, Limited Damage.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) My three favorite words (about Wall Street, anyway) are these: Trust no one. Imparted to me amid the Volcker-Reagan bull market, this little motto now rings true with vast legions of investors, thanks to the mutual fund...

Leapfrogging LeapFrog.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Once upon a time there was a small company with a neat idea. The company was called LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. and it made interactive toys that taught children, age 4 to 8, math, spelling, and geography in a really fun...

Still Drowning In Dirty Money.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Rooting out terrorist money in U.S. banks is proving to be just as difficult as finding Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Two years after Congress rushed to pass the USA Patriot Act in the aftermath of September 11,...

Now, Insurers Turn Up The Heat.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Get your checkbooks ready, homeowners. You're facing another round of sharp rate hikes on your home insurance next year. Annual premiums are expected to rise 8%, to a nationwide average of $615, following a 6.9% rise...

Go-Power at General Mills By Gene G. Marcial.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Faced with a raft of woes -- including a possible accounting probe -- General Mills (GIS) has seen shares slide from nearly 50 in June to 44, as many investors fled. But some pros -- confident the Securities & Exchange...

A Christmas Bonanza For Concord? By Gene G. Marcial.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Digital cameras are hot. With Christmas coming on, some analysts see Concord Camera (LENS), the less-known rival of Canon, Nikon, and Eastman Kodak, going gangbusters. That's because Concord's digitals are at least 50%...

Cable Giants May Want In On NTN's Games By Gene G. Marcial.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Tiny NTN Communications (NTN), a provider of interactive TV shows to homes and hotels, has caught the eye of Time Warner and Comcast. In October, Comcast agreed to distribute NTN's sports and trivia games in two...

THE WEEK AHEAD.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (REVISED) Tuesday, Nov. 25, 8:30 a.m. EST -- The economy probably grew by an upwardly revised annual rate of 7.3% in the third quarter, up from the initial report of 7.2% and 3.3% growth in the...

Mutual Funds: A Fair Settlement.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) The public shouting match between New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Securities & Exchange Commission Chairman William H. Donaldson over how to reform the mutual-fund industry is unseemly at best. Both...

This Energy Bill Is a Joke.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) It isn't often that the entire political class in Washington disregards the interests of the American people, but the $100 billion pork barrel package in Congress that masquerades as an energy bill does just that. It...

LOSING MILLIONS IN ZHUHAI.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Fifteen years ago, the city of Zhuhai, a coastal enclave across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong, created the Zhu Kuan Group. Zhu Kuan is 100% owned by Zhuhai, and like other so-called ``window'' companies across...

Some Smooth Sailing Before Inflation Blows In.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) It happens every time the economy shows signs of sustainable sizzle: The inflation hawks start circling overhead. After all, solid demand enables businesses to push through price increases, right? Already, commodity...

Is The Dollar In The Danger Zone?
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) The depreciation of the dollar, which began in early 2001, picked up speed on Nov. 18, as it plunged to a record low of $1.1953 vs. the euro. The drop raises new fears that the greenback's decline could turn into a...

Inventing a Better Patent Law.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Patent law is one of the pillars of capitalism, a way to reward creativity by granting inventors temporary monopolies on their work. The idea worked fine when the inventions in question were physical objects such as...

Good Settlement, Bad Teamwork.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Rooting out corruption, protecting fund investors, and restoring confidence in the markets: Those are the goals of everyone involved in cleaning up the megamillion-dollar mutual-fund scandal. So the way to judge the...

The EU Doesn't Need Another Union.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Is it Europe's most important romance? Over the past year, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder have been getting cozier and cozier. First, they aligned German and French policies on...

OPTIONS GROW ONEROUS.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) It was just three years ago that the economy seemed to be one big bash, with stock options handed out like so many party favors. Many companies couldn't dole them out fast enough -- their generosity encouraged by...

This Medicare Bill Is No Remedy.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Rarely have politicians worked so hard and satisfied so few. The massive Medicare bill now heading for a final congressional showdown attempts to hammer vastly different visions into one plan. The result is a monumental...

A PLANE, A PLAN, A PROBLEM.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) For the first time in a long while, Boeing's commercial-plane division has some good news. In closed-door meetings in Seattle on Nov. 12 and 13, airline executives told Boeing they liked how plans are shaping up for its...

IN THE VALLEY, LESS OF A TROUGH.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Anyone hoping to take the pulse of Silicon Valley could do worse than drop into Buck's, a diner in the hills of Woodside, Calif. At the height of the tech boom, Buck's was full of venture capitalists and tech geeks,...

Jeffrey Immelt: Power Surge At GE By Diane Brady Edited by Monica Roman.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Life looks a little brighter at General Electric these days. On Nov. 19, CEO Jeffrey Immelt said that even though earnings may remain somewhat flat or even drop next year, GE should return to double-digit earnings...

ROUNDUP ON WALL STREET Edited by Monica Roman.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) For years, investors have been warned to tread carefully in the lightly regulated area of foreign-currency trading -- and on Nov. 19, the magnitude of the problem became clear. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced...

POLISHING PERLE'S REP Edited by Monica Roman.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz has cleared Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, of conflict-of-interest allegations. The report concluded that Perle wasn't breaking the law when he...

CALL IT TEARS 'R' US Edited by Monica Roman.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Is Christmas doomed? Investors drove shares of Toys 'R' Us to a low of $10.37 after the company said on Nov. 17 that it might not achieve the $1.15 earnings per share it expected this year. The retailer is giving up on...

High Times For HP Edited by Monica Roman.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Giving further credence to the tech recovery, Hewlett-Packard on Nov. 19 blew past analysts' expectations with its fiscal fourth-quarter results. The computing behemoth more than doubled net profits to $862 million,...

All Eyes Are On Commerzbank.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) It took Frankfurt's tight-knit financial community totally by surprise. On Nov. 12, Commerzbank, Germany's third-largest publicly quoted bank, announced it had written off the value of its holdings in a string of...

Muslims Are Angry -- And They Matter By Lorraine Woellert Edited by Richard S. Dunham Photograph: POTENT FORCE: Muslims are worried about civil rights abuses PHOTOGRAPH BY NINA BERMAN/AURORA.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) The 2000 election cycle was a heady time for Muslim voters. Although courted by both major parties, Muslim groups gave George W. Bush their first-ever Presidential endorsement. The clincher: His pledge to repeal a...

GAY VOTES, YES; GAY MARRIAGE, ER... By Lorraine Woellert Edited by Richard S. Dunham.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) A Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling opening the door for gay marriage has leading Democratic Presidential candidates in a quandary. The reason: They've been courting gay voters by endorsing ``civil unions'' but are on...

LOSING MILLIONS IN ZHUHAI.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Fifteen years ago, the city of Zhuhai, a coastal enclave across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong, created the Zhu Kuan Group. Zhu Kuan is 100% owned by Zhuhai, and like other so-called ``window'' companies across...

Egg Is Rotten In France.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Just over a year ago, Britain's spunky Egg PLC was winning huzzahs everywhere after it emerged as one of Europe's rare profitable online banks. Egg attracted droves of customers with relatively high interest on...

NEW PRESSURES ON THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION Edited by Rose Brady.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Could growing evidence of financial irregularities in the European Union's $119 billion budget topple yet another European Commission? In a report to the European Parliament on Nov. 17, the EU's Court of Auditors...

MORE TALKS ON PYONGYANG'S NUKES Edited by Rose Brady.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Washington and Pyongyang may be moving toward a formula for ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program. A second round of talks involving the U.S., China, Japan, Russia, and North and South Korea is expected to take...

Waking Up From The American Dream.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) There has been much talk recently of the ``Wal-Martization'' of America, a reference to the giant retailer's fervent attempts to keep its costs -- and therefore its prices -- at rock-bottom levels. But for years, even...

Germany: Dispensing Bertelsmann's Bounty.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) It seemed as if every celebrity and politician in Germany, from Chancellor Gerhard Schroder to former tennis star Boris Becker, was at a Nov. 6 party hosted by media giant Bertelsmann to dedicate its opulent new offices...

AUDIT CLIENTS GET THE HEAVE-HO.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) After watching former Big Five accounting firm Arthur Andersen implode after its Enron Corp. entanglement, the surviving Big Four aren't leaving much to chance. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche each have...

Where Insurance Doesn't Travel.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) You can get life insurance if you smoke or sky-dive. But good luck if you plan to visit Israel, Colombia, Kenya, or Saudi Arabia. Some big U.S. insurers, including Allstate Corp., won't insure anyone, for any price, who...

The Top Givers.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Perhaps the only thing harder than building a great fortune is giving one away. At least that's the conclusion you might draw after looking at how hard the megagivers on our second annual ranking of top philanthropists...

Counting the Bounty.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) How does one measure generosity? It's a challenge, especially when many of the country's most charitable donors work hard to keep their gifts under wraps. Public information is often outdated and rarely comprehensive....

Jeffrey Skoll: Why Delay? Give It Away.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Jeffrey S. Skoll lit up Silicon Valley as the first president of eBay Inc. Then, in 1999, when he was all of 34, he used $34 million from the proceeds of eBay's initial public offering to set up the Skoll Foundation,...

Democratic Credit.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) An uptick in spending may bode well for Democrats. That's if the spenders use the Democratic Party Platinum Visa card, expected from Providian Financial early next year. The Democratic National Committee gets 1 cents...

CLEARING CHECKS AT WARP SPEED.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Attention, check writers: The end of the float is near. Between automated teller machines and debit cards, check processing was long overdue to speed up. On Oct. 28, President George W. Bush signed a bill known as Check...

A Word From The CEO -- And Our Sponsor.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) American Airlines has found a novel way to pay for internal ``newscasts'' to employees: selling ads. In American's deal with Affinity Online Media, Affinity will sell advertising for each of 10 broadcasts it produces in...

The Secret Givers.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) The country's most secretive philanthropist avoided the world of private Gulfstreams and bespoke tailors, of society columns and personal attendants, in favor of flying coach and buying his clothes off the rack. It...

COUNTRY FOCUS/JAPAN.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Japan's economy continued to show steady improvement in the third quarter. In addition, economists are in the process of ratcheting up their growth forecasts. Real gross domestic product in the third quarter grew 2.3%...

Hong Kong Is Priming The Pump.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) As Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing has given away plenty of dough -- and quite a few oranges, too. Through the Li Ka Shing Foundation, Li and his companies have dispensed some $640 million since 1980, footing the...

The Corporate Donors.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) Just a few miles from the lakefront mansions and pristine skyscrapers of downtown Minneapolis, the streets of the Hawthorne neighborhood were once littered with the shattered glass of stolen cars. Nearly half the...

A Corporate Cornucopia.
December 1, 2003... (From BusinessWeek) There's a reason why corporate philanthropy goes almost completely unstudied: The documentation is spotty at best. Companies aren't required to publicly report their philanthropic spending, and even if they do so...

Poll: Almost 80 percent of Japanese believe sending troops to Iraq will increase terror threat.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Online) Almost 80 percent of Japanese believe that the government's plans to dispatch troops to help with the reconstruction of Iraq will increase the threat of terrorist attacks targeting Japan. In a weekend survey conducted...

Georgia Vows to Work With U.S., Russia.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Online) Georgia's new foreign minister pledged Sunday to work closely with both the United States and Russia, two countries that have jockeyed for influence in the former Soviet republic. Tedo Japaridze, the former head of...

Builders say Australian housing construction sector is slowing down, but manufacturing remains strong.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Worldstream) The booming housing construction sector _ one of the key drivers of Australia's robust economy _ is slowing down, according to a report published Monday. The report was compiled by industry group Master Builders'...

Tokyo stocks open down, dollar up against yen.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Online) Tokyo stocks opened lower Monday following a weekend announcement by the government that it would nationalize a regional bank. The U.S. dollar was up against the Japanese yen. The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 issues was...

McGinest tackle helps Patriots top Colts 38-34.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Online) Willie McGinest shot around the right side of the Indianapolis Colts' offensive line on fourth-and-goal and tackled Edgerrin James in the backfield with 14 seconds left Sunday to preserve the New England Patriots' 38-34...

Argentine champion Boca Juniors celebrate title with 1-1 draw against Olimpo.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Online) Argentine champion Boca Juniors celebrated its championship before tens of thousands of fans but had to settle for a 1-1 draw against lowly Olimpo. Boca, which clinched the league title during on Thursday, returned...

Ohio Can't Link Shootings to Other Cases.
December 1, 2003... (From AP Online) Police have failed to link 11 cases of gunfire at vehicles along the same stretch of interstate to other unsolved series of shootings elsewhere, authorities said Sunday. Police have contacted law enforcement in other...