The Bismarck Tribune from Bismarck, North Dakota • 3

World Friday, January 15, 2010 Page 3A Bismarcktribune.com 0 Bismarck Tribune China: firms, obey Web laws by dissidents and human rights groups. Its market of 338 million Internet users is the world's most populous. A Google departure could give a boost to local rival Baidu allowing it to pick up Google users and advertisers, analysts said. Baidu, launched in 2000, is a standout in the global search industry a local competitor that beats giant Google Inc. Baidu has 60 percent of China's search market and has held onto that, despite Google's launch of a local site and relendess efforts to tailor its services to Chinese tastes.

"We view this development as a major positive opportunity for Baidu," Citigroup analysts Catherine, Leung and Mark S. Mahaney said in a report. The Global Times, published by Peoples Daily and known for a fiercely nationalistic tone, took an unusually conciliatory stance Thursday, warning that Google's departure would be a "lose-lose situation" for China. "Google is taking extreme measures but it is reminding us that we should pay attention to the issue of the free flow of information," the newspaper said. It said China's national influence and competitiveness depend on access to information and added, "We have to advance with the times." based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group announced.

Jiang has represented Tibetan activists and advised people with AIDS who are seeking government help. Outside the Google offices, some visitors poured small glasses of liquor, a Chinese funeral ritual. One man left a copy of Peoples Daily, which he said represented the tightly controlled state media that China's public would be left with if Google pulls out and censorship continues. "Google is the true hero in this silent city," said a note left outside the building in the capital's Haidian technology district. Referring to the government Web filter, popularly known as the "Great Firewall," another note said, "The tallest walls cannot divide people's sentiments.

Google: Bye, let's meet on the other side of the wall." Employees entered and left the building but declined to talk to reporters. Google's main U.S. site has a Chinese-language section but Beijing's filters make that slow and difficult to access from China. Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but operates extensive filters to block access to material deemed subversive or pornographic, including Web sites run By joe Mcdonald AP Business Writer BEIJING In China's first official response to Google's threat to leave the country, the government Thursday said foreign Internet companies are welcome, but must obey the law, and gave no hint of a possible compromise over Web censorship. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, without mentioning Google by name, said Beijing prohibits e-mail hacking, another issue cited by the company.

She was responding to questions about Google at a regular ministry briefing. "China's Internet is open," Jiang said. "China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law." Google Inc. said Tuesday it would stop censoring search results in China and might shut down its China-based Google.cn site, citing attempts to break into accounts on its Gmail service used by human rights activists. Jiang gave no indication whether the government had talked with Google.

The state Xinhua News Agency said earlier officials were seeking more information about its announcement. The main Communist Party newspaper warned International space crew does walk MOSCOW (AP) Russia's Mission Control says two cosmonauts have taken a spacewalk to get a new module ready to dock with the International Space Station. Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin says that Maxim Suraev and Oleg Kotov left the station at 1:05 p.m. Moscow time (1010 GMT, 4:10 a.m. CST) Thursday.

He said their mission is expected to last nearly six hours. Lyndin said the two cosmonauts will work on the Russian Poisk module to link it to the station's communications and power systems and prepare it for future dockings with the Russian spacecraft. The module was launched in November. Americans Jeff Williams and Timothy J. Creamer and Soichi Noguchi of Japan are supporting the mission from inside the space station.

Officials: Pakistan Taliban chief alive DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) Intelligence officials and militants say Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud is alive and was not killed by a U.S. missile strike. The missiles slammed into a former school, where Pakistani Taliban leaders were meetingThursday. Twelve people were killed in the North Waziristan tribal region neighboring Afghanistan. Reports quickly circulated that Mehsud died.

However, three intelligence officials and four militants told The Associated Press that he was alive. The officials said they gleaned the information from wireless communications intercepts. It was unclear whether Mehsud was ever at the meeting. Jordan wants Dead Sea Scrolls back AMMAN, Jordan (AP) Jordan's tourism minister said Thursday that her country was seeking the help of Western nations to regain possession of the Dead Sea Scrolls that Israel seized from a Jerusalem museum during the 1967 Mideast war. Maha Khatib said Jordan has given up hope that Israel would directly give back the more than scrolls and now hoped Western nations would return them to the Arab kingdom when they host them in exhibitions.

The scrolls include the earliest-known version of portions of the Hebrew Bible and have shed important light on Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity. Their origin is the subject of an insular, but notoriously heated, academic debate. Policeman charged with killing MOSCOW (AP) Russian prosecutors say a senior police officer has been charged with manslaughter after shooting dead a snowplow driver for grazing his car. The Moscow Investigative Committee said Thursday in a statement that 39-year-old Anatoly Maurin was detained Wednesday. It said Maurin shot 60-year-old Vladimir Demidov in the knee, hitting an artery and leading to death by blood loss.

The shooting occurred late last month and was apparently provoked by Demidov scraping Maurin's parked car as Demidov drove past in the snowplow. It could not immediately be determined if Maurin had an attorney. companies to obey government controls as Web users visited Google's Beijing offices for a second day to leave flowers and notes expressing support for the. company. Peoples Daily, citing a Cabinet official's comments in November, said companies must help the government keep the Internet safe and fight online pornography and cyberattacks.

Web companies must abide by "propaganda discipline," the official, Wang Chen, was quoted as saying. "Companies have to concretely increase the ability of Internet media to guide public opinion in order to uphold Internet safety." Also Thursday, a law professor and human rights lawyer, Teng Biao, wrote on his blog that someone broke into his Gmail account and forwarded e-mail to another account. Teng said he did not know whether he was one of two Chinese activists mentioned by Google as hacking targets. "Google leaving China makes people sad, but accepting censorship to stay in China and abandoning its 'Don't Be Evil' principles is more than just sad," Teng wrote. Another Beijing human rights lawyer, Jiang Tiany-ong, says his Gmail account was hacked in November and important materials taken, the Hong Kong- Jr r7.i Quilt Fabric SmI! I 'it Buy Vord1- 3 yds fabric Km lit is 1'" '-WhJ tatytaii) Grace tieccromc --n Sewing Machine 399 NOW ONLY Made In USA is iii i r4 Kl LLn.

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