Top Google executives said they were interested in a partnership with their closest rival but didn’t indicate how close they were to an agreement. A coalition of 16 civil rights and rural advocacy groups, including the Black Leadership Forum and the League of Rural Voters, urged federal regulators to investigate the potential combination.

The Black Leadership Forum is an umbrella group of 36 civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League.

The groups argued in a letter to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett, head of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division, that the deal would give Google almost 90 per cent of the search advertising market and strengthen its influence over Internet users’ access to information.

Separately, the Centre for Digital Democracy (CDD), a consumer advocacy group, said it will push US regulators to block any deal and is already urging European consumer groups to raise concerns with European Union officials.

The EU generally takes a tougher approach on anti-trust, fining Microsoft $1.3 billion for anti-competitive conduct earlier this year.

“You can’t allow Google to operate a portion of its leading competitor out of its back pocket,” said CDD executive director Jeffrey Chester.

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While previous attempts to block deals by both the CDD and civil rights organisations have proved unsuccessful, their opposition won’t be the only hurdle to a Google-Yahoo partnership. The Justice Department has already made inquiries about an ad partnership test the two had for two weeks last month.

And, Sen. Herb Kohl, who chairs a subcommittee overseeing anti-trust issues, said last month he would closely scrutinize any permanent deal.

The civil rights groups noted in their letter to Barnett that Google has about 70pc of the search advertising market, and Yahoo 20pc.

Microsoft has not presented an alternative strategy to compete with its dominant rival in the Internet business, Google, since withdrawing a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo last weekend.

Analysts have been left wondering how the world’s largest software maker will increase its share of that multibillion dollar market without a major tie-up.

“We have always felt we could do very well on our own and now that’s the path we are focused on,” Gates said.

“The standard strategy for us is to just hire great engineers and surprise people at how well we can compete, even with a company that’s got a strong lead,” he said.

Gates says Microsoft remained open to making acquisitions, but declined to comment on possible candidates, such as networking sites like Facebook in which Microsoft already holds a 1.6 per cent stake. “You never know if there’s going to be a deal that makes sense,” he said.

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Microsoft has developed its own search-ad platform and bought aQuantive, an Internet advertising company, for $6bn, but its US online operations are making loss.

It has captured just 10pc of US Internet searches, compared to Google’s 58pc and Yahoo’s 22pc. “We are in software very broadly, but that advertising piece, we think, is a very exciting area,” he said.

Gates also said that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $3 million for emergency relief efforts in Myanmar and will provide software to help reunite family members separated in the cyclone.

Gates was in Indonesia to meet government leaders, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, at The Government Leaders Forum.

After heading Microsoft for more than three decades, Gates will resign his chairmanship in July.

In spite of Barack Omaha’s clear advantage in the popular vote and committed delegate tallies – a mathematical dominance unlikely to be reversed even in the remaining primary contests – Mrs. Clinton says she is being bullied by the “big boys” and vows to stay in the race until the democratic convention.

Her relentless campaign has inspired reporters variously to compare her, with a mixture of admiration and horror. Even the coughing spasms that have seizes her with alarming frequency these past few months have become an emblem of her fortitude. After she muscled her way through a foreign policy address, the New Yorker praised her ability to “suppress the coughing through sheer will.

So what makes Clinton run, even as her win at all cost strategy threatens her party’s chances against John McCain the republican candidate? The answer lies in her innately combative nature that drew Bill Clinton to her when “she was in my face from the start”. She is equally famous for a preternatural focus and what one of her friends called her “tunnel vision” along with a determination so unshakeable that her husband once told a visitor to the Oval office: “I might as well lift that desk and throw it out of the window to change her mind.” To reach her goals, she long ago learnt to embrace any tactic, however destructive.

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For decades Mrs. Clinton has thought of herself as a woman of destiny. Even as a little girl “she would stand in a patch of sunlight” pretending “there was heavenly movie cameras watch my every move”. She willingly served in her husband’s shadow, in spite of the humiliations he inflicted on her with his womanizing on the assumption she would take her turn.

Back in 1974, Mr. Clinton said she could be president one day and one of their close friends remarked that when the Clintons “were dead and gone each of them is going to be buried next to a president of the United States.

The Clinton’s narrow escapes from political extinction haunt their memories like tribal drums in the night: from the suicide of their close friend Vincent Foster to an endless parade of scandals. In response they have built a fearsome political machine that attacks enemies and cuts loose friends they believe have wronged them.

A vital piece of this mythology is that, with the exception of Mr Clinton’s second race for governor in 1980, the Clinton’s do not lose in politics. The duo have spent their adult lives perfecting the permanent campaign, mastering its dark arts even as they went about the everyday business of governing.

But this time the dynamic is different, and therein lies the catch. To win in 2008, the Clinton’s have had to reverse their roles of Bill the candidate and Hillary his chief adviser and advocate. The demands of an unexpectedly tight campaign have brought out the worst in both of them, dragging their popularity ratings to new lows.

The virtuoso politician who feeds on the adulation of the rope-line suddenly finds himself playing an off-key second fiddle. The methodical, behind-the-scenes chief of staff finds herself center stage, her flatlander voice betraying a harsh edge as she experiments with slogans and personalities.

Mrs Clinton’s political mettle had never been tested. Her opponent in her 2000 Senate race was a lightweight and she had token opposition in 2006. Her candidacy for president was based on the assumption that she would face a weak field and again coast to victory.

Perhaps what propels Mrs. Clinton more than anything is a determination to prove she can be as good at politics as her husband, who she once said “makes it look so easy”. But months on the hustling have shown she lacks his legendary political talents.

Clinton and Obama face voting contests today in North Carolina and Indiana, the next steps in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination to take on presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November election.

The Democratic rivals set off on last minute campaign swings through Indiana and North Carolina, which hold primaries today which offer Obama the chance to finally knock Clinton out, or for her to ignite a comeback.

Obama and Hillary renewed their battle over gas tax relief yesterday in a late push for support on the eve of critical presidential showdowns in North Carolina and Indiana.

The candidates, embroiled in a grueling nominating struggle that has split the party, wooed working-class voters and launched new television advertisements attacking each other ahead of today’s votes.

For the first time in three months, the former first lady led her rival in the survey of national Democrats, by seven percentage points. Two weeks ago before the latest storm over Wright hit, Obama was up 10 points.

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Another poll, by Suffolk University in Indiana, showed the New York senator leading Obama in the state by six points 49 per cent to 43 per cent.

Clinton’s muscular talk on Iran puts her well to the right of her Democratic challenger Barack Obama in their heated White House rivalry, but could also presage a new US policy of containment.

Clinton standing by her threat made last month to “obliterate” the Islamic republic should it use nuclear weapons on Israel, whose US backers form one important constituency in the Democratic nominating race.

Obama and Clinton made last-ditch appeals for votes ahead of North Carolina and Indiana’s Democratic presidential primaries today, conceding that regardless of who wins those crucial contests, their bruising battle was likely to drag on for weeks.

In a day of frenetic campaigning, Clinton and Obama argued over her plan to combat surging petrol prices - a key issue for voters hard hit by the struggling US economy.

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Inflation allows you to live in a more expensive neigbourhood without moving.

Feb. 1, 2008: After two years of talks and speculation, Microsoft makes unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo for $31 per share, or $44.6 billion.

Feb 3: Google Inc.’s top lawyer says the buyout could hurt Web innovation.

Feb. 4: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang tells employees that selling to Microsoft is an option.

Feb. 11: Yahoo rejects Microsoft’s offer, saying it “substantially undervalues” the company’s brand and worldwide assets.

Feb. 19: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates tells The Associated Press the software maker isn’t in talks with Yahoo about raising its offer. Yahoo releases details of severance plans that would take effect after a buyout, which could make the deal more expensive for Microsoft.

March 5: Yahoo extends a deadline for nominating candidates to its board, buying time to strike an alternative deal. Yahoo is said to be in talks with Google Inc., News Corp.’s MySpace.com and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL.

March 10: Senior executives meet near Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters.

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March 18: Yahoo releases optimistic revenue forecast for next two years to justify rejecting bid.

April 5: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives Yahoo three weeks to agree on a buyout or expect the software maker to go hostile — and potentially lower the offer price.

April 9: Yahoo says it will try using Google’s search ad engine instead of its own in a limited test. Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, raises antitrust concerns.

April 26: Microsoft deadline for Yahoo to accept the offer expires. Both companies remain silent.

May 1: Ballmer tells Microsoft employees that he “won’t go a dime above” what he thinks Yahoo is worth, and that he is willing to walk away from the deal.

May 3: Microsoft raises its bid to $33 per share, but Yang says the board won’t accept less than $37. Microsoft withdraws its offer.

For the fourth month in a row, the economy lost jobs, the Labor Department reported yesterday. But in April the losses totaled 20,000, an improvement from the 81,000 reductions in payrolls logged in March. Job losses for both February and March turned out to be a bit deeper than previously reported.

The latest snapshot of the nationwide employment conditions - while clearly still weak - was better than many economists were anticipating. They were bracing for job cuts of 75,000 and for the unemployment rate to climb to 5.2pc.

The unemployment rate, derived from a different statistical survey than the payroll figures, fell to 5pc from 5.1pc in March. That survey showed more people finding employment than those who didn’t.

Businesses are handing out pink slips as they cope with an economy that is teetering on the edge of a recession, or possibly in one already. A severe housing slump, harder-to-get credit and financial turmoil have forced people and businesses to be more cautious in their spending. And that has hurt the economy.

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In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that orders to US factories rose a bigger-than-expected 1.4pc in March, after two straight months of declines.

On the jobs front, construction companies slashed 61,000 positions last month. Manufacturers cut 46,000 and retailers got rid of 27,000. Those losses were eclipsed by job gains in education and health care, professional and business services, the government and elsewhere.

The job losses came in areas hardest hit by the housing and credit debacles. The fact that fewer job cuts were ordered last month raised hopes that damages could be limited.

“A decline in job growth is never welcome but the economy does seem to be showing some resilience,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

Echoing that sentiment, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the new job figures are “sort of bittersweet - better than expected but we’re still going through a difficult first half.”

Voters are keenly worried about the country’s economic problems and so are politicians - in Congress, in the White House and on the campaign trail.

Workers with jobs saw scant wage gains.

Average hourly earnings for jobholders rose to $17.88 last month, a tiny 0.1pc rise from the previous month. That was less than the 0.3pc rise economists were forecasting. Over the last 12 months, wages have grown by 3.4pc.

A fresh impetus since the new year Natural resources market has received a fresh injection of attention this year with an extra US$70bn ploughed in, raising the sector’s value to around US$400bn. However, in global terms this is not such a huge amount considering the amount of activity in this arena. While volatility has increased due to speculation and money market tightening there are still many longer-term opportunities due to persistent extraordinary growth stories and energy requirements.

Specifics – what to watch out for Gold and platinum are obviously very topical after recently hitting all time highs – then suffering a sharp correction which we believes was to be expected. But the immediate rationale for remaining positive on gold is justified: with inflation threatening and dollar uncertainty set to continue. Likewise, there is a bullish stance on platinum, especially with extreme energy shortages in South Africa (the largest producer) meaning it cannot even be extracted from the ground.

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Coal and iron ore are intertwined as both are involved in the production of steel and both are experiencing extraordinary high demand – again, due to China’s massive infrastructure programme. While supplies of coal in the ground may be plentiful, getting it to the market has become tortuous – with floods hampering progress in Australia and Indonesia and problems at ports only accentuating the turmoil. The iron ore price also benefits from complete transparency as the rate is negotiated and so is not hindered by the quirks of speculation. Uranium meanwhile, is down 65% to date this year, but remains fundamentally very sound in the medium term as the logic of more nuclear power stations is inescapable.

China – still putting on a good show, despite a few wobbles. While base metal inventories have risen moderately and the pace of growth slowed, the Chinese economy remains remarkably strong. Retail spending has surged ahead 20% year on year and while there may be some warning signs – such as elevated food costs – the economy is pretty much unaffected by what’s going on in the rest of the world. And this has a huge impact on natural resources of all flavors.

Big oil – but not big returns. While the oil price has continued to trickle upwards, energy shares are not reciprocating this sentiment. Some of this is because many of the major oil producing nations are not being overly friendly towards large western oil corporations – with even appropriation of assets occurring. This coupled with scarcity of new sources of revenue has impacted on the underlying price of these companies. However, this has been overdone and there are many firms poised to profit from oil prices creeping ever further north.

Soft commodities – not a hard decision. The reasons are plentiful and supported by sound fundamentals: some wheat harvests are down 40% with Australia and the Ukraine particularly hard hit due to adverse weather. Stocks of grain in US warehouses are as low as they have been since the 1970s and the trend of adapting farmland to produce bio-fuels further constricts the supply dynamics.

With global warming – man-made or otherwise – now having a profound impact on harvests worldwide it appears to make perfect sense to have a reasonable exposure to soft commodities to catch further upswings in prices driven by future tightening.

The outlook – still positive, still many reasons why. It’s no surprise growth remains positive about the sector, and the affirmative stand is backed by definite and quantifiable indicators. Many companies in the sector are undervalued although they are making handsome profits.

And overall stock levels for many resources balance on a precipice. Of course, when you also take into consideration the drift towards new money creation and further inflation, having exposure to solid assets with a sustainable demand stream makes unassailable sense for any modern portfolio,

Many write off India as backward and poor. The reality is that its billion people have a booming economy, excellent education and limitless ambition - and they are ready to take over the world. America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East face a reversal of fortune that will astonish us and overpower us if we do not revise our rapidly dating assumptions and prejudices.

Yes India still has poverty with the power to turn the stomach. Yes, there are still elephants striding nonchalantly through the boiling city traffic and cows on the loose in the heart of a megalopolis which crams the population half the size of Australia into fewer than 750 square kilometers. But heartbreaking as these images are, they are not a true indication of the new civilisation which is growing here in the world’s largest free country.

In India, the amazing thing is that all the intelligent people are optimistic. The economists, the writers and the thinking classes in general, are full of an infectious patriotic delight at the way their mighty country is preparing for world power. No douby some unpredictable disaster could unhorse this new hope. A recent article in Forbes mentioned that India would have the maximum number of Billionaire’s in 10 years time.

The world is paying too much attention to China and too little to India. America and Europe, in particular, simply havnt been able to cope with the threat India’s information technology industry poses to their own jobs. “They could not believe Indians could do this. To them, this was still a country of snake charmers.
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In any Indian there’s now a sense of tremendous belief in the future. Even five years ago there wasn’t. We used to be apologetic about our identity, today we want to flash our identity - as Americans have always done. The lower middle class used to lament that the rich would get richer while they stayed stuck or even sank lower into poverty. They no longer believe that.”

While most of the world has been looking at China, or has been distracted by America’s clumsy and self destructive attemt to spread freedom with smart bombs and tanks, India has been incubating an economic and social revolution that is just as significant. With a population of one billion, most of them young and huge number in their 20’s, it is not far behing China’s 1.3 billion in sheer numbers.

But it has significant advantages which China does not possess and may never achieve. China is a police state with muzzled media and is run by a rigid, secretive elite wothout the rule of law. Crucially in India it is the poor who vote most of all and, as a result they have astonishing power. It is one of the many examples of the way in which the old British India is now utterly dead, but now ideas which were truly British have been successfully adapted to Indian needs.

Now you know why the slums are not bulldozed and their inhabitants rounded up and expelled as they might be in China or other parts of the world, and why nothing is done to prevent migration to cities by poor country families hoping to better themselves. India speaks English and in - in one of Britan’s greatest and least noted achievements - is the greatest functioing democracy in the history of the world. A genuinely free press is increasingly bold in exposing corruption and abuse of authority. At the last elections 400 million people voted and the existing government was evicted from power without violence.

And now India has what must be surely the world’s biggest and fastest growing middle class. Thanks to the economic reforms in the early Nineties, and to long quiet growth before that, this confident growing class now has the purchasing power to sustain lasting economic growth and the political power to demand serious reform.

The reverence for education and self improvement here is comparable to America in its great days, when everyone assumed that tommorrow would be better than today, and was determined to make sure it would be. A wise investor here would be setting up as many high quality, affordable private schools as he could build.

We should take nothing for granted about India except that it is changing with great speed and that it is, just now, one of the most hopeful places in a world badly in need of a new great power that believes in freedom and democracy.

With the Internet, you can communicate with your family and friends through emails and instant messengers, you can purchase goods and services without leaving your own home, and the Internet is one of the most promising income generating tools that everyone can use today.

In the past, you needed products or services in order to make money through the Internet. Today however, you can make money through the Internet by using affiliate programs. This program will allow you to make a substantial amount of money out of your website and is a very good home business that you would want to get in to.

First of all, you need to know what an affiliate program is and how it works in order to fully understand how you can make some money out of it. Affiliate programs is like a joint venture where you or your website becomes a partner with another website that have already developed a product or service that they are already selling in the Internet. As a partner, your job is to direct the visitors of your website to your partner website and hope that they will purchase the products or services being offered. Your website will be like the company’s marketing arm, among several.

The company you plan on being affiliated to will be providing all the necessary tools that you need in order to start the affiliate program. They will be providing the links, and some companies will provide free e-books on how you can effectively earn from affiliate programs.
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The best way to profit from your website through affiliate programs is by promoting your website in the Internet. The key to success in affiliate programs is targeted traffic. This is why you should think of a product or service that you would want to promote and also a product or service that you are knowledgeable about. Think about your hobby. For example, if you like fixing cars, you want an affiliate program that promotes cars, or car parts.

In your website, you will then discuss about your hobby. Make some articles and post it in article publishing websites and also in your own site. Since your affiliate program is selling cars or car parts or even car accessories, the traffic you generate in your website will have a greater chance of clicking the link or banner of your affiliate website and buy from that website. You will then earn a commission out of the sold product.

As you can see, it is very simple to earn money from affiliate programs. However, when you are just starting out in the business of affiliate programs, you have to work hard to establish your reputation as an expert in the product or service you are promoting. The best way to do this is publish your articles about a particular product frequently. This will build your reputation in the Internet and soon, you will get that targeted traffic you have been always wanting. It is also a good idea to update your website once in a while (once a week) with tips and tricks on a particular product.

The best thing about affiliate programs is that you do not have to be in front of your computer 24 hours a day 7 days a week. All you need is a few minutes of checking up in your website and also check out your earnings in your affiliate programs. Always remember to update your website frequently in order to keep your readers and keep them buying from your affiliate website.

Affiliate marketing is a simple and effective way to earn profits online. Online retailers can benefit from affiliate marketing programs, because affiliate marketing actually works for merchants as well as it works for the affiliates. Many affiliate programs pay up to 75% commission.