Yahoo's board declined a new search deal over the weekend, but Carl Icahn's strategy seems to involve replacing Yahoo's current board
July 14, 2008 10:59 AM
It seemed like a welcome relief when Microsoft walked away from the Yahoo deal, but the company has now got heavily involved with "billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn," which seems like a way to pick up Yahoo's search business on the cheap.
During skirmishes over the weekend, Yahoo rejected a new search-related deal, while Microsoft declined to buy Yahoo at the old $33 price, have already made several higher offers. According to The New York Times:
But the offer proved tough for Yahoo to swallow, these people said. It would have effectively led to the sale of Yahoo's search advertising business to Microsoft, leaving the remaining operations in Mr Icahn's hands. Yahoo also believed that the promised revenue of the latest offer [$2.3 billion a year] was less than it would earn through the Google partnership.
The latest deal would also have replaced Yahoo's board, which seems to be a big part of Icahn's game plan. So the question now is whether Yahoo's shareholders will do that. Yahoo's annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for August 1, so we may soon find out.
Any deal with Microsoft could, of course, be delayed by regulatory investigation, and the Yahoo/Google deal is already being investigated by US anti-trust regulators. So it looks as though we may be stuck with this farrago for at least a few more months
Monday, July 14, 2008
Female bodyguards for Dhoni
Mahendra Singh Dhoni has taken time out from cricket but he still needs protection. In fact, he is being given special protection to keep him safe from his ever growing female fans. The Jharkhand Police has arranged for female bodyguards for this much sought after cricketer.
When Dhoni reached his house in Ranchi last week the Jharkhand Police promptly deployed five female bodyguards outside Dhoni's house. These armed female guards will escort Dhoni when he moves around his hometown. Clear about their duty, one of the constable said, "Dhoni has a huge number of female fans and we have been appointed to protect him from them".
The Jharkhand Police have deployed these special guards in view of the hysterical reactions with which female fans have greeted Dhoni in recent months. In Kolkata one female fan broke through the security and hugged the Indian ODI captain. To avoid any more embarrassment for Dhoni these female constables will accompany Dhoni where ever he goes including his college in Ranchi.
When Dhoni reached his house in Ranchi last week the Jharkhand Police promptly deployed five female bodyguards outside Dhoni's house. These armed female guards will escort Dhoni when he moves around his hometown. Clear about their duty, one of the constable said, "Dhoni has a huge number of female fans and we have been appointed to protect him from them".
The Jharkhand Police have deployed these special guards in view of the hysterical reactions with which female fans have greeted Dhoni in recent months. In Kolkata one female fan broke through the security and hugged the Indian ODI captain. To avoid any more embarrassment for Dhoni these female constables will accompany Dhoni where ever he goes including his college in Ranchi.
Agri, defence agendas to follow suit, says Rodriguez
Dr Placid Rodriguez, former president of Indian Nuclear Society and ex Director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, said the deal comes under the whole gamut of strategic alliance covering defence, space, nuclear and agriculture.
An eminent scientist has expressed fear that after the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, Washington may try to push its agricultural agenda and defence sales to New Delhi.
"My greatest reservation (about the deal) is that the strategic alliance between India and the US is going into agriculture because in the other three sectors (defence, space and nuclear) we are strong and we can go independently and we will go," Rodriguez said.
"Our agricultural universities, state universities, ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) laboratories -- they will be completely overwhelmed by giants like Monsanto whose resources are plenty and whose motivation is only monopoly," he said.
After Bt. cotton, now genetically modified brinjal is going to be brought in, Rodriguez said, adding, "we don't know what's next". "Even European Commission has not accepted genetically modified food and we are not examining all the consequences".
The former President and Honorary Secretary of Indian National Academy of Engineering said another "lubricant" (for the US to sign the deal with India) behind the 123 agreement is the "large possibility of defence sales (in India}".
"We are in the market for 125 fighters (a multi-billion dollar business opportunity). In fact, we will not buy any reactor from the US for 20 years. We will be buying reactors from Russia and France. What the US wants is a monopoly in agriculture sector", Rodriguez said.
While Russia, France and to some extent Israel are India's collaborators in defence equipment, the US wants greater pie of the Indian defence market, he said.
Rodriguez expressed the view that the deal is actually an international civil nuclear cooperation agreement -- a deal between India and international community -- and has been given "wrong connotation" that it's an Indo-US deal, attracting opposition from the left parties. Ardent supporters of the deal, including Prime Minister, "played too much" about the deal, he said.
"After all, IAEA is a 145-member body in which US is also a member. NSG is a group of 45 nations. So, it's actually an agreement between two groups and the US is the strongest and most powerful member of the groups," he said.
While stating that the deal is "acceptable", he said there are certainly question marks.
"What if the US President (after the safeguards agreement with IAEA and NSG) says that the decisions are governed by the Hyde Act which is ultimate," he asked.
He said India has agreed to a clause in the 123 agreement that the agreement would be subject to the national laws of the two nations. But it would have been better to say it would be subject to existing international laws, Rodriguez said.
"It has been suggested that we must also pass a national act which says we are not bound by Hyde Act because it's our national law. That's only way of getting over it," Rodriguez said.
He also disagreed with the view that the agreement with the US is the full civil nuclear cooperation deal, saying reprocessing, heavy water technology and enrichment have been kept out of its purview.
On the issue of reprocessing, there are conditions, he said.
"We have to build new plant exclusively from the imported fuel materials and thereafter we have to give result of reprocessing and they will come back to us with decision after one year; it does not say that a favourable decision will be taken," he said.
An eminent scientist has expressed fear that after the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, Washington may try to push its agricultural agenda and defence sales to New Delhi.
"My greatest reservation (about the deal) is that the strategic alliance between India and the US is going into agriculture because in the other three sectors (defence, space and nuclear) we are strong and we can go independently and we will go," Rodriguez said.
"Our agricultural universities, state universities, ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) laboratories -- they will be completely overwhelmed by giants like Monsanto whose resources are plenty and whose motivation is only monopoly," he said.
After Bt. cotton, now genetically modified brinjal is going to be brought in, Rodriguez said, adding, "we don't know what's next". "Even European Commission has not accepted genetically modified food and we are not examining all the consequences".
The former President and Honorary Secretary of Indian National Academy of Engineering said another "lubricant" (for the US to sign the deal with India) behind the 123 agreement is the "large possibility of defence sales (in India}".
"We are in the market for 125 fighters (a multi-billion dollar business opportunity). In fact, we will not buy any reactor from the US for 20 years. We will be buying reactors from Russia and France. What the US wants is a monopoly in agriculture sector", Rodriguez said.
While Russia, France and to some extent Israel are India's collaborators in defence equipment, the US wants greater pie of the Indian defence market, he said.
Rodriguez expressed the view that the deal is actually an international civil nuclear cooperation agreement -- a deal between India and international community -- and has been given "wrong connotation" that it's an Indo-US deal, attracting opposition from the left parties. Ardent supporters of the deal, including Prime Minister, "played too much" about the deal, he said.
"After all, IAEA is a 145-member body in which US is also a member. NSG is a group of 45 nations. So, it's actually an agreement between two groups and the US is the strongest and most powerful member of the groups," he said.
While stating that the deal is "acceptable", he said there are certainly question marks.
"What if the US President (after the safeguards agreement with IAEA and NSG) says that the decisions are governed by the Hyde Act which is ultimate," he asked.
He said India has agreed to a clause in the 123 agreement that the agreement would be subject to the national laws of the two nations. But it would have been better to say it would be subject to existing international laws, Rodriguez said.
"It has been suggested that we must also pass a national act which says we are not bound by Hyde Act because it's our national law. That's only way of getting over it," Rodriguez said.
He also disagreed with the view that the agreement with the US is the full civil nuclear cooperation deal, saying reprocessing, heavy water technology and enrichment have been kept out of its purview.
On the issue of reprocessing, there are conditions, he said.
"We have to build new plant exclusively from the imported fuel materials and thereafter we have to give result of reprocessing and they will come back to us with decision after one year; it does not say that a favourable decision will be taken," he said.
Why Google Rules the Online Ad Market, and How That Could Change
Over the last few weeks, I've been pre-occupied by an online debate over a crucial question, and its implications for online content and advertising: Is the Internet making us more stupid, or more intelligent?
On one side: Nicholas Carr. In an article for the Atlantic, Carr argued that "the Net... is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation". Because it encourages us to read shorter articles and flit between them via links, he says, our capacity for thought is becoming impaired. In support of Carr's view, writers are being taught to assume that readers have almost no attention span when reading on the Web.
On the other side: Scott Karp. Karp claims that our shift in reading behavior to shorter, hyperlinked articles on the Web is a more efficient way of gathering information, and that our mode of thinking may be changing for the better.
This debate has pre-occupied me because, after months of research and planning, we recently launched what we think is the best free financial news product on the Internet (Market Currents). And guess what? No coincidence: It consists of tiny bite-sized nuggets of information, with outbound links in almost every sentence. Perhaps we just contributed to the dumbing-down of humanity.
In pondering the question of whether the Internet is reducing our capacity for thought, I've come to the conclusion that the problem isn't what we read on the Web, but how we read on the Web. And this distinction provides the key to a question of huge economic importance to anyone involved in the Internet: Why aren't online ad rates higher? Let me explain.
Carr and Karp focus on the brevity of most articles on the 'Net and the existence of hyperlinks between them. For Carr, constant reading of short articles shrinks our attention spans, entailing the loss of our ability to read books and longer articles. For Karp, shorter, hyperlinked articles are a more efficient way of finding information, so he views them as an advantage, not a threat.
The real concentration problem
But as I examine my own online reading behavior, I find that my inability to focus isn't due to the length of Web articles, but how I'm reading them. Four factors reduce my concentration when reading articles on the Web:
1. When I'm reading an article on the Web, I often shouldn't be. A frequent scenario: I'm reading and responding to emails, and one of them contains a link to an article. So I click on it, and quickly skim the article. But really I intended to spend this time responding to emails, not reading articles. Another scenario: I'm working on something, but take frequent and short breaks to check the news. In both cases, I haven't intentionally allotted time to reading an article on the Web; I've been distracted into reading an article on the web. Contrast that with reading a newspaper: when I read a newspaper, I've consciously decided to allot time to that, so my concentration level is far higher.
2. When I'm reading an article on the Web, I'm often distracted by other activities. Once I do decide to read an article on the Web, I'm constantly distracted. Reading anything on a PC is hard, because PCs make it so easy to flit between tasks with a single click. Email, again, is the worst culprit: somehow its real time nature lures me into checking email frequently even when I'm doing something else. I let myself be pulled into answering emails as they enter my inbox, whatever else I'm doing.
3. Hyperlinks within articles themselves can be a distraction. Often I'll click a hyperlink to check it out, and that pulls me away from the article I'm reading. Prof. Michael Jackson says that hyperlinks are turning us into a race of mental grasshoppers. "Links help you to pick your own path through a complex mass of information," he says , "but they also distract you, tempt you into pointless digression, and break the coherence of your thought."
4. Reading is harder on a screen. I remember reading an article by Jacob Nielsen in which he estimated that it's 25% harder to read an article on a PC monitor than on a sheet of paper. (If you know the source, please leave a link below.)
The core problem, then, isn't that short articles are cutting my attention span, but that when I read articles on the Web my concentration is weak to start with. Put differently, when I read an article on the Web, I don't have strong enough intention and focus to do what I'm doing.
Do Bloggers have A.D.D.?
If correct, this analysis explains an unusual phenomenon we've seen at Seeking Alpha: Blogger A.D.D. Some background: each quarter, U.S. public companies issue their financial results and do a conference call with analysts to discuss their results. These calls are packed with valuable information about companies and industries. But the calls are hard to listen to -- they last an hour and often overlapy with each other. So professional investors read transcripts instead of listening to the calls themselves. We decided to make these transcripts available to everyone by publishing them for free every quarter, with powerful search tools.
But remarkably, bloggers, who are arguably the most Web savvy Internet users, hardly ever read the transcripts or link to them. Bloggers are writing regular commentary on Google, Apple, the newspaper industry and alternative energy, but are ignoring unquestionably the best source of information on these topics, which is now available for free. Moreover, the transcripts contain not only the best information about companies and industries, but also a ton of great quotes. The problem is that they're over 10 pages long (though you can view them on Seeking Alpha in a single page.) In contrast, Seeking Alpha's regular readers -- investors, who perhaps have longer attention spans as they research stocks -- are consuming over a million page views of transcripts in a typical month.
My guess is that bloggers, at the forefront of Internet usage, have lost the level of concentration required to skim a long document. How else to explain the fact that this earnings season, tens of bloggers will write about Google and Apple's results, but not one of them will read the transcripts of those companies' conference calls to find out what's really going on in their businesses?
Why banner ad prices are so cheap
Weak concentration when reading Web content also explains why the value of online banner ads is far lower than it could be. In theory, online ads should command higher rates due to three advantages they have over print or TV ads. First, online ads are usually contextually or behaviorally relevant. Second, they're clickable, so you can quickly execute a transaction or find more information about the advertiser. And third, their impact is measurable.
But the reality is that most online ads command far lower rates than print ads. Why? Because readers of online content are only "half there"; they often haven't intentionally allotted time and mental space to think and ponder when reading online. So they don't adequately consider ads, even when the ads are contextually relevant to what they're reading. In contrast, when I personally read a newspaper, I'm "fully there", and when I pause to think about an article, my eyes meander to the ads next to the article which I consider with more concentration than online ads.
Google's dominance of the online ad market
This also explains why Google (GOOG) dominates the online ad market. When I'm searching online, I'm doing something that requires intention -- I have to type in a search phrase, rather than just click a link. I'm interested in results related to my search, even if they are ads. In other words, I usually have far stronger intentionality when searching than when reading an article. As a result, Google's search ads have better performance than most banner ads. Combine that with the frequency with which Web users perform searches, and it's clear why Goolge dominates the online ad market.
Google's dominance of the online ad market will change if ads displayed next to content perform better. For that to happen, we need to stop ourselves becoming "mental grasshoppers".
How will we achieve that? The Internet and mobile devices have both given us great tools for instantaneous connectivity. Now we need to develop better tools to combat unimportant interruptions, and provide better prioritization and time management. Top of my list: stop using email as a de facto time manager, because what arrived most recently isn't necessarily the most important claim on your attention. Constantly checking email disrupts concentration on other, more important tasks.
If we can spend more time doing what we really intend to do when we intend to do it, the Internet will enhance our knowledge processing and analysis rather than curb it. Online disply ad rates will then rocket, to the benefit of publishers like the New York Times (NYT), Time Warner (TWX), News Corp (NWS), Pearson's FT.com (PSO), Yahoo! (YHOO) and TheStreet.com (TSCM). And Google's share of the overall ad market will decline.
On one side: Nicholas Carr. In an article for the Atlantic, Carr argued that "the Net... is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation". Because it encourages us to read shorter articles and flit between them via links, he says, our capacity for thought is becoming impaired. In support of Carr's view, writers are being taught to assume that readers have almost no attention span when reading on the Web.
On the other side: Scott Karp. Karp claims that our shift in reading behavior to shorter, hyperlinked articles on the Web is a more efficient way of gathering information, and that our mode of thinking may be changing for the better.
This debate has pre-occupied me because, after months of research and planning, we recently launched what we think is the best free financial news product on the Internet (Market Currents). And guess what? No coincidence: It consists of tiny bite-sized nuggets of information, with outbound links in almost every sentence. Perhaps we just contributed to the dumbing-down of humanity.
In pondering the question of whether the Internet is reducing our capacity for thought, I've come to the conclusion that the problem isn't what we read on the Web, but how we read on the Web. And this distinction provides the key to a question of huge economic importance to anyone involved in the Internet: Why aren't online ad rates higher? Let me explain.
Carr and Karp focus on the brevity of most articles on the 'Net and the existence of hyperlinks between them. For Carr, constant reading of short articles shrinks our attention spans, entailing the loss of our ability to read books and longer articles. For Karp, shorter, hyperlinked articles are a more efficient way of finding information, so he views them as an advantage, not a threat.
The real concentration problem
But as I examine my own online reading behavior, I find that my inability to focus isn't due to the length of Web articles, but how I'm reading them. Four factors reduce my concentration when reading articles on the Web:
1. When I'm reading an article on the Web, I often shouldn't be. A frequent scenario: I'm reading and responding to emails, and one of them contains a link to an article. So I click on it, and quickly skim the article. But really I intended to spend this time responding to emails, not reading articles. Another scenario: I'm working on something, but take frequent and short breaks to check the news. In both cases, I haven't intentionally allotted time to reading an article on the Web; I've been distracted into reading an article on the web. Contrast that with reading a newspaper: when I read a newspaper, I've consciously decided to allot time to that, so my concentration level is far higher.
2. When I'm reading an article on the Web, I'm often distracted by other activities. Once I do decide to read an article on the Web, I'm constantly distracted. Reading anything on a PC is hard, because PCs make it so easy to flit between tasks with a single click. Email, again, is the worst culprit: somehow its real time nature lures me into checking email frequently even when I'm doing something else. I let myself be pulled into answering emails as they enter my inbox, whatever else I'm doing.
3. Hyperlinks within articles themselves can be a distraction. Often I'll click a hyperlink to check it out, and that pulls me away from the article I'm reading. Prof. Michael Jackson says that hyperlinks are turning us into a race of mental grasshoppers. "Links help you to pick your own path through a complex mass of information," he says , "but they also distract you, tempt you into pointless digression, and break the coherence of your thought."
4. Reading is harder on a screen. I remember reading an article by Jacob Nielsen in which he estimated that it's 25% harder to read an article on a PC monitor than on a sheet of paper. (If you know the source, please leave a link below.)
The core problem, then, isn't that short articles are cutting my attention span, but that when I read articles on the Web my concentration is weak to start with. Put differently, when I read an article on the Web, I don't have strong enough intention and focus to do what I'm doing.
Do Bloggers have A.D.D.?
If correct, this analysis explains an unusual phenomenon we've seen at Seeking Alpha: Blogger A.D.D. Some background: each quarter, U.S. public companies issue their financial results and do a conference call with analysts to discuss their results. These calls are packed with valuable information about companies and industries. But the calls are hard to listen to -- they last an hour and often overlapy with each other. So professional investors read transcripts instead of listening to the calls themselves. We decided to make these transcripts available to everyone by publishing them for free every quarter, with powerful search tools.
But remarkably, bloggers, who are arguably the most Web savvy Internet users, hardly ever read the transcripts or link to them. Bloggers are writing regular commentary on Google, Apple, the newspaper industry and alternative energy, but are ignoring unquestionably the best source of information on these topics, which is now available for free. Moreover, the transcripts contain not only the best information about companies and industries, but also a ton of great quotes. The problem is that they're over 10 pages long (though you can view them on Seeking Alpha in a single page.) In contrast, Seeking Alpha's regular readers -- investors, who perhaps have longer attention spans as they research stocks -- are consuming over a million page views of transcripts in a typical month.
My guess is that bloggers, at the forefront of Internet usage, have lost the level of concentration required to skim a long document. How else to explain the fact that this earnings season, tens of bloggers will write about Google and Apple's results, but not one of them will read the transcripts of those companies' conference calls to find out what's really going on in their businesses?
Why banner ad prices are so cheap
Weak concentration when reading Web content also explains why the value of online banner ads is far lower than it could be. In theory, online ads should command higher rates due to three advantages they have over print or TV ads. First, online ads are usually contextually or behaviorally relevant. Second, they're clickable, so you can quickly execute a transaction or find more information about the advertiser. And third, their impact is measurable.
But the reality is that most online ads command far lower rates than print ads. Why? Because readers of online content are only "half there"; they often haven't intentionally allotted time and mental space to think and ponder when reading online. So they don't adequately consider ads, even when the ads are contextually relevant to what they're reading. In contrast, when I personally read a newspaper, I'm "fully there", and when I pause to think about an article, my eyes meander to the ads next to the article which I consider with more concentration than online ads.
Google's dominance of the online ad market
This also explains why Google (GOOG) dominates the online ad market. When I'm searching online, I'm doing something that requires intention -- I have to type in a search phrase, rather than just click a link. I'm interested in results related to my search, even if they are ads. In other words, I usually have far stronger intentionality when searching than when reading an article. As a result, Google's search ads have better performance than most banner ads. Combine that with the frequency with which Web users perform searches, and it's clear why Goolge dominates the online ad market.
Google's dominance of the online ad market will change if ads displayed next to content perform better. For that to happen, we need to stop ourselves becoming "mental grasshoppers".
How will we achieve that? The Internet and mobile devices have both given us great tools for instantaneous connectivity. Now we need to develop better tools to combat unimportant interruptions, and provide better prioritization and time management. Top of my list: stop using email as a de facto time manager, because what arrived most recently isn't necessarily the most important claim on your attention. Constantly checking email disrupts concentration on other, more important tasks.
If we can spend more time doing what we really intend to do when we intend to do it, the Internet will enhance our knowledge processing and analysis rather than curb it. Online disply ad rates will then rocket, to the benefit of publishers like the New York Times (NYT), Time Warner (TWX), News Corp (NWS), Pearson's FT.com (PSO), Yahoo! (YHOO) and TheStreet.com (TSCM). And Google's share of the overall ad market will decline.
U.S. stock futures stronger after government plan
U.S. stock futures pointed to opening gains after an extraordinary weekend in which the White House moved to rescue beleaguered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Anheuser-Busch recommended a $52 billion buyout offer.
S&P 500 futures rose 11.2 points to 1,251.00 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 16.25 points to 1,836.50. Dow industrial futures rose 77 points.
U.S. stocks dropped on Friday on worries about the health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with the Dow industrials falling 128 points, the Nasdaq Composite losing 18 points and the S&P 500 dropping 13 points.
But the U.S. government announced a dramatic package over the weekend: the Federal Reserve will open up its emergency discount window to Fannie and Freddie - the pair own or guarantee $5.2 billion in U.S. home mortgages -- while Treasury said it will seek Congressional approval to buy stock and increase the government's credit line.
S&P 500 futures rose 11.2 points to 1,251.00 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 16.25 points to 1,836.50. Dow industrial futures rose 77 points.
U.S. stocks dropped on Friday on worries about the health of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with the Dow industrials falling 128 points, the Nasdaq Composite losing 18 points and the S&P 500 dropping 13 points.
But the U.S. government announced a dramatic package over the weekend: the Federal Reserve will open up its emergency discount window to Fannie and Freddie - the pair own or guarantee $5.2 billion in U.S. home mortgages -- while Treasury said it will seek Congressional approval to buy stock and increase the government's credit line.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Menon meets Karzai, discusses rooting out terrorism
With increased threat to Indian assets in Afghanistan causing concern, New Delhi and Kabul favoured targeting the bases of terrorist outfits and their financial links to root out the menace from the region.
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who is in Kabul on a two-day visit to review security of the Indian missions and workers in the wake of the suicide attack on New Delhi's embassy, held talks with President Hamid Karzai.
During the 30-minute meeting, the two sides discussed the issue of security in the wake of the Monday suicide attack, which they felt was the handiwork of ''enemies'' of relations between the two countries.
Menon, who also met Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, was assured that the Afghan government would do everything possible to protect Indian assets in this country.
The two sides agreed that ''terrorism is a threat to both the countries as well as stability and democracy of the region,'' Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told a news agency.
Karzai and Menon were of the view that it is ''not enough to fight the symptom of terrorism'' that is visible in Afghanistan but the menace should be ''rooted out from the region by targeting bases, recruitment places and financial links,'' Baheen said.
Among the 58 dead in the Indian embassy attack, four were Indians, including a Brigadier-rank Defence Attache and a senior IFS officer
Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, who is in Kabul on a two-day visit to review security of the Indian missions and workers in the wake of the suicide attack on New Delhi's embassy, held talks with President Hamid Karzai.
During the 30-minute meeting, the two sides discussed the issue of security in the wake of the Monday suicide attack, which they felt was the handiwork of ''enemies'' of relations between the two countries.
Menon, who also met Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, was assured that the Afghan government would do everything possible to protect Indian assets in this country.
The two sides agreed that ''terrorism is a threat to both the countries as well as stability and democracy of the region,'' Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen told a news agency.
Karzai and Menon were of the view that it is ''not enough to fight the symptom of terrorism'' that is visible in Afghanistan but the menace should be ''rooted out from the region by targeting bases, recruitment places and financial links,'' Baheen said.
Among the 58 dead in the Indian embassy attack, four were Indians, including a Brigadier-rank Defence Attache and a senior IFS officer
Afghanistan: Nine US troops killed as Taliban attack remote base close to Pakistan border
The Nato-led effort to subdue the Taliban suffered one of its heaviest blows since the 2001 invasion yesterday when nine US soldiers were killed and 15 other Nato troops injured in a day-long battle in a region close to the Pakistan border.
The US troops died as their base came under attack in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan. The news puts further pressure on Pakistan, where coalition forces believe many Taliban militants are based. It was among the biggest losses for the coalition since the start of the war.
The fighting was set off after a multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote US base. Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat, in Kunar, a mountainous region that borders Pakistan, Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said.
The attack began at 4.30am and lasted throughout the day, claiming the lives of nine Americans and dozens of Taliban.
It was the deadliest incident for US troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 troops were killed when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
A spokesman for Isaf in Kabul said last night: "We defended this base. There are still some operations on-going. The insurgents were repulsed and there is no fighting now but they might pop up again." There were "heavy casualties" among the Taliban, according to the coalition.
With 28 soldiers killed, June was the deadliest month for coalition forces since 2001. July is looking to be costly in military and civilian terms. Earlier this month, the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 41. The Afghan authorities accused Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency of orchestrating the bombing.
Earlier yesterday, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed 24 people, many of them children, in the southern province of Uruzgan. A gun battle in Helmand province, also in the south, killed more than 40 militants, the coalition said. Another attack in Helmand left an Isaf soldier dead - the nationality was not disclosed.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants killed two women in central Afghanistan after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a US base. The women, dressed in burkas, were shot and killed on Saturday just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan.
Taliban suicide bombs have killed more than 230 civilians and wounded nearly 500 this year. There are signs that Washington is losing patience with Pakistan for not stopping the use of its tribal area as a safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaida.
Worse, parts of Pakistan's security apparatus are suspected of secretly supporting the Taliban. There are fears in Pakistan that the US could attack militants based on Pakistan's side of the border, concern that will be heightened by the scale of the US casualties yesterday.
On Saturday, the head of the US military, Admiral Mike Mullen, made a surprise visit to Islamabad with a blunt message: cooperate in the "war on terror" or face unilateral US intervention.
Britain has already signalled that Afghanistan has become a higher priority than Iraq, as it draws down troops from Basra and steps up its involvement in Helmand. There were signs at the weekend that Washington may be considering a similar switch, as it emerged that George Bush is deliberating faster troop withdrawals from Iraq during his final months in the White House. The New York Times reported yesterday that as many as three of the 15 combat brigades in Iraq could be withdrawn by the time he leaves office.
The US troops died as their base came under attack in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan. The news puts further pressure on Pakistan, where coalition forces believe many Taliban militants are based. It was among the biggest losses for the coalition since the start of the war.
The fighting was set off after a multi-pronged militant assault on a small, remote US base. Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat, in Kunar, a mountainous region that borders Pakistan, Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said.
The attack began at 4.30am and lasted throughout the day, claiming the lives of nine Americans and dozens of Taliban.
It was the deadliest incident for US troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 troops were killed when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
A spokesman for Isaf in Kabul said last night: "We defended this base. There are still some operations on-going. The insurgents were repulsed and there is no fighting now but they might pop up again." There were "heavy casualties" among the Taliban, according to the coalition.
With 28 soldiers killed, June was the deadliest month for coalition forces since 2001. July is looking to be costly in military and civilian terms. Earlier this month, the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 41. The Afghan authorities accused Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency of orchestrating the bombing.
Earlier yesterday, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed 24 people, many of them children, in the southern province of Uruzgan. A gun battle in Helmand province, also in the south, killed more than 40 militants, the coalition said. Another attack in Helmand left an Isaf soldier dead - the nationality was not disclosed.
Elsewhere, Taliban militants killed two women in central Afghanistan after accusing them of working as prostitutes on a US base. The women, dressed in burkas, were shot and killed on Saturday just outside Ghazni city in central Afghanistan.
Taliban suicide bombs have killed more than 230 civilians and wounded nearly 500 this year. There are signs that Washington is losing patience with Pakistan for not stopping the use of its tribal area as a safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaida.
Worse, parts of Pakistan's security apparatus are suspected of secretly supporting the Taliban. There are fears in Pakistan that the US could attack militants based on Pakistan's side of the border, concern that will be heightened by the scale of the US casualties yesterday.
On Saturday, the head of the US military, Admiral Mike Mullen, made a surprise visit to Islamabad with a blunt message: cooperate in the "war on terror" or face unilateral US intervention.
Britain has already signalled that Afghanistan has become a higher priority than Iraq, as it draws down troops from Basra and steps up its involvement in Helmand. There were signs at the weekend that Washington may be considering a similar switch, as it emerged that George Bush is deliberating faster troop withdrawals from Iraq during his final months in the White House. The New York Times reported yesterday that as many as three of the 15 combat brigades in Iraq could be withdrawn by the time he leaves office.
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