swung to expresses about jay leno a better-than-expected jey leno examines operating profit in its fiscal first quarter, propelled by robust sales of LCD televisions and digital cameras, a sign that its recovery is on track. A weaker yen also helped the electronics and entertainment conglomerate offset valuation losses at its life insurance unit and start-up costs for its PlayStation 3 game console. The Tokyo-based company's U. S. -traded shares rose 6% after the earnings were released. The first-quarter performance "was a relief, particularly because the result shows a substantial improvement in the electronics division's profitability," said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management. The TV-led turnaround in Sony's electronics unit is potentially significant. Sony President Ryoji Chubachi has said that there will be no Sony revival without a revival of its TV business. Sony saw sales of its liquid-crystal-display TVs soar fivefold in the latest first quarter from a year earlier. Sony earned an operating profit of 27. 05 billion yen, or $232. 5 million, topping a consensus forecast of 18 billion yen in a poll of seven analysts by Reuters Estimates. A year earlier, Sony had an operating loss of 6. 58 billion yen. Net income was 32. 29 billion yen in the latest quarter, in a turnaround from a 7. 26-billion-yen loss a year earlier, helped by gains from a cellphone joint venture with Ericsson. Sony's electronics division, which accounts for about 70% of its total revenue, posted a 47. 4-billion-yen profit, its first profit for the April-June quarter in two years. "The biggest contributing factor was television It was still in the red, but we made substantial progress. We also saw brisk sales of digital cameras, and cost-cutting measures progressed smoothly," said Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda. The box-office hit "The Da Vinci Code" boosted Sony's movie division sales by 42% in the quarter, but marketing expenses linked to the release of new pictures such as "Monster House" pushed the business into the red. Sony will launch PS3, the latest version of its blockbuster game machine, in November. It will compete for holiday buyers' attention with Nintendo Co. 's upcoming Wii and Microsoft Corp. 's Xbox 360 in the nearly $30-billion video game market. Sony's U. S. -traded shares rose $2. 56 on Thursday to $45. 51. .
KIRKUK, IRAQ — A staunch Arab nationalist, Ismail Hadidi once dreaded the possibility that his ethnically diverse city would be swallowed up by the neighboring semiautonomous Kurdish region and cut off from the Baghdad government. But the provincial councilman is also a practical man contact jay leno . Jay Leno tickets And when he compares the chaos and violence in the Iraqi capital with the prosperity and peace next door in the three-province Kurdistan Regional Government area, teaming up with the Kurds doesn't seem like such a bad idea jaywalking leno . He's even considering buying some property in the Kurdish enclave. "The people of Kirkuk were afraid of this," said Hadidi, a Sunni Arab tribal leader jayleno . "But given the situation, I believe most people will move toward being part of Kurdistan, because what the people want above all is security. "Uncertainty clouds Iraq's future, but not so much here the tonight show . The Kurdish region's exploding economic and political power has begun to shape northern Iraq's reality. Oil-rich and ethnically diverse Kirkuk, the capital of Tamim province, was billed as northern Iraq's most contested prize in the wake of the U. S. -led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and its fate was to be resolved by the new Iraqi Constitution, which instead mandated a referendum But that hasn't happened yet. And now, just as medieval peasants clung to local warlords who could protect them from looters and bandits, this gritty city's war- and poverty-ravaged population has begun gravitating toward the Kurds, who are hungrily reclaiming territory lost to successive waves of Arabization. Few doubt what will happen when U. S forces exit. Grown strong and rich in their enclave of more than 16,000 square miles, Iraq's Kurds will rush to annex Tamim and other areas in Diyala and Nineveh provinces they have laid claim to, which could double the size of their de facto state. "The Kurdistan region will include all parts of Iraq that are historically and geographically part of Kurdistan," predicted Omer Fattah, deputy premier of the Kurdistan Regional Government, which is based in Irbil. Hussein and leaders of earlier Arab-dominated Baghdad governments sought to upend the oil-rich region's ethnic balance by forcibly evicting tens of thousands of Kurds and other non-Arab minorities and replacing them with Arab settlers.
A referendum on whether Kirkuk and its outlying province will join the Kurdish region is scheduled to take place by year's end. However, many doubt the vote will be held headlines jay leno . Politicians in Baghdad said this week it can't be held until well into 2008 Kurds blame the delays on U . S reluctance to address an explosive Iraqi political issue tonight show . At the same time, Kurds say the Americans are increasingly less of a factor in the north Kirkuk security officials say U Jay Leno . S jay leno octomom . forces have already moved from the city to more volatile Baghdad and central Iraq. A U. S jay leno finale . Army spokesman in Kirkuk skirted the question of redeployment. "Our brigade remains committed to providing security and partnering with Iraqi forces to maintain stability in the Kirkuk province," said Maj Derrick W. Cheng of the 31st Brigade Combat Team in response to an e-mail query. Kurds say they don't mind the Americans leaving.
"We are thinking about it and preparing for it," said Abdul-Salaam Berwari, who runs a think tank close to the Kurdish leadership . "It's OK for us if they do that. "Kurdish officials suggest that it might be better if the U Jay Leno - thejaylenoshow . S pulled out of day-to-day operations in the north tonight show leno . Without Washington's political obligations to fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization member Turkey, which fears Kurdish regional ambitions, many Kurds believe they can resolve the Kirkuk dilemma themselves. "You'll never find a single Kurd willing to give up Kirkuk whether the Americans are here or not," said one official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq the tonight show leno . He spoke anonymously because he said his view and that of many others was not the official Kurdish position Jay Leno - MTV . Just as Kurds exploited Iraq's chaos after the 1991 Gulf War to build their enclave, they've begun quietly incorporating Tamim province and reversing the Arab migration. Kurds have also in effect taken up security duties in other traditionally Kurdish lands and villages, including oil-rich Makhmour, northwest of Kirkuk, and Khanaqin, farther south in Diyala province . Kurds emphasize that the bombings that killed at least 400 Yazidis, a religious minority that is ethnically Kurdish, last month fell just outside the zone of Kurdish control. Already at least 58,000 Arabs have left the Kirkuk region, said Kamal Kirkuki, deputy speaker of the Kurdish parliament. He said the Kurds have collected a trove of documents to determine who belongs in Kirkuk and who does not, including records of all Arabs who arrived in Kirkuk from 1968, when Hussein's Baath Party consolidated power, to the Iraqi leader's ouster in 2003. "We could solve the Kirkuk issue in one minute," Kirkuki said. "All we need is a political decision. "The Irbil-based regional government bankrolls the teaching of the Kurdish language in Kirkuk schools.
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