"Engineers and entrepreneurs from India and China who work in Silicon Valley are quietly fueling a high-tech revolution in their native countries in ways that challenge traditional notions of a "brain drain." ... [They are] "agents of global economic change."

"The 'brain drain' from developing countries such as India and China has been transformed into a more complex, two-way process of 'brain circulation' linking Silicon Valley to select urban centers in India and China."

The precocious New America Foundation has just agreed to a deal with Basic Books to publish jointly up to 10 books a year covering public policy and current affairs. Until now, fellows at the three-year-old think tank primarily have relied on op-eds and magazine articles to express their deep thoughts.

Is 'Synergy' Achievable -- or Even Desirable?

Executives of the media giants and some industry analysts insist that there is no systemic problem with large-scale media acquisitions and that it is too early to issue a meaningful report card on synergy. They say last year's advertising climate, the worst since World War II, has conspired with a recession to keep companies from achieving their goals; the jaw-dropping one-time charges on companies' balance sheets are merely the product of a change in accounting rules.

"What I like to do is get in the car and drive around and do drive-by shootings. You can haul someone out of their car and beat on them and steal their money and their car. It's kind of amusing that you have that ability."

"The drive-by shootings of innocent pedestrians are always fun. It really does bring out the quote-unquote evil in you."

... Fans are hardly a collection of weirdos and social misfits. An awful lot are professionals with successful careers, wives or girlfriends and, in many cases, children. And to hear a lot of them tell it, well, Grand Theft Auto 3 is just too much fun.

The game's allure comes down to "just going on killing sprees."

... Retail sales of video games totaled $9.4B last year, a 42 percent increase over the $6.6B in sales in 2000, and even more than Hollywood took in at the box office last year.

In the last three years, Graham Wallace, chief executive of Cable and Wireless, has defied critics by transforming a lumbering phone company into a New Age provider of Internet services to large corporations.

Now that strategy -- and Mr. Wallace's job -- is on the line. With Cable and Wireless's stock price floundering, investors are increasingly calling for a shake-up, including the shutdown of some units and the resignation of Mr. Wallace.

... Investors have erased $9.8B in market value in the last year. C&W will report a 54% decline in EBITDA on a 28% decline in revenue.

Chris Albrecht, the head of entertainment programming for HBO, knew the scheduling game had changed in a significant way for the big four broadcast networks when he got a phone call from a top network programmer, desperate for some information.

"When are you guys bringing back `The Sopranos?'" the executive asked. "I need to plan around that."

... Worried they are -- and not just about "The Sopranos." All of the entries on Sunday night on HBO have increasingly eaten away at network audiences ... Of "The Sopranos," another senior entertainment executive said, "To be honest, it's a real serious concern."

As WorldCom's financial situation darkens, analysts say bankruptcy could be just around the corner. Even if it isn't, the telecommunications company and its competitors are in for a rough ride for the next few years, according to Wall Street analysts.

Senior U.S. officials have been stepping up discussions with Iraqi opposition groups, including several newly prominent in U.S. thinking, as the Bush administration proceeds with plans for toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

In one unpublicized meeting, a U.S. team, including a senior CIA official, met secretly in Germany last month with Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, leaders of two Kurdish parties based in northern Iraq that allied with the United States after the Gulf War in 1991, according to sources familiar with the session.

... Even as it expands its contacts with Iraqi exiles, the administration is deeply divided over which groups to court and how helpful they could be in any move against Hussein. ... a military strike in Iraq now not envisioned until at least next winter ...

It has been two months since Ivan G. Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon, mused at an investment conference that his company might bid for WorldCom "for the fun of it" if the stock price of that long-distance and Internet carrier continued falling.

Since then, WorldCom's shares have dropped 80%, to $1.58 on Friday. But as Mr. Seidenberg wryly suggested, conditions in the communications sector are so tough that Verizon has no real interest in WorldCom at any price. Verizon, along with rivals like SBC Communications, BellSouth and Deutsche Telekom, all have plenty of their own problems without taking on WorldCom's.

How bleak has the telecommunications scene become?

... Analyst: "We're not recommending any exposure to telecom. Tech investors are better off looking at semiconductors or game companies."

... Goldman, Sachs: "The telecom industry is beset by destructive competition in almost every sector." ... Fears are rising that telecommunications has too much in common with industries like steel and airlines.

Perceiving an overly zealous culture of copyright protection, a group of law and technology scholars are setting up Creative Commons, a nonprofit company that will develop ways for artists, writers and others to easily designate their work as freely shareable.

Creative Commons, which is to be officially announced this week at a technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., has nearly a million dollars in start-up money. The firm's founders argue that the expansion of legal protection for intellectual property, like a 1998 law extending the term of copyright by 20 years, could inhibit creativity and innovation. But the main focus of Creative Commons will be on clearly identifying the material that is meant to be shared. The idea is that making it easier to place material in the public domain will in itself encourage more people to do so.

Two University of Cambridge computer security researchers plan to describe on Monday an ingenious and inexpensive attack that employs a $30 camera flashgun and a microscope to extract secret information contained in widely used smart cards.

The newly discovered vulnerability is reason for alarm, the researchers said, because it could make it cost-effective for a criminal to steal information from the cards.