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You have discovered using Twitter or Facebook at work? So that would make a better employee, according to an Australian study which claims that surfing the internet during office hours, increases productivity.

The study by the University of Melbourne indicated that people who use internet for personal reasons at work is around 9 per cent more productive than those who do not.


The author of the study, Brent Coker, Department of Management and Marketing at the university, said that "idle internet browsing at work" helps to adjust the concentration of workers.

"People need a distraction time to return to their concentration," he said on the website of the university (www.unimelb.edu.au/).


"Short breaks and not intrusive, as a quick internet browsing, allows the mind to rest, leading to a higher net total concentration for a day of work and result in increased productivity," he said.

The study conducted on 300 workers, 70 percent of people who use internet at work is distracted with this kind of navigation.


Among the most popular are seeking information about products, read online news pages, play online and watch videos on YouTube.

"Companies spend millions in software to prevent their employees watch videos, use social networking sites or shop online, under the argument that cost millions in lost productivity," said Coker. "That is not always the case."


However, the expert noted that the study involved people who sailed in moderation, ie internet were less than 20 percent of their total time in office.

"Those who behave with trends of internet addiction have lower productivity than those who do not have it," he said.

The Internet platform of YouTube videos will block the dissemination of music videos on your site in Germany, after the expiry of their agreement on Wednesday with Gem, a copyright, it reported in a statement.

YouTube, the U.S. subsidiary of Google, and the copyright society have failed until now to agree on the amount of pay "for the dissemination of music videos, Gema said in their communique.


The society of copyright is not to extend the current agreement that ended on March 31 and which provided "a compensation package with detailed information on the use of musical excerpts and the number of videos viewed," he says.

"Negotiations on a new agreement failed because YouTube is unwilling to meet the requirements of transparency on the use of Gema his musical repertoire," continued the statement.


In March, YouTube had announced that blocked the spread of some music video on your site in English, failing to reach an agreement for the renewal of a broadcast company with a copyright.

In a 'blog' in Google, the director Patrick Walker said that a fare Gema calls "above fifty times higher" than the British company called copyright, and that seeking a solution "acceptable and durable" for both sides.


Gema represent 60,000 artists in Germany.

World leaders will impose new financial rules Thursday and announced more funding for the IMF to ease the worst economic crisis since the crisis of the 1930s.




But Britain, host of the meeting of leaders of member countries of the G20, given that there are still gaps to be closed. France and Germany are demanding concrete action on tax havens, hedge funds and markets more than promises of action.


"I hope that (the differences) are worked and then could be easily resolved. They have persisted during the night but I think we have a result that corresponds with the level of expectations and ambitions of the people," said the British minister Peter Mandelson to BBC Television .

The draft communique for the summit in London, who had access to Reuters, said that leaders require the supervision of hedge funds for the first time and strengthen regulation through a new body, in addition to increasing the Fund's role International Monetary Fund.


However, there were still disagreements over the IMF's enhanced funding to address the crisis in emerging economies, on how to control and tax on the amount of money to boost trade.

The G-20 leaders were preparing a major expansion in resources through the IMF, including the ability to triple the amount for contingencies of $ 750,000 million (approximately 565,000 million), said sources familiar with the negotiations.


The draft contains the promise of providing "the kind of sustained effort needed to restore growth without making any commitment beyond the billions being spent to stabilize the banks, bolstering demand and limit the loss of jobs.

With the intention to reinforce a message of confidence to voters and financial markets at a time when the world falls into recession, the U.S. president, Barack Obama, said there was no substantive differences with Europe, despite the entrenched positions of the leaders of Germany and France.


Washington wants tighter regulation, as Obama said in a press conference on Wednesday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to ensure that not only was going to give lessons, but also listen and help out the problems.

It was not clear if the point of friction, which appears to be mainly demand Sarkozy put on the blacklist of tax havens, would be enough to derail the message of unity.


"The most important is that we agree on the principle that any financial product, any participant in the financial market and financial market can not be unregulated and unsupervised," said German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, the station Deutschlandfunk from London.

HOPES IN BAG SUMMIT DRIVE


The markets, which have grappled with the crisis for months, have recovered part of the road lost in the last month and climbed on Thursday pending an agreement signed between the leaders of the G20.

The index of leading European shares rose more than 3 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei in Tokyo closed with a rise of 4.4 percent.


Those gains will evaporate if the summit does not yield results.

It is expected that the global economy to contract further in 2009 than in any year after the Second World War, back between 0.5 and 1 percent, according to the IMF, whose managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, call the current situation the "Great Recession."


"They are not moving fast enough to clean up the financial system," said the Financial Times on its front page on Thursday, citing a quote from Strauss-Kahn.

The draft of the communique contained the promise of the G-20 to allow a follow-independent, free and fair "in their economies and financial sectors by the IMF.

It also unveiled a new Financial Stability Committee to work with the IMF to identify economic and financial risks and the measures needed to deal with them, relaunching an existing forum.

But Paris and Berlin, who fear that the summit is short of the mark in the regulation of tax havens, hedge funds and the markets in general, called for specific ads.

"If the regulations do not agree here, do not agree in the next five years," Merkel said at joint press conference with his French colleague on Wednesday.

The police said one person died during the protests on Wednesday in which several hundred protesters clashed with anti-riot police and smashed windows of banks in the financial center of London.

A police source said it was possible that the man had died from a medical problem. More protests were expected on Thursday.

U.S. President Barack Obama and the South Korean president Lee Myung-bak on Thursday agreed on the need for an international response "strong and united" if North Korea goes ahead with its threat to launch a rocket.

The two presidents met at a separate summit of the twenty richest nations of the world known as G-20, which faces the challenge of trying to redirect the ailing world economy.


The two leaders spoke before meeting with their peers in a meeting to coordinate responses to contribute to economic recovery.

North Korea says it will put into orbit a communications satellite with a multi-stage rocket sometime between Saturday and Wednesday, but United States, Japan and South Korea see it as a test of missile technology and a possible violation of a Security Council resolution the United Nations.


Obama said Wednesday the Chinese President Hu Jintao that the United States considered launching as a provocation and that he will seek sanctions in the UN.

After the meeting with Obama, the South Korean presidential office said in a statement that both leaders agreed to continue collaborating in a verifiable dismantling of North Korean nuclear program.


The statement added that the two agreed on the need for "a strong, united, the international community."

Senior White House officials confirmed this description of the encounter.


Obama told the press that South Korea is one of the closest friends and old allies of United States and praised the leadership of Lee. He added that the two discussed several issues, including the defense and "peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."

Singer Amy Winehouse not guilty on Tuesday of attacking a fan during a party last year.

Diva attended a court hearing at Westminster in London. Previously posed for photographers.


The singer of 25 years is accused of assaulting a fan who tried to take a photo at a charity ball in London on September 26.

Judge Timothy Workman scheduled for trial in July and ordered bail of Winehouse.

The screenwriter Millard Kaufman, one of the creators of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo and nominated for an Oscar for his script of "Take the High Ground!" and "Bad Day at Black Rock", died at 92 years, reported a spokesperson for the publisher.

Kaufman, who successfully debuted as a novelist for 90 years, died Saturday of heart failure, said Laura Howard, a spokesman for McSweeney's Publishing which published his novel Bowl of Cherries "in 2007.


Among the scripts are also Kaufman "Never So Few," "The Warlord," "The Klansman" and "Convicts 4" plus an episode that worked in the television series "Police Story" in the film and television "Enola Gay".

In 1949 he wrote the screenplay for the film "Ragtime Bear", which first appeared Mr. Magoo, an old man of small stature who is in trouble for his poor eyesight, which refuses to recognize. Later, he co-authored the libretto for the short film "Punchy de Leon" in 1950.

The psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich surrendered to authorities to face charges for allegedly over-prescribing drugs to Anna Nicole Smith before the overdose death of former model in 2007, told the Los Angeles police.

Rosario Herrera, police spokesman, said that Eroshevich was delivered at approximately 11 am on Monday at the Van Nuys district. She was released several hours later after filing a $ 20,000 bond, according to a communique from the office of his attorney, Adam Braun.


After a lengthy investigation by the Attorney General and other state agencies and federal prosecutors in Los Angeles last week was accused of conspiring to Eroshevich with another doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, and Smith's lawyer, Howard K . Stern _quien had become his novio_, to give the former model thousands of prescription pills that need to be able to buy.

Jerry Brown, California Attorney General, argued that doctors wrote prescriptions in false names and amounts prescribed to Smith unjustified highly addictive drugs, knowing that she was an addict.


Brown described Stern as the "main orchestrator" of the alleged conspiracy. Stern Kapoor and surrendered to authorities last week and both were released on bail of $ 20,000.

Braun has said that only Eroshevich was protecting the privacy of Smith to write prescriptions under false names and had no intent to commit a fraud.


The psychiatrist, who served Smith since 2006, he traveled several times during a period of six months to the Bahamas, where the former Playboy bunny's lived with Stern, and wrote the recipes.

Smith died on February 8, 2007 in Florida after suffering a collapse in a hotel. At that time he was engaged in a legal fight to inherit millions of dollars from his deceased billionaire husband.


Moreover, just five months before the son of the former model, Daniel, 20, died of an overdose of drugs in the hospital room that she occupied a few days after giving birth to a daughter, Dannielynn.

'Second Life', a computer program to create 3D virtual worlds and live a 'second life' online, is still popular, says the chairman of the firm to refuse to press reports that portend the destruction of this spoiled child of former internet.

Mark Kingdon, chairman of Linden Lab, the company launched in 1999 this game in which people were socialized as if leading a parallel life, shakes his head negatively when they heard rumors that claim that their site loses popularity. "The reality is that Second Life continues to grow, every second someone signs up," Kingdon says in an interview with AFP.


However, reporters who rushed to cover cyber-events taking place in Second Life ( 'Second Life', in English) that described the site as an online realm of science fiction come true, have been withdrawing their bets and before criticizing the community praised enthusiastically. A well-known website that publishes the latest news from Silicon Valley, Valleywag.com even placed in Second Life "list of dying," asserting that "there seems to be more academic than a failed experiment."

The number of "active users" of Second Life increased 25% since September 2008 while the money exchanged in the virtual world has grown in similar proportions, Kingdon said. "We are seen as the spoiled child of the Internet, as with (the site of socialization) or Facebook (the site of mini-blogs) Twitter, but continued to incredible levels," he insisted. "We'll see over time, but our society is growing and we're profitable," he said.


Second Life, where people are socialized in the form of animated characters called 'avatars', which are designed and dressed according to the taste of each, has been accused of inflating its success to report the total number of people registered without specifying how many their visitors.

According to Kingdon, 15 million people have used the virtual world of Second Life since its inception in 1999, and there are about 70,000 users connected at all times.


The 'ups' have increased from about 41.5 million hours in total on this website in January, higher than the 28.3 million hours of use during the same month of 2008, according to Linden Lab, headquartered in San Francisco.

According to the company, daily transactions in Second Life account for more than $ 1.3 million and more than 15,000 merchants selling clothes, artwork and other items for avatars, virtual-all.


During last year, according to Linden, users spent 360 million dollars in the virtual world.

Schools consider it a 'place' right to organize on-line courses and bands are using it to 'play' before an audience from all parts of the world, although somewhat scattered.


Moreover, companies whose employees are spread across the globe are increasingly turning to Second Life as a forum in which to organize their meetings. "There is something about that sense of presence," said AFP Karen Keeter, director of IBM commercial that uses Second Life for meetings. "Power to see yourself as an avatar sitting next to each other is a feeling of immersion that you get with no other alternatives."

IBM's campus in Second Life is a picnic area with hammocks, a garden with sculptures and a café where avatars can spend time chatting.

Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

Benedict XVI never before spoken explicitly about condom use, although he emphasized that the Catholic Church is at the forefront in the battle against AIDS. The Vatican maintains that abstinence is the way to fight the disease.


"You can not solve the distribution of condoms," the Pope said to reporters aboard the Alitalia plane while en route to Yaounde, Cameroon. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Some priests and nuns who work with victims of the AIDS pandemic plaguing Africa which have questioned the church's opposition to condom use.


The Pope also said it intends to make an appeal for "international solidarity" for Africa in times of global economic recession.

He said that although the Catholic Church does not propose specific solutions, it can give "moral and spiritual suggestions.


Describing the current crisis as a result of "a lack of ethics in economic structures," the Pope said: "This is where the church can make a contribution."

The pilgrimage of Benedict XVI will take seven days to Cameroon and Angola.


Africa is the region where the Catholic Church is growing fastest in the world.

Benedict XVI departed Tuesday for his first pastoral visit in Africa. The flight took off from Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome shortly after 10.00 am (0900 GMT) and is scheduled to arrive six hours later the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde.


The 81-year-old Pope said on Sunday the pilgrims in St. Peter's Square that will carry a message of hope to the African continent suffered poverty, disease and conflict.

British actress Natasha Richardson was hospitalized Monday in Montreal for a serious head injury suffered in a skiing accident, reports People magazine. The actress, 45, is the wife of Irish actor Liam Neeson and also the daughter of British actress Vanessa Redgrave.

Richardson was taken to a hospital near the ski area of Mont Tremblant after the accident. He was then transferred to a hospital in Montreal, according to the magazine. The website IrisCentral.com, which was the first to give the information, citing an official from the hospital saying that Richardson suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Neeson, who was in Toronto filming a movie, he went immediately to Montreal to accompany his wife in the hospital, told the press one of the publicists for the film "Chloe," which plays the Irish actor. Richardson Neeson married in 1994 and the couple has two children.