The New York Times Co. in an attempt to cut costs and focus on its most important papers and their websites has decided to sell 16 regional newspapers spread across the U.S. Southeast and California to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million in cash.

In the recent past, regional newspapers have struggled due to weak local retail and national advertising, partly reflecting the economy’s broader travails.

“I think that it’s toward the low end of what we expected. I was expecting $150-$200 million,” Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur told Reuters.

“What it implies is that margins on regional newspapers were not as high as we thought, but the underlying profitability of the main New York Times is higher.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that hackers in China broke through the computer defenses of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year and were able to access information about its operations and its 3 million members.

China dismissed the report in Beijing. “There’s nothing to be said about the baseless whipping up of so-called hacking and it won’t come to anything,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told a daily news briefing in Beijing. “Chinese law bans hacking.”

The source said the FBI informed the Chamber of Commerce that servers in China were pilfering its information.

“What was unusual about it was that this was clearly somebody very sophisticated, who knew exactly who we are and who targeted specific people and used sophisticated tools to try to gather intelligence,” the group’s chief operating officer, David Chavern, told the Journal.

The economic prospects of Europe next year are so bleak that 2011 has every chance of being remembered fondly.

Policy tightening that reinforces the cyclical downturn was politically predictable given insistence of powerhouse Germany on budgetary rigor. The euro zone’s policy settings risk making the process of whittling down debt tougher than it needs to be, in eyes of a number of economists.

“It’s been clear for some time that the stronger north Europeans, led by Germany, need to stop tightening their economic policies and adopt at least mildly expansionary policies,” said Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank in Washington.

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Facebook has recently admitted that it had hired a public relations firm for highlighting supposed flaws in the privacy practices of Google Inc.

The company, however, denied it had intended a smear campaign against the search giant.

From news.yahoo.com:

Facebook, which has taken privacy missteps of its own with users in the past, hired WPP owned PR firm Burson-Marstellar to focus attention on the use of consumers’ personal information on Google Social Circles, one of Google’s less known social networking features.

The revelation highlights the growing rivalry between Google, the world’s leading Web search business, and Facebook, the largest social networking site with over a half a billion users globally.

Facebook and Google’s skirmish shows how consumer privacy, particularly around sensitive data, could be a ticking time bomb for modern Internet companies who manage an increasing amount of information about their users such as credit card and social security numbers.

Burson-Marstellar contacted several journalists and privacy experts without revealing the identity of its client. Facebook said it should have presented the issues in a “serious and transparent” way.

The company said in a statement, “We wanted third parties to verify that people did not approve of the collection and use of information from their accounts on Facebook and other services for inclusion in Google Social Circles.”

When it comes to learning important lessons of life in an easy way, there cannot be anything better than words coming straight from eminent personalities of the world. Let us access some of the most inspiring quotations to get and stay inspired.

I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. – Oprah Winfrey

The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You’ve got to keep on working that talent. Someday I’ll reach for it and it won’t be there. – Irving Berlin

Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: – ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ – Martin Luther King Jr.

Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them. – Homer

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances. – Martha Washington

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright