With the onset of 2009, Beijing is cracking down on web portals and search engines that publish material deemed to be too vulgar or subversive for the nation’s 300 million-plus Internet users. Chinese authorities have reportedly implemented new software that lets them more easily track and counter threats, and have issued stern warnings to industry leaders such as Baidu.com Inc. (ADR: BIDU) and Google Inc. (GOOG).

The government earlier this week cited 19 Web sites - including Baidu, Google, Sohu, Sina, and Tianya - as purveyors of vulgar content that is morally or politically destructive.

Some results produced by search engines had “large amounts of pornographic links [and] after notification from the complaint center, the site did not take effective countermeasures,” the State Council Information Office said in a statement.

“Some Web sites have exploited loopholes in laws and regulations,” said Cai Minzhao, deputy chief of the Information

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With good returns so far since I profiled Caraco Pharma (CPD) as a defensive growth stock at a value price, a related company in the ETF Innovators [ETFI] Global Healthcare Cost Containment Index with similar value parameters is Home Diagnostics (HDIX) – which makes affordable blood glucose monitoring systems and disposable testing supplies [web link to HDIX product page] under its own brand names (such as TRUE and Prestige) and co-branded partnerships with leading retail pharmacies such as Rite Aid (RAD), Walgreen (WAG), and CVS Caremark (CVS) as value-priced, store-branded products. The accompanying 3-year chart [click to enlarge] illustrates that HDIX has lost more than half of its market value since its IPO in late 2006, underperforming both the Healthcare ...

Jerry Yang, Yahoo Inc.’s (YHOO) co-founder and chief executive officer, today (Tuesday) stepped down from his post under heavy shareholder pressure. Yang will return to his former role as board member and “Chief Yahoo!” – a non-so-flattering, if not ironic, title considering the heavy criticism he took in the past year – upon the appointment of his replacement.

Yang was elected CEO in June 2007, his second go-around at that post. Since then, Yahoo’s market value has fallen by more than $20 billion, according to Bloomberg.

To be fair, Yahoo was already losing its market share to Google Inc. (GOOG) and a healthy percent of its share value as a result.

But Yang was brought back to fix that.

There was a deep feeling within Yahoo’s ranks that Yang wasn’t fit to continue leading the company out of the mire – or least into a

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The recruitment industry is getting whacked right along with most other sectors right now. But Penny Sleuth's Tom Bulford sees strong potential for Hexagon Human Capital (LON:HHC). The company is well protected from the purge in the financial sector and has a solid cash flow. Tom says this is one to watch for the future...

Good CEOs versus Bad CEOsStockerblog.com had the pleasure of recently interviewing Ken Fisher, head of the $30 billion Fisher Asset Management, a very long time Forbes columnist, and author of the books Super Stocks, The Wall Street Waltz, 100 Minds That Made the Market, and The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't. He is also coming out with a new book in the Fall, The Ten Roads to Riches: The Way the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!), published by Wiley.If you missed Part 1 of the interview, you can see it here, and if you missed Part 2, you can ...