Entertainment is a leisure activity consisting of an event and an audience that views the event and participates. This participation can be subtle, as in Theatres: Film, Opera or stageshows, or Orchestral symphony concerts wherein the applause due the performance or performing artists would be bad manners. In contrast, the sports entertainment industry feeds off audience participation— who can imagine the strange event attending a pro-wrestling bout, basketball or baseball game without cheering or booing the participants would experentially being happy.

The industry that provides entertainment is called the entertainment industry, and one distinction between what is meant by the term is the voluntary participation of the party being entertained, which may be passive (Opera) or active (Frantic shoot-em-up computer games) and the whole gamut of industry supported diversions in between (Baseball, Concerts, Football, Books, Television, film , striptease, and events like Karaoke).

Recreation, play, reading, and art appreciation may in some instances be confused with entertainment, but the difference is elementary—entertainments take two or more— even if one of the participants is a programmer for the obsolescent Amiga computer system who now happens to be deceased. Without the 'performance' of the artist and the participation of the viewer the event would and could not occur.

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Christian Science Monitor | World

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NPR Topics: World

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The Upside Of 'Factory Girl' Life In China
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Author Leslie Chang followed two girls from their rural homes in China to a city called Dongguan, where they became "factory girls." Life in these makeshift cities can be quite lucrative for hard-working ladies, she finds.

NYT > World

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Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:19:43 -0000
American military successes in Iraq have prompted well-trained “foreign fighters” to join the insurgency in Afghanistan instead, the Afghan defense minister said.
Russian Gas Executives Visit Palin’s Turf
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A high-level delegation from the Russian energy company Gazprom met in Anchorage with state officials to talk about investing in Alaskan energy projects.

World business news - CNNMoney.com

ECB Chief: 'Time for ... action'
Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:08:00 -0400
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Bank of Japan: Short-term loans
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Japan's central bank said Tuesday it had expanded the scope of its agreement with the U.S. Federal Reserve, allowing it to provide more cash to financial institutions to keep money markets operating smoothly.
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FRONTLINE/World - Reports | PBS

Sri Lanka: A Terrorist in the Family
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:00:00 -0500
Filmmaker Beate Arnestad moved to Sri Lanka in 2002 and saw that an entire generation was growing up surrounded by violence. Her resulting film "My Daughter the Terrorist," recut and excerpted here, goes inside the special Tamil Tigers' suicide division and is believed to be the first time any suicide bomber has spoken on film about their training and motivations.
Burma: Inside the Saffron Revolution
Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:00:00 -0500
On the one-year anniversary of Burma's September uprising, when hundreds of thousands of monks protested for change, the country's military junta continues to wage war against its own people and the crisis there has slipped back into obscurity. Our correspondent inside Burma reports on what comes next for the pro-democracy movement there.
China: Kung Fu English
Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:00:00 -0500
Xinjiang province in remote western China is best known for the Taklamakan desert and the struggle for autonomy among the region's Muslim Uighur people. It's also considered a provincial backwater looked down upon by the Western influenced provinces in the east. Xinjiang native Jake Yong set out to change that perception by teaching himself -- and others -- to speak English.

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