On August 3, Eric Schmidt stepped down from the Apple Inc. Board of Directors due to conflicts of interest. This Tuesday Apple’s Board of Directors will be meeting to discuss some of the possible replacements of Schmidt.  Schmidt had been an Apple Board member for about 3 years.

Some of the other board members include Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, Avon Products CEO Andrea Jung, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, Chrysler finance chief Jerome York, J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler, and Genentech Chairman Arthur Levinson.

It would not surprise me if Apple appoints someone highly involved in the Internet application or cloud computing space considering that Schmidt’s company is one of the best in that sector.

On March 17, Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling were detained for their investigative reporting in North Korea.  A couple of days ago, former President Bill Clinton visited North Korea to discuss diplomacy with the country’s leader Kim Jong-il.  Clinton was there for a 20 hours visit and came back with the two detainees.

This humanitarian mission put former Vice President Al Gore and Clinton back to work together again.  Current TV was co-founded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt.  President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton requested Bill Clinton to take on the mission.

This was the first time that Jong-il met with someone from the West since he had a stroke one year ago.  The release of the two Current TV reporters was a sign of North Korea’s “humanitarian and peace-loving policy” as reported by the Korean Central News Agency.

Clinton apologized for the behavior of the two detainees and expressed the current President’s gratitude.  The visit to North Korea came at a tense time as the country is ramping up a nuclear plan.

The President left at about 8:30AM local North Korean time on a private plane to L.A. with the journalists yesterday.  The women were sentenced with 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the country at the time of their arrest.  The two women were doing a report on women and human trafficking.

When Hillary Clinton decided to take on the mission, she suggested sending several candidates to North Korea to lobby for the release of the two women.  Bill Clinton emerged as the preferred choice by the North Korean people and the government.  Clinton agreed to make the trip as long as the Obama administration did not object.  Mrs. Clinton is currently touring in Africa.

About two weeks ago, The North Korean Foreign Ministry disapproved of Mrs. Clinton’s remarks when she discussed their nuclear program.  The Ministry called her “a funny lady” and said that “sometimes she looks like a primary-school girl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.”

Euna Lee is a U.S. citizen that was born in South Korea.  And Laura Ling is the younger sister of Lisa Ling, who is a correspondent for CNN, Oprah, and National Geographic Explorer.

This was truly one of the most epic news stories I’ve written about and further proves how diplomacy can create freedom.

iZumi Bio is a biotechnology company that focuses on cellular reprogramming and stem cell research. iZumi is based in the Bay Area of California and started in 2007 with backing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers along with Highland Capital Partners. Now the company has signed an agreement with Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CIRA). CIRA will exchange part of their pluripotent stem cell lines with iZumi as part of the agreement. iZumi and CIRA will then determine which methods of cell lines are appropriate for drug screening and development.

Pluripotent stem cells tend to be embryonic which is different from adult stem cells. Inducing embryonic stem cells to perform certain functions is crucial for the advancement of stem cell research as a whole, but anti-abortion activists believes that this is a violation of human life. Induced pluripotent stem cells are made from adult stem cells, but have embryonic pluripotent characteristics so this would enable researchers to further conduct studies while avoiding ethical issues with anti-abortionists.

“The partnership between these two leading organizations is a critical step in furthering this research and turning stem cell research into therapeutic realities sooner,” stated former Vice President and Kleiner Perkins partner Al Gore.

[via Biz Times]