PubSub results for Foreign Office

Afrigator

Zambian Economist (noreply@afrigator.com) — 2010-03-09 22:01:00 GMT

An interesting exchange in Parliament over the scale of animal population and the financial difficulties associated with looking after the rising population. This is something Minister Namugala recently touched on. The government wants to downlist the size of the elephant population to "facilitate commercial trade in elephant product, which would earn the country foreign currency and create employment for Zambians" :Animal Population in Game Management Areas and National Parks, Oral Answer (249), Edited Transcript, 24th February, 2010 :Mr Kambwili (Roan) asked the Minister of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources what the population of the following types of animals in the Game Management Areas and National Parks of Zambia was: (i) elephants; (ii) lions; and (iii) leopards.The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources (Mr Mwangala) : Madam Speaker, the estimated number of elephants is 26,382 based on the 2008 National Survey. The distribution of elephant population is as follows: Luangwa Valley (18,666); Kafue (3,348); Lower Zambezi (1,299); Others (3,069); and, Total (26,382). The actual number of lions in Zambia is not known, as there has been no national survey due to financial constraints. However, the current estimates derived from small samples show that the population of lions ranges from 2,501 to 4,649. The actual number of leopards in Zambia is not known, as there has been no national survey due to financial constraints. Therefore, the leopard population is described qualitatively, basing on postulation such as hunting statistics and observations made by wildlife law enforcement officers, tour operators and tourists. Leopards in Zambia is described as follows:(i) Lower Zambezi - abundant; (ii)Luangwa Valley and Kafue areas common; and (iii) Nsumbu and North-Western - rare. Mr L. J. Mulenga (Kwacha): Madam Speaker, having informed the House that the total population of elephants in the national parks is 26,382, I would like the hon. Deputy Minister to tell the nation the economic benefits derived from these animals. Mr Mwangala: Madam Speaker, I have said, in my response, that financial constraint has been a problem. The Minister of Home Affairs (Mr Mangani): Madam Speaker, there are several benefits. One of the benefits we derive from these animals is that licences to kill these animals are issued and the Government generates some revenue from this. I cannot give the figures, but there is a lot of revenue generated by the Government. Furthermore, we also have a lot of tourists coming into the country. Mr Kambwili: Madam Speaker, the co-business of tourism is, actually, the assets which are animals. I would like to know how this Government intends to put tourism at the centre of its economic development if it cannot account for the number of animals in the national parks? Further, what is the effective method of counting animals in the national parks? Mr Mangani: Madam Speaker, I do not think that it is only by counting animals that we can necessarily see the economic benefits. Of course, we have indicated the number of elephants, but we have also highlighted the problems that we are facing in terms of counting lions and leopards. The answer has indicated that if we had enough resources, we could have counted the animals because you cannot imagine going into the wild to count animals as there is the likelihood of meeting up with lions. That is the reason we would like to use some aeroplanes to make sure that we see these animals from a higher altitude as some of these animals hide, thereby this takes quite some time. We have an interest in ensuring that we know the number of animals in our parks, but we have had challenges as indicated by the hon. Deputy Minister in the answer. Dr Katema (Chingola): Madam Speaker, I would like to find out from the hon. Minister why the Government allows safari hunting of leopards when it is not sure of the total number of these animals. Mr Mangani: Madam Speaker, the answer has given some estimated figures and we give licenses in areas where we have these figures. Mr Mwansa (Chifunabuli): Madam Speaker, I am wondering how some conservation measures are being undertaken by the Government when it is not sure what the number of lions and leopards is. Mr Mangani: Madam Speaker, in my answer, I stated that we have estimates, but we do not have the actual figures like we have on the elephants. I would like to emphasise that we have estimates of numbers of these animals in all these game management areas.

Latest Articles

2010-03-10 00:59:16 GMT

Embrace Dog Insurance

A relatively new company, Embrace Dog Insurance was founded in 2003. It has since generated a following of loyal customers. Embrace Dog Insurance will cover a multitude of health conditions and accidents. Depending on the policy you choose for your dog, Embrace Dog Insurance will provide coverage for illnesses, accidents, laboratory tests, surgery, hereditary conditions, and conditions specific to different breeds. However, the dog owner should be aware that, as with any dog insurance policy, there are certain conditions that Embrace Dog Insurance will not cover. Conditions that Embrace will not provide coverage for include: pregnancy, pre-existing conditions, prosthetic limbs and mobility device (wheeled devices for partially paralyzed dogs), organ transplants, tail docking, and ear cropping.

Under all the Embrace Dog Insurance plans you have the freedom to take your dog to whatever veterinarian you wish, including specialists. Embrace understands the need of the dog owner to feel comfortable and confident with their dog's health care provider.

Some dogs, especially those with pre-existing conditions, will not be able to be enrolled in the Full Coverage Plan. However, these dogs will still be eligible for the Embrace Accident Plan. Although older dogs are sometimes excluded from insurance coverage, Embrace will provide accident coverage for purebred dogs over 7 years old and mixed breed dogs aged 9 years or more. In addition to the expected accident coverage for your dog, such as being hit by a car or swallowing poison or a foreign object, Embrace will also cover Bloat or Stomach Torsion, a serious condition that can be very expensive to treat. The Embrace Accident Plan reimburses 90% of your dog's treatment after a yearly $100 deductible has been paid. You will be reimbursed for up to $5,000 per year for accidents.

The Embrace Wellness Rewards Plan can also be purchased to augment the Accident plan, or it can be purchased separately. This plan covers $200 yearly of office visits, dental treatment, vaccinations, spay/neuter, microchipping, and heartworm test and preventatives. This plan costs $14.95 per month, either by itself or as an add-on for other policies.

The Embrace Full Coverage Plan is an all encompassing plan that literally covers everything except for pre-existing conditions. Some of the treatments covered include cancer treatment, breed-specific conditions, surgery, hospitalization costs, and rehabilitation. The dogs eligible for enrollment in this program would include purebred dogs less than 6 years old and mixed breeds less than 8 years.

The Embrace Full Coverage Plan can be customized to fit the needs of you and your dog. The dog owner can choose how much of a deductible they want, what the maximum annual benefit will be, and what level of co-pay they are comfortable with. Also available is Prescription Drug and Dental Illness Coverage.

The Full Coverage Plan offers a Budget Policy ($17.87 per month), Everyday Policy ($30.31 per month), and Complete Plan for $72.40 per month. The customer can also custom design these policies based on their dog's needs. The above quotes are based on a healthy, young purebred dog. To submit a claim, the dog owner can print out a claim form or have the company mail one to them. Once the form is filled out and signed, it can be faxed or mailed. If desired, for faster reimbursement, Embrace will make a direct deposit to the policy holder's bank account, otherwise it will be mailed.

Business Insider

Lawrence Delevingne — 2010-03-09 21:51:42 GMT

Wall Street Investment Bankers Inc. -- a real estate investment business that promises between $20,000 and $200,000 a month with "no upfront or investment cost" -- isn't licensed to do much of anything resembling banking or real estate in Florida, where it's based.

The company's ad, seen running in the New York metropolitan market on Time Warner Cable during CNBC and FOX News programming, describes what sounds like a "straw man" mortgage fraud.

In a rebuttal to Business Insider's reporting, the company asks potential investors, among other things, to "please feel free to validate us by contacting reliable local sources such as the Attorney General for your state or our Attorney: Spiegel & Utrera."

So, we tried.

Larry Spiegel of Spiegel & Utrera hasn't responded to multiple requests for comment even though his firm's client is being "slandered."

The Florida Attorney General -- Wall Street Investment Bankers was incorporated in Miami this year -- said they could not comment to us or potential investors.

"Complaints or cases regarding investment or security companies are exempt from public disclosure," said spokeswoman Ryan Wiggins in a statement. "By law, we are unable release information pertaining to these complaints or cases."

No luck with New York's chief regulator either. "The Attorney General's office doesn't vouch for or validate any business," said a spokesperson. "Consumers who believe they've been victimized by this or any company should contact our office."

What's a potential investor to do?

Even if customers take seriously Wall Street Investment Bankers claims of being a "wholesale lender" and a specialist in "hard money lending and sub prime lending," they aren't allowed to do much by way of finance or real estate in their home state.

Flora Beal, a spokesperson for the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, notes in an email that "We have no record of this company holding license or submitting an application to conduct business in any of the industries we regulate."

Beal said those include:

Securities Dealer - allows a firm to buy and sell securities to customers for a commission
Investment Adviser - allows a firm or individual to provide advice on buying or selling securities for a fee
Mortgage Brokerage Business - allows the company to broker loans between the borrower and a lender
Mortgage Lender - allows the company to make a mortgage loan to a consumer
Consumer or Commercial Collection Agency - allows the company to collect consumer or commercial debts owed to another
Money Services Business - allows the company to either cash checks, exchange foreign currency, issue payment instruments (i.e. – money orders), or transmit money
Installment Sales Finance - allows a company to finance retail goods (e.g. – motor vehicles, furniture, home improvement, etc.)
Title Loan Lender - allows the company to make a short term loan with the title to a vehicle held as collateral

"I'm just suspicious," said Beal after reading about the business. "I'm forwarding it up to our investigative people to try and get a breakdown."

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for Wall Street Investment Bankers to offer a credible defense. We'd be most interested to hear it.

Join the conversation about this story »

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craigslist | all jobs in new york city

2010-03-09 23:36:24 GMT

English Language Learning Solutions (ELL)) a division of Pearson Education located in White Plains, combines the experience of Pearson Education, the largest educational publisher
in the world along with a reputation by English teachers as an organzation that does everything they can do to support teachers as they make English Language Teaching and Learning easier
and more rewarding.

We are presently in the process of searching for a highly motivated and professional Executive Assistant to provide support to the President and Vice President of ELL Solutions. Position
entails coordination of in-depth travel arrangements for both sr. managers, prepare expense reports; manage correspondence; schedule and organize both onsite and offsite meetings and
conferences, meals, and events.Maintain files, distribute routine correspondence, handle phone calls, deal with a vaariety of contacts both inside and outside of the US, and prepare PowerPoint
slides for presentations, including researching appropriate visuals.
.
Qualified candidate should possess 3-5 years of administrative experience in supporting senior level executives. Computer proficiency with MS Office Products (particularly Word, Outlook, Excel and
PowerPoint) required along with a good eye for detail, experienced in dealing with sr. managment teams and international contacts. College dergree preferred and/or equivalent experience. Ability
to speak a foreign language will be viewed as a plus.

We offer a comprehensive benefits/compensation package that includes health benefits (from date of hire), 401K savings plan with 11 investment options, paid vacation and holidays, a flexibile work
schedule, life insurance, tuition reimbursement, summer hours along with gym and health club discounts. If interested, please send resume and cover letter STATING SALARY EXPECTATIONS to: www.pearsoned.com/careers. We are located two blocks from public transportation to NYC.

EOE
m/f/d/v

craigslist | all jobs in chicago

2010-03-09 18:34:37 GMT

We're a mid Sized, National Law Firm seeking a Litigation Support/Database Specialist, with thorough understanding of the litigation life cycle as well as document management systems to join a dynamic and creative team. This position will be working from the Chicago office but will also support and coordinate litigation technology across the country.

Qualified candidates will have at least 5 years relevant experience, have a bachelor’s or similar degree, must have excellent communication skills and be able to work directly with, as well as train, attorneys and paralegals. Required to have a strong understanding of the e-discovery process and extensive experience with Summation and Concordance. Must be able to work as a team but take responsibility for instigating and managing new ideas and approaches. Knowledge of Case Map, Nuance, Sanction, and a paralegal background are considered a plus.

Interested candidates should send their resume and cover letter with salary requirement to MMSiil@arnstein.com. The subject of the email should read "Lit Support" in order receive prompt and proper attention.

Arnstein & Lehr LLP is one of the country’s oldest and most respected law firms. Since its founding in 1893, the Firm has served clients – large and small – throughout the United States and in many foreign countries. More than a century later, Arnstein & Lehr has established itself as a sophisticated, full-service practice that addresses the diverse and complex needs of its clients with vision, expertise, and a commitment to quality and service.

Monster Job Search Results

2010-03-09 10:20:04 GMT
TX-Houston, The International Special Projects Manager is responsible for providing oversight of our Latin America locations, ensuring the integrity of the consolidated data and adherence to GAAP, leading process improvements and corporate compliance, being the liaison between corporate headquarters and our foreign offices, projects and direct business partnering to the Vice President of Latin America Operati

Unleashed

Clive WIlliams — 2010-03-09 13:00:00 GMT

It is regrettable that Australian politicians are denying the Australian Defence Force (ADF) the opportunity to take the leadership role in Oruzgan Province after the Dutch withdrawal. Our politicians seem to be running scared that leadership would mean an increase in our troop presence and an increase in ADF casualties. It does not necessarily mean either.

It is of course an election year and the government is trying to avoid discussion about an ADF deployment that has little popular support.

However we should not be ducking the issue - if for no other reason than national pride. In Iraq, our force, with its politically imposed risk-averse mission, was dubbed by some "The New French" and others as "Model Soldiers"- who looked good, had all the kit, but did little. This is clearly an affront to a force with such a proud military tradition.

We currently have about 1550 military personnel in Afghanistan. The main element of the force, about 1,000 personnel, consists of the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force and Special Operations Task Group in Oruzgan.

Australian leadership in Oruzgan would mean some force restructuring to enhance the command element, but it is eminently do-able. We would also need to think about managing potential Muslim community blowback issues in Australia, and how we might improve our civilian contribution in Afghanistan.

Australia's stated reason for being in Afghanistan is countering terrorism. The real reason is maintaining the close alliance with the US. In fact, our military presence in Afghanistan is more likely to lead to acts of terrorism in Australia than prevent them. The terrorism threat to Australia, as the Prime Minister acknowledged when launching the Counter-Terrorism White Paper on 23 February, is home-grown extremists.

What drives our home-grown extremists? Mainly our perceived "anti-Islam" foreign policies and military involvement in Muslim countries. The terrorism threat is clearly not from global jihadists launching themselves against Australia from the back-blocks of Afghanistan.

Given our real reason for being there, we are more likely to score points with the US if we accept a prominent role, rather than hiding behind someone else's possibly less competent leadership. In fact, leadership by another nation in Oruzgan could, ironically, lead to more Australian casualties. Furthermore, any reluctance on our part to take on more dangerous tasks under new leadership could contribute to our shrinking violet image.

Do we have the people to provide the necessary military leadership? The simple answer is yes. A brigadier would be the right rank to command an enhanced role in Tarin Kowt. The officer selected would clearly benefit from the coalition leadership experience so essential to developing competent very senior officers. Promoting yet another major general, a trend we have got ourselves into in recent times, would overcook the command issue, especially given that we have a major general as the Commander of all Australian forces deployed in the Middle East Area of Operations.

The military emphasis in Afghanistan is now on counterinsurgency or COIN. In COIN operations the emphasis is not on killing insurgents, but on protecting the population while you engage in reconstruction work and promote honest and efficient local governance. We have considerable COIN experience from other theatres, and have proved in the past that we can do the hearts and minds stuff very well. Why then defer leadership to a probably less experienced coalition partner?

How do we take the domestic heat out of the "affront to Islam" issue?

The obvious way would be to involve more Australian Muslims in the Australian civil aid program to redevelop Oruzgan Province. It would then be much easier to portray to all Australians that our reconstruction efforts represent a broad-based secular Australian community effort. We should, in particular, encourage Australian Afghans to be part of what we are trying to do to make a difference in Oruzgan.

One of the positive national security developments under the Rudd Government has been to create an Australian civilian corps to aid with overseas post-disaster long-term reconstruction efforts. This should also involve members of our Muslim community.

In Afghanistan, we may have to accept that Western-style democracy is not the best governance model. Democracy in developing countries tends to dilute leadership resources and lead to widespread corruption. The most workable form of government for Afghanistan is probably a traditional shura-based system, with religion playing a prominent role.

Can we succeed in defeating religiously-driven Taliban zealots? Probably not in a conventional sense. The future is more likely to see local accommodations between the more moderate warring elements - but at least Australia could make a more substantial contribution to the improvement of life in Oruzgan Province which, in itself, could become a blueprint for social and economic progress elsewhere in Afghanistan.

Clive Williams is a Visiting Fellow at the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University's Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism.

Read all responses to this article

News: Main section | guardian.co.uk

Julian Borger — 2010-03-09 21:00:00 GMT

David Miliband issues plea as diplomats fear Afghanistan peace conference headed for failure
Britain will tomorrow urge the Afghan government to put more effort into the pursuit of peace talks amid fears that the war could be prolonged – and more British lives lost – as a result of incompetence and lack of political will in Kabul.
A speech to be delivered in the US by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, will reflect growing anxiety in London that President Hamid Karzai's professed desire for a political solution has not been backed up by any serious planning or concrete proposals.
Unless more pressure is put on the Afghan government, some British officials predict that Karzai's proposed loya jirga, or grand peace council, due at the end of next month, will be little more than a PR stunt. "My argument today is that now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort," Miliband will say at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a text of the address seen by the Guardian.
British officials believe that significant Taliban leaders are ready to start talking about a political settlement in which they would sever ties with al-Qaida and put down weapons in return for a role in politics. But there is also concern that opportunities to open a preliminary dialogue are being lost, and that the conflict, which has already cost more than 270 British lives, is being intensified by Kabul's inefficiency and corruption.
"The Afghans must own, lead and drive such political engagement," Miliband will say in his speech. "It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support.
"International engagement, for example under the auspices of the UN, may ultimately be required."
Karzai presented a paper on political reconciliation at a conference held by Gordon Brown in London in January. But officials who saw it, and subsequent Afghan proposals on peace talks, have variously described them as "empty" and "a C-team effort".
Gerard Russell, at the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard University, said: "We had a look at the Afghan government's thinking on reconciliation, but we haven't seen a concrete proposal or a workable methodology."
Russell, a former political adviser to the UN mission in Afghanistan, added: "There is a talk about having a loya jirga. But what is a loya jirga going to do? On its own, its not going to achieve anything."
The growing alarm at the lack of political initiative in Kabul comes at a time when back-channel contacts with the Taliban have also run into trouble, paradoxically as a result of a Taliban arrest hailed as a triumph last month.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of Taliban's military operations seized in Karachi by Pakistani intelligence agents, had taken part in tentative and secret contacts with Saudi intermediaries last year.
One participant in those talks told the Guardian that Baradar's arrest had been "a huge blow" to the peace effort.
Britain's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has been sent to Kabul as caretaker ambassador with the primary mission of trying to inject more substance into the loya jirga planned for April 29. Tomorrow, Miliband will also call for a direct international role in managing the peace process.
Miliband's speech also carries a message for Washington.
While Britain's Foreign Office believes that work on peace talks should begin straight away and should be pushed behind the scenes by the Obama administration, most US officials, and some British generals, question whether any such negotiations would produce results before Taliban morale has been depleted by the US-led military surge.
"There is an important US audience for this," a British official said. "They are the people who have the most leverage on Kabul in terms of blood and treasure, they will have to exert pressure before the loya jirga. Nobody wants a PR stunt in Kabul that doesn't lead anywhere."
In his MIT speech, the foreign secretary will also go further than any senior British official in calling into question the international peace settlement in Bonn that followed the fall of the Taliban and paved the way for the creation of the Karzai government. "The Bonn agreement of 2001, and the process which followed it, fell short of a sustainable political settlement," Miliband will say.
The deal had excluded a significant part of Afghanistan's Pashtun population and failed to win the support of regional powers, he will argue.
Miliband will conclude: "The lesson I draw from history is that Afghanistan will never achieve a sustainable peace unless many more Afghans are inside the political system, and the neighbours are onside with the political settlement."
Afghanistan
Foreign policy
David Miliband
Hamid Karzai
Julian Borger

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Softpedia News - Global

Softpedia News (Catalin Cimpanu) — 2010-03-09 14:10:00 GMT
The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has lifted some limitations it imposed on US-based software makers and web service providers regarding three countries: Cuba, Iran and Sudan. The bans applied to North Korea and Syria still remain in place, and apply to any software transaction or electronic Inte...

craigslist | all jobs in seattle-tacoma

2010-03-09 15:32:48 GMT
Make a lasting impression in the world of dental health. In the Navy Dental Corps, provide the best dental care available for Sailors, Marines and servicemembers — and their families — wherever duty calls. Doing everything a typical dentist would do:
• Perform checkups
• Fill cavities
• Offer preventive care
Plus, discover a more heroic side of dentistry. That could mean contributing to humanitarian relief efforts in this country or virtually anywhere in the world. Caring for those who’ve never known the privilege of dental hygiene. Educating people on the importance of proper dental health.
As a Navy Dentist, you’ll have unmatched preparation and training, with exposure to cutting-edge dentistry as you:
• Utilize some of the most advanced technology on the planet
• Work at the best military dental facilities on shore, at sea and in the field
• Team with the top health-care professionals on a highly respected Navy Health Care team
From general checkups to oral surgery. Periodontics to maxillofacial prosthodontics. Navy Dentistry is at the forefront. No matter your specialty, you can expand upon your ability to help others.
Benefits

Students get dental school paid for, residents get supplemental income in dental school, and practicing dentists get help repaying educational loans.

As a full-time Navy Dental Officer, you can look forward to excellent benefits that include:
• A competitive salary and supplemental pay
• Scheduled pay raises and regular promotions
• Advanced training funded by the Navy
• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage (includes family)
• Generous retirement income plus a 401(k)-like savings plan
• 30 days of vacation with pay earned every year
• Tax-free allowances for housing, meals and shopping (at military stores)
• Free or low-cost world travel opportunities
• Access to military clubs worldwide
All this — with no malpractice or business-related costs. With the pride, purpose and satisfaction of serving your country. With a more reasonable and flexible schedule than typically found in private practice. Giving you ample time to devote to your career, your family and personal pursuits.

Requirements / Qualifications
To qualify for Active Duty employment consideration in the Navy Dental Corps, you must:
• Be a U.S. citizen or a foreign citizen licensed to practice in the U.S. (see a Medical Officer Recruiter for details.)
• Be a graduate of an eligible dental school approved by the American Dental Association
• Be licensed to practice in a U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or a U.S. territory (new graduates must obtain a license within one year of beginning Active Duty service)
• Be willing to serve a minimum of three years of Active Duty
• Be between the ages of 18 to 42
• Be in good physical condition and pass a full medical examination
For more information call 1-877-475-6289 or E-mail mill_cnrc_lpt_seattle@navy.mil

Freelance Jobs

Book Allie — 2010-03-09 16:36:28 GMT
I work on a team that frequently works with a variety of foreign offices. The items to be translated will include a few emails every other day, and a brochure. The client pays VERY promptly and the work will be ongoing as long as the project lasts. The brochure needs to go out soon, but the regular ongoing work of translation may go on for a year or more. The lawyers in Lebanon that work for the client will be checking to make sure the Arabic is accurate and literate, so please only apply if your Arabic is flawless. Currently we have translators whose rate is .07 cents a word. Are you competitive with that figure? Please apply ASAP.

Business Insider

Lauren Streib — 2010-03-09 16:41:28 GMT

Today White & Case released news of five new partners in their banking and Middle East practices.

The lucky five: Zeeshan Ahmedani and Philip Power in Abu Dhabi (M&A), Jeremy Duffy in London (banking), Irina Nesvetova in Moscow (banking), and Jonathan Weinberg in Prague (banking).

This news follows on the heels of the hiring of Chris Pilkington for its restructuring practice in London.

"These promotions are part of ongoing actions to strengthen the London and Middle East practices," says a spokesperson for White & Case. "They are just the beginning."

According to the spokesperson, the promotions were slated for January 2011, but were fast-tracked in light of the firms losses over the last months, which it calls temporary setbacks. They are continuing lateral partner searches in London that were started since before the onset of the attritions.

The firm has been the brunt of significant speculation after the defection of more than two dozen partners since last fall. Latham effectively raided their London office last month, the Middle East offices have lost office leaders, and the heads of global IT and global mining and metals. They sent a few New York partners overseas to fill the gaps.
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
White & Case Reverses Course And Hires A Partner
White & Case Shuffles Partners To Fill Gaps
White & Case Loses More Partners

Boing Boing

Lisa Katayama — 2010-03-09 08:36:40 GMT
Jake Adelstein is the author of Tokyo Vice, a new book that chronicles the author's crazy adventures as a crime reporter for Japan's largest newspaper. During his 12 years at Yomiuri Shimbun, Adelstein made deadly enemies — and some lifelong friends — in the yakuza, the organized crime underworld that quietly controls a large part of Japan's political economy. The book (which I reviewed in January) chronicles his journey from naive young foreigner to one of the ballsiest reporters on the yakuza beat. Along the way, he discovered that one of the mob bosses, a guy named Goto Tadamasa, had made a deal with the FBI to go to the US and get a liver transplant at UCLA — an embarrassing scandal that Goto didn't want anyone to know about. When Goto found out that Adelstein was investigating, he figured he should just kill him. "It was really terrifying," he says. "I couldn't even walk outside without my lovable ex-yakuza bodyguard next to me."
Fortunately for Adelstein, he found himself still breathing when Goto lost power in October of 2008. Today, he walks the streets of Tokyo with a titanium core umbrella ("a baseball bat would probably make people uneasy") and that keeps him safe... at least for now.
Over the next two months, we'll be collaborating with Jake Adelstein to bring you a series of Boing Boing exclusive yakuza stories. We'll kick it off with a two-part Q&A; that gives us an inside look at his life and brings us up-to-date on yakuza influence on present-day Japan. After that, we'll go behind-the-scenes with Adelstein and his yakuza buddies to watch how they do ordinary things like play video games, use the computer, and chop off body parts.
For part one of the Q&A; series, I sat down with Adelstein over bacon waffles and coffee one morning in San Francisco to get some personal stories of Adelstein's connections with the yakuza. Read on to learn about how a Jewish-American from Missouri beat up a mob boss with a golf club; the indelible link between gangsters and Buddhist priests; and how Adelstein came to incorporate the highest yakuza values into his daily life.
How did you know that Goto Tadamasa wanted to kill you?

On the day he got kicked out of the Yamaguchi-gumi*, one of the last things he said as he was getting into his car was: "That fucking American Jew reporter. I'd like to kill him." When I heard that, I thought, well it's nice to be recognized for your hard work.

Goto has been connected to 17 unsolved murders. His people are responsible for the attack on film director Itami Jyuzo in 1992. Itami made a movie parodying the yakuza. It showed them as what most of them are, as a bunch of obnoxious sneaky lying thugs, and they didn't really like that. They didn't kill him at first — they just grabbed him as he left his house and slashed open his face in the parking lot. A few years later, he allegedly committed suicide. But what I heard from people who would know is that they dragged him to a rooftop, stuck a gun in his face, and said you can jump or we'll blow your face off.

So nobody out there wants to put a gun to your head and make you jump?

Well, I'm sure Goto would like to do it. The question is, what's the cost benefit of doing it? Right now [with the publication of Tokyo Vice] I'm such a public nuisance that whacking me would only bring more heat and might bring political pressure on Japan to close down the yakuza buildings and put them out of business. When you consider the risk of doing that, the analysis is, well, easier to let him live and be a pest rather than make a martyr out of some annoying Jewish-American.

Are you scared of the yakuza?

Of course I'm scared of them. Even the guys I'm close to I'm scared of. They're like wild animals. These are guys who make a living through violence, and they're very very tough. They just have incredible endurance and tolerance for pain. They're like the Energizer bunny; you can beat them and hit them with a hammer and they'd still come at you like the Terminator. I'm saying this from personal experience.

You mean you've actually fought with one?

In April 2008, I was trying to figure out how Goto knew that I was writing a book about his liver transplant. There was a yakuza real estate broker; he was a good source, and I had paid him. I remembered having a conversation with him a few months back, and he was asking how my book was coming along — I suspected he might have been sounding me out for information. So I went to his office and said, "Listen, did you sell me out on Goto? Did you tell him I'm writing a book"? And he said, "Yeah of course. He pays much more than you do. Why wouldn't I? It's not like we're friends. It's nothing personal." He didn't even try to deny it. So I said to him, "Remember a couple years ago when Sugiura got hit? I'm gonna tell my friends in the Sumiyoshi-kai that you gave away his location. They may not believe me, but they might come ask you some questions, and when they do I don't think they'll be very nice to you. Nothing personal." And as I turned my back to leave, he jumped on me. He started hitting me really hard and kicking me. So I ran to the corner of his room and got a golf club, and kept hitting his knee until his knee broke. I was just running around in circles aiming at his knee. Even after his knee broke, he was still crawling at me. I was like, god! Why don't you just give up?

What does it say about you? Don't you have to be a bit crazy to throw snarky comments at yakuza and break their knees with golf clubs?

It would say that I have a bad temper. I was angry! I didn't make the first attack, though. That was totally in self-defense. What would you do if someone whom you thought was a friend was like, I planted heroin in your car and called the cops?

I would probably be like, I'm in the wrong business. On the wrong beat. I'd probably get out.

It was too late, you know? I was committed. Committed to the left lane. I was taking my driving test a few years ago and my instructor said, go to the right lane. And I told him, I can't. I'm committed to the left lane.

But isn't there a point in a reporter's life where they realize, if I go any further than this, I'm going to be putting myself and the people close to me at great risk, and you either decide to go ahead or you don't? How did you make that decision?

By the time I got to that point, I didn't have a choice. When the FBI and the National Police Agency were putting me under police protection in March 2008, one guy at the NPA whom I had known from my days of covering the police beat said to me, "Let me explain to you how this works. You're probably thinking, alright, I'll just go home. I wouldn't advise that. You've pissed off a guy who has very good connections in the United States. If you go home to your family he'll send someone to where you live and kill you; and if your family's around they will all be killed as collateral damage. If you ask, he'll just say, hey, it was just some crazy foreigner. Never meant for the family to be wiped too. So if you love your family, you're not going home until you resolved this."

His advice to me was, "You're a writer. Time to write. He's angry with you now because you have information, but once it's out he'll have problems bigger than you to worry about."

Do you worry about your family?

I have a guarantee from someone up high in the Yamaguchi-gumi that they won't touch my family. Their word is pretty solid. It's a gentleman's agreement that they'll only kill me, which makes me feel better.

Really?

Sure, because there's less to worry about.

What do you do to keep yourself centered?

I meditate. I'm going to get my Buddhist priest certification this year — that's what I originally went to Japan for. I've been offered a meeting with Goto when I get that certification. He's also a Buddhist priest now. Another boss promised that once they can be sure we're not going to punch each other's lights out, we should meet. "He's a changed man," he said. I'm like, yeah, tell me another one.

Is it a trend for ex-yakuza to become Buddhist priests?

It's not uncommon. There are two reason for doing this. Once you set yourself up as a religious organization, you don't get taxed on your income. It's a great way to launder money. The other reason is that people love the bad guy becomes a good guy story. As soon as he left the Yamaguchi-gumi, there was an order out to hit him; but as soon as he becomes a Buddhist priest you can't kill him. Here's this guy trying to lead a good life and you killed him. You guys are evil. He's good. Goto leaked the Buddhist priest story all over the place. The priest robe is his bullet-proof vest.

Is it your bullet-proof vest too?

No, it's just something to do. I've got a lot of yakuza friends and cop friends and reporter friends. They all die early. It would be nice to be able to do their funerals for them.

Is there anything about the yakuza that you admire?

Unlike in America, where someone's word is as light as a feather, some of the yakuza guys have demonstrated incredible loyalty. If they promise something — if they give their word — they honor it, even if that promise is no longer convenient or even detrimental to keep. Bushi wa nigon wa nai. Once you've said it, then you'll do it. A promise is a promise. It's so rare to meet anybody in this world who has any sense of honor, who puts actual importance in keeping their word. That's one of the nicer things about them.

I was a very typical American when I started on this beat. I'd say I'd be somewhere and I wouldn't, I was late for appointments... To me those are typical American traits — sloppy, forgetful, doesn't honor their word, and doesn't remember the favors that have been done to them. Over time, I've learned that if you say to one of these people, yeah I'll call you, then you better call them. Every time you say you'll do something, you do it, and you build credibility with these people. I'm willing to accept their codes of behavior and live by them.

There's a lot of wisdom in the things that they've taught me. What's bad about that is that I'm probably a very hard person to be with. I'm a very hard person to date and to have as a friend because my expectations are high. As a result, I don't have that many close friends. I don't know if I'll ever date anyone again. Most of my closest friends are either cops or criminals.

You've also said in the past that it's not safe for someone to be too close to you.

I wonder if I should hand people a list that says: "Hi, here are the risks of being close with me" — like a warning on a cigarette pack — "I have a dangerous job and I anger people and it might put you at risk if you're perceived as someone very close to me."

I'm horribly overly paternal. I'm not a misogynist or a chauvinist, but I keep seeing women victimized. So with my friends who are female, I am overgenerous and overprotective to the point of being annoying. And there's guilt involved there. I probably care too much because I'm compensating for a time when I didn't care enough.

I believe investigative journalists serve a function in society by correcting wrongs that the government or police won't address. It keeps society healthy. I believe in my cause, and am willing to risk personal injury to do that. I'd be setting a bad example for my children if I said, "When the bad guys yell in your face and threaten you, you run away." I like my job. I think I do some good in the world.

Has this affected your health at all?

You can toss around terms like PTSD, but that's not what it is. There's still a legitimate risk, however small, so I have to be careful. Sometimes I see someone who's walking behind me for too long or someone who just has that look and my fight or flight turns on. I think the psychological term is hypervigilance. When I walk into a restaurant I scope out the place. I almost always sit facing the door. I sleep in two to three hour shifts.

I'm in lousy shape after smoking and drinking too much and being under constant stress. The other day, I had a migraine or a mini-stroke. It was ten in the morning, and I was Tweeting on my computer something funny that a yakuza boss had said recently when I noticed I couldn't see out of my left eye. I had a splitting headache and felt really nauseous. I tried dialing emergency but no words would come out of my mouth. So I walked to the clinic down the street, and they ran some tests. I had to cancel my flight to the US and book a new ticket.

One of the things I love most about Japan is the public health care system. When I feel bad, I can go to the doctor without going bankrupt or worrying that my insurance company's going to drop me.

If you had the choice, would you get out of this lifestyle?

Yes, I would love to get out but I can't. I am trapped. How do I earn my living? I write. What's my next book about? It's about yakuza. Until I finish that book, I'm locked in.

*The Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest yakuza group in Japan. The other two major ones are the Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai.

VCCircle Feeds

Sarimul I Choudhury — 2010-03-09 12:31:20 GMT

Spanish entrepreneur Carlos Ortega and private equity major Torreal, that control Pepe Jeans, will take direct control of Indian operations through a joint venture deal in which the foreign owners will keep up to 51% stake.

Pepe has kicked off discussions with potential local partners, which include retailers as well as strategic players.

Pepe is among the largest denim brands in India with turnover in the vicinity of $60 million, or Rs 300 crore annually. Pepe’s global revenue is expected to touch $550 million in 2010.

A team from Pepe's Spanish headquarters visited the country last month and held discussions with several potential partners including reatil players such as Shopper's Stop and Landmark Group. Pepe's current local franchisee Chetan Shah, who developed the brand here in the 90s, is also in the reckoning for a new JV deal. Pepe was one of the first global brands to enter India in the early 90s through the franchisee route.

India's foreign direct investment ( FDI) regulations allow 51% foreign ownership in single brand retailing.

Speaking to VCCircle from Barcelona, Javier Raventós, Chief Financial and Operating Officer at Pepe Jeans, confirmed that the firm is looking to form a joint venture in India. Raventós was in India along with Ortega in recent weeks to conduct due diligence on possible partners. “It is important to have a significant stake in a company in India,” he said, in a telephonic conversation.
Raventós said, his firm was also in discussion to form a joint venture with Pepe Jeans India's current MD Chetan Shah. But Pepe is keeping its options open and having discussions with other suitors as well. Raventos said, the firm plans to finalise a deal in the next three to four months. Email and phone calls to Chetan Shah did not elicit response at the time of posting this report.

A veteran industry observer said, the latest developments come when Pepe, one of the international brands with widest distribution play locally, hit a purple patch in recent times. “It was a classic case of over-distribution and under-marketing. The brand also went away from its core denim DNA into a wider domain of casual wear. However, the brand continues to have a strong cache in India," said this source, who did not wish to be quoted.

This also coincided with Levi Strauss & Co upping the ante taking it past $100-million turnover from India. Pepe, which occupies the premium denim and casual wear segments, competes with brands like Lee and Wrangler from the stables of another fashion apparel giant VF Corporation.

Torreal is owned by Juan Abelló, one of the richest men in Spain who is known for his art collection which includes works of Salvador Dali and Van Gogh. According to Torreal website, Pepe Jeans Group is the exclusive distributor of Tommy Hilfiger and Esprit in Spain. In 2006, it purchased Hackett, a British men's clothing brand, which has now been integrated into the Group.

Pepe Jeans has an interesting genesis. It was started as a roadside stall in London by three Kenya-born brothers Nitin Shah, Arun Shah and Milan Shah in the 70s. Nitin Shah, who worked for a petrol station, was spotted by jeanswear entrepreneur Shantilal Parmar who made him a commissioned agent to sell jeans. Later when Shah went on to form his own business with his brothers, Parmar manufactured the jeans that they sold at various stalls and to retailers. The brand grew to become one of the largest players in Europe and started India operations in 1989.

In a post-crisis world, some of the global brands, which had put their India plans on hold, are beginning to revisit the same. American fashion giants Kenneth Cole Productions and Gap Inc are exploring an India entry.

As the economic recovery in the West remains tentative, expanding into emerging markets with a strong consumption appetite, is probably driving this trend. Though the share of apparel & footwear is expected to remain around 5-6% of the household income in India, the opportunity remains very large. This market is expected to grow from Rs 931 billion in 2005 to Rs 1847 billion by 2015 reaching Rs 3,267 billion in 2025, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute.

THEROOT.COM

2010-03-09 11:27:00 GMT

By: Dayo Olopade
When Ayanna Pressley decided to take a shot at a seat on the city council in her adopted hometown of Boston, Mass., she was committed to winning by any means necessary. This meant cashing in her 401(k) retirement plan—earned over 16 years as a Democratic operative in Boston and in Washington for Sen. John Kerry and other lawmakers. With a mother needing regular care, chasing a job that depended entirely on her willingness to, say, shake hands outside Fenway Park, her run was something of a gamble. “I know what it is to live in the margins; I know what it is to feel that your government doesn’t reflect you, represent you, or advocate for you,” Pressley—whose investment paid off with a win in November 2009—says today. “I was unafraid.”

Fearlessness is what it takes for a woman to run for elective office, especially a black woman. In his official proclamation designating March Women's History Month, President Barack Obama noted that America "must correct persisting inequalities" facing women in every sphere of life, such as making less money and having greater family burdens than men.

These inequalities have an impact on representation in the public sphere. Women are only 17 percent of the United States Congress, with the 21 African American, Hispanic and Asian females comprising only 4 percent. The number of black women in Congress has flat-lined since 1992, the so-called “Year of the Woman”: There were 11 black women in 1992; 13 in 2002, and only 13 today.

“It is definitely more complicated running for office as a woman,” says Andrea Dew Steele, founder of Emerge America, a nonprofit that trains women for political leadership. “We don’t feel as qualified as men; we’re not recruited in the same numbers; we feel turned off by the mechanics; we have persistent family barriers, and we don’t have the same networks as men.”

Those networks and social supports make a difference. Obama might not have been able to make his first runs for the Illinois statehouse and Congress without the stability of a two-income home and a wife who also took care of the kids. But according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, black women, especially since the 1970s, have traditionally had fewer of these support systems—and are more likely to be the single breadwinners in their household.

Lacking a Sense of Entitlement

What’s more, Obama had been tagged for greatness from his earliest days as a student at Harvard Law School. Karen Bass, a congressional candidate who was the first black woman to lead the state assembly in California, didn’t have that sense of destiny. Having spent over 20 years as an activist in her community, organizing voters, developing domestic and foreign public policy, educating elected officials, watching them term in and term out of office—her own qualifications as a candidate didn’t spring to mind. “One person who was really instrumental in me running was my congressman, Diane Watson—who tapped me and told me that I had been in the community long enough, and that I had to go to Sacramento because there were no African-American women in the state legislature,” she recalls. “And when someone like that calls on you, you respond.”

Bass’ case is not uncommon. Studies have shown that women win elections just as often as men—but it takes seven people to convince a woman to run, as opposed to a single fan for male politicians. “We are not set up with the same sense of entitlement,” says Pressley. “Which is why a 19-year-old white male will challenge an incumbent and a woman of color who is the VP of a company, who serves on nine boards, has two advanced degrees and raised four children will say no. We never think we’re ready. We never think we’re good enough.”

Flying Without a Net

The “persistent family barriers” Steele spoke of are also a contributing factor. Donna Edwards, a freshman congresswoman from Maryland who won her seat in 2008, says she could only contemplate running for office once her son headed to college, and “I didn’t have to be the mom driving him around the beltway, going to different events and back and forth to school and work.” Her decision to run for her first election came from a sense that incumbent Al Wynn wasn’t right for her district. So on a quiet Good Friday, Edwards drove alone down to a filing center, wrote a check for $100 and “became a candidate for the 4th congressional district of Maryland,” she recalls. “It’s a pretty nontraditional pathway to Congress … And I would never have done it with a small child.”

Just as child care can pose challenges for even the most politically driven woman, campaign finance laws that have raised the cost of running are also a major obstacle. “Women don’t have the same access to money to meet the challenge of modern-day campaigning,” says former U.S. ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 1999 and vied for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. “There are people who determine in the early stages where the money is going to go; and it’s rare that they will start off with the notion that the woman candidate has a shot.”

Fundraising is even tougher for women representing communities of color that are less accustomed to handing money to candidates. “Oftentimes our communities are the beneficiaries of governmental goodwill,” explains Yvette Clarke, who represents Brooklyn in the House of Representatives. “And the prospect of financing a government official, even in the political realm, is one that people haven't quite grabbed hold of yet.”

Edwards was unique in that she became a darling of online progressive organizations like Act Blue and MoveOn, which raised tens of thousands of dollars for her attempt to defeat Wynn. “So many of us come to the table with big ideas, but we’re not independently wealthy,” she says. (In states like Maine and Arizona, which publicly finance state campaigns and restrict how much a candidate can raise from private sources, the rate of female political participation is much higher.)

Under the Media Microscope

And there is yet another layer to the glass ceiling for women, and particularly black women: the media. Erika Falk, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of the book Woman for President, demonstrates a strong and unsettling media bias stretching back to the first female candidates—running in the 19th century. According to her research, women are less frequently written about, and for fewer substantive issues (no matter how much they know about cap and trade). They are more often described using physical characteristics such as what they are wearing, and are more frequently referred to by their married names—such as “Mrs. Clinton” rather than “Sen. Clinton.” “The trend lines are flat,” Falk says. “When you consider the social changes that have gone on since 1872,” she adds, “the fact that the press coverage [has] not improved is really astonishing.”

These pervasive media habits serve to diminish women in the eyes of voters—and are rarely applied with such regularity to male candidates. “A woman’s hair will make or break her candidacy for high office,” says Maureen Bunyan, a longtime Washington journalist on the board of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Sure, John Edwards was briefly known as the “Breck Girl” for his $400 hair-care regime. But it was nothing compared to the hoopla over Clinton’s pantsuits, which even spawned a debate question in the Democratic primary. And newly elected Sen. Scott Brown appeared semi-nude as a Playgirl centerfold—which did nothing to diminish his electoral chances. According to a recent Vanity Fair poll, 77 percent of women believed that a female candidate who had pulled the same stunt would have lost any hope of winning. (Strangely, only 56 percent of men thought so).

“The level of scrutiny is certainly more intense for women,” says Pressley. “But everything in life is harder to do when you’re a woman and certainly a woman of color and a progressive woman of color.”

Another contributor to the problem is the evolution and portrayal of American politics as a blood sport. Rather than being a space for public policy to be implemented by reasonable actors, Washington and many state capitals are populated with verbs like “spar,” “hammer,” “slam” and “blast,” which suggest anything but smart solutions for constituents—and punish women who jump into the fray. Elisabeth Gidengil of McGill University, who has researched racial and gender biases in politics says that “when politics is characterized or likened to arenas that we still associate with men, the not-so-subliminal message is that women don’t really belong there.”

There are studies that suggest that women come to political situations with less aggression than men, and tend to compromise more. Indeed, the two female Republican senators from Maine, as well as moderate Democratic women from Arkansas and Louisiana, are often discussed as crossover votes for key Senate legislation. And all the female senators from both sides of the aisle meet occasionally for lunch. Yes, the centrism of Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln might be a function of geography and temperament, but “people see us as sympathizers and consensus builders,” says Edwards. “The biases work in our favor.”

Black women who are not seen as conciliatory sometimes get the short end of the stick. “Behavior that’s seen as appropriately assertive [in men] is seen as inappropriately aggressive on the part of the female,” says Gidengil. “This presents women candidates with a classic damned if you do, damned if you don’t, dilemma.” Black women struggle additionally with prevailing cultural perceptions about a black woman’s “attitude.” “I say what’s on my mind, and I’m not going to not express my opinion or point of view because I’m the only girl in the room,” says Moseley Braun, who was voted out of office by Republican Peter Fitzgerald in 1998. “And I paid the price for it.”

Contributing to this dilemma, adds Bunyan, are other women—who, as the 2008 showdown between Hillary Clinton and Obama showed, are not always eager to favor gender in their voting decisions or speak up when women candidates are being treated unfairly by the media.

“I don’t hear us resoundingly expressing our concerns about the way women candidates are portrayed, the misogynistic language of the right-wing radio talk shows,” says Bunyan. “We haven’t yet found a way to think and to talk about women who are well-educated, ambitious, accomplished and good citizens who want to be leaders in society.”

Tune in to part three of this series tomorrow, when The Root looks at the black women who are really doing it—in races large and small across America.

Dayo Olopade is Washington reporter for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.

Become a fan of The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

The Oil Drum - Discussions about Energy and Our Future

Leanan — 2010-03-09 13:59:06 GMT

Mexico Oil Politics Keeps Riches Just Out of Reach
VENUSTIANO CARRANZA, Mexico — To the Mexican people, one of the great achievements in their history was the day their president kicked out foreign oil companies in 1938. Thus, they celebrate March 18 as a civic holiday.
Yet today, that 72-year-old act has put Mexico in a straitjacket, one that threatens both the welfare of the country and the oil supply of the United States.
The national oil company created after the 1938 seizure, Pemex, is entering a period of turmoil. Oil production in its aging fields is sagging so rapidly that Mexico, long one of the world’s top oil-exporting countries, could begin importing oil within the decade.
Mexico is among the three leading foreign suppliers of oil to the United States, along with Canada and Saudi Arabia. Mexican barrels can be replaced, but at a cost. It means greater American dependence on unfriendly countries like Venezuela, unstable countries like Nigeria and Iraq, and on the oil sands of Canada, an environmentally destructive form of oil production.
“As you lose Mexican oil, you lose a critical supply,” said Jeremy M. Martin, director of the energy program at the Institute of the Americas at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s not just about energy security but national security, because our neighbor’s economic and political well-being is largely linked to its capacity to produce and export oil.”

Oil drops below $81 after monthlong rally
Oil prices dropped sharply to below $81 a barrel Tuesday, due to a stronger dollar and profit taking on a monthlong run fueled by growing investor optimism about global economic growth.

Gasoline prices at high for the year
Motorists are well down the road to higher pump prices as warmer weather and the driving season approach.
Average retail gasoline prices, continuing a surge that started last month, have now matched their 2010 high on the way to prices that many analysts believe will top $3 per gallon this spring.

Exxon Lowers Bar, Buys Assets Previously Deemed Unattractive
(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc and Total SA are investing in assets that previously weren’t worth their time or money after oil-rich nations reduced access to reserves and exploration drilling faltered.
Efforts to find new sources of crude and natural gas are failing more often, with San Ramon, California-based Chevron Corp.’s exploration failure rate jumping to 35 percent last year from 10 percent in 2008. Countries such as Venezuela are making it more expensive for companies to develop their resources, if they’re allowed in at all. And previously developed fields are drying up, reducing oil companies’ future supplies, or reserves.

Samsung Heavy Wins Order From Shell for Floating LNG
(Bloomberg) -- Samsung Heavy Industries Co. won an order to build a floating natural-gas facility for Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the first deal between the two under a 15-year supply contract signed last year.

INTERVIEW - Algeria sees global LNG recovery in 2-3 years
ALGIERS (Reuters) - The global slump in demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is temporary and demand will recover within the next two to three years, Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said in an interview on Monday.
"If we look at the long term, definitely from the environmental point of view and from the point of view of satisfying global demand, there is going to be a big need for natural gas," Khelil told Reuters.

A conventional fuel, an unconventional future
The recent announcement that Korea Gas Corp. would invest $1.1-billion to participate in the development of EnCana's huge gas shale holdings in northeastern British Columbia is another signal that Canada's natural gas industry has entered a profoundly important new stage that, at earlier times, government policies made impossible.

Shell’s Arrow Bid May Spur Coal-Bed Gas Takeovers
(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and PetroChina Co.’s A$3.3 billion ($3 billion) bid for Arrow Energy Ltd. may spur more takeovers of Australian producers of coal-bed gas, a growing source of supply for Asian energy importers.

Sasol may abandon fuel liquids plant if no govt funding - paper
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Petrochemical group Sasol (SOLJ.J) may abandon its planned 80,000 barrel-a-day South African coal-to-liquid Mafutha plant if the government does not help finance it, the Business Day newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The paper quoted Sasol Chief Executive Officer Pat Davies as saying the world's top maker of motor fuel from coal would let the government determine its funding component for the project, while the company proceeds with its preparatory works currently in feasibility stage.

Mitsui Said to Consider Returning to Singapore Oil Trading
(Bloomberg) -- Mitsui & Co., the Japanese trading group that earns half its profit from energy, may restart oil product trading in Singapore after withdrawing from the city- state in 2007, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The Tokyo-based company pulled out from Asia’s biggest oil- trading center when it shut its Singapore unit Mitsui Oil (Asia) Pte in 2007 after losing $81 million from naphtha transactions hidden by a trader. The cover-up resulted in the imprisonment of three former employees by Singapore courts last year.

Time for ‘bold action’ to reduce oil use in Greater Sudbury
Canada’s economy is highly dependent on oil. Many Canadians believe western Canada’s oil sands deposits will be our salvation. The oil sands, however, are a major atmospheric carbon emitter, which will exacerbate global climate change significantly, while also fouling the region’s water supply.
Should we all be driving hybrids to prepare for the impending high oil prices and volatility? Perhaps, but the report asserts, “There is real danger that the focus on technological advances in cars is making consumers and governments complacent.”

EPA probes whether shale gas drilling contaminates water supplies
The top U.S. environmental regulator said she was "very concerned" about fluids blamed by some for polluting water supplies near sites where drillers use them to extract natural gas from shale deposits. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson said she hopes her agency will launch a study this year into the nature of fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process of natural gas drilling.

Fracking Fluids Part I: A controversy coming to an energy investment near you
The controversy surrounding fracking fluids is getting louder. Websites and media savvy organizations are getting more press on this issue, using a very simple and powerful pitch – are the chemicals used in fracking fluids in oil and gas wells contaminating our drinking water?
North American investors have not been directly hit by this issue yet, meaning that a company’s stock hasn’t plummeted because they had to stop drilling over these concerns – yet.

Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy's limits
In making the case for a rapid conversion away from heavily polluting energy sources like coal and nuclear power to cleaner generation, renewable energy advocates often confront the argument that their scheme is impossible due to the intermittent nature of sun and wind.
But a groundbreaking study out of North Carolina challenges that conventional wisdom: It suggests that backup generation requirements would be modest for a system based largely on solar and wind power, combined with efficiency, hydroelectric power, and other renewable sources like landfill gas.

Tuning the energy innovation engine at MIT
BOSTON--The MIT Energy Conference here on Saturday covered a little bit of everything--"China speed," climate change, financing gaps, government policy, nuclear and natural gas, and, of course, science experiments--as entrepreneurs, business people, and academics tried to get their arms around big-picture energy challenges.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become a hotbed for clean-energy innovation over the past four years, attracting students and faculty to the field, some of whom have spun out promising companies.

I.B.M. Opens Energy Lab in Beijing
In another sign of China’s emergence as an epicenter of green technology, I.B.M. has opened a lab in Beijing to develop smart grid software for the global market.

IEA: safety, non-proliferation key premises for nuclear development
Safety and non-proliferation are two key premises for global expansion of nuclear power and countries seeking nuclear use must adhere to these principles, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Nobuo Tanaka stressed here Monday.

UAE believes in responsible use of nuclear power
The United Arab Emirates’ interest in developing nuclear energy is motivated by the need to develop additional sources of electricity.
This is to meet future demand projections and to ensure the continued rapid development of the country's economy, UAE Foreign Minister H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan affirmed here today.

Israel 'to unveil plans to build nuclear power plant'
Israel is expected to unveil plans this week to build a nuclear power plant, reports say.
They say an announcement will be made by Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau at an energy forum in Paris.
Israel is facing a crisis over electricity supplies, but environmental objections have blocked efforts to build a new coal-fired plant.

Don't buy Obama's greenwashing of nuclear power
Last month, inspectors found dangerous chemicals in the groundwater near the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. The situation demonstrates that from the mining of uranium ore to the storage of radioactive waste, nuclear reactors remain as dirty, risky, and as costly as they ever were. If President Obama's recent enthusiasm for nuclear reactors has led you to believe otherwise, you've bought in to the administration's greenwashing of nuclear.

Solar Industry Learns Lessons in Spanish Sun
Farmers sold land for solar plants. Boutiques opened. And people from all over the world, seeing business opportunities, moved to the city, which had suffered from 20 percent unemployment and a population exodus.
But as low-quality, poorly designed solar plants sprang up on Spain’s plateaus, Spanish officials came to realize that they would have to subsidize many of them indefinitely, and that the industry they had created might never produce efficient green energy on its own.

Lending Scheme to Bring Solar to Cambodia’s Poor
With access to solar-powered energy products for Cambodia’s rural poor extremely limited, the solar energy company Kamworks and the Cambodia Mutual Savings and Credit Network are partnering to provide low-interest loans to customers hoping to outfit their homes with solar panels, while Kamworks will provide and install the equipment.

Ethanol Making Comeback as Valero Sees Profit Where Gates Lost
(Bloomberg) -- Ethanol, the commodity that cost Bill Gates more than $44 million the last time prices collapsed, is poised to rally as much as 20 percent as the fastest drop since 2008 spurs demand.
Falling corn prices and record ethanol supplies have driven the price down 17 percent in three months to $1.634 a gallon, its worst run since 2008’s fourth quarter. It will average $1.96 a gallon at the peak of the U.S. summer driving season as refiners from Valero Energy Corp. to Sunoco Inc. mix more into gasoline made from increasingly pricey oil, according to the median of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

European Activists Sue Over Biofuels Studies
Environmental lawyers and activists on Monday sued the European Commission for failing to release studies investigating the impact of biofuels on the environment.

Whetting Singapore's thirst for rice
"To produce one bowl of rice it takes about 500 liters of water," said Dr. Bouman.
"For a city like Singapore, the question is whether the 688 billion liters of water needed to produce the country's rice will remain available."
Worldwide, water for agriculture is becoming increasingly scarce as groundwater reserves drop, water quality declines because of pollution, irrigation systems malfunction, and competition from urban and industrial users increases.
Climate change will also reduce water availability in large parts of the world. And, by 2025, 15-20 million hectares of irrigated rice will suffer some degree of water scarcity.

Cool it on efforts against new rules, EPA chief asks
WASHINGTON — The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday pushed back against lawmakers' attempts to halt the EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases from power plants, refiners and other industrial facilities.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency's proposed new rules, which would take effect next year, could help ignite new demand for clean energy technology.
Instead of trying to block new rules, lawmakers should spend their energy focusing on “new legislation to do something” about climate change, Jackson told reporters after a speech at the National Press Club.

Asking “what would nature do?” leads to a way to break down a greenhouse gas
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A recent discovery in understanding how to chemically break down the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into a useful form opens the doors for scientists to wonder what organism is out there – or could be created – to accomplish the task.
University of Michigan biological chemist Steve Ragsdale, along with research assistant Elizabeth Pierce and scientists led by Fraser Armstrong from the University of Oxford in the U.K., have figured out a way to efficiently turn carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using visible light, like sunlight.

California to amend 'cool cars' rule
The state, which gave initial approval of the new rules in June, aims to sharply reduce solar energy in vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The California Air Resources Board is working to finalize the regulations in the coming weeks. The final rules must be in place by May 7.
But the California Police Chiefs Association, California State Sheriffs Association, Crime Victims United of California and other groups warn that the new standards, requiring window glazing to keep car interiors cool, could degrade signals from cell phones, and from ankle monitoring bracelets worn by felons.

Fidel Castro warns of dangers threatening humanity
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro warned of many dangers currently threatening the planet and the humanity such as mass destructive weapons and climate change.
"For the first time, the human species, in a globalized world full of contradictions, have created the ability to destroy themselves," Castro said in an article released on Monday.

How does America end up with such terrible national security strategies?
Last month I wrote a blog post on the appallingly, monumentally bad Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) of 2010 — the document the US Defence Department is required to produce as a basis for developing the military force structure and strategic requirements for the next four years. This document, meant to analyse the threats to the United States, failed to mention radical Islam as a threat in its over 100 pages. It also passed over the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons with only a one-sentence mention. Yet the top officials of the Defence Department did not fail to notice the REAL threat facing the United States. The QDR devoted several pages to the serious threat inherent in… climate change.

Monbiot: The trouble with trusting complex science
There is no simple way to battle public hostility to climate research. As the psychologists show, facts barely sway us anyway.

Wild relatives of crops seen aiding climate fight
(Reuters) - Farm experts plan to track down wild relatives of crops such as rice or wheat with traits that make them able to resist global warming in a project costing perhaps $50 million, a leading expert said on Tuesday.
"The wild relatives of cultivated crops ... are largely uncollected or conserved in gene banks," said Cary Fowler, head of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust which co-manages a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island north of Norway.

Move to train truckers to be greener
The UK government has launched a new proposal to encourage more lorry drivers to take eco-driver training in a move to save up to 3m tonnes of carbon emissions.
Over five years, a saving of around £300m in fuel costs could be achieved, according to transport minister Paul Clark.

India backs Copenhagen climate deal: minister
NEW DELHI (AFP) – India has decided to formally back a climate change accord struck in Copenhagen last year that includes non-binding limits on global warming, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said Tuesday.

Climate forest deal in sight: Indonesia
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Wealthy and developing nations should be able to seal an agreement this year on deforestation, unlocking a key part of the next treaty on global warming, Indonesian negotiators said Monday.

Should Scientists Fight Heat or Stick to Data?
You want to know why Al Gore and his movie have proven to be such an abject failure? (And yes, failure is the right word — polling shows no net increase in public concern about global warming in the years following the movie — for two decades its been roughly a third of the public who are seriously worried about global warming.) It’s for this very reason. A very dull and dispassionate voice was chosen to deliver a supposedly dire and passionate message. It was one of the worst cases of bad casting in history. Gore is ultimately “a scientist” when it comes to communication instincts. You can see it played out in his movie and two books as he’s slowly come to the realization that you need something more than information to reach the masses. Duh.

Post Carbon
Contrary to popular belief, young people are not more politically engaged on the issue of climate change than older Americans, according to a new climate poll conducted by researchers at American, Yale and George Mason universities.
The researchers found "adults under the age of 35 are significantly less likely than their elders to say that they had thought about global warming before today, with nearly a quarter (22 percent) of under-35s saying they had never thought about the issue previously. Only 38 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 say that they had previously thought about global warming either 'a lot' (10 percent) or 'some' (28 percent), compared to 51 percent of those 35-59 and 44 percent of those 60 and older.

When the Water Rises
It’s easy to imagine an apocalyptically soggy future for New York—high waves soaking the hem of Lady Liberty’s robes, flash floods roaring through subway tunnels, kayakers paddling down Wall Street—and just as easy to dismiss it all as another end-of-days Hollywood fantasy. Global warming may be powerful and real, but so is denial, and the urge to postpone thinking about that particular item on the world’s to-do list is almost irresistible. Coastal cities, however, don’t have that luxury. For centuries, New York has been steadily expanding into its harbor; when the steroidal storms of the not-too-distant future start pummeling our shores, the waters will push back.
So Barry Bergdoll, the head of the Museum of Modern Art’s architecture and design department, divvied New York Harbor among five teams of designers and challenged them to figure out how a low-lying metropolis might deal with rising sea levels and violent storm surges. Their answers will appear (starting March 24) in the MoMA exhibit “Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront,” and they vary from spongy streets to reefs made of glass or oysters to apartment buildings dangling above the brine.

Developed countries outsource emissions: study

Developed countries are "outsourcing" more than a third of their carbon emissions associated with products and services to other countries, researchers say.
A study of trade data found that some countries in Western Europe have more than half of their total carbon dioxide emissions occurring elsewhere, especially in developing countries such as China.

openDemocracy

openDemocracy — 2010-03-09 12:56:09 GMT

Author:

Rodric Braithwaite

Summary:

While bullying (see our Soldier’s Tales) is common to all armies, the aberration that is dedovshchina in Russia’s army has a specific history and causes, argues Rodric Braithwaite. Military reform is needed to root it out.

The Russian army today, like any other army, is an institution for organising and channelling violence in the pursuit of some concept of the national interest. But violence is not easy to control, and all armies have to cope with atrocities against the enemy and the civilian population; and with various kinds of military and civilian crime. They need to limit these excesses, lest they lead to a breakdown of discipline and a loss of function. They therefore all have military policemen and military courts to enforce order with greater or lesser severity. In Afghanistan the Soviet military authorities imposed severe penalties for looting, rape, and random violence against the population. By the end of that war over two thousand five hundred Soviet soldiers were serving prison sentences, more than two hundred for crimes of premeditated murder.

But commanders also have to preserve the morale of their men and their own idea of the “honour of the uniform”. Time and again, and in all armies, this leads to evasion and cover-up to prevent the stories of military crime emerging or to limit their consequences. That is what happened after the massacre of civilians by US troops at My Lai in Vietnam in 1968. And public opinion is often on the side of the military. There was a popular outcry in the United States against the sentence imposed on Lieutenant Calley, the only officer to be court-martialled for My Lai. The Russian military today and the Soviet military before them are of course no different. Both the Soviet government and the government of President Karzai passed amnesties for those imprisoned for the crimes committed on both sides during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Bullying and violence as a way of enforcing discipline can happen in all armies. It was common in the Tsarist army that preceded it, and indeed it was formalised in the British armed forces up to the middle of the nineteenth century. It is not unknown in the US Army. There was a great deal of it within the Red Army that won the Second World War. Though in theory the authorities disapproved, physical assault was a common means for enforcing discipline, used by many in authority from Marshal Zhukov downwards. It can be very difficult to eradicate.

Most armies have rites of passage for new recruits, this can degenerate into abuse, and scandals erupt from time to time even in the best-regulated armies. But most observers agree that the ritualised bullying, dedovshchina, the “grandfather system”, which emerged in the Soviet army in the late 1960s is an aberration from an unfortunate norm. Russian commentators give various reasons for that. By then the conscript army was demoralised. It was too large, and the soldiers were underemployed. The better off and better educated managed to evade service, so that many conscripts fell below the standards needed by a technically sophisticated force. Some were recruited from the prisons, and brought with them the bullying rituals of the criminal world. Under the “grandfather system” conscript soldiers were divided into four categories, depending on their length of service. In his last six months the soldier was known as a “grandfather” (ded). The new recruits were made to clean the barracks, look after the grandfathers’ kit, get them cigarettes from the shop and food from the canteen. Their few personal possessions and their parcels from home were taken from them. They were ritually humiliated, and beaten sometimes to the point of serious injury or death.

How bad it was depended on where you were. The Soviet army could not afford to employ substandard soldiers in the elite strategic rocket forces, where the grandfather system was much less brutal. It was the same in the KGB’s frontier forces, who had a real job to do. It was largely true among the soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. In the elite special forces and parachute units, morale was usually high. When the soldiers were not on operations, all they wanted to do was eat and sleep. Even in the less prestigious motor-rifle units, where the grandfathers still gave their juniors the run-around, it was hard to preserve the distinctions in battle: a bully risked being cut down by a bullet from his own side, as well as from the enemy: in the heat of the fight no one would bother to investigate. People who were there will tell you that the seasoned soldiers taught the new arrivals to keep clean, obey orders, and care for their equipment; and they looked after the juniors in battle. New recruits were kept from the difficult missions until they had acquired some battle experience. Some evidence supports this benign interpretation.

Most conscripts endured, and consoled themselves with the thought that they too would be grandfathers one day. Some broke under the strain: they deserted, mutilated themselves, or committed suicide. Some, of unusual physical as well as moral strength, stood up for themselves and were eventually left alone. Soldiers from the same republic or region stuck together in self-defence: the grandfathers in one unit serving in Afghanistan were warned that if anything happened to the only two Chechen soldiers serving with them, their other countrymen would take a merciless revenge.

Though there is a great deal of well-attested anecdotal evidence, reliable figures are hard to come by. Towards the end of the war in Afghanistan a senior officer told his fellow generals that the most common crime in the Soviet army there was “military bullying”. More than 200 soldiers had suffered in one year: some had been killed and others severely wounded. This appalling figure needs to be kept in proportion: it is 0.25% of the number of soldiers serving in Afghanistan at any one time. But that gives no idea of the overall level of dedovshchina in the Soviet army at that time, or in the Russian army today.

Though it pays to be cautious - not least because the appalling incidents reported in the Russian press today would not have seen the light of day in Soviet times - most observers agree that things have got worse since the war in Afghanistan, fuelled by the demoralisation that accompanied the break-up of the Soviet Union, the bungled war in Chechnya in the middle of the 1990s, lack of money for new equipment and proper training, and the failure to carry through a well thought-out and properly funded reform which would adapt the Russian armed forces to the threats and tasks of the twenty-first century.

Even some of those who experienced Dedovshchina at first hand believe that despite its obvious negative features it has helped to maintain order and discipline. But in other armies the task of mentoring, controlling, helping and disciplining young soldiers is the task of experienced long service NCOs, sergeant majors, sergeants, and corporals. These used to exist in the Tsarist army, where military service lasted a lifetime. They did not and do not exist in the Soviet and Russian armies: the so-called praporshchiki, the professional warrant officers, are mostly employed on administrative tasks, and sergeants are selected from amongst the conscripts themselves. Until 1968, when the period of conscript service was reduced from three years, it was still possible to train up a reasonably competent sergeant and make use of him before he was demobilised. That became harder when conscription lasted for only two years, and is harder still now that the term has been further reduced. Until something is done about that, people argue, Dedovshchina fills a necessary gap.

That is why people pin their hopes on the military reform which is currently under way and includes measures for the proper training of long-service professional NCOs. That reform, too, is dogged by inadequate funding and dissension among the senior military. So far it seems to be making better progress than its predecessors. But however well it succeeds, it will take time before the presence of professional sergeants significantly changes the ingrained culture of dedovshchina.

Rodric Braithwaite is a writer and former diplomat , who has spent much of his career dealing with Russia. He was British ambassador in Moscow from 1988-1992. In 1992-3 he was Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Major and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

He is currently Chairman of the International Advisory Council of the Moscow School of Political Studies and is working on a new project “Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan”, to be published in 2011.
Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox:

Aldis Anne C. and Mcdermott Roger, “Russian Military Reform, 1992-2002”, Routledge 2003

Braithwaite R. “Moscow 1941: a city and its people at war”, Profile Books new edition 2007

Braithwaite R, “Russia in Europe”, Centre for European Reform 1999

Giles Keir, Military Service In Russia - No New model army, Conflict Studies Research Cenrer, Russian series, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, May 2007

Golts Alexander M. and Putnam Tonya L., “State Militarism and Its Legacies: Why Military Reform Has Failed in Russia.” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2004), pp. 121-158.

Golts Alexander. "The Social and Political Condition of the Russian Military" in The Russian Military: Power and Policy, edited by Steven E. Miller and Dmitri Trenin, 73-94. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004

Kamenev Marina, How to Dodge the Draft in Russia? , Moscow, Time Magazine, Mar.30, 2009

Lambeth Benjamin S. “Russia’s Wounded Military.” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 2 (1995), pp. 86-98.

The Consequences of Dedovshchina – Human Rights Watch Report, 2004

Union of the Committees of Soldiers Mothers of Russia, web site

The Russian Federation Ministry of Defence – official web site

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Country:

Russia

Topics:

Civil society

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oD Russia

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Film: Oscars | guardian.co.uk

Ben Child — 2010-03-09 12:23:37 GMT

Argentina's victory for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards for The Secret in Their Eyes has reportedly sent the South American country into raptures
The critics may have been expecting a win for Jacques Audiard's A Prophet or Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, but victory for Argentina's El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) in the foreign language section at Sunday night's Oscars has reportedly sent the South American nation into raptures.
The Oscars, broadcast there in the early hours of Monday morning, was yesterday's most-watched television programme, and newspapers scurried to print second editions carrying the country's win on their front pages. Throughout the day, news programmes continued to report on the victory and the reaction to it.
Juan José Campanella's thriller, based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, is set in Buenos Aires in 1999. It centres on a retired investigator trying to solve the 1974 rape and murder of a woman, and highlights the turbulent nature of Argentina in the 1970s, a period in which the country was controlled mainly by military dictatorships.
The Secret in Their Eyes emerged as victor despite the high-profile nature of some of its competitors. Audiard's gangster flick had taken the Grand Prix at Cannes, as well as a foreign language Bafta, while Haneke's austere black-and-white drama took the Palme D'Or at Cannes and the foreign language Golden Globe.
"This is a historic moment," veteran actor Guillermo Francella, a member of the film's cast, said following the victory. "The people felt it personally, which is why there is so much joy in Argentina."
"It was really miraculous because the films they were competing against were excellent," said Ricardo Darín, who plays the lead role of detective Benjamín Esposito.
Earlier this year The Secret in Their Eyes became the second most successful film in the history of its country at the box office, surpassed only by Leonardo Favio's 1975 classic, Nazareno Cruz y el lobo (Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf). It had already taken the best Hispanic-American film prize at the Goyas, ahead of Peruvian rival The Milk of Sorrow, which also lost out at the Oscars.
"We're happy because we won ... It was a fantastic film I saw twice and which had an impact on me," said the Argentinian president, Cristina Kirchner. "With Campanella's talent and the huge public success in Argentina, we showed that this film could win the Oscar."
The last time Argentina won the best foreign language Oscar was in 1986, for Luis Puenzo's Official History (La Historia Oficial). The country remains the only country in Latin America to have won the award.
Campanella himself is relatively well-known in Hollywood, having directed episodes of House and Law & Order, among other series. His film Son of the Bride (El Hijo de la Novia), which also starred Darín, was nominated for the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 2002.
Oscars
Television
Ben Child

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The Guardian World News

Kathryn Hopkins — 2010-03-09 10:36:59 GMT

• January trade gap reaches almost £8bn
• Figures cast doubt on export-led recovery
• BCC calls for more help over export finance for firms
The UK's trade deficit with the rest of the world widened in January to its highest level since August 2008 as exports suffered their sharpest drop in three years.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that Britain's trade gap grew to £7.99bn, from a downwardly revised £7.01bn in December. This is well above the £7bn forecast by economists. Exports fell 6.9% - the largest fall since July 2006, while imports were down 1.6%.
Analysts now fear that these poor figures could dampen any chance of an export-led recovery. Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said: "There is no getting away from the fact that the January trade deficit is disappointing and also worrying for hopes that the economy can rebalance over the coming months. The total trade deficit widened to a 17-month high in January as exports fell appreciably and imports declined modestly. This suggests that net trade is set to be a drag on the economy in the first quarter of 2010 as it was in both the fourth and third quarters of 2009.
"Even allowing for the fact that both exports and imports could well have been limited in January by the very bad weather hitting the UK and other countries, the fact that exports fell appreciably more than imports is worrying news and it heightens concerns as to whether or not net trade can make a decent positive contribution to growth going forward and help the economy to rebalance."
Separately, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) today called on the government to resolve problems around export trade finance if the UK is to have any chance of an export-led recovery.
The business group says that some form of trade finance underpins 90% of all global exports, easing the flow of international trade by moderating its risks. However, the BCC argues that UK firms are still experiencing severe difficulties securing essential export trade finance, even though the worst of the downturn has passed.
David Frost, director general of the BCC, said: "If the government is serious about encouraging British exports as a driver of employment, economic growth and prosperity, it must resolve blockages in the finance that underpins UK global trade.
"Our exporters need to be able to compete more effectively with rivals on the continent and further afield, who are currently better supported during difficult economic environments or in riskier foreign markets. Chambers of Commerce across the country are well placed to help businesses grow by offering practical exporting advice and support. The government also needs to play a role – by ensuring that export finance is not a barrier to the UK's trading potential."
Economics
Economic growth (GDP)
Recession
Credit crunch
Kathryn Hopkins

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THEROOT.COM

2010-03-09 11:27:00 GMT

By: Dayo Olopade
When Ayanna Pressley decided to take a shot at a seat on the city council in her adopted hometown of Boston, Mass., she was committed to winning by any means necessary. This meant cashing in her 401(k) retirement plan—earned over 16 years as a Democratic operative in Boston and in Washington for Sen. John Kerry and other lawmakers. With a mother needing regular care, chasing a job that depended entirely on her willingness to, say, shake hands outside Fenway Park, her run was something of a gamble. “I know what it is to live in the margins; I know what it is to feel that your government doesn’t reflect you, represent you, or advocate for you,” Pressley—whose investment paid off with a win in November 2009—says today. “I was unafraid.”

Fearlessness is what it takes for a woman to run for elective office, especially a black woman. In his official proclamation designating March Women's History Month, President Barack Obama noted that America "must correct persisting inequalities" facing women in every sphere of life, such as making less money and having greater family burdens than men.

These inequalities have an impact on representation in the public sphere. Women are only 17 percent of the United States Congress, with the 21 African American, Hispanic and Asian females comprising only 4 percent. The number of black women in Congress has flat-lined since 1992, the so-called “Year of the Woman”: There were 11 black women in 1992; 13 in 2002, and only 13 today.

“It is definitely more complicated running for office as a woman,” says Andrea Dew Steele, founder of Emerge America, a nonprofit that trains women for political leadership. “We don’t feel as qualified as men; we’re not recruited in the same numbers; we feel turned off by the mechanics; we have persistent family barriers, and we don’t have the same networks as men.”

Those networks and social supports make a difference. Obama might not have been able to make his first runs for the Illinois statehouse and Congress without the stability of a two-income home and a wife who also took care of the kids. But according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, black women, especially since the 1970s, have traditionally had fewer of these support systems—and are more likely to be the single breadwinners in their household.

Lacking a Sense of Entitlement

What’s more, Obama had been tagged for greatness from his earliest days as a student at Harvard Law School. Karen Bass, a congressional candidate who was the first black woman to lead the state assembly in California, didn’t have that sense of destiny. Having spent over 20 years as an activist in her community, organizing voters, developing domestic and foreign public policy, educating elected officials, watching them term in and term out of office—her own qualifications as a candidate didn’t spring to mind. “One person who was really instrumental in me running was my congressman, Diane Watson—who tapped me and told me that I had been in the community long enough, and that I had to go to Sacramento because there were no African-American women in the state legislature,” she recalls. “And when someone like that calls on you, you respond.”

Bass’ case is not uncommon. Studies have shown that women win elections just as often as men—but it takes seven people to convince a woman to run, as opposed to a single fan for male politicians. “We are not set up with the same sense of entitlement,” says Pressley. “Which is why a 19-year-old white male will challenge an incumbent and a woman of color who is the VP of a company, who serves on nine boards, has two advanced degrees and raised four children will say no. We never think we’re ready. We never think we’re good enough.”

Flying Without a Net

The “persistent family barriers” Steele spoke of are also a contributing factor. Donna Edwards, a freshman congresswoman from Maryland who won her seat in 2008, says she could only contemplate running for office once her son headed to college, and “I didn’t have to be the mom driving him around the beltway, going to different events and back and forth to school and work.” Her decision to run for her first election came from a sense that incumbent Al Wynn wasn’t right for her district. So on a quiet Good Friday, Edwards drove alone down to a filing center, wrote a check for $100 and “became a candidate for the 4th congressional district of Maryland,” she recalls. “It’s a pretty nontraditional pathway to Congress … And I would never have done it with a small child.”

Just as child care can pose challenges for even the most politically driven woman, campaign finance laws that have raised the cost of running are also a major obstacle. “Women don’t have the same access to money to meet the challenge of modern-day campaigning,” says former U.S. ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 1999 and vied for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. “There are people who determine in the early stages where the money is going to go; and it’s rare that they will start off with the notion that the woman candidate has a shot.”

Fundraising is even tougher for women representing communities of color that are less accustomed to handing money to candidates. “Oftentimes our communities are the beneficiaries of governmental goodwill,” explains Yvette Clarke, who represents Brooklyn in the House of Representatives. “And the prospect of financing a government official, even in the political realm, is one that people haven't quite grabbed hold of yet.”

Edwards was unique in that she became a darling of online progressive organizations like Act Blue and MoveOn, which raised tens of thousands of dollars for her attempt to defeat Wynn. “So many of us come to the table with big ideas, but we’re not independently wealthy,” she says. (In states like Maine and Arizona, which publicly finance state campaigns and restrict how much a candidate can raise from private sources, the rate of female political participation is much higher.)

Under the Media Microscope

And there is yet another layer to the glass ceiling for women, and particularly black women: the media. Erika Falk, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of the book Woman for President, demonstrates a strong and unsettling media bias stretching back to the first female candidates—running in the 19th century. According to her research, women are less frequently written about, and for fewer substantive issues (no matter how much they know about cap and trade). They are more often described using physical characteristics such as what they are wearing, and are more frequently referred to by their married names—such as “Mrs. Clinton” rather than “Sen. Clinton.” “The trend lines are flat,” Falk says. “When you consider the social changes that have gone on since 1872,” she adds, “the fact that the press coverage [has] not improved is really astonishing.”

These pervasive media habits serve to diminish women in the eyes of voters—and are rarely applied with such regularity to male candidates. “A woman’s hair will make or break her candidacy for high office,” says Maureen Bunyan, a longtime Washington journalist on the board of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Sure, John Edwards was briefly known as the “Breck Girl” for his $400 hair-care regime. But it was nothing compared to the hoopla over Clinton’s pantsuits, which even spawned a debate question in the Democratic primary. And newly elected Sen. Scott Brown appeared semi-nude as a Playgirl centerfold—which did nothing to diminish his electoral chances. According to a recent Vanity Fair poll, 77 percent of women believed that a female candidate who had pulled the same stunt would have lost any hope of winning. (Strangely, only 56 percent of men thought so).

“The level of scrutiny is certainly more intense for women,” says Pressley. “But everything in life is harder to do when you’re a woman and certainly a woman of color and a progressive woman of color.”

Another contributor to the problem is the evolution and portrayal of American politics as a blood sport. Rather than being a space for public policy to be implemented by reasonable actors, Washington and many state capitals are populated with verbs like “spar,” “hammer,” “slam” and “blast,” which suggest anything but smart solutions for constituents—and punish women who jump into the fray. Elisabeth Gidengil of McGill University, who has researched racial and gender biases in politics says that “when politics is characterized or likened to arenas that we still associate with men, the not-so-subliminal message is that women don’t really belong there.”

There are studies that suggest that women come to political situations with less aggression than men, and tend to compromise more. Indeed, the two female Republican senators from Maine, as well as moderate Democratic women from Arkansas and Louisiana, are often discussed as crossover votes for key Senate legislation. And all the female senators from both sides of the aisle meet occasionally for lunch. Yes, the centrism of Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln might be a function of geography and temperament, but “people see us as sympathizers and consensus builders,” says Edwards. “The biases work in our favor.”

Black women who are not seen as conciliatory sometimes get the short end of the stick. “Behavior that’s seen as appropriately assertive [in men] is seen as inappropriately aggressive on the part of the female,” says Gidengil. “This presents women candidates with a classic damned if you do, damned if you don’t, dilemma.” Black women struggle additionally with prevailing cultural perceptions about a black woman’s “attitude.” “I say what’s on my mind, and I’m not going to not express my opinion or point of view because I’m the only girl in the room,” says Moseley Braun, who was voted out of office by Republican Peter Fitzgerald in 1998. “And I paid the price for it.”

Contributing to this dilemma, adds Bunyan, are other women—who, as the 2008 showdown between Hillary Clinton and Obama showed, are not always eager to favor gender in their voting decisions or speak up when women candidates are being treated unfairly by the media.

“I don’t hear us resoundingly expressing our concerns about the way women candidates are portrayed, the misogynistic language of the right-wing radio talk shows,” says Bunyan. “We haven’t yet found a way to think and to talk about women who are well-educated, ambitious, accomplished and good citizens who want to be leaders in society.”

Tune in to part three of this series tomorrow, when The Root looks at the black women who are really doing it—in races large and small across America.

Dayo Olopade is Washington reporter for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.

Become a fan of The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

MSDN Blogs

vmsenthilkumar — 2010-03-09 10:01:00 GMT

Overview

The .NET Framework is Microsoft's comprehensive and consistent programming model for building applications that have visually stunning user experiences, seamless and secure communication, and the ability to model a range of business processes.

The .NET Framework 4 works side by side with older Framework versions. Applications that are based on earlier versions of the Framework will continue to run on the version targeted by default.

The Microsoft .NET Framework 4 provides the following new features and improvements:

Improvements in CLR and BCL

Performance improvement including better multicore support, background garbage collection, and profiler attach on server.
New memory mapped file and numeric types
Easier debugging including dump debugging, Watson minidumps, mixed mode debugging for 64 bit and code contracts.

Innovations in the Visual Basic and C# languages, for example statement lambdas, implicit line continuations, dynamic dispatch, and named/optional parameters.
Improvements in ADO.NET

Entity Framework, which simplifies how developers program against relational databases by raising the level of abstraction. The Entity Framework has many new features in the .NET 4 Framework. These features include persistence ignorance and POCO support, Foreign Key Associations, lazy loading, test-driven development support, functions in model, and new LINQ operators.
Data Services framework consists of a combination of patterns and libraries that enable the consumption of REST-based data services for the web. ADO.NET Data Services has many new features in the .NET 4 Framework. These features include: enhanced BLOB support, Data Binding, Row Count, Feed Customization, Projections, and Request Pipeline improvements. Built-in integration in Microsoft Office 2010 now makes it possible to expose Microsoft Office SharePoint Server data as a data service and access that data using the ADO.NET Data Services client library.

Enhancements to ASP.NET

More control over HTML, element IDs and custom CSS that make it much easier to create standards-compliant and SEO-friendly web forms.
New dynamic data features including new query filters, entity templates, richer support for Entity Framework 4, and validation and templating features that can be easily applied to existing web forms.
Web forms support for new AJAX library improvements including built-in support for content delivery networks (CDNs).
For a comprehensive list of enhancements to ASP.NET go here.

Improvements in WPF

Added support for Windows 7 multi-touch, ribbon controls, and taskbar extensibility features.
Added support for Surface 2.0 SDK.
New line-of-business controls including charting control, smart edit, data grid, and others that improve the experience for developers who build data centric applications.
Improvements in performance and scalability.
Visual improvements in text clarity, layout pixel snapping, localization, and interoperability.

Improvements to Windows Workflow (WF) that enable developers to better host and interact with workflows. These include an improved activity programming model, an improved designer experience, a new flowchart modeling style, an expanded activity palette, workflow-rules integration, and new message correlation features. The .NET Framework 4 also offers significant performance gains for WF-based workflows.
Improvements to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) such as support for WCF Workflow Services enabling workflow programs with messaging activities, correlation support. Additionally, .NET Framework 4 provides new WCF features such as service discovery, routing service, REST support, diagnostics, and performance.
Innovative new parallel-programming features such as parallel loop support, Task Parallel Library (TPL), Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), and coordination data structures which let developers harness the power of multi-core processors.

For more details

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

Armenian Issues

Ara Ashjian (ara_ashjian@yahoo.com) — 2010-03-09 14:57:00 GMT
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

It was bad enough that Pres. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had failed to keep their campaign pledge to reaffirm the facts of the Armenian Genocide. They sunk to a new low last week, when Mrs. Clinton announced that she and the President opposed adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution by the full House, following its passage by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

When asked by journalists why she and the President have reversed course on this issue, Mrs. Clinton unabashedly replied: "Well, I think circumstances have changed in a very significant way…. We do not believe that any action by the Congress is appropriate and we oppose it." She added that the administration does not believe the full House "will or should" vote on the resolution. How can the facts of a genocide that took place 95 years ago change overnight? In reality, nothing has changed except Secretary Clinton’s moral compass, assuming she had one to begin with!

It is shameful that the Obama administration is caving in to threats from a third world country that needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs it. As Aram Hamparian, the Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America said last week: "Turkey does not get a vote or a veto in the US Congress!" Neither does the U.S. President nor the Secretary of State, on a non-binding congressional resolution.

A White House spokesman announced last week that the presidents of Turkey and United States had spoken by phone on the eve of the Committee vote. Soon after, Mrs. Clinton warned Committee Chairman Howard Berman that "further congressional action could impede progress on normalization of relations" between Turkey and Armenia. Strangely, Mrs. Clinton seems to have appointed herself as supreme arbiter of what’s in Armenia’s best interest, while Armenian-Americans and Armenia’s leaders have repeatedly declared that they support the adoption of the genocide resolution. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton has put herself in the ridiculous position of knowing better than Armenians what’s good for them!

After claiming for months that the Armenia-Turkey Protocols have no preconditions and not linked to any other issue, Mrs. Clinton now asserts that the Protocols pave the way for a commission that is supposed to study the facts of the Armenian Genocide. "I do not think it is for any other country to determine how two countries resolve matters between them," she stated. This confirms the worst fears of Armenian opponents of the Protocols. Clearly, the Secretary believes that ratification of the Protocols would prevent consideration of the Armenian Genocide issue by third parties. This is precisely what the Turkish side had been stating, to the dismay of most Armenians. Interestingly, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made a similar announcement last week, expressing his surprise that the Armenian Genocide resolution is once again on the agenda of the U.S. Congress. All along, the intent of Turkish leaders has been to stop third parties from raising the Armenian Genocide issue, as they drag out the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation process.

It was no accident that almost all Congressmen, who spoke against the genocide resolution in the Foreign Affairs Committee, used the lame excuse that their opposition to this bill was prompted by a desire not to undermine the Protocols which ostensibly would bring Armenian-Turkish reconciliation. Despite their sugar-coated rhetoric, those who opposed the resolution and supported the Protocols were in fact acting against Armenia’s best interests on both counts. The Protocols are now dead and buried anyway, thanks to Turkey’s refusal to ratify them, unless Armenia accepted extraneous preconditions.

While Armenian-American voters cannot settle their score with Pres. Obama this year, since he is not on the ballot in November, 18 of 22 opponents of the resolution are! Armenian-Americans should do everything in their power to prevent the re-election of all those who voted against the genocide resolution on March 4: Russ Carnahan (D-MO), Gerald Connolly (D-VA), Michael McMahon (D-NY), Mike Ross (D-AR), Brad Miller (D-NC), David Scott (D-GA), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ron Paul (R-TX), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Mike Pence (R-IN), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Connie Mack (R-FL), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Ted Poe (R-TX), Bob Inglis (R-SC), and Dan Burton (R-IN). Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and John Tanner (D-TN) are retiring from Congress. Gresham Barrett (R-SC) is running for Governor, while John Boozman (R-AR) is a candidate for the U.S. Senate. The latter two should be opposed in their new campaigns.

In addition, Armenian-Americans should campaign against the re-election of Steve Cohen (D-TN), Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Kay Granger (R-TX), for sending a joint letter to Foreign Affairs Committee members urging them to vote against the genocide resolution. All three are members of the congressional Turkish Caucus.

The next culprits are CEO’s of five major American aerospace and defense companies: Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., Raytheon Co., United Technologies Corp., and Northrop Grumman Corp. They sent a joint letter to the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urging him to reject the Armenian Genocide resolution, in order not to jeopardize their sales to Turkey. These CEO’s have committed not only an immoral act by placing a higher premium on profits -- blood money -- over human rights, but also ignored the fact that Turkey cannot forego its purchases from their firms, because by doing so it would only weaken itself. Armenian-Americans should counter these firms by staging demonstrations in front of their headquarters and factories. Those employed by these firms should communicate their anger to the CEO’s of these firms. Stockholders should go to the next annual meeting of these companies to make their concerns known and seek removal of the CEO’s. Similar protest actions should be taken against the Aerospace Industries Association, which represents more than 270 member companies. The AIA sent a separate letter to Congress against the Armenian Genocide resolution.

The Congressmen and companies who opposed the resolution on March 4 should pay a heavy price for their immoral act. Ignoring their negative votes and letters would encourage them to oppose the resolution again, when it reaches the House floor. If Armenian-Americans could cause the defeat of just one of these scoundrels in November, the rest of them will get the message that voting against genocide recognition can cost them their political careers. They will then think twice before casting such a vote.

As far as Pres. Obama and Secretary Clinton are concerned, Armenian-Americans should not allow them to dictate to the U.S. Congress. Given the fact that most Americans are disillusioned with the failed policies and unfulfilled promises of the Obama administration, all elected officials nationwide are seriously worried about their re-election. This is the perfect time to demand action from politicians and punish those who do not cooperate. Armenian-Americans should contact their representatives in every congressional district throughout the country, even in remote areas, and tell them that unless they support the genocide resolution, they will not get their vote in November. Politicians would rather listen to the voices of their constituents than to Pres. Obama who is the main cause for their seats being in jeopardy. Therefore, the fate of the resolution is ultimately in the hands of Armenian-Americans. If they work hard and get enough congressional supporters, Speaker Pelosi would have no choice but to bring the resolution to the House floor, regardless of what the administration tells her to do. Otherwise, voters who are angry on many other issues could toss out of office the incumbents, jeopardizing her own speakership!

Armenian-Americans should not forget to express their profound gratitude to Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and 22 other Congressmen who voted for the resolution on March 4. They are: Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Diane Watson (D-CA), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Gene Green (D-TX), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Shelley Berkley (D-NV), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Jim Costa (D-CA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), Christopher Smith (R-NJ), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Donald Manzullo (R-IL), and Edward Royce (R-CA), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Ron Klein (D-FL). The Armenian community should enthusiastically support their re-election.

Finally, some Turkish circles are consoling themselves simply because the resolution was adopted by a difference of one vote. Since House Committee members who opposed the resolution for unrelated reasons explicitly stated that they did not dispute the facts of the Armenian Genocide, the vote could have been 45 to 0, not 23-22, in terms of genocide acknowledgment -- a great victory for the truth and a major defeat for Turkish denialists and their backers. No one should be surprised therefore, if in the coming days Turkish leaders cancel the multi-million dollar contracts of their failed lobbying firms!

Team Cymru Internet Security News

2010-03-09 06:57:00 GMT
"US citizens are now free to invite Iranian, Sudanese, and Cuban citizens into the Web2. 0rhea revolution. The US Treasury Department's trade sanction management body, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), announced on Monday that it was amending regulations that had prevented US citizens from exporting internet-based communications software and services to Iran, Sudan, and Cuba...."

Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines

2010-03-09 09:56:07 GMT

Today’s list includes indecent snow creations, the new Jim Crow and brand new reasons to be depressed about American foreign policy.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

The links below open in a new window. Newer ones are on top.

U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY’S FLIMSY NEW FRAMEWORK
The long-awaited “roadmap” for U.S. public diplomacy has finally emerged from Undersecretary of State Judith McHale’s office, and it is a stunning disappointment.

Symphony in J flat: The curious quest to re-invent music
Amy Advocat gently shut the door to ensure she wouldn’t wake her roommate as she conjured a bizarre, parallel musical world in her Brookline living room. ...

Products The Smart Phone Has Replaced
I’ve lost count of the number of products that mobile phones have replaced – but now they’re bringing new ones into being.

Where Is The Fact Checker For Documentaries?
Rebecca Rimel isn’t worried, but she isn’t pleased, either. The head of the Pew Charitable Trusts, one of this country’s most powerful and respected philanthropic institutions, has been cast as the villain in a David-and-Goliath drama making the rounds of the documentary circuit. ...

Annals of public [in]decency, winter division
It was supposed to be a bit of fun during recent heavy snow, but one family’s snow sculpture has earned a frosty reception.

Poland’s ace reporter Ryszard Kapus’cin’ski accused of fiction-writing
New book claims journalist repeatedly crossed boundary between reportage and fiction-writing.

Annals of pseudo-events: presidents feigning interest in things
From time to time, everyone is forced to experience the ritual of the apartment tour. ...

End-of-journalism crisis

Twitter’s mysterious 10 billionth tweet
Unfortunately for the curious masses, it appears that the landmark tweet was posted by someone who has set their feed to be private by default.

The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste
California’s racially infused prison quagmire is only a snapshot of a growing racial divide, one which includes the formation of a new undercaste in America that loses its normal rights at the prison gates and often never recovers them.

One-Third of Faculty Members See Dip in Their Salaries
More than a third of all college faculty members took a pay cut during 2009-10, and overall faculty pay showed no salary increase, according to a report released this week.

Related Entries

March 9, 2010 GOP Damned

March 8, 2010 Surviving Without a Safety Net

CNN iReport - Latest

Fartash — 2010-03-09 07:19:30 GMT

Two decisive elections victories (1997 and 2001) put Mohammed Khatami in office as president under auspices of a reformist agenda – a staggering 85 per cent of the population voted for change. Unfortunately the reformers have been blocked every step of the way by Iran’s Hardliners who hold the real power through the judiciary and the Guardian Council, arresting many liberal and student activists and closing down reformist newspapers. Many of Iran’s best journalists have spent time behind bars.
On 8 May 2004, a few hours after the opening of airport, the Revolutionary Guards of the Iranian Armed Forces closed it, citing security fears over the use of foreigners in the running of the airport. Only one Emirates flight from Dubai was allowed to land. The second flight from Dubai, which was an Iran Air flight, was forced to land in Isfahan International Airport, because the Mehrabad Airport did not allow it to land there after the Imam Khomeini airport was closed by the armed forces. The rest of the flights were diverted to Mehrabad. Majority believe this was the first time that Revolutionary Guards used their armed forces to take control and underestimate the reformist government.
On November 14, 2004, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator said that his country agreed to voluntarily and temporarily suspend the uranium enrichment program after pressure from the European Union on behalf of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, as a confidence-building measure for a reasonable period of time, with six months mentioned as a reference.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has publicly stated Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. On August 9, 2005 Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons. The text of the fatwa has not been released although it was referenced in an official statement at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a 2005 speech to the U.N. General Assembly said "We are concerned that once certain powerful states completely control nuclear energy resources and technology, they will deny access to other states and thus deepen the divide between powerful countries and the rest of the international community ... peaceful use of nuclear energy without possession of a nuclear fuel cycle is an empty proposition".
On 6 August 2005, Iran rejected a 34 page European Union proposal intended to help Iran build "a safe, economically viable and proliferation-proof civil nuclear power generation and research program.”
Iran resumed its uranium enrichment program in January 2006, prompting the IAEA to refer the issue to the UN Security Council.
On February 21, 2006, Rooz, a news website run by Iranian exiles, reported that Hojatoleslam Mohsen Gharavian, a student of Qom’s fundamentalist cleric Mesbah Yazdi, spoke about the necessity of using nuclear weapons as a means to retaliate and announced that "based on religious law, everything depends on our purpose". In an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency the same day, Gharavian rejected these reports, saying "We do not seek nuclear weapons and the Islamic religion encourages coexistence along with peace and friendship...these websites have tried to misquote me."

openDemocracy

openDemocracy — 2010-03-09 09:21:21 GMT

Author:

Tolya's Letters

Summary:

In his final letter home from the army our conscript Tolya “finds” a mobile phone, is pursued by a mad officer and wonders what kind of man the army’s made of him

11 November

So let me tell you how Pavlik Putilov and I got hold of a mobile. Pavlik found it in the grass, when we had been sent on one of the regular “jobettes” we had to do. No one wanted to go. It was Sunday in the memorable place called Slobodka. There Sundays were quite normal – unlike the sodding guards regiment. In Slobodka you could sleep all day on Sunday, so everyone did. In the regiment you were always having to join in some kind of sporting or cultural activity for everyone. In Slobodka you slept.

So everyone was preparing to catch up on their sleep, when lieutenant colonel Rudin, in charge of the regiment’s artillery, comes and says that we’re all going to Tesnitskoye to help set up camp for some company or other. You can probably guess what this did to our mood and what choice swearwords we used to curse that company. But it was while we on this «jobette» that Pavlik found the mobile!

It was an ordinary mobile with a camera and apps. It turned out to belong to some major, who had lost it. We didn't give it back to him. In the army, as you know, there's no such thing as «lost», just a different way of expressing it. As we had been in the army for some time, we knew that we could be searched, even made to undress completely and shake out our footcloths. It'd already happened, though not to us, but we'd seen it. So Pavlik stiched the phone into his pants. How did he manage to do this and where? God alone knows. Even I didn't notice him doing anything suspicious, though he wouldn't have hidden from me – he'd have been more likely to put me on guard. Sod it, what incredible ingenuity soliders have. I'm amazed myself.

We brought the phone home. Everything went OK and we hid it in a rotten tree stump in the training ground. Wrapped it up in a plastic bag and hid it. Pavel had the foresight to move 400 roubles from the major's account to his sister's. The next day the major blocked the sim card. All we needed for complete happiness was a sim card and a charger. My friends soon brought us both.

We had this telephone for quite a long time – from about July to the middle of October. I don't remember exactly. At the end it started going on the blink more and more, then it stopped working altogether. At one point Neglinny, a «dembel» [soldier within 100 days of demob ed.] asked Pavlik for a cigarette. You remember him, he's a wanker and a scumbag. Pavlik said he hadn't got one. Neglinny said «You trying to make a fool of me?» and started searching him. He found the telephone, said something really stupid like «You haven't worked hard enough for this» and smashed it on the ground. We didn't mind much – it didn't work anyway. Now you see it, now you don't.

…Once I went out at night time to ring home or my friends. Don't remember. I took the phone and went outside. I went behind the barracks and was standing there, rabbiting on…suddenly out of the bushes comes a lieutenant colonel. A real one, coming out of the bushes! Here in the hospital, which is where I am now, there are colonels and lieutenant colonels at every turn of the way. In the regiment we have one colonel – the bald regimental commander – and about 20 lieutenant colonels. But you don't see them much. There are hundreds of majors and even quite a lot of captains, but on the whole they're all lieutenants and warrant officers.

Anyway, there I am in the dead of night, standing behind the barracks and hoping that none of the soldiers or the sergeants will see me, let alone the warrant officers…and suddenly, out of the bushes, a whole lieutenant colonel emerges!

So I take to my heels and he goes after me. You couldn't make it up…a lieutenant colonel chasing after a soldier through the dark. But, as Ostap Bender said, youth triumphed. I manage to get away. I make a loop round the barracks and zip in the door. It's Vasya on duty. I manage to tell him that he hasn't seen me if anyone asks and hurtle on. I was just going to hide the phone in a heap of stuff, when the lt.col. comes rushing in and goes straight for me. Oh God! I haven't hidden the phone. It's in the most obvious place – my trouser pocket. Fu-u-ck! I've had it. He rushes up to me and starts searching me, shouting «Where's the phone?». «What phone, comrade lieutenant colonel, what are you talking about?» «The one you were talking on just now» and he starts thumping me about the chops.

The noise alerted Lieutenant Karavaev, who came in a run. The lieutenant colonel started banging on about the lax behaviour of the soldiers. While this was going on, I got the phone out of my pocket and slipped it to Vasya. The lt. col. turned back to me and started searching me again! Ha, ha, you wanker, you're too late! Though how he didn't find it the first time is completely beyond me – a miracle! He so furious he can't find anything that he starts hitting me again.

In its own way this is quite a record. Even captains don't hit the soldiers often and majors do it very rarely. For a lieutenant colonel to be hitting a soldier is unheard of. He's obviously some kind of nutter. Before he left he barked in my face «You've got some brass neck, you insolent soldier!» in response to my lies.. He asked the lieutenant my name and said he would remember it. Insolent…..well, what do you expect?

9 February

Good morning, comrade civilians! I'm still on duty at post no. 1, guarding our sodding colours. It's about 3.30 and I'm ready for sleep. In 11 days I'll be 21. If it all turns out as I plan, I hope that my English coming of age will be an excuse for getting together with many of you. I've already planned my toast, which takes 15 minutes to deliver!

It'll soon be two months since I've been trying to get myself into the Central Military Hospital (CMH) so that I can spend the rest of my service there. I'd have been ashamed of such thoughts before, especially when I was in the CMH and wanted to stay there. But when I was discharged for the New Year holiday and went back to my thrice accursed Guards Airborne Regiment my conscience stopped bothering me about things like that.

It's got easier here. Much easier than the second 6 months and unbelievably, immeasurably easier than the first 6 months, when I was in Omsk on basic training. It's still hard, of course, dreary and sad, but I'm kind of on automatic pilot now.

The only really hard thing there is ahead is winter field exercises, or winter fields, as we call them. They're planned for March-April.

..In the Recreation and Information Room (the Lenin Room in old speak) there's a cupboard with books in it. The books there are rather like in the loony bin – nothing is rejected, they take whatever anyone brings in. Some of the books are even quite interesting – there was one called «The Theory of Relativity for the Millions». I got it out from a corner at the back and sometimes read it. You can't actually read seriously here, because as soon as you sit down with a book, at most after 20 minutes, you find that someone needs you. You have to tidy up somewhere, lug some boxes from one place to another or go an on errand somewhere etc. But sometimes you get to open a book for 5 minutes, to leave these fucking surroundings for a short time and go back into your own, good world. That's what I used to do. But by taking out that particular book from the back corner of the cupboard I have condemned it to death. It's being used to wipe arses now.

..I've often heard from friends and even from my mum and sister that they will be interested to see what kind of dembel I'll be and how I treat my «bitches» [younger conscripts ed]. I can say straight off that I'll be a useless dembel and you don't need any experiments to establish that fact. You just try imagine me making someone sew my jacket for me, straighten my bed in the morning or get hold of some kind of food or other. Or, even more, extort money from someone for my «100 days». It's even stupid to make bitches dig trenches/emplacements [?] while you sit in the shade drinking mineral water, as our dembels did in Slobodka. I couldn't do it.

Of course I could get a bitch for myself to protect him from the excesses of the other soldiers from the same intake as me. But I don't have enough authority for that, so in my case the experiment of transforming a bitch into a dembel has failed. They chose the wrong person.

Although I'm a «pheasant» [stage before dembel ed] now, my status is actually still that of a bitch and will always be. I clear up in the morning, I try not to offload my work on to others etc. etc. To tell the truth, although I pretend to be offended when people say I'm still a bitch, inside I'm actually quite pleased about it. The army has ruined me (or has it just revealed the bad side of my character?). What's good is that I have in some ways managed to stay a human being.

Part 1 can be read here. (A new Russian army recruit writes home about life at a parachute regiment basic training camp).

Part 2 can be read here (Tolya tells us about the food and how he has learnt to avoid being beaten up).

Part 3 can be read here (Tolya reflects on the bullying of the ‘bitches’ by the ‘grandpas’).

Part 4 can be read here (The army’s a mysterious entity, unknowable by anyone outside it, the conscript reflects).

Part 5 can be read here (Tolya hopes that things will be different, but his hopes are soon dashed)

Part 6 can be read here (Life suddenly looks rather better, but is it for real?)

Part 7 can be read here (The bullying goes on – if anything it’s got worse)

Part 8 can be read here (Violence is no joke)

These letters originally appeared on www.openspace.ru
Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox:

Military Service In Russia - No New model army, by Keir Giles, Conflict Studies Research Center, Russian series, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, may 2007

Golts, Alexander M., Putnam, Tonya L. “State Militarism and Its Legacies: Why Military Reform Has Failed in Russia.” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2004), pp. 121-158.

Lambeth, Benjamin S. “Russia’s Wounded Military.” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 2 (1995), pp. 86-98.

Russian Military Reform, 1992-2002, by Anne C. Aldis and Roger N. Mc Dermott, Routledge, 2003

The Consequences of Dedovshchina – Human Rights Watch Report, 2004

Golts, Alexander. "The Social and Political Condition of the Russian Military." In The Russian Military: Power and Policy, edited by Steven E. Miller and Dmitri Trenin, 73-94. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004

How to Dodge the Draft in Russia? , by Marina Kamenev, Moscow, Time Magazine, Mar.30, 2009

Union of the Committees of Soldiers Mothers of Russia, web site

The Russian Federation Ministry of Defence – official web site

Sidebox:

These letters written by Tolya (probably not his real name), a private in the Russian army, were published on our partner site www.openspace.ru and attracted a lot of attention. Unlike his mates, Tolya preferred to serve in the army rather than study at university. Even though these letters were written some time ago, few publications give such a clear indication of the shocking state of affairs in the Russian military. Tolya now lives in Kostroma.

oD-wide classification

Country:

Russia

Topics:

Civil society

Section style:

oD Russia

Sections to display in:

oD Russia

The Malaysian Insider

2010-03-09 08:38:44 GMT

By Adib Zalkapli

PUTRAJAYA, March 9 — The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) will open an office in Malaysia to address the issue of human trafficking in the country.

Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the Home Ministry has agreed to the step and the proposal will be discussed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cabinet.

IOM is currently housed within the United Nation’s High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) building in Jalan Bellamy, Kuala Lumpur.

vietnam - Google News

2010-03-09 09:25:55 GMT

Thanh Nien Daily
Foreign businesses seek investment cooperation in Vietnam
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The meetings are part of their visit to Vietnam from March 10-12, said the consulate office. Also, a delegation of 20 Spanish businesses will visit the ...
Vietnam loses out on Oscar gloryAsia Times Online
Sony hands Ogilvy brand portfolio in VietnamWebWire (press release)
Vietnam finds cadmium in Chinese jewelryThanh Nien Daily
VietNamNet Bridge -Bernama -Media Asia
all 15 news articles »

News: Main section | guardian.co.uk

John Kampfner — 2010-03-09 07:00:21 GMT

It started with Iraq. But in 2010 Nick Clegg's party has become the natural home for left-liberal Cookites like me
The causes of Labour's malaise are various: a cyclical shift that follows all periods of dominance; exhaustion of the main players; continued fury with Tony Blair over Iraq; and despair at Gordon Brown's strange mix of brutishness and weakness. But it is more than that. The New Labour project was born of the traumas of the 80s and 90s. It was based on the notion that centre-left governments can change society only at the margins and only by stealth. The party accepted the economic settlement wrought by Margaret Thatcher. Blair, and even more so Brown, restricted their aims to offering limited palliative care for the most disadvantaged: redistributive bolt-ons.
Unable or unwilling to deal with the causes of inequality, they confined themselves to tackling its effects. Having raised the white flag to the super-rich, ministers exerted their power elsewhere, seeking ever more ingenious ways of telling ordinary people how to lead their lives.
Labour had one of the great opportunities of modern times to transform society. It made some changes for the better – Sure Start, the minimum wage, civil partnerships and more. Yet the audit for 13 years is disappointing. Debits outweigh credits. The Blair and Brown eras will be remembered more for the toxicity of their politics. Whenever they faced pressure, they bowed to the powerful and tacked to the right.
In my pamphlet Lost labours, I assess the cause of the malaise. I suggest that the two drivers of economic growth were brittle – a consumer binge based on excessive borrowing, and a financial services sector drunk on hubris. In criminal justice and other areas of social policy, Blair assumed he would achieve little if he did not acquiesce to the tastes of the majority view as represented to him by pollsters and certain press magnates. Authoritarianism united arch-Blairites and many on the left. Both regarded the small group of civil libertarians in the party as deluded.
Blair and Brown believed that Britain was both a Conservative and a conservative country. They were pessimistic about their ability to change society. No matter how low was the stock of the Conservatives, Labour always felt haunted and saw a perpetual need to triangulate the two positions.
This default setting, this belief that intrinsic centre-left values were somehow a minority interest, was not just debilitating; it was not borne out by the numbers. At every election where Thatcher was leader, a minimum of 56% of the public voted for parties committed to higher taxation and spending – Labour, the Lib Dems and others.
The fear, aggression and ideological caution were indistinguishable. One reason why so many in New Labour acted thuggishly is because their passion was based not in the desire to engineer fundamental change, but in one all-consuming purpose: re-election. Since 1997, their every working day was based around the task of prolonging their term of office. It filled in the ideological hollow.
My pamphlet develops some of the themes outlined by Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, in his document of last year entitled The Liberal Moment. He appealed to Labour's lost army of progressives to join him in common cause. The liberalism to which I have long been drawn is not the libertarianism of the centre-right, with its message of keeping the state off people's backs.
My model is one that sees egalitarianism as a virtue in itself and as a means of delivering individual freedom. I see the role of the state as intervening on a macroeconomic level, to build the foundations for delivering greater social justice, rather than meddling in people's lives on a more day-to-day level as an outlet for politicians' lack of courage.
I have long described myself as of the centre-left, a left-liberal whose reference point was the politics of the late Robin Cook. His ideological bearings were sensible redistribution, an ethical foreign policy, constitutional change, investment in public services, and environmental protection. Some of his hopes have been fulfilled. Most of them have not.
What has happened to that politics? Where do its adherents go? Some sections of the Labour movement are engaging with these questions, seriously and openly. The majority, however, continue to demonstrate tribal instincts and the politics of the lowest common denominator.
Alongside a million other voters, I deserted Labour in protest at Iraq, in favour of the Liberal Democrats – the only party to oppose the war. My decision to back the Liberal Democrats in 2010 is based on a more fundamental appraisal of Labour's record, together with a positive assessment of the Lib Dems' platform.
Their analysis of the failures of the deregulated market has been consistently, and painfully, accurate. Their tax reform plans, taking 4 million low-paid workers out of tax altogether, are the most redistributive of any party, alongside green taxes, a "mansion tax" on high-value properties and the closing of tax loopholes (on pensions and capital gains) exploited by the rich. The Lib Dem approach to criminal justice, human rights, foreign and social policy is close to mine.
I understand the dilemma faced by Labour's army of dismayed who still cling to the hope of reform from within. That will not happen with the tribalists at the helm. A party led by Jon Cruddas or perhaps Ed Miliband might reconnect with left-liberals and the broader electorate, but even then it should not underestimate the task ahead. It should have no illusions about how deeply trust has been corroded.
David Cameron is on the verge of power, even if in recent weeks he has shown a striking lack of sure-footedness. His political pitch is an unedifying pitch of the shallow and the alarming. For many Labour supporters, the single most important reason for their party to stay in power is to keep the Tories out. Yet people can only for so long be exhorted to hold their nose, to vote for a party they feel has let them down, simply because the alternative is worse. It is deeply damaging to politics to resort perpetually to the double negative.
There is a bigger task facing left-liberals. The election should be used as a means of promoting a more pluralist politics. Whichever party forms a government will do so knowing that it has a wafer-thin endorsement and a weak mandate in the midst of economic hardship and the widespread disparaging of parliament. Politics is more fragile and fluid.
This is the opportunity facing the Liberal Democrats. They could become the natural home for the left-liberals that Labour has lost. The more the other two parties rely on caution, the more the Lib Dems must eschew it. Rarely have the circumstances been more propitious for a party to demonstrate that, in its policies and in its behaviour, it is very different from the others on offer – and not afraid to say so.
John Kampfner launches Lost labours, published by the thinktank CentreForum, with Nick Clegg today
Labour
Liberal Democrats
General election 2010
John Kampfner

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Francisco Toro — 2010-03-09 05:00:00 GMT

What were two members of a violent Basque separatist group doing with 11 members of Colombia's narco-Marxist insurgency in a remote corner of southwestern Venezuela in August 2007? According to a blockbuster indictment handed down by a Spanish judge last week, they were participating in a kind of intercontinental terrorist training camp held under the aegis of the Venezuelan military.

More specifically, the two members of ETA, or "Basque Homeland and Freedom," were teaching the rebels from FARC, or "Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia," how to use plastic explosives and urban guerrilla tactics, such as rigging cell phones to work as bomb fuses. This unlikely alliance between FARC, a peasant-based Marxist movement financed by a massive drug-trafficking operation, and ETA, a nationalist group that specializes in shooting Spanish policemen, civil servants, and local politicians in the back of the head, dates back as far as 1993. According to the indictment, beginning in 2000, ETA plotted with FARC to murder a range of leading Colombian political figures when they traveled to Spain, including sitting president Alvaro Uribe.

But it's Venezuela's alleged involvement with two of the Spanish-speaking world's most notorious terror groups that has set off a political firestorm in Spain, where the center-left government enjoys a close relationship with the Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chávez. The indictment, which is the culmination of several years of investigation by Spanish and Colombian police, claims that Chavez's soldiers and a military intelligence officer escorted the FARC members to their August 2007 training site. What's more, among the seven FARC and six ETA members charged with conspiracy to murder and holding explosives in collaboration with a terrorist group is Arturo Cubillas Fontán, a longtime ETA leader who emigrated to Venezuela in 1989. According to El Pais, he works as head of security for Venezuela's ministry of Agriculture. (Venezuelan government sources have refused to clarify his position.) And his wife has worked in a variety of public roles throughout the Chavez administration including, currently, as head of public relations for the Agriculture ministry.

By exposing a possible link between the Chávez government and an international terror conspiracy, the indictment is a particularly hot potato in the lap of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose warm relations with Venezuela's strong man have yielded invaluable commercial advantages for Spanish multinationals. As U.S.-Venezuelan ties have worsened over the past ten years, Spanish firms have swarmed to do business in Venezuela. Today, 55 percent of Venezuela's third-largest bank is owned by Spain's sprawling BBVA bank; the country's leading mobile phone network is owned by Telefónica, Spain's privatized telecoms giant; the largest of its new electric power plants are being built by Spanish energy companies Iberdrola and Elecnor; and some of its biggest new oil contracts are going to Spanish oil giant Repsol.

Additionally, in a quirk of timing, the Venezuelan Navy received the first of four military patrol ships from Spanish shipbuilder Navantia just one day after the ETA-FARC indictment was handed down. In effect, Spain is now selling military hardware to a country whose government allegedly sponsors a terrorist group plotting aggression against the Spanish state.

No issue is as politically sensitive in Spain as Basque terrorism, so it's hardly surprising that opposition conservatives have wasted no time slamming the Zapatero government. Jorge Moragas, foreign affairs spokesman for the conservative People’s Party, decried the “excessive closeness between” Venezuela and Spain, and the party’s secretary general has called on Zapatero to consider breaking diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

But such a move would likely spur Venezuela to expropriate Spanish investments, which would freeze the profits of Madrid's multinationals (we're talking billions of euros) in Caracas. It wouldn’t be the first time Chávez has muscled his international business partners: Two years ago, his government shut down most commerce with Colombia over Uribe’s allegation that Venezuela was funding Marxist guerillas, and launched a wave of expropriations against its neighbor that continues to this day. In other words, Chávez has leverage with Spain, he knows it, and he's not afraid to use it.

This might explain why Madrid has treaded so carefully on the indictment crisis. Zapatero has mildly said he would seek “explanations” from the Venezuelan government and proceed accordingly. But even that formulation drew an angry response from the bombastic Chávez. He blustered in a recent speech, "I don’t have to explain anything, not to Zapatero or anyone!”

In response, Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, hurried to note that Spanish authorities were merely seeking “information” in the case, not “explanations.” But this deference left Zapatero's government exposed to fire on the domestic front. Conservative leader Mariano Rajoy called his country's virtual apology to Chávez “absolutely grotesque.”

This paints a vivid picture of the political corner Zapatero’s government has backed itself into: Protect Spanish investment in Venezuela, and you’re soft on ETA, but make a principled stand, and you put hundreds of Spanish jobs at risk. Signs so far indicate the government will swallow hard and continue to placate Venezuela. But what happens if, next week (or next month, or next year), a high-profile Colombian public figure takes a trip to Spain and gets shot in the back of the head?

Francisco Toro blogs about Venezuela in the Chávez era at Caracas Chronicles.

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2010-03-09 09:18:20 GMT

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GoChengdoo

2010-03-09 02:10:00 GMT
Anybody who's been to the hospital in Chengdu knows what a drag it can be. Long lines, or worse, no lines at all and a free-for-all rush to get into the doctor's office, little or no privacy, bureaucracy and paperwork and payment systems that baffle even the locals ... but now some of Chengdu's blogging doctors have an alternative.

From the Chengdu Commercial Daily (our translation):

One lives in America. For a long time, his hands have been shaking uncontrollably. The other is a doctor from the Chengdu Military Hospital. His specialty is in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the nervous system. Via his blog, although they are separated by long distances and oceans, they have overturned the traditional confinements of medical practice.

Currently, the Chengdu Military Hospital employs nearly 100 specialists who also offer online consultation in order to provide a better platform through which to answer patients' questions. Word on the street is that the Chengdu Military Hospital is now considering a "Blog Hospital" project.

On the afternoon of Feb. 25, Chengdu Military Hospital Department of Nervous System Disorders. When the American David enters department head Wang Qingsong's office, it already seems that the two are old acquaintances. Even though it's the first time the two have met, they have already been corresponding for several months through Dr. Wang's blog.

It turns out that David is a "son-in-law " of Chengdu. At home in the Chengdu Hi-Tech Zone, it was Ms. Du who got to know the American David via the Internet. In 2004, after she married David, the pair decided to live in the U.S. In January of last year, the 70-year-old David's hands started shaking uncontrollably. The family doctor examined him numerous times but could not diagnose the cause of the trembling. Seeing that her husband's shaking hands were getting worse and worse, Ms. Du turned to the Internet for help. Wang Qingsong's blog caught her attention and gained David's trust. With Ms. Du translating, David left messages on Dr. Wang's blog, describing his condition and current medications. He quickly received a response from Dr. Wang.

Although it was impossible to make a final diagnosis over the Internet, Dr. Wang was able to suggest a number of ways to improve David's condition, and they set a date to meet this year in order to examine David more thoroughly.

That afternoon, these two unlikely "'net buddies" finally met and under Dr. Wang's direction, David received a series of examinations. According to Dr. Wang, David's shaking hands isn't due to Parkinson's disease but the distortion of the limb, which can be corrected by surgery.

"This is already the third time that I have made acquaintance with a foreign patient due to the blog!" said Dr. Wang. At the end of 2007, he had started a blog, and the entire department of doctors participated in its maintenance. The blog offered tips on staying healthy and also offered a forum in which patients seeking medical advice could ask questions. The blog has been up for three years, contains mountains of information, and receives millions of hits.

As it turns out, Wang Qingsong is only specialist at the Chengdu Military Hospital who's also a star blogger. The blog of hospital's director of marketing Zhang Hujun received an "Outstanding Creative Space" title during the First National Science Blog Awards.

His blog has already received over 10 million visits.

In April 2007, Zhang Hujun started his blog on Sohu. In the beginning, Zhang published a series of essays about the medical-engineering field but mysteriously the blog saw no traffic. A short time later, Zhang Hujun revived the blog with "My Story," and the visitors, medical-school castaways, swarmed in to discuss their own stories.

Zhang Hujun started to get a taste of sweet success. Through his blog he's met no small number of literary friends. And it was due to the concern of his blog-buddies that Zhang even changed his lifestyle: Every day he gets up one hour early to ensure that he'll have time to make a new blog post for the day. "If I don't update, a reader will call me to complain!," said Zhang.

Not long after the 2008 earthquake, Zhang Hujun posted news of the hospital's food and water shortage on his blog and immediately received a huge response. Within a month, the hospital was receiving daily donations of bottled water and instant noodles from all corners of the city.

Taking advantage of this period of high traffic, Zhang Hujun returned to his "regular job" of posting health tips. He settled arguments, posted essays about foreign popular science, and dispensed advice on how to stay fit, all in straightforward language. His down-to-earth style garnered lots of fans; one essay titled "It's Possible to Be Poisoned by Drinking Water" received over 300,000 views.

At the same time, Zhang Hujun's blog was a platform for asking and answering medical questions. "The blog can both serve patients and allow me to exercise my writing abilities," said Zhang. Because of this, Zhang Hujun was awarded the "Sohu Blogs 10 Most Popular Doctors of 2008" and a 2008 title from CCTV commending him for his blog's wealth of information.

According to Chengdu Military Hospital president Gu Jianwen, nearly 100 of the hospital's specialists blog, including many top-level specialists. Gu himself is the hospital's pioneer blogger.

He started his blog on Sohu in 2006, documenting the surgeries he performed, explaining the patients' illnesses, and offering online consultation to patients.

A year after Gu Jianwen started his blog, he had received over 1 million visits. Many of his visitors were patients with difficult-to-diagnose brain disease; after receiving online consultation, they would visit him at the hospital. In order to better serve patients, Gu Jianwen suggested that all of the hospital's specialists start blogs and update them regularly. Doctors who are particularly busy with patients or are unfamiliar with computers are assigned trainees to assist them in blogging.

Gu Jianwen finds time in his schedule to update his blog late at night and early in the morning.

Gu revealed yesterday that the Chengdu Military Hospital will create a "Blog Hospital" for all doctors on the Internet to blog on, each with a fixed online/live chat time in order to provide detailed consultation to hesitant patients.

EDIT: 3/8: Mistranslation (see comments) corrected.

Afrigator

Ras Sidr Sinai (noreply@afrigator.com) — 2010-03-08 16:40:00 GMT

Multinational Force and ObserversFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) is an international peacekeeping force overseeing the terms of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.On March 26, 1979 the Camp David Accords were signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat under the sponsorship of United States President Jimmy Carter.Following the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, the United Nations was asked to provide the peacekeeping forces for the Sinai Peninsula mandated in the treaty. The terms of the treaty required the presence of international peacekeepers to ensure that both Israel and Egypt kept to the provisions regarding military build-up along the border. [1]Initially, the peacekeeping force was provided by the US Sinai Field Mission, while efforts were made to create a UN force.On May 18, 1981 the President of the UN Security Council indicated that the UN would be unable to provide the force, due to the threat of a veto of the motion by the USSR at the request of Syria.As a result of the UN Security Council impasse, Egypt, Israel and the United States opened negotiations to set up a peacekeeping organization outside the framework of the UN. On August 3, 1981, the Protocol to the Treaty of Peace was signed, establishing the Multinational Force and Observers.[1] MissionThe mission of the MFO is: "...to supervise the implementation of the security provisions of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace and employ best efforts to prevent any violation of its terms." [2]This is accomplished by carrying out four tasks:Operating checkpoints, observation posts and conducting reconnaissance patrols on the international border as well as within Zone C,Verification of the terms of the peace treaty not less than twice a month,Verification of the terms of the peace treaty within 48 hours, upon the request of either party,Ensuring freedom of international marine navigation in the Strait of Tiran and access to the Gulf of AqabaOver the three decades that the MFO has carried out its mission it has proven a highly successful force. The desire for peace on the part of both Egypt and Israel, combined with the effectiveness of the MFO, has resulted in a durable and lasting state of peace between these two nations.[3] OrganizationThe MFO has its main headquarters in Rome, where it is headed by the Director-General. It also has two regional offices, in Tel Aviv and Cairo, while the Force itself is based in Zone C on the Sinai Peninsula, under the command of the Force Commander.The Force Commander is responsible for the military elements of the MFO, which comprise:HeadquartersThree infantry battalions (FIJIBATT, COLBATT and USBATT)Support Battalion (Formerly the Logistical Support Unit)Coastal Patrol Unit (CPU)Rotary Wing Aviation Unit (AVCO)Fixed Wing Aviation Unit (FWAU)Transport and Engineering Unit (TREU)Military Police Unit (FMPU)Flight Following (Air Traffic control) UnitThe Observer contingent of the MFO is made up of civilians seconded to the peacekeeping force. The observers are mostly retired US military and State Department personnel.States involvedThe personnel for these come from a total of eleven states: Australia - 25 personnel based at Force HQ (departing in 1986 and returning in 1993 replaced in the interim by a contingent from the United Kingdom) [4] Canada - 28 personnel within the Force and Contingent HQs in addition to the Operations, Liaison, V.I.P. Visit Office, Air Traffic Control, Transport, Support and Personnel Branches [5] Colombia - Infantry battalion (COLBATT) - 358 personnel Fiji - Infantry battalion (FIJIBATT) - 329 personnel France - 15 personnel based at Force HQ and with the fixed wing unit Hungary - Military Police Unit - 41 personnel Italy - Coastal Patrol Unit with 75 personnel and 4 ships: ITS Vedetta, ITS Sentinella, ITS Staffetta and ITS Esploratore New Zealand - 27 personnel divided between support battalions and Training and Advisory Team Norway - 6 personnel based at the Force HQ[6] including the Force Commander as of 12 October, 2007 - Major General Kjell Narve Ludvigsen[7] United States - The US contributes three units collectively known as Task Force Sinai[8] : Force HQ - 40 personnelInfantry Battalion (USBATT - drawn from National Guard units)- 425 personnel currently members of the Kansas Army National GuardSupport Battalion - 235 personnel consisting of: HeadquartersMedical Company consisting of Dental, Medical, Physical Therapy, Veterinarian, and Preventative Medicine.Explosive Ordnance Disposal Detachment (EOD)Aviation Company Uruguay - 87 personnel with Transport and Engineering Unit Netherlands - Until 1995 provided Military Police and a Communications Squadron and were replaced by Hungary UniformsMilitaryMilitary personnel serving with the MFO wear national military dress appropriate to the climatic conditions of the Sinai. In the case of the U.S. Army, the Sinai saw the first use of the desert version of the Battle Dress Uniform, the six-color Desert Battle Dress Uniform which would later be worn during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, then the three-color Desert Combat Uniform - currently the US Army wears the standard Army Combat Uniform (ACUs). Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Hungary, New Zealand and Norway have all developed or adopted their own desert uniform for use in the Sinai and elsewhere. All contingents wear national flags or crests to identify their country of origin.MFO crests are sewn on uniforms to identify the wearer as a member of the force. All military members of the force wear a terracotta-colored beret or bush hat. Terracotta-colored helmet covers are provided for soldiers wearing field gear and/or body armor. Some contingents, such as Colombia, also wear terracotta neck scarves when on parade. During the eighties a terracotta-colored "ranger" patrol hat was also in use, but was discontinued by the 1990s.The terracotta beret is unique to the MFO and was selected to show that the force is not a United Nations peacekeeping force. UN peacekeeping forces wear a distinctive light blue beret. An MFO badge is also worn on the beret, a metal badge for commissioned officers, and cloth badge for non commissioned officers. Civilian observersThe 15 civilian observers employed by the MFO wore highly visible orange coveralls while carrying out their treaty verification duties until the arrival of US Foreign Service Observer Harry Holland in 2002, when he affected a change to bright orange shirt worn with khaki trousers, now used on all ground verification missions. The orange shirts have since been replaced by black polo shirts. DecorationsPeacekeepers who complete a tour of service in the Sinai of six months are authorized their first Multinational Force and Observers Medal. These are commonly presented at contingent medal parades. Each six-month tour after that authorizes the wearer to place a number on their ribbon (beginning with the number "2"). Civilians employees of the Force are authorized to wear the MFO Civilian Medal[9] for the same terms of service as peacekeepers. Finally there is the Director General's Award [10], which is presented to both peacekeepers and civilians for outstanding service or action on behalf of the MFO. Other awards for service or merit are in accordance with the practices and traditions of the individual contingents.ChronologyJanuary 1982Approximately 160 soldiers from Fort Bragg, North Carolina were deployed to the Sinai. The mission of this augmented company size unit was to establish support facilities in preparation for the upcoming arrival of the infantry battalions to monitor the peace. This was not a typical US Army logistical company. Initially those who deployed were required to wear civilian clothing, due to the security threat. They arrived in the middle of the night and were bussed to Etam, Air Base, Israel. This Air Base would later be renamed El Gorah after the April 25, 1982 transfer of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. These soldiers were to prepare to assume the mission of the Sinai Field Mission. The goal was to establish a command structure, fixed and rotary aircraft support, parts support, water and petroleum supply, medical, logistics for the Multinational Force which would later assume the mission.Upon arrival they were initially housed in several buildings which were in existence as part of Etam Airbase. It was several months before permanent buildings were in place.March 1982Australian and New Zealand military aviation units assemble and are deployed into the region on March 20, 1982, as the Rotary Wing Aviation Unit.April 1982The MFO assumed its mandate on April 25, 1982, the day Israel handed over sovereignty of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. In 1995 the United States experimented with a composite battalion consisting of National Guard soldiers from Virginia and Maryland, and Regular Army soldiers from the 82d Airborne Division and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). In April 2006, the US Third Army, in its role as Central Command's Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) assumed command of the 1st Corps Support Command (1st COSCOM) from the XVIII Airborne Corps. Under US Army reorganization, the 1st COSCOM has been re-designated as the 1st Sustainment Command (Theater). Since January 2002, the United States has been supplying National Guard Infantry battalions.February 1984MFO Director-General Leamon Hunt is assassinated in Rome while sitting in his chauffeur-driven armored car, outside the gates of his private residence. The assassins poured automatic weapon fire into the reinforced rear window until they were able to penetrate the glass and strike the director-general in the head. Credit for the assassination was claimed by Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction the Red Brigade.Later that same year, American pilot Chief Warrant Officer Two Charles N. Hurt and two other crew members were killed on a UH-1 Iroquois test flight outside South Camp.[citation needed]March 1985Due to the imminent end of the four year Australian MFO commitment in April 1986, the governments of Israel, Egypt and the United States invited Canada to provide a contingent. Canada agreed to replace Australia in the MFO and to supply a helicopter squadron, staff officers and a flight following section of air traffic controllers totally 136 military personnel. The Canadian Contingent (CCMFO) was brought on strength of the Canadian Forces on September 26, 1985.[11]December 1985Main article: Arrow Air Flight 1285On December 12, 1985, a chartered Arrow Air DC-8 with two hundred and forty eight returning members of the US 101st Airborne Division and eight flight crew crashed into the cold, damp landscape at the end of runway 22 at Gander International Airport in Gander, Newfoundland, with no survivors. The 101st was rotating home from a tour of duty with the MFO. The accepted theory is that the crash was caused by ice accumulation on the leading surfaces of the wings, but debate and speculation still rages that the crash may have resulted from some type of incendiary device placed on the plane.April 1986The Australian contingent, consisting of staff officers and a helicopter squadron who were members of the initial deployment, withdrew in the course of their government's reduction of its peacekeeping commitments. They were replaced by the CCMFO Canadian Rotary Wing Aviation Unit, equipped with nine CH135 Twin Hueys, staff officers and flight following. The CCMFO was operational at El Gorah on March 31, 1986. Canadian tactical helicopter units rotated to El Gorah for six month tours of duty. The primary units proving military personnel were 408, 427 and 430 Tactical Helicopter Squadrons and 403 Squadron Helicopter Operational Training Squadron.[12]December 1989A Canadian CH-135 helicopter on a maintenance test flight crashes one mile north of El Gorah. Both crew members are injured, one seriously.March 1990After four years with the MFO, the Canadian helicopter squadron was withdrawn. This was due primarily to Canada accepting a new commitment to send a helicopter squadron to Central America with a UN peacekeeping force. This left 28 Canadian Staff and Air Traffic Controllers in the flight following role with the MFO, a commitment which continues to the present day. Due to the Canadians departure, the US split their rotary wing unit between South and North camps.January 1993The Australians, who had been replaced by a British contingent, returned to the mission, and the British contingent withdrew.August 1994Australian MFO contingent members were involved in a hit-and-run accident that they failed to report. The incident[13] came to light when one of the vehicle passengers, army Staff Sergeant David Hartshorn, reported it after he'd been returned to Australia. Prima facie evidence of the incident was established and included in a formal inquiry by the Australian Government.[14]January 1995The 4-505 PIR assume duties as USBATT. This battalion is composed of Reservists and National Guardsmen in addition to active duty soldiers. The US Army used this group as a test to see if reservists could take over the mission in the future.September 1995A Hungarian contingent arrived to serve as the Force Military Police Unit. The Hungarians replaced the Dutch contingent, and as well as military police include two members of the Force staff, a doctor and a liaison officer.June 2004The 1-114th Infantry (Sentinals) of the NJ Army National Guard assumed duties of the USBATT MFO 47 under the command of LTC Tommie O. Bellamy. While on deployment, the battalion was the first Army National Guard unit to win the Multinational Forces and Observer's Force Skills Competition. The competition is a military skills event. The New Jersey Guardsmen competed against soldiers from Columbia, Fiji, Australia, Britain, France, Hungary, Italy and New Zealand in events including an obstacle course, five-kilometer run, land navigation and first aid knowledge.[citation needed]January 2005The most experienced civilian observer in the history of the MFO, Tony Puccini (retired US Navy Commander), with over 10 years and 10 months service to the MFO Civilian Observer Unit (COU) in the Sinai, was presented with the Director General's Award.August 2005An MFO vehicle carrying two members of the Canadian contingent was badly damaged, the results of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack. The Canadians were only slightly injured.January 2006The 1-124th Cavalry assumed duties as the USBATT contingent. The 1-124th CAV is part of the 36th Infantry Division of the Texas Army National Guard. Units that were pulled together to complete the manning for the mission include elements of the 1-112th Armor and 3-112th Armor.February 2006MFO assisted Egyptian authorities in the search and rescue operation for the ferry boat El Salam Boccaccio 98 which sank on 3 February 2006 in the Red Sea. The ferry was enroute to Safaga from Duba, Saudi Arabia, with 1400 passengers on board. Italian Coastal Patrol Unit Ships patrolled for more than 90 hours in severe weather conditions. Eight passengers were rescued by MFO vessels "Vedetta" and "Sentinella". April 2006A suicide bomber attacked an MFO vehicle as it was driving along route Mike northbound from the North Camp base at El Gorah to the Rafah border crossing. Inside the vehicle was a Norwegian Liaison Officer and a New Zealand driver and two Egyptian officials. The vehicle was damaged, but there were no casualties besides the bomber himself. Half an hour later, a second bomber attacked an Egyptian police vehicle in the same area, with similar results.May 2007A French Air Force de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft on duty with the MFO Fixed Wing Aviation Unit crashed in the middle of the peninsula, 80 km south of the town of Nakhl. Eight French and one Canadian passengers and crew were killed. The aircraft reported trouble with one engine and was attempting an emergency landing on a highway when it struck a truck. It crashed and exploded moments later. The driver of the truck escaped unharmed.[16]The aircraft was operated by the French Air Force as their contribution to the MFO. It made regular flights between the two main MFO bases at El Gorah and Sharm el-Sheik, as well as conducting observation missions as part of the MFO's mandate.December 2008The Czech Republic and the MFO announced that the Czechs have entered negotiations to contribute three staff officers to the Force as part of a new, permanent Czech Contingent. This proposed addition to the MFO is part of the Czech Republic's strategic plan to become more involved in foreign operations and is subject to parliamentary approval. Sinai Peacekeeping Zones The Sinai PeninsulaArticle 2 of Annex I of the Peace Treaty called for the Sinai Peninsula to be divided into zones. Within these zones, Egypt and Israel were permitted varying degrees of military build-up:Zone A: Between the Suez Canal and Line A. Egypt is permitted a mechanized infantry division with a total of 22,000 troops in Zone A. Zone B: Between Line A and Line B. Egypt is permitted four border security battalions to support the civilian police in Zone B. Zone C: Between Line B and the Egypt-Israel border. Only the MFO and the Egyptian civilian police are permitted within Zone C. Zone D: Between the Egypt-Israel border and Line D. Israel is permitted four infantry battalions in Zone D. Within Zone C there are two main installations:North Camp is at El Gorah, 37 km south-east of El Arish and is the location of the military Force HQ. South Camp is located between the towns of Sharm el Sheikh and Naama Bay.In addition there are thirty smaller sites at various points within Zone C. One remote observation post (OP 3-11) is located offshore on Tiran Island, requiring resupply by air or sea. Zone CZone C is subdivided into sectors, each controlled by a Sector Control Center. The sectors are numbered from north to south and assigned:Sectors 1 and 2 - FijibattSectors 2 and 4 - ColbattSectors 5, 6 and 7 - USbatt.[18] Badges The MFO cloth badge worn by all military personnel Badge worn by members of the Canadian Contingent Rotary Wing Aviation Unit 1989-90 Souvenir patch for members of the 1st Support Battalion. Life in the SinaiMaintaining a good quality of life for MFO members in the Sinai is difficult, due to the remoteness and desolation of the region as well as more recent security concerns. Gym facilities, clubs, medical facilities, libraries and exchanges are provided at both North Camp and South Camp.[19] In addition, North Camp possesses a pool while South Camp boasts Herb's Beach, a section of the Red Sea coastline where it is possible to snorkel just a few feet into the water and see a variety of tropical fish.The Force has its own magazine, the bimonthly and bilingual Sandpaper. Published in English and Spanish it is produced by the Press and Visits Office[20]. Sporting events are held at both camps. Members are encouraged to take trips to Israel and Egypt, usually in organized trips. In the Sinai there are also trips to Mount Sinai, Luxor, Cairo, Jerusalem, and other various sites within Egypt and Israel. A television and radio system also service North Camp and South Camp.[19]There are venues for live shows at both camps and the U.S. organization Armed Forces Entertainment provides a variety of bands, dancers and other acts to keep the troops entertained.At remote sites, which might house only a dozen peacekeepers, the quality of life is harder to maintain. During tours at remote sites peacekeepers have access to the internet, are provided with workout equipment and are permitted mascots. Mascots are not allowed at the main camps, even though a veterinarian is available to maintain the health of the animals, which are almost always dogs.After the original inception of the MFO routine travel to al-Arish, Sharm el Sheikh and a beach facility near the Gaza Strip were restful getaways but recent security concerns over possible Hamas activity has changed that. Similarly, a bicycle competition known as the Tour de Sinai which had begun in 1985 had gone by the wayside in recent years. Further informationhttp://www.mfo.org/index.php

craigslist | all jobs in seattle-tacoma

2010-03-08 23:35:31 GMT
Find a deeper meaning in medicine. In the Navy Medical Corps, provide the finest medical care available for Sailors, Marines and servicemembers — and their families — wherever duty calls. Doing everything a typical physician would do:
• Diagnose ailments
• Treat injuries
• Save lives
Plus, look forward to moving beyond the routine as a military doctor. That could mean leading medical relief efforts in this country or virtually anywhere in the world. Caring for victims of everything from sickness to combat, disease to poverty, and hurricanes to tsunamis. Being ready to apply your skills to any situation, any environment.
As a Navy Physician, you’ll challenge your problem-solving abilities and develop unrivaled medical expertise as you:
• Utilize some of the most advanced technology on the planet
• Work at the best military medical facilities on shore, at sea and in the field
• Team with top military doctors and other dedicated health-care professionals on a highly respected Navy Health Care team
Wherever you are in your medical career, the Navy can help ease your financial burdens and advance your career with generous scholarships, financial assistance and continuing education programs.
And keep in mind: If you’re a student or resident, you can concentrate on your education or training, with no military/training obligation until after your program is completed.
Students can get medical school paid for, residents get supplemental income in medical residency, and practicing physicians get help repaying educational loans
Benefits
As a full-time Navy Medical Officer, you can look forward to excellent benefits that include:
• A competitive salary and supplemental pay
• Scheduled pay raises and regular promotions
• Advanced training funded by the Navy
• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage (includes family)
• Generous retirement income plus a 401(k)-like savings plan
• 30 days of vacation with pay earned every year
• Tax-free allowances for housing, meals and shopping (at military stores)
• Free or low-cost world travel opportunities
• Access to military clubs worldwide
All this — with no malpractice or business-related costs as a military doctor. With the pride, purpose and satisfaction of serving your country. With a more reasonable and flexible schedule than typically found in private practice. Giving you ample time to devote to your career, your family and personal pursuits.

Requirements / Qualifications
To qualify for Active Duty employment consideration in the Navy Medical Corps, you must:
• Be a U.S. citizen or a foreign citizen licensed to practice in the U.S. (see a Medical Officer Recruiter for details.)
• Be a graduate of an eligible medical school accredited by the AMA or the AOA
• Have completed one year of graduate school in a program approved by the AMA or AOA (interns currently in training may also apply)
• Have a current state medical license within one year of entering the Navy Medical Corps
• Be willing to serve a minimum of three years of Active Duty
• Be between the ages of 18 to 62
• Be in good physical condition and pass a full medical examination

For more information about this job call 1-877-475-6289 or E-mail mill_cnrc_lpt_seattle@navy.mil

craigslist | all jobs in seattle-tacoma

2010-03-08 23:40:50 GMT
Gain the recognition you deserve as a nursing professional — and unprecedented respect. In the Navy Nurse Corps, provide high-quality nursing care for Sailors, Marines and servicemembers — and their families — wherever duty calls. Doing everything a typical nurse would do:
• Check vitals
• Treat wounds
• Manage triage
• Lift spirits, restore hope and mentor others
Then step outside of your comfort zone. That could mean taking part in humanitarian relief efforts as well as outreach programs in this country and around the world. Collaborating with physicians, surgeons, cardiologists and fellow nurses as colleagues and equals. Developing the leadership skills that will set you apart.
As a Navy Nurse, you’ll elevate your credentials and set the standard as you:
• Utilize some of the most advanced technology on the planet
• Work at the best military nursing facilities on shore, at sea and in the field
• Team with top health-care professionals on the highly respected Navy Health Care team
Benefits
As a full-time Navy Nurse Officer, you can look forward to excellent benefits that include:
• A competitive salary and supplemental pay
• Scheduled pay raises and regular promotions
• Advanced training funded by the Navy
• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage (includes family)
• Generous retirement income plus a 401(k)-like savings plan
• 30 days of vacation with pay earned every year
• Tax-free allowances for housing, meals and shopping (at military stores)
• Free or low-cost world travel opportunities
• Access to military clubs worldwide
All this — with the pride, purpose and satisfaction of serving your country. With a more reasonable and flexible schedule than typically found in private practice. Giving you ample time to devote to your career, your family and personal pursuits.
Requirements / Qualifications
To qualify for Active Duty employment consideration in the Navy Nurse Corps, you must:
• Be a U.S. citizen or a foreign citizen licensed to practice in the U.S. (see a Medical Officer Recruiter for details.)
• Be a student or graduate in good standing of a U.S. education program granting a Bachelor of Science degree and accredited by the appropriate state board of nursing or the National League for Nursing
• Be licensed to practice in a U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or a U.S. territory (new graduates must obtain a license within one year of beginning Active Duty service)
• Be willing to serve a minimum of three years of Active Duty
• Be between the ages of 18 to 42
• Be in good physical condition and pass a full medical examination

For more information call 1-877-475-6289 or E-mail mill_cnrc_lpt_seattle@navy.mil

craigslist | all jobs in SF bay area

2010-03-09 00:41:27 GMT
ECI, Edu-Culture International is seeking 2 individuals who can assist us in finding host families for foreign high school students coming to the Bay Area this summer.

This is a temporary, part-time, phone-based position with training provided and ongoing staff support. Although there is always the opportunity for this position to evolve into a full-time position.

As a Host Family Recruiter, you will NOT be a telemarketer. You are not selling anything. Our wonderful host families are not paid and their involvement in our programs is completely voluntary. This position is essentially a phone-based contract position and does require skills that are similar to telemarketing: extreme comfort in talking to strangers, a stick-with it attitude, great telephone skills, and the ability to stay positive!

Our Host Family Recruiters work 4-5 evenings a week, typically Sun – Thurs, 5:30-9 or 9:30, from now until the end of April. HFRs are responsible, reliable, able to take good notes while talking on the phone, ask the right kind of questions, stay organized and at the end of the evening, follow up interested calls with emails. Our HFRs are quick learners, not easily discouraged and have a friendly phone voice. The people we're looking for have no trouble coming into our Berkeley office, and with 45-60 minutes of training, start making calls, easily reaching 20-40 families per evening.
Someone local to the Berkeley area that has reliable transportation is a must, as well as availability at least 4 nights a week.

* Please note, this is not telemarketing, and we are not selling anything. This is pure community-building, with our calls networked through schools and families.*

Compensation:
$12/hr with commission bonuses of $75 per student placement

About our programs:
This summer, several groups of 25-30 European students will arrive in the Bay Area (from France, Spain, Austria and Germany) and be hosted by volunteer host families in their communities during their 3-4 week stays. Over the 13 years that ECI has been organizing these programs, we have built an extensive host-family community that we continue to actively build on a daily basis. Currently, we are recruiting host families for the summer, from several sources: past host families, families of students who have been interested from in-classroom presentations, and referrals from within the ECI family.

To find more about the Host Family project, please visit the host family section of our website:http://www.educulture.org/become-a-host-family/index.asp (or from our main page: http://www.educulture.org)

About US:
Edu-Culture International (ECI) is a Berkeley-based organization focusing on community building through language immersion summer programs for teenagers. We are a small, dedicated company with global offices, and each summer hundreds of teenagers develop their English language skills by traveling to the Bay Area from Europe.

*************************************************
If this sounds like a fit for you, please include in the body an email:
1. Name, Address, Email, Phone #
2. Resume/Education (the basics)
3. Phone Experience (you can be creative!)
4. Study Abroad/Travel experience
5. A few paragraphs addressing why this position would be good for you
**************************************************

No phone calls, please

Keywords: France, French, Spain, Spanish, Austria, Germany, German, International Education, Foreign Exchange, Study Abroad, Immersion, Host family, Hosting, Exchange student, Non-profit, Volunteer, Cultural, Language

Afrigator

Internet Marketing Blog - Mybrandonline (noreply@afrigator.com) — 2010-03-08 21:00:34 GMT

 Canada isn’t shy about making life difficult for startups, and we’ve had one or two personal brawls with the country as well. But a change in Canadian tax law last week is designed to spur U.S. venture investments in Canadian startups and make Canada less of a leper colony for tech entrepreneurs. The change allows foreign investors in most Canadian startups to avoid “literally hundreds of pages of documents” to be filed and processed on a sale of a startup, sometimes by each limited partner in a venture fund. That burden meant that most venture firms simply ignored the Canadian market, says Deloitte: A 2007 survey by Deloitte and Canadas Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) of 528 VCs from around the world found that 40% of U.S. respondents and 28% of global respondents cited Canadas unfavourable tax environment as a key reason for not investing in Canadian companies. This level of concern is five times higher than for any other country in the survey and reflects the current investment crisis within Canadas venture capital industry. The survey also found that Canada is attracting the attention of just 11% of U.S. VCs as a primary country for expansion behind China (34%) and India (24%). I predict that over time this farsighted tax legislation will help propel Canadas extraordinary technology into global industry leadership in numerous markets, and will likely be viewed in the future as a defining moment for the Harper government in Canadian innovation,” says Stephen Hurwitz, a partner at U.S. law firm Choate Hall & Stewart. That may be a bit optimistic, but the tax change is a nice start. Perhaps over time our frozen neighbors to the north will be known for being great at something more than playing hockey and eating poutine. A robust startups community would be very welcome. More information: Change in tax law sends a strong signal to international investors that Canada is open for business Government removes tax barriers and stimulates flow of capital across Canadian border TORONTO, March 4, 2010 Canadian companies across the country are likely applauding todays federal budget, which contains tax law changes that give them the advantage they need to compete on the global stage. By amending the definition of taxable Canadian property to exclude shares of Canadian private companies (where not more than 50% of their value is derived from real property in Canada, Canadian resource property or timber resource property), the government has significantly reduced administrative and, in some cases, economic barriers to foreign investment in Canadian-based innovation and technology. This change puts Canada at the top of the list of places to invest globally. The changes in tax legislation announced in todays budget are among the most significant changes to capital gains taxation since the introduction of taxation of capital gains in 1972, explains John Ruffolo, Global Tax Technology, Media & Telecommunications Leader, Deloitte. The Canadian government has listened to the financing community, understood the severity of the problem and removed the major tax barriers that have prevented critically needed international investment capital from crossing our borders. At a minimal cost to the government, this amendment will have an immediate, positive and direct impact on Canadas ability to grow a robust Canadian technology industry, explains Terry Matthews, Chairman, Wesley Clover. By sending a clear message to international investors that Canada is open for business, the government will make Canadian companies more attractive to foreign investors overnight. This will help Canadian companies raise the capital they need to achieve global leadership status. The change means a much more welcoming environment for foreign investors. In the vast majority of cases, non-residents who were not taxable on the disposition of their investments in such shares due to Canadas broad international tax treaty network, are now exempt from tax under Canadian domestic law without having to apply for treaty relief. As a result, they are no longer required to comply with the Section 116 tax clearance certificate procedure or file a Canadian income tax return. The changes also remove what were perceived to be insurmountable barriers for many venture capitalists who considered the previous administrative requirements and economic delays for each investor to be strong deterrents to investing in Canada. The removal of the Section 116 tax barrier is a tax master stroke by the Canadian government enabling Canadas emerging technology companies to access deep pools of international capital and the vast global customer markets to which those pools are connected,” notes Stephen Hurwitz, Partner, Choate Hall & Stewart LLP in Boston. I predict that over time this farsighted tax legislation will help propel Canadas extraordinary technology into global industry leadership in numerous markets, and will likely be viewed in the future as a defining moment for the Harper government in Canadian innovation. BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE SECTION 116 TAX BARRIERS The following describes the tax barriers that were removed in todays budget and that are no longer preventing international investment in Canada: Withholding and Section 116 certificate process The overwhelming majority of foreign VCs are not subject to Canadian tax when they sell an investment, but face a delay of many months to work through the Section 116 tax clearance process until funds can freely flow to them. Many foreign VCs are structured such that each of the investors in the VC sometimes hundreds or even thousands is subject to this clearance process as if they held the investment directly. This delay results in lower returns and frequently causes direct financial loss to investors. Canadians who invest in the United States, the United Kingdom and other major global markets do not face such taxes or delays from red tape. Requirement to file Canadian tax returns by foreigners who dont owe taxes creates hundreds of pages of unnecessary paperwork Canada imposed tax filing requirements in circumstances where no taxes were payable by these investors. When a foreign VC sells an investment, each investor of the foreign VC has to file a Canadian tax return even if they dont owe any taxes. This results in literally hundreds of pages of documents that are required for signature and processing for a single sale. This tax return filing issue also applies to certain Canadian public companies. Why Canada was perceived by VCs as having an unfavourable tax environment A 2007 survey by Deloitte and Canadas Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) of 528 VCs from around the world found that 40% of U.S. respondents and 28% of global respondents cited Canadas unfavourable tax environment as a key reason for not investing in Canadian companies. This level of concern is five times higher than for any other country in the survey and reflects the current investment crisis within Canadas venture capital industry. The survey also found that Canada is attracting the attention of just 11% of U.S. VCs as a primary country for expansion behind China (34%) and India (24%). About Deloitte Canadas tax practice With the largest tax practice in the country (over 1,500 professionals in 44 offices), Deloitte offers a full suite of tax services to clients in all industries across the country. The market leader in shaping the future of tax, Deloitte influences Canadian tax policy with the goal of creating a business climate which propels corporate growth and furthers Canadas international competitiveness. Known for its industry-leading expertise, Deloittes tax practice sets the standard of excellence in Canada and is the only Big Four professional services firm in the country to receive a Tier 1 ranking in the prestigious International Tax Review (ITR)s World Tax 2010 report. For further information on Deloittes tax practice, visit www.deloitte.ca and for further information on the future of tax, visit www.thefutureoftax.ca. About Deloitte Deloitte, one of Canada’s leading professional services firms, provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services through more than 7,700 people in 58 offices. Deloitte operates in Qubec as Samson Blair/Deloitte & Touche s.e.n.c.r.l. Deloitte & Touche LLP, an Ontario Limited Liability Partnership, is the Canadian member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its member firms. View full post on TechCrunch 

craigslist | all jobs in SF bay area

2010-03-08 17:48:26 GMT
Work Hard. Play Hard. Change the World!

That's the opportunity you'll find at Genencor, A Danisco Division. At Genencor, we are truly changing the world and having fun doing it too! It's no wonder we've been recognized as the Bay Area's Best Place to Work and one of the Best Medium-Sized Companies to Work for in America! Genencor is a diversified biotechnology company which discovers, develops and sells biocatalysts and other bio-products for the industrial, consumer and agri-processing markets.

From the foods we eat to the energy we use, to the clothes we wear, and much more, Genencor is utilizing the power and intelligence of nature to develop new products and processes that improve the quality of our lives. Committed to innovation and sustainability, and our employees, Genencor has won countless awards in recognition of our efforts including the recipient of the R&D; 100 magazine’s award for product innovation for the second year in a row.

If you are ready to join an organization with the energy and excitement of a start-up with the stability that comes from a proven track record of one of the world’s largest and most successful biotechnology companies, we invite you to apply for the following opportunity:

Patent Administrator

We are currently seeking a dynamic individual to join our team as a Patent Administrator supporting the Intellectual Property team located in Palo Alto, CA.

Specific duties include:
•All aspects of filing and prosecution of patent applications with the USPTO and other foreign patent offices and supporting patent attorneys in those areas.
•Docketing US and foreign prosecution matters, and updating and actively managing attorney dockets.
•Maintain knowledge of USPTO rules and formal matters
•Interface and communication with outside law firms regarding collaboration projects, patent applications and prosecution and other related matters.
•Provide administrative support to attorneys and agents.
•Assisting with special projects.
•Other duties as required

Requirements:
•Minimum 3+ years experience as an Patent Administrator
•Strong computer and internet research skills: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Lotus Notes
•Solid knowledge and extensive experience in CPI system
•Ability to work well with all levels of internal management, staff and external partners
•Excellent communication skills, being flexible and a good team player
•Outstanding organizational skills, keen attention to detail, and ability to multitask and prioritize projects

To apply:
Please submit resumes to the “Jobs & Careers” section of our website at www.genencor.com
Genencor is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

GoChengdoo

2010-03-09 02:10:00 GMT
Anybody who's been to the hospital in Chengdu knows what a drag it can be. Long lines, or worse, no lines at all and a free-for-all rush to get into the doctor's office, little or no privacy, bureaucracy and paperwork and payment systems that baffle even the locals ... but now some of Chengdu's blogging doctors have an alternative.

From the Chengdu Commercial Daily (our translation):

One lives in America. For a long time, his hands have been shaking uncontrollably. The other is a doctor from the Chengdu Military Hospital. His specialty is in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the nervous system. Via his blog, although they are separated by long distances and oceans, they have overturned the traditional confinements of medical practice.

Currently, the Chengdu Military Hospital employs nearly 100 specialists who also offer online consultation in order to provide a better platform through which to answer patients' questions. Word on the street is that the Chengdu Military Hospital is now considering a "Blog Hospital" project.

On the afternoon of Feb. 25, Chengdu Military Hospital Department of Nervous System Disorders. When the American David enters department head Wang Qingsong's office, it already seems that the two are old acquaintances. Even though it's the first time the two have met, they have already been corresponding for several months through Dr. Wang's blog.

It turns out that David's mother-in-law is a local Chengdunese. At home in the Chengdu Hi-Tech Zone, it was Ms. Du who got to know the American David via the Internet. In 2004, after she married David, the pair decided to live in the U.S. In January of last year, the 70-year-old David's hands started shaking uncontrollably. The family doctor examined him numerous times but could not diagnose the cause of the trembling. Seeing that her husband's shaking hands were getting worse and worse, Ms. Du turned to the Internet for help. Wang Qingsong's blog caught her attention and gained David's trust. With Ms. Du translating, David left messages on Dr. Wang's blog, describing his condition and current medications. He quickly received a response from Dr. Wang.

Although it was impossible to make a final diagnosis over the Internet, Dr. Wang was able to suggest a number of ways to improve David's condition, and they set a date to meet this year in order to examine David more thoroughly.

That afternoon, these two unlikely "'net buddies" finally met and under Dr. Wang's direction, David received a series of examinations. According to Dr. Wang, David's shaking hands isn't due to Parkinson's disease but the distortion of the limb, which can be corrected by surgery.

"This is already the third time that I have made acquaintance with a foreign patient due to the blog!" said Dr. Wang. At the end of 2007, he had started a blog, and the entire department of doctors participated in its maintenance. The blog offered tips on staying healthy and also offered a forum in which patients seeking medical advice could ask questions. The blog has been up for three years, contains mountains of information, and receives millions of hits.

As it turns out, Wang Qingsong is only specialist at the Chengdu Military Hospital who's also a star blogger. The blog of hospital's director of marketing Zhang Hujun received an "Outstanding Creative Space" title during the First National Science Blog Awards.

His blog has already received over 10 million visits.

In April 2007, Zhang Hujun started his blog on Sohu. In the beginning, Zhang published a series of essays about the medical-engineering field but mysteriously the blog saw no traffic. A short time later, Zhang Hujun revived the blog with "My Story," and the visitors, medical-school castaways, swarmed in to discuss their own stories.

Zhang Hujun started to get a taste of sweet success. Through his blog he's met no small number of literary friends. And it was due to the concern of his blog-buddies that Zhang even changed his lifestyle: Every day he gets up one hour early to ensure that he'll have time to make a new blog post for the day. "If I don't update, a reader will call me to complain!," said Zhang.

Not long after the 2008 earthquake, Zhang Hujun posted news of the hospital's food and water shortage on his blog and immediately received a huge response. Within a month, the hospital was receiving daily donations of bottled water and instant noodles from all corners of the city.

Taking advantage of this period of high traffic, Zhang Hujun returned to his "regular job" of posting health tips. He settled arguments, posted essays about foreign popular science, and dispensed advice on how to stay fit, all in straightforward language. His down-to-earth style garnered lots of fans; one essay titled "It's Possible to Be Poisoned by Drinking Water" received over 300,000 views.

At the same time, Zhang Hujun's blog was a platform for asking and answering medical questions. "The blog can both serve patients and allow me to exercise my writing abilities," said Zhang. Because of this, Zhang Hujun was awarded the "Sohu Blogs 10 Most Popular Doctors of 2008" and a 2008 title from CCTV commending him for his blog's wealth of information.

According to Chengdu Military Hospital president Gu Jianwen, nearly 100 of the hospital's specialists blog, including many top-level specialists. Gu himself is the hospital's pioneer blogger.

He started his blog on Sohu in 2006, documenting the surgeries he performed, explaining the patients' illnesses, and offering online consultation to patients.

A year after Gu Jianwen started his blog, he had received over 1 million visits. Many of his visitors were patients with difficult-to-diagnose brain disease; after receiving online consultation, they would visit him at the hospital. In order to better serve patients, Gu Jianwen suggested that all of the hospital's specialists start blogs and update them regularly. Doctors who are particularly busy with patients or are unfamiliar with computers are assigned trainees to assist them in blogging.

Gu Jianwen finds time in his schedule to update his blog late at night and early in the morning.

Gu revealed yesterday that the Chengdu Military Hospital will create a "Blog Hospital" for all doctors on the Internet to blog on, each with a fixed online/live chat time in order to provide detailed consultation to hesitant patients.

Culture | guardian.co.uk

Paul Owen — 2010-03-09 00:15:00 GMT

SPOILER ALERT: This weekly blog is for those who have already seen the show in its entirety. This week: contributor Andy Bullock looks at what The Wire has to say about the run-up to the Iraq war
The Wire: the book
The Wire Re-up: The Guardian Guide to the Greatest TV Show Ever Made is out now from Guardian Books, and available in all good bookshops. The book features blogposts on every episode from all five seasons, plus interviews with the cast and features on the show – as well as many, many of your comments, which have made this blog the great forum it is. Buy the book by clicking here.
Season five, episode four
This week commenter Andy Bullock takes over the blog to explain what The Wire has to say about the run-up to the Iraq war.
In series five David Simon decides it's time to get political – really political. Never mind Tommy Carcetti and his gubernatorial ambitions or the rise and fall of Cedric Daniels, hidden beneath the surface of series five Simon describes how the American neoconservatives and Tony Blair manipulated their way to war in Iraq.

Without overlaying the timelines of political events with the writing of series five, we can't know to what extent one informed the other, though it is clear – in the subtext and structure – that Simon was mindful of both recent and contemporaneous events and intended the serial killer plot to warn of exactly the kind of inherent dysfunction in public institutions exposed by Blair and George Bush in 2002-03.

Indeed, so tight is the fit between fiction and what we later came to know as fact, it's possible to see McNulty's bogus serial killer as a metaphor through which Simon deconstructs the biggest political story of the 21st century. If not, then at the very least we are taken through the general principles.
Let's take a look at a couple of structural clues: does, for example, series five need Falluja vet Terry Hanning? As Templeton chances across Hanning we already have - contributing to or confirming Templeton's economy with the truth - the story of "EJ" the disabled boy outside the Orioles game, the complaining friends of the dead crab-meat lady, and an upset Daniels who didn't stab Burrell in the back (as Gus confirms with Nerese Campbell). So why waste any of the 10½ valuable hours on Hanning's story, something that adds little yet consumes so much screen time?

In addition, Robert Ruby – recently returned from the Baltimore Sun's London bureau - is already looking into Templeton's work on behalf of city editor Gus Haynes, yet Gus – in the middle of a national breaking story – takes a day out to visit Walter Reed veterans' hospital in DC to check something Ruby is already working on. It's unnecessary.

Also, from a structural perspective, there is little relationship between what Simon calls the "main theme" of season five - a newspaper so eviscerated it fails to cover the important stories in its own city - and the "overt plot" (the bogus serial killer). When we look closely, the two are as estranged as Jimmy and Elena McNulty and, instead, the "do more with less" theme is informed by a series of missed important news stories and financial cutbacks; how does this speak to the serial killer plot?

When something isn't clear the Simon maxim "The Wire is always about subtext" encourages the viewer to retrace their steps, in this case to the photocopier-lie detector scene that opens the first episode of series five. Simon always offers a clue early and there were two slightly off-key remarks in that scene: first Ed Norris's "Americans are a stupid people by and large; we pretty much believe whatever we're told", then Bunk's "The bigger the lie, the more they believe". These were our signposts.

In fact the big lie is a unifying theory; it explains why season five sometimes feels different to the preceding seasons, perhaps even like a bizarre tragic-comedy as Jimmy and Lester race around after the recently deceased armed with red ribbons and a set of false teeth. On one level, Simon is the white rabbit leading us to a mad tea party with Dr Strangelove, Bush, Blair and those non-existent WMDs. We're led to a world in which a respected public servant has created an enormous lie, manufactured entirely bogus, disparate evidence, produced that evidence to an unquestioning media and prosecuted that lie at huge cost. In the eighth hour Dick Cheney is incongruously inferred, jokingly, to be "a psychopath" by City Hall reporter Jeff Price in what must be the most carefully crafted dialogue ever written by HBO's lawyers.

The big lie doesn't, of course, become a populist reality by McNulty handing Jay Landsman a dossier or by repetition. To succeed it must be embraced and amplified by mainstream media. Having taken advice from Lester, Jimmy understands the need to "sensationalise it" so he can, as Freamon says, "win over the hearts and minds". No wonder McNulty sometimes skulks around like a pantomime villain.

A theme often explored by Simon is that of the individual diminished by institutions. In series five, we see Gus repeatedly forced to compromise his professional values, and even morality, by senior managers Klebanow and Whiting. Indeed, in the first 40 minutes of the season we witness four examples of pressure being put on individuals to compromise by the hierarchies within which they work.
In terms of David Simon's theme, it is as interesting to consider the choices made by characters like Gus, Alma, Klebanow and Whiting as it is to note those made by Professor Elizabeth Wilmshurst and deceased former foreign secretary Robin Cook - both of whom took one course of action, and attorney general Lord Goldsmith and (another) former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who chose another. Many might agree with Hanning's view that "A lie ain't a side of the story. It's just a lie"; some might prefer Carcetti's observation that "there's the short con, and there's the long con".

What we learn in season five is that institutions aren't concerned with the merits of an initial proposition, that institutions are validated by their responses to the proposition, and also that hierarchies within institutions – including senior public servants – treat institutional responses as opportunities, sometimes as a "career case".

And what of the media; did they ask the right questions? If the serial killer is using a mobile phone to send images why would he call Templeton from a payphone? Why is there no record anywhere of a previous serial killer having a similar profile? Why were seven years of successful inspections by Unscom - and ongoing verification by Unmovic and the IAEA – so easily ignored? Why were basic questions not pressed until answered?

At the meeting in the Sun's offices at which McNulty realises Templeton is a charlatan, much is made not of the Sun's right to protect its sources, but rather of the information resulting from those sources – the notebook. After all, if you control the information itself, the basis for your decision-making can't be questioned. In this way the public didn't know the origin of Blair's claim that Saddam Hussein could use WMDs within 45 minutes may have been an Iraqi taxi driver. Nor did Colin Powell mention that fact in his presentation to the UN security council. Templeton's protected notebook was, of course, empty.

Is Simon really discussing the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq? As series five was written – three and a half to four years after the invasion – the Iraqi insurgency still dominated the news (the 3,000th US death was reported on 3 January 2007). We know it was on Simon's mind because in the third episode Detective Barlow is seen reading Generation Kill at his desk. Also, in Benjamin Busch (the actor playing the uncompromising Officer Colicchio) David Simon had on set not just an old friend from Homicide: Life on the Streets and future star of Generation Kill but also an army major and recently returned second tour veteran of Iraq. You can imagine Baltimore was just what he needed after that.

It's also difficult to ignore the great irony of series five; Simon belatedly explaining to TV reviewers and Wire pundits that they had all missed his main theme – which was about the media missing the main story.

At one point, Carcetti borrows the Quaker call "Speak truth to power" and in series five Simon does just that by critiquing the most significant event in US politics in over 30 years; why else include the parade of lost limbs, close-ups of $80,000 prosthetics, the cheerful chat of young, uncomplaining men living shattered lives? It's a manifestation of the same anger and dissent that drove David Simon to create The Wire in the first place.

Quote of the week
Prop Joe: I treated you like a son.
Marlo: I wasn't made to play the son.
Running totals
Murders: up two to 76: Proposition Joe and Hungry Man.
McNulty giving a fuck when it's not his turn: up one to 37, as his fake murder scam continues, with Freamon as a willing accomplice. Drunk: up one to 23. Dubious parenting: steady on seven.

Bunk drunk: nope. Steady on 10.
Herc fuck-ups: none, although two of his previous ones are rehashed: the missing camera and letting down Randy. Steady on 20.
Omar stick-ups: none, but he's back and after revenge. Steady on 13.
Bubbles attempting to get clean: no Bubbles. Steady on seven.
The Wire
Television
US television
Paul Owen

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The Cable

Josh Rogin — 2010-03-09 00:36:07 GMT

When top Obama administration officials went to Beijing last week, they had a broad agenda for discussion, including Iran, climate change, and North Korea. What did the Chinese want to talk about? Taiwan, Taiwan, and Taiwan.

Several China experts close to both sets of officials said that Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and National Security Council Senior Director Jeffrey Bader went to China with the understanding that they would have substantive discussions on some key issues of U.S. interest, but the Chinese side used the opportunity to try to bargain for an end to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, something Beijing has wanted for decades and now feels bold enough to demand.

"It was all about Taiwan," said Bonnie Glaser, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who got readouts of the meetings from Chinese sources in the know. "The message that the Chinese are giving us is ‘We've had enough; we're fed up. We've been living with this issue of U.S. arms sales for too long and it's time to solve it.'"

The Obama team has been noticing increased confidence on the Chinese side when dealing with the United States, and some officials see that as partly a result of the rise of hard-liners within the Chinese system who advocate a tougher stance toward Washington.

But asking the Obama administration to end Taiwan arms sales shows a profound misunderstanding of U.S. foreign-policy decision making, several experts said.

"Do they really think they have a chance in hell of ending our arms sales to Taiwan? I find that shocking, but that's what they're telling us," Glaser said of the Chinese. "I can't imagine why they think that U.S. interests have somehow changed on this issue. Ultimately that's why we sell them, because it's in our interest, not to piss off China."

Charles Freeman, who holds the Freeman Chair (no relation) in China Studies at CSIS, said the Chinese are trying to raise the price of their cooperation on Iran and other issues by bringing up their long displeasure over the Taiwan arms-sales issue.

"There is a strong push from Beijing to get that core issue as their big ask and there's a desire to reopen discussions about what a plan to eliminate arms sales to Taiwan would look like," he explained. "There is some sense that we can trade Iran for Taiwan, but that's a non-starter for the Obama administration. The Chinese don't seem to understand that."

Meanwhile, although the Obama administration moved forward, eventually, with the Bush administration's left over deal to sell Taiwan some arms, the White House declined to see Taiwan any F-16 aircraft as part of the recent $6.2 billion arms sales package.

Some China watchers fear that the Obama administration is cementing a custom by which the U.S. continues to sell some arms to Taiwan while simultaneously ignoring the ongoing decline of the island's actual defense capabilities in the face of massive and increasing Chinese deployments across the Taiwan Strait.

That's the implication of this recent unclassified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency to the Office of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, which outlines how Taiwan's air defenses, which are dependent on U.S. equipment, are old and eroding quickly.

Of course, it was the Bush administration that first decided to remove the F-16s from the package of arms being sold to Taiwan and actually refused to accept a letter requesting the planes, experts note. But Obama's decision to continue the practice is seen by many as directed more at maintaining a delicate relationship with mainland China than it is on any analysis of Taiwan's security posture.

"Decisions are being made solely on the basis of what would least provoke China, not on the basis of what Taiwan would actually need to defend itself," said former Pentagon China official Dan Blumenthal, now with the American Enterprise Institute. "In deciding in effect that Taiwan does not need the aircraft, they are deciding Taiwan doesn't need an air force, which puts both U.S. and Taiwan air defenses at greater risk."

Taiwan is nowhere close to ending its lobbying effort to buy the newer F-16 planes. Defense News¸ which first highlighted the DIA document, reported today that Taiwan's defense ministry is releasing a new study claiming Chinese fighter superiority. Several Taiwanese lawmakers wrote to House and Senate foreign relations leaders to ask for a follow-on sale of F-16 fighters.

"If America softens its support for our country at this critical time we believe it will have an adverse effect on cross-Strait relations as Taiwan's negotiating position is weakened and the PRC may then seek to capitalize on our situation," the letter stated.

The sale of newer F-16s to Taiwan, the "C" and "D" versions, is also part of a larger drive to keep the production lines open for the plane. The major advocates are from the Texas and Georgia delegations, whose states stand to benefit most. Since the F-16 is also in the hunt for new sales to India, those with an interest there would also be inclined to make sure the line doesn't close.

"At some point this year, the F-16 supply chain will begin to shut down as there are no new orders and the U.S. and its allies switch to the F-35," said one Washington Asia hand. "Once this happens it is cost-prohibitive to restart the line. This industrial time constraint will force the political decision either to sell the aircraft to Taiwan or not. If no, for all intents and purposes the island will have no real means of defending its airspace."

craigslist | all jobs in SF bay area

2010-03-08 17:51:15 GMT
College of Marin

Laboratory Technician - Chemistry

Purpose Statement:
(General Description) The Laboratory Technician - Chemistry performs a variety of technical activities involved in the preparation, set-up and clean-up of supplies and equipment for laboratory demonstrations and activities. The Laboratory Technician works under limited supervision.

Posting Number:
0600103

Main Department:
Physical Sciences

Job Category (EEO):
Technical/Para-Professional

Type of managerial position:
This is not a management position

Faculty Status:
Not Applicable

Percent of Full-time Equivalency (FTE):
expressed as a decimal, e.g., 0.75 1.0

Months Per Year:
12

Essential Functions:
- Performs a variety of technical activities involved in the preparation, set-up and clean up of supplies and equipment for laboratory demonstrations and activities; prepare, set up and clean up laboratory experiment supplies and equipment as assigned.
- Plan, organize and lay out lab supplies and equipment; research, compile, arrange and assemble laboratory materials and equipment; maintain laboratory equipment in proper working condition; perform minor repairs; develop and implement laboratory preparation and set-up procedures.
- Maintain supplies and equipment used in assigned laboratory activities in proper working condition; order, receive and maintain adequate inventory levels of supplies and equipment; conduct regular and periodic inventories; issue and collect materials and equipment as required.
- Provide technical assistance to staff, faculty and students in the use of laboratory equipment, systems or supplies; explain and demonstrate related instructional and laboratory principles, theories, practices, procedures and techniques as needed.
- Evaluates situations involving other staff, students, the public, etc. for the purpose of taking appropriate action and/or directing to appropriate personnel for resolution.
- Maintains documents, files and records for the purpose of providing up-to-date reference and audit trail for compliance.
- Monitors assigned activities and/or processes for the purpose of coordinating activities and ensuring compliance with established financial, legal and/or administrative requirements.
- Prepares written materials for the purpose of documenting activities, providing written reference and/or conveying information.
- Processes documents and materials for the purpose of disseminating information to appropriate parties.
- Researches a variety of information for the purpose of providing information and/or recommendations for resolution.
- Responds to inquiries from a variety of internal and external parties (e.g. faculty, administrators, students, etc.) for the purpose of providing information, facilitating communication among parties and/or providing direction.
- Sets-up labs for the purpose of supporting assigned instructors.

Other Functions:
Assists other personnel for the purpose of supporting them in the completion of their work activities.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Desirable Attributes & Skills Previous experience in a Chemistry Lab and fluency in any foreign language are highly desirable.

KNOWLEDGE is required to perform algebra and/or geometry; read a variety of manuals, write documents following prescribed formats and/or present information before groups; and solve practical problems. Specific knowledge required to satisfactorily perform the functions of the job includes: use of equipment required in lab; processes required to complete lab projects; safety requirements.

SKILLS are required to perform multiple technical tasks with an occasional need to upgrade skills due to changing job conditions. Specific skills required to satisfactorily perform the functions of the job include: adhering to safety practices; operating equipment used in art lab; preparing and maintaining accurate records; and operating standard office equipment including pertinent software applications. Use of new or additional equipment brought about by new technology shall be incorporated consistent with the level of responsibility and complexity of this job.

ABILITY is required to schedule activities; gather, collate, and/or classify data; and coordinate a significant number of factors in the use of equipment. Flexibility is required to work with others under a variety of circumstances; analyze data utilizing defined but different processes; and use equipment for a variety of purposes under different conditions that requires an understanding of various methods of operation. Ability is also required to work with a diversity of individuals and/or groups; work with data of similar types and/or purposes; and utilize a wide variety of job related equipment. In working with others, problem solving is required to analyze issues, create plans of action and reach solutions; with data it is limited; and with equipment it is significant. Specific abilities required to satisfactorily perform the functions of the job include: communicating with diverse groups; setting priorities; working as part of a team; working with constant interruptions.

Position Requirements:
1.) A Community College and/or Vocational School Degree with study in job related area; AND
2.) Job Related Experience; AND
3.) Demonstrated sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds, learning styles and disabilities of community college students and staff.

CONTINUING EDUCATION/TRAINING REQUIRED:
HazMat Training

Required Applicant Documents:
Resume / Curriculum Vitae
Cover Letter
Transcript Conferring Associate's or Vocational Degree

Foreign Degree Holders:
For positions requiring a degree and the submission of a transcript, you must submit a Foreign Credential Evaluation with your application (under the Attachments section). Please see "Evaluation of Foreign Credentials" on the home page for more information.

Campus:
Kentfield

Working Environment:
The usual and customary methods of performing the job's functions requires the following physical demands: significant lifting, carrying, pushing and/or pulling; some climbing and balancing; significant stooping, kneeling, crouching and/or crawling; significant reaching, handling, manual dexterity and/or feeling. Generally the job requires 55% sitting, 35% walking and 10% standing. The job is performed under minimal temperature variations, some hazardous conditions (e.g. mechanical, cuts, burns, infectious disease, high decibel noise, etc.), and in varying atmospheric conditions.

Shift:
Regular

Work Days/Hours:
The work schedule is contingent upon class schedules, and two evenings per week are usually required every semester. Workweeks are 37.5 hours per week. A typical work schedule might be:

Monday: 2:00pm to 10:00pm (half-hour lunch)
Tuesday: 9:00am to 5:00pm (half-hour lunch)
Wednesday: 10:00am to 6:00pm (half-hour lunch)
Thursday: 2:00pm to 10:00pm (half-hour lunch)
Friday: 9:00am to 5:00pm (half-hour lunch)

Salary Grade:
CSEA 13

Salary Range:
Starting salary range is $3,139.50 - $3,461.25 per month. Normal entering step is step A.

Please refer to the California Schools Employee Association salary schedule on our web site for detailed information.

Retirement Benefits
This position is eligible for retirement benefits through:
CalPERS

Application Deadline Date:
03-26-2010

Applications must be completed online by the Application Deadline Date, which includes the attachment of all required application documents.

Special Instructions to Applicants:

To apply, please visit: http://jobs.marin.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=50600

EXPECTED START DATE MID-MAY, 2010

Equal Opportunity Employer

Copyright ©2009 Jobelephant.com Inc. All rights reserved.
Posted by the FREE value-added recruitment advertising agency
jeid-fbf8031d347c494ac3257357e89e2af0

craigslist | all jobs in seattle-tacoma

2010-03-08 23:29:25 GMT
Each year the Navy completes hundreds of construction, renovation, maintenance, and building projects all over the world. You may find yourself piecing together satellite images to form large image maps of a foreign town destroyed by an earthquake or flood or providing important information for rescue and rebuilding efforts. As a Civil Engineer Corps Officer, you may work in any or all of the following areas:
• Contract Management: Be the primary contact between the Navy and contractors. Solicit and manage bids. Supervise construction and troubleshoot issues.
• Public Works: Supervise and maintain utilities at shore facilities. Oversee construction and repair. Manage budgets and approve public works plans.
• Construction Battalions: The legendary ‘Seabees’ support Navy and Marine activities in the field overseas. Command 400 to 600 enlisted workers in building airfields, bridges, ports, or buildings.
CEC officers are responsible for leading the Seabees, who provide military construction support to Navy, Marine Corps, and other forces during military operations. They construct base facilities and conduct defensive operations as well. Seabees conduct specialized construction operations such as water well drilling, build runways and conduct battle damage repair. In addition, Seabees work and defend themselves while building facilities outside of their base camps. In times of disaster or emergency Seabees are often among the first responders, ready to help restore necessary services and shelter at home and around the world.
Benefits
• A competitive salary and supplemental pay
• Scheduled pay raises and regular promotions
• Advanced training funded by the Navy
• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage (includes family)
• Generous retirement income plus a 401(k)-like savings plan
• 30 days of vacation with pay earned every year
• Tax-free allowances for housing, meals and shopping (at military stores)
• Free or low-cost world travel opportunities
The Navy also has programs to help pay for college and hone your skills.
• Civil Engineer Collegiate Program: Earn up to $113,100 during your junior and senior years while pursuing your engineering degree. Also enjoy many of the benefits of regular Navy personnel. Earn your commission after graduation.
• Civil Engineer Corps Officer School: After commissioning, get specialized training needed for Navy projects, including management, administration, contract management, public works, and specialized military roles such as construction battalions.
Requirements / Qualifications
You must:
• Be a US Citizen
• Be at least 19 to enroll and less than 35 when commissioned
• Meet Navy physical standards
• Be enrolled in or graduated from an ABET accredited engineering program, preferably in civil, mechanical, electrical, construction, industrial, ocean or environmental engineering or an NAAB accredited architecture degree
For more information about this job please call 1-877-475-6289, or E-mail (mill_cnrc_lpt_seattle@navy.mil)

Politics4All Latest Blogs

2010-03-08 21:30:33 GMT

Foreign policy can be a minefield. Worse there is no choice but to tap-dance your way through it. Take the case of Turkey and Armenia. During the run up to World War I the Ottoman Empire (the predecessor of the modern Turkish state) killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 of their Armenian subjects. This, by any standard you would like to name is a genocide.

The current Turkish government, like all the previous ones, is not willing to call it that. They say it was not nearly the numbers; that there were many Turks killed as well; that even if the numbers are right it was never the policy of the government to do it. All these are pretty weak excuses, but they are what the Turkish government gives.

This leaves the United States is a bit of trick bag. Turkey is a an ally, during the Cold War their presence in NATO was a strong bulwark against the Soviet Union. On the other hand the United States has a moderately good record of at least calling genocide for what it is (when it comes to acting on that acknowledgment, we have a far worse record).

This makes recognition of the Armenian genocide a really touchy issue. We want to have some kind of credibility in the world when it comes to genocide, but sticking our thumb in the eye of a valued ally for acts committed nearly 100 years ago is not exactly the way to keep that ally well disposed towards us.

Over the last few years, the Turks and the Armenians have been moving towards normalized relations. This is a big step, since once they recognize each other as something other than a hated enemy, they can start to talk about what each others great grandfathers did. It is not an ideal situation, but it is better than nothing.

Still, domestic politics can screw up your foreign policy, if you are not on top of things. American Armenians have been agitating for years to have the Congress pass a resolution declaring what happened in and around WWI was indeed a genocide. For years various administrations have leaned on the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees to not hold such a vote, lest it get to the House or Senate floor and well and truly set the cat among the pigeons in our relationship with Turkey.

That is why it is so frustrating that the State Department and the Obama Administration dropped the ball and let exactly that vote happen in the House Foreign Relations Committee last Thursday. Laura Rosen is reporting in Politico today that no one from the National Security Council or the State Department talked to the Chair of the committee until the day before the vote was scheduled. This is dispute the fact that the mark up of the resolution was scheduled a month prior. From the article:

“My impression is that State weighed in [Wednesday] but that with the Armenia resolution, as with all other things, White House/NSC legislative affairs was completely asleep at the wheel,” one Hill staffer said. Consequently the White House ‘discovered’ the problem yesterday when call slips started finding their way to higher-ups.”

So if it is important that we don’t piss off our Turkish allies (who have called their new ambassador home for consultations) why did the ball get dropped? Rosen makes the case that it is an issue of understaffing. In the Clinton administration the NSC had a fairly large legislative affairs staff to make sure that what went on in Congress did not run afoul of the policies of the administration was pursuing. The Bush administration cut this group down to two people, since their foreign and domestic policy were essentially the same.

The episode demonstrates the need for beefing up the NSC legislative affairs shop, the Democratic sources said. The Democratic foreign policy hand said the NSC legislative affairs shop in place during the Clinton administration had basically been done away with during the George W. Bush administration, and hadn’t been fully restaffed in the Obama NSC. Two military officers, including Navy Capt. John Beaver, and a civil servant are currently fulfilling the role in the Obama NSC. But "they’ve been under-staffed for ages thanks to the set-up they inherited from the Bushies … that left NSC resource-poor," a second Hill staffer said.

Now we find ourselves in a pretty crappy situation. We need Turkey as a strong ally, they are a Islamic democracy and a long time NATO ally. They have acted a back channel peacemaker for Israel and Syria on more than one occasion. Now they are going to be pretty pissed that one of the Houses of Congress has said something they have denied for the whole of their existence is true. It is going to put a strain on both the normalization efforts between them and Armenia and our own relationship with them.

Is this the end of the world? Hardly. This nonbinding resolution is never going to see the floor of the House. The leadership is now aware of the problem and will be on guard to keep it from growing. What it does highlight is the need to be constantly coordinating our foreign policy efforts with the relevant committees in Congress. The job of action on constituents concerns and the larger policy objectives of the United States is not one that happens on its own.

The floor is yours.

Tags: armenia, Congress, foreign policy, Genocide, House Foreign Relations Committee, Obama Administration, State Department, turkey

washingtonpost.com -

TechCrunch — 2010-03-08 15:40:52 GMT
Canada isn't shy about making life difficult for startups, and we've had one or two personal brawls with the country as well. But a change in Canadian tax law last week is designed to spur U.S. venture investments in Canadian startups and make Canada less of a leper colony for tech entrepreneurs.The change allows foreign investors in most Canadian startups to avoid "literally hundreds of pages of documents" to be filed and processed on a sale of a startup, sometimes by each limited partner in a venture fund. That burden meant that most venture firms simply ignored the Canadian market, says Deloitte:A 2007 survey by Deloitte and Canada?s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) of 528 VCs from around the world found that 40% of U.S. respondents and 28% of global respondents cited Canada?s unfavourable tax environment as a key reason for not investing in Canadian companies. This level of concern is five times higher than for any other country in the survey and reflects the current investment crisis within Canada?s venture capital industry. The survey also found that Canada is attracting the attention of just 11% of U.S. VCs as a primary country for expansion ? behind China (34%) and India (24%).?I predict that over time this farsighted tax legislation will help propel Canada?s extraordinary technology into global industry leadership in numerous markets, and will likely be viewed in the future as a defining moment for the Harper government in Canadian innovation," says Stephen Hurwitz, a partner at U.S. law firm Choate Hall & Stewart.That may be a bit optimistic, but the tax change is a nice start. Perhaps over time our frozen neighbors to the north will be known for being great at something more than playing hockey and eating poutine. A robust startups community would be very welcome.More information:Change in tax law sends a strong signal to international investors that Canada is ?open for business?Government removes tax barriers and stimulates flow of capital across Canadian borderTORONTO, March 4, 2010 ? Canadian companies across the country are likely applauding today?s federal budget, which contains tax law changes that give them the advantage they need to compete on the global stage. By amending the definition of ?taxable Canadian property? to exclude shares of Canadian private companies (where not more than 50% of their value is derived from real property in Canada, Canadian resource property or timber resource property), the government has significantly reduced administrative and, in some cases, economic barriers to foreign investment in Canadian-based innovation and technology. This change puts Canada at the top of the list of places to invest globally. ?The changes in tax legislation announced in today?s budget are among the most significant changes to capital gains taxation since the introduction of taxation of capital gains in 1972,? explains John Ruffolo, Global Tax Technology, Media & Telecommunications Leader, Deloitte. ?The Canadian government has listened to the financing community, understood the severity of the problem and removed the major tax barriers that have prevented critically needed international investment capital from crossing our borders.? ?At a minimal cost to the government, this amendment will have an immediate, positive and direct impact on Canada?s ability to grow a robust Canadian technology industry,? explains Terry Matthews, Chairman, Wesley Clover. ?By sending a clear message to international investors that Canada is ?open for business?, the government will make Canadian companies more attractive to foreign investors overnight. This will help Canadian companies raise the capital they need to achieve global leadership status.? The change means a much more welcoming environment for foreign investors. In the vast majority of cases, non-residents who were not taxable on the disposition of their investments in such shares due to Canada?s broad international tax treaty network, are now exempt from tax under Canadian domestic law without having to apply for treaty relief. As a result, they are no longer required to comply with the Section 116 tax clearance certificate procedure or file a Canadian income tax return. The changes also remove what were perceived to be insurmountable barriers for many venture capitalists who considered the previous administrative requirements and economic delays for each investor to be strong deterrents to investing in Canada. ?The removal of the Section 116 tax barrier is a tax master stroke by the Canadian government enabling Canada?s emerging technology companies to access deep pools of international capital and the vast global customer markets to which those pools are connected," notes Stephen Hurwitz, Partner, Choate Hall & Stewart LLP in Boston. ?I predict that over time this farsighted tax legislation will help propel Canada?s extraordinary technology into global industry leadership in numerous markets, and will likely be viewed in the future as a defining moment for the Harper government in Canadian innovation.?BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE SECTION 116 TAX BARRIERSThe following describes the tax barriers that were removed in today?s budget and that are no longer preventing international investment in Canada:?Withholding and Section 116 certificate process ? The overwhelming majority of foreign VCs are not subject to Canadian tax when they sell an investment, but face a delay of many months to work through the Section 116 tax clearance process until funds can freely flow to them. Many foreign VCs are structured such that each of the investors in the VC ? sometimes hundreds or even thousands ? is subject to this clearance process as if they held the investment directly. This delay results in lower returns and frequently causes direct financial loss to investors. Canadians who invest in the United States, the United Kingdom and other major global markets do not face such taxes or delays from red tape. ?Requirement to file Canadian tax returns by foreigners who don?t owe taxes creates hundreds of pages of unnecessary paperwork ? Canada imposed tax filing requirements in circumstances where no taxes were payable by these investors. When a foreign VC sells an investment, each investor of the foreign VC has to file a Canadian tax return even if they don?t owe any taxes. This results in literally hundreds of pages of documents that are required for signature and processing for a single sale. This tax return filing issue also applies to certain Canadian public companies. Why Canada was perceived by VCs as having an unfavourable tax environment A 2007 survey by Deloitte and Canada?s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (CVCA) of 528 VCs from around the world found that 40% of U.S. respondents and 28% of global respondents cited Canada?s unfavourable tax environment as a key reason for not investing in Canadian companies. This level of concern is five times higher than for any other country in the survey and reflects the current investment crisis within Canada?s venture capital industry. The survey also found that Canada is attracting the attention of just 11% of U.S. VCs as a primary country for expansion ? behind China (34%) and India (24%). About Deloitte Canada?s tax practice With the largest tax practice in the country (over 1,500 professionals in 44 offices), Deloitte offers a full suite of tax services to clients in all industries across the country. The market leader in shaping the ?future of tax?, Deloitte influences Canadian tax policy with the goal of creating a business climate which propels corporate growth and furthers Canada?s international competitiveness. Known for its industry-leading expertise, Deloitte?s tax practice sets the standard of excellence in Canada and is the only Big Four professional services firm in the country to receive a Tier 1 ranking in the prestigious International Tax Review (ITR)?s ?World Tax 2010? report. For further information on Deloitte?s tax practice, visit www.deloitte.ca and for further information on the ?future of tax?, visit www.thefutureoftax.ca.About Deloitte Deloitte, one of Canada's leading professional services firms, provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services through more than 7,700 people in 58 offices. Deloitte operates in QuÃ©bec as Samson BÃ©lair/Deloitte & Touche s.e.n.c.r.l. Deloitte & Touche LLP, an Ontario Limited Liability Partnership, is the Canadian member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see www.deloitte.com/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its member firms.

News: Main section | guardian.co.uk

David Leigh, Patrick Wintour — 2010-03-08 22:00:03 GMT

• Tory leader rejects claims party is reliant on tycoon
• Pressure for answers over non-dom row intensifies
David Cameron claimed tonight that he had succeeded in diluting the Conservatives' reliance on money from their controversial deputy chairman, Lord Ashcroft, as the party confirmed the billionaire peer would not serve in a Tory government after the election.
In a BBC interview, Cameron tried to draw a line under the issue that has dogged his party for more than a week, saying Ashcroft's donations to the Conservatives were "entirely legal" and insisting he "has answered the questions about where he pays his tax".
Ashcroft revealed last Monday he had agreed with the government that he could remain a "non-dom" despite promising when he became a peer in 2000 to take up permanent residency in the UK. Cameron insisted reporters were "flogging a dead horse" in pursuing the story.
"When I became leader of the Conservative party it was in debt to the tune of £20m. That is now in single figures," Cameron said. "I have sorted out the debts of the Conservative party. I have sorted out the funding … I have made it less reliant on a few wealthy people. I've broadened its base. I've paid off loans including a very large loan to Michael Ashcroft so the party is not in his debt one piece. That is what I've done – dealing with the debts of the Conservative party. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and dealing with the debts of the country."
Cameron rejected the view that he was too weak to take on Ashcroft. "I would put it to you that it's now time for the BBC to go after the Labour party and ask questions about their donors and where they pay tax. We have answered those questions some time before the general election and I'm very pleased we've done so."
Tonight a spokesman for the Tory leader went further than Cameron did in his interview, revealing that Ashcroft would not become a minister. "Michael Ashcroft has said that he is standing down as deputy chairman of the Conservative party after the election to concentrate on his media and business interests. Under the ministerial code this would exclude him from holding a government post."
Pressure is mounting on ministers to make a statement about the unusual way that Ashcroft was allowed to claim non-dom status and avoid tax despite his British origins.
A series of parliamentary questions are due for answer by the Treasury this week about the circumstances in which Ashcroft was granted his tax concession in 2000, believed to have saved him tens of millions of pounds.
One, tabled by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly, asks under what circumstances a person born in the UK, whose parents were UK citizens, and who is a "long-term resident" of the UK, can qualify to be classified as a UK non-dom. Another asks what requirements Belize passport-holders must satisfy to be allowed to claim UK non-dom status. Ashcroft, who describes himself as "proud of my essentially British roots", was born in Chichester, Sussex, shortly after the second world war, in which his father fought for Britain. His parents came from Burnley and Bolton and both also, says Ashcroft, were "sturdy Lancastrians and proud of their roots" .
Ashcroft spent three years as a child in Belize, where his father was briefly posted as a colonial administrator, before he returned to be schooled and to work in England. In the 1990s, he spent less than a decade as a tax exile, a non-resident with a house in Florida and business interests in the Belize tax haven.
The granting of non-dom status, under which it was ruled that Ashcroft's true abode was in a foreign country, enabled him to resume British residence and obtain a peerage without having to pay full British taxes.
William Hague, Conservative leader at the time, promised the honours scrutiny committee Ashcroft would pay "tens of millions a year" in British taxes, and a solemn undertaking was made public at the time from Ashcroft that he would again become a "permanent resident" of Britain. But he has since claimed the committee members agreed he could secretly change the word "permanent" to "long-term", meaning temporary.
Ministers normally avoid giving information about individuals' tax affairs, but the minister in charge of tax, Stephen Timms, may find it hard to avoid answering one pointed parliamentary question due to appear on the order paper: "To ask … how many people holding Belize passports are a) classified as non-domiciled in the UK for tax purposes and b) on what date each was granted such status?"
The unanswered question behind the political row about Ashcroft is what information his accountants gave the revenue to persuade it of the unlikely thesis that he had turned himself into a foreigner.
On the face of it, Ashcroft did not fit the criteria set out in revenue guidelines newly drafted in 1999. These said that a person of British origins could escape his "UK domicile" only if: "You leave your country of domicile and settle in another country." Before allowing a Briton to renounce his domicile, the Revenue said it also needed: "strong evidence you intend to live there permanently or indefinitely".
Yesterday the Lib Dem peer Lord Taverne wrote to the subcommittee on Lords interests to ask for an investigation into Ashcroft's peerage. Taverne said: "Lord Ashcroft does not appear to have been straight with the Lords. This directly contravenes the principles of standards in public life and therefore raises the question of his suitability for public office."
Michael Ashcroft
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Devon Pendleton — 2010-03-08 20:22:06 GMT
[1]It's no secret that media is an industry in dire need of a White Knight. Will it be the iPad? [2] The sudden, improbable rebound of advertising rates? The demise of the internet? Right now, it seems the most successful (least bankrupt) traditional media companies are hanging in there thanks to a billionaire benefactor [3] whose deep pockets are allowing a news organization to stomach losses most business owners couldn't hack. Rupert Murdoch's truthy-ish Fox News [4] is helping prop up The Wall Street Journal. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's nifty terminals finance his eponymous news organization, which now includes a TV network and BusinessWeek. And Carlos Slim's telecom empire bought him a piece of the Grey Lady. Now there's another wave of billionaires here to invest in our flagging sector, a whole clan of 'em. The Al Nahayans, the royal ruling family of Abu Dhabi are on a multi-billion dollar campaign to make the oil-flush city-state a hub of all things media. As the AP duly notes: It has set up a company to bankroll Hollywood films, built an office park to house foreign news agencies, and spent billions to invest in microchips that power the electronic gadgets that increasingly serve as platforms for media consumption. It is also partnering with established Western brands, including National Geographic and Comedy Central, to develop Arabic-language programming, and is splashing out on big-name concerts for eager audiences at home. Recent shows featured Rihanna [5], Aerosmith and Beyonce. Via Abu Dhabi Pumps Oil Riches Into Media Projects - NYTimes.com [6]. Along with the art museums [7], the prestigious universities [8] and the carbon-neutral cit [9]y, the rush to build a media empire is part of the emirate's grand plan to diversify its economy away from oil. It's a move only a multi-billionaire could justify: they're not concerned with returns or ad rates. For them, it's a relatively cheap way to get a lot of attention, fast. I'd wager to guess that at least 50% of Americans have never heard of Abu Dhabi. A little Hollywoodization would change that in a hurry. Tomorrow, the government is hosting a summit for "media and entertainment elite" including Murdoch (who recently bought a stake [10]in Saudi Arabia's biggest media company and is moving some of Fox's global offices [11] to Abu Dhabi) and Google's Eric Schmidt. The country's new daily paper, The National, [12] whose mission is to "reinforce Abu Dhabi's status as a global economic center" has poached writers from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, luring them with (gasp) a salary and benefits. Does all this mean a new lease on life for traditional media? It's doubtful. The sheikhs' billions, exciting as it seems, is no panacea for what ails the industry. It's a sexy way for the city to grab attention and court some bigwigs but as to the larger problem- how to monetize all this TV/news/music- it offers little. More troubling, is the fact that this new global media hub is materializing in a country and region not known for its free press. Criticism of the royal family is verboten, reporting negative economic news is discouraged [13] and a law [14] aimed at liberalizing some of the constitution's more draconian media restrictions has been in limbo for nearly a year. Would an influx of global media brands pressure the government into adopting freer media policies...or will media fall in line with what their financiers implicitly want? The trickiness of the situation is embodied by an Op-Ed that ran last week in Dubai's local (government-owned) paper the Gulf News, railing against the National Media Council (NMC), the UAE's government body that oversees media: Standards have declined such that newspapers carry a little news, advertisements and a few shallow words. They have also lost their role as a watchdog. The NMC and editors of newspapers ignore the fact that today's reader has changed and does not look for official statements in newspapers, because he can turn to internet news sites and forums for the information he wants. However, the most critical issue is that the government has become much more aggressive with the media and its people. The list of banned subjects is growing, and there are more instructions not to publish certain stories. Furthermore, editors-in-chief are used to applying pressure on journalists, which has turned some of these editors into representatives of the government, practising vicious censorship of their own newspapers. Via gulfnews : The ceiling of press freedom in UAE is falling [15] A grim assessment. The good news: that it was published at all. [1] http://trueslant.com/devonpendleton/2010/03/08/worlds-newest-media-hub-has-everything-but-freedom-of-the-press/dubai_press_club_launches_new_training_program_for_uae_journalists/ [2] http://trueslant.com/devonpendleton/2010/01/28/steve-jobs-misogynist/ [3] http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=141948 [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/media/10ailes.html?pagewanted=2 [5] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/rihanna/index.html?inline=nyt-per [6] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/08/business/AP-ML-Abu-Dhabi-Media-Debut.html?_r=1&ref=aponline [7] http://www.guggenheim.org/guggenheim-foundation/architecture/abu-dhabi [8] http://nyuad.nyu.edu/ [9] http://www.masdar.ae/en/Menu/index.aspx?&MenuID=42&CatID=12&mnu=Cat [10] http://menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?storyid=1093307818 [11] http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZW20100308000085/News%20Corp%27s%20Fox%20Eyes%20ME%20Presence%20With%20Abu%20Dhabi%20Office [12] http://www.thenational.ae/ [13] http://boingboing.net/2009/02/22/uae-plans-ban-on-neg.html [14] http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/06/just-good-news-please [15] http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/the-ceiling-of-press-freedom-in-uae-is-falling-1.590497

The New York Review of Books

2010-03-08 18:54:38 GMT

Martin Filler

The winning design for the US Embassy in London, by KieranTimberlake (KieranTimberlake Architects)

One of the most well-intentioned artistic initiatives ever undertaken by the United States government has turned out to be among its least successful: the embassy design program meant to present America’s best architectural face abroad. The latest evidence of this effort’s often dispiriting outcome is the selection of the little-known Philadelphia firm of KieranTimberlake to create a new US embassy in London.

Planned for a derelict industrial site of almost five acres near the Thames in south-of-the-river Wandsworth, the project carries the astonishing price tag of $1 billion, and brings to mind an International Style corporate headquarters as well as a medieval castle keep. At first glance, this 12-story cube-shaped structure recalls countless other glass-sheathed office buildings. However, upon closer inspection other associations predominate.

The embassy’s “ground” floor is elevated atop a bunker-like podium, the top of which is densely landscaped with grassy berms, trenches, and a water feature best described as a moat. The building’s square footprint, chunky massing, fortified perimeter, and relation to the river make it a twenty-first-century avatar of the Tower of London, several miles to the northeast on the opposite bank of the Thames.

The building’s exterior cladding of glass—a material often equated simplistically with governmental openness—is treated with polymer plastic to lessen its projectile force in case of explosion. Similarly, the undulating earthworks at the base of the tower are meant to deter the advance of truck bombers. Given the likelihood of another al-Qaeda assault on the capital city of America’s principal ally in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, such defensive measures seem only prudent, but the extensive checklist of protective requirements included in the design brief clearly had an inhibiting effect on even the most gifted of the competition’s entrants.

The new legation building would replace Eero Saarinen’s US Embassy Chancery of 1955-1960, which occupies the entire west side of Grosvenor Square in north-of-the-river Mayfair. Whether intentionally or not, the modular, gridded elevations of KieranTimberlake’s project look like a stack-up of three Saarinen façades. (The old building has been sold for a reported $533 million to the government of Qatar, which plans to redevelop it into a hotel and apartments, but must retain the once-controversial, now-landmark street front.)

Eero Saarinen’s US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London (Alastair Grant, AP Images)

Saarinen’s Brutalist concrete intrusion, topped off with a garish gold sculpture of a screaming eagle, spoke as revealingly of America’s postwar hegemony as the mixed message of KieranTimberlake’s scheme does of our very different place in the world order fifty years later. Apart from the need for more office space, the old embassy’s locale was deemed to make it too inviting for terrorists, and thus prompted the move to a less populous neighborhood that could accommodate a setback of some one hundred feet for a buffering “blast zone.”

KieranTimberlake’s scheme was strongly opposed by the two British members of the seven-person design jury—the architect Richard Rogers and Peter Palumbo, a former chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. They were quickly joined by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and the government’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, which announced it could not approve the winning design.

According to The Guardian, Rogers and Palumbo “fought to the death” to keep their American fellow jurors from approving this entry, and instead pushed for the proposal by Thom Mayne of the Santa Monica firm Morphosis which they maintain was “touched by genius.” Even though Mayne’s scheme is not nearly as fine as his magisterial Federal Office Building of 2000-2007 in San Francisco, it was indeed the best among four finalists, which also included Pei Cobb Freed’s tepid glass-skinned, cross-braced ovoid and a confused neo-Constructivist composition by Richard Meier, which recalls the gigantic cash register pavilion at the 1939 New York Word’s Fair.

For a century and a half after independence, America’s foreign representatives were customarily housed in existing quarters built for other purposes. In 1926, Congress created the Foreign Service Buildings Office to oversee the design and construction of US embassies and consulates, but the results were hardly distinguished, and ran to Beaux-Arts Classical or Colonial Revival cliches. The widespread acceptance of Modernism after World War II led to a radical change in this country’s official architectural presence abroad.

In 1954, the State Department’s revitalized embassy design program embraced the new architecture in much the same spirit that it exported jazz and Abstract Expressionism: as talismans of American creative freedom at the height of the cold war. A major principle of this endeavor—the subject of Jane C. Loeffler’s 1998 book The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies—was to give the new structures “a distinguishable American flavor,” while at the same time referring to local traditions in contemporary form.

Several architects followed that mandate all too literally. Edward Durrell Stone’s perforated New Delhi embassy of 1954-1958 summons up a lacy MGM seraglio; the colonnaded Athens embassy of 1959-1961 by Walter Gropius and The Architects Collaborative evokes a savings-and-loan Parthenon; and John Johansen’s circular Dublin embassy of 1959-1964 resembles a cross between an Irish Martello tower and a Jet Age airport hotel. The extent to which these culturally condescending designs—risibly aloof from the surrounding urban setting—all exhibit “a distinguishable American flavor” is somewhat akin to an obese tourist decked out in cargo shorts, baseball cap, and Hawaiian-print shirt.

Things got even worse after the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998, the reaction to which marginalized aesthetic concerns in favor of heightened security. As Loeffler wrote in 2005, “the inaccessibility of these [more recent] buildings coupled with the new standardized design, may be harming efforts to portray America as an open society.”

With KieranTimberlake’s scheme, the costume has changed to the architectural equivalent of Kevlar body armor thinly disguised underneath a Tommy Hilfiger seersucker suit. No doubt to soften the new embassy’s Fortress America connotations, the architects have gussied up their presentation with crowd-pleasing environmental details of the sort that real estate developers throw in to gain planning approval for otherwise objectionable projects.

Here, the exterior will sport photovoltaic cells to collect solar power and make the building energy self-sufficient. One corner near the top of the structure will be cut out to create a covered terrace planted with large trees, a dubiously sustainable gesture derisively dismissed in advanced ecological circles as “parsley.”

Perhaps KieranTimberlake’s arboreal reference is Shakespearean. In Macbeth, enemy troops advance on the title character’s stronghold wearing tree branches to camouflage themselves, and thereby fulfill the cryptic prophecy that he will remain safe until “Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane.” In Finnegan’s Wake, Joyce reframes that line as “a burning would is come to dance inane,” a not-inappropriate gloss on this tragicomic evidence of America’s postmillennial quandary in architectural guise.

HOLIDAY NEWS - Google News

2010-03-08 23:18:27 GMT

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates makes surprise visit to Afghanistan
Times Online
US diplomats in Kabul get nine weeks' holiday a year and it's largely up to them when they take it. By contrast, British Foreign Office and DfID officials ...

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