Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Is Tropical / Dancing Anymore? (18+)

Ex Swiss banker convicted of under-age sex with prostitute in Singapore...

A Swiss former banker was found guilty on Tuesday of having sex with an underage Singaporean prostitute.

The case caused a scandal as it involved several prominent men in the city state.

Juerg Buergin, 41, was found guilty by a district court of two charges of having sex with a 17-year-old call girl and will be sentenced on May 8.

Judge Eddy Tham said Buergin had failed to disprove the charges that sexual intercourse between him and the girl took place on two occasions in 2010 and 2011.

Buergin, a married former executive with banking giant UBS, had said at the start of his trial in March that he was tricked into thinking the girl was older than 17.

 Prostitution is legal in Singapore but it is against the law to pay for the sexual services of girls under 18, in a bid to protect the young from exploitation. Full story...

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World Cup hosts Qatar face scrutiny over 'slavery' accusations...

(...)

Yet according to Belounis, as well as several human rights groups, several players and thousands of construction workers who will be building the infrastructure for the World Cup have been abused, denied their wages and trapped in a system that they cannot escape from.

The so called Kafala system -- which ties employees to a specific employer -- has, according to Human Rights Watch and the International Trade Union Confederation, been open to systematic abuse and created a de facto form of slavery for the more than one million migrant workers living within its borders.

"Qatar has been quite successful at giving off a progressive image when, in fact, the [labor] system is exploitative," said Nicholas McGeehan of Human Rights Watch.

"It is the same old story. The Kafala system, the confiscation of passports, the illegal charging of exorbitant agent fees, the inability for workers to access the courts for redress.

"Qatar has an exit visa system so you cannot leave the country without the sponsor's say. You have a system where workers are trapped in the country and the same old abuses rear their head. Unpaid wages, wages held in arrears. It keeps workers credibly vulnerable," he added. Full story...

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The worldwide Church of the Evening News...

The march of idiots is an interesting subject for investigation.

The collectivized mind is wired to other minds, and they exchange gibberish to feel whole.

People are addicted to crap. They like it.

That’s why they watch the news.

That’s why they believe the news.

It’s time for a worldwide Church of the News, with its own priests, its own symbols, and its own prophets. In other words, go to the extreme. Why fiddle around? Bring things out in the open.

Brian Williams would be a saint some day. The great ancestors, like Ed Murrow, Cronkite, and Chet Huntley would be celebrated figures in testaments. Full story...

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Government funded phone app tracks "vaccine refusers"

A new phone application called Vaccine Refused developed by the University of Iowa tracks – just as the name implies – vaccine refusals.

The application is intended to be used by health professionals to report the location of the refusal, the vaccine refused, and patient demographics. The output of the data, which is supposedly anonymous and stored securely at the University of Iowa, provides a heat map of the refusals.

I’m going to show you how the government will likely use this information – and it isn’t pretty. Let me tell you more.

To understand the importance of this particular application, we need to know how it is being funded and who is leading the research. This will give us a clue as to how the data will likely be used.

The research for the phone application is led by Dr. Philip Polgreen, Director of Infectious Disease Society of America’s Emerging Infections Network. Full story...

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Act of Terror - Arrested for filming police officers...

Energy giant npower has dodged paying up to £108 million tax in the past four years — by funnelling cash to Malta...

ENERGY giant npower has dodged paying up to £108 million in UK corporation tax in the past four years — by funnelling cash to Malta.

More than half of the firm’s funding comes from German owner RWE via loans paid through a shell company based in the Mediterranean tax haven, The Sun can reveal.

Npower then pays back annual interest on the loans to the Maltese company — called Scaris.

The arrangement means the UK gas and electricity supplier can post a loss here, and avoid corporation tax.

Last night experts likened npower to the US coffee chain Starbucks, which dodged UK tax using similar sister firms. Full story...

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Saudi bride-to-be to fiancé: Marry my two friends or else...

A Saudi man who went to marry his fiancé was shocked when she told him he must also marry her two friends as a condition to accept him as a husband.

The man had thought his fiancé, a school teacher, was joking when she demanded that he should marry her two work colleagues as well.

“But he realized that she was not joking when she insisted on her demand…after mediation efforts by relatives, he agreed to marry the three school teachers,” the Saudi Arabic language daily Alyoum said in a report from the western town of Taif.

It said that after the marriage, the man rented three apartments for his wives, adding that having the same husband has not spoilt their friendship.

“The wives reached an agreement to meet at the apartment of the wife who is her turn to spend the night with her husband….they agreed to join hands to do household work, including cleaning, cooking and washing on that day.” Source...

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Rogue dentist barred after pulling 20 of patient's teeth...

A German dentist who pulled out 20 teeth from a patient without good reason - and without permission - has lost his fight to keep his licence.

In what must have been the stuff of nightmares, the man awoke from a full anaesthetic to find that his dentist had removed 20 of his teeth.

The dentist was convicted of actual bodily harm, and handed an eight-month suspended sentence, but still fought to keep his licence to practise.

But the administrative court in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, on Monday rejected his appeal and confirmed he would no longer be able carry out dental work.

 The dentist had shown himself to be unworthy of a dentist's licence, the court said. Source...

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US soldier ‘found alive’ in Vietnam 44 years after being left behind...

Unclaimed claims to introduce the world to former Army Sergeant John Robertson, lost over Vietnam in 1968 and left behind for over four decades.

The Toronto Star reports Edmonton filmmaker Michael Jorgenson found Robertson, 76, living in a rural Vietnam village stooped with age, unable to speak English, remember his birthday, or names of the children he left behind in the U.S.

It’s a story difficult to understand considering the US military places such a priority on bringing every service member home, whenever possible.

Jorgenson told the Toronto Star that he was also skeptical when Vietnam vet Tom Faunce came to him and explained a man he’d found in Vietnam was a former “Army brother” listed as killed in action and forgotten. He says he became convinced only after going to Vietnam and meeting Robertson himself. Full story...

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Bush Library won't release documents...

Bee deaths: EU, Switzerland to suspend use of pesticides...

The European Union said on Monday it will suspend the use of three of the world's most widely-used pesticides for two years because of fears they are linked to a plunge in bee populations.

The European Commission will impose a temporary ban of a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids effective from the beginning of December.The Federal Office for National Economic Supply said it will follow suit.

The ban will affect the use of the substances on all crops, excluding winter cereals and plants, which are not attractive to bees or harvested before bloom, such as beet and salad.

The pesticides, which are widely used to protect rapeseed and maize from aphids and other pests, are mainly produced by Basel-based Syngenta and Germany's Bayer. A ban would shift demand to alternative substances, whose effects on bee populations are largely unknown. Full story...

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Billionaires flee havens as trillions are pursued offshore...

Billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russia’s 14th-richest person, and his wife, Elena Rybolovleva, have been brawling for almost five years in at least seven countries over his $9.5 billion fortune.

In a divorce complaint originated in Geneva in 2008, Rybolovleva accused her husband of using a “multitude of third- parties” to create a network of offshore holding companies and trusts to place assets -- including about $500 million in art, $36 million in jewelry and an $80 million yacht -- beyond her reach.

She has brought legal action against the 48-year-old Rybolovlev in the British Virgin Islands, England, Wales, the U.S., Cyprus, Singapore and Switzerland, and is seeking $6 billion.

The suits provide a window into the offshore structures and secrecy jurisdictions the world’s richest people use to manage, preserve and conceal their assets. According to Tax Justice Network, a U.K.-based organization that campaigns for transparency in the financial system, wealthy individuals were hiding as much as $32 trillion offshore at the end of 2010. Fewer than 100,000 people own $9.8 trillion of offshore assets, according to research compiled by former McKinsey & Co. economist James Henry. Full story...

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Monday, April 29, 2013

The top 5 regrets of the dying...

A palliative nurse recorded the most common regrets of the dying and put her findings into a book called ‘The Top Five Regrets of The Dying.’ It’s not surprising to see what made the list as they are all things that touch each of our lives as we struggle to pay attention to and make time for things that we truly love. Below is the list of each regret along with an excerpt from the book. At the bottom is also a link to the book for anyone interested in checking it out.

One thing on regret before we get to the list. It’s important to remember that whatever stage we are at in life, there is no need for regret. The process of regret is one that provides nothing but suffering for ourselves as we begin to allow the past to dictate how we should feel now. Instead, we can use the past as a reference point to understand what adjustments we would like to make moving forward. The adjustments do not have to come out of pain, sorrow, regret or judgment, but simply a choice to do things in a different way. We are learning all the time, we can very quickly slow that learning process down by getting stuck in the idea of regret. When it comes to making changes, be at peace with the past and remember that each moment is a new choice. Full story...

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Facebook deserted by millions of users in biggest markets...

Facebook has lost millions of users per month in its biggest markets, independent data suggests, as alternative social networks attract the attention of those looking for fresh online playgrounds.

As Facebook prepares to update investors on its performance in the first three months of the year, with analysts forecasting revenues up 36% on last year, studies suggest that its expansion in the US, UK and other major European countries has peaked.

In the last month, the world's largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm SocialBakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users checked in last month, a fall of 4.5%. The declines are sustained. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK.

 Users are also switching off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook has some of its biggest followings. A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment. Full story...

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Indian man charged for letting 9-year-old son drive Ferrari...

Police in southern India say charges have been filed against a man who allowed his 9-year-old son to drive his Ferrari.

Inspector M.V. Verghese in Kerala state said Monday that Mohammed Nisham was charged with endangering the life of a child and allowing a minor to drive.

Nisham's wife filmed the boy driving the sports car on his ninth birthday two weeks ago, with his 5-year-old brother in the passenger seat. The video went viral on YouTube and caused an outrage across India, causing police to file charges.

India's economic boom has created a class of super rich, whose excesses are frequently in the news.

 The boy has also driven the family's Lamborghini and Bentley. His mother said she's "proud of him. He's been driving since he was 5." Source...

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British drugs trio jailed for four years in Dubai amidst torture claims...

Three British men have been jailed for four years each for possession of drugs in Dubai amid claims that they were tortured by police.

Grant Cameron and Suneet Jeerh, both 25, and Karl Williams, 26, all from London, were convicted of possessing a quantity of a synthetic cannabis after being arrested in July last year while on holiday.

The men claim they signed documents in Arabic - a language none of them understands - following their arrests after they were threatened with guns to their heads. Mr Williams also reported having electric shocks administered to his testicles.

Pressure group Reprieve, which campaigns on behalf of prisoners, said the men should be granted clemency and their torture allegations should be thoroughly investigated. Full story...

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US authorities keep up pressure on Swiss banks...

Another Swiss banker has been arrested in the United States allegedly in connection with investigations into possible tax evasion practices.

The foreign ministry on Sunday confirmed newspaper reports that a Swiss citizen had been detained by the US authorities, but declined to give further details.

A syndicated article in two Swiss Sunday newspapers says the man is employed by the British private bank Coutts in Geneva and used to work for Switzerland’s leading UBS bank until 2009.

He is believed to have advised clients with dual US-Russian citizenship.

The 55-year old Swiss citizen was apparently arrested upon arrival in New York and brought to Florida. Full story...

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CIA delivers cash to Afghan leader's office....

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”

For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

 Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. Full story...

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Indonesia teens accused of blasphemy over Maroon 5 dance...

Five Indonesian teenage girls have been accused of blasphemy and may face jail after making a video in which they mixed Islamic prayer with dancing to a Maroon 5 song, police said Tuesday.

The girls were expelled from their high school in Tolitoli city, on Sulawesi island, and reported to police after the video of their dance to the US band's hit "One More Night" went viral online.

It is just the latest in a string of blasphemy cases in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, which have prompted rights groups to call for a change in a law they say is outdated and misused.

In the five-minute clip, the girls, wearing school tracksuits, switch between Islamic prayer rituals and mostly innocent dancing, with the occasional pelvic thrust and suggestive hand gesture thrown in.

Several versions of the video on YouTube have been viewed more than 500,000 times. Full story...

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British exam papers 'being sent to India to be marked'

A major exam board has become the first in Britain to outsource marking to India as part of a project designed to speed up the assessment process and save money, the Telegraph has learnt.

Tens of thousands of test papers sat through City & Guilds are being scanned in and sent to an educational company based in Bangalore.

The agreement involves “functional skills” exams in reading, maths and ICT sat by children and adults, which are designed to assess the practical application of core skills in the workplace and life in general.

Other exam boards have previously outsourced data entry to firms based overseas but experts suggested this was the first deal of its kind involving marking.

 City & Guilds insisted that the move involved a “significant” upfront investment by the organisation, although it is hoped it will eventually “result in cost savings” that will be passed on to customers. Full story...

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Spaniards flock to Australia to escape economic woes...

Spanish workers are looking to Australia to escape the nation's deepening economic woes, as youth unemployment reaches 60 per cent in parts of the country.

The Spanish-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says it has noticed a spike in enquiries from Spanish job hunters, but says it is unable to provide figures on the exact number of arrivals.

Some of those enquiring into Australian employment remain in Europe, says the chamber, while others have already made the move to Australia and are looking for work.

The chamber's New South Wales president Lillian Ajuria says Spanish companies setting up shop in Australia, rather than taking jobs from Australian citizens, are creating them.

"A lot of jobs are being created in Australia for Australian citizens because of the Spanish companies coming here and sitting up operations," she said. Full story...

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Woman in Zimbabwe thoroughly bashed by hubby over baboon urine!!!

A Bulawayo woman was severely beaten by her husband after suspected baboon urine was discovered under their mattress.

The woman, Dorothy Mukwati, is nursing a blue eye after Elvis Nkomo beat the lights out of her for trying to 'domesticate' him using baboon urine. The incident reportedly happened last Saturday.

Mukwati posted on Makhox Women's League Facebook page after being beaten up.

"Ladies, I took the advice about baboon urine but I am sad to tell you that it backfired. I bought the urine at Egodini (bus terminus) and hid it under the mattress but my husband discovered it while he was looking for his papers. As I am writing, I am nursing a swollen face," read the message she allegedly wrote.

Mukwati has however, deactivated her Facebook account but women on the page sympathised with her. When reached for comment, the woman could not divulge more information.

"I was beaten up. That is the long and short of it," she said before hanging up the phone. Full story...

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Rapes and attacks on foreigners discourage expats from going to India...

India’s attractiveness among the expat professionals as a potential workplace has taken a major hit in the wake of recent cases of rape incidents and attacks on foreigners, a survey says.

The survey, conducted among 2,200 expat professionals, found that 72 per cent of the respondents who were keen to work in India in the first half of 2012 are now shifting their attention to countries like Philippines, Gulf/Middle East, Hong Kong and Singapore, among others.

However, the remaining 38 per cent of these respondents are still willing to work in India, said the survey conducted by MyHiringClub.com.

Also, the hiring of expat professionals in India is expected to decline by 15-20 per cent this year, after a rise of 18 per cent in 2012.

The recruitment of expat professionals has already declined by 37 per cent during January-March quarter 2013 from the levels seen in the first three-month period of 2012.

According to industry estimates, there are 39,000 expats working across various industries in the country at present.

The study attributed the shift in expats’ views on Indian job market on the recent cases of rape incidents and attacks on expats in the country. Full story...

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India flexes its nuclear muscles ... while we fixate on North Korea and Iran!

While the United States beats the war drums over North Korea and Iran’s long-ranged nuclear armed missiles –which they don’t even possess – Washington remains curiously silent about the arrival of the world’s newest member of the big nuke club – India.

In January, Delhi revealed a new, 800km-ranged submarine launched missile (SLBM) designated K-15. Twelve of these strategic, nuclear-armed missiles will be carried by India’s first of a class of domestically built nuclear-powered submarine, "Arihant." India is also working on another SLBM, K-5, with a range of some 2,800km.

(...)

The Bush administration began quietly aiding India’s nuclear program with nuclear fuel when India had a shortage of fissile material. Some advanced technology from the US and India’s second largest arms supplier, Israel, has also aided Delhi’s nuclear and missile delivery programs.

India, as I wrote years ago after one of its big nuclear tests, is feeling its "nuclear Viagra." Most Indians take great pride in their strategic nuclear programs as their way into the great power’s exclusive nuclear club.

(...)

One day mighty India may vie for influence with the US for Mideast and Central Asian oil, and control of the Indian Ocean’s vital sea lanes. But not today, as all eyes are on pipsqueak North Korea and dilapidated Iran. Full story...

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Bangladesh and the terror of capitalism..

On Wednesday, April 24, a day after Bangladeshi authorities asked the owners to evacuate their garment factory that employed almost three thousand workers, the building collapsed. The building, Rana Plaza, located in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, produced garments for the commodity chain that stretches from the cotton fields of South Asia through Bangladesh’s machines and workers to the retail houses in the Atlantic world. Famous name brands were stitched here, as are clothes that hang on the satanic shelves of Wal-Mart. Rescue workers were able to save two thousand people as of this writing, with confirmation that over three hundred are dead. The numbers for the latter are fated to rise. It is well worth mentioning that the death toll in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City of 1911 was one hundred and forty six. The death toll here is already twice that. This “accident” comes five months (November 24, 2012) after the Tazreen garment factory fire that killed at least one hundred and twelve workers.

The list of “accidents” is long and painful. In April 2005, a garment factory in Savar collapsed, killing seventy-five workers. In February 2006, another factory collapsed in Dhaka, killing eighteen. In June 2010, a building collapsed in Dhaka, killing twenty-five. These are the “factories” of twenty-first century globalization – poorly built shelters for a production process geared toward long working days, third rate machines, and workers whose own lives are submitted to the imperatives of just-in-time production. Writing about the factory regime in England during the nineteenth century, Karl Marx noted, “But in its blind unrestrainable passion, its wear-wolf hunger for surplus labour, capital oversteps not only the moral, but even the merely physical maximum bounds of the working-day. It usurps the time for growth, development and healthy maintenance of the body. It steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight…. All that concerns it is simply and solely the maximum of labour-power that can be rendered fluent in a working-day. It attains this end by shortening the extent of the labourer’s life, as a greedy farmer snatches increased produce from the soil by reducing it of its fertility” Full story...

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Everything is rigged: the biggest price-fixing scandal ever...

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world's largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that's trillion, with a "t") worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it "dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."

That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world's largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world's largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps.

Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt, and the scale of their use is almost unimaginably massive. It's about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget. Full story...

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Café Regular, Cairo (sex with conditions)

Male soldier in Zimbabwe sexually assaulted by gang of four women who stoned him then dumped him in remote mountain range...

A soldier was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted by four women for nearly a week before being stoned and dumped in a mountain range.

The 25-year-old victim's ordeal started when he took up the offer of a lift to the city of Mutare in Zimbabwe.

Two women and a man were in the car, a Mercedes Benz, and, after driving for about an hour towards the city, the driver diverted from the route.

When the victim complained, he was threatened with a knife.

Manicaland police spokesman, Assistant Inspector Nuzondiwa Clean, told Zimbabwean paper NewsDay: 'After diverting from the route, the complainant asked where they were heading to and they told him they were going to get some food. Full story...

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Dubai drugs trial: Mother tells of 'torture horror'

The mother of a British man accused of drug offences in Dubai has spoken of the "horror story" of his alleged torture by police.

A Dubai judge is due to give a verdict on Monday in the trial of Grant Cameron and fellow Londoners Suneet Jeerh and Karl Williams. They all deny charges.

Tracy Cameron told the BBC the three, who say they were given electric shocks, had been "treated appallingly".

A "dream holiday" had turned into "a really barbaric ordeal", she said.

The three men, who are charged with possessing, taking and intending to distribute illegal drugs, were arrested on holiday in August after police said they found a quantity of synthetic cannabis known as "spice" in their car. Full story...

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China's imperial new consumers...

For at least 50 years, the world's salesmen have been mesmerized - largely to no avail - with the idea of 1.3 billion Chinese consumers, a market so vast it is almost unimaginable. It has also mostly been a market too tough to crack.

Today, however, as the government actively pushes for a shift away from an export-led economy, China is expected to become the world's second-biggest consumer market, with enough purchasing power to buy nearly a seventh of the world's total products by 2015 - two years from now, finally providing vast opportunities for both global and domestic merchants.

These new consumers are a unique class. Hundreds of millions of them have migrated from farm to city where they are working in assembly and other industries. They are also the "young emperors," the fruits of the country's one-child policy, put into place in 1979 by the Communist Party in an attempt to alleviate social and economic problems by slowing the growth of its enormous population.

(...)

These new consumers have been given almost unimaginably far more opportunities than their predecessors to broaden their horizons and become exposed to different cultures, with the one-child policy giving them more comfortable financial prospects and larger budgets.

 As their western counterparts have for generations, they judge themselves and others by what they buy. They have been exposed to foreign and domestic brands and they look for brand names and have the means to do so. Parents can and want to give their child financial support and credit is available to them through credit cards and bank loans, which are no longer taboo as they were to their elders. Full story...

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Singapore, wealth over the edge...

(...)

But Ault, who moved to Singapore three years ago, says he "no longer feels the magic" in Gotham, which still bears the scars of a financial crisis that knocked the wind out of much of its most extravagant party culture. Singapore, he says, is another matter. This is where he says the rich feel, well, rich, and unusually secure. And where they seem to know only one common language, the language of excess—all too shamelessly displayed in his club.

"One night, there were these kids here—literally kids in their 20s—who all had their own private jets," Ault recalls during another meeting, on a Thursday morning, leaning back on a leather couch in his club wearing bright-blue fuzzy slippers embroidered with a pink skull. "Serious jets, too. There was an A380 which was converted to include a pool and basketball court—it was ridiculous."

(...)

But over the past decade, Singapore has undergone a dramatic makeover, as the rich and famous from Asia and beyond debark on its shores in search of a glamorous new home—and one of the safest places to park their wealth. Facebook FB +2.72% co-
founder Eduardo Saverin gave up his American citizenship in favor of permanent residence there, choosing to live on and invest from the island while squiring around town in a Bentley. Australian mining tycoon Nathan Tinkler, that country's second wealthiest man under 40, whose fortune is pegged at $825 million by Forbes, also chose to move to Singapore last year. They join Bhupendra Kumar Modi, one of India's biggest telecom tycoons who gained Singapore citizenship in 2011, as well as New Zealand billionaire Richard Chandler, who relocated in 2008, and famed U.S. investor Jim Rogers, who set up shop there in 2007. Gina Rinehart, one of the world's richest women, slapped down $46.3 million for a pair of Singapore condominium units last year. Full story...

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Toxic light: the dark side of energy saving bulbs...

Canada fury at Sri Lanka choice for Commonwealth talks...

Canada is "appalled" that Sri Lanka has been chosen to host the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November, its foreign minister says.

John Baird said Sri Lanka had failed in the fundamental Commonwealth values of "freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law and good governance".

Sri Lanka dismissed Canada's objections, saying Commonwealth members had agreed the summit could go ahead.

Sri Lanka's army defeated Tamil rebels after a brutal 26-year war in 2009.

The entire conflict left at least 100,000 people dead.

(...)

Mr Baird told the BBC's Newshour: "Canada finds it appalling that the government in Colombo would be given the honour and the privilege and responsibility of hosting Commonwealth leaders.

"The Commonwealth has fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law, good governance and the government in Colombo has failed in all of those respects."

He said there had been "little, if any, accountability since the war ended". Full story...

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Official number of Guantanamo Bay hunger strikers jumps to 100...

The official number of hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay reached 100 on Saturday – three more than the day before. Twenty of the detainees are receiving enteral feeds, five of whom are being observed in a detainee hospital.

Lawyers for the detainees contest the official numbers, saying that some 130 prisoners are actually taking part in the protest. The hunger strike began around February 6, when detainees claimed prison officials searched their copies of the Koran for contraband, according to their attorneys.

Prisoners are also protesting their extrajudicial incarceration at the prison. Most of Guantanamo Bay’s 166 detainees have been cleared for release or were never charged, a situation that has prompted criticism from human rights organizations.

“The illegal detentions without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay have gone on for more than a decade with no end in sight, so it’s not surprising that detainees feel desperate,” counterterrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch, Laura Pitter, said in a statement. Full story...

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Shocking statistics. Devastating stories. India's dirty national secret. Child abuse...

To begin with, hear the story of one child. On 17 December 2012 — just one day after the gangrape of a young paramedic in New Delhi shook the world — a three-and-a-half-year old baby girl returned from school with her clothes streaked with vomit and blood.

Her father, Gagan Sharma (name changed), had moved from Kolkata to a slum in west Delhi in 2003 in search of a better life. The little girl had been listless and reluctant to go to school for weeks. Now, when her mother asked her what had happened, she told the story haltingly, riven by fear.

She spoke of a bald man — the principal’s husband — who had threatened to hang her from a ceiling fan if she dared to open her mouth. She spoke of how he had taken her to the bathroom, made her lie down, and inserted his penis and fingers into her vagina and her anus, blaring music in his room to drown any noise. She spoke of how he had done this to her many times before, forcing her to keep quiet by saying terrible things would happen to her parents if she talked about it.

The girl’s mouth was full of ulcers from a drug the alleged perpetrator — a man called Pramod Malik — had forced her to take to render her unconscious while he raped her.

The fact of the rape is horrific enough. Here’s what came after. According to the parents, it took them 12 hours at the police station to get an FIR registered. They were taunted by a woman sub-inspector for living in a colony of “disrepute”; their own reputation was questioned; the little girl was asked to recount her story in front of three policemen. The woman sub-inspector prefaced the inquiry by telling the little girl: “Tell the truth or insects will crawl all over you and your mother and father will be beaten.” Full story...

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Instant noodle sales top 100 billion a year...

Global sales of instant noodles have topped 100 billion units annually, more than one monthly serving for every person on the planet.

Five decades after the easy-to-cook food's launch, sales climbed again last year with China, Indonesia and Japan rounding out the world's top three consumers, according to the Japan-based World Instant Noodles Association.

"The results show that instant noodles have become a global standard dish," said Norio Sakurai, an official with the Osaka-based association.

"We think global sales will continue growing particularly in some developing nations." Full story...

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Anti-drug vigilantes deliver rough justice, Moscow style...

Novartis hit by second US lawsuit in four days...

The United States government has announced its second civil fraud lawsuit against Novartis in four days, accusing a unit of the Swiss pharmaceuticals company of paying multi-million-dollar kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

On Friday, US Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said the government had joined a whistle-blower lawsuit filed against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp in January 2011 which seeks triple damages under the federal False Claims Act.

The government accused Novartis of causing the Medicare and Medicaid programmes to pay millions of dollars in reimbursements based on kickback-tainted claims for medication such as hypertension drugs Lotrel and Valturna and diabetes drug Starlix.

Twenty-seven US states, the District of Columbia and the cities of New York and Chicago also joined as plaintiffs. Full story...

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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg made $2.3 billion last year...

Facebook just released its first proxy form to the SEC today.

In it, we get a look at how much the company's top executives were paid last year. COO Sheryl Sandberg received $26.2 million in total, more than CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He got only $1.9 million in annual compensation.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Zuckerberg cashed in $2.3 billion in stock options, The Hollywood Reporter notes. Sandberg did the same and earned $822 million in cash-outs. Full story...

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