Saturday 28 May 2011
Sex Incentives 'No Exception' in German Business World
Germany legalized prostitution in 2001, giving sex workers the right to job contracts, social security and public insurance. But the profession remains taboo. Sex as an "incentive" or means of bribery in the business world -- such as the corporate prostitution party for German insurance salesmen organized by Mannheimer International -- is incompatible with western values. A businessman mixed up in red-light parties can't be tolerated -- at least not officially. "Here, that never would have happened," says one employee at a competing insurance company. "People might go to a brothel after a party, but it wouldn't be organized or paid for by the company."
Though most companies may not openly arrange such things for their employees, insiders say, the business world remains tied to the red-light industry.
"I earned the best money when I took people to brothels," says a taxi driver turned banker. The red-light establishments pay drivers a premium for bringing them patrons, who are usually in town on business, he says.
"The recent case is certainly no exception, even if the execution was unusual," says Klaus-J. Eisner of eventmanager.de, a web portal for the events industry. "The fact that bordello visits are used as rewards can be observed at every trade fair."
Sex as a business incentive is "widespread," confirms Mechthild Eickel, who works for a sex worker educational association called Madonna. "It's in every branch, it's just that not every company can afford it."
The Ties that Bind
At a certain level workers and customers can "no longer be rewarded with money," another industry insider says. But incentives outside the ordinary pay raise or bonus are not simply a question of hierarchy, event specialist Eisner says. The likelihood of such perks is higher for certain roles.
"Generally the trade and management industries work more with incentives than in manufacturing. In decades of personal experience with, for example, the automobile industry, I've never seen workers, technicians or engineers rewarded with incentives or events. Instead it was the buyers, sellers, press, salesmen or trade partners."
Sexual incentives are a special cementing agent, and thus particularly interesting from a managerial perspective, says Madonna's Eickel. "Rewards bind the interested parties and are therefore often the little connection to corruption," she says. "If a reward in the form of prostitution is taken, then a much easier potential for personal blackmail emerges." But the person who arranges and pays for the sexual encounter is also at risk of blackmail.
Of course, benefactors only profit when they operate in a hierarchical boy's club. "For female colleagues," says Eickel, sexual rewards would "not be an attractive incentive event."
'Common'
Meanwhile corporate orgies have grown in popularity. There are agencies that specialize in organizing events similar to the Mannheimer International sex party in Budapest. Larger escort services will also make such arrangements.
While conventional event planning agencies don't explicitly advertise similar offerings, Klaus-J. Eisner of eventmanager.de says he is certain that "many professional agencies would be in a position to organize such an occasion."
The industry resists the image, though. Uwe A. Kohrs, an executive committee member of the Society of Public Relations Agencies (GPRA) and head of communications agency "impact," says it seems unlikely that buying prostitutes could nurture contacts between companies -- or that serious PR firms or event organizers might offer such services. "Generally the distribution of benefits is handled with extreme restrictions," he says. "That almost excludes even treating someone to a meal. Naturally there are black sheep -- but sex in the context of business? It's not an issue."
Madonna's Mechthild Eickel disagrees. "It's common," she says.
Frank Patalong @'Der Spiegel'
Draconian Anti-Piracy Censorship Bill Passes Senate Committee
The controversial PROTECT IP Act unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee today. When the PROTECT IP Act becomes law U.S. authorities and copyright holders will have the power to seize domains, block websites and censor search engines to prevent copyright infringements. Introduced just two weeks ago, the bill now heads over to the Senate for further consideration and another vote.
The U.S. Government continues to back legislation that opens the door to unprecedented Internet censorship.
Two weeks ago a group of U.S. senators proposed legislation to make it easier to crack down on so-called rogue websites, and today the Senate’s Judicial Committee unanimously approved the bill.
When the PROTECT IP Act becomes law the authorities can legitimately seize any domain name they deem to be facilitating copyright infringement. All that’s required to do so is a preliminary order from the court. But that’s just the start, the bill in fact provides a broad range of censorship tools.
In case a domain is not registered or controlled by a U.S. company, the authorities can also order search engines to remove the website from its search results, order ISPs to block the website, and order ad-networks and payment processors to stop providing services to the website in question.
Backers of the bill argue that the PROTECT IP Act is needed as an extension of the already controversial domain seizures. As reported previously, it is now relatively easy for a seized website to continue operating under a new non-US based domain name.
Not everyone agrees with this stance. Yesterday several Internet giants including Google, Yahoo, eBay and American Express asked the Senate Committee not to adopt the bill, warning it would “undoubtedly inhibit innovation and economic growth.”
However, the concerns raised by the companies did not affect the vote today.
“Today the Judiciary Committee took an important step in protecting online intellectual property rights. The Internet is not a lawless free-for-all where anything goes,” commented Senator Orrin Hatch. “The Constitution protects both property and speech, both online and off.”
“The PROTECT IP Act targets the most egregious actors, and is an important first step to putting a stop to online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods,” Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said commenting on the importance of the bill.
“Both law enforcement and rights holders are currently limited in the remedies available to combat websites dedicated to offering infringing content and products. These rogue websites are often foreign-owned and operated, or reside at domain names that are not registered through a U.S.-based registry or registrar,” Leahy added.
Similar comments were made by the other Committee members and the various entertainment industry lobby groups.
For Hollywood and the major record labels the PROTECT IP Act is the legislation they have dreamed of for a long time. It allows for copyright holders to obtain a court orders to seize a domain, or prevent payment providers and ad-networks from doing business with sites that allegedly facilitate copyright infringement. All without due process.
The PROTECT IP Act will now move on to the Senate where it’s expected to be opposed by Senator Ron Wyden, who also stopped the bill’s predecessor COICA, fearing it would stifle free speech. Whether it will be enough to prevent the legislation from becoming law has yet to be seen.
Ernesto @'Torrent Freak'
The U.S. Government continues to back legislation that opens the door to unprecedented Internet censorship. Two weeks ago a group of U.S. senators proposed legislation to make it easier to crack down on so-called rogue websites, and today the Senate’s Judicial Committee unanimously approved the bill.
When the PROTECT IP Act becomes law the authorities can legitimately seize any domain name they deem to be facilitating copyright infringement. All that’s required to do so is a preliminary order from the court. But that’s just the start, the bill in fact provides a broad range of censorship tools.
In case a domain is not registered or controlled by a U.S. company, the authorities can also order search engines to remove the website from its search results, order ISPs to block the website, and order ad-networks and payment processors to stop providing services to the website in question.
Backers of the bill argue that the PROTECT IP Act is needed as an extension of the already controversial domain seizures. As reported previously, it is now relatively easy for a seized website to continue operating under a new non-US based domain name.
Not everyone agrees with this stance. Yesterday several Internet giants including Google, Yahoo, eBay and American Express asked the Senate Committee not to adopt the bill, warning it would “undoubtedly inhibit innovation and economic growth.”
However, the concerns raised by the companies did not affect the vote today.
“Today the Judiciary Committee took an important step in protecting online intellectual property rights. The Internet is not a lawless free-for-all where anything goes,” commented Senator Orrin Hatch. “The Constitution protects both property and speech, both online and off.”
“The PROTECT IP Act targets the most egregious actors, and is an important first step to putting a stop to online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods,” Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said commenting on the importance of the bill.
“Both law enforcement and rights holders are currently limited in the remedies available to combat websites dedicated to offering infringing content and products. These rogue websites are often foreign-owned and operated, or reside at domain names that are not registered through a U.S.-based registry or registrar,” Leahy added.
Similar comments were made by the other Committee members and the various entertainment industry lobby groups.
For Hollywood and the major record labels the PROTECT IP Act is the legislation they have dreamed of for a long time. It allows for copyright holders to obtain a court orders to seize a domain, or prevent payment providers and ad-networks from doing business with sites that allegedly facilitate copyright infringement. All without due process.
The PROTECT IP Act will now move on to the Senate where it’s expected to be opposed by Senator Ron Wyden, who also stopped the bill’s predecessor COICA, fearing it would stifle free speech. Whether it will be enough to prevent the legislation from becoming law has yet to be seen.
Ernesto @'Torrent Freak'
Friday 27 May 2011
FIFA Ethics Committee Call Blatter
Sepp Blatter will appear before FIFA's ethics committee on Sunday to answer charges that he knew about alleged cash payments, the world governing body announced on Friday.
The charge has been made by Mohamed Bin Hammam, his rival for the FIFA presidency in next week's election, who will also be at the hearing to answer a charge of bribery.
The latest development means that three of the most powerful men in world football - FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has also been charged with bribery - will now appear before the ethics committee on Sunday.
The ethics committee are bound by their rules to investigate any complaint by an executive committee member under article 16 of the ethics code.
FIFA said in a statement: "On 26 May 2011, FIFA ExCo member Mohamed Bin Hammam has requested the FIFA ethics committee to open ethics proceedings against FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter on the basis that, in the report submitted by FIFA ExCo member Chuck Blazer earlier this week, FIFA vice-president Jack A. Warner would have informed the FIFA president in advance about alleged cash payments to delegations attending a special meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) apparently organised jointly by Jack A. Warner and Mohamed Bin Hammam on 10 and 11 May 2011 and that the FIFA President would have had no issue with these.
"Subsequently, the FIFA ethics committee today opened a procedure against the FIFA president in compliance with art. 16 of the FIFA code of ethics.
"Joseph S. Blatter has been invited to take position by 28 May 2011, 11:00 CET and to attend a hearing by the FIFA ethics committee at the Home of FIFA (Zurich) on 29 May 2011."
FIFA's code of ethics rules state that as the complaint came from a member of the body's executive committee, the independent ethics committee must now also investigate Blatter.
The code states: "FIFA accepts complaints only from the executive committee of an association, the executive committee of a confederation, members of the FIFA executive committee and from the FIFA secretary general."
The code also declares that FIFA officials have a duty to report any wrongdoing. It says: "Officials shall report any evidence of violations of conduct to the FIFA secretary general, who shall report it to the competent body."
@'The Express'
The charge has been made by Mohamed Bin Hammam, his rival for the FIFA presidency in next week's election, who will also be at the hearing to answer a charge of bribery.
The latest development means that three of the most powerful men in world football - FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has also been charged with bribery - will now appear before the ethics committee on Sunday.
The ethics committee are bound by their rules to investigate any complaint by an executive committee member under article 16 of the ethics code.
FIFA said in a statement: "On 26 May 2011, FIFA ExCo member Mohamed Bin Hammam has requested the FIFA ethics committee to open ethics proceedings against FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter on the basis that, in the report submitted by FIFA ExCo member Chuck Blazer earlier this week, FIFA vice-president Jack A. Warner would have informed the FIFA president in advance about alleged cash payments to delegations attending a special meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) apparently organised jointly by Jack A. Warner and Mohamed Bin Hammam on 10 and 11 May 2011 and that the FIFA President would have had no issue with these.
"Subsequently, the FIFA ethics committee today opened a procedure against the FIFA president in compliance with art. 16 of the FIFA code of ethics.
"Joseph S. Blatter has been invited to take position by 28 May 2011, 11:00 CET and to attend a hearing by the FIFA ethics committee at the Home of FIFA (Zurich) on 29 May 2011."
FIFA's code of ethics rules state that as the complaint came from a member of the body's executive committee, the independent ethics committee must now also investigate Blatter.
The code states: "FIFA accepts complaints only from the executive committee of an association, the executive committee of a confederation, members of the FIFA executive committee and from the FIFA secretary general."
The code also declares that FIFA officials have a duty to report any wrongdoing. It says: "Officials shall report any evidence of violations of conduct to the FIFA secretary general, who shall report it to the competent body."
@'The Express'
Badlands: An Oral History
Badlands tells a classic lovers-on-the-lam story. In a shabby South Dakota suburb, garbage man Kit Carruthers meets thirteen-year-old Holly Sargis as she twirls her baton in her front yard. They fall in love, but after Holly's father deems Kit unsuitable, Kit shoots him dead in the Sargis living room. Kit and Holly flee across the vast, empty badlands of South Dakota, killing anyone who gets in their way.
The action behind the scenes was hardly less turbulent. The mild-mannered Malick brawled with his producer, brutalized his crew (which turned over at least twice), and saw a special-effects man gravely burned in a terrible accident. As the shoot ran on and on—twice as long as it was supposed to—crew members quit en masse. Back home, they would tell their friends Malick had gone crazy. That he had amassed more than a million feet of footage. That he just wouldn't stop shooting. A movie that had begun production in 100-degree heat wrapped amid snow flurries.
Malick's belief in his picture never faltered, though, and after ten months in the editing room he emerged with what critic David Thomson has called "one of the most assured debuts in all of American film." Badlands launched not only his own career but also those of Sheen and Spacek, cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, producer Edward R. Pressman, art director Jack Fisk, and many others. Rather than exploit his moment, though, Malick withdrew. He stopped speaking to the press completely in 1975, and after making Days of Heaven (1978) and beginning pre-production on an extravagantly ambitious new film, he abruptly fled Hollywood. Twenty years would elapse before he made another movie, and during this period the legend of the elusive director grew to Salinger-esque dimensions. Where had he gone, and why had he repudiated such a promising career?
On the eve of the release of Malick's fifth film, The Tree of Life, GQ revisits the making of Badlands. We spoke with actors, crew members and admirers* to discover the roots of its driven and enigmatic director's love/hate relationship with Hollywood...
Continue reading
Nathaniel Penn @'GQ'
XLR8R Podcast 199: Rod Modell's MUTEK Mix
MUTEK festival, which always serves as one of the year's premiere showcases for techno and forward-thinking electronic sounds. In hopes of getting everyone as much in the MUTEK spirit as we are, we decided to enlist one of the festival's heavyweights for the XLR8R podcast series. And who answered the call? Detroit techno veteran Rod Modell, best known for his work as Deepchord and as one half of Echospace with Steve Hitchell. Deepchord presents Echospace will be performing live as part of MUTEK's Nocturne 03 event—a party that also features a live set from Plastikman—and Modell has put together a preview of sorts with this exclusive mix, a session of dark and dubby techno that digs heavily into his own catalog. Highlighted by its incessant pulse, underwater synth melodies, and ever-present sense of foreboding, the podcast also serves as a primer for Modell's forthcoming Deepchord album, Hash-Bar Loops, which is slated for a July 4 release on the long-standing Soma label.
01 Steve Roach "Groundswell" (Fortuna)
02 Studio 1 "Rosa" (Studio 1)
03 Sustainer "Múltiplo" (Italic)
04 The Advent "Electro 8.07 FM" (Tresor)
05 Deepchord "Sofitel (Processed)" (Soma)
06 CV313 "Subtraktive (Intrusion's Road To Zion Dub)" (Echospace [Detroit])
07 STL "A Beautiful Mind" (Echospace [Detroit])
08 Dick Richards "Lichen" (Raum...Musik)
09 Intrusion "Intrusion Dub" (Echospace [Detroit])
10 Infiniti "Thought Process" (Tresor)
11 Marko Fürstenberg "Untitled 10" (Artless)
12 Martin Schulte "The Fog" (Rare Noise)
13 Pendle Coven "Uncivil Engineering Calm Mix" (Modern Love)
14 STL "Checkmate" (Echospace [Detroit])
15 Deepchord "Stars" (Soma)
16 Studio 1 "Silber" (Studio 1)
17 Le Clic "Jack Is Whack (2000 and One Classic Cut)" (Wolfskuil)
18 Kotai + Mo "Bu" (Electro Music Department)
19 Deepchord "Tangier" (Soma)
20 CV313 "Subtraktive (Intrusion's Twilight Dub)" (Echospace [Detroit])
21 CV313 "Sailingstars (Intrusion's Reform)" (Echospace [Detroit])
22 Steve Roach "Ancestral Horizon" (Fortuna)
Shawn Reynaldo @'XLR8R'
How slums can save the planet
(Thanx Stan!)
Afghanistan war tactics are profoundly wrong, says former ambassador
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who also served as the UK's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, added that Petraeus should be "ashamed of himself" for making claims of the number of insurgent commanders his forces had killed.
"He has increased the violence, trebled the number of special forces raids by British, American, Dutch and Australian special forces going out killing Taliban commanders, and there has been a lot more rather regrettable boasting from the military about the body count," said Cowper-Coles. He added that the use of statistics was reminiscent of the Vietnam war. "It is profoundly wrong and it's not conducive to a stable political settlement."
Petraeus is due to leave Afghanistan to become CIA director this summer. Since taking command of US and coalition troops in Afghanistan last June, he has increased the use of special forces raids and drone attacks against Taliban commanders.
Earlier this year, Petraeus told Congress that his forces were killing or capturing 360 insurgent leaders every three months. His officers argue that the tactic is demoralising the Taliban and will ultimately make the movement more likely to agree to a peace deal on the terms of Kabul and the west.
Cowper-Coles insists the tactic will make it harder for the west to find a political settlement and end the war. "There is no doubt that Petraeus has hammered the Taliban extremely hard," he said. "I am sure that some of them are more willing to parlay. But, equally, for every dead Pashtun warrior, there will be 10 pledged to revenge.
"Of course it produces tactical success in cleansing insurgents out of particular areas, but it's essentially moving water around a puddle, and I think any general who boasts of the number of Pashtun insurgents he's killed should be ashamed of himself."
He added: "Regrettably, General Petraeus has curiously ignored his own principles of counter-insurgency in the field manual, which speaks of politics being the predominant factor in dealing with an insurgency."
He compared the US commander unfavourably with his predecessor, General Stanley McChrystal, whose central approach was to protect Afghan civilians, even if meant greater caution in the pursuit of the Taliban.
Alongside the former foreign secretary, David Miliband, Cowper-Coles focused his efforts while UK special envoy on persuading the Obama administration to concentrate on a political settlement and start talking to the Taliban.
Some reports suggest that Washington has initiated such contacts. But British officials say that Marc Grossman, the US special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan leading the outreach effort, is having trouble finding any credible Taliban representatives to engage in even talks about talks.
Few serving British and European officials are as critical of Petraeus as Cowper-Coles. Most argue that the Taliban have to be put under some kind of focused military pressure to persuade them that a negotiated settlement was in their interest.
However, there is growing unease in Whitehall that, despite orders to the contrary from Obama and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the military effort was still taking priority.
"There are different parts of the Washington establishment who are pulling in different ways," one official said. "But as long as Petraeus is in Kabul, the military approach will take precedence."
Petraeus is expected to leave Afghanistan in September. In any case, there are few expectations of much progress towards contacts with the Taliban until at least the end of the summer fighting season. Most serving officials are also less confident than Cowper-Coles that senior ranks in the Taliban are interested in a political settlement.
"In 2011, there have been more feelers coming out from more senior people, but there is no solid evidence that anyone in the movement has been tasked with finding a route to peace," one official said.
There have been several backdoor attempts to draw the movement into a dialogue, but they have made little progress. "Why would they negotiate?" asked Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit and an expert on the Taliban. "They are winning; they are no longer ostracised in the Islamic world for links to Osama bin Laden. Why would you throw that away?"
But Scheuer, the author of a new book on Bin Laden, said that Petraeus's "decapitation" approach was also unlikely to work."The Red Army tried that for 10 years, and they were far more ruthless and cruel about it than us, and it didn't work so well for them," Scheuer said.
Julian Borger @'The Guardian'
Delia Derbyshire Early Dance track
A throwaway experiment by electronic musician Delia Derbyshire anticipated the beats of dance music more than three decades before they became fashionable.
@'BBC'
Delia Derbyshire - Sculptress of Sound
(Thanx Helen!)
The IMF versus the Arab spring
Without diminishing the seriousness of the sexual allegations against Strauss-Kahn, the role of the IMF, over past decades and at present, is a far bigger story. Of particular importance is its role at this crucial moment in the Middle East.
The new loans being negotiated for Egypt and Tunisia will lock both countries into long-term economic strategies even before the first post-revolution elections have been held. Given the IMF's history, we should expect these to have devastating consequences on the Egyptian and Tunisian people. You wouldn't guess it though, from the scant and largely fawning coverage the negotiations have so far received.
The pattern is to depict the IMF like a rich uncle showing up to save the day for some wayward child. This Dickensian scene is completed with the IMF adding the sage words that this time it hopes to see growth on the "streets" not just the "spreadsheets". It's almost as if the problem had been caused by these regimes failing to follow the IMF's teachings.
Such portrayals are credulous to the point of being ahistorical. They do not even mention, for example, the very positive reports the IMF had issued about both Tunisia and Egypt (along with Libya and others) in the months, weeks, and even days before the uprisings.
To some extent, though, the IMF is aware that its policies contributed to the desperation that so many Egyptians and Tunisians currently face, and is keen to distance itself from its past. Indeed, as IMF watchers will know, this is part of a new image that the IMF, along with its sister organisation the World Bank, has been working on for a while. The changes, so far, do not go beyond spin. You can't, as they say, polish a turd – but you can roll it in glitter.
Take, for example, the heartwarming IMF and civil society webpage, which as early as August 2007 was noting that civil society groups, by and large, "believe that global institutions also need to be accountable to a broader definition of stakeholders to be effective and legitimate".
Why then, is the IMF not (as Mohamed Trabelsi, of the International Labour Organisation's North Africa office, suggested when I interviewed him recently in Cairo) meeting the civil society groups and unions in Egypt and Tunisia? It would rather make backroom deals with Mubarak-appointed finance minister, Samir Radwan, and the generals currently running Egypt who are themselves members of an the economic elite that sees its privilege threatened by the approach of democracy.
Beginning in the 1990s, IMF-led structural adjustment programmes saw the privatisation of the bulk of the Egyptian textile industry and the slashing of its workforce from half a million to a quarter-million. What's more, the workers who were left faced – like the rest of Egypt – stagnant wages as the price of living rocketed. Though you wouldn't know it from western coverage, the long and gallant struggle of these workers, particularly the strike of textile workers of Mahalla el-Kubra, is credited by many Egyptian activists as a crucial step on the Egyptian people's path towards revolution.
This failure to appreciate the revolutions as a rebellion not just against local dictators, but against the global neo-liberal programme they were implementing with such gusto in their countries, is largely a product of how we on the western left have been unwitting orientalists, and allowed the racist "clash of civilisations" narrative to define our perceptions of the Middle East. We have failed to see the people of the region as natural allies in a common struggle.
It is this blindness that makes the revolutions appear as instantaneous explosions, like switches suddenly flicked, rather than as events in a continuum. A good place to start the story, if you want it to make sense, would be the Egyptian bread riots of 1977, which came following an initial round of economic liberalisation (which was as much a part of Sadat's change of cold war allegiances as his salute to the Israeli flag in Jerusalem). It should not have surprised us that as people's struggle to survive grew more and more grinding following the IMF-led reforms of the subsequent decades they would rise up once more.
Nor should we surprised at the moneyed fightback, which will no doubt be attempted. During this transition period, forces like the IMF will seek to lock in and enlarge the neoliberal project before there is an accountable government to complain about it.
The example of South Africa, as documented by Naomi Klein, immediately springs to mind. The ANC's famous Freedom Charter, she points out, contained many demands for economic justice including the provision of housing and health care, and the nationalisation of major industries. However, while Nelson Mandela was negotiating the structure of the new parliament, Thabo Mbeke was busy in economic talks with FW de Klerk's government during which, in Klein's words, he was persuaded "to hand control of those power centres to supposedly impartial experts, economists and officials from the IMF, the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the National Party – anyone except the liberation fighters from the ANC".
The team of ANC economists busy drawing up their plan would find themselves unable to implement it once the party was in government. The consequences for South Africans have been disastrous.
These new loans from the IMF threaten to bind the newly democratic Egypt and Tunisia in much the same way. Once more, local elites could collaborate with the institutions at the helm of global capitalism to screw the broader population. If this occurs, these revolutions will be robbed of much of their meaning, and a terrible blow will be dealt to the broader Arab spring.
Austin Mackell @'The Guardian'
Beyond Afghanistan
LTG (Ret.) David Barno, Matt Irvine and I (Andrew Exum) have published a new report (.pdf) with the Center for a New American Security that attempts to identify the components of a successful U.S. strategy for Central and South Asia. Our research began in the fall of 2010 and included research trips to both Afghanistan and Pakistan. We also assembled several working groups comprised of both area specialists as well as functional area specialists to help us identify planning assumptions, U.S. interests, and policy options. In the end, we recommend the United States:
- Negotiate a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the government of Afghanistan.
- Develop a long-term but differentiated approach to Pakistan that strengthens its economy, civilian government and anti-extremist elements while pressuring factions that support terrorists.
- Reshape foreign and security assistance to Pakistan.
- Broker confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan quietly and as opportunities arise.
- Sustain and deepen a multidimensional U.S.-India relationship and encourage the peaceful rise of China.
- Promote open trade and transit across South and Central Asia to catalyze economic growth and enhance stability.
- Develop a strategic public engagement plan for the region to mitigate the effects of the intense anti-Americanism that preclude greater cooperation with the United States.
The Shadows of Srebrenica
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Blind people echolocate with visual part of brain
Blind people who navigate using clicks and echoes, like bats and dolphins do, recruit the part of the brain used by sighted people to see, a new study has found.
While few blind people use echolocation — emitting a sound and then listening for the echo to get information about objects in the surroundings — some that do are so good at it that they can use the ability to hike, mountain bike and play basketball, said Melvyn Goodale, one of the co-authors of the study published Wednesday in PloS One.
Goodale, a psychology professor and the director of the Centre for Brain and Mind at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., said he was amazed by the abilities of the two blind men in the study.
"They can tell a flat thing from convex. They can tell a bush from a wall, a car from a lamp post," he said. One of the two subjects, Daniel Kish, 43, could localize objects to within three degrees — "incredibly accurate," Goodale said.
Both Kish and a 27-year-old male subject trained by Kish could also tell which way objects were moving. Goodale and his research team wanted to find out what was happening in the brain while people like Kish were echolocating...
Continue reading
Emily Chung @'CBC News'
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